footwear

The cute guy at the sporting goods store is probably thinking that I'm stalking him.

I'm not. No. Really. I'm not.

It's just that, last night, as we headed there for what would be my third time in one week, I said, "Geesh, this is my third time to this store in a week!" It started with Chaco. He needed new gym shoes. For gym. The clunky trail shoes he wears most of the time wouldn't quite cut it. Fine. Trip #1.

Remember that blizzard we had last week? It was like the first real snow in months, which is strange for this time of year, but there it was. And after I chewed everyone out for spending too much time playing video games - even though it was a total cabin fever day, that didn't matter - Chaco was whipped into shape enough to actually go out and play with the dog in the blizzard. It was then that he discovered he needed new snowboots. Why? "Because mine are TINY!" Trip #2.

That leaves us at last night. Wolfgang started track practice yesterday. He approached the dinner table holding an old shoe. I knew that wasn't a good sign.

"I need shoes for track and these are falling apart", he cobbled.

"They're good for now", my burned out reply.

"But our first meet isn't very far off", he pressed on.

"Find out what event you're running, then you'll know better what shoes to get", my most logic response.

"Our events are chosen by how we do in practice, so I need good shoes to do well in practice", he circumnavigated.

*SIGH* Trip #3.

There was an old woman who lived to buy shoes...
.

dog days

Spring break is but a distant memory. To ring in the return to routine, we have snow.

I had dog sitting duty this morning as the dog sittee family won't be returning until this evening and Wolfgang had to catch his bus for school. I'm the substitute dog sitter. Now this is a nice family up the street. Moved here about the same time we did. They have three boys just like we do. The kids play together a lot. The mom and I are friends, but just between us and the intnernet hacks, I'm a little wary of the dad. He's nice, almost too nice, know what I'm sayin'? Like "fake" nice.

But anyway, one thing I noticed on this week of pet sitting is... their house is kinda... cluttered. And I have this thing about clutter. Like I'm a clutterphobe or something. Every time I go there, I have this strong urge to straighten and purge.

But I don't.

And it's not all that bad. I have seen worse *shudders at the memories*. My parents' house for example. Now, they're not messy people. In fact, they're quite tidy. They just canNOT throw ANYthing away. I'm sure that's where the roots of my clutterphobia lie.

I dunno. Maybe they're right. You never know when you might need a cleaned out sardine can. Or a few dozen.

I have yet to encounter such a time, however.
.

you're with Stupid

I've owned my current bicycling helmet for over a year. It's purdy. It's red and white and a little black. I don't think much about it, but if I don't wear it while riding my bicycle I feel kinda naked.

Several months ago, the thick pads I had in there to make it fit my head correctly came unglued and fell out. That was crappy because then it didn't fit right. I tried to think of some ways I could put something else in there to make it fit right, but in the meantime, I just tied a bandana around my head to wear underneath the helment. I didn't particularly like this solution - it added yet another step to the whole bicycling preparation and it, God forbid, kinda messed up the position of my ponytail. Nope, didn't like it. But it was better than having my helmet all loose and wobbly.

So the other day, we're all at the park. Meego's on his bicycle, Wolfgang's on his rollerblades, Chaco's on his bicycle. Meego's complaining about his crappy helmet - which really is crappy, shouldn't have bought that one. Then Wolfgang announces that his helmet is too small.

"Give it to Meego", I suggest. AHA! Beautiful. Problem solved - well, for Meego anyway.

Chaco announces that his helmet's small too. "Give it to Wolfgang". AHA! Beautiful. Problem solved - for Wolfgang anyway.

Okay, so all this leads up to me going with Chaco to get a new cycling helmet yesterday. He ended up selecting the same make and model of the purdy red white and a little black helmet that I own, just in different colors. AND his had this cool adjustable head strap, so it can fit a whole range of heads just perfectly!

"Gee, I wish my helmet had that adjustable strap", funny, they're the same make and model, maybe mine's just an old design.

No. Not really. Mine has the adjustable strap too. I checked when we got home. I just never knew it. All this time. All savvy bicycle commuter chick. Wearing that stupid bandana.

How em*BARR*assing. I hope no one finds out.

*OOPS* ... DANG NEED TO BLOG EVERYTHING!

.

Silver Lining Saturday, part XXXII

Sun is shining. Snow is melting. Spring break comes to a close, and it's all good.

Yes, this week was spring break and I guess technically it still is. No epic trips taken, no "Girls Gone Wild" videos made, just a good mix of lazy, productive, annoying, pleasurable, warm, freezing, spontaneous, introspective, mostly unscheduled time.

We watched Madagascar 2 last night. I'm thankful I have young kids so as to have an excuse to watch these kinds of movies. There's action, adventure, humor, love, AND the engineers are the heroes! (Referring to the penguins, of course).

And we did have that blizzard the other day. Nasty but rather exciting. It made me thankful that we weren't travelling in it. I shoveled some of it yesterday. Heavy spring snow, not the light fluffies of January. The ground needs it.

I'm looking at the Run With Lumber schedule I made for myself earlier this month and seeing many of the tasks either completed or nearly so. I'm still a bit of a penguin myself, getting ready to launch is always exciting.

Got the last of the family bicycles tuned up for spring with Wolfgang's getting the once over. Hmmm, maybe that's why we had a blizzard.

And now I feel all refreshed and focused and energized for the weeks and months to come. Vision! Gotta have vision!
.

polar regions

The wind found and bit into all areas of exposed skin. Each forward step was a monumental task. The tracks we made in the snow were soon erased by more blowing snow, making finding our way back a gamble. My companion and I made short conversation at first, but soon just settled into non verbal plods so as to focus all our energies on making it to shelter.

It was like The Worst Journey in the World. Well, except it was just a journey of about a block and half, round trip. And we had heated houses. And dry clothing. And warm food, other than pemmican. And civilization. And I didn't get any emperor penguin eggs. But other than that, it was JUST like that journey.

You know all that harping I was doing about our mild winter and me running around in knickers and short sleeves and such? Well, we finally got a decent blizzard. 'bout time.

So I went out in it twice to go with Wolfgang on his trek to the dog sitting house, then again to accompany Meego to the garbage sitting house. Other than that, we stayed home all day, a bit cabin feverish.

But looking back, I'd say it was a pretty productive day. Magnum and I were going to go see a movie in the afternoon, but didn't. Instead, I managed to complete the assembly of all 375 Run With Lumber envelopes (that's 1500 staples in Lumber years), bake two loaves of pumpkin bread, clean a bunch of wooden stuff, chew everyone out for putting too much importance on video games, and trounce Magnum at a game of Scrabble. All that on top of my polar jouneys.

And I went out in the wee hours of this morning, looking for treasures. They were there. My milk and eggs were there like always. Nothing stops my milkman.

God, I love that man.
.

chicken

Having three kids attending three different schools has its "privileges". One of them is that we get exposure to nearly every germ the school district has to dish up.

A week or so ago, the school nurse sent around an e-mail that fifth disease had been confirmed at the middle school. Despite that, uh, catchy name, I'd never heard of it. Apparently it's a mild fever followed by a rash that usually just goes away on its own. There is, however, cause for concern if a pregnant woman contracts it, as it can lead to complications for the baby.

It reminded me of when I didn't get the chickenpox.

Nope, for some reason, I've never had chickenpox, and YES, I did have friends as a child. YES, they got them, I just didn't OKAY?! Some people, upon hearing of an adult that never had chickenpox assume that said child grew up living in a box with no friends. Not the case, OKAY?!?

In fact, I can remember when several of my childhood playmates were away from school with chickenpox. I also remember when some neighbor kids/friends had them and we were sent over to play - now seen as a not-so-covert plot on the part of my parents to get my brother and me infected.

Didn't work.

In fact, both of my brothers and I survived our entire childhoods without experiencing the chickenpox. THEY both, however, contracted them later in their adult lives, and the unanimous bottom line was that they "would have rather died". Maybe there's some weird familial trait going on there, but I decided I didn't want to experience the "would rather die" version of adult onset of chickenpox, and particularly in the child-bearing years because of pregnancy complications.

A few years ago, a chickenpox vaccine came out and has now been added to the plethora of vaccines that kids get before they begin public school. So I was all over that! I called the office of my GP doctor and asked for the vaccine. Yes, for myself. Why? Because I didn't want to get chickenpox! NO I didn't have them as a kid. YES, I had friends as a kid! Why were they asking me such strange questions?

I soon found out that, what was a routine thing for a pediatrician office, was a strange request for a doctor's office that treated GROWN UPS. They would have to special order it. I would have to be able to come in on short notice after it arrived because it needed to be at a certain temperature, etc., etc. Now, this was back when the vaccine was relatively new. I don't know if such acrobatics are required today.

So the day arrived. The doctor's office called. I rushed over to get the optimum dose! A couple of weeks later, I was given a blood test to make sure the thing took. It didn't.

Round two: They call. I rush. I bleed. It's good.

Wolfgang got a chickenpox booster shot this year. Booster? There's a booster? Do I dare ask?
.

bowl-o-rama o-bama

Yeah, it's spring break like I said. Magnum took the week off of work, so we're having a staycation because of the pets and garbage obligations. Today: To the bowling alley!

I've never been a particular formidable bowler, but I always have a good time, despite the ghastly shoes. Today, however, I had a real goal. Beat President Obama's 129 avg. (no further comments on style). I got a strike on my first throw - nothing like a little healthy competition!

The bowling alley was good and busy. The Senior leagues taking up the middle lanes, and us family types on the outer fringes. I soon noticed a woman a couple of lanes over. I noticed because she bowled like a man, and I mean that in a good way.

No, she was not butch in appearance - NOT THAT THERE'D BE ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT IF SHE WERE - but dang she could rip that ball! I'm talkin' velocity! She seemed like a nice mom-type, there with a couple of young kids and an older woman I'm guessing was her mother or MIL. And when she stepped up to bowl, there was hell to pay for those pins.

So I decided to try to emulate her on my quest to beat the President.

Did I succeed? Well, I bowled a 111 average. Okay, so I didn't beat Mr. Obama. Still, I was satisfied enough with my performance, considering I bowl maybe 3 times in a year and considering the guy in the lane next to us set his bottle of chew tobacco spit on our shared table, significantly throwing my game off for a moment. DUDE!

I bet I could beat Michelle, though. Sleeveless!
.

Silver Lining S-day, part XXXI

And what a lovely week it was, wasn't it? Let's re-cap!

First of all, the schools are on spring break. Started officially on Friday, although I don't think much schoolwork was done in the days leading up to it. We have no big plans for the break. Wolfgang's got a pet-sitting job and Meego even got a job to see to some neighbors garbage, so we're staying close to home. But I look forward to some fun and frolic and general mayhem.

This week, we sat down with our financial planner guy to see how things were sitting. Well, I'm glad we weren't planning to retire this year, but all in all, the report was pretty good... All things considered... In a relative sense of things... Could be worse... I am thankful that Magnum and I have always been on the same page when it comes to handling our finances, and that we started young. It's probably good that we were both nearly flat broke when we got married, so when we started earning then saving money, we never missed spending it.

I had a conference with Meego's teacher, and he got a glowing report. He'd started the year out "so quiet", but I figured he was just getting the lay of the land since 3 of his good friends moved away last summer. Just his nature. He's come around just fine. I like his teacher too, but kinda funny how "quiet" is seen as a concern. Why isn't he ADHD like everyone else?!?!

Things are settling down for a friend of mine who had a rough year. New home, new job, new man. She's tough. Nothing like having a husband leave you and the kids for a teenager to find out the mettle you're made of!

And I'm thankful for quality time with my bicycles. Happy Spring!
.

toyz

So I needed a new toothbrush. Except, until today, I had no idea just how much I NEEDED a new toothbrush.

I was out with the kids (spring break has begun) doing a bit of grocery shopping, and I went to get myself the new toothbrush in the toothbrush aisle. I'm not picky about toothbrushes. Just give me a full head with soft bristles and I'm good. I grabbed one that was on sale and chucked it into the cart and continued on my way.

"Why is the handle so fat?", Chaco asked.

"I dunno", I informly informed him.

"Oh, it's a Sonic Power toothbrush", Wolfgang noticed.

"Wha-?", I responded cluelessly.

He showed me the little button that made the toothbrush vibrate, and it buzzed happily inside its plastic compartment.

"Oh, sheesh, I didn't mean to get that one", I said and looked back to the wall o' brushes. Still, though, it was on sale and cheaper than the non-vibrating toothbrushes, so I just decided to get it and not push the little button.

But back in the privacy of my home...I got a little.... curious.

I loaded it up. I pushed the button. And I brushed. Oh GAWD how I brushed!! I think I could've brushed the afternoon away. Now I'm here, in the afterglow, teeth all a-tingly.

Ladies, for the love of all that vibrates, get yourselves a vibrating toothbrush! Or better yet, get multiple!
.

picture day

I showed up for class picture day duty at the elementary school on Tuesday. First of all, who schedules class picture day on St. Patrick's Day? The green hair was bad enough, but green striped tights?? Oh well, I guess I've seen worse for picture day. Lotsa green in the group photos, though.

Then it was on to the individual pics. One of the reasons they have us parent volunteers there, other than the actual herding of the children - which is MAJOR work - is to touch the children. (Okay, any perverts who got dropped here from a search engine, quietly just leave, go on. Go. Now.). I guess there are certain policies against the school photographers doing much touching of the children. So why do they offer so many different poses?

The neck up shots aren't so bad, but it's those full-body poses. The recline. The cross-legged. The chin-in-the-hand-with-arms-crossed... And the hair issues. We must not forget the hair issues. Now I think I know why God gave me all boys. It avoids having the hair issues, other than my own of course.

It was a good solid four hours of herding and combing and face wiping and clothing straightening. Luckily, most of them were completed in the morning, so there were no cases of lunchfront. And since it was elementary school, I didn't catch anyone flipping the bird. Wouldn't rule it out though.

Random group photo from my high school archives. Find Abby, win a prize:

.

the arrival

I felt it within a minute of walking into the store.

There was an imbalance, something was just slightly awry. Nothing real obvious, just a sense, a change in the air. I began to have flashbacks to my days in the trenches. Those days were over twenty years ago, yet I still feel the after-effects at times such as this morning. In Wal-Farts.

The loud pomposity, the endless games of "Marco Polo", the addressing of me as "Darlin'", "Child", and my favorite: "Little Lady".

Those were the days of my tour of duty in the hotel biz. Four years spent working at the strategically placed first hotel on the interstate North of the Colorado-New Mexico border. We were like the gateway to all who flooded into our state for vacation, and none of them vacationed more than The Texans. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the money they bring into our state, but it could be grueling work. And I have since learned that they're not all loud and pompous, they're not all "Little Lady" and "Honey Chil'". Just most of the ones that come here for Spring Break.

Yep, it's spring break in Texas. I could feel it in Wal-Farts today.

They're heeeeeeeerrrrrreeee.
.

Silver Lining Saturday, part XXX

Yeah! Triple-X, peeps!

The weekend has arrived and it's time to look back on the good things of the week.

I mentioned the alien in-laws visiting last weekend. It was actually a pretty enjoyable visit. We did a something-to-do-to-entertain-out-of-town-visitors-on-a-snowy-day activity and visited the Museum of Mining and Industry. We happened to get there just as a bunch of future school teachers were arriving for their "field trip". "Math and Science for Educators" was the class, I asked one of them. So we got to tag along with them and have a grand tour and learn a lot of cool stuff. The stepmom-in-law also brought cookies, mangoes, and beer. She always good for dessert, fruit, and alcohol, and once again, didn't disappoint.

I was pretty busy with volunteer stuff this week and pretty productive with work. I also got SUCKERED INTO helping out with school pics next week. I guess it's nice to be wanted. Shut up, this is silver lining Saturday, so I'm scraping!

And we can't forget the "day of The Fire". After things settled down, all us neighbors that gathered to gawk were milling around counting the blessings, the what-ifs. Anthony just happened to come up the street just as the fire got out of control. It's been super windy around here lately, but it just happened to be very calm that day. And yeah, it's so true. Something like that happens and I couldn't help thinking, "oh, I am SO gonna blog this". Thought about running to get the camera, but decided maybe not.

Meego had the day off from school yesterday. "Teacher Work Day" they call it. Makes me wonder what the teachers are supposedly doing when the kids are at school. Anyway, we had a lazy day together. Took a bike ride over to the BMX track. Meego rode the woomps. I watched.
.

for the want of new tires

So there I was...

Thursday afternoon like most any other. I was on the futon, esconced in yet another round of laundry folding and waiting on some cooking rice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the neighbor kids go by on his bicycle. Anthony is 15 and a good friend of Chaco's. I remember thinking that the doorbell would most likely ring soon. Boy, did it ever

*DING*DONG*DING*DONG*DING*DONG*BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM*DING*DONG*DING*
*DONG* DING*DONG*....(okay, you get it by now I think)

Now, it's not typical for this particular kid to go all crazy on the doorbell like that. He's pretty even keeled. In the meantime, Chaco had approached the door and opened it all pissed like, "WHAT!?!"

"CALL 9-1-1! YOU'RE DUMBASS NEIGHBOR'S LIT HIS HOUSE ON FIRE!!!"

So time sort of stood still at that point.

In probably what was a split second, I recall Chaco following Anthony outside and in my own head I began to ponder, "Hmmm, knowing that the neighbor kid can be quite the dumbass at times, and knowing that Anthony doesn't freak out on a regular basis, this is highly likely to be true".

After weighing the options and considering the evidence I'd been given thus far, I grabbed the phone and just dialed without confirming Anthony's statement. As I did so, I headed outside.

Yep, sure enough. A large portion of the garage and an innocent bush were fully engulfed in large flames that reached higher than the house. The neighbor kid, the one to whom Anthony was referring, is 11 years old and had apparently hightailed it down the street.

I spoke to the calm 9-1-1 dispatcher explaining that the neighbors house was on fire. No, I did not know if anyone was in the house. YES, I definitely could see flames and YES, I could definitely see smoke.

As I was speaking with her, I noticed neighbor boy writhing on the lawn of Neighbor Flanders, speaking gibberish, "I'M SO STUPID.... OH GAWD.... I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW STUPID.... ACK!... etc." I approached him and tried to calm him and asked him if anyone was in the house, which I fully expected the answer to be "no".

"YES, MY MOM AND MY SISTER AND MY BROTHER ARE INSIDE... OH GAWD!!"

CRAP!

I told this to the 9-1-1 dispatcher and in the meantime, I told my kids and Anthony. Chaco and Anthony went into their backyard to let them know that their house was on fire. The neighbor mom probably got mad about the damn neighbor kids. Kind of like the initial thought I had when Anthony decided to lay on our doorbell. Anyway, Mom, sister, and brother all then came outside.

One fire chief, one fire investigator, and three firetrucks later, all ended well as could be expected. Another thursday afternoon. I still don't know just how the thing started. That's for Neighbor Kid to tell me sometime.

Anthony, Chaco, and Wolfgang were asked to give written accounts of what they witnessed to the fire inspector. Anthony's began something like, "I was on my way to my friends house to buy some sweet bike tires because mine suck..."

I'm pretty glad he had sucky bike tires.
.

wondering

I took the big butt van in for an oil change today. Was to be $4. $4 because I had a coupon for a "free" oil change, but because the big butt van takes heavier oil than what was offered for free, it was to be a $4 oil change.

I left about $500+ lighter. *SIGH*

This service place I take our vehicles. It's conveniently located, the service people are nice, waiting area's clean, blah, blah, blah... but every time I take it there, it seems, for some routine oil change, they find something else needs fixing.

Today it was the front brake pads and the rear differential fluid. They wanted to do ball joints too, but my joints were all balled out at that point, so I passed on that.

Every time they call me and are all, "Abby, the technician found a few things while doing your oil change...", then I'm all "oh crap, here we go again". Thing is, I don't know if the claims are legitimate and it's better to fix them now rather than have it worse later, or are they just PLAYIN' me?!

And I don't even prefer driving or vehicle ownership. I coulda bought a(nother) bike with that money.
.

the weekend

It was a dark Monday morning. Just when I was getting used to having it light in the morning, it's that whole daylight savings thing. *yaaaaaaawn*

But it was a nice weekend. It finally snowed on Saturday which was good because the state was on fire. And one of my two sets of in-laws came to visit. This time, it was the paternal side - FIL and his wife.

I've mentioned my strange in-laws here before I think. I suppose they're not all that strange in general, just strange to us, which strikes me as strange. Strange because this is my husband's family, yet they are so different from him.

Their differences are only exacerbated by the riff raff he married.

Magnum and I have much in common. Political views, opinions on raising kids, financial considerations, thoughts on religion, interests in general - those compatability things that can probably make or break a marriage. So... by default... I have virtually nothing in common with anyone in his family. Other than him.

So these visits are always an adventure. Or I guess that's how I try to look at them. It's like having aliens visit from another galaxy.

And we all survived. I think they've come to terms with the fact that we aren't interested in becoming carbon copies of them, although they probably can't understand why not.
.

Silver Lining Saturday, part XXIX

It's snowing! After a couple weeks of spring-like weather, people around here will probably freak out.

I, however, will see the silver lining in this. It's been really dry. We need the moisture. The area's been on high fire alert off and on for the last month. High fire alert in February? Let it snow!

I'm busy this week with "Run With Lumber" activity. All the behind-the-scenes stuff. It all happens in one day, coming up in April, but there's lots to do between now and then, so I'm chipping away at it. Each year, I think, "this year will be my last of chairing this event". But then I admit, it does have its fun aspects. And when the teachers see me in the workroom with all the stuff in various stages of readiness, they get all, "Ooooh! Run with Lumber!" And I know the kids enjoy it.

Uhm, I did get a new bicycle this week. Oh, she is muy fun and muy rapido. Because of the nice weather, before the snow today, I was able to go on a couple of bike rides this week. Wind hampered us a little bit, but not enough to hide the noticeable differences between a road bike and a mountain bike. I've named her Tessa for "vitesse" - Italian for "speed". Bella remains aloof, but she'll come around - tough, big-boned girl that she is.

On that note, I'm thankful for my husband's gainful employment and our responsible handling of our finances that allows me to work part-time and do school volunteering as well as support my bicycling habit. That was a long sentence.
.

he was probably bored

It's party time in our school district. For the students anyways. It's that time of year for standardized assessment testing. Time for the teachers and administrators to stress out and the students to whoop it up because everything stops for assessment testing.

No homework.

No other tests.

Plenty of recess.

I'm remembering assessment test time a couple of years ago when I was a part-time special ed. teacher's aid at the elementary school. I was assigned to proctor tests for a few of the students who got special accommodations.

One kid was a 4th grade student I tutored for special ed. math. As far as I know, he didn't actually have any diagnosed learning disability. He just didn't particularly care about grades and all. But I liked him, and he had what I felt was an above average creative imagination.

So I proctored his assessment test apart from the rest of his class as he was given an accommodation for reading - meaning he had someone (me) read the test instructions to him. I could tell, as we went through the various tests, that he could read his own instructions just fine, but based on his classroom performance, he was "accommodated".

I remember we got to a writing section. The writing prompt was something like this:

"Imagine that one day you wake up and you are a kangaroo. Describe your day".

I thought, oh, this is right up his alley. He'll come up with something really good! The following is basically what he wrote. I don't remember word-for-word. It took him all of about 7 minutes.

"One day I woke up and I was a kangaroo. Then I had breakfast and watched cartoons. Then I ate lunch and played video games and jumped on the trampoline. Then I ate dinner. Then I took a bath. Then I went to bed."

I looked at what he'd written, holding back my comments (no comments for assessment testing!). Then I thought, yeah, that was just like him. He did exactly what was asked, no more. He's pure rebel.

I think he's a genius.
.

threesome?

It's not like I was unhappy. Not necessarily. It's just.... after so many years of the same thing, same thing... I guess it was more that I was... curious. Yeah, I was curious.

But curiosity strikes occassionally and then passes, hardly even noticed. Then there are the instances where curiosity hangs around. And gets bigger, and there's this pink elephant in the room that just goes unmentioned.

It's not like I was unhappy, I was just curious.

It's not that I don't appreciate and find attraction to the rugged, the tough, the dirt-under-the-nails. There was something inside of me, though, that wanted to see how the other half lived. Wanted to experience something more sensitive, more graceful. I admit, I was greedy. I wanted the best of BOTH worlds.

It became almost all consuming, this curiosity. When no one was looking, I'd crawl around the internet, looking to satisfy it. I'd scan the want ads. Even made e-mail contact a couple of times, but none of that panned out. I'd talk myself out of it and not go through.

But then today, it happened. I don't know, I guess I'd been thinking about it too much. Maybe I had a little too much time on my hands. I found myself on that slippery slope, then over the edge.

Today, I hooked up with a road bike. A sleek, responsive, skinny-tired, speedy, graceful, sweet, loving, sensitive, road bike.

And it was GOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Don't tell Bella. Not yet.

.

burning bridges

I've got a rug burn. On my forehead. I wonder, what IS the shelf life of a rug burn?! It's been there for two weeks!

Okay, get your minds out of the gutters and I'll give an explanation of how I came to have a rugburn. On my forehead.

There's this little neck and back and overall strengthening/loosening exercise I do regularly. It's called a back bridge and it involves resting one's forehead on the ground.



<---Somebody, but not me, performing the back bridge. Note the proper use of the mat...


I've been doing this for years and credit it with saving me many the chiropractic dollar after being annoyed by a chronically stiff neck. Anyway, normally I do it with a bandana wrapped around my head or with a yoga mat on the floor, but a couple of weeks ago I just went for it on the rug. Full frontal, unprotected back bridging it was.

And now here I am. Two weeks later, still with the rug burn. At first it was just kind of pink, like a patch of sunburn. Then it got more red. Now, it looks darker, like a smudge of dirt. It's becoming more apparent as it ages.

And to top it off, I need a haircut. I'll probably just end up trimming my hair myself. Or I could go and let the stylist wonder all sorts of ways a person could get a rug burn. On her forehead.
.

Silver Lining S-day, part XXVIII

My cup runneth over! (Really, I just spilt a bit of coffee on the pants...)

And it's time for another episode of Silver Liningness. It's been a good productive week that went by fast. March? Already?

Work was pretty busy this week, I'm learning new stuff. Yesterday, I took a test so that I could teach new stuff. Don't know yet if I qualified, but I know I'm getting there. I used my lucky pencil.

Don't want to sound like a broken record, but we had some good weather days again. It's nice to be able to get out and play in the middle of "winter", minivan moms and all.

Ever get into one of those cleaning moods? I got into one and took advantage of it. You should see the upstairs shower and tub!

Got a letter from my mom yesterday - yes we still communicate by pen on paper, weird! She says my dad's getting the internet. WHAT?!?
.