The darn good china

Royal Albert - Old Country Roses - sigh.

I just finished packing away all the "good china" from Christmas dinner. I'm emotionally trapped by this dinnerware. I inherited my grandmother's set of Royal Albert. I would not have ever chosen this china for several reasons - not the least of which being that it has to be hand washed. I'm trapped because I can never get rid of it. My mother would kill me. So I have to keep it and if I keep it, we might as well use it. I mean just one of the tea-cups costs $80, not including the saucer! So what's the point of having it sit in a box in the basement untouched? But I hate using it, because hand washing after Christmas dinner is a pain. Really there is beautiful high-quality dinner ware out that can go in the dishwasher and with a pattern that would be more "me". But I can't ever buy something like that because what would I do with all this damn Royal Albert?! I can't get rid of it. It was my grandmother's. Trapped.

Self Focus

I've realized that when I'm at work I tend to spend a fair bit thought energy on personal assessment. Am I good enough? Am I better than her? Am I good enough for this role? Or that role? Is he better than me? Am I smart?Am I where I should be by now? Do they like me? Ad nausea.

When I'm at home, with my family, I don't do that. It just stops. It's a relief.

Winter Biking

Last week I switched to my "winter bike". It's my mountain bike that has been into Bow Cycle for fitting with studded tires and had a winter tune up. I'm not sure what that is. Special grease on the chain? I want to try and bike to work through the winter. I've never done it before and I do reserve the right to bail out at any point I feel too wimpy. But so far so good.

I'm having fun accumulating winter riding attire. Long undies, face masks, lobster-claw mitts. But I think my favourite acquisition so far are my thermal fuzzy socks. They go under my cheap wall-mart runners. Over my runners I put my MEC cycling booties. So far keeping my toes warm is the hardest, but that seems to do it for now. I don't think I've hit a morning colder than -8 Celsius so far, so not much of a real challenge yet. I'm not sure why it would be problem to bike in regular waterproof boots - so I can always go there, with "hotshoots".

On the other hand, I keep overdressing my top. I'm very sweaty by the time I get to the office. I think I had it better worked out by Wednesday last week. Just at tank-top under my fleece with my biking jacket over. No more layers then that until it gets colder.

The studded tires seem good so far. I've only been in little bits of snow, but the paths are starting to iced up in spots. I'm actually looking forward to a bit more snow to see how the bike works in that.

Skipping Grandma

There is something kind of neat about walking the girls to school. I don't do it all that often. I'm normally off to work and Rob takes them. But every few weeks I get the chance. In the 10 or 15 minutes before the bell rings there seems to be a general to-ing and fro-ing of people walking kids to school from around the neighbourhood. Seems obvious I guess, but it makes up a neat little community of folks with a small shared goal and even understanding of problems. (i.e. the poor mom running with the kids at full stride down the sidewalk, three blocks away, seconds before the bell is set to ring.) Everyone says 'hi' or 'good morning' to each other - whether or not they know you. One of the girls' friends always yells out hi to me by name when she sees me because she thinks it's neat that I have the same name as her mom.

Today I saw three kids walking with their grandma. They were coming towards me on the sidewalk as I was returning from dropping the girls.

"C'mon Grandma! Skip with us!" one of the girls said.

"Okay," she responded, much to her credit.

I mean, how can you not smile and say good morning to a fully grown adult who skips past you on the sidewalk in the morning?

Today

I've been thinking I need to blog more. The problem is, of course, an ongoing lack of deep compelling topics. I've decided I don't care if I can't think of a deep compelling topic. Some time's I just feel like writing for writing's sake.

So, here's what we did today. Today is Saturday. We took two of the girls' bikes from our garage, that they weren't using anymore, and gave them to Good Life bicycle in Eau Claire. One was too little and the other was a failed attempt at a bigger bike for Emily. It's always good to get unused items out of our house! And Good Life is a neat place where you can donate bikes and get a bike for a donation. They will also help you fix up your own bike and teach you bike maintenance. It's non-profit, volunteer run. I think it's neat.

Then Rob, the girls and I had lunch at the Eau Claire food court. The girls played on the indoor play structure. Rob was talking about how although Eau Claire is no longer the really trendy high-end mall it was in its earlier days, that in some ways it's neater now with more of a community feel including tenants like Good Life. It is a strange mix now of high-end retail, junky stuff, community stuff, and empty space.

We came home to baby-sit Grace while Nicole went for her post-natal message. That had been a gift from us for her baby shower. Grace was good. She's super cute.

Now the kids are having an early bath in preparation for a pizza movie night.

That's it. I know it was mundane, but I needed to kick-start this writing thing.