My March Madness

No, I am not referring to college basketball. For our family, the month of March is spent getting ready for this. I have 44 days of increasing insanity to endure before I can sit back and relax. My house will be taken over by bike race paraphanelia. It's amazing - it seems to breed on it's own each year. Last year, we ended up putting a kid's picnic table in the living room and using that for school & meals (Beth, hand me that parent of the year award, please!) because you couldn't move in the dining room. There were simply too many boxes to navigate the room safely.

I'm here to tell you that the 'stuff' has started to appear again. Two boxes arrived today.



They haven't made it over to the corner yet. Here's a peek at what this end of the dining room normally looks like. Remember it because it is about to disappear and won't re-emerge - sans the winter jackets/boots/shoes - until the end of June. And in the coming weeks, the collection of race stuff will spill over into the rest of the room making it unusable to anyone but Dieter.




I'm not upset that these boxes are here. In fact, it's a good thing that they were delivered today. One of them is full of race numbers. Last year, we forgot to order them for one of the other races that Dieter promotes and almost didn't get them in time. Forget the numbers once and you'll never forget them again. So race numbers and safety pins for 1600 cyclists - yes, that's one thousand and six hundred (mostly) guys, gals, and their bikes - are sitting in my dining room with another mysterious box that my husband refuses to open while children are around.

Since I am a natural born sleuth, I went ahead and opened them both. I simply had to know: what is in the other box? (You are all wondering if Dieter will find out. The answer is yes, when he reads my blog this evening.)

Box #1 had the race numbers and pins in it. Wouldn't you like to wear a number like this?


Box #2 held signs for the race itself. Since I run the registration for the race, I was absurdly happy to see this sign. Thank you, Dieter!


As the wife of a cyclist, I know that these two signs are a must. You all would be amazed at the stupid things people do when there are bikes on the road. There can never be enough signage.


Of course, the sign that will generate the most interest is this one:


And - I can't believe that I almost forgot this - those individuals who find a number 1 next to their name under the race results sign will be the recipient of one of these (which are conveniently hidden upstairs):


Shucks, I should be racing. I really want a cow!