Evil Weekend Weather

OK - I thought I was just being paranoid, but now I know for sure that Old Man Winter is in a seriously SNARKY mood this year. Just as I was packing my bags to head to Baltimore, I start getting messages from Robin and Wendy. The messages begin with, "hey, you know it's snowing a bit down here?" and essentially ended with, "You really can't come down here, it's an absolute MESS!" This whole time, we hadn't gotten a single snow flake. And then, it started snowing here. Major sad face due to the fact that I couldn't head down to ride with the girls.

Crazy part was, the whole week was pretty nice up here, until Saturday. The weather for this week? 40s and sunny nearly all week...we hit the weekend and temps drop, clouds come in, and they're calling for snow and rain showers. What the heck, Old Man, what's your problem? Did Mother Nature dump you for a younger hunk or something?!?! Grrrr....

I really just want to get out and ride my bike...is that so wrong?

Anywho...I got my February training calendar from the Big G and I'm LOVING it! I know that it's not February yet, but I just had to start in on some of the workouts. My legs are sore today after 2 days of intensity, but I am really looking forward to this month's workouts! :) Gotta get ready for Battenkill!

Chuck and I were down at the beach a few weekends ago for the Polar Plunge and I tried out the camera he bought me for my birthday. As I mentioned, it takes pretty nifty photos that are intentionally out of focus and blurry or dark around the edges. I think it takes some skill to make them look intentionally "wrong" rather than just bad. Here are a few from the roll that I shot that I thought were pretty cool.

I have a few rolls of color film to try next. We'll see how these work! :)

18

The current temperature outside my front door is 18 degrees. Now, that's just "frickin' freezing Mr. Bigglesworth!" While I am so desperate to get out on my bike that I am willing to forego my 40 degree cutoff to head out with the team tomorrow, I cannot even consider putting rubber to the cement today. Holy cold!

I just got my new training calendar from G, and it looks great. I'm looking forward to February being my month to put the hammer down and start getting ready for Battenkill. I've never done this one, so to start the year with a REALLY tough Cat 1/2 race is going to be interesting. Still, Alaina and Jen are (I think) in with me and Chicken is doing the Cat 3 race, so we'll at least have one another! :)

So, despite the cold weather, Alaina and I are heading down to Baltimore tonight. We're going to spend the night at Wendy's and then have a nice team ride in the am. I'm looking forward to hanging with the girls again and certainly looking forward to braving the chilly temps with them in the morning. Gonna pack up all my warmy gear for tomorrow though. Watch out Baltimore, the wool weenie is coming down!

Roasted Squash verdict

The Roasted Squash and Kale last night was AWESOME! I had to resort to acorn squash because Wegman's didn't have kabocha squash when I stopped by the store. The acorn squash was delicious however, and I was really pleased with the mixture of flavors from the balsamic vinegar, oil, kale and squash. The flavors all came together very well and made for a lovely party for my taste buds! :)

I'm hoping to help Dana out with some easy meals for camp (we have to feed 25 people every night, so easy things are good) and I think that this would be a PERFECT side dish for one of the nights. It's so easy to roast the squash in the oven and using a giant soup pot to make the kale would be quite simple, also.

On another note, I got home to find an exciting package waiting for me...my new bar tape!! :) I had ordered it the other day and was very excited to see that it had arrived. I ordered two rolls of tape so that I could put one on Falco and one on the new Amira (whenever she arrives). Falco was excited about the change (although, I think he's more excited about a chick-bike moving into the house!). So, while I loved the pink bar tape and will certainly miss it, I think that the boy looks pretty swanky with his new lime green and schnazzy bar ends. You can see the bar ends a bit in the first image...the image on them is the CAWES girl rider! :)

Topia went into the shop to get her wheels trued (I would love to have the tools to do that here at home...maybe next Christmas!) and to throw on a rear rack while they had her. The guys were impressed at what great condition she was in other than the little wobble in the wheels. I'm super excited for her to be totally tip top and ready for full-on commuting! :) Gonna check out some grocery bag paniers for local grocery getting!

New Clean Food

Since it is now nearly February and I know that in a month or two, I will have to drag my booty, race speed, up some pretty nasti (yes, the misspelling is on purpose there) hills, I figured I better CRACK down on my diet. So...that's the plan.

From here on out:

• little to no sugar (I MUST have sugar in my morning coffee - but that's going to be about it). All sugar cravings will be satisfied with fresh or dried fruit. Unless, of course, Jencheng makes her mom's incredible oat bars at our next clinic!
• removal of a lot of starches/simple carbs. To be replaced with clean grains and complex carbs - quinoa, bulgar, veggies, veggies and more veggies
• lots of water. Lots and lots of water. Did I mention lots of water?!?!

I've never been particularly good at dieting. It's not that I'm not disciplined enough, it's just that I LOVE food! Food is one of the great things about being alive and able to taste! I honestly think that's why I work out like I do...so that I can eat whatever I want and then just burn it off on the bike! Still...it's time to drop a few pounds and get ready for race season. After all, I have to take on the "big girls" again this year. Don't want to get my butt handed to me at EVERY race, now do I?

So, with this in mind...I'm trying out a new Clean Food recipe tonight. I hope that Chuck will eat it, otherwise, I'll have some leftovers to finish on my own. Tonight's menu will include Roasted Kabocha Squash with Kale. Nom, nom, nom, nom! :)

Back to School....

Today was my first week back to classes. It was a crazy week full of meetings, interviews, trips to DC and bike commuting!

So...my first week of bike commuting went pretty well. I just rode over to the train here in town, but it was good. I'm still testing out the bike to make sure that everything is working well, and so far so good. She shifts like a dream, even if the wheels are a tad bit wobbly. I rode home in the dark the other day, so I got to try out my new headlights. It's a little weird riding with headlights...when you can only see a short way in front of you. Still, I really like the fresh air and the quiet of riding home in the dark when no one is really on the road.

Alaina and I spent today driving down to DC to hang with the team. Actually, we went to Robin's house in Bethesda. From there, we met up with Jen, Wendy, and Chicken and headed out for a really beautiful 42+ miler through the rolling hills of Maryland. I was surprised at how good I felt out there. I've been feeling a bit "heavy" lately and not really like I was going to be up for some big races in early April. But, I surprised myself by feeling really good today. I admit that when I tried to punch it up a hill, it didn't feel super great, but I think that's to be expected at this point in the year for me. I guess I know what is going to be on my February calendar from George - hill repeats! Ugh!

Sniff, Sniff...What's That Smell?

I leap out of bed last night. And, I do mean, LEAP out of bed last night after Chuck wakes me up saying, "Honey, I don't want you to freak out, but I think I smell gas." Oh, yeah, sure...don't freak out! EEK! Oh, and by the way, it was 4 am when this started!

I walk out into the hall and he is absolutely right...the WHOLE house smells of gas. Holy CRAP! I come downstairs and check the stove. I don't hear any gas leaking and don't smell any concentration of gas in the kitchen. I walk down to the basement, I hear the furnace kick on - that's clearly not it. Again, no concentration of gas smell. Huh...this is weird.

I go back upstairs, but I can still smell it. Deciding to err on the side of caution, I call the gas company to report a gas leak. When I finally get a human on the phone, he says, "Are you reporting a gas odor?" I say, "Yes." He asks where I'm located and he replies with, "Yeah, we're actually getting a TON of calls from your area. I'm writing a ticket for you and someone will be out soon, but be aware that it's probably not your house, but part of a larger issue that we're trying to figure out."

Ok - that seems like both good and bad news, I think! At least my house is - hopefully - not going to explode if I light a match.

Chuck and I are now sitting up in the living room, waiting for the gas company to show up and watching the news when we see this. Yeah...looks like this is the issue. A few minutes after we see this on the news, the gas company shows up. The guy was really nice and he actually came in to watch the news a bit so that he knew what was going on.

We went back to bed and woke up a few hours later to a pleasantly non-stinky house. Weird, very weird.

Birthday Shout Out

Happy Birthday to my favorite member of the Men's Pro Peloton!!!

DZ ROCKS!

Gas Sucks, Ride Your Bike!

For as long as I have been riding my bike, I've never been a bike commuter. In part, because I've only ever had bikes like my racing steeds that really can't be locked up on a side street in Philly for very long without losing 95% of their easily removable parts! That is...until TODAY!!!

I started looking around for cheap, old Schwinn-type bikes. I found a few on Craig's List, contacted the sellers, but got cricket chirping for a response. I looked up a few estate sales and went to a few "junk shops," but didn't find anything.

There was a glimmer of hope as we passed a shop that had a bunch of old bikes in the window. Sign on the door said, "Coming Soon - Used bikes, electronics, etc."

So, I asked Chuck if we could stop at this little bike shop down the street from our friend Sherm's house. It is an old Schwinn shop called Ricco's. We walk inside and I stumble across the bike I had literally seen in my dreams the night before! Well, almost exactly the bike I saw!

I pulled it out and took a look - turns out the bike belonged to a woman who had dropped it off for some alterations several years ago and never came back to pick it up. She wanted the road bike drop bars replaced with a flat bar. On this old steel frame, this was a pretty big changeover. Though the parts used are obviously old and used, the bike has all new cables and housings and is in really nice running condition. The shop had spent about $100 fixing it up and I got it for a little under that.

All it needs are some fenders and a rear rack (maybe a basket on the front) and she is ready to FLY!!! I am REALLY looking forward to letting the car sit in the driveway and riding her to get groceries and get to work.

Taking a line from one of our favorite movies, The Emperor's New Groove...she is my birthday present to me! I'm so happy! I shall call her "Topia," as in Utopia, for I will be in heaven not driving a car all over! :)

And...here she is...

Note: Made in Allentown, PA!!!! Oh, yeah!

More Photos

Here are a few more images that I've worked on over the last day or so. My friend Simon suggested that I download a trial of both Photoshop and Aperture 2 to see what I think of each. I think it's a great idea, but I should probably hold off on that until the summer or I will spend all of my time taking photos and playing with them instead of doing the work I should be doing! hehe! Good thing I spent a few hours doing dissertation work today to make up for the 30 minutes I spent goofing around with photos! :)

Just remember...all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Courtyard at the church in Mani, Mexico

Bicycle

Single Speed way of Life

Johnson's Farm - Fall

Photos

I've been playing around with my photo program on my Mac to see what I can do with some pics that I have taken over the past couple of years. I'm still old fashioned - I'd rather be using film than digital. BUT - I've been having some fun with these images none the less. Now, the trick is that I need to get Aperture 2 for my Mac so that I can REALLY get some work done!

A shot in Smithville, NJ. I was at a friend's wedding and looked to my left during the ceremony. I liked the light that was playing off of the hostas, so I shot this.

The garden at the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, PA. The Barnes has since begun its move to the Ben Franklin Parkway. I'm VERY glad I had the chance to visit there while it was still in its original location.

Of the bunch, this is the only one that I did not manipulate in any way. This is just a shot that I really liked. May try to play around with it later.

The Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.