Biking to Work is No Joke

After my little episode last month, I haven't driven since.  While I have been getting a lot of generous rides from my roommate, sister and other friends, my little streak of independence is strong, so I'd often rather get places on my own.  That's how I started biking to work.

But biking to work is no joke. First, it takes some advance planning. I pack my bag with my work clothes the night before, because I know if I waited until morning I would forget an essential piece of my wardrobe. In the morning I toss in my lunch, put on my helmet and rearview mirror (more on that below), start my tunes (which play through a speaker on my phone...no headphones involved) and go.

While biking to work only takes about five to ten minutes longer than driving, but I also need time to get cleaned up before work, so I usually leave about a half hour earlier than when I drive.

When I get to work, I carry my bike up this enormous set of stairs (see them at right) to store it in the print shop where I work. I chained it to a bike rack outside the first day, but then I started getting paranoid about someone cutting the chain and stealing it, so now I bring it inside.  After the bike is stowed, I lock back up and walk across the parking lot to the the gym to get cleaned up.  Luckily, I now have a locker (thanks, Laura!) so I can store makeup and other toiletries there.

Today when I stepped out side at 6:30 a.m. to let Bonnie out, I was immediately hit by a wall of thick humidity.  Normally, biking to work is not a very sweaty experience because it's early.  Today, however, I was drenched by the time I got to work. Not only was the atmosphere wetter, but it was actually harder to pedal through the humidity. Sounds crazy, but I promise it's true.

After my first few days biking to work, I went by the bike shop on the way home to purchase a rearview mirror.  I have a few left turns on my route to work and back home.  It was a little scary to be darting looks over my shoulder to see if i could cross three lanes of traffic.  So I stopped by the bike store and got this guy. It attaches to my glasses/sunglasses (see pic at left.).  When I get it in the right spot, it works great. I can swivel my head to see more of the road behind me if I need.

Overall the traffic and the route are not difficult.  The roads I take are mostly neighborhood roads, though I do ride on four major streets on my way.  The streets I take look mostly flat to the naked eye. In fact, I was convinced they were pretty flat before I started biking them. Now after a few weeks of biking, I realize they all have a slight (hidden) incline to them, which means I'm either pumping hard or coasting the whole way to work. But hey, they say having your heart rate jump up and down like that is a good thing, right?

The best part of the whole route is a sweet little down hill that leads into my neighborhood when I am coming home.  It's a nice welcome home to end on a fun and breezy "wheeee!"

Tomorrow is my follow up with the neurologist when I'm hoping to be cleared to drive.  But just because I have the freedom to drive does not mean I will give up biking to work (I hope). Biking to work makes me feel strong, independent and accomplished.  It's just far enough (3.59 miles exactly) that it is a mini-workout, but it's not so far that I feel like I'm going to die. Plus, I suppose it's good for the environment.  Maybe my biking to work some cancels out all of the gas burned by people who've had to go out of their way to pick me up over the last month.

What I Ate for Dinner Last Night

I know there are a lot of blogs out there that chronicle every bite the authoress enjoys.  That is not what this blog is about. However, I ate some quite pretty (and tasty) food last night with some great friends, so I snapped a few pictures.

Shish Kabobs (sp?) with green pepper, squash, tomatoes, onions and chicken looked so beautiful on the grill.  I'm all about female empowerment through grilling so Amie and I cooked these babies until they were just right.  Plus, the boys were both late in arriving.

The veggies were all either from my farm fresh box or from gardens of friends. We also enjoyed some tasty corn from my farm fresh box. and finished the night with this delicious strawberry pie that I made.  It was a remarkably thick pie, and I only hope that this picture conveys that.

Best meal I've had all week (and probably healthiest).  What about you? Have you had any remarkably good meals lately?  What were they?

Farm Fresh, Plus Hair!

My farm fresh boxes are getting rather predictable, but that is not a complaint.  This week my haul included:
Corn
cherry tomatoes
regular tomatoes
cucumber
blueberries (new to the farm fresh box!)
a green pepper (new to the farm fresh box!)
Plus a cantaloupe and green onions, both of which I gave to Nancy.

I didn't eat hardly any of my veggies from last week. I still have corn, tomatoes and cucumber from last week, due to my excessive eating out this week. There are only three more farm fresh Fridays left. Can you believe it?

Now on to more important topics, namely, my hair.  My talented friend Ashton Geiger cut my hair. It's super short and I love it! Here are some pics:

 With my sis

What do you think of my hair?

And on that Bombshell

Yesterday I was telling a friend that I'm going through a phase where I'm trying not to allow myself to feel bad about what I eat.  I'm eating what I want, when I want and not holding onto any guilt over it.  Life's too short to feel guilty about what you eat. Amiright?

Example: this was the meal I had at
the Beacon on Sunday. Pimento
cheeseburger with onion rings and
fries. At least I only ate half!

This is both good and bad. Good, because what good is guilt, really?  No good.  No good at all.  (I've already used the highly descriptive word - good - six times in this paragraph. Clearly, I'm an amateur writer.)

It's also bad, because I'm eating what I want, when I want, which is generally not very healthy stuff.  My sister's visiting me this week and we've been eating out a lot. This is not her fault, but mine. I didn't make my meals this weekend, even though I had clearly a whole extra day to do it with the holiday on Monday.  Not making meals always spells disaster for me when it comes to healthy eating.

What's Up Wednesday

It's our second edition of What's Up Wednesdays, and I'm wondering "What's your guilty pleasure food?"

By guilty pleasure food, I'm looking for what food you absolutely love, but feel like you shouldn't really be eating or are embarrassed to admit you eat.  I'm really hoping that I'm not the only one who has guilty pleasure foods and can't wait to hear what yours are!

I was going to say ice cream, originally.  I love ice cream and it is way easy to overindulge with.  It's just such creamy, smooth goodness. However, I didn't think that was exactly a guilty pleasure.  So instead, I'm offering up Nerds and Combos.  I don't buy either one all that often, but both are perfect road trip foods and often last minute purchases in the Wal-mart check out line.  Plus, once you start munching on them, you just can't stop.

I'm dying to know, what's your favorite guilty pleasure food?

My Weekend Adventure

This weekend, I had some most amazing adventures.   First, I went swimming in this waterfall. It was freezing cold and the power of the falls kept pushing me back. I really wanted to swim underneath the falls so that I could get behind it, but it was scary. I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it. I was scared. In the end, I'm glad I did. When you get behind the falls, it is a sheer sheet of water coming down in front of you and unlike any other swimming experience.  Then my friend Abi and I climbed the rocks to the side of the waterfall to make it to the top. Hooray for new experiences! 

That's us on the top left of the waterfall.

Then we came back to camp and decided to hike.  Stupidly, I suggested a long hike that was labeled with words like "difficult" and "guide required."  We were all overly confident. Really, how difficult could hiking be?

We were so happy to finally see
trail markers.

We got permission from the camp staff to take off without a guide.  Let's just say about 20 minutes in, we found out why they say guide required.  There were no trail heads on the first 3/4 of the trail, so whenever the trail forked or turned, we were at a loss.  We ended up having to call the camp office a handful of times to get directions.

About 1/4 of the way through, I started thinking back to my blog post from last month Why I Love Hiking and was writing in my head a companion piece called "Why I Hate Hiking."    First the frustration of the lack of trail heads, coupled with the intense uphill climb, the heavy amounts of cob webs and bugs and a freak storm all combined to make me a rather grumpy Jill.  On top of all that, there was no beautiful scenic lookout at which to arrive and take amazing pictures. We eventually crossed a lot of streams and my socks got wet, making for uncomfortable hiking.  

While I was utterly exhausted when we arrived back at camp, it's amazing what accomplishing something like this hike can do for your attitude.  Despite what I've just written in the above paragraph, I will look back on that hike with fond memories of my friends, beautiful woods and streams and an exciting close encounter with lightning. As they say, "it's all about the journey, not the destination." While we didn't get to a beautiful lookout, we did enjoy a delicious four hours together.  (I've been told I'm actually more entertaining when I am slightly grumpy.)

On our way home from the mountains, we took a
wrong turn and found this beautifulness. I had to share.

PS. I called and got my test results from the EEG and MRI today. Everything came back as normal.  I know nothing else until I go to my appointment next Tuesday, but it's definitely good news!

Farm Fresh Friday- Week Ten

Mr. Veggie Man is perplexed.

Happy Friday!  I hope everyone has some great weekend plans ahead of them.  Today is my great friend Abi's birthday, so I have an amazing weekend ahead of me helping her celebrate with waterfalls, hiking, grilling out, swimming and crepes!

But first, another edition of Farm Fresh Friday!

The new fruit this week was peaches!  How exciting!  Alas, the blackberries were gone, which makes me v. v. sad.  We got another eggplant and yet another cantaloupe, but I sent both of those with my friend Nancy who helps me consume my box each week.  Below, you can see a picture of my haul, including more of the delicious cherry tomatoes, corn, mini-cucumbers, regular tomatoes and a big fat onion.

We got a request to join a fall CSA this week.  This CSA would only be seven weeks and was significantly less money, but I'm just not sure the CSA is the best way for me to get my fruits and veggies each week. While it is exciting to get my box this week, it has been a lot of pressure to consume all the veggies before they go bad.

Help me out readers - do you think I should do another seven weeks of fruits and veggies??

Today's haul.