Taken today by a co-worker (co-rider?), on our company group ride after work. This shows me in a completely unnatural element… that is, me in natural surroundings. Trees and stuff.

The trees, however, sensed this and had their way with me. They caught themselves on my handle bar during a narrow, descending and winding track, causing the bike to fall and me to be thrown from it. I have a couple of bruises, and my shoulder took the brunt of it. I was fine, the bike too, and was able to finish the ride.

This past weekend was mostly about entertaining the boyfriend’s Mom, who had come down to TO from Sudbury for a visit. The first stop was the Royal Ontario Museum, which was awesome, because if she didn’t drag my boyfriend out, then I would have had to and I don’t have quite the leverage that she does. I have to be honest… I love the ROM. I am vastly interested in just about everything and I couldn’t ask for much more than having so much history under one roof to spend one afternoon with.

We spent an evening with food and wine, and more food. When boyfriend’s mom went to bed, we settled in for a night of GTA4. Unfortunately the boy didn’t get too far as about midnight there seemed to have been some kind of huge explosion outside which took the power out right down the block. The initial explosion was pretty nuts, but seeing absolutely no lights in the buildings in the complex, except for candles and flash lights, was also sort o weird and scary. The blackout lasted probably about 3 or 4 hours. No GTA4 that night.

Sunday was spent taking a stroll down the Danforth, starting from our favourite crepe place and just slowly heading eastward. I took home a fashionable aluminum water bottle by Sigg from IQ Living. I mostly bought consumables from various places like tempeh and Tofurky kielbasa from the Big Carrot, gourmet jellybeans from some candy shop, chipotle hot sauce and garlic grapeseed oil from a place that just sells hot sauce. I sliced up the Tofurky kielbasa for a late snack just a few hours ago, and I was pretty happy with it.

To end off the night, we dropped the boy’s mom off at his brother’s and took off to catch Iron Man. And that ruled. I’m such a Marvel comic book nerd, and I loved everything about the movie. I feel like unearthing my old Avengers comics and reaquainting myself with Iron Man.

Old school Iron Man:

There’s a guy at work who’s pretty experienced at mountain biking and all that fun stuff. Last year, he arranged group rides with co-worker, which was pretty neat, but as I had obligations to main tank Karazhan at the time, I had not been able to take advantage of the group rides. This year, I’m determined to make it out more.

Today was the first time we got to ride. I wasn’t sure that we’d be able to because it was grey and overcast all day. However, the threats of rain were all empty and promptly after work, a group of us went out and took the trails around 12 Mile Creek and up the escarpment around Brock University.

Ok, this is the first time I’ve done any single track riding, and for the first time out those trails were challenging. Climbing up Hydro Hill was brutal but that was all just energy. For me, going downhill with rocks and tree roots, across narrow makeshift bridges was probably the most extreme thing I’ve done in my life. That’s sad, I know, but I’m learning. Of course, a lot of those steeper hills, I walked down, but it didn’t help that I was bonking closer to the end of the ride.

Would I do it again? I’m already signed up for next week, and yes I’d do those same trails again. In time, I’ll have more confidence with the downhills. The big thing for me was trying it out, getting out and catching some pretty scenery, particularly along the escarpment, and even some wildlife, like the doe we saw on the stone dust trail heading home.

My red faithful kept up nicely with the big kids at least. I love my bike.

There’s a big bowl of spaghetti with veggie meatballs waiting for me now. Yum!

Going through my backyard, I found these tiny heads poking up from beneath the dried leaves and old mulch from last year. These were the ferns I planted in this corner of my garden that I didn’t think survived because I underwatered them. But it looks like they want to live. Now I have to decide if I want to keep them or plant a bush there instead. I also found baby hostas and a Japanese ferns. The woodruff I planted last year is also coming in nicely… a bit messy, but it’s growing. Russian sage that I thought had just dried out is budding again and little leaves have sprouted around the base. It also looks like echinacea, lavendar and the crazy daisies have survived too.

The lawn renovation is coming along. Because i’m too cheap to rent proper power equipment, I’m doing this on my own, bit by bit. The boyfriend was in town with me this weekend, so he helped me with a Home Depot trip to buy soil and various seeds. I’m a little determined to grow myself a small vegetable patch this year, starting with herbs, lettuce and tomatoes. We’ll see how that works out. This could end in tears… or pasta sauce.

They seem sweet and pretty and innocent. Actually, right now they’re my enemy. At least one of them. These wild violets are one of the new unwanted invaders to my back yard. They crept in over the years and this spring it looks like they’ve taken almost half the yard.

I could pay some lawn care company hundreds of dollars to take care of this. But as most know, I’ve already spent hundreds of dollars on a new bike (which I still love!). So I have to do this as economically as possible. I have garden tools, organic non-selective herbicide (key ingredient being acetic acid, aka vinegar) and time. Every day, I’m going to conquer the violets patch by patch by getting on my knees and clawing those fuckers out of the ground, pulling them up as much as I could by their veiny little roots. After that, I will liberally use the herbicide to kill any stragglers and possibly new growth. I’m also going to ruthlessly dig up dandelions and knotweed. I’ll wait a week or so, then till in new soil which I will then seed with grass. I will water the seeded areas methodically, twice a day every day until they are established. Even if I don’t have the prettiest wildflower garden, at least I’ll have a lawn again.

Maybe I’ll even like gardening again.

I don’t remember if I mentioned in this blog or not, but one of my Christmas presents from the folks was a 32″ Panasonic plasma television. I don’t see much of a difference from my old 27″ Sony Trinitron CRT, though new technology is always fun.  Today, I finally got around to hooking up my Xbox 360 to it. It was a little annoying, because it involved me moving my modem and router to a new position closer to my TV. After a few minor annoyances I finally got the router up and going and the Xbox 360 is now connected to the internet.

It doesn’t seem like much, but for some odd reason I feel very accomplished.  This day deserves it’s own blog post!

Going to the mall when one is on a budget is not extremely fun. I know that I’ve set myself back with the bike purchase, but maybe it’s the wonderful break in the weather recently, I’ve felt that I need to go out and do more shopping. Boyfriend took me to the mall over the weekend, and all I pretty much did was flit around from store to store checking out what’s on the racks, searching for the perfect casual shoe at the perfect casual price. It’s hard to justify clothing purchases when my shirt drawer in my cheap Ikea dresser is coming apart at the bottom because I keep overstuffing it with shirts I think I really need.

As for shoes… all I want is a simple pair of slip-ons or skate shoes or something like that to replace my old ones that are wearing uncomfortably thin at the soles. But I haven’t been able to find one that I like, and there’s an added difficulty of trying to avoid leather if I could. I’ve seen plenty of shoes that I considered cute, but I haven’t justified to myself if they are indeed worth the money or if I could handle what I have currently at home for another year or so.

In the end, I ended up with something a bit more practical than clothes or shoes, and that being a new backpack. True, I have two backpacks already, but the cheap pink one is old and neither of them are actually practical for being on a bike. My new one has a laptop sleeve, pockets for all my gadgets and has enough room for grocery trips and a weekend wardrobe for my trips to T.O. It also has a chest strap, which ideally should be handy for cycling. It also has the added bonus of being red flannel… though I can’t decide if it actually is a bonus or if I’ll hate it in a few months when it really starts making me think of the Red Green show.

This week, I’m gearing up to do some much needed spring time lawn care. I hate doing it, but I also hate having the shittiest back yard on the block.Sigh.

Crocuses popped up in my derelict front yard this morning.

This is promising.