Saturday, March 31, 2012

March in Review

Here are a selection of pictures from March that I kept meaning to post - and just never got around to!

Since it's March 31st I'll also include a Happy Birthday to Ralph - the best father-in-law ever!

The sad sign that Adele and I ran into over half way through what was supposed to be only a 60-mile ride.

Adele and I. Not so enthused about the ride turning into a 75-miler. Ouch!
Mmmmm. Later that same day - a St. Paddy's feast. This is turning into an annual tradition with good friends Sarah & Emily!


With homemade irish soda bread (a la Sturdy) and guinness cheddar. Double yum!
Post St. Paddy's shreddin' with the TV ladies - Sturdy, Me & Karen

Thor and I hit Syncline for the only nice weekend we've had all winter (at least it feels that way) - Thor is washing the bikes at the little waterfall we always roll past on the way back to the car.

And I'm happy a) because it's sunny, and b) because I rode every technical stretch on Hidden Valley - my first time to clean everything ever!
Celebrating Karen's 50th birthday last night at The Commons Brewery. Great Belgians.

Yours truly signing off for March. Here's to better weather in April! (please?!)

Monday, March 26, 2012

March Steelhead Fishing

I am way behind on posting these days - but here are a few fun pictures of Thor fishing this past weekend with the boys (all photos by Joe Furia).
Thor's first steelhead of the day.
Thor's second steelhead of the day. Better looking fish - worse face for Thor!


And kerploosh as the fish makes her escape back into the water!


Thursday, March 22, 2012

March 22. That's two days past the first official day of spring  And that's all I have to say about this picture. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Finished Upstairs Pic


I think my knee injury really caused me to slack on this blog during the fall - because I don't think I ever posted finished pictures of the upstairs that we began work on in November!  Here's a final picture of our new bedroom - and huge belated thanks to S&Em who came over to help Thor wedge our mattress up the narrow stairwell! (Their assistance helped narrowly avert Thor and I resorting to separate bedrooms at this early stage in our marriage. Thor declared he would rather stay downstairs if it meant getting to sleep on the larger mattress, and I countered with the fact that after all the emotional distress I'd suffered picking paint colors for the upstairs I was going to sleep up there mattress or no mattress!  Fortunately - marital crisis averted - and we are both currently enjoying the new space upstairs.)



Monday, March 12, 2012

The Usual. Biking + Spontaneous!

It was another fun, yet relatively low key, weekend at Casa Tingey! Friday night we gathered with buddies to begin plotting our trip to BC this fall. It will be a mountain biking trip (is anyone surprised) and we chatted about some possible trails we'd like to hit up. First things first though - I need to figure out how much vacation I will have accrued by then!

Saturday we rolled out on a 65-mile road ride with Dan & Laurie and only got rained on once! We felt pretty lucky about that - and the ride set us up nicely for our mellow evening of going to check out our team's new beer sponsor - The Commons Brewery. These guys make only Belgian ales - and they are delicious! (Dad - it's a date next time you find yourself in Portland!) We thought we would only be out for one beer - but our team is filled with fun people! So we let our arms get twisted into a late night trip to Bunk Bar as well. Conclusion: fried cauliflower is amazing!

Sunday = CPR class! Thor has sat through this multiple times, but I think the last time I had first aid training of any sort was when I received my Red Cross babysitters ID card back in the early 90's. Oof. It was definitely time for a refresher! Anyhow - that was time well spent, and we rounded off the day with a spontaneous dinner with an old friend who we hadn't seen in months. It was lovely! (then we got home at 10PM and I had to bake the bread that I had been planning on making for dinner before we ended up doing spontaneous dinner. The house smelled sooo good around 11:15 that Thor and I had to scamper downstairs for a bedtime snack. Yum!)


Thor on the ferry mid-bike ride
It didn't smell funny out there - I swear!
awesome post card received from Anna!  Wish my name inspired such cool stationary!
The Tireless Crew - such great people!
Late night sourdough magic!

Friday, March 9, 2012

First MTB Race of 2012: Echo Red-to-Red

This past weekend was the first XC MTB race of the season out in Echo, OR.  Thor and I rolled out early on Friday morning so Thor could stop along the way to do some work business at a courthouse along the way, and then we continued out east so we could get a pre-ride in on the course.  We met up with a bunch of other friends to camp for the weekend, and we had a great time!   In 2012 I'm writing race reports for the Tireless Velo team - so you can check out the weekend recap here if you're interested.

As far as my race went - I was really pleased!  It was my first race back since buggering my MCL back in October, and I wasn't sure what to expect.  I only started riding my bike again in mid-January, and had only put in one or two longer road rides since getting the go ahead to ride outside.  I'd been on my mountain bike a handful of time, but certainly hadn't ridden anything close to 31 miles (the length of Saturday's race for the Cat 1 women).  

I remembered from last year that the start out the gravel road was fast....and if there is anything I'm bad it it is fast starts!  I am not a zippy rider - picture more of a tortoise - slow and steady (okay, okay - maybe quick and steady is more accurate.  But fast, with good explosive acceleration is not my forte).    Anyhow - I was determined to have a good start (at least for me) - and I have to say that I probably had the best start of my life!  There was about a half mile neutral start on the pavement where I made a conscious effort not to let myself get shuffled too far back in the pack - and then when we hit the gravel road for the start I picked a couple of girls who I knew were faster than me (but wouldn't burn me out) and I forced myself to stay with them all the way up the gravel road even though it was faster than I would have gone on my own.  There was a crazy strong head wind - so it was good that I was grouped with a few ladies instead of out on my own.  As we crested the top of the hill the road we were on made a 90-degree turn, and we found ourselves out of the wind - this is where I made my move that I'm really proud of.  Everyone settled in to take a rest since we were out of the wind, and I realized that I could hop up and pass everyone - so I did! I expected some of the ladies to come with me, but they didn't - so I was able to pass a few men and put a small gap on people headed into the single track!! Never before have I had such an aggressive start!  Granted - 3  or 4 of those ladies passed me later on in the race and ended up beating me, but it was still a nice little personal mini victory at the start of my race.

Racing felt great - I tried to focus on having a good attack position on the downhills, not using my brakes at all in the corners (which turned out to be easy because the wind was blowing so hard), and pushing hard over the tops of all the mini-rises.  I was having a great race and keeping up with some ladies that I would have been happy to stick with pre-injury - and then at around mile 23 I had a mechanical with my front wheel and lost about 7-8 minutes and 4 places (the skewer came undone, but I was on a downhill when it happened so it jammed the skewer and I couldn't get it to move - argh!).   Anyhow - I eventually got it unstuck and hopped back on the course and was able to catch a few girls on the last loop of the course that was semi-technical.  I ended up finishing 11th out of about 20 girls, and felt really good about my first race back!

Here's Thor's race report in his own words:
Raced with 34x18, which I think was bigger than last year when I either had a 34x20 or 32x18. I was pretty happy with the gear, but I think I'll go with a 34x16 next year to gain some more speed on the start and through the flats. It will mean I might have to walk a few more things, but I'll be faster over the rest of the course. Of course, it could backfire spectacularly, leaving me crippled in the terrible cyclocross course woods section with serious leg cramps. But you can't know unless you try right?
What Thor doesn't mention is that he shaved close to 20 minutes off his time from last year and finished 12th of out 50 guys in the single speed category. Woot!

The rest of our weekend was spent chatting at camp, riding, and sampling great wine from the races title sponsor - Sno Road Winery! The owners of this winery are awesome supporters of the local bike community and open up their land every year for this race - really cool.  We stopped by their tasting room Saturday night and met the owners, Lloyd and Lois, and had a great time chatting with them. I would highly recommend picking up a bottle of their wine if you ever happen to see it at a store!

Enjoy these pictures from the weekend - and hooooooray for being back on my bike!!!

First stop - the court house. Hear ye! Hear ye!

our camping location



Sturdy checks out the course on Friday



Sarah & I after the race
Thor's post-race gut bomb

Thor using the new propane shower - thank you  Sheri!


Tim & Emily
The group on Sunday - you can really see how gorgeous and  clear it was!

A shot up the valley

Me - upset that Thor has stacked a cow patty on my knee.

And now we've made up.

Two of the great wines from Sno Road Winery - their Cabernet, and their 'dry style' Muscat


The new Tireless Velo team flasks!

One tiiiiired piggy in the backseat on the way home. 

Monday, March 5, 2012

Pickled Beets!


These pictures were loaded onto a draft from back in 2010!  Yikes!   I am sure I have the pickled beet recipe that I used somewhere in my email - so if you'd like it just ping me. Pickled beets are DELICIOUS!!!  And beets in general are just beautiful - so bright and vibrant!




Bibs for Lindsay and a Quilt for Morgan!

I just realized that I have 13 (!!!!) draft posts sitting on my blog that I didn't know about.  So I've started going through them to see which ones I can delete and which ones I just plain forgot to hit 'publish' on. This post from September I obviously just forgot to publish!  Oops!


Babies, babies everywhere!  That seems to be the theme here in Portland where we have friends expanding their families right and left!   Margi and Scott had a healthy little bambino just last night (wee Spencer Allan - 5 lbs. 12 oz. long, lean and healthy!)

Mini-quilt for MiMo! Just large enough to use with a car seat . I loved the fabric I found with the orange slices on it!



Anyhow - i've been a virtual baby shower gift factory all summer! (true! all my crafty items that I've worked on this past spring/summer have been baby gifts!).   Here are the latest pieces that I gave to friends Lindsay and Morgan this past weekend.

Mompetitor

I thought this video was hilarious (as are many of the other videos on this site!)

Why I can't make mom friends
by: aggal02


http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7148143/why-i-cant-make-mom-friends