Holy crap, what a way to start the day!
The bad luck from my last post continued this weekend and into this morning, but luckily nothing absolutely disastrous happened… but disaster was just barely avoided. I’ll start with the good weekend stuff first, though:
Friday after work I went to Trashmart to buy the pretty red bike I’d been eyeing up for a few weeks… except they didn’t have it in stock! I was getting a bike this weekend no matter what it took, so I changed my disappointed sourpuss face into my hopeful face and bought a 2-bike trunk rack for my car. Since I had cleaned out/eaten about ¾ of the contents of my freezer over the past few months and since Trashmart has really cheap frozen Kashi/Healthy Choice/Lean Cuisine meals and paninis, I splurged and decided to stock up. When I got to the register, the total came to exactly $100.00. (The bike rack was about $40… and the food I got will last me for a looooong time) You’d think such a perfect number would be a sign of good things to come… and in a sense it was because Saturday I went on the great 2009 bike hunt through Monroeville!
I woke up early on Saturday and made a HUGE batch of juice for the upcoming week’s smoothies – celery, carrots, apples, oranges, grapefruits, pineapple, mangoes, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, and kiwis. This mixture will be combined with bananas, raspberries, blueberries, more mangoes, spinach, and protein powder for super smoothies. It seems funny to me, and I know other people have discovered the same thing, but I feel much more awake when I have my super smoothies in the morning – they wake me up way more than coffee or tea, and I almost never crave sweets now. Plus, I just feel absolutely amazing when I drink them and they’re super yummy! They don’t taste AT ALL like veggies (I even made some people at work try the mix, against their better judgment… they readily agreed that they’re awesome!), and the carrot and celery add a very subtle sweetness to the smoothies.
Anyways, back to Saturday. I had big plans for the day since it was GORGEOUS outside. I went to the gym, ran for the first time in weeks since my knee’s been killing me, lifted weights like a bodybuilder; and then made the bike circuit. First up was Target, where I found my original second choice – a women’s Schwinn Jaguar bike for $149.99. This bike is nice and it caries two reputable names – Schwinn and Jaguar. Plus, I thought it’d be cool to say I bought a Jaguar this weekend… but the consumer reviews weren’t so awesome. Determined to find my first choice and to not make any hasty decisions, I then went to Dick’s and Dunham’s. Dick’s was terrible since their cheapest bike was on sale for $229… Dunham’s just didn’t have much of a selection at all… and then I realized I’d forgotten about Kmart! Why not? What does it hurt to look? Well, good thing I did, because I found the winner of the day. Ladies and Gentlemen, my new best friend is a… Kent Glendale CS Comfort Cruiser bike. It’s a really pretty blue, a cruiser, has 7 gears, a comfy seat, and got better consumer reviews than the Jaguar bike. Plus, it was the same price… and I was already in Kmart and didn’t feel like going back to Target…
I made my way home and went on a short inaugural bike ride around the neighborhood… then came back, mowed what felt like 5 miles of uphill grass (over 1 hour of mowing at a HR of 170!!), and went for another quickie spin around the nabe… then came back, got a drink of water, adjusted the handlebars/seat/reflectors/gears to my liking (normal people would have done all that BEFORE riding it), then went for another longer ride around Wilkins Twp and Turtle Creek. I LOVE my bike!! It’s so comfy and smooth, and it doesn’t feel like I have to try as hard to ride it as I had to with the old crappy hand-me-down bike.
Needless to say, with all the running/lifting/shopping/riding/cutting/riding/riding, I’d worked up quite an appetite. I made my first-ever batch of baked penne, complete with ricotta (my dad hates ricotta, so I never get the real thing at my parents’ house), fresh mozzarella, and garlic bread fashioned out of garlic foccaccia. The penne was good, but nothing too special. The garlic bread, on the other hand, was incredible. I could have easily made a meal out of just that, but I restrained myself and froze most of the rest. I can’t wait till I have it again!
Sunday was a dreary day (thank goodness we had at least one nice day for the weekend!), so I used it to gourmandize my breakfast. I made apple-grapefruit-orange juice, coffee, cinnamon-nutmeg French toast out of the leftover Easter bread from my grandma’s, turkey bacon, and freshly-sliced homefries with green peppers. YUM! Don’t worry, as I do with most of my Sunday breakfast splurges, I only ate about half (less than half, actually) and saved the rest for this morning’s breakfast and lunch. It was all really good, but the star was definitely the homefries with peppers. I don’t normally bother with peppers simply because I don’t usually have them on hand… and it just doesn’t seem worth it to take the time to wash them and cut them when I’m doing a gazillion other things. Lucky for me, Lisa from work had heard me talking about my juice extractor and wordlessly dropped a huge bag of chopped veggies onto my desk one day this past week. I used the carrots and celery sticks in my weekly juice blend and was able to use up the already-chopped green peppers in my homefries. I still have mushrooms and cauliflower if anyone wants them… I don’t like either one.
After indulging in my extravagant breakfast, I relaxed and went to work on clearing up the memory on my computer. When I was home for Easter, my aunt and uncle had said something about me using their digital copies of DVDs they had since they didn’t want them. I went over to their house to load them onto my computer, but had to stop with 2 movies to go because my computer was mysteriously out of memory… even though it shouldn’t have been. So when I finally sat down to check it all out, I noticed I had my iTunes and iPhoto stuff in about 3 different places – not necessary. I copied everything to my external HD for back-up (that needed done anyways – it had been over a year!) and set about deleting a bunch of duplicates. Also, I put my new movies on DVDs, although I can only use them in my computer since they’re data DVDs. I don’t understand how all of that works, but oh well. I’m proud to say that I now have over 24 GB free on my computer, so I’m free to download as much as I like (for a while)! I think I did screw something up, though – when I went to update my iPod with a new playlist, the computer told me neither the computer nor the iPod was authorized to play anything I’d downloaded from iTunes. What?! Luckily, most of the stuff I listen to wasn’t downloaded from iTunes, but still. What on earth? I tried to authorize the computer, but it wouldn’t let me… so who knows what I did to it… Any ideas?
Last night I made my way to the gym for Sunday night volleyball and for once, I played like a demon! My serves were great, my passes and sets were good, and I even got a few hits in! And not just dinky “accidental” hits, but real full-on solid hits! Approach, swing, and everything! It was AWESOME! However, once I got home, I noticed that my knee was hurting a LOT, so I’ve been trying to rest it as much as possible before tonight’s game.
On my way in to work, I VERY NARROWLY avoided disaster/death. I was on the stretch of Penn Ave in Wilkinsburg practically right in front of the Wendy’s, driving in the right lane when a few cars up someone in the left lane wanted to turn into Wendy’s. I was literally right beside a huge black SUV when out of the blue the SUV driver decided he didn’t want to wait for someone to turn, so he came into my lane – WHILE I WAS STILL RIGHT BESIDE HIM! With no time to think, I swerved completely onto the curb and almost hit a phone pole. There’s so much traffic on that road during rush hour that any sane person would have known there was someone beside them and that they’d have to wait and look before moving into another lane. When I got off the curb and back onto the road, the SUV was still in front of me and I got a spectacular look at his license plate before he swerved in front of someone else – so if you see anyone driving around Pittsburgh in a black SUV with the license plate “MIRACLE” (or maybe it was “MIRACL”… I can’t remember if it had the “E” at the end… nice license plate, I guess this person realizes it’s a miracle they’re still alive?), feel free to show them that they’re #1, if you know what I’m saying.
When I got to work, I inspected my car just to be sure there wasn’t any damage, and my wheels/tires are all sorts of screwed up on the passenger side. I called my mom, who’s also my insurance agent, and she told me there wasn’t any point in submitting a claim since I have a deductible. And I’m pretty sure that since there wasn’t a real “accident,” the police wouldn’t be able to do anything. Still, what a jerk. What a way to start the day…
On the bright side, when I have a bad start to the day, I usually have a spectacular night at volleyball… so I’m hoping that’s the case tonight. Our game’s in Greenfield/Squirrel Hill instead of Downtown tonight, so win or lose (ahem, WIN!), we’re treating ourselves to Mineo’s for some pizza after the game! I think I’m almost as excited for dinner as I am for our game!
Here’s hoping your day is/was a lot better than mine!
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