Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

30 Days of Writing

2012-02-01T15:41:00.003-06:00

Today I started a new 30 day challenge. What is it this time? Well it's not another 30 Days of Biking challenge. We haven't had enough snow for another round of 30 Days of Snowshoeing so that's not my new challenge. This challenge is about writing and I'm calling it 30 Days of Writing.

You might be thinking, "What's the point? You're a writer. Don't you already write every day?"

Yes, I do write pretty much every day but the goal of my 30 Days of Writing challenge is not to do my regular writing it's to work on a couple of memoir projects that I seldom make time for.

It's to work on projects that I keep saying I want to get to "someday..."

Someday. That's a word that ends up in my vocabulary way too often. 30 Days of Writing is one way to get the someday out of my writing life.

The challenge is simple - I just need to spend a little time each day working on one of my memoir projects. I can write a lot of material or edit something I've already written. I can write a sentence or several pages. I can decide to write for a few minutes if I'm short on time or write all afternoon.

The goal is to make my "someday" writing happen each and every day for the next 30 days.

Three of my writing friends - Joy, Chris and Cheryl - are joining me in this challenge. You are welcome to join me, too.

Sensibility Aside - Joining the Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra

2012-01-31T17:25:00.000-06:00

About four years ago I decided I'd like to play the mandolin. So I purchased a nice, inexpensive mandolin from Homestead Pickin' Parlor in Richfield and started taking lessons with fabulous musician, Karen Mueller.

I played steadily for over a year then upgraded to a beautiful Michael Kelly "F" style mandolin. It's a beautiful instrument and I loved playing it - but then I was in two Northfield Arts Guild musicals in a row. With rehearsals and life I pretty much stopped playing and my Michael Kelly sat in its case for a long, long, time

My mandolin - the Legacy Dragonfly Flame. Picture from the Michael Kelly website.

It's a shame to let a beautiful instrument sit so I started thinking about ways to get myself playing again. There are lessons and jam sessions I could attend and, of course, I could be self motivated and just play at home. But each of those options presented challenges - among them lack of funds for frequent lessons, schedule conflicts with the jam sessions and the simply fact that I'm not great at self-motivation.

So I decided to join the Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra.

This decision was really not sensible. I pretty much hadn't played in two years and wasn't very good to begin with. I'm not even a fan of classical mandolin music (though it's growing on me) and classical music comprises about 85% of the MMO's play list.

I knew that joining the MMO was a silly idea. But I knew that if I joined I would have structure and motivation and would start playing regularly again. So I contacted Lon, the director, who invited me to join them for a rehearsal just before Christmas.

I was completely and totally overwhelmed at that first rehearsal. The music the group plays is challenging. Very challenging. And there's a lot of challenging music to play - about twenty songs, some of them three pages long! I stumbled through the first rehearsal as best I could. I did not do well. A month after starting to play again I still don't play very well at rehearsals but I keep working at the music and play along the best I can. I have so much to learn and a long way to go before I come close to mastering even one piece of music.

But guess what? I may be overwhelmed but I also feel completely and totally welcomed by the members of the group (especially by Cindy who sits next to me in the back row of the Mandolin I section). I feel like it matters if I show up or not - so I show up every Monday. The members assure me that I will figure out the music - so I keep practicing. And last week they took an official MMO publicity picture and I'm in it - I see that as a good sign that they aren't going to kick me out :)

Publicity shot of the Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra - 2012. Photo MMO

I'm glad I threw sensibility aside and joined the MMO. My beautiful Michael Kelly is getting out of its case on a regular basis now. My playing skills are improving rapidly. I'm having fun making music and spending time with neat people.

You know, sometimes sensible is overrated and silly is the way to go. Try it sometime.

Mingling at the Magazine Mingle

2012-01-27T14:48:00.000-06:00

Wednesday night I attended the Minnesota Magazine & Publishing Association "Magazine Mingle" event at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. I've attended this event several times now. It's grown and changed over the years but the one thing that has stayed the same is that writers, editors, photographers and publishers get a chance to get out for an evening, enjoy some snacks, look at dozens of sample magazine and spend time networking.

Networking can be kind of scary - going up and talking to strangers and all - but at the Mingle everyone is pretty much in the same boat, everyone there wants to make connections. So the night is spent striking up conversations with strangers, handing out business cards, and, hopefully, making connections that will somehow benefit you or the people you meet.

At the event I enjoyed visiting with well-known travel, science and nature journalist, Greg Breining. Greg has written several books, among them Paddle North: Canoeing the Boundary Waters-Quetico Wilderness and A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It. I've taken a couple of writing classes from Greg and he's kind enough to give me advice when I email him with writing-related questions. He even sent me an email when he noticed my travel piece on Cannon Falls in the Star Tribune. That's pretty cool!

Other than Greg I chatted at length with a woman who is launching a Twin Cities outdoors magazine and a couple of guys from a car magazine, Rat Rod, who happen to know a Northfield artist that I know (it's a small world, isn't it?), Nick Sinclair.

I met a few other people, too, and had a good time networking. But the best part of the evening was spending time with two of my favorite writers, Joy Riggs and Christine Bernier Lienke, both of Northfield. Not only did we attend the Magazine Mingle together, we rewarded our night of networking by going out for dinner afterwards at the very cool downtown wine bar and restaurant, Spill the Wine. We didn't spill any wine that evening (and if we did, I wouldn't tell) but the night out was great fun and a good reminder of what a little networking can do.

Because, you see, I actually met Joy and Chris through networking - if I recall correctly I knew Joy was a writer and introduced myself to her at a Northfield Youth Choirs event. I was so scared to just walk up to her and say "Hi, I'm Myrna and I'm a writer and I know you are a writer too and do you want to have coffee sometime? Because I'd really like to connect to other writers in town." But that's what I did. Well, that's not exactly what I said but it's probably very close. And through Joy I met Chris and we, along with another writer friend, Amy Boxrud who is now the editor of Viking Magazine, started meeting for writers' coffees. And from meeting over work we all ended up being friends.

Yeah, networking can pay off big time. It can help you with your career and sometimes you get friends out of the deal. So take a chance and introduce yourself to someone. It may feel awkward or seem scary but you never know where one "hello" will take you.

Snowshoe Adventure

2012-01-23T23:28:00.001-06:00

Last winter during the month of January I did a 30 Days of Snowshoeing challenge and snowshoed every single day of the month. Such a challenge would have been impossible for me this year. We've had a strange winter with almost no snow. I'm okay with a mild winter but I have missed snowshoeing and have only been out on my snowshoes once this winter - that is until today.

A snowshoe scene from last January

Last night and earlier today it snowed enough that we could actually get out and snowshoe in it. The kids were off of school so they headed outside with me this morning and, along with Rocket our wonder dog, we trekked around the neighborhood on our snowshoes.

One thing I like about doing stuff with my kids is that they remind me of the little wonders of life. Today they decided we should stop walking, stand still then call the dog to us and listen. Why? Because the snow had a thin icy crust on top and Rose and Ryan noticed that it sounded really cool when Rocket ran through the snow.

Ryan, Rose and Rocket

I wish I could describe how Rocket's little paws sounded when they broke through the snow. Or somehow convey how wonderful the near silence sounded when we, dog included, stood still in our winter wonderland. I took a couple of pictures but they still don't really show the fun we had. Of how the kids and I raced each other on our snowshoes. Of Rocket's legs and face covered with little clumps of snow. Of how the cold felt. Of how the wind blew.

Here we are - Ready for a snowshoe adventure

Suffice it to say our little snowshoe trek was wonderful. So thanks Rose and Ryan for joining me on a little snowshoe adventure today. For asking me to stand still with you so we could hear Rocket prance though the snow.

A Recipe for Lori - and You!

2011-12-30T10:42:00.000-06:00

Well over a year ago I promised my friend, Lori, a recipe for a wonderful appetizer - Brie Onion Tartlets. I even told her I would write a blog entry with the recipe and get it to her "soon."But I kept pushing the blog entry to the back burner and never wrote the blog or shared the recipe with Lori. Sorry!

Guess what? I'm going to make things right and post the recipe now. And even though I'm late in posting, the timing is actually perfect for any of you who might need to make a great appetizer for a New Year's party!

Brie Onion Tartlets

I discovered this recipe in the Taste section of the Star Tribune in 2003 and have made it many times since. The recipe is called "Honey-Glazed Onion and Brie Tarts but I've always referred to the little tarts as "Brie-Onion Tartlets." I'm not sure how I ended up changing the name. It's probably just because it's easier to say "Brie-Onion Tartlets" than "Honey-Glazed Onion and Brie Tarts."

Here are my notes on the recipe:

•I almost always skip the parsley. The tarts are still great without it.
•I find that I have enough of the onion mixture to fill 30 mini-phyllo cups instead of the 15 the recipe calls for. Be sure to pick up an extra box or two of mini-phyllo cups in case you have extra onions, too.
•The tarts are best served right out of the oven but I've also served them at room temperature and they still taste great.
•Browning the onions is time consuming and the tarts are somewhat bothersome to assemble but they are still relatively easy to prepare - and well worth the effort!

Onions, brie and mini-phyllo shells - everything needed to assemble the Brie Onion Tartlets

Interested in making these yummy little tarts? Click here for the link to the recipe on the Star Tribune's website.

And while you are on the internet, check out Lori's custom jewelry website, Simply Yours Creations, or her wonderful blog, We Bloom Where Planted. Lori is an inspiring athlete, blogger and artist I met through 30 Days of Biking. I'm constantly amazed at what an impact 30 Days of Biking made on my life - not just fact that I set a goal to bike every day for 30 days and and did it (four times now!) but because through 30 Days of Biking I met so many wonderful people - like Lori!

Winter Vacation Traditions

2011-12-28T15:30:00.000-06:00

We had a wonderful Christmas with family and are now enjoying some time off from work and school. We're all kicking back and reading, playing games, eating too much and, since we're having unseasonably warm weather, have been on a few long walks with Rocket the Dog.

Today we plan to do some work in the hangar finishing up our shop and I hope to finish a photo book that I started ages ago. But more than anything I'd like to curl up with a good book (Rose got me The Last Wife of Henry VII for Christmas from Northfield Middle School's wonderful Tattered Pages shop) or take a nap. It is vacation, after all, so reading and naps are a must!

Another must during our winter vacation is our annual (usually post-Christmas) trip to downtown Minneapolis via the light-rail train. In the last few years we've made it a tradition to eat at Brit's Pub - a British Pub & Eating Establishment that features, you guessed it, British fare like Bangers and Mash, Cornish Pasty, Cock-a-Leekie Soup and Sausage Rolls. We love Brit's. In the summer months you can even sit outside up on the roof next to the Lawn Bowling green.

Owen and his Cornish Pasty with peas and Ryan with his Brit's Kings Wings

We take great care to order something fun when we go to Brit's. We started with an order of Scotch Eggs. Rose ended up with a mini-pizza from the kids' menu (very non-British but one of my kids always gets the pizza). Ryan ordered Brit's Kings Wings and Owen the Cornish Pasty. I ordered the Sausage Rolls. Brit's Sausage Rolls used to be my favorite but Brit's changed up the recipe to a breaded and deep fried roll instead of a little sausages rolled up in a flaky pastry. I don't think I'll order them again. The breaded rolls just aren't good enough to suit me. That said, we still enjoyed our meals and the Brit's experience. And, as usual, I ordered a side of Branston Pickle with my meal - a pickle relish that looks rather strange but, I think, tastes great! A trip to Brit's, in my mind, isn't complete without a pot of tea and a side of Branston Pickle.

Rose and her mini-pizza. Me and my Sausage Rolls with HP Sauce, Branston Pickle & Honey Mustard

Our trips downtown used to include a trip to Macy's to see their 8th floor auditorium Christmas display. The animated display has been a tradition at Macy's (then Dayton's) since 1963. I remember going to the display when I was a little girl. We didn't go every year but the memories I have of the times I went to Dayton's with my Mom and big brother are some of my favorites. When Owen and I had kids we decided to make the 8th floor Christmas display an annual tradition for our family. And, other than the year the display was Harry Potter and the lines were too long, we've made a trip downtown to see the display since 1999 when Rose was a baby.

Rose & Ryan in 2007 at the 8th Floor Christmas Display - The Nutcracker was the theme that year.

That is, a trip to Macy's used to be our annual tradition. Macy's has done the same display the last four years - A Day in the Life of an Elf. We saw the Elf display in 2008. It was delightful. The kids loved it. But when we went in 2009 the display was once again A Day in the Life of An Elf. Granted, if my kids were tiny they wouldn't have remembered that they were seeing the same thing as the year before. But even at ages 7 and 10, they knew the display was the same. And, even though it was still a treat to see the characters and fun to walk past each scene, we were all a little disappointed to see the same display.

Rose and Ryan checking out The Day in the Life of an An Elf in 2008

Guess what Macy's had for a display in 2010? Yep. Same thing. The Day in the Life of An Elf. And the same Elf display in 2011 (Read an interesting blog entry - "DeBlog: Macy's is Doing The Same Xmas Display AGAIN?"). So we skipped the display this year and last year. Hmmm, we skipped the display which also means we didn't spend any money shopping at Macy's...seems like a poor move on Macy's part. Having a new display each year keeps people coming year after year. Not having a new display sure kept us away and it sounds like we're not the only ones skipping Macy's this Christmas. There's even a Boycott Macy's Facebook page.

Come on Macy's - if you won't do a new display every year at least rotate in another display or two. We'd love to make the 8th Floor Auditorium Christmas Display part of our family tradition again.

Well then...In the time we could have been shopping at Macy's we visited a lot of other shops instead. We made two trips to Barnes & Noble and had a blast looking at books and Rose did some Nook research. We went to Target to look at TVs and Electronics. We visited shops in the IDS Building and Gaviidea Commons. We even found a lovely little shop that sold French Macarons - Cocoa & Fig - so we HAD to stop for a treat. I had a Salted Caramel French Macaron. Rose had a peanut butter cake pop and Ryan had a peanut butter cookie sandwich. They were all yummy!

Speaking of treats - I'm going to share a great appetizer recipe with you in the next day or two.

As for right now? Working in the hangar has slipped to the bottom of my to do list. I think it's time to read a book. Or take that nap. I wonder if I can manage to do both...

Mad About Macarons!

2011-12-06T21:47:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a macaron cookbook, Mad About Macarons! Make Macarons like the French, through a comment posted on my Macaron Madness blog. Turns out the author of the book, Jill Colonna, stumbled upon my blog and posted a comment. Jill is originally from Scotland but now lives in France and is a serious fan of macarons - a "macaronivore," she says. And I think Jill may be my first blog comment poster from France. Cool!

I decided to order Colonna's book which was recently released in the US and Canada. I called Jerry at my local book shop, Monkey See Monkey Read, to see if he could get the book for me. He said "yes" and ordered it right away.

The book arrived within a week and last Thursday I picked it up. At quick glance I could see the book itself was a treat with many beautiful pictures of macarons.

I couldn't wait to really delve into the book so after dinner I brewed a pot of tea in my Paris tea pot (it has a picture of the Eiffel tower on it), sat down on the couch with my tea and a couple of chocolate orange macarons and read Mad About Macarons! cover to cover. The book is wonderful! There are 37 macaron recipes (including a nut-free recipe for those with nut allergies) with such fun flavor combinations as "Whiskey MacCoffee" and "Thai Green Curry" in addition to the more standard Vanilla, Almond and Chocolate. In addition, Colonna suggests tea and wine pairings for each recipe, comments on presentation and packaging and has a few recipes for your leftover egg yolks.

No surprise - I decided I had to try one of Jill's recipes but with macaron making you can't do things quickly. First off, Colonna suggests "aging" your egg whites for four to five days in the fridge. So I cracked and separated my eggs and put them in the fridge.

In the meantime I had some work to do to prepare for my first Mad About Macarons! recipe.

Since the recipes in the book are all in grams (precise measurements are a must) I headed to The Measuring Cup, my local cooking store, and bought a digital scale. I also headed to Penzey's Spices in hopes of finding Bitter Almond Extract, one of the ingredients for the almond macaron recipe I wanted to try. I couldn't find bitter almond so I decided that I would try the recipe with regular almond extract.

There are a few other things in the Mad About Macarons! cookbook that are a challenge to find here. Custard powder is one, though I happened to have some Bird's Custard tucked away in my cupboard. My local grocery store and co-op don't carry custard powder but Byerly's does. I have yet to find Vanilla powder though the people at Penzey's suggested I might find it at a craft store that sells cake decorating supplies. (note added 12/12/11 - I discovered that The Measuring Cup and Byerly's both carry Vanilla Powder - expensive stuff but worth it!) Jill suggests using "a flexible plastic patisserie scraper" for preparing the macarons - I didn't find one at The Measuring Cup so will keep looking.

Also there are several things that I had to double check to make sure I knew what they were. The basic macaron recipe calls for eggs, ground almonds, caster sugar and icing sugar - here caster sugar is granulated sugar and icing sugar is powdered sugar. Some recipes call for "full milk" which is the same as whole milk yet another recipe calls for whole milk and not full milk. Not sure what to make of that. One recipe calls for "single cream" and I still have to figure out what that is. There are other little things that puzzle me in the cookbook but I'm sure I'll figure them out as I go along.

Finally, on Sunday night with my ingredients figured out, my scale ready and my eggs aged (or almost - I couldn't wait and only aged them for three days!) I started making Almond Macarons (Macarons aux Amandes - Colonna includes the French names for each recipe. I love it!).

I decided to make the shells turquoise blue simply because I've been wanting to make blue macarons.
Guess what? My shells baked up perfectly! I was so excited. Then I made the custard-based almond filling.

Making a custard-based filling wasn't as easy as I would have liked it to be. I followed the directions but still ended up with lumpy custard sauce. So I sieved the custard - I've always wanted to say that I sieved something. It sounds far more glamourous than "I squished the custard through a strainer to get the lumps out."

In the end, I was a little worried about the custard filling tasting too custardy. I almost gave up and made a buttercream instead. But I filled all of my beautiful blue shells with the almond custard and tucked them away in the fridge. Then I waited - according to Colonna macarons need to sit for 24 hours before eating "as this lets the filling infuse into the shell."

Once again I struggled to wait for the entire length of time I was supposed to but I got close! I tried my first Blue Almond French Macaron on Monday afternoon and all I can say is WOW! It was better than good - it was wonderful. So I tried another. And another. And shared a bunch with a couple of friends. I was hooked on French Macarons before but now I really am!

And guess what? Tonight I'm cracking a few more eggs to get them started on their aging process so I can try another Mad About Macarons! recipe.

I'm thinking I will make Dark Chocolate Macarons (Macarons au Chocolat Noir) next. Or Chocolate and Lapsang Souchong Macarons (though I think I will substitute Earl Grey tea for the Lapsang Souchong). Or maybe Tutti-Frutti Macarons (Macarons aux Fruits Rouges).

Ah - so many macaron recipes to try and so many little bites of heaven to share with my family and friends. Life is good indeed!

Porcelain Painting and a Mini Pilgrimage

2011-11-30T20:16:00.000-06:00

One of the fun things about writing stories is that I get to meet neat people and explore new places. I just spent two days in Northern Iowa - which may not sound like an exciting place to visit but the area is full of treasures and at less than two hours drive from Minneapolis is a reasonable option for a day or weekend trip.

Right now I'm writing a story about a group of women from the Forest City area who have been gathering together twice a week for about 30 years to paint porcelain. Porcelain painting is a nearly lost art and I discovered these women through a distant cousin of mine, Carolyn, who runs a bed and breakfast in Forest City, Iowa. I actually met Carolyn when I was in Forest City for a Sons of Norway meeting where my mom was a guest speaker and, well, it gets to be a long story. Suffice it to say this is my third trip back to Forest City since late summer and the second time I have been a guest at Carolyn's lovely inn, The Elderberry Inn B&B.

My suite at the Elderberry Inn - The Berrymore Suite

I wanted to watch the porcelain painting ladies in action so Carolyn invited me to join the group for one of their Tuesday painting sessions. I decided to head down a day early to spend some time checking out nearby Clear Lake, Iowa, so drove down Monday morning.

Clear Lake, I'd heard, is a cute lake town, somewhat touristy in the summer months and still a good place to visit during the off season. It's home to the Color the Wind Kite Festival in mid-February, the largest winter kite festival in the Midwest. It's also home of the Surf Ballroom & Museum where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, played their last concert before dying in a plane crash in the wee hours of February 3, 1959.

I arrived in Clear Lake without much of an agenda. I was hungry so found a place called Sevens on Main Avenue for lunch. I ordered a salad, soup and 1/2 sandwich lunch special for $7.77. I visited several cute boutique-type shops and antique stores and walked along Clear Lake a bit. Then I decided to visit the Surf Ballroom - I'm glad I did.

Walking into the Surf is like stepping back into time. I love ballrooms and this one is a gem even without the history attached to it. It's been beautifully kept up and most of it, I understand, is original and looks like it did back on the night when Holly, Valens and Richardson played their last concert. I definitely want to go back and visit again with my kids - I think Rose and Ryan would enjoy this glimpse of rock and roll history.

After the visit to the Surf I decided to drive out to the site where the ill-fated charter flight crashed and Holly, Valens, Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson lost their lives. As a pilot, I tend to stay away from crash sites. As a music and history lover, though, I wanted to see the site and the memorial and pay my respects.

The site is on private farm land and the directions to it are kind of funny in a way - where else but in farm country would directions have you follow the first fence row just past the grain bins? There's a huge pair of Buddy Holly type glasses marking the spot to start walking the fence row out to the site. I parked my van and started walking. It was less than a half mile out there. The sun was setting, the air crisp, and I was glad for my scarf and gloves.

Roadside marker at the fence row that leads you out to the crash site & memorial

Visiting the site was kind of eerie but I'm glad I walked out there and would visit again.

Memorial marker for Holly, Valens & Richardson, aka The Big Bopper

After my day in Clear Lake and my mini rock and roll history pilgrimage it was time to drive to Forest City for a stay at the Elderberry Inn and some time visiting with Carolyn. I arrived at 6:00 on the dot and we had dinner together and homemade pie (sweet potato pie for me!). After dinner we were invited to the home of one of the painting ladies who is also a quilter. She knows I'm also a quilter so wanted to share her quilt collection with me. What fun! She showed us over 50 quilts and served us coffee and treats before Carolyn and I headed back to the Inn for the evening.

I must confess I slept in on Tuesday morning - and it felt good to do so. Come one o'clock the painting ladies came over and set up their things at the dining room table and began to paint. Carolyn is one of the youngest of the group of six. The oldest is 92, I think, and looks and acts much younger. It was a treat for me to see the ladies paint, to watch them help each other with their projects and to see white china turn into beautifully painted pieces of art work. These ladies are lovely and full of positive energy and enthusiasm for life - and for painting. I'm honored that they invited me to join them and made me feel so welcome.

A plate painted by one of the porcelain painting ladies, Dolores, age 92

I'll keep you posted as to when my porcelain painting story runs in Womeninc Magazine - it's scheduled for either May or June 2012.

I plan to head back to Clear Lake, Forest City and other points in Northern Iowa soon. There's so much to see and do there!

Macarons - A Visual Treat!

2011-11-21T19:53:00.000-06:00

My last blog posts, Macaron Madness and French Macaron Recipe Recap, have been long and wordy - so this time you are in for a visual treat! I'm going to post pictures of the French Macarons I've made so far along with a few notes on each kind.

French Macarons come in just about any color and flavor you can imagine. It's fairly simple to change up a basic recipe and create new color/flavor combinations. If you google "French Macaron" you can come up with some wonderful pictures of them. Try it. You'll have fun!

It's pretty easy to make different colors and flavors - Basically, you add whatever food coloring you want to the meringue mixture to make different colors. For the different flavors you can add a bit of flavoring to the meringue mixture if you'd like (most recipes I see don't add flavoring to the meringue but I've tried it a couple of times) but mostly just change up the filling. Fillings are generally some sort of ganache, buttercream or jam. I have yet to make any filled with jam but I've tasted a few. I've even had a macaron from Patisserie 46 that had BOTH ganache and jam in it. Frankly, though, my preference for fillings is chocolate ganache. Yum.

I'm no food photographer so what the macarons really look like doesn't always match how they look in these pictures. Oh well, you'll (hopefully) still enjoy looking at the pictures and dreaming of eating macarons. It's fun to note that some of the best pictures were taken by my 12 year old daughter, Rose. She loves taking pictures and does a nice job with the camera.

Okay, here we go. Sit back and enjoy!

Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons

I made my first macarons over a year ago from this recipe - Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons - and have made them two times since. I love raspberry and chocolate together so think these are pretty much perfect.
Shells: For the light pink color I added a drop of red food coloring.
Filling: I followed the recipe - which called for making a chocolate ganache with raspberry extract

Lavender French Macarons

I love lavender and grow it in my garden. There's something so wonderful about the smell and the color. I tried the Lavender French Macaron recipe for these and found them a bit sweet. Still, they were yummy! I'd like to try lavender again but maybe fill them with a chocolate lavender ganache instead of buttercream. Or maybe lavender and Earl Grey tea?

Shells: I added some purple colored gel food coloring. If I made these again I might sprinkle some lavender flowers on top.

Filling: I used the buttercream recipe as written in this recipe, which uses lavender flowers (I can find them at my local co-op, Just Food). I added some pink gel food coloring at the suggestion of my daughter.

Photo by Rose

Double Lemon French Macarons

Ah yes, my first "creation" - Double Lemon macarons. I decided to try lemon macarons so looked around for recipes but ended up sort of creating my own. These were yummy!

Shells: Added a wee bit of lemon extract and yellow food coloring to Lavender French macaron recipe

Filling: I actually threw a bunch of stuff together for the filling. I mixed some lemon curd and cream cheese together then realized I didn't have enough filling to found a recipe (8 oz cream cheese, 1/4 C powdered sugar, juice and zest of one lemon) and mixed everything I had together.

Photo by Rose

Mint Chocolate French Macarons

I love the pairing of mint and chocolate just as much as I like raspberry and chocolate together so decided to make Mint Chocolate macarons. I've made these three times now (twice with green shells, once with pink shells). They are a favorite!!! I plan to make theses for Christmas in both green and red, possibly with a white chocolate ganache for the red ones.

Shells: I added green or red to the meringue. I added peppermint extract to the meringue one time. I like the mint in the shell but it's not necessary.

Filling: I added a bit of peppermint extract to a basic chocolate ganache recipe

Photo by Rose

Chocolate Kahlua Mocha Buttercream French Macarons

I decided to try a recipe with a chocolate shell and found this recipe. Anything with coffee and kahlua has to be good, I figured, so I gave this recipe a go. It's a good one! I'll make this recipe again.

Shells: This recipe has you add some cocoa powder to the almond meal/powdered sugar mixture. It also has you add a drop of red food coloring (for a nicer color).

Filling: This is a basic buttercream with the addition of 1T cocoa, 1 tsp Kahlua and 1 tsp instant coffee granules

Rose French Macarons

I had to try this recipe because my daughter's name is Rose and I love roses. Plus I really wanted to make more pretty colored macarons and these sure are pretty. These are not my favorite because it turns out I'm not real keen on rose flavor. I still might make them again and try a bit less rose water in the ganache and see how I like them.

Shells: I added a bit of a muted pink colored food coloring gel for the pink. A wee bit of red would also do. The recipe I found for the filling said that you could put a little crushed crystallized rose on the tops. I didn't have crystallized rose petals (but discovered I can find them at The Measuring Cup, my local kitchen store) so found some rose petal sugar I had in my cupboard. I crushed up the rose petals in the sugar and sprinkled them on top along with the rose infused sugar.

Filling: I followed a recipe for a white chocolate ganache and added some rose water (found at my local co-op, Just Food) and some bright pink food coloring.

What's next? Well, I'm not sure but I do plan to make Chocolate Orange at the request of my chef friend, Karl, who actually tried my very first batch of Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons - and liked them! I plan to use the Chocolate Kahlua Mocha recipe for the shells and then fill them an orange zest buttercream. I also want to make some more colorful macarons - maybe turquoise blue? bright green? orange? Oh and I definitely want to make salted caramel. Oh boy, the possibilities are endless!

French Macaron Recipe Recap

2011-11-18T19:11:00.001-06:00

In my last post, Macaron Madness, I promised to share a French Macaron recipe - I'm actually going to post links to three and give you some feedback on my experiences with each. (Warning - long blog post ahead!)

Many of the recipes I find are written using grams for measurements. I have a recipe from my husband's cousin's daughter in Australia that I want to try but have yet to do so because I don't have an adequate kitchen scale. Her recipe uses a totally different method for making macarons and I'm excited to try it! The three recipes I'm sharing, however, use US measurements.

I've made seven batches of French Macarons so far (or more, I've lost track) and have only had one recipe flop. That time many of the shells cracked, stuck to the parchment and didn't form adequate "feet" (see below under Sitting time for an explanation on "feet"). Still, most were good enough to eat. So I ate them (I shared some, too). This doesn't mean that I actually have French Macarons figured out. I'm a total French Macaron amateur and I have yet to find a recipe that I like 100% and never know if each batch is going to turn out or not.

Here's some of my notes on making French Macarons. If you are impatient for the recipes, simply scroll down to find them.

Almond Flour - at first I processed my own almonds but, for simplicity, I've started buying Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour and am having good luck with that. If you make your own flour the recipes call for blanched almonds and some specify "non slivered." I have yet to find blanched almonds that are NOT slivered. I've used slivered blanched almonds to make almond flour and have had fine results.

Almond meal/flour and baking stuff

Sifting - several recipes call for sifting the almond meal and the powdered sugar. I've been doing this. Sifting sorts out larger bits of almond in the almond flour which, I believe, gives the macarons a more consistent texture.

Egg whites (with a drop of red food coloring) beaten until stiff peaks formed

Egg Whites - some recipes call for you to "age" your egg whites up to three days. I haven't seen a huge difference when I have aged my whites and when I have not - but I'm no expert so probably don't know what I'm looking for and haven't actually aged any egg whites for a full three days. It's been a time issue for me. I have aged them for a day or two but never three.

Ryan helped me make my last batch of macarons. Here he's folding the almond/powdered sugar mixture into the egg white mixture.

Rocket always hangs out with us when we're baking - here he's literally "underfoot"

Pastry Bags - recipes call for you to pipe the meringue using a pastry bag. Some recipes say to simply use a gallon zip-lock bag as a pastry bag - you just cut a small hole in a corner for the batter to come out. I don't have a pastry bag and have had good enough luck using a zip-lock baggie.

Parchment - recipes suggest baking the meringues on parchment. Some suggest silpats (a non-stick baking mat) I don't have any silpats so use parchment.

Baking sheets - I use insulated baking sheets. When I run out of those I layer a smaller sheet inside a larger one. I have good luck with insulated sheets.

The macaron shells sit for about a half hour before they are baked

Templates - some recipes suggest using templates so your macarons all come out the exact same size. I have made my own templates by simply drawing circles on the back side of my parchment. I find drawing 40 circles on parchment to be a lot of work so usually just wing it and pipe the macarons. After piping somewhere around 300 of them I'm getting pretty good at making them about the same size.

Size - most macarons I've seen are around the size of an Oreo cookie. This is a nice size. Some are bigger, about 3" round. I made my last batch really small, just over an inch round. They all taste good.

Sitting time - after you pipe your meringues you are supposed to let your meringues "sit" for awhile until the tops are glossy and have formed a slight crust. This sitting time is also essential for the meringues to form "feet," the frilly look around the edges.

Finished product! Note the "feet" around around the edges of the meringue shells.

Baking temperature - I'm having good luck starting the oven at 375 and, once it's preheated, turning the temp down to 325 to bake. This is the method used in the Lavender French Macaron recipe. Each time you put a new pan of meringues in the oven you need to preheat the oven again - and be sure to turn it down. I ruined a batch once when I forgot!

Baking time - for the size of macarons I'm making (1" to 1 3/4") 10 minutes in the oven seems about right.

Now here's the links to the recipes I've tried.

Raspberry Chocolate French Macarons: This is the first recipe I tried. I over baked them and thought they meringue shells were ruined but added the ganache layer anyway and stuck them in a Tupperware and left them on the counter overnight. In the morning the kids found them asked me if they could have a cookie. I figured they could try the awful things if they wanted. They ran upstairs to tell me they were the best cookies ever. I ran down to try one. The over baked shells had softened overnight and they were indeed the best cookies ever!

I find the recipe easy to follow and had decent results with it. If you try it I suggest lowering the bake time to ten minutes and then watching them carefully so the tops don't burn. I just bake one sheet at a time so don't switch racks like the recipe suggests. For the almond flour I just took a 6 oz bag of blanched almonds and processed them in my food processor until as fine as possible.

Lavender French Macarons: This recipe introduced me to aging the egg whites, to templates and techniques for piping the meringue shells. I have good result with the meringue though I find them a little sweet. I wasn't thrilled with the buttercream recipe (though my shortening was a bit old, that might have been a problem) but you could use any buttercream recipe you'd like. I also added pink coloring to the buttercream. This blogsite links to two other macaron recipes - just click on the "French Macarons" tag. Uh oh, he has a recipe for Salted Caramel - I'm going to have to make them now!

Chocolate Kahlua Mocha Buttercream French Macarons: I discovered this recipe just two days ago and love it! I like the simplicity of the ingredients - 1 C almond flour, 2 C confectioner's sugar, 3 T cocoa powder, 3 egg whites - something nice about the 1-2-3 in the numbers there. I like the buttercream recipe (or maybe I like it because there's Kahlua in it, mmmm). Note that this recipe calls for piping 3" meringues and baking for 15 minutes. I made mine 1" and baked for 10 minutes at oven preheated to 375 then turned down to 325 (except for the batch when I forgot to set the timer. Near flop. Totally under baked so, figuring they were ruined, I stuck them back in the oven and baked again. They turned out fine).

This is a loooong blog entry so if you read this far you should get a prize - a French Macaron. If you know where I live I'll give you one - or more.

Oh, and I feel I should make some kind of disclaimer statement - I am not a professional baker or macaron maker. The notes above are just my own notes based on my so-far-so good baking experiences. You might follow every recipe to a T and follow my notes but your macarons still may flop. Just saying. Don't get mad at me if they do (and try to eat them anyway, they usually are still kinda good).

I think my next macaron blog entry will simply be pictures and talk a bit about flavors. A visual treat!

Macaron Madness

2011-11-17T15:52:00.000-06:00

I have some other writing work to do but have decided that I will write about French Macarons instead. After all, I'm at a perfect spot to write about French treats, I'm sitting at Patisserie 46 in Minneapolis with a writing friend of mine and I'm about to purchase one of Patisserie 46's wonderful salted caramel macarons so I can taste test it - taste testing is essential to my macaron research, you know.

I admit, I will probably buy one of their mocha French macarons, too, and maybe one of the raspberry ones. Oh, and there was lemon one I could try and pistachio and...

Okay I limited myself to three. The salted caramel, a white chocolate filled with dark chocolate ganache and a chocolate filled with Earl Grey infused chocolate ganache and orange marmalade.

I've been on a French Macaron quest of sorts. (I must like baking quests. I was on a quest for the perfect chocolate cake awhile back). I'm not entirely sure why I'm on this French Macaron quest other than I love eating them and find great comfort in baking things.

I suppose I should talk a moment about macarons just to be sure you don't think I'm writing about cocoanut macaroons. French Macarons (pronounced as though you are saying "macaroni" without the "i" at the end of the word) are a wonderful little almond merangie sort of sandwich cookie filled with good stuff like chocolate ganache and flavored buttercream. Yum. I'll post a link to a recipe or two in the next few days. I've tried three recipes so far. I have yet to find a favorite and fool-proof recipe but am getting close.

I made these last night. They are chocolate with a Kahlua/mocha buttercream filling.

I gave some to my brother, Joel, because I like him. He said "mmmmm" when he ate one.

To get a better idea of what they are and the history behind them, it's worth reading this wonderfully fun article about macarons, "Macarons, Macaroons, Macaroni." Thanks to Doug Bratland for telling me about the article. (Doug, by the way, is a fabulous musician and all around cool guy with a beard. ).

To get a better idea of what French Macarons taste like and why it's worth spending tons of time and energy making them (and blogging about them) you'll simply have to try one for yourself.

I think I'd better take a break and do that now. Salted Caramel French Macaron, here I come!

Patisserie 46 Macarons - The white chocolate/dark chocolate macaron is on top.

Earl Grey chocolate with marmalade on the bottom left. Salted caramel on the bottom right.

Oh yes, did I like the macarons from Patisserie 46? Why yes, yes I did. I felt it was essential to eat all three of them because I knew you would want to know which one was best. Here's the results of my research....

Patisserie 46's French macarons have a lovely, crisp shell (mine get a somewhat crisp shell but I have yet to replicate the perfection of Patisserie's). Biting into them is a wonderful experience. At first you'd think the shell is going to be crisp all the way through but no, you quickly hit the melt-in-your-mouth light texture of the meringue. Then, oh the best part, you get to the filling and a totally new texture, thick, rich and oh so good!

My favorite of the three, hands down, was the salted caramel. Second the white chocolate/dark chocolate and last but not least the Earl Grey/Marmalade. I wanted to like the Earl Grey best, because I love Earl Grey tea and it sounded so good, but I found the flavor perhaps a bit too strong for my taste. Still, I would happily eat a dozen of them because even my least favorite macaron from Patisserie 46 was divine.

Round 4 Wrap up

2011-10-03T15:50:00.000-05:00

Well, Round 4 of 30 Days of Biking came to a close last Friday - just in time for me to get sick with a terrible cold. Ugh. I'm not happy about the cold but am happy I finished 30 Days of Biking for the fourth time.

The weather for Round 4 was almost perfect. I didn't have to bike in the snow like I did last April or in the pouring rain like last September. Instead, save for some light drizzle here and there and some killer winds, the weather was great. Completing Round 4 of 30 Days of Biking - though still a challenge - was not too hard this time around.

Looking on my Dailymile history it looks like I logged more miles on my bikes during this month than I ever have before. So, in light of that accomplishment I'm going to share some highlights of Round 4 of 30 Days of Biking.

Here they are (in no particular order):

•I biked 317 miles during September
•Owen did the 30 Days of Biking challenge with me again. This was his third round
•Two other friends of mine also joined in on the challenge - Paul and Anne
•I got to ride a Salsa Mukluk and get some mountain bike training thanks to Ben from Milltown Cycles
•My family hosted a "bike-in" social at our place. 17 members of the Cannon Valley Velo Club biked out to our place for snacks, coffee and fine conversation
•I rode with the Northfield Pedalers, a group of bicyclists from the Northfield Senior Center, twice
•I rode the 60 mile route of Jesse James Bike Tour and finished with energy to spare
•On three Thursdays I joined the Twin Cities Bike Club group for Thursdays on the Cannon, a group ride on the Cannon Valley Trail
•I discovered that riding gravel roads is great fun - especially when my daughter, Rose, joins me
•On one of my gravel rides I tackled "the big hill"

And...

•At the recommendation of Curtis from Milltown, Owen and I had a date night at the Minnecycle custom framebuilders show in Minneapolis. We discovered we know very little about custom bikes but had a great time anyway. Thanks to Dave from Anderson Custom Bicycles for answering all of our questions. And thanks to Ben from Milltown for the recommendation for dinner - True Thai (boy, Curtis and Ben are helping us with date planning - now that's a full service bike shop!)

Click here for a nice recap of Minnecycle written by one of the builders, Dan Bailey of Pallas Athena Custom Bikes
And click here to see a bunch of his pictures of the show.

I haven't been on my bike since the last day of 30 Days of Biking. Very sad state of affairs, especially since we've had perfect weather for bicycling, but once this cold is done I'll be back on the bike.

Big Ride 1 & Big Ride 2

2011-09-14T16:25:00.002-05:00

Road bike or gravel riding?
How about both?
How about two of the best rides I've ever had in less than a week?
Yep. I'll take that. I think I'll call them Big Ride 1 and Big Ride 2.

I'm going to start with Big Ride 2 because I just got back from riding it.

Ever since I started riding gravel (I've probably ridden it only ten times since last fall) I have wanted to ride what I call "the big hill." Today I set out with a goal of riding 5 miles of gravel and took off and hit just about every gravel road and dirt path near my house. I rode five miles and kept going. At about 7 miles I was ready to head home but the big hill was there. I decided to go for it.

The big hill is actually two big hills - a big one down into a valley then a big one back up the other side. Then of course I have to ride back down and up again to get home. I thought the first "up" was going to be a challenge but I managed it pretty well. Then I turned around to head back home and noticed the hill back up was going to be a tough one.

The Hill - the first half. Taken last April before things greened up

It was. The gravel was soft and deep. I got off once and walked my bike about six paces. Biked some more then got off again and walked my bike to the other side of the road where the gravel was better. But, save for about 20 paces, I biked the whole thing.

From the top of the first hill - the hill back to home. Much prettier at this time of the year.

The hills have been a goal of mine - and today I rode them. At this moment I am tired but feel incredibly strong. It's a good feeling.

Big Ride 1 happened on Saturday. I rode my longest ride to date - 64 miles made up of the 60 mile route of the Jesse James Bike Tour (which is actually 62 miles) plus a couple of miles of biking from my van to ride start to equal 64.

The day of the JJBT was gorgeous, a bit warm but no wind and a perfect day for a ride. Owen and I set out around 7:30 am. The ride from start to finish went well. I smiled almost the whole ride and had fun talking to Owen and to people along the route and at the rest stops.

Owen and I just after tacking one of the hills near the Carleton wind turbine on the 2011 Jesse James Bike Tour.

Photo by Scott Davis - Davis Portrait Studios

I did not cry at mile 45 like I did last year (it was very windy the whole ride last year and the hill at mile 45 just was too much. The ride was so hard I never had the energy to blog about it. I did finish the ride, though, and stopped crying by mile 46). Instead at mile 45 I was feeling darn good and stopped to chat a lot at the rest stop in Faribault, especially with Ben Witt from Milltown Cycles who was set up there offering mechanical support to riders who needed it.

The final leg of the ride, the last 15 miles, went well. I had way more energy than I thought possible for such a long ride. At ride end we found our friend, Steve, who rode the 60 mile route as well. And we found a bunch of guys we know who set out 15 minutes before us and rode the 100 mile route and still finished well before us. They are fast. I am not. And this is okay.

The fast riders inspire me and it sure was fun to see them whiz past me in their brightly colored team jerseys and hear how quickly they biked 100 miles - but my biggest inspiration on the JJBT was a woman named Deborah who I met at the first rest stop. She was perhaps a little older than me and not in what I'd call tip-top shape. She was riding the 60 mile route alone and on a hybrid - it's a bike that is comfortable but not the fastest or best bike for a long ride. Riding alone on a hybrid on a long ride is pretty amazing but what really inspired me was her attitude. We talked about people passing us and she said something like "everyone passes me"and we both chuckled. Then she said something like, "But who cares? I could be at home on the couch watching tv like other people but I'm out riding instead."

Yep. I like that attitude.
Get off the couch and ride a bike.
It's a bit of work sometimes but it's awfully fun.

By the way, I saw Deborah shortly after she finished her 60 mile ride. She was smiling :)

Can't Stop Smiling - Riding the Salsa Mukluk

2011-09-07T17:39:00.001-05:00

This morning started in the most fun way possible - After I got the kids on the bus for their second day of school I drove down to Milltown Cycles in Faribault where I met Ben, the shop's owner, for a morning mountain bike ride on a Salsa Mukluk fat bike.

I'm not a mountain biker. I've never ridden trails and, save for riding gravel a dozen times, have only ridden on paved roads and paths. I never thought I could be a mountain biker or ride on anything but roads. But after an hour on the Mukluk I am hooked. Absolutely hooked. And I can't stop smiling.

At first I was smiling just because the Mukluk is such a funny bike - it looks kinda odd with the big tires and the feeling of riding it is so different at first it just made me laugh.

Once we hit the trails and I was faced with all sorts of stuff I've never ridden over before I was smiling because, despite my lack of experience, I was actually riding mountain bike trails with success. I never thought I could ride trails and there I was riding up and down hills and over rocks and tree roots pretty well.

Without Ben to help me I doubt I would have taken the Mukluk over the terrain we did this morning on my own. I know I wouldn't have, actually. But with Ben guiding the way and teaching me in his easygoing, laid back way, I felt way more confident than I expected. I found myself laughing my way down steep hills and asking to do them again.

We rode for about an hour, mostly on trails through the nearby nature center. It was a gorgeous morning for a ride - my only regret is that I didn't stop to take pictures along the way. A picture of the Mukluk back in the shop will have to do.

Salsa Mukluk in their smallest frame size and set up to fit me

I'm not qualified to actually test drive a bike and do a review but here are a few comments on my ride :

The Mukluk's big tires made the ride smooth whether we were on tar or gravel or a rocky downslope. I would call them "forgiving" - where a narrow bike tire would slip or slide on the gravel the Mukluk's tires just truck on over everything. The top tube slopes downward so it was easy to get on and off of the bike. I rode with regular tennis shoes and flat pedals. Ben put a women's specific WTB saddle on the bike - I've had a ton of trouble finding comfortable saddles and the WTB worked well for me.

Big Tire on the Salsa Mukluk - picture taken by Milltown Cycles

All in all the Mukluk was comfortable to ride and a whole lot of fun!

If you're looking for a bike that will keep you smiling - it's hard to beat a fat bike :)

Salsa Mukluks - another picture taken by Milltown Cycles

Thanks to Ben and Curtis from Milltown for letting me test drive the Mukluk this morning. And Ben, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to ride with me and teach me new stuff. I appreciate it!

30 Days of Biking - Round 4

2011-09-04T22:50:00.001-05:00

Well, it's time for the fourth round of 30 Days of Biking and I'm doing it again.

If you don't know what 30 Days of Biking is it's, in short, a challenge to ride your bike every day for 30 days. It was started by two guys from the Twin Cities who challenged their Twitter friends to ride their bikes every day. The challenge went viral and several hundred people from around the world participated in the first 30 Days of Biking.

I was one of them. I rode my bike every day in April 2010.
And, though it sounds over-dramatic to say this, 30 Days of Biking changed my life.
I became a much more active person. I realized I could do things that seemed impossible. I met a bunch of positive, fun people. And I really started "loving the bike," as my friend, Darryl from Loving The Bike likes to say.

Since that first challenge there have been two more and I've done them all. Owen and the kids joined me for Round 2 last September. Owen joined me for Round 3 in April and I had the fun of being a member of Team Loving the Bike for a fun competition with a group over at Bicycle Radio.

I'm a huge fan of 30 Days of Biking! But, I will admit, when the announcement went out that Round 4 was starting on September 1st I was a little less than keen on doing the challenge again. I'm not really sure why. Maybe because I know that I can in fact ride my bike every day for 30 days in a row. Or maybe because I was feeling sort of tired of riding my bike. Or something.

But I decided to ride Round 4.
Why?

Well because doing 30 Days of Biking makes me feel great!

When I'm biking every day I feel happier - probably because of the exercise and also, I think, because each day is an accomplishment and I like accomplishing goals.

It also feels wonderful to be a part of a big bicycling community made up of people from all over the world. Each time I do the challenge I "meet" so many fabulous people and reading their tweets and Facebook comments about the challenge is inspiring.

30 Days of Biking also reminds me that bicycling is more about having fun along the way than it is about going far or going fast.

So here I go again with Round 4 of 30 Days of Biking!

And here's a fun video from last September when it rained a lot - but we still rode our bikes every day!

On a related note, 30 Days of Biking introduced me to a very cool bicycling blog, shebicycles. I follow the blog and entered a contest to win a YMX bicycling jersey. Guess what? I won - and Cassi at shebicycles asked me to write my "bike-ography" for her blog. Read my bike-ography if you wish and be certain to read the blog. It's wonderful and, as an added bonus, the pictures are awesome!

A Knitting Story

2011-08-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

A new yarn shop is opening in Northfield soon and I had the fun of writing a story about the new shop - Yarn Store to Open in Downtown Northfield - for Northfield Patch. The shop, Northfield Yarn, is due to open in September and owner Cynthia Gilbertson is excited to not just open a store but to create a welcoming community for fiber lovers of all skill levels.

Talking to Cynthia got me thinking about when I used to knit, back to when there was a yarn shop called Cottage Industry in town. Cottage Industry has been closed for several years now but when it was open there was a wonderful feel of community in the place. The owner, Jessica, and one of her employees, Amy, welcomed me the first time I walked in the store. I wasn't a knitter at the time and had no desire to start but I loved the yarn and found myself feeling both content and inspired to be creative whenever I walked in there.

Eventually, inspired by the beauty of a certain turquoise yarn and with encouragement from Jessica and Amy, I decided to see if I could knit. And knit I did! I knit scarf after scarf after scarf and a sweater. I found the process of knitting fun and relaxing. When Cottage Industry closed, though, I pretty much put down my needles. So I'm excited that Northfield Yarn is going to open soon. Even if I don't start knitting again, I know I'll be able to walk in and look at the yarn and I'm betting I'll feel both content and inspired to be creative when I walk in there.

It's funny how creativity works - when I started knitting I started remembering how much my Grandma used to knit and crochet things for me and my brother when we were young. And, inspired by the memories, I wrote a story about knitting and how it connected me to my Grandma even though she's been gone for many years. The story, Sammy the Snake, was published in the June/July 2008 issue of Minnesota Moments and in the October 2010 issue of Womeninc. Magazine.

Sammy the Snake

If you feel like reading Sammy the Snake, you can find the story online at Womeninc. if you click HERE.

Miles of Motivation

2011-07-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

Numbers associated with my bicycling sometimes frustrate me - like when I realize that my average pace still hasn't gone up as much as I'd like or when I realize that the numbers related to my weight haven't gone down even though I'm biking a ton. But when I get close to reaching a mileage milestone, numbers don't frustrate me - they motivate me instead!

I really like seeing my bike computer's odometer turn over to big numbers. When I first got my road bike last April, it was a big deal to see 100 on my odometer's screen. Later that year when the odometer turned over to 500 and I realized I had biked 500 miles on my road bike it was another big deal. Whenever my computer turns over to a number with zeros after it I let out a whoop, smile and ride on - and start logging miles towards my next hundred mile milestone.

Today I woke up with the goal of kicking that road bike's odometer over the 1,000 mile mark. I knew I was close - within 40 miles of reaching the goal - so Owen and I loaded the bikes and headed for the Cannon Valley Trail with plans to ride from Cannon to Red Wing and back - a total of 40 miles - and reach my mileage goal.

We got to the trail and got ready to ride. I turned on my bike computer and discovered I only had to pedal 22 miles to reach 1,000! So I did. And when my computer clicked over from 999.9 to 1,000 I let out a whoop and I smiled. I stopped to take a picture of my odometer reading for proof - and then I pedaled back to Cannon Falls and started logging miles towards my new mileage goal of 1,100 total miles.

1,000 miles!

Then the next goal will be 1,200.

Then 1,300...and 1,400...

and...it keeps going on and on and on.

I just realized this mileage goal thing pretty much never ends as long as I keep riding my bike. But instead of frustrating me, the fact that every hundred miles I can reach a new milage goal motivates me to keep on riding.

That's miles and miles of motivation.

I like that.

A Change in Plans

2011-07-18T21:52:00.000-05:00

My kids, Rose and Ryan, started a theater day camp today called Young People's Theater Workshop (YPTW). YPTW is a program put on through the Northfield Arts Guild during which the kids, grouped by age, write a play, rehearse it, and then perform it at the end of the three week session.

Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year.

Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well.

I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found other friends, too, and at the end of the day said he had fun. Rose, no surprise, had a great time to and is excited to be in a group with one of her best friends.

Big sigh of relief for me. Ryan is my tricky kid on things like this. He really would rather stay home all day with me. And, though I'd love to have him home every day with me during the summer, I do need some time to work and don't want to make two round trips to town to drop off Rose, go home to hang out with Ryan and drive back to pick her up. We've tried that before. And we've tried hanging out in town while Rose was at camp. Either way it just gets to be too much.

I've been looking forward to this first day of camp because I planned to kick it off with a whole lot of bike riding. Today I planned to haul my bike to town in my van, park my van at camp and then ride my bike to the coffee shop to work and to do errands. The rest of the week I planned to haul my road bike to town and spend much of the day putting some serious miles on my bike in and around Northfield. Like a lot of miles - a couple hundred by the end of the week.

My favorite place to ride - the lovely, shaded Cannon Valley Trail

Guess what? I've changed my plans. Why? The weather here in Minnesota is dangerously hot. We had temperatures of 98 by late afternoon today, which may not sound hot to my friends in the south but factor in the dew point in the 80s and you get a heat index of something like 112. We had the same sort of dew point yesterday and I read on news station KSTP's website that "...the only other spot in the Western Hemisphere with a dew point in the 80's Sunday was the Amazon Jungle in South America." (a quote from Meteorologist Ken Barlow)

Gee, I thought I lived in MinneSNOWta :) Guess not.

It's hot here. Sticky. Yucky. Walk outside and come in all dripping wet hot outside. And, suffice it to say, I did not ride my bike around town today. It is not likely I will ride my road bike tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Maybe I'll be riding again on Thursday when the temperatures are supposed to drop to around 85. Or maybe not. We'll see.

So I'm changing plans. Instead of week of intensive bike riding I'm opting for a week of intensive writing. I know I'll get some cooler bicycling weather here in Minnesota soon. In fact, given the right clothing (and maybe a fat bike like the Salsa Mukluk) I can ride all winter long!

But until cooler temperatures hit, I have a whole lot of writing to do.

Riding in the snow - in April!

A Win Win Situation

2011-07-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

My writing career has opened up so many opportunities for me. Through writing I’ve learned new things - like how to make metal garden sculptures with artist Jennifer Wolcott and and how to cover an airplane with an eco-friendly aircraft finishing process. My writing has given me a chance to write and record family stories, to be creative, to capture a moment or the essence of a lifetime and tell a story the best I can. Perhaps best of all, I've met so many cool people who, through the things they do and say, remind me that there's a lot of good stuff going on in our world.

My writing career has also opened up more career opportunities for me. Less than a year ago, I was offered the opportunity to write for a newly launched, community news and information website, Northfield Patch. Though I already had plenty of work, I was excited enough about Northfield Patch that I told editor, Corey Butler, Jr., that I would write for Patch anyway. I’m glad I did!

My Patch stories have focused on cool things kids are doing in our schools and also on the arts. And, no surprise, through writing for Patch I’ve learned so many new things - like how grade-school children can make a difference by forming an environmental club, about how 6th graders learn about history through doing History Day projects, about a 3rd grade class who folded 1,000 origami cranes and made a wish for the world. Each story unfolds something new to tell and has opened up so many new connections for me with the wonderful people in our community.

It’s a win win situation, I’d say.

Indeed. Because now my connection with Patch is affording me yet another opportunity - I get to share my blog, Idyllwild, with the Northfield Patch community. From time to time I may write a Patch specific post, but most of the time the Patch blog will be my regular posts with a few tweaks for the different audience. I'll get to share my love of bicycling, flying and my family with a new audience, maybe turn on a few people to fun things like 30 Days of Biking or encourage them to do other fun things with their families.

I'm excited for the new opportunity!
It's another win win situation, I'd say.

Short Wing Family

2011-07-08T23:33:00.008-05:00

We had a great time at the Short Wing Piper Club convention, the annual gathering of people who own, fly and simply admire "short wing" Piper airplanes. This year's convention was held in Spearfish, South Dakota. About 170 people attended and 42 Short Wings airplanes.

The convention is full of social activities, some meetings and presentations and a lot of hanging out and looking at airplanes. It's the ninth convention our family has attended, last year we flew to Middletown, Ohio and other years have brought us to Vancouver, WA and as far northeast as Kingston, Ontario, Canada. We figure that since 2003 we've flown over 8,300 miles in our little Pacer just attending conventions. That's about 80 some hours in a little airplane.

This year I, Owen and the kids did a presentation titled "Short Wing Family" at the convention. The secondary title, by the way, was "How to fly all over the country with your family and still like each other when you get back home." We've never done a presentation as a family so it was a bit nerve wracking to prepare for it and run through things before we went live - but it turned out well.

Some people who couldn't attend requested that I post our slideshow so I'm including it in my blog entry today. Find the link to "Short Wing Family" at the end of this blog entry and click to open it. Now, keep in mind that looking at 60 slides is not as much fun as experiencing the family-led presentation and hearing stories like how Ryan used to think our airplane was voice activated or how important it is to make sure everyone goes to the bathroom before you set off on a long journey. But it's the best I can do.

Here's a bit of set up of what we did for our presentation...The kids handed out little treat bags to everyone who attended - each zip-lock baggie had inside two pipe cleaners, a Dove Promise candy and a sucker. During the presentation, I explained why each of these things, including the zip-lock baggie, are important when flying with kids. We gave out chocolate to anyone who asked questions (something borrowed from fabulous author Lorna Landvik who gives out candy at her book readings) and put forth a pipe cleaner art challenge to the members of the audience. The winner (someone made a cool airplane with two pipe cleaners) got a prize.

By the way, since you weren't at the presentation you may still be wondering what the pipe cleaners are all about - I read a suggestion in a parenting magazine years ago that pipe cleaners are a great thing to give kids on road trips. The idea is that they, instead of saying they are bored, will make things out of them. I decided to equip the kids with pipe cleaners on our flights and though they don't totally eliminate boredom they do help.

Here's Rose in our Pacer with some flowers she made from pipe cleaners

As for the suckers? They are a little something to help keep the kids quiet. The chocolate? Something I need to survive every trip. As for the zip-lock baggie? We recommend you travel with gallon-size zip-lock baggies. They are great for trash and putting stuff in...and are a perfect barf bag (we've only had to use one enroute once but won't fly without them).

Blue Skies!

Short Wing Family (Adobe PDF file)

In the absence of real riding...

2011-06-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

The kids are out of school. It's summer. You'd think a person would have time to do things like ride a bike. But no. Things aren't working out that way. Why? Well the weather has been yucky for one. Rain. Lots of it. And I've been busy working on getting ourselves ready for our Short Wing Piper Club convention vacation. And other things that I won't get into right now. I've ridden very little in the last two weeks. And I'm frustrated. But I will survive and will get back on the bike and logging some miles soon.

So, in the absence of real riding, take a trip back in time with me to April when I took part in not just 30 Days of Biking but the 30 Days of Biking Team Loving the Bike challenge against Team Bike Radio. Each day of the challenge team members could take pictures from their rides to earn a point. The picture from each day that earned the most "likes" earned another point for the team member. One of my pictures won one day - it was a picture of my bike wheel covered in snow.

It was great fun seeing the pictures that were posted each day on the Loving the Bike Facebook page. And, in the absence of real riding and to celebrate the fond memories of 30 Days of Biking, I created a slide show in iMovie of the winning pictures from Team Loving the Bike. Here it is:

Quest Cake #2

2011-06-20T22:35:00.000-05:00

If you read my blog entry from a few days ago you know I'm in search of the perfect chocolate cake recipe. I tried another recipe from the Chocolate Cakes - 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion book. This one is called "Pound of Chocolate Cake" and has in it, you guessed it, a pound of chocolate that is covered in chocolate ganache.

I adjusted the recipe slightly. The recipe asks you to bake the cake in a square pan but I used a springform pan instead (my perfect chocolate cake is supposed to be round, don't know why I have that idea in my head but it is). It also calls for 13 oz. of semisweet chocolate but I didn't have quite enough so I used about 9 oz. of semisweet and 4 of bittersweet. The recipe says to butter the pan but I went ahead and dusted it with cocoa powder as well.

The cake turned out well, better than well, actually. The center was moist and dense - nearly perfect in texture. Rose, my daughter, says it's better than the first chocolate cake recipe I tried. Ryan, my son, thinks the first one was better. My mom likes this second try better. Not sure what anyone else in the family had to say but on day two the cake is nearly gone so that's a sign that people liked it!

A slice of "Pound of Chocolate Cake" - note the rich, dark, moist center. Yum!

As for me? Well, I think that the cake was, perhaps, a little too chocolaty. I'm wondering if I used all semisweet chocolate like the recipe said if that would have helped. Still, I'm thinking all the chocolate needs to be offset with something a little on the sweet side. The recipe suggests serving the cake with ice cream, which I did. That bit of sweetness helps the cake but I want to find a chocolate cake that stands on its own without ice cream.

So, even though I may make "Pound of Chocolate Cake" again, I'm still on a quest for the perfect chocolate cake recipe. Maybe a chocolate cake with a bit of raspberry flavor mixed in? Or topped with a raspberry sauce of some sort?

Hmmm. I'll keep trying recipes and I'll keep you posted on my findings. I like this kind of research - but I definitely need to ride my bike more to offset the taste testing.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T20:53:00.003-05:00

It's been a good Father's Day. We started things off with a short flight to Stanton Airfield for their Father's Day Fly-in, an annual event for the Mibus Family. Stanton is located near Northfield, Minnesota and the field holds a lot of history. Open since 1942 when it was owned by Carleton College to train pilots for WWII, the grass strip airfield is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's also one of our favorite places to fly to because it's close, there are two huge grass strips to land on and they have ice cream in the freezer and the old-fashioned pop machine. Pretty much a perfect airport, if you ask me.

There's an exhibit about Stanton Airfield opening at the Northfield Historical Society on Thursday called "Historic Stanton Airfield - Where History Touches the Sky." It sounds like it will be a cool exhibit and I believe it will be up at the Historical Society until late August. Not sure about the details but you can find details about the opening event at Northfield Patch. The reception starts at 6:00. I plan to attend.

As for other news, I'm happy to report that my latest travel story, a Going Places piece about Jordan, Minnesota, Stop, Shop and Stroll, was published in the Star Tribune's travel section today. Check it out when you get a chance.

Time to run. Owen and Rose just got back from a short flight for fuel with the Pacer. Rose navigated for Owen using ForeFlight and our iPad. Something new for us to learn, this ForeFlight stuff, but it's working well so far. More on that later.

Time to get back to enjoying Father's Day. Hope you fathers out there had a great day!

A Quest - for Perfect Chocolate Cake

2011-06-17T17:26:00.000-05:00

I'm in search of a recipe for the perfect chocolate cake. I had the perfect chocolate cake just over a month ago at the Old Village Hall Restaurant & Pub in Lanesboro, MN. It was a mocha chocolate cake and it was rich and dense and oh so yummy. Recently, I had another chocolate cake that was close to as perfect as the first - this one a Chocolate Truffle Turtle Cake at The Roasted Pear. I asked for the recipe. I didn't get it.

I'm tempted to call the Old Village Hall and ask for their recipe but I don't mind a quest. So I'm on one - in search of a recipe for the perfect chocolate cake. The cake I want to bake is kind of like a flourless chocolate torte but more dense. The ones I've had have been topped with chocolate ganache so that's a must. I believe both had a chocolate crust but I'm not hooked on the crust idea.

Tuesday night I tried a recipe from Chocolate Cakes - 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion. The recipe, Peppermint Patty Cake, called for 4 oz of unsweetened chocolate and 1 1/2 cups of peppermint patties and it's covered with chocolate ganache (made with cream & chocolate - yum!). I baked the cake according to directions - and it flopped. Okay, not completely but I couldn't get the cake out of the pan (despite buttering the pan - the recipe didn't call for me to flour the pan as well. I think flouring it, or using a springform pan, would have helped). In the end I had a mass of chocolate mush on my countertop and it didn't resemble a cake at all.

Owen suggested I throw it out and start over. I wanted the cake for my brother's birthday at noon on Wednesday and it was late Tuesday night so I couldn't start over. Instead, I took the gloppy mess and formed it into a cake shape with my hands. Then I covered it with ganache. And even though there were a few spots where the texture was a little off (the peppermints congealed in places) we ate it - all of it - within two days.

My brother Joel and his son Liam - and the birthday cake that didn't work but still tasted great.

I'm thinking I might take the recipe and tweak it a bit and see if I can come up with my own recipe for a perfect chocolate cake. I'm sure it will take me awhile to find the perfect recipe - but I don't mind a quest, especially one that involves chocolate!

Going somewhere

2011-06-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

This morning Owen and I rode to the town of New Market, about 8 miles from home, for a cup of coffee. We've never ridden to New Market before. It's a nice ride with several decent hills.

Our coffee stop, Fritzie's, is a newly opened coffee shop in town. This was our first visit. I had a great latte and a yummy granola bar sort of baked treat. Owen had a cup of dark roast - free refills made him extra happy. The service was excellent and we plan to stop at Fritzie's again.

A few doors down from the coffee stop is an Anytime Fitness. Through the huge windows we could see people working out on the treadmills and exercise bikes, pedaling and walking furiously but not going anywhere. And while I appreciate exercise equipment - I have a treadmill in my hangar and I do use it - and totally understand the importance of having places to exercise, it seemed a little sad that on such a gorgeous morning the people exercising inside weren't walking or biking outside.

That's the best thing about biking, I think, is that when I'm biking I'm outside and going somewhere. Sure, it rains sometimes, like this morning. And there are hills and the wind and some crazy smells from the farms and occasional roadkill we pedal past.

But overall the scenery is beautiful. And since I'm usually biking with someone I get to socialize. And on each bike ride, in the process of going somewhere while exercising at the same time, I see and experience something new.

Riding and Writing

2011-04-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

The weather has not been good for riding my bike lately but I have been out riding every day for 30 Days of Biking. Only three days left. Hard to believe! After days of rain finally tonight the sun came out and Owen and I headed out on our road bikes for a quick 5.25 mile ride at almost a 13 mph pace. It felt great to get out and ride with some speed - at last! Quite a change from riding on the gravel in the rain.

Shadows - proving the sun was out today

The weather has been good for writing, however. And I've been doing a lot of writing in the last few weeks. And editing. Lots of editing. In the last two weeks I've been working on a travel piece for the Star Tribune. This story, on the town of Cannon Falls, will be my second for the Star Tribune. It's due out on Sunday. Look for it!

The Oxford Mill Ruins - near Cannon Falls

It was great fun checking out the sites in Cannon Falls, talking to people who work at various business, learning about the town's history. Writing the story was fun, too, and it went together well. Still, it was a challenge deciding what to include and what to cut to make my word count.

But, the nice thing about working with my editor at the Star Tribune, her name is Kathleen, is that I know that she's a good editor and will let me know if what I turned in isn't quite what she needs.

And that's what happened. Kathleen read my story and sent me an email asking for some more information on a few things. So I got back to my notes, my computer and my phone and found her the answers. Then I sent her more information and several rewritten bits. And though the editing process took quite a bit of time and I was a little frustrated wishing I could have gotten the story "just right" the first time, in the end the story is far better than what I first sent in. I'm happy with the edited story and will be extra proud to have my name on the byline.

I kind of feel that there should be a byline under mine stating "carefully edited and improved by Kathleen" but I guess that's not the way things work.

There's so much to learn about writing. I hope I am a good student :-)

Speaking of writing, I had two stories published in April. "Street Smart," a story on Bob Hedstrom, an aficionado of a two-wheeled, motorized scooters and the owner of Scooterville, is in Minnesota Good Age. The other is a somewhat humorous essay about gardening - Super Gardening Woman!, which was published in Womeninc. (I hope to get a pdf of that story up on my website soon)

And back to the topic of editing, Super Gardening Woman, which runs about 1,200 words, was also published in the Autumn 2010 issue of Green Prints as "The 15-Minute Gardener." Length of the story in that publication? About 300 words. And the story, though short and way different, was edited well and reads well.

Go figure. There's so much for me to learn about editing. About writing. About life. Even about biking. So here I am, sitting in the front row, ready to learn.

Loving the Team Loving the Bike

2011-04-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

It's Day 21 of #30daysofbiking and, despite the crazy Minnesota weather, I don't think I'll have any trouble finishing my third round of 30 Days of Biking.

I certainly am not logging many miles this time around but I am, save for one day when I rode a stationary bike on vacation, getting outside every day and riding a bike.

That means that when it snowed last week I was out on my bike. And when it rained yesterday I was out on my bike. And today, even though I'm kind of grumpy, I'll get out on my bike. Why? It would be easy to quit and think that no one is paying attention to whether I ride or not. But people DO notice if I don't ride.

Gravel road I rode on yesterday's ride.

Because I'm part of a the 30 Days of Biking community of people.
And for this round of 30 Days of Biking I am also part of a team - Team Loving the Bike.

Darryl of Loving the Bike created a challenge with a group of bicyclists at Bicycle Radio. The deal is team members rack up points for riding each day, for posting a picture from their rides on the team's Facebook page and for riding a bike when they could have driven. It's not a competition of speed or miles - rather it's more a competition based on the dedication to ride every day.

And Darryl asked me to be a part of Team Loving the Bike.
Our team has members from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.
And I'm one of them!

In gym class in grade school I was picked last or near last for teams. When I played softball in 8th grade people groaned when the ball was hit in my direction because I usually dropped it. The other team pretty much cheered when I got up to bat, I was an "easy out." Team sports were never my thing - so getting asked special to be a part of this team, many of whom are pretty hard-core athletes, made me feel pretty darn good.

I thought about this, about being a part of a team, while I was riding my bike in the rain yesterday. I rode on wet gravel which was pretty tough. But I rode, and pushed myself to ride terrain I'm not comfortable on because of 30 Days of Biking and because I'm part of Team Loving the Bike. Because the points I earn for Team Loving the Bike for riding every day count.

Because what I do counts.
Because I count.
Which, at times, is kind of hard for me to come to terms with - but there it is.
I count.
Cool.

And I'm in a very cool Team Loving the Bike video created by one of our team members, Aaron the Strong. Watch it. It will make you smile :)

30 Days of Biking The Loving the Bike Spectacular from Aaron Madrid on Vimeo.

I'm Loving the Team! I'm Loving the Bike!

Island Time

2011-04-10T20:54:00.000-05:00

Even though I loved the surf and the sun of Anna Maria Island the thing I'm missing the most, I think, is Island Time. Yep, time just didn't seem to matter much while we were there.

What's Island Time? It's more a feeling than a thing. It's all about forgetting about time and trying to get places. It's about forgetting you have a cell phone or clock. Its, well, a lot of things and probably something different for everyone. Perhaps I can explain what it is to me, at least somewhat, in pictures.

Island Time = Single speed bikes and pedaling slowly around town. 90% of the bikes I saw on Anna Maria Island were single speed bikes. I only saw two road bikes and rarely saw anyone pedal faster than 10 mph. I liked wandering around on my rental bike. I liked getting lost. I liked moving slowly. It was relaxing. It was fun.

Island Time = Reading Time (or DS Time, in Ryan's case). Sitting Still Time. It stormed the first full day of our vacation. And while the rain was a bummer it also forced us to sit still awhile. To be instead of do.

Island Time = Family time. Game time. Together time. We listened to music. We ate together. Owen played card games with the kids.

Island Time = Trolley time. No need for a car on the island, there was a free trolley to take us around town. Sure we had to wait for it but since we weren't worried about being anywhere on time it didn't really matter what time the trolley arrived. If I lived on Anna Maria, I would hardly use a car - between a bike and the trolley I'd be set! (oh, and with all the walking, biking, and beach time I'd be in awesome shape!!!)

Island Time = Beach Time. And Family Time. And long walks in the morning. And Rose and I catching perfect waves on our rented boogie boards (and, in my case, crashing brilliantly a few times!). We looked for shells. We played in the sand. We didn't sleep in too late because the beach called to us each morning. We slept well at night because the outdoor activity had us tired and ready for bed.

So how can I bring Island Time to my life now? I don't have a beach at home nor do I have a trolley. Riding a single speed bike 15 miles into town to do errands isn't practical. I'm still playing catch up on my writing work that accumulated while I was gone. And there's laundry. And a house to clean. And food to make and....well, a whole lot of stuff to do. Island Time like I enjoyed it on Anna Maria Island isn't really possible in Webster, Minnesota.

But maybe I can incorporate some elements of Island Time in my life. I can start by ignoring my cell phone more often. I don't have to have it with me, nor do I need to check email on it when I'm on the go. I can allow myself some time to sit still and read. I can spend more time "being" with my family than "doing" with my family. I can slow down. Garden more. Work less. Listen to the kids tell me stories because, before you know it, they'll be grown up and gone from home.

And I can do what I did tonight. Feeling somewhat frazzled with family matters and things to do, I jumped on my bike and pedaled around my neighborhood. Just two miles. Just twelve minutes. Just enough time for a mini escape from the day. I'm not on an island nor is it likely I will be again for quite some time - but I feel a whole lot better now.

Crazy Weather and Nice People

2011-03-31T19:07:00.000-05:00

30 Days of Biking begins tomorrow, April 1st, and I'm ready! I'm actually on vacation right now in Florida. We're in a darling little rental on Anna Maria Island. Normally it's sunny here but today it's raining like crazy. Tornado warnings. Extreme winds. It's weather we are used to having in Minnesota. Oh well. We're hoping things clear up by tomorrow so I don't have to bike in the rain. If it's still raining I'll still be biking. And when it's time to ride I have a nice little island cruiser ready for me. I rented a nice little ladies bike from Fun and More Rentals for Day 1 and Day 2 of 30 Days of Biking. It's pretty - and it even has a basket!

Even with the rain we're having a fine time. We've had to regroup a bit on our plans - instead of hitting the beach today we played games indoors. Rose and I planned to take the island trolley to the store but we haven't had the rain let up enough yet to go anywhere. Granted, the kids are disappointed and Rose was pretty grumpy about the weather this morning. It's hard not to be disappointed - it's her first time to Florida and she was looking forward to spending hours in the sunshine. But, even in the rain, the kids spent some time in the pool today. And now we're settling in to an afternoon of more game playing, maybe some reading, maybe a movie. We'll see.

We love the island life so far. We took the trolley to Gulf Coast Cafe for dinner last night. Good food. Nice view of the ocean. Then we took the trolley to the grocery store to pick up food for breakfast and lunch. It was raining when it was time to leave. Pouring, actually. And there we were waiting under a little shelter for our trolley. And waiting. And waiting. Then a passenger van did a u-turn and pulled up in front of us. A woman rolled down the window and asked if we wanted a ride. We hesitated a moment, we didn't have any idea who these people were, after all, but said yes. The family of six, Mom, Dad and four boys age 9 to 14, welcomed us inside and gave us a ride to our rental. Nice people from Minnetonka, Minnesota of all places. They've had to wait for the trolley before, they said, for a long, long time. Mom said the boys saw us and said "There's a family waiting for the trolley. Let's give them a ride." So they did. And we are so grateful. And really, really wish we could somehow thank them but we didn't even find out their names.

So, to the family of six from Minnetonka, Minnesota, who were kind enough to give us a ride - Thank you!!! And we promise to pay it forward and help someone else soon.

Here's hoping tomorrow is a nice, sunny, day! But really, how can it not be a nice day when there's such nice people around?

P.S. I want to publish some pictures but can't for some reason. Probably because I'm using my iPad for the first time to update my blog. I'll try to post some later. I'm sure you'll want to see a picture of my Island Cruiser bike :)

A Good Experience at the Lifestyle Bike Experience

2011-03-20T15:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my family headed to the Mall of America to check out the Lifestyle Bike Experience - an expo type of event put on by HaveFunBiking.com, "Your News Source for Bicycling Information." An article on HaveFunBiking had information about the event. Here's an excerpt of what the event had to offer:

"Those who visit MOA will have a chance to explore some of the latest bicycle opportunities: Try out easy to ride bicycles; find ideas for comfortable clothing; take in a five-minute clinics for safe and healthy commuting to school or work; discover great places to bike; plus... many bicycle related games and prizes."

We would not normally head to the Mall of America on a Saturday afternoon and it was an absolute zoo - we almost turned back when we saw how busy the place was - yet we heard about the event from our friends at Valley Bike and Ski and wanted to check it out.

We're glad we did. The Best Buy Rotunda section of the MOA was full of bikes and bicycling information. Several area shops were there with their bikes on display - I think Valley Bike and Ski, Erik's Bike Shop and Penn Cycle were the shops represented, I may have missed someone. There were representatives from Have Fun Biking, information on bike safety, rides, tours, trails, and events like the Nature Valley Bicycle Festival and Grand Prix. We had a chance to talk to our friends from Valley and met a few new people, too.

There were also people from the National Sports Center Velodrome there, pedaling fixies (bikes with one speed and no brakes) on trainers (these were "rollers"). Did you know we have a bike race track in Minnesota? And that it's been here for 20 years? I didn't. I'm hoping to get up there - it's in Blaine, about an hour or so from my home - and check out some racing this year.

The highlight of the afternoon for us was watching stunt rider, Chris Clark, maneuver his Giant STP over people, onto huge plywood boxes, across wood bridges and through the air. He did this all in a very small space and all with great precision and skill. It was fun to watch him! After his show, we got to meet him and talk to him about how he got started doing "freeride" bicycling. He autographed a bike water bottle for Ryan and gave him a Giant Bicycles t-shirt. Ryan put it on when he got home and hasn't taken it off since.

Even for a family who is pretty in the know about bicycling, there was enough new information for us to make visiting the Lifestyle Bike Experience worthwhile. I do wish the publicity for the event would have been more thorough - I struggled to find information on the event on the internet and really wish a schedule would have been published stating Chris' name and the times he performed. I also found the MOA venue difficult - it was hard to hear and so crowded - but I can't think of a better site off hand.

All in all, the Lifestyle Bike Experience was a good experience. I'm sure it stirred up a lot of excitement for bikes and bicycling. I know it did for me and my family!

First Ride of 2011

2011-03-11T17:28:00.000-06:00

I took my Specialized hybrid to Milltown Cycles a few days ago for a tune up. While it was there I had Ben and Curtis put new tires on it and a set of fenders.

Replacing the tires was a no brainer - they've been on the bike since I got it, in about 1994, and the rubber was literally crumbling away. The tread was also very smooth, not just from wear but by design, and I wanted to get something that would work for riding gravel. Ben suggested a tire with a smoother tread in the center and a bit more tread - and therefore grip - on the outer edges.

New tires for the gravel roads - complete with dirt from my morning ride!

I decided to put on fenders because I want to seriously start riding the gravel roads near my home. Without fenders gravel, mud, and dust from the roads sprays up all over my back, my legs and on the bike. Ben suggested a nice inexpensive pair of fenders for my bike and I told him to go ahead and put them on.

I dropped off my bike on Saturday and Milltown had it back to me within a few days. Ben and Curtis do nice work. They are also very friendly and great in the customer service department. They know my name - I like it when I can walk in a shop or call and the people remember me. Oh, and they have a lot of cool bikes at Milltown and Ben keeps an awesome blog about bikes and biking. Be sure to check it out.

I couldn't wait to try out my "new" bike so went for a quick ride this morning. Today marked my first ride of 2011. My first ride with my new tires and fenders. My second ever ride on gravel. I only rode for two miles - that's all I had time and energy (I've been sick) for. But, even though it was windy and riding gravel is a challenge for me, it was two miles of pure heaven.

I'm happy to report that the tune up made my bike ride like new. All of the squeaks and groans it was making last year are gone. The tires gripped the gravel roads well and didn't slip around in the soft spots or on the wet patches. The fenders kept me and my bike almost completely free of dirt and grime.

My old Specialized newly tuned up and sporting with new tires and fenders.

I often worry about riding my road bike on roads with a lot of traffic and no shoulder. I'm surrounded by quiet gravel roads out here in the country and they've been begging me to ride them. And now that I have a bike that works well on gravel I'm set to ride even more than before!

Of course, I'd love a cool gravel bike, maybe a Surly Cross-Check, but my sturdy Specialized will do the trick for now.

Dream Bike - Surly Cross-Check Cyclocross bike - in my color!

photo from www.surleybikes.com

30 Days of Biking - Round 3

2011-03-09T22:05:00.000-06:00

Guess what? I'm going to do it again - The third round of 30 Days of Biking starts up on April 1st and I signed up to ride my bike every day for 30 days. I'm crazy like that.

I can honestly say that 30 Days of Biking has changed my life for the better. I suppose that sounds overly dramatic. But it's true.

I've become a more active person because of 30 Days of Biking. I've never thought of myself as an athlete, still don't, really, but I certainly have changed my activity level and I exercise almost every day now. That's a pretty big deal for me. I even think exercising is kind of fun. I certainly think bicycling is fun - though I'm not yet fond of going uphill.

I'd like to believe I've also become a more positive person - probably because of the wonderfully positive people I came to know through the challenge. People like Darryl of www.lovingthebike.com who shared his bicycling knowledge and encouraging words from the moment we connected on Twitter and has since become a friend. People like Cassi from www.shebicycles.com who set a goal to bike not just 30 days but 330 days and is kind enough to share her friendship - and great photography - with me even though we've never met in person. Oh, there are so many other people I now know because of this bicycling adventure, people who have supported me and shared their positive thoughts. I can't mention them all or I'd be here all night - and I'd certainly miss someone. And I don't want to do that.

One of my favorite resting spots along the Cannon Valley Trail

30 Days of Biking has also been a great thing for my family. They supported me as I rode my bike Every. Friggin. Day. (a 30 Days of Biking mantra) last April and biked with me every day during the September challenge. We grew as a family as we biked together. We made memories, most of them happy - like biking the Sakatah Trail and stopping to see Wolley Bear caterpillars along the way. Some of them a bit sad - like Rose crashing on our last day of the September challenge. But whether great or slightly sad all of them are memories we now share. All of them helped us grow. All of them are part of who we are now. And that's pretty cool.

So, I'm doing it again. This 30 Days of Biking thing. Because good things happened when I started biking. Good things could happen to you, too! So feel free to sign up for Round 3 and join me - and hundreds of others around the world - and start 30 Days of Biking on April 1st!

Writing News

2011-03-02T21:40:00.000-06:00

I don't often blog about my writing work but figured I would today. Why? Well, I had a story published in the March issue of Minnesota Good Age and I'm excited about it. In addition to that news, I've been writing for a new online publication, Northfield Patch. Oh, and I'm taking a Mother Words writing class taught by Kate Hopper and have been to two writing events at The Loft.

Lots of writing stuff going on and it's all good!

But, I don't want to stay up too late or write too much so will focus this entry on the Minnesota Good Age news.

A while back I pitched a story to Good Age's sister publication, Minnesota Parent. The editor didn't go for the idea but asked if I was comfortable writing for the over 50 audience, the target market for Minnesota Good Age. I responded that I was married to a member of the over 50 crowd (Owen is 55 - hope he doesn't mind me announcing that) so, yes, I was comfortable writing for that audience. Much to my delight, she assigned me to write a story about Michael Brindisi and Michelle Barber of the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres - a powerhouse couple of the Minnesota theater world.

I had fun interviewing Michael and Michelle early last December - they are exceptionally nice people - and waited somewhat impatiently for the story to run. The story, titled "I Do! I Do!" (a nod to the show at the Chanhassen by the same name) came out just a few days ago. It's on the front page and is the feature story! I was excited to see that - I guess it didn't dawn on me when the story was assigned that I was going to be writing a feature.

My story and Robb Long's great picture on the cover of Minnesota Good Age

A great picture by photographer Robb Long accompanies the story. He does exceptional work and has shot for two other stories I've written for Minnesota Parent (Let's Go Fly! and The Minivan Makes the Man). I love his work and am honored to have his pictures with my words. His website, www.rlimaging.com, is worth checking out. As a fan of bikes and bicycling, I especially like his pictures from the Downtown Journal story by Gregory J. Scott, Winter Warriors.

The editor at Minnesota Good Age, Kathleen Stoehr, was super to work with as well. And guess what? She assigned me to write another profile which should run in the April issue of Minnesota Good Age. I'll leave you in suspense as to who I got to write about this time but will tell you this...it involved another great interview with an extraordinary character - and I left the interview wanting to buy a scooter!

A Stella from Genuine Scooters. Photo from Genuine's website - www.genuinescooters.com

A Secret Goal

2011-02-14T11:00:00.000-06:00

I set another goal for myself at the beginning of February - but I didn't tell anyone about it. Until now that is. I meant to blog about it but simply never got around to it. Or maybe I kind of liked having a "secret" goal. Who knows? Either way - here it is now.

I decided to write three pages a day each day in February as suggested in the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She talks about writing "Morning Pages" in this book, three pages of stream of consciousness writing - pen to paper, not typing at a computer - first thing each morning. The practice or writing Morning Pages, she says, helps with creativity.

I've always liked the idea of writing Morning Pages and have made many attempts to make them a regular practice but have never kept them up. Part of my struggle with Morning Pages has been the "morning" part. Writing first thing in the morning for me is a challenge. So, even though I know that writing these pages in the afternoon or late at night doesn't really fit the "assignment" I have decided that I don't care. My challenge has simply been to write three pages a day sometime during the day. Sounds easy, I suppose, but just like snowshoeing every day for 30 days or riding my bike for 30 Days of Biking, there are days when it's easier than others.

I'm technically on day 14 of my writing challenge. I missed a day, though. Whoops. Totally forgot to write on the first Sunday in February. Oh well. I haven't missed a day since.

At this point I have no idea if writing has helped my creativity or not. I do know that if you read my stream of consciousness journal writing you'd be bored out of your mind. But the content is not the point. It's the practice of writing. It's about creating a habit. It's about clearing the brain of whatever is in there to make room for other writing to happen.

Let's hope my brain is clear now that I've written my Morning Pages because I have a story due. So, Morning Pages and a blog entry done, it's time to get to work.

Just what I needed

2011-02-10T14:28:00.001-06:00

I just started reading a book, Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. The book was recommended to me and I like it so far. In case you don't already know, I have a hard time liking myself sometimes. Okay, lots of times. At this moment I'm not going to get into the "why" I struggle with with liking myself or anything like that. It's simply a statement of fact - I struggle with liking me.

I'm working on it.
And I'm making progress.

I have several close friends who know that I struggle with this liking me thing. One is my friend, writer and blogger, Joy (check out her blog - My Musical Family) And this morning Joy emailed me a link to a blog, "The Extraordinary Ordinary" written by a blogger named Heather. Joy saw her entry from yesterday, "Focus," and liked it, she said, and thought I might, too.

I wonder if she saw the Focus entry and thought of me because my Facebook status update yesterday was "focusfocusfocusfocus - it would be easier if the old dog didn't keep barking and the pup didn't keep eating socks." Yeah. It was hard to work in my home office yesterday. And I have a deadline looming over me. And focus is not my strong point to begin with. Add a deadline, crazy dogs and a house that's begging me to clean it and, oh look. Squirrel!! Yeah. Working from home is great fun some days and yesterday was one of them.

More than reminding her of my facebook status, though, I think Joy read the Focus blog and knew it would mean something to me.

Here's a snippet:
"I am sometimes out of focus and sometimes that's led me into life things that took my breath away with their bad. And sometimes I just can't get myself to change and maybe I should just know that I'm okay, just like I am and be more gentle and patient with myself."
And here's some more:
"There's not always something wrong with me, something glaringly awful to fix. Maybe I'm just me, living my story, and maybe the changes will come in their own time and even if they don't, I'm good."

Do yourself a favor and read the whole blog entry. It's short so will just take a minute. When you have more time read more of the blog. It's a good one.

There's not a whole lot more I'm going to say here. Just that I read the blog entry, I loved it, and I cried. And felt better. And less goofy. And more accepting of the times when I do feel out of focus. And more accepting of me.

Most of all, though, I felt overwhelmed that I am so lucky to have a wise friend who somehow knew, consciously or unconsciously, that I needed to read that blog entry today.

Because it was just what I needed.
Thanks :)

Snowshoe Memories - 30 Days Done!

2011-02-02T12:34:00.000-06:00

I finished off my last two days of 30 Days of Snowshoeing in a perfect setting!! My friends, Paul, Jodie and Morgan, invited me and my family up to their cabin on Lake Ossawinnamakee, near Brainerd, Minnesota, where we enjoyed a mini-break from work and school.

Though some lakes are busy with snowmobile traffic in the winter, this corner of Lake Ossie was almost snowmobile free. It was quiet up there and most of the time we felt like we had the whole lake to ourselves. We had a great time. We talked. We attempted ice fishing. We read books. We ate and talked some more. We relaxed. We had fun.

And I snowshoed.
Four times in two days!

On Saturday, Day 29 of my 30 Days of Snowshoeing, I snowshoed out to an island where I found signs of deer and places where they had bedded down. I found a rope swing and managed to swing on it a few times though I had to hold my snowshoed feet way up in the air so they wouldn't hit the ice. I'm sure I looked ridiculous but I didn't care.

Owen joined me on a second trip to the island. We followed deer paths through the snow and talked. We never once talked about work or household tasks left undone. We simply enjoyed our time together in the great outdoors.

On Sunday morning I woke before Owen and headed out on my snowshoes to "help" Paul bring in the portable ice house. Paul gave me tips on where to snowshoe in the surrounding woods so I trekked out and found deer tracks and prints of the feet of little woodland creatures. I took pictures of the trees, of the tracks, but I know they will never capture the real beauty of the woods. Nor will the pictures capture the way I felt - alone but still a part of my surroundings - or the sound that my snowshoes made while I walked through the silence and perfect snow.

Shortly before it was time to head home Rose said she wanted to snowshoe to the island with me. So we did. I showed her where the deer had been. The rope swing. We stopped to make snow angels on the lake. I helped Rose up and we walked hand in hand a bit then stopped to look at our ice fishing holes and observed our only catch of the weekend - a small clump of seaweed. We laughed as we remembered sitting out in the little ice house the night before. Of how we both were tired and decided to do synchronized ice fishing to stay awake and warm. Of how we giggled so much at our silly antics that we were sure we scared all the fish away.

All too soon it was time to head back. We needed to finish packing. To load the van. To drive the long way home and get on with our normal lives.

Can a life be normal again, though, after snowshoeing 30 days in a row? I suppose normal isn't the right word. Ordinary, perhaps? Average? It's not like snowshoeing 30 days in a row changed my life in some big way but doing it made me feel like I accomplished something big. Sticking to my goal, some of my friends tell me, helped them get out and exercise more. That makes me feel good. And maybe when a person sets a goal and keeps it life is never the same. I'm not really sure.

I do know, though, that every time I strapped on my snowshoes and got outside I felt wonderful. That I have a good memory from each of my 30 days of snowshoeing. And that my favorite memory was the few sweet moments on that 30th day when Rose and I snowshoed hand in hand.

Making tracks

2011-01-19T14:31:00.000-06:00

I just looked out my office window and saw my snowshoe tracks in the snow. For some reason they surprised me. Seeing them I had concrete evidence that I actually have been getting out on my snowshoes every day. That I've actually been going somewhere.

And, for some reason, I find this comforting.

I've been fighting my 30 Days of Snowshoeing commitment and am kind of mad at myself for creating the challenge for myself. I haven't wanted to get out every day and snowshoe. It's cold outside. I don't like putting on my snowpants, my hat, scarf, gloves, jacket. Perhaps because I'm doing the challenge alone, unlike the 30 Days of Biking challenges where hundreds of other people biked every day and helped motivate each other, I don't really feel like it matters that I'm doing this. And I've lost momentum and motivation and simply want to sit inside and read a book. Or sleep. Or watch Monk and Cake Boss on Netflix.

But I keep snowshoeing. Every day. Even when I haven't wanted to. And though many days, especially the last few, I have resisted getting out there, once I get outside and start moving I am happy to be out on my snowshoes and am glad I made the effort.

Today will be Day 19 of my 30 Day challenge. And as soon as I wrap up a few things in my office I will get out there and make more tracks in the snow. Because, I tell myself, it's good for me to get outside every day, especially in the winter. I need the exercise. I need the sunshine. The fresh air.

And I said I would do it. So I will go.

2,011 in 2011

2011-01-12T10:39:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about milage goals for 2011. Last year, I set a goal to ride my bicycle 500 miles and when I surpassed that goal I set out with a personal challenge to complete 1,000 miles of exercise by the end of the year. I managed 914 miles, most of which were bicycling miles. I feel good about this especially since I'm not an exercising person at all.

At least I wasn't an exercising person.
I guess at this point I can think of myself an exercising person.
Because in 2010 I actually made exercise an almost daily part of my life. And I like it.

I see the year ahead as an opportunity to continue being active. I have found that doing mini challenges like 30 Days of Biking and my own 30 Days of Snowshoeing help me stay on track. And, even though I didn't make my 1,000 milage goal in 2010, I found that putting that big number out there kept me exercising. I've also found that tools like Dailymile have greatly helped me keep track of my progress and motivate me.

Yesterday I got an email from Dailymile stating that I could view my personalized exercise report for 2010. So I did. And it felt good to see the report, to see that starting from April when I started Dailymile, I biked, walked, snowshoed and ran (very slowly) a total of 914 miles in 2010. It also states that my exercising efforts burned off 293 donuts and 15 pounds of weight. Well, I'm not 15 pounds lighter but I'm not 15 pounds heavier, either. It was great fun to see the report, to see my average miles in a month, to get a visual of my progress.

So I've been thinking about milage goals for 2011. At first my goal was "Bicycle over 1,00 miles in 2011 - dare I say 1,500? 2,000?" But now I have decided on something more concrete. My goal is to bicycle, snowshoe and walk a total of 2,011 miles in 2011. I want to do the majority of those miles on my bike but it's not likely I'll be biking much until spring. For now, I'm snowshoeing every day in January and fitting in some long walks and am planning to get my bike on a trainer and put in some bicycling miles indoors

2,011 miles is a big goal. I may not be able to make it. That's okay. I'll keep working toward it.
So far this year I've snowshoed and walked a total of 15 miles.
It's a good start.

Only 67 days until Spring!

30 Days of Snowshoeing

2011-01-08T15:50:00.000-06:00

I've lived in Minnesota all my life but have only tolerated winter. Oh, back in junior high I was in the cross-country ski club and spent some time outside having fun. And back when I had horses I would bundle up and ride in the dead of winter. And before that I remember looking forward to winter, to the freshly fallen snow, and spent a lot of time playing outside as a kid. I distinctly remember playing school outside at my Grandpa and Grandma's farm once. My cousin, Sara, and I made desks out of snow and used icicles as pencils. We must have stayed outside for hours. Or maybe not. I do remember having fun, though. And I do remember loving snow.

I have many other good memories of winter yet for the last dozen or so years, okay maybe twenty, I've done my best to stay inside once the cold set in. Yet having kids has slowly warmed me up to winter. Rose and Ryan love to play out in the snow and in the past 10 years I've gotten out there with them and gone sledding and trekking outside. And now that I have snowshoes I'm getting out there and having fun, too, and I'm kind of liking winter.

A couple of days ago I decided to create a 30 day challenge for myself - 30 Days of Snowshoeing. I did two 30 Days of Biking challenges last year so figured I could handle another 30 day challenge. I decided to make January 1st my start date so, as long as I kit up and head outside soon, today will be Day 8 of my 30 Days of Snowshoeing challenge.

Assuming we have snow on the ground all month, and I'm pretty sure we will, I think I can meet my challenge. I have nothing to lose (except maybe some extra Christmas weight) and might just gain a greater appreciation for Minnesota winters in the process. After all, when you're not shoveling snow, driving through a blizzard or stuck in a ditch, Minnesota winters are awfully pretty.

We have woods full of snow-covered trees like these...

Yep, that pretty much makes going outside worthwhile.

Off I go...

A Good Start

2011-01-07T20:47:00.001-06:00

We've had a good start to our New Year.

You see, for Christmas we decided to get the family snowshoes. We were so happy bicycling with the family last year that Owen and I wanted to keep going. But in Minnesota it snows - a lot! - and I really didn't want to ride in the winter and don't think the kids would be willing to either. But we wanted to stay active, to enjoy the winter wonderland around us, to keep doing things together as a family.

Cross-country skis, we thought, were an option but kind of a costly one once we all got skis, poles, boots and gear. Downhill skiing was another possibility, though more expensive than cross country with lift tickets and all. Add to that having to drive a half hour or more to the nearest ski hill.

So we decided to get snowshoes for Christmas. They are relatively inexpensive and we can snowshoe right in our backyard and surrounding fields. The kids had expressed interest in snowshoeing before. I've done it some and enjoyed it. We wouldn't need much by way of special equipment or clothes - just snowshoes. So Owen and I set out to get snowshoes for everyone for Christmas. And, to kick off our snowshoe ownership with style, we decided to the kids on a mini snowshoeing vacation up north.

So a few days after Christmas we loaded up our van and headed up to McGregor, Minnesota, about three hours north of our house, and settled in at our neighbor's cottage for some time away from work, from school, from home.

We played games. We ate yummy food. We hung out with the neighbors and their friends. We stayed up late and slept in.

And we snowshoed.

We snowshoed on Lake Minnewawa and in Savanah Portage State Park under a canopy of snow covered trees. The scenery was beautiful. And even though it was cold, we had fun.

Rose, Myrna & Ryan snowshoeing in Savanah Portage State Park

And on New Year's Eve, though the kids were getting kind of goofy with tiredness, we all stayed up until midnight to ring in the New Year - the first time we've all welcomed the new year together.

Snowshoeing. Family time. Games. Reading. Relaxing. A Happy New Year. A Happy Family.

Life is good.

And 2011 is off to a good start.

Baking Weather

2010-12-11T13:23:00.009-06:00

Many of you know that I love to bake.

I've been planning to share some recipes on my blog and I think today is a good day for sharing one.

Why?

Because here in Minnesota we're in the middle of a big snowstorm. Events are being cancelled. The roads are too bad to drive. Plows won't be coming through our neighborhood for hours. The temperature is going below zero tonight and is expected to stay below zero or in the single digits through Tuesday. So it's a good day to do indoor activities - like baking cookies made with butter.

Lots of butter.

And cream. Yep, cream is good, too.

So, if you are stuck in this Minnesota snowstorm or just want to pretend you are, I'm going to link you to an easy recipe for Mandel Kakor - Swedish Almond Butter Cookies.

Why a recipe for Swedish cookies today?

Well, last night I attended the 35th annual Lucia Festival hosted by the Northfield Swedish Club. My husband and kids attended the event a few years ago but this was my first time. I enjoyed it immensely. The evening was casual and fun and started with a Julbord (Christmas Buffet) which we enjoyed as we listened to traditional music played by a number of talented local musicians.

Rose as a Lucia Attendant

The highlight of the night was the Luciatag, the Lucia pageant, when the lights were dimmed and two Lucias led their Tarnor (Attendants) and Stjarngossar (Star boys) out into the room. My daughter, Rose, was an attendant for the first time. I almost cried to see her holding her candle, to see all of the children walking in, to hear them singing Sancta Lucia. Okay, I did cry a bit. I do that.

After the pageant, the Lucias and their attendants delivered Julkakor (Christmas cookies) to the guests. Rose delivered a tray of cookies to our table and we finished off the evening with more music including a sing along of Svenska Julsanger (Swedish Christmas songs), a visit from a tomte (a Swedish elf) and Dans kring granen (Swedish folk dancing around the Christmas tree).

Each family is asked to bring two dishes for the buffet and a dozen cookies. I made Shortbread Fruit Squares, a buttery shortbread cookie my Mom makes every Christmas, and Mandel Kakor. I LOVE Mandel Kakor. I had them for breakfast yesterday and for an after breakfast snack today. The recipe is easy even though the cookies require two trips to the oven and they taste oh so good!

Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.relishmag.com/recipes/view/41188/mel-kakor.html
Correction - as of 11/16/2011 the above link does not work. Try this one instead:
http://www.relish.com/recipes/mandel-kakor-swedish-almond-butter-cookies/

Mandel Kakor. Photo from Relish. Mark Boughton Photography; styling by Teresa Blackburn

Step 6 of the recipe states that during the second bake cycle you can bake the cookies for 20 minutes if you like crispy cookies or 10 minutes for chewier cookies. I always bake 10 minutes for the chewier cookies. I think they are better that way.

It's still snowing and blowing like crazy outside. I've got a lot of writing work to do today, a bit of baking (probably plum puddings to embrace my English roots. We always have plum pudding on Christmas) and need to carve out some time to exercise. Gotta keep working out so I can eat more cookies, you know!

Happy baking - and stay warm!

Our Italy Box

2010-11-30T16:57:00.000-06:00

Guess what? The Mibus Family is heading to Italy to do some bike touring!!! Now don't get TOO excited, we're not going any time soon. But it's good to dream so that's what we're doing. But we're not only dreaming we're doing something about our dream - we're saving money in our Italy Box.

Traveling to Italy has been on the back burner of my "to do" list for a couple of years. Art. History. Architecture. Food. Gelato. Wine. Italy is full of stuff to see and do and I love to travel. Once I started bicycling I learned that various companies coordinate bike tours in Italy which made me want to go there even more. I found a brochure on bike tours, several of which went through the Italian countryside, and looked at it with Owen and the kids. Everyone was interested but Rose got especially excited.

One of Cassi's pictures. Thanks, Cassi, for giving me permission to use your picture for my blog!

"rooftops of Caldana and the patchwork landscape of Tuscany" www.shebicycles.com

"Italy! I want to bike through Italy," she said, more excited than I'd seen her in a long time.

So she and I dreamed. But I think both of us knew that a trip to Italy was a dream that wasn't going to happen soon. Or ever. Still, it's good to dream - so we did.

A few months later I discovered my friend, Cassi (www.shebicycles.com & @morebikes) was going to bike around Italy with her husband. And even though I knew Italy was still out of reach, it seemed a little more possible just knowing that someone I knew was going there.

One afternoon I noticed that Cassi posted a blog entry about her Italy trip. I was busy with work but Rose, looking over my shoulder, took interest in Cassi's blog. Rose read the blog entries and marveled aloud at Cassi’s pictures. From that point on Rose was hooked and wouldn't stop talking about going to Italy. And I couldn't get Italy out of my head, either.

So Rose and I thought things trough step by step and devised a plan.

Here's what we came up with:

Our family will go to Italy once Ryan is old enough to ride a big bike all day.

Ryan will probably be ready when he's about 12. He's 9 now.

When Ryan is 12, Rose will be 15.

At that point Ryan will be in 6th grade and Rose in 9th.

Traveling to Italy with a 6th grader and a 9th grader seems pretty reasonable.

The kids will be at an age where the can keep up and really appreciate stuff.

So, at the earliest, we can go to Italy in three years.

It could be four.

Or five.

And it's going to cost a lot of money.

So we're going to start saving our money now.

Rose and I talked about saving money. We needed a good place to put it, we figured. Something that said "Italy" when we looked at it.

We searched the house and looked in stores but couldn't find anything that was just right.

But then we found the box - a plain, white box that’s kind of tall and big enough to put tons of money inside. But it was just a plain white box and didn't say "Italy" when you looked at it.

So Rose and I came up with another plan. We'd decorate the box to make it just right.

And decorate we did. We spent an evening cutting, glueing, cutting, arranging, and gluing some more until the box was covered with images that said “Italy” to us. We cut a hole in the top to shove our money through.

Our Italy Box

And we put our first coins and a few dollar bills in it Sunday night.

Ryan and Rose putting money in our Italy Box

We'll be saving for our trip for a long, long, time.

But that's okay.

We've got time.

And a dream to keep us going.

Winter Riding Fun

2010-11-28T16:03:00.001-06:00

It's downright warm today, about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so I decided to get out on my bike and ride. I talked Rose into joining me and soon we were out on our bikes riding down our grass taxiway and out onto the runway (no planes flying today, don't worry).

Ready to go.

Our runway is plowed but there was still about an inch of snow in most places, some places up to four inches deep, but my hybrid handled the snow well enough. Rose's mountain bike was better equipped for the snow covered grass. Still, it wasn't easy to pedal through the snow. Just a few minutes into our ride we were both huffing and puffing and I started to feel the familiar burn in my thighs from pedaling. There is simply nothing better, I think, than riding a bike to get a good workout. Yet, even with the hard effort, Rose and I laughed and smiled as we pedaled. And though I slipped and nearly wiped out on a hidden ice patch, we had a blast.

My winter riding companion, Rose.

Our taxiway is totally snow-free (Owen keeps it plowed so we can get the plane out). The runway is free of snow in places.

Rose and I rode a mile and she was ready to call it a day. I, however, decided to ride some more so I took off down the runway again. Then I rode the road, nice and flat but wet and icy in places, my rear tire kicked up water and dirt onto my back. I got near my house but wanted to keep going so I hit the gravel road and pedaled about a mile on the hard packed gravel and snow. It was easier than I expected, easier than riding the gravel without snow, actually. After 3.6 miles I called it a ride, wiped down my bike, oiled my chain, and put my bike away.

I'd like to ride more in the winter. I can't believe I'm saying that. I generally stay inside in the winter, and save for a season of cross country skiing when I was in about 7th grade, have never participated in winter sports with any regularity. Yet, I've discovered that I like getting outside to exercise and hope to add to my winter riding/walking/running gear so I can continue to do so. It's expensive, all this outside gear, and I'm exceptionally broke at the moment so I'll have to add to my kit as time goes by and do the best with what I have. That's okay. I have many more winters in my future, at least I certainly hope so!

I'm not sure how much I'll keep riding this winter, in addition to not having all the winter gear my hybrid isn't the best match for snow-covered roads. But maybe someday I'll add a fat bike to my stable - basically a bike with fat tires suited for riding in the snow. (Here's an interesting article about fat bikes) If I do, it might be a Surly Pugsley or maybe a Salsa Mukluk. Sigh. Can't afford one right now but it's good to have a dream.

Several Salsa Mukluks from Milltown Cycles in nearby Faribault.

Do yourself a favor and follow Milltown's blog. It's full of great bike news and fun stuff.

1,000 miles in 2010 Goal update:
886 miles logged. 114 to go.

Running a Bit

2010-11-27T14:34:00.001-06:00

I've never been a runner. I take that back. I was in track in 8th grade and ran, slowly, the 400 meter and some relay races. But in the last 20 years I've probably run less than 10 miles total. My reasons for not running are many - from getting shin splints to not having running shoes or a decent running bra to simply not wanting to.

And, to be honest, I always thought runners were kind of nutty.
I mean, why would someone run on purpose?
Because running looks like a lot of work.

Sweating and all that when you could simply walk.

But I used to think bicyclists were nutty, too.
And I think of myself as a bicyclist now, or at least a hard-core aficionado.

Hmmm....

Now that there is snow on the ground and my road bike is not set up for dashing through the snow I've been seeking alternate methods of exercise. I've been walking the dogs and while this is great, starting and stopping a lot with a 14 years old dog and a year-old pup doesn't translate to a lot of calories burned.

I started running indoors using my Wii Fit. I like it. I can watch back episodes of Glee while exercising and not feel guilty about sitting still and watching TV. I first set a 10 minute goal and now can run in place for 30 minutes. This is wonderful but, I know, not the same as actually running.

So I have decided to jog outside a little. I take my young dog, Rocket, and we head out for some exercise. We start out at a brisk walking pace and then I talk myself into running a bit. I pick out a driveway or taxiway (I live next to a grass runway) and tell myself to run to it. Sometimes I want to quit, or never break into a run to begin with, but next thing I know we've made it to my stopping point. Then we walk for awhile. And sometimes we stop if Rocket decides he needs to sniff something. Then we walk some more. And more. And run a bit. And walk. And so it goes. Even though it's been a cool 25 degrees or less here in Minnesota it's exceptionally nice outside in the sunshine. I like hearing my feet crunch through the snow and Rocket is good company. And the entire walking, walking, running, stopping, walking experience is great overall.

In fact, I just got back from from a two mile walk/run. Yes, 80% of the time I walked. Yes, the 20% I ran was very slow. But I ran. And I kind of liked it. And I think I'll do it some more.

Rocket - my walking & running companion.

Note the wide, plowed, grass taxiway we have to walk and run on. We're lucky!

1,000 miles in 2010 Goal update:
881 miles logged. 119 to go.

On Goals - or 1,000 miles in 2010

2010-11-19T00:30:00.002-06:00

When Owen and I got our road bikes in late March we made a commitment to ride our bikes a lot. We talked about milage goals for the season and Owen threw out 1,000 miles as his goal.

“1,000 miles?” I asked him. “In one season?” That sounded like way too many miles to me. I decided on 500 miles as my goal, almost too hard to accomplish, I thought, but still reasonable and reachable

But Owen’s goal of 1,000 miles stayed in my mind.

And it’s still there.

You see, I have been thinking about goals a lot since I started riding.

This is the deal...goals and I haven’t had a good relationship. I’ve tended to look at setting goals as a way to guarantee failure. As something rigid and too out of reach. And when I didn't meet a goal I thought about the people who said “you can’t,” and “it’s too hard for you,” and stuff like that. Because that’s what people have told me in the past.

And since I often didn't meet my goals I figured what other people said was true.

So, no surprise, I’ve been hesitant to set goals, or at least goals that anyone knows about, because I've been afraid I'd fail.

I’ve been talking to Owen a lot about goals in the last few weeks. About how people perceive me to be very goal oriented even though I don’t see myself this way. About how I actually do get out and accomplish things, even things that people tell me I can’t do - like learn how to fly airplanes. We’ve also talked a lot about how Owen sees goals as a positive thing. About how they can be evaluated as you go and modified if need be. And, this really resonated with me, how he sees working toward a goal as more important than the goal itself. That setting goals encourages you to get out and do something you might not have done otherwise. And that getting out and doing is an accomplishment in itself. And that working towards a goal, even a goal you don’t reach, can make you a better person.

I’d never thought of goals that way before.

I like Owen’s point of view.
It’s a much more positive approach than the goals = failure view I’ve had.

So - back to my 500 mile bicycling goal/personal challenge....

I made it!! As of November 11th, I put 630 miles on my road bike and 220 miles on my hybrid for a total of 850 miles of riding this year. I doubt I would have done this without 30 Days of Biking through which I had to “tweet” my rides every day and be accountable to everyone else taking part in the challenge. And through tweeting about my 30 Days of Biking I gained a support system of positive people - bicyclist, runners, triathletes - people I now think of as friends.

I feel good about riding well over my 500 mile goal. Okay, I feel great about it! But you know what? That 1,000 mile number is still out there and it’s taunting me.

So I’m going to work towards it!

My goal is to continue biking, walking or running and work towards 1,000 miles of exercise in 2010.

I have logged 860 miles of exercise (850 miles of biking, 10 of walking & running) since late March and I’m going to keep going.

You know what? I may not make 1,000 miles by the end of 2010 but that’s okay because I’m going to think of the goal as something flexible, as something that’s working for me not against me. And I'm going to tell myself that each mile I track, even if I don't finish all 140, is moving me towards a better, more fit, more positive, Myrna.

So here I go...

Rocket the Wonder Dog

2010-11-10T23:38:00.000-06:00

Our pup, Rocket, turned one yesterday. To look at him he appears to be a full-grown dog. He's almost as big as our other dog, Chaucer, who is 14 years old and weighs 24 pounds. He's lost most of his puppy look. He's even quieted down a lot since we got him late last January.

Rose and Rocket - January 29, 2010. Rocket's first day home. Rocket is nearly 12 weeks old and Rose is 10 1/2 years.

But even though he is physically looking like a grown up dog he still is acting very much like a puppy, or maybe I should say a teenager, as he is still very much an adolescent and full of mischief.

Yes, lots of dogs are into mischief. But Rocket is one of the most mischievous dogs I've met. Certainly the most mischievous dogs I've owned (he's my fifth).

What does he do? Well, here's a short list:

Rocket steals socks from the laundry and slobbers all over them.

He takes tissues out of the Kleenex box.

He digs in the trash cans.

He eats sticky notes.

He's been known to destroy entire rolls of toilet paper.

He eats poop.

And rolls in yucky stuff.

He eats magnets off the fridge.

He can jump onto the cupboards and table and sometimes does.

He hides under the furniture.

He digs under the furniture.

He eats the furniture.

Perhaps most surprising of all, he jumps up and pulls thumb tacks off our bulletin board, chews on the thumbtacks but never swallows them (we think).

Rocket, almost 7 months old. And Ryan, almost 8 years old. Picture taken May 30, 2010

Rocket The Wonder Dog, as we like to call him, has been a challenge, to say the least.

But he's been good for us and has been a lot of fun, too.

For instance:

I'm keeping up on my exercise because I take Rocket out for long walks.

The kids have learned that it's important that they walk him, too.

And they feed him.

And play with him.

And teach him tricks.

And sit still with him.

Rose and Ryan have figured out where Rocket's tickle spots are.

And figured out they can hug him when they are feeling sad.

And they have more compassion for our old dog who can't hear and acts senile sometimes.

Thus I'm hoping they'll have more compassion for me when I'm old and senile, too.

We all get frustrated with Rocket sometimes. Okay, I'll be honest, pretty much on a daily basis.

Rocket on his 1st Birthday - November 9, 2010

But, you know what? Every day when the kids come home from school Rocket wags his tail and pulls on his leash to run to meet the kids at the bus stop. And every day we all get a chance to scratch the little rascal and snuggle with him a bit. And even though he drives us crazy and has turned our lives upside down with his mischief we love him.

Because he's our dog.

Rocket the Wonder Dog.

Mission Accomplished

2010-11-08T15:35:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged or biked in awhile and I've missed both. But, I've been up to my ears with a a travel story writing deadline and activities with the family and even though that's not really an excuse I'm using it :)

My story was due today and I found myself stuck needing to cut yet another 50 words to get it down to the right length. But my brain was pretty much fried and I realized I was not going to make any progress on the story unless I took a break.

So I decided to head out for a short bike ride.

At first I planned to ride my hybrid and hit the gravel roads near my home. Then I looked outside at the 60 degree weather and decided it was worth kitting up to ride my road bike if even for a short hop. After figuring out what to wear for the weather, (long sleeve jersey, bike shorts and long pants and light vest. I ended up being too warm) I aired up my tires (they were WAY below normal pressure), swung on, clipped into my pedals and headed down the road.

I headed east knowing that the wind would fight me on the way out but then push me back home. The wind can be nice that way.

I will admit, I haven't ridden my road bike in so long that I felt a little unstable at first and the first gust of wind that hit me was a big surprise. But soon I settled into the steady rhythm of pedaling and enjoyed my ride.

The hills, I am happy to say, did not kill me. Even though I just rode 5 miles, the ride was a bit of a challenge since I haven't ridden in ages and am feeling a bit out of shape. Still, it felt great to be back on my bike.

I stopped at the halfway point to catch my breath and take a picture. Yes, I always hope to take pictures as cool as the ones

@morebikes takes (www.shebicycles.com) but, no, I'll never get there. I'm okay with that.

I got home, helped the kids settle a dispute that had to do with Ryan frying Owen's voltage meter (the kids have a day off of school today), made lunch and then headed to my office to do some final cuts to my story.

I just sent the story to my editor.

Mission accomplished. In more ways than one.

A lot of donuts

2010-10-28T13:54:00.000-05:00

Another fun bit of information gathered from our The Mibus Family 30 Days of Biking Challenge has to do with donuts.

Dailymile keeps track of fun things besides milage like the number of gallons a biker saves by biking, the number of pounds lost and the number of TVs powered for the miles you bike. The most fun statistic they offer, I think, shows how many donuts a person could have eaten calorie free, essentially, because of the calories burned by riding bike.

Again, my numbers aren’t 100% accurate here because Dailymile doesn’t figure this out per month. But, based on the information I had I did some algebra to solve for X/number of donuts (see, math really does come in handy in real life!) and came up with the whopping number of 196 donuts!

That’s a lot of donuts for one family! Best thing is we didn’t actually eat any donuts during our 30 Days of Biking. Instead, we burned a ton of calories and got in better shape. Not that the kids needed to get into shape. They are already fit. Owen is pretty fit, too, though he has noticed he’s in better shape than before (and I noticed, too).

As for me, I’m probably the least lean member of my family but I’m happy to report that a lot of my clothes are now too big.

Now I’m not a fan of shopping for clothes. Really. I’m a woman who doesn’t like shopping. Clothes shopping stresses me out. Shopping at outlet malls gives me a headache.

But I do like shopping for bicycling clothes.

And I could use a new, slightly smaller, pair of bike shorts.

And, since I started riding I’ve somehow gotten on the mailing list for that cool shop for fit women - Title Nine, that has all these real-life models in their catalog and on the website who are really fit. And I really would like a skirt I saw in the Title Nine catalog and some of their other cool fit-woman clothes.

Yes I know I’m not as fit as the Title Nine women.

But who cares?

I’m on my way.

58 Hours of Fun

2010-10-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

Last time I wrote I promised I would give you the stats on our Family 30 Days of Biking Challenge. Well, I’m a little slow in getting this to you but I finally have it done!

One of the reasons for the delay is that I went to tally up our total miles and realized that we hadn’t kept up Rose’s Dailymile biking log. Rose almost always rode with either me or Owen so I recreated Rose’s rides based on our milage logs. Then I realized we didn’t have Ryan log his miles in any formal fashion at all. So, since he usually rode with Rose, I based his milage on hers. Our final numbers for the kids aren’t going to be 100% accurate but they are pretty close.

The process of logging all of Rose’s miles was cumbersome to say the least but I’m glad I got it done. It was kind of fun, too, to look back and read some of the comments we wrote along with our entries. To remember that our little family of four set out to accomplished a goal that seemed impossible at the start. That we overcame some obstacles and frustrations. That we spent hours together as a family. That we had a lot of fun. That we did, indeed, ride our bikes every single day for 30 days.

So, without further ado, here are the numbers. Drumroll please.....

During the 30 Days of Biking Challenge in September 2010 Rose rode 62 miles, Ryan rode 62 miles, Owen rode 195 miles and I rode 202 miles.

Total number of miles biked by The Mibus Family during 30 Days of Biking - 521!!!

Even using a conservative average speed of 9 miles per hour, the four of us collectively spent 58 hours riding our bikes in September.

58 hours! Wow!

That’s 58 hours NOT spent sitting still in front of the TV.

That’s 58 hours of family time that was almost entirely stress free.

That’s 58 hours of fresh air.

That’s 58 hours of exercise.

That’s 58 hours of Mibus Family Fun!

Our Family's Grand Adventure

2010-10-10T18:20:00.000-05:00

We've had perfect weather for riding here in Minnesota. It was in the 80s today which is very strange for October but also very nice. September was more tumultuous - some cold, lots of rain, flooding. But September was the month for the second 30 Days of Biking challenge of 2010 so even though the weather was not always nice, hundreds of people in Minnesota and around the world took part in the biking challenge and ventured out every day to ride their bikes.

You may remember that my whole family decided to do the 30 Days of Riding challenge. Guess what? We did it!! We actually rode our bikes every single day in September. We logged hundreds of miles (I'll tally them up at some point and share them with you) and we spent hours together riding and talking and having fun as a family. We accomplished something together that will be part of our lives forever. Something we'll never forget.

For our final day of the challenge Rose decided we should ride a bike path in New Prague, a town near our home, and then have dinner at our favorite restaurant, The Fishtail Grill. A pleasant ride followed by a celebratory dinner, I figured, would be a great way to finish 30 Days of Biking. Perfect, in fact. And I planned to take the perfect picture of our biking family to document the occasion. How wonderful we would look, I thought. We'd all be smiling because we biked for 30 days in a row. We'd be standing next to our bikes. Perhaps the sun would be setting behind us, the lovely light framing us in an ethereal glow.

Ryan enjoying chicken at our favorite restaurant - The Fishtail Grill in New Prague.

We hauled our bikes to New Prague and were all pretty excited as we set out on the path. The path followed a stream and we saw marshland, birds, a couple of ponds. Rose and I were riding ahead of Owen and Ryan. We were laughing, having fun. And then, all of a sudden, Rose lost control of her bike and crashed. Looking back, we're not sure what happened. Rose thinks she was up and out of her saddle and went to sit down, missed the seat and lost control. Whatever the cause, I watched Rose wobble back and forth, back and forth and tip over.

It's an awful feeling to see your kid lying under her bike. Totally still. Not saying a word.

But, thankfully, she moved and said, "Mom. I'm okay. I'm okay." A mantra she repeated again and again as I helped her up and hugged her. "I'm okay. I'm okay." Rose kept saying, probably trying to convince herself that she was. But it was obvious to me that she really was not.

Rose had a badly scraped knee and elbow, was scared and hurting pretty bad. And when your kid is scared and hurting even a little boo-boo is too much. You want to save them from harm. But you can't.

So you do the best you can do when accidents happen. I found band-aids in my bike bag. I cleaned Rose up as best I could. Bandaged her knee and elbow. Told her all the while that she was very brave. That she would be just fine. That things would be okay.

And they were.

We slowly rode back to our van. Rose was a little scared and sore but she was a trooper and rode back without complaint. We figured Rose would want to go home but she still wanted to go out to eat. So we did. And though we were all kind of shaken we were able to have a nice dinner. We joked a bit about Rose having her first "road rash." Told her she was tough and brave. And we took pictures of us smiling at dinner. Of Rose's elbow and knee. And after dinner we headed home.

Here we are - Smiling at Dinner

I had planned for an exciting end to 30 Days of Biking. Of pictures and yells of "We did it!" in celebration. Hmmm, sometimes things don't go according to plan.

But that's okay. Kids fall off of bikes. Grown-ups even take a tumble from time to time. I suppose we could just decide not to ride and remove the risk of falling off, of getting hurt. But if we removed all risk from our lives I don't think we'd have much fun. Sitting around doing nothing in the effort to keep our lives risk-free isn't much of a life at all.

I like the quote by Helen Keller, "Life is either a grand adventure or nothing." I like this view on life and want to live my life in such a way that I view each day, each experience, as wonderful, as an adventure to be met with gusto.

Rose's Road Rash

I think the kids will agree with me. After all, they wanted to take part in the 30 Days of Biking adventure and they set out each day to ride and meet their goal. And their list of things they want to do is full of adventures and challenges - they want to go rock climbing, fly hot air balloons and gliders, skydive, travel, ride horses, snorkel, ride bikes through Italy...their list goes on and on and on.

Hmm, maybe we have a family motto now, one that fits for 30 Days of Biking or for when we try something else that's new. One that even fits when we something more ordinary, like eating dinner as a family, walking the dog, or hanging out with friends. Life - our family's Grand Adventure.

I like that.

After the Rain

2010-09-29T20:48:00.001-05:00

Boy, it's been a crazy week around here. Last Wednesday I went for a bike ride on the Sakatah trail. While on the ride it started to rain. Pour, actually. It poured rain pretty much non-stop for the next 24 hours and the river in our town of Northfield, Minnesota, flooded. Big time.

To top it off, I got hit with some kind of a cold that had me in bed most of Thursday and Friday. So it was raining, the river was rising, and the city needed people to help sandbag and I was sick in bed. It's a helpless feeling to be in bed sick when you want to be out sandbagging your town. I'm sure, though, that I didn't feel nearly as helpless as some of my friends who live in Northfield who watched the river rise and ruin their homes and businesses even as they sandbagged. Even as they moved things out of their offices and homes.

A video of the flooding in Northfield (I hope this shows up)

It's now a week since the rain started. The river is going down. Clean up crews are hard at work. I'm still struggling with this cold and can't make it through the day without a nap. But through it all, somehow, I and my family have managed to jump (ok, crawl in my case) on our bikes and ride each day for 30 Days of Biking.

Here's what Rose and Ryan did for Day 23 of 30 Days of Biking

We're now on Day 29. Twenty-nine? That doesn't seem possible but it is. Today is the second to last day of the 30 Days of Biking challenge. It's also a church night which means that the kids won't get home until after dinner so we'll all have quick rides tonight, probably in the dark.

Tomorrow - the 30th day - is pretty open after the kids get home from school. We don't have a big ride planned but I'm hoping the whole family will get out and ride for at least a couple of miles. I'm hoping the weather is good so that we have a great ride for our last ride of 30 Days of Biking.

And you know what? I'm sure we will have a great ride - because one thing I've learned through a month of riding every day with my kids is that a positive attitude about riding really makes a difference. And if we decide we're going to have a good ride we will!

So here's to our final two days of 30 Days of Biking. They will be good days for sure!

Goofy, That Is.

2010-09-22T22:37:00.007-05:00

I have so much to write about, all sorts of stories to tell about some of my rides this past week - rides that included changing a bike tire, riding in the rain, forgetting to unclip my pedals and falling off my bike and into a ravine. But every time I sit down to write I get stuck.

I don't get stuck very often.
I don't like getting stuck.

So, I'm taking all of my half finished blog posts and am saving them in a file marked "Blog." I hope I get back to them. I plan to. The writing will come together another day. But today is not the day.

Today is the day, I guess, to read a book and go to bed. I have a cold. I am tired.

Today is also the 22nd day of 30 Days of Biking.

I rode my bike today, 10 miles this afternoon on the Sakatah Trail in Faribault. Half of those miles were in the pouring rain. I got soaked but still had a nice ride. Really. Well, sort of.

It's been raining since my afternoon ride and was still raining heavily when Owen and the kids got home from church activities. And here it is about 8:30 p.m. and Owen and the kids still need to ride their bikes so we can all complete Day 22 of 30 Days of Biking.

To be honest, I wouldn't blame Rose and Ryan if they protest loudly. If they said "no way!" to riding on this rainy day. After all, it's cold. It's pouring down rain. We're all tired. I mean, the kids are just kids and maybe it isn't fair to ask them to ride for 30 days in a row...especially when it was more my idea than theirs.

Yes, late on the evening of the 22nd day I'm staring to wonder if 30 Days of Biking for the whole family wasn't such a good idea after all...
******
My puppy, Rocket, has been whining so I just went to let him outside. I let him out through the garage/hangar which is attached to our house. Owen's been out in the hangar working on the airplane. The kids, I thought, were out there helping him.

But when I walked out in the hangar I discovered that Owen and the kids were taking turns riding Ryan's little bike around in circles. Owen had moved all the other bikes and stuff out of the way so there was a small area they could ride indoors and not get cold and wet.

Rose was on the bike when I walked in. "You should see Dad ride the bike," she said as she sort of rode and sort of walked the little bike around the space.

"I pushed Daddy," Ryan added. "You need to see him do it!"

Even though they had already been "riding" for some time Owen got on the bike again and Ryan showed me how he "helped" his Dad ride the bike around the hangar. Then Ryan got on, he even wore his helmet, and rode around the tiny circle with Owen helping him so Ryan wouldn't run into anything.

Even with Owen's help Ryan nearly ran over Rocket who has to be in the middle of everything. But no one got hurt. Or wet. Or cold. And we all laughed. And Owen announced, proudly, that together the three of them road a whopping .2 miles on Ryan's bike.

I can't believe they're goofy enough to ride a little bike around in circles just so we could say The Mibus Family finished Day 22 of 30 Days of Biking.

But they did.
And we are.
Goofy, that is.
All of us.

And now that we all finished Day 22 of 30 Days of Biking it's time for us to go to bed.

We need to be well-rested for Day 23.
I hear rain is in the forecast.
Lots of it.

One of the Best Bike Rides. Ever.

2010-09-16T23:33:00.001-05:00

I hauled my bike over to the Cannon Valley Trail today to ride all by myself, something I don't do very often. The whir of my bike wheels and the ticking of my gears got me into a meditative mode as I rode the nice, flat trail. The trees formed a canopy overhead, the leaves crunched under my wheels, my pace was fast, my spirits high and I realized I was on one of the best rides of my short biking career.

Then I started to wonder, what is a best ride? Is there such a thing as THE best ride? Like the very best that can't be topped? Or are there different kinds of "best" rides, like the fastest ride or the longest ride? Can the best ride be a whole month of rides, like I'm doing for 30 Days of Biking, rolled all together to create a best? Maybe the best ride is in an beautiful location, like Italy. Or maybe it involves riding a great race or setting a record. What makes a ride a best ride? I'm really not sure.

But then I thought back to yesterday's ride, the ride I call "The Ride in the Rain with Ryan" and I think I may have this "best" thing figured out....

My family is doing the 30 Days of Biking challenge and are still going strong. All of us - me, my husband and our two kids, Rose and Ryan - have ridden our bikes every day since September 1st. We don't have to go far or fast. We just need to get out there and ride. So far it's been pretty easy to fit the rides into our days but yesterday presented a few challenges.

We planned to ride before school but it was raining and the kids were tired. So we decided to ride after school and church activities figuring we'd be home around 6:45 and have plenty of time to ride together. Then we realized Rose's church activities went until 8:15. Oh. Bummer. So we changed plans and Ryan and I headed home early to ride. Owen and Rose, we figured, could come home later and ride in the dark with bike lights so they would be safe.

With our plan in place Ryan and I headed for home.

On the drive home it started pouring rain with no sign that the rain would let up soon.

Uh oh. Now what do we do?

"We'll just have to ride in the rain," I told Ryan, trying to sound cheerful even though I wasn't too thrilled with the idea myself.

"That's okay," he said, unconcerned.

"We'll get soaked and the neighbors will think we are insane," I told him.

"That's okay because we are insane!" he replied, smiling not at all insanely. "I want to ride in the rain!"

Oh. Well. In that case I guess we'd better get to it.

By the time we got home it was not only raining but getting dark. Wanting to be safe, we devised a plan. Ryan and I decided to ride just in the driveway and we'd turn on all the garage lights and open the garage doors to let out the light as well as turn on the yard light so we could see. I hooked a bike light to the front of Ryan's bike so he could see even better.

Plan in place, we put on our helmets and sat on our bikes under the garage overhang and looked out into the rainy night. I was cold. I didn't want to get wet. I started to wonder if we should just bike in the garage. Or skip the 15th day of 30 Days of Biking completely. No one would know, I figured. I could ride twice tomorrow, I reasoned. But Ryan was raring to go. He encouraged me with a "Come on, Mom. Just ride out there and do it! You won't feel wet after awhile."

So we rode into the pouring rain. In the almost dark. Through puddles. In circles. And we laughed so loud I'm sure the neighbors DO think we're crazy. And maybe we are. Just a little.

But you know what? I don't care.

That short, cold, ride in the pouring rain with my eight-year-old son will never hit the bicycling record books as great. But guess what? It was one of the best bike rides. Ever.

Ice Cream and Wooly Bears - Biking with the Kids

2010-09-08T00:30:00.001-05:00

As of today everyone in my family has biked seven days in a row and are now almost a fourth of the way through 30 Days of Biking. So far the kids haven't complained once about riding their bikes. They seem to enjoy riding every day and I think they like being a part of something big. It may also help that we asked the kids if we should work towards some sort of family reward for biking every day for 30 days. For me, and I'm guessing for Owen, biking every day is reward enough but I figured some extra incentive might be nice for the kids.

Ryan on his little mountain bike - he rode almost 18 miles on the Tour de Cream

Rose came up with the idea to go to an indoor rock climbing place called Vertical Endeavors. I think this is a cool reward - indoor rock climbing is not something we've ever done as a family and it's unique enough to make it really special. I also think it's cool that Rose came up with an incentive that presents a challenge (rock climbing) and is also active. Hmmm, our reward for doing an active challenge is another active challenge. I like that. Much better than ice cream. Though ice cream rewards do have their place - and we often stop for ice cream on our long family rides.

Ah, the ice cream! Owen and Rose share a banana split at Alley Scoops in Elysian, MN

Like on Sunday when we went on an informal family-friendly group ride called the Tour de Cream. The ride is an annual event for a family we know which they started to encourage their kids to ride their bikes. The ride typically follows the Sakatah Bike Trail from the Dairy Queen in Faribault to Alley Scoops, an ice cream shop in Elysian. We knew our kids wouldn't be up to the whole ride so opted to start at Faribault and bike about eight miles then turn back. We then drove to Elysian for lunch and ice cream. The rest of the riders, there were eight others, went on to get lunch in Waterville and then planned on ice cream back at the DQ at the end of the ride.

At Alley Scoops after the ride. Ryan has coconut ice cream. I have a dish of bubble gum ice cream.

The ride was a good one for our family. It was pretty easy going on the way out with the wind behind us and more of a challenge on the way back to Faribault. Ryan, on his little mountain bike, was having the most trouble with the wind so we formed a double pace line of sorts to shelter him from the wind as best we could. We stopped a lot on the trip to rest but one stop was for the sole purpose of checking out a Wooly Bear caterpillar and moving him off of the trail.

It's stops like this that make riding with the kids so much fun. Rose and Ryan often show me things that I easily miss, like bugs and plants along the trail. When we ride together hey laugh, they sing, they ask questions about nature, about the amount of CO2 in things (Ryan's fascinated with CO2 lately), and point out raptors soaring overheard. Yes, sometimes they argue and a few times have cried with frustration. But as we pedal along I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have two kids who are healthy, generally good-natured and like to ride bikes to boot!

I've logged over 600 miles on my bikes this year, have improved my skills, have gotten stronger and faster. I read each issue of Bicyling magazine and spend hours on the internet reading about bicycling but sometimes I think I learn more about biking on these rides with my kids than I could learn from a whole army of bicycling experts.

My kids enjoy the moment. I get so caught up in the future sometimes, or in the past, that I forget to live right now. Rose and Ryan don't worry about things they can't control - like I do. They may get frustrated with each other but they forgive quickly. Uh, I've got work to do on that forgiveness bit. When we're biking they just pedal along and don't focus on the hill ahead of them or the miles they have left to travel. Instead, they ask things like, "Mom, can we stop and see that Wooly Bear caterpillar on the trail?"

Ryan and the Wooly Bear caterpillar he rescued from the bike trail.

And fortunately my kids have taught me enough about bicycling, about life, about being a mom, to know that the best response to that sort of question is to simply forget about bicycling for awhile and say "Yes!"

Exploring Minneapolis by Bike

2010-09-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Exploring the bike paths of Minneapolis and St. Paul is one of my goals for 30 Days of Biking Part 2. Why? Well, I was up in Minneapolis with my kids a few days ago visiting the Mill City Museum (fabulous place!) and realized that even though I grew up in the first ring suburb of Richfield and live only 40 minutes south, I don't know Minneapolis very well. Plus, I've heard that Minneapolis has a fabulous trail system and know that Bicycling magazine named Minneapolis the #1 Bike Friendly City this year. So, since I committed to riding my bike every single day of September, I figured I might as well get out and explore the Twin Cities!

I suppose the best way to explore the trails is to get up to the city and ride them. Trouble is, I don't know either city very well and though I have a map of the trails I'm kind of anxious about just heading out on my own. What to do? I found a "C" group ride through the Twin Cities Bicycling Club that promised a 10 mph pace around Minneapolis and decided to join in.

The ride started at the Lake Harriet Bandshell and was very well run. Joan, our group leader, gave us all a briefing before we headed out. We had a dozen riders, all on hybrids except one woman who had a Trek Madone (sigh - lovely bike). Our co-leader, Jack, brought up the rear of the group and we set out at a nice pace north towards Lake Calhoun.

Camden Falls

I'm not sure where all we went but I know we followed the trail system around Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake. We also followed Wirth, Victory Memorial and Webber Parkways, ended up at Camden Falls and then wound our way back to Lake Harriet.

Our group, sans Joan who took this picture, at Camden Falls

The weather was kind of tough this morning. It was only about 60 degrees, the wind was really strong at times and we had some drizzly rain. But the pace was decent and the riders all very friendly. I rode quite a bit with a gentleman named John. He's been a group leader in the past and told me about the Club, about the history of the parkways we were riding on and about some fun rides he's been on. He was great company and I'd love to ride with him again.

Our group again, this time with Joan (second from the left, front row), but not with me because I was taking the picture.

Actually, everyone I rode with was so nice and fun to talk to. We had a pleasant and social group! It's not quite accurate to say that we talked so much that I never felt tired, that the miles just flew on by - but it's pretty close to the truth. We covered 25 miles in just less than three hours. I got to see parts of Minneapolis that I've never seen before. I had a fabulous time.

I Dreamed about Bicycles...

2010-09-02T09:16:00.001-05:00

I dreamed about bicycles last night. I suppose that's no big surprise given that yesterday was the start of another round of 30 Days of Biking and I attended a Giant for Women bike maintenance workshop last night. Still, it was kind of odd to wake up and realize that I dreamed about the new road bikes for 2011 instead of, say, something scary or family related or something scary and family related. But I dreamed about bikes and fixing flat tires and about riding with my kids - and that's a pretty good dream and a fine way to start the day.

As I mentioned, 30 Days of Biking started yesterday. Some of you may remember that I committed to ride my bike every day last April and that this 30 Days of Biking thing was started by two guys who decided to challenge people to ride their bikes Every. Friggin. Day. for 30 Days. Well, the challenge really took off and about 500 people from all over the world took part. I had a blast doing the challenge and met a lot of cool people along the way. Other riders had as much fun as I did so the guys who started it all, Patrick and Zachariah, decided to launch 30 Days of Biking Part 2 for the month of September.

Rose and I after our first ride for 30 Days of Biking

Excited to do it again I signed up right away but guess what? Owen signed up and so did Rose and Ryan - our whole family will be doing 30 Days of Biking! I know I can do it, having ridden every day in April. I'm pretty sure Owen will manage to get out on his bike every day but I'm honestly am not sure if Rose and Ryan (they are only 11 and 8 years old, respectively) will actually ride their bikes every day. I mean, I still have to remind Ryan to change his underwear and riding every day is a big commitment. Will the Mibus Family really ride our bikes every day? I guess we will find out.

My favorite bike shop, Valley Bike and Ski, is having a Giant for Women event. It started yesterday with a maintenance workshop. Today women can go in and check out the 2011 line up of Giant Bikes for Women and/or go on a casual group ride.

I attended the maintenance workshop last night and am really glad I went. The workshop was taught by a woman named Jackie and was attended by about 15 women. Jackie reviewed with us the parts of a bike, showed us how to "pre-flight" our bikes (okay, my aviation language is coming through - she called it a pre-ride check or something but I think of it as a pre-flight), how to change a flat and more. She was knowledgeable, a good instructor and fun. I came out of the evening excited to see so many other women bicyclists and full of information I didn't know before. For instance, I didn't know most of the parts of my bike. Yes, I knew what a top tube was, the fork, the saddle, but now I know about cassettes, bottom brackets and more. Now if my bike is making a funny noise I won't have to go in the shop and say my bike's thingy-a-bob is making a funny noise or the gizmo is creaking.

Well, today is a day filled with school activities for the kids. Rose was on the school bus at 7 a.m. and is now at an orientation for middle school. Yep, she's starting 6th grade and she's so excited. She started soccer practice this week as well, she's never played but is doing very well and having a lot of fun. Later tonight we all head to town for Ryan's open house where we get to meet his 3rd grade teacher and drop off his school supplies.

It will be a full day. But somewhere along the way we'll fit in a quick bike ride for Day 2 of our 30 Days of Biking! And maybe, just maybe, I'll sneak down to Valley and check out some of the new 2011 bikes for women. ;)

I can dream, can't I? The 2011 Giant Avail Advance 2.

Composite frame. A couple of steps up from the bike I have now.

I'm a lucky gal

2010-08-27T00:26:00.000-05:00

I love baking and making appetizers but don't think of myself as much of a cook. I can make a cheesecake or a wonderful plate of brie onion tartlets but when it comes to feeding my family dinner...well, let's just say we eat a lot of plain pasta at my house and I feel pretty inept when it comes to cooking meals.

So when I found out that my favorite chef, Karl, was going to come over today and make me and my kids lunch I was especially thrilled.

Karl is my friend, Tom's, brother. He's a chef who has lived all over but is currently living in the Dominican Republic and working at a swanky resort. We originally connected because of a recipe he created for his nephew - Jordan Ett's State Fair Drunken Beef Stew. I posted a comment on his blog, Fusion on the Fly, and he didn't think I was real. My name, Myrna CG Mibus, sounded made up, he thought, so he figured his sister-in-law, Libby, posted the comment as a joke. Libby assured him that Myrna was, in fact, a real person and the next time Karl came into town Libby, I, and a bunch of our friends put on a brunch for Karl so we could all meet him in person.

This group of friends puts on a wonderful spread of food. We ate well and enjoyed great conversation. I made Karl a gooey chocolate torte for dessert.

We've been friends ever since.

The next time Karl visited we had a "fusion" party at my house. I invited some friends and everyone brought three or so ingredients that they happened to have at home. Karl then promised to use whatever people brought and create a meal from the ingredients.

My friend, Joy, has a good sense of humor.
She brought a can of SPAM.

Cured ham drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Fried squash blossoms stuffed with cream cheese and capers on the blue plate.

On the white plate - Fried squash blossoms stuffed with SPAM on a bed of sauteed SPAM. Plus a glass of lovely red wine.

We thought we had Karl stumped but we did not. Armed with SPAM, a packet of steaks, a can of peppers, a jar of capers, cream cheese, a bread starter, a few tomatoes, a few things out of my garden and me and my daughter Rose as helpers, Karl created one of the best meals ever. We had Spam stuffed squash blossoms, pizza, marinated steak with pepper sauce, fried zucchini appetizers, cucumber and tomato salad and some lovely cured ham drizzled with balsamic vinegar (a gift Karl brought all the way from New York where he was living at the time) and more! Rose felt so important working alongside a chef who took the time to teach her things as they prepped the food. She has since taken a great interest in cooking and often talks about the day she helped Karl.

Rose helping prep food for our Fusion Food Party

Karl travels to Minnesota each summer to visit his mother and his brother, Tom, and his family. Part of this visit involves taking his nephew and niece, Jordan and Linnea, to the Minnesota State Fair. Part of his visit, it now seems, involves visiting me and making a meal together.

I'm a lucky gal.

So this afternoon Karl, Libby, Jordan and Linea arrived with two Cantonese style roasted ducks that Karl picked up in Minneapolis and enough energy to prepare a meal for a couple dozen people. He popped the ducks, already prepared and cut up, into the oven to warm then started cutting up veggies for a stir fry. He created a sauce out of a whole bunch of stuff I had in my cupboards, cooked up a big pot of rice and stir fried the veggies. Before we knew it, Karl had a fabulous lunch ready for us.

Stir Fried Veggies

The duck was fabulous!! All of the food was wonderful. We laughed and ate and listened to Karl tell stories then ate some more. Ryan asked for seconds and thirds of duck, saying it was the best thing he's ever eaten which is pretty high praise from my somewhat finicky eight-year-old son.

We finished off our meal with dessert - Raspberry Chocolate French Macaroons that I made. I've never made macaroons but they were such a hit that I'm sure I'll make them again and again.

Raspberry Chocolate French Macaroons - Yum!

Here is the recipe (Thanks Ruth!)

Karl heads back to the Dominican Republic on Saturday. My kids head back to school in under two weeks and I will get back to my "normal" school year life as a writer and mom. Karl will be creating wonderful meals for the people who visit the resort and I'll be frantically trying to figure out what to make the family for dinner.

Yep, life will be back to normal.
Or will it?

You see, I have a friend who spent almost a whole day of his vacation so he could come to my house and make lunch for me and my family.

That's really special.
Someone giving up a day of vacation time just for me.

Can life really go "back to normal" when someone gives you that kind of gift?
I don't think so.

A Little Bike Schooling on the B Ride

2010-08-21T06:42:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest with you, my two main motivations for riding my bike any distance are coffee and conversation. A good workout is also a motivator but going really fast is not. I'm more of a slow and steady - okay, really slow and not that steady - sort of bicyclist. But for months now I've wanted to join in on a group ride. From what I've heard people ride their bikes, chat away the miles and stop somewhere for a cup of coffee mid-way or at the end of the ride. Sounds like my kind of ride. Right? Maybe not.

Most of the group rides I've heard about promise average speeds of 18 to 20 miles per hour or more and go 40 or more miles. Some sound brutal and talk about hill climbs and sprints. Granted, these are the "A" rides, rides geared towards competitive riders, riders who want to push their limits. "B" rides are supposed to be slower, "C" rides even more so but I've seen some C rides that sound too fast for me, some B rides with lengths and speeds way outside my comfort range.

But The Northfield Bike Club offers a "B" ride every Saturday morning that promises a 13 to 15 mph average speed and "no drops," meaning that the group won't leave the slowest riders behind, and I've been wanting to go on one for quite some time. The length and difficulty of the ride varies from week to week and some of the routes seem reasonable. The pace fits in with what I think I can do. But I haven't gone because I've been too scared.

Scared of what? Oh, of a lot of stuff. Of falling behind. Of not having the endurance to finish the ride. Of falling off my bike. Of being the only woman. Of holding up the entire group so that no one ever wants to ride with me again. Of throwing up from heat exhaustion (like I nearly did a few weeks ago on a ride with Owen). Of being laughed at. Of having a mechanical. Of, well, just about everything.

My mind can get real busy visualizing the potential biking disasters I could have.

Sometimes I'm surprised I ride my bike at all.

But last Saturday I finally got up the guts to join in on a B ride. Owen's ridden with the group before and promised me that the group of guys (yes, always guys) would be nice and not leave me behind. He also told me that the ride would start at 7 a.m. sharp and we'd have to leave home by 6:30 to meet the group in time. Which means that I would have to wake up before 6:00 a.m. in order to go on said ride

Have I ever mentioned that I think waking up at 8:00 is early?

Somehow I woke up at 5:50, actually got out of bed, ate something and got dressed (thankfully, since I'd be wearing a bike helmet and sweating a lot I didn't need to wake earlier to shower, do my hair or put on make-up).

A group of about 20 riders was at Mike's Bikes that morning and I wasn't the only woman! There was one other, a woman who went on the A ride (I've heard this woman rides as fast, or faster, than the guys). They set off en masse and I joined the B group of seven, counting me. I got to know everyone's names - Roberto and Patrick are the group's leaders, Neil, Jeff, Dave (riding his first time with this group), Owen and me.

Our plan was to ride to Farmington for coffee and then back to Northfield. Farmington, if you follow the fairly flat, straight road out of town, is a mere 13 miles away but our route for the morning was a meandering trek through the countryside on "gently rolling" (just plain big to me) hills for a total of 37 miles. In my mind, the shortest distance to my skim vanilla latte would have been the best, but I was riding with a group so needed to follow along.

We set off at a brisk pace and I was happy to note that I was keeping up. At one point I looked down at my odometer and saw we were cruising at 19 mph and I wondered if I'd be able to keep up that pace. We were less than 2 miles into the ride and the next thing I knew I saw a big rock on the road, I think it was about 3" in diameter, heard a loud noise, saw Dave's bike fly one way and Dave the other.

Here is where I started learning things. I must note: a couple of my Twitter friends, Darryl (@lovingthebike) and Jim (@bikerly) along with another guy Mike (@egggman) have started something they call Bike School (#bikeschool). They are getting people to Tweet and Blog about what they have learned about bicyling and life while riding a bike.

And here is lesson number one - ride with nice people who will stop when you crash, pick up your bike, change your tire and make sure you are okay. Lesson two is to point out stuff on the road if you see it (the guys ahead of Dave didn't see the rock in time, I was behind Dave and couldn't say anything fast enough). Lesson three is carry a spare tube. Lesson four is that though those CO2 cartridges are nice for fixing a flat, not all of them have the same fitting. Some screw on and others don't. Make sure you have the right cartridge (Dave didn't so I gave him mine). Sometimes those cartridges overfill or underfill a tire so having a hand pump really is nice (another lesson). Wow, that's a lot of lessons in less than two miles of riding.

Dave was okay, a bit shaken and scraped up but fine enough to continue on the bike ride without a single complaint. I'm pretty sure that I would have cried and gone back home. The guy has guts. He rode at the front of the pack the rest of the ride. He's fast. He's amazing.

So off we went again. The scenery really was lovely but I was working too hard to notice it much. I wanted to draft behind the group but they were just a bit too fast for me to keep up. Owen stuck it out with me in the back and Roberto did, too. I struggled but I kept pedaling. I really wondered what I was doing on this crazy ride but I kept thinking about the cup of coffee waiting for me in Farmington so I kept going. (#bikeschool lesson - a skim vanilla latte may not be the healthiest bicycling beverage but if works as a motivational tool, use it!)

Long story short, I kept pedaling at the back of the pack. Roberto always made sure I wasn't "dropped" and left behind. The guys in the lead would stop and wait for me to catch up, would make sure I had a chance to rest a bit, and we'd head off again. After 24 miles we stopped for coffee at Dunn Brothers - Yay! (great service, by the way.) Time for my two main reasons for bicycling - coffee and conversation! I decided I deserved a strawberry cream cheese croissant along with my latte but couldn't finish either - but I talked a lot. Then, too quickly (in my mind) we hopped on our bikes and headed for home.

The ride home felt easier, partially because I knew the ride was almost done and partially because we rode the 13 miles on a fairly flat stretch of County Road 3, right into Northfield. I had more of a chance to talk to the other riders, especially Dave, Patrick and Roberto. I confessed to Roberto that I thought people would never want to ride with me again because I'm so slow and he said something like, "Rules are rules. This is a B ride, 13 to 15 mph and no drops. If someone doesn't like that, they can ride with the A group." I like Roberto. (#bikeschool - find a good group leader like Roberto)

Patrick, too, was supportive, reminding me that we were riding to have fun, that we were not riding the Tour de France (#bikeschool - positive attitudes really help). He rode up hills with me and showed me that I could put my hands on the top of my handlebar and sit up straight so I could get a lot of oxygen to my body and I pedaled up the hills faster than I've pedaled before (another #bikeschool lesson on riding hills).

I was really enjoying myself more than ever before when I heard a funny noise. I stopped to check it out and discovered a bit of wire in my rear tire. No worries, I thought. It was such a thin wire. It wouldn't cause a flat. We rode on but soon my ride felt strange. Sure enough, my rear tire was flat so Owen and I pulled over to change my tire. Roberto, Patrick and Dave were a ways ahead but noticed we stopped so biked back to help us. Just like with Dave's flat, the group changed my tire for me which was awfully nice (especially since I've never changed a flat - I learned a lot watching and will have a better handle on tire changes next time). I joked with the guys that I was getting tired so got a flat on purpose so I could rest. I didn't. Really. But I did enjoy the break. Tire changed, we got back on our bikes and I'm glad to say the rest of the ride back to Northfield went well.

From what I've heard, this was the most eventful B ride of the season - the first crash, the first flat (and then the second), a slow rider (me). Yet, through it all everyone kept working as a group, kept things positive, kept pressing on for all 37 miles (my longest ride ever). We averaged 14.2 miles per hour (right in the middle of the promised 13 to 15 mph pace so I'm not that slow after all!). We helped each other when we had trouble, talked like old friends while we rode, made sure the slower riders didn't get left behind.

I was exhausted when we got back into town but I was also feeling good that I finished the ride. Owen and I went to Goodbye Blue Monday, the coffee shop in town, and I had an iced coffee. We debriefed and talked to one of the other riders, Jeff, who was also there. More coffee and conversation :-)

Then Owen drove us home. We had lunch and I took a long, well-deserved, nap.

I learned a lot of lessons on my first B ride - support each other, be positive, look out for the people at the back of the pack. And then the lessons on riding technique, on practical things like how to change a tire.

And I suppose there's another lesson learned here, a lesson in riding as well as life. It's rather simple, really, yet sometimes it's the most difficult thing to do, especially when that skim vanilla latte is still twenty-some miles ahead - or when you're behind, or get a flat, or crash. And that lesson is this - get on the bike and keep pedaling. Mile after mile. Just keep pedaling.

Riding the Tour de Nick

2010-08-07T14:56:00.001-05:00

Today is a off to a great start! I rode the Tour de Nick this morning with some friends and am now about to shift gears, clean up and head to my 25th high school reunion. What a day this will be!

The Tour de Nick is a charity ride that takes place each year in Northfield, Minnesota. It's put on by the local bike club, the Northfield Bicycling Club, in memory of one of their riders, Nick Sansome, and benefits an organization called SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education). Nick lost his life to suicide in the winter of 2003. I didn't know Nick but knew his mother - we were in a book club together for several years. I also sort of knew his father who was the doctor who checked Ryan out after he was born back in 2002. I think it's great that the Club has this ride every year (this is the 8th year) and am glad I got to be a part of this ride.

This morning it was raining when we arrived at Mike's Bikes for the Tour de Nick to begin. There was a bit of lightning and thunder but the radar showed that rain was going to be the worst of our worries so the ride went on as planned. Even with the rain a good number of riders showed up, maybe 30 or 40, and we all headed out a bit after 9:00 a.m. There were three ride options, a 10 mile family-friendly option plus a 20 or 50 mile ride. I opted for the 20 mile ride (as did most of the riders). Owen rode with me as did my friend, Paul (who I will see again tonight at our 25th high school reunion), and another friend, Roxy, her husband, Mike, and their daughter, Molly.

Molly and Roxy pumping up tires to get ready for the ride.

The 20 mile route had some good hills and I found the ride a challenge but I did keep up with the group pretty well. It certainly helped to have some friends to ride with as we talked much of the way. Roberto, our group leader, made sure the slower riders (Me. Yep, I was at the way back) didn't get left behind and other riders from the club filtered to the back of the pack from time to time to make sure I had company. I never ended up riding alone - I'm glad for that!

Owen and Paul, just about ready to ride. Note the gentleman in the background wearing the very cool Tour de Nick jersey.

Guess what? You can buy one! Find the Tour de Nick Facebook page and get info on ordering jerseys there.

I must say that cycling in the rain isn't my favorite thing - but once I got soaked the rain didn't bother me much. The rain kept the ride cool. Cool is better than hot and humid any day.

Here are some highlights from the ride:

This ride was my first ever group ride and I sort of, kind of, kept up with the group
I got to ride with several friends which was really fun
My bike computer showed the magic number of 400 on this ride - that's 400 miles on my road bike since the end of March (500 total if you add my hybrid miles)
I only shifted down to the small ring once on this ride and that was on a big hill. This is a huge improvement over earlier this year and enormous improvement since I started riding last year.
I learned, via Paul who has been very helpful with my riding, that I can think of hills as something to look forward to. I'm not sure I'm there yet but it's something to work towards
We had a nice, hot, latte at Goodbye Blue Monday after the ride
I feel good to have helped raise money for SAVE!
I had fun!

Thanks to all of the people who helped organize this ride - and to my friends who showed up to ride with me. I'm already looking forward to riding the Tour de Nick next year!

Here I am (the short one in the middle) with Molly on my left and Roxy on my right.

We're all wet and somewhat tired after the ride but very glad to have ridden (and very glad to be done!)

By the way, a few years ago one of the members of the Northfield Bike Club, Bill Metz, wrote a book dedicated to Nick. The book is titled Saturday Morning Rides - it's a collection of essays, art and bike ride routes and maps. It's a gem. Proceeds from sales also benefit SAVE. You can download it at the Northfield Bike Club website. Just click HERE.

Okay, it's time for me to take a shower and put on some "girl clothes" (a quote from one of my favorite movies, Always) and head to my high school reunion. How is it that I graduated 25 years ago when I feel so young? ;)

Oh, and if you want to see my senior picture I've included it below.

Myrna Christine Gatheridge. Richfield High School. Class of 1985.

Last Week - Rewritten

2010-08-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

Whoa - it's been two weeks since I've written and people are starting to wonder if I've disappeared. Well, @bikerly has been wondering and if @bikerly is wondering it's possible that other people are wondering, too. If not, @bikerly has done wonders for my ego in asking when I'm going to blog again. (@bikerly, aka Jim, always has something good to say at his blog. He likes bikes and Dr. Seuss. Visit his blog. Soon! You will laugh and smile. http://bikerly.wordpress.com)

So I’m sitting here ready to blog - but I don't know where to begin.

I guess you could say that last week was busy. Crazily busy. I somehow thought that having both kids in camp was going to give me lots of free time but the reality was that I spent most of my time driving the kids to and from town. By Friday afternoon I was kind of a mess. Yep, I was frazzled. I yelled at the dogs. I screamed at Owen over the phone. That night I cried a lot and couldn't sleep and was feeling pretty bad about things, about my behavior, about how crazy life gets sometimes.

I confessed to my friend, via the wonder of text messages, that I was bitchy. He said something like, "being bitchy is okay as long as you can put a positive spin on things later." I was too tired at that moment to make sense out of what he said. But I'm wondering if it's this...

Last week had some pretty low moments - but a lot of good things happened, too. I did the best I could given who I am and what I have to deal with. My best, sadly, wasn't very good, but I survived and, thankfully, my family still loves me. Friends assure me that I haven’t damaged my children too badly with my yelling and stuff. (I hope they are right). And, best of all, I’m able to learn from my mistakes, pick myself up and move on.

So that is what I’m doing. Moving on.

This week is going well. I’m driving to and from town less because I arranged for the kids camp schedules to coincide. Because of this, I have some time home alone so I can catch up on work. I read that doing a 10 minute meditation each day greatly helps in reducing stress so I started that yesterday. I must admit, I don’t think about breathing in and out like I’m supposed to very well but I took the time to do some stretches and did manage to breathe. And the last two nights I’ve made a point to jump on my bike and pedal around the neighborhood for a few minutes. No worries about speed or hills or miles - just some time to pedal away the worries of the day.

All these things seem to be helping. I’m feeling good about the weeks ahead.

As for last week? It’s over and instead of thinking of it as a bad week I’ve decided to reframe the week with positive memories instead of negative ones. To rewrite history, I suppose. So, here goes.

Highlights of Myrna’s Wonderful Week...the Last Week of July, 2010.

18 mile bike ride with Owen on Sunday morning. Had breakfast at a small town cafe.

My garden continues to bloom and be beautiful.

Took Rose, Ryan and Rose's friend out for ice cream on Wednesday afternoon. We laughed a lot. Ryan ended up with a chocolate mustache and bit of a chocolate goatee.

Made 14 cheesecakes for two parties and two friends. That's 2 big ones (like the two in the picture) and 12 four inch mini cakes. They all worked. Everyone loved them.

Dinner with friends on Wednesday evening. We had fun and ate a lot of good stuff including an awesome chocolate cake.

Rose had a great week at theater camp where she grew in confidence and in her acting abilities - plus she had a ton of fun. Plus, Rose packed her lunches each and every day - yay!

Rocket, the wonder pup, did very well at his puppy agility class.

Ryan had fun at Rocket Camp where he built several rockets including the one he's holding in the picture. He shot it off and it went really high. I was there to watch it go.

The kids had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's on Friday night and Owen and I went out for dinner. I had an awesome margarita and excellent steak.

My nephew, Liam, turned one and we celebrated his 1st birthday in fine style on Saturday.

We finished off the weekend with a potluck dinner with friends. Four couples who all like good food, airplanes, belly dancing and fun.

A lot of other good stuff happened, too.

Last week was a wonderful week. Yep. It was.