I consider this a success but I don't know what I will do in the future when it comes to longer rides especially when I take them in the hot weather? I may have to figure out a way to refill along the way or something. I'm honestly not sure if this will be an option because I am not one to drink "park water" or something like that so I may have to talk to others that ride and find out what they do.
I suppose I could simply throw another bottle of water in one of the 3 or 4 pockets on the back of my jersey but that might be annoying as hell. If it was a smaller water bottle so it would be more comfortable it would not be worth the hassle of carrying it. I do not have any more spots to add additional bottle cages on the frame so there must be a cage that straps onto the top crossbar or something like that. I could always wear a smaller Camelbak but I would rather not have something strapped on my back. It's already a pain when mountain biking and wearing a 10+ pound pack. I guess I will have to research this some - more on it later I guess.
Chipotle's
Once home from yesterday's ride I was thirsty as ever. I chugged a 16 ounce bottle of water in the blink of an eye, then thought, "I hope that is not a bad thing to do and now it will come back up!". Thankfully it stayed down so I reached for more, drinking it slowly this time though.
Within 30-45 minutes the hunger pangs started thumping and when I asked Cicely if she was hungry she simply replied with "I am starting to shake I am so hungry". Ah, poor girl, we gotta get some food in her - and me!
We have been wanting to go to the new Chipotle restaurant that opened up in Sparks but have been patiently waiting for the "new store hype" to die down. Because it was a Monday and past any of the rush hour periods we decided that would be the place we would have lunch/dinner at.
We loaded Zoey up in her car seat, something that gets her "very excited" for some reason and headed out the door. On the way there we were making "plan B" suggestions to one another in case Chipolte's was packed. We showed up about 15 minutes later and the parking lot was pretty much empty - cool!
Headed in and went up to the assembly area and started ordering our food. I had a naked burrito (burrito without the 300 calorie soft shell - instead in a bowl) as well as some chips and roasted corn salsa to munch on. Their food is super high calorie by the way. I went extremely modest on my toppings and meat choice and my entire meal was still 1500 calories or so. Imagine if I had it on a tortilla shell, drank a big ass cola with it and so on. Would have equaled a full days calories, fat, sodium and so on and then some! That is for the average person too, not someone like me who tries to hover around 1800 calories a day, except when riding I will replenish more often through eating healthy snacks and related.
Cicely had 3 hard shell tacos and shared my chips and salsa with me. The 3 taco meal is right around the 800 calorie mark based on what I would put on them. Hers would be slightly higher because of the guacamole she added.
Zoey on the other hand did not have anything to eat because she had a bottle right before we left. Plus she is still without pearly whites for chewing and a digestive system that could handle the food. She was a good girl as she always is and just sat there calmly and quietly watching us eat and playing peek-a-boo with us on occasion.
Digestion
Speaking of digestion, I think that may be the last visit to Chipotle for me. It did not sit very well with me and my belly. It pretty much bloated me up almost instantly after leaving and then played havoc on my stomach all day today. Hopefully that is coming to an end soon, the last thing I want to do on a day off is not feel well.
The food did not bother Cicely at all but I am not surprised really. She has a stainless steel stomach for the most part so it takes a lot to mess her up. I hope that Zoey takes after her with regards to that, I don't want her dealing with stomach problems and weight her entire life like me. Cicely can eat pretty much anything and everything and it does not have any affect. All of her vitals and blood work are perfect as well. Me on the other hand - I walk down the junk food isle at the store and exit it with an extra pound of weight that I need to work off.
Yard Work & Rain
So I started cleaning up the yard a little bit around 11 today. There are a few things I have been wanting to take care of the past month or so. Basically edging the entire backyard, around all of the trees and the entire perimeter of the yard between the mow-strip concrete work and the grass.
Of course doing so let me to doing every inch of the yard, then noticing that the bushes that were just trimmed back professionally were already starting to outgrow the nice shape they were cut into. So I figured what the heck, I will go ahead and trim them up as well. This is actually a pretty big project and I seem to forget that each and every time I go down this path of "just a quick trim". There is no such thing as that. Once done with the trimming its clean up time, which more times than not is 2 times or more longer than the actual trimming and shaping.
Finally done, it was time to do the one thing that I actually went out back to do today - cut the lawn. First things first though, I was sweating like crazy all day and drinking water as often as possible but it was still not enough it seemed. So I decided to have some lunch (Cicely went and grabbed some for us) and chill out for a half an hour or so.
Once done eating I headed back out and noticed that it was much cloudier than it had been earlier in the day. Mostly it was because of the overcast but the sky was looking much darker and that feeling of a thunderstorm was in the air as well.
As luck would have it (or not at all in this case) it started sprinkling rain about 15 minutes or so after I got outside and started mowing. My new ECO lawn mower is awesome but it's not a very good idea to run it in the water or rain. I have been told that you should never get them wet but I have - today as a matter of fact ha ha. Only a little bit but the rain was staring to come down harder and off in the distance I could see a curtain of rain heading my direction.
By the time it started getting windy, which meant that the rain was nearly upon us, I was done with mowing, done with blowing the yard, edging, weed whacking, hedge trimming and everything in between. Heck I even adjusted some sprinklers that have been delivering the water poorly as far as even distribution is concerned. I was just getting ready to fold up the lawn mower and the big rain drops started falling and more and more of them at once. By the time I was able to grab all of the tools I had drug out through the day and get them put away I was drenched as though I had been running through the sprinklers - honestly I was not, not this time anyway.
During all of this, Cicely and Zoey were at the grocery store, well towards the end of it actually. About the time I was done and coming back inside to shower and hang out for a little while on the couch they were back. Zoey was ready for a bottle and a nap and Cicely was diving into the cabinets and grocery bags. Putting things away as well as tossing out stuff that we somehow managed to not eat in time and was now expired.
All-in-all it took me just over 5 hours to complete all of the work out back. It's a really long day when I have to do all of this. The nice part is that now that it is done I should not have to worry about it again until next spring more than likely. Maybe a slight chance of the shrubs and bushes needing a trim in the fall but not always so I will keep my eye on that. I hope not, it's one of those thing that I manage to try and put off until the very last minute.
I am super happy to have all of this done and the yard looks really good. I do still need / want to get out there and bury some of the drip irrigation line that is popping back up from the rock. That too is one of those pain in the ass things that I will end up putting off for far too long. Maybe now that I have written it in here it will make me more accountable for doing it.
Dry Out
Alright, it's time again to call this daily entry done. My clothes are still drying from the rain today and sprinklers shooting me with water as I adjusted each of them to spray just right and disperse the water equally on the lawn.
. . . . Time to go play with kiddo!
Photo: Visitor at the game studio. Should be there for a couple weeks - pretty cool.
Yard Work & Rain
So I started cleaning up the yard a little bit around 11 today. There are a few things I have been wanting to take care of the past month or so. Basically edging the entire backyard, around all of the trees and the entire perimeter of the yard between the mow-strip concrete work and the grass.
Of course doing so let me to doing every inch of the yard, then noticing that the bushes that were just trimmed back professionally were already starting to outgrow the nice shape they were cut into. So I figured what the heck, I will go ahead and trim them up as well. This is actually a pretty big project and I seem to forget that each and every time I go down this path of "just a quick trim". There is no such thing as that. Once done with the trimming its clean up time, which more times than not is 2 times or more longer than the actual trimming and shaping.
Finally done, it was time to do the one thing that I actually went out back to do today - cut the lawn. First things first though, I was sweating like crazy all day and drinking water as often as possible but it was still not enough it seemed. So I decided to have some lunch (Cicely went and grabbed some for us) and chill out for a half an hour or so.
Once done eating I headed back out and noticed that it was much cloudier than it had been earlier in the day. Mostly it was because of the overcast but the sky was looking much darker and that feeling of a thunderstorm was in the air as well.
As luck would have it (or not at all in this case) it started sprinkling rain about 15 minutes or so after I got outside and started mowing. My new ECO lawn mower is awesome but it's not a very good idea to run it in the water or rain. I have been told that you should never get them wet but I have - today as a matter of fact ha ha. Only a little bit but the rain was staring to come down harder and off in the distance I could see a curtain of rain heading my direction.
By the time it started getting windy, which meant that the rain was nearly upon us, I was done with mowing, done with blowing the yard, edging, weed whacking, hedge trimming and everything in between. Heck I even adjusted some sprinklers that have been delivering the water poorly as far as even distribution is concerned. I was just getting ready to fold up the lawn mower and the big rain drops started falling and more and more of them at once. By the time I was able to grab all of the tools I had drug out through the day and get them put away I was drenched as though I had been running through the sprinklers - honestly I was not, not this time anyway.
During all of this, Cicely and Zoey were at the grocery store, well towards the end of it actually. About the time I was done and coming back inside to shower and hang out for a little while on the couch they were back. Zoey was ready for a bottle and a nap and Cicely was diving into the cabinets and grocery bags. Putting things away as well as tossing out stuff that we somehow managed to not eat in time and was now expired.
All-in-all it took me just over 5 hours to complete all of the work out back. It's a really long day when I have to do all of this. The nice part is that now that it is done I should not have to worry about it again until next spring more than likely. Maybe a slight chance of the shrubs and bushes needing a trim in the fall but not always so I will keep my eye on that. I hope not, it's one of those thing that I manage to try and put off until the very last minute.
I am super happy to have all of this done and the yard looks really good. I do still need / want to get out there and bury some of the drip irrigation line that is popping back up from the rock. That too is one of those pain in the ass things that I will end up putting off for far too long. Maybe now that I have written it in here it will make me more accountable for doing it.
Dry Out
Alright, it's time again to call this daily entry done. My clothes are still drying from the rain today and sprinklers shooting me with water as I adjusted each of them to spray just right and disperse the water equally on the lawn.
. . . . Time to go play with kiddo!
Photo: Visitor at the game studio. Should be there for a couple weeks - pretty cool.
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