took an accidental sick day today…but when I was putting in for it, I really did feel crummy!  But today I feel pretty darn normal so…things I’m looking forward to:

*A Saturday ride with some awesome teammates!

*a potential Sunday mountain bike ride with my husband…depending on weather

*painting my nails with my new, FREE (!), nail polish that came in the mail this morning

*Saturday night hanging out with an amazing friend who’s working AND going to school so can be hard to catch up with…and before that, dinner with friends who have three kids and live an hour away so they are also hard to catch up with!

*Getting back into the swing of working out (this weeks sickness put me off track)

*Getting this atrociously hard IEP out of the way on Tuesday (pray for me!) so that we can go back to normal and I can start teaching more and worrying less!

*Next Saturday racing in Cincy and watching the pros race!

My job makes me sad when it stops being about the kids and instead becomes about politics and placating parents. We don’t have to be enemies. Lets work together to support your child. Trust that I have your child’s best interests at heart and that I love them like my own. We aren’t helping the student by blindly agreeing to whatever the parent wants. Such a frustrating day.

Goals

goals vs. resolutions 🙂

 

1.  ride my bike more!  I don’t log my miles, so this will just have to be on the honor system, but I’ve enjoyed riding my bike more this year and I look forward to riding it even more next year!

2.  take better care of my bikes.  I know little to nothing about bike maintenance.  I can fit a bike for you and I can tell you what components are better and help you select a bike, but I can’t take care of my own bikes much past tire changing and mud cleaning.  I want to learn more about maintenance and building bikes.

3.  race my  mountain bike.  ’nuff said.

4.  pay down debt!  we have FAR too much debt and instead of getting rid of debt last year, I’m pretty sure we added to it by the purchase of not one, not two, but eight bikes!  Oh my gosh, did I really just count the purchase of eight bikes in 2012?!?!  Holy whoa. I’m not promising no bike purchases in 2013 because I perhaps want to replace my single speed and may be purchasing a full suspension mountain bike.  Maybe.

5.  Eat healthier.  We already try to eat healthier, but then I start exercising more so I get lazier.  I want to cut more carbs and eat more protein.  Be better nutritionally prepared for racing.

6.  Race better, harder, faster for cross.

7.  Run with Thule more.

8.  Take the dogs for more hikes and walks.  We’ve gotten lazy and our older dog has gotten SUPREMELY  lazy.  He needs to get out more and exercise more beyond just playing with the puppy.

9.  Buy less.  I guess this goes with paying down debt, but I have a bit of a shopping problem.  I buy cheap stuff and then it doesn’t last.  Or I buy something that isn’t exactly what I want but I have to have it RIGHT NOW so I buy something that isn’t right instead of buying what I actually wanted…and then I end up buying the thing I really wanted in the first place.  Which equals double spending.  I did buy less clothing this year.  Which is a plus.  Just need to buy even less next year!

10.  Be more social.  I am a very shy person.  I also have a hard time trusting people so I tend to just hang back and let Noah do most of the talking.  I think it comes across as rude and I don’t mean for it to.  I also have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth and say things that don’t come out the way I mean for them to, so that’s another reason not to trust people or open up easily.  So I want to be more social.  Make more friends and strengthen the bonds between the friends we already have.

tradgedy

OK.  One little comment and then I’m done.

What happened this week was horrific.  It tugs at our heartstrings because they were little people.  But the reality is, mass shootings are becoming more and more prevalent in the US.  In the last thirty years, there have been sixty two mass shootings in the US.  There have been seven just the last year.  We need to stop arguing about gun control and putting metal detectors in schools.  Those are not going to solve the problem.  We need to figure out why mass shootings are on the rise and we need to solve the root problem.

Personally?  I think it’s poor parenting.  I know I know that’s not PC to say that.  But it’s true.  In sports now, everyone gets a medal because “everyone’s a winner”.  Guess what?  If your team lost every game they played, you’re not a winner!  Not everyone CAN be a winner.  It goes against the definition of the word   Just like second place isn’t “winning”.  We’ve taken away grades at the elementary level b/c it “puts too much pressure on children” and because they think letter grades are demoralizing.  Um…so?  Shouldn’t you be ashamed if you get a C?  Shouldn’t you be striving for an A?  Kids don’t understand the idea that a 3 means you’re on grade level, a 2 means you’re progressing toward, and a 1 means you aren’t even close.  They don’t get it.  They do understand A, B,  C.  When kids do get a poor grade, their parents are in the school blaming the teachers, blaming the other students, blaming video games…in short, everyone EXCEPT who is the actual problem.  Hint hint, it’s probably your kid and his or her lack of work ethic.  We need to teach our children how to handle themselves when life gives them lemons.  Instead of fixing it for you child, you need to teach him or her how to solve their own problems.  Parents these days want to be their child’s friend instead of being their parent.  Being a parent is hard!  I’m not saying it isn’t.  But I think we’ve gotten away from good parenting.  I had a parent complain that their child spends too much time playing video games and not enough time doing their homework   Um…Who’s in charge in that household?  I have an easy solution.  Take the video games away!  Be a parent!  Say no to your child!  They might whine and complain now, but they will thank you for it later.

All of that to say that I’m tired of everyone screaming about gun regulation every time something like this happens.  I don’t personally own a gun, but I can tell you that taking away people’s guns isn’t going to stop the problem.  Generally people who commit these kinds of violent acts aren’t legal gun owners.  If taking away guns truly solved all violence (as I was so recently told) then there would be no violence in the UK because it’s illegal to own a gun there.  But guess what?  There is still violence there!  If someone wants to hurt someone, they will find a way guns or no guns.  The same day as the Connecticut shootings, a man in Beijing took a knife and stabbed 22 children as they exited the school building.  He didn’t have a gun but he still found a way to hurt someone.

Ok.  I’m off my soapbox.  But I’ll say again, cliche though it may be, guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.  I compare this situation to a dandelion.  If all you ever do is rip the leaves off (gun regulation), you’ll never kill the plant.  The only want to solve the problem is to get to the root and remove it.

Finally feel human again! Knock on wood. Taking my bike to the shop to figure out what’s creaking and getting psyched to race Sunday!

I’m tired of the high school drama.  The he said, she said crap.  If we all love cycling, can’t we agree that people have different personalities and that those personalities don’t always mesh?  Can’t we take a carefully worded comment and respect that the person was willing to give us their opinion and keep the source of said opinion to ourselves?  And if someone says to you, “so and so said…” how about you say to yourself, “hey, that person is my friend.  I don’t think they would have said that in exactly that light.  Let me go to them directly and ask them what’s going on?” instead of bitching about it to six other people. Which is how it gets back to the supposed author of the statement who is then extremely confused and hurt over a holiday weekend with no way to make it right.  Especially when they never said anything like that to begin with.  It’s frustrating when you can’t trust people who are your friends to respect your privacy or to think about how they are going to share what you have said with them.  Instead of saying “so and so said…” why don’t you just say, “I’ve heard…could you confirm?”

This stupid women’s team is turning out to be a mess.  People I thought I liked from my team, I can’t really stand.  People I thought I could trust from other teams, turns out no.  This women’s team that is supposed to bring us all together is actually splitting people apart and making people choose sides.  This is why I don’t like women.  This is why I can’t stand stupid crap like this.  It just turns into a popularity contest and you learn things about people that you wish you didn’t know but you can’t unlearn.  

Thanks for adding yet another layer of suck to a crappy crappy Thanksgiving.

Family?

I’m so frustrated with my family. They only live an hour and forty minutes away but they act like its across the desert when I ask them to come here. they only come to Columbus twice a year and this year, they aren’t coming at all.

I’ve been sick for several days. But I’m on antibiotics and I’m not contagious. But I just wasn’t sure that I would feel up to having all those ppl here so I tried to reschedule. Before I could even get to that, my mom starts in with how they shouldn’t come.  So I ask if we can reschedule for Saturday.  They all agree to it…and then they call me back two hours later and say no.  My uncle has them all convinced that the traffic around my place will be horrific b/c of the OSU vs. Michigan game.  If you’re not living in Ohio, then you don’t understand how much of a big deal that game is.  But the traffic isn’t that bad.  And I could bring them around the back way so they wouldn’t have to deal with the traffic at all.  What it really comes down to, is that they don’t want to drive and they don’t want to miss watching the game.

I’m so tired of putting myself out there to them and always going to them and never getting anything in return.  I’ve asked several times for them to come to Columbus to see us race or go out to dinner with us.  But they never come.  They always have an excuse.  I’m their only child.  It has definitely gotten worse as I’ve gotten older.  I always felt like an afterthought to them.  They did all the things good parents did.  They were involved in my academics and sports in school.  They were always there for me.  But I’ve always known that they tried to have kids for over ten years before they gave up.  Then after they gave up, several years later, I appeared.  And I’ve always felt that they could have gone their entire lives and not had kids and been perfectly happy.  They wouldn’t have felt they were missing anything.  The older I get, the more they pull away from me.  Despite the fact that they only have two hobbies, quilting and hunting, they are far too busy to come to any of our races.  They are too busy to meet us for lunch.  They say that it’s too hard for them to drive less than two hours to just spend the day with us but they expect that from us.  I’ve tried talking to them about it, and they don’t see it.  They don’t understand.  I guess I’m just tired of trying to fix it.  I’m just over it.  I’m tired of cancelling our plans to make room for theirs when they obviously can’t be bothered to do the same.  I don’t really feel like there’s any hold for us to stay in Columbus or even Ohio anymore.  I used to think I’d be worried about  my family and miss them.  But…the more time goes on, the more they push me away, the less I think I would notice.