Embarrassing Moments...and Sports!

      First thing's first...don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY from csnstores.com!! $55.00!! See the rules on this post! 
     Today's post was prompted by Cindy. She did a really cute blog post about her early days as a prima ballerina...*Teehee*...and wanted to see my early days as a super star basketball player. HAH!! Okay....NOT...for either of us, but OH BOY! did it bring back some memories!! So, Cindy, this one's for you! :-)
   This is going to be really embarrassing! The pictures, I mean. So, before I show you my sports and High School pictures, let me show you another picture that will officially get this embarrassment started...one that I drew! I know you're wondering what a crocheter/poet is doing drawing pictures!! Well, it was prompted by another blog post.  Cathy, on her blog at Artsy Butterfly, was talking about the Sketch Challenge she's following on another blog (You can read all about it on this post.) I decided to try to sketch it too!
      Now I'm asking myself WHY?!....I don't have the heart to show you what the original is suppose to look like, (If you go to her post you can find it though) but suffice it to say it's not suppose to look like this!!

    Go ahead and laugh! That's what I did.....and am still doing!!! And from now on I know that I better stick to what I know! ^_^ What I know is crocheting, sports, and poetry. The crocheting stuff is what I talk to you all the time about! But the sports.....Well, yeah, I talk about that sometimes too! But today I'm going to talk about me...PLAYING sports, not just watching sports!!!
    Who knew that more than 30 years ago this mild mannered young girl...

    ....would grow up to want to beat the stuffing out of the other team!!! Ha! I was, and to a certain extent, am a sports nut! And now I know where I got it from! The High School I went to was a breeding ground for sports nuts!! My High School Yearbook, which I just got through fishing through, was full of page after page of photos of our school's SPORTS! Archery, football, soccer, wrestling, hockey, baseball, track, tennis, softball, bowling (hmmmm...is that a sport?! If not, our school made it into one!), and basketball!!
    I played a few of these in High School. Some I just tried out for and either didn't like, or they didn't like me! But basketball?! I loved to play basketball!!

    Yep! That's me! Number 30...Chubbette with the striped socks! Yikes! What were they thinking?!! LOL I was only 5 foot 6, but I was a basketball playing fool! And if I do say so myself...and I probably am the only person who would say so after looking at our school's record...but I had the sweetest, outside jump shot you ever want to see!! :-)

    My friend Carol was the Center and I was her 'set-up girl forward'!...Looking at this shot though, I can see how I should have known that problems with my bones was going to be in my future!! LOL I was double jointed, but it looked like I was trying to take my arm off and throw that in the basket!! :-] We had so much fun!!! And we were so TERRIBLE as a team! Oh Well, I learned lots of lessons from playing. Things that have stuck with me until now...Unfortunately 'how to be a good team player' was not one of them!! LOL

    I wonder what happened to all of these guys?! I know that one of them died, and one was related to me. *sigh*...Life DOES move on, doesn't it?! Do you ever wonder about people you went to school with? People who were your best buds at a very critical time in your life?! I often do. Not only because we shared sports though!
    My group of friends shared lots of things during High School!! We shared shop classes (I went to a trade school where they taught us how to be waitresses, caterers, nurses, cosmetologists, seamstresses, and artists!....Okay so I didn't pay that close attention in the art classes...except for how to do clay molds and make paper machete balls!). We also shared Class Luncheons, and....

    My hubby still can't believe I went to the prom with this guy! He was a neighborhood friend...(sorta)...of his. Hubby didn't go to the same High School....And because we were the smart cultured bunch that we were, we also shared....

   So you see! My body AND my mind were engaged in High School!! :-)
    Frankly, I wish my mind had been a bit more engaged then, because I might have realized I had such a love for writing! I wrote poetry and other things all my life and never connected it to anything that I could make a living doing!! But whenever I think back about this time of my life now, I always see this face...

    She was the woman who taught me my love of words!!

    She was my High School English teacher!! I loved her love for what she did!! I never forgot her...or any of the things she taught me. And I never saw her again after High School...Wonder what happened to her?! Did you ever have a teacher that sparked something good in you that you still remember even today?!!...She evokes memories of Beatles songs and public recitations, laughter and fabulous words!!! There were some embarrassing moments in her classes too! But I learned from them too!!
    So, now you know a little bit more than you probably wanted to know about me! :-] Now, I'm going to be a good team player and show you another member of my AWM team. It's BagsOfAFeather.

   This is the Songbirds and Cherries Zipper Pouch from her Etsy shop.

    See all those pretty birds...of a feather?! ;-) You should really check out the other things she has in there too!...Okay, time to do my English teacher proud with some poetry!

Girlhood Left Behind

Little girls always grow yp,
and leave behind their fantasies;
They leave behind their mama's heels
and their skinned and scabby knees.

They leave behind their baby dolls,
and all their childhood toys;
They leave behind their cute, pink room,
and forget their fear of boys.

Remember the Easy-Bake oven?
I'm sure your little girls do!
(That was one thing they left behind-
along with their patent leather shoes.)

They also left behind Slinkees,
pacifiers-and breast milk;
They traded it in for make-up,
perfume, and shirts made of silk.

They also left behind tantrums,
and whining all day for a cup.
(Well-maybe a little of the whining
was left behind when they grew up!)

The further away from their childhood
that little girls continue to be,
the more they forget how it was
to be silly and just fancy-free.

To play outdoors for hours;
To have an imaginary friend;
To host their own tea party,
indoors, in their family's den.

They've grown up and had their babies
and left behind their innocence;
Their own little girls they've powdered,
with no thought to their childhood since!