A 26 year old women was shot and killed by a man who she had a restraining order against, he then took his own life.
I know all too well the feeling of helplessness to someone who won't let you go and feels entitled to you as their own possession. People seem to feel that they deserve or should have all kinds of things including other people.
I have learned that you truly don't own anything that can not be taken away except yourself, but even this you have to hold onto and not give away.
Life is a gift, my children are a gift, my friends and family as well as cycling and health are a gifts that I love everyday and I will not forget how fortunate I am.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Racing is Fun
Yea! I was able to race my bike on Sunday. 1st was Saturday, I spent all day hanging drywall that my drywall guy didn't finish, I am still in need of two more sheets and one more day of cutting and hanging then the mudding fun will begin, *sigh*. All day I kept telling myself "drink water, eat and DON'T hurt yourself" but by the end of the day my back and wrist were sore. I made a nice chili lime shrimp and rice dinner with a glass of wine and iced various spots on my back and wrist, packed all my race stuff and went to bed.
Sunday morning woke right up and got to the routine of dressing, eating, and double checking my race bag. My ride showed up right on time and we were off. Seattle actually looked like it would be a nice day. My hopes were up for good weather in Sequim. Once off the ferry the rain started and I began to have doubts that the banana belt would pull through for the day. It was wet and grey until we hit the big elk statue that welcomes you to Sequim, oh lucky day no rain!
Once in the field (the grassy one) I became nervous, but I went about my routine that I did all last year and I started to feel better.
Things I did right...
I warmed up for 40 minutes three burns but not all out.
I stretched my back and legs
I dressed perfectly not too warm not too cold.
Timed the port a potty stops and getting my gear on to be at the line right on time.
Kept myself at the front end of the pack.
Attacked at the right moment when I saw a TGH going. Was in a break of two that turned into at final break of 11 used blocking, timing communication to get our girl in the winning break at the end awesome! We talked about strategy and we put it into motion. Attack - counter attack, keep up the pace but don't chase down our own team. Everyone got it. Personally I was worried going in that I couldn't hang or possibly finish and before the my attack I had even said I think I am done my back hurts. Luckily instinct kicked in when I saw the other girl getting ready to go I didn't think I went, gave it just about everything but reserved enough not to blow myself up when we were caught I recovered and hung in pulled and ended up getting 10th.
Things I learned...
I still don't hold a wheel well enough on the headwind sections, I worked like hell because I was off the wheel in front of me and couldn't quite close the gap with the wind. I would have had more for the sprint if I was closer. Good to learn (yet again), but in reality I didn't want to come in ahead of either teammate that was with me because of the point standings besides a STBX gal took out a TGH after the line! If I had been any closer I too could have gone down. Everyone is OK but there are lessons that I hope others came away with yesterday as well.
Next up
Boat Street, never done it. I will pre ride and make a day of decision based on weather and how safe I feel I can make it. It will be the 1st crit of the season and the 1st time for a CAT4 only on this coarse. I am mostly worried about others ability here, I have done plenty of technical crits and we will have our corning clinic on Saturday so I think my team will get it, not sure about the others. If I do it plan A is warm up good and hard, start good and hard and don't slow down! Plan B $20 isn't worth loosing teeth or breaking bones and bikes so if it is sketchy as hell, quit!
I am racing again that makes me happy.
Sunday morning woke right up and got to the routine of dressing, eating, and double checking my race bag. My ride showed up right on time and we were off. Seattle actually looked like it would be a nice day. My hopes were up for good weather in Sequim. Once off the ferry the rain started and I began to have doubts that the banana belt would pull through for the day. It was wet and grey until we hit the big elk statue that welcomes you to Sequim, oh lucky day no rain!
Once in the field (the grassy one) I became nervous, but I went about my routine that I did all last year and I started to feel better.
Things I did right...
I warmed up for 40 minutes three burns but not all out.
I stretched my back and legs
I dressed perfectly not too warm not too cold.
Timed the port a potty stops and getting my gear on to be at the line right on time.
Kept myself at the front end of the pack.
Attacked at the right moment when I saw a TGH going. Was in a break of two that turned into at final break of 11 used blocking, timing communication to get our girl in the winning break at the end awesome! We talked about strategy and we put it into motion. Attack - counter attack, keep up the pace but don't chase down our own team. Everyone got it. Personally I was worried going in that I couldn't hang or possibly finish and before the my attack I had even said I think I am done my back hurts. Luckily instinct kicked in when I saw the other girl getting ready to go I didn't think I went, gave it just about everything but reserved enough not to blow myself up when we were caught I recovered and hung in pulled and ended up getting 10th.
Things I learned...
I still don't hold a wheel well enough on the headwind sections, I worked like hell because I was off the wheel in front of me and couldn't quite close the gap with the wind. I would have had more for the sprint if I was closer. Good to learn (yet again), but in reality I didn't want to come in ahead of either teammate that was with me because of the point standings besides a STBX gal took out a TGH after the line! If I had been any closer I too could have gone down. Everyone is OK but there are lessons that I hope others came away with yesterday as well.
Next up
Boat Street, never done it. I will pre ride and make a day of decision based on weather and how safe I feel I can make it. It will be the 1st crit of the season and the 1st time for a CAT4 only on this coarse. I am mostly worried about others ability here, I have done plenty of technical crits and we will have our corning clinic on Saturday so I think my team will get it, not sure about the others. If I do it plan A is warm up good and hard, start good and hard and don't slow down! Plan B $20 isn't worth loosing teeth or breaking bones and bikes so if it is sketchy as hell, quit!
I am racing again that makes me happy.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Getting in over my head
Ah well, yes I suppose gutting my basement, adding and replacing the windows, framing all the rooms plus completely overhauling the bathroom and thinking I could get this all done in about two months was a bit optimistic. This was my off season project I was going to get it all done before training started, ha!
I gutted with little despair just lots of debris yet with the bonus of therapeutic sledge hammering. I got the old windows out and framed in the new with pretty much no help (minus one tearful late night that I could no longer control my hammer so my good friends came to help me put about 4-5 nails in one stud so I wouldn't have a gaping 2x3ft hole in my house, thanks SP and JS). I framed the entire basement, 6.5 ft ceilings meant every darn 2x4 had to be cut BTW 80 year old houses especially basement are anything but plumb, square and level. Arduous job measuring and cutting each piece I have no idea how many trips I made out of my basement to the garage to make cuts and frustratedly return to re cut. My mantra , measure 3-4 times cut twice ;) All this framing started by hand meaning that every 3.5 inch nail I was placing was by my own not so skilled hammering. Lesson learned, there are power tools for a reason! Once I got the framing nail gun things progressed at a more reasonable rate. Unfortunately I didn't stumble on this epiphany of using such tool until my wrist tendon was blown and I simply couldn't lift let alone use a hammer. Framing done, albeit not perfect I was feeling like things were moving along. Until I was sidetrackedby dating, it was fun and good for me but dating also halted both my basement and much of my winter training (icy weather get a little blame but not much and the pesky car accident that messed up my back gets its fair share). We broke up no more sidetrack :( so now I am back to my project.
I hired a guy to do the pluming, I know my limits ;) ! He tore through the floor added a drain for my new shower and plumbed the rough in's for the fixtures in less than a day! Money well spent.
The re-wire and new wiring job drove me nuts mostly because the guy who I bought the house from must have been high when he did the original wiring, I call it the THC wire job. I ended up replacing most of the wire in the basement plus added new for lights, bath fan and radiant heat for the tile floor. The idea of radiant flooring is lovely, warm smooth tile under your feet as you step out of the shower, installing it, a very different beast! My tile job looked great until I started walking on it. I had to level the floor first not as bad as I thought it would be but there is a learning curve (I started on the xy=0 axis) this was also the starting local for laying tile over radiant heat with it's cute little probe that sticks up 1/8 of an inch in one stinking spot. Due to this I will now be pulling out a few tiles for the do-over. Nice.
Onto dry wall, I decided that this was something I could not do alone I asked my neighbor who is in the biz if he could recommend someone. Sure! the guy who build the house down the street, perfect. He comes over gives me an estimate of time but only works time & materials not preset price. He say $40/ hour he will bring a helper couple days to hang. Sounded good to me. Now this is why people don't trust contractors, 4 days later still not done, the helper he brought for 2 of the days he says he got for $30/hour instead of the $40. That is good right? No, not so good his "helper" he was quoting me is to be on top of his $40/ hour! Last time I checked that would equal $70/hour not what he originally told me and not until after the guy had come and gone. So what to do? Step one, kick myself in the head for doing exactly what I KNOW not to do! Always get it in writing and don't hire for time and materials. Step two, tell the guy that this isn't what he had originally had told me and the time factor is now double plus extra labor that I won't have money to have him finish the job. Well that solves that I say it nicely I am looking out for him so he doesn't get stiffed some money he agrees to put in one more day at set hours and to get all the drywall done. That is today, we shall see.
I picked out paint colors thinking that this part of the project was a weekend away. Not so much, I will be mudding my walls for a few days ( shh! I am being optimistic) alright, double the time double the cost, I should know the drill by now.
This weekend I am going to Sequim #3 I'll give it my all even if it's only for a lap or so ;) Time to start doing what is fun.
My basement will be there when I get home.
I gutted with little despair just lots of debris yet with the bonus of therapeutic sledge hammering. I got the old windows out and framed in the new with pretty much no help (minus one tearful late night that I could no longer control my hammer so my good friends came to help me put about 4-5 nails in one stud so I wouldn't have a gaping 2x3ft hole in my house, thanks SP and JS). I framed the entire basement, 6.5 ft ceilings meant every darn 2x4 had to be cut BTW 80 year old houses especially basement are anything but plumb, square and level. Arduous job measuring and cutting each piece I have no idea how many trips I made out of my basement to the garage to make cuts and frustratedly return to re cut. My mantra , measure 3-4 times cut twice ;) All this framing started by hand meaning that every 3.5 inch nail I was placing was by my own not so skilled hammering. Lesson learned, there are power tools for a reason! Once I got the framing nail gun things progressed at a more reasonable rate. Unfortunately I didn't stumble on this epiphany of using such tool until my wrist tendon was blown and I simply couldn't lift let alone use a hammer. Framing done, albeit not perfect I was feeling like things were moving along. Until I was sidetrackedby dating, it was fun and good for me but dating also halted both my basement and much of my winter training (icy weather get a little blame but not much and the pesky car accident that messed up my back gets its fair share). We broke up no more sidetrack :( so now I am back to my project.
I hired a guy to do the pluming, I know my limits ;) ! He tore through the floor added a drain for my new shower and plumbed the rough in's for the fixtures in less than a day! Money well spent.
The re-wire and new wiring job drove me nuts mostly because the guy who I bought the house from must have been high when he did the original wiring, I call it the THC wire job. I ended up replacing most of the wire in the basement plus added new for lights, bath fan and radiant heat for the tile floor. The idea of radiant flooring is lovely, warm smooth tile under your feet as you step out of the shower, installing it, a very different beast! My tile job looked great until I started walking on it. I had to level the floor first not as bad as I thought it would be but there is a learning curve (I started on the xy=0 axis) this was also the starting local for laying tile over radiant heat with it's cute little probe that sticks up 1/8 of an inch in one stinking spot. Due to this I will now be pulling out a few tiles for the do-over. Nice.
Onto dry wall, I decided that this was something I could not do alone I asked my neighbor who is in the biz if he could recommend someone. Sure! the guy who build the house down the street, perfect. He comes over gives me an estimate of time but only works time & materials not preset price. He say $40/ hour he will bring a helper couple days to hang. Sounded good to me. Now this is why people don't trust contractors, 4 days later still not done, the helper he brought for 2 of the days he says he got for $30/hour instead of the $40. That is good right? No, not so good his "helper" he was quoting me is to be on top of his $40/ hour! Last time I checked that would equal $70/hour not what he originally told me and not until after the guy had come and gone. So what to do? Step one, kick myself in the head for doing exactly what I KNOW not to do! Always get it in writing and don't hire for time and materials. Step two, tell the guy that this isn't what he had originally had told me and the time factor is now double plus extra labor that I won't have money to have him finish the job. Well that solves that I say it nicely I am looking out for him so he doesn't get stiffed some money he agrees to put in one more day at set hours and to get all the drywall done. That is today, we shall see.
I picked out paint colors thinking that this part of the project was a weekend away. Not so much, I will be mudding my walls for a few days ( shh! I am being optimistic) alright, double the time double the cost, I should know the drill by now.
This weekend I am going to Sequim #3 I'll give it my all even if it's only for a lap or so ;) Time to start doing what is fun.
My basement will be there when I get home.
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