Setting the Tone for the Year

Saturday, Sunday and Monday all began with bike rides (see the stats on the Stava app below).  The Monday ride was the least-intense but because it was my 3rd ride in a row -- something I hadn't done since early November -- I was already fatigued. Once I came home, I made a turkey, Comte' cheese & fresh lettuce sandwich and drank a tall glass of water. As I stiffly  made my way upstairs to shower, Chris announced that he was going to take a 3-mile run, since Monday was Day 1 of our 10-week training plan for the San Diego 1/2 Marathon in March.  Briefly did I consider pulling a Scarlett O'Hara, but decided WTHI -- I was already sweaty.

So I swapped my cycling knickers for running knickers, my demure-brimmed cycling cap for a proper ball cap, laced up my shoes and off we went. 3 miles, no problem, right?

Wrong. Painfully, achingly, torturously wrong. It was the most brutal and awful run I've done to date. I hated every step and regretted ever taking the challenge.  But I finished the run, glad to be done with it, pleased that I didn't quit.

Finished the afternoon a hot shower, compression tights, and some wine. Dinner was simple. I'm looking forward to what other challenges the year will present me -- as well as how I'll meet them.

New Year, New Goals, New Musings

So we did this today. Yesterday's ride was more challenging (especially mentally) than expected, and today's ride, ostensibly a "recovery" ride, had its challenges as well. I'm happy to have ended a terrific year and begun a new terrificer year with bike rides.  In amazing weather, no less. (Although I wouldn't mind some rain, please.)

When my kids were little and they wanted me to read them a book I'd read a gazillion times (tell me I'm not the only parent to have memorized Goodnight Moon or Where the Wild Things Are), I'd counter by telling them what I called "Peanut Butter and Jelly Stories."  That was their favorite sandwich, and the stories involved two fictitious kids, Emily and her little brother Timothy, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  The stories were situational:  whatever my kids did, I retold with the sandwich featured somewhere, and a moral or different outcome attached.  For example, if I was taking them to tap & ballet class after school and they got into a spat, I'd use the PB&J story to reflect that, and demonstrate how it might have gone differently.  I don't know that they got that, but they hung onto every word, esp. the adjectives and adverbs. (I'm sure you have no problem imagining flowery speech from me, right?) And it got me out of reading another book that I'd read so many times that I could hardly muster the enthusiasm to re-read. It was also an outlet for my closet author.

Lately I've been thinking it might be a good idea to put those PB&J stories into book form, publish it, and give my kids something to give their kids.  I asked my daughter today if she would sit down with me (she's a writer, a copy editor, a blogger and English, French & CompLit major) and help me recreate them.  I was blown away by her response: "I don't really remember the details, they were largely situational, but I remember I really loved them."  She didn't remember the specifics...but she remembered how they made her feel.  That's huge for an author.  And I'm not one, really.  (Closet-author, yes. Not out yet.) 


I think I'm going to start telling PB&J stories again, and blog them, and link them to where my kids can read them.  Maybe the world needs more PB&J stories...I know kids in the world need more interaction and reflection with their parents. Let's see what happens.