M is for Mania

 "Mania: excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm; the object of such enthusiasm."

                                                Merriam-Webster

What things bring you mania? Mania producing power for me is usually sports related, but to be different and make the creative juices come out, this will be the only time I write a sports themed mania.

I thought I would write a really long post about Ilona Maher and how rugby just makes me happy, but I have already wrote that HERE. Maher has recently hinted that she is back practicing in San Diego where the USA Eagles have their practice facility.  This truly makes me have Ilona Mania, but I am sure you will hear more about that over on socials as I pine about going and seeing her play this next season and in 2027-28 as she prepares and competes with her team in the Olympics in Los Angeles.  

The other sport mania that hits me every March-October is baseball season.  I follow two teams, which is contentious at times.

“Logo courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers / MLB.”

People with either LOVE, or they will HATE The Los Angeles Dodgers.  I have a friend who is my ultimate baseball friend. I love how I can talk to her about baseball and she knows her stuff.  We can talk until it turns to talking about LA.  She is a Diamondback fan and Dodger hater.  She is a good friend though because she let me watch a Dodger vs Brewers game in spring training when we went. That is true friendship there!

I went to my first ever professional baseball game when I was twelve.  My older "Californian" cousin took me and it was magical. He later saw me with a Dodger hat on and asked "Wait, you are a Dodger fan?" That game obviously didn't stand out to him like it did me, he was just taking his little cousin to a one game while she was in town with her mother while said mother was on a work trip.  He has been to a lot of games so I forgive him, and I also thank him for making me the fan I was.  The energy of Dodger Stadium and the fan base there is one of a kind.  And don't get me started on Dodger Dogs!  

In the era of Orel Hershiser and Mark Gibson and their 1988 World Series win, how could I not become a fan?

I also love my true home team:

Logo courtesy of Major League Baseball / Milwaukee Brewers.

My family didn't follow The Brewers as I grew up in Wisconsin.  We did occasionally get to a local summer collegiate game here and there, and I played softball, but we never concentrated on the Brewers.  Now, that could be because the Brewers have never, ever won a World Series.  It seems like if teams have a history of being better, they have a bigger fan base.  With the Brewers, we just keep a hoping. They did appear in the 1982 Series, but lost to the Cardinals.  Maybe this is why to this day I hate the Cardinals! In the past five years, they gave made the post season twice and they do really have a lot of talent lately, so the excitement is there but they often choke when it counts. Currently, they have the best record in Major League Baseball, but that could have changed before you read this!

It is hard being a fan of two teams.  Who do you cheer for when they play each other? My friends from home were glad a few seasons ago when I told them I would be cheering for the Brewers against the Dodgers in post season play, but then they were disappointed to see I was cheering for the Dodgers after the Brewers choked.  It is a rough life, but somebody has to be this kid.

Here is a baseball mania haiku for you:

Baseball mania:

What team do I cheer for now?

Depends on the day!

I'd love to hear what things bring you mania.  Comment here or on the socials...

"The Los Angeles Dodgers logo and The Milwaukee Brewers logo are registered trademarks of Major League Baseball (MLB). This blog is an independent fan site and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Los Angeles Dodgers or Major League Baseball. All trademarks belong to their respective owners." 

S is for Spiritual.

 

Spiritual has to do with the soul. According to Google, it is "a connection to something greater than oneself." People have different ways of being spiritual. Sometimes, we will feel spiritual in nature or anywhere we feel calm. To some that is in a religious place, for others, it doesn't necessarily need to be in a designated place.

I feel most spiritual when I slow down. My "greater than oneself" is my Creator, or my Heavenly Father. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I worship each Sunday in a church. I am fortunate enough to live across the street from my church building(this doesn't guarantee that I am on time weekly, though). I also worship in a temple. And I try to do so at least once a month. Within the walls of the temple, I feel calm and able to take a pause from the daily stresses of life. Those building are special places of worship for me, and I don't have any "alone time"in those buildings, even though they are favorite places. I often feel spiritual outside of religious buildings. I feel close to God as I pray to Him alone in personal private prayer. I also feel close to God when I am out in nature. The woods is one of my favorite places, whether on a UTV in Wisconsin on my Uncle's land or up in the mountains on a hike or bike ride. Often, the feeling of peace comes as I listen to Gospel music, or read the words in scripture or the words of my church leaders.

Spirituality is a big part of who I am. My faith in God has always been a beacon in my life. Jesus Christ is the center of my faith and I am learning how to know Him and am slowly trying to be more like Him.

I have a job, or calling, in my church congregation(ward) teaching in our women's group or class(Relief Society). Every other week we study together talks that were shared in our past General Conference. In General Conference, church leadership, including our prophet, apostles, and other leaders speak. Conference Weekend is the first weekends of April and October. In our classes at church, we are currently looking at the talks given in April of this year.

For today's spiritual thought, I thought I would share something from one of my lessons. Back in May, I taught a lesson from the talk entitled "The Character of Christ" given by D. Todd Christofferson, who currently is a counselor in The First Presidency of the church. You can read or watch this talk HERE.

Something that really got me from the talk is the question posed by Peter in The New Testament of the Bible: "What matter of persons ought ye to be?" found in 2 Peter 3:11. When pondering what the answer to that question is, I realized that the answer may seem to be a pretty big responsibility. The answer is to be like Christ and to fill those sandals, it would take a lot. In fact, I think I would fall very short!

The list of Christ's attributes that as Christians we should be striving to possess is very long. He was perfect, after all. I don't know about you, but perfect isn't a word I would ever use to describe myself.

I think the most daunting part of becoming like Jesus is that I often feel like I need to be doing it all, right now. Humans want to get stuff done RIGHT NOW.

The talk later goes on to say what the most important thing I needed to hear about becoming more like Christ:

"Yes, it requires a consistent and sustained effort on our part, but remember, it is not simply a matter of our striving. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we, each of us, can call on the grace of Jesus Christ to help us. With our baptism and confirmation, He promises us the companionship of the Holy Ghost, the messenger of His grace."

The beauty of being a follower of Christ is that He is there to help us become like Him. He also took upon himself all of our imperfections so that we can turn to Him for help to improve. This life is all about "striving" and learning. We won't be perfect throughout the journey but if we rely on His merits, we cannot fail.

This life is all about the journey and I was comforted by this sentence: "For most of us, our mighty change of heart occurs incrementally over time." We are supposed to be changing and becoming better people as we experience and live life. I love that we truly do not have to be perfect right now, we just need to be trying. Big change comes in little movements through time.

If you find yourself struggling with not being where you want to be spiritually, remember you are learning and growing. Don't be too hard on yourself as you strive to be better. We can all get there as we lean on our faith.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for coming to my mini relief society lesson.

S is for Starting...

 What is something you want to start?

I am thinking of this really ambitious thing to start. It is on this very page, existing in cyberspace, an electric spot where I create—where I toy with words.

I think of questions about this: why would I start something so ambitious at the end of summer? Why would a teacher do something so silly? Insane? Ambition is an interesting paradox.

I just Marco Poloed a friend... is that even a real verb? Anyway, I spoke of feeling a bit directionless, a little unambitious, and how I had thought about starting a "post a day" challenge for myself.

I actually started thinking about this two weeks ago, and poof—August is tomorrow (hello from the past, by the way!).

So, here is the ambition... I will get to it... look, a squirrel! Focus Alice!  I want to post here everyday in August.  Each day will have a theme. This isn't something too new, I have done that in the past but I decided to make the words start with the same letter of the day of the week.  Today is Saturday...I don't have a word yet for Saturdays...but for today it is start!  Anyway, each day will be a cool word I found by googling "Cool words begining with" and then the letter of the days of the week, so creative, right? I bet you are now wondering what will be the words, this is so exciting...

Well...you will have to wait until I announce them, but you also are a part of it because you should now start listing cool words that begin with 's', because I will pick a word from the list for Saturday's theme. You can either comment here on this post, or suggest by commenting on my social posts.  So, good luck...may you find some really cool words.

Here is a Haiku about starting:

Baby Steps

So where should I START?

Starting: often the hardest

buh buh baby steps.

Truly, sometimes starting is the hardest part of anything...and here I did it.  Come back tomorrow for more random expressions!

Cheers!

To the Moon and Back...

In Janurary of fifth grade I sat on the rough brown-orange carpet with all the other 5th and 6th graders of Lincoln Elementary School's library floor...

Watching and waiting with Excitement...10,9,8,7...

I was instantly drawn to space in those moments, and the weeks before as my teachers had excitedly explained what was going to happen up there, in space...

6, 5, 4...The excitement was contagious...teachers, peers, and I, anxiously watching.  What would it be like out there in space?...

                                3, 2, 1...Liftoff...

The hopes and dreams of an American people.  This was an exciting mission because it was sending a down to earth non-astronaut into space for the first time.  A teacher, Christa McAuliffe, who was going to do some science experiments in orbit while schoolchildren, like me, would be watching.  Space became real, and possible. 

Hope was rising up inside us all as those rockets propelled the Challenger Space Shuttle higher and higher...

...and then...disaster...

73 seconds... then silence.

The TV was quietly turned off and we were told to go back to class without much explanation.

That event is so vivid in my mind. And space always was something spectacular to me.  In fact, I love to star gaze.  I also am fascinated by the moon.  I often wondered what it was like to see the moon landing on TV years ago.  I love looking at the surface of our lunar neighbor through telescope lenses. And when Challenger exploded, I lost something.

But last week, the whole week, I was like that little girl sitting on the carpet again. This now teacher, is so glad it was spring break and that NASA now has a YouTube channel with live feeds.  I was figuratively in space much of this last week through that video stream coming from thousands upon thousands of miles away. We were going back to the moon.  The fifty year wait was over.  We weren't just going into earth orbit, we were going to deep space.(Not that going to earth orbit isn't amazing or spectacular, because I still find that pretty dang cool.)

Not only were we doing this fantastic thing, but we were doing it with the first African-American Pilot and the first women Mission Specialist. This was history happening right before our eyes...and it was something good instead of the often depressing historic and newsworthy events of today.

Lift off was perfect and I was on the edge of my seat watching with my kids while enjoying our weekly sushi tradition at a local grocery store.  I remember looking at a different table and a young boy and his dad were also watching.  This was incredible!

And the images sent back from Artemis, also incredible:

This wouldn't have  been as special of an event if it was an unmanned spacecraft like happened during The Artemis I  Mission  in 2022.  It was a pivotal mission in preparation for Artemis II and it's four person crew, yet it wasn't as impactful or as newsworthy.  See, the human element is still important and inspirational.  

In her speech at the welcome home event, Astronaut Christina Koch spoke of the importance of a human crew and what it meant to be a crew: "A crew. If people are, you know, a group that is in it all the time, no matter what. That is stroking together every minute with the same purpose, that is willing to sacrifice silently for each other. That gives grace. That holds accountable. A crew has the same cares and the same needs. And a crew is inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked. So, when we saw Tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe... So, I may have not learned, I know I haven't learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there's one new thing I know. And that is Planet Earth, you are a crew."

It truly is amazing when we work together, like the team at NASA from astronauts to engineers, to mission control, the whole team, we can make miraculous things happen.  This mission gives me hope in humanity and that we can do the unthinkable.  

Thank you to this Artemis Crew, and all of NASA, for giving Crew Planet Earth new hope and especially for giving us 10 days of "Moon Joy."

 Artemis II Crew: Jeremy Hansen(Canada),  Christian Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman.

All photos can be found on NASA's website in their image and video library HERE.

Possibility in the Shadows.

 I am often the first to admit that I ride a roller coaster  of emotions. 

The past year has been the six flags of my life. Let's be honest, the last week has been a ride. Coming back from an amazing vacation probably spun me into a bit of sadness. The post vacation letdown is real!

Arizona was dreamy.  I was able to stay in a very gorgeous house owned by a very good friend's sister.  Baseball made me very happy.  Two games in two days was pure bliss.  As I sat on the first baseline for the second game, I remembered something very important.  Doing what you love should always be a good thing.  If somebody sees it as silly or a waste of time, that is their thing to own, not yours.  I won't mention any names because I am really trying to have a heart of forgiveness, but I heard "Sports are stupid" for a time and it threw me into a spiral.  How could something that is so much a part of me and something that has brought me so much joy be stupid or a waste of time.  This something also has paid bills for 24 years of my life.  A passion I have has actually turned into my career.  That isn't silly.  So, I am deciding that not only my love of sports is going to be cultivated in my life, but again anything that brings me joy or happiness is going to be cultivated.

A few weeks ago, the kids and I went with a couple friends to another one of my happy places...

Having a pro hockey team here in Utah is a very cool thing.  I wish I could afford to go more often but the fact that I can get 15 dollar tickets a few times a year is magical. E has truly found a love in hockey and it makes this sporty mom's heart very filled.

Here is a haiku I wrote this morning as I was writing after a bit of contemplation about life.  I actually was sharing the story of Joseph and his brothers from the Old Testament of the Bible with my kiddos after I had done a little reading about the subject.  The church I am a member of, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is reading the Old Testament together and the theme of the week is all about forgiveness.  A really cool video about forgiveness that I watched and was touched by this morning can be found HERE.  Anyway, Joseph was sold into captivity by his brothers, but later in the story forgives them.  Forgiveness is an interesting subject to study and an even more interesting subject to dissect in our own lives.  

I have been carrying a lot of anger in my heart about the situation I currently am facing.  Little things that I would never imagine triggering anger do.  (Like the check engine light that keeps coming on in my car every two months) Being the only adult having to care for the little things around the house(or big things) and in keeping the kiddos afloat in school and extra curricular can feel a bit overwhelming at times.  I am often angry.  I sometimes don't want to have a heart of forgiveness.  I want to hold on to that anger.  There is nothing wrong with being angry, don't get me wrong.  Jesus even was angry outside of the temple as he threw the tables of people selling goods there.  But...there is something that makes us stuck as we hold on to those feelings.

As we decide to give those feelings back to God, I feel that we can then free ourselves from being stuck.  So, I am processing my anger and looking for possibilities.  I am also in a sense looking for myself.  Where is that Alice that existed before the stuck? That is my job to figure out now.  This is my purpose.

Now, here is the haiku, sorry it took a few paragraphs to get to:

Possibility:

sometimes hidden in the shadows;

Cultivate the light.

I took a little searching jaunt through my garden this morning.  We are definitely experiencing spring here, and I noticed quite a bit of possibility.

From new leaves on rose bushes, to sunflower sprouts, to Tiger Lily shoots, to one branch of blossoms on a dying plum tree, to baby leaf buds...my garden is demonstrating possibilities. The spring always gets me to contemplate renewal and brings me a whole lot of hope.  As we approach this Easter Season, may we too find hope and possibility in the ultimate renewal.  There is no coincidence that Easter comes in spring.  The tomb opened bringing hope for eternal life.  Spring is bringing a whole new hope for change and purpose as I weather my storm.  

If you got this far, thanks so much for reading my silly little(or in this case long) posts.  I think I will be starting up a haiku festival on my socials.  I didn't make it though lent this year.  My soul just needed caffeine and chocolate.  I think I will embrace it.  So, journey back over to Facebook or Instagram to join in the fun, or comment here what haiku(s) you would like me to write.