fat and happy after a loooooooong day moving

Oh my word that was A LOT of work! I am finally, finally done moving after three days of cleaning and packing and prepping and lifting and...shaking? No shaking, but if we had, maybe some things would have broken and there would have been less to do! Did I mention that I live on the third floor in a building with no elevator and two sets of doors that require handle turning to get out?! I think one of the only good things about all of this work is that there is absolutely no energy left to feel sad about leaving my lovely little studio. Phew I will be happy to not have to trudge up those stairs even one more time. My dear, sweet boyfriend, who hates moving more than anyone I know, cleaned and gutted his studio apartment and made enough space to fit all of my crapola in it for the summer. Luckily he has huge closets and I haven't accumulated too many things since my one-car-load-with-room-for-Eric-Pigeon-and-me arrived in Colorado needing a place to live. All things considered his apartment is very full now! He also put his amazing stove cleaning skills to work, practically assuring that I get my full deposit back, for which I am forever grateful as I ALWAYS lose points on the cleanliness of the stove whenever I move. That said, I AM DONE (!) and I LEAVE IN ONE WEEK!! I can barely believe it, but my calender says so, my to-do list is finally starting to shrink the teeniest bit, and I am living out of the box that will be housing all of my belongings this summer so it must be true! I have a crazy amount of things to accomplish this week, too much to even list or think about for very long because it is overwhelming. Some things are getting done though, we booked a flight for JP to San Francisco this morning and I've got a return flight home now too. I tell you, it's a bit intimidating to book a one way flight home from the west coast and fly to the east coast to start. Now I better make it the whole way because I've got a flight to catch! I will leave you with some pictures before I crash so you don't feel left out from all the moving fun since many of you have helped me move at one point or another!

*
Practicing for next Halloween there Leonardo? We got the chair moving skills from my dad who moved this chair in the same fashion up those three flights of stairs during my parent's visit in October.

**
No room for unimportant things like a clear view of the road!

***
We ran out of boxes and in all seriousness moved everything from my fridge and freezer in this here glad bag, well aware of the fact that if the bag didn't hold we would be chasing popsicles, tamari and jalapenos down the hill...luckily we didn't have any casualties but you can see that it was a close one!


****
One of JP's now overly stuffed, but quite organized closets.

*****
Way too tired to move anymore, but we had the perfect motivating solution...

******
Pizza and Beer! Real ones for JP and fake ones for me... I ordered him double pepperoni because the place that makes my pizza only does vegan or vegetarian options and I needed some greasy, bad-for-you goodness to end the day!

two weeks 'til lift off!

Yes you read that right, only 14 DAYS until go time. Yipes! With one week to go in the apartment I just started packing yesterday at 10pm.. I guess the college student in me is still alive and kicking! Isn't it funny how the easiest things to pack are also the things you need until the last minute and are also the things that once packed make you feel very productive and accomplished when you glance around the now stark gigantic closet? Well, I diligently packed my closet last night leaving only B&B jerseys amongst the mess of hangers, and thus had to unpack to get dressed this morning.


The time of daily head to toe spandex and then occasionally a real person outfit is not yet here and I need to remember that I can wear actual clothes for two more weeks and digging through a box to get them isn't very practical. Mostly also I had only one decent sized box from my sleeping bag shipment and I foolishly packed all of my books into it. Every time I move I tell myself to spread the book love between all of the boxes and every time they end up in one astonishingly (especially for three flights of stairs) heavy lump of a box. I know if you are Kathy you might be thinking, hey, don't I have five or seven astonishingly heavy boxes of Elise's books in my garage from her last move? Well, maybe we should all take a moment to celebrate the fact that I have an eReader now and hopefully won't be adding many more tangibly heavy books to my life before my next move. And maybe those of you who are in states other than Colorado can take a moment to be glad that it won't affect you either way.

In biking news I was perusing the B&B website and checked out the interactive map for the routes that have already started and they are cool! From your couch/desk/phone or what have you, you can watch us cross the US one mile at a time. The map gives you the miles we've done and the miles we've got left, how many days, where we are at, and I think even links to some of the rider blogs too! Pretty cool stuff, ours is here: http://bikeandbuild.org/rider/route.php?route=P2SF&year=2010 and will be fully fun to tune in to starting June 11th if you are interested. Other then that I've got about a week left before it's time to pack up and ship my bike off to Providence where it will be waiting for me once I arrive. My sister scouted out a trail in Maine that goes to the beach and is maybe 25 miles long so I will have to get my hands on some sort of two wheeled device while I'm there...either that or bask in the glory of a week without exercise before I push off on the 4,138 miles journey ahead!

a birthday, in pictures

A birthday weekend of celebration! We had a great relaxing time hanging out and welcoming JP to the ripe old age of 24. It's now well past the actual day, so I think pictures are in order!

I am a lover of homemade signs and cards, it's true.

JP is a lover of flowers.

Triple drinks at our favorite breakfast joint to start the day off right.

After breakfast JP needed some time with the girls at the dog park. In case you are wondering Yin did not in fact eat herself this large, this is just a dog that looks quite similar to Yin who followed Layla around the whole time.

Crazy, cloudy Colorado skies.

Enchiladas for dinner and a traditional dirt cake (GF for me!) for dessert.

In other unrelated news, I have officially started on my sexy 2010 summertime tan and thought you might like to have a glimpse of what I will look like all summer (and probably winter) long.

who's birthday is it anyway?

Tomorrow is JP's birthday! and Annie's birthday! and (fun fact) also happens to be the day that I quit smoking two years ago! Anyway you cut it it is a day to be celebrated. I kinda also feel like it's my birthday, or early christmas, or just elise-gets-lots-of-fun-new-stuff day, because I have gotten a lot of fun new stuff in the past few days! First up, I finally bought my new camera and although it took a little while to track down, it is quite nice. Specs include 12.1 mega pixels, 4x zoom, and many other things that are awesome and about to be discovered by me.


In fact I used it to document my other new item (thanks to my ever supportive parents!) a new sleeping bag!! Yes I am dorking out over this. My last sleeping bag was a beautiful, red, cotton contraption lovingly sewn for me by my grandmother many years ago. As awesome as that bag was, especially when I was younger and hefting it around on hikes consisted of maybe 2 miles, it was time to invest in a light weight, compressible bag to bring with me on the road this summer. I settled on a North Face Cat's Meow, and it is of course the cat's meow indeed. Dork. I love it though, it has extra fleece at the feet, two pockets, a mummy layout, and it's blue! No blue has nothing to do with its functionality but a girl needs to branch out from red-everything once in a while, right? Along with the sleeping bag I got a thermarest to aide me in sleeping comfort, although if biking 100 miles doesn't knock me out I doubt an egg carton under me will really help all that much. I opted for one that doesn't blow up, the reviews raved about the comfort and size so I just went for it.


Lastly some of you might have heard of my dead-to-the-world iphone, and if any of you are iphone users you will understand what a travesty this was. I was kinda spoiled by my iphone in many ways, not the least of which because the amazing family I used to work for gave it to me, so it was rough trying to transition back to the real world. I know, boo hoo for me without my iphone but you get pretty dependent on them! In any case, problem solved. The new wonderful family that I work for replaced my broken phone with a new one as a going away present and I could not be more touched and thankful. I am whizzing by with a new 3GS and am pretty stoked about how fancy I am now!


Now that I can get picture messages (woo hooo!!) maybe it will help ease the transition as I move from days spent playing with the little bean to days spent biking and receiving pictures on my phone of her getting even bigger.

an unexpected encounter

Ok May, if you could slow down just a teeny, tiny bit I would appreciate it! It's Monday again, and I'm not quite sure how that happened. It feels like it was just Friday a minute ago! I had the day off on Friday and took advantage of this fact by going on a long ride relatively free of other people. On the weekends the paths and such are overcrowded by people whizzing by trying to keep their cadence high, families with double wide strollers ambling along and people walking their dogs with the leashes clotheslining across the path. It's nice to have a more peaceful secluded ride once in a while. I have surpassed my longest ride yet again, although it wasn't quite as long as it should have been, but 53 miles is pretty darn good I think. I think I've gotten to the point where I just need to knock these long rides out because every time I get back on the bike it's an easier, smoother and faster ride then the last. I did have the presence of mind to take some pictures for you, it was a great day to be out and about and I even remembered that my current phone has a camera! My last experience of the ride was a bizarrely coincidental one. I was biking in a tank top and stopped to cram a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into my mouth when I got a little cold and put on my Bike&Build jersey. Not thirty seconds after putting it on a biker screeched to a stop in front of me and asked me if I was riding this year! Turns out he is riding the South Carolina route and is leaving in two weeks! How random is that!? We are going on a ride together Tuesday after work and I will be able to pepper yet another person with my endless questions and maybe even answer a few of his. For now I will leave you with a few pictures:

1. I've never seen bicycle-specific roundabouts ever in my life, and every time I pass one I think how silly they are! I mean, even on the weekends with high traffic is there ever a real congestion problem? One of the roundabouts is right next to a golf course, and it's quite amusing to see the golf carts and the bicycles in the roundabout together....

2. The Platte River is a great river to bike next to, the path is nicely maintained and the water is such a nice thing to look at while cruising along. Last week the water rose so high in some places that the path was impassable!

3. & 4. These photos don't do the brilliant colors and contrasts justice really. Everything was so bright and sunny, and I loved the hot purple tree in between rows of white...

the happenings that have happend lately

Last night Wheat Ridge Cyclery had a ladies night extravaganza that I went to. It was a great time with wine, stuffed mushrooms and chocolates. Yum! There were tables set up for a ton of different companies, rides, and information about biking in Colorado. As an added bonus, everything was 15% off too! Needless to say I had an amazing time. I got to talk face to face with other female cyclists, something I realized I haven't ever done. I asked every person I saw which saddles and butt cream (technical term) they preferred. I questioned them on hydration choices, gels and powerbars, saddles with cut-outs, saddles without cut outs...you name it, I asked it of pretty much everyone. How much fun is that!? I can imagine you are reading this and thinking, hmmm sounds...fun I guess? BUT from my perspective I haven't had the chance to ask any females these questions really, and it was so nice to be in a huge store filled entirely with women who have figured out how to do long distance rides with relative comfort. I also scored a super sweet pair of shorts that have great padding but don't look like there is a diaper crammed in, and they were on sale for $60 from $130! Woot! In retrospect $60 probably doesn't sound like such a deal, but believe me when I tell you that cycling gear prices could make your jaw drop permanently.

Other then the frantic scrambling to finish all of my gear purchases before June there have been a few momentous endings in my life lately. I turned in my notice to vacate on the 1st, and am starting to gaze wistfully about my little studio and have mentally started packing all my things into boxes that I won't see for almost three months. I've got two weeks left of work, and I've been getting wistful there too. The little bean turned one yesterday and is so close to walking (running) that it's almost scary to think how much she has grown since I've known her! I'll miss her sweet tendencies, unexpected little kisses, ridiculous facial expressions and sleepy eyed snuggles while on the road! I finished the spring semester just one hour ago with a (hopefully) successful chemistry final and am working on securing my schedule for the fall. I am in the process of ordering a sleeping bag and thermarest, both of which I will become quite familiar with in the coming months, and I finally bought a new camera too! We've got "e-mails of the day" coming in now that the countdown has officially begun (36 days), which is a nice way to start the group feeling like a real group and not just a bunch of names on a list. One month from tomorrow is the start of the first leg of my journey: Portland, ME for four and a half days with my big brother and sister to send me off right!

and then it was May?!

I still can't believe it is already May! Things just keep trucking right along, don't they? June is now literally right around the corner. I've been collecting fellow bike riders to accompany my group for a day here and there on the road which has served to make me even more excited about the trip! On Thursday I had my last chemistry exam before the final and next Thursday is my final already! I can't believe this semester is drawing to a close. It feels like just a few weeks ago was registration and now I am trying to find classes for the fall!

Aside from my obligations in real life I've got to tell you about our vacation, which was amazing. There are few things nicer then vacations that involve boats, water, putt-putt golf, fresh seafood and family, and ours included all of these. Our first day was gorgeous, and although we had only gotten an hour and a half of sleep, we headed out on the boat for raw oysters and happy hour, beach tromping with the gang of dogs, crab racing and dolphin sightings! What a different scene then Denver! It was a good thing we got all those activities in early because the rest of the weekend was cloudy, tropical stormy, windy weather. I was a pretty happy camper though because I recently found out that Denver doesn't really get thunderstorms and they are one of my favorite things. With the weather as it was we were perfectly situated for exactly what we wanted in our vacation: lounging about, eating amazing food and playing wii sports. When the weather cooperated we got out for some putt-putt golf, shopping and ice cream breaks. We were completely spoiled by Judy and Jim, especially when it came to food. We ate and ate until we practically had to unbutton our pants. JP's sister Jess picked up some gluten free bread and brownies from the farmer's market for me and Judy had all sorts of snacks that I could eat waiting at the house when we arrived. We stopped at a fish market on the way from the airport and got enough fresh shrimp, craw fish, grouper to feed a small army. Last time we visited Jim made us some amazing steaks, he whipped them up again and they were just as delicious as I remembered. I feel like we ate our way through vacation, and it was tasty. I didn't get any pictures (too busy being lazy), except the one below that I think captures a bit of our decadence, but I am hoping to have some e-mailed to me sometime soon. I'll share them once they get here but for now here is a little preview:

Jim made us craw fish, shrimp, tomato, onion, cheesy goodness omelets for our breakfast at 2:30 in the afternoon. In the middle is a big ol' plate of bacon which even we could not finish.. but not for lack of trying.