The Moral of the Story and Other Matters

Here I sit on my bed with my laptop and one leg folded up and one (the right) extended with an ice pack resting on my knee. This position can only suggest one thing - skating injury. Well, injury is really too dramatic a word to use, but it does suggest how I came to find myself here.

As I can't skate this Tuesday due to a dental appointment, I had my lesson with Coach Jayne today instead. This also gave our newly formed ensemble group the opportunity to practice as a number of us were going to be at the rink today. The session was crowded for a Monday and my lesson started out with work on the change foot spin. Coach really is pushing me on this FS3 element. That went fine; some progress with Coach feeling confident I will get this down before test time in August. Then, we moved on to the dance step sequence, with the ever-dreaded outside Mohawk. Clicked blades twice, but stayed upright.

Then, I made the mistake of telling Coach how I had this dream last night that I executed a PERFECT waltz/loop/loop jump combo. This was my first mistake. Her response: "Want to try one?" "Of course," I boldly replied, knowing I had not done this in over 5 years probably, well before my skating accident. Thus emerged my second mistake - trying this jump at all. We didn't even move over to the boards, just stayed on open ice. The first attempt I bailed completely! Smart move. Second time I nailed one. Amazing and purely accidental, I'm certain. Coach said, "And again," in that understated way that leaves no room for "Not really." Third time around the first loop after the waltz jump was good, but then the wheels came off and down I went, right on the little bone that protrudes slightly to the right (or left) of one's kneecap. Went down in a blaze of something far from glory and got the wind knocked right out of me.

After Coach had ascertained that nothing was broken and there were just a few minutes left in my lesson, I suggested that it was time for me to meet with my ensemble partners and press on with that practice. This was the ONLY way I was going to be able to get away from executing any other jumps, I feared. I am very happy that nothing is broken and I can ice it tonight, feeling quite certain that tomorrow I will be back to normal.

The moral of this story: Dreams don't always come true. Isn't that ever the truth!

I have switched music for my FS3 technical competition program to "Fallen Embers" by Enya. My BSB and cherished friend had this music cut for her own use. She decided not to use it and gave it to me. It is absolutely spectacular music; soft, lilting, sad but very meaningful, with the most beautiful lyrics. I decided to use this music for competition as a tribute to her. She saw me skate the program for the first time last Friday. It is VERY rough now as it was the first time I had tried it with this music, but I hope she understood how much it means to me to be using this piece.

One of my dear skating buddies was at the rink today. She had her 4th place medal for her Light Entertainment program at Adult Nationals. She competed in a field of eight Masters-level skaters. Mind you, this is - as the name indicates - a national competition. She was still all aglow over her experience at the competition and you could tell she was very proud (as she should be) of her results.

Our ensemble group had our first "official" practice with Jill Shipstad Thomas last Friday. She arrived with the music she cut for us - Tango! She did a *fab* job and everyone in the group loves it. As always, Jill was a joy to work with. We perhaps got through less than 20 seconds of the music during Friday's session. We all need to develop that sharp, crisp Tango movement. This is going to take some very hard work indeed. We are 8 skaters strong which puts us in the "Production Number" category for ISI competition. This means if we want to compete in that category, we have to keep more than 7 skaters and add one more minute to the music to put it at 4 minutes. That is a LONG, LONG time for adult skaters. Come to think of it, that's a long time for anyone to skate! We'll have to see what happens but for right now we are going to leave our music at 3 minutes and assume we'll still be in the "Ensemble" category due to attrition. Last year we lost one of our skaters to a broken knee cap and another skater had to step in to take her place.

Today, there were 5 ensemble members at our casual (without Jill or any coach) practice. I am very glad we did this, even with members missing because we were able to identify problem areas and develop solutions on our own. This is very important to keep coaching fees manageable. I think we did a fairly decent job of remembering what Jill had taught us on Friday. Hopefully, we can arrange for Jill to return on April 30 to work with us again. It will likely take a good two months to have the program set.

I've not really felt much like quilting lately, even though I have a number of projects that need attention. I did go to a quilt show with my good buddy Lori last weekend. It was absolutely amazing to see the endless array of creativity. I was so impressed at the infinite possibilities involved in this craft. I bought a pattern for a small autumn door hanging. The center medallion is embroidery embellished. I am nearly 2/3 of the way finished with the needlework which is astounding as I have not done embroidery in over 15 years. Had to brush up on my technique, but the cute little squirrel painting the "Welcome" sign is looking very sweet; I think the little guy is winning even Dear Husband's heart. I spent two hours last night listening to my Anne Perry novel and doing my needlework. What a productive luxury that was.

I promised myself that this week for certain I would add the first border to "Sunday in the Park." No matter what, I am going to accomplish this, as there are 5 borders (I may only add 3) and I want to have this up in time for summer. Then, I must work on the baby quilt and the applique blocks for the BOM I am doing with a quilting friend. So many projects, not enough time.

Onward through life!