Sadly, I have gone the entire month of November 2010 without a blog post!  November was a rather busy month for me.  Naturally, a busy schedule in such a short time of being away from home is definitely something to be thankful for!  The Thanksgiving Holiday was definitely one of the best a person could have hoped for being away from home.  Initially, my plan was to do something that I have done on occassion as my own little tradition Thanksgiving morning, which is to run in a 5k the morning of Thanksgiving as I used to do in Cincinnati, and return home to an empty house to bake cookies and possibly read. 

So, I found that one of the gyms in Tyler has held an annual “Turkey Trot” 5k  that was only $10 to register & I registered the day before the race (to ensure my participation of course).  I decided I needed a bit more of a motivator, so I sent a message to several of my Jr. Team Tennis students that I had recently befriended via facebook after our Fall Sectionals weekend at the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels (which I will talk about a little later in this blog) to see if any of them would like to run the race in the morning with me!  Amazingly, three responded that they actually would run in it as well, so I was looking forward to having company on my run, rather, jog/walk, since I do not actually consider what I do “running” by any stretch of the word.  To my delighful surprise, the entire family of two brothers I coached decided to register and run with me that morning as well as one of the twin brothers that I also coached.  It made my morning to have companions for the run, because it really would have been lonely & I realized that I never have actually signed up for a 5k without a friend to run it with me.  The race morning was a pleasant 70 degrees, with some light, random rain that I found refreshing considering I have done a 10k in half-way sleeting weather up in Cincinnati a few years ago.  I was pleased to have the youngest girl in the family stick with me through the duration as we ran…slowed to a jog…walked…jogged across a couple park bridges…walked…eventually running the last stretch, and we managed to finish in about 43minutes.  If I remember correctly, the first 5k I ever participated in took me just under an hour, with the second or third having actually trained for taking me just over 35 minutes.  43 minutes was perfectly good with me considering my non-runner personality & zero training outside of short bursts of tennis energy and a few cardio tennis classes this semester.  Naturally, all the boys finished together for the most part in less than a half hour, and the parents were not too far behind.  I believe we all finished within 20 minutes of one another & had fun at the end waiting to see if we had won any of the registration prizes.  None of us won.  I was asked about my plans for the afternoon of which baking cookies was really all I had officially planned, and then I was offered to spend time hanging out with the family that attended the race with me.  I accepted and was also invited to go with them to their grandparents house the day after Thanksgiving for their official Thanksgiving celebration.  I was pretty excited that I would not have to spend my holiday alone, though I had mentally prepared to do so, but quite honestly, I would not wish spending a holiday alone on anyone. 

As I returned back to the house I am staying both Thanksgiving day and after from the most fantastic two days I have had so far in Texas, all I felt was complete JOY.  I mean, bursting at the seems, smiling from ear-to-ear, JOY.  How can I possibly be so blessed everywhere I go!?  I had fun playing board games, listening to stories, laughing, singing hymns around the piano (my favorite memory by far), and followed it up with a day of traveling, learning to shoot guns at targets, playing in the woods, riding a mule (the kind on four wheels that is), petting donkey’s, riding scooters, feeding the cats & sitting down to the most decorated dinner table that I have ever witnessed with beautiful blue & white glass/ceramic dishes that even had my name written above my place setting!!!  Everyone was so warm and friendly, taking me in as if they’ve known me forever. I am not sure I’ve ever witnessed until now what a family that truly glorifies Jesus looks like, and they are nothing short of an awesome example.  I truly believe God places people in our lives for a reason, and I know this family has been placed in mine to show me what I’ve always believed a family can be as well as making me even more comforted knowing that this coming August when I officially move to Tyler, TX , I will not be alone at all.  If I did not feel as if I were imposing completely, I would honestly spend every day left at their house just enjoying all the banter and games, singing and laughing.  They have all become good friends and a home away from home, and of course, they are essentially all tennis players too!!

And since we are speaking about Tennis now…my blessings have really grown since having the opportunity to coach/captain a Jr. Team Tennis team starting back in September.  The students are all awesome, and were very fun to coach.  Plus, I kept being asked to assist the tennis club with their jr. program throughout the week as well over the last few months, and I have loved every second of it!  My team won their intermediate division and advanced to sectionals along with the advanced team, so the weekend before Thanksgiving, we all got to take a road trip to the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels (home of the Unicorns!) for the Fall Sectionals USTA Tournament!!  Myself, the head pro and lots of students made our six hour journey further south into Texas and stayed at a hotel close-by since the ranch condo’s were all filled up given the number of teams/players in the sectional tournament of the entire state of TX.  Several of the parents also attended, so it was great to just get to know everyone.  My car contained 2 of the advanced team boys and one of the boys from my team, and we had a great spiritual conversation on the way down & sang Christmas songs on the way back! As for how we did performance wise at Sectionals, our advanced team got 4th place while my intermediate team I think got 9th.  All though very well organized, the format of play was not the greatest.  Six game pro-sets, no-ad scoring and because there were 13 teams, everyone was broken into flights the first day and winning was based on overall percentages.  Basically, if you did not play well in your first match, there was no way you had a chance of getting a high percentage after the first day given that there was only one other team to play in your flight.  Sadly, we did not play to our potential in the first game and it was rather disappointing to everyone, but of the 4 sets of team matches played that weekend, we won all but one match in game count.  It just happened that our percentages were lower because the teams in our flights were not the best nor the worst, and our game scores were relatively close.  I always hate seeing disappointment, but I believe we made the most of it & enjoyed our time at the ranch and the multiple sites we played at over the course of two days.  The ranch had a karaoke night that several of the teams participated in, and my team definitely snagged quite a few free prizes tossed into the crowd.  Two of the boys from my car-load were the karaoke kings who braved a Michael Jackson song that can be found on my youtube video site, which I created just for that video.  The drive home was fun as the head pro decided that as a treat for a job well done, we could stop for one hour of outlet shopping in Austin!!  I spent the WHOLE time in the adidas store with one of the mothers as we found me some super adorable Stella McCartney running shoes (which I wore on Thanksgiving day in the Turkey Trot) as well as standard fashion shoes & a top that World #1 Tennis Player Caroline Wozniacki has sported. 

All in all, the weeks leading up to Fall Sectionals and Thanksgiving involved me coaching a lot of tennis, creating new friendships in Club Tennis, playing in two club tennis tournaments of my own (also using the format that my students had to endure at sectionals, so I know how it felt to lose without really feeling like you did much of anything given the format constraints), watching several TJC Tennis Tournaments, developing working relationships and friendships…and just being thankful and happy for all of the good Lord’s generous blessings.  Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of really unfortunate things that took place this last month as well; friends were lost in more ways than one, people’s perceptions of me were altered negatively in an unjust fashion, and I received a lot of bad news in a short period of time, but none of it can even begin to register against all the things I have to be thankful for in life.  Everything bad just makes me want to pray and rely that much more on Jesus in my day to day activities.  I just give everything that bothers or worries me up to Him each day, let Him take care of mending what can be mended and work on my heart & words more and more.  

I believe that is enough for now.  I shall return to blogging later this weekend as there is so much more to share!  I just cannot believe it is already December!