Elena 
Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary
1. So you might be wondering why the wedding cake in my template? Well… because at the end of this week my baby sister is getting married to a very nice man and we are all participating in the wedding!
2. I was the maid of honor in her first wedding over 30 years ago. She has asked me to be her witness, or Matron of Honor this time. I was cool with it. We were going to just sit in the front pew and then when Father P. comes out to say the mass we would just stand up when it was time to do the vows. But a week or so ago it occurred to Sis that Rosie is just the right age to be a flower girl and so she asked her to be in the wedding too. And of course to get the whole flower girl experience, you HAVE TO PROCESS in from the vestibule to the front of the church. Which means that at age 53, I too will have to process from the back of the church to the front.
I am one of the wedding rehearsal coordinators at church. I stand back there many weeks and tell these beautiful young bridesmaids not to be nervous and to just walk forward in the procession and smile. And now it’s my turn. Again. After at least 25 years since my last stint as a brides maid.
Tell me how God doesn’t have a sense of humor? or maybe this is poetic justice – an attempt to invoke more empathy in me for these nervous brides maids?
3. But it should be a lovely family wedding. Sam is going to be playing 20 minutes of prelude music on his guitar. Mr. Pete is singing a solo and the Psalm response. It should be lovely. Izzy is also making 30 cupcakes with a fall theme for the rehearsal dinner. So we have lots to do!
4. With that in mind, I wonder if I can postpone starting school one more week?
5. Saturday Soccer Started!! Which means Mr. Pete was out at the field for three nights trying to lay out the four soccer fields. It takes a lot of measuring and marking. He uses a laser light to lay down the straight lines. I helped him a little bit by moving the tape measure wherever he told me to take it. I will say that the pythagorean theorem is most helpful in setting up the field so that it is a rectangle as opposed to a parallelogram. So if your kids ever ask you why they need to learn it – here’s one reason!
6. Gabe started reffing last week. He has made really good money – it’s $28 per game which isn’t bad for one hour of work for a 17-year-old! Readers might remember I had a problem getting him qualified to ref but once we got that handled we thought he would be good to go – as long as he flew under the radar and didn’t draw attention to himself.
Well last week Gabe had the misfortune of reffing a game where one of the parents is like “one of the best” refs in the area – or so I’m told. And he had some problems with Gabe’s technique – but mostly with Gabe’s wardrobe. And instead of just coming up to Gabe about it after the game he went right to Gabe’s superiors which let loose another round of tension and apologies and overall crapola.
One of their problems was they did not like Gabe’s shoes. Ref shoes need to be black. Black shoes in a size 13 are very hard to come by which is why the white shoes he has been wearing to play in for two years were purchased on eBay! I was able to finally find a pair of size 13 black shoes at Dicks’s sporting goods and paid $100 for it – half of which I got from Gabe.
Gabe did go over the helpful videos on the United States Soccer site which were very helpful and also reviewed the Rules of the Game. He’s keeping his hat at home too so hopefully he will be in full compliance and they will be happy with his reffing abilities.
My word for the entire incident is AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!
7. Some soccer pics from yesterday!
