Biking

I've biked 32 miles in the last two work days,  which is 32 miles more than I've biked in over six months! It's about 3 miles longer round trip to get to work from my new house. And there's a huge hill on the way home. I already feel better,  though. I really have noticed the effects from going from 60 miles a week to buying a car and biking zero miles a week. Unfortunately 7 of my gears (the lowest ones! ) are broken,  so I am getting an unecessarily killer workout. Soon to be fixed...

I love commuting to work. It takes about 17 minutes longer to bike and there's no possible way that I'd get a decent workout in that time otherwise!  And it's free,  and I'm less flabby when I bike!  The pounds haven't really crept up but everything is becoming fat instead of muscle.

I also like starting things when they're least likely to work out. I used to start new workout plans and weight loss goals in November,  because I figured if I could lose weight during the holidays and not wait till New Year rolled around,  I'd be more likely to succeed. In the same way,  it feels kind of good to be starting biking while it's pouring rain.  

Official

"Do you agree to all of these terms?" "I do."

It's official, I'm divorced. So anticlimactic, since in any real sense of the word we divorced long ago.

My kids are amazing hikers. Just want to boast that they climbed a butte around here (just over a mile one-way) in 2 hours, including all the time we spent at the top. No complaining, no having to prod them up. Millie did say a few times on the way down that she was tired. I haven't really hiked with them because neither Porter nor myself could really carry Millie without musculoskeletal pain of various sorts, and she couldn't go very far. It was very nice :)

I went shopping for clothes the other day and made some fantastic finds. Tights of all kinds were on clearance at Forever21 and to my surprise when I got them home they seemed very good quality and thick. I'll have to post pictures of some winter outfits.

I am not happy about the way things wear out. It just happens. My favorite pair of black heels lost the bottom of the heel, and the leather itself is very worn. And I noticed some of my favourite clothes having sweat discoloration, holes, etc, when I went through some clothes today.

But at least there's more! Thrift store shopping makes replacing items in my wardrobe (save a few special things that would be very difficult to replace) fairly inexpensive, and I do like the fact that I have actually worn out clothes, and not just gotten rid of them because they're out of style or something. And my shoes are very easily found, and I know exactly which model/size fits me well.

I went out for my birthday and asked E to take pictures of my dress. I'm not getting blogger to put the pictures where I want then. That is the off-the-shoulder dress. I keep thinking I turned 30! It was $7 at the thrift store with one my normal black pumps. I went out without any makeup purposely. It's not that I never go out bare faced, I just didn't want to have anyone see "red lipstick" in their mind when they saw me. I just wanted them to see me.

Also I wore jeans out at night the other day, which I never do! I tried to make it interesting. I think it worked? Didn't really like it but it was better than a tee. The buckle is a real scorpion in acrylic.  The jacket is a free pile find from long ago, which I rarely wear, but can't make myself get rid of. Jeans $6 LL Bean from a thrift store. Hat belongs to E :) Belt was from my sister probably 15 years ago. Oops.  You can see we haven't unpacked everything yet.