Sunday, March 29, 2009

March in Utah!

I've lived in Utah long enough to know that even if it gets nice and warm in March, spring is by no means here. Sure enough, true to the pattern, it's been cold and snowing most of the week after we enjoyed temps in the 70s last week. I'm ready for spring and short sleeve cycling weather, but my dogs are still thoroughly enjoying the snow, probably in part because i've got the temperature in the house kicked up so that the tomato and chile seeds will germinate. Hannah was just perfectly content to sit outside in the snow all day.

over the hill (or at least celebrating at the top)!!

Ms. KD-Did had a birthday this week. I won't say how old she is, but i will say to symbolically and ceremoniously celebrate a few of us hiked to the "top of the hill" with the birthday girl (i think the only place to go now is over and down).


After a beautiful hike, an amazing sunset, and the pleasure of some guiding mapgies, we made our way to the house of my good anonymous friend for amazing food and more celebrating.


One thing i've learned about KD-Did over the years, is you don't mess with her food. She gets just a tiny bit, shall we say defensive and violent,


but she is good at sharing.


and she's a good dancer.



Happy B-day ms. kd-did!!

Friday, March 27, 2009

my new little friends!!


Tomatoes started to push through this morning. Looks like a lot of the chiles and peppers are close too. I was waiting for a package from one more seed company and it finally came yesterday, so i got all the rest of the chiles and tomatoes planted this morning.


All told, i've got about 30 varieties of tomatoes this year and about 40 different varieties of peppers. i like to share and since caitydid is possibly going to have a garden, Leti is going to garden again, and the brown berets might start a community garden, we'll have lots to go around.

Monday, March 23, 2009

spring break *sigh*

I love spring break. i am deeply saddened when it ends. Spring break ended today. Even though i don't get a complete break because the university and the high school are on different break calendars, it still feels good to have some extra time. I made a list of things i wanted to get done over the break back last week before it started. i just reviewed my list. I didn't do too well. Most of the things on my to do list are still not done, but i did get a few things accomplished, including:

Rode my bike a lot. this was my heaviest week of the year in terms of hours, and i managed to get all the hours in, including rides in some wonderful weather, some brutal headwinds, and a climb to the end of the road.


Got a good start on my helmet-head tan lines.


Started some of my seeds, though i've still got quite a few to plant.


Ate lots of cookies. hard to get down to race weight with this around.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Why i love living in Utah, reason no. 7


I know i've mentioned a few other reasons why i love living in utah in other posts here on the blog. I'm not sure if there are actually six previous reasons, but that number feels good to me, so i'm starting here with reason no. 7: it's beautiful! (this reason can be recycled as many times as i want, by the way). T-dub and i took advantage of the great spring temps and rode over suncrest up Tibble Fork and back this afternoon. Coming down Tibble Fork we caught this great view of the back of Timp.
American Fork canyon is always a great ride, especially during the week when you can avoid the weekend traffic. Today was wonderful, only a handful of cars the whole time.
i was dragging big time today though. T-dub soundly kicked my ass up suncrest. I realized on the way back that although i had a good breakfast, i'd only eaten a handful of nuts and cookies the rest of the day. Darn those girl scouts and their tasty boxes of cookies at every street corner and grocery store.

Monday, March 9, 2009

spoiled!


With temps in the 60s and lots of sun in St. G over the weekend it's a little hard to come back to more snow and chilly weather. I got spoiled a little by the warm spell we had here in SLC last week, then the warm s. utah temps this weekend. Every time i walk outside today i keep thinking, "dang, it's cold."

My legs feel pretty heavy after getting some good miles in over the weekend. I didn't ride much last week because i was busy trying to catch up from being in philly the weekend before and getting ready to head south this last weekend, but made up for it down south. Friday we did the mesquite ride and DC pushed it pretty hard over the climb in both directions.

Sat. we rode to Zion's natl. park and back, then sunday DC and i joined the REVO mtb. crew for the JEM loop.


It was a great break from the road miles on a great course. I was feeling pretty burnt, but DC, who from henceforth and forever will be referred to simply by the initials EFB (the "energizer freakin' bunny"), kept chasing everyone around like we were racing. i don't know where he gets his energy. maybe he puts something special besides barley and hops in that home brew he makes.