Bad to the bone in My Unpredictable Life ...

The Child is the one NOT wearing the pink helmet. That picture was taken during her sparring competition.

The tournament was nothing more than a learning experience.

• I learned that I CAN keep my mouth shut; I can prevent myself from going all Redneck Sassy on them people. It was hard, but I did it.

• The Child learned that you win some, you lose some.

• The Child learned that she IS capable of going outside of her comfort zone. Even if that means she loses.

• The Child learned that even though she has come far in the 18 months of studying karate, she still has lots more to learn.

We started our day leaving while it was snowing. Luckily we left early enough that we were able to get ahead of the storm so that we only had about an hour of traveling in it instead of all the way there.

I managed to get Starbucks once we got into the town. That was my winning trophy! lol

We get there, get checked in and find everyone and start the waiting game and warm ups. The tournament finally begins. Her division was finally called up and once they were situated, they were taken to their ring. I immediately became concerned as she was in a group of 7, all boys. Normally, they are in groups of no more than 4, rarely at the most 5. Also, they are always separated into boy groups and girl groups. They have 2 students come before the judges to do their routine and they are scored. Well after the first round of scoring, another judge calls a time out to talk with the 3 judges to let them know that they are doing the scoring wrong, they are supposed to be doing the hand signals but since they have already started with point scoring, to keep on until The Child's group of 7 are done. So they get back to it. She ended up with 8.5, 8.5, 8.3. She placed 6th. Afterwards I went and found her instructor and asked about the group of 7 & with her being with all boys. He said that it was very rare for it to happen. I kept my mouth shut, barely.

Then the weapons round started. Again she was in a group of 7 with 6 boys. The boy she was hand scored with dropped his staff during his routine. He still won the round. I so wanted to run out there and yell "BULLSHIT!!" Especially when 5 boys did a staff routine, she did nunchucks and another boy did sword (he ended up with 1st). She placed 7th.

Immediately after shaking the last judges' hand, she broke out in tears. This is the not-so-fun part of parenting. Her instructor and I finally got her calmed down and I told her to save her feelings for the sparring so that she could get them out in that round.

They finally get around to the sparring. Surprisingly they found another girl her age to spar with. They couldn't find one for her for her form routine & her weapon routine but yet one was conveniently available for sparring? Another "BULLSHIT!!" flag is needed if you ask me! I hunted down her instructor to voice my frustration over this. It was during this conversation when things were suddenly made very clear and it all made sense to me.

The Child is still considered a "beginner" at her belt level. Granted the belt is the highest level of beginner, but a beginner none the less. She decided to challenge herself and compete in the intermediate level instead of the beginner level. Now, had I known this is what she was going to do, I would have stopped her. Not because I didn't have faith in her. No. I'm her biggest fan and cheerleader! I would have stopped her because ... all her routines were beginner routines, not intermediate. So even though she rocked the routines, they were not challenging enough for intermediate level, and therefore cost her the wins. Even if she had competed with girls, she would have still lost at the intermediate level. Had she competed in the beginner level, she would have walked away with 1st for everything.

So once everything made sense, I then had to "pep-talk" myself on how to handle her afterwards.

So then she sparred with the girl. Technically, she lost the round because she didn't score any points. She rocked the blocking but I think she froze because this was the first time she sparred with a stranger, in front of hundreds of people. But because the judges considered them their own sparring group, she walked away with a 2nd place medal.

Proud? Oh goodness, yes, I am so proud of her!! As I told her, I admired her courage to challenge herself by competing at a higher level. I am so proud that she had enough confidence in herself to feel she was ready for the next level. I am so proud that despite the loses, she kept at it (going on to the next competition) and didn't quit. Yes, she had a moment of tears, but hell adults do the same damn thing so how do you expect a hormonal 12 year old girl to not do it also?

But the main lesson she learned is that you can't compete at intermediate level with beginner routines. She's already told Master Scott she is ready to learn some new routines. Here she is with him after getting her medal.

Yes, Hubby is still alive. But only because I have slept. It was a close call Thursday night. Very close. I was tempted to put him out of his misery that night with his own pillow. But lucky for him the sleeping pill finally kicked in [read: allowed me to sleep through his coughing and hacking] and I slept 9 hours straight without waking up. God my body needed that! Of course I was pissed because I had a shit ton of stuff to do on Friday and waking up at 12:30 in the afternoon did not help my To Do list at all. But I got everything done eventually.

Saturday night I was falling asleep in my chair at 9pm. I dozed off and on for about an hour and finally forced myself to get up and go to bed. I took my meds, complete with another sleeping pill and it finally kicked in around 10:30. I woke at 11 am on Sunday. We, technically 10 without the time change. But still, almost 12 hours of sleep. Hard, deep sleep. Why can't my bladder go more than 3 hours without having to pee any other time?

Next time y'all want to think to yourselves, "That Sassy, she has some crazy-ass issues!" how about do me a favor and look out your windows. That damn Mother Nature, she has some serious bitchy issues! We got an inch of snow Saturday morning (luckily we were gone for it). We reached mid 50's that afternoon. We were high 60's Sunday. We reached 76ºF on Monday. Tuesday we will reach 60 with a cold front moving in with high winds and rain, switching over to snow. Then back into the 60's on Wednesday. Bitch needs bipolar meds, or something!

And how come, I finally, finally get my bones warmed back up and the friggin' hot flashes and night sweats want to go into overdrive? What the hell, body??!?!! I taken effin' medication to prevent that shit! Work damnit, work!

Speaking of work ... ah hell, never mind ... damnit! okay, okay, I'll go ahead and mention it.

ring ring

"fuuuucccckkkkkkk!"

"Hello."

"Sassy, hey were you busy?"

"Just fixing to eat dinner with my family. What's up?"

"I know you are usually pretty good about leaving notes but I thought I would call you anyway, just in case. Have you given out any pillows lately?"

"No Ma'am."

"Not even to rooms 315, 319, 321 or 323?"

"No Ma'am."

"Okay, well I was just checking in case maybe they came down in the middle of the night or something for them."

"No Ma'am. I only saw them when I checked 315 & 323 in on Monday night and then I left Tuesday morning and hadn't been back till last night and all but 321 checked out yesterday morning. So if they were given pillows, it wasn't by me since I haven't even been there."

"Well, I asked everyone else but they all said they didn't so I thought I would check with you just in case."

"Well either the guest stole them or someone gave them to the guest without writing a note. Guess you'll have to review all the security footage to see if someone is not telling the truth."

"Okay, well enjoy your dinner. I'll see you next week."

"Actually I work tonight so if you come in before I leave, I'll see you in the morning."

"That's right. Okay, well I'll see you in the morning then."

Ha! I won't see her before I leave. I'm not stupid.

When I came in Shelia said that Tami & Joleen worked till 6pm and that Bill left at 7pm. She said it was stressful. She also said that Bill yelled at her, but then changed it to that he fussed at her because she asked a couple to fill out 2 check in forms. I just looked at her and said, "Well yeah. If it is a married couple, you only need one form. If it is 2 males or 2 females then that is when you need 2 forms. But you knew that already because mainly it is common sense." So I guess you can say I "fussed" at her too! LOL

Tami managed to get Jimena to work audit shift this past Friday night, even though Jimena had said she could only work 3 - 8pm. Tami only had to work Saturday night audit, since she didn't ask me and I didn't volunteer. I still say Tami should have made Shelia work Fri since Shelia only requested Sat & Sun off, not Fri. But that's just me. I guess I am the only one who thinks that since Tami is the manager, and if we ALL want to keep our jobs, we will work what she schedules us to work. I also feel that Tami needs to grow some balls, even if they are only ping-pong size, and assert her manager authority to everyone else and not just me. But whatever. It is what it is. She'll learn eventually.

Alright, I'm shutting up now. Till next time ....