Reflecting: Collection of Team Shirts

Well, I wrote a whole long blog entry about team shirts.  It wasn't pretty, I admit.

I wrote how it used to be really sweet when a team wanted to get together and order new collared shirts for State or Nationals.  But then I went into a venting session with my 'old lady hat on' and explained that it actually wasn't all that fun the last few years.

In the beginning, it was cool and fun to try and find the perfect shirt the entire team loved, fit perfect, and then get them all embroidered.  Nothing was sweeter than opening that box of newly embroidered shirts and handing them out to all the team members!

But after 20+ years of doing this, it became a chore and really no longer fun.

While I was venting about having a stockpile of embroidered shirts I don't wear anymore and don't know what to do with (as I mentioned before I'm de-cluttering), I need to also point out that I'm being a hypocrite!

Snapshot of some team shirts in one of my closets.

I buy several tops/blouses from Ross Dress for Less at least twice a month.  Who I am to complain about team shirts that sit in my closet, when I prolly have shirts with tags on them still from Ross Dress for Less??

Further, I should be more positive about this.  I should reflect that part of this horrible (lol) issue of collecting so many team shirts over the years is because of several, in reality, awesome factors that I need to be realize and feel more grateful about.  (1) I have been playing on leagues for a LONG time,  (2) I was on several different leagues each season so needed more than one team shirt each season, and (3) I joined new teams over the last several years because I was asked to join top teams.

Instead of venting about this "problem", I needed to be honest and more reflective.

And the truth is. it IS cool to have so many team shirts.

Now that I'm no longer playing leagues, I guess I felt comfy to bring this "issue" up.  But turns out. it's a pretty cool issue to have.  :)

From Things to Memories

I'm going through my house with a fine-toothed comb right now.  Sounds easy, except imagine I moved my parents' house into my house over 9 years ago and so combined it has over 40 years of "things" in it.

I'm getting ready for a neighborhood garage sale, even though after the last 2 I told myself I would never, ever do a garage sale again lol.

Last one.  (I promise?)

But, I am going through a phase in my life where I'm moving away from keeping everything to more towards realizing memories are more important.

I collected and kept way too many things all my life (now don't call the cops, I'm not THAT bad, I don't need to be on that tv show Hoarders), and it had not been easy to make decisions on my parents' things all these years, either.

But now - I am realizing that "things" (even from our past) don't provide us inner peace.

But I digress....

So, as I'm going through every inch of my house, I see some items tucked behind a desk. One of the items is a huge piece of rolled up paper.  What the heck is that?

It was the FIRST state title tourney I won!  Wow - look at that!

I actually had to look up the year:  2011.  That's the year I won the ACS Texas State Women's Singles!  Here is my long recap of it.  It was an extremely emotional win for me for many reasons and extremely memorable.  I can picture the last shot and my reaction of falling to the ground as I type this!

The bracket is actually very large.  See a pic of me holding it near the bottom of the recap.

But, after I took the photos of the paper bracket for this blog article, I then placed it snugly in my recycling bin.   

This action shows how things change.  I kept the bracket because it was so dang amazing and memorable for me, and yet I found it dusty behind a desk.  Unrolled for YEARS.  I didn't even realize or recognize what it was.

That amazing win still means the world to me and I enjoyed re-reading the recap today.  However, the physical paper copy of that bracket is now in the recycling dumpster.

I still have my memories.  :)

(and it's cleaner behind that desk)