Emma

Oh, and Emma is still adorable. She requested that she be on the blog in her cute duckie towel.

Recumbent bike

So, last year I decided that I liked biking, but didn't like the associated pain (or the numbness, which made me worry). I had tried a "boy-friendly" bike seat, but no dice. So, I got a Recumbent bike: expensive, but I figured it'd pay for itself in gas money. Being analytical, I decided to chart my money saved verses bike cost in a progress bar -- starting at black, and slowly revealing the bike.

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm 20% paid off. I'm trying to increase my mileage to 90 miles/week (60 miles this week so far), which'll make the whole thing become visible way faster.

2007.9.20 -- First week of the bike: 2007.11.9 -- Last bike ride of the season
2008.5.30 -- Last bike ride before Switzerland

2008.7.10 -- Today, after 60 miles of riding this week

So, Fiona has gotten used to getting emails saying "I CAN SEE THE PEDAL", or "I CAN SEE THE WHOLE GEAR"

If you pass the Big Chicken, you've gone too far...

Doug and I spent Memorial day weekend visiting his sister's family in Atlanta. We got to meet 10-week-old Emma, who actually seemed happy enough to be eaten by a squid. Here's the pattern for the nifty squid hat. It's a pretty fun, quick project...it was a race to see if I could finish the last half of it on the drive down to Atlanta. I finished stitching on his last eye just minutes before we arrived!

And LM and John win super extra best host points for enabling my need to visit weird roadside attractions. They took us to see the BIG CHICKEN! We also took Emma on her first hike at Kennesaw Mountain and then shot her from a cannon to commemorate the event. :) Isn't she a cutie?

Besides having a wonderful time visiting with Doug's family, we also rounded out the trip by getting all sorts of National Park Passport stamps...Kennesaw National Battlefield Park, Audubon Acres on the Trail of Tears Historic trail (complete with poison ivy, stinging nettles and ticks!), and finally a nexus of stamps at Stones River National Battlefield!

Trail Run and Camping

Fiona and I went up to Pickney State Park. It's a pretty area, and we learned from last year to reserve camp sites far from the hustle and bustle of weekend partiers. We had a nice fire, hung out on a beautiful friday, and then the next day, did the 5 mile trail run!

My GPS says it looked like this:

The rolling green is the elevation -- the trails were on hils, and the 30 minute mark felt like a mountain.

But, the day was beautiful, and we rested afterwards, staring at the lake and hearing the bullfrogs. Fiona is too polite to mention it, but she beat me by 1 second!

(In retrospect, running 13.1 miles the next day turned out to be a mistake)

Superstars!

It's true! Doug and I were superstars on Friday night.

For the past few months we've been taking a Performance Lindy Hop (aka Superstar Lindy) class from Naptown Stomp. Our instructors (the fabulously great Kathy and Aaron) choreographed and taught a very snazzy lindy routine to 8 dance couples. Last Friday night at the Fountain Square Theater swing dance, we managed to not fall on our faces as we performed during one of the intermissions.

This class ended up being a great idea. I think it was the first time I ever took a dance class that really required a lot of rehearsal outside the class to make it a success. We definitely learned some really slick moves--we haven't quite figured out how to fit into our regular dancing, but we will soon! It was a great way to really get to know the other Naptown Stompers a whole lot better. Our only complaint was that the ultimate goal of the class, the performance, was only 2 minutes long! We want to do it again!!

Many, many thanks need to go to Kathy and Aaron for the tons of time they put into making this a success. They did a great job with us. And to Sandy for giving us a place to rehearse on the weekend. And to all the Superstars for working so hard! And one final thanks to Debra, for taking the video of the performance for me!

One of my favorite comments from a friend afterward the performance was "Fiona, you looked like you were having a great time, but Doug looked like he was concentrating very hard." :)

Crazy Pets

Early last spring, I was thrilled and surprised to find out that one of my $.30 goldfish had survived the winter in my little backyard pond. He was enormous, at least compared to his starting size! I bought a few more friends for him over the summer and fully planned on bringing them inside for the winter. With the craziness of our fall traveling last year, I never did get them indoors.

So, for the past few months, I've been anxiously waiting for signs of gold through the murk and leaves floating in the pond. I had pretty much given up on any signs of life until this Sunday, when Doug spotted the big guy! Thrilled, I tossed in some fish food and we found that four fish (out of five, I think) survived the winter. Yay! After I worked in the garden last night, I tried to take some pictures, but they are very twitchy little guys. These ones are pretty blurry, but the video clip below is better.

In the house, Agatha has become completely obsessed with getting the fishies in the new indoor fish tank. For years, I've been trying to get some cute pictures of her perched on top of my favorite gargolye (technically a grotesque, I know, but then most folks wouldn't know what I was talking about). Who knew that all I needed to do was add some fish into the household to get that picture!?!

Since this post seems to be all about pet pictures, here's one last of Agatha investigating my finished knitting project. The Amazing finally finished 14-foot DOCTOR WHO SCARF! After more than two years on this project, I finally gave it to my sister Deirdre, who has been longing for one of these since she was a teenager.

Successful yogis

We did it! Doug and I successfully completed that 30 day Resolution Revolution Yoga Challenge. He has become positively bendy and I have become...well...bendier. And stronger!

It turns out that 30 days of yoga or pilates was pretty challenging. I definitely questioned the sanity of training for runs at the same time--5k & 5 mile trail run for me and a few mini-marathons for Doug. And we shouldn't forget about dance classes that we took in the last month. The weekend with yoga/pilates, running, Fountain Square Swing dance Friday night and a Saturday Blues dance workshop and nighttime dance just about killed me. But in a good way! It was totally worth it when we also managed to trick Valerie and Darren into joining us for an early morning yoga that Sunday morning.

While I'm glad the challenge is finally done, I did celebrate my second yoga-free day by doing yoga! Chances are that I'll continue with my yoga practice more often, but probably not 7 days a week. Doug claims that he'll still be doing yoga in the future as well.

And for a little plug, we were doing our yoga craziness at Invoke Studio just north of downtown Indy. One of the perks of doing yoga everyday was getting a chance to take classes from just about all of the instructors at the studio. They are all fabulous folks!

Oh, and the training is going well! My longest run yet was 4 miles last Friday, and Doug ran 10 miles tonight. (He's such a show off!)

25 days

We completed day 25 yesterday. 1 more restorative yoga, 2 more pilates, and 2 more yogas. What could go wrong?

Geocaching Madness

So, what was I doing in the coldest day of January? Curled beneath a nice warm blanket in front of a roaring fire? Nope! I was outside with my crazy friends geocaching.

This particular geocaching escapade took place after Lindy & Balboa dance weekend in Dayton, OH. A little punchy after 2 days of workshops, Valerie & Darren led us on a wild trek near the Mad River and Dayton Mall to find a bazillion caches on the coldest day of the year. It was very fun. And COLD!

For years, I've had a little bit of a bias against geocaching. My first real exposure to it, was a geocache that was located on a Nature Conservancy preserve, and reaching it involved rappelling (against TNC rules on our preserves) down a cliff that was populated with an rare plant.

However, I've gotten over it. Mostly because geocaching is way fun! And silly! And requires a little sneakiness. :)



(This post has been hiding out in my drafts since January. Thought I'd finally finish it and get it out here)

Dreams of 14 year old girls

I recently got a call from a longtime friend. I've known Meredith since freshman year of high school and along with Renee, the three of us were fairly inseparable. Renee also wins the longest friend prize, we went to preschool together! Anyway, we were drama and choir nerds together, ran amok, got in trouble, and were general silly, best friends all through high school.

Meredith called to ask me to be in her wedding this fall, along with Renee and her sisters. This made me flash back to sleep-overs where we planned our weddings and how we'd all be in the other's weddings. :) It's a weird and wonderful thing that it's actually happening 20 years later.