Football Night in Tennessee

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Last Friday night was the home opener for The King's Academy High School football team.


My boy? #51. Edison plays center and defensive line.


A bit of holding, perhaps?


They lost to Cosby, 41-14.  Tonight they play Tri-Cities.  Local sports guys are split on who will win.  Edison thinks that TKA will.  I'll go with my boy.



He's one of the captains of the team this year.  He says, "Dad, I'm one of four seniors.  We're all captains and I'll be a captain all year long."  I'm still proud of him.  His play is tough and his encouragement, both on and off the field, is one of kindness and help.  He's at every practice when he's in town and would be in on every play if the coaches would let him.  He's out there most of the time, except when he needs a breather.

This is what I'll be doing on Friday nights this semester.  And I wouldn't want it any other way.

images courtesy of my sister-in-law, Lori Higgins

1993 Leland's Auction Catalog

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I was at Central Street Books (facebook link) in KnoxVegas and found this gem for a dollar. The proprietor, wanting to clear cruft out of his shop, sold it for fifty cents. A winner is me.


There are quite a few uniforms, signed balls, even Pete Rose's Rolls Royce.  Say that three times fast.

I like the Ruth poster and the mechanical bank.

One of the things that I like about this catalog is the way that the group photos were taken. Sure, I only give you one example.

How did it turn out?  Here are some newspaper articles describing the auction results.

Beaver County Times - February 21, 1993

The Sunday Gazette - February 21, 1993

Ah, to have lived in the early 1990s with a boatload of cash.  I could be driving a Silver Wraith now.

Recent Stuff

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1989 Score
Kevin Bass (card # 226)

I've been a bit busy as of late.  Things are good, just busy.

 
A few weeks back Nick, over at Dime Boxes, shared that he plays bass.  Another meaning to the "low-end   baseball card collector".  I've played bass since 1976.  One of the things that's kept me busy this last week is that I was asked to play bass on a recording session.

Well, I was asked several months ago, the session was last week.  A good friend of mine, Rick, wrote some lullabies and wanted to record them.  He's from Miami Beach and traveled up to KnoxVegas to record.  It went well.  I met Rick some 20 years ago.  We played in various praise bands and garage bands.  Well, a bit more than garage bands.  We actually did several gigs.  Respectable gigs.  But that was then.  This week our families have been catching up.

Fantasy football is in swing.  Not full swing, just swing.  David, from Tribe Cards, beat me in week one.  Darn his Baltimore defense.

I recently passed the 750 posts on this blog.  There have been a rash of contests so I figured, "Why not have one of my own?"  It has been a while since I've hosted a contest.  So, here's the deal.  No pimping.  If I find out you've pimped this thing I'll visit you and rip out your ethernet cable.

To enter, leave a comment on which MLB team will commit the 500,000th error.  You can only enter once. Each team can only be selected once.  That means a maximum of 30 entries.  Yeah, I know.  Too many numbers.

It is estimated that the 500,000th error will be committed on Saturday.  So, the contest closes on Friday.  The prize?  I don't know.  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.  Wait, that's for weddings.  I really don't know.  It will be something.

If you guess which player makes that error, I'll toss in something very, very special.  Again, I don't know what it will be.  You've got to trust me on this.


You do trust bass players, don't you?

A Blast from my Past

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And yours, too, if you were reading blogs a year ago.

Greg, the Beard from The Mojo Beard and I were chatting the other night.  He's sort of dropped out of the card blogging scene.  Okay, no sort of.  He's out, but his name and legend of designing cards live in our minds.

He hasn't blogged in ages but he's still involved with cards.  He is assisting Ryan, of the defunct Card Cache blog, to bring Viceroy Cards to life.

Viceroy Cards' first release is a sketch card set, Cryptids, based on cryptozoology.  You know, the study of and search for animals and especially legendary animals (as Sasquatch) usually in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence.


I've been interested in mythical creatures. Not enough to be a member of the International Cryptozoology Museum.  But I grew up in the Champlain Valley, on the western shore of Champ's watery home.  I don't know if Champ is specifically portrayed in this set or not.

Let's look at some of the cards.

Bruce Gerlach, artist

Now why didn't I have access to this card during Gint-A-Cuffs III?

Autumn Frederickson, artist

I guess that evolutionary process determined that the trout needed fur?

Beck Seashols, artist

And now we know how the chupacabra works.

These cards are a limited run.  Each one is truly a 1 of 1.  There is one sketch card per pack, plus a "surprise" or two.  The sketch cards come in a 100 pt magnetic holder. All cards in this set are the standard 2-1/2" x 3-1/2" in size.

From everything I've seen, they are a nice set of cards. They don't ship until September 25 but you can pre-order them now.

It is nice to see something fresh in the card market.  If you want to own some art, head over to Viceroy Cards and order up a pack or two.

We have a winner!

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In honor of my 750th post I subtly announced a contest. Since no one guessed that the Marlins would be the team to commit the 500,000th error in MLB I figured that I'd better randomize the contestants. Full disclosure: entrant Steve is my brother. He didn't win. No harm, no foul.So, into the randomizer the contestants went.


buckstorecards is the big winner.  Congrats.  Contact me with your address and I'll pop your prize in the mail.

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for playing.  Thanks to Jose Reyes for committing the big error.

Thanksgiving Marks the Beginning of a New Chapter

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After running 13.1 miles. I did it!

My gratitude list for Thanksgiving is long this year! Allthe hard work, determination and persistence has paid off:
I ran the Women´s Half Marathon in St. Pete, FL. on Sunday November20, and finished in 2.5 hours despite running it with an injury. It was one ofthe most emotional, satisfying and validating experiences in my life, and I’vehad a few …
I sold my book Diariodel éxito (Success Diaries), based on my blog. It will be released inSpanish in 2012.
I became the Guide (writer and editor) of Consejos de mamá on About.com, ofthe NY Times. The site is doing really well and I will continue to run it. 
I was contributing writer for Mamiverse, the online hub for Latina momsand their daughters and was able to write and publish in English articles thatwere heartfelt and reached and helped a lot of readers. I thank my editorSylvia Martinez for being so easy to work with and so much fun to talk to. I will continue to support her and Rene Alegría, founder of Mamiverse. 

With Emilio Sánchez, at VOXXI

And, most recently (yesterday) I accepted the position asmanaging editor of the Women’s Lifestyle section on VOXXI, the Hispanic Voice of the 21^stCentury, leadered by Emilio Sánchez, former Bureau Chief of the news agency EFEin Miami. It is an exciting project in which I will design, create and managethe content for Latina women in English. I will also do my own writing. I could never give that up! I will give VOXXI my all, as I do withevery challenge I take on, and I hope you will follow me there, as well as thewriters and bloggers I will manage on that site.
I am very thankful to all of you who have followed this blogsince the very beginning. It is time for me to close this (blogging) chapter of my lifeand career and invite you to join me on the next one at VOXXI. I will not have the time or energy to devote to writing on multiple sites, but my content on VOXXI will continue to be heartfelt and real. 
I am grateful, and I continue to write a gratitude listdaily and suggest you do too. It’s been a trip -a difficult but rewarding one-and I know its not over. Not till the day I die.
Happy Thanksgiving!

If you enjoy this blog, follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Lorraine C. Ladish is the author of 16 books and an expert Latina mom, now also the managing editor of the Women´s Lifestyle section at VOXXI.

Noah's first tooth and bath time!

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Noah got his first tooth!!! 
Noah had a fever all Memorial Day weekend.  The doctor wouldn't see him because he had no other symptoms.  The poor guy was miserable.  We ended up taking him to the ER Sunday night because he was uncontrollably crying and had a high fever; they said it was a lingering cold.  Everyone kept saying, "maybe he's teething"  Well, I've heard "maybe he's teething" every single time he got a fever and Noah never got a tooth.  He's always chewing on things, not drooling so I passed it off.  I wasn't sure if Noah was ever going to get teeth!  Then on Memorial Day the tiny little nub of a tooth poke through!  It's only been a week and I can already see the whole top of his tooth.  Poor guy's gums are red and look sore but he's been a trooper since that weekend.  I want to get a picture, but his tongue is always in the way and he does not like you to pick it up to look at his gums, thank you very much!  So someday soon I'll get a picture hopefully!

TJ loves Noah so much.  He is always hugging him and kissing him and asking where he is.  And now that Noah can sit up really well on his own, we are able to allow TJ to take baths with Noah.  (Also a good lure to get TJ to want to take a bath!)  They were so cute the other day I had to take pics!

I'm sorry but these two are just too cute!

Look at that smile!

TJ loves hugging his baby brother

And kissing him!

Noah loves it too!

OMG, how precious!

Love

Having fun!

More hugs!

"Yeah Noah!!"

Love this picture

Look at those smiles!

Love them!

Yep, more really cute pictures!

TJ's a good big brother!

Had to add daddy and Noah taking naps!
 Notice Noah's left sock off, he pulls just that one off all the time!

Noah and Ben; at it again!

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Yesterday we had a fun day at the beach with Laura, Ben and Colin.  It was a perfect 80 degree day with a breeze and good shade!  Ben was so impressive, crawling around on his hands and feet!  I'm hoping Noah is right behind him with that milestone!  Colin loved playing in the sand and as a typical boy, getting wet then rolling in it!  Noah enjoyed watching Ben and Colin romp around.  We put both boys at waters edge and once the water rolled up to Noah, he was not happy!  I tried to ease him into it by dipping his toes in the water but he did not like it.  So we sat in the sand at a safe distance from the water and enjoyed the sunny day and good company!

Not happy!  Cold water!

Safely away from the water!

Cute little boy!

Noah, Ben and Colin

Yep, these two are gonna be trouble makers!!

Pulling to kneel

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Noah has recently started to pull himself up to kneel!  It's great!  And now that he knows how to do it, he does it all the time whether to an activity table, in his crib, in the bath or on me!  I love it!  I am working with helping him go from kneeling to stand when he is in that position and he does it pretty good, except he stands on his tippy toes!

Pulling up to kneel on his crib and TJ played along

Grandma had Noah standing, which he loves, to play

Kneeling at his activity table

  

Kneeling in tub.  He also loves to be on his belly in the tub now!

How cute is he?!

Noah wanted some of my Chipoltes!

Noah is a Mac-y, just like me!
I have to bribe him with this Ipad when I'm working on my Mac!

One thing about Noah now being able to pull himself up to kneel, he falls sideways sometimes.  He's getting better at it but last week I think he had three "Incident Reports" from daycare because he fell over and banged his head on something!  Poor little guy!

Noah still "army" crawls, which means he uses his hands and pushes with his feet on the ground.  He used to go to his hands and feet a lot so I thought he might start crawling like that but since he's learned to kneel, he has stopped doing that.  The teachers at Noah's daycare though did report that they saw him on his hands and knees and shuffle his knees forward a little like he was trying to crawl!  I haven't seen it yet.  However the good thing about Noah pulling himself up to the kneeling position is that he does have to shuffle his knees to get closer to whatever object he's pulled himself up to; it's teaching him that alternating motion.  So maybe he will crawl?!

Glasses

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What is the common theme in these pictures?







Well, the title should give it away, but Noah is not wearing his glasses!  He found them on his face and he does not want them there!!  I put them on, he takes them off.  I put them on, he takes them off.  Over and over and over.  He has miraflex glasses currently and at first Noah didn't care about them and they were fine.  And I feel his development really progressed after he got them.  He could see!  But now they are too close to his face; a lot of the time they are smushed up against his eyeballs!  They aren't made for a baby with Down syndrome.  Perfect for babies but Noah has a flat bridge to his nose and a wide face.  Because the glasses are plastic, you can only do so much with them.  Why don't they have nose pads?  Or an option to add them?  They just aren't working anymore.  Oh, I feel they also pull his ear down.
So, we are in the process of getting Spec4Us glasses.  These are glasses that are specifically designed for children with Down syndrome.  They are wider and have nose pads, but they are also metal so they aren't as durable as miraflex.  We have gone twice to try them on because the first time Noah still wanted to sleep and was not happy.  The second time was better, although he will still threw them off as soon as we got them on. We had a concern because Noah has such a flat bridge to his nose that the pads are very close to his eyeballs and one wrong move and they'd be in there, so they are going to order us a nose strap, which is great!  My other concern is they are so wide, wider than Noah's face!  But they can adjust that too.  They will also replace the back of the glasses with plastic "hooks" basically that make them go around his ears and then will add a strap to that.  The strap is different than the miraflex one, which is just fabric.  I guess these ones are more like fishing line with a really strong magnet that attaches them and makes them adjustable.  
They are going to order all of this for us plus a couple pair of glasses in his sizes and colors we like and we'll see how it all works out. It may be a few weeks but I'll post them once we figure it all out!