The Times Dispatch Blogs

At times while getting ready for work in the mornings, I will turn to my eight-year-old niece, Jarah, to ask how something looks - my hair, makeup, clothes, etc. She never fails to tell me how “great” everything looks.

I know that I don’t always – or ever, for that matter – look great, but I have trusted her not to let me leave the house looking like a fool. My hair is the last thing I fix, or don’t fix in my case. I’m a wash, comb and go girl. The other day, I took a towel off my head and quickly towel dried my hair. It was standing up everywhere.

I looked at Jarah and asked about my hair, I told her I was trying a new style. She quickly told me it looked “great.” Thinking I’d call her bluff, we headed out the door. Halfway to school, I couldn’t take it any more, I asked Jarah if she was really going to let me go to work with my hair uncombed.

She again assured me how good it looked. I keep a brush in my car, and was able to tame my wild tresses before entering The TD building.

This morning, I thought my hair looked about normal, and was ready to leave the house only to have Jarah tell me how horrible it looked. I didn’t even ask her opinion this time.

I didn’t have time to do anything to fix it, so I walked around all day with my horrible hair.

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Aside from occasionally forgetting that my family has moved and driving to our old house, we have settled in quite nicely. All the boxes have disappeared and everything has its place.

As a child, we lived in the “country,” and I hated it. As an adult, I love it.

We had a housewarming party a couple of weeks ago. Lots of our family and friends came and shared refreshments and visited with us. We had a great time.

We also had a opossum that visited our house for about three weeks. He would eat dog food and then go about his business. I have pictures of the animal on my cell phone and watched for it every night. My husband, however, has put an end to these visits. We have lots of other critters to take its place, though.

Briar and Brad seem to really like the new house. They have friends who live nearby, and they have been spending a lot of time at our house. We also have a bigger yard, so they have been spending more time outside.

Everything is still new to us, but it seems as if we made a good move.

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The first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are in the books and, as usual, there were a few surprises. Four of the remaining 16 teams — West Virginia, Davidson, Villanova and Western Kentucky — are double-digit seeds.

As expected, the #1 seeds in each region are still alive. The same goes for the #3 seeds. Only two of the #2s, Tennessee and Texas, are still in it, while Georgetown and Duke bit the dust in the second round. The #4 seeds were even less fortunate, with Washington State being the only one still standing.

Now, on to the Sweet Sixteen:

East Region
This is the only region where the top four seeds have advanced to the semifinals. In fact, ninth-seeded Arkansas’ first-round win over #8 Indiana has been the only “upset” so far.
#1 North Carolina vs. #4 Washington State. It’s hard to imagine anyone beating the Tar Heels right now.
#2 Tennessee vs. #3 Louisville. I pick Louisville in a mild upset.

Midwest Region
#1 Kansas vs. #12 Villanova. The Jayhawks will put an end to ‘Nova’s Cinderella run.
#3 Wisconsin vs. #10 Davidson. Davidson beat an outstanding defensive team, Georgetown, in the second round and will face another one in Wisconsin. I’ll go with the Badgers.

South Region
#1 Memphis vs. #5 Michigan State. Memphis has too much firepower and too many athletes for the Spartans.
#2 Texas vs. #3 Stanford. I’m picking the winner of this game to go to the Final Four. It’ll be Stanford.

West Region
#1 UCLA vs. #12 Western Kentucky. UCLA survived a scare against Texas A&M in the second round. They’ll romp and stomp over the Hilltoppers.
#3 Xavier vs. #10 West Virginia. The Mountaineers will be the only Cinderella in the Elite Eight.

Final Four: UNC, Kansas, Stanford and UCLA.
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Saturday my family had a reunion at Lake Frierson State Park. We had several who were unable to attend and were missed, but overall we had a good turnout.

I was very surprised, yet glad, to see long-time family friends Delbert and Mary Gall. Having her homemade pickles and deer sausage was a big treat.

I enjoyed catching up with everyone. While talking with a cousin, I had a feeling of nostalgia, watching our children running and playing together. It doesn’t seem like very long ago when we were the ones running and playing while our parents sat and visited.

In the past several years, we haven’t had a big family get together, and I didn’t realize how much I missed everyone.

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My second favorite sporting event of the year, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, gets underway Thursday. Actually, that’s not correct. The tournament technically starts Tuesday when Coppin State and Mount St. Mary’s play in the ‘play-in’ game for the right to get blown out by North Carolina in the first round.
Random thoughts on each of the regions:

East Region
This region has more potential upsets than any other region.
If the “good” Arkansas team shows up, they will beat Indiana. Heck, if the Razorbacks play like they did Saturday against Tennessee, they could give North Carolina a run for the money in the second round.
George Mason, Winthrop, St. Joseph’s and South Alabama are all lower-seeded teams that have a chance to pull upsets.

Midwest Region
Three first-round games stand out in this region.
The Kansas State-USC game may have the most marquee value of any first-round game. The game will feature two of the country’s top freshmen, in K-State’s Michael Beasley and USC’s O.J. Mayo.
Clemson-Villanova could be another outstanding matchup.
Tenth-seeded Davidson, playing close to home in Raleigh, N.C., should upset 7th-seeded Gonzaga.

South Region
None of the first-round games really stand out to me.
For an upset, I’ll pick 12th-seeded Temple to beat 5th-seeded Michigan State.
Looking ahead, Memphis versus Mississippi State could make for an interesting second-round contest, but the Bulldogs will have their hands full with Oregon in the first round.

West Region
Again, none of the first-round games jump out at me.
Fourteenth-seeded Georgia will try to continue its Cinderella post-season run against 3rd-seeded Xavier.
Purdue-Baylor and Arizona-West Virginia could also be interesting.
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Arkansas State University officially announced that Red Wolves would be the university’s new mascot. On Thursday they unveiled the new logo. When I saw the new logo, my first reaction was, “It ain’t got no eyeballs. Where are the eyeballs?” I must say, though, I really like the new logo. I think it would look great on their football helmets. I’ve never cared for the ‘stAte’ logo they’ve used for the past several years. The new wolf would look much better, even without eyeballs.
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Speaking of ASU, Nolan Richardson announced the other day that he was no longer a candidate to replace Dickey Nutt as head basketball coach. Personally, I can’t believe he was ever seriously considering the job.

Nolan’s a great coach and his accomplishments speak for themselves (a national championship at Arkansas, an NIT championship, a junior college national championship, etc.), but there’s no way that ASU, or the Sun Belt Conference would have provided a big enough stage for Nolan and his Texas-size ego.

One interesting rumor going around on the internet was that Nolan was asking ASU for a deal similar to the one Bobby Knight got at Texas Tech a few years ago: Nolan would coach a couple of years, then turn the job over to his son, Nolan III (a.k.a. Notes). I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, that certainly would have been a deal-breaker.

Notes was the head coach at Tennessee State a few years ago. One day after practice he got into an argument with one of his assistants. Notes went to his car and got a gun and went back into the gym, looking for the assistant.

On second thought, maybe ASU should go ahead and hire Notes. It could have its advantages. For example, if I’m a referee working an ASU game, you could be assured that Notes’ team is going to get every close call.
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My family has now spent three nights in our new home. Briar and Bradley have their rooms completely unpacked and all their pictures and posters hung on their walls. Their rooms look really nice.

The rest of the house is still a work in progress. I know getting settled in takes some time, but I’m ready to have it all finished.

The refrigerator is too tall for its space. We are going to have to cut about an inch and a half off the cabinet above it to make it fit. The man we had hired to do our flooring put ceramic tile down in our bathroom. He came back Friday to do the grouting, but realized he had used the wrong stuff to stick the tile to the floor. He had to pull it all back up. He put a carpet in it so that the bathroom is functional. In a couple of weeks, he is going to redo it for us.

Hank, our dog, loves our new location. He has lots of room to roam or find a sunny spot to lie in the yard. I’m used to him following me around the house, but every time I looked for him this weekend, he was laying in the yard.

All in all, though, everything has gone pretty well.

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So we closed on our house last week. It is officially ours. Well, almost … Mr. and Mrs. Harris, previous owners, are in the process of moving out.

In the meantime, we have packed, picked out new carpeting, talked about paint colors for the living room and Briar’s bedroom, purchased new furniture, checked on different cable companies (our current one doesn’t provide service in the area in which our new home is located) and we’ve packed some more.

The only problem we’ve had so far happened while packing up things in the kitchen. It is decorated with mammies and Aunt Jemima memorabilia that I’ve collected for the past 14 years. I was cleaning the items to pack for the new house and soaked them in a cleaning solution that cleaned a little to well. It removed all the grime, but the paint came off, too. Luckily I was only doing a few pieces at a time, so most of my collection is still intact.

Moving is not an easy task, but we are really looking forward to making this house our home.

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While I am devastated by the destruction caused by this week’s storms in Arkansas, I am equally astonished at Lawrence County’s fortune to have missed the brunt of the system, which wreaked havoc all around us.

Several from here traveled to the Highland area to assist there, and undoubtedly many in the county had family members and friends in neighboring counties and throughout the Mid-South who were affected by the storm.

While we have had several severe weather incidents during my nearly 10 years with The TD, I’d say overall we as a county have been exceptionally lucky during that time. Unfortunately, as in all other tragedies of life, it cannot always be someone else.

It does make me feel good to know that we have a great in-county response team in place. They continue to get hands-on training assisting our neighbors in need, and I know when the time comes that they are needed at home they will be ready.

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Can you call it writer’s block when you don’t really consider yourself a writer? Hmmm…. Something to think about.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I didn’t realize how many people actually read the “blah” that I post until I missed several weeks.

Since my last post, a lot has happened…

Briar and Brad had the flu, and I haven’t felt well.

We are possibly buying a house, so we’ve been doing some serious cleaning at our current residence for the past couple of weeks. I have boxes stacked up all over the house labeled to go to different places. It is definitely a crazy time.

A few friends came over and watched the Super Bowl with us. I really wanted the Giants to win, but never thought they could actually pull it off. I was pleasantly surprised.

We have seen our share of sorrow, having already attended four funerals in 2008.

I don’t know what the rest of the year holds for us, but I’m sure there will be plenty of stories to share with all of you!

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