Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts

Friday, June 10, 2011

Progress. Well, Sort Of.

I started a post last week after Memorial Day, but never got to finish it. Now I'll add in more current news and click "publish post" already.

The weekend was hot and also productive. Dan and I got most of the garage cleaned out and offered up many items up on Freecycle. If you're gonna have to find a mouse in the garage, it's better to find a dead one. Dan scooped it up for me. He's such a great husband. We bought Fern a new bike so she can ride to her summer jobs when she needs too.

I got Being There watched. I hadn't seen it for over 30 years and I'd forgotten a lot. It was still funny, but different than I remembered. The phrase "I like to watch" still makes me smile.

I got the badge sewing done on the vest I'd had for a while. I'm glad it's out of my hair. However, two more arrived in my in-box so I'm not done yet. I'd really like to quit, but I enjoy having the extra cash, it buys fun things like my iPad.

I can't remember what else I got done on Sunday. I'm sure it'll come to me later. Monday was hot was glad to be able to hang out at AM's house for her pool party.

This past weekend I flew solo. Dan went to the Eastern Shore for golf school. He's been so frustrated lately because he can't get any better even though he plays a lot. I took Fern to take the SAT on Saturday morning. I got everything ready the night before, pencils, calculator, admission ticket and snacks and told her she needed to take her ID. So, on the way to the test I ask her if she had her ID, and, no, she didn't. I waited in the parking lot for her text telling me if they let her in or not. Yes, she got in, but I needed to bring her ID back before the end of the test. After that it seemed I spent the whole day driving around for this and that.

I've downloaded SimCity™ for my iPad. Of course I got hooked right away. Sims are fickle, stupid people. In my current city I've gotten my population up over 1.2 million people, then for no reason, they move out and my population goes down to 450,000. They they realize the schools are not over crowded and move back in. They complain 2% residential tax rate is too high, but they were fine with the 4% I had set yesterday. They are harder to figure out than teenagers. I tried to upload a screen shot of my city with no luck. I'll try a different method later.

This weekend I'm off to Towson University for the Maryland State Special Olympic Games. Kevin will be swimming again. We got "kicked" out of the dorms this year. The coaches want me to help chaperon, but don't like the fact Kevin tended to wander a little too far for their liking an the block party last year. Thing is, Kevin can wander whether or not we're staying in the dorms. I'm not looking forward to all the down time between races (and the delightful cafeteria food), but Kevin loves it so that's all that matters, right? Maybe I'll try to take some sewing projects with me so I don't get too far behind. Again.



Monday, October 05, 2009

Attitude Change

I played a lot of golf this weekend, 18 holes with Dan at Bowie CC and 18 with Mark and AM at Glen Dale. I normally don't to play so much in a month, much less a weekend. Both times I was lousy on the front nine and much better on the back: 64/51 & 63/50. or something like that.

When I started playing golf I got the pretty colored balls specifically marketed to women. They had a clear cover over a pastel color which made them "sparkle." I loved playing with them, and for some reason I found them easier to find than the white balls. Maybe it was the "sparkle." I never hit the ball so far I couldn't find it, but occasionally I did. I hated losing these balls, it broke my heart, it felt like a piece of my soul was forever drowned in a water hazard or lost in the woods never to be found again. OK, OK, I'm being overly dramatic, but still, you get the idea, I hate losing golf balls.

(When AM and I were in Florida I lost my last two yellow balls, both to ball-eating trees, large palm trees with enough nooks and crannies to swallow more than just a few balls. Didn't matter how long I begged, the tree wasn't giving up it's new possession.)

On the other hand, or maybe I should say in the other hand, I often find other people's balls (OPBs) when I'm looking for my own. They were easy to identify, they were white, often with initials, dots, lines and other scribbles. This weekend I played predominately with OPBs. I didn't stress when then one got lost in the lake on No.4 at Glen Dale on Sunday. And it felt good not to stress over them. I almost don't want to put the last box of pink balls in the garage into my bag so I won't start stressing again. Who needs more stress?


I'm still doing the 'happy dance' over that 50 yesterday on the back nine. hee-haw!



 

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Of Work and Golf

Wow, I can't believe how quickly I get behind in the blogging world. I worked from home yesterday and got a lot of real work done. Sometimes I think I get more done from home than at the office. Something about the combination of not having the office distractions and not wanting my working-from-home privileges revoked if I don't get a decent quantity of work done. Anyway, the point is, I didn't take the time to waste time blogging.

AM and I flew to Florida on Friday for a weekend golf trip. We flew into West Palm Beach and stayed at the PGA resort. They have four courses on-site and one more ten minutes away. We played the Palmer on Saturday and the Squire on Sunday, the two "easiest" courses. Ha. Lots of water in play is never easy.

It was hot, humid and rainy on Saturday. Thunderstorm-kind of rainy. We finished our round after 7:00. Actually, we really didn't finish since we stopped after 16 holes with more thunder in the area. And this was with an 10:28 tee time and a major storm delay. Newsflash: Florida is humid. I'll never wear a nylon golf outfit to golf in again, even if it was a gift from AM, and as cute as it may be. I was so sweaty-stinky at the end of the day, eesh. I needed tongs to remove it from the laundry bag. Cotton is better for me.

Sunday we had an 8:12 tee time and finished at 12:15. No rain! We were paired with a couple who lived on the course and evidently plays there a lot. After several holes the wife started pushing us to play faster, "We're behind pace...we're 15 minutes behind...we have to do everything we can to pick up the pace...." She had lipstick on her teeth. She bugged me. I started out playing well on the first several holes but then I went downhill, coincidentally with her nagging. This other couple decided two twosomes can play faster than one foursome so they played on ahead of us at 11. We never saw them again, good riddance, and we still finished in good time, no course marshall ever scolded us. The nice thing about them leaving was my mojo came back. I hit great drives after that, even got a par on a par 4 hole and a one-over on a par 5 hole. I finished the back nine with a 51.

We had plenty of time to drive around West Palm before going back to the airport. We got to see the famous Worth Drive where all the fancy-schmancy shops are. But it was a ghost town, the shops weren't open on Sundays so there was hardly anyone around. We found a nice upscale Italian place open for lunch with valet parking, but the valet was getting off work so we parked ourselves for free.

The flight home was uneventful, unless you count a thunderstorm over Tampa which delayed our incoming jet, which delayed our departure by almost two hours, and then the baggage carousel got stuck at BWI making us wait 45 minutes for our suitcases. The golf clubs came our almost immediately at the large item door. No wonder folks like to carry bags on.

Now it's Wednesday already. What's up with that?


 

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Weekend

My weekend went great until I stopped doing things on my to-do list.

Saturday I bought and installed blinds in my daughter's room. She has curtains in there already, but needed the blinds, too. I got 2" blinds in a coffee color; they look like elegant wood.

I bought new blinds for the hall bathroom, but didn't get them installed.

I wanted to get a timer for Kevin's room but couldn't find an adequate one at Target, either it was too fancy or took up too much space on the socket and you couldn't plug in anything else. Kevin will sometimes fall asleep with the light on, wake up later, and be up for hours. He doesn't know he's supposed to turn off the light and go back to sleep and not to wake up anyone else. I want a timer to turn off his light for him to try to curb this.

I wanted to get the patches sewn on the next Girl Scout vest I need to work on. It's a catch-up vest where the mom brought me two years worth of stuff to sew on and it won't fit. She bought a sash to sew around the bottom to add more space, but I can't get motivated to get it done.

I've started keeping a ledger of the vests I have to work on, when they arrive and when I'm done with them. I got a bunch, 10 or 12, to work on this summer and I would often forget which I've had the longest and which I should wait to do. The ledger is helping with that, but I still have a backlog of about five to get done. The nice thing is it's time for these moms to start renewing their plan so I've got a little bit of cash in my pocket.

I did get to play golf with Dan twice over the weekend, once Saturday evening and once Sunday morning also with Mark and CG. I didn't do too badly, my short game is getting better, but I still need to get some distance on my fairway shots.

Surfing

Have you ever been channel surfing and it always seems like the same thing is always on the same channel? Like TNT is really the "Law and Order" channel and BBCAmerica is really the "Gordon Ramsay" channel. What else? How would you rename the channels? Yeah, OK, there's always news on CNN, but that doesn't count.





Friday, August 07, 2009

Sorry I haven't been blogging much. Last week was vacation, this week it's been work. We have a ticket system now where the testers will find something wrong and put in a ticket to get it fixed. The tester started testing my survey while I was away so I came back to about 15 tickets to attend to on Monday. Some were easy and got fixed fast, some more complicated opening up a whole can of worms and are still not completely resolved. But now I finally have a few minutes to blog before the next thing comes along.




Vacation was nice, we spent a week in south Myrtle beach, Surfside Beach, to be exact. I attended a two-day golf school Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. There's just so much to learn, or re-learn as the case may be. The school makes a individualized CD of your lessons so you can remember things and practice them after you go home. Check out Ritson-Sole golf school.

We arrived at our rental on Saturday, a cute little 3-bedroom house up on stilts with a carpark underneath. Sunday we spent at the beach and I got burnt where I missed with the sun screen at the edge of my bathing suit. Grrr. Monday Dan golfed while I took the kids up to Wilmington to pick up Fern's friend who was spending the rest of the week with us. Fern's so much easier to entertain when she has a friend along. Anyway, Dan calls me from the golf course. He thinks his camera was stolen out of the car. His work badge was not were he left it, which had been on top of the camera in the central console. Grrr.

The rental house did not have internet. Grrr. Tuesday Dan went out to a Dunkin Donuts with free WiFi to surf the web for a while. He came back with a newspaper someone had abandoned. There on the front page of the community section was an article about how the Surfside Beach police arrested five persons for breaking into cars, estimated 30-50 cars, on Sunday night. Really now? I just knew that's were our camera had gone, Dan was skeptical. He feared it would look like I was just "shopping" if I just went there looking for a camera we hadn't reported missing.

Later that afternoon I took the kids out to the dollar store and Walmart for sundries and swung by the police station on the way home. I told them our camera was missing, and yes, the car had been unlocked, shame on us. The girls wanted to go in with me, experience the whole police station thing, so we were escorted back to the room where they had the collection of the stolen property.
"What kind of camera was it ma'am?"
"A reddish-maroon little Nikon."
"Like this?" as he pulls out a camera fitting my description.
"Yes, exactly like this," I said. I turned it on and reviewed the pictures in the memory. "Hey, there are your pants you painted," I said to Fern, and "There I am golfing." The officer in charge of the property looked at the image of me and had me sign the form stating our property was returned to us.

We were escorted back out to the lobby where I had to fill out a report of the incident. I texted Dan: "At police station, got camera." He texted back "Wow!!" Oh ye of little faith.

The rest of the week was pretty tame. Thursday Dan golfed and I took the kids to Le Grand Cirque, which is a cheaper version of a Cirque du Soleil. Friday I golfed and Dan took the kids to the water park.

Dan got a 15 minute head start on the drive home on Saturday, and went to I-95 via Wilmington and I-40. I went to I-95 via US-701 & US-421. When we were both on 95, he was about 30 miles ahead of me and his lead grew even more when I had to stop for gas and lunch. I was not going to win the race home, not that we were speeding or anything. At Richmond I took the 295 beltway, then US-301 to Bowie, he stuck with I-95. I beat him home by 30 minutes. Yay me.

Now it's back to the real world, and there are two more weeks until school starts.


 

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Fore!

Monday afternoon our golf cart looked like the inside of the family car after a long trip.
A long camping trip in the rain, to be more precise.

We had soggy towels, at least four. We had soggy golf gloves. At least four.
Left-over sack lunch bags.
Empty M&M bags and chip bags.
Soggy pair of socks.
Dripping umbrella-ella-ellas.

Dan and I joined AM & Mark again for a charity golf event. Rain or Shine. My rain gauge measured almost an inch of rain on Monday. We were a little damp. Mark got the closest to the pin on the par-three contest hole for a $50 prize and I didn't even come close to winning the Ladies' longest drive contest again, as I did last year. I didn't play so well. The company was good, but I was a bit tired of the rain.

Other Weekend Stuff



Sunday morning, raining, I took Kevin to a Special Olympic swim meet qualifier. He has to compete in at least two qualifiers so he can participate at the state games in June. When they arrange the heats, they group the swimmers according to their seed times they already have in the system so no one competes against someone who is a lot faster or slower than they are. By the luck of the draw, Kevin had the slowest of the seed times in each of his heats and finished third, second, and third in the 25 free, 25 back, and 50 free, respectively.

Afterward we went up to G-Street Fabrics. They are moving store locations so everything is on sale. Sewing machine presser feet, which normally sell for $30 and up were 30% off and an additional 25% off if you had a coupon. I did, so I got a couple. I didn't buy any more fabric. Yes, really.

I got back to Bowie in time to pick up Fern from play practice. We stopped off at the library on the way home so she could get some books. She didn't have her card because it was in the other car so I checked them out on my account. She better not lose any of them, that's for sure.

Fern dashed off right after we got home to an award ceremony with her friend. They got second place in the county in the Write-a-Book contest. I stayed home, I don't think The Girl minded, perhaps she was relieved I wasn't in the audience making a big deal out of a little thing. I'm still proud of her.

Saturday was less rainy. Dan and I double-dated with AM and Mark. We played par-three golf to practice for Monday's tournament and then had dinner at Moulin de Paris. I had a nice time out. I don't know about the other three.

Fern's spring ice skating show was in the afternoon, the last 'home' show before they close the rink for maintenance. Now all her lessons will be at a neighboring rink to prepare for the Championships in Orlando at the end of the month. She's skating in 3 solo events and one with her team.

Before the skating show, I took Kevin out to the Arts Fair at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center. I only 'lost' him twice. He likes to explore new territory and usually stays close to where he thinks I'll be so he's pretty easy to find. I took him into the ceramics studio with me and gave him a hunk of clay while I worked on some of my pots. I still am having a hard time centering my clay on the wheel and don't have many quality pieces to show. I bought another 25 pounds of clay last night so I have lots to practice with. I'll have to photograph the glazed pieces I finished. Oh, and the piece Kevin made.

I don't remember much before Saturday. You'll have to trust me I survived it all.


 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Weekend Round-up

Whew!

We got back from "The Lodge" yesterday afternoon. Great Wolf Lodge is Kevin's most favorite place in the world. It's how we bribe him most days of the year. Even after we got home yesterday it was, "Do you want to go back to Great Wolf Lodge? Then go take your shower."

Since we've been so many times we get really nice rooms for very little. We got an upgrade to the Grizzly Suite (two separate bedrooms, two baths, one with whirlpool tub, living room with fireplace) this time (which normally goes for $450 per night, $699 on holidays) for $220. That included extra for an ultra-late checkout. Our keys quit working at 11:00 anyway. Grrr.




Last night I spent a long time on the phone with DirecTV. We'd gotten a flyer from Verizon about Fios, phone, internet, TV for $99/month so I called them to get the break-down about HD service and what is available and how much. $70/month for HD TV service with DVR.

Then I called DirecTV and asked about upgrading our standard service to HD and told them what Fios would be. They were going to give me $20 off my bill/month for 6 months and a couple other perks to keep me as a customer. But then it wouldn't go through because the regular sales department isn't authorized to give more than $150 total in incentives.

Then I got passed on to the Disconnect department. Those folks are authorized to give a lot of incentives to keep folks from disconnecting service. Eighty-three minutes later, I'd been scheduled for HD installation with a free (Sales wanted $99) 200/50 hour HD-DVR (200 hours in standard def, or 50 hours in HD) and my monthly bill will be about the same or even less than it was before. There's also something about almost free on-demand programming, too, like $0.01 per show, if we have internet.




Tonight is voting night for our challenge quilt at our guild meeting. I didn't finish mine so I won't be submitting it. The theme was "The Sea" and the fabrics did not talk to me at all. I finally came up with an idea but the execution was beyond my capabilities in the remaining time. Maybe I'll finish it anyway.

Meanwhile, my fabric reorganization challenge continues. There are still baskets of fabric everywhere. I'm starting to get lazy with where I "file" the newly folded fabric. Instead of putting it in the drawers with similar colors, I'm just putting the whole stack of folded pieces in one drawer. Argh, that's going to drive me crazy.




Did I mention I played hooky from work on Monday to golf with Dan? I played OK, not great. The wind was chilly and I kept thinking about quitting. The highlight of the day was hitting it over the water on the third hole. It's very wide water and as a beginner I had never made it over. Monday I did.



The line just illustrates tee to green, I got there in four shots. Yay me! Photo courtesy of Google, thank you very much.




Oh, and one last thing, I've gotten several comments in person about the size of the varmint I photographed last week. Many folks thought it looked too large to be a mouse. It was a mouse, believe me. Chalk it up to the perspective of a wide-angle lens on a phone camera.

By the way, the mouse count is four to date.
 

Friday, October 31, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Catching Up

Sheesh, I haven't posted forever.

Somehow, I don't get to post from home much, just when I'm taking a break at work.

Yesterday I took the day off from work. Kevin had a pre-op appointment in the morning. His wisdom teeth are blocking his 12-year molars from coming in so they have to come out. Because of his autism, the oral surgeon wants to do the work at a surgery center where he'll have a professional nursing staff to monitor Kevin's recovery, instead of in his office where recovery consists of sitting in a chair until you're awake enough to walk out. The surgery is planned for next Wednesday.

After I got Kevin back to his day camp I went home and cleaned the kitchen, complete with a floor mopping. I was waiting to hear from my brother and dad. They were coming out to help with some yard work and I had to give them directions to the rental center. If you read my husband's blog you might remember this post about his tree-trimming project.

We hadn't done anything with the trimmed branches, they were still where they fell. For months Dan and I talked about how to get rid of them. There was a lot of branches from the 20 trees. Too many to drag to the curb on yard-trash days. We considered buying a personal sized chipper but that meant we'd still have a lot of work cutting down the branches so they'd fit. We considered renting a chipper, as well as hiring a tree company.

I ended up renting a industrial sized chipper which took limbs up to 6" in diameter. OK, stop thinking Fargo. My brother came out with his truck with a trailer hitch so we could get the thing home. For two hours Mark and I hauled, dragged and carried branches to the chipper while my Dad fed them in the chute, except when Dad took a break and took pictures of his kids (I'll have to check his blog later to see if he posted them) and Mark and I did the chute feeding.

It was fun watching big branches go in and mulch come out. I wanted to put in something else to watch it shred à la Malcolm in the Middle but since the rental company had my $800 deposit and I wanted it back, I thought better of it.

My new mulch pile is about 3' tall by 3' wide. That ought to cover a couple flower beds when I find the energy to haul it around the yard. Can I use that right away or does it have to age for a while? Anyone know?

Monday I took the day off, too. Dan and I played golf with AM and Mark in another fund-raising tournament. I started off playing OK, but went down-hill mid-way through. I guess I used up too many good shots at the driving range before we played.

Saturday I took AM out to a local executive course to play nine holes. She hadn't golfed since the tournament in May and I thought she'd like the practice. I played very well Saturday. Except for putting, we won't talk about that. At many of the latter holes, while we were waiting for the guy in front of us to finish, we'd hit two balls instead of just one. AM called it "testicle golf."

Monday, May 05, 2008

Monday Round-up

Today I played hooky from work.



Can you guess where I was?

Dan and I joined AM and Mark as a team for a charity golf tournament. I had two for the highlight reel, I think it'll be on ESPN later. Maybe not. The first one was a long putt for birdie, then I had the longest drive for women, beating out the woman who usually wins by at least 20 yards. The prize was $50. I didn't even realize it was the hole for the contest until after I teed off. I would have totally choked it I had known. It was a beautiful shot, right down the middle of the fairway. It's shots like these that keep you coming back for more, because the rest of the holes were disappointing by comparison.


I'll round up the weekend later, remind me to tell you about The Boy. But now I need to get some aloe on my sunburn.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Snapshots of a Weekend

I shot a 55 on the back nine at Glenndale. I had some good drives, almost had the green in 3 on several holes but hit the beach instead, and made par on 12, par 3 130 something yards, long putt for par.

 


I got an email from a neighbor who is traveling this week to Arizona to visit a retired colleague:
If for some reason I don't make it back my car will be in the long term parking at bwi- license is xxx xxx. 2006 honda accord black
Car keys are on the mirror in the hallway.

You can keep it. Needs an oil change.

 


My daughter is a funny bird. She was the liturgist again Sunday morning for the 8:30 service, having had fun when she did part of the Youth service in September. This time, she did the whole service, didn't share the duty with any one else. She did great, spoke clearly, didn't rush through the readings. Many people came up to me after the service to tell me how well my daughter had done. I'm sure a lot of people told her the same thing. I asked her if she'd like to do it again. "No." Her point of view is: it's over, don't dwell on the past, just move on. She's uncomfortable with the accolades and doesn't want to be subject to acclamations if she doesn't have to. I wish she could be more graceful in accepting praise. How do I help her with that?

 


My husband heard the click click click of the starter on the gas stove.
"What are you making?"
"Spinach."
"Spinach?"
I peered around the corner to see a look on his face that was reminiscent of a child given a plate of brussels sprouts.
"I have a hankering for something and I don't know what it's for."
"It's not for spinach, ice cream or cheese cake maybe."
"No, it definitely not for ice cream or cheese cake."
I plop down in my chair in the sewing/computer room.
"Chips and dip?"
"I could have a hankering for chips and dip," I said, paused, then said, "you could pick some up when you go get the girls at 8:00."
"You beat me to the punch."
"Yes I did." He usually gets me to make trips like this.
"I'm already in sweats."
"I have slippers on."
"But you have pants on."
"Yeah, but I'm not wearing a bra."
"If I didn't notice, no one else will".

The chips hit the spot.
And I didn't have to leave the house.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

I promised more stories about my weekend in Ft Lauderdale, so I'll take time to backtrack from my current day-to-day and recall them.

After I left the Holiday Inn Express (you know, you get a lot of services there that other place charge for, like free local calls and free breakfast) I headed down to Miami Lakes and Don Shula's Hotel and Golf Club. My husband found a weekend package there for me: two nights lodging, three rounds of golf, $50 voucher for Shula's Steak House and $20 voucher for Shula's2 all for about $260. I just had to pay the cart fees for golf. I booked the package anyway after I found out the course was closed on Mondays in September for maintenance which meant only two rounds of golf.



My first round of golf was pleasant. I played by myself, which I like, no one to get exasperated with my game. The front nine was nice, the back nine was wet and soggy, had to keep the cart on the path. The course was more difficult than my "home course" so my scores were higher than at home. I saw lots of critters, even iguanas. Did you know they swim?

Then I checked into my room and got the day's humid golf game off my body. Next stop: cash in my $50 voucher for dinner.

Pros and cons of printing your menu on a football: it's fun and different for sure, but what about storage? a whole pile of footballs take a lot more space than the flat folder kind of menu. The walls around the entrance to the restaurant are lined with plaques listing members of the 48oz club, those hungry folks consuming 3 pounds of steak in one sitting. Current price: $85. yikes. I opted for the petite filet, only 8oz. Only $35. Good steak. Very beautiful space, dark woods and fireplace but the walls are lined with pictures of football. I guess I'd be more enthralled if I knew who Don Shula is.

Sunday I woke up to more rain, ate breakfast with my $20 voucher, and it finally cleared up enough to play my second round of golf around 2:00, again by myself. This time I played the front 9 twice. If you take all my best scores from the front it's a 56, but in reality they were 64, 64, & 62 (and another 62 from the back 9 on Saturday.)

If I'm going to travel a lot with golf clubs, I need a travel cover with wheels, those dern things are heavy! I got checked in to the airport without any problems, found my gate and settled in. After a while I got thirsty, asked a fellow passenger to keep an eye on my bag and headed off for a bottle of water. When I came back there was a young guy sitting in the seat next to mine. I plopped back in my seat and resumed my knitting.
"Do you sew much?" This is knitting, you moron.
"Yes, I'm making a sweater."
"What's it gonna look like?"
I pull out the pattern and show him.
The conversation goes on for a while. He's probably under 30, wears his cap backwards and never takes his sunglasses off even though it's dark out. I didn't look for heavy gold chains, but wouldn't be surprised if there some under his over-sized gangsta shirt. He tells me about clubbing in South Beach for the weekend. I have strain to understand his mumbles over the din of travelers and then:
"You go clubbin' in DC?"
"No."
"How old are you, about 35?" Quite the "playa," this guy.
"No, but thank you."
And later still he leans in close to my ear. I can smell his last smoke was not a legal variety.
"If I give you my number, will you call me?"
"No. I'm happy with my husband."
"Tell your husband I can take his place."

Seeing that I was a lost cause, this guy proceeded to hit on and fail with at least 4 or 5 other women over the course of the evening, even walking out of the terminal with one chick before coming back to baggage claim empty-armed. Poor guy.

Tuesday morning when Fern got up she was mad. "Don't abandon me like that again. No one did the laundry, no one did the dishes."

Obviously I wasn't gone long enough.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

It's 7:00 am I'm sitting here at the laptop in the TV room, home finally, after getting in late last night (this morning) after a 2 hour delay flying home from Ft. Lauderdale. I'm not munching on any breakfast (yet) and I need to wake up the kids to get their day going.

(It's 4:05 pm now when I add more to this post.) OK, I'm obviously back from my trip south to rain country, USA. It rained on and off so much yesterday I didn't even try to get a round of golf in. I ended up trying out some drivers at a golf shop and hit the equivalent of an extra large bucket of balls under the swing monitor. When I hit the ball well it was going about 140-150 yards and my swing speed was over 60 mph. (slow, compared to the pros, but I'm not Tiger.) I don't normally hit the driver in my bag that well at all. When I hit it poorly in the monitor, well, um,lets just say I didn't memorize those stats. I could definitely see differences in the results of each driver after hitting 30 or more balls with each. I had fun, even though I was tired after a while. I probably ingrained a bad swing pattern into muscle memory. Oh well. I hope I'll get to try out my new club soon.

Then I hung out at a yarn shop for a couple hours and knit and chatted with the wonderful women there. I showed off my socks (they were impressed) and bought yarn for a toe cover for AM whose toes are getting cold sticking out of that cast.

Then I headed back up to the airport for my flight home. Instead of dragging this post on forever, I'll post the rest of my adventures tomorrow.



Ft Lauderdale airport at sunset.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Friday

Today I took off work and played golf with my husband at a course that's new to us. I didn't do too well over all but did have some good shots. I just need to string together some of those good shot into a full good-shot game. I have completely lost the ability of using a driver, or any wood for that matter, so most of my tee shots were with a 3-iron.

The thermometer in the car showed 101° when we finished playing. Whew. toasty!

Today is day twelve with no sink or dishwasher. I got a call from the Counter top contractor, they received our slab of (forest green Caesarstone) quartz and are starting to cut it now. Installation will be on Friday, next week. So, another full week of no sink or dishwasher.

sheesh.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

I got a birdie! I got a birdie!

I got a 2 on #11 at Tupelo Bay with a beautiful newsreel chip from off the green.

Yay me!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Number 8 at Glenn Dale is a par 5 485 yard hole, 395 from the red tees. I came up about 10 yards short of making the green in regulation. A nice wedge shot put me close for a possible par, but then I 2-putted it. argh! The hole before is 159 yard par 3. I was on the green from the tee (yay!) but then proceeded to 4-putt (boo).

I started off by myself last night and by the time I rounded the dogleg on 4 I could see a foursome ahead of me. They had finished 5 when I was ready to start it, but 6 was a long hole so I still hadn't completely caught up with them. I wasn't hurrying, though. They were on the tee at 7 when I aapproached the green on 6. One says to the other, "Should we ask her?" My mind just goes crazy, ask me what? Why do I continue to golf when I'm that bad? Am I available for dinner? What time was it?

"Do you want to join us on the next hole?" Ah. "Although she may not want to." They were a loud but nice group of guys. I had already heard them earlier from 3 holes away and told them so, we got along just fine. By the time I finished 6, they were on the green of 7 so I joined them on 8, the par 5. I was just thrilled I hit 3 good shots in a row in front of these guys and come that close to the green. I'm still smiling. I got a 7 on the last hole and so did one of them, so I guess I'm not completely out of my league. And I'm having fun, and that is what counts.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Friday was our 16th anniversary. My husband and I celebrated on Saturday by playing golf and having dinner. We chose the 9-hole White Course at East Potomac Park in Washington DC. We both played horribly because the course was in such bad condition. Standing water everywhere, the bunkers doubled as ponds. In dry conditions you'd expect a bounce and a nice roll, but the ground as wet as it was, the balls just stuck in the muck.

On to dinner. We ate at Zola at 8th and F street. The food was very good. And the bathroom scale is still telling me I ate too much. That the and 4 pairs of pants I tried on this morning before I found one that fit.

Friday, June 16, 2006

I played the back nine at Glenn Dale Golf Club again last night, got a 65. On a couple holes I just didn't hit well, which is very irritating. It was kind of like soccer with a stick. I got tired of watching the ball skitter across the ground. The other thing that is irritating is losing three balls. I like to play with brightly colored balls so I can find them easily, but sometimes even orange balls can disappear. Like, into a pond.

On the back nine there are three holes (11, 14, & 18) that you tee off at the top of a blind hill, and, if you're a beginner, hope you can find the ball when you get down the hill since you can't see it land. One of the balls I lost was on 14. I hit off to the right, but had no luck finding it. It should have been there! Maybe it rolled under the lightning shelter...
Total for the evening: 3 lost balls, two orange, one purple, six found balls, all white. Oh well.

The upside is I played by my self and finished 9 holes in under two hours, compared with my previous round playing with others and finishing in over three hours. If I hadn't lost those balls I could have finished closer to an hour and a half..

Must practice, must play more golf.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Another Round of Golf

I got my handicap index last week: 40.4. That's about as high as you can go. I'm not embarrassed, I'm a beginner.

On Monday this week I played with the beginner women's group at my local golf club. The woman I was paired up with was in my class when I took lessons in April, so we knew each other. I told her I was keeping score to go towards my handicap, and she made a comment, something about being a beginner and she wasn't ready to do that. I view getting a handicap as a record of improvement, along with my scores with putt count. If my handicap is 40.4 this June, then I'd like to break 35 by the fall. Some new golfers look at their scores and set a goal of breaking 100. If you play really easy courses, that is within reach a lot faster than if you play harder courses. So I think the index gives a better overall improvement picture.

One of the lessons taught in my class was held on course, a walking lesson where playing etiquette is discussed. The most important point being play "ready golf." On Monday we got paired up with another twosome who did not know how to play ready golf. One irritating moment was when I was putting, having the furthest ball away from the hole. The other three balls were closer and on my left. Their owners were on my right waiting for me to putt, not standing behind their ball, getting ready.

The long and short of the evening was it took 3:20 to play 9 holes. sheesh. But the good part was the last hole is a long par-5 hole, severe dogleg to the left. I shot a 6. In the dark, I might add.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Golf

It's been a long time since I've posted. It's really hard to come up with things worthy of writing about. I have to get over it and just write about what's happening, good, bad, or boring.

Like my golf. I'm just learning. I took lessons last fall for the first time, then completed another set of lessons last week. I took them from Troy Beck at Glenn Dale. She's a great instructor. While I learned a lot, I'm still having trouble remembering all the steps to a good swing when it comes time to tee off. Then a lot of my fairway shots don't get airbound, they just scuttle along the ground.

The practice range provides a lot of hope, but if you get an unfavorable lie in the rough, it's like the practice is all for naught.

The good thing is I didn't get in the sand at all last night! I played with a couple of classmates in the beginner's league. The bad thing is my 9 hole score wouldn't make the cut if I'd been playing 18......