Yesterday and today, (e:uncutsaniflush) and i went for a short bike ride on our new bikes..



Yesterday, we were on them for about 30 to 45 minutes and i am pleased to report my butt is not nearly as sore as i would expect.

Today, however, i could feel where i was sitting yesterday.. rather tenderly, i might add. And today was a little hotter. And we rode a little longer. Oh, my, am i out of shape! The last few minutes were a bit of a challenge.

But i am determined. I would like to be less of the woman i am today...

As some of you may or may not know, my wonderful husband (e:uncutsaniflush) and i purchased an old victorian on the upper west side. We love this house, despite the fact that is it way to big for the 2 of us. Gradually, we have been adding our own little touches to the place and i thought i would share the lastest with ya'll.

These 2 pics are what our sitting room looked like before we purchased the house.





Once we moved in, this room got overlooked and became a dumping groudn for boxes and odds and ends. Our poor sitting room!!



We cleared the boxes and riff raff out and then, the other day, we decided to remove the big ugly black metal hood that was on the fireplace and we were happily surprised at how little damage was underneath. Just some soot from someone who decided to use the gas fireplace to burn wood in. Even i'm not that dumb!





Last week we saw a nice queen anne wing chair at Calvins for a great price and purchased the last 2 they had. We then moved the so-so book shelves (we want nicer ones, but these are ok for now) into the room to complete the half completed look. I say it is a good running start in just over 2 months!

Thank you very much to (e:Paul) (e:Ladycroft) and (e:Shawnr) for their comments to my tattoo post. I appreciate any and all comments.

You can bet i will indeed have the work reviewed online, (e:Paul)... i post when we get a new piece of furniture, so i will be posting a tattoo for sure!

I agree, (e:Ladycroft), the "elegant" knot is a nice one... might look good on the back, too.

And (e:Shawnr) i understand why you say bigger is better... But ti honour a little cat, i think i need to get a little tattoo. I think it will probably be 6 inches across, at most...


And...

This weekend my 'rents are coming to visit and i must admit, as much as i enjoy having them, particularly my father who was finally pried away from his easy chair... but talk about rotten timing. I know, actually, i hope there will be other parties at the mini mansion of (e:PMT) and i hope the invite will once again be extended to myself and my wonderful husband (e:uncutsaniflush). But i know the next one will not be a 10,000th journal entry party. And i don't know how long i will have to wait for our invit to the 20,000th journal entry party. Should i have made this 2 posts to help with that?

I hope everyone has a blast. I look forward to all the stories and pics people will post.

Looking for opinions again, friends, so feel free to speak your mind...

As well as think about tattoos [inlink]leetee,30[/inlink], i was also thinking about bikes. Since i don't like hiking or walking as much as i used to (i don't know if that's due to weight or age), i turned to something i used to do quite regularly. Ride my bike. I used to comute uphill (i lived in Hamilton, Ontario, then, and i lived downtown and worked on the escarpment, aka the "mountain") twice a day. I was trimmer then.

So, (e:uncutsaniflush) and i went to a local shop, Campus Wheel Works, to see what they had. So, if you some weird chick looking wobbly on a bike on Elmwood this afternoon, it was me, testing bikes and i apologize if i almost ran into anybody!

First, i test rode the milano... in a cute a turquois shade. NIce looking, but not quite right for me.

Then, i test rode this one, a Townie (love the name!) in a cute pink shade. It was better, but i didn't like the brakes on it.

Then, i rode something less cute, but comfy and more practical and less expensive.

Of course, as usual with me, they don't have my size or a girls bike in the shop, so i would have to order it. Sight unseen. I assume if the mens one, slightly too big was comfy, so will the girls one in my size... And, if i had good luck ordering from a catalog with my desk, i would like to think i might have the same luck with this?

Anyone have any recommendations on bike shops? Good, bad or indiffernet experiences with Campus Wheel Works?


Thanks to...

(e:Paul) for reminding me that i did not have a userpic up. I do now, thanks to his reminder and offer of help if i needed it. And, of course, to (e:uncutsaniflush) for his help in me getting the pic itself up.

I'm looking for some input, ya'll...so, if you have an opinion, please speak up. :)

As some of you may remember, we lost our beloved cat, Diamond, last October [inlink]leetee,15[/inlink]. Since then, i have had the thought of getting another tattoo symbolizing something to do with her.... more specificly, a diamond shape. I thought about just a diamond shape, but that seemed a little bland. Then, someone suggested to me a gemstone shape. But neither seemed quite right to me.

(e:uncutsaniflush) started a google search and found this image



I liked it but it sparked a thought in me. If i have one celtic tattoo (a celtic knot arm band on my upper left arm with a claddagh), why not another? A celtic diamond, what a great idea!


These are the images i found


I like the sharp angles in this one



I like the elongated nature of this one.. and how it seems to have 4 separate sections that connect



I like the slightly irregualr nature of this one



And finally i like the geometric nature of this one (actually, these ones)




I am considering getting this on my upper back, by my neck. I have a thing about balance and i have the arm band on my upper left arm, and i have another tattoo on my right ankle. So, although i like the idea of the tattoo being over my heart somewhere, i don't want it on my chest and on my back on the left side might be too much like i have a celtic section of my body.

Anyone have any opinions on placements or designs? While i am at it, anyone have any recommendations for a tattoo artist. I may have found someone, but i don't know much about her...

Thanks!!

Despite the Morrissey quote, i hardly feel dreary today. Looks like it might rain any second, but i love that feeling. I love the rain too.. in the summertime, i think it's grand to take a walk in the rain. Very refreshing.

We just finished lunch (an odd combo of toasted bagels and vegetarian breakfast sausages) just after finishing watching the Tour de France.

Congrats to Lance Armstrong for winning once again, his 7th win, on this, his last race before retirement. I was torn between wanting to see him break yet another record and win 7 times in a row, and wanting to see the excitment on an upset and see an underdog pass him to the finish. Yet, i am oddly proud of Lance Armstrong for what he has accomplished. He beat cancer, and as someone who has done the same (although i will admit, not in the same places!!), i can say the process is exhausting and painful. Somehow, i think having endured the pain and discomfort of cancer and its treatments has made him a stronger person, better able to endure the pain and discomfort of sitting on a bike and racing all those hundreds of kilometers. I imagine it is as though he said "this ain't nuthin'" in comparison to cancer treatments. I think comentary on the race parallels my thoughts... i heard someone saying that surviving cancer changed him and created an even more enduring personality. I applaud him in his victory and wish him well in his future. Congrats and good luck, Lance!

Today is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary... i am surprised they lasted this long, to be honest. I love them both dearly, but i do not understand why they are still married to each other. Oh, i know why they got married... that's what guys did back then when they got their girlfriends knocked up. My older brother barely heard the end of that from my dad when he was younger -- all the things my dad did not become were due to my mom being preggers with him. Anyhoo, i digress....

I called today to wish them a happy anniversary and spoke with my father. Not something he does usually. He's not a phone person. Mom wasn't home. What was she doing? Exciting stuff. Going to the laudromat to wash their big king sized bedpread that doesn't fit in her washer (i say hers 'cause my dad wouldn't know how to use it). Such a way to celebrate, eh? But i heard that last night they opned up one of the bottles of Biltmore Estates Reserve wine we got them for xmas and my dad reported they are going out to dinner. To the Keg... *shudder*

We, (e:uncutsaniflush) and i that is, decided to go for a walk at the Tifft Nature Preserve When we lived in Knoxville, we used to go to a place call Ijams regularly. (e:uncutsaniflush) would drag this city girl off her lazy behind to go out where the bugs and bees (i am SOO scare of bees and things that sting!!) were ready to pounce and face the elements. We had a nice walk today. My lazy behind is grateful that Tifft is far less hilly than Ijams is. It was a beautiful morning.. and we saw a lot of frogs. We didn't bring our camera, or we might have pictures to share. We heard a lot of frogs, too. Or what we think are frogs. In the ponds, there were some creatures making a strange little noise. Sounded like a flat guitar string being plucked. Anyone know what creature makes this sound?

After that, we decided to head over to Elmwood. We had decided on what we think would be an ideal gift for a friend of ours (she reads this or else i would tell ya'll what we bought!!) and then decided to go for lunch.

At first, we thought we would go to Louie's. Then, we got distracted by the latest incarnation of Vietnamese restaurant that is on the west side of the street between Hodge and Utica... oh, darn my brain... (e:uncutsaniflush) would remember the name of the place but i forget. We ate there and i had a really yummie tofu dish.... marinated and fried with lemongrass and some other spicy salty flavours. We had some veggie summer rools too that were good. (e:uncutsaniflush) had a noodle soup with beef and meatballs (that he said tasted sorta like sausage) that he really enjoyed too. It was my first time eating and a Vietnamese place... i have eaten at Thai/Vietnamese places before, however. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now, i think i am going to continue to work on my desk -- getting everything in it and organized. Thanks to (e:Paul) and (e:Boxerboi) for the complments on my dream desk. I will take and publish pics once it is all full of it's stuff.

Speaking of papers, we got the papers for the house today. The deed and the search... both are interesting reading, particularly the latter. If one can manage to wade through all the legalese, it's interesting to find out who owned what bits of this land and the over a hundred year old house before we did...

Today, (e:uncutsaniflush) and i went to see the film March of the Penguins and we both enjoyed it. I highly recommend it. I'm such a big kid, and i ended up practiclly bouncing around in my seat when good things happened to these wonderful creqatures. I happen to be a sucker for anything having to do with animals, and i found myself crying a few times in the theatre... those penguins have a rough go of things.

But thinking of these poor penguins souls not being able to eat and having to huddle in a group to keep from freezing to death makes me not want to complain about things in my life that get me down. Talk about perspective...

I have a great life. I have a beautiful, wonderful, loving, supportive husband who is my best friend, therapist and lover. I couldn't ask for a better spouse. I live in a beautiful house with him, but i would live anywhere with hiim. I owhn beautiful things my husband encourages me to buy, sometimes even buys for me... How could i go wrong with a husband that wants me to go shopping?

I would like to wish (e:Paul), (e:Matthew) and (e:Terry) much luck in obtaining financing to purchasing the mini mansion!! [inlink]matthew,594[/inlink] [inlink]paul,3550[/inlink]

This mini mansion (e:uncusaniflush) and i own is my first time being a homeowner (i know it's supposed to count that i married him when he owned a house and because we married in Tennessee, i was automaticly 1/2 owner of the house we lived in, but it's not the same as picking one out with him!), and i can say that it feels really great to not have to pay rent!!!

And if you guys get the house we can all say that we used to live on Linwood and moved to the West Side... :O)

Yay! It arrived. Finally. And it is beautiful. Everything i dreamed of. As (e:uncutsaniflush) mentioned a while ago [inlink]uncutsaniflush,66[/inlink] i have always wanted to have my very own rolltop desk. And not just any old rolltop desk, but a writing desk. And not in the typical honey/golden oak colours... I guess you could say i like things that are traditional, but with a twist?

I got a call last week saying that my desk was in and when did i want it? Well, how about in 5 minutes? No? OK, when can someone bring it? Next Tuesay? OK. I was told someone would call me on Monday to arrange a more specific time. I didn't get the call and i must say, i was a bit skeptical. But i was patient. I called and they apologized, not knowing why someone didn't call me. I was told someone would be here to bring my desk between 10.30 and 11.30 am.

This morning, (e:uncutsaniflush) and i made bets on when it would arrive. I said 12.30 and he said 11.45. Would you believe they were here by 10.45! Within the time they said? Wow, eh?

So, i am happy to have my desk. The desk i always wanted. We bought it for me sight unseen, from a page in a catalog and an online picture, and it is just as i hoped it would be. Even better. I'm looking forward to filling it with papers and files and stationery. Who wants to be the first to get a snail mail letter from me written on my new desk?

Here it is. :O)