2012 Nationals

I think I have finally begun recovering from Nationals in Augusta.  I am so thankful that we were there last week and not this week given this crazy heat wave.  We had mixed emotions about participating this year.  James has trained hard, but just hasn't grown much in the last year so the competition seems awfully unfair. 

The first race was the road race...the one that's not very fun to watch.  There were 88 guys in this race so it's hard to find your participant among other things.  They usually do a couple to three very long circuits so you see them every 30 minutes are so.  This one was no different.  They had a neutral start, which means they go pretty slow to the first turn.  We saw him come around once more and then the finish.  During the neutral start, he lost a fair amount of position - hard to recover from that start.  He finished not so great.  (Below he's the 4th one in this small group.)

The next day was the time trial, also known as the TT.  James isn't a great time trialer so we didn't expect a lot.  Good thing.

He had about the same time as he did last year.  Pretty disappointing.  He did look good on his bike.

The TT is a lonely ride.  Riders start every 30 seconds.  You try like the devil to catch the one in front of you and try not to get caught by someone behind you.  

The last event used to be the one James said was his worst event....until 3 years ago.  He podiumed as a 12-year-old (I know that's not really a verb, but cut me a break.  It's faster than explaining.)  Every since he's done well in criteriums or crits as they are affectionately called.  They're also the most scary for a mom watching from the side.  So often there are crashes.  This year James went into the crit with something to prove.  As James neared the end of his warmed up I whispered in his ear that I would buy him a new set of wheels if he finished with the pack.  He's been timid lately and I wasn't sure he would force himself to stay in the pack.

That was an expensive whisper.  He finished 17th out of 81 and with the pack.  He had a horrible start position for reasons I won't go into so he showed a lot of heart of effort to get with the front pack and then stay there.

Learning to Play with Video

New toy!!  I finally got around to reading the instructions on how to use the video recording feature on my camera.  (I didn't get far enough to realize that I hadn't turned the sound on.  Hopefully remedied for next session.

Any way, at the races last weekend I took a fair amount of video snippets.  Unfortunately, the two best vinettes - the one where James attacked in his Cat 4 race and his finish - I was technically challenged and totally missed.  I did learn a lot so here are a couple of links.  These will take you to the site where all the other snippets are - would love hear to feedback.  (Other than that I misspelled snippit in naming the links.)

Snippit #1

Snippit #2

Walk with Me

I have been trying very hard to blog once a week.  (Ok, maybe very hard might be a bit of an exaggeration.  It is on my list and I do endeavor to get to it each week.  Shoot, it's Sunday and that is still a stretch.  I must confess - it is on my list higher than quite a few other items.  Whew, that's better, now I can proceed.)  I do enjoy it and I am finding that it helps with my scrapbooking if I have if I have a few lines jotted down.  I have a few posts percolating, but I have something special I want to share today.  

I used to love going to my grandmother's house.  She and my granddaddy lived in the country and I would spend-the-night with them sometimes. I still hear the utter quietness of being there.  It seems like a few times we watched Lawrence Welk together, but other than that there really wasn't any TV.  Before Grandmother's hands got so painful from her rheumatoid arthritis, she would do some kind of needlework at night.  She did everything...I mean everything.  She knitted, crocheted, quilted, tatted...I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but I am more and more amazed all the time at all the things she was able to do (because I am utterly incapable of them).  Any way,  she would sit and work on something.  Granddaddy would sit and play solitaire.  The only thing you could hear was the pendulum on their clock and the faint sound of card being turned over along and along.  (I suppose that explains why I am addicted to spider solitaire - it's genetic and beyond my control.)

Another love that I believe I am genetically attached to is my love of flowers, especially fragrant ones.  My grandmother had the most beautiful flowers.  When she could still walk around her yard, which unfortunately was while I was still quite young, we would walk around her yard and she would show me her treasures.  One day I'll tell you the story of one very common weed that led to a little game between us.  (You'll have to wait until summer when I can get a photo, of course.)

God has blessed me with a husband who loves them, too, so we piddle and plant and move and plan.  It's a love affair that is never over.  And now that you've been patient with my walk down memory lane, to the payoff.  (If you get this blog via a feed, you'll want to go to the site.  It's much better against a black backdrop.)

I've been playing with camera equipment this weekend and after a lot of rain today, I wanted to go see what was blooming today.  So glad I did because I had a few surprises.

This hydrangea is one that we brought over from our other house.  I can't tell you how many we planted trying to get one that would be a dark purple.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if was at least a dozen.  All to no avail.  We moved this one to this yard and I had my dark purple hydrangea.  I'm sure this is some spiritual tie in there or some parable, but I can't stop enjoying looking at this beauty to figure out what it is.  This flowerhead is a surprise because it just came from nowhere.  The deer ate all but one of the flowerheads so I'm not sure where this second one came from.

When Keith and I started our gardening journey, I hated hydrangeas (especially the blue ones) and crepe myrtle.  I am happy to report that I am now reformed and I think they are wonderful.  Maybe they seemed so common to me from childhood.  Now, I just believe that I have matured enough to fully appreciate all their wonderful attributes.

I have something fragrant blooming pretty much year round, even through a lot of the winter.  We have a few varieties of gardenias to keep the scent going longer through the early summer.  For the past few weeks, the minute you walk outside you can smell these lovelies.  They're so fragile but make such a big fragrance statement.

Day lilies are another favorite from the old house  Unfortunately, we moved in the winter and weren't really able to move any of them.  This is the first one at our current house.  Keith especially likes day lilies so I'm sure it's the first of many to come.  They come in such dramatic colors - I can't wait to see what we have after several years.

I think this guy speaks for himself.  Doesn't just looking at this picture make you happy?

The very newest addition.  I can see this pink hydrangea (and the blue one for that matter) from my kitchen window.  I'm not really sure why, but this one makes me think of my grandmother.  I'm pretty sure her house in heaven has at least one somewhere around.  I'm also pretty sure she has a smile when I indulge in my love for flowers.