The weather has been one of extremes. In the Northeast, the weather this spring has fluctuated between unseasonably warm and unseasonably cold. Just a few days ago, it was cold, then nice, and now hot and humid. Global warming supposedly results in extreme changes of weather. You may not believe it, but I do.
On Saturday, I was up early and at the church to help out with the Spring clean up. Every season, church members get together to help tidy up the church. Cleaning up branches, weeding, removing leaves, etc. With all the late winter storms, we had a lot of fallen branches (and trees.) I spent the morning working on removing fallen tree branches and leaves, using the blowers to clean the parking lot, and sweeping. I opted out of weeding, as I don’t enjoy doing that at my own house, so I wouldn’t want to do it here either. We finished around 12 noon, and I came home to have lunch with the family.
I took Josh out later in the afternoon to accompany him as he rode his bike around the neighborhood, and we hung out at the playground for a while. An ice cream truck was down the street, so I encouraged him that if he did some serious pedaling, I’d treat him to an ice cream cone. Wow, he rode fast, so another example that it’s all about the incentives. I bought him a $2 soft serve ice cream cone, and it was a race between him eating and the ice cream melting. Unfortunately, the ice cream was winning, so I helped him out by eating some of his ice cream. He’s not ready for riding sans training wheels, but he’s getting better at pedaling.
22 miles to Jackson NJ roundtrip
On Sunday after church and lunch, most of us took an afternoon nap. Josh seems to have inherited the Ipe energy genes, and he rarely naps in the afternoon anymore. Around 4:30pm, hoping to beat the predicted isolated thunderstorms, I jumped on my bike, and took a ride. I missed an opportunity to ride last weekend, and certainly didn’t want to miss another one this weekend. I rode to the Jackson Outlets 22 miles and back, which I was proud of. That’s certainly an improvement from 17 miles I rode two weeks ago. It’s a far cry from the 50 miles I hope to ride later this month at the MS Bike Tour, but it’s a start. Riding wasn’t too painful, but there was a terribly long hill on the ride home that had me alternating between swearing profusely and crying like a little girl. I had a stitch in my side that hurt like hell. At certain moments up the hill, I looked around and hoped there were no children around to hear me swearing and crying.
Sunday evening, the family made a run to our local ShopRite. My wife has been doing a lot of cooking in the kitchen this past week, following new recipes, and it’s been a delicious week of experimentation. Prior to the supermarket run, she made a big list of grocery items to pick up, and I’m looking forward to this week’s culinary experiences. This is an example where being a guinea pig ain’t so bad.