turkey time

Mmm...this time of year is the best! Homemade Grandma Rhea rolls, spinach casserole, yams--with lots and lots of brown sugar and marshmallows, mashed potatoes with a divot in the center to place your corn in, turkey, and pumpkin pie (made ONLY from Libby's pumpkin mix of course)...how delightful. Well only if you don't coach a collegiate sport.

You see, I can't remember the last time that I had Thanksgiving with my family. For some reason, the Big Sky Conference thinks it's best to play the conference tournament over Thanksgiving weekend. Why you ask? Umm...it must be the cheap airfare (at $417 each which includes flying only to Boise on the way back and then having our Weber State bus pick us up and drive us the additional five hours home). Couldn't be. Then maybe it is because they like to make sure that all of the Big Sky Conference employees have to give up their time with their families too? Who knows! But it stinks.

Now on the other hand, I am SOOO happy to be playing this weekend. It is my livelihood. It is how I pay the bills. I actually get paid to be around a sport I love! It is how I am able to spend the majority of the day buying jeans, shoes, and other non-necessary items online. Or how I'm able to blog. Or go to the dentist in the middle of the day. Or how I can come into the office whenever I feel it is appropriate--to make up for all of the Saturdays and Sundays that I spend working or traveling. But, it is also something that I love to do. For the most part, I love the girls that I'm around on a daily basis--don't get me wrong, there are days when I swear that I am going to quit and go into something that pays more or allows me to explore the world as I please between the months of August and December. But overall, I do love my job. It is the perfect balance between working hard and hardly working!

And that's why I will be spending my Thanksgiving day in an airplane headed to Portland, Oregon. And in the gym at practice from 12:00-1:00pm that day. And why I will be eating turkey (minus the homemade rolls, spinach casserole, and pie) in the Black Angus Steakhouse in Vancouver, Washington. And why I will go to bed praying that we will play like we are capable of so that we can put together 2 days of good enough volleyball that will give us all something to be thankful for--and a ring to prove it!