Knitters Greenhouse

Wow. What else can be said? Not only has Vinokourov been removed yesterday after failing a blood test, but now, Rabobank has eliminated the Maillot Jaune, Michael Rasmussen, from the Tour de France. The news reports say that "the chicken," not only missed drug tests, he has now reportedly been not, as he said, in Mexico. Rather he was spotted in Italy on the days in question.

C'mon, guys. How can we, how can I be a fan - when all these questions swirl? What's a fan to say to all the finger-pointers? I still don't hate the sport by any means. I still will watch. BUT what a demoralizer for everyone! What will be the reaction of the other cyclists? How will Bob Roll, Phil Liggett, and Paul Sherwin spin this? I mean, the TdF has lost the yellow jersey in the final week of the race!

The following is a disturbing video from youtube. A few days ago I was at Meijer, standing in the check-out line. A young mom and her toddler were in front of me, and the child wanted the "Dips" or some kind of packaged ice cream, and the top flew off of the box. The mom grabbed the box, and the little girl cried, loudly. She'd already been fussy, but this made her really upset. I tried to lessen the tension by saying, "oh, that happened to me with my blueberries a while ago," and "blah..blah...my grand-daughter is about her age..." It didn't help at all. The mom, being obviously stressed, popped her HARD. I was disturbed, especially because I'd been told the little one was the same age as Arya, 16 months.

It all makes me wonder: What kind of mom was I for my kids? So many times I yelled at my kids when their only transgression was that it was late, my house was a mess, or I got frustated and tired. I even hit them, but never in public. It wasn't beating - but it was wrong. (That time when Philip's nose started bleeding is another story...)

I pray for those busy parents of little ones these days. It seems like there are ever more reasons for them to be too busy, too stressed, and too tired, just like I was. I want to think of effective ways to lend a hand so violence is not used to control children. Even more so, what are the things I am teaching through my "grown-up" actions?

A couple of days ago, I took Arya out to try out her new "Elmo" stroller, and it was just about 30 minutes after a rain. Besides just pushing and being pushed in the stroller, which she LOVED, she was having fun stomping in the puddles. Even though I knew Karen was taking her to a short photo shoot (Karen's shoot of a class) shortly, I let Arya splash and splash, knowing she was getting her shoes a bit wet. It wasn't going too badly until she decided to SIT DOWN in the water. Being the grandma who thinks almost EVERYTHING Arya does is cute and funny, I decided to remove her clothes and let her have fun. Of course that meant that I'd have to stay with her another hour while Karen did the photo shoot. Such is the price I pay to be a grandma.

I was trying to send the video from my camera phone, but it doesn't seem to go through. Meanwhile, I'll use this video that Karen took in May.

Liz has thrown in for Cadel Evans to win the TdF, but I'm hoping for Levi Leipheimer to show some dominance in the Pyrenees and go on to take the GC win. It's not an educated guess, just a guess that he can still make progress in those mountains.


I also see that another of our favorites, Dave Zabriske, continues to "stay on his bike"* and I'm proud of all his work for Team CSC. Peace, Dave.

*quote stolen from Floyd at the Wheaton Borders 7/9/07

Several years ago (1998-99) our son, Phil, left home for a year-long internship with a youth ministry that we were involved with and supported in many ways. During that year he told us about his "blog," which was my first real exposure to them. I could read what he was thinking, as well as link to the blogs of his friends. I got to know his friends this way, and it was a fun connection to his life away from home.

Our daughter, Liz, has a regular blog that she's written for several years. She's the prolific writer in our family. Although she doesn't treat her blog as a private journal, sometimes she relates the day's events. Other times she takes positions on important issues, or rants of how she is offended by rude people, or how much she loves pro cycling.

A while back, I started my own blog, and it was mostly to keep up with my kids who wrote and recorded their thoughts and the events in their lives. I never intended to be a sounding board of my personal life to those who have no connection to my life. Although I write on the internet, I do this to talk about things that are important to me, not to invade others' lives or try to hurt them.

Through the years, I've read other blogs, and like I have mentioned, it has helped me to learn about people and what others think. Many of the things I read are very personal, while others are political or commentaries on life in general. The most interesting ones were the ones that revealed inner thoughts. Sometimes I have commented on others blogs, sometimes I've e-mailed directly.

Concerning my family, I am married to a man I have loved for many years. He has been a follower of Christ, as have I, for all of our adult lives. I am proud to say that all of our kids are intelligent, thinking Christians, who care deeply about their faith and their fellow believers. When others have invaded our lives with rumors, we have always seen fit to ignore them and turned to one another and to God. I will not discontinue my entries (even though I sometimes lag a bit and don't write!) or try to hide anything about my life. I'll just blog.

Yup - here is a post about an old-fashioned Asian process for hair removal, threading. Last month before her wedding, Sara had her eyebrows shaped by an Indian woman at a kiosk in the mall. She was so pleased and I decided to try it. Dang it hurts! At the same time, it effectively gets rid of those nasty, hard hairs that grow on the chin of every 50-something woman I know. Another positive: cheap! ($10.00 for upper lip and chin).

There is really no need to re-invent the wheel on this, but we had so much fun going up to Chicago for a Floyd Landis book-signing, that I will just link to Liz, where she has written the whole story. She does a good job of not making us sound like crazed fans, however, it really is just too hard to describe how important it has been to me to go experience fan-fun at the Tour de France and cheering for our favorite cyclist, Floyd.

We also thought it was pretty cool to be included in the photos on cyclingnews, so be sure to follow all the links.