Awesome Spin With Zoey

Last night after work we picked up Zoey from her first full day in the Playful Ponies class, both of us were very curious as to how she did all day, leading up to us walking into the classroom. Thankfully the minute she saw us she did her usual squeak of excitement and ran over to greet us both.

Prior to that we were watching her through the window of the classroom door, as we often do, while she was being a goofball laying on her back and playing with her friends. It's funny to watch how she plays differently with different people based on gender or age more-so. For example; with me at home she will play much rougher and goofy, rolling around on the ground and that sort of thing.

When she is playing with Cicely its more emotional, meaning that she is more into tickling and that sort of thing and instead of getting Cicely back by tickling her, she may get annoyed at some point if she is 'losing' and then cry. With me, just will just dish it back if we are wrestling around. No matter the situation, she is so cute and her laughter filling the room is awesome!

Cycling Preparation

Because it's a weeknight I was not planning to take the road bike out for a spin. Possibly get on the trainer for a little while if I could manage to build up the energy to do so. I asked Cicely if she wanted to go for a ride, she did not.

This meant that Zoey and I would have to go by ourselves if we were to go. While this is fine, I like the security of both of us out there when we ride and its nice to have another set of eyes on the road, sidewalk and the trailer she rides in 'just in case'.

I sucked it up and asked Zoey if she wanted to go for a bike ride and without any hesitation she headed toward the garage to wait for me to open the door leading out so she could go get in the trailer, or wait for me to help her get into it anyway.

I had to stop her before hand and she was not too happy about that. I tried to explain that she could not go for a ride with only a diaper and pink socks on. We needed to get some pants and a shirt on her then shoes before we could go.

She let us, well Cicely, change her outfit and get her ready to go then she was back at the door waiting to go out into the garage and then into the trailer to be buckled in her seat. Cicely helped me with this while I gather all the other things we needed for the ride.

My helmet, the Garmin, something for Zoey to drink and something for me. We were now all set to go, I opened up the garage door and backed us out, shut the door and we were on our way!

Cycling Journey

So we were finally out the door and on our way. Zoey was already making sounds in the trailer behind me. Oh's and ah's as we went past things or she saw birds fly by, bunnies run across the streets or the paths we were going down. When the occasional airplane would fly overhead she would wave and say "bye-bye" as she always does, I think they do that at daycare because planes are flying over all day long, we never taught her to do that.

Anyway, we were on our way and having a great time already, only a mile and a half into the ride. I was not sure where I wanted us to go today so I just rode. The next thing I knew we were headed up this street that I often go up on my road bike and it kicks my butt big time.

I've only taken Zoey and Cicely up it once and we stopped at the first road you can turn down because it was just too much for Cicely which is understandable, she does not cycle as much as me and has a beach cruiser bike, not a bike made for speed or handling.

Up the hill I went, towing Zoey behind as she sung, practiced words and sounds and I tired to talk to her as well while I was pedaling to help her work on her newest words. Also, to help get my mind off the idea that I was not only going up a hill that is difficult and that took me a while to get up on my own, I was now doing it pulling a trailer with a toddler in it.

Happy, okay ecstatic to say that we made it all the way up the hill, then went beyond that point and went even further up, nearly to the area I go, turning around just short of the last hill I climb. The last section is really short, maybe 1/8th of a mile if that although its an 11% grade so I did not really want to take the chance of having issues going up it with Zoey in tow.

At the top I turned us around and pulled the bike over for a second. Hopped off of mine and put the kickstand down. Went back to check on her and the trailer because we had a loose wheel the last time we went out so I did not want that to happen if we were going fast downhill. Everything looked great so I reached in and grabbed her drink bottle that she must have dropped, as she often does, handed it to her and made sure she was getting some out of it.

For me, it was back on the bike and our journey for the night. We went down part of the hill I just climbed up, turning to go down roads that have multi-use paths to help keep her off the street. It's dangerous enough for me in the bike lane when I cycle, much less me with her behind.

We had a lot of fun, she stayed awake the entire ride too which is unusual for her. Normally she falls asleep about 3/4 the way in. In the end we only covered a hair over 10.05 miles, though this was more than enough for her and for me, it was also enough because I decided to do more climbing than I normally would have done pulling her and the trailer. I'm really glad that I did it and am happy that her and I decided to go and leave Cizzle at home to do things she needed or wanted to.

Apple Watch

So last night when I took my Apple Watch off I noticed some gunk under it, the area that rests against my wrist all day. I attempted to get it off with my fingernail, it would not budge. I dampened the corner of a towel just a little and still, no luck, well until it did come off as a chunk of the plastic that the area is made of, oh shxt, what the hell?!?

Upon closer inspection with a magnifying loop I noticed that there is a small crack as well along this edge. No idea how this could have happened. The watch is either on my wrist, the charger or sitting on a mat on the table where it's out of reach from kiddo and something that Cicely would not mess with. To crack it in this area would take some real thought I would think, somehow mine has managed to crack.

No idea if Apple will stand behind this problem and if they do, how long it will take for me to get a new one or get mine fixed. The other issue is that again, its not something I could have easily done and have no idea how or when it happened which is almost worse.

I would rather know so I don't do it again. Problem is, I have not done anything out of the normal and even if I plan to do work outside I take it off 'just in case' which honestly kind of sucks once you are use to having a watch on your wrist.

More on this later more than likely. If I am able to get my replacement or not I will try to update the blog to reflect it. I only have a few entries left before I am retiring doing them daily. Does not mean that I wont ever do them again, maybe weekly or something, that would cut them down from 365 a year to only 52 or so per year which is much more manageable. We will see.

That's It Really

So that is where I will end this for today. I attended a seminar that was an hour long teaching me more about estate planning, wills, trusts, laws, probate and all sorts of other things about, well, dying basically and having control over what happens once I'm gone. It's a complex topic and unless your finances and related are basic the complexity changes along with them.

Anyway, off to afternoon meetings. I simply wanted to take a minute and wrap up this final paragraph beforehand because I had an extra eight minutes to burn, not really worth using to start something that I would only forget where I was at by the time I get back to it. Until tomorrow, hopefully your week is going as planned or at least fair!

Photo: Not sure if I ever posted a photo of our bike trailer? We picked it up for next to nothing from a guy at work. Was not too sure about it initially because there was a particular one I had my eye on. I'm happy to say this one has worked out perfectly and saved me at least $400.