This week I’m thankful for…
- playing Hide & Seek with my nephews
- riding my bike to work
- slow churned frozen vanilla custard
- Saturdays in my pajamas
- wearing my One Fish, Two Fish pajamas to school on Dr. Seuss Day. Yes, I did ride my bike to school in my pajamas.
- riding my bike home under a double rainbow backed by gunmetal clouds
- arriving home on my bike just as it started to rain
- this present I received from a little one at my school:
How adorable is this bike basket/bag? It gets even better…
TAGALONGS!!! There were Tagalongs inside!!! Surely I died and went to Heaven.
And look how my Sharpies look like a bright bouquet of happiness. Sigh. Perfection.
This week I’m thankful for…
- giving my little ones new boxes of crayons for Valentine’s Day
- the little girl who was thrilled by the “new crayon smell” when she opened her Valentine
- three-day weekends
- shredded chicken tacos from the Crock Pot
- homemade ice cream topped with Magic Shell
- walking to the movie theater on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon
- lemons fresh from That Laura’s tree
- spending a day with my very first student teacher who is doing an amazing job in her own first grade classroom
- This VELO video from Motionlab. Everything about it makes me happy.
This week I’m thankful for…
- driving with the top down in February
- clear, starry nights
- riding Magnolia True to school
- homemade ice cream
- my mom
- three-day weekends
- Girl Scout cookies. I could write a love poem about Tagalongs.
- my Valentine
- sweet love notes from my little ones
- Cascade Bicycle Club’s Happy VELOtimes photo album
This week I’m thankful for…
- riding up the hill home in a higher gear than usual. Magnolia True and I are having the best time.
- riding The Rocket during the Super Bowl. We had a lovely time together riding on a practically empty trail
- Cheerios and bananas for breakfast
- a fresh haircut
- lunch with my mom
- the sound of rain on the roof
- days when the rain holds off until after recess
- my new bicycle scarf. It’s ridiculously soft and perfect for cold morning bike rides to school. Wow, your scarf jealousy is palpable.
- my new bicycle skirt. Are you sitting down? Your mind is about to be blown by this adorable skirt. It’s breezy and thin, perfect for wearing with tights.
Image courtesy of sewcraftcreate.com
This week I’m thankful for…
- riding my bike to school
- mandarin oranges from the corner stand
- the sound of children playing at my neighborhood park
- grilled cheese and pickle sandwiches
- Heavy Metal Monday spin class
- the blooper reel of my nephew learning to ride his bike. I love the videos of him riding successfully, but I love the faceplant videos just as much. Okay, maybe more.
- the first rose on the rosebush by my front door
- floating bicycle photos by Zhao Huasen. They are so delightfully whimsical. Here’s my favorite. It makes me giggle each time I look at it. Click the photo below to see the entire collection. They’re guaranteed to make you grin.
My little brother, Pete, is one of my favorite people on the planet. He can (and will) talk to anyone. He laughs easily. He’s a great dad. And he rides bikes.
Here we are riding Pete’s first century in honor of our grandmother. This is the only time on the ride I was ahead of Pete.
Photo courtesy of chrisflentye.com
Pete is five years my junior. I remember reading bedtime stories to him. I remember walking him to kindergarten. I remember tickling and teasing him mercilessly, per Big Sister Code. I also remember holding the back of his bike seat while he learned to ride a bike without training wheels.
Last Monday, Pete’s five-year-old son learned to ride his bike without training wheels. Pete and his wife, Lisa, sent me videos and pictures all morning long of my nephew’s progress. I was one proud auntie watching my teensy nephew pedal his brains out.
I watched those videos at least ten times that day. Each time I was a sniffling, blubbering, crying mess. I’m proud of my nephew and his first two-wheeled adventure, but the tears sprang up from the fierce pride I have in my brother for being the kind of dad who plays with his sons, the kind of dad who spends his days off teaching them to ride bikes.
In the last video Pete gave his son a push start, let him go and then jogged beside him as his son pedaled down the road. There’s a moment when my nephew looks up at my brother to make sure he’s still there. My brother tells him, “Keep goin’! Keep goin’!”
Time is a brief and beautiful blossom and as I watched my brother and my nephew, I knew down deep in the chambers of my heart that my little brother will never be completely ready to let his son go.
In that moment I also knew that as my nephew grows into a man and faces the joys and hardships of life, he’ll always have his dad beside him encouraging him to keep going.
What a wonderful place this world would be if we all had someone to help us take our training wheels off, to hold us steady and then to propel us forward, covered in words of encouragement.
What a wonderful place the world would be if we all decided to be that person.
“Let’s all do it,” said Mr. Watts. “Close your eyes and silently recite your name.”
The sound of my name took me to a place deep inside my head. I already knew that words could take you into a new world, but I didn’t know that on the strength of one word spoken for my ears only I would find myself in a room that no one else knew about.“Another thing,” Mr. Watts said. “No one in the history of your short lives has used the same voice as you with which to say your name. This is yours. Your special gift that no one can ever take from you.”
― Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
I’m tickled to announce that my new bike and I have chosen her name. Thanks for all of your funny and lovely suggestions. I’ve had a blast trying them on my bike. Here are all the suggestions including some last minute additions from yesterday and today.
- Sydney Bristow. This one came from my husband who knows I loved the show Alias and that Jennifer Garner, who played super spy Sydney Bristow on Alias, also played the movie character Electra. Electra is the brand of my new bike. The Hubs is one clever guy. The reason I didn’t choose this one is because had I named her Sydney Bristow, I would have felt pressure to always be saving the world whilst wearing awesome spy costumes. Writing this, I realize I may have made a grievous mistake in NOT choosing that name.
- Trudy. It just didn’t fit.
- Sheila. Another one that wasn’t right.
- Pearl. This one was a favorite with many of you and also one of my favorites since the color of my bike is White Pearl. What you may not know is that my car is named The Black Pearl, which has nothing to do with pirate ships and everything to do with the fact that her paint color is Black Pearl. I call my car The Pearl for short, so if I’d named my new bike Pearl, it would have been WAY too confusing for this bear of little brain.
- Rita. I once had a curmugeonly teacher named Rita. I’m pretty sure she didn’t like kids, not even her own. So that name never stood a chance.
- Alice. This one reminded me of Alice from The Brady Bunch. I spent many happy afternoons watching Alice and her hijinks with Brady kids. However, I get called Alice ALL THE TIME because ‘Alicia’ is confounding to scads of people, so no dice for Alice.
- Cloud 9. If my bike had 9 gears instead of 8, this might have been her name. It is a perfect bicycle name, but it just wasn’t right for my bike. I hope some cyclist out there snatches this name up and gives it a good bicycle to claim.
- Baby. My sister suggested this one because of that line from Dirty Dancing. You know the one. ”Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Well, The Hubs insists that he puts Baby in a corner. In fact, my Dirty Dancing DVD doesn’t live with the other DVDs. It lives on the floor in a corner of the living room because every time I try to put it away, The Hubs puts it back in the corner, further proof that we are just masquerading as adults. While I love this little game The Hubs and I play, last year I had a student who sang the chorus of Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ over and over and over and over and over and over EVERY SINGLE DAY. It was the worst earworm ever and I couldn’t risk getting that song stuck in my head each time my bike and I had a conversation.
- Chatty Cathy. I liked the irony of this one being that my new bike has been quite tight-lipped and on the shy side. In the end Chatty Cathy wasn’t the right fit.
- Bianca. My first ten speed was a Bianchi named Bianca. So that name was already taken by a bike I loved.
- Samantha. This one came from my hilarious and obviously humble friend, Samantha. Samantha is a smart, sassy redhead. Samantha is the ideal name for a cherry red bike.
- Bi-psyike-oh. I refer back to being routinely beaten in Words With Friends. I need a bike name I can spell within the first ten tries. Is it bi? Or by? Psy? Or psych? Oh? Or oe? And shoot, where do those hyphens go again? This name foretold an overworked delete key and a spelling induced tantrum.
- Sally. As in “Ride, Sally, ride.” according to my friend, Becky. Sally is another good bike name, but when I tried it out on my bike, she didn’t answer to it.
- Magnolia or Maggie for short. My bike whispered this name in my friend Julie’s ear while Julie was reading. Julie says, “Magnolias are beautiful as white as a blossom and yet strong and sturdy as a tree.” Trees have special meanings for Julie and I so this suggestion made me tear up. I loved every bit of this name from the get go. I loved the meaning. I loved the nickname. I loved that my shy bike whispered it to my friend. I was set to name her Magnolia until another friend suggested Truly.
- Truly. This suggestion and ridiculously cheerful video came from my dear friend, Jenna. Truly is a fantastic bike name! I loved it not only for the sugary Chitty Chitty Bang Bang song, but for the double meaning. What my non-cycling friends might not know is that bike wheels have to be “trued”, meaning made to ride straight and without wavering. How’s that for a reminder on how to live life? The other reason I fell in love with this name is because my own name means “filled with the truth.”
So there I was stuck between Magnolia and Truly.
I tried out both names on my bike and wouldn’t you know it, she told me liked them each just as much as I did. Though we’d narrowed it down to two, we had our work cut out for us.
On our ride to school this morning, I tried out Magnolia Truly. Then Truly Magnolia. Then Maggie Truly. Then Truly Maggie. None of them were quite right. Not quite yet.
As we cruised down the hill with the chill of morning, flushing our cheeks I said, “You’re a great bike, Magnolia True.”
That was it.
A beautiful name for my beautiful bike.
Magnolia True.
I smile every time I say it.
Thanks for all of your suggestions. I hope you’ll get a chance to meet Magnolia True in person someday soon. When you do, she says you can call her Maggie True for short.
Magnolia Stellata by Jens Luedicke. Image courtesy of fotopedia.com.
