Friday, March 21, 2008

Let the MADNESS begin

March Madness, what a glorious event. Check out last year's post, about this same time, for more information on our family's philosophy on this topic.

My philosophy for bracket selections has not changed, especially since I watched even fewer regular season games this year. DU Blue Devils all the way, and as many TN as possible going as far as practical (regardless of silly things like records or rankings). With 5 (yes FIVE) teams from the wonderful state of TN including an amazing year for my Volunteers, and Duke with a number 2 seed I actually had one bracket with 3 teams from TN and Duke in the final four. How wonderful would that be? Not likely (especially since this includes Vandy), but that is what makes this tournament so much fun. Anything can happen.

For our family challenge, I was a little (only slightly) more conservative.
I have TN (over UNC), Georgetown (over Kansas), Duke (over UCLA) and Memphis (over TX). For one of the first times in as long as I can remember, this elite 8 is actually all 1 and 2 seeds. We'll see how that works for me.


What are your picks?

Thursday, March 6, 2008

What's in a name?

For the few of you that have been faithful DRRF readers from its beginnings you will remember that this is actually the second home to my blog. The first and original blog was deleted (see explanation here) and with that I realize that I lost the explanation as to how my blog got its name Deep Rolling Right Field. Since it is a rainy Thursday, I'm not up for much deep thought and I'm still mourning the fact that the memory card on my camera with some super cute pictures of my boys decided to rewrite (read- unwrite) itself, I decided this might be a fun and easy post.


I played softball for years. Actually, I was on softball teams for years and was always pretty terrible. I sure tried hard, but it just was not my passion nor my skill set. Lets just say hand eye coordination was not something the Lord chose to bless me with, even to this day I struggle with clumsiness thanks to my eyes/brain not communicating with my hands. As a result, I was typically assigned to a position on the field that I have since dubbed "deep rolling right field"...way, way, way out there where you can't do a lot of harm. A great place for thinking, watching the game, and on rare occasion fielding a dribbling ball that slipped past the infielders. I have some great memories from my days in my tight knicker-like pants, pounding my glove, chanting for my team-mates and basically watching the game.


These days my life is about as far as I could get from deep rolling right field. Its busy, I'm caught in the action and my teammates (especially RRL, KJ, and C) depend on the fact that I'm actually in the game ALL THE TIME. So I created this blogspot to step back into my little quiet place of observation. Every now and then I like to pause, reflect, and share. Because these thoughts are about the game I'm currently observing, you are likely to mostly see stories about my little boys, my life as a minister's wife and occasionally some thoughts about the bigger world around me. All of the thoughts come through the lens of where I stand right now: in my role as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a part-time employee, and especially as someone anticipating the Lord's return. I find that these moments I spend writing about my family and reflecting on my life tend to bring me to a place of thanksgiving and pure delight. The Lord has richly blessed me. That by no means should indicate to you that I've got it all figured out or that my life is easy (heavens, I have two boys under 2). In fact, quite the opposite is true. My life often feels like it is spinning out of control. Here, though, I can reflect on the good and rich life that the Lord has placed me in. From this position on the field, I'd say this is a pretty sweet game I'm getting to play!


So there you have it, DEEP ROLLING RIGHT FIELD defined. As a glimpse of what you'll continue to see on this small piece of the world wide web, I'll leave you with this:


I love putting similar pictures of KJ side-by-side to see his development. He has always loved books and I love these two photos:



ABL