Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Challenge Update

What a week!! I did just over 75 miles for the challenge. It is now been over a week and a half since I drove my car, kind of weird. My legs are tired so we took it easy yesterday and stayed home. I was able to get a bunch of weeding done and we may just do the same today. It has been pretty warm so I would rather stay home and play in the pool than drag a 60 pound sled in almost 90 degree heat. I'm going to continue to ride the bike while the weather is still nice.

My son starts school in two weeks so it is time for me to get a job. I think my mother-in-law is going to be able to get me a job working from home, which would be fantastic. If this goes through I think I may try and commute my son to school one way each day. A good 14 mile bike ride every day will be good for getting rid of the beer gut that has grown since we arrived here in Oregon.

I should be picking the first tomatoes today which is very exciting, although it is pretty late in the season already. I think I may make some bruschetta tonight for dinner. It looks like I will have a bunch of tomatoes all ready at the same time which should be good because I am ready to start canning. I am going to see if we can go pick some blackberries tonight so I can make some jam. We still have enough strawberry jam from the batch I made in March to get us through until next year, but I would like the ability to have some variety. I'm also thinking of making some blackberry syrup to have for pancakes. Since blackberries grow like weeds here I am going to try and put up quite a bit of fruit. I know it sounds crazy that I made jam in March, but please remember that most things grow year round in California.

I'm off to go pick weeds, have a wonderful day.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Bike Challenge

I've been experiencing some pain in my left knee for quite awhile now and I finally went to the Dr. two weeks ago. The Dr. was very laid back and couldn't really tell me what was wrong. He said he wanted to send me to physical therapy to have them really beat my knee up so we could pinpoint the problem. The problem with this approach was that my knee was already causing me pain and interrupting my sleep so the last thing I wanted to do was have someone cause me more pain. I had already scheduled an appointment with a different Dr., but they couldn't see me for a week so I had also made this appointment. After the first visit I decided to keep the second appointment and get another opinion. This orthopedic office was amazing. You can tell that there are quite a bit of sports injuries in this town with how big and busy the place was. I'm really glad I kept that appointment. Before I even saw the Dr. they took me in for X-Rays so that could instantly rule some things out. Basically I have runner's knee, the Dr. took out 15cc's of fluid and gave me a cortisone shot.

It took a few days for the cortisone to kick in, but now that it has I decided it was time to start the bike challenge. We went camping over the weekend and took a 6 mile ride to the lake for a picinic lunch. After driving home from camping on Sunday I have not gotten into a car. We decided to get Pizza for dinner on sunday and I rode my bike to the pizza shop a mile away to pick it up instead of having it delivered. On Monday my son and I took the bike over to Fred Meyer to pick up a few essentials. This was my first trip on the bike trail through town and it was quite nice. The ride ended up being just under 9 miles and even though I was pulling a close to 70 pound trailer behind me, it didn't seem that bad. Tuesday was Donut day. I had been promising my son to take him to Voodoo Donut's in downtown on the bike. I invited one of the neighbors and her daughter with us and we made it a morning of donuts and farmer's market. The trip was just over 14 miles and I was ready for a nap when we got home.

I picked up some plums at the farmer's market that were so good I have asked my husband to ride with me on Saturday morning to go get some more.

So far I am at 25 miles since Sunday. With the 14 mile ride on Saturday to the market and a possible 12 mile ride to the fair on Sunday I should top out at over 50 miles for the week which is pretty good considering I am pulling a 50 pound sled behind me without adding anything else that we may purchase.

I think that I will continue this challenge past the end of this week. I have found that it is not that difficult to get to downtown or anywhere else that we usually go. The downside is the weight and storage capacity of the trailer. I think that once a week I will use the car to get the heavy items at the store, but will save the light items for trips during the week. My son enjoys going on rides and they help us get out of the house for awhile to enjoy the beautiful days that we are having. I can feel fall in the air and now that it won't be long before the rains begin so we need to enjoy it while we can.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Check These Out



I just picked these to have with our salad tonight. I have only ever grown really stubby carrots so I am beyond excited about these. These grew in the small holes of the cinder blocks so they had about two feet of nice soft soil for growing, I guess that makes a difference. These measured out at 15 inches. I can't wait to see how big the rest of them have gotten.

Challenge


With my current role as a stay at home mom I don't feel challenged. I love being at home, but I feel that something is missing.

We live in a very friendly bike town. We have trails within a minute from our house that will take us throughout the city. My son loves to ride his bike, but he is slow and can't ride far distances. I have been looking into different options that would allow us to ride bikes as a family farther than the mile or so that we go now. My first thought was to get one of the trail-a-bikes that hook up to the back of my bike. This would require Ethan to peddle and I know that after awhile he would hate getting on it. The next option was to get a bike trailer. Burley trailers are made here in Eugene and I have heard are the best one's to get,unfortunately they are very expensive. I have been looking on craigslist and eBay and used ones are well over $200.

Yesterday I decided to call play it again sports to see if they had any used one's in stock. They said they had one that was $100 and I had them put it on hold. I should have known it was too good to be true. This trailer was well over 10 years old and had mildew spots all of the fabric. If I was just using this to transport items it wouldn't be such a big deal, but I was not putting my son in that thing.

I did what I should have done months ago, I bought this.



I went out and bought the low end model for $250. The main difference between this one and the next step up was the handlebar to make it a stroller. We had the BOB stroller, the Cadillac of strollers and our son wouldn't sit it in past 2 so we do not need this option. I didn't want to buy a new one before because with my son being four he will probably only sit in this for another year. After spending months trying to get a used one for $200 it just didn't make sense to wait for a used one when I only had to spend a little more for a brand new one with no other kids boogers on it. Also, the market for these is so high that we should be able to recoup a good portion of the cost if we decide to sell it.

So now for the challenge. I have decided that next week I will not drive my car. Everywhere that I need to go will have to be done with the bike and trailer. I would like to do this challenge for a longer period of time, but first I want to test the waters and see if this is something that I could actually do full time. I will only ride in a car if we are going on a family outing and I can't get my husband to take his bike. I will keep track of the miles traveled each day and the errands that we run and whether the trip is feasible on a bike. I know that I won't be able to do a full grocery trip, but the garden is producing so we shouldn't need much anyways.

Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Back to Reality

I try to get together with my college girlfriends at least once a year. Since they live on the East Coast the get together usually involves me having to fly across the Country to see them. Our friend Erica was the last one to turn thirty in the group so we decided a girl's trip to Las Vegas was in order. Since the trip was planned for the day after my mother-in-laws birthday I decided that we needed to fly in early to surprise her for her birthday. It is very hard to keep secrets from this woman and all she did for two weeks was complain about the fact that her husband would not let her fly up to Oregon for her birthday. Let's just say she was very excited to see us in her house when she arrived home from running errands. Our son stayed with my parents while I was in Las Vegas and my in-laws decided to keep him for an extra week and will be bringing him back next weekend. It is very weird being in the house without him. I have started a huge to do list so that I can try and be as productive as possible with our free time.

The garden doesn't need that much attention at the moment. The three tomato plants have a ton of fruit, but everything is still green. The last of the onions are falling over so I will pull those out and get a planting of lettuce and carrots for the fall in their place. It looks like the raspberries we planted this year are going to have a small fall crop, we are very excited about the prospects of a few raspberries for the ice cream bowl. There are three pumpkins on the vine and the melons are just now starting to flower since the weather has finally warmed up.

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks there will be enough ripe tomatoes so I can start canning some sauce. This may sound crazy to most of you, but I don't really enjoy a plain tomato. I really only eat fresh tomatoes in bruschetta and salsa. We make homemade pizza quite often and I always find that I open a jar of sauce, use about a cup and then the rest just sits in the back of the fridge until it is bad. I am going to can the sauce in half pint jars so that we always have the perfect amount without any waste.

I better get started on my list. Today is supposed to be a beautiful day and if I work fast enough I can enjoy some time floating in the pool this afternoon.