Thursday, September 19, 2013

More Biking and a bit of Fiber



6:30 am
                Lovely Thursday. I will not go into work today, though I do have plenty of work to do. I must get a very solid start on grading the first assignment that the students handed in this week. Besides that, I would like to do some cooking (roast some eggplants, start some sourdough bread, maybe make more crackers). And I need to see about driving up to the new fiber crafty store to get a linen hand towel woven by a friend to give another friend for her wedding. I would have preferred buying it directly from the friend, but she had none, having put them all at the store. I decided also to make a hot pad which I knit last night from some of the dark/variegated colored wool. It looks very nice right now, I will cross my fingers that the felting goes well. I think there is enough yarn to also make a few smaller coasters to go with it.
                The wedding is Sunday and I am a bit nervous about it. I was feeling very anxious bc I had set aside Sunday, but the invite referred to an event Saturday evening and I wasn’t sure if my friend would  be expecting us for that, also. I finally, yesterday, emailed to let her know and she responded right away and didn’t sound at all annoyed, so that is good. Now I just have to figure out WHAT TO WEAR! Oh dear, not as if I have lots of dressy things to choose from, and I am figuring it could be quite chilly, being right on the coast.
                Other very nerve-wracking event coming up: the big ride on Saturday. I am extremely nervous about that. I have never biked 70 plus miles in my life, and the hills on this are pretty extreme. Last weekend we biked up to Conway and so encountered some major hills. We did ok. It ended up being 50 miles and I was pretty beat. One of the things I am quite concerned about is the cold. Or rather the cold and heat. I am not sure what I am going to wear and how to adjust things as the temperature changes. On the ride last weekend I was ok on the hills, but froze on all the big downhills. It was very uncomfortable. Tues I biked into work and went over the Notch from the north – a first for me. I was very proud of myself. I brought some warm stuff, including long pants, a fleece and a windbreaker. At the bottom of the hill I took off the pants and fleece. It was fine. At the top I put the windbreaker on and that helped with the chilly downhill. Would have helped even more if I had zipped it… so I guess I will go with something like that. I will probably not do any riding today, I did not ride yesterday. Yesterday I instead ran at the gym. I even managed to do it before lecture which was a tad tight, but worked out. Tomorrow I think I will bike in again. Oh brother. Part of me will be very happy not to feel like I must be “training” which is how I’ve been feeling for several weeks. We still have the big ride up through CT in October, but that will be on our own time and only 40-50 miles per day. And pretty flat as far as I can tell. Though probably chilly. But again, on our own time so we can start when things warm up. On Saturday I hope to start really early to give myself more time, which will mean getting to Look Park about 6:30 – 7 when it will be dark and cold.
                Enough of all that. Another fiber project has been to knit a Calorimetry (from Knitty) headband out of the purple lichen-dyed fiber sandwich stuff. I spun one ounce fairly thick and plied it with thread to help hold the bits in place. It is looking very nice, though I have nearly run out, so last night I spun another ounce. It is now drying so I will add that in. after that I will have 2 more ounces of that stuff, which I think I will spin up the same way.
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