Horrasing

Baylee made a "get well" card for Cooper, because he came home with a big scratch on his nose that's making him sneeze. On the outside it says, "Get Well Soon, Cooper!" with a picture of a cat in a bed. On the inside Baylee wrote:

Dear Cooper,

I'm sorry that I was mean to you all those years. I will start being nice to you. I think I started horrasing you when I was three. You are better...sorry...way, way, way better and nicer than Gibbs. I hope you get well soon and stop sneezing.

Love,
Baylee

PS: I hope you like the card. Love, Baylee again

Ice Skating!

Wow, that was a ton of fun! It turned out to be a little different than we expected as far as who was there. It was going to be a girl outing with some of Baylee's friends and their moms, but there were cancellations, so in the end it was me and all three of our kids, and Baylee's friend, Lily, and her dad, Gerry. They go to our church and we've become good friends with Gerry and his wife Bethany, and their two kids, Lily and Abby. They all became Christians within the last couple years and are wonderful people with a testimony that's amazing to hear.

It was interesting to watch the personalities of the different members of my family come out in how we approached learning how to skate. Drew put his skates on and flew out onto the ice without a clue as to what he was doing. He fell a bunch of times, then figured it out and was amazing. His ability to skateboard, inline skate, and ripstik came in handy, I think.

Zach was the slow and steady guy. He got the hang of it carefully, not taking many risks, but also enjoying himself in a safer and gentler way. He had a good time, but he looks sad in this picture. In fact, I took a few pictures of him and they all made him look like he'd been through the wringer. This was the best one. You see, our cat (his cat), Cooper, went missing yesterday. The dog chased him out of the house and nobody saw exactly what happened or if Cooper was hurt, but he ran off and didn't come back. We were all starting to get worried, but Zach loves that cat dearly, so it was especially hard on him. The only reason he even came skating was to try to get his mind off things. The good news is just a few minutes ago Cooper came home. He's scratched up, tired, and thirsty, but he's okay. Zach is all smiles now.

Baylee was a wall hugger and a socializer at first. She didn't care. She was there to be with Lily. Then gradually she realized, "Hey, I can do this!" She let go of the wall and took off. She's athletic, but very girlie.

I was methodical. Gerry, who played ice hockey for years when he was young and can literally skate circles around everybody, taught me the mechanics of it and pretty soon I was...decent. I could get around the rink anyway! I never did quite get the hang of stopping, and once I totally fell, but I wasn't too bad.

All in all it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Here's a few more pictures and some short video clips of the kids.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Doing Scary Stuff

The weekend has been filled with the kind of stuff that makes me feel either too hot or too cold, and slightly ill. Stuff that scares me. So you're thinking...what? Did she lose sight of a child in the store? See a horror flick? Get in a car accident? Nope. I wrote and spoke.

On Friday I turned in a little article on homeschooling for an e-zine that may or may not get off the ground. I wrote it, sent it to be looked over, had it sent back for changes, and I rewrote parts of it. I'm telling you, the process made actual beads of sweat appear. Is that weird? I think I'm a decent writer, and I really like doing it on my terms (as in writing any old thing I feel like on this blog), but to write seriously? Purposefully? I'm a mess of nerves. I did it, though, and I think it turned out fine.

Then today I was asked to give the halftime devotional to the teams, coaches, refs, and parents in the stands at the kids' basketball game. This time I spent the entire first half of the game freezing cold. Again, I got out there, did it, and it was fine. One thing about me is no matter how freaked out I am, I can get on a stage and act like I'm totally at ease.

I don't know. Lately it's struck me that maybe I'm like the servant who buried the talent in that parable in the Bible. I think it's largely about laziness. It takes a lot of work to write or prepare to speak. The more effortless it looks to others, the more blood, sweat, and tears went into it for me. And partly it's about being scared to put myself out there and possibly look like an idiot.

I wonder if everyone feels this way.

The History of My Tooth

I was talking on the phone to my mom this afternoon, telling her that Baylee and I are going ice skating tomorrow, and she said, "Well, don't knock your tooth out!" I laughed and answered with something like, "Moooom! I'm not going to knock my tooth out!" But just between you and me, I might knock my tooth out, because it happens. A lot. I'm selective, though. I don't just knock out any old tooth. I knock out the same one every time: the front tooth on the top right. No lie, it's on its 5th reincarnation.

Let's see...

1. It started out as a baby tooth, fell out naturally, then a big, bucky adult tooth grew in. It stayed for a few years.

2. In 3rd grade I was playing Marco Polo at recess. I was the blindfolded Marco, and all the Polos let me walk face first into the brick school building. I lost that front tooth almost completely. My mom whisked me off to dentist for an emergency visit, and he capped it.

3. In 6th grade I was swimming along, when I bumped my tooth on the bottom of the Lincoln Park pool. The cap fell off. I went to the dentist again. A new cap was installed.

4. One week later I was pushing somebody on a swing, and the swing came back too far and hit me in the mouth. The cap was gone. The same dentist with the white hair did his thing.

5. A few months after Mike and I got married we were playing with a dish towel. I was wrestling it away from him or maybe it was the other way around, and I thought it would be a good idea to hold the towel in my mouth. (Because, you know, I have strong jaws.) The cap ripped off and for 24 newlywed hours I had a hillbilly look going. This time it was a new, younger dentist with the first of name of Dutch...and another cap.

And that's where things stand now.

The End

I Got Nothin'

"I'm getting a little bored by the blog. I need some entertainment."

My friend Cam said that to me today about this blog. It's been a few days, I admit. I'm just daggone boring right now. (Except I did just use the word "daggone," and that right there is a sign this blog is still a hip and happening place.) In the interest of entertainment, however, I offer you bits and pieces of not much at all, in bullet points:

• We saw Avatar in 3D last night. That was the most amazing movie theater experience EVER. The story was good, but the 3D! The 3D, people! I'm talking specks of ash floating around me after a climactic onscreen forest fire. I'm talking bugs in the jungle buzzing just out of reach like they were real. I'm talking feeling like I was right there with the characters. Just wow. The pounding headache I had afterward was totally worth it.
  
• Yesterday Drew said, "John Crapper invented the toilet. He was a genius, don't get him wrong."
• Right now Mike and Baylee are at Daddy/Daughter Night at Pioneer Girls. Mike refused to bring the camera and take lots of pictures and video. Apparently that's not manly.
  
• Zach got an A+ the other day on a science test.
• Zach got an A+ tonight on being a 14yo stinkwad. He leaned over a big pot of soup I had put on the table for supper, pretending to smell it, and then said, "Oh, shoot. Mom, would you be mad if the piece of gum I was chewing just accidentally dropped into our supper?" He let me believe it for a minute, too, before he laughed and walked off.
  
• (This one is a secret. Zach's voice is starting to crack and he's getting a hint of a blonde mustache. It feels like yesterday he was my baby.)
  
• Baylee and I are going ice skating at a rink with some friends from church this Saturday. The last time I went I was 5 years old and my skates had double blades.
• There's a blog I read, which over the last several months has gotten more and more dark. For a long time it was light-hearted and funny and occasionally thought-provoking. Then one day the woman got it in her head that she hates, and I'm not using that word too strongly, homeschoolers. She started ranting and raving about them on a regular basis. I decided not everyone has to agree with my choices, and what do I really care what a stranger thinks anyway, so I continued to read there. Now she's decided she's no longer a Christian and she's turned all that venom she used to reserve for us horrible home educators onto Christianity at large. There's so much rage and such a huge turnaround in outlook and style that it's like watching a train wreck. I feel like a voyeur. I sometimes feel the same way reading what people say on Facebook. Is all this sharing via technology good? I don't know. I'm Dutch.
  

Baylee's New Achievement

Homeschool Math

1 eight year old + 1 eleven year old + 1 really tolerant dog =

Any Experiment Involving an Open Flame is Cool

"Can't Light the Candle"

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The way Zach's textbook, Apologia General Science, is set up, we don't usually know exactly what to expect or why until after we perform the experiment. That way it's a surprise. This time we found out afterward that the candle went out and the matches wouldn't stay lit, because the bowl was filled with carbon dioxide gas. The carbon dioxide had pushed out all the air, so there was no oxygen to feed the flames.

Oh No She Di'int

Last night I went to my friend's house to get my haircut. Before I go any farther let me just say that I LOVE her. She's fun, funny, and down-to-earth. But word to the wise: Think twice before you let your friend be your hairdresser. As soon as you let your girlfriend touch your head, it's no longer your head. You've just effectively given it away. Say goodbye to the days when you walked around with a bushy unibrow. Wave farewell to your shapeless hairstyle that hasn't seen the inside of a salon in a year. Those days are gone forever.

At church on Wednesday night my friend cornered me and told me I needed help, then she meaningfully touched my eyebrows. At church on Sunday morning she forced me to make an appointment. When I went to her house last night to finally get the haircut and the brows waxed she said...wait for it...that now I really need to figure out how to style it properly, since other people are aware she does my hair. Oh, yes, she did.

I'm thinking about passive-aggressively taking a stand. Maybe I'll grow a mustache.

Serendipity

I love Tuesdays. There are no clubs to go to, music lessons to take, kid exchanges, or anything else. It's just school work, housework, and meals. In other words, home stuff. Cozy stuff. Today was especially nice because for some reason everything went without a hitch and I actually had the entire house cleaned and school finished by about 2:30. That NEVER happens so early, especially the cleaning part. Well...I shouldn't say "for some reason" as if it was all serendipity, because I know exactly why things sailed along so nicely. That's another post for another day, though.

The point of this post is that we had extra time in the afternoon, so Baylee and I made something called Butterscotch Cheesecake Bars. What a fun way to pass the time with my lovely 8 year old!

12 oz butterscotch chips
1/3 cup margarine/butter
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup chopped nuts
8 oz cream cheese, softened
14 oz condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 (325 if using glass pan). Melt butterscotch chips and margarine in medium saucepan, stir in nuts and crumbs. Press 1/2 of mixture into bottom of 9x13 pan. Beat cream cheese, condensed milk, vanilla, and egg; mix well. Pour into pan and top with remaining crumb mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool to room temperature. Chill before cutting. Refrigerate leftovers.

Basketball, 2010

Drew and Baylee had their first game today and, oh my goodness, that was SO MUCH FUN. It far exceeded my expectations. It was exciting! Drew scored eight points! Baylee was the tiniest kid out there, but she didn't do too bad, either. She latched onto the concept of defense and stuck to her opponent like a baby monkey, but now she needs to learn you're not supposed to keep doing that even under your own basket. She'll get it.

Go Rams!

Diamond Dave's Ninja School

"You are now the proud owner of one of Diamond Dave's A-Ninja Teachin' Flicks."

"Don't go ninjin nobody don't need ninjin!"

The Best Thing for 3rd Graders Since Sliced Bread

Times Tales!!! It's a wonderful program for teaching the upper times table, and it does it in an hour or less! The secret is a "trigger memory system." It helps the child form connections between the math facts and silly stories. For instance:

Mrs. Week and Mrs. Snowman were driving together and they went one mile over the speed limit.

Seems a bit simplistic, but after discussing it and looking at a picture, the child learns and remembers that 7x8=56.

Here's a couple videos. The first was taken before Baylee knew any of the upper multiplication table, the second was taken 28 minutes later.

I didn't want to go through all the cards in that second video, because that would get boring, but you get the idea. That's it! She's got all her multiplication facts learned now. I had to work with her at the beginning of this school year to memorize 0x0 through 5x9, which wasn't really that hard. Times Tales took care of the rest.

Sue

PS: I didn't get paid for saying any of this. The folks who sell Times Tales don't even know I exist. I just believe in the product, because I've seen it work with all three of my kids.

PPS: I said it's for 3rd graders because that's the grade a kid typically learns all this stuff, but actually it would be a great program for an older child who is having trouble, too.

Eww and Aww

The conclusion of the experiment:

I meant collagen. Doh.

Edited to add: Oh, I just realized I got it completely wrong. Not only did I say keratin instead of collagen, but I said the bone doesn't have any. The truth is that's all it has. The vinegar dissolved the minerals and left only the collagen, making the bone very bendy. Geez. Who's running this so-called school?

Look at my nice guy helping me today. He's peeling potatoes for the dinner we're making to welcome Mike back home after three days.

And Now For Our Next Trick

Zach and Gibbs played a game of catch with a slightly deflated ball for quite awhile today. I think they're about ready to take this act on the road, don't you?

Recent Writings

Today Baylee put the finishing touches on her final draft of an opinion paper. I think she did a great job!

I think the Webkinz site is really cool. First, I like it because a small pet comes to life on the computer. By that I mean you buy a stuffed animal with a secret code attached. Enter the secret code onto the Webkinz site, then a computer pet, which looks just like the one you bought at the store, comes to life on the internet. You can pretend on the computer that you're taking your pet to the doctor, feeding it, dressing it, making sure it's happy, healthy, exercised, and has a big house.

The second reason I like Webkinz is because there are lots of games. Some of my favorites are Spin the Wheel, Wishing Well, Candy Bash, Cash Cow 2, Home Before Dark, and Ant Mania. I hope you get a Webkinz pet and enter it on the site. They're really fun, loving, and entertaining when you're bored.

Drew also recently finished a paper. His was on giving specific, clear instructions, and to that end he chose to explain to his readers how to make a duct tape wallet. To be honest, I didn't understand a word he said. Either I need to work with him on being more coherent, or I should accept that crafts aren't my forte no matter how uncomplicated the directions are. I think it's a combination of both. One funny thing he said is that everyone should make their own wallet out of duct tape instead of buying one, because "if you pay seven or eight dollars for something to hold your money in, you'll have no money left for it to hold." Spoken like a broke eleven year old.

Nocturnal

Mike's gone on a business trip, which means I'm left to my own devices, which means I'm nocturnal. Well, not really, but I totally would be if I didn't have three kids and responsibilities. Today the kids and I dragged out of bed, got dressed and ready, started school on time, worked through the day and finished at about 3:00, and then...bliss. We had nothing going on after that. I let the kids run wild (Literally. Jacob came over and the four of them had a big Nerf gun war for hours upstairs. They said it was great.) and I sat on the couch and read a book (the first of the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries) cover to cover. Isn't that completely decadent? I loved it!

I did manage to feed the kids, make sure they all bathed themselves and cleaned their bedrooms, and get them to bed at a decent time. At about 9:30, when they were all tucked away, I cleaned the whole house. Now it's almost midnight and I'm drinking coffee and thinking about starting the second book in the series.

Yup. This is my kind of day.

Simple Woman's Daybook

For Today...January 11, 2010

Outside my window…it's a gray and rainy 50 degrees. I heard somewhere that we probably won't have any snow this year, because of El Nino.

I am thinking… about not much. I'm too tired. I went to bed late last night, because Mike was out working and I hate falling asleep when he's not here. We did have a nice conversation, he on his bluetooth and I on the cell, as he was driving home at around midnight. It's good to be married to someone for 16 years and still have stuff to talk about and laugh over.

I am thankful…for some of the experiences in my life that I've fallen into. I have a thread running through my life of working in the health care industry. Mike and I were full-time houseparents at a Christian adult foster care home, where we took care of ten physically and/or mentally disabled men for six years. Later I worked as an in-home caregiver with an organization called Visiting Angels. Both of those jobs were wild rides, but they blessed me.

From the learning rooms…Today in science Drew learned about plant reproduction. He said it was "disgusting". LOL

Drew and Baylee working at the table this morning. Drew was learning about flower ovaries and Baylee was doing math. She's up to the 6's in the times table.

I am wearing… jeans, etc.

I am remembering…yesterday's bike ride every time I move. I will prevail.

I am going… to write my grandma a little letter sometime this week.

I am currently reading… I'm between books and I don't like it. I need to find something. I'm half-heartedly reading a book called The Great Expectations School, but it hasn't grabbed me yet.

I am hearing… Drew sifting through Legos, Baylee making a mug of hot chocolate, and the TV playing Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the living room with nobody watching it.

From the kitchen… tonight is an easy "take and bake" deli pizza night.

Around the house… it's all clean, because I spent time doing it last night. It was gross after a long, busy, rainy weekend. There's nothing worse than owning a dog when it's raining. They track in mud and they make the house smell like wet fur.

One of my favorite things… is when Zach and I are doing science with our Apologia CD-Rom and we come upon a button that says "Click here for a video on [whatever the current topic is]". Who doesn't like little videos? Today we watched one on symbiosis.

From my picture journal...

Drew (4) and Zach (7). People thought (and sometimes still think) they were twins.

To read the daybooks of others, visit Peggy at her site here.

In Which Baylee Has Hiccups And Tells a Story

Mike Takes a Demon for a Run

Doesn't Gibbs kind of look like The Hound of the Baskervilles?

In other news, we had the best weekend!

• Mike and I went out to dinner with our friends Kevin and Candace. That's always a good time, and it wasn't even ruined by the fact that the restaurant food made me as sick as a dog. (You know people are great friends when they're prepared to pull over to let you throw up out the sliding van door at a moment's notice.)
• Baylee and Drew started basketball! Basketball skills do not run in this family and if Baylee makes even one basket all season it'll be a miracle, but we don't care.
  
• I LOVE working with the children's choir as they prepare for their yearly drama production. Every single Sunday I come home and gush to Mike, "That was so great. I couldn't be happier with how it's going." Working in ministry is good, but working in ministry in a way that truly uses what you have to give is wonderful. For instance, I can teach a Sunday school class and do a decent job, but it's not my thing. Is that awful to admit? I simply don't enjoy it. There's got to be a balance somewhere between filling in needs as we see them, because somebody has to do it, and filling in a need because it's a love and passion of ours. I'm not sure what that balance is. I just know that sometimes I feel henpecked to get involved in every single thing that comes down the pike and it makes me grouchy.
  
• And finally, I saw my old college professor, Craig MacDonald, today at church. His whole family is in town to see his mom retire from being our church organist. I've gone back and forth on whether to write this here, because I know he reads and I don't want to embarrass him, but...I'm going to do it. He was my favorite teacher and now he's just one of my favorite people. One of my best memories of him at school actually happened at a time when I had a total meltdown. I was a few days from graduating, which for me meant several final exams and a speech to prepare, I was starting a new full-time job in the admissions department and they kept hounding me to come in and work even though school wasn't finished, and to top it all off I was planning a wedding. It was insane. Anyway, Craig (Mr. MacDonald back then.) came up to me to ask me something and I burst into tears. I remember he stood there and talked with me and pretty soon I was laughing and everything felt manageable again. I think that's one of his gifts...the gift of...what would that be? Talking folks back from the edge? Handling hysterical people? LOL Actually, it's just plain old compassion. It was great to see him today.
  

The Sunset Tonight

I'm Not a Puzzle Person

Last night Baylee and I decided it might be fun to set up a puzzle on the bay window in the living room, with the idea that anyone who feels like working on it over the next few days may do so.

Now, I'm not really a puzzle person. For one thing I'm spatially challenged. For another I get bored easily. But I just figured, okay, I can at least turn the pieces right-up-side and get the puzzle ready for other people to enjoy. It was fun!

We worked together for quite awhile, then Baylee went to bed and I continued to mess around with it. First I decided maybe I could separate out the edges and corners. Then I started putting the edges and corners together. Then my OCD kicked in and I became unable to stop, despite the fact that my back was killing me from sitting on that window. After a couple hours (I told you I'm not spatial.) I had the entire outside of the puzzle completed.

Except...wait. What the??? It's missing a piece!

I went over everything with a fine-tooth comb THREE TIMES looking for that last edge. "It's got a white boat on it...It's got to be here somewhere...It's flat on one side...Where is it?!...This is insane...Oh for the love of all that is good and holy where is it???!!!!"

That's when Mike staged an intervention and made me go to bed.

Heavy Lifting

Mike went to the doctor today, then was sent to have an ultrasound, and we haven't heard the final results yet but it looks like he has a hernia. Poor guy. I'm not used to seeing him sick or hurt to the point where he has to slow down (He's the guy who goes to work with the stomach flu.), so it's weird and a little scary for me. Anyway, I know it's a simple outpatient surgery, then we can baby him at home.

Sue

Edited To Add: He for sure has a hernia and is meeting with a surgeon tomorrow to talk about a surgery date, what it will entail, what the recovery time will be, etc. I hope it's soon. He's in a lot of pain.

"You lose, punks."

Gibbs cashes in on his advantage as a quadruped.

This and That

Bone Watch

Just trust me, you don't want to see this experiment. I thought it might be a good idea to show the progress every day, but no. It's yucky. It's vinegar-turned-pink-and-bone-giving-off-some-sort-of-disgusting-slime yucky. I'll just show the picture on the last day when the bone can be bent. Maybe. If I can make myself or Zach touch it.

In case you're interested, here's the reason why a bone covered in vinegar will bend after about a week:

"What will you see over the course of seven days? Well, at first, the ends of the bone will get soft. As time goes on, the entire bone will get rubbery so that it can be bent and flexed very easily. It is a nice effect, so you should definitely keep the experiment going until the bone reaches that state. Why will the bone get rubbery? To answer this, I need to tell you what bones are made of. Bones consist of cells surrounded by a substance called the bone matrix. This matrix is composed principally of two things: collagen and minerals. Collagen is a flexible, thread-like substance that belongs to a class of chemicals known as proteins. The minerals in bones are rigid, hard chemicals that contain calcium. I'm sure you've heard that milk builds strong bones. That's because milk contains calcium, and the minerals in your bones are made with calcium. Thus, drinking milk helps supply your body with the calcium it needs to make the minerals in your bones.

Collagen and minerals work together to make your bones both strong and flexible. The collagen gives bones their flexibility, while the minerals give bones their hardness. In your experiment, the vinegar dissolved the minerals in the chicken bone. As time went on, then, there were fewer and fewer minerals in the chicken bone, so the bone got more and more flexible. Eventually, the vinegar dissolved many of the minerals in the bone, and you were left with a bone made mostly of collagen. Without the minerals, your bones would be as rubbery as that chicken bone, but without the collagen, your bones would be rigid and brittle. As a result, if your bones had no collagen, they would break instead of bend when you fell. Because of the unique blend of collagen and minerals in bones, however, your skeleton is both flexible and strong."

~ Dr. Jay Wile in Exploring Creation with General Science

This is a bit beside the point, but isn't the style of this science book interesting? I love how conversational it is. It makes me feel like I'm sitting at the kitchen table with Dr. Wile, talking about bones over coffee.

Social Studies Worth Studying

Baylee finished her history textbook for the year, so together she and I are reading The Children's Book of Virtues, edited by William J. Bennett.

It's filled with stories and poems which illustrate the virtues of courage, perseverance, responsibility, work, self-discipline, compassion, faith, honesty, loyalty, and friendship. It's wonderful.

Going Green

Reduce your carbon footprint: Let the dog wash the dishes!

You Know You're a Homeschooler When...

• Your 8yo becomes the resident expert on dogs via library books. Today she told me to check our dog's eyes because he "may be hiding illness."
  
• You find yourself saying to a certain 11yo boy, "Clean your room and I mean it! That means throw stuff out! I refuse to watch you on Hoarders when you grow up."
• It's not odd to see something like this on the kitchen windowsill:

It's a chicken bone floating totally sinking in vinegar, Zach's current science experiment.

A Website Revisited

I've talked about this website before, but it's been a long time so I'm going to bring it up again: Tools to Keep You Active. It's a cool place where you walk, run, or bike (your choice) across America virtually, starting in Virginia and ending in Oregon. It even shows you an exact picture of where in the US you are every time you log in more miles.

Here's where I am right now:

I'm 144.2 miles into the journey, which puts me in Louisa County, Virginia. I'm 13.89 miles from a town called Kents Store.

It's just a little something that makes exercising more fun. It also keeps track of what I've accomplished and on what dates.

Sue

Resolutions for 2010

I thought about making a bunch of resolutions when I saw this lady's cool idea, but then I decided...nah. Just the idea of including some of the things that ran through my mind, like "read 3 books which make me think" or "complete a couch to 5k program" made me tired. So I came up with two resolutions which hardly count anyway because they've been in the works for awhile, and I called it good. They are as follows:

1. Just for fun and a little competition with myself, I want to see how many days in a row I can stay completely on plan in my diet and exercise. This means that, except for major holidays and birthdays, I stay within my WW point range every day and I exercise at least 3 times a week. So far it's January 2 and I've been OP (That's the savvy way to say "On Plan") for 2 days! Woo hoo! (Yesterday was easy, you see, being a holiday.)

2. Ride in the STP.

That's it! Since today is an exercise day I got out my bike and took an 8.5 mile ride. I bundled up in a t-shirt with a fleece jacket over it, biking shorts with exercise pants over them, an ear warming headband thingie under my biking helmet, and gloves. It wasn't bad. In fact, it was almost too warm at points. But then when I got home my lungs felt weird and I coughed for awhile, which I guess is from breathing in cold air. Not sure what to do about that, if anything. I do know one thing: I've lost a ton of ground since last time I rode. That 8.5 miles was HARD.

Mike tried to hook up my new mile counter thingie, but for some reason it doesn't work. I'm bummed. Maybe it'll work on my new bike. Speaking of which, on New Year's Eve our friend Dan, the owner of the bike shop, told me my bike is "in paint." It's being painted!!! I still can't believe I'm getting this custom-made bike. I feel like a total fraud. Everyone on the trail is going to wonder what the heck someone of my ability is doing with such a cool bike. I guess I'll just have to keep telling myself that I'll grow into it.

What about you guys? Any resolutions? And, hey, does anyone want to play the "How many days can I stay OP" game with me?

Sue