Let me roll...

Last weekend I did a couple of cool things, but the most notable was my first ever bike ride since breaking my wrist.  It was the first gorgeous spring weekend, starting with Friday.  I told K I was going to ride around the block per my physical therapist's suggestion.  Since the weather was so nice, of course I wanted to go farther.  We were going to head to Little Red Bike for our first spring ice cream, but we called and they were closing the bike-through window in a few minutes.  :(  They are now closing their shop at 2pm instead of the usual 3pm.  So instead, we just headed out through the neighborhoods north of our house.  It was a good route since getting on and off my bike and breaking proved to be the most difficult tasks.  I held myself up mostly with my left arm, but getting on and off a bike really requires the rider to put equal pressure on both the right and left arms.  Huh.  Well, I still managed to ride 3 whole miles! 

 

On Sunday, we decided to go to Little Red Bike, again, this time for breakfast.  So we headed over there on our bikes to find out they were closed due to refrigeration issues.  Boy were we bummed and starving.  Now I had to make a decision about where else to go and could I make it there on my bike our would we have to go home to get the car.  Well, there was a place, John Street Cafe, in St John's that I had been wanting to try, and the bike route there was mostly non-stop (not too many stop signs/lights).  So I decided I could probably make it there and back since we would be resting in between by eating breakfast.  I managed pretty well both there and back.  Breakfast at the new place was decent, but nothing to brag about.

 

I then spent the afternoon in the yard--weeding and planting.  I got some more raspberry plants from my friends T&L and some new ground cover.  Along our sunny new fence, I planted the raspberries.  And in the back, shady part of our yard, I have a plan in my head for how I would like to landscape that area.  I need to consult a few people and get ideas on what plants would work back there.  I also repotted my tomato seedlings into their own pots so their can grow their root systems properly.  This gardening thing is entirely new to me. 

 

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

 

Going back to Saturday...since it was such a beautiful day, the best we have had yet this year, I wanted to get outside.  The weather was predicted to be sunny and temps in the high 70's.  K had gotten up early to lead the Sorella Forte ride from River City Bikes.  I sure wish I could have gone, but since I cannot ride that far, I planned a hike with T&L.  I decided we should go to the gorge since I had been to Forest Park for the past several walks/hikes I have done.  The Triple Falls hike was gorgeous, but seeing that the weather was amazing and it was a weekend, there were TONS of people on the trails.  The people ranged from serious hiking children using their fully-loaded new backpacks to train for backpacking this summer to people in flip-flops carrying their coffee cup and cigarettes.  The hike was definitely worth dealing with the crowd.  Afterwards, I went to T&L's to pick up our very desirable raspberry suckers to plant in our yard.  I cannot wait to have those succulent right-off-the-plant raspberries in our backyard.  They are to die for.

 

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

 

It was an awesome spring weekend.  Much unlike this weekend which consisted of cold rain, lots of hail, some sun, and not much outdoor time.  I did have a great time at the Ani DiFranco concert on Friday (read K's blog for our night's event) and at our friends L&S's for dinner on Saturday. 

Back to Work

Last week was my return to work after being off since January 15th.  That was a long "vacation".  Certainly not the way I had intended to spend my vacation time or money.  But oh well, I keep telling myself, it is not cancer.  And it certainly is not, which is a very good thing.  Just a bump in the road we call life. 

 

Everyone at work was very happy to see me, so that was a warm welcome.  I have done a few computer projects and am in the process of checking off all of the yearly competencies for all of the nurses.  This involves watching them do all of their IV related work and checking that they are doing things correctly per our protocols.  It is a bit of a tough job after being off of work completely for so long and also still feeling sort of new to the job.  Although, one of the nurses who has been there a while pointed out that I am probably better at knowing how things should be done since I more recently received training.  That made me feel a bit more comfortable with this role I originally thought might be better suited to someone who has been doing this job for a while. 

 

On the home front, K has very kindly and diligently been working on our new raised garden bed.  I found the plan on the internet, we modified it to fit our smaller space and we went and bought the lumber and materials together (K hauled it all) to build it.  K then built it (and I requested one minor change which she kindly and willingly made).  I am still unable to use heavy equipment and power tools.  We were ready to buy some healthy soil when K discovered her ex-housemate had bought too much dirt and she offered us the rest if we hauled it away.  So we used my Zipcar funds and rented a Toyota Tacoma pick-up truck for a few hours.  And again, K did all of the lifting and I provided the moral support.  She not only shoveled it into the truck, she then shoveled out into our driveway, and then again wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow to the back yard and into our newly placed garden bed.  But before being able to put it in the garden bed, she had to spend a day in the rain digging out the ground it was going to sit on since the ground was very uneven.  I assisted, with my one arm, moving the garden bed into its eventual place several times before the ground was level enough and the right shape to hold the bed.  While K worked on digging, I worked on weeding the mulched area of the yard and coming up with an eventual landscape plan.  However, I am definitely not a landscape designer, so we'll see how this goes. 

 

So far, we have sugar snap peas and two kinds of tomatoes for our garden bed. 

 

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.