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.

Big Day

Yesterday we had a pretty big day. I woke up to find that we were out - totally out of toilet paper. Fortuately there was some kleenex but the lack of TP meant a trip to the store. Mwahahahaha! We loaded up in the bike and trailer and headed off to the store early. The kids and I ended up spending the morning out. We walked the store, went over to the herb store, and then hit the dollar store. They're all in the same shopping center so it was pretty easy. We made it home in time for lunch and naptime.

I then aquired the final fused shadow on Zelda and proceeded to clean the livingroom and the den. Yea me! I got it all done! Okay, so the kids (under pain of no video games) picked up their toys. Granted, everything is already messed up again but.... it was clean when our home teachers came over. I also made it out and fertilized the garden. The kids got to splash in the huge rain puddles that have collected on one side of the yard too.

It was a banner day - house clean - dollar store toys - garden tended - games played - bike ridden - kids bathed (and not just in the puddle) - and everyone had a healthy dinner and to top it all of the kids got in bed ON TIME! We have GOT to do that again some time.