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Olympics=International AWESOMENESS!!!!

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image cred: CP entertainment

I love the Olympics.  Winter or Summer.  They are so exciting, motivating,and  inspiring and I love to soak up as much as I can get.  In between a full-time job, 4 kids and a Hubby it’s often not much, but thanks to technology…..I CAN get every bit of info and playback I need!  Phew.  I mean, there’s only so many hours in a day and there’s no medal in Olympic viewing….

So far, for these London Summer Olympics here are my Olympic observations:

1)Seriously over-the-top creative opening ceremonies.  Um, the baby thing was a teensy bit creepy but overall (what I saw) was extremely imaginative and told quite the story spanning decades.  I loved Daniel Craig and the Queen and got a kick out of trying to explain to our daughter how Her majesty got from the plane/parachute to her seat for the ceremony so quickly and gracefully.  Lots of unexpected twists, however, like it or lump it….that show was some SERIOUSLY creative work and immense effort and organization to pull it off.  My head almost blew up imagining the logistics of it all!

2)  Awesome commercials, WAAAAAAY better than the Superbowl!  My current fave is Ryan Lochte (local boy done good….except for the UF part, but hey this ‘Nole will let that slide…) swimming to London.  David Boudia “diving” off world’s tallest building for Visa is pretty phenomenal, too.  Of course, there’s the P&G commercial with the nod to Moms in the training of Olympians and the sacrifices made in getting to the Olympics. Truly though, if you look in the stands you certainly see lots of dads and other family members present as well.  I only have to look to my own friends and their swimming/lacrosse/running/baseball/soccer/volleyball kids (and my own) and see the sacrifices made on an ongoing basis.  The crockpot is your friend, repeat after me….

3)  Speaking of families, I also love the numerous olympic stories that we hear about.  John Orozco, one of the US Men’s gymnast hopefuls was one that I caught last night. The amount of drive and discipline ALL of the Olympians have is astounding and this young man is no different.  His desire to make a better life for his entire family is touching.  The dude’s strength and prowess on the pommel horse and parallel bars, sheesh!  These guys make it look so easy, meanwhile I am huffing, puffing and using a chair and maybe get my chin up over the bar for a second.

4) The watching of the Olympics itself is an event.  An all-day event (thanks to the time difference here in the States).  The weekend has been great, but now it’s back to work, what to do?  what to do???  Ah, but there’s an app for that (and an app for walking/running if so inspired by the Olympics….):

Sshhhh, don’t tell my boss, but I am hooked up for work-day viewing! Just need to keep it charged!

Of course there are also Olympic watching parties.  We went to one last night. A friend of a friend hosted it at their mansion house on the river.  Food out the wazoo and Olympics on about 72″ of HDTV.  New people to meet, watching boats troll down the river from a day out on the water, fireworks to the south.  It was exhausting!

This little hairless kitten was one of the host’s pets…oh the interesting things you come upon when at an Olympic watching party…

5) The outfits which so far have been mostly swimsuits and gymnastics-wear, which just further point out the differences between the Olympian’s discipline and my lack-of-discipline.  Whatev. (If AT&T comes knocking on my door for some sponsorship I may consider cutting out the sweets.  Maybe.) I was interested to see the US women’s beach volleyball and Australia’s women beach volleyball match and even more interested in the difference in uniforms.  Once I got past the fact that the Aussies were quite covered up I realized at least those girls didn’t have to deal with the sand digging into areas sand ought not be AND that they also didn’t have to keep yanking up their bottoms.  It was different for sure.  However, they may be on to something.  Don’t get me wrong now, I was FULLY cheering our US moms on and thrilled for their win to move on!!

**speaking of outfits, how about the Dutch women’s field hockey team.  Wow.  Beautiful ladies.  Eye raising uniforms…..

6) More watching today with rowing, swimming, synchronized diving–China is the SHIZ, but SO happy our girls did so well!!  I was so exhausted from so many sports I needed a 2-hour nap to recuperate from it all.  Sheesh.  We should get bonus workouts just from vicariously participating in all this activity, in my opinion!! Who’s with me???  No worries, I’ll still be up at o’dark hundred for boot camp, even without sponsors and fanfare. (or not, since apparently we have a little bug going through our house and Hubby and daughter are battling it out for my doctoring skills….and it’s 1:40 a.m.—–guessing this is the REAL reason God gave me a huge nap today!)

I’m sure there will be more likes and inspirations as the days carry forth with the medal watching and you can be sure I’M watching whatever I can squeeze in!!  How about you?  Are you cheering on your country and becoming a little bit obsessed, or are you like my boys:  all like….whatever??  I swear, I don’t even know who they are…

And so it begins…..

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In the beginning…..everything seems so exciting, shiny, full of promise and hope.  New school clothes.  Unopened packets of pens, paper, folders, dividers.  Unscathed backpacks.  Unscuffed tennis shoes.  And then you settle into a routine and as you near the end, ripped shorts, crumpled paper, graffiti’ed backpacks, holey shoes and you plug on with your eye on the prize because the end is just. around. the. corner.

Ah.  And so it realistically be with the blog challenge.  Every day in May.  Seems fun.  Exciting. All these ideas floating in my brain.  And then finding the time to put them down.  Struggling between what I want to say and how it’s coming out of my brain.  Often not even on the same hemisphere!!

The reality is, I LOVE a challenge.  I always work better under pressure with a specific goal in mind. Whether it was when I used to run and was training for a race or with my girlfriends at the beginning of the year when we decided we could do ANYTHing for 12 weeks!!  (here it is into our 4th month and still plugging along in our new routines!)  I’m a structured person.  I wish I was more relaxed sometimes, but it’s not where my comfort zone is…a first-born, goal-oriented, nurturer.

HOWEVER, you may be more free.  Less inclined to stay inside the lines.  YAY! for you.  I’ll live vicariously through you and maybe gain some courage to step outside the box once in a while.  So, join me in our blogging “challenge” for May.  Blog each day.  Blog some days.  Use words.  Use pictures.  Use both.   Send your blog name in the comment section, I’ll add you in.  So far, we are FOUR.  I look forward to sliding into the end of May, tattered, blogged and having “met” other bloggers and styles to steal learn from throughout the 31 days!

Have a wonderful day!!

Brite  (this awesome Mama is the sweetest and gentlest!  with 4 little ones–including a newborn, she homeschools, farms, sews, cooks and sometimes includes great pictures of life’s ups and downs)

Amanda (I just met her yesterday through her blog, and Brite, and I enjoyed her pictures and her theme for May–pictures and Scriptures–FABULOUS combination!)

Lea (her 5th year of this challenge, I stole it from her, she’s crazy busy, the MOST creative person EVER, a God’s girl through and through and after all these years of knowing her I finally figured out how she gets it all done.  She doesn’t sleep.  Which is why I’ll never capture her cape!  I love sleep too much.)