There's No Other Ending. Sunday Sun. Yesterdays are Mending. Sunday Sun.

 It was a lazy weekend at our house. I wasn't feeling well. I could go on and on about hormones and perimenopause and how it is unkind and migraines and blah and blah, but like our dreams, nobody is interested in our hormones but ourselves.

Since it's nigh on Halloween, I have an excuse to watch cheesy 70's horror films. On Friday night, I chose to watch "Carrie". It is a sad and disturbing movie, but just look at the "talent": Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, William Katt, Amy Irving, John Travolta, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen and the woman who played Riff Randall in "Rock and Roll High School". Hopefully, this upcoming weekend, we'll get to watch the original "Halloween" with Jamie Leigh Curtis...

Speaking of scary...This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning. Apparently, because I was sidelined by a migraine, Archie thought I was sleeping in too late and so he sweetly took the time to jump on top of me to save me from myself. Good kitty...Jerk.

I did much lounging on Saturday morning. By about midday, I went out to run errands. I finally made it to the garden center to get some organic garlic to plant, black dirt with which to plant it and peat moss to put the irises roots and gladiola bulbs I dug up for the Winter.

I got home and told John that it was probably the last weekend I'd get to take care of the Fall gardening needs, so I was going to spend the rest of the day doing that. He said he would clean many of our bikes, probably like, 10 of them. So, we both got to play outside all afternoon - John with bikes and me in mud. I planted 25 tulip bulbs, 20'ish cloves of garlic, and another 15 or so irises. Now, all I have left to do, is bring in my rain gauge, my disco ball, and cover all the gardens with all the leaves that have dropped from my trees.

I was going to try to race on Sunday, but my body wasn't having it. Instead, we went to the race and John did his race, even though his back was really bugging him. He was basically walking over the barriers, but it was a pretty small field of racers, so he was able to get first even though his back pain was slowing him down. We stayed the whole, wonderfully, warm afternoon and a lot of our friends showed up. It was a perfect afternoon, even if I wasn't feeling the best.

The weekend ended just like it started, with a bunch of lazy cats napping all over the furniture. I wouldn't have it any other way.

She Looks Like She Don't Know Better

She Looks Like She Don't Know Better

So, just for fun, I'm doing an "On this Day" post. This was my post from October 25th 2007. I was just telling people what my Halloween costume was going to be for this year, so this post is timely.

Here is a photo of the story of my life.





So, I was thinking that I might go out this Halloween. Yeah, it's on a school night, but I'd try to come home at a decent hour and not really drink that much. I think I could make it work. Some people I know are doing a Misfits cover band at the Picador. So, K. and I were kicking around the idea of seeing that. Now, the big problem is figuring out a costume. I have this crazy pair of black, knee high boots I could work with. Any suggestions from my readers?

When the girls were younger, I would dress-up to go trick-or-treating with them. One year, when I was still working at the clinic and doing a lot of phlebotomy, I dressed-up like a vampire - even to work. The patients loved it, and Coadster was happy because she suggested it, and even at that tender age she had control issues.

Another year I went as a skank bar hag. That costume was probably the most fun. I found this nasty, sorta slutty dress at Goodwill, that also had weird pit stains. Then I wore ripped-up nylons, heels that were scuffed and broken, I made sure to wear too much make-up and smear it around, and took my hair as big as it's ever been - which, if you know me, you understand just how out of control that was. The nurses I worked with at the time, had so much fun at lunch one day remembering the outfits of every skanky bar hag they knew to try to give me ideas for my costume.

I went to a lot of parties that year, so I don't remember a whole lot from that night. I do recall, being at an after hours party and sitting on a couch between two women, who kept trying to feel me up - one was dressed as Slash and the other dressed as Axl Rose. Come to think of it, that was kind of fun. Maybe I'll bring back the skank bar hag costume again this year.

What Makes a House Grand Ain't the Roof or the Doors. If There's Love in a House, It's a Palace for Sure

As you might recall, I'm a little obsessed with houses. Not just houses, but decor also. I want my house to be a sanctuary from all of the crap I have to deal with in the outside world. And, like everything else, I'm very opinionated about houses and decor.

When I bought my house, almost 7 years ago, I didn't have a lot of money. There were a handful of houses in my price range, and I needed a house big enough to fit me and my two high school aged daughters. I also wanted it to be close enough to my daughters' school, and close enough to my work that none of us had to drive, since I had one car that was old and getting less and less reliable.

There were bigger homes and newer homes and homes that didn't need as much work as the one I chose, but none of them were in the neighborhood I wanted and none of them had any real character. They were full of carpet and looked about as interesting as a room in a Motel 6.

The house I chose had a problem with termites and no basement (but a crawl space to protect us from tornadoes) and a small shady yard that wouldn't be great for gardening (which is VERY important to me). Those were all things I thought would be be crucial for me, but I wasn't in a financial place to be that picky. Instead, I compromised and figured I could try to deal with some of it in time and just let the other things go. So, here is a list of some of the things I can't stand about certain kinds of houses and decor. I don't judge what others like. I don't really care. I just know what I like in my house. Also some of the things I love, some of the things I've changed and some of the things I hope to change.

If my bathroom has to be tiny, I figure it should also be fun.

Even if I were rich, I would never want to live in a McMansion, in a housing development. It's just not my scene. I wouldn't fit in and most importantly, I don't like people telling me what I can do with my yard and why would I pay extra money just to live in a neighborhood where I would feel like the help. I don't want someone telling me I can't make a garden of my front yard, and if you are my neighbor and want to make a toilet planter in your front yard, I want you to be able to do that too. I'm a child of the 70's, I always want everyone to be free to do their own thing, man...As long as they aren't hurting anyone else. Lucky for me, John feels the same way. I remember when we were talking about him paying in and putting his name onto the mortgage and one of the first things he said was, "I love this house. I'm so glad you didn't buy a McMansion". At least we're on the same page...

So, one of the things I'd like to fix about the house is adding a bathroom. We only have one and it's tiny. It was pretty rough when I first bought the house and myself and my two teenage daughters all had to use the bathroom at the same time to get ready for school and work every morning. It's not quite so bad now that it's just me and John, but when the kids and their boyfriends are all staying the night at Christmas time, or if we have other people staying at our place, it is a huge fuster cluck.

Our idea for when we get rich...You know, say a bag of money drops on our heads or something, is to redo the dormer room upstairs, raising the roof a little and converting the gigantic walk-in closet into a bathroom with a shower, toilet and sink. It will probably still be bigger than our downstairs bathroom.

For now, in the next year or two, we plan to update our current bathroom. I want to repaint it, change the floor tile, put in a low flow toilet and if we can scrape the money together, replace the yellowed, dingy, shower surround with white subway tile. We'll see how and if that goes...

Something I can't stand in a house is carpet. My daughter thinks I'm crazy. One of the redeeming features of our Minimal Traditional home, (I finally looked up the proper name for our style of house) was that it was all tile and carpet, except for one bedroom downstairs and the dormer room upstairs. Coadster thinks hardwood floors are cold and loves carpet, so she wouldn't let me tear it up in her bedroom until after she left for college. We did tear that stained, gross, old, carpet up the minute she moved out, though. Our neighbors helped us sand and refinish the beautiful floors underneath we left the gray'ish purple paint up that Coadster chose for her room. At some point, I'll probably change the color to something a little more neutral, but it's pretty and funky and I don't mind it at all.

The kitchen. OY! The kitchen. The woman who lived here before me really played up the Kountry Kitchen theme here. I loved how big the kitchen was. I think dining rooms are a waste, unless it's big enough and you have the money to buy a nice pool table to put in one, so it didn't bother me that this house didn't have one, but had a very large kitchen where we can all hang-out when I cook or where, more likely, John can work on bikes or wheels while I cook.

When I first checked out the house before I bought it, I was very disappointed with how dingy and dirty the whole house looked, but I knew there were some easy and relatively affordable things I could do to fix it. Of course, those things are taking a while, but at least we got the first phase done a couple of years ago and we hope to finish the 2nd phase this year. Hope, hope, hope...

The first phase was to replace the old faux wood, cigarette burned counter tops with something less heinous. I don't give a crap about granite or marble or quartz counter tops. This is what people like to call a "starter home", but will be more like an "ender home" for me and John and we won't make any money off of high-end anything. The reason I bought this home and probably anyone else would buy this home, is because it is affordable. So, I bought laminate counters and had a friend install them. I kept the old porcelain sink and he switched where the stove and refrigerator were, so we could open one of the cupboard doors more easily. Another friend of mine gave us her old electric oven, which was newer and not nearly as gross as the one that came with the house. John brought his beautiful baking table that we use as more counter space and we put bar stools around to use like a little breakfast nook thingy.

I also painted the old, ratty looking, dirty wood cupboards white, after I cleaned and sanded them and John put the new pulls on them. We also took off and left off the top cupboard doors. We have Fiesta Ware that looks pretty and leaving the doors off make our kitchen look that much bigger. We got rid of the hideous stencils and painted the room a light blue color.

When we do our second wave of remodeling, we are getting rid of the popcorn ceiling (done), re painting the ceiling the same color white as the cupboards, repainting the walls, hopefully a little warmer blue, replacing the dorky looking white ceiling fans with the cow pulls hanging from them, with new black and brushed nickel ceiling fans, and then putting new black and white tile on the floor, as a nod to its 1950 house birth. We don't have money to replace appliances and we won't add a dishwasher any time soon. What we have is fine.

The living room was s decent size, I just thought it needed a little oomph! and warming up and I hate floral prints almost as much as I hate wallpaper, stencils and carpet, so I was glad she didn't leave her furniture here for me.

I chose a camel'ish (it seemed to be pretty popular in 2009) color for the paint on the living room walls. I think it was called twine or rope or hemp or something. Anyway, I wanted something warm and cozy. I liked this whole color scheme, but Jon though the curtains were too long and dark and brought the room down, so now we have shorter, lighter curtains, but the room is still pretty damn cozy.

Originally, the upstairs dormer room had carpet. Stinky lived up there for a couple of years of high school and a year or two after. Like her sister's room, I ripped up the carpet the minute she moved out. I wanted the upstairs space to serve a few different purposes. The space was big, so it could handle it. I wanted it to be a spare bedroom for when people stayed over, a nice reading room and a studio to draw and paint in.

We were very lucky to have John's funky furniture that we had been storing in our garage and attic space, but also some beautiful antiques his mom gave us. All we had to buy was paint, lamps, a futon bed and this funky rug. I painted the walls white and the floors light gray and let all the art and rugs and furniture add the color. I like that, just in case I get in a mood and want to change the color, I wouldn't have to do anything major to do that. Anyway, I don't know if I have a particular style, but if I did, it would be way less ornate and more simple/funky. I would much rather have my home look interesting and cozy, than chic and cold or overly busy with too much fancy crap and contrasting patterns.

I would say we made an excellent spare bedroom and reading room, but there's only one window, so the light isn't great for a painting studio.

As I said earlier, if a big bag of money falls on our heads, I would love to raise the roof of our house a little bit, rip out the drop ceiling, get rid of the fluorescent overhead lights, put some sky lights in, and rip out the back section over the stairs, put a giant window in there too and put in a small bathroom. But if for some reason that doesn't happen, I love the room as it is.

Of course, at some point, we also need to spend money on replacing the siding, re-roofing and reglazing all of the windows. We decided against buying those vinyl windows. They need to be replaced every 20 years, and don't seem very sustainable. So far, we've spent the most money on the crawl space that no one ever sees. Encapsulating that crawl space was the best thing we could have done for the house, and ourselves. There was so much moisture down there, that it was attracting termites and we were living above airborne mold. Super healthy...Or not.

When I call this our "ender home", instead of our "starter home", I mean that we will probably never leave it, unless we move into a care facility or die. It is perfect for that. Except the dormer room, everything is on the same level. There isn't much of a yard, and while I will garden until it becomes impossible for me, there isn't much yard to maintain either. Even if we got hit with the biggest bag of money you can imagine, (and I'm imagining these bags with nice, light $100 dollar bills, rather than life ending bags of nickels) I wouldn't want to move from this house into a big, fancy house somewhere. I wouldn't feel comfortable there. I would keep feeling like I was only there to be the housekeeper. I love that our house meets all of our needs. We can read and watch movies and draw and paint and our kitchen table will always have spare bike parts on it from John tinkering on stuff next to me while I cook, and our cats will rule the roost and I wouldn't want things any other way. While I was on sick leave for 2 and a half weeks after my lumpectomy, I kept wandering from screened -in porch, to big kitchen, to comfy bedroom, to cozy living room and when it was too hot, to the only room in our house with any air conditioning, the funky, beautiful (to me) dormer room and thinking how happy I was in our old, simple sanctuary.

Now It's Time to Leave the Capsule if You Dare

My first college ID photo.

 Fictionyish:

When I was kid, I had a hard time sleeping. I was always scared because of the Vietnam War being broadcast every night during the news, and the fact that in the middle of the night when everyone else was asleep, I would hear weird noises that I was sure had evil intentions. My mom was still alive back then and she would let me listen to the radio all night, to drown out the scary sounds. It usually helped, but one time I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the song, "They're Coming to Take Me Away" was on. It scared the crap out of me and I ran down the hall to sleep in my mother's bed with her. Unfortunately, my sister was already in my place and I set my pillow on the cold, tile, floor next to my mom's side of the bed to sleep.

After my mom died, we moved in with my abusive aunt and uncle. I was miserable for the 8 years I had to live with them and I never thought I'd get away. I had elaborate fantasies of being saved by someone or about running away somewhere, where I wasn't constantly being threatened or ridiculed or or called names or being forced to cook and clean with any time I had away from school.

I turned 18 in July, about a month before I would leave for college. My brother told me to stay with my aunt and uncle for that month. "What's one more month going to harm?" he asked. He was probably right. It would be hard to find an apartment for a month and my aunt and uncle didn't really let me work outside of their home, except for a week or two in the Summer to detassle corn, so I didn't have much money. Plus, my brother thought maybe if I stayed that month, my aunt and uncle might give me some of their old towels or sheets for my dorm room. So, I stayed.

By the day I left for school, I thought I might die. I didn't think I would finally be allowed to be free without something bad happening to stop it. My aunt and uncle and cousins dropped me off at college and it turned out that my roommate wasn't coming that first night, so I had the room to myself. I thought I would be thrilled the second they took-off, but I wasn't. I hadn't been allowed to just relax without worrying they would come downstairs and find me and start yelling at me for being lazy or threatening me if I didn't get up and clean or cook. I had no idea what to do with myself. I could do whatever I wanted and it was almost paralyzing. I had no idea what I liked anymore. What things made me happy or comfortable.

I went to bed that night and couldn't sleep. I had no idea what to expect from my life after that day. As I tossed and turned, I could hear someone was playing David Bowie's "Changes One" album. It brought me back to my childhood, when my mom was still alive. I was scared of the unknown, afraid of the dark still and I was a mess, but I thought I might finally be okay. I just had to keep reminding myself of who I was and what I liked to do when I was a kid, before my mom died, and I was free to make my own choices. I finally fell asleep, lulled by David Bowie's voice. The next morning I would start figuring out who the hell I was. It would take years...

The Autumn Days Swung Soft Around Me, Like Cotton on my Skin

This weekend was nice and mellow. Originally, we were going to go to Madison and stay with my brother and then do a cyclocross race, but I still wasn't over my cold, and John was just getting a cold of his very own, so we decided to stay home and rest and hopefully, get better faster.

Saturday was filled with me reading and nodding off and reading some more and nodding off some more, until I felt up for doing another cleaning project in my bedroom that involved me taking all of the books off of one of my bookshelves, wiping all of the books off with a vinegar, water and baking soda solution, vacuuming and cleaning the walls, floor and ceiling around said bookshelf and then putting everything back away. The only bad thing about this project, is that I start reading the backs of books I haven't read before, and it makes me want to go right back to the reading and nodding off stage of my day.

On Sunday we were both feeling a little better. John suggested we try to do a ride to Solon. I was a little worried, just because that route has one really big hill on it, and I hadn't ridden it since my surgery. I thought I was strong enough to ride it, I just wasn't sure how long it would take me - a day, two days, a week?

I actually did just fine on it. I had taken a couple of days off with this cold, and my time up it was maybe just a little slower than normal. Of course, usually when I ride up that hill, I've already been on a 5 mile run earlier in the day and ridden and run many times the week before. Apparently, not killing yourself before a harder effort, can make you stronger and faster. Hmmmmm, who knew?

We met some friends at Big Grove for an early dinner. Since it was in the 80's in the middle of October, we decided to eat outside. When it's warm this time of year, I keep thinking about every outdoor activity as "possible the last time" I'll be able to do that particular thing before the snow flies and it's 30 below zero. So much pressure!

I have to keep reminding myself, that I have chosen these people to be my friends...

Since it gets dark so much earlier than we're used to now, we decided to head for home, and hope we didn't encounter and deer leaping across the road, just as we were screaming down a hill.

The roads were beautiful and we had a great ride back.

We didn't see any deer, but we did meet a new friend. This poor, misguided creature thought it would be a great idea to warm himself on the asphalt to catch those last remaining rays of sunshine, but we thought he'd probably die doing it with all of the traffic on that road, so I used my bike tire to gently persuade him to move to safer ground, like the ditch.

We made it back in town just in time to see the sunset behind us light up one of my favorite Fall trees. I have to say, I will definitely miss October when its gone, especially since it's been so lovely and warm this month...

The Amish horses get a little skittish around cyclists.

So, Monday marked the 2 month anniversary of my cancer surgery.Of course, I was going to write this post on that day, but for some reason, I haven't been in the mood to write much this week.

Anyway, I took Monday off and had a wonderful day that I will try to write about tomorrow, but right now, I'll write about our weekend, which was also wonderful.

I love these horses hanging out by the green houses.

Saturday was beautiful and I started it by going for a 5 mile run. I was trying to go slow, but since I didn't run the day before, I went way faster than I thought I would. It felt so good.

At 1:30'ish, our friend Burne came over and we all went for a 50 mile bike ride to Kalona and back. As I say all the time, it is one of my favorite rides.

On the way there, my burrito (which is a little leather pouch attached to my bike saddle that contains an inner tube, some CO2 containers and a few other things to fix a flat) fell off my bike and we didn't notice until later.

So, when our friend Burne flatted on the gravel road and didn't have anything to fix his flat, all we had was one inner tube and 2 Co2 canisters, and it turned out that one of them didn't work. We rode on to Kalona and had a lovely early dinner and Stinky joined us before she headed off to work and it was great.

Since we didn't have enough CO2 to fully fill Burne's tire, we had to be more careful and not ride on the gravel, which meant riding on the highway for a bit, but since that bit was still in Kalona, the shoulders were made wide enough for horses and buggies to safely ride on the highway. It was heavenly.

We decided to go through New Sharon on the way back home.There just happened to be a big auction on that road. At one point, we hit a T intersection with two boys on bikes on one side, a weird auction vehicle on another and a horse and buggy on the 4th side. It was such an Iowa experience.

We rode past the auction and saw many Amish people packing up and heading home.

The shadows just before sunset in the Fall are so well defined.

Our friend, Burne finally did get another flat tire just as we were heading out of the town of Hills. It was 10 miles from home, so Burne went back into Hills (all two blocks of it) and sat at the one bar there, while John and I rode home, deposited our bikes and drove back to pick him up. Oh, and by the way, we found my bike flat fixing kit burrito on the side of the road and everything was there and in working order. We picked up Burne and headed home. Two weeks out of surgery and I ran 5 miles and rode 50 miles all in one day. Of course, the next day I was pretty wrecked, but I could finally actually do both tthings.

Meow. Yeah, Don't Cross My Path.

I know I always complain about what a huge A-hole my cat is, but he is also really smart...Which I'm not so sure is a good thing at all.

On Friday evening, I went out to the garden to get some green peppers and jalapenos to make salsa. I came back smelling like tomato vines and Archie instantly started whining, which then turned into yowling. I had no idea what his problem was, and since I was apparently, an idiot human, he had to try a different way to communicate it to me. He went to his scratch box and pretended to eat the imaginary catnip that wasn't there. Oh, duh! Normally, when I come back smelling like garden, I have some fresh catnip for him, that I normally scatter on  his scratch box. It's a good things stupid humans are easily trained...

I Don't Mind Some Slight Disorder...

Okay, well yesterday was pretty nice. On Tuesday after work, I planted the 12 or so Hostas a friend of mine gave us over the weekend and John cleaned all of the gutters before a big rain that night and yesterday morning.

The rain prevented me from running, but I made up for that later. After the storms, the afternoon was gorgeous and I got to sit and read at my little waterfall between the building where I work and Halsey Gym. I love it, because I get to hear the piano music for the ballet classes or the hip hop for the more modern dance classes coming out of Halsey Gym and from where I'm sitting, almost no one can see me. My favorite situation.

After work, John and I headed to Cedar Rapids for my first Cyclocross practice of the year. After this weekend when I died on a 22 mile gravel bike ride, I was worried about what kind of shape I was in.

My goal was to try and ride 45 minutes without stopping (the average length of a race) and to try to get at least 10 miles in.

They had a route all marked-off with little markers, so we could follow and work on skills and speed or ride with other people to work on passing. There were probably about 15 people who showed up which was great. Two of us were women. I'd love to get those numbers up, but I know from many years of experience that it's hard to do.

Anyway, I rode the course and used my Map My Run app to measure it out and time it. Each lap was a little over a mile. I started out slowly and kept trying to increase my speed every lap. I worked on going up the hills staying on my saddle one time and the next time, I got up off my saddle and did standing climbs. I also worked on taking different lines and cornering faster and faster. I had a blast AND I rode for an hour and 10 minutes without stopping and did a little over 12 miles. Next time, I'll have to work on dismounting and remounting and getting my speed up.

Oh, yeah. I also want wish John a happy 6 year anniversary of recovering from getting hit by the guy who bent down to pick up the thing he dropped in his F-150 pick-up and hit John straight on without braking. Even though he still suffers some back pain, John is kicking so much ass every day.

After we got done riding, a guy brought out some good beer and some of us hung-out and talked about riding and races we wanted to do. It was very nice.

Then John and I drove off into the sunset through Cedar Rapids, a town that narrowly escaped a flood last week.

Tonight? John goes to his mom's for dinner and I get some alone time at home to read and harass and get harassed by cats. I can't wait.

September Corn Still Can Make me Feel That Way.

The corn has ears...And by Fall, they also have weird, dark beards.

I guess it's time to do my monthly stats for September now. It was a weird month. I really thought that since I didn't have to do radiation, I would be up and running and riding and swimming and all different kinds of active. What I didn't understand is that this whole recovering from cancer and surgery, sure can take a lot out of a girl. I would do a bit of a physical effort, and then be wrecked and exhausted, and shy of working that hard again for a while. So, my training stats leave a little to be desired, but I did okay on other things...

Miles Run: 40.5. I have yet to start trail running. Maybe October?

Miles Biked: 159. It's a good thing I've been commuting or this number would be a hell of a lot smaller.

No walking, no swimming this month either. Sigh.

Races: One Whole Race! I really didn't think I'd be able to write that yet.

Places traveled for John's races: Mason City, IA, Knoxville/Pella, Iowa, Madison Wisconsin.

Books Read: 7  - 1) "China Dolls" by Lisa See, 2) "All Our Names" by Dinaw Mingestu, 3) "Margaret the First" by Danielle Dutton, 4) "The Laughing Monsters" by Denis Johnson, 5) "Eileen: by Ottessa  Moshfegh, 6) "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, 7) "Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes.  I started reading scary books for Halloween. Hopefully, I won't run through them all before the holiday is over.

House Projects: Mostly, I am doing some crazy cleaning projects, but no cosmetic or structural work.

Paintings or Drawings: Big fat zero.

Writing: Blog posts - nine, any other kind of real writing none.

It will be interesting to see what October brings in my recovery and the creative projects I seem to keep putting off...

Comes a Time When Your'e Driftin'. Comes a Time When You Settle Down.

Guess what? I finally got a weekend where we didn't go out of town and didn't hang out at races all day. Holy COW! Did I need that.

I got off to a good start on Saturday with my favorite comfort food breakfast - Greek yogurt, granola with almonds and fresh raspberries. It is the perfect combination of foods.

I then set out to write a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish during the weekend. John told me I should prioritize them, you know, just in case I made the list too long and could only get to some of them. He didn't have to worry, because I didn't really get to any of the things on it. Oh well, I did something more important...I had fun.

What did I do instead of all of the stuff on my list? Well, I actually started a lot of the things on my list, but didn't finish them, so I couldn't scratch them off. What I'm hoping, is that this coming weekend where I don't have a race and am not planning on leaving town, will give me time to finish some of the things I started and I will be scratching-off away.

Also, on Saturday around 2:30 in the afternoon, we went to ride mountain bikes at Sugar Bottom. It had been sprinkling all day, but we couldn't find anything on the radar to show if it was raining closer to Solon. The website said the trails were open, so we chanced it. When we got there, I rode for about 2 seconds and deemed the trails too wet and muddy to ride.

I love that this barn is only partially painted.

Our friend, Burne met us and we decided to ride on gravel roads instead. We parked over at the Solon high school parking lot and took off from there.

The clouds were dark and brooding and we did get sprinkled on at the beginning of our ride.

Of course, the low hanging clouds, just made the dried corn that much more vibrantly gold and the grass a brighter green.

This was the first real ride I've gone on since my surgery. I have done some easy, short, flat rides, but nothing with the kinds of hills you get on gravel and not for that distance.

We headed toward West Branch and rode a little bit of Morse Rd, which just happens to be paved, until we hit this minimum maintenance road. As long as they aren't too muddy and unrideable, I love the low maintenance roads. Sometimes there are more dogs on them. This time we were lucky, we didn't encounter any dogs on the B road, but we did run into a couple on other gravel roads. The first one, was just doing his job and run alongside us barking as we passed his home. We told him he was a good boy.

When we were close to being done with our route, I was really dying. My lungs and my legs felt like they were exploding and I thought I might just fall asleep on my bike...Until I heard a dog bark. Then I found energy from the very depths of my soul. I passed both of the guys and then they realized why. The dog's owner called him back just as he was catching us. If I were smart, I would incorporate dogs into my training schedule. They could help me complete some SERIOUS intervals.

We came across the intersection of Plato and Plato and our friend, Burne got a little philosophical about it.

We finally finished our beautiful, if not tiring ride and headed to Big Grove for dinner and a beer. They had salmon corn chowder as their soup of the day and I love their roasted beet salad, so I was one happy girl.

On Sunday, John went to Chicago for a CX race. I stayed home and tried to get more stuff done. I made a big pot of potato leek soup and got some things done around the house and went on a little run.

By the time John got back from the race, we ate, he took a nap and then we finally got to ride mountain bikes on the trails. Boy, how I've missed that.

After My Picture Fades and Darkness has Turned to Gray

On one of John's trips back to Iowa City for RAGBRAI.

I didn't really get around to covering John's and my anniversary last week, so it's been six years. SIX YEARS! That's the longest I've been with anyone, except my ex-husband, and I was in that thing WAY too long.

Just for fun, I thought I'd write a little about how we met and stuff:

In 1987, I went back to school at the University. Originally, I started in 1983, but I wasn't ready to be in college, I know I've mentioned several times here, but I had to work on all my shit from being raised by my abusive aunt and uncle. So, in 1985, I dropped out of school and moved to California and then moved back 1987. Got that? Yeah...I'm not sure I do either.

John took this photo of me at a camp fire on one of our Monday Night Rides, about a week before our first date.

So, anyway...I had just moved back to Iowa and decided to do some political work. I joined a left wing organization, called New Wave and that's where I first met John. At that time, he was with, what he likes to call, his future ex-wife. I was dating a guy in California, but then also had a little overlap with my future ex-spouse. Now, I can't imagine having the energy for all of that drama. Like I've always maintained since that time..."Who wants TWO men sitting on your couch in their underwear watching sports?" If only someone had asked me that question in my early 20's...

I didn't know John very well back then. I was closer to his ex-wife. He was working nights, so when I saw him, he was probably just waking up. My main memory of him at the time, was of a beautiful man, with really curly hair, rolling cigarettes. Since we were both with other people, I don't think either of us were all that aware or interested in each other back then.

Then he moved to Boston for 20 years and in that time got divorced and was in a relationship with another woman for 10 years after that.

I stayed in Iowa City, got married, had two kids and got divorced. As strangely coincidental as it sounds, I got divorced around the same time John and his wife did, his ex-wife moved back to Iowa City and we hung out a lot before she met her life partner and had a couple of kids and moved to Norway (the country, not the town in Iowa).

About 6 months after we started dating. I was already driving him crazy with my shenanigans.

By 2008, I started to see John in Iowa City when he would come back for RAGBRAI. I was single by that time, but he was still in a relationship. I got to know him a little better as a friend on those visits, and I liked him well enough, but I still didn't really know him all that well.

In 2010, John's girlfriend broke up with him, and they both ended up moving back to Iowa City. I was getting to know both of them a little better when they moved back. I had always been a runner and a bike commuter, but John was really into cycling and bike racing. We would go on our Monday Night Rides once a week and since we had many of the same friends from our politico days in college, we saw a lot of each other.

Somewhere in all of that hanging-out, I realized that I was interested in more than a friendship with John. He wasn't really ready to date again so soon after having his heart broken, and so we discussed it once, and decided to be friends...Or so I thought. About a week after "our talk", John asked me to hang out with him, by ourselves, and gave me some options, since I still really liked him and I'm not stupid, I chose the most date like of those - dinner and a drink. We had been doing some flirting by message and texts and that graduated to emails, and by the afternoon of our dinner plans, he finally referred to it as a date. Whew!

Our 6th Anniversary just happened to fall during Jingle CX. Perfect.

Our first date was great and our second and third dates were even better and on the occasion of our 4th date, John got hit by an F-150 pick-up truck while riding his bike. His week long hospital stay, spinal fusion surgery and couple of months of recovery time, really amped-up our relationship.

We have definitely been through plenty of shit in our last six years: back surgeries, moving in together, dealing with surly teenagers (mine, not his) getting each other into different kinds of racing, traveling together, breast cancer (mine, not his), job stresses (both of ours), and the hardest and most painful of all, putting up with each others cats.

I will say, as hard as parts of it has been so far, it's been more rewarding than anything. Maybe it's good that it took us so long to be in a place to date each other. It gave us plenty of time to make our mistakes on other people, and I think we're both better at communicating our needs and emotions than we ever were in our early 20's. So, let's hear it for friendships simmering into relationships and good timing. John is truly my worth waiting for.

It's Just Another Day for You and Me in Paradise

The last of our gladiolas still hanging on in the garden.

So, today I was walking downtown in Iowa City looking for a mailbox. It was Homecoming here and the streets were packed with drunk people in black and gold apparel. I passed a homeless guy asking for money. I didn't have any cash on me, but I just got paid today, so I came across a Subway sandwich place and decided to walk in and ask for a gift card.

When I went back to the homeless guy, I said, "Sir, I bought you a $10 gift card, so you can get a sandwich." I figured, he'd be able to stay inside and sit down and eat some food, if he had bought it there. I wasn't sure if he would be pissed-off at me, because I know sometimes people just want money to buy alcohol and cigarettes, and I get that. I'm sure if I were homeless, I would want something to numb the stress of that too. This homeless guy? He thanked me when I gave it to him, and then he proceeded to yell, Thank you's and god bless you's as I walked down the street. It was a pretty good feeling for 10 dollars of my money and I hope he got a decent lunch and was treated with respect during it too.