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!