Guess you could consider this the first 'official' day of the school holidays. I am a bit mixed up after a long weekend, and with Marc arriving home on a Saturday. Don't know what day it is. (As long as I remember to put the garbage out tomorrow, (Wednesday is garbage day) I guess I'll be right and back on track.)

Marc spent most of the weekend from the minute he arrived home putting together the new triplet.. which you can read about here on my family bike blog... if the nitty gritty of the putting together of a bicycle built for three enthralls you.

We had grand plans to go for a decent bike ride on the public holiday yesterday, but only got as far as test riding the new machine round the block. No exercise, therefore, which is not a good thing. Not for someone who wants to lose 10kg and look remotely like she belongs on a bike... (Plus I am sure we might go faster if were were able to jettison that much weight!)

We took a pile of photos of the various combinations of us on the new bike, and I was horrified to see how big I looked. My sporadic bouts of 'extreme' exercise just don't work in the weight loss stakes... but to comfort myself with this sad state of affairs, late afternoon yesterday, I grabbed a glass of wine, and stuffed myself with cheese flavoured rice biscuits. (And I refilled my wine glass a few times!) I could have chosen a more kilojoule-laden self-sabotage, I suppose, but it still doesn't help in the slightest. Ten minutes with the kids' skipping rope won't do much either! Happy little exercise endorphins, where are you?

I have filled in the entry form for the Sydney to the Gong ride (5th Nov), and made out the cheque, so, once I post that off today we are locked in to going on our next family bike riding adventure. It's just a matter of deciding, now, who will ride what bikes - and whether Marc will have ironed out any of the minor technical problems with the new one. The course has a couple of very steep downhills, so you want to be sure that it's in A1 working order. The worst thing is that me, and whoever draws the short straw, will be on one of the older tandems... which won't be quite so exciting.

It is only these sort of events that keep me going, give me a purpose, and something to plan and aim for. I'm not very good at the every day family and house stuff. (I could make a list of 100 reasons why I suck at housework and being a good parent.) I seem to have misplaced some of that passion somewhere along the line (or maybe it's been worn away with dealing with the teenage Attitude stuff as a part time single parent (ie. with Marc away so much.) I take my hat off to single parents everywhere.) Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is the naive and innocent unconditional love that my youngest gives me. ("You're the best, best, bestest mum in the whole world". ) They say Love is blind... ain't it grand.

I did take one big step in the last week. My visit to the building designer happened, and I'll be dropping in a photo copy of the existing house plans to him today, along with a one page summary of what WE want. That was a challenging process (at close to midnight last night) with me announcing on more than one occasion "See, that's why I wanted to visit the building designer TOGETHER." I hate being the relay, the muggins in the middle, trying to relate to Marc exactly what it is the building designer wants us to give him.

I am determined, however, to get this show on the road. Who knows, it might put a bomb under me to get excited about cleaning up this dump. There is so much that is shabby, and crowded, (and thus messy) about our place at the moment, that it has completely leached any last vestiges of 'house pride' that I had in the first place.

Labels: bike riding, holidays