I recognize the irony of a post about health and wellbeing right on the heels of a post complaining about possibly getting sick, but improving my health has been on my mind of late.

I've seen a "what's your real age" meme/quiz going around my F-list. I don't entirely trust the accuracy of a questionnaire to tell me my actual state of health, but it did have some good questions and took into account more than just personal and family medical history, which I thought was a good thing. Besides, it's nice to watch my "actual age" drop dramatically when I factor in the absolutely amazing support structure I have in my life in the form of close friends.
( LONG line of thinking out loud about improving my health and fitness - cut to save you from the boredom )

I decided a friend of mine needs some sparkle for her birthday, so I pulled together a necklace and some earrings for her. I was going to do a bracelet too, but I ran out of the green seed beads I was using and don't think I'll be getting to the store before her birthday.

Did a little more playing around with spiral stitched seed beads for these, similar to the blue bracelet I posted a picture of last week. (Hey Zhan...*tempt*tempt*tempt* ;P )

( Pictures under the cut )

Still need to adjust the blue bracelet down about 3" in size (Lady J has TINY wrists!), but I'll probably work on that today. Keeps my hands and mind occupied, which is a good thing. And I have an idea for something to do with some "free with purchase" whatzits that I got from FMG with one of my various orders that would use some of the Chinese knotting techniques that I haven't played with in a while.

Need to get dressed and do the grocery shopping first though...and I think I'm going to just give up and take my bike down to the local shop and get them to do some work on it -- on closer inspection, it really needs new tires, and possibly new wheels as well (though I'm hopeful the spokes can be tighten appropriately to take out the wobble). They don't charge ridiculous amounts for service work, and I think it's worth my money to save me some time. I'm not in the mood to do the repairs myself (have the tools and the skill, but running low on patience at the moment) but I want to get the bike in shape because I _really_ need to get some more exercise and I feel the need to start doing that right now.

And there was another errand I was going to run....what was it...*wracks brain* ... OH RIGHT...was thinking about upgrading my cell phone. The old one's been a little glitchy lately and I'm really sick of the flashy little status light on the outside.

Ok...been up for an hour and a half...time to get motivated.

OH! And for punning_pundit and snoopyh42 -- 1) thanks again for the muscle relaxing on Friday and 2) hebetudinous == slothful (esp. mental lethargy). Guess I was feeling kind of sloppy at the time we made that card. =)

I rode my bike to work today.

This makes me feel very "grrr" and tough and strong, which is a nice feeling...and I hope it lasts, since I have a meeting this afternoon with Monty-the-financial-guy, and I plan to make him work to sell me on this idea. D-the-LL has indicated that he plans to be there for the meeting. I considered asking him to not be there (because WTF?!), but I didn't...I'm thinking it will be easier if I don't have to repeat myself - I can sit them both down and make it clear, BEFORE we start talking numbers, that I have been giving this some serious thought and I don't think buying is the right choice for me/my family right now, and from what I've seen in researching this "pick a payment mortgage" concept, the financing idea that they seem to be proposing appears to be high risk given the softening real estate market and the structure of the financing, which makes me that much less inclined to take this option. I will listen, and try to keep an open mind, but they will have to be aware going in that I'm going to be a tough sell. This is not my preferred solution at the moment.

Anyhow - enough ranting. I really just wanted to say "Yay! I rode to work!" =) (I've been thinking about doing this for some time, so I'm pleased I finally did it. And I think I might be able to keep this up, on Fridays at least.

And I have "diet" pie waiting for lunch (cuz boys rock)... =)

Ain't nothin' a little sunshine and fresh air can't cure...( except maybe sunburn or hayfever )

Finally got my bike out today for the first time in months. Both tires were flat, so remedied that, then determined the location of my iPod and that the battery was dead. Since I can't charge a battery as fast as I can inflate tires, I decided it was a nice day to be alone with my thoughts and went exploring.

I'm very close to the area of town where all the streets have women's names, so I rode down Charlotte and Norma and Irene and Katrina...opted against cruising down Diane Lane, though I found the name amusing as all hell (cuz I'm WEIRD like that), and also chose not to ride down Cindy, since that just felt too weird to describe.

Turns out that I'm a very easy ride away from the community center and the associated lap pool, so I stopped and picked up some information on lap swim hours and rates. I think if I have an opportunity and a suit that hasn't fallen to pieces (other than my two piece...I just can't wrap my mind around doing laps in a bikini) then I might go try out the pool. I even have goggles somewhere...I know I do.

Next time I'll probably try to start developing good riding routes. I'm contemplating a couple of circuits to ride, which will probably take me along some of my old route coverage from when I was riding near the 5th Street house. It's a pretty straight shot up Charlotte to East and from East to Almond I can pick up the Arroyo Mocho trail and cruise out to Arroyo and back down Concannon to Telsa where I can pick up the trail again and head back...or if I'm feeling really enthusiastic, I could either ride all the way to Stanley and come back up Isabel to Concannon, or take Tesla out to Vasco and back down. I'm also contemplating a circuit out Patterson Pass to Vasco then up to either East or Tesla (probably Tesla) and back around via Arroyo Mocho and East. I'll probably play around with Google maps for a bit and see if I can figure out mileage. I think I'll also see if I can find a good 12-15 mile road route (using my car odometer to figure out mileage) that I can use.

It feels good to work the muscles again. Guess it's time to brush off the old workout filter and get back in the groove. Tracking weight and measurements may have resulted in me feeling pretty egocentric as I saw progress, but I think egocentric was better than backsliding...

And now for some breakfast and maybe a bit of time organizing my jewelry work area...which reminds me I should put in an order for rings for a project I was thinking about. (Yes, Poe..._after_ your bracelet. ;-P )

I was very happy to note that the underpass at Holmes on the Arroyo Mocho Trail is open again and that they've put up some earthworks to control the creek flow. Until it starts raining again and the earthworks crumble (which I'm sure they will) I now have a path I can ride that's of a reasonable distance and almost entirely on dedicated bike trails, and with bike lanes on all the required surface streets. This makes me happy as people in cars are stupid about people on bikes.

I have random Phil Collins lyrics in my head...but have none of his stuff on CD so I guess I'm stuck with singing 2 or 3 lines to myself until I can get it unstuck. Hopefully listening to something else will help. (If not, at least it's better than yesterday when I got "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" stuck in my head while on my bike ride. That was annoying.)

( Funny how I can say absolutely nothing and still wind up with a post I consider deserving of a cut tag... )

So after tolerating staticky calls and lost signal and absolute proof that my phone really wasn't ringing through on some calls, I finally decided it was time to replace the darned thing...so I upgraded on Friday. Nice features of the new phone -- caller id window on the outside (another flip) and it's a camera phone. I've had some fun with the camera feature already. Managed to work out a way to have a Jessica background through judicious photography of printouts. (It's good to have a decent printer.)

Now I get to "upgrade" the tires on my bike - I think it's worth it and I need to get a new inner tube anyhow. I blew out the front one when I touched up the pressure after yesterday's ride. But at least I got my ride in before that...and a nice one too. I've tossed around the idea of riding to work and thought I'd get a feel for what the Stanley stretch of my commute would be like. Took me about 1/2 an hour to get to the intersection of Stanley and Bernal, which is roughly a halfway point. I think I'm unlikely to start getting up an hour earlier just to ride to work, but it does make a nice weekend ride, and I came back down Vineyard which is also a pretty ride on a weekend morning. I'll have to remember it as a good run. And it's gratifying to note that a lot of spots that felt like hell when I first started riding again are now completely manageable. There's a trick to it I find...and that trick is called "remembering to change gears".

And of course there's laundry - which is only slightly less never ending than dishes around here. Did the dishes yesterday, including the replacement plates for the plates I managed to smash Thursday. Of course I managed to topple a stack of plates onto the floor about 5 minutes before I had planned to leave the house...that was fun. Assuming everything is accounted for, I managed to crush a total of about 5-7 plates. I'm talented like that. But it's an excuse for some pretty new plates, which don't match the old of course but blend decently.

But first, breakfast. Shar's actually up and in a breakfast mood, so I think pancakes are in order before I begin the real work of the day. (And besides, I've been in front of the computer for almost an hour now.)

Or I could check my webcomics...

I am happy to discover that my tires aren't actually leaking on my bike...they were just low to begin with apparently. I filled them before going out today and checked when I got back. If all the jostling and banging along on rough trails didn't deflate them, they're fine. :)

And I remembered my sunscreen this time. No fried face today!

I developed a list of things to get for my bike (or for things to do with my bike) - in rough order of importance:

* Helmet
* Water bottle holder
* Lights
* Hip/fanny pack for phone, keys, etc. (it'll soon be too warm to ride in anything other than shorts and the pockets in most of mine aren't as deep as in what I've been wearing to ride)
* Patch kit for tires
* Tire repair tools
* Wrenches, etc.
* New wheels (tires, rims, tubes)
* Backpack
* Odometer (if they make such a thing)


I'm seriously contemplating packing up some lunch and a bathing suit next weekend and trying my hand at riding to Lake Del Valle and back while the boys are off at Faire. Except that I don't HAVE a bathing suit at the moment...ok, so maybe a book then.

Ok...off to feed the hubby and wash off the funky sunscreen smell.

There's a lot of really pretty bits to south Livermore that I never knew about that I'm discovering now that I'm taking my bike out...

for example, the Sycamore Grove/Veteran's Park trail...2.5 miles of paved track through lots of green and trees. Very nice riding - though the paving is a bit rough for a road bike.

( Ride diary )
It's a beautiful ride, especially in the sunshine...over all, I'm guessing it's about a 10-15 mile circuit and absolutely worth the discomfort. (And surprisingly, my face isn't fried despite being out for about 1.5 hours.) There's a lot of bits of Livermore that I would never have known about if I didn't ride on the weekends. I wish I'd started doing this sooner. (Even if my legs and back are going to ache tomorrow and I still need to mow my lawn and do laundry today...)

And now - food. Food good.