Batter Up! Its Spring Training Time Again :)

A few wise words from my good friends at mlb.com ... :)

"The wait is over. A fresh season and a new start begin today, with four Spring Training games.

Time for the beautiful game to move back inside the lines.

Hot Stove, make way for hot smashes. Time to turn away from contract issues, and to turn two. No more getting overly excited about batting practice. Here comes baseball without a cage!

The smell of freshly-mowed grass and of grilled hot dogs, the sounds of bellowing vendors and of cracks of the bat echoing off berms, the sights of managers sitting outside dugouts and pitchers running sprints on the track ... baseball's senses are all about to flood back in.

A fresh prologue to a fresh season gets under way on Wednesday, under the glare of the Grapefruit League sun and under the fronds of the Cactus League.

All but two clubs will be in action on Thursday, when Wednesday's isolated notes will be more like a full-blown fanfare.

Gradually, all of spring's alluring storylines will play out between the lines.

New marquee faces in new places ... Alfonso Soriano with the Cubs, Julio Lugo with the Red Sox, Carlos Lee in Houston, Gary Mathews Jr. in Anaheim, Jason Schmidt in Los Angeles, Bengie Molina and Barry Zito with the Giants, Mike Piazza in Oakland's DH shoes and Braden Looper in St. Louis' rotation.

Old faces back in familiar places ... Randy Johnson with the Diamondbacks, Sammy Sosa with the Rangers, Andy Pettitte in the Bronx, Mike Hampton with the Braves, Mark Prior on a mound.

Indeed, America's pastime is moving back into the present. Unwrap at will."

Now, THAT'S something I can smile about on this last day of February. Play Ball!!

Sick of being Sick

I didn't get a flu shot this year. And I have been sick 4 times. Do I wish I would have had one? Well, I'm not jumping to that conclusion so fast ... I have a friend who got the so-called wonderful flu shot, and he has also been sick 4 times. I told him last week that I was ahead of him, having only been sick myself 3 times this season. Yup, I spoke too soon - and found myself coming down with it again. So now we're even. And I call a truce. I am not typically one that likes to end things in a tie, but in this case, bring it on. I am sick of being sick. I don't even know why I keep getting sick in the first place. I am getting enough sleep, eating healthy, exercising almost every single day, and not super stressed out over anything in particular ... so I am just not quite sure what is at the root of all of this. It is frustrating, but what can you do? Keep drugging yourself up and enjoy the pj time I guess!

It probably didn't help much that I went ice skating on Saturday night - it was a big Institute activity and we thought we would go to support and well let's be honest - to see who was there. When you're single you still have to play the game every so often! Well, it ended up being one of those times that I dread ... it seemed like everyone else was 19 years old, and we all completely felt like the 'old people' who are still single going to these activities. Kind of depressing! At least I had some good friends there with me to laugh about it with :)

Sunday morning my phone woke me up. I answered only to find out that church had been cancelled. What? Of course I was still in bed and hadn't realized that the rain I'd been hearing all night was actually freezing rain, which now had 3-4 inches of snow on top of it, and it was still snowing. So, the roads were horrible, and the parking lot at the church was a mess (uncleared), and church was cancelled. The first thing that came to my mind was (this is horrible) "great, now I don't have to figure out what to wear to church!" But frankly, it couldn't have come on a better day. I really needed the day to worship from home and RELAX, which is something that I am not really good at doing unless I don't have another choice. Well luckily for me "Gone With The Wind" was on tv yesterday (so now I really hope for Heidi's sake that her little Scarlet isn't the drama queen that the original was) and that's right, its one of those classics that I'd never seen before. 4 hours later ... I feel much more educated. Unfortunately that is what my friend Ben was subjected to when he came over - watching it with me coughing in the background!

So yeah, I am officially ready for spring. Or at least for a new month - March can't come soon enough!!

Snow & Ice Storms

Who knew that a seemingly small amount of snow could be so tricky?? Well ... after living in Virginia for four and a half years, I certainly know that it can be! This winter started out very mild - we had record high days in January and a week of 60's and 70's. But, that was too good to be true ... the last couple weeks haven't been above freezing, and with the windchill, its been in the single digits many mornings. I know, I know, I lived in Utah for ten years, but something about the East coast makes the cold just that much colder. It goes right through you because of the humidity in the air. It sure looks pretty on all the trees when it snows though!

The snow itself isn't the tricky part - but its when we have what they call "wintry mix" storms - freezing rain that turns to ice - it gets bad. Parking lots turn into ice skating rinks and if you don't shovel your steps like we didn't yesterday (when we got home from work it was completely frozen solid), this is what it looks like when you open the front door in the morning ...

Hold on to the railings or you'll slide right down the steps like I almost did last night when I was taking the garbage out! Its a losing battle because even if it starts to melt during the day, the minute the sun goes down and the temperature drops, everything re-freezes again.

Its kind of cool to walk on the snow and realize that you have left no pathway behind you since the snow is completely frozen underneath you. Makes all those days at the gym seem like they are paying off (ha ha) ... but then once you realize just how much weight it would take to smash that snow, it puts it all in perspective ... check out these pictures of my car ... if a car doesn't crush the snow underneath it, then I'd say its pretty frozen!! Its kind of hard to tell and looked better in person, but you'll get the idea. And no, I didn't just tilt my camera to take these :)

These are the days that I seriously reconsider my occupation ... not because I don't love my job, but because teachers here get all kinds of days off! There have only been two days of school this week ... and it didn't even snow last night! I guess it is kind of dangerous for buses to be treading the roads, but come on ... too bad all the kids that are out of school can't even play in it since its completely frozen. But at least now we have some snow on the ground ... if its going to be this cold outside, we might as well have something to show for it!!

NYC

I love New York. The the hustle and bustle, the crazy people, the shopping, the food, the theater, the complete reliance on public transportation, and loud noises. Yes, something traumatic usually happens when I head to the Big Apple, but that's all part of the fun and appeal of it.

The first time that I went I ended up being by myself for a few days (which ended up being great, since I got to do and see everything that I wanted to do, without worrying about anyone else's schedule ... am I selfish?!?) since no one ended up being able to get away for a few days when I could. But hey, I had a free apartment in Brooklyn and I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to go explore a new city by myself. Of course I wasn't going to let friends bailing on a couple days stop me from going to a sold-out Yankees game, watching a Mets game by myself after a long day at Wall Street and the Met, sitting on the sidewalk on top of a subway map (like it was going to protect me from the dirty sidewalk or something?!?) with a bunch of other crazy kids trying to get student rush tickets for "Aida" (that's how many years ago it was!), and figuring it all out on my own. I did meet up with a girl that I'd met in church that Sunday in my cousin's ward in NJ and her friends - and we toured the Empire State Building and went to see Les Miz like we were old friends. I guess that's where the NYC adventures began and I think it was a sense of empowerment to know that I could tackle it on my own.

One of the classics was going to NYC at Christmas with Heidi and Anne - we left at 4 in the morning and drove, and toured around all day - and I mean ALL day - we went to the Rockette's Christmas show at 11:30pm - and slept for a couple hours before getting up to catch our 5:30 train. Well somehow in the mess, we only had two train tickets rather than the three that we needed - so I ran out to buy another one before the train left. Well, when I came back the lights on the train were blinking, and I was running as fast as I could pounding on the windows of the train cars until finally the combination of my pounding and the train's speed ended up pushing me over on the train platform only to find myself at 5:30 in the morning yelling "STOP!!!" at the top of my lungs as the train whisked off into the tunnel, at which point I realized all I had was a credit card with me - because my cell phone and purse were with my friends on the train heading to New Jersey. It turned out ok, Heidi and I still managed to catch our flights back to UT from DC that night - despite my swollen knee and the arthritis-like limp that I enjoyed for a couple days!

Then there was the time that I met some friends there and Nicole and I were driving another friend's car back to DC - well it was a stick shift car and I don't drive them, so Nicole drove it, which meant that we had to come all the way back to my house rather than dropping her off at the airport in Baltimore to catch her flight - and of course we overslept at my house (even though we only slept for an hour). Maybe not so smart to not get any sleep that weekend (I took the Chinatown bus from DC to NYC at 3:30 in the morning on Saturday morning and met them in NYC that day - and then we didn't leave the City until about midnight) - but that's a lesson I seem to have to learn time and time again.

The Chinatown bus is an experience in and of itself, and after riding it with Ashley and fighting our way to secure seats, being forced to watch a Chinese variety show followed by Rambo, I have decided that I value my life too much to ever embark on that journey again. I discovered the Greyhound bus, which doesn't leave and drop off in sketchy Chinatown, but rather at an actual bus station near Union Station in Washington DC (which isn't as scary as you may think), and drops you off at Port Authority - smack dab in the middle of Times Square in NYC, right at a major subway connection. And for $35 round trip, you just can't beat it. Maybe one day I will suck it up and pay for the luxury of riding Amtrak, but I can't bring myself to spend upwards of $200 for a weekend trip when I know that once I turn on my portable dvd player, I lose track of the fact that I am pretty much the only white female in a cramped space with smelly people surrounding me.

I really didn't intend on this becoming a saga about NYC drama ... but rather an update on my most recent trip to New York. Christine lives in Manhattan and I hadn't seen her in a few months, and Kristin & Kurt were going to be there for the weekend, so I decided to go up. Kristin and I were roommates for 2 years at BYU and I haven't seen them since their wedding 3.5 years ago, so this was the perfect opportunity. Perfect except for the fact that it was FREEZING cold there - but that's besides the point (but explains the puffy red coat that I donned for the weekend)!

I took the lovely Greyhound bus again - which is not so bad once you watch part of a movie and sleep for 2.5 hours only to wake up finding yourself going through the Lincoln Tunnel! Not bad. Of course there is the random lady at the bus stop who talks to you for 20 minutes about the ballet in Brooklyn that she just saw and the guy on the bus who tells you that you look like a movie star, but that's part of the charm of NYC.

On Saturday, Christine and I went to the TKTS booth and stood in line to get tickets to a show for the night. Luckily, they had tickets for "Hairspray" available, which was the same show that Kristin & Kurt were going to, so we snatched those right up. We met K&K back at Christine's house and then headed to dinner at Tony's Di Napoli - a fabulous family-style Italian restaurant that Christine chose for us. Yum! Then we went to the Neil Simon theater for our show - which was simply fabulous! "Hairspray" is such a fun show - it just makes you want to get up and dance in your seats (luckily for everyone there, I do not dance). Diana DeGarmo from American Idol was in it, as was Christine's favorite Ashley Parker Angel (from O-Town) and it was just a great entertaining show and a fabulous way to spend a Saturday night!

After the show, we went back to Times Square to go to ESPNZone for dessert. Great friends from college, a million television screens with every possible sporting event on, and a Chocolate Chip Cookie Sunday ... need I say more? Heaven :) We stayed there until they kicked us out because we were having so much fun together and probably subconsciously because we didn't want to go back out in to the cold again! So after bundling up again and heading back onto the streets, we took one last look at Times Square, got our token tourist picture, and parted ways at the Subway station.


So I guess nothing too traumatic happened this time in NYC - I won't go into the drama of the woman at the bus station not accepting my ticket since Amtrak sent it to me in another language and missing the right bus ... I survived and made it home just fine. Thank goodness for Season 2 of The Office on DVD, that's all I have to say!! Maybe I'm starting a new trend of less-traumatic travels - or maybe something big is just bound to happen soon! Only time will tell ... for now, hooray for seeing old friends and renewing friendships across the country :)