Where have I been? Not Blogging....

So, I haven't been blogging recently for a couple of reasons:

1: I primarily blog about cycling here (on the blog for those of you reading on Facebook) and until two days ago the bike was out of commission and has been for at least a month and a half. Derek had taken off the rear wheel and neither of us had found time to put it back on! Seriously! Every time we would remember it would be late at night or we'd be at least 15 miles away from the bike! I am not back in the saddle again yet but I hope to be soon. Instead we've been walking to the library with our friends down the street unless it was too cold or raining. I do still have grand goals regarding cycling though and hopefully will be getting moving on those soon.

2: I've been out of town a lot or have had company in. A few weeks ago I went down to help my MIL move out of her old house and into my old house AKA Grandma's house. Then we went back as a family to bring a UHaul up to Virginia with a load of furniture and a piano for my darling SIL. This was immediately followed by Rhys' birthday and Thanksgiving! Busy busy busy!

3: I've been crafting. I've been crafting a lot. Check the Picture:
There are:
2 fleece blankets
2 calendars
1 photobook
3 sets of fingerless gloves
1 scarf
1 headwrap
2 pair of socks and the beginnings of a third
1 pair of felted slippers with antiskid paint dots on the bottum
1 purse
1 Adipose Doll
1 lingerie bag with cute applique detail
1 flash drive with every digital picture ever taken of the boys (this doesn't sound like much but it was a days worth of work sorting through all of my pictures to just get them).
AND 1 Quilt which REAL quilters shouldn't look at too closely because it will make your head implode.

and this is just Christmas.... I made some stuff for Rhys' birthday to that's not pictured, not to mention all of the cookies and my failed attempt at homemade pretzels!

So, that's what I've been up to and where I've been. Rhys' hair is finally growing back in and Alistairs hair is overgrown again!

Head Lice

ACK!

So, Rhys bumped his head pretty bad on the swingset on Monday (DH's birthday) and cut his head open pretty bad. As it turns out this was a good thing. In applying pressure to his head (after finally finding the cut through his thick hair) I noticed something - LICE. I don't usually see Rhys' scalp due to the fact that he has extraordinarily thick hair and he hadn't complained about itching but there they were.

So, I checked Alistair and he had them pretty bad too. I know that they're pretty common around here but I just wanted to (and still want to) vomit just thinking about it. To think of tons of little parasites crawling around on my sweet little ones just thoroughly disgusts me.

It also partially ruined Derek's planned birthday evening as we spent our bedtime/post dinner hours coating the children with an essential oil and olive oil mixture, and then dousing their hair with vinegar to loosen the eggs, rather than getting to be cute married people. Rhys fell asleep before we could do the vinegar rinse and we had to wake him up. He babbled incoherently while we cleaned his head off and combed out as much as we could that night. Alistair screamed and cried, it was like torture to him.

On Tuesday morning I checked them and myself again and sure enough found that we didn't get all the lice. So, I went ahead and called the only two families that we've hung out with in the past week (okay so one we had to stop off by because we don't have their phone # but we kept our distance). I cut the kid's hair off pretty short and took the hair outside far away from the house. I cancelled our weekly trip to the library because I wouldn't want to infect every toddler in town, and then went to get some Mayo and the official "Lice Combs" - which work pretty well at catching those little buggers.

Well, I tried to comb through everyone's hair before using the mayo and Alistair cried bloody murder because it hurts to run a metal comb along one's scalp but he let me do it. Rhys on the other hand had too many eggs. I started to run the comb along his scalp and it hurt so bad that he was shrieking in such a heart wrenching way that I stopped to love on him and calm him down. We talked about it and in explaining the necessity for using the comb on him I said that it was either this or I had to shave his head. He begged me to shave his head. He was very sad to loose his pretty hair but there was no way that I could have combed all of those nits and eggs out without him shrieking and crying all morning. So, I got and old towel and shaved all of his hair into it. His head was scabbed and covered with these gross creatures. My heart just sinks looking at his head now bald and scabby.

We did the mayo thing (you apply mayo to the scalp and wrap your head in plastic for at least an hour - we did 1 1/2 hours just to be sure) rinsed with vinegar again and Al and I went through the nit-picking battle again. I felt so bad for him but it has to be done consistently and repeatedly if I don't want to put the chemical shampoo on his head - which I don't - since it's a carcinogen and he's only two.

I'm fairly positive that we've got them all. I've spent the past 2 days laundering everything that can be laundered and vacuuming everything else. My head itches but at least two people have checked it and I appear clean. Did I mention that we still don't have a functioning shower and thus are dealing with this in the bathtub? I cannot deal with this happening again. I just can't. I WILL have a nervous break down and I WILL shave off my hair a la Britney Spears or Sinead O'Connor if I have to deal with it again. SERIOUSLY!

So, how does this relate to cycling?.... well... helmets of course! Rhys' helmet is currently in quarantine as are mine and Al's. So, we're probably going to be walking for the next week to week and a half... which reminds me... I have to go vacuum the entire car out since we had to drive to get to the store to buy mayo and lice combs yesterday (no sidewalk for part of the walk). The work will never end!

So, here's Rhys with his bald head and some cycling shots we've taken recently to add something nice to this post:









Bald Rhys from the front and the back (notice the gash from the swings and the scabs - ouch)










Rhys the night we discovered the lice and my bike at the post office a couple of weeks ago









Produce from the farmers market procured by bike and brought home in my own reusable bags.









Hubby and the kids at a volley ball game (we rode there).










The kids enjoying some peaches at the farmers market.

Getting Political, Religeous, and Calling out the Hypocrits

Please pardon my current break in the usual broadcast schedule of nice fluffy happy sotries about cycling and how it's changing my life (I promise to put one of those up later after I feel better), but I just got blindsided by a political link on someone elses blog that sucked the spirit out of the room. So, here I am to address my opinion of politics at the moment. I'm not so vocal about it but I have to say that both McCain and Obama chill my blood and make me want to run to the bathroom to vomit. I will most likely end up voting either for Bob Barr (if he ends up having a chance) or McCain because he makes me want to vomit slightly less. The difference in overall vomit output is very slight.

We as a nation are going to an unnamed destination but I will tell you that our chosen vehicle is indeed a hand basket. We have GOT to start voting independent people! Do you want to know why? Because all of the corruption, money, and political backscratching is just going in a circle up there in D.C. We are Rome. We will fall like Rome and what will be left? We're not nearly as cool as Italy so let's not kid ourselves here.... nothing.

What we need is righteous uncorruptible leadership. We don't need promises of change and promises of no longer being depenant on forieghn oil. Raising minimum wage continuously isn't going to do anything when the quality of students our schools are putting out is so hideously lacking because we're standardized testing the life out of them. A raise in minimum wage is merely going to raise the cost of everything else. Continuously adjusting it for inflation is going to force us into a post WWI Germany situation where it takes a wheelbarrow of cash to buy bread. Oh yes and our current administration isn't helping by just putting more bills out there. Yes, lets put more out so that the dollar can be worth less than it was. Also, trickle down economics is going to take at least a generation to do anything and people aren't going to wait that long. That's why it's called "trickle down" not "money flooding down". You idiots! You fools!

We are on the edge of a precipice. If you're planning on the current candidates for office to bail us out you're wrong. Get your food storage together, stock up on the essentials, learn some basic survival skills because if things keep going as they are we're all going down.

Pull out your Book of Moromon and read Alma and Helaman... we're there! The Gadianton Robbers are leading the country and they have control of the media. If you don't believe me start watching the data and interpreting it instead of letting someone tell you what it means, the two haven't matched up for quite some time. It's happening all over again. If you don't have a Book of Mormon I would suggest getting one and reading. Open your minds, listen to the spirit and learn. If you're too closed minded to ponder the Book of Mormon, please ponder the fate of Rome.

Don't blame me, I voted for Romney. He may not be perfect, but I felt really good about him.

On another political note... I have some really great friends who champion environmental issues. I really do love you. However, those of you who are not practicing what you preach at home need to get your act together. If you're doing the things that you need to do to live a lower impact lifestyle, then I'm not talking to you. But if you're not, then I don't want to hear anything out of you regarding the environment until you get your own house in order. You need to recycle, get your butt out of your car and persue alternate transportation, cloth diaper if you have a baby, and quit wasting stuff, or shut up! I, your conservative, evil neighbor am doing these things to the best of my ability. Get up and get to the recycling center and stop being a hypocrit!

Change starts at home.

I once read a bumper sticker at Charis Books in Atlanta it said, "Men who change diapers change the world." In other words it starts here in our own homes. Teach your children to recycle and live with less waste at home. If you have no children teach your friends and roomates by example instead. Better yet, teach them morals and values through your behavior. Move out from there.

At any rate, the state of the country and our people right now really makes me sick. Quit being lemmings! I'm absolutely sick of political rhetoric, empty promises, the corrupt and the crazy leading us, and you people running off the darn cliff. I don't want to come with you but there are too many of you and you're dragging me down. Fix it people because I can't afford to move me and mine to a deserted island until this blows over.

Free Couch with Purchase of Toddler

Okay so I'm not actually putting Alistair up for sale but with his reaction to us putting the old couch on the road yesterday you'd think that I was. Derek and I finally had a free minute together to take the old messed up couch out to the road and Al had a fit. At first he thought that we were getting rid of the new couch and he ran to it crying, "no, not my special couch". Then, he did the same with the old couch, only this time he put together an all out protest. He sat down on it and wouldn't get off. We extracted an Al from the couch after a few moments but he continued to cry and attempt to block our progress out the door. We finally go the thing out and the crying continued until he ultimately decided that he did indeed want to go down to the curb and say goodbye to the thing. This was of course 20 minutes later... I think that my ears are still bleeding!

So, we have a new couch courtesy of the old church building (from our new branch) and our branch president who was kind enough to hang onto it for us. It actually matches my area rug! How cool is that?! This picture is from before I got the photo wall put up behind it. Yes, I've been here less than 3 months and I'm hanging pictures... I know it's a new thing for me!

I never did post pictures from our trip to story time here. A couple of weeks ago I rode the kids down to story time at the library. We had fun, met some other kids... They do crafts here so the kids had a blast. In the picture the kids are holding up some signs, that wasn't the craft. They made mice out of paper plates. I accidentally left my keys (bike lock key included) on the ground and the bike didn't get stolen, so that's nice.









It's also occurred to me that I didn't post pictures from the move. So, here are some of us moving in. In the picture with all the kids they're watching a train go through town at the crossing 2 blocks up the street (they're big blocks though).

So Busy

So, I've been a bad blogger lately.. no blog!

This is mostly because we actually have stuff to do here! Last week we rode to story time at the library and I totally lucked out because I dropped my keys while locking up the bike and forgot to pick them up and no one stole the bike. *phew* We made friends at the library, yea! Actual friends who have kids the same age and live close by! Not that my other friends aren't totally awesome but... sometimes you need to just walk around the block and let the monkeys loose.

We rode to the dollar store again and met some very friendly cyclists. These two older guys were hanging out and commented on the trailer as we rode by so we stopped and talked for a few. Most people around here seem to ride cruisers - old school cruisers. There are a lot of seriously stylish and cool bikes around here. I think that there are only like 2-3 families that actually wear helmets though. I'm a little concerned with the lack of obeying traffic laws as well but... not much that I can do about that at the moment.

I made it all the way down to the board of education and back the other day just before tropical storm Hannah arrived and messed with my joints for a couple of days. We literally got in the house as the rain started on Friday. Al fell asleep in the trailer again... very cute... although poor Rhys ends up with a face full of helmet when lil'bro nods off. I'm looking forward to getting some cycling in later this week but I've also got to make some trips out to Roanoke Rapids and Petersburg by car. I must start on Jedi costumes for the boys soon otherwise they'll be wearing the overpriced crumby ones from a department store that I don't admitt publicly to shopping at...

We're in

So, we're technically moved in. The church as it turns out had a spare couch from when they moved so... we have that (actually it's a couch and 2 wingback chairs) now. Unfortunately I now need to get rid of the old couch. So, what do you do when you don't seem to have a local freecycle or craigslist? I'm considering putting it on the curb and seeing if someone picks it up.

So far the town seems pretty cycle-able. I took the kids way further into town than I intended the other day and didn't have any real problems short of one middle aged white guy in a sports car listening to booty music. I mean seriously, roll up the windows and watch where you're going Mr. Midlife Crisis. Even that wasn't all that bad. There are A LOT of cyclists here! Unfortunately very few of them wear helmets which I find kind of sad. Is your brain worth $20? I think it is.

I would actually be off riding down to the Hardware Store right now, except that someone has to be home so that Verizon can install a phone jack INSIDE the house. Yes, I specified INSIDE. Meaning that the current phone jack is OUTSIDE! Who puts the phone jack outside!?

Pictures to come soon!

My Couch Dilema

So, we're moving to a very pretty, very old house in Virginia (pictured above). It's nearly twice the house we have now and it has these awesome Technicolor walls inside. So, I'm scrounging around for furniture to fill up all of this extra space that we're going to have. A lot of it, okay all of it, is used but really nice stuff. I'll finally be able to have all of my little antique pieces of furniture and set them up someplace nice. We're all finally out of college and now perhaps we can stop looking like we live in a dorm room... except.... We have this couch:

I just don't know what to do with it. The cushions were shredded when it came from my mom's house so she had started to replace them with this big sheet of foam which I cut into cushions and attempted rather unsuccessfully to find something that kind of matched to cover them in. As you can see my quick and dirty recovering job which was never completely finished (I didn't get around to installing the zippers in the covers because I couldn't find any long enough) is kind of a moot point. This couch SO cannot go into my new house looking like this. I've thought about just freecycling it and getting the sleeper sofa out of my mom's basement but then I would have to get that thing to Virginia, and my memory of what the couch looks like and what it actually looks like are most likely not very similar.

So, do I try to recover this thing with mismatched fabric (not enough money to buy new fabric), staples, and glue? Do I keep a watch on Freecycle and see what pops up on there? Do I just take the green 1970's sleeper sofa from my mom's house that may have fleas? *sigh* I know it's a little thing but it's just ugly...

First Ride

So, we're having a yard sale this weekend to get ready for the move and I talked to Rhys about putting his Walmart-special bike in it because he's never ridden it more than a few feet. Today, as i was getting my wheel back on my bike and hooking up the trailer he decided that he was going to ride. Well, he got on and it was tough going at first, we had to go inside and change his shoes and he would just kind of fall over rather than stopping the bike. However, he made it most of the way around the block and didn't whine or cry despite knocking himself over several times. After his first fall I made a big deal about falling being normal and took a picture. He had a little trouble getting up the hill on the other side of the block but I think that he would have been fine had he not been distracted by a couple of vehicles coming down the street, there's no sidewalk on the backside of the block and he was very concerned about getting hit so he stopped - in the middle of the right hand lane, and would not move.

He's decided to keep the bike rather than waiting to get a Trek for his birthday. I think that we may get him a trail-a-bike instead so that he can go longer distances more comfortably. We surprised Daddy when we got home and then MaLew by showing off how well Rhys rides. He seemed to get up the hill just fine when showing MaLew so hopefully he's got it down now. Next, we work on the rules of the road!

A $5 fix

We're finally back in town, the majority of hubby's thesis work is completed, it looks like he's just got a couple of edits to do and then the defense. Yea! We found a house in Emporia to rent, it's big and gorgeous and scary. It's a 1910 Victorian with Technicolor walls. Hubby is going to sell his car and we're planning on living predominantly using the bikes. We will have to use the car to get to church because an LDS chapel is the only thing that we don't have close by. However, there are church members nearby so that's nice.

I'm in the process of making up a couple of bike purses to sell. I'm going to sew some and do a couple on the knitting machine. I've been carrying it even when I'm not on the bike and it gets rave reviews everywhere from cyclists and those who aren't fortunate enough to like cycling yet.

Hubby took my rim in to the Bike Shop yesterday and got it fixed. Happily, Billy was able to just straiten it out. So, that's a $5 fix rather than replacing the rim! Yea! I'm getting out on the bike today, I have really needed the stress relief and it's been quite hard to not fall back on stress eating this month.

Fuming

Grrrrr.....
On the drive home from Fathers Day weekend, in addition to some drama that happened over the weekend that I don't wish to discuss here, we hit a bump and now the rim on my bike is bent. To add insult to injury the rear view mirror fell off too (this is my second, the first broke at church and now this one has ether been stolen or fell off in transit). So, I'm grounded. I DID head over to my Mother in Law's house and pick up my street bike but I don't like riding it all that much and it doesn't have a hitch for the kids trailer or a rack for my bag. So, all in all I am not a happy camper. I'm just fuming over my bike.

We are moving though! Hubby got a job in VA and he starts this fall. Yipee! The town seems relatively cyclist friendly too, so that's nice.

I'm abandoning my bandana

Well, there's been a lot going on since my last blog... tons of trips, a wedding (our good friend JT finally got hitched)... and it's looking to be a VERY busy summer.

Derek is finishing up his thesis, yea! Hopefully it will be completely finished soon. The kids and I have been losing our time on the Wii, at the park, and in the garden. I've also been dreaming up all kinds of clothing designs AND we've started our Christmas crafting about a month early. Normally I don't even think about it until July but darn that JoAnnes.... we got a new one in Augusta and we got sucked in. I'm also working on a wall of family photos for the living room.

At any rate...
We took a trip out Memorial Day weekend to the big park for Rhys to fly his toy airplane. Al found some tracks in the grass from teenagers doing dough nuts in wet grass to run around in. He insisted that he has his own track team. We've also discovered that the computer that Derek and the kids got me for the bike for Mothers Day (there's GOT to be a better way to say that) might not be accurate. Derek's computer consistently registers 1.5 MPH faster so perhaps I'm not quite as slow as I though I was.




I've also discovered that the smaller park closer to home has been cleaned up. It has much more toddler friendly climbing equipment AND as a bonus friendlier parents! If I keep going we may actually start some meaningful friendships in this town. The kids were occupied enough that I could actually work on my socks.





And now to the title. It is officially summer! I've been wearing a bandanna under my helmet or shortly after riding to soak up the copious amounts of sweat pouring off of my head. However, I've discovered that my neck warmer from this winter actually works better to keep me cool. It's one of the gauge swatches I made from baby acrylic yarn on the machine joined into a tube. The acrylic actually wicks the sweat off of my head and cools me down faster. Yea cheap acrylic! So, I think that I may knit some headbands out of this stuff.


I'm also still loving my bike purse. I added a zipper but so far so good, no major modifications other than that.

My Newfound Celebrity Status

I am apparently a local celebrity these days. I took the kids to the Pine Tree Festival last weekend on school day (since Derek's graduation was on Saturday) and got stopped everywhere. And it's not just there.... Everywhere I go these days I hear "aw.... looks there's babies in there!" or people stop me to ask me where to get a trailer, how to hook one up, if it's safe, how old kids need to be to ride in one.... It happens every time I go out.

Only time will tell if I have started a trend or not. I hope that I start seeing other moms around town with their trailers happily pulling their kids. The way that gas is going I'm sure that more people will be looking at leaving their huge pick up trucks (with Hemi's) at home and go for smaller more economical transportation but I'm hoping that I can get more people using human power to get around. Who knows maybe I can make a difference in this car crazed status crazy town.

So far, one of our friends from church has picked himself up a good bike and has been cycling around town (they live in the next town over). They're looking at getting a bike for the wife soon too. One of my sisters in law has apparently hooked her trailer back up too! Another lady from church is considering cycling on her commute she lives pretty far out and is looking at getting a bike from the pawn shop though so I'm not sure if that will last. The bikes that we get in pawn shops here are usually WalMart specials that have already been run into the ground.



Speaking of WalMart.... I braved WalMart on the bike last week! I had to chain the bike and trailer to a signpost but it WAS still there when I got back. I did like a silly girl leave my reflective ankle strap ON the cart and I had to hang out for 1/2 hour for the cart to come back through to get it back. I would have considered going on without it but.... I was wearing really wide jeans. At any rate, I ran into one of the cyclists I met at the Pine Tree Breeze there. We talked shop for a few minutes and he seemed truly interested in 1W2W. Another guy checked out my trailer and declared that one could actually do the shopping with it. Now if only I had someplace to put both kids and groceries I'd be set.... I have been seeing another bike parked up at the evil empire on my weekly run lately (I know I know they're evil and as soon as we're not living off of student loan money I will shop at Harveys for everything but Nutella - which they refuse to carry). I think that it belongs to an employee because it's there on a semi regular schedule and is always there for really long periods of time... AND it has no rack or basket, which tells me that someone isn't getting groceries.







I also took the kids to the park where I answered a couple of questions about the trailer. For the first time I didn't get tired getting to and from the park - yippee!








As for the actual Pine Tree Festival it was a three and a half mile ride out but I made it. The few hills in our little town happen to be between here and there one of which stopped me for a minute or two because I just couldn't make it up. It's been a while since that's happened to me but I stopped, drank some water, caught my breath and I DID NOT walk the bike up. I got back on and pedaled like there was no tomorrow! I made it there and made it back no problems! Yea me! I got to "drive" right into the festival and just secured the bike and removed the trailer to use it as a stroller for the rest of the day. I have to say that even though we didn't get to see most of the festival because we came during set up it was a lot of fun. There's a playground on the grounds and we got to see part of the lumberjack show. BTW - lumberjack shows ROCK! We also got to see the forestry service helicopter demonstrate a water drop over the forest which was a hit with the kids.









One of the ladies who stopped me at the festival has an 18 month old and is seriously looking into a trailer for cycling with her older kids. So, I ran her through the basics. She was really concerned with the legality of bike trailers. I had to try to not stare at her blankly... legality? Of course it's legal. Gosh I'd have been picked up long ago.

Impromtu Picnics ROCK!

We woke up today in a funk. I had gone over to our exceptionally apologetic neighbors last night at like 1 and told them to keep it down. This was after an unusually late night for us heading out to Savannah to pick up MaLew at the train station. So... I was a little too rude to our neighbor in my opinion and felt the need to go smooth things over. I decided that store bought cookies were probably the best way to go as home baked goodies from your crazy neighbor who yelled at you in the middle of the night might be a little sketchy. Thus, I gathered the kids and the hubby (who hasn't ridden in a couple of days) and shuffled everyone into the trailer or onto a bike and forced them all out to the grocery store.

After our exceedingly late night and grumpy morning you can only imagine that by the time I got everyone dressed moving, out the door, and down the street that it was about noon. Finding ourselves out at lunchtime and not wanting to eat another meal "out" we grabbed some lunch at the grocery store along with the "cookies of shame" and set off to have a picnic. The kids had a great time and everyone cheered up. So, all in all that worked out well for us.

Things are smoothed over with the neighbors. I'm just a little shocked because they're older than us. Like, visibly older than us. I was really expecting college kids but NOOOOOO, not college kids at all. All in all they seem nice though, hopefully their next party will be inside after midnight.

Bike Related Crafting

So, I've made a couple of things bike related. I made a pair of cycling gloves for me and another for my hubby. I've also started making my own shirts because shorter shirts really do seem to be popular right now and I'm having a very hard time finding shirts that look cool and cover my lower back. So... I took some measurements and I've made a couple of shirts (totally without a pattern). I've also copied my favorite T-shirt but unfortunately I have to line the resulting shirt as I didn't realize that the fabric was quite that sheer.

I also saw a really cool felted wool handle bar bag on Ravelry (an online knit/crochet community that's kind of like facebook). I'm in love with it. I am totally making one with a couple of slight variations so that I can take it off of my bike and use it as a handbag as well.
Here's the blog for the cool lady who made the original: http://myelectricride.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-promise-not-to-add-orange-safety-flag.html

I've also found a pattern for knitting panniers which I'm thinking that I may sew out of a sturdy fabric rather than knitting. A second set of panniers in the family would be nice because right now hubby and I are sharing which means that there's one pannier for each of us and let me just tell you, if you put a 2 liter bottle on one side of your bike and nothing on the other certain places get sore!

The Pine Tree Breeze

So, I made it through the Pine Tree Breeze. There would be pictures but it poured! I was going to hook up my panniers and carry my camera in one to keep it dry OR put my camera in my messenger bag and strap it to the rack on my bike BUT.... I thought I might look silly on a 10 mile ride with panniers and hubby took the bungee chords off of my rack. Thus, I had no dry place to store the camera.

The ride was fun even though the second we started riding the rain started to come down. I was not the slowest rider - yea me! I did however hang back with the slowest rider as I felt personally responsible for roping her into the ride. Um yeah.... guilt was a powerful motivator there. Quite frankly, I figured that since in general she's in better shape than me that she could do it and that she would smoke me off the line and I wouldn't see her until the end when I would gasp into the parking lot and collapse. It was the other way around. In her defense her bike was kind of... okay... not a nice bike. I offered multiple times to trade. I really do think that had she traded that she would have been much more comfortable and we would have been able to ride together but as is she walked up the hills while I waited on her or I rode back and did the hill again.

ANYWAY, I did not huff and puff! I did not once feel tired or winded or like I should just crash for a while. I did not have to be carried. I also had enough energy at the end of the ride to do some gardening and play outside with the kids. Next year, I'm going to try for 30 miles.

On a side note, apparently Weight Watchers only lets you count 30 min. of cycling as exercise. That is so not cool Weight Watchers! I like you and your clapping meetings even less now! AND your program IS A DIET! Do you think that people are actually going to spend their entire lives counting points?!!!

A busy few weeks

It' s been a busy few weeks. We've been to Atlanta twice and therefore I really haven't had much time to blog. I'm still riding; although, we've had a cold front come through which made it very hard to get motivated this week. Truthfully, it's not that cold. I just spent until about noon yesterday not having enough sense to put on socks and a sweater. Had I done that I would have been ready to face the day; instead I hung around in bare feet with my long sleeved T-shirt and griped about how cold I was.

Derek and I did take a ride with Al just before dinner. We went just shy of 2 miles and when we pulled in Al asked me if we could go again. So, wonderful Derek went in and with minimal instruction broiled some salmon while I took Al out for another mile and a half. Al did take some pictures but I can't seem to get my card reader to read SD cards today so... no pics. (edit: I have procured a new reader so here are some new pictures)















I did 7 miles by myself last week. I do think that the 10 mile ride that we've planned to participate in next Saturday will wipe me out. The 7 miles kind of took the wind out of my sails. I'm pretty sure that I could have made it 10 but I was already running late so I didn't try. I did about 5 the following day. Perhaps it was all the time out in the sun those 2 days because I was just exhausted through the weekend. We spent the greater portion of both days outside working in the garden and I just couldn't get moving to do anything last weekend.

So... lazy lazy me! I'm definitely going to get out and go buy bananas today as the kids have been asking about them.

Total Chaos

So, last week was total chaos. Hence, the complete and utter lack of a post. Derek sequestered himself up at the lake in order to get some studying done. Which left me alone with two little boys from Sunday afternoon until Thursday late morning. I really should be thankful because it was supposed to be Saturday!

At any rate, the kids misbehaved in countless ways! Especially because the Saturday before my dear hubby left was Stake Womens Conference. I was ushered off in a car full of old ladies, whom I rather carefully ditched when we got there, on a two hour car ride. Two hours of sitting in the back seat and having no clue what to say! Anyway, my allergy medicine wore off before the TWO HOUR trek back so I had a headache getting into the car and became predictably car sick. I usually get motion sickness which is why I don't like going places in a full car unless we're taking a van (because the third row in most vans has stadium style seating so that you're not looking at the back of someone else's seat the whole time while turning green).

Anyway, we rode to church in the morning as usual. The kids were so insane during sacrament that I skipped Sunday School to calm down. And we went home and began the week of insanity.

We did have some good times though. We had a date day on Monday. MaLew, Derek's mom, came to pick up Al because he asked her on a date. Rhys was upset so we went on our own beautiful date to the fountain downtown. We rode the bike and he made a wish in the fountain. We picniced on the side of the fountain until it turned on causing much squealing and soaking of food. Rhys greeted all of the ladies leaving their offices around the town square for the night. We made it home just as Alistair got back from his date.

Daddy came home just in time to go to the library with us on Thursday. That is just in time after installing a new mirror on my bike, attempting to put a rack behind my seat, and ultimately installing the rack on his own bike. So, he got to carry the books. Rhys attempted to take a nap on the ride home by using his backpack as a pillow. It's a short trip so he was only marginally successful.

But I was convinced all day Thursday that it was actually Saturday....

At any rate, the prep for Easter started at that point. I tried to knit Rhys a blue sweatervest on the knitting machine and somehow dropped one of the weights for the ribber directly on one of the long bones in my wrist - still hurts! I gave up and sent Derek to the store to find something appropriately festive. Luckily we already had something that matched for Al to wear. Hubby did a fantastic job picking out some rather springy shorts.

Did I mention that I had to prep my Relief Society lesson at some point in there.....? Katherine, Derek's sister, and her kids are in town as well. So... blogs may be few and far between for at least another week.