Shaina Day! Shaina Day was Sunday, June 22nd this year. [Birthday + Mother's Day = Shaina Day] I had to give a talk in church, so it wasn't the full day of pure ease and celebration that I would've preferred, but at least the day was completely my own--no shared birthday, no scrambling to wish all the mothers I know and love happy mother's day. It was a day just for me. Wow, that sounds so selfish, but half the fun is having a day that I can call MY OWN! It's the only day in the whole year where I am allowed to be completely selfish, so I let myself enjoy it.
The day began with presents! Jay gave me a folding hammock camp chair. Rose gave me a nerf football. Amber gave me a puzzle with horses on it. Jeff gave me a completely over the top fancy new Garmin Fenix 8s watch. Then we went to church, where I sat up front with a high heart rate and gave my talk. We had a typical quiet relaxing Sunday afternoon, with one difference: at 4pm I did not have to force myself to go make dinner. I stayed in my room napping while Jeff and the kids made dinner! Sweet sweet decadence. They made one of my easy faves: pumpkin gnocchi and chicken sausage. I don't like making this meal, but I like eating it, and it's a good meal for lots of helpers, because each gnocchi has to be rolled and formed. The perfect Shaina Day meal! Jeff even got creative and invented a plant-based cream sauce to go on the gnocchi. I don't think he's ever cooked dairy free before, and I was very pleased and touched.
One funny part about this dinner was: for some reason Jeff made a tiny amount! He only used one can of pumpkin for the gnocchi, and he only fried up four sausages! Everyone got one small bowl of gnocchi and almost a whole sausage. Last year Jeff made two kinds of gnocchi and there was a TON of it and it took forever to make. This year he went to the other extreme. Maybe next year will be the ideal year! I was definitely grateful for the novelty of a meal made for me. After dinner, I played the piano while everyone cleaned up.
I love my sweet family. Amber made a whole list on the white board of things to do together for Shaina day, including play catch, do archery, swing on the swing, and play duets. Sadly I didn't end up doing any of those with her. I was totally selfish and tired, but Amber wasn't too sad about it. Jeff and Rose did play catch with her. After family prayer at 8pm, Rose and I hung out for 30 minutes together talking and eventually eating cereal with raspberries on top to supplement the small dinner. Amber joined us. Once the girls left, Jay found me to tell me that the sunset looked really cool. I love that Jay knows how much I like sunsets, and that he excitedly came to get me to show me a good one. Sweet Jay. When I thanked him for everything he did for Shaina Day today, he said "you earned it!" in his quiet sweet Jay voice. Man I love my boy. I love my girls. I love my husband. Life is good.
The rest of the week was an exercise in balance: last week I did not balance my energy expenditures very well, going from intense running to long bouts of yardwork and utterly exhausting myself every day. This week I worked on setting time limits on the physical labor so I could actually recover day to day. I got better at it as the week progressed, and finally felt less exhausted by the end of the week.
This week, Rose and Amber attended the Youth Performance Lab day camp Monday-Friday from 9am-12pm. My PT friend, Daniel Hernandez ran the camp. He taught drills, running mechanics, how to jump, and how to move. We went there right after cross country practice every day, and it was a lot! Amber took it easy at cross country practice, only running one mile per day, to save energy for the camp afterwards. Rose didn't hold back at cross country practice so she was extra extra tired when she got home at noon every day. On Wednesday afternoon, she slept for three hours!
At 6am on Friday, I ran 8.5 miles in our beautiful country neighborhood. It was such a glorious morning! Meanwhile, Jeff and Jay took a van load of cross country kids to the Columbia River pathway in the tri cities and ran 10 miles together. It was Jay's longest run ever! And he pulled away from Jeff at the end!
In Jay's words: "I ran 9 miles with Dad," (pause for a mischievous grin) "...and then dropped him during the 10th mile."
In Jeff's words: "Jay had a great run. He sped up bit by bit during the last few miles even though we had agreed that our legs were too tired for that. He pulled away from me by 6 seconds during the last mile."
Jay is having so much fun getting faster than his Dad this summer! It's so fun and cute.
On Thursday night, Amber came into my room and asked for a bandaid.
"Sure, what happened?" I asked. Amber gestured up and down her legs. It took me a minute, but then I realized her legs were smooth and hairless. "Did you shave your legs?" I asked.
"Yeah, I have been shaving my legs," she replied. "Last time I cut my knee, this time I cut my leg."
I only taught Amber how to shave her armpits a few weeks ago, and even though I didn't show her how to shave her legs, I suspected that she would shave them soon. I gave her a quick rundown: "Make sure you use a lot of soap, don't push too hard with the razor, and get a new razor every month no matter what." My 10 year old started shaving her legs before her 14 year old sister. Amber was proud of her work and felt sleek and pretty. CUTENESS.
I stayed home from the Friday XC run to watch Rose and Amber at the final day of their Youth Performance Lab. Brooke Hernandez (my PT friend Daniel's wife, who I don't get to see very often) came with their 3 kids, and it was fun to see her again. I invited them over for lunch and raspberry picking after the camp ended, and we had a fun afternoon hanging out for a few hours. Rose was the sweetest playing with their young kids (ages 9, 6, & 4). I fed them all leftover meatloaf and PBJ sandwiches. Daniel left right after lunch to go back to work, and Jeff took a nap to recover from his longest run in a year, so Brooke and I had fun together, chatting and picking berries, while the kids played a very long game of Uno.
Instead of running on Saturday morning, I did 20 minutes of yoga on our back porch out in the beautiful fresh world and felt so peaceful. I did not feel the need to run because I hit 30 miles for the week on Friday, and I have found that running 30 miles in one week is plenty. Morning yoga on the back porch was glorious--hard in a different way from running. Refreshing in a different way from running.
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