Reflection.

Finding sunshine and single track, in December. Oakridge, Oregon

I won’t lie and say I have taken a month off the bike. I haven’t. I did take two full weeks off, went to Washington DC for a family visit, did some running, and entered into a failed attempt to learn to knit. I borrowed a book, bought some yarn, and well, that is where the attempt ended.

Since then, I have been riding a bit, and loving it.  Gravel roads and single track and adventuring on knobby tires.  I have also been cooking and eating and enjoying our pair of small couches and drinking tea and reading books and listening to the wind howl outside.

Our house is under construction and our already small 850 square feet has been reduced to a cozy 625.  I’m not complaining.  In a few weeks, we’ll have a second bathroom and an enhance ability to have house guests.  We are currently debating about who gets to christen the hopper.  I think Ben is going to win this one.

This weekend, the snow is expected to really fall, for the first time since the Brewery Cup in Bend, which I completely forgot to write about.  I didn't actually forget, I just got distracted and when I finally got around to writing, a few weeks had passed, and I figured I missed the window to ramble on about how my the last races of the season played out.

In a nutshell, it was cold.  Really cold.  And awesome.  We raced under bright blue skies, on snow so cold it didn't even turn to ice. We wore gloves better suited to ice climbing than bike racing, we wrapped our feet in cellophane before putting on our socks, and we coated any exposed skin with Vaseline. And we raced; against some of the best cyclocross racers in the country.  It was a great way to end the season. This picture tells the story with much more clarity than I ever could, so I’ll leave it at that.

Photo: Lasla images

2014 arrived and I turned another year older. My birthday is a special day for a number of reasons, but there are two reasons that stand out. First, I get to celebrate my parents; their strength, their determination, and their unconditional love. Secondly, I have an opportunity to reflect on me; who I am, who I want to be, where I have been, where I want to go, how I can love more fully, and celebrate more richly. It is not often that I take time to sit down and digest the knowledge I have gained over the year, and to look to all the knowledge I have yet to learn.  The older I get the more I understand just how much I don’t understand.

Big things are happening in 2014.  I am making bold decisions and going confidently in the direction of my dreams.

My mantra for this new year:
I am going to do this. PERIOD.