New Hobby

My first fear was saying it out loud.

As we were on our little family bike ride this evening, I started to think about the milestone birthday that I'm approaching (NOT THIS YEAR). For many people, turning (gulp, I can't even say it...) forty is a time for reflection on all the things you've wanted to accomplish in life, but haven't gotten around to yet. I seem to be looking upon it (down the lens of a telescope), as my last chance to get fit before I surrender completely to middle age.

Therefore, inspired by former schoolmates who are now running marathons and doing triathlons, and knowing that my running years are FIRMLY in my past due to some old injuries that caused my running career to end- plus I hate running....

I have decided that I'm going to join Matt in his hobby. No, not Star Wars mania, or bizarre confectionery trivia but, you guessed it: cycling. And as my goal (oh boy, here's the part where I put it out there for everyone to see), I am going to follow in my mom's footsteps and ride all of RAGBRAI the year I turn 40.

I have an autumn birthday, I will hit my milestone the day before Thanksgiving NEXT year (let me be PERFECTLY clear about that). I'm typically quite reluctant to share my age... I even had someone ask me if I was a student at USF the other day (she made my day- until an actual student told me I reminded him of a friend's mom). But let's face it. In the world of Facebook, considering I have so many friends from my high school class... we're all going down together next year, and there won't be any secrets anymore!

I think my mom (who also has an autumn birthday) rode all of RAGBRAI both the summer before AND the summer after she turned 40. I was old enough to drive support for her, a position I found suited me quite well. But I guess it's time for me to get out of the car.

So I shared this thought with Matt tonight, and he started getting all excited, of course. Now we can share his crazy passion. Now he has someone to ride with when he does his 5:30 am bike rides! (wait... what?)

We came home from our little family ride, where I was enjoying my cute, but monstrously heavy cruiser bike:
(not exactly a ride-400-miles-in-7-days kind of bike)

So he started looking for road bikes for me. This is the bike that we found that I deemed cute enough to spend money on. Of course, we get the Scheels employee discount, but it's one of those "save up before you buy" kind of deals.

What do you think?

Is that super-cute or what? AND it's Italian. So I can sing arias while I ride. :)

OK, so I'll keep you posted on my progress. This is a spendy hobby, so I'll start with the gear I have, which is a heavy cruiser (super cute) bike, a helmet, sunglasses and a sports bra (I promise to wear more than that when I ride!) We'll build from there.

Mourning into Dancing

The saga of my yardwork continues....

So last weekend, my folks stopped by to drop off the kids, after taking them for the weekend, so we could go hang out at Lifelight. Thanks, Mom & Jim!

Anyway, on Sunday, they came up in time to check out our new church, Embrace, then we ordered Chinese food for lunch, and had some time to kill before going out to see Matt perform with Rachelle Hope on the Triple Shot Stage at Lifelight in the afternoon.

Mom & I went over to the greenhouse, just a few blocks away (I know, DANGER!), where all their perennials were on sale for half off. Fall clearance, I guess. After much piddling around, and talking to a colleague who happens to be a fine gardener herself, we wheeled our wagon out of there with some new stuff to plant. That, along with the cuttings that mom had brought from her yard, meant that my Labor Day was labor-intensive.

So I slept in for a while on Monday morning, then dinked around for a while, and finally got out to start planting somewhere after 10 am.

OK, so this is what I put in the ground: two Burning Bushes (they'll turn bright red in a few weeks).

Fitting, because God spoke to Moses through a burning bush... and God has really spoken to me through this whole process of doing this one thing that I never really wanted to do in the first place. These two bushes will be a reminder that this is where God speaks to me.

We also bought a tree. Not a big one, but I've been wanting to put a tree in here:

(ha! This is a "pre-weeded" picture. It looks much cleaner around there now!)

and not just any tree, I wanted a weeping tree. Ideally, I'd love a weeping cherry, but there's not enough sun to support one there, so we got a Weeping Pussy Willow.


It's pretty small right now, and it won't actually get much taller than this, though it will get wider. Here it is from a distance. Doesn't look too impressive yet!


Today (a week later), I had Matt move some big rocks up onto that level, and will eventually put a bunch of hostas and other pleasant shade-dwelling plants. I would also like to plant something that will drape down over the edges of this rounded terrace layer. This will be the area that reminds me that it's OK to have times of sadness, when you can't see the sun. It will at least look like a quiet place, even though it's very noisy out there right next to that busy intersection that also has occasional train crossings, and ambulances with sirens blaring making their way to the nearby hospital.


OK, so this one, I had to plant somewhere where I will see it frequently, because I LOVE it.


It's some kind of weird hydrangea hybrid called "Twist and Shout." The plant I got is huge, and the soil was treated in such a way that some of the blooms are purple/blue and some are pink. It's just so cute!

This is the symbol of joy for me. I didn't realize when I bought all these that I was symbolizing God turning my mourning into dancing, but look at that! :)

So today when I was out mulching for winter protection from the feet and feet of snow these poor babies will be under for months and months (ugh! Do we have to think about that yet?), and watering, Maia had a neighborhood friend over. "What does this plant mean in the Bible, Mom?" Joy. "What about this one?" Friends. "And the weeds are sin, right?"

I remember symbolism being a pretty abstract concept that I didn't really start to understand until high school American Literature class (thanks, Mr. Arends). So, I don't know if she really gets what's going on in my heart, but she gets that one thing can have two meanings.

If I can teach her that and how to sing harmony, I'll feel like I've instilled at least a little bit of me in her! :)