"Fall"ing Back...

Good Morning!  For some of you it is currently 6:40am.  For the rest of us, who have remembered to "Fall" back for the end of Daylight Savings Time, it is now 5:40am instead.  :-)

There is no doubt about it these days, Fall is most definitely upon us.  We have been enjoying some amazingly wonderful Fall days of weather, along with shorter days, with dark mornings and dark afternoons.  I have been able to enjoy some fantastic Fall weather bicycle riding this year, and am still hopeful that I may finish off this year with 3,500 miles logged on my bike!

So, Evan's first season of tackle football has ended.  He did really well, but has a lot to learn still as far as building his confidence in himself and his abilities.  It will be fun to watch him make the connection with just how really good he is, and how fast he can be.... and hopefully next year his whole team will just get better and better.  With football over, we expected to take the winter off from sports and just relax a bit, but not so be the case... Evan has decided to give basketball another try!  SO, we are right back into the busy sports schedule once again.

Sierra is busy with her dance class, which is a much easier schedule for us to follow, thankfully.  She has not yet really shown any interest in playing sports at this time, and prefers to concentrate on her dancing.   She also would like to give gymnastics a try, but we haven't been able to find anything close to us, or reasonably priced as of yet.

This next Thursday we are heading to Portland to help Grammy & Papa with their packing and preparing to move to their new home next month.  We will be busy loading all of Brad's belongings to bring them up here and place them in a steel container box for storage on our property for now.  In addition, Grammy & Papa have many things that they would like for us to have, as they will be downsizing quite substantially with this move.  So, we will be going through things and loading our enclosed trailer to bring those things home with us as well.  For sure, this is a bittersweet time for us all.  We all love the home that Grammy & Papa have lived in now for the past 13+ years.  In fact, it is the only home that Evan and Sierra have ever known for them.  On the other hand, it will be so good for them both to have a smaller home, with less work and upkeep, and a place much closer to family and friends.  In addition, they will be in community environment, where they will hopefully meet many new friends, and begin to grow their social lives more.  I think we are all hoping and praying that this will be a very good transition in both of their lives!  :-)

On a personal note, I am frustrated with my physical health right now.  I have not been able to get my fitness kicked into high gear for some time now, due to all kinds of things.  Recently, though, I have suffered from a couple of different injuries, which have set me back.  I really want to get back to working out hard again, and to get rid of another 10 pounds of unwanted fat from my body.  I am coming up on the two year mark since I started my "new" life of health and fitness, in January, and I really want to be weighing in at around 190 pounds, with around 12% body fat.  With the way things have gone for me this past month, that goal is getting hard to reach.  Right now I am suffering from an infected toe on my right foot that is hurting me very badly.  I need to get it taken care of, so I can get back into my groove once again.  I am starting to get down on myself about how things are going... it affects my mental and spiritual health, and I don't want that to happen anymore.

I know everyone ( my family and close friends) all get tired of hearing me talk about bicycling all of the time.  I have heard a fair amount about it lately, and realize that not everyone wants to hear about it so much.  Trouble is, bicycling has become a passion for me.  I love it, and love how it makes me feel, and what it does for me physically and mentally and spiritually.  Cycling has helped me get my life back.  So, I need to just remember that although I am passionate about cycling, most everyone else close to me are not.  I need to find a group of people, or even just a few, who share the love of cycling that I have, who I can talk to about it all of the time... something to work on for me.  In the mean time, I just need to work on talking more about others' interests, and less of mine.

Well, it's time for more coffee, and something to eat.  Today we will go to church, and then I will spend the day trying to allow my infected toe to get better, since I am supposed to be working again tomorrow.

The mantra I am trying to remember each day to live by is this......

"Life isn't a problem to be solved, it's an adventure to be lived"   :-)