Octvember

Hey people. Canada began "eh" bombing us last week with frigid air masses. It SNOWED! The leaves haven't even all turned colors yet!

Whole stems launched themselves off our butternut trees in leafy mass suicides. It was surreal.

Everyone's acting like it's already winter around here. Tootie and Mike have reignited their annual "hot stuff" winter romance.

And I've busted out my winter uniform-- the Sue Heffner get-up. That's right-- The Love Robe and Uggs are back. (Nice laundry basket huh? Suzie Homemaker I'm not.) Dan still refuses to recognize this as a sexy outfit and tries to heat up the house enough when he's home that I get too hot and opt for less clothing. Clearly a win win for me. ;D

My awesome bird bracelet has been getting caught on my long sleeves, and hidden, so I decided to make it into a necklace for winter. I kind of seasonally change jewelry, so I ditched the mass of bike gears and beads I wore all summer and this will be my winter neck-wear.

Here's a better view. One advantage of making jewelry for shows once in a while-- you can rob your own store. I think it translated pretty well.

The trail has been taking its toll on me this week. I'm so rusty, the first time I went back out, I kept shifting up instead of down-- or however it works-- I'd shift into a harder gear by mistake right when I needed an easier one. One section that's always given me trouble-- I've yet to climb the rocky uphill curve-- I was determined to pwn.

I told myself-- "No matter how ugly it gets, just keep pedaling." Yeah, didn't exactly work that time. I tumbled off the side and backwards down the hill on the rocks. "Ow."

I rode 4 days this week, the third was awesome, fairly zoomy feeling despite some mistakes. Sun I went out alone and stunk the place up big time. Even the scary, rooty descent I conquered a while back tried to eat me.

You know when people say, "I'm going to do so and so or die trying."? I've decide that'll be me. I can really stink at things I want to do at times, but I'm willing to suck, and suck, and suck at something in order to improve. That's how it is with riding, writing, art, almost anything I can think of. You have to risk failure, fail, and learn in order to progress. At least I do.

Sunday I learned it's possible to go over the bars and miraculously not get hurt, even a little, by kind of doing a flip and forming a ball. This was not a ninja-like display of skill, but purely accidental. Good to know though, and I'd never have figured it out if I hadn't screwed-up and gotten tossed into the woods. So much WAY better than the flying face plant.

I got in a big conversation with someone not too long ago about fear of failure. They actually said they'd rather not try things they were worried they couldn't do, because it allowed them to maintain their self-esteem. I can't imagine living that way. I'll always be rewriting novels, starting new ones, trying to get better at the activities I enjoy, -- no matter how crappy I may be at them-- getting better at the art (be it opening-up creatively or mastering my tech skills more)-- and trying new things.

We're all going to die anyway, no matter what. You might as well die trying.