oblivious.

I hate it when I miss subtle and even the not so subtle cues from my spouse. He ends up being upset. Then I end up being upset. It's a lose-lose proposition.

I want to make it up to him, but there really isn't any way to. Ends up with lots of bad feelings all around.

I always try to be better, but this seems to be one of my many failings.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Practice ice at Langley

What did we do for Valentine's Day?

We drove up to the Langley Curling Club for practice ice.

When the Seattle Granite Curling Club is booked up for the weekend with rentals, leagues, and events, an obsessed curler can contact one of the Canadian curling clubs to see if they have practice ice to rent. Seattle only rents the whole club in 4 hour blocks. One can usually find a sheet in 2 hour blocks for about $60 Canadian.

I've rented ice at two Canadian clubs so far: Langley and Richmond. Both clubs have great ice and really nice people who work/volunteer there.

Yesterday, Jeremy and I had booked ice up at Langley. We found out a few other club members were heading up to Canada for the day and invited them to join us. This is Jiyung and Thomas' first year, Mijung's second year, and none of them had played on Canadian ice before.

Even though I knew it was the weekend of the Seattle - Langley Juniors Bonspiel, I was still surprised how many faces I recognized when we reached Langley. Wes Johnson, Sahara Pirie, and the Sweet family to name a few. It was great to see how many Seattleites were there.

I've included a few photos of that got a chance to practice at Langley and one photo of the juniors playing.

Practice at Langley and Surrey Winterfest 2009

Yesterday, Beth, Sara and I drove up to Langley for some practice ice. The Seattle Granite Curling Club flooded this weekend.

Nigel, the club manager of Langley was bonspielling or out sick. We were greeted by Larry, instead. Larry was very friendly, and made sure our ice was all set up and ready to go at 11 am.
Gabrielle practiced with Cristin and Brady Clark on the sheet next to us. Larry apparently had not been informed about the Clark team coming up to practice, but luckily Gabrielle had her contract.

After a good practice, we headed over to the Willowbrook mall for some poutine and other mall food. I unknowingly selected a table directly behind the Clarks. The wall was very tall, so there was no way I would have known. Before lunch was over, Brady and Cristin dropped by, and we chatted for a bit.

Emily and Jake finally made it over the border, and we dropped Gabrielle back off at Langley. Emily had scheduled some practice ice at Richmond for 4 pm.

Beth, Sara and I then headed towards Surrey, to check out their Winterfest. Their outdoor curling was not exactly what we expected, but still fun to try. The fake 'ice' was very dirty, and the rollers on the rocks didn't exactly work unless you hucked the rocks all the way down the other side.

Before we left, we dropped by the liquor store. I got a funny Scotch blend called "The Peat Monster" for Jeremy. I was sad that he was unable to come up with us, still being on the sick side. On the outside of the store, there was these interesting penis shaped bottles. Not sure what was in them. Too scared to ask.

Club Nationals and the Mixed Spiel Results 2009

I'll start this evening's post with the best bit.

My teammate Beth found this online and sent it to us earlier today. Our team photo starts the gallery!

http://www.curlingrocks.net/photo-gallery.php

Mixed Bonspiel. My team won 3 out of 5 games, and won drink tickets as the runner up in the C bracket. Sadly, we lost to the team my husband was on. Eng-Dinsel 0, Dinsel 2.

Our first game, we tied in 8 ends, and our skip one the shoot out by 1 inch. I played about normal in that game. Our 2nd game we played against the "Wolves" Jake V's team, who we lost to. The 3rd game and 4th game on Saturday were my best games. I feel like I played better in those two games than I have this whole season.

Just need to hold on to that.

Mixed Spiel, Game 1

This weekend I am participating in Seattle Granite Curling Club's Mixed Bonspiel 2009. I am playing with Mike Calcagno, Christina Pastula, and Peter Sommer. Our game was against the Cornsmiths (David and Linda Cornfield, Greg Smith and Kim Hitchcock).

I started off a little nervous. Christina was caught in some Ballard traffic, and I ended up playing vice skip for the 1st end. Lucky for me, Mike made some great shots where the line was easy to read.

In the 8th end, Peter got a double, and we ended up with the free pitcher of beer for our draw.

It was a great game. We tied at the end of the 8th end, and it went into a shoot out. Our team won by 1 inch. (20 inches away from the button). Mike's split was 3.71, and although the ice was keen, it needed some extra help. Christina pitched in to help us drag it the last few inches.

Our next game is against the "Wolves". Jake Vukich's team at 11:00 am.

Men's Spiel and Beyond

This past weekend was the Men's Spiel. 20 teams participated.

Saturday morning started off with breakfast burritos to support the juniors going to nationals. Not sure if it was a good thing letting (forcing?) Derrick, Joe, and Sam into the kitchen. Apparently only Derrick can cook.

After breakfast, I headed home to make 3 batches of cookies and finish the pumpkin bars I made for the spiel, so they would have dessert. After all that baking, I made a quick visit to the club to drop everything off, and headed over to Joe and Mary Alice's for some Paella.

Jeremy's team lost 2 games, won a third game to stay in the C bracket. In the end, they fell to Joe Fox's team.

Sunday, Gravity got a trip to Marymoor park and the pet store at Redmond Town Center. I picked up some extra clothes at REI for Club Nationals, but that was it for my down time. We had late draw against the Pleasants team, and lost in the 8th end. Mike threw a shot that knocked out our own rock, leaving them with 4 in the house.

This morning, I found an article on the Beighton team from my RSS feed in the Devil's Lake Journal.

http://www.devilslakejournal.com/articles/2009/01/19/sports/sports04.txt

Exhausted.

This past event was exhausting. It was a phenomenal experience.

From making our goal of winning one game to the new friends we made(yay for our own cheerleading section) it was a grand time. There were also some classic moments, which included jeremy moving a rock that was measured to see if it was in the free guard zone and brady c sliding out early before the 9 am game and all the teams booing him (I have never seen him blush like that).

I'm both physically and emotionally drained. This definitely helps prepare us for club nationals. The Gervais team provided us with some advice : take the Monday after club nationals off.

Johnson just beat Larway to take the spot that goes directly to nationals. Larway now goes to the challenge round.

Now I'm waiting for the officials to finish celebrating the end of a long weekend, so I can go home and get some sleep.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Van Brunt Vs Reynolds

Two of our favorite teams are playing this evening. Van Brunt and Reynolds. Both teams are from Colorado and play on arena ice. Unfortunately, due to our game in the morning, we were only able to watch a little more than an end.

They've both been a lot of fun to hang out with and to cheer on.

I hope we get a chance to see them again in Colorado, or perhaps this year's April Spiel

Hmmmm. No close ups of Reynolds. Will have to grab a photo tomorrow to post.

2009 Regional Qualifiers, Day Two

Today has been a long, tough day.

We played our first game at 8 am against Gervais (from North Dakota). They were a really tough team, and we shook after 6 ends. After playing Gervais and Clark, I think Gervais is the team to beat. They were very consistent in their shots.

This evening we played against Hufman. This game was a heart breaker. We battled back and forth, Hufman scoring 1 point here, 1 point there for 3 point leads. Team Coleman would fight back with a 3 point end. We finished the 9th end in the lead by 1 point.Hufman had hammer in the 10th end, and came back to tie the score up. We went into an extra end, the 11th, and just couldn't get the point. Hufman won by 2.

It's been an awesome experience so far. Jan and Jerry, Jeremy's aunt and uncle came to cheer us on in our first game against Clark. Team Reynolds from Colorado sat behind sheet 5 during our 3rd game and cheered us on. We received tons of email and facebook messages us from people sending us their love and support.

Tomorrow at 8 am, we play our last game against Cloutier. Then finally, we get to take some time out and what some incredible curling.

First game is over.

We shook after 8 ends, with a score13-5.
We stole 1 in the first end. Clark score 1 in the 2nd end. They stole 2 in the 3rd end for a score of 3-1.

We scored 1 in the 4th, Clark scored 4 in the 5th. The score was 7-2. We muscled out 3 in the 6th end. To make it 7-5.

We lost a big end in the 7th and gave up 5, and the score was 12-5.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

One day until regionals begin!

One day until regionals begin.

I spent almost 2 days trying to track someone down who would open the club so my women's team could practice. I tried to get our team a key to the club, but we were told that we could only get a key if we made nationals. Since there are so many competitive teams, we could reach out to them about practicing the same time. However, very few of the people with keys post their practice times.

Yesterday evening, we had our team had the first practice together since December. It was a good practice. We put on our fancy new jackets and looked awesome. :D
We also received a positive comment from a Colorado men's team that was practicing. He said that we had good rhythm together, and wondered how long we had been playing together.

The Colorado team that was practicing put together a team 18 months ago. None of them had ever curled before. Sound familiar? They've been playing together longer than we have, but we've played on better ice.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHH!

Enough said. Moving on.

Swinger's night, Mixed League

Tonight was swinger's night in our mixed league. We swapped out all the teams so we could play with different curlers. I played with Doug Kaufman, Karen Potter, and Joe Benson. We lost to Knieval, David Booth, Kim Smith, and Christina P (who I normally play with).

After the 4 end game, I ran upstairs to help get the food ready. Jeremy made his award winning chili. Christina made a chicken chili that was very tasty. I spent a lot of time baking yesterday: jalapeno cornbread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, and chocolate peanut butter oatmeal no bake cookies. (Some of the cookies will go to Monday night's potluck).

Lots of people left as soon as the games were over because it was snowing and sticking. A few of us hung out and chit chatted. Joel pointed out that the Hufman team wasn't listed on the practice email that had gone out. Derrick called Vicky, and found out that the Hufman team wouldn't be here in time for the practice or team meeting. Interesting things to know.

We finally left the club. Jeremy was brushing snow off the car, when I surprised him with a sneak attack and launched some snow at him.

Doing stuff and hanging out with Gravity.

This morning, Jeremy hung out with Gravity while I got a massage from Jason. Due to all the curling, my neck has been getting tight again. The problem starts to show up when I deliver rocks.

On the way home, I dropped off two comforters at the Maytag laundromat to be washed. I still need to take one to the dry cleaner which has stuff on it from a seizure that Gravity had.

I stirred Jeremy's chili, took Gravity for a walk, and picked up my altered curling clothing from the tailor. I have also made chocolate cake, jalapeno cornbread, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Oh crap!!!

Okay, I just over cooked my first batch of cookies. Oops. While I'm baking cookies, I'm also washing a load of laundry.

Today is the day for doing stuff.

And the answer is...

they really don't know whats caused the seizures.

Could be beagle epilepsy. Could be a brain tumor. She's on phenobarbital now, which should help with the seizures. Gravity gets more blood work done in a week, to make sure her liver isn't damaged by the medication.

I'm kind of scared to let her sleep, because I don't want her to have a seizure. The other medication is liquid valium, given during a seizure. AND - its inserted anally. Hmmmm.

I ordered a pizza from Pagliacci's after Jeremy left. My pizza was gifted to me by Pagliacci. I'll take whatever good news I can get today.

Really worried about Gravity.

Jeremy text messaged me that gravity had another seizure. That's 3 seizures for today.

I'm currently at the vet. Jeremy will be meeting me here with our hound.

•pace pace pace•

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Eek. Another dog seizure...

Poor Grams (nickname for Gravity our beagle).

She woke us up with another doggie seizure at 5:37 am. This one seemed to last a little longer than her last one. Around 3 minutes.

She seemed to take a little longer to gain control of her motor skills. She staggered around disorientated for longer.

Scary, scary stuff.

Argh. She had another one while jeremy was at the grocery store. I think she may have hit her head on the table.

She also threw up in front of the couch. Sad dog.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

New Year's Eve at the Skulec house

After an hour of practice at the Seattle Granite Curling Club, Jeremy and I drove to Sara's house to celebrate the change to 2009.

We had red and white wine and were introduced to Slovakian moonshine (ouch!). There was lots of tasty hor d'oevres, including cheese fondue!!

An excellent time was had by all.

As much practice as I can get.

I went to the club today at 6:30 pm. I worked on a smooth delivery and throwing guards.

Had Beth take a couple of videos. My back leg is moving around just a little bit. Not sure if that is normal or because I was thinking about the camera. *sigh*

Will have to worry about that later.

Yay for practice!

I was worried I wasn't going to be able to practice today. No one who had a key posted on the calendar they were going to open the club.

However, I lucked out, and my husband pinged me to let me know Steve L was going to practice at the club. Beth and I showed up at 6:30 pm on the dot and got a chance to throw some rocks.

More exciting news, there will be practice ice available tomorrow at 6:30 pm as well! Yah!

After practice, I picked Jeremy up from bridge. They were still in the middle of a game, so I pulled up, managed to get the car stuck in a snow and ice drift, and then unstuck. I also helped ingest Joe's gingerbread house. May not sleep so well tonight.