Unpublished Opinion

This past weekend, Prince E and I went to visit my sister Kiki and her new baby.  He was so scrumptiously cute that I wanted to eat his little ears. And his feet.  And kiss his cheeks over and over.

I managed to carry him around and not worry about breaking him.  For some reason he didn't seem as fragile as my other nephew did when I first held him at seven weeks, but I imagine it is more me and my maturity (ha!) than the actual difference between the babies.

Here are some photos of the little one (log in for more including his "My aunt is a hottie" shirt.)

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As part of the preparation for my upcoming triathlon (as well as an effort to knock another thing of my 101 list), Prince E attempted to teach me how to use the fancy clipless pedals on my bicycle last weekend.  Being that I am chicken, I opted to wear one regular shoe and one bike shoe, so that my right foot remained unconnected to the bike for safety.

We got out into the driveway in front of our apartment building and Prince E explained how to get my left foot in the fancy pedal.  He said he wouldn't go too fast and then started up the sidewalk.  I got my left foot hooked into the pedal, tried to move forward and promptly fell over onto the driveway.

I wanted to go upstairs and get my other regular shoe and give up on the whole thing, but he convinced me to keep trying.  I eventually was able to get going and managed to ride around pretty easily.  He also explained to me how to stop, which I practiced a few times in the neighboring church lot.

We then decided to bike to his work because he needed to pick something up.  I made it there fine and without incident.  Then it came time to stop.  And I fell over again.  The second fall was a bit worse as it scraped a bigger part of my leg and bruised part of my hand.  Luckily though, nothing was broken and I managed to miss hitting my head on the nearby garbage can.

Undeterred I rode laps around the parking lot of his work, periodically stopping just to make sure I could.  We had brought the other bike shoe with us and I tried, briefly, to use both shoes.  We soon discovered though that there was some kind of defect, because even with all of my might, I could not easily get my right foot unhooked, even though the pedal was at the loosest setting. 

I certainly did not feel safe enough to ride around with both shoes attached to the bike where there was a very good chance I wouldn't be able to easily get out of it when I needed to stop.  So, we stopped the lesson and went to Dairy Queen.

Yesterday I rode my bike to the library, using two regular shoes and that was fun.  I like the idea of being able to have an option to driving, especially to places like the library that talk to long to walk to.  When I got home, I got out the step ladder and put my bike away all by myself way up onto the second rung of the bike rack.  I was so proud of myself, I jumped down from the ladder with glee...and promptly caught the side of my thing on the hard back part of the couch, resulting in a nasty looking and even nastier feeling bruise.

Did I mention I also burned myself with a cookie sheet on Sunday?  It has just been a klutzy kind of week.  I realized today talking to my mom that I probably inherited it from her when she revealed that she badly bruised herself while changing the filter of her vacuum.  Sounds like something I would do.

I got a pretty good haul at the library today.  I love when I go and find all kinds of good things to check out.  This particular trip was most successful because I got some things that are going to aid me in working on three of my 101 in 1001.

Here is a photo of the items I checked out if you want to try to guess which goals I am working on.  (Not all of the items pertain to a goal, only four of them do).

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One of my prizes for winning the Project Blog competition earlier this year was a pet portrait by Leanne Wildermuth of Artist by Nature.  I submitted several photographs of Simba and she is creating an oil painting of him.

She tracks her work on her blog and has a sketch of Simba already posted (toward the middle of the blog entry, the third cat shown).  Notice that she called him "stunning."

Yesterday I completed #88 on my 101 in 1001 list.  This was another easy one.  I have a bad habit of buying books and then not reading them.  I like reading.  It just took this bit of motivation to get it done.  I highly recommend both of the books that I finished.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, finished 4/5/08
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, finished 4/12/08

Below is a re-enactment of me reading the second book.

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I completed #94 on the list tonight.  It was a fairly easy one.

I have been unwilling to part with all of my law school text books, mostly because they look pretty on my shelf and I spent so much money on them, I hated to get rid of them.  There is also something to be said about it making my bookshelf reflect a more intelligent person.  Then I thought: "What is so intelligent about moving heavy books multiple times (some have been moved three times already) when I am never going to read them again and they are not even in my field of practice?"

So out they went, along with a slew of novels and other books that I have read already and don't plan to read again.

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Although there are 15 books in that photo, I actually donated about 25, although I didn't count them.

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Today Jiblets turns 2!  Here are three photos: when we first brought him home, his first birthday, and today:

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My mom came for a visit this past weekend and I made her some chocolate chip cookies.  These qualify as a new kind of cookie, however, because they were gluten free.  I used this recipe and they came out really well.  Everyone who tried them agreed that they don't taste any different than the typical white flour made cookies.

Here are some photos I took to document the process:

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I managed to cross a big one off the 101 in 1001 list tonight.  Be sure to log-in to see our recreation of the moment we were on hold with the bank waiting to hear the good news.

Also, I spent most of the day recovering from the completion of #45.  Apparently there is a family history of shellfish intolerance that I was not aware of.