Contributing to the Deliquency of Grown Ups Since 2000

Mama is bottling up the Christmas Limoncello. Have you been on Santa's "Good" list?

In case you didn't know

Reanie: We're jumping on the bed!
Mama: No more monkeys jumping on the bed.

Reanie: (continuing to jump)

Mama: What did I say?
Reanie: (continuing to jump) I'm not a monkey.

Hooky

Had to pick up Buddy early from school today since he's not feeling so good. My buddy JR says to check out this site: www.buddyleeguidancecounselor.com

I crashed this morning

Took the kids to school in the trailer. It has been chilly this morning, but we can bundle them up well in the trailer, so even though I'm shivering, they are cozy.

My fitness is quite lacking, so most of the riding is in the easier gears, such as 39x16-23. But that's ok...baby steps and all that. There and back gets me an hour or so of in-the-saddle time, counting the time I'm riding but out of the saddle too, of course.

I'd worked up a decent sweat, so once home, I unhooked the trailer so I could go ride a bit more. My first two pedal strokes sent me into a wheelie, where I promptly dumped it back and to the left, making sure the driveway was there to keep me from falling in the dirt. Good thing I had tights, jacket, gloves and such, because those high speed spills will rip the skin right off of you.

When returning with the trailer, I was in my easiest gear, so when I started, not only was there no resistance behind me of trailer or trailer and kids, I was also lacking resistance in gearing. Blooop, right on my rear end. Good thing we live where we do so nobody could see me do that.

Or, I have so much power in my legs and brute upper body strength that I nearly went into orbit. Yeah...I nearly went into orbit. And I have lots of girlfriends in Canada.

My Full Potential on the Bike Will Never Be Realized

Reanie put on her leotard first thing this morning. Then she asked me if I wanted her to "ballellet." Of course I do.

She then said, "I do arabesque." And then she demonstrated the best arabesque ever done by a three year old. Her leg was extended and her hands out...I can't recall ever seeing a three year old do one, but I'm certain that this was the best.

Then she said, "I plie." And then she did, with arms extended over her head and the whole bit. I instantly understood why parents can endure a dance recital for two and a half hours of beginning ballet dancers to see their child do two 2-miute routines.

Her last demonstration was called a "rainbow." Though I don't recall this as a proper dance term, it could well be. Afterall, she's been to more ballet classes than I have. Reanie extended both arms above her head then dipped down low, reaching as far and as low as she could to her right. She then made the arc of a Rainbow as big as her body would allow, stretching as far above her head as she could, even with standing on her tip toes, continuing to complete the rainbow to her left.

I almost ate her up in one bite.

In all the pictures I've posted to this silly blog, the one time I know it would have been worth seeing, I didn't snap a shot. Didn't even think of it until now.

But then again, I saw her do it, and that really is good enough for me.

The Last Several Days Around Here

the formatting for this update is whacked. I've spent 30 min trying to fix it, but I don't have enough meds to make it any further. If it bothers you, NOBODY IS MAKING YOU...

Reanie and I squeezed in some Daddy-His Little Girl time with a trip to the grocery store last night. She picked out the meat for the burgers, the fruit, the milk, and she determinedly tried to get me to recognize that there was a candy aisle.

The highlight of that trip, though, was the drive there. She told me that"Santa lives in Nemberpore," and that he was making presents. She also pointed out that "I been sweet sometimes." I just about bought her a pony right then and there.


Let's back up a few days first. We had borrowed an eight foot trailer (four foot wide and tall) from my Father-in-Law when we moved out here. So we've had it awhile. When we emptied the garage of The Texas Racing Post and The Racing Post stuff, it went into this trailer until we could deal with it later. We filled it all the way up too, so we weren't too fired up to ever deal with it later.

Well, later came when my Father-in-Law needed the trailer back over Thanksgiving. Good thing we had our indentured servant with us to empty it.

Noah took the 10's of thousands of leftover newspapers from as far back as July of 2001 (I wrote some really stupid stuff in those pages sometimes. Some of it was readable, but those aren't the ones I seem to remember as a flipped through some old copies, though).

We haven't had rain here in a couple of months, so we couldn't burn this stuff outside. Our garbage pick up only leaves us with one bin thing, and they only come once a week at that, so that wasn't an option at all. Forutnately the weather cooled off enough to warrant using the fire place for the burn.

Thousands of newspapers and hundreds of boxes have been burned. After two full days of burning, this picture shows most of what is left still needing to be burned. We've had 25-30 mph sustained winds the last couple of days, so there are lots of newspapers all over our yard and the pasture too. Which reminds me, I need to go pick up Noah. Be back in a bit.

Back. Quick, eh?

Not the best of pictures, but I snapped this one to show that the Fall colors are coming in in these parts.

Noah and I went out on the dirt bikes a couple times to a local trail called Knob Hill. The trail is all single track and about 5 miles long. There's a couple technical spots, but most of it is

beginner/intermediate, which is perfect for us right now.

Besides the trail itself, another cool thing about this place is that we can ride to it from our house. It's just 3 miles from our door to the trail. We ride there, do the trail, ride the trail back, and head home for a nice 1.5-2 hr of getting dirty (dusty, anyway).

On Saturday night, we broke from our tradition and went to a regular tree lot here in Flower Mound. Our tradition has been to buy a live tree and plant it after Christmas, or we'll go to a tree farm and cut one down. This year, we caved in to a bit of consumerism and went to the tree lot that doubles as the local pumpkin patch as well.

This place goes all out. They have bouncy houses and bouncy slides. They also have a bouncy obstacle course. And yes, I even got hurt on it. Amen.

Noah and I were racing through the course, and as we hit the climbing wall portion, he lost his grip and footing and fell, all 102 lbs of him, right on my thigh.

I knew it was just a case of getting dead-legged, but that still feels like a broken femur. I was pissed, and bless his heart, Noah thought I was pissed at him (and I wasn't at all). My pissedoffedness was due to knowing that I'm losing even more training time. For a second there, I just felt like giving it all up. Part of my pissedoffedness was because I could have beaten him on the course.

We did end up picking out a tree. A very nice one, too. We loaded it and the five of us in the truck and rolled home. Got the tree put up, and Mama even made some wreathes out of Christmas tree trimmings.

Here's one of the wreath things Mama made.

I woke up Sunday morning with plans to get in some extra miles with Robbie before the Sunday ride. Glen was supposed to join us, but neither of them showed. I'm trying not to take it personally.

Since I felt like my oldest son had landed on my leg from a four foot drop, I decided to ride the trainer a bit to see if I should bother suiting up for the Sunday Ride. After 30 minutes of that, I chose to save my remaining brain cell and go ride with the group.

Hooked up with The Assassin and Troy and we made our way to ride with four decent riders and 30 f'n douchebags. It just sucks to ride when I suck. In a few weeks I won't have to deal with the douchebags anymore.

Troy was kickin' is strong, though. The Assassin sat up to help a turtle cross the road or something, so he rode in with my dropped ass.

That brings us to today, where I've spent most of it ready to run for the bathroom safter having eaten a muffin that I was proud to make that was all organic and no preservatives and stuff. Maybe it should have had one or two preservatives.

Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

Denton 'Cross Race, November 20

Noah's cheering section.

Noah at staging for the Junior/Youth race.

About to blast down after climbing the dam.

Is this the kid who is USCF ranked #1 in the Nation for 10 year olds? Yes, indeed.

Noah took the win in the 10-14 year olds at the race. We are so proud of you, Big Boy!

Buddy got kicked out of school

Ballet school, that is.

We have Reanie and Budrick in ballet class at their school on Mondays. Reanie loves it. Wants to put on her ballerina outfit all the time. Budrick, not so much.

When Mama picked them up from school the other day, she was informed that Buddy needed to take some time off from the class and perhaps try again later.

Our visions of Billy Elliot will have to wait until he's 3 years old, I guess.

Blackmail

Camp T-shirt

GSTz Training Camp #1

Noah is up there near the front.


I had to get another shot of ROF May's new and improved smaller butt.


When we finally slowed down enough to take a picture...no wonder most of the shots from the ride are from the back.

I took a shortcut so I could get a shot of the team from the front. But I also had to be quick, because I 'm not strong enough to catch up. The result is the pic above.

The Beaner assumes his camp pose Saturday evening.

Hide the Beer and Chips (and bread and ice cream and...)

Beaner is here getting ready for training camp.

A blast from the past--Mama's T'Cup

The subject of Mama's Texas Cup title came up while riding today with one of the LSW charges. There's a bunch of cool things about this picture. The one you can't see in the shot is that Mama was pregnant with Reanie. Oh, and believe it or not, Mama didn't hit the deck or even put a foot down in that water.

Taking #2 and #3 to school.

Things are healing up on my person enough to throw the POSS2 in the trailer for a ride to their place of bidness. They make good training buddies too. It has been a gray and chilly morning, but we spoke Flemish the entire way, so it's all good. Despite what the picture looks like, they do actually enjoy the rides in the trailer. Their expressions in this shot are as such because the only time I normally stop and turn around to them on rides is to say, "Hey, get your finger out of her eye" or "Stop pouring milk on his head!" So they had the "Uh oh" expression, and I'm sure they were wondering what they did. The next shot I took they were laughing, but I deleted it instead of saving it, and by then I was tired of standing on the side of the road.

For the iDiots, Maigh, Bubu...

...and anyone else who can get away from work for 30 seconds in the afternoon.

Heeeeyyyeee

It's NOT a moped

So we'd just finished up a motorpacing session. Mark rolled the stop sign at the Bartonville store. I pretty much rolled it, but I did put my feet down.

Since we were done with the ride, I told Mark that I'd motor ahead to turn on the (insert sound of trumpets) coffee machine. Just as I slam the scooter into second gear I hear the siren, which makes me look in the mirror to see the lights. I was already a good something yards ahead of Mark, and the Sheriff was stopping behind him. Figuring I was being pulled over too, I went on up to the next driveway, as there was no shoulder and no real good way to move over and submit to the Popo. And I was sort of hoping that he was just pulling over Mark, because I did put my feet down.

Mark kisses ass. Gets a warning. The Sheriff tells him that he could write his friend on the moped a ticket too.

It's NOT a moped.

Kid #1 Getting After It

Here's my training partner. He's cranking up the Jeterberg getting ready for the 2006 season.

For JR

Hair of the dog, as it were. It isn't an inside joke if you go to the "Driftwood" link to the right.

Just like wine

Grandaddy shot a 69 today. His best round ever.