Do those last three words in the title make you cringe the same way they do me? I have to poke fun at my life right now. It’s just the only choice I can make.

I am seriously grateful for so many things, from not currently living in a war zone to more small things than I count on a daily basis. So much of gratitude is wrapped up in expectation, and “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” right?

The project has been a long shot from the beginning and we’ve had some setbacks on top of that, a big rash of them lately. I don’t really know if what I’m about to do is just vent, or if there’s some value to others in sharing this. People struggle, and they aren’t alone, but sometimes they feel like they are.

In the last paragraph of my last post I listed several things from Covid to a burst pipe that hit us in the last six weeks of the year. I didn’t mention everything there. My uncle died. He had just agreed to go to assisted living, then fell in the bathroom. A friend and a family member each lost houses in different fires. There’s more.

We’ve taken some financial hits. The pressure for me to get a job instead of pursuing this project is real, and getting more so every day. Toyota wants $5K for repairs (no, the Highlander doesn’t have half the miles it’s supposed to sail through). All of my big ticket purchases in recent years were “unlucky” models. I don’t buy first year models, still these brands with the super reliable reputations let me down. How big a deal these replacements are is entirely dependent on whether one has a generous financial buffer or plenty of disposable income. I’m completely average in that respect… These last few years took my buffer. Choosing the “unfortunate” year/models of Toyota, MacBook Pro, Galaxy 21 plus, and Nikon stings. Getting the wrong DSLR camera was the least problematic and totally on me, but being 4 for 4 on a tight budget really stinks.

The Thing That Brought me to my Knees Wasn’t Any of That

Coping has a lot to do with expectations. If I was in a war zone, my coping mechanisms would shift into survival mode and positive expectations would disappear. How heavy things feel has so much to do with the status quo or what a person thought would happen. Sometimes it isn’t even that an event couldn’t have been predicted, but that a dreaded place in life has arrived.

Mom hasn’t kept “regular” wakeful daytime hours in decades and often stays up all night. My sister shares her driveway, so she’s right there, but Mom doesn’t always have good mobility or carry her cellphone. She decided to change the AC filter after everyone went to bed and sat on a low seat to do it. The knee bend required to get up was too acute and there were no arm holds. She couldn’t get up, so, she got on the floor and made her way over to her recliner instead, then got tired of trying to get in it, grabbed a pillow and a throw and slept on the floor. In the morning, she was rested enough to make her way over to her cellphone and call for help.

Mom didn’t seem to feel bad about it. She’s told everyone. We all felt terrible for her though. She was stiff after and had a few rough days. I remind her sometimes that she can come up here when she needs assisted living. She doesn’t want to come to Atlanta though, and she doesn’t “get” me. Mom says we shouldn’t talk about the things we disagree on, but you know how that goes. If I can get her talking about when she was young, our daily conversation can be pretty nice, and some times she tells stories I haven’t heard.

Mom was recuperating from her night on the floor during our short, late holiday visit. I thought we’d all spend time telling our favorite stories about my uncle who just died (and there are so many stories to tell about the biggest character in our family). But, we actually spent most of the time catching up on undone preparations for the gathering. There were so many needs and wants flying around it was more like like whiplash than a party. It had been that way the year before too. I wanted to think everything was going well. It was so hard to make it happen. I went home thinking that changing the date had secured a treasured family gathering, and by the time all was said and done, I was wondering if it would ever come together again. I still do. The car ride back was quiet. Even our granddaughter was quiet.

Russ and I had words on New Year’s Eve. I think we each needed extra tenderness from each other and were both too frazzled to give it. That night I cried after everyone was asleep. It was intense. I’ve talked a couple of times about crying on this site, and I’m not really embarrassed about that. If you need to cry, cry. Not at work, do it at home. It’s healthier than a lot of other coping mechanisms.

I may not be embarrassed about needing to cry, but, it’s uncomfortable to be with someone in pain when you can’t do anything for them. I didn’t want anyone to have to listen to me. I don’t know that I’ve ever cried like I did that night. When there’s someone in every corner of the house it’s hard to find privacy, but the dam needed to burst.

I’ve been meditating a lot and concentrating on breathing, so that had it’s influence. I was trying to inhale through my swollen nose to force the passages open and reduce the chances that I’d get a sore throat, Then I wailed, first into my hands, then into a pillow when my hands weren’t enough to muffle the sound. I don’t know how long I cried, but it was a long time. I failed at keeping it to myself. The next day, Russ said he couldn’t tell what was happening and it scared him. After all that, on New Year’s Day I felt physically exhausted and terrible… and I felt the need to cry again, as if it had been years since I’d had a cry. I didn’t though, and haven’t since.

So much has been piling up. I still haven’t put all of the woe causing events out here for public consumption. Of those things I’ve shared, I’m sure anyone going through any of it can fill in details at least as taxing as my own.

I’m having trouble treading water, much less getting where I want to go. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next year, whether I’ll have a successful high activity project I believe in, one that actually does make a difference to people, or a job that keeps me from getting even a healthy level of exercise. The stuff we’ve had to deal with swirling around with all our unknowns may be the problem that sent me over the edge, but, it was my mother I was thinking about through all the tears. Parents are the people who taught us about the world. They are the giants through whose eyes we learned to see. They give us more than genes.

And Then…

Russ called on the way home from work Wednesday. He asked me how I was doing. I said I was feeling a little bit rattled. He said he was going to rattle me a little bit more because he was going to have plenty of time to work on the project, he was now unemployed.

Keep on Truckin’. Have a glorious day, and I hope we’ll see you on the trail.

When people take a big chance, succeed and talk about it later, they’ll often call it a leap of faith. When people fail they’re more apt to describe it as following fellow lemmings off the edge of a cliff.

I recently saw a quote attributed to Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Stardust, American Gods). It said something about having two choices: to make art, or not to. If you chose not to you might miss the opportunity to make a difference to someone. I’m all over that point of view. Making a difference is the point of doing the video project. It’s the point of life. Finding my way to make a difference to someone is makes anything worthwhile.

I like the quote and it sounds like Gaiman, but I still tried to confirm that it was, in fact, his, because, you know. You can’t trust a meme, and while it’s a great thought, misquoting someone is still spreading things that aren’t true. I wasn’t able to confirm the quote in the amount of time I was willing to put to it, but I did find this commencement speech where Gaiman gives other great advice with adorable impishness.

Some of the things he said made old feelings of missing out resurface. Not in the sense that we’re the same age and he’s so accomplished, both in art and in having comfortable means. Comparing yourself to some of the most successful people in the world is a time tested recipe for unhappiness. But, still, even without using him as my measuring stick, I did feel a sense of non-accomplishment that was mostly career related and completely about where some of my own choices led.

I’ve had a good enough life so far, and caught a lot of serendipitous wonder. Not much of that led to a coherent career or much income, though. I never had the chutzpah to fake it till I made it the way Gaiman did. I married the fall after graduating high school. My priorities always led me to choose family or the road less traveled, and while money can get you the opportunity to do some things, it’s the actual doing of things that I find so much more compelling.

My only real regrets come when I’m trying to figure out what I should be doing financially to prepare for those “golden years” that are closing in so fast that I’m looking at some of them in the rear view mirror. I’m willing to buy into the theory that if you do what you love the money will come, but when people advise that, they’re not talking about being a stay at home parent, which I did a lot of, or a care giving grandparent, which I’m doing a lot of now. So far, I haven’t focused enough on money to see that my life or aspirations are appropriately funded. Choosing not to budget income for myself in the video project I want to do next indicates a failure to learn in that respect. I’ve thought so many times about budgeting a salary for myself, but, due to time, equipment and the nights away from home that keep the project low impact, I’m really nervous about how expensive the project is without it. Yet, if the project is worthy, it seems I should be able to support myself while doing it.

Deciding whether or not to do art is the question that sent me on the search that brought me to a commencement speech that danced so beautifully around all the issues currently at play in my life. I’m not a young new graduate like those in the audience, though. and, there will be creative aspects, but I don’t know that you would call my main video project “art”. Still, I face so many of the same issues. How do you pursue the project that could make a difference and still make a living? My biggest difference from that audience is that I have less time to recover from mistakes that hurt my financial wellbeing.

The decision to do/be or not to do/be is easier if you didn’t make that family starting decision first. Eating Saltines (or nothing) till payday is so survivable if you’re only subjecting yourself to it. Asking children to do without so that you can chase a dream is different. It’s not that I didn’t realize that, but growing up in the rural south before so many of the glass ceilings were shattered, I just fell into what my mother did, marry young and start a family. When I could take chances with the abandon of youth, I took someone’s hand instead. That didn’t work out so well for me as it did for my mother. I keep finding myself at the center of a plot that nearly comes together and makes sense, then falls apart again. I get frustrated when a mini-series does that. Imagine how I feel with it being my life instead?

Neil’s obvious advice is to make the art, to do the thing, to be. That’s what I what I want, to make a difference to as many someones as I can, however I can.

I’m willing to admit that maybe it’s something else that I’m supposed to be doing. I hope it’s the Silver Comet/Chief Ladiga project because I believe in it. What ever it turns out to be though, I hope I find which something I need to be doing soon. It’s not just the challenges of the moment, the rounds with Covid and other illnesses, the burst water pipe, the series of computer failures, the newly discovered thousands I’m about to spend on my car, the unfinished renovation on our fixer upper house, the dilemma about what to do with the Etsy Store, the job and family stresses, or the effort to keep up with training. It’s the limbo that’s killing me.

Ah, Covid, for some of us, the never ending story goes on. It’s been in the house yet again. This time it got everyone but me, and we’re not far enough along for me to declare myself free and clear. In truth, I could be one of those people who just didn’t test positive. I’ve certainly had more than my share of upper respiratory ills this season. Just no lower respiratory symptoms so far, and no positive tests.

I’ve been washing my hands like I do the dishes in a house filled with super spreaders. That’s because I am the primary dishwasher, and the one in kindergarten, like most kindergartener’s, observes no personal boundaries, and she’s regularly in two different households with pretty different rules.

The high schooler goes to school with 2000 students, and many of them are anti-vax, anti-mask, anti even wash your hands. Then there’s everyone else in the house, they have constant high traffic public exposure through work. I knew the pandemic wasn’t really over. Russ and I got every vaccination and are among those rare birds who are still masking indoors in public, but here we go again anyway. I’ve said that Covid was back in the house recently, but that was when it was just one of us and now I’m saying it again for all but one of the rest of us.

I wash so much, I use moisturizer with pharmacy grade lanolin levels. I’ve used it for decades, ever since I went to a dermatologist for the cracked red hands, but I’ve been using so much more lately. I’ve learned to keep my hands off my face better during the pandemic too, but I’ve had so much sickness in spite of following the rules.

It’s not possible to get too many hugs from your granddaughter, but all those other illness that were suppressed during the height of the pandemic are roaring back, especially through the schools and even more especially in kindergarten. That’s the likely explanation for being so careful, and still getting so sick so often. I wouldn’t give up a single minute with either of my grandchildren…well, okay, they’re not always peachy perfect. But, being there for those times is important too.

Other than hyper-vigilance, I don’t have an explanation for being the only one who didn’t get it (yet), except, well, I did take off to the beach when it became obvious that the only purpose my staying could serve was to infect me. It’s so much harder to isolate if you are normally the care giver/chief cook and bottle washer. The only way to be separate is to leave, and the beach is not that much farther away than alternative locations.

Before that sounds too cushy, we’re not talking beach umbrellas and salt rimmed glasses and the balmy temps further south. We’re talking driving to close beaches and through the National Wildlife Refuge, walking a little on nearly empty beaches, having strangers give you grief for wearing a mask, eating mostly frozen meals in the hotel room and dreaming of one day having frequent access to gulf or ocean blue spaces again. If you stay in a hotel away from the high traffic areas, it’s way less expensive to take off than to stay home and go to the doctor, or potentially the hospital, and way more appealing. In fact, nearly empty beaches, that’s my happy spot.

Russ has some underlying stuff and a lot of trepidation about getting Covid. I wasn’t leaving if it wasn’t ok with him, but he had all his vaccinations, seemed ok and we were keeping in contact. He had instructions to call me back if things escalated. I was confident that I would be able to tell, (or someone else would tell me if he needed me, even if he never did), Everyone else was either vaccinated at least once, on their second go with Covid or both. So, what I really expected was for Russ to tell me if anyone else needed me and someone else to tell me if Russ needed me.

The beach was pretty nice, I headed for the “forgotten” Florida, but was dragging with the upper respiratory junk that I still did have, and pretty stressed too. There were plenty of bike trails, and conceptually I wished I had brought my bike, but realistically, I didn’t have any business using it. There are times when I can ride things off or burn them out. This wasn’t one. I didn’t really even have much of a walk down the beach in me until the last day.

I had gone a recent second round with the scary antibiotics, the ones that have “aortic rupture” as a side effect that is more likely in patients over 60 and also in patients who are exercising. I didn’t ride again until I’d been back home for almost 3 days and now we have drizzling all day rain with sub 50 degree temps. I did just buy some wet weather gear, but not a complete set, and I’m not trying it out on the heels of a stressful illness.

For all of us, we took a few days to take a breath and some naps. We all needed that before the Covid, and certainly needed it once it made the rounds again. So, we took it seriously and took the moment. As such, there’s been little to no progress in the project department. As much as that hurts and as badly as I want to be in ramp up mode, we won’t make it a success if we are as exhausted as we have been recently when we start the campaign.

So we’ll just do our best and keep putting one foot in front of the other. We’ll catch our balance. The last person to get sick still has positive tests. It will be at least a week before we know if I get to avoid this round of Covid for sure. I’m cautiously optimistic.

So, until then, I hope you have a glorious day, and hopefully in another day or two I’ll be back out on the trail.

It’s been a busy two weeks since our last update, and there will be a lot more that will have o wait for some future update.

It’s really looking like we need a fund raiser to fund the kickstarter campaign. Every new fluke in the list of of unfortunate events feels like another hard blow. My tech guy was going to turn the MacBookPro into a desktop because it was a springy connection between the guts and the screen that topped working. He had a screen for me and it was going to make a good machine for anytime I was in my office or on my stationary recumbent. That is, until I knocked a can of carbonated water on to the laptop, not a nearly empty one either. It bubbled and bounced just like a commercial for a refreshing beverage.

Every project that gets funded, and some that don’t require heavy doses of tenacity. Because there is a big physical component to this project, I expected to hit walls, more than one, and still keep going. I didn’t expect to hit so many on the way to submission.

It was always going to be a big financial/job risk for Russ if we got top level funding because that would require a leave of absence. Until the delays, I perceived the employment risk to be worth the trade off for me. While it’s time for me to be employed again, I’ve been out of work for several years, and I figured under the category of “Yeah, but what have you done lately?” running a successful Kickstarter would look a lot better than “I’ve been on family leave…I had some gigs…family leave…pandemic…”

I still do, but it’s getting harder to justify this determination I have to make this happen and work. At times like these I’m really glad that I’ve said nothing to most friends and family about the project. Their doubt is so much harder to deal with than my own. The downside is that we don’t have the big following that pushes projects, so we need advertising, but it seems that advertising, even for this, has some pretty stiff margins.

In other words, getting seen, even in forums that are supposed to kickstart little guys requires the deep pockets of big guys. One of the favorite lines of advertisers is “You have to spend money to make money” But, there’s no guarantee that if you spend it, you’re going to make it, and these walls we’ve hit with the project, the seed money, the Etsy store and the personal life have really taken a toll, as well as increased the risk of continuing to put more time, energy, love and resources on the table. There are some new recently published tools to help beginners like me. I’ll study them soon, but at first glance I didn’t see anything I wasn’t already aware of.

So there’s a plan. Look at the tools, finish the submission and have a giant stock reduction sale. I think I can be ready for the sale on Dec1. In the mean time, it is still a very busy time right now, so, Have a Glorious Day, and we’ll see you on the trail.

I’ve been using a particular meditation lately. I learned it watching this Ted Talk, but when I did a random search to get the words right, I saw so many similar versions of it, even some different names for it. The Ted Talk is deep, personal and funny though. It also has other insights, so it’s a really good place to start.

The meditation is “May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you live with ease”. You close your eyes and start the meditation thinking of someone easy to wish well. That’s usually Russ for me, but it is easy to wish well for everyone close to me, so it could be anyone I care about personally. Then you say this on your own behalf and move on to a mentor or someone who’s helped you, followed by a neutral person. You choose a neutral person because they often get left out. Next, do a difficult person.

For me the difficult person is almost always the same (that relationship I’d end if I could). At first I would occasionally sprinkle in some other runners up, but I was pretty quickly able to get them off my difficult person list (for this purpose anyway) because they are also people I care about deeply and they can move into other categories most days. After wishing all these specific people well you say the meditation for all beings everywhere.

I have been doing this methodically as part of my bedtime routine, part of my drive or part of my ride for a few weeks (some people close their eyes, but, I obviously don’t always do that). The meditation is making my life better, helping me to feel less stress and separation and helping me with some of the things that happen day to day.

Sometimes the Challenging People are Strangers

At least a year ago I met a man at a trailhead. The entire parking lot was empty except for me. He drove up and parked badly (crooked) right beside me, then took his folding bike off it’s bike rack in a way that caused me to have to wait on him to continue my own ride prep. He’s an older man who may well have reasons for putting a fold up bike on a rack, but I wasn’t thinking charitably about his logic or his process at the time.

He was wearing a big red, white and blue straw cowboy hat. At first glance it looks like a single truly unique hat, but it’s not. There is a rear facing ball cap on top of the cowboy hat with a message I don’t understand and can’t remember long enough to look up. He also wears a front facing ball cap on top of that with a conspiracy theory printed on it, one that has been proven false by valid non-partisan sources, but it’s a very popular belief among some very angry highly politicized people. It’s a particularly offensive, dangerous and completely demoralizing conspiracy theory.

I don’t really know how his push me pull you bill caps both show fronts in each direction while resting on the crown of the same cowboy hat. Maybe they’re actually sewn together in the middle so that neither has a back, or maybe the second message is actually embroidered on the back of a single cap and there is no bill pointing backward. Whatever is going on with this one of a kind headwear, it’s undeniable that he’d be better off with a helmet, one void of fringe political commentary.

While I was waiting for this man to get out of my way so I could finish getting my own bike ready he was looking at me as if to say “I just dare you to say something to me!” No one who’s thinking ever says anything to the angry person pushing an agenda about their lack of courtesy. You don’t know how they will react and the chances that it will be regrettable are high. I wanted to avoid a confrontation and get on with my ride at least as badly as he seemed to want one. He rode off in one direction, and I was happy to intentionally go the other way.

I see him often now, so often that I think he may ride pretty much every day. He’s always sitting straight and tall on the fold up bike wearing the ironic cowboy bill cap hat stack and sometimes a cowboy shirt too. He’s recognizable from quite a distance because of the hat and the posture. He now greats everyone on the trail and wishes them a good day. The first time he did so, it was such a stark difference to our original meeting that I didn’t even respond before it was too late. In fact, it took me a few passes to start responding in kind and when I did, my enthusiasm was less exuberant than his.

It’s hard for me to understand how people can believe the message on his hat. Process wise, I understand how people who believe what he believes came to it, but, the process doesn’t lead to observable truth. Factually, the belief isn’t true. It’s far from the patriotism his red, white and blue intends to convey. It’s damaging to the truth, to democracy, to the country and to the people in it, both those that do and those that don’t believe his assertion.

Now that his demeanor and attitude are so markedly different from that first encounter, seeing him is still unpleasant. One day I thought he had ditched the messages and was just wearing the straw hat. I felt a little dread lift, only to realize that the hat was just older now and the writing didn’t have enough contrast to jump out at a distance.

Yesterday, I saw him both coming and going and responded in kind both ways. I was thinking about how I didn’t look forward to seeing him or his message and how distinctive he was, so you knew it was him from a distance, which gave you more time to think about it if you didn’t discipline your thoughts.

Then it suddenly popped into my head. “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease”. It helped. Once I thought those words for him I knew that the next time I saw him it would be easier. I could meet his greeting and return it with more enthusiasm than before. Wishing him well sincerely made me feel better.

It won’t change the deep chasm between us in any real sense unless so many other big things also change, but it took some weight off of me, and that is something I can handle a lot more of.

The meditation is even helping with that one very difficult person who is stands nearly alone at the precipice of my difficult person list. That person is going to be painfully present for many years to come, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. So, focusing on this, choosing an action to help me deal with it better, that is the one thing that I can do make real change in my life.

I highly recommend this meditation. One name for it is “Loving Kindness Meditation”. The touchy feely name makes some people dismiss it before they try it. It is also called the “Empathy Meditation.” If you need some rational self-interested thought to get you to it, happy, healthy, safe people who are living with ease are not so vulnerable to outlandish conspiracy theories. They aren’t acting on the pain and fear that drives so much of what ails the world and they are less likely to dare you to act in ways that would bring things to a place you really don’t want to be. I don’t know if it works when you’re thinking in a circular self-interested way, maybe for some people, that’s the only way it works.

How ever you come to it, what ever your thoughts are, it’s worth a try.

Have a glorious day, and be happy, healthy, and safe with ease.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Trippin’ is such a good title for this segment because every week is always such a trip, fortunately, or not, in so many ways.

Health Challenges

Covid came and went in our house, yet again, and once again, thankfully, it left the sick recovered and me and Russ untouched.

Computer Issues

Computer issues remain. On advice, I bought a second hand replacement, went with Lenovo because the lack of support for the manufacturer defect in my MacBook Pro left me unexcited about giving them more high end dollars, especially for a new model year laptop. I don’t like to buy new model year cars either. It’s not just that I’m feeling the sting of a design idea that wasn’t durable, high end dollars are also in short supply.

The Lenovo hasn’t solved the problem. The price was really good. but It was wiped, and it wasn’t evident that the computer needed a new battery. Even with replacement batteries, the replacement will fit inside a reasonable price for the machine, but the batteries are on a slow boat from China and I expect to still be using the loaner for at least 6 weeks.

The loaner had issues too. My tech guy waved his magic re-install and made that go away, but I’m sure every reader knows how Dead in the Water it feels to be in deadline mode and waiting on one laptop problem after another to resolve. I have better access to my files now and will be putting pictures in posts again.

We’re slowly but surely moving back into a place where we’re ready to take off should the project fund, considering all of the above, that feels like a big achievement. I’m thankful that I haven’t logged the hours we’ve put in up to this point. There have been personal rewards in getting out there with a goal. I’m going to say that it has been worth it no matter what happens, but it might be harder to stick to that outlook if I had logged our time and resources spent. I suspect it would be overwhelming to know.

I don’t expect to deal with many of the kinds of equipment failures and challenges we’ve had, especially recently, once started. We’ll have worked out the problems in out personal equipment and the project equipment is actually designed to be used the way we plan to use it.

The Rides

There’s been glorious fall color these past two weeks, but not as much photography as we will make sure to get when the project is running for realz. Saturday we had everything charged, but forgot the go bag with it all inside. We were late getting out and didn’t go back for it. We won’t

Halloween always seems to be a day when I get a “best ride of the season” kind of a ride in. I can remember way back, some years I know it was Halloween when I had that ride because I barely got back in time to hand out candy. This Halloween didn’t disappoint, the color was on fire. I expected rain to have knocked out a lot more foliage than it had. I didn’t take a lot of pictures. The one downer was more rain than I expected. I cut the ride shorter than standard.

One thing there has been a lot of the season is suspended leaves. Fall leaves hanging on a spider web used to be rarity. I remember the first time I got a shot like that with my camera,I was in Japan, but you wouldn’t be able to tell just looking. I was in a deciduous forest and the leaf was a Maple. There as nothing to differential it from a Georgia forest in the photo.

Now with the Joro invasion and their extra strong web silk, these kinds of shots are easy to find. It wasn’t the shot I was going for, but I got a great one of my granddaughter’s face when she realized why the leaf was suspended in front of her! Strands of web will be there for days or weeks and accumulate a string of leaves instead of the odd and fleeting singleton. Hope you enjoy the pictures, they will get better as we go along.

Have a Glorious Day and we’ll see you on the trail!

Back in the Sadldle Soon

The big scary antibiotics did their work. I laid off the exercise while I was on them because any risk of aortic aneurism that I can avoid is too much. I got my new Covid Vaccine and the Flu shot 24 hours after the last dose of meds. There was no recommendation to wait till I was done with the meds, but I figured there’s a strong likelihood that the vaxes would side effects. I’ve had them with the other shots. If I feel rotten, it will make it easier to stay off the bike for another day or two and give the meds plenty of time to be definitely out of my system.

Ramping it Up

It’s time to get serious about ramping up readiness for the submission and campaign and project. That usually hits my brain right about the time my head hits the pillow. Insomnia isn’t new to me, so I have a few coping strategies that sometimes work, sometimes don’t. I’m getting back to normal voice and will be working on the audio.

The Weight Loss

I’ve been off schedule, diet and exercise wise for a whole month now. I noticed in my FB memories there was a year when I complained about nasty sinus problems at the same time I was sick this year. I wondered how many times it had happened around now, but didn’t post.

The need for stronger antibiotics makes be wonder if this could really be simple allergies that got exposed to something. Ragweed is the big allergen that coincides with when we got sick. I have my calendar marked to pay attention next year to ragweed counts and see if there appears to be a correlation. I can’t afford to give this much time to sickness again whether the project makes or not.

I was lax on the weight loss while sick, but I haven’t gained weight. Sunday was my last splurge. We went to Fellini’s for pizza by the slice, and at the table I said out loud that I couldn’t have another splurge for 2 weeks. I’m officially back on track, eating plan wise and rides as well.

That’s it for this week. Se you on the trail, and have a glorious fall day!

The cold moved in to Dr visit territory for both of us. The riding has been light, but not non-existent. The antibiotics are doing their work. I can’t tell that the steroids are, but there was that time in my childhood when I told my mother that the medicine she gave me wasn’t helping. She told me that I didn’t know how I’d feel without it. It was one of those formative comments and I think a little harder when I’m feeling like anything, medication, effort or even my own existence didn’t matter. I suspect I’d have been down for the count without the meds.

It was a good week to film some video. With our gimbal mounted set up for the intro video we never ride at full speed while filming, so light rides fit our health status as well as the desire to get more video. The new video will be built on a new audio, and I need my voice back to do that.

I am seriously frustrated with how long it is taking for me to get back to 100%. I’ve ridden for the last 3 days, but not full rides. Today after my ride, I still had plenty of energy, so I should be able to push harder tomorrow. I’ve been chiding myself for not moving into the guest room when Russ started with the constant Kleenex and the heavy coughing. We have one again now. I should remember that and use it if necessary, but as I rode by the construction signs noting sewer work this week I thought about how often the area floods and questioned the intelligence of riding in as much drenching rain as I did just days before Russ, then I got sick. It occurred to me that maybe not all of the water dripping from my nose while I was breathing deep was rainwater. I might have been spraying myself with something growing in dirt that never dried out since the last flood and it just took a little longer to explode in my sinuses. I’ll probably avoid riding in that much rain in that location in the future. I mean, pets and wild animals poop on all trails, but sewer lines that occasionally overflow and cause health warnings in an area that stays damp through most normal seasons is an added risk, no matter how much I feel like riding right through it.

Moving Forward

The new GoPros are out, so I’ll be digesting what that will means to the project. Initially it looks like pretty good news, but I haven’t read in depth technical info yet. I’ve been reviewing all of my equipment choices. I have been pretty sure about which recumbents are the best for the project, but haven’t been completely decided about anything except using GoPros, and even that could change if it turned out that there was a better choice (which I don’t expect).

Things are looking up, and next week we should be more likely to see you on the trail than we were last week! Have a glorious day!

The Rides

The first week I had a ride so wet it degreased my bike chain. That was Friday at Big Creek Greenway. I thought the weather was going to clear shortly after we started, but about 3 quarters of the ride, including the entire return, was in pouring rain. Russ wasn’t feeling it and turned back way early. He didn’t know he was sick, but was testing for Covid two days later, so it was a good decision.

I felt like going ahead. When the weather is going to be bad for a few days, missing rides adds up. The stream and sewers were not flooded, so the water spray from my wheels was relatively clean. I rode a little slow. Falls = bad, and I take longer to recoup from them than I do from a few days of rain.

I got a little chilly at the start, then warmed up, and was coldish again by the end. It really wasn’t a bad experience at all, but Labor Day Weekend got rainier as it went on, and I didn’t choose to repeat the experience again right away. There were enough clear times and the clouds were really pretty. I never had a ride gap of more than a day for the week. This week I’m the one taking the Covid test though, neither of us tested positive, but I think that last pound I lost was fueling the fever.

The Bars

I’ve been relying on the Protein One bar heavily lately, sometimes having two in a day. The label wasn’t as scary to me as some, and where else can you get 10 grams of protein for 90 calories? I prefer whole foods, but when you want big increases in protein while also making big decreases in calories, protein bars and shakes are the easy way to get there.

Sitting on the picnic table eating the bar last week, I was re-reading the label and decided to look up chicory root extract. So, chicory root is 68% inulin by dry weight. I’m guessing “extract” is around 100%. Inulin has all kinds of benefits and some side effects. I laughed when I read the appetite suppressant part. Side effects were things like gas. I’ve had some really noisy gas, which is tolerable if you’re not around people, but I am, pretty constantly. And, it’s been out there in the range of drawing comments, funny expressions and jokes.

So I decided to stop eating the bars to test and the gas went away quickly, almost as quickly as my appetite spiked. That happens to me in the fall, right about the time evolution is telling my body to pack it on for the winter and the candy corn hits the grocery shelves. But, this was correlated perfectly with discontinuing the bar that is supposed to reduce appetite.

I waited a few days, had another and repeated. Yep, it’s the bars, for a few symptoms. Finding a substitute will be a little easier since I’m no longer trying to keep the carbs down as low as Keto lovers like to, but I bought so many of those bars when they were BOGO and I’m still struggling with the goal to increase protein and limit calories. I’ll probably have 1 or 2 per week rather than 1 or 2 per daily ride until I decide they’re too old, unless Russ snaps them up.

Last Week

I’ve been trying to get well without the antibiotics since last Thursday when I felt the current illness coming on during my ride. There are times when I’m afraid a sinus infection is coming on when I’d ride hard and hot to try to get my body temp up and maybe head things off at the pass, but the weather on Thursday wasn’t really that warm and and it didn’t feel like the right choice to make. As soon as I realized that what I needed to do was to cut the ride short, I did. I’ll be going to the Dr tomorrow. This wasn’t the sickness to tough it out on.

Until next time, have a glorious day, and we’ll see you on the trail.