Oh my goodness...the end of October is here and I can't believe it. Summer camp ended the second week of August and we seamlessly flowed right into volleyball (like the Monday after). I coached a 7th grade team out of Carroll. They were pretty fun group of girls. This was my 3rd year of coaching. The first year I coached a 6th grade team out of Delphi. Those girls knew nothing and at least we won a game during our season! ;-) After that season, I got "recruited" by the head coach at Carroll to come coach his 8th grade team that, in his words, would be lucky to win a game. They weren't the most talented of teams but there wasn't much drama and they had pretty good attitudes. So between those two teams, we had 5 wins and an unknown number of losses. I shifted down to 7th grade this season and I had a group of kids who had played some club ball and had talent. They were also probably some of the squirreliest kids too. Lots of head shaking, shoulder shrugging, and times I just went, "I don't know" went right along with times of great joy and pride in how they handled tough situations. 7th grade is definitely a hard time in life. It was definitely one of the hardest years of my life growing up. Kids are trying to find themselves, handle their peers, handle disappointment and challenges. I had to bench some players, deal with some poor attitudes, and handle parents who were, well, interesting. But despite all of that we did well! We won 2 tournaments and ended up 15-2 on the season. It was a long season, lasting till the middle of October. There were games we cruised to victory, ones we eeked out despite playing poorly, and then those 2 pesky games where we were simply outplayed by better, much taller, kids. And boy was I glad when it was over.
Unfortunately throughout most of this fall I was dealing with being sick for a majority of the time. Right after labor day up until a week or so ago I was dealing with a persistent cough. First I started off feeling fine and just had dry coughing fits now and then until a week or two later I was really starting to feel the strain of it. Being woke up in the middle of the night, coughing so hard my ribs hurt, and just feeling poorly until finally after a month of this I went to urgent care, was diagnosed with tracheobronchitis, and given a host of medicines and an inhaler to deal with the wheezing. I tried to hide not feeling well from others. I tried to not complain about it via facebook or anything else. But due to not feeling or sleeping well, I found myself being, well, quite pissy about anything and everything and wanting everyone to leave me alone, not by telling them but by not being in a good mood. And I didn't want to fake being in a good mood either. I was content being in a bad mood because I felt bad. But the whole point of this is not about what I just said, but that I had the realization midway through this that 1) there are people out there who are feeling much worse and for much longer 2) their illness wasn't guaranteed to go away and 3) their attitude was much better than mine. Could I have their same attitude in their situation? I don't know really. I'm thankful now to feel much better (minus the ribs...no confirmation but I wouldn't be surprised if one had been cracked from the force of the coughing). I'm thankful to be able to run now after not doing so since early September. I'm thankful for health and strength. I hope if the situation were to ever arise, and I surely hope it doesn't, that my attitude would be so much better, so much more positive, and with much less grumpiness. My situation was no where near what some people go through for months and years. So lesson learned. I got it. Glad it's over. :-P Now to enjoy my favorite season of the year!!!
Oh my goodness...the end of October is here and I can't believe it. Summer camp ended the second week of August and we seamlessly flowed right into volleyball (like the Monday after). I coached a 7th grade team out of Carroll. They were pretty fun group of girls. This was my 3rd year of coaching. The first year I coached a 6th grade team out of Delphi. Those girls knew nothing and at least we won a game during our season! ;-) After that season, I got "recruited" by the head coach at Carroll to come coach his 8th grade team that, in his words, would be lucky to win a game. They weren't the most talented of teams but there wasn't much drama and they had pretty good attitudes. So between those two teams, we had 5 wins and an unknown number of losses. I shifted down to 7th grade this season and I had a group of kids who had played some club ball and had talent. They were also probably some of the squirreliest kids too. Lots of head shaking, shoulder shrugging, and times I just went, "I don't know" went right along with times of great joy and pride in how they handled tough situations. 7th grade is definitely a hard time in life. It was definitely one of the hardest years of my life growing up. Kids are trying to find themselves, handle their peers, handle disappointment and challenges. I had to bench some players, deal with some poor attitudes, and handle parents who were, well, interesting. But despite all of that we did well! We won 2 tournaments and ended up 15-2 on the season. It was a long season, lasting till the middle of October. There were games we cruised to victory, ones we eeked out despite playing poorly, and then those 2 pesky games where we were simply outplayed by better, much taller, kids. And boy was I glad when it was over.
