Proud Mom Soapbox

This past weekend, our marching band competed at its last event of the year; the Michigan Competing Band Association's State Championship.  It marks the end of a very long season, which technically began last May.  44 bands competed in 4 different sets of finals.  Each flight is based on high school size so that similar schools are competing against each other.

 For the 6th year in a row, our band took 1st place!  Yay band!  All 3 of my kids have played in this band during the past 6 years and have experienced the thrill of winning.  However, my oldest was also in this band when they didn't win.  Her freshman year, we took second place to our biggest rival by 5/100's of a point.  It didn't kill her or anyone else in the band for that matter.  It was a good life lesson, in fact. 

Sitting in the stands at Ford Field in Detroit this past Saturday, I was once again reminded how petty and small-minded people can be.  Bitter parents form non-winning schools are very vocal when it comes to their criticism of our band, simply because we have a history of winning a lot.  "They have a lot of money for props and uniforms" was one of the things I heard mentioned a lot. (which is totally untrue!)  "They should just make them stop competing, give our kids a chance to win" was another comment I heard.  As a band parent who's been at both ends of the spectrum, I can identify with some of their complaints.  Its not fair that there can't be 11 first place winners, but thats just the way life works.  Every single student on the field works hard, and puts a lot of time into their practices.  Every one of them.  Our band director is always stressing that we aren't striving to win, but to give the best performance they can.  If they do their best, that's all he can ask of them.  I've known this man for most of my life, but in the capacity of a band director, I've known him for 7 years.  Not once have I heard him say, "Let's go out there and win!"  He has always encouraged the band members and band parents alike to be gracious in winning or losing. 

99% of the parents in our organization are always very gracious to other bands and their parents, offering praise for jobs well done, giving compliments on their shows and music.  But I've gotta tell you that isn't the case for most of the other bands in attendance.  One band mom from another school was once so upset about our winning that she slugged one of our band moms while this mom was washing her hands in the bathroom.  What kind of message is that sending to our kids?  It makes me almost fearful of wearing my school sweatshirt in public.  After the show Saturday, my family went to a restaurant (while I rode the bus with the kids) and they were treated poorly by parents from other bands.  Dirty looks and all. 

Its just band, people.  And winning isn't everything.  No where on any college application will any of this matter.  What really matters it that kids learn the value of hard work, and that striving for something as a team creates a work ethic that will serve them well throughout their lives. 

For right now though, I'm going to play the role of proud band mom and post a picture. 

I'm proud of ALL of our band students.  They are a great group of kids!

Harvest

I found myself with some unexpected time off of work today so I decided to pay a visit to The Big Garden.  I brought containers to haul home whatever was ready to be picked... the last time I went, I didn't have enough carrying devices.  I had an hour and a half to pick the ripe tomatoes, and whatever else was ripe. 

I ended up staying there two and a half hours, which made me late for a good-bye party.  But I was on a roll!

I picked one watermelon which may or may not be ripe.  I'll know later.  About a month ago I picked one that wasn't even pink inside.  The limits of my patience were really tested with this watermelon...its one of the reasons I had a garden in the first place.

And then I picked tomatoes.  Gobs and gobs of tomatoes.  You should see the ones I didn't bring home;  my harvest would have doubled in size.  Many were unusable because in my stupidity  lack of judgement, I failed to properly stake my plants, and tomatoes were growing all over the ground.  And it seems if they're on the ground, something has burrowed into the fruit, making mushy, icky, nasty spots.  And then there were the ones that were so ripe that they cracked or were rotten, still hanging on the vine. 

What you can't see are the tomatoes I picked on Sunday.  There are just as many as this on my back deck.  Plus I've given some away, and made salsa.  My God!  What did I expect with 50 tomato plants!?!

After the tomatoes, I picked some eggplants, squash, and peppers.  I must say that it was really hard to see some of the ripe stuff because my garden is a hot mess.  There are weeds taking over everything, and since this is an organic garden, I can't use weed killer.  My brilliant idea of using newspaper under mulch to keep the weeds at bay didn't succeed.  At least not long term.

The basil was almost ready to bloom so I knew I had to get that picked.  The problem is cleaning all that basil.  Plus I have so much more that needs to be gathered.  I'm gonna have enough pesto for the neighborhood!

Finally, I decided to dig up half of my potatoes.  The plants have almost all died so they're good to go.  It wouldn't hurt to leave them in the ground another week I suppose, but I'm nosy and impatient.  Digging up potatoes is like digging for buried treasure.  Seriously!

20 lbs of potatoes

I weighed one of those containers of tomatoes (the styrofoam one) and that alone weighed 25 lbs.  There are hundreds of tomatoes still on the vines, still green.  I may, at some point, have to abandon them due to tomato overload. 

Last week I picked all of my onions.  Here they are drying on my back deck.

I can't seem to do anything in reasonable quantities.  Maybe I'm a little obsessive? There are more on some chairs that aren't in the picture.  (she said, sheepishly)

If you've been reading about my garden from the beginning, you may remember Peggy.  She was my crabby garden neighbor.  I feel I must take back what I said about her because last Sunday, when my son and I were picking stuff, Peggy told me that there were strangers in my garden helping themselves to some produce.  Interlopers!!  She told them that it wasn't very nice to help themselves and that had I put a lot of time and effort into that garden and she was sure that I wouldn't appreciate stealing.  Wow.  I guess I was wrong about her.  Of course, I thanked her. I guess she's not so bad... and really, most people aren't.  Meanwhile, my cabbages are gone, and my cauliflower, which was labelled as cabbage, has rotted right there in the garden.  It smells terrible! 

Happy?

Tomorrow's the big day here at our house.  My oldest heads off to college.  Sniff.  We've packed up her car, packed up my car and have additional stuff to be packed into a pick-up truck.  I hope I've prepared her well for whatever she faces.  Maybe all parents feel this way, but I think that I didn't do as much as I should have.  I could have been a better parent in a lot of ways.  Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess.  But she has a really good head on her shoulders; she's a smart girl with a lot of common sense.  I really don't worry about her - I know she'll be fine.  I'll just miss her...