First draft of Dog Days is complete!

I wrote the last chapter (which wasn't really the last chapter consecutively, just the remaining one that I had yet to write) last Sunday sitting on the floor with my laptop in front of the fireplace. I had a weird giddy feeling the whole next day, where I couldn't concentrate on anything else. But I had to submit my final project for my InDesign class, so I managed to do that. The project was the layout and design of my book. This here is the front and back cover and spine. It is how I imagine the finished thing to look. It's very cool to see how it would look in print. I'm trying to "make the thing real" which I remember reading in a SARK book several years ago. We'll see if it helps me actually get it published.

Christmas vacation will be spent, at least in part, editing, editing, editing.

Ahh, the incredible lightness of completing a book...

First Significant Snow of the Season!

And I got home to find a murder of crows right across my alley. They alighted just as I got out of the car and went in to get my camera. It was an amazing sight, the black figures in bare trees against the gray sky. I managed to capture a few before they all disappeared toward downtown. Wow. It was a beautiful evening full of snow and mystery.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
– Albert Einstein

Christine Center Weekend

I went back this weekend for some "spiritual deepening" and on Saturday I awoke to this lovely scene...

It was clear, and the waning gibbous moon was still visible in the sky and the leaves were just tumbling off the oak and maple trees. It was so quiet there, I could actually hear the leaves falling. It was truly a magical moment. I went for a walk in the woods and by the time I got back the frost had disappeared. I try to appreciate those fleeting moments of beauty, and I'm really happy that I remembered to bring my camera so I could capture the scene. October is my favorite month just for that reason-- there are so many fleeting moments of beauty, with the trees turning, and the frost appearing, and the last of the flowers blooming.

It was a lovely weekend of meditation and contemplation. I can't wait to go back.

Grand Marais Cabin Weekend.

Here's a shot I took at the top of one of our hikes, just off the Gunflint Trail. It was a very short steep hike that afforded a really good view. I only wish I could share the wonderful smell that exists in this place. Pine-y goodness.

It was a rainy weekend, but we managed to find the windows of opportunity to hike when it wasn't drizzling.

New addicting site.

When I'm not thinking up new t-shirt designs, I'm spending too much time on Polyvore, creating wardrobes and objects that represent characters in my book. The site appears to have been created for kids to make their own fashion spreads, but I saw a different use for it.

The news of the day is that I finally used a Neti pot.

Thanks to John, who encouraged me to get one today when he heard that I had a cold. I went to Whole Foods after work and got one, and when I got home from picking up my CSA delivery (I know, Michael already scoffed at my granola-ness) I irrigated my nasal passages. John, you're right. Instant relief! It sort of feels like that weird stinging you get when water goes up your nose while swimming, but then it sort of goes away and it's just a pleasant stream of warmth. I have to admit, I did it once more just a few minutes ago, since it felt so good. It really does clear out the sinuses, at least temporarily. Now I can breathe easy.

I know that Ayurvedic medicine recommends using this all winter to prevent colds. Even though I don't get many colds anymore, I may try it.

Just in case anyone was wondering, my magical ingredient that keeps most colds at bay is called chlorpheneramine (not exactly sure of spelling), and it's found in certain nighttime cold medicines. I swear that if you take one the first night that you just start to think you might be getting a cold, you will wake up with no symptoms. If you can't take it right away, it still helps cut the amount of time your cold will last. Oh, and I never ever drink or eat from anyone else's drinks or food.

That's your health tip of the day!

Last night I rode my bike on the track!

It was crazy scary fun! It had just rained about an hour earlier, and we weren't sure if we'd be able to ride, but the track dried out and pretty soon I was out in the infield practicing riding a fixed gear track bike. I really had to retrain my brain and body to learn this new skill. It was very awkward at first. But once I got going, I got the hang of it, and pretty soon I was ready to ride on the track. It was a daunting proposition, since, as seen in this picture, it is quite banked. The idea is that the faster you go, the further up the track you can ride. I only got up to the red line, which was plenty high for my first time. And it required such intense concentration, that I didn't even notice I was doing any work until I realized that I had to stop because my engine wouldn't go anymore.

It was quite the experience, and I hope to do it again one day. But I am now even more amazed that people actually race on there!

Designing T-shirts

I started making t-shirt designs just to keep my Adobe Illustrator skillz well-honed. You can see them at:

www.cafepress.com/yoga_chakra
www.cafepress.com/atha_yoga
(atha yoganusasanam is the first yoga sutra, which means, roughly "now we begin our practice of yoga")

and this one just for my friends:
www.cafepress.com/brownchicken

It's quite addicting, sitting here playing with Illustrator when I should be doing my InDesign homework.

My Happy Place

I went on a retreat last weekend and unexpectedly discovered the place that from now on my mind will go when I need to be happy and relaxed.

It's called the Christine Center.

If I could live there, I would. And maybe I'll figure out a way to do that one day.

I wanted to find a quiet place where I could go to be in nature and work on editing my book. I found the Christine Center on the web, and thought that a nice big room for yoga would be a good addition to my solo writing retreat, so I sort of spur-of-the-moment emailed to ask if they had any accommodations for the next weekend, and the answer was basically, yes, what type of lodging would you like? I chose the rustic cabin since it was only 38 bucks a night and I could use the showers in the main building.

I wrote back and said I was interested in a rustic cabin and three meals a day and I got an email back saying "you are registered for this weekend." Three nights of lodging and three vegetarian meals a day was going to set me back $190. I was sort of surprised that it was that easy and then I started to have regrets. I hadn't been on a completely solo vacation for years. I don't know what it was, but I was a little nervous. But I didn't have much time to ruminate, since I only had two days to get ready to go.

I brought my computer, my pillow, some clothes and a backpack full of books that I thought might help me with editing or at least good bedside reading.

I had no idea what to expect.

After work on Thursday I headed to Wisconsin. I had never been off the freeway between Chippewa Falls and Abbotsford, so I got to see some countryside that was all new to me. There are mounds that rise up out of nowhere disrupting the miles of farmland. I could't have seen them from the freeway, so I was glad to have this as part of my journey.

I arrived at the center at about 7:30 p.m., when the sky was starting to get orange. I pulled up in front of the main building and all I could hear was the gravel beneath the tires and a cacophony of crickets.

I looked for the main entrance, and it was a bell tower in the shape of a silo. A wooden carving above the door said "Welcome. We are one." And there was an old blue bike, just like my little blue, sitting right outside the door. It was a very good sign.

I entered the building and the silence continued. I found the front desk and talked to Marie, who said "we're so glad you're here." And I believe she meant it. She showed me around the main building, including the meditation/yoga/gathering room, which is a big circle with windows on all sides. There were a circle of meditation cushions on the floor in the middle of the room and it smelled like a church candle had recently been burned.

Then she showed me the dining room, with the complimentary coffee and tea and fruit available 24 hours a day.

Finally, she gave me directions to my cabin. "You'll be staying in Love" she said, and pointed to it on a map.

I already knew coming here was the right decision, and things only got better. The night sky was clear and dark and the Milky Way was as distinct as the big dipper. There were two little ponds with goldfish, frogs and turtles. Deer and red-headed woodpeckers roamed the woods all day. The daily schedule consisted of yoga and meditation in the morning, communal breakfast (organic yogurt and granola, fruit, and the best pancakes I've ever had), lunch, meditation at 5:00, and then dinner. They rang the bell for each meditation session and each meal. Otherwise it was pristine in its silence. For three days I heard crickets and hummingbirds and that's about all.

I used the woodfired sauna one night, had a hot stone massage in a building adjacent to the center, participated in a conversation series on global consciousness transformation, and went for a run on the wooded trail system. All in all, a perfect weekend. The Franciscan nuns who run the center are very progressive and nurturing. The other guests and volunteers made for interesting conversations at the meals, and the location was so removed from everyday life, that I actually got a chance to meditate for half hour stretches in addition to getting about 8 chapters of my book edited.

It is my vision of Nirvana. In fact, if Nirvana is better than this, I honestly cannot imagine it.

Namaste,
Kate

Team Time Trial
This year we had two Velo Bella teams for the Town Hall Team Time Trial. Me and Brook did it last year with a slightly different team and shaved 6 minutes off our time this year. It was a gorgeous day in the 70's with no humidity and little wind. The course was beautiful rolling farmland and woods. We worked well together and finished strong. And we looked awesome doing it. That's me and Greiber chillin' at the back of the paceline.

Bike Race!

Last weekend I did my first road race.

My teammate, Jen, offered to drive me and Manda up to Marty MN, near St. Cloud, for a 30 mile race.

I felt good that day, ate the right stuff, warmed up enough, brought all the required equipment.

Our group of cat 4 women had 10 racers, and two 40+ women raced with us as well. I was surprised at the easy start pace. No vying for position or sprinting off the front. I was able to hang with the pack pretty easily and only almost got dropped once on a hill. I didn't take any turns at the front, since I wasn't sure what the pace should be, having never done a road race before, so I stayed in the middle or back of the pack.

After about 6 miles, I noticed that Jen was off the back. I had agreed ahead of time to work with her, so I was sad to see her struggling. I kept looking back, hoping she'd catch back up. I even told my other two teammates that she was dropped, hoping that they could either help pull her back up or at least try to moderate the pace of the pack by going up front. Neither of those things happened, and she kept dropping further back. I was doing okay holding on to the pack, not dying, but not exactly able to stay near the front either. I was having a moral dilemma. All I could think about was how bad Jen must feel riding into the 20 mile headwind all by herself. And there was still a lot of road to cover.

So I tried to motion her up when the pack slowed a little, but she wasn't able to make any ground. So it was then that I made the decision that makes Michael think I'm too nice. I dropped back to ride with my teammate. I could've probably held onto the pack for another few miles, maybe even the whole first lap of the two lap race, but then I'd be shelled off the back into no man's land and we'd both end up riding alone. This way we'd be able to work together right away and at least see what its' like to ride a road race, rather than a time trial.

So I waited and waited, soft pedaling until she caught up. Then I pulled her up the next couple hills and into the wind. By the time we got to the top of the one big hill, she was feeling strong enough to pull on the downhill. Wow, Jen is really strong on the gradual down/flat parts! We averaged about 27 mph while she was pulling. It took most of the rest of the course for us to figure out that she was stronger on that type of road and I was stronger on the hills and into the wind, but eventually we managed to work with our strengths. By then we caught up to Manda, who was riding alone. Turned out she had stayed with the pack for the whole first lap. We worked a mini paceline to the finish and then we had a fun sprint between the three of us. I have to learn to take a leadout and come around, as I'm always the one in front until the last second and then I get passed. But it was really fun and unlike my time trials and criterium experiences, I never felt like I was going to throw up. Michael would say that means I wasn't working hard enough, but hey, I finished and I had a good time and we worked as a team :) There was one person who had a DNF, so I came in 11th out of 12.

I'm excited for the next time.

Kate's Crit

I finally did a "real" bike race. Today was my first criterium. It was at the State Fairgrounds, with nice wide streets and 6 corners. The course was about 3/4 mile, and we had to do 40 minutes. I'm not sure how many laps that was, but it ended up being around 13 miles for me.

The race was a women's open race, with cat 4's scored separately from the cat 1-3 women (of which there were quite a few.)

Some of the women on the starting line had just completed the Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro race this past week. I could only watch in awe as they pulled away and lapped me within the first 4 laps.

I tried as hard as I could to stay with the one person who was still within a reasonable distance, but I was giving everything I had and she was still going just a bit faster than I was.

The effort involved was about the same as the 7 mile time trial I did last year, which means the heart rate was above 180 the whole time and I felt like I was going to either throw up or cough up blood.

Just when I was starting to think this is crazy, there's no way I should be out here (about the time the leaders had lapped me for the second time) I managed to catch on to a group of three who came around me. I could immediately tell the difference between drafting in that group and riding alone, and decided that I was going to do whatever it took to stay with that group. And I stayed with them for the last 8 laps, finishing dead last, but finishing nonetheless.

It was harder than I thought it would be, even though everyone told me how hard it would be. But it was also the most fun I've had while pushing myself to the limit. Way more fun than a time trial, because there's a mental boost when you can ride with other racers.

I learned a lot about what to do and especially what not to do. And I'm so very glad I kept the rubber side down, and I FINISHED!

First crit is now out of the way. Whew!

The Novel Plan:
In order to finish a complete mostly edited draft of my novel by the end of the summer, I have created a timeline for myself. I will have to edit five chapters a week for the next six weeks. So far I've done the first five, so I'm already in week 2. If I force myself to stick to this plan, I WILL have it done by August. The idea of that is so thrilling to me that it might just be enough motivation for me to do it.

An unrelated goal: get back to doing yoga 3 times a week. I feel so much better when I'm doing yoga regularly, and it will help me mentally get through this crappy weather when I'm not inspired to get outside on my bike. Yoga has a trickle-down effect on my life. When I do yoga, I eat better, think more positively, and feel more calm and centered.

New Moon Night

Today I bought my cycling license. I don't know how many races I'll do, but I hope this will encourage me to try some types of racing that I haven't yet done. And I'm happy that in the future the results will say "Velo Bella" by my name, rather than "unattached" since you have to have a UCF license in order to put down a team affiliation.

Tonight I reworked ch.'s 1-4 of Dog Days. I'm trying to iron out any plot irregularities, since I wrote each chapter on its own and probably have a lot of incongruities when the thing is read as a whole.

I'm trying to stay on track with the goal to finish the book by the end of summer.

And I'm toying with the idea of either taking a week off just to write, or finding a writers' workshop somewhere this summer where I can do some major work.

On another note, I'm eagerly looking forward to the first installment of CSA goodies, which should happen any week now...

The news this week is as follows:

Pea-sized hail does not dent my car! I found out the scary way, listening to it ping off my roof.

Michael's car was stolen on Wednesday night and recovered Thursday morning. His computer and other electronics were taken, but the car was OK! Well, minus a broken window and door scratch.

Today I turn 38. I feel good.

I bought a new rosebush today. It's called Hope for Humanity. What I really hope for is that it survives through the winter, unlike all my previous roses that didn't. But I was informed that a shrub rose (such as this is) should survive, unlike my previous hybrid teas.

I now have an external hard drive, which means that since I spent the money on it, my computer will probably never crash and I won't need it.

My novel now has a rudimentary website. Go see it at http://dogdays.weebly.com/
You can even read the first chapter.

I got my second flat tire on my new bike on Tuesday. Last year, riding Red, I didn't have a single flat and now on Big Blue I've had two in about a month. Well, those lovely expensive things can sometimes be high maintenance. And I maybe shouldn't have been riding on a road with rocks that would've been better used for landscaping.

That's it for now. Happy end of May!

Since I haven't mentioned it in awhile, I want to give a shout out to my new bike. I LOVE YOU!
Today Michael installed the computer, which means I will quit bugging my cycling buddies to tell me how fast we're going and how far we've ridden. I got to really test it out on some hills on Thursday night, when I was out getting lost in Mendota Heights and heard someone call my name from a gas station off to the right. I had no idea who would be yelling my name in the middle of Mendota Heights, but I looked over and there was my teammate, Manda, waving at me from the middle of a group of cyclists. "Come ride with us," she said, so I did. It turned out it was the Freewheel Bikes group ride, and as it happened, it was my first real group ride of the season (real in that I wasn't the ride leader, and thus had no say in the pace.) It was hilly and a faster than I'd been riding, so it was a good challenge. Big Blue helped me keep up with the pack and I was happy to have run into Manda and the group.

Summer Break!

Okay, I know I'm only taking one class per semester, but I still get that feeling of relief at the end of the school year. I will have my Tuesday nights free again. Maybe I can finally make it to a group ride out of NOW Bikes. But the best part is that I will be free from school guilt for three months! I get a little obsessed about doing my homework. I don't know why this kicked in AFTER I finished the majority of my schooling, but at least I finally get to know what it's like to have a 4.0 GPA.

Here is the final version of the cover of my book, which I turned in as my final project. Summer goal: finish WRITING the book.

My final project in my Illustrator class is... anything I want. So I'm making a cover design for my long-awaited novel.

Here it is as it stands right now.

I only feel okay designing a cover because I'm about a chapter or two away from a complete first draft.

My goal for the summer is to finish the thing and get it off to someone to read/edit/whatever.

This Illustrator class has been really fun and incredibly useful. It's probably my favorite class so far. And I was pretty intimidated by the program at the start, so I'm happy that I feel somewhat comfortable using it now.

New Bike Debuting Soon...

I pick it up on Wednesday, after which I will give a ride report. It's weird to think I have a new bike because I dropped it off the day after it arrived, so it's like when you buy a new item of clothing and promptly lose it behind something in the laundry room and find it weeks later and think "oh yeah, I forgot I bought that." There's some magical time frame that has to pass for one to feel attached to an item, and I don't think the 24 hours that I had the bike in my house was enough time.

New Bike!

Tomorrow I will have this new bike.

I can't wait to see it in person.

I'm a little nervous, hoping it fits me.

We'll see what happens.

I fixed my toilet!

The thing had been running since just after Christmas. Finally it got to the point where we'd just twist the knob to stop the water from going into the tank, and turn it on only when we needed to use it. Eventually things got so bad that I had to remove the lid of the tank and manually pull up the float, since the chain was broken as well.

Finally. Today. I'd had enough.

I checked the brand of the valve mechanism in my toilet, and went to Menards. A friendly guy in the toilet section pointed me to the right part, and an hour later, my toilet is now blissfully quiet. I hope this takes care of the problem for good. Man I got sick of hearing that thing waste water all day.

Now I feel like I can put another notch on my homeowner belt. This was even more satisfying than changing the deadbolt lock on the front door.

I'm starting to like DIY. The best part was that it was only 9 bucks to fix a problem that probably cost me a heck of a lot more than that in lost water over the past couple months.

Oh, also I tried to do a detox diet today. I was okay until I got home and I was ravenous and there was a container of leftover potato, broccoli, onion and carrot curry in the fridge that was calling my name. Oh well, maybe next time I'll make it all day. I do have to say, though, that aside from the splitting headache, I felt pretty good most of the day.

Hot 'n' Sweaty Yoga

Today I got it in my head that I was going to try taking some classes at the yoga studio where I'd like to take teacher training. They offer the first week free, so you can try it out. Since this was a rather spur-of-the-moment decision, I went directly from work to the 5:30 level 2 class uptown. Boy, am I glad I live on the East side and don't have to make THAT commute every day!

There were tons of people out walking around and smoking outside restaurants and generally hanging out enjoying the 45 degree weather. I forgot how much life Uptown has compared to Longfellow.

So I get to the yoga class and the studio is swanky and hipster cool, as expected. I unroll my mat and notice that I'm the only one in a class of about 25 people who does not have at least one towel. Now, I usually grab a towel to wipe off my sweaty hands at the yoga classes at my work fitness center, where the room is barely 65 degrees, so I know it will be somewhat uncomfortable for me here, where the temp. seems to be around 80. But then what do I know? I keep my house at 67 at the highest. I have heard these classes are warm, but this wasn't the "hot yoga" so I wasn't terribly concerned. At least not until they turned on the humidifier. And yes, I made the rookie mistake of placing my mat directly in front of the heating vent AND right below the apparatus that was hissing steam. By the time I realized it, it was too late, the place was packed and I didn't have anywhere else to go.

Knowing my capacity for perspiration, I thought about going out into the boutique and buying whatever absorbent piece of cloth they may have for sale. But I talked myself out of it. I can endure anything for an hour, right?

I think the mirror here makes me look about 20 pounds heavier than the one at the fitness center at work. It couldn't have anything to do with the girl in front of me who is 5'10" and has calves that are smaller than my wrist.

It starts off fine, I'm able to follow along and the poses are all familiar to me. Then I start to sweat. It was inevitable. I'm a sweat-er. This is why I like winter sports, because I can got into a sauna afterwards and it actually feels good in contrast.

These people are all really fit. Plus, there's no talking in the yoga room, so they all seem very serious as well. None of them look at me and go "you don't have a towel? here, you can use mine."

We go through a series of poses that other instructors like to describe as "heat generating."

And here's where I'm like the Billy Idol song "and I sweat, and I sweat, and I sweat, sweat , sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat." Only I wasn't with myself. I was with 25 other people who all had towels and I didn't. Their sweat was easily absorbed and wiped away, while mine pooled up under me and trickled into my eyes. Good thing I can use verbal cues so I can keep my eyes shut.

It gets harder and harder to stay in downward dog, when my hands and feet start to slide in opposite directions. I look down and see the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip of sweat coming off my head and landing on my mat, making it even more slippery, as if I need that.

I look around to see if anyone has witnessed my travail in keeping myself upright, and perhaps is contemplating offering me the use of their towel, but everyone is focused on their inner selves.

For a nanosecond I contemplate leaving class early. I don't know how much longer I can endure the profuse wetness. Now my hair is completely soaked. I look at the woman next to me, whose back muscles are bulging under her tank top, and her hair is completely dry. And she has a towel that she apparently doesn't even need.

By the time the instructor tells us to do crow pose, I almost collapse in laughter at the impossibility of keeping my legs from sliding immediately down my upper arms as I try to balance on my hands. Yeah, right. I do child's pose instead. I can't slip anywhere when I'm curled up in a ball on the ground.

Toward the end of the session, we do half pigeon, which I actually like and I'm glad that it's a pose I can do without having to balance on sweaty hands. So I bring my right leg in front of me and I'm transported immediately to the backyard slip and slide we had when I was 8. My leg slides in front of me and keeps going, almost into the splits. Wow, I didn't know I could go that deep into the pose.

Finally it's corpse pose time and I'm thrilled that I actually survived.

Now that I'm done, and totally soaked in sweat, all I want is a shower. But it's hard to dry off after a shower when you don't have a towel. So I wait long enough for some of it to evaporate off me before climbing back into my work clothes (ech) and finally getting a drink from the sink.

I remember seeing, in the boutique area, one of those thirsty towel thingies you put on top of your mat.

I look at it again on the way out. The price tag says $75.

If, in the middle of class, a peddler would have pushed in a cart of those things, I probably would have forked it over.

So I get a whole week free of hot sweaty yoga. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Namaste :)

How much of a dork am I that I don't even have my own blog bookmarked and I sometimes forget how to find it?

Lucky Day

Today I had that excited feeling in my stomach for most of the day. I don't know why. It was a rather dreary day, but I still felt exhilirated. I heard from a couple friends whom I'd been sending non-physical messages to contact me. The Law of Attraction works. That's all I'm going to say about it right now.

Later I went to the gas station to get a car wash, and just as I was leaving, had the urge to buy a powerball ticket, so I looked in my wallet and had two dollars, and I bought two. When I walked out the door I found a penny on the ground right in front of my car.

I came home, rode the trainer for what I expected would be another uncomfortable interminable 30-45 min. of butt torture, and after about 20 min. I started to feel GOOD. I rode longer than I originally had planned and discovered during my ride that Icicle Works' Whipser to a Scream is an excellent song to listen to while trying to ride very high cadence. I got off the bike and felt even better than I had when I started.

I announced to Michael that I was going to Target and did he want anything. He tasked me with picking up hair gel and mouth wash and then, out of the blue, wrote me a check for 200 bucks, to pay me for groceries.

Then I went to Target to get my medication, for the second time this week because my primary care Dr. takes her sweet time refilling my rx and I found $20 on the floor.

This was a moral dilemma, because I wanted to find the rightful owner, but wasn't sure which of the 200 people in the store it belonged to. I looked around for anyone who looked like they might be missing something, but everyone was minding their own business. I considered turning it in, but thought that if I'd lost $20 in Target, I wouldn't count on anyone turning it in, so I wouldn't tell anyone it was missing. I mean, it wasn't like the 50 grand that person working in a thrift store found in someone's belongings last week.

I know John is going to tell me I'm going to hell for keeping the $20, but it was meant for me, because today is my lucky day. How do I know that? Because I found a penny outside the gas station. The universe talks to us all the time, we just need to learn to listen.

If my lucky day ends with me winning the powerball, you all are invited to my writers/artist/yoga retreat on 200 acres of undeveloped land in northern WI (or the U.P.)

Goals

I was recently looking at some goals I had written down about a year ago. Out of five goals, it turns out that I have actually accomplished two of them-- skiing a sub 5 hour Birkie and racing my bike (I actually did two races last summer.)

I love that I had forgotten even writing them down, and now here I am, a year later, having accomplished some of them. I do think the writing them down helped, even if I didn't consciously remember doing it. I will continue to do that as new goals arise. Right now I just want to achieve goal number three-- finishing my novel.

And in a bit of synchronicity, as I'm writing this, I came across this website: http://www.stickk.com/

Birkie Fun!

Yes, I said fun. This year it actually was enjoyable, for the first 38 km or so at least. After that, well, let's just say that four hours of doing anything starts to hurt.

The weather was great-- between 10 and 33 degrees during the race. The snow was good, not too deep, not too icy, just right. Even the troughs on the hills were navigable. I enjoyed the splitting off of the classic skiers, so that the trail was much less crowded. This year I could actually use the glide from the downhills to get a little bit up the next hill. I never had to wait in line to go uphill (unless I wanted to, which I sometimes did, because it's a nice break) and I only had two people step on my poles. I think I was actually smiling for most of the race.

The best part was that I achieved my goal of doing it in under 5 hours. In fact, I cut a half hour off my previous time, doing it in 4:42 this year. I'll probably move up a wave, but I have to admit, I sort of liked being in the uncrowded, uncrazed wave 7.

I want to give a shout out to Mr. 9th Wave Large Man, who probably doesn't know it, but he pulled me across the endless Lake Hayward so I could finish strong.

And to Mr. 7th Wave Dude Who Kept Ending Up In Front Of Me After Each Food Stop Even Though I Passed Him Several Times-- please do yourself and your fellow skiers a favor and sew up that hole in the crotch of your lycra.

And thank you to whomever sent me the cute guy at the finish line in the Rossignol gear who helped take off my skis and gave me a hug and said "you did it!" If I'd have known he was waiting for me at the finish line, I'd have picked up the pace!

Hooray for a good snow winter and a good Birkie. Congratulations to my teammates/family, Team Sturdy Women!

Busy Time of Year

This is the time of year when I don't see many people except those on the ski trail, or at work, or in my class, or my writing group, or yoga sessions. Unfortunately, that leaves out a lot of friends. I'm sorry if you haven't seen or heard from me the past couple months. In March things will slow down a little, and then in May, I'll be off from school for the summer.

Update on a few things:
Skiing - Completed the Pre-Birkie last weekend, with a blistering pace of 5:02 min/km. which is almost a half minute faster than last season's pace, so I'm happy with that.
Next weekend is the Birkie. I think I can do it. Again. Only this time, I hope, faster.

Yoga - Taking wednesday night community ed class in addition to going twice a week to the fitness center at work. I would go more often if I could find the time. I want to take teacher training. Will look into doing that this summer.

Writing - Non-existent lately, but I did buy a book called One Year to a Writing Life, and downloaded software to help me complete my novel. Sorry writing group, for not providing you with anything to read!

Food - I'm off chocolate and all sweets and refined flour products now. It's really true that once you get over the two week mark, it's much easier to stay off the stuff. This in addition to staying away from fried food, alcohol, meat, milk, processed food and trans fats. Coffee is the hardest vice to give up. It really does help me wake up, and boy do I miss it on those days when I restrict myself. Trying to keep it to 3x a week or less. Not doing so well with that one.

School - I got a new computer and software to complete my program with up-to-date skillz. After this semester I will be halfway done with my coursework! That means only five more semesters at one class per. Oh well, what else would I be doing with the next three years of my life if I didn't have my completion of the Certificate to look forward to?

General observations:

Driving back from WI last weekend on one of the most bitterly cold days of the season (in a season filled with bitterly cold days) I asked the universe to show me an animal totem and I saw the following in this order: crow, deer, pileated woodpecker, bald eagle, grouse/pheasant (couldn't tell which it was, on the side of the road), and when I got home, a whole murder of crows flying around above my neighborhood. Nice.

I'm actually ready for spring and for cycling season to start. Even though I'm loving the snow this winter, and feel the best I've felt EVER on skis. Cycling is less work. No waxing, scraping, brushing, driving, paying trail fees, etc. But I have to focus on the task at hand right now. Birkie.

Oh, one last thing. Next Wed. is my birthday on the Mayan calendar. Feb. 20th. It also happens to be a lunar eclipse that night. Ooo.