Love Your Family

Happy New Year's Mom & Dad

I'm wishing my parents a Happy New Year's for 2010. I know some days are hard and you don't always feel 100%, but I'm so glad you have each other. Keep smiling.....we all love you.

Another Good Spin

Normal work day today. Ran over to the fitness center to teach spin class by 5:15 pm. I had a great group of participants tonight. Two new people that had military backgrounds in the Air Force....they weren't afraid to work hard tonight.

Bumped up my music tonight and went with songs with a bpm @ 140-145. Wow, that really worked. Must have been that techno music!!!! Legs were spinning and chit chat was minimal.

Actually felt better tonight, not as winded.

Monday Night Spin

I kind of felt like this guy....out of breath on the hill climb!

Tonight was my spin class. Only a couple people showed up. What happened to all the people that felt the guilt from eating too many Christmas treats? It was just as well. Since I didn't teach class last week, my muscles felt really stiff and a little out of breath tonight.....not my best class I must say.

Good news: the snow on the lake is minimal and crusty, so it looks like snow riding will not be as bad as I thought. I'm planning on getting my bike out again on New Year's day for a little "studded" riding! Bike man promised to switch my pedals and put his flat pedals on my bike. His flat pedals have small teeth that will help grip my shoes/winter boots. I decided I didn't want to use my clipless pedals for lake riding. I just want warm feet & toes.

Road To Home

Every vacation has to end. We were on our way home today. Bike man wanted to take the Mississippi River route again. It was my last time to be in awe of the snow covered bluffs. Part of the route we drove today is actually our bike route when we ride south during the summer months. Of course everything looks different with the accent of snow!!!

Took a few moments to stop and take a picture of the Eagles sitting on the floating ice chunks. The Mississippi River is home to lots of Bald Eagles.....what a beautiful sight. I wish all my readers could experience what we saw today.

On the road to home. Once we turn north, we left the river and bluffs behind. Guess tomorrow is a new work week.

Where the Wisconsin River Meets the Mississippi River

Everywhere you look there are wild turkeys in the farm fields....do you see them on the side of the hill?

We took off this morning for a short rode trip to Prairie Du Chien.....

where the Wisconsin River meets up with the Mississippi River.

Who said Wisconsin doesn't have mountains! Well, actually these are the bluffs that follow the Wisconsin River. The bluff are much more significant as you get closer to the Mississippi River. Every time I come home to visit, I tell myself that I really miss the hills and bluffs. They really are beautiful.

The main purpose of our rode trip today was to visit Cabela's.....you know, every man's dream store! Found myself a nice pair of Gortex snow pants (bibs), which I can use for snow biking and ice fishing. Wow, guess we women can enjoy the MAN'S store too! Cabela's is a very interesting place to visit, but wouldn't find myself shopping there too often. It struck me as the "rich man's" outdoor store. The prices there are really top-end...... no after Christmas sales at that store, geez.

Enjoyed the scenery and weather today. A beautiful 21 degrees, partly sunny with a few snow showers here and there.

Dedicated To My Blog Readers

Merry Christmas Readers!

I just want to pass along a Merry Christmas greeting to all the bloggers (and others) out there that stop by and read this blog. I just want to say that I appreciate all your comments and I also appreciate the "quiet" ones that just like to visit daily and read about life on Tainter Lake.

I'm looking forward to 2010 filled with new projects, our kids relocating, more biking challenges, and many more miles in new places.

Enjoy your day.

Lisa

Snowy Ride South

Took off for grandma & grandpa's (my parents) house early this morning. Enjoyed our snowy ride along the Mississippi River.

River towns are so quaint. This down town street literally heads right to the mighty Mississippi!

We finally arrived, yeah! Enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve dinner together. Being with the one's you love is the best part of the holidays.

What Did I Give the Bike Man For Christmas?

Merry Christmas Bike Man

Christmas came early in August for bike man. After contemplating a big purchase at Riverbrook Cycle in Seeley Wisconsin, I agreed this would be a nice Christmas present for my bike man. We bought him a Gary Fisher Super Fly, 29er (29 inch tire). Since August bike man only rode about 50 miles on this new bike, so he is looking forward to spring/summer to add more miles. His new bike really is handsome.

In the mean time, bike man continued to ride his old Novara this fall and also gave our son his Schwin HomeGrown bike. The Homegrown has lots of miles on it, plus that was the racing bike he used during our WORS racing days in the late 90's. I think we are down to five bike now....not counting 3 bikes that the son rides and two bikes our daughter now rides. Wow, we finally have some room to store.....more bikes!!!!!!

My night is ending well. Both kids are now home, safe & sound. I'm a happy mom.....I can now sleep well tonight.

It's Ok To Dream.....Just a Little

At this time of the year I love to sit back and plan bike trips for the future. After looking through bike man's photos from his Great Divide trip, it just makes me want to hop on a bike and ride......ride somewhere green, fresh, warm, and breathtaking.

It's ok to dream a little. Right? I'm sure there are many places I will never get to ride bike, however, I can always have my plans in order. You know, just in case!

Maybe I should be thinking about more snow riding as a big major snow storm will be rolling in starting tomorrow night. Of course we will be going over the river and through the woods to grandma & grandpa's house. Sounds like a slippery ride and should be very interesting! Yikes.

Back in 2005........

My Bike Man

I've been going through pictures from 2005 and found many of the photographs bike man took on his Great Divide trail ride. That's him above riding somewhere in Alberta, Canada in the mountains (July 4, 2005).

His bike trip on the Great Divide trail lasted about five weeks during the summer until he aborted in Wyoming. That was such a good ride for him. His brother Larry also accompanied him and they rode about 1,350 miles, but didn't complete the whole ride like they had planned. I hope to ride a large part of the Great Divide ride trail with bike man in a couple of years from now.

No spin class tonight. My energy level just wasn't up to teaching class because of my head cold thing. Mark was nice enough to cover for me tonight. Should be more perky in a couple days!

Lake Ride

Thank you bike man for caring my bike down a flight of 50 steps to get to Tainter Lake. To my surprise as I headed out a couple hundred feet from our dock, the snow depth went from 2 inches to about 4 inches....my wheels bogged down and my quads said "no way Lis." I turned around and decided to ride along the shoreline instead. Since this is my first snow ride, I wanted to acclimated myself to less snow verses more snow.

I was able to ride a good distance along the shoreline, like maybe 50-75 ft out. Any further than that and the snow increased, mainly do to that blowing snow we had two weeks ago. I kept riding until I came to the first island...that was my turnaround point. Maybe next time I'll keep riding to the second island.

Eventually, I want to be able to ride around both islands and the bay west of us. Guess I'm counting on snowmobilers breaking a few trails to make it a little easier.

One concern however, I hit a spot of wet slush underneath the snow and ice....you can't see it. That's the one problem with lake ice. Sometimes the pressure of the ice will force water over the ice through cracks in the ice and you can't see it until you walk or ride over it.

I'm playing it safe and not venturing too far out until we get some more really cold weather. I think the ice level on the lake is maybe 9 inches, but bike man found some areas with less ice due to the slush....very weird.

Don't worry Mommoo, I'm always careful.

I was only outside for about 1 1/2 hours, but I think the cold air was good for my head cold. My sinuses opened up like a floodgate! Oh Yeah.

Wrong Way

This poor Junco. He just flew the wrong way and ended up slamming into our sliding glass door that faces the lake. This actually happens quite often during the winter months, but every time it does happen, I feel really bad.

This little guy was actually just sitting there near our door. I could see movement in his body, but barely. As I watched the bird for five minutes, Annabelle was meowing and pawing at the window. In her mind, this creature meant playtime.

I slowly opened the door and approached the bird, which still wasn't moving much at this point. After a couple minutes I scooped the bird up in my hand and gently stroked it's head. The bird seemed to respond by opening up his eyes and looking around. I talked to the bird for a little while and it seemed to be perking up.

As you can see I couldn't help but snap a picture . Well, after about 45 minutes I checked on the bird and he was still just sitting there, eyes open wide. After turning my back for a minute, I looked back and the bird was gone.....he flew away. Just like that.

Birds are funny creatures. Sometimes a bird will hit the window and wham, it's instantly dead. Other times like today, it hits the window and just seems to be stunned for a while.....kind of like being knocked out.

I'm glad the outcome of this bird's ordeal was a good one. I love birds.

Frosted Beauty

Woke up to a foggy & frosty morning. How beautiful, but at the same time very unusual since the morning temperature was 8 degrees. I didn't realize we could have ice fog with single digits.

Every day seems to be very different and unique when it comes to our weather. In the last several weeks we've experienced seasonal temperatures, below zero temperatures, wind, snow, blowing snow and now ice fog.

Another day of complete rest for this tainter girl. My cat is in seventh heaven because I've been home two days in a row now. To my cat that means play time, as she follows me from room to room, arching her back at me, which in cat body language means......come on I dare you to chase me. Of course I have to add sound effects as I roar like a lion when I proceed to chase her. I know, it sounds funny hearing a grown woman telling you that she growls! But that's just me and my unusual sense of humor. The cat brings it out in me, I swear.

Essentials

The essentials to a head cold

Stayed home and just rested today. I'm basically taking Tylenol for the sore scratchy throat and body aches. Not much you can do for a stuffed-up head. Spent all afternoon just watching the Food Network. Whoo hoo. It's amazing what a person can learn by watching all those food guru's.

It seems I missed a nice day today outdoors. Temperatures reached the mid twenties, sunshine included.....darn.

Not Really Sure

My Santa Gnome.......he just greets everyone with a smile

It came on really fast.....scratchy throat, woozy head, sneezing, running nose, chills, and fatigue. Guess I'm coming down with something but not sure what. I decided to come straight home from work tonight, no spin workouts....nothing. I think this will just be a dress warm, tea drinking kind of week for me.

What do you do for yourself when you feel a cold/flu coming on?

All I Want For Christmas

Forget the Christmas presents, the chocolates, cookies, fruitcake, eggnog......all I want is a nice warm buttery morning bun!

I Spy An Orange Frosted Christmas Cookie

I decorated these cookies yesterday. Notice there are a few orange frosted cookies near the top of the photo. Well, thanks to our son, who felt we needed a few orange or camouflaged cookies. Who ever heard of orange frosted cookies at Christmas?

How about this nice orange camouflaged Santa Claus that the son is holding. I prefer the butter cookies frosted with white icing and then decorated with colored sprinkles. Maybe the guys should just leave the cookie decorating to me......Momma L!

Monday Night Spin Class Update:

Last year my spin classes were never really full....no alternative names on a waiting list. Well, currently I seem to have a new following of people. I looked at the sign up sheet over the next couple Monday's and was shocked to see a full sign up sheet with at least 3-4 people on the waiting list. Geez....what's going on? I'm guessing that people are now catching on to spinning class and really like it for it's great cardio workout. The more the merrier right?

The Studs Are On

Bike man was preparing today.....preparing his ice bike (and mine) for lake riding. This bike is perfect for knocking around so to speak. It's actually one of bike man's oldest bikes, but who cares......it's great for trail riding and ice riding.

The studded tires are now on.

Actually, these are brand new tires. Nokian Extreme....ice racing tires. I guess bike man just wanted good quality tires, not that he's really racing or anything. Well, maybe racing to the tip-up when the flag goes up......fish is on!

So this year, I'm getting the old studded tires on my Trek. Now I'm just hoping we don't get too much snow because once we get over 6 inches of snow on Tainter Lake, it's really hard to ride your bike in the deep snow. Since we don't have trails where we live, the frozen lake is the next best thing to riding your bike a frozen surface.

Now all I need is some free time to try ice riding!

Fueled By Sugar

You can't help but love children's programs, especially at this time of the year. Bike man and I drove over to Farmington/Hampton, MN this afternoon because his two grandsons were participating in their church school Christmas program. Ian is on the left in the burgundy stripped shirt (arms up high) and Quentin is on the left in the white & brown stripped shirt (arms not lifted high).

It was a great program, but.........

The parents, children and guests were invited to a dinner prepared by the church ladies, before the Christmas program.

After the dinner, which consisted of ham sandwiches, German potato salad, 2 jello salads, pistachio pudding salad, red cabbage and LOTS of Christmas cookies, let's just say ALL the kids were wired.

And I mean wired.....like pinging off the wall wired!

Ok, so now the kids are going to go upstairs in the church and sing there little hearts out. Yup, that's exactly what they did.

They were fueled by SUGAR.

Those children (29 in total) sang as loud as they could. You couldn't help but smile when you heard their singing voices.

Bike man's daughter, Traci, posed for a quick glamor shot before the program!

It was a good family day. The grandsons were excited we came to visit and we spent several hours watching the boys play and talking about their school activities.

This was also a major day for bike man's granddaughter, Alex (the boy's older sister.) Today was Alex's first official day working at a brand new McDonald's. We stopped by the McDonald's before leaving Minnesota tonight to see our granddaughter. I can't believe how grown up Alex is and now she's talking about attending UMD where our daughter is graduating from in two weeks.

The circle of life continues..........

Mexican Horchata

Sometimes my job takes me in the direction of Eau Claire, just like today. I needed to pick up a few special things (supplies etc.) that I cannot find in my small town where I work. Bike man rode along for the joy ride, so of course we had to make a special stop at Infinitea Teahouse.



I love Infinitea Teahouse!



After picking up a few needed tea supplies and Christmas gifts, I ordered a nice hot cup of Mexican Horchata......a combination rice milk, tea, sugar, cinnamon and other spices. I've never had this drink before until Infinitea owner's Drew and Jeff started making it for the holiday season. It's delicious.....trust me!



Teahouses are so unique with all the different varieties of tea to purchase. I also love the individual tea pots each customer receives when they order their tea in-house.



Tonight was music night at the teahouse. Too bad we couldn't stay to listen to the folksinger.



Tomorrow's another busy day.

Brrrrrrrrr Factor

And the day after the storm? It was down right cold. I think we had a high of 5 degrees this afternoon. The sun was shinning all day, so at least that helped ease the cold snap.

I'm not sure why I did this, but when I had to run errands outside today, I caught myself running.

I ran to the Post Office....... I ran to my car when I went to deliver library books to an elderly person.

Then I ran back to my car again when I had to run another errand on my dinner break tonight. I asked myself......why are you running tainter girl???

I think it's just an early winter thing. As soon as I get acclimated to the cold temperatures, then I will slow down and stop running.

Does anyone else run or walk fast when it's cold outside?

Blizzard Conditions Today

This is what we woke up to this morning. Imagine 35-40 mph winds blowing, after receiving almost a foot of snow last night.

Remember the wood we were splitting and stacking three days ago? Where did the wood go?

Our Kiwi bush on the lake side of the house.

Beautiful snow swirls are every where you look.

Annabelle is very lucky to be a house cat, however, she still is curious about the white stuff.

This is what happens when your house is hammered with an Arctic cold wind. The prevailing winds on Tainter Lake always come out of the Northwest.

On a side note:
I'm so glad I could stay home from work today. I made the decision to close my public library because of the blizzard warning today. It truly is dangerous to be outside today. Wind chills are expected to be minus 20 below zero by later this afternoon as the air temperature continues to plummet.

My Little Secret is Revealed

Even in the mists of a snow storm, I filled in for Mark's spinning class tonight. I did have people show up for class. Wow, that was amazing despite the blowing snow.

I arrived home tonight really hungry, so I decided it would be Enchilada night. I took a picture of my favorite enchilada sauce that I prefer to use when making enchiladas. Hatch is the best.....well, in my book that is. The sauce is rich, thick and flavorful. I highly recommend using the Hatch brand. It's hard to find, but you might find it at a food co-op or Mexican market.

Someday I hope to visit Hatch, New Mexico during their green chili festival.

My Chicken Enchiladas turned out really tasty, but that might just be because I ran out of regular sharp cheddar cheese, so I secretly used some of the five-year old cheddar cheese that bike man bought weeks ago. Oops, my secret is out!

I used just a little, especially since it was $8.99/lb.

All I can say is, it's like the difference between using butter or margarine. We all know butter is superior right? Well, aged cheddar is truly a little piece of heaven.

Monday Night Spin

Had a full class tonight, which included two high school students. I love to watch the expression or body language of the teenagers. The one boy hopped on the spin bike with his extra large sweatshirt. In my head I'm saying to myself ....."Lis, just watch the young guy cuz shortly he'll be hurting and all sweaty." Yup, after the second song he was removing his sweatshirt. Ha! Never under-estimate a middle-age woman instructor. I wonder if anyone saw my little tiny smile!

Hey, Hey, Hey......it's happening people. Tainter Lake is finally freezing over. The ice depth must be around 3 inches. Enough ice for our son to drill a few holes for fishing. I'm so glad I was at work today because Chris came out to our house late this afternoon and ventured out about 50 feet from shore to drill his holes (sorry Grandma Shirley, you better stop reading right here!!!). Bike man assured me he was very careful checking the ice level every 10-20 feet before drilling.

I was ok with that until bike man told me Chris had to try a little ice skating.....geez! I guess he stayed close to our shoreline while skating, so he said. Actually, the lake is perfect for skating. Tomorrow will change due to a major snow storm heading this way. It's hard to say how much snow we'll get, but I hear the conditions will be windy with blowing snow. I'm not ready yet......help!

The Woodswoman In Training

Something happened this week! Bike man hired a tree service to come in and cut down 8 oak trees in our wooded lot next to our house.

Yesterday, while we were in Minneapolis, our son was busy working on buzzing up the oak trees into logs chunks.....well, that's what I call them!

Not sure how we will use ALL that oak wood, but I'm sure we will use quite a bit for campfires during the summer and and for ice fishing.

So what was the theme for today? Wood, and more wood. Did anyone read the "Woodswoman" by Ann LaBastille (1976)? I love that book....one of my favorite reads of all times. This awesome woman moved to the Adirondack mountains and built her own log cabin and lived by herself. She had to learn all the skills to survive on her own, and she did it quite well. She actually went on to write more books. Well, for some reason bike man & the son decided I needed to learn the skills of the woodswoman. Somehow I think I failed. Well, maybe with a little practice everyday I could learn to split wood. Never say never. Maybe next year I'll put that on my "to-do-list."

Splitting wood is hard work. I tried this afternoon to learn the skill, but it was soon apparent that I just don't have the power & arm strength....Brut strength as the son called it. At least I got a little workout trying to split wood. Kind of light weight training!!!!!