There's Nothing You Can Do That Can't Be Done

I started feeling better by last Friday. I hadn't been running and hadn't ridden my bike except for commuter rides for 10 days, so John and I both bowed out of the Pigman Sprint Triathlon. It was the first time since 2012 that we missed it. They are going to apply about 40 bucks of our entrance fee, so we didn't lose the whole thing...

So, we decided to ride bikes to Shorts for dinner and a beer, to see how it felt for either of us. It felt pretty damn good. Then a couple of friends of ours texted to see if they could stop by. They just got back from Peru and we wanted to hear about their trip, and they wanted to come by and get some of my extra seedlings of organic tomatoes and basil. We sat on the back porch and had a great talk.

On Saturday morning, Stinky texted me and asked if we could ride bikes to the Farmer's market together. Hell yes! It's one of my favorite things to do.

Check this out. I wish they had someone reading gigantic books at the Farmer's Market when my girls were younger. They would have loved that.

We had a nice breakfast and then wandered around. We saw my friend Harriet, who owns the restaurant Leaf. I hadn't seen her in forever. I also got asparagus and strawberries. So good.

When I got home it was time to get down to business. John got the steamer out and started to prep the kitchen.

Archie was extremely helpful. He lounged around and got into everything and needed to take a nap, but wouldn't because...What if all of this moving of things resulted in treats?

Because we were pretty sure that we were dealing with asbestos, we masked up (nothing is better than wearing a respirator when you have a cold), kicked Archie out and got to work. It took us about 4 hours. At one point we had to refill the steamer thingy, so I went out and mowed the backyard. I'm much better at outdoor chores than indoor. We finished scraping the popcorn off. Yea! We still have many patches to spackle and sand and then we have to prime and paint it and put in the new ceiling fans, and then we can start on the walls and put new tile on the floor, and, and, and...

On Sunday morning John and I ate every single strawberry I bought at the Farmer's Market the day before. If you only had regular store strawberries, I think your mouth would explode the first time you tasted the deliciousness of a real garden berry.

I obsessed over my gardens for a bit and then John and I went for my first road ride in 10 days. We decided to ride out to Solon to see if I could handle the hills. We are signed up to do TOMROV this coming weekend and it is 106 miles with 6,000 feet of climbing on Saturday and 90 miles with 4,000 feet of climbing on Sunday. I just wanted to make sure I could deal with it. The ride was fun and beautiful, we didn't go incredibly fast and the hills were more of a challenge than they usually are, but I think I'll be okay for TOMROV.

We ran into (not literally) one of our teammates on the way there. He was waiting for his friend, and they met us at Big Grove. Our friend, Burne was at a motorcycle hill climb in Anamosa, and he met us when that was over. We had a great talk about our upcoming bicycling plans and then John and I rode home to our popcornless kitchen ceiling. Aaaahhhh!

And We Were Swingin' (Swingin'). Yes, We Were Swingin' (Swingin')

So, finally time for my Memorial Weekend post. It started out okay. I had a little sore throat, but I figured it was from allergies. Friday was Coadster's last night to work at Short's before she moved back to Des Moines. I was going to make dinner, but then figured, "What the hell!" we should go and heckle Coadster on her last shift. She rarely works the bar, so John and I went and ate and heckled her. She did spill John's beer, so we like to think it was because of our supreme heckling or because she was so excited to see us, even though she "claims" it's because she isn't used to pouring beer. Whatever.

On Saturday I was really starting to get my full-on cold. I was hoping it was just going to be congestion, but not the tiredy, achy, really sicky kind of cold. Since John has had this same cold for a few weeks before me, he wasn't able to race and we went to Snake Alley to watch others race and hopefully meet with our friends there.

It was great to watch some people we knew race and the town is really cool looking too, right on the Mississippi River and the 2nd crookedest street in the country after Lombard Street.

Our friends texted us to tell us that they were sleeping in and would meet us later. They are younger and party a lot harder than John and I (which isn't saying much...), so John and I got some lunch.

We then headed to the Cobble Climb. This alley in Burlington still has the old school cobbles on it and the photo above is just the top part of it. Riders still have to ride the bottom alley before they get to the most treacherous part of the race. It's a lot of fun to watch. I originally thought I would try to ride my bike up it, but, you know....Sick.

Our friends still hadn't shown up and there was a break in the races, so we decided to head back to Iowa City. I was exhausted and slept on the way home and then got home and slept some more. When I woke-up, I decided to dig out my second knew garden, but man, did it kill me. I actually had to sit down while I shook the dirt off of the clumps I dug up. John was wonderful and started scraping the popcorn ceiling off the kitchen ceiling. I came in and made fish tacos for dinner. I was hoping the homemade pico de gallo would burn my cold out, but I was wrong.

A few weeks ago, I had planned a 75 mile bike ride to Conesville and back for Sunday. When I woke up that morning, it was clear I wouldn't be able to go. Wah. I could no longer hear out of my left ear (and still can't) and I was way to weak to think about riding my bike. So, the boys went without me and I planned to meet them and one of their wives for lunch.

There were some problems with a broken wheel, so I left a little early, picked up our friend in North Liberty after I pulled the wheel off of my bike for him to use and transported both of us to Conesville.

Conesville is a cute little town with many Mexican restaurants and bakeries. Perfect.

We ate great food and had a good talk, but then it was time to go to the most interesting part of the trip...

That's right...The Swinging Bridge!

The Swinging Bridge is pretty damn cool, I have to say.

Of course, every guy you will ever meet feels the need to swing the bridge as hard as possible. Bonus points if people get queasy or screech with fear.

We all had a loverly time. After I left, I realized I had overdone it. I went home and took another nap. I was going to try and plant my garden, but I didn't have it in me.

I saved it for the next day. After I slept most of Monday away, I did get up and finish planting my garden. Another tomato plant, two more basil plants, a couple of gladiolas, a lily and scads of Coneflowers (Echancea) - one of my favorites.

So, the weekend was nice, the weather was perfect and I am hoping to feel better this weekend

It's a Long Way to Tipperary. It's a Long Way to Go.

It is June first already. Can you believe that sh*t? As I I have been whining on and on about on here lately, I've been sick for most of the month of May. Wah, wah, wah. The good news, is that I've lost 8 lbs this month, the bad news, is that my daily stats are going to suck.

I saw this yesterday when I went outside on my break to read. What kind of bird is this? It's so beautiful, it doesn't even look real. I'm sad its dead.

With my illnesses this month, Archie hasn't quite known what to do.  He tries to be very, very helpful, by sitting or lying on my chest and stomach. Let me tell you, nothing makes a stomach flu or chest cold feel better than the weight of a 20 lb cat....

Okay, enough on the sicknesses, how about some very low monthly stats?

Miles ridden: 333.

Miles Run: 37.13

Miles Swam/swum/?: .62

Books Read: 6 "A Girl is a Half Formed Thing" by Eimear McBride, "Matilda" by Roald Dahl, "Some Luck" by Jane Smiley, "A Brief History of Seven Killings" by Marlon James, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck and "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" by Dai Sijie

Blog Posts Written: 9.

Real Writing Done: A whole lot of nothing.

House Projects Done: Finally I have something to write in here. I dug out and planted two new gardens on top of planting my normal one. I'm hoping that having more sunlight will help me get real, red tomatoes, instead of the few green tomatoes I would get at the end of the season, and put in a window to ripen and then have to take them out a day or two later after they rotted. I'm nothing, if not a sucker for false hope.

We also FINALLY started scraping the popcorn ceiling in our kitchen (and by we, I mean John). He did about a quarter of it to see how messy it would be. It was messy all right, but he thinks he can do the rest of it one day this coming weekend. Then I will patch the holes in the ceiling and then prime and paint it and work on the rest of the kitchen.....

So, next month, I'm hoping to be well and to get to play outside more and to keep going on the kitchen...And I will DEFINITELY post a photo of the first red, not rotten tomato I get.

We Believe in the Sum of Ourselves

I am so behind in my blog posts. I got sick AGAIN this weekend, so I'm writing about last weekend on this one...

So, the first thing I saw when I walked out of my house last Saturday morning was a bird's nest on the ground. Is that supposed to be good luck, bad luck, some kind of sign? I did check and there weren't any eggs or dead babies in it, so that was good....

I felt enough better on Saturday that we decided to go on a bike ride to Big Grove Brewery in Solon and we figured we'd just go slowly enough that we wouldn't hurt ourselves and make ourselves sick again. It was a lovely, warm day and we tried out some new things on the menu. The smoked salmon salad was very nice, indeed.

We saw this bike on the way back to our bikes to ride home. It's all nicely monochromatic and check out the flask in the cage. Nice.

On Sunday morning we were going to try to do the time trial race our team puts on, but neither of us were feeling strong enough to kill ourselves for 20 miles, so we went to see if we could help out with the race.

There were only 12 people who came to it. No women and no juniors. Wah. Some other members of our team were putting on a marathon mountain bike race and it was graduation weekend in town, so I'm sure that's why our numbers were so low. I'm glad our team is putting on more races this year, but hopefully in the future, we'll try hard not to to do two in one day.

After we got back from the race, Stinky came over. She's had a hard time being healthy this last semester. I totally get it. She worked two jobs over full time and took a full load of classes. I've been there. It's hard to find time to play outside or inside and it's sooo easy to eat the crappy bar food you get at a discount at work. So, I told her I would help her any way I could. She turned her ankle and can't run or hike so easily right now, but she said she'd love for me to ride bikes with her.

We have all kinds of great townie trails and we took one to the Sycamore Mall. We checked out the new health food store there and got a few salads to take home, then we went to Panera's and she got a salad and I got soup and half a sandwich and then we rode home. Like she said, it wasn't a long ride, but her butt still hurt. I told her we'd build up to longer rides and I'd give her a pair bike shorts with a chamois in them that I've never worn if we get up to longer rides.

After Stinky and I got back from lunch, John and I got suited up and drove to Cedar Rapids to ride mountain bikes with our friend, Burne. He had never been on these trails before and he thought they were a lot of fun.

Keeping with my "trying to be braver" initiative this Summer, I did accidentally ride a couple of parts of the trail that were more difficult. The other, easier, option of the trail had grown over and I couldn't see it, and as you can see by my face, I was a little surprised to be riding over the extremely rocky and uneven trail. The good thing about that, is that I didn't crash and after I did it once, it wasn't scary at all. John also told me I should "ride" one of the black trails. So, I rode about a quarter mile of it, before it got too scary and then I walked the rest of it. John was trying to show me how it wasn't so scary to ride over a skinny, when he crashed. Like he said, he didn't get hurt. Which, I get, but I won't be riding over any skinny's all the same....

After our ride, we had our hearts set on getting pizza at Leonardo's, which was supposed to be open, but it wasn't and there was no sign saying why. So, instead we drove to Solon to The Red Vespa and had amazing pizza and appetizers. Life can be so hard...

Life is Funny. Skies are Sunny.

So, I thought I might actually write on my blog today. I tried to put up a bunch of photos of last weekend at home this morning, but they didn't save, so I'll have to write that post tomorrow.

Anywhoooo....Today was the first day of the year that I got to run through a sprinkler on my morning run. I also had a fun iPhone playlist with bands that Start with T - Ting Tings, Thurston Harris, Three Dog Night, They Might Be Giants, Terrence Trent Darby (shut-up), Ten Years After, Tears for Fears, and Talking Heads. So the day got off to a good start.

This past weekend, I finally figured out that what I had was a stomach flu. One of the guys who was officiating the race our team puts on is from Cedar Rapids and he said he had the same bug and that a lot of people in CR had it. Then I remembered that I had helped a girl from Cedar Rapids a couple of days before I got sick. I'm just going to go ahead and blame her then.

After not being able to eat much and then only a few, bland things for a while, I decided to try to be better about what I put in my body. Eat less and stay away from processed sugar (no matter how much I absolutely adore it), drink less alcohol and more water. It's been working well for the last week. I haven't gained back any of the four pounds I lost while I was sick. This morning, one of my co-workers brought in a box of decadent donuts and I tried to eat one and after a bite, I felt super crappy. I stopped right there and decided the deliciousness wasn't worth how crappy it made me feel. I just hope I can keep on keepin' on this way...

Coadster is done with her first year of teaching on Friday and moving back to her home in Des Moines on Saturday. I think both John and I will be very sad to see her go. She has been such a wonderful room mate this year. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Okay. I think I will stop with the randomness there. I hope your lives are all funny and your skies are sunny.

No More Lookin' for Dead Relatives in All the Wrong Places...

Well, kids. It's been a looong week. On Monday afternoon I got some bad juju. Going through The Change, I never have any idea what the hell is going on with my body on any given day. By Monday night I was sooo dizzy and puking and I could barely sit up. I did try to go to work and function, because at first, I thought it might be that I had a migraine without the pain, which can cause all of that badness too. I didn't even make it an hour before I went home and basically slept for two days straight. I think it might have been the stomach flu, but, again, who the hell knows?

Anyway, I'm feeling better today and ready to write about happier times...Like last weekend. It was Coadster's birthday weekend, so her boyfriend, and most importantly, our GRAND PUPPY came to town.

On Friday night we went to Shorts for dinner and then watched "Dead Pool". It was a nice mellow night...Except the part where the grand puppy and Archie created some drama what with their whining (hers) and their hissing (his).

On Saturday, I was still recovering a bit from the cold I had the week before. I did get some resting in and worked in the garden and mowed the lawn and then I had to rest. I took a nice little nap and then got up and we got ready to take Coadster out for her birthday dinner in Kalona. It was graduation weekend here, so we figured going to another town would be safer. The food was great and then the kids all went out and John and stayed home with the animals. Worked for me!

The brew pub is in downtown West Branch, next to this cool place for kids to play with their families.

On Sunday I was feeling a little better. We had plans with friends to ride bikes to West Branch at noon. There were four of us riding and a couple more friends were going to meet us in West Branch.

It was about a perfect day to ride and for the most part, the roads were low on car traffic.

We stopped at the Down Under - the new brew pub in town. It's in a basement has the coolest looking stone walls and an excellent craft brew selection.

Afterwards, we stopped into the Mexican restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. the food was good and Coadster met us after she and her boyfriend got done taking couple's pictures (it's what she wanted for her birthday).

We rode back on the trail in town until we got to the highway. Here is another obligatory silo photo, just in case you forgot that we ride bikes in Iowa or something...

We stopped in a little town called, Morse on the way home to visit with the friendly hippo.

Then we stopped at Newport St Mary's church and cemetery.

It is a gorgeous little cemetery...And check out those clouds.

Our friend, John H. does this thing where he leads us on wild goose chases to check out land that used to be owned by his grandfather, or a house where his second cousin twice removed once lived, or, in this case, the grave of one of his uncles. If we are riding road bikes, we can be assured that any of these places will take us on gnarly gravel or if we're not, there will be a vicious, chasing dog nearby. Also, as in this case, we rarely are able to find said dead relative or their land. Of course, as much as we tease him about it, it's always a great adventure.

She's a Good Girl. Loves Her Mama.

It was a great weekend with and for my girls. Firstly, it was Coadster's 24th birthday. How the holy hell did she get that old? It was just yesterday that she was a sweet, little, sassy 4 year old and I would sit and wonder what kind of person she would grow to be.

The answer to that, is that she would grow to be a sweet, sassy woman with so much purpose and great ideas and a little too hard on herself, but she's still in her early 20's, so I'm hoping she learns to let herself off the hook a little more.

She is just finishing her first year of teaching. Her students loved her, she got them so interested in current events and history and her fellow teachers are offering her jobs to head the student government and another coaching job for next year. She Is also an amazing dog mom. She educates herself on a daily basis, she treats her depression with endorphins and is usually pretty good at letting me know when the sads are getting the best of her, so I can be there for her, and she does her best to be a wonderful big sister to Stinky. She has grown into quite an amazing woman.

My girls have always had a love/annoy each other relationship.

Stinky is rocking the adult world herself. She has always been one of those really smart kids with incredible test scores, who fails to apply herself. She likes hands-on stuff. She would get an A in physics, because she could build a cool bridge, but do poorly on any assignment where she was asked to read a book and write a paper on it. So, by the time she graduated from high school, she was clearly not ready to go on to college. she had many people tell her that if she didn't go on to college right after high school, that she would never go. In my classy, mom of the year style, I told her that was bull sh*t. I told her to do what her gut told her, and what felt right for her and she decided not to go to college after high school. Instead, she worked at a grocery store, retail and restaurants. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, nothing gets you motivated for a formal education like working sh*t jobs.

Soooo, after a few years, Stinky went to the local community college, worked two jobs, took a full load of courses and ended up with a 3.25 grade point. I told her how proud I was of her and she told me she was proud of herself...Which is the best thing.

Anyway, my girls are rocking their lives in the way that works for them and that's all I can hope for. Yea girls!