Category Archives: bike riding

Biking Bonanza

It was the weekend of biking! What a great winter weather weekend.  The calender says winter, but the temps say spring!  I pulled a 3 fer with the rides this weekend.

For St. Patty’s Day, John made up some Irish Soda Bread.  Last minute decision was to soak the raisins in bourbon and it was a very good idea indeed.  This was a beautiful loaf!

Must have portion control on this for sure.

It was such a nice day, definitely raring to go biking.  John was still recovering from a cold (it seems he has been sick since we got back from Disney), so I went out on my own and met him out for a snack.  I biked along the path.  Still looks like winter:

Lots of people on the path today.  I hit my turnaround point (this is an overpass, hence the fence).

Then biked downtown.  It was really, really crowded!  Not only was it St. Patty’s Day, so the bars were open and busy, but the state high school basketballs finals (or whatever) were in town.  Lots and lots of traffic and people.  I met John at Coffee Planet and they had shamrock sugar cookies!

The iced sugar cookie has to be one of my favorite cookies.  Simple and perfect.  I decided I couldn’t handle the people and traffic on the way home, so I decided to chance the bike path being really soggy.  I was surprised that it was quite ride-able, though!

Not spring yet, though.  It was so nice to get outside and riding again!

That was a nice 17 mile ride.  I had also done my lifting workout in the morning, so my thigh was pretty achy last night.

We were thinking it was going to be in the  40s when we got up and could bike to bagels, so we got all bundled up and then happened to check the weather and it was 32 degrees.  Ooops, a bit too cold, even for me.  But, with temps rising fast for the day, we decided on a morning ride after breakfast and grocery shopping.  John was feeling well enough to ride, too. We headed south in the morning into a fair headwind.  One of those times when you really notice the effects of drafting.  We swapped the lead every couple of miles.  After 8 miles, we hit our turn around point.  It was a beautiful day and getting a little warmer all the time.

My buddy for the day.

We cruised on home with a good tailwind.  We took a big steep hill at the end, which I have decided is my mission to work on this summer.  I will bike 5 miles out of my way to avoid this hill, so it is something I am challenging myself with to do hill repeats on by the end of summer (eek).

That was a 16.5 mile morning ride.

Ready for another one?  We went back out in the afternoon for…. wait for it….

The frozen yogurt is back at our ice cream place!  Yay!  I had a pistachio flavor.  It was in the upper 60s and so sunny.  I was pretty sweaty, actually. It felt really nice to sit outside and everyone else had that idea, too.

The line goes all the way back past the bush.  You know what I love?  When the line is that long and then the person gets up to the window and *still* doesn’t know what they want  🙄

We headed back home into the wind, but it seemed less than this morning.  I do have some wind chap on my cheeks and lips, though.  Total miles for the day?

Pretty darn close to 29.  I have the distance legs for sure, but not quite the hill legs, yet.   46 miles on the weekend.  For halfway through March – that is really fantastic!

Pixie can’t go outside, but she is enjoying all the sun:

I need to be doing that tomorrow.  Definitely a rest day!  I am roasting up some parsnips and sweet potatoes and we will be grilling out tonight in the gorgeous weather.

Question:  How the weather in your neck of the woods?

Back on the bike!

Happy Weekend!  It’s over now, but what a nice weekend it was  :mrgreen:

It was nice enough for a ride today, too!  When we can sneak in an outdoor ride at this time of year, it always feels like such a treat.  Temp was close to 50, so we bundled up and headed out.

Technical turtleneck, small jacket, fleece jacket on top.

Dork alert!  I borrowed a pair of John’s tube socks to pull up to keep my calves warm because my bike knickers are 3/4 length.

What this doesn’t show is how the heels of the socks come up over the top of my shoes. Why yes, I am a fashion plate.

It was sunny out and a tail wind to start.  We decided to take the path today.  Of course, a lot of the path was covered with leaves, which can be a bit of a hazard because you can’t see what is under the leaves.  We had to stop after John got a branch caught in his wheel.

Obviously this is not the really leafy section.

This is along the canal. This part of the path is all cinder and kind of slows down the ride.

We stopped at mile 8 to drop a layer of jacket.

Most leaves have now fallen except for a few stubborn trees.  We had decided on a trip to downtown Glens Falls to go to the Chocolate Mill.  We arrived downtown at mile 11.  Some of those stubborn trees in the middle of a traffic circle:

On to the Mill!

Check out the pastry case:

I chose a french macaroon:

 

It was not very big, but quite tasty when paired with a latte!

This was perfect for a chilly fall day.

We then headed on home.  I was feeling great!  It was not a hilly ride, thank goodness, because my hill legs are not quite there now.  It just felt so, so good to be riding.  We looped around so that we could get an even 20 miles today!

I had a big smile on my face most of the ride:

Ride stats:

Distance: 20 miles

Average speed: 12.8 mph

Ride time: 1 hour, 34 minutes

Calories burned: 606

A fabulous ride!  Looks like we might even be able to bike to breakfast on Wednesday if the overnight temps stay above freezing.  Yay!

I hope all of you had as wonderful a weekend as we did!

51 mile fab fall ride!

The weather this weekend was absolutely fabulous!  We knew that meant a bike  ride on Saturday – aka the Stuff part of Stuff and Cram weekend.

After lunch, we decided to head on down to Saratoga and partake in a cuppicake!

I was excited for a long ride:

John is all pumped up as well:

Grrrrrr…..

Temps were supposed to get into the mid 70s during the day. It was a little cooler to start, but we stopped around mile 8 to shed jackets just before the hill portion.

Hills are just around the bend.  We passed by the alpacas again. Say cheese!

I wasn’t feeling the hills today.  Not tired, per se, but no speed on the hills, which is pretty unusual.

We took a break around mile 15:

All the rain this year has made for late color.  Trees are just starting to turn.

We brought along the perfect ride fuel –

It’s baaa-aack!  :mrgreen:  My favorite candy!  And the Brach’s brand please – the best candy corn out there.

We arrived to the Bread Basket at mile 23.

It was so nice out the we got our cupcakes to go and went across the street to Congress Park.

John had a coconut cream cupcake.  I had a pumpkin spice.  His was bigger  – boooo!

Someone noticed us eating.

He came right over to our feet.  We did not feed him, but he obviously has been fed before.


The carousel was quite busy today.

Check out the beautiful sky.  It was soooooo nice today.

We then headed back home.  Days are shorter now, which means no dallying in the afternoon.

Around mile 30, my back was starting to bother me and flaring up my sciatica.  Luckily John had some ibuprofen.  We stopped by this horse farm so I could take a couple.

Saratoga is horse country.

We ended up taking some extra breaks today for pictures and for my back.  It took 4 miles for the ibuprofen to kick in and I felt much better.  We stopped for a bit of refreshment at mile 35.

This was slushy and cold because it had been in the freezer.  Icy cold coconut water is the best!  I enjoy this route so much.  It has so many beautiful views and I think by next weekend the colors will be beautiful.

You never know what farm animals will be out and about, and these guys were new:

There were 2 and they looked like twins  😀  This was around mile 43?

John and I were both started to get a little tired at this point.  We haven’t been able to bike as much with the rainy weather and the shorter days.  We pressed on and finished out 51 miles today!

Running doesn’t make me smile like this.  Even wiped out I was having a great time!

Ride stats:

Total miles: 51.2 miles

Ride time:  3 hours 45 minutes

Top speed: 31.6 mph

Average speed: 13.6 mph

Calories burned: 1586

I was surprised at the average speed with how many stops we took and just feeling slower in general.  It felt so good to get out in the sun today.  I love fall rides so much!

Pink picture of the day! Roses at the Bread Basket.

The Breast Cancer Site

Come back tomorrow for a Fright Fest recap!

Sundae on Sunday

What a gorgeous fall weekend! Saturday started rainy and cloudy, but it did stop.  I made a fall inspired breakfast:

This was the flax muffle topped with apple/cranberry topping.  Yum!

John went to play a poker tournament Saturday and he placed 6 out of 23. Not in the money, but I think he did pretty well.  He doesn’t like tournaments and just prefers the cash games.

I did a lot of errands and checked out a craft show.

I bought a bowl from a woman who totally underpriced her handmade ceramics.

New bowl? $5!  Like I really need another bowl…

Sunday turned out the best weather wise and we did a double dip ride.  First was to Panera Bread and bagels! We have a My Panera card, which is the PB rewards card, and had a free bagel on it. Score!

It was humid this morning and I was pretty sweaty.

Over breakfast, we talked about where we wanted to bike to.  We thought cupcakes, but that would have been a 42+ mile ride on top of a 16 mile breakfast ride – and we weren’t sure about 60 miles on the day.  Instead, we decided to keep it more local and hit one of the ice cream shops.

After lunch, it was time to ride again.

We headed out the long way on the roads and then hit the path.

I love this part of the path. This is the beginning of the hill stretch for a couple of miles.

With all this rain and warm weather, the mosquitoes were swarming. I started getting bitten as soon as I stopped. Ick.

We actually did not go on the hill today. This was the turn around spot on our way to Martha’s!

In the background is Great Escape. It’s right across the street from Martha’s. Still open until the end of October.

Martha’s only does soft serve ice cream, but they do it well.

I decided on a sundae. It is called the Scholarship sundae for some weird reason.  It is your flavor of ice cream topped with raspberry sauce, hot fudge and cookie crumbs.  I had raspberry creme twist as my flavor.

This is the small  😯 It looks smaller in this picture, too.  Oh – and I *never* eat cherries.  The one fruit I really don’t ever eat.

We enjoyed listening to the screams as we ate our ice cream  :mrgreen:

I didn’t think I was going to be able to finish this sundae, but then I forget how much I actually can eat without getting full  LOL.  Not to mention it was really, really good. I am not afraid of food!  I was totally carbed up for the ride home.

Daily total:

Total miles: 40.5

Ride time: 3 hours 30 seconds

Average speed: 13.5 mph

Top speed: 23.2 mph

Calories burned: 1264

I could have done 60 miles today, but I think I would have been a bit tired. Plus, there was football to watch!

I picked against the Broncos (which breaks my heart), but I still supported them by wearing my jersey.  Guess it paid off because I won the football picks for the week.  Go Team Lori!!  Woo Hoo!

Remembering and riding

 

Our day of remembrance on 9/11. I think everyone is thinking of where they were and what they were doing 10 years ago today.

 

We had a nice ride on Saturday.  The morning was cool and I had a nice quiet breakfast on the porch:

We talked a bit about where to ride to.  We had been to Saratoga for the past few weeks, and didn’t want to go to the Lake where there was a car festival going on.  So, we just decided to head up north and then go out for lunch.  We headed out into a brisk headwind.  Boy it was windy!  We took a break at mile 12 for a little snack in Fort Ann.  I had a plum.

 

View from this same spot earlier in May:

How things change. We kept going taking advantage of the nice wide bike lane until it narrowed down.  I hadn’t been on this route since I did 100 miles in July.   We still managed 14 miles per hour even with the headwind.  The best part was turning around and getting a beautiful tailwind!  We had passed a new restaurant on our way there, which sounded perfect for lunch.  This was at mile 23.

Local farm and they used their own produce and grass fed cattle for the menu!  How nice!  That meant I had to have a burger:

Yum.  Grass fed beef is leaner than grain fed and definitely has a different flavor.  It was tasty.  I had mine with muenster cheese. John and I split some handcut fries as well.  Yay!  I love potatoes.

We were also give a little dish of complimentary watermelon.  This little place was busy.  Hope they do well.

After lunch it was back on the road. Lots of places are set up for fall, including all the garden centers.

So feeling like fall now.  It was a little cooler as well.  We decided we wanted some yogurt, so we continued on to Glens Falls and the yogurt shop! Mile 34

I had marshmallow yogurt topped with peanut butter.  Fluffernutter anyone?

Mmmmmm…..

I asked John how far he wanted to go today, and we decided just to head on home and stop at 41 miles on the day. Just a nice short ride  :mrgreen:

Ride stats:

Distance: 41 miles

Average speed: 14 mph

Top speed: 24.5 mph

Ride time: 2 hours 55 minutes

Calories burned: 1291

This was a good ride for us.  It is quite  the workout to keep hybrid bikes going at 14 mph for almost 3 hours!  Yeah!

After snacking on some granola when I got home, I got cleaned up and made some dinner.  I just wanted starch and fruits and veggies.  So that is what I had:

The baker was topped with laughing cow and sauteed broccoli.  With a big ol’ plum. Yum!

After dinner, we decided to head up the road to the Sandy Hill Days.  Welcome to Small Town America:

Two of my very favorite fair foods in one booth.

Heartburn Central.  We didn’t get anything because we had recently eaten.

It was very busy in town.  We headed back and watched The Usual Suspects, which is my very favorite movie!  And snack time:

Chocolate and peanuts.  A favorite ride day treat for me (this movie is not Usual Suspects).

A very nice Saturday indeed.

Return of the cupcake ride!

Hooray for cupcakes!  That was the plan for Saturday.  I spent the morning puttering in the garden, which is always nice.  Very little traffic on the road, so it was nice and quiet!

I enjoyed some nice custard oats for breakfast with coconut butter and marmalade!

After lunch, it was time to head on down for a ride.  We took our new favorite way to go by the river.  This is also farm country.

This farm is around mile 10 or so.  They have a llama

And some sheep:

So cute.  The sheep were wearing blankets, although I am not sure why because the temps were starting to soar.  It was a hot and humid day.  I was totally soaked by the time we reached Saratoga at mile 23:

I was sticky with sunscreen, too, so I brought along these:

I am glad because it felt really good to clean off!

It was time for Cupcake Lab.  I wanted 2 things today.  The first was a pistachio french macaron:

Must recreate these at home. And for the cuppicake?  Raspberry:

Also had a big ice coffee, which was a little disappointing because it was on the weak side, which is unusual for here.  Don’t you love this flower that was at our table?

It’s called Celosia, or cockscomb.  The only flower that looks like a brain.

We were ready to get our sweat back on after walking around a bit so we saddled up and hit the road.

More animals! Alpacas:

More sheep:

We took a break around mile 36 for a rest and snack:

If you look in the distance in this picture, you can see the Green Mountains of Vermont.  It’s a little hazy from heat and humidity, though.

More farms.  Did not stop near the dairy farms because they were Stanky!  Then there was this one:

We took a long way around to get a few more miles, but we were starting to get tired.  It is almost hard to imagine I did about twice this distance in July in one day.

Ride stats:

Total distance: 52.4 miles

Ride time:  3 hours 54 minutes

Average speed: 13.4 mph

Top speed:  25.1 mph

Calories burned: 1612

All in all a good ride!

What’s Blooming!

Friday!  Woo Hoo!  My Friday dance today?  Dancing on the pedals!

I took a quick 6.5 mile spin before breakfast today.  I had to wear a long sleeve shirt because of how cool it was.  I wouldn’t have needed that running, but you feel much cooler biking because of the breeze (which is lovely most times). I did 6.75 miles before breakfast.

Came home and had another waffle problem. I forgot the baking powder in my waffles and they didn’t rise, so I had trouble getting them out of the iron.

Breakfast spaetzle anyone? At least  the taste was fine 😀

Pretty standard day today.  Busy, quiet.  I was ready for lunch soon enough.

Broccoli stuffed omelet topped with laughing cow.  Yum! Funny how I almost never eat omelets for breakfast unless we go out to eat.

Garden is still blooming.   The Autumn Joy sedum is changing color now.

The Four O’clocks. They smell so nice!

Potted mums.  My garden ones have not bloomed yet.

The heliopsis clematis has more blooms again.  The blooms have 3 stages.  The lantern stage:

Which then morphs to this:

And the final stage of the seed head:

All 3 of those are going right now on this plant.  It is quite large.

My butterfly bush (buddelia).

Annual asters in multiple colors:

Okay, you will either find this cute or you will roll your eyes.  It was latte time.

John: Any request from your barista today?

Me: Just a kiss with my latte

John: I’ll give you 2


The boneless pork ribs were thawed out for dinner today.  I put them in some mesquite marinade and threw them on the grill.  They were sooooo good!

I am so glad there are leftovers of these 😀

After dinner, I went out for another bike loop just because.  I love my bike.  Tomorrow is long ride day and it will be a cupcake ride!  I am excited – I know you have all missed the cuppicakes, too.

40 miles – Riding for fun

The heat wave finally broke! Yay!  Woke up to a glorious 72 degrees out and breezy.  No real plans on tap for the day, which was nice.  Our ride today was for fun and not for a specific reason like the  group ride or my 100-mile ride (and what really was the reason for that???).  I woke up too early this morning, shooting caffeine as a reason for no sleep out the window being caffeine free for 6 days.  I was happy to get out and poke around in the garden.  Look what I found out there:

He was on the ground and I think just chilled because he did fly away after a bit on my hand.

We decided on a different method of riding today.  We wanted to go the the lake, but decided to eat breakfast on the way.  So – after 8 miles, we ended up at Panera Bread.

I had a blueberry bagel and decaf.

I like Panera Bread bagels, but their coffee is pretty lame in general and weak.  And the decaf is worse.  Oh well, at least there are free refills.

We then continued on the path to Lake George.  Haven’t done these hills in a few weeks!

King Queen of the world!

There were gobs of people on the path today, including a group of people on land skis with poles.  It was obviously some sort of class, but they were taking up the whole path! 😡

We finally reached the lake at mile 17 and grabbed a couple Adirondack chairs to sit and enjoy the beautiful day.  It was even windier at the lake.  Isn’t it funny how it is windier near water?

I know you all missed seeing the lake!

Want to rent a boat?

Or you could take a group tour:

I actually like taking the tour boats, although not on a windy day like today.

View from my pear:

I also had a Balance bar.

These are new and awesome!  I don’t eat many bars now, but I do like them.

We relaxed and talked a little bit about where we wanted to ride to.  Lake George and back is about 32 miles, but we both agreed that seemed a little short.  So we decided to go south again and then loop around to home.

We went for another 17 miles before taking a break.  Fresh bike legs and a tail wind can do wonders for you!  At mile 34 I wanted some refreshment.

This was a different road than we normally go on, but it was nicely paved with a decent shoulder.

Even though it wasn’t as hot, I was really sweaty!  It actually feels so much better to be sweating when you doing something rather than sweating just sitting around because it is too hot.

Strike a pose:

John’s goal in life now is to be goofy in all pictures I take of him.

6 more quick miles and were were home.  40 miles in the books and it was not even 1:30 when we got back!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.2

Ride time: 3 hours 2 minutes

Average speed: 13.2 mph

Top speed: 27.7 (Wheeeee!!)

Calories burned: 1450

I’ve been snacking the rest of today to get in those calories.  And watching the end of the Tour de France.  Congrats to Cadel, it was a hard earned victory and he really did deserve it.  Andy Shleck’s time will come, he is still pretty young.

Tomorrow is return to caffeine day – yippee!!

Tour de Farm – 35 miles

Sunday was the Tour de Farm Ride!

There were 2 rides to choose from, a 15 mile and a 35 mile. Of course, you know what I registered us for!  The ride is basically to raise funds to support land conservation and agriculture.

Since we had to be there at 8:30 – that meant no bagel day today (we did that yesterday).  Instead, I fueled up with banana custard oats.  Pretty standard fare for pre ride.

Then we drove to Hand Melon Farm where the race was to start.  This farm is 100 years old.  Also blueberry picking there, but I picked 5 pounds yesterday or I would have gotten more!

There were probably 200 riders today.  I don’t know the split between the 2 distances, but I think the majority actually did the longer ride.

They had a bike safety check spot where they made sure you had brakes and air in your tire.  That was nice!

Many different sizes and ages of people.  I felt a little nervous for some reason.

The pre ride talk said that we would probably naturally end up in 3 groups – a slower group, medium group, and fast group.  It was also emphasized that it was not a race and to not ride aggressive 😯

…. not aggressive…

Here we are lined up.  John and I figured we would be in the middle group, so we lined up in the middle.  A good mix of bikes.  Mostly road, I think, but a fair amount of hybrids.

Then we headed out. The ride started together, then all the riders separated as we found our pace.  John and I were riding at our normal pace, averaging about 14 mph for the first section.  We ended up with no one around!  Guess we don’t fit into any average ride group, even though we tend to do the same pace.  Interesting.  Leave it to us.

The ride started out hilly right away.  One steep descent near the beginning and I hit 34.1 mph!  Holy cow that was scary.  I kept thinking of all the crashes in the Tour de France this week.  Not the best thing to be doing.

We actually missed the first farm visit.  The person waving us on said “The 35 mile ride keeps going” and other riders turned right.  We thought that meant the shorter ride. Well, it turns out the ride kept going *unless* you wanted to visit the heifer facility, which would have been neat to see.  They are employing green agricultural technology.

It was quite sunny out and warm.  I had my 50 SPF sunscreen on, and I meant to reapply it at the first stop, but I forgot.  We had a hill climb to get to the next rest stop, which was at mile 18 at the Saratoga Battlefield.

A park ranger there talked about the history of this spot, which was a turning point in the American Revolution.  They fed us snacks and water here.  Some sort of seed cake, which was almost like a granola bar with no oats.  It was tasty!

You can see why this area was a good spot for a command post because it sits on a hill and you can see down all around.

I also talked with a woman named Alison there who had the same exact bike as me!  A Fuji Absolute.  I told her she had a nice bike :mrgreen:  She also bought hers at the same place I bought mine!  Turns out she lives like a half mile from us, too.  Small world.  Maybe we can go biking some time.

Then it was on for another 11 miles or so.  The roads were surprisingly uncrowded by cars, which was really nice for riding.  Again, John and I were mostly by ourselves.  I was hoping to try some drafting in a group, but either the people were slower than I wanted to go or faster.  Oh well.

The next stop was the Sword Surrender site.  This followed the Battle at Saratoga where British General Burgoyne surrendered his sword to American General Gates, which was around mile 30.

Note picture below of said event.

Yes, this picture was at the rest stop 😀

They are planning on making  a historical site here, in its planning stages.

We were fed water and cucumbers here from one of the local farms.

They were refreshing!  Although not proper ride fuel, so I had some of this:

Gorgeous day, right?

Then it was the last stretch home.  We were still doing about 13.8 mph average speed, even with hills, so I was pleased about that.  Then it was the final couple of miles and a monster hill.

Remember how I went down that hill earlier at 34.1 mph?  Well, we had to get up a hill just like that on the return.  It was ghastly.  Truly ghastly.  I kept dropping gear after gear until I was in 1, I think, then all of the sudden my pedals started spinning really fast because my chain fell off!  I was going really slow, too, so I almost fell over and it scared me.  That was almost half way up the hill.  No telling if I would have actually made it to the top without stopping, but probably.

I took the picture while I was stopped because it was pretty.

I should have taken a picture of the hill, duh.

The hard part? Restarting on a hill!  Ugh!  Then I had a bump in my chain (which is why I think it fell off), so I couldn’t use the lower gears and had to power up the hill in a gear that was too high.  Now that was a challenge! Phew!  I was glad to see the farm again at mile 35. Yay – finished!


Schwetty.  John too:

And glad to see they had the picnic lunch set up!

Check out this spread!  Have you ever seen post event food like this?

Normally it is homemade cookies, or bagels and bananas.  Not so here.  We had a catered picnic lunch with local beef hamburgers on wheat buns and corn on the cob with compound butter.  3 different kinds of salads.

I got the potato salad that had dill and I think a little mustard and capers!  Have you ever had a post race meal with capers?? Fancy!

So good.

Not to mention fresh made lemonade with ginger, which tasted amazing (probably because I was dehydrated).

Another nice touch? Local crafted pilsner!

I am such a light weight anymore.  I used to be able to drink 5 or 6 beers a night with no problem.  Now? 8 ounces and I felt it.

Ice Cream Man in Greenwich also provided us with dessert.  This ice cream was just made this morning – mint with fudge swirl.

Fan-freaking-tastic!

We even got t-shirts, too! Mine is almost long enough to be a mini dress, too.

Maybe a micro mini. This is a medium.  Vanity sizing anyone??

Ride stats:

Distance: 35 miles (just shy actually)

Ride Time: 2 hours 36 minutes

Average speed: 13.5 mph

Top speed:  34.1  (Eeeeeeeeee!!!)

Calories burned: 1094 (probably on the low side with those hills).

And the best news?? No flat tires for either of us! Woo Hoo!!!!

Jammin’!

It’s Bagel Wednesday!  John is still having some bike issues, so I went out for a solo head start to Panera Bread for a change.  Haven’t been there in about 6 weeks!  I started off with half of a Balance bar because it takes 40-45 minutes to bike there trying to avoid construction.

John scootered and we arrived at almost the same time.  Good timing!

I had an asiago cheese bagel.

The other half was in my tummy. :mrgreen:

It was a warm and sunny ride home, but the humidity seems not so bad.  Lots of people on the path, and so many of them not abiding by the rules of the path or just general consideration, like not having your group stop and stand in the middle of the path, riding/walking/jogging on the wrong side while wearing headphones so you can’t hear who is coming behind you, dogs on leads that are way too long, etc.  Sometimes it is easier to handle auto traffic than pedestrian traffic!  A good 17 mile ride today.

I had a quick lunch today.  Leftover cooked chicken (I love leftovers!) with laughing cow and BBQ sauce, plus 2 plums.

Not sure why I wanted 2 plums, but I did. One is not quite enough, but 2 is a little too much.

In my Google reader today was a post I was looking forward to:

I participated in the jam exchange last year and I am going to do it again this year!  Anyone want to join?  Basically you are paired up with one person to send two jars of jam to, then we all talk about what we got 😀  It’s fun.

My afternoon snackage:

Almond milk iced coffee.

Sweet/salty mix.

I had to talk myself out of getting more.  That was tough.  I wasn’t hungry, but I just wanted to eat more.  I was trying to figure out where that was coming from because I wasn’t bored (work was busy), I wasn’t stressed (doctors for work were my favorites today), not PMSing.  Who knows?  Maybe the bagel did it.  But, I did manage to not eat until dinner.

Then I could not decide what to have for dinner as nothing was appealing.  I ended up doing a standard lunch –

I even tried to make it look pretty for the blog.  Cereal, berries, plain greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey.

Storms and rain rolled in this evening and cooled things off big time!  Tonight is mother/daughter cafe night.  I will be walking there and back for another 2.5 miles on the day.  A lot of exercise today!

Question:  Have you ever made jam?