First love letter

Here it is, PJ’s first love letter. She wanted to send it via Chinese Lantern.

The roll of papers all say the same thing.

I think she loves him 30 times the number of papers in the paper roll.

We decided together that maybe it wasn’t the right time to give it to him yet.

Like by about 20 years.

Being of weak mind, body and spirit

Mrs. Bickerson shared this quote with me.

I will now be the gazelle.

The seriously hunted gazelle.

Confidence crusher

Today was my first race of the summer racing season, the Minnetonka 1/2 Marathon.

Laura and I planned on running a pace of between 8:15 minute miles and 8:20 minute miles.  If we could finish in that time, we could slot it into the magical mathematical marathon equation of adding 10 minutes to your half marathon time and get our amazing marathon time.

And to be completely honest here, we would like to run the marathon in 3:45.  Why 3:45?  It qualities us for the Boston Marathon.

That said, it was a beautiful day.  And on that beautiful day, by mile 3 I knew I was having trouble.  We had started a little fast, I got a little hot and then the deep dark inner recess of my mind took over.  YOU CAN’T DO THIS PACE.

Once again, to be honest, I knew that pace was going to be hard for me.  In fact, I did not think I could do it.  I knew I could do 8:30’s but with the threshold work we had been doing I knew that 13.1 miles of that pace was going to be hard.

As I fell back, I waved Laura on, go seriously, I’ll be ok.  We were running with another friend of hers and they both felt great.  I fell back a little more around mile 4 or maybe 5, she looked back again.  Once again I waved her on.  I know Laura well enough to know, that even when she makes her goal, if she has more in the tank, she is not satisfied, even with that goal.

I wanted her to go on and do the best she could.  Go, go, I gave her the thumbs up, GO! I was resigned to the fact that I would throttle back and enjoy the day, trying to be ok with my time and full well knowing I now was not good enough to really think I could attain the ultimate runner’s goal of running Boston.

A touch later, Laura circles back.  I wanted her to go.  I knew she would be pissed at the outcome.  She says to me, you have run with me for the past two 1/2 marathons and we are running it together. And how I needed her. Seriously needed her.

The remaining miles were a struggle for me.  It’s dark in my head.  I do not do well alone.  I gather strength from others, typical extrovert even in racing.  I don’t like feeling weak and I felt weak.  The legs just would not turn over, my toes were going numb and it just was not going right.

We finally finished, together, at 1:51 at 8 minute 30 second miles.

As I retold the story of Laura turning around to Adam in the car on the way home, I started to cry.  Laura…Thanks for bringing me home, for carrying me and for trying to come up with ANYTHING to talk about.  It meant more than you will ever know.

Now I sit and ponder if I even have that inner steel at all.  It’s disturbing to me.

On a brighter note.  T-odd CRUSHED it and my fly girls Megan and Erika kicked it out of the park.

Way to go everyone!

Little but mighty #7

Dear PJ,

Your Grandfather and I were sitting on a bench last week watching you and your brothers play.  He said to me, “Wow, she is so big for five.”  I said, “Well, she is big for five, because she is 7!”  And then we both sat, talking about how on earth it could be that you are going to be seven.

And again, in a blur we are turning the page on another year.

This year, you have actually gotten a little bit taller.  You have gotten bunches cuter, having lost 7 teeth almost all at the same time just makes you even more beautiful.   You have gotten incredibly funny, so much so that now your teachers are keenly aware of your antics and let us know about it.  And just yesterday, one of your classmates stopped me to ask if I was the mom of “that really funny girl.”

This year, you have found some bumps in the road with school but you have shown us that you can hunker down, try even harder and come through the other side even stronger and with more confidence.  You like doing well, you like seeing 100% at the top of  your work each day and you are willing to work hard to get there.  You have a little bit of driven in your belly, fancy that.

This year, you have once again won my heart.  On our first ever Mother – Daughter day I relished our time spent together.  It’s not often that it is just you and I, there is usually a boy hang’n around.  I feel so lucky to have you as a daughter and to be able to share special time with just you.

You make me think, you make me laugh, you make me thankful that I am blessed with such a wonderful child.

I can only imagine the dragons you will slay this year and most of all, I can’t wait to watch.

Happy 7th birthday!

I love you girl.

Love,

Mom

Happy May Day

Did you get a basket of flowers left on your door handle this morning?  I didn’t either, but that’s ok.

I remember as a kid running through the woods between my house and my friend’s and within the confines of the trees, early in the spring, these small May flowers would bloom in white and lavender.

We would spend all afternoon picking these little flowers that were sprawled through the woods.  It was so much fun, not a care in the world but to pick the biggest bunch of flowers you could and then give them to your favorite someone.

It was always my mom.

Confidence booster

We had a new babysitter last weekend.  The girl is the younger sister of one of our “regular” babysitters and I see their dad everyday down at the park with their dog, so they know our family.

When she arrived on the job she walked right in and the kids were very excited to see her.  She is one of those girls who is supper cute, bubbly without being obnoxious, very confident yet waaay laid-back.

I gave her the run down of the night, bed times, routines, etc.  I asked her if she had any questions, she did not.  Then I asked her what her rate was so I would have enough cash to pay her when we got home.

Her response, “I don’t have a rate, I don’t really babysit.”

AWESOME!

Friday’s Magnolia

And here it is.

What amazing progress in just one week.

Thursday’s bloom

This is what 80 degrees and sun does for blooming trees.

So nice.

Santas in town

So I had a long bike ride yesterday.  I chose to do two laps of the trails around our house for ease and due to time constraints.  It was pretty windy out and several times during the ride I found random strangers drafting behind me.  For some reason this made me mad, like seriously people cut your own wind, if you’re going to use me at least say HI or tell me your name or something.  Needless to say, it just gave me more vigor so I would speed up and try to shake them.

One particular drafter however, was delightful.  He initially passed me at a street crossing and when he did, he was a vision to behold.  I would put him at about age 65 with very white hair sticking out of his helmet, a beard, a tight white sleeveless shirt, red tights and over the tights were tight spandex black biking shorts, a black fanny pack which carried jingle bells that you could hear if you were close by and he donned roller blades, very fast roller blades.

So I call out that I am passing on the left, he hand gestures for me to go ahead and then sticks with me for a good five miles.  I am on a bike, going about 19 miles per hour, he is on ROLLER BLADES.  He takes me on a hill and as he passes he tells me what a great pace I have going.  I tell him I love his jingle bells.  He tells me its to keep his elves in order because they don’t really listen.

Then off he flew.

F YOU

PJ came home from school today and told me some kids have been using the F-word.  I asked her what happened, who was saying it and if she did anything about it.

She gave me the blow by blow and then said they went to tell their teacher but that she didn’t do anything about it.

The problem…the teacher doesn’t seem to know the F-word.  She speaks Chinese and they don’t seem to have that one in China.