Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

We have a great new mountain bike trail in Northfield. The Sechler Park River Bottoms Trail was built by members of the Cannon River Offroad Cycling & Trails  (CROCT) club a few months ago and runs along the Cannon River. I've had the chance to ride it with Owen a couple of times and had great fun. We had a fresh layer of snow last week and I was itching to get out and ride my Beargrease on the trail again. Owen wasn't free to ride and since I'm a beginner when it comes to mountain biking I didn't want to ride alone - I think it's safer to ride with a buddy plus it's more fun! - so I contacted Griff Wigley (friend and blogger at Mountain Bike Geezer ) to see if he was free to ride with me. Griff was free so we set a time to meet. It was sunny and about 28 degrees when we headed out on the Sechler Park trail last Thursday afternoon. The trail was snow covered but fairly well packed by other mountain and fat bikes that had been out not he trail before us....

I found a surprise in my mail today - a big envelope containing two copies of Piper Flyer magazine featuring a story I wrote right there on the magazine's cover and in the center spread. I had seen a PDF of the story already and found the story online but there's something extra special about seeing a story you wrote in actual print. It was so much fun to see the story title on the cover then open the magazine to the center and find my story there. Wowza! Now that's exciting! Here's the cover and center spread - click to view the PDF of the story The story Airshow Entertainer: Lowell White's Vagabond - A Piper Vagabond Finds Its Way Home is about an airplane that is based near my home here in Minnesota. I first saw the airplane when it landed here at SkyHarbor one day last summer - it's absolutely beautiful! I heard the plane had a cool history and was winning awards and I knew I just had to talk to the owner, Vaughn, and write something about his littl...

I've been off the bike for a few weeks (largely due to being pretty down and out with a cold for three weeks) but got out my Salsa Vaya this morning and headed out for a short ride on both gravel and tar roads near my home. It was a lovely day. The fall colors are a little past peak around my home but still quite lovely. I stopped several times on my ride to take pictures of the pretty trees. I did this because I wanted to capture all of the beauty of nature - and because I am pretty out of shape and figured that taking pictures was a good cover for the fact that I actually felt the need to stop a few times and rest. I'm glad I'm feeling well enough to be back out on my bike and am looking forward to getting out some more in the days to come. Get out and enjoy the beauty of the fall season!

I have not been in the habit of writing for quite some time but a couple of weeks ago I created a writing schedule to help me get back in the habit. I drew it out on a big piece of paper - it shows my work hours (I work four mornings a week as an educational assistant with special-ed preschool children) as well as my evening commitments. After work and my evening things, I don't have a ton of time left for writing but I managed to block out three to four afternoons per week to write. The schedule needs to be pretty fluid as I didn't allocate any time to do things like eat, do laundry or exercise. Those tasks of daily living can sure take up a lot of time but my hope is that I still keep my afternoons more or less free for writing. So far, I've managed to stick to my writing schedule pretty well. I used to have the tendency to go back to sleep after getting the kids on the bus in the mornings. I need sleep, of course, but my morning job is helping me switch my schedule so...

Well, it only took a couple of days before I did another writing space reboot in my office but I think I now have an arrangement that works. Why move the furniture around just days after my Writing Space Reboot ? Well, even though I tried using a floor lamp, I was still having trouble with headaches and eye strain in my newly rearranged space. Terribly frustrating! My gut instinct has been that the issue is the way the light comes through the window and the light above my desk so I did some troubleshooting on how the light hit me in my old office compared to my new space and brainstormed other arrangement options. Long and short of it is I moved my desk once again and now it faces the window pretty much straight on. A lot of the time I don't need the overhead light but when I use it in the daytime it's not bothering me. In the evenings the overhead light is too bright so I'm using a floor lamp which seems to be working okay. Now my desk faces the window straight on. ...

Last November, I traded my large office for my son's small bedroom so that Ryan could have space for a full-size bed. I had great hopes for my new office - but even though I did my best to arrange my desk and bookshelves just so, my new office space never felt quite right. There were little things that bugged me about the space, like the fact that my desk and bookshelves blocked most of my electrical outlets, but there were big issues, too, like the lighting. The space is small enough that no matter where I put my desk it's right under the ceiling light. I found the glare irritating and, to top it off, I ended up getting migraines when I worked. I really have never had migraines and didn't get them in my old office so the headaches were a very odd thing. On top of the headaches, I found that I was struggling with my writing and felt like I couldn't organize my thoughts or edit my work without a lot of help from Owen. I also pretty much lost enthusiasm for writin...

I set a goal to read more, write more and ride more in 2014. It seems that I also have also added a buy more books for my collection category to that goal because I keep buying books to add to my must read stack. Today I stopped at Monkey See, Monkey Read (an independent bookstore in Northfield, MN) and picked up a book I ordered, one I was thinking of buying and another I picked up on a whim because it was on sale. Here's a list of the new additions to my must read collection: Forward from Here : Leaving Middle Age - and Other Unexpected Adventures. This book is a memoir by Reeve Lindbergh. I really enjoyed Reeve's Under a Wing , her memoir about growing up with her famous parents, Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I'm especially interested in reading this book to find out how Reeve handled the news that her father had three secret families in Europe. I think Reeve writes beautifully and am looking forward to this book. Major Pettigrew's Last S...