Is Christmas over yet?

Well my first two days as a bachelorette have been pretty good, although I definitely miss Chris. Friday night I went to Rachel's for a wine and cheese party and had a lot of delicious stuff. I ended up staying there until after 3 AM talking to Rachel and Laura - that is an epic night for me since I'm usually in bed by 11. It was really nice!

Saturday the weather was unbelievably beautiful - clear, slight breeze, and about 50. So I decided to ride 1 mile for every degree. Well, that was not my intention but I did end up riding 53.5 miles. This was a pretty long ride for me, I haven't done more than about 30 since Sept. It felt nice but I was exhausted the rest of the day!

Today has been nice, as well. I went to church and then Rachel and I made blueberry pancakes - yum! Then I came home and cleaned the kitchen. It was so messy that this took almost 2 hours but I am really happy for it to be clean. I really like sitting at the table in the morning to relax. Oh, one plus of Chris being gone is I can throw things away ... like our dead basil and other flowering plant. Sorry my love! They are now outside, not on the counter shedding dead leaves all over the place.

Anyway, then I went swimming. I was going to do a long run but my legs are tired from the ride. The swim was not easy though, I did 10 100's on an interval that was pretty challenging for me. Now I am even more tired!!

Tonight I had my women's Bible study and it was really nice. We talked about busyness, and the importance of not letting all the clutter of life get in the way of being a good person. Here are a few verses I really like and will try to keep in mind this week - "When God gives anyone wealth and possessions, and enables her to enjoy them, to accept her lot and be happy in her work - this is a gift of God. She seldom reflects on the days of her life, because God keeps her occupied with gladness of heart." (Ecclesiastes 5:20) Nice!

I now have a very exciting task ahead of me, although I should "be happy in my work" and not complain. Time to take down the Christmas tree! Ugh.

Thanks for reading and I hope this week you are occupied with gladness of heart!

Some Like it Hot

Chris is leaving for Nigeria tomorrow!! I can't believe he is going to Africa! Well I am really excited for him. It will be kind of sad for him to be gone. I will try not to mope too much. Instead, I should use the extra time as a gift - get some work done and focus on my base training.

Last night I decided to make him some cookies to take for the journey. They will be traveling for more than a day, and I figured it would be a nice treat for him and the rest of the group. Well, maybe I went a little overboard with the cookies. I baked from about 8:00 until after midnight (including an emergency trip to King Soopers for more flour, sugar, and butter). We probably have more than 150 cookies now. So let me know if you want some. :)

I went to a yoga class this morning with my friend Nick, from the cycling team. I woke up at 5:20 ... yikes!! But the class was really good. It was a 'hot' yoga class, meaning they have the heat on in the room. I sweat like crazy! I have never sweat so much while basically standing still (although I admit I was standing in several awkward positions) - not even in Georgia! I will probably go some more because this place has free 6 AM yoga classes until March something. It is called Core Power Yoga if you live in town and want to check it out.

Today will be a busy day. I rode my bike to work and it wasn't too bad even though it was only about 12 degrees. I am about to get started on work. At 11:00 some of my friends/fellow caffeine addicts are coming by my office for a coffee break (of course we will be eating cookies!). Then at 2:00 Mollie and I are going for a run. Then I need to work some more, and then hang out with Chris one last night. Don't go Chris!! Just kidding ... I'm sure the cats will keep me company and then I can truly be a crazy cat lady.

Thanks for reading and have a great day! :)

PS I just thought of two other things ...
1. I love it when random people stop by to read this - thanks for your comments Jon and good luck with the Half-Ironman!!
2. I just saw the date and remembered my Dad's birthday is today. He passed away 4 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!), and I still miss him, but today is a good day to celebrate his life. So - happy birthday Dad!

I admit it, I have fantasies about a bike

I am now back in Colorado and killing time. I've been at work since 9:00 but all I've accomplished is cleaning and organizing my desk. That is about 30 minutes worth of real work. I usually try not to blog at work, but there were about 4 other cars in the parking lot this morning and so I am feeling uninspired to work, since apparently every one else in the department is slacking. It is MLK day and snowing - both good reasons to stay home. Oh well, I am a nerd, big surprise.

I had a good weekend that included lots of sleeping in. I used to not be able to sleep late but recently have had no problem staying in bed past 10 on the weekends. It's pretty amazing, really. :) Yesterday, Chris and the other people he will be going to Nigeria with got a blessing at church. It was nice ... I can't believe he is leaving on Friday! He will be spending 10 days at the Faith Alive AIDS clinic in Jos, Nigeria - it is a free, Christian-based clinic that serves anyone. It is pretty amazing what they do, and I am excited for Chris to experience it first-hand. He will be making a fundraising video for the clinic, I'm sure it will be an emotional and eye-opening time for him. I will be a little sad for him to be gone for 2 weeks, but I'm trying to focus more on the fact that I can get a lot of work done while he's gone (oh, joy).

We went on a bike ride in the afternoon that started out really nice - it was about 36 and sunny and felt really good. But about half-way through, some clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped about 8-10 degrees .... brrr!!!! I generally try not to ride my road bike when it is below 30 and for good reason! I can commute when it's in the teens but I am moving considerably slower then. :)

I am very happy with my decision to do triathlons this year. It is much less stress because I don't need to be riding 200 miles a week. If I have a long ride planned and the weather is crappy, I can just switch things up and do a run or a swim instead. It is wonderful! I have found 4 races that I think I want to do - 1 sprint, 1 XTerra (off-road!), and 2 Olympics. That would be my biggest year of triathlons yet, but I am pretty excited about it. I am thinking of getting a wetsuit, too. In Georgia wearing a wetsuit would suck, but here it makes sense - both for the warmth and the extra buoyancy. I went to Peleton, the bike shop I used to work for, on Saturday to look at theirs and Trent, the owner, said he'd sell me one of the basic ones at cost, which is really cool of him. So I will probably do that because it is a good deal and will last me for several years. And it will make me faster! :) Oh yeah, Peleton also has the sexiest bike I have ever seen - the top of the line Specialized time trial bike. It is amazing - even the brakes are aero!! I want one!! Unfortunately, it is uber-expensive. I didn't even bother asking how much but it is $5500 at cost. Crazy!! Well, in my dreams I can ride it and no one will ever be able to keep up with me! Haha.

OK ... now I am going to work! I need to check out my data from my current model run. This is going to be great! ... yeah, right ... ok time to work for real!

Bye, thanks for reading!

Thoughts from L.A.

You know you're a blog freak when ... you have more than one blog. Yes, I just started a new blog. This one you are reading now is my personal blog, but I decided to start one that is related to environmental stewardship and helping people, I guess you could say. I won't say much about it but here is the website: http://outwardthought.blogspot.com. That is a temporary site, I might change the url at some point.

I am in Los Angeles right now for a conference with CMMAP. It has been really nice, especially since it is in the 70's (vs. about 10 in Colorado). I am ready for summer! Well, the biggest thing about the conference is that I gave a talk along with Rachel and Tak (a PhD student). It was called, "What the heck are low cloud feedbacks?" and went pretty well. I was very nervous about it.

Well this posting sucks because I think I am going to go to sleep. I am really tired, it just hit me. It is after midnight and I have been up since before 7:00 - second day in a row of that. But you can read my first post on the other blog if you are needing something to read! Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. Then I get to go back home to Chris, which is good because he leaves next week for a 2-week trip to Nigeria.

Goodnight, thanks for reading! :)