Today was Ellie's first race of the season and it was not such a great start. She spent last evening and all of the ride to the race gritching. She had a dream that she had a big crash during the race. She talked about how once she was done biking that she might take up running. She complained about all kinds of things, including my encouraging them to race. It made me so sad. I thought she loved biking and racing, but I knew that she was still had lingering bits of feeling burned out. She worried that the training indoors on the trainer had not helped. She worried that she had lost all of her skill and knowledge. I told her it is in her bones, that she is strong, talented and beautiful. That is when she started to attack me. Then I simply felt angry and sad. I just want her to be happy. I don't have any dreams of her becoming pro or racing in Europe. Her anxiety started to cause me to doubt myself, too. I had to keep reminding myself to deflect her negative energy. I had to keep reminding myself that this race course was the very same place where she had her big crash that put a hole in her elbow nearly two years ago.
Then we arrived, got signed in and she started to warm up. Actually, she sneaked over and looked for the skid marks on the pavement that bore testament to her big crash. They had still be visible last year. This year they were gone. Shew putzed around the parking lot, did a bit of visiting and then she did a practice lap. She came back smiling, declaring that it was not as tough as she had remembered. I reminded her that she should be able to get off of the line faster with the new bike. Then she did a few more laps. Each time she had a bigger smile and the dark cloud above her head began to shrink. Then she was finally happy. By the time her race was over she was back to her smiling, happy self and I was relieved. Her dreaded anticipation was over and she was back in the game. The hills were fun and it landed her in second place. Tom, the race promoter and quite possibly the most pro-junior promoter you could find, gave prem prizes to everyone. Ellie got the no crash prem, a gift of much welcomed chocolate milk. By the time we left the race her spring was back in her step and she was happy again. On the way home we stopped for a much desired doughnut from Lamar's and a Vanilla latte. And I sighed a breath of relief.
After a quick shower the family headed over to Holly West for a Mexican food lunch with the rest of the family to celebrate Ellie's and Larr's birthdays. It was fun to see everyone and remind my sister that her boys are going into fine young men as she still wants them to be little boys. I look forward to seeing what they will blossom into. Orlando is old enough that we get glimpes of who he will become from time to time.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the glorious sunshine. It has been such a while since we could be outside for an extended time without our coats. We cleaned up the back yard. It was littered with small branches from the recent tree trimming. Larr and Ethan also began to take down our ancient wood swing set. We've had it since the kids were tiny. I thought I would be sad to see it go since we had so much fun on it. However, I was actually happy to see how open it will make that part of the yard feel. We bagged that debris and I began to work on cleaning out the veggie garden while Ethan worked on taking out the concrete.
The end of my evening was spent at the Meininger's Teacher Appreciation Night, an event that I anticipate eagerly each year. I will write about that tomorrow. I'll leave you with a bit of what I am inspired by during recent web wanderings.
Lovely jewelry by Madison Reece (via Smidgebox)
Jewelry by Sea Find Designs (via Candied Fabric blog)
Engaging woodcuts by Peppersprouts (they have lots of stuff I love).
And finally, several things from Geninne over at Etsy.com (a place that is at once inspiring and dangerous).
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