Biked by a Bear in the Redwoods Today

Middle Munchkin asks, "Why is it time passes so quickly on the days you are having a great time, and so slowly on the days you wish would pass quickly?"

I guess my life is filled with great times these days. I can't even seem to keep up with which day it is, except by number due to my daily logging of NaNo words. Day 21 and--if nothing else--I've proven to myself that I can make the time to do the things that are important to me. I've checked in for 1600 words per day (usually more, occasionally less) and I'm still very much in the game. This has been on top of work and activities with the kids and house projects. It's all about priorities, I suppose. And perhaps about sitting on my duff a little less.


Other happenings around here...

When we started on this ceiling project, we imagined it would be just that... a new ceiling. But when you tear down one thing in a house as old as ours, you soon began to see many other things (that sometimes you'd just as soon remain ignorant of). The northern wall of our house, of course, in this room where we tore the ceiling down, turned out to have no insulation. So those drafts we've always imagined we were feeling? Well, clearly, they've been very, very real. New wiring, the ceiling, and now the walls have become a project, as well.

The girls and I tore down all the old lathe this week and prepped the walls for new cover by insulating them. The girls loved tearing down the walls. They took to those hammers and pry bars like pros. Such enthusiasm! We foamed cracks (so many cracks!) and by the end of the day we could already tell a big difference. Hubby and I put up wall board today, so we now have one wall of our project complete.

It is a lovely wall, if I may say so myself.

Middle Munchkin was taking pictures. I'll try to load some soon.

Munchkin Boy had a 24-hour round with the flu this week. He spent the second 24 hours doing a lot of sleeping, but today he seems to be entirely back to normal. What a relief. I was having trouble even remembering the last time one of my kids had a throwing up kind of sickness. We decided it's been since we were living in Dodge City. Back when hubby was teaching school, he brought us something home every flu season, it seemed.

I found myself putting a little extra effort into cleaning and scrubbing, thinking perhaps I could just sterilize the house enough that nobody else would come down with whatever it was that he had. So far; so good. (Fingers crossed!)

And the bear, you ask? Sometime early last spring I swore to myself that I was not going to spend another winter being cold and allowing myself to simply hibernate and pack on pounds for the winter. I decided that when the weather turned cold again, I'd join the gym.

As soon as that snap of cold hit, hubby signed us up. It then warmed up again right away, and I was a little sorry that I had gone and committed. However. There is this cool new toy at the gym that may entirely change my mind forever about the gym and exercise equipment. It's called Expresso biking. Expresso bikes offer an interactive riding opportunity. You get to chose your course and set your pace. In the past week alone I've biked through Mayan ruins, along an ocean coast, round and round a bike race track, and through the redwood forest. I raced my pacer through the redwoods and beat him by almost three minutes. Talk about a rush. Then I rode the circuit again, this time taking my time and just looking at the scenery. That's when I saw the bear, a big old grizzly bear!

So maybe it's not exactly like biking in the redwoods, but it's better than not biking because of a little cold out.

I'm looking forward to being a bit less of a momma bear this winter.