Lackluster Blogging

I have a good excuse for not blogging lately:

I'm too tired and too busy (I sound really important don't I? Don't let it fool you). It seems like this whole summer has been busy, busy, busy. And July doesn't look any better. Currently Chris and I have one weekend in July where we don't have something planned. I'm kinda looking forward to that weekend. I enjoy being busy, but most of the busy-ness has been travel. I enjoy traveling, but it is tiring.

Most of the summer has been one fun thing after another, but even with fun perhaps you can have too much of a good thing. I want a fun weekend that doesn't involve packing or unpacking.

Chris and I did manage to sneak out on a date Sunday night for the first time in...well, forever. Since he has every other Friday off, before the summer started, I had grandiose plans of hiring a babysitter for one Friday a month and going mountain biking together. We've done that once. We had lots of plans for fixing up our yard too, for going hiking...guess how much of that we've done? You should come see the wheat field in our yard, by the way. We need a scythe to see over to our neighbor's yard. (Technically, that isn't really true. I just wanted to use the word "scythe" because how often do you get to use a word like that?"

"The best laid plans of mice and men." I think of that often when my plans aren't going the way I, um, planned.

Do I Have An Inner Julia Child?

Haven had a play-date yesterday with 3 of her little friends: Molly, Isaac, and Maddie. While there I sampled my friend Felisa's delicious blueberry coffee-cake. Yum. I told her how good it was, and she informed me that she had milled her own flour to make it. What the heck? This was at the house of my friend, Heidi, who frequently makes and bakes her own bread among other things--she's always cooking. They both have kids Haven's age so I don't even have that as an excuse. I told them they make me look bad. Really bad.

I wonder if Chris knows that women like that exist? Well, he will now when he reads this, but is it possible that when he realizes there are women who mill their own flour that he will decide I need a big hollowed out rock and a nice smooth stone like the Native Americans use so I can grind corn for our tortillas? If you see a dent in his otherwise nicely rounded noggin, you may assume that he decided it was time for me to mill. And, you may assume that we were not on the same page on that one.

I know his mom made alot of their dinners from scratch. And, I'm not talking about making mac and cheese or something. She did complicated things like dinner rolls and scalloped potatoes and meatballs. I know because we ate there alot when I was a kid and I loved those potatoes and dinner rolls. Don't even get me started on those meatballs. Mama Mia!

Chris and I saw that movie, Julie and Julia. The one about the girl who cooks through Julia Child's cookbook in a year. Cute movie. I thought that girl was insane. There is absolutely no part of me that would want to do that. I want to eat it, but cook it? No way.

To sum up and to answer the question I posed in the title of this blog, I can emphatically say, that no, I do not have an inner Julia Child waiting to burst forth at any moment. I do admit to feeling something akin to guilt and shame that my inner Child is probably in more of an embryonic stage rather than about to be birthed. You have my permission to feel sorry for Chris--I frequently do. But, I'm 31. I'm too old to learn new tricks.

This Past Weekend:

Water Baby:

Haven and the dogs thoroughly enjoyed it when my dad drained the pool this past weekend.

She also enjoyed hangin' with her Uncle David at Flying Star. Uncle David's going to be a Daddy in August. Aunt Christine is baking Haven's cousin.

Look What I Bought at Walmart

Biker Goddesses...sorta

Well, we didn't quite get 100 miles, but Maren and I did polish up with a solid 75 in today's race. Faerl and Heidi also rode with us and did great as well. It was a super hot day (105 degrees at least) and that put an end to the riding machines that we are (ha!). That and the fact that the organization that was supplying water and food decided to stop putting water and food out for the slower riders (of course I don't mean us...I was just feeling sorry for all those slackers behind us!). In truth, there is no way to finish a 100 mile ride without water and Gatorade so it put a hitch in our getta-long.

We got off to a somewhat late start, then due to poor signage (or rather, no signage) went 10 miles off the route, then I got a flat tire that took about 30 minutes to change because we couldn't get the darn tire off the rim. After Maren very sweetly told one particular biker that he was going the wrong way (because we'd just made the same mistake), he turned around. I asked if we could borrow his muscles for a second to pop the tire off for us. His answer? No. He needed to save his muscles for the next 75 miles. It's probably not very nice of me to hope that he feels guilty about that tonight as he goes to sleep. I'll ask for forgiveness later. Dirty Dog.

Since I burned about a million and a half calories today, I think I'm going to go eat a sleeve of Oreo cookies. Cheers!!

Bruised

My neighbor thinks that I am a battered wife. No joke. I come over to her house all the time to talk to her and have bruises all over my legs. This last week I tried being clipped into my bike for the first time and went around my car, not knowing that there was a bunch of stuff from the shed that Chris had pulled out onto our driveway. Needless to say, I did not get unclipped in time. I have a huge bruise on my thigh.

Last week Chris and I went mountain biking and although I didn't fall off my bike this time (which, come to think of it, may be the only time EVER I haven't had a spill on that bike), I still had bruises. I went to my neighbor's house the next day to celebrate her birthday and she pointedly asked me about them. She also said, "you always have alot of bruises, Jane." And left it at that. I was slightly embarrassed because I knew what she was implying and she left it open for me to talk if I needed to. Obviously, I went home and told Chris that the next time he made me angry (like denying me an iphone yet again), I was going to go talk to Monika. All joking aside, I admire her for caring enough to check on me. Most women either wouldn't notice or they wouldn't feel comfortable saying something. I hope that I would be alert enough to recognize the signs if I saw them and to respond without being accusatory.

Oh, and if you think that I'm getting Man Thighs from all my biking, I am. It's very sad.