Where the Days are Longer, The Nights are Stronger Than Moonshine

 The rest of my 4 day weekend was pretty cool. I had a low grade migraine for most of it, that kept me pretty tired and low energy, but I used that to finish one book, read an entire other book and start another book during that time.

Friday we did a few cleaning projects, ate good food, and then went to a friend's house to watch the Hawkeyes beat Nebraska. I'm not the biggest sports ball girl, but it's fun that they were undefeated this year, and my friends were so excited. They all yelled, "Sports ball!" at me every time the Hawkeyes did something good and then they all took shots of Fireball and I toasted them with my water. I'm a partier that way.

After the game, John and went home and watched "Far From the Madding Crowd", It was a very beautiful movie, but as John said, "All of those British novels from that time are so similar..." Exactly.

 The one house project we did...And when I say we, I mean, John, was getting rid of the old dying ferns that shed all over our sink and counters and replacing it with a glass shelf and some smaller plants. We went plant shopping and quickly ruled out the one above. Can you imagine trying to eat with that thing staring at you? No, thanks.

Saturday afternoon, we met my sister and her family in Kalona for lunch. It had been a while since we all got to hang-out, so it was great to catch-up. My niece is hilarious...Just ask her.

I still had the light migraine, and decided to take a nap before I went running that afternoon. With the migraines, I was a little afraid I'd be pretty slow and sluggish in my run. Surprisingly, I felt okay...And I was reminded for the 1,000th time that even if, or especially if, I feel tired and crappy, running helps.

I took a long, hot bath, then John and I played an epic Scrabble game. I love competing and I love words, so competing with words is VERY close to perfect.

One of my favorite breakfasts ever.

Sunday morning was A-okay. John and our friend Burne went to help with Jingle CX set-up. I stayed home and got some much needed Churlita time. I finished reading a collection of short stories and poems by Sherman Alexie, did some cleaning and laundry and dishes and did my best to drive the cats insane(r). Then I went for another run. For whatever crazy reason, I ran my 4.5 route faster than I have in months. It killed my legs to do it, but sometimes it feels good to make yourself work a little harder.

This was the end result of the replacement of the ugly, old, overwhelming, shedding ferns with the glass shelf and seemingly more seemly plants. Quaint.

John got home from working at Jingle CX, at about the same time I finished my run. We had Thanksgiving leftovers. Damn, am I going to miss those.

We weren't sure if we wanted to do a road ride or take our CX bikes out. Our friend Burne just bought his first fat bike and signed up to race it at Jingle CX this weekend.

Since he lives on a farm with a lot of acres and he wanted us to show him a few CX racing tricks, we decided to head to Oxford.

John and I checking out the leftovers of a burned-out tree.

We rode a lot of his mowed acres and took some gravel roads to get there. At one point we rode next to some long horn cattle that were safely fenced in. They saw us and decided to race us. They kept up for a very little bit, but those longhorns aren't exactly aero.

I have no idea where one obtains a signal crossing, but Burne's farm has one.

We finished our ride and all met Coadster at Big Grove for dinner. Coadster had been gone all weekend, so she filled us in on what she was up to over the holiday. Getting 4 days away from work made it so I could almost get all of things I wanted done during a weekend....Almost.