Aug 31, 2010

bikes & drag

This past weekend I rode in the Venus de Miles ride which is a fundraising ride to benefit Greenhouse Scholars. It's an all women's ride, hence the free drinks, massages and manicures after, but the maintenance team consists of men in drag. Naturally, we made an excellent team...



and this is the 51 mile course I did. So nice and much more relaxed than the SPAN the Rockies course. My man in drag had to chase after mountain bikes and cruisers on the 33 miler.


Aug 30, 2010

weekend fashion






t-shirt: Fluxus
shorts: Wet Seal
bag: Tulu
shoes: Sperry
bandana, ring, bracelet: who knows, somewhere in Russia, gift

dressed for a scorching but fabulous sunday morning of bike rides, brunch, and sitting by the river reading and having photos taken of me which will doubtlessly make their way over here eventually.


I will admit I am (hopefully flatteringly) stealing this idea. If you like it you should check out What I Wore, Jess Loves Fred, and FancyTreehouse.

Aug 24, 2010

slightly bored & severely confused

The easiest and most blissful thing for me has always been to be alone and to be on the move, always with some great adventure or destination in view, even if it was just dreaming. For the first time since I can remember, I have no plane tickets purchased, no trips planned.

I am more scared than I was getting on a nameless bus full of chickens in Costa Rica. I am more terrified than I was when I got on the first of three planes to Cambodia, completely alone and with nothing to turn back to. This time I'm not running anywhere. Not because I know this is where I want to be, but because I have no idea where to go, who I want to go with, or what I want to do.

My friend, 10,000 miles away, as always, has the best advice. He tells me that when he was in high school he had no idea what he wanted to do or who he wanted to be. So he says he started small. All he wanted to do then was smoke weed and skateboard, so he did that. Then he came to the point where he didn't want to do that anymore so he found something else. He went to University. He learned to build a banjo and fix bikes and cook mac n cheese from scratch and speak Chinese. Little by little your purpose gets clearer. He still doesn't know exactly what he wants to do, but he's speaking Chinese and Mongolian and teaching kids in China and he's more true to himself than anyone I've ever known.

I want to not fight. I want to learn to draw, knit, make preserves, take an aerial dance class, practice my Spanish, practice my French. I want to have time to read. I want to know what I want and go through with making it happen. I want to know how to forgive.

What do you want?

Aug 23, 2010

ooshy gooshy


I've always left pies for winter desserts but this one, if you add a few different types of peaches, is still fruity and light enough for summer, with or without some vanilla ice cream!




There's something about baking. Making everything from scratch, setting out and prepping the ingredients. I could do it all day. I don't know what it is about the really basic stuff that fascinates me, but I've always wanted to go even more basic.








Making your own crackers or preserves is far more impressive to me than baking a pie. I want to learn to can and jar. And all those simple tricks from Cook's Illustrated or Real Simple, I wish I had those catalogued in my brain. 







That Animal, Vegetable, Miracle lifestyle, I want that. That, and that 50's demand for style and class where I get to prance around in pouffy dresses and have it be perfectly acceptable to sass everyone. 

Aug 16, 2010

burgers & bikes


In attempting to save money as well as make sure we don't waste food, we've been trying to plan weekly meals so that we use up as much as we buy. So, we made burgers 3 ways. The other two ways don't photograph so well so use your imagination.

First, we made a veggie Big Mac: Gardenburger with cheese, tomatoes, pickles and thousand island. Whoops, I mean "special sauce". 

Then, I made a gardenburger with cheese, ketchup and, bear with me, a fried egg. I know, weird, but so incredibly delicious. The best veggie burger I've ever had, ever, was in Cambodia and it was covered in shredded white cheese and a fried egg. Oh, and it cost $1. I often try to recreate it but nothing has lived up to it yet.

Finally, we made a variation of this recipe for portabella burgers with balsamic mayonnaise. We used chive cream cheese and altered the herbs a bit. So good, you could just make the portabellas and serve that with rice if you're too fancy for burgers.

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On another, possibly just as irrelevant note, I completed the 130K SPAN the Rockies race yesterday in 6 and a half hours. Slow, and painful, but fun. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. Lance Armstrong was not there, waiting to demoralize me for not being competitive, and though the first 30 miles were a tough, slow climb, the rest was much milder. And soaring through a canyon at 30mph is just as fun when your knees are in excruciating pain. Boulder to Ward to Lyons to Hygiene to Niwot to Boulder. Beautiful! I can't wait for the even more laid back Venus de Miles ride in two weeks!

Aug 5, 2010

coming together


Our new place is still coming together, we're almost there! This is our latest addition, the new bike racks. We'll be racing the 130K SPAN the Rockies course in a week and a half and I'm terrified. I haven't trained at all and I will likely not survive. That's all.