Failling an Exam and Finding Joy

April is here and for me that means the end of ski season. Bridger Bowl's last day will be tomorrow and I am ready. Oddly enough I haven't been on my skis for more than 12 runs in the past week. With the finish my PSIA Level III exam on the 2nd and 3rd my body started giving into the pain I have been skiing through and my body was ready for a rest.

On Monday morning I went outside to see a great suprise: my flowers were popping up through the dead leaves, soil and snow. What joy those tender little things brought to my heart.

It has been a hard past few weeks. Skiing hard and getting the last few pieces put together for my exam. I had an incredible week on my skis and was just amazed at what I was able to do anywhere on the mountain. I was actually excited for the exam to come and felt ready for whatever would happen, pass or fail. I was just having fun. Thursday morning, the 2nd, came and with some amazing encouragement from my coaches the exam kicked off. The weather was perfect. Snowy, low 20's, fantastic snow; it really couldn't get any better.

The group I was in was great. One other instructor, Alex, was a coworker from Bridger. Maggie, who once worked at Bridger but is currently at Big Sky, was also in our group, as well as Nick, from Big Sky, Dave from Showdown, and Don from Yellowstone Club. Both the examiners were from Big Sky and their shadow, and our great encourager, Karin was from Bridger. All in all, everyone was a strong skier and things went well.

Exams are always hard. There is not nearly as much skiing as we would like. Once we got warmed up the scoring, and waiting, began. We did wedge turns, open parallel, dynamic parallel, and 4 tasks the first day, as well as our bumps demo in seriously low visibility. But the Level III description is "anywhere, anytime, anyplace..." The second day brought our teaching segments, wedge christies and one more task. Overall, things went well. I definitely didn't ski my best, nor did I ski my worst, but I felt I skied well. My teaching segment was by far my best of the year, which was a relief considering that is what I had been most nervous about.

Well by 6 o'clock Friday night the scores were in and I did not pass. It was tough, I cried. But I had nothing to regret. I never quit, I trained hard all year, and I did my best. I was very proud of myself for keeping a great attitude through the entire exam and after (which is what my coaches had felt would be my biggest obstacle). So I truly felt that I had succeeded even though I didn't pass.

In total only 3 people, out of 13, passed the Level III this year. Jen, from Big Sky, as well as Maggie, and my best friend Kate. I am so proud and excited for all three of them.

With little sleep Friday night I attempted to ski Saturday morning. But my body was already giving into the pain and I was home by noon, on the couch, watching TV, sleeping and crying. I unfortunately got the part of the lyrics to a Rascal Flatts song stuck in my head, "What hurts the most, was being so close..." which really didn't help. I ended up staying home and in bed Sunday as well, but by the evening the tears were gone and I was able to right Thank you notes to my coaches and ski school director for everything they did this year in helping me to improve.

Monday morning I finally went outside and that is when I saw them. My flower were coming up. Tulips, narcissus, polemonium, violas, and of course the weeds. So I spent a few hours cleaning out the dead leaves from fall, pulling weeds, and being thankful that I finally have a reason to like the spring and summer. That may sound somewhat strange, but I am a lover of winter, cold weather, and snow. Here in Montana we do have that blessed threesome, but we also have fairly hot summers (and I don't care if you say that it is dry--if it is above 75 it is too hot for me). I also love the dark, and long summer days aren't really that exciting to me. To top it all off I have major depression, and my seasonal affect disorder is opposite of most people: I am happy in the winter and sad in the summer. But now I have something that makes me happy in the summer too: flowers.

The only real problem with this is my inexperience with gardening. I have never grown anything outdoors. I never had a garden in my childhood and I live a few states away from relatives who have amazing outdoor landscapes. But a few years ago I plunged in, and wow am I glad I have a husband who did have a garden growing up. We have a great yard and selected a nice spot for a small vegetable garden. We borrowed a tiller and tilled a nice little 10' x 10' plot, planted a few select veggies, and then began to weed. Had I only known about some of the weeds we had in our yard, maybe I wouldn't have jumped in so fast, but you live and you learn. And now I have a new nemesis: Bindweed, as well as a few other weeds.

Well now I have a few plots of flowers, a small garden, a few containers, and I am still learning about gardening. Hardiness zones, annuals, perennials, corms, bulbs, seeds, germination, and more. Earlier this week I decided to put together a Flower Manual on all the different flowers I had to actually keep track of them all (especially the names of them--scientific or common I had a hard time remembering them all) and I so far have a 37 page document with pictures, hyperlinks, and descriptions of most.

So far it has been great, with the exception that I can only get to it on my desktop computer and the document is slow to load with all the info. Then I realized that it would be a lovely thing to have online, accessible anywhere. So here it is: the adventures of Shannon and her garden...