Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

That hopeful song of spring being just around the corner has been playing this week. Tuesday the sun was shining, giving off warmth though the wind was competing with it. I walked to Uptown to catch the bus, getting a mile and a half in before classes. Yesterday, more sun, so another walk to Uptown to catch the bus to work. Such a wonderful way to start the day. This morning, sunny, warming up nicely. Ado and I walked twice before 11 am. Both of us were very happy campers. I realized today I've not blogged much this month. It's already the 22nd and this will be blog post two for February. I've been working on the piece I started quite a while back, focusing on getting at least 1000 words a day. Seeing the wordcount increasing each day is incredibly exciting. Today I spent the afternoon printing out what I have so far . . . having a hard copy, feeling the weight of it in my hands, makes me want to do nothing but sit here and keep working. I'm resisting the urge to go...

The day I've been dreading, trying not to think about, arrived. Yesterday. And the situation is even worse now than it was six months ago. The hole just keeps getting deeper. I promised myself when I married my husband that I wasn't going to allow myself to be pressured into giving into what he wanted. I'd given in with the kids' dad on things I knew with my entire being were harmful, and in the end, that marriage ended badly. I thought I'd learned my lesson from that experience. Not so. My promise to myself lasted all of about a week. I wanted to keep my maiden name, but my husband kept pressing me to change it to his last name. Per my usual self, rather than stand my ground and say no, rather than let the boat rock, I went through the process of changing my name. That was the first incident of many throughout the last 12 years where I didn't keep my promise to myself. Now I'm in this situation that I know will end up being me finding myself financial...

I signed the pledge on Friday, and already I think I have two women ready to commit to riding a bike more often. Both have bikes, but those bikes have gathered dust in the garage for a variety of reasons. Because both are moms, busy moms at that, the idea of using a bike for transportation doesn't make sense to them when they have appointments to get to, grocery shopping to do, kids to pick up from school, kids to ferry to sports practices/events, and a myriad of other "stuff." I totally get their perspective because I was there for a long time myself. When thinking about all the things a woman/mom has to do, using a bicycle as the primary mode of transportation doesn't seem feasible. But using the bike once a week for a shorter errand, or using the bike twice a week to get small amounts of groceries, or using the bike three times a week for a half hour of fitness riding is feasible. Starting small, taking the proverbial baby steps, is the way to work the bike as ...

This whole no car thing involves a lot more than what I had considered when I decided to jump into it. Like what to do with all the biking events I've signed up for that are an hour, sometimes two, away. I can't ride my bike there then home. Well, I could, but I'd be on the bike all day long. That's just not reasonable. Since yesterday's event, I've been thinking further into my scheme to live sans car. Yesterday's event was about 40 minutes away. I'd had this thirty mile ride planned for about three weeks. When I decided to see how life is without a car, I didn't even think about this event or the others I have on the calendar. And for only having three days of no car under my belt, I was really surprised with how awful I felt getting behind the wheel to drive to the event. I felt like a failure at my experiment. But then I thought there are some things that I need to drive to, especially if the events are already paid for. I shouldn't just not ...