Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.....

It feels SO good to sit down. I'll get back to that. First, it's back to yesterday. Let's see ...

After church, I must have been dinking around for a couple of hours because I didn't get going on my bike ride until about 12:30. It was fairly windy, from the south, so that's the direction I decided to ride. Salem Corners, Rock Dell, High Forest, airport, Simpson, Rochester. Here's a map of my route:

Nice ride. Rolling hills. Windy. 46.17 miles. I was ready to be done. :-) I was talking with some gals at the GC5K on Saturday and this event sounds really fun: Firehouse 50. It's a 50-mile bike race on Saturday and there's a 15K running race on Sunday. What a fun weekend that would be!

Back to Sunday. After the bike ride, I mowed the lawn. I turned on my GPS hoping to find out how far I walk when I mow. It takes about an hour. Well, I turned it on and when I finished the front yard, it said I'd gone 18 ft. Wha?? Not so much. Then I noticed the time was still on 8 seconds. I must have somehow turned it off. I'm guess it's 3 miles or so. I turn the self-propelled feature off when I mow because I want to walk faster than the mower mows. So I think 3 miles, 20-minute pace, is reasonable. I noticed one daylily bloom that the deer didn't eat. :-)

The Love in a Mist below have been coming back, from seed, for many, many years. They're very light and airy. Pretty little flower. They dry nicely.

After supper, it was off to the fair to pick up my solitary 3rd place ribbon (for the Chewy Chocolate Cookies) and $.50 premium check. Yup. That's right. They cut checks for 50 cents. :-)

On the way home I stopped and got some burgundy colored mums. Planted them in front of the house in front of the new bushes. The boys pulled out the old overgrown ones several weeks ago.

The project is officially complete.

Then I baked cookies for the Cookie of the Month club. The guys (and gal) at the Y.

8 dozen Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl cookies. The recipe is on my recipe blog. When Eric came downstairs while I was baking, he said, "I know THAT smell!" :-) Indeed, it's a familiar smell in this house. He was happy to taste test. A full day it was.

Eric went to the Twins game yesterday with 3 friends. One of them had some corporate seats. First row above the Twins' dugout. He was in baseball heaven. :-)


Here's the latest view of Ted's arm. (A big dog ran in front of his bike and he went down.) He's got a couple of external fixators and is supposed to bend it three times a day and the entry points needed to be sterilized once a day. It's amazing what they can do to fix you up. The bone was really a mess. If you look at the X-ray, there are more than a dozen pins/screws and a big plate in the bone. I'm glad I'm not squeamish.

Today I ran down to the Soldier's Field pool ...

(that's a daytime view ... the sun is just coming up when we get in the pool. It's very cool. :-) I swam for an hour, went to the Y to lift and then ran home (about 4.5 miles--went to the Y first to give Mark Wernstrom his cookies). At noon I ran with the guys (Jim Benike, Gary Malat, Dan Edwards) for 3.5 miles.


On the route is the garage with the tree growing through the roof.


Jim decided to run the 9th Ave SW hill. Sort of. :-)

Brad Hak has worked at the Y for several years and has never had one of my cookies. Un.Be.Liev.A.Ble!! Ellen Hamernik called him a "cookie virgin". :-)

When I got home, and after lunch, you know what I did? I took a nap!! It was wonderful. Then I went to Rochester Produce to get some sweet corn and decided to buy 5 dozen ears ...

and freeze it.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, bike time trials start. Here's the scoop from RASC site: For all of you thinking of doing the Treadman duathlon this year, here is a great opportunity to tune-up on the course. For the second straight year, the RASC Time Trial Championships will be run on the 18.9 mile loop that will be used for the Treadman Duathlon on September 5, 2009. The time trial series dates for the 18.9 mile loop are Aug 4, Aug 11, and Aug 18. On Aug 25th there will be a 3.39 mile Hill TT which starts at the Douglas trail where it crosses in Douglas to the top of Genoa at CR 105. The way the results will be scored are as follows: everyone can race all three days for the 18.9 mile loop and one attempt at the Hill TT on August 25th. Your Hill TT time will be added to your two best times from the long course which will result in your overall time. You must complete two long course TT's plus the Hill TT for an overall ranking. Start times will be 6pm and go off in 30 second intervals. Vehicle parking is in Douglas at the Douglas Trail lot on 75th. There is no fee for the time trials, but you must be a member of one of the following to participate: RASC, TriRochester, WOW (Women on Wheels), RTC, VeloRochester.

It's not quite 10:00, but I believe I'm done posting. I'm going to indulge myself and read Swim Bike Run before I'm so tired that I only get through one paragraph.

Good night. :-)