Introduction of sorts

I am a little behind the times on this blog thing but I decided to give it a whirl since my handsome husband is, one of these days, going to turn our extra desktop into a server and create our own family site. I am not sure when that would be but I am getting a head start. Grad students are notorious for not getting around to much outside of school/research.

Which brings me to such things as my username/nickname and my oldest childs nickname. Have you ever seen the movie Rudy? This is where my nickname stems. It is a slightly sad tale but says a little about me. I am a very competitive person. In fact, I love sports and games. I really like winning sports and games. I started playing basketball when I was in about 3rd grade. I went to summer camps often. I played on at least 2 teams a season throughout middle school. I loved the sport. It consumed me. But, as fate would have it, I am horribly undersized for basketball. Well, I am undersized to go anywhere in basketball. My dad played basketball his whole life and he is the one who taught me to play. He is a giant compared to me. He is almost a foot and a half taller than me! So if I wanted to score on him I had to shoot the J from the other side of the street on our home goal so I became a really good shooter. I could shoot a long ball (I had to get it over a man who was 6'4" with his arms up). I really wanted to play in high school, and I did. My sophomore year I played on the JV team but I didn't get much playing time. I was smaller than the other girls and I got into foul trouble all the time because I was a very hot headed kid. I could not understand why I never got to play when I felt that I deserved a shot. One day, I got my shot... the point guard got into foul trouble right before the end of the half with about 34 seconds to go in the half. We had the ball so I go in and in bound the ball and run to my position and receive a pass from my team mate and drain a deep 3! Crowd goes wild... So I get in my defensive position and begin to guard the person who received the inbound pass. We get to about half court and I steal the ball!!! *Cheers abound* I dribble up to the 3 point line and there are just a few seconds left so I take a shot and drain another 3 *more cheers abounding*. Half ends... into the locker room we go. Pats on the back, high fives, congratulations. I was a star for like... 15 seconds or something. We go back out for the 2nd half and I KNEW for sure that I had finally showed my coach that I could do it. I didn't see anymore playing time the rest of the game or much of that season. And that is how my likeness to Rudy was realized and how I got my nickname in high school. Not many people called me this, just a few guys and some girls on my basketball team. I finished out that season and realized I would likely never get anywhere playing basketball and I really disliked my coach that year. So I turned my focus to martial arts and changing my attitude which, as it turns out, is really what I needed to be focusing on.

My older son's nickname has recently, very recently, become Super Muscles. He is three and he says some hilarious stuff. He was carrying his elmo chair from his bedroom to the livingroom and his daddy asked what he was doing and he said "I am using my super muscles to carry my chair Dad!". Okay then! There you have it. So I have been calling him Super Muscles since then.

I do need nicknames for the baby and the daddy though so if anyone has one (you probably need to know them in order to assign one, though I am willing to take all viable suggestions). I think that is all for now... I have to go lay some ownage on another softball team this evening. Hey, I warned you, competitive :).