Cassie's Journal - November 7, 2014

Happy 14^th Birthday, Marcie!

We did a little lunchtime party for Marcie at school today, but she’s already away on a birthday weekend adventure with her family this weekend instead of doing a party.  Her boyfriend, Marc, isn’t on that trip with her, and there was a hint or two of tension going on between Marcie and Marc, but it didn’t sound to me as if Marcie had a choice in the matter; so I hope that Marc will cut her some slack.  Marcie had a good day at school, and her weekend plans with her family sounded fun; so I hope she’s enjoyed the rest of her big day and trip.

Football fever ruled here in Witch Falls today, and while Marcie and her family weren’t the only members of our community not at the game tonight; they were in the minority.  We’d drawn Westburg for our first-round opponent, and while their team and fans didn’t have a good night; we definitely did!  The fifty-to-thirty-three final score doesn’t sound too bad for Westburg, but we pretty much had one of our best defensive games of the season; and the score was only that close because Coach Robinson had our guys kick field goals for our final five scoring drives of the night after earning five touchdowns by early in the third quarter.

Jason Johnson’s twenty point night had him spending too much time bragging yet again, and while I wouldn’t dream of wishing him bad luck with his kicking game; it would be nice if he’d stop acting like he was the next Kyle Landry-type star of the team.  Tim didn’t say anything to him at the after-game party tonight; but he was especially irritated after doing as ordered by the coach and holding back instead of running up the score when he and Michael could have both easily done that.

Westburg did score two late touchdowns to get to that thirty-three points, but by then; it just didn’t matter.  Tim had two of our five touchdowns, and Michael, Caleb, and Lucas split the other three between them; but Michael’s biggest contributions tonight were on the defensive side of the ball.  He had two interceptions that our team turned into ten points – along with eating time off of the clock along the way.  Those weren’t our only good defensive plays, but they were two of the highlights; and that side of our game definitely looked better tonight.

The bottom line, though, is that we’re through to the next round of the playoffs.  Coach Robinson will find out sometime tomorrow who our next opponent will be – and whether we’ll be at home again or away.  That’ll come down to what our record is like compared to the other playoff survivors; but we do have a shot at a second home game – particularly if any of the under-dog teams won tonight.

Before I move on from football, we had a fun night with the cheerleading; and we had the bonus of the temperature staying warmer than forecast through the end of the game too.  I really love cheering for Michael, Tim, and the rest of our team; but it’s most fun when I get to do that with my family in the crowd – and we had everyone there tonight except for Aunt Deborah and Aunt Grace.  Aunt Leanne went home early once the game outcome wasn’t really in any doubt; but that was mostly because she was worn out – not due to any concerns about barfing on the other spectators.

Just kidding, Aunt Leanne! ;^)

Our half-time routine was another hit, and I should mention that Dani is particularly happy about how those little shows are going for our squad.  We don’t exactly have competitions with the other squads, but we are still competitive both while working the sidelines and during the half-time break; and Dani feels as though we’ve won pretty much all of those match-ups this season with more creative and fun routines.  Yes, Rowen and I help out with that, but it’s a team effort; and everyone has come up with at least one of the routine ideas this year.

I still love our ‘singing in the rain’ routine the best; but Rowen and I are fairly biased about that.

The post-game celebration was at Jeff and Tammy Morris’ house this week; and Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I all went to it once we were finished with the usual clean-up work at the school.  That didn’t exactly leave us with hours of play time, but compared to a road game; we had lots of time to have a little fun with our friends.  Yes, football talk rules those little get-togethers; but Rowen and I – and the rest of the girls – managed to keep entertained too.

While I’m thinking about the guys and talking football, I’m going to go back to mentioning Jason Johnson again – but only in comparison to Jeff Morris.  Jeff is as low-key about his game play as Michael, Caleb, and Lucas are.  No, I’m not including Tim in that group, but that’s only because he loves to be flashy – not because he brags about himself.  Anyway, my point is that Jeff didn’t say anything about his own play, as usual, and he’s so quiet; I’m not sure that many people even thought about the fact that he was on the throwing end of three out of five of our touchdowns tonight – and had a really good completion percentage to go along with piling up more than three hundred passing yards.  Yes, Michael and Tim usually pad those numbers with a lot of running; but Jeff really is doing a great job both as quarterback and team captain.  Jason could learn a thing or two from Jeff; but I doubt that he will.

Some of the older teens could stay up late and party tonight, but more than half of us couldn’t.  Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I headed for home at twelve-thirty – at the same time that Lucas was catching his ride home and Rebecca left the party too.  I went home with Michael and Rebecca while Rowen took Tim home with her for a little bit of alone time before his one o’clock curfew.  Michael and I had a little bit of cuddle time too; but Rebecca stayed with us too and we mostly talked about what we wanted to do for our Saturday night sleepover until it was time for me to head home too.

That was a fun end to the night, and though I have been working on my computer for over an hour since climbing into bed with Mandy; only about twenty minutes of that time was spent dealing with some family business work that I didn’t want to leave until Sunday night or Monday.  The rest of the time, I’ve just been winding down while checking my email and surfing the net.

We’ve got another yard work day on the schedule, so I should get some sleep now – especially when I’m sure that we’ll be up late again tomorrow night.  There really isn’t much else to report from home or school today anyway.  It was too cold outside this morning, so Tai Chi was indoors, and it was fun having Michael stay with us for breakfast; but there wasn’t anything to write about from our classes today – other than Marcie’s birthday fun and entertainment.  We did get a bit of extra homework dumped on us that we’ll need to get done sometime this weekend, and there are some tests booked for next week too; but none of that is really a big deal for me anyway.

Okay, there’s no point in dragging this out, and I am ready for some nap time anyway; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - November 6, 2014

Congratulations to the Stone and Bishop families – it’s a girl!

That news flash was a minor hit on the town gossip network today, and while everyone is happy for Jacob, Miranda, and everyone in the Stone family; this wasn’t a huge story because most people don’t even know Michael’s cousins – even if they do know his aunt and grandparents very well.

Annette Bishop is Drew and Heidi Bishop’s first baby; is the first girl great-grandbaby for Jacob’s parents; and leaves Drew’s younger brother, Eric with bragging rights for being first to have a baby with his wife, Sally; and still the only ‘male heir’ to the Bishop clan so far.  We have heard that Gerry, the one-and-a-half-year-old heir-apparent is quite amazed by his new baby cousin; and thinks that his parents should either take her home with them – or get one of their own.

Michael and I are happy for his cousins, aunt, uncle, and grandparents too; but we won’t be involved in Annette’s life anytime soon; and probably won’t even get to meet her until Christmas – unless the Bishop clan decides to make the trip here for Thanksgiving instead and then not come here for Christmas at all.  Jacob and Miranda are probably going to be heading there on their days off next week; so we’ll probably know one way or the other by the time they come back.

Oh, and if you’re wondering; yes, I have offered to keep Michael – and Rebecca – at my house while they’re away.  That’s what friends are for – to make these little sacrifices! ;^)

Compared to that news, my day was fairly uneventful.  It was cooler again today, and though we still went outside for Tai Chi; we needed to bundle up a bit extra to do that.  With our first playoff game of the season now just a day away; I’m sure you can guess that football was the number one topic at school all day.  There actually wasn’t much football action going on, though; and that’s all because Coach Robinson has the guys mostly resting up for the game today except for a light work-out.  Lunchtime scrimmages were out too because he doesn’t want any freak play-time injuries taking out any of his players ahead of the big game.

Rowen and I had cheerleading practice outdoors at noon, so that wasn’t a big deal for us – especially when the cooler weather was a bigger deal for us.  I’m not looking forward to another chilly football game; but that’s probably what we’ll be getting tomorrow night.

With election fever over with now, it was a quiet day in the classroom, and after we were set free for the day; I went on to the Inn with Rebecca while Michael was busy with his light workout and practice with the team so that we could do our homework together and then help out with the dinner rush and game night action.  The family baby news made all of that more fun for Jacob and Miranda, and while we had a comparatively light crowd both for dinner and the gaming; we had a lot of fun too.

Since I had been there for the early work, I didn’t stay for the post-gaming clean-up; and instead went home with my family shortly after the championships were awarded.  Michael was sent home with us with orders to get to bed and sleeping ahead of his big game, and while I was tempted to go and tuck him in for the night after we got teased about that on the way out of the Inn; I resisted the urge and we settled for good night kisses and hugs on his front porch instead.

Note to Miranda for future reading and reference:  If you want your son to go off to sleep right away; don’t invite his girlfriend to tuck him in before doing that.  He wouldn’t have gone to sleep anytime soon if I had; and he was probably awake for a while thinking about what might have been because we didn’t.

Moving along, I still had my Magi lesson to do with Mom after we got home; Ethan and Ehlana did some college studying while I was doing that; and then I took care of getting them tucked in for the night while Mom and Dad both did some work in the office.  It’s been all study and family business work time for me since then; which is why it’s after three now and I should have been sleeping already to rest up for that game too.

The good news is that I can use a little self-healing to make up for the lost down time, but I really should wrap this up anyway and get what rest I can; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - November 5, 2014

I started the day out with Tai Chi and breakfast; went to school; had a not-very-exciting day there; followed that up with cheerleading practice; and then worked for the rest of the day on my studies and family business until about five minutes ago.

That’s all I have because I’m exhausted and ready to crash for a solid eight hours or more; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - November 4, 2014

Happy 36^th Birthday, Dad!

We’ve had a fairly nice day, but not all that warm out.  That didn’t keep us from starting Dad’s big day out with Tai Chi by the river; and Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and Zack joined us for that – though Zack just sat in his stroller and stayed bundled up and warm while the rest of us exercised.  They also stayed for breakfast, and so did Michael; though that had good and bad moments.

The bad would be the morning sickness that hit Aunt Leanne while breakfast was being cooked, and while that wasn’t fun for her at all; she still led the jokes about Dad now having two recent birthdays where pregnant women with morning sickness was an issue.

For the record, no, I do not plan on helping Aunt Leanne out with near-future additions to those jokes about Dad’s birthdays being a cause of morning sickness with pregnant women; but I won’t promise that’ll never happen either.  That had Dad worried, but the only reason for not making that promise is because I really like the timing for both Mom’s and Aunt Leanne’s second pregnancies – though I’ll shoot for due dates a bit earlier than late June and early-July when I am ready to start my own family.

That got off track a bit, so let’s move along.

Dad’s birthday breakfast wasn’t much fun for Aunt Leanne, but we worked around that and had her lay down on a sofa in the living room while the cooking continued; and then moved the breakfast party into the dining room to keep the smells to a minimum for her.  Michael and I didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy the meal or birthday fun before we needed to get ready for school; but Dad and Uncle Adam didn’t have a lot of time for that either before needing to get ready for work.  Since Aunt Leanne was feeling barfy; she stayed and took it easy until she felt better; and let Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana take care of Zack for a while.

My school day was a mix of work and fun, with cheerleading and band practice being the most fun and the election coverage the least interesting part of my day.  I’ll get to that part of the update in a bit; though I don’t actually consider the election results particularly newsworthy either for me personally or in the grand scheme of things.  Our cheerleading practice was again all about getting ready for our first playoff game.  Dani is looking ahead beyond this week too; but only with a bit of planning.  With sudden-death playoffs, there’s no point in getting too far ahead of ourselves.  With Halloween over now, band practice was all about Christmas music to get ready for the start of the parade and concert season that is amazingly now less than five weeks away.

I didn’t think about that back when Rowen wanted to know if I’d try out for cheerleading but if our team makes it to the championship game; we’ll end up jumping straight from football into parades and concerts without even one weekend off!  Add in the teen praise team practices to get ready for the Christmas show at the church and helping out with the Christmas concert at school; and Michael and I are going to seriously need the vacation time at Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the parades and concerts; and wish we did more of that during the rest of the year with the band.  Maybe we’ll see what we can do about that next year – though I have no idea how to add more to my schedule than I already have going on.  It still would be really nice to do more than just practice for half of the school year without any performances at all.

Again, moving along, Mom had a gang of family and friends over for Dad’s birthday dinner party.  Aunt Leanne had another barfy moment or two, but mostly held it together – at least while I was there.  Michael, Tim, Lucas, Rebecca, and Rowen came home with me for the dinner after our football and band practices too; and three out of four sets of parents were either already there or on the way by then.  Michael and I had to get to our teen praise team practice for seven o’clock, so we didn’t have time for much more than eating our meal and then heading out the door again; but everyone else was able to relax and enjoy spending some quality time roasting Dad and enjoying the meal that included a pair of Jacob Stone special side-dishes.  We stayed for the birthday song and candles; but missed the dessert and gift opening part of the fun.

It was a work and school night, though, so the party didn’t last long anyway – and was over by the time we got back from spending an hour and a half working on new music for both our Thanksgiving and Christmas services.  Stacey is going all out for Christmas this year, and she’s going to have Michael and me very involved in the music; so we’re going to have extra work there too.  At this rate, I’m going to need to start doing daily time-phases to make more than twenty-four hours in all of my days just to keep up!

Before I move along, though, there was one news item that I should have mentioned from dinnertime.  With quite a few of the parents there, we – the teens – got approval for our Saturday sleepover plans; and Michael and Rebecca will be hosting the event this time.  Tim still needed to get parental approval, and Jenny and Lance will get their invitations by tomorrow at the latest; but I’d say it’s a done deal at this point.

Michael came home with me for a while after our praise team practice, and while he didn’t stay late; we did do a Magi lesson with Mom, took care of getting Ethan and Ehlana tucked into their beds, and had a little alone time in the lounge before he went home for the night and I got to work on my usual bedtime studies and family business work.  We did our homework while in the lounge too, but that was easy enough with the help of a time-phase to get it out of the way and not interfere with our minor make-out session.

Yes, a major make-out session in a time-phase was an option; but we resisted the urge. ;^)

That was a good decision because I’ve ended up working for nearly four hours now – including some Jacuzzi time multi-tasking with the first round of language studies.  The only comment I’ll make about the work part of my night is that it’s been strange working on family business projects for next year going out into the spring and even next summer on a day when two of my group practices were just starting preparations for Christmas events.  Christmas is one of my very favorite times of the year, but with the inevitable weather descent into winter that we’re dealing with now; I had more fun playing in virtual tropical or summer paradises tonight.

Maybe Mom and Dad will consider a winter getaway somewhere south and warm sometime sooner than later.  I wouldn’t want to be away from home for Christmas; but skipping school for a week in January or February to do that – or a March Break adventure – would definitely work for me.

I’m getting all warm and toasty just thinking about the possibilities – though I’d better not spend too much time thinking about travel options with Michael too much; or I’ll need to go and take a cold shower to get some sleep.

That brings us back around to the election news.  The politically cynical side of me would report that everyone in the country – and the rest of the world, for that matter – lost the election tonight.  Then again, that isn’t quite true – the rich and powerful manage to win every election one way or the other.  In this country, and really most others; there is no true, difference-making choices for governments anyway.  I really don’t want to get into a rant about that no matter how tempting.  For our little town, it really doesn’t matter whether Republicans or Democrats have control of the Senate or House of Representatives.  We’ll take care of our own here, and if the governments of the world will stay out of our way; we’ll even try to do that for the rest of the world – though that’s not going to happen nearly as fast as I wish that it could.

It would be nice if the Ascension of the Light includes a future when the current political mess we call governments are irrelevant.

A girl can dream. ;^)

The best news about the election tonight, though, is that we’ll have one post-mortem day of analysis at school; and then we can ignore politics again for another couple of years while we don’t pay attention to the twenty-sixteen election cycle that the politicians and media will start harping on by Thursday.  They all seem to love the games and theatre; but most of us have lives to live; and can’t be bothered with any of that idiocy.

I will not rant; I will not rant...

I should mention that all of the adults in my family did go out and vote like good little citizens, but don’t get too excited about that; because protest-voting is very popular in Witch Falls – meaning that neither of the two major political parties ever win even a third of the votes – and usually less than a quarter between both sides.  Now that I think about that, though; I guess there is one Magi-related election news flash that would be nice to know – what the Magi vote break-down is for these elections.  No, it doesn’t make a difference for any of the vote results; but it could be a cute little fun fact.  That same question wouldn’t be a big deal for Dark Magi; since I’m sure they just vote for whomever they own – assuming they don’t own all candidates anyway.

That’s more than enough election coverage from my perspective, and if you’re actually interested in the details from a history point of view whenever you’re reading this; feel free to Google it – or do whatever it is you’ll do to get information in my future.  All I want to do right now is call it a night and get some sleep; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!