ready for weddin'!
it's been a busy busy busy and exhausting few weeks! and wedding is finally almost here! due to flight delays, i picked up my mom at seatac at 2am this morning. and a few family and friends of family have trickled in over the last few days. tomorrow the bulk of our out-of-town guests will descend upon us. :)
how am i feeling? how am i doing? how am i holding up? (i've been getting lots of these questions! thanks for caring!)
short answer:
exhausted, excited, overwhelmed, ready, irritable, tired, jazzed.
longer answer:
- wow, i can't believe this many people love us enough to come so far to be here.
- i'm jealous that our guests are more rested than we are (at least some of them are).
- i flapped my arms at the sky to hold the rain clouds off until monday. (andy and i have been in 2 weddings in the last 6 weeks, and a 30% chance of rain turned into soggy weather and beautiful indoor weddings. we have a solid rain plan, but i really want to be outside).
- ready for a vacation.
- ready to resume my regularly scheduled life.
- ready to ride my bike more.
- ready to be andy's "wife-y".
- tired of visiting craft stores.
- wow, there's so much room in the living room with 2 bikes and computrainers and stands moved out. (it looks sort of naked to us, but both of our mothers were impressed.)
what else have we done besides finish planning a wedding since vacation 3 weeks ago?
- the patio is finished (15' x 30') it's so amazingly cool! we just need some sweet patio furniture now.
- we have a new roof (and shiny new gutters and downspouts).
- i finished painting the house (mostly, there's still a little under-eaves work to do.)
- the remaining poplar trees (that didn't come down in last winter's wind storm) in our backyard have been removed and replaced with a "mountain" of wood chips.
- our house is clean - the cleanest i've ever seen all parts clean at the same time.
- 85% of the flower beds have been deadheaded over the last 2 weeks and it is in gorgeous full summer bloom!
- there is actually a desk and a kitchen table under those piles of paper and junk mail and notes and to-do lists.
yay! we are gunna make it!!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Legendary!
Yesterday's ride surpassed the standards of epic and received the rating of legendary.
5 hours 10 minutes out on the bikes. Dennis rode out to Brandywine falls with Andy and I. Some fire roads, doubletrack and singletrack, awesome views, and some killer climbs. Barbara picked up Dennis and his bike at Brandywine and Andy and i reversed our tracks back to the village. The cloudy skys and the sprinkles off and on through out the day held off .... until our last 10-15 minutes back across the village to the condo ... when the sky just unleashed and it rained cats and dogs ... i just had to throw my head back and laugh at our luck. i'm still not sure if i should call this good luck or bad luck. :)
Andy, Dennis and Tia's abandonded bike in route to Brandywine:
5 hours 10 minutes out on the bikes. Dennis rode out to Brandywine falls with Andy and I. Some fire roads, doubletrack and singletrack, awesome views, and some killer climbs. Barbara picked up Dennis and his bike at Brandywine and Andy and i reversed our tracks back to the village. The cloudy skys and the sprinkles off and on through out the day held off .... until our last 10-15 minutes back across the village to the condo ... when the sky just unleashed and it rained cats and dogs ... i just had to throw my head back and laugh at our luck. i'm still not sure if i should call this good luck or bad luck. :)
Mountains hiding in the clouds:
Andy, Dennis and Tia's abandonded bike in route to Brandywine:
Hoo-ray! we made it to the suspension bridge:
Brandywine Falls -- nevermind that we spent nearly 3 hours riding here and we could have parked the car and spent 10 minutes walking from the parking lot .... but where would the fun be in that!?!?
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Recovery day
so all that swelling in my lip yesterday had to go someplace .... and that someplace ended up being the whole right side of my face overnight. i was actually surprised that this didn't happen late yesterday afternoon or evening .... and i was hoping that i had somehow miraculously cleared this hurdle in the healing process.
lucky for me, the weather supported my body's vote to take it easy today ... which helped my brain justify sitting on my butt. it was scattered rains (not showers) until early afternoon .... which allowed for plenty of ice on the face time and jewlery time. check out my sweet little workshop!
lucky for me, the weather supported my body's vote to take it easy today ... which helped my brain justify sitting on my butt. it was scattered rains (not showers) until early afternoon .... which allowed for plenty of ice on the face time and jewlery time. check out my sweet little workshop!
since i wasn't riding early in the day, i even had some "big breakfast" - including eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and english muffins. mmmm ... my body rejects such thing before a bike ride ... but today ... why not!?!?
it finally stopped raining sometime around lunch time (~ 2pm) and a breeze picked up and dried the trails out pretty good. we all finally emerged from the condo after 4. andy, dennis and i left on our bikes. barbara left in the "extration-mobile" to ride her trike (on her favorite paved flat trails), and danny and tracy left with tennis racquets. we got out for a couple hour easy spin - andy took me on a couple of (pre-ridden) singletrack trails to practice some skills. my body said that was enough for today - to work the kinks out from yesterday - tomorrow will be better. andy went out to ride some more, without his ball and chain slowing him down.
Operation: New Patio. Phase IV
We are finally done with this boring, labor intensive phase of the patio. Our goal was to have all the gravel brought in before we left for vacation ... and we made it! yup - that big hole we dug and the big frame we built actually held 7 yards of gravel. Bringing them in one yard at a time in the trailer after work in the evenings, made for 7 nights of gravel shoveling and raking in those last 2 weeks leading up to vacation time. next goal - patio completed by wedding weekend - labor day weekend. we've got 3 weeks, but only 1 free weekend. wish us luck!
(for the super observant, you might have noticed that the house is now green too. more on that later!)
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Ted says welcome!
Andy has always wanted a little chainsaw bear ..... i came home with this one day as a surprise. Andy named him Ted.
Ouch!
i'm sorry mr. stingy bug to interrupt your afternoon .... but was this really necessary?!?and of course we couldn't be just cruising along on a nice flat section of trail or be stopped for a snack ... oh no ... it's a tia and andy story .... it's always much better.
coming down a little decent - nothing too tricky - i'm being smart - keeping my head up - picking a good line down the trail - using both breaks to control my speed - butt up and off the back of the saddle. ouch - oh crap - something is stinging my lip!
i take one swipe with my right hand towards the right side of my face .... i feel it's little legs grab onto the inside and outside of my lip - as it is still stinging me ... oh crap ... this hurts ... i can't believe it's still stuck on my face! i take a second swipe becoming more nervous at the predicament i'm in. and then break the number one commandment of mountain biking ... DON'T GRAB THE FRONT BREAK! yup - insert ENDO here. andy looked over his shoulder back up the trail to watch me tumble over the handlebars and land in the brush. after landing, i was still grabbing at my face to pull mr. stingy bug off my face.
andy ran back up to find me crying on the side of the trail - he thought i was really broken. but i was crying - first because my lip and face were throbbing, second, b/c i had just scared the piss out of myself as i flew through the air, and third b/c i felt like a total dork for not having a better plan to remove a stinging insect from my lip other than to throw myself over the handlebars of my bike and down the trail.
considering i took a little trip over the handlebars, i came out pretty unscathed. couple bumps and bruises and a little missing skin, but all in all ... just a big fat lip. which an hour later as the swelling was starting to come down and i was laughing again, andy was teasing me about having fish lips.
so much for the story about the bar fight i was cooking up.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Mountain Biking 201
got in an even more epic ride today. 3 hours 45 minutes of epic-ness. we moved a lot faster, covered more miles. my body seems to have gotten the hang out of extracting oxygen from mountain air, and my heart rate wasn't nearly so spikey today.
i've had several of those "ah ha! i get it!" moments on the bike the last 2 days. finally figuring out what all those wise words of advice and encouragement folks have tried to give me in the last couple years actually mean and feel like.
#1. i have an accordion middle. climbing up short steep losing my balance hills yesterday - i was flopping all over like a fish, and for some reason i thought "activate your core". and hey, ya know what - it works better when your upper and lower body actually work together. note to self - actually do core exercises and listen to the PTs who say your core is weak.
#2. look where you want to go. i'm a total dork about getting down twisty turns - like switchbacks where i would normally be looking at my front wheel or down the cliff where i'm sure i'm going to plummet to my death. for some reason today i said "get yer head up and look where you want to go!" ... and guess what - my bike went where i wanted it to go!
#3. you don't need to moving fast to be balanced. yup, i've always had a fear of - if your feet stop moving, you're screwed, better try to unclip before you crash - and i would normally crash trying to execute this maneuver anyway. today i swear i came to a stand still in a steep little up section, my feet quit moving. it was like everything went in slow motion. i felt my front wheel start to lift. my brain stayed calm (?!?!?!), i shifted my weight forward, my feet started to move, and i peddled to the top. COOL! lesson learned!
#4. just like in the weight room, grunting helps.
#5. i still hate bridges, especially bridges that aren't running in exactly the same direction as the trail. i'm trying to get over this fear. today, on a particularly scary bridge entrance, i said, "be strong, go for it!" i got down the big root step, maneuvered through the tire width of a crack between the two big rocks, got my front wheel up on the bridge ... and ... panicked. judging by where my bike and i ended up, i think i just let go of the handlebars and attempted to bear hug the log handle rail. i earned a few scrapes and some dirt in my shoe from this - but i've lived to tell about it. maybe i'll conquer a few more less scary bridges and build some bridge confidence before trying that bridge again.
i've had several of those "ah ha! i get it!" moments on the bike the last 2 days. finally figuring out what all those wise words of advice and encouragement folks have tried to give me in the last couple years actually mean and feel like.
#1. i have an accordion middle. climbing up short steep losing my balance hills yesterday - i was flopping all over like a fish, and for some reason i thought "activate your core". and hey, ya know what - it works better when your upper and lower body actually work together. note to self - actually do core exercises and listen to the PTs who say your core is weak.
#2. look where you want to go. i'm a total dork about getting down twisty turns - like switchbacks where i would normally be looking at my front wheel or down the cliff where i'm sure i'm going to plummet to my death. for some reason today i said "get yer head up and look where you want to go!" ... and guess what - my bike went where i wanted it to go!
#3. you don't need to moving fast to be balanced. yup, i've always had a fear of - if your feet stop moving, you're screwed, better try to unclip before you crash - and i would normally crash trying to execute this maneuver anyway. today i swear i came to a stand still in a steep little up section, my feet quit moving. it was like everything went in slow motion. i felt my front wheel start to lift. my brain stayed calm (?!?!?!), i shifted my weight forward, my feet started to move, and i peddled to the top. COOL! lesson learned!
#4. just like in the weight room, grunting helps.
#5. i still hate bridges, especially bridges that aren't running in exactly the same direction as the trail. i'm trying to get over this fear. today, on a particularly scary bridge entrance, i said, "be strong, go for it!" i got down the big root step, maneuvered through the tire width of a crack between the two big rocks, got my front wheel up on the bridge ... and ... panicked. judging by where my bike and i ended up, i think i just let go of the handlebars and attempted to bear hug the log handle rail. i earned a few scrapes and some dirt in my shoe from this - but i've lived to tell about it. maybe i'll conquer a few more less scary bridges and build some bridge confidence before trying that bridge again.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
I'm in Timeout!
yay! We made it to vacation! I'm in whistler - life is grande. Andy and I got in a 3.5+ hour long mountain bike ride today. (which is probably more than my whole ride total of the last week.) I slept great last night for the first time in several days.
We had a discussion last night about they types of vacation. There is the traveling vacation where you travel new places, see and experience new things, and quite possibly return back home more tired than when you left.
Then there's the timeout vacation. Where you just take a time out from life and relax.
Another thing to use vacation time for that is not vacation at all - would include traveling to a far-away big bike race, and though lots of fun, and a very worthy use of vacation time, it's not vacation and it's certainly not a timeout.
So I'm in time out.
Barbara (Andy's mom) asked me about my goals for the week. She reminded me that last summer, one of my vacation goals was to not get in a car after we unloaded it and parked at the condo. I was still adjusting to my new commute from Tacoma to Silverdale, and pretty much was sick of being in the car. I had completely forgotten. I think I could handle driving to the store for more wine this year (sober of course). :)
This is were being a highly driven (over motivated) person becomes a curse. I think I have a todo list (of fun relaxing stuff) longer than can be accomplished this week! But my number one goal of the week is to avoid wedding details. The only wedding details allowed this week is working on ideas for the ceremony and writing our vows, which isn't really a wedding detail but us figuring how to express to our community of friends and family how much we love each other, and that should be a fun yet challenging task.
Other things to do this week:
I packed up the bead room and towed it to whistler - and plan to be a little jewelry factory. Need to build up some inventory for some fall/winter sales. I also want to start thinking up some ideas for setting up an online shop this fall and figuring out how to make a few bucks from my other hobby. (And I guess there's still a few wedding related jewelry items I need to finish.)
Need to update this here blog - so you folks don't think I've been sitting around on my butt eating ding dongs and watching movies the last two weeks. :) (ps netflix has made a killing on us this summer!)
I might actually read a book. I try to cram a million and one things into everyday, it's hard to sit still long enough to read. And it doesn't help that by the time I sit down long enough to read that I'm exhausted ... can't hold eyes... open ... dropping book on chest ... after about 5 pages. It takes a long time to finish a book 5 pages at a time.
I plan to ride my mountain bike every day this week. I had started trying to run/walk just do to something different, keep myself moving, and prep for cyclocross .... but I haven't made time to get out for a run for 2 weeks now. After our "epic" ride today, I was going to digest some lunch then go for a run/walk. I played w/ my beads for a few minutes - then wandered to the couch and passed out - a drooling nap .... when was the last time you took a nap so hard you drooled?!?
vacation is great!
We had a discussion last night about they types of vacation. There is the traveling vacation where you travel new places, see and experience new things, and quite possibly return back home more tired than when you left.
Then there's the timeout vacation. Where you just take a time out from life and relax.
Another thing to use vacation time for that is not vacation at all - would include traveling to a far-away big bike race, and though lots of fun, and a very worthy use of vacation time, it's not vacation and it's certainly not a timeout.
So I'm in time out.
Barbara (Andy's mom) asked me about my goals for the week. She reminded me that last summer, one of my vacation goals was to not get in a car after we unloaded it and parked at the condo. I was still adjusting to my new commute from Tacoma to Silverdale, and pretty much was sick of being in the car. I had completely forgotten. I think I could handle driving to the store for more wine this year (sober of course). :)
This is were being a highly driven (over motivated) person becomes a curse. I think I have a todo list (of fun relaxing stuff) longer than can be accomplished this week! But my number one goal of the week is to avoid wedding details. The only wedding details allowed this week is working on ideas for the ceremony and writing our vows, which isn't really a wedding detail but us figuring how to express to our community of friends and family how much we love each other, and that should be a fun yet challenging task.
Other things to do this week:
I packed up the bead room and towed it to whistler - and plan to be a little jewelry factory. Need to build up some inventory for some fall/winter sales. I also want to start thinking up some ideas for setting up an online shop this fall and figuring out how to make a few bucks from my other hobby. (And I guess there's still a few wedding related jewelry items I need to finish.)
Need to update this here blog - so you folks don't think I've been sitting around on my butt eating ding dongs and watching movies the last two weeks. :) (ps netflix has made a killing on us this summer!)
I might actually read a book. I try to cram a million and one things into everyday, it's hard to sit still long enough to read. And it doesn't help that by the time I sit down long enough to read that I'm exhausted ... can't hold eyes... open ... dropping book on chest ... after about 5 pages. It takes a long time to finish a book 5 pages at a time.
I plan to ride my mountain bike every day this week. I had started trying to run/walk just do to something different, keep myself moving, and prep for cyclocross .... but I haven't made time to get out for a run for 2 weeks now. After our "epic" ride today, I was going to digest some lunch then go for a run/walk. I played w/ my beads for a few minutes - then wandered to the couch and passed out - a drooling nap .... when was the last time you took a nap so hard you drooled?!?
vacation is great!