Ride Report - Commuting again

I'm loving that the weather is nice enough to ride again. I started the bike commute again last week. With my back issues over the winter, I am out of shape. I'm starting slowly. I park at the train station and take Trax into work with my bike, then bike back to the train station after work. It's just over 15 miles.

Biking has made my back hurt a bit. I thought I would try riding my mountain bike instead of my road bike one day because it's a little more comfortable of a position. Bad idea. It felt like I was dragging an anvil the whole way.

Perspective is funny. Before I had my road bike, I rode with a group that did both trail and road riding. I'd take my mountain bike on both. It was no big deal. Now that I'm used to my road bike, I was surprised at how much easier it is to ride on the road with the lighter bike and skinny tires. I was laughing with a co-worker at how funny it is that the purpose of riding is for exercise, yet we do everything we can to make it as easy as possible.

Tomorrow I'm riding both directions from the train station. I've always enjoyed the morning ride to work, more than the ride home and it should only take a few minutes longer than riding the train. Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll be ready to skip the train station all together and brave the big hill up to my house.

Weekend Update- Girls weekend

I can't believe I haven't blogged for a month. Last weekend was very blog worthy. After I moved from Colorado in 1996, my two girlfriends and I would do a girls weekend at least once a year. As they starting having kids, the frequency diminished. The last time I saw them was for my wedding four years ago. It was definitely time to get together again.

Erica planned a great weekend.They are both now back in Colorado. Kat's parents are in Boulder, where we all used to live, and they agreed to let us all crash at their place.

We started the weekend with dinner and a few other girls who are still in the area. This picture is horrible. The waiter was acting like he knew so much about photos, changing settings on my iphone before taking the photo. Uh- flash should have been turned off.  Anyway, the gist is a fun dinner with the girls. Erin, Tina, Erica, Kat, me, Margaret

The rest of the weekend was shopping, hanging out, lots of chatting, visiting with our old Bishop and his wife, the FIRO-B (personality test that we've taken every girls weekend since 1998. Erica keeps the results so we can see how we've changed over the years), Apple Jacks (girls weekend staple), and a movie (42) in this amazing theater with reclining leather seats.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of photo taking. This is the only pic we got of the three of us.

I have to take a minute to praise my friends. When I lived in Boulder, I remember thinking how amazing my friends were.

Kat is smart- literally MENSA-smart. While impressive, this isn't my favorite thing about her. What I love is you'd never know how smart she is by talking to her. I told her that once, as a compliment, which she took as one. She has a PhD in neurobiology, but she isn't one of those people whose self-image is based on being a smart girl. (Please don't think this is a sexist comment and I think girls shouldn't be smart.  I find men who have to prove how smart they are in every conversation every bit as annoying.) She is just Kat. Fun loving, well rounded, and a very interesting conversationalist. Some of my favorite memories are day long hikes through Rocky Mountain National Park having intense conversations solving the world's (and our) problems.  She knows how to get things done, and fast. When my apartment flooded when I was in Utah for Christmas, Kat was there and had the place cleaned out in no time. (Or maybe it did take a long time, I wasn't there there. But no complaints from Kat, she just takes care of what needs to be done. No complaints.) She went the extra mile and, after everything dried out, put it back in its place before I got back. Kat is also DIY queen. I don't think there is an original wall left in her house. The week before I got there, she found a huge boulder buried in her yard, which they promptly dug up and are making into a bubbling fountain for the front yard. She the mother to 3 cutie kids who have a never-ending supply of crafts and homemade treats from Kat. She also recently added raising chickens to her resume.

I consider Erica as the heart of our group. I feel like she's the one who brought us all together. She is extremely talented and smart. When we lived in Boulder she was completing her Master's degree in music. She is a talented cellist and amazing vocalist. I loved all the comp tickets to hear her play in the Boulder Philharmonic. I was always so proud to be her friend. She is also a ton of fun. Lots of great memories laughing with Erica. She always got us to be just a little wacky. Everything was always more fun when Erica was around. She now has 4 kids and is an amazing mother. Erica has a talent for making people feel good about themselves. She is also one of the most prepared people I know. Once she slipped and gashed open her leg while hiking. The ER nurse asked her when her last tetanus shot was. It happened to be the day before. Since it had been a while since her last booster, and since we spent a lot of time hiking, she figured she needed one. This is typical Erica. I don't know that she's ever been unprepared for anything. She also runs marathons.

Erica would sometimes clean my house while I was at work so I would be free to hike or bike with her after work. Kat would sometimes get in on this too. They were both in school and I worked full time. Instead of leaving me out of their fun (they did that sometimes too) they would do my chores so I could have a lot of free time in the evenings. I remember one day coming home and Kat (?) had had enough of my annoyingly disorganized CD collection. My house was clean and music was alphabetized.

I love having these girls in my life, even though we don't see each other very often. I'm so happy that we can get together after 4 years and pick up right where we left off. My life is definitely better because I know them!

(Here's a little love the the girls at dinner too. Erin- everyone loves Erin. If you don't believe me, just meet her. You will love her in about 5 seconds. Tina- she moved to Boulder shortly before I moved away. She is a warm, kind woman. Unwavering faith. Mag- all I can say is NEVER play Set with her. You will lose. Mag is all kinds of fun.)

eSalon

Here's my latest product review. I saw an ad somewhere for eSalon. Custom salon-grade color you mail order. It's the happy medium between spending a ton at a salon for hair color and using cheap grocery store color.

I'm cheap when it comes to salons, so I end up doing over-the-counter color which is hit and miss, especially with color choices. I was excited, and a bit nervous to try this.

You go online, answer some questions about your hair and desired color, upload a photo and they ship you your product.

Here is my hair prior to coloring. Roots with some gray. (thanks Rick for photo bomb)

 

Here is a (sideways) pic of what came. They sent two colors, one for my roots and one for the rest of my hair. I also ordered a maintenance product from them to use after I regularly shampoo to help hold the color.

It's all really cute with my name on every label.

Here's their explanation of the two colors they sent.

The instructions were easy. It came with a brush (you could also order a bowl), two pairs of gloves, and detailed instructions. I didn't use the brush as it also came in bottles that were easy to use (like the grocery store color.) This is the finished color.

I think the color turned out great. I was disappointed with how dry my hair felt.

PRO: This was definitely a higher quality color than the over-the-counter brands. I could tell by how cleanly it washed out. With grocery store stuff I feel like my head is bleeding color for several washes. It was easier to apply than buying from Sally Beauty Supply (I've done that couple of times and used a brush a bowl). The cost is about $30, which is much cheaper than the salon. I'm debating about their maintenance plan. You give them a credit card and tell them how often you color, then they ship you the color on schedule and charge you $20.

CON: As I mentioned, I felt it dried my hair. Usually after coloring, my hair feels really soft. I'm hoping this is remedied by buying a good deep conditioner for colored hair (just order some from Amazon). I like to play around with color. Most people who know me know that I'm rarely the same color twice. They did a good job of matching my prior color, but I would like to be a little blonder-red for the summer. I'm not sure how specific of a color I can get with this service. I'll email them in a few weeks, then decide if I'm sticking with them or not.

Overall, I recommend if you have a standard color. Seems like a good deal and hassle free to be on their scheduled shipment plan.

Weekend Update - Easter

It was a little iffy having Easter in March. We've had far too many freezing cold Easter Egg hunts in April, but the weather cooperated and it was a lovely, warm, sunny weekend.

I had Friday off of work and Rick and I took care of a bunch of errands in the morning, then went to see The Host (review in sidebar). Friday night Rick had work to do, so I went shopping with my sister. It was lovely, even considering I resisted buying the world's cutest Easter dress. (I have not-buyers remorse.)

Saturday we had lunch and an Easter Egg hunt at my mom's house. Here are all the kiddos with loaded down baskets of candy.

After, Rick and I went for a bike ride. The first of the season. We drove to Thanksgiving Point and did a loop out to Redwood Road. It was a bit windy, but it wasn't as hard as I was anticipating. We only did about 16 miles, but it was decent workout and felt great to be out on the bikes.

Easter Sunday started with church. It was an excellent Sacrament meeting and a perfect way to start the holiday. After church, Rick's nieces and nephew from BYU came for dinner.  We broke out the china. I'm sad to say this may be the first time we've used it since getting married.

After dinner we decorated sugar cookies. Rick was looking at the cookies cutters and thought it was so cute we had a turtle. I had no idea what he was talking about. Pictured below - same cookie cutter, two perspectives.

 It was a lovely weekend. Not a lot of down time, but a lot of fun.

The Gymbox

I've found a fun new way to work out. As you may recall, last year for my birthday I got a Tour de France workout bike. I felt like I could get a pretty good workout just putting in my ipod and spinning. It does get tedious after a while, so I wanted to see if I could find a spinning class on Netflix just to mix things up once in a while.

I searched all of Netflix and our other Roku channels with no luck. Then I found The Gymbox channel. It came with a 15 day free trial. I'm about 10 days in, and I love it.

I believe you can get it as an app on your ipad or tablet and also sign up to stream from a computer. As I mentioned, I signed up for the Roku channel. It's $10 a month, which is the cost of gym membership, but the beauty of this is that you aren't subject to class schedules. I can have a great spinning class anytime I want.

They have classes in: spinning, step aerobics, pilates, power yoga, treadmill, kickboxing, core, strength training, stretching, beginning workouts, and boot camp.

Every category has a variety of classes and teachers to choose from with varying intensity and length. I've mainly chosen beginning cycling classes, which just means they are 30 minutes instead of an hour. They still are killer workouts. I would guess my workout intensity has doubled from just riding on my own. New workouts are added every week so you never get bored with doing the same workout over and over like you would with a video.

My only complaint is that I wish you could save workouts you like. I haven't disliked any of the cycling classes, but I would like to find and save my favorite stretching and core classes. It does save each workout you do in a Recent Workout section, but I would like a way to remember which were my favorites. (Update: Rick informed me that the Recent Workout section is new workouts, not recently viewed workouts-bummer.) I did a cadence workout on my bike last week that I would like to do once a week, but had no way of marking it. Each workout has a star rating (1-5), but I couldn't figure out how to rate it myself. My Roku box is old, so maybe it's available on an upgraded model. I also wish they had better descriptions of each workout as you scroll through them. Right now, I have to click on each workout to get a one phrase description of the class before I hit play.
 
Click here for a link to their website.  You have to search for "The Gymbox" as just "Gymbox" brings up an actual studio.

They totally should be paying me for this. :)

My gymbox membership coupled with No Treat March (killing me this year), I've lost 5 lbs in 3 weeks. I'm also feeling great and motivated to work out. This may partially be due to the recent nice weather and the anticipation of having enough light to start biking to work again.