I'm the boss of me

Hey people. Wooooooooo Hooooooooooo! Is all I can say this morning. For the first time in months I slept in this morning-- until almost nine!-- and don't have a big deadline looming over my head. It's gorgeous out. Thank you universe! I'm going to clean and do laundry today, which normally I'd complain about big time, but it will actually feel good to get things a little more under control around here. I'll just blast the tunes and go with it. Later Trusty Pam is ditching out early so we can hit the trail.

Speaking of-- I'm giving Pam a point for this...

She figured out the first rule of riding berms- don't ride off the top of them. This is the gnarliest bruise I've ever seen on a mammal- or anything really. She got dirt on her helmet too but was luckily okay.

Remember when this--

Turned into this? --

Back then the mere thought of falling off my bike, like, onto the ground was totally horrifying. I remember asking Cooltrailbossrich about injuries once, before I got a bike, and he was like, "Yeah, I usually break a bone a year," then listed a bunch of his former wounds-- "collar bone a bunch of times, once my whole leg fell off, decapitated once, etc etc" (okay, that might be exaggerated a little, but I was like-- gasp!)

My road bike feels lots taller and I still don't like the idea of falling off either bike, but having disembarked a bunch of times now... I don't know. It's weird. One second you're whizzing along, the next you're on the ground-- boom. Then half a second later you're scrambling back up and possibly grabbing your knee or girlnads or whatever hurts but within seconds you're going, "No, I'm okay," then you're back up and riding again and usually it really is no big deal.

I'm always trying to convince people to try this (mountain biking), but the risk is a major deterrent. Last week when I went in to have my knee checked-out Young Doctor Handsome was rather appalled at my skinned-up, bruised knee. He goes, "This is a pretty bad looking injury." I was like, "Really? This is kind of nothing. I'm just here to see if it will mess anything up if I go ride in a couple hours." He looked at me weird. I just grinned and secretly thought he was probably kind of a wuss.

He said he'd bought a mountain bike from his friend but he's been afraid to go ride it because of the injury potential. It's hard to explain to people who haven't done it. Falling comes with the territory sure, but if you're careful you can minimize the risk. Usually it's no big deal, kind of like when you fell down doing stuff when you were a kid. Fear of falling is worse than the actual spill.

Anyway-- Thanks universe, for giving me another great week of riding weather. I'm considering trying it in the snow this winter, on only the super easy part. We'll see.

As for the rest of the week-- riding and spending time with family and friends I've blown-off for months will be the mode. Really psyched!!

Is there anything you do that you love, and is hard to explain to those around you?