plan C

plan C began like this: I took my wind jacket out of it's little bag on my bike's top tube, pulled it on over my other layers, and set off anyway.

I had a plan A and a plan B.
tuesday night before I went to bed I readied everything.
alarm: 5:13, same time for either A or B
clothing: two piles. long tights, wool socks, and 3 layers for plan A, shorts, cotton socks, and a sleeveless top for plan B. same heart monitor either way.
bike: front light attached, ready for plan A.
car: key awaiting, ready for plan B.

I was prepared.
prepared for A, dry pavement, or B, wet pavement.
decision to be made at 5:13 and 1/2 as I arose and pulled the curtain aside to look out at the street in front of my house.

at 5:13 and 1/2, the pavement was dry.

but at 5:29 as I opened the garage door to take off on my bike, my eyes were drawn to the speckled pattern of dark/light on my driveway. raindrops.
I hesitated for mere seconds, as thoughts ran through my mind:
I don't want to go change, it's too late to get up to spin class and get a full hour in, I am all ready to go, argh, I don't want to change my plan now . . .

thus, plan C.
I pulled out my wind jacket, shrugged it on, and set off anyway.

I do not like to be thwarted. call me obstinate, stubborn, determined, whatever: once I commit to a plan I seem to have a one-track mind.

plan C, I decided, would have some flexibility. it was really just sprinkling at 5:30, and I wasn't sure if it would intensify or back off or just be pockets. so I rode up the hill, thinking that I would just keep going on my usual route until the weather suggested something different.
well, for a while I had a tailwind and no rain. and so I headed up the canyon.
logic would tell one that when a rainstorm is hovering, higher elevations are likely to receive more than lower elevations, correct?
well, the canyon didn't seem to be so bad. it was just light rain, not a downpour.
regardless, I did concede to the elements and planned to shorten my ride. I wouldn't go all the way to the top: I'd ride up for about 45 minutes or so, then turn and head back.
and all was (relatively) well until the last mile and a half uphill, when the rain decided to be serious. but I was so close to completing plan C . . .

I will just say that the ride down and home was hell. I was freezing, soaked, being stung in the face by mini rain bombs, and only wanting to be home and off my bike. water splashed me from the front tire, from the back tire, from the sky, and I tried to giggle about it, but my cheeks were too frozen and wounded.

I'd like to say I learned a lesson.
but knowing myself as I do, I'm not so sure that I really did.

grabbing the sharpie

I bought my first road bike from REI, three and a half years ago.
and as I was (proudly) walking it out the front doors of the store the employee on door duty grinned at me and said, first road bike?
and I smiled back, nodding my head, and said, yep.
then he said, say goodbye to good posture!
I winced, and kept walking, slightly deflated.
darn mountain biker, I thought to myself.

what brings this to the forefront today, you ask? well, my upper back is hurting. this is a result of sunday's ride: when I'm fighting the wind I tend to tense up, lifting my shoulders and tightening all those upper back/shoulder/neck muscles. when I ride under those conditions I try to remind myself to relax, drop my shoulders, pull my shoulders back and take the rounding out of my back.
try, I said.
I must have said to myself drop your shoulders thirty times sunday.
I ended the ride hurting, and during yesterday's ride they still ached, and today they are finally beginning to loosen up a bit.
but here's the thing: I think that REI guy might be right.
I feel like my shoulders have a permanent round forward to them, and my back rounds as well. every once in a while I'll see someone out riding whose back is flat and their shoulders are pulled back and they look beautiful to me. this is how I want to look when I ride.

when my daughter was in preschool she broke her collarbone and had to wear a brace for a few weeks. the brace pulled her shoulders back, keeping the collarbone correctly aligned during healing. I want one of those. because I tend to forget to pull my shoulders back and straighten my back. I need a reminder.
perhaps a tattoo, on my knuckles.
faith on the left hand, straighten on the right.
I know it's too many letters, but then again so is faith, and I manage to make it work.

maybe I just need to break my collarbone, to get put in a brace, to help me re-learn how to carry myself . . .
or maybe I'll just dig out the sharpie.

S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T-E-N

yep, I think I'll go for the sharpie.

training rides and their rewards

today I rode a training ride. not the kind with extra little wheels coming off your rear axle, but the kind that is good for you. the kind that emphasizes your weaknesses. the kind that makes you push limits and stretch thresholds and, well, experience misery.
it was hard.
okay, it wasn't all hard. there were a few beautiful descents and miles of tailwind pushes. and I was intensely grateful for every one of those moments.
but the rest was hard.
see, there was this thing called the wind.

I'm a decent climber, and a pretty good descender (for a female), but the steady grade-into-the-wind stuff just kills me. it eats up every ounce of energy I have, and spits back a general sense of depletion and frustration. I want to be moving more quickly. my muscles cry out that they're giving it all they have: why is my body moving so slowly?

I kept thinking about how good this was for me. I certainly wasn't thinking about how much I was enjoying it.

except, to be honest, for the moments when I looked at the snow-drenched mountain peaks: mount timpanogos and its range, and then as we turned directions and moved further north, glimpes of the high uintahs, still richly, densely white.
and the moments I gazed at jordanelle reservoir, and then those times I looked up at wind-whipped white clouds resting against the clear blue sky.
and the burro gnawing at a wooden post, the mottled farm cat who slunk across her yard, the horses whose necks stretched gracefully upward as they sniffed the wind.

the dogs who chased and barked at me, threatening to nip my shoes: not so much.

but it's one more ride to chalk up in my Book of Life, one more intense effort that will (supposedly) pay off.
and now I'm huddled in my jammies after my hot shower, having eaten everything I could find for the past two hours in an effort to replenish my depleted stores, ready to spend the next hour with a great book on my oh-so-comfy couch: this is my greatest, most favorite, reward.

my exclusive club

tonight was the Bad Ass Coffee Cycling Team season kick-off barbecue.
we stood around, outside, in 50+ degree weather, chatting and watching burgers and dogs cook on the grill, then munched on chips and veggies and brownies and other assorted picnic food.
I knew very few people ~ and even if I might have met some before I didn't recognize them in their Real People Clothes.
and john's (paraphrased) observation was this: you just can't tell a cyclist from their Real People Clothes; cyclists come in all shapes and sizes.
we do.
and how great is that?

I have met the most incredible people through my cycling life. and it's not that incredible people don't exist in every walk of life; it's just that my cycling experiences have introduced me to fabulous people with whom I have something significant in common.
we all love to suffer.

because this was john's other (again, paraphrased) observation tonight: the joy of cycling is in the suffering.
in other words, it's in overcoming the challenge that we feel the thrill.
it's through the suffering that we learn to relish the release.

it's possible there are cyclists out there who never stretch, who never suffer or push past their known limits, who never grimace in pain. I believe it's possible to enjoy easy, relaxed, just-for-fun cycling.
but most of the people I know, the people I admire and bond with, are familiar with punishment and reward. with pushing further than they thought they could. and with swooping with joy and release afterward.

it's internal, this push and stretch and thrill. only I can know how hard I hurt; only I can feel my reward when it's over. and when it's all over, I am powerfully pleased to be me.

we don't talk about this, my cycling buddies and I. we'll talk about how it hurt, how glad we were to be done with the climb, how great it felt to go fast on the descent. but we don't talk much about the internal glow, the strength and power we feel when we surpass our own known limits. but somehow, we must connect at this level because there is a powerful draw between us.

I respect and admire all of these people, for I know exactly what it takes to push yourself, to claw through the muck, to suffer and want beyond all reason to stop, but to keep going anyway. I like this bond.
and I will forever be grateful that I was admitted to this exclusive club, whose only admittance fee is a willingness to push your limits further than you ever thought they could stretch.

to indulge

I have a friend who used to have a massage every week.
she'd have the masseuse come to her home every tuesday afternoon, where my friend kept her massage table ready and waiting in a spare bedroom.
I know people do things like this, but to think of allowing myself such a luxury was just mind boggling.

I do think of massages as luxuries. they are treats, bonuses, things to enjoy every once in a great while. one time, quite a while back, a masseuse tried to convince me that therapeutic massage is best done weekly (or more often), but it just never seemed to me to be an expense I could justify. it has always remained in the category I call indulgences.

I had a massage yesterday, though, that made me rethink the entire concept of pampering. it was the ultimate pleasure, ninety minutes of exquisite relaxation and sensual stimulation. quiet music, rich and exotic scents, hot stones and towels, and the pressure of knowledgeable hands smoothing my skin and softening my muscles. it was an experience of pure joy and release: I just let myself be, and let the experience sink deep into my very self.

I just might be able to fit one of those into my week, every week . . . someday . . .

so up percolates the question: why is it that so many of us deny ourselves this kind of experience? obviously the expense is one issue that needs to be addressed. but beyond that, I still experience an inner resistance to these kind of luxuries. is it about deserving them or not? or that so many others aren't able to do this, why should I? is it that I don't want to be seen as someone who spoils herself in this way? I truly don't know.

I'll ponder this, as I save up my quarters and dollars for my next visit to jenni, the wonder masseuse. if I arrive at the answer, I'll let you know.

the kaleidoscope

yesterday I had nothing to say.
that doesn't usually stop me from posting something here. however, I knew I'd have something to say today, and my subconscious steered me away from this site all day long yesterday, saving it for today.

today, you see, is jake's birthday.
my feelings about today are an ever-changing kaleidoscope, created out of illogical and surprising bits and pieces of common, everyday bits of humanity.
do you remember the awe you experience holding a kaleidoscope up to the light, twisting gently, watching new shapes and forms fall into stunning, unimaginable designs? the word is from the greek words kalos, beautiful and eidos, form, and the english scope, to see.
my feelings are like this, with just a touch of melancholy draped softly over the vision.

I have great joy for what was, and for what he is now. I have pain and sorrow and loss, for what was and what wasn't. I flounder in a field of nothingness, trying to imagine his brother and what might have been. I swim in the love of it all. I ache to touch him again, I am split apart from knowing I can't. I thrill for his ability to be everywhere around me, always, omnipresent. my heart swells with gratitude for his freedom, my heart swells with grief for my own loss.
each aspect of the experience is an exquisitely cut gemstone, gleaming, allowing light through on every side, casting multicolored shadows over the world.

this morning I rose early, setting out on my bike for the spot where snow covers the road to east canyon, ending all skinny tire passage toward the summit. the morning was warm enough that my earlobes and toes and fingertips were only tingling with cold, not bitterly complaining. I rode until I was certain my path would be thwarted, then rode further. and a bit further.
when snow and ice rendered forward movement impossible, I paused.
I twisted open my small metal container and let a bit of jake float down to the winter-weary snow on the side of the road. it wasn't a moment for deep words, but instead a deep involvement with the awe of the moment.

jake and his brother sent two messages this morning. the first was a porcupine alongside the road, who fluffed his quills into a prickly, peacock-ish display as I rode past. the second was a moose, hanging out in solitary peace in the brush banking little dell reservoir. I read their messages to be these: the porcupine, throwing up his quills, meant to just do what I'm meant to do; the moose, seemingly alone, conveyed the message that even though I may feel or seem alone, it is okay to be so. the porcupine was just following its instincts, and the moose, its individual path. and none of us are ever truly alone.

I rode home a bit lighter.
I have another touchstone now in my life. I have so many, so very many physical locations that hold great depth and meaning for me. this one, the rutted and rock strewn side of the road that the tired snow will eventually melt and dampen, 2.6 miles past the gates blocking motorized traffic from big mountain summit, will now be a small, multi-faceted stone in the kaleidoscope of reality that is jake and susan.

truly fantastic

here are some of today's firsts:

• first time up big cottonwood in april, mid-april, no less
• first time riding my bike past a ski resort, watching the chair lift go up and the skiers and boarders come down, me in my sleeveless jersey and the skiers in their snow gear
• first time jake got to climb up to brighton with me
• first time I've ever seen (and heard) a green, plastic, yodeling pickle
  

that's enough, I think.

what a glorious, perfect, beautiful day.
this is not to say that my ride was a piece of cake. it was much harder than I wanted it to be, and there were many moments when my cheerleader-self had to jump in and save me from certain death, or at least deep despair.
but I conquered, the sun shone, the tailwinds pushed me beautifully, warm air caressed my bare arms . . . truly, I could not have asked for more.

what a fantastic day.

oh, the pickle, you ask? well, let me just say that my biking friends are such a gift to me: I love them. this was apparently a gift from one to another, and it came up the canyon with us in someone's back pocket. (no names: I feel I should protect their privacy. not sure why.)
just think about that for a minute. the pickle in the pocket, not the no-names policy.
to see (and hear) this fabulous item, follow this pickle link. be sure to click Try the VIRTUAL yodeling pickle . . .

if your day hasn't already been fantastic, I'm pretty sure the pickle will make it so.
yodel-ay-ee-oooo!

fantastic

this morning I got a wake-up call.
not from a telephone, not from my alarm clock, but instead, from a guy named ty.

ty works at the jcc, and is one of the people who staff the front desk. he's been there every weekday morning since last fall, and he's become a familiar fixture at the counter.
he greets us, and wishes us a good day when we leave.

he's never been overly friendly or gregarious, and has one of those faces that is very matter-of-fact and, well, somewhat unexpressive. he's not unkind, just not perky.
which is okay. too much perky at 5 am is jarring.

well, this morning, we had our usual exchange:

ty: how are you this morning?
me: I am fine (okay, tired, here ~ I rotate through my responses as the days pass). how are you?

and this is where the pattern varied and I was jerked awake:

ty: I am fan-tastic!

oh, wow. I was taken aback.

me: I want to be that . . . (grinning, heading to the--ugh--weight room).

I had to do some reflection.
because the truth is, I am pretty fantastic myself. I am healthy, I am loved, I love, I have people around me daily who give and receive hugs and words of love. my bills are paid, I have food in my fridge and gas in my car. my parents are still alive. I was nurtured and loved growing up. I feel connected to a loving universe. I have a job, I have a place to live. I can afford to own a pet and take care of him. I have future plans. I have dreams and goals and desires. I have spare tubes and cartridges for my bike tires.
I have a bike.
I have places to ride.
I have people to ride with.
I have a body that functions pretty darn well for being as old as I am.
I have longevity and intelligence in my genes.
I have children who are moving through life relatively easily.
I could list a thousand more things.

so from now on, I am going to remember just how fantastic I really have it.
and some day, when asked how I am, I may even be heard to reply,
fantastic.

two and twenty-two

I have two more mornings of waking up at 4:41.
two! that's it!
I've been counting them down, and I am so very happy to be at two.
because I'm tired of it.
this is one of life's truisms: change is refreshing.
and I'm ready for a little change.

I can't imagine myself living in southern california or florida or some tropical island where the weather is consistently pleasant or better. I like snowstorms and thunder storms and days when the activity outside makes you grateful for your cozy couch, fireplace, hot coffee and books. I like rain and fog and even sleet and hail, for they all make me appreciate the sun even more when it comes back out.
I try to stay away from the B word, but perfect weather, I fear, would bore me.

sleeping in every morning would get old as well. it's good to have a reason to get up, a purpose, tasks to accomplish. and just like the weather, it's the difficulty of getting up early five days a week that allows you greater appreciation of the days the alarm doesn't need to be set.

being lazy would also become tiresome. I love my recovery days that are true recovery: no biking or jogging or weight room stints. it's nice to spend time doing other things besides exercising, and it's nice to let your body have a spot of rest. but a spot is usually enough, and then it's back to wanting to move again.

and now it's time to change up my exercise routine. power camp has been great, and this last month of weaning us (classes just 3 days a week instead of 6) has allowed a gradual reintroduction of outdoor riding and yoga to my life. but I'm ready for the big change, when I say so-long to the 5:02 am arrival at the spin room.

as the weather warms and the days stretch themselves out a little more, I'll move to the 5:13 wake-up with a 5:30 am send-off from my driveway.
I can't explain just how incredibly helpful those extra 22 minutes are.

and I can't wait to remember just how incredibly helpful those extra 22 minutes are.

the crack

I felt like staying close to home this weekend, not wanting to ride too far south or north, instead just heading directly east up my dependable emigration canyon.

this happens to me often: when it comes time to make a route decision, I consider and reject any route that takes me too far south. for some reason, fifteen miles up emigration feels so much closer to home than fifteen miles toward little cottonwood. it's not: I understand that. but my comfort zone seems to extend much further east than it does south.

so yesterday I rode emigration, then toward east canyon until the dense wall of snow prevented further travel (that would now be 1.3 miles past the gate), then down to mountain dell golf course and the edge of I-80, turning around and coming back up the hill, up little mountain, down emigration, and home. I promised myself a longer ride today.

and then today dawned, and I didn't feel like a longer ride.
so I basically repeated yesterday's ride, just without the big hill down to and back up from mountain dell.
I held the goal of trying to decipher scenic differences between the two days. I had hoped that the road to east canyon would have been clear a little further, what with the mild temperature of yesterday afternoon and this morning, but that changed very little. where I saw the most difference was little dell reservoir.
yesterday it looked significantly frozen, with only the north and west edges showing water where the ice had pulled back. but today I saw more water, and most excitingly, the large crack across the center of reservoir, south to north.
unfortunately, I can't swear that the crack wasn't there yesterday.
perhaps I just didn't notice.
but today it was glaring, gorgeous, powerful, and I thought about being there to witness its development; what a gift that would be.

the reservoir is reclaiming its more active life, the water slowly changing from its sluggish and thickened state to a form of itself we're more familiar with, the kind we love to dangle our hands in and dip our toes in and splash about it. soon the ice will pull back further and further, and the wind will reach between its shelves and tickle the reservoir, calling it back to playfulness.

I think I'd just like to camp by the side of the reservoir, watching the ice melt, pulling back its boundaries, freeing the water beneath to once again feel the warmth of the sun. I'd bring a few books, plenty blankets, and a good store of food, of course. a journal, a good pen, sunglasses, and one of my favorite coffee mugs.
I'd sit on my camp chair, perusing the imperceptibly changing scene until suddenly I would realize it was no longer the same, that a transition had been made before my very (seemingly oblivious) eyes.
I'd stay there as long as it took, until the glacier was broken apart into pieces that floated across the surface, bumping into each other and cracking again, slivers dropping away and into the gently moving body of water. wind rippling the surface, sun casting glittery sparkles over the entire space, the reservoir becoming itself once again, the same and yet intensely different.

perhaps I'd bring my bike, to go for the occasional spin, knowing that each time I returned I would come back to the same spot which had irreparably metamorphosed into something different, never to return to exactly what it had been.

hubris, or okay, okay, I get it

would you believe one minute?

there I was, bragging about how great it was that I could recover in two minutes. the gods heard me, laughed at me, and said, fine, do it in one.

so I did.
but I'd really like to go on record as saying that it was difficult. and not something I'd like to repeat again soon. (today's work effort consisted of 8 zone five intervals, each 3 minutes long, with one minute of recovery between them.) I barely made it, I almost died, I am not worthy . . .
do you think the gods are listening and will be nicer to me next week?

I keep thinking about the fact that I am not going to want to do this to myself after power camp ends. I am going to want to go ride up my canyons and let my heart rate go wherever it will whenever it will.
maybe.
but then again . . .
last evening john and I drove out to tooele, to the Miller Motorsports Park, and pretended we were ferraris, eating up the track.
okay, not really. we pretended we were on bikes on a smooth, wide, flat race track with not a wisp of wind to interfere with our powerful laps. only two of those adjectives weren't reality (flat, windless) and we thoroughly enjoyed the wide, smoothly asphalted course with no glittering broken glass or other typical bike-lane debris.
and on the way out to the track, we passed the long, fairly flat road out to the salt lake marina.
seeing that stretch of fairly flat road and riding laps on the race track both sent thoughts of intervals to my resistant little mind. hmmm . . . there are opportunities, susan, where one can realistically do interval work . . . maybe it's time to think about incorporating these into your biking life.

oh, I feel the pull.
I donwanna.
I want to ride and feel the air on my skin and climb my hills and swoop and be free to work as hard as I want and to slack off when I need to. this is unregimented, this is freedom, this is joy.
I donwanna make it into work.

but what if that "work" makes my carefree riding even more enjoyable because I'll be faster-stronger-better?
this is my see-saw struggle.

and I know the issue will not be resolved today.
or even next week.
but my mind is chewing on it all, and I foresee resolution of some kind at some point.

I'm pretty sure, though, regardless of my decisions, that I will allow myself more than one minute of recovery between exertions.
because humble little me can't possibly recover in just one minute ~ I can barely do it in two ~ I'm not in the least bit worthy of those one-minute challenges . . .

can you all hear me out there?
humility seeps from my every pore . . .

the possibly impossible

I've written before about the infamous two minutes.
it began during my first encounter with power camp three years ago: one of the instructors, one day while talking us through a tough work effort, said to us, you can do anything for two minutes. that's the length of a commercial or two ~ come on, you can do that.
and of course, then, it grew to
come on, you can do anything for three minutes.
or four minutes.
or five.

this past year I've heard a lot of those you can do anything for . . . motivational comments.
but this week it's been switched up on us.
this week it's been our recovery, not our work effort, that's been scrunched into two minutes.
and I've learned that I can even find recovery in a brief two minute stretch.

during this past year the elite, blue-card people have experienced interval workouts with three and two minute recoveries between intervals. but remember, I'm a white card person, and we've always been allowed a minimum of three minutes between intervals.
for example, we've had a workout where we take our heart rates up to zone 5 for four minutes, then recover in zone 3 for three minutes, then repeat this process six or seven more times. the elites were made to go to zone 5 for five minutes, then only recover for two minutes, and then (lather, rinse and) repeat.
so those blue card people had already experienced the challenge of a two-minute recovery.
I hadn't, and it seemed slightly impossible.
but what I've learned this week is that I can do it, too.
monday we had 6 visits to zone 5, five minutes each, with two-minute recoveries in between.
I survived.
today we had 4 visits to zone 4B, eight minutes each, with two-minute recoveries in between.
I survived.

this may not seem like much, but it's powerful;
small victories often have great impact.

and it brings to mind all of those times in life when we get by on much less food, sleep, love, rest, refueling, whatever, than we truly need. we adapt, we learn to keep going, becoming stronger with each new test of our selves.

but as I said to my fellow-biking friend patty the other day, I would never make myself do this kind of ridiculous effort on my own.

pause.

okay, well, maybe I would, if I could only learn to remember how great I feel when I conquer the unknown, the scary, the possibly-impossible.
small victories.
that's what it's all about.

fearless

the other day someone described courageousness to me as a movement of one who has fear but is willing to take action anyway.
and then the next day I listened to max lucado being interviewed about his new book, fearless.
obviously the universe was talking to me, so I listened.

max lucado has written more than a handful of books, though I only know two of them well:
a children's book called You Are Special, and a non-children's book called Traveling Light. when I visited his website I was astonished by the number of books he's authored; since I know such a small piece of his body of work, my comments might be skewed a bit.
what I receive from lucado's books is primarily a sense of peace. of rightness, of grace and hope. he writes to heal and to bring peace, to comfort and to direct to a path of Godliness.
not being a terribly religious person, I am still able to connect with his words and beliefs, and feel both safety and freedom in the glow of what he presents to us.

so this latest book, fearless, doesn't really discuss a new topic; the gist remains true to what he always preaches: trust in God, have faith, and be joyful. but this time he approaches his topic from a viewpoint of being fearful, a common viewpoint in these unpredictable and fragile times.
I love the idea of being fearless.
it fills me with quivering energy, delight, confidence, and, I suppose, adrenaline.
each time I take a moment to think about it, I can push fear right out.
but the problem is remembering to take those moments.

years ago I learned to embrace the belief that only two real emotions exist for us humans: fear and love. I like to look at them as motives, however, not just emotions, motives for how we act in the world. again, when I remember, I question myself about whether I am operating from a place of fear, or from a place of love.

I am a complex and as of yet not-fully-enlightened human, and as such still operate from a place of fear more than I'd like to. so given the above, it seems as though my task must be to take a little more time to push fear aside---whether through self-love and support or love for others---and accept that there is no need for fear, at all.

what does this look like in the real world?
when I'm on my way to power camp, knowing the coming workout is HARD and potentially impossible, I remember to tell myself you can do anything, you always survive these, you are capable and perfectly positioned to tackle this challenge today.
it means when I start questioning where my next order is coming from or whether or not I'll be able to collect on delinquent accounts or whether or not next month's bills will be paid, I remember to tell myself, you've made it this far, you always do an excellent job of juggling, your bills always get paid, trust in the support you have out there.

I know that when I overcome fear, I have more fun, achieve greater highs, meet more interesting people, and feel more alive.

I resolve to work on forevermore being fearless.
wanna join me?

recovery day

it started with a sore throat last evening.
the middle---I hope---has been me, on the couch most of the day, watching a dvd of the first season of The Starter Wife.
geez.
the end---I hope---will begin soon, when a little energy returns, my throat stops hurting, my head stops aching, and I feel like I can return to life.

I'm not at death's door.
I'm not even incapacitated.
I'm just under the weather and trying not to be grumpy about it.

I just prefer being healthy, energetic, motivated, productive.

my big accomplishments of today have been a quick run out to 1) get bagels for tomorrow's brunch, 2) get paint chips for my girls to look at and choose a color for their walls, 3) fill up the car with gas, and 4) buy a dozen crickets for the frog.
I've also stuffed plastic easter eggs for tomorrow morning's hunt (133 of them), mopped the floors so that my kids won't become covered with dust and dog hair as they search for eggs, unloaded the dishwasher (the plastic plate that I tried to put away on a high shelf that slipped right out and hit me on the bridge of my nose: no big deal. what's one more aching body part?), and eaten every carbohydrate that was in my house.

while I was out running my errands (in my baggy sweats, no makeup, hair pulled up in a clip, sunglasses on to protect my identity) I saw a few hearty cyclists out in the barely-40-degree weather, and I thought to myself, oh yes, I remember what it's like to want to ride a bike . . .

so we'll just call this a recovery day, in the spirit of positive thinking, and hope that sometime during the evening or night I will actually recover.

gremlins

yesterday's post didn't happen because there was a gremlin playing around with my internet service yesterday.
there's also been a gremlin messing with my heart rate monitor. (143, 143, 143, 143, 197, 197, 197, 197, 197, 146, 146, 209, 209, 209 . . . )

perhaps it's the same group of gremlins who wreaked havoc with my ice maker, my water filtration system, the sink drain, the dishwasher . . .

anyway, one can easily reach a point where---regardless of the commitment made---there is just no point in continuing to fight the gremlins and one just has to
go
to
bed.