Last day of school today!

But there is a lot of other stuff on my mind currently. Lots of little annoyances; nothing that bad.

- I did not get the Senior Center project I applied for. Which would be fine, except the way they scored it was super frustrating. I lost by 2 points, which I'm fine with. But three scorers scored me first and one scored me third. The person who won was scored second by those same three scorers, and the last person put them first. In other words, one person controlled who got the project. Even though the other three all wanted me to do the project, this one person gave me such a low score that I missed it by two points. Frustrating. I think that State Procurement law says that they are supposed to award by rank instead of points, but I'm not sure. I won't protest, but I've called the head of County Procurement just to have a discussion.

- D's sister emailed him to say that she can't meet us on the Monday we come to the UK and wants us to rearrange all of our plans. We have hotels paid for (non-refundable) and tickets to the Harry Potter Studios; we have flights to Croatia and a place to stay there (deposit paid). We are coming 10,000 miles, and we checked with her when we made plans back in December (and double checked!), and she confirmed, before we paid for anything. D was going to email her back to say "Sorry, no." He hasn't done it yet, because he says she's just gone to Cornwall and doesn't have internet. So we won't hear her freakout until Tuesday. We leave in less than a month.

- Select soccer tryouts were last Tuesday night. Due to the Birth Year split our 5th grade team was cut in half (half 2004 players, half 2005). This was sad, but would have been fine if the other girls trying out for each team would have been select soccer players. This is Select Soccer which means you have to be at a certain level since we play competitively in a league in Albuquerque. I talked to a really nice mom, and she told me that her daughter and the other new girls don't know positions, how to pass (and she said none of them pass because each of them just wants to score) or any strategy. They don't know what volleying is; they were kicking with their toes. They had to take out our 2005 girls out of play just to evaluate the others because our girls were passing all around them and none of them could get the ball. Our girls walked away from the tryouts and several of them were crying. I was trying to tell them that these other girls will learn, and they can lead, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that in any other city, these girls wouldn't make the team. Remember - this is Select Soccer. It's not rec soccer, and we don't give participation trophies.

Then on Wednesday I talked to my friend whose husband is the 2004 coach and whose daughter is a 2004. They don't have enough players in that age group to even field a team; we realized that there just aren't enough players in our smallish city to field a girls' Select team every year. We don't think just having enough girls is acceptable; they need to actually be Select players. She and I just wanted to keep our old team together. Our 2005 girls would be playing up; it's a little worrying since F is the youngest on the team. I want to make sure she isn't penalized for that. But with our coaches, I think it'll be ok.

Well... the coaches agreed, and they went to our Club this afternoon to discuss keeping our old team together, grandfathering them in. I am waiting to hear what the Club decides.

- D applied for a job. I think it'd be great for him, and I know he wants it. I'm so tense about it.

- We are paving the rest of our driveway, and so we haven't parked our cars in the garage for a week. This is also making me tense. We live on a hill, and I've lugged groceries, school lunch box, sets of plans and everything else up the hill. I can't wait until they're done! It does look really, really nice. It's expensive. It adds value to the house. I'm beginning to sound a little crazy!

- I think my friend H (Bad Money Man!) is getting divorced. This is the one who was fired from his job. Poor H!!! I feel so sad for him.

TENSE. That is the key word for today. None of these things are very bad. Everything will be resolved. I am so grateful that these are the things I'm stressing about and not worse situations.

I will check back in with you when some of these things are resolved!