Bike Blog

I biked again this moring, only 8 miles this time. The mower machines were still working on the path, now they are working out all the way to the edges of private property. I saw no rabbits and only a few birds (1 male cardinal and some little grey and brown birds). no rabbits, no fox.

On the trail I saw 4 bikers, 2 joggers, 1 walker, and a couple walking. I've seen the couple before; their home touches on the bike path. The woman usually has her hair in curlers.

The trail is usually pretty clean, except for the horse poop, but today I saw cheap beer cans scattered along the stretch I ride.

It took me 45 minutes to ride my eight miles. There are 2 short sharp uphills and two slow long uphills going and 2 slightly less sharp uphills and 3 long slow uphills coming back.

Did I say this before? I've gotten right back into pedalling in a circle instead of pushing down but I still find my shoulders clenched and hunched; it may be the size of the bike.

No Biking today

I mowed the yard instead. Phew!

I am working on several knitting projects these days. One is a sock that I am carefully tinking because somehow I knit it fine until the heel and then I knit it inside out. I still can't figure out how I did that. Project #2 is the alpaca shawl I started for myself last year. It is a relatively simple Sally Melville pattern but last Fall it was the project I took to the weekly community knitting party and I made mistakes, several times. The third project is a wrap in Cherry Hill yarn. The yarn is very fine and the pattern is simple but it takes a lot of time to see any progress: row 1 is all knit and row 2 is k1p1 and each row is 150 stitches long. The fourth project which I started because I needed something that wasn't difficult and would show progress quickly is a sweater in green Manos.

Pictures soon.

Bike Blogging

On August 13th my kids were away and I stayed home from church. I decided to go for a bike ride on the nearby Rails to Trails path. You would not believe how many barriers I put in the way of going on a simple ride: I don't have the right clothes, my bike is gone (I think I sent it to Good Will several years ago because it was so heavy), there's no water bottle clip on the kid bike, my husband's racing bike has weird tires and I can't figure them out. I didn't give in and finally made it onto the trail. I covered about 8 miles that day, down to the end of the trail and back, even though I had to walk the last long uphill. I was sore for several days afterwards but I had such a good time that I planned to go again.

This week school started and I found a great time to go for a bike ride. You see, I balk at the walk to the bike path because it is a whole 2 blocks away. Pretty silly really to balk at walking two blocks in order to willingly ride 8-9 miles. Happily, the bus stop for my younger children is halfway to the trail. So if I get everything together, I can walk my bike and the children to the bus stop and after the bus departs, I'm already on my way to the path! Woohoo!

Yesterday I saw 4 bicyclists, a jogger with a jog stroller, and 3 walkers on the trail, also several rabbits, lots of birds I can't identify, and loads and loads of horse poop. I also added an extra bit at the end of the ride, I deliberately overshot my exit and rode for half a mile so I got an extra mile in.

Today I saw 6 bicyclists going one way and 1 going both ways, 2 walkers, and a runner (much faster than a jogger), several rabbits, many birds I cannot identify, a male cardinal, a turkey buzzard, deer poop, fox poop, dog poop, and loads of horse poop. I also met a truck from the Parks Dept and 2 heavy duty mowers. The mowers were run by guys wearing white coveralls with attendant headgear and breathing masks. I believe they were mowing and spraying with a defoliant. I wonder how that will affect the rabbits? I did the extra mile and it felt very good.

Link for the One Skein Wonder One Skein
Wonder

It is a lovely project.

Second One Skein Wonder. This OSW and the previous one were made with yarn donated to me by a wonderful friend who is cleaning out her stash to keep only what she might use in her lifetime. Go Colleen! Again, this is not the recommended yarn; it is a cotton blend (I did keep the labels, somewhere) and I used it doubled.

One Skein Wonder (that took almost 2 skeins but wasn't the recommended yarn). I used the official pattern from Glampyre and Carabella. the yarn was various thicknesses and fibers including some silk. I really need to look for the labels.

Futher mending update:

I am down to one skirt in the mending pile. It is a lovely woven orange linen skirt with beautiful shaping but the back seam stretches along the wapr?woof? showing black stretch along both sides of the seam.

I'll need the machine and some confidence to tackle the fix I have in mind.

I'm taking a break from "One Skein Wonder"s to clean up my sewing desk. Today I put the loose items from the top of the desk into the appropriate drawers and tonight I'm doing the small mendings that have been waiting for me for over a year.

I have finished:

Sewing the seam on a pillow which came from the factory with a large open section
Attached the rope handle for a small felted and embroidered Tajik purse
Removed the usable hardware from a defunt vest and a pair of overalls
Re-attached the trim along the edge and arm of a Tajik jacket

There is still a pile of 15 or so items.

Update: Add to the finished pile 2 soccer jerseys which had sagging hems, 2 pairs of pants with gaping seams in the rears, one button added to a pair of tiedie overalls. I also cut the buttons off a pair of khakis that were frayed beyond my skill to repair.

A Meme, because sometimes even I fall for them.

5 Things always in my purse:

*I don't carry a purse. I do own a reticule sort of bag for special occasions when I have no pockets. then it usually holds my money clip (license, credit card, insurance card, money) and my keys.

5 Things always in my wallet :

*I don't carry a wallet either. I carry a money clip with cards and money in it.

5 Things always in my refrigerator:

* Filtered water in the Brita
* Eggs
* Yogurt
* Yeast
* Milk

5 Things always in my closet:

* Yarn
* Shoes
* clothes
* sheets
* towels

5 Things always in my car:

* Water - I keep a case of bottled water in the trunk
* Sticky backed foam letters (some sort of craft explosion happened last year
* water bottle lids
* A book
* A small knitting project

5 Things always on my desk:

* Pens
* Piles and piles of piles
* Telephone
* Small pieces of paper with passwords, telephone #'s, or links on them
* Earrings

5 Things always on my mind:

* What was I doing?
* Why am I doing this?
* Why can’t I find a pen that works?
* Where are the kids?
* Where is my husband?

5 Things always on my heart:

* Love
* Family
* Friends
* Being me - all the way
* People who are worse off than me, and there are a lot of them

If you’d like to play along, consider yourself tagged.