Pre-Game Thoughts

Our first game is this weekend. I am quite excited. Yesterday's practice went extremely well, apart from the boundless energy the girls had for chatting and goofing off. We finished off practice with an offense against defense drill. I lined up the fullbacks, sweeper, and goalie in their positions, and I had sets of three girls start at midfield and take the ball down the field, trying to get past the defense and score on goal. The defense was pretty good and there were no shots on goal at first. But as the drill progressed, the offense got better and had some great passes and even shots on goal. And I taught the defense to immediately go wide as soon as the goalie made a save. They were great at turning the ball around. And the best thing about it is that the girls really enjoyed the drill.

Sorry if this is boring to most of you non-soccer fans. But I am really excited about our first match!

Team Blizzards

My team picked a name at the last practice...Blizzards! I think it's a good name and very age appropriate. Our uniforms are black and white. Other suggestions were The Panda Bears (because they are cute and fuzzy), White Rapids, and Black Panthers.

At the first practice, I asked the girls to pick a few jersey numbers they wanted to have. The numbers 2-5 were extremely popular. But I was surprised that no one picked either #9 nor #10. Which famous soccer players wear those numbers?? Mia Hamm is #9 and Pele (among many other famous players) is #10. When I asked the girls which famous female soccer player wears #9, it took them a few minutes to remember. What??!! If our apartment was any bigger (and I was any less sane), I would have all the girls over for soccer game watching every week.

Cutie

Another thing I have been terrible about doing is posting cute pictures of our kittens. How is this for completely adorable??!!

My Team

I have been quite terrible about posting. Sorry! I have been busy…

I am coaching a girls, under-14 team in AYSO. It’s quite fun. My initial motivation for becoming a coach was being able to have practices twice a week, which would get me out on the soccer field, doing soccer drills and running. I stopped playing in a competitive adult league about 1 year ago, because my back just couldn’t handle the intensity of the game. So I though being a coach and working out with my team would help me determine whether or not I wanted to get back into playing soccer competitively. I will not make my girls run laps or sprints while I sit around and watch.

But now I have a new motivation – I want to show them everything that I know about soccer. The 1.5 hour practices aren’t long enough for me to cover everything that I want to do. I have a super long list of drills and skills I want to cover and not enough time to get it all done. We have a practice game this weekend. I am excited but nervous. I have never coached this level before and I don’t know what to expect. Some of the girls on the team have obvious talent and skill, since they’ve been playing for 5+ years. Some of the girls are new to the game, and while they understand the basics of the game and are not afraid, they lack skill.

I know it’s just for fun. But everyone has more fun when they win or at least the matches are close. So hopefully we’ll have a good season. Wish us luck!

Harry Potter

I just finished the final book of the Harry Potter series. I loved it. What a great series. It took me a while to finish the last book because I didn't want the series to end. I won't say too much in case you are still reading the last book or plan on reading the series. I highly, highly recommend it. I actually started reading the book again. The only book I've ever read twice was Crime and Punishment (and that's because I had it as an assignment in both high school and college). I started rereading book 1 last night and it was hard to put down. Again, I really recommend it if you haven't read it. It's an easy read and quite enjoyable.

Priceless

"A woman was arrested after she called local police to help 'get her money back' after she was unhappy with the crack cocaine she purchased."

One of the fun things about being a cop.

My Husband

You can take the white boy out of Boston, but you can’t take the white boy out of my husband.

I sent my husband to the store to get cilantro to make salsa and he came back with Italian parsley. He even did the sniff test but was unable to differentiate between the two.