If I could do this and this all day, every day, I would be in heaven.

Both Jake and James’ moms have expressed to me the sadness they feel that their boys are graduating this year. It’s a heart wrenching event no matter how much you prepare yourself ahead of time. We spend 18 years helping our children become adults and then once they cross the milestone, we mourn its passing.

How do we let go after being responsible for every detail of our children’s lives? How do they function in this world when we aren’t there to tell them to take their vitamins and to make sure their homework is done.

Both Jake and James are exceptional kids young men but I feel and share the pain their moms are experiencing.

Having covered high school sports for six months now, I will admit to shedding a few tears when these boys played their last high school football game. The team won’t be the same next year without them. And then next year I’ll grow attached to the new group of seniors and we’ll do it all over again.

This would all be so much easier if things could just stay the same. I know at least two other moms who would agree.

Are you having a crappy day???

Click here and go read what my friend Jeff just posted on his site.

Trust me.You’re gonna laugh.

After a $700 BILLION DOLLAR bail out (which I opposed), I read this from the Washington Post:

AIG has issued a clarification to the report that its executives enjoyed a luxury hotel stay a week after the federal government threw them an $85 billion lifeline.

The gathering was a previously planned reward for life insurance agents, a spokesman for the company said, and fewer than 10 AIG executives were present.

“It’s a common practice among large life insurance companies in the U.S. to reward their top business producers,” the spokesman, Peter Tulupman, said.

Asked about the outrage at a House Oversight committee over the visit, Tulupman said, “I’m not debating where they’re coming from. I just want to be clear about what it is.”

He declined to say who was staying in the $1,600 rooms, but said he would look for a list of the executives who were present.

–Peter Whoriskey

You’re kidding me, right? These executives should be scrubbing toilets for their mismanagement and instead they are being rewarded. It was a $440,000 vacation complete with luxury spa treatments!

My head is going to explode.

I think AIG stands for “America is Gullible”.

This blog could easily turn into a sports blog because all I ever do lately is watch my children play in sporting events or cover sporting events for work.

Last week was incredibly sportsy with junior high football games, varsity football games, varsity volleyball games and cross country.

Thank God my editor threw in an Apple Festival, a school play and a Teacher of the Year ceremony because otherwise all the stats and scores would have consumed my life and given me a sportscussion.

One good thing did come of covering all the events… I finally figured out how to adjust my camera to shoot action! I’ve stuck to the action setting on my Nikon D70 with poor results. Despite borrowing an external flash from a friend (Thank you, Tammy!) I was getting ghosting and extreme graininess from the high ISO I was forced to use:

Instead, I got brave enough and desperate enough to switch to a manual setting. I set my camera to Shutter Priority, 1000 ISO and adjusted the white balance to flash +3. Now my shots are turning out crisp:

This discovery is like receiving a Christmas present from Oprah Winfrey.

When I’m not working on this blog, I’m working over here and here.

And I recently set this up, too.

Our school’s sports teams should feel very loved.