After a day of going back and forth with text messages and e-mails, then a phone call, and then an in-person visit, as of last night my boyfriend and I have decided to go on a break for the next month and re-evaluate where we stand then. To call everything that transpired yesterday and into the late evening unpleasant would be a significant understatement. It was heartbreaking. I barely slept all night, only finally falling asleep in the early morning hours, then I slept in and was running late when I got up. I left the bike at home and just drove.
A colleague and I went for a 30-40 minute walk over lunch, as we usually do on Tuesdays and Fridays, but today we went farther, faster, and did more hills and stairs to compensate for the fact that I didn't bike-commute. While it's still not remotely the same level of exercise as an hour of biking, at least I know I got some exercise in. That's important when I'm feeling as drained - physically and emotionally - as I am today.
I'm looking forward to a nice big dinner and an early bed time. I'm looking forward to some social time with some friends on Saturday night. I'm even looking forward to mowing the lawn Sunday afternoon. Compared to the process of separating myself from someone I care about, just about anything looks fun.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Week 45 - Day Four: Burning Off Steam
BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 24 min.
WEATHER: clear, 17C, 4 km/hr crosswind there; a few clouds, 27C (feels like 29C), 11 km/hr cross/headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt
NOTES:
Huh. It's amazing how useful a bike-ride home can be. After exchanging uppity text messages and e-mails all day (wow, has domestic discordance sure changed over the years), the ride home was a great opportunity to blow off steam and think things through better. By the time I got home, I had a pretty good idea how to proceed, and I didn't feel too overwhelmed by emotions about it because I worked that shit out through my pedals.
Good to know, n'est-ce pas?
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 24 min.
WEATHER: clear, 17C, 4 km/hr crosswind there; a few clouds, 27C (feels like 29C), 11 km/hr cross/headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt
NOTES:
Huh. It's amazing how useful a bike-ride home can be. After exchanging uppity text messages and e-mails all day (wow, has domestic discordance sure changed over the years), the ride home was a great opportunity to blow off steam and think things through better. By the time I got home, I had a pretty good idea how to proceed, and I didn't feel too overwhelmed by emotions about it because I worked that shit out through my pedals.
Good to know, n'est-ce pas?
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Week 45 - Day Three: Car vs. Bike Trailer - No Choice
BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 26 min. (from daycare)
TIME BACK: 25 min. (to home, not daycare)
WEATHER: partly cloudy, 16C, 9 km/hr tail/crosswinds there; raining, 17C, 33 km/hr headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (zip-up hoodie was traded in for a waterproof shell on the way home because it was raining haaaaard!)
NOTES:
How appropriate, given the blog I had just posted. When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed something was missing from my panniers: the car key. Hmm. Problematic. I emptied all the contents from the panniers to search for the key, and when I couldn't find it there or in any of my clothes' pockets I searched around my front lawn and the sidewalk outside my house. The frustration mounted as I spent 5 minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes searching frantically for my key to no avail. What the hell?
It occurred to me that the key might have fallen out of my pannier pocket when I threw my panniers under my desk at work, as I do every day when I first arrive there. I hoped it would be there, sitting idly under my work desk when I came back to work this morning. In the meantime, without a spare key (the spare was stolen during a home burglary a couple years ago and I never bothered replacing it), I was stuck without access to my car. That means I was stuck using the bike and trailer to transport my daughter to daycare. The same bike and trailer she refused to use yesterday to get to daycare.
On some level, I saw this as a good thing: maybe my daughter didn't care for the trailer because she's simply out of practice with using it. Maybe she doesn't remember how much fun it can be to play with all the straps and buckles inside and to go over bouncy bumps in the road. When I wrestled her into the trailer this morning, she quickly dropped the fight in favour of playing with a neat little buckle she found. Well, that was easy. She then proceeded to be a cooperative and even giddy little passenger the whole way to daycare:
"Hi, mamma!" she would call out from behind me.
"Hi, Sophia!" I would respond over my shoulder.
"Whoooooa, big bump!" she would exclaim joyfully as we hit a pothole. If only that pothole had been as fun for me . . .
When I got to work this morning I found the car key sitting under my desk, exactly where I hoped it might be. And now, my daughter and I are both back in the habit of using the bike trailer. Hopefully this lost key incident has kick-started a positive trend: less driving, more biking, even when I have to transport my daughter and/or other precious cargo. Oh, how the world works in mysterious ways! It all works out in the end.
TIME THERE: 26 min. (from daycare)
TIME BACK: 25 min. (to home, not daycare)
WEATHER: partly cloudy, 16C, 9 km/hr tail/crosswinds there; raining, 17C, 33 km/hr headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga capris, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (zip-up hoodie was traded in for a waterproof shell on the way home because it was raining haaaaard!)
NOTES:
How appropriate, given the blog I had just posted. When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed something was missing from my panniers: the car key. Hmm. Problematic. I emptied all the contents from the panniers to search for the key, and when I couldn't find it there or in any of my clothes' pockets I searched around my front lawn and the sidewalk outside my house. The frustration mounted as I spent 5 minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes searching frantically for my key to no avail. What the hell?
It occurred to me that the key might have fallen out of my pannier pocket when I threw my panniers under my desk at work, as I do every day when I first arrive there. I hoped it would be there, sitting idly under my work desk when I came back to work this morning. In the meantime, without a spare key (the spare was stolen during a home burglary a couple years ago and I never bothered replacing it), I was stuck without access to my car. That means I was stuck using the bike and trailer to transport my daughter to daycare. The same bike and trailer she refused to use yesterday to get to daycare.
On some level, I saw this as a good thing: maybe my daughter didn't care for the trailer because she's simply out of practice with using it. Maybe she doesn't remember how much fun it can be to play with all the straps and buckles inside and to go over bouncy bumps in the road. When I wrestled her into the trailer this morning, she quickly dropped the fight in favour of playing with a neat little buckle she found. Well, that was easy. She then proceeded to be a cooperative and even giddy little passenger the whole way to daycare:
"Hi, mamma!" she would call out from behind me.
"Hi, Sophia!" I would respond over my shoulder.
"Whoooooa, big bump!" she would exclaim joyfully as we hit a pothole. If only that pothole had been as fun for me . . .
When I got to work this morning I found the car key sitting under my desk, exactly where I hoped it might be. And now, my daughter and I are both back in the habit of using the bike trailer. Hopefully this lost key incident has kick-started a positive trend: less driving, more biking, even when I have to transport my daughter and/or other precious cargo. Oh, how the world works in mysterious ways! It all works out in the end.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Week 45 - Day Two: Bike Trailer vs. Car - Toddler's Choice
BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 29 min.
WEATHER: clear, 14C, 17 km/hr tail/crosswinds there; a few clouds, 22C, 30 km/hr headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (hoodie in panniers on the way back)
NOTES:
This morning, while sipping at my lemon-infused water, I read an article from last Friday's newspaper about Premier Ed Stelmach's defense of the Canadian oilsands via an editorial letter to a newspaper in the U.S. This article got me thinking about my personal reliance on oil and gas, which is something I lament to some degree. I was hoping that by this time of the year I'd be so comfortable on my bike that I'd be using it for just about everything except long distance drives and the occassional large shopping trip. Sadly, that's not the case. I haven't even been biking my daughter to daycare for a while. After reading this article, however, I felt determined to change that around.
Me: Hey honey, let's take the bike trailer today.
Daughter: No, CAR!
Me: Come on, it's fun in there. Let's take the bike trailer.
Daughter: No, carrrrrrrrr! (starting to whine)
Me: But isn't the trailer fun? It's bouncy!
Daughter: No bike trailer. Car! (stomps foot, threatening an imminent tantrum)
Hard to fight such compelling arguments as she presents for the benefits of the car over the bike trailer. I would like to take the bike trailer, but I'm not convinced it's worth a fight. I've already wrestled with my screaming daughter to clean the breakfast mess off her face, I don't really feel like wrestling her into her helmet and the trailer with its less-than-easy five-point harness. I've only been awake for 45 minutes; how many bouts of toddler-wrestling is one expected to put up with so early in the morning?
Sorry, bike trailer: car it is. I can just picture Steady Eddy Stelmach nodding his head in approval.
TIME THERE: 24 min.
TIME BACK: 29 min.
WEATHER: clear, 14C, 17 km/hr tail/crosswinds there; a few clouds, 22C, 30 km/hr headwinds back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, zip-up hoodie (hoodie in panniers on the way back)
NOTES:
This morning, while sipping at my lemon-infused water, I read an article from last Friday's newspaper about Premier Ed Stelmach's defense of the Canadian oilsands via an editorial letter to a newspaper in the U.S. This article got me thinking about my personal reliance on oil and gas, which is something I lament to some degree. I was hoping that by this time of the year I'd be so comfortable on my bike that I'd be using it for just about everything except long distance drives and the occassional large shopping trip. Sadly, that's not the case. I haven't even been biking my daughter to daycare for a while. After reading this article, however, I felt determined to change that around.
Me: Hey honey, let's take the bike trailer today.
Daughter: No, CAR!
Me: Come on, it's fun in there. Let's take the bike trailer.
Daughter: No, carrrrrrrrr! (starting to whine)
Me: But isn't the trailer fun? It's bouncy!
Daughter: No bike trailer. Car! (stomps foot, threatening an imminent tantrum)
Hard to fight such compelling arguments as she presents for the benefits of the car over the bike trailer. I would like to take the bike trailer, but I'm not convinced it's worth a fight. I've already wrestled with my screaming daughter to clean the breakfast mess off her face, I don't really feel like wrestling her into her helmet and the trailer with its less-than-easy five-point harness. I've only been awake for 45 minutes; how many bouts of toddler-wrestling is one expected to put up with so early in the morning?
Sorry, bike trailer: car it is. I can just picture Steady Eddy Stelmach nodding his head in approval.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Week 45 - Day One: Discomfort
Last week I only bike-commuted for two days. I drove to work on Wednesday because I had a co-workers' birthday party to attend right after and wouldn't have had time to get home and change out of my cycling clothes, wash up, and re-do my makeup then get to the party on the opposite end of town on time. Then Thursday and Friday I had off (happy birthday, Canada!!).
Thursday morning I piled myself, my daughter, and a bunch of our stuff into the car and took off for the greener pastures of Calgary. Well, there's nothing "greener" about Calgary per se, but the draw was that my baby-daddy (my daughter's dad) lives there, and we had arranged that this would be his first weekend to take care of her all by himself. So I drove her to Calgary and dropped her off with her Dadda, then took off to the genuinely greener pastures of beautiful Canmore, AB. Nestled in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and only an hour's drive from Calgary, it was the perfect place for me to take some time away from parenting and have a real weekend off - even from the ups and downs of single-parenthood.
The weekend was relaxing, refreshing, and everything I could have hoped it would be. Of course, eating too much and not drinking enough water came with the territory. As a result of this, in combination with using the hotel's waterslide, pool, and jacuzzi, I managed to develop a brutal urinary tract infection by Saturday night. I spent Sunday morning in a Medicentre waiting room getting my diagnosis and a prescription for antibiotics, and managed to make the 3-hour drive back to Edmonton Sunday afternoon without incident.
However, when I woke up this morning I questioned whether bike-commuting would be a good idea. I've only managed to take three antiobiotic pills so far, so I still have some symptoms of the bladder infection - particularly the remarkably painful it-burns-when-I-pee syndrome - and given the way my body weight is distributed on Mike the Bike's saddle, I figured it might be wise to wait another day for the medication to work its magic before I get back on the bike.
So, I drove. Which isn't so bad because it's pouring rain outside today. The plan is to get back in the saddle tomorrow - a solid week since the last time I bike-commuted. Man, this is already shaping up to be a less-than-epic weight loss kind of month!
Thursday morning I piled myself, my daughter, and a bunch of our stuff into the car and took off for the greener pastures of Calgary. Well, there's nothing "greener" about Calgary per se, but the draw was that my baby-daddy (my daughter's dad) lives there, and we had arranged that this would be his first weekend to take care of her all by himself. So I drove her to Calgary and dropped her off with her Dadda, then took off to the genuinely greener pastures of beautiful Canmore, AB. Nestled in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and only an hour's drive from Calgary, it was the perfect place for me to take some time away from parenting and have a real weekend off - even from the ups and downs of single-parenthood.
The weekend was relaxing, refreshing, and everything I could have hoped it would be. Of course, eating too much and not drinking enough water came with the territory. As a result of this, in combination with using the hotel's waterslide, pool, and jacuzzi, I managed to develop a brutal urinary tract infection by Saturday night. I spent Sunday morning in a Medicentre waiting room getting my diagnosis and a prescription for antibiotics, and managed to make the 3-hour drive back to Edmonton Sunday afternoon without incident.
However, when I woke up this morning I questioned whether bike-commuting would be a good idea. I've only managed to take three antiobiotic pills so far, so I still have some symptoms of the bladder infection - particularly the remarkably painful it-burns-when-I-pee syndrome - and given the way my body weight is distributed on Mike the Bike's saddle, I figured it might be wise to wait another day for the medication to work its magic before I get back on the bike.
So, I drove. Which isn't so bad because it's pouring rain outside today. The plan is to get back in the saddle tomorrow - a solid week since the last time I bike-commuted. Man, this is already shaping up to be a less-than-epic weight loss kind of month!
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