VELOFEMMES // tacoma's women's bike group

Yesterday I joined a group of lady bikers (not the harley kind) named VeloFemmes on a super fun group ride and event!  VeloFemmes is a new women's bike group focused on getting more ladies on bikes and creating a great community of female bikers in the Tacoma area.  Unfortunately Tacoma decided to be ultra-Tacoma and it rained on us pretty much the entire time, but hey, it just shows how dedicated these ladies are!  The event started off at Tollefson Plaza with great booths, and music from Barleywine Revue (check them out, they're awesome!)  2nd Cycle, a super awesome bike shop focusing on helping people learn how to fix their own bikes and cultivating a shop full of used parts which help bicyclists fix their bikes on a budget, was one of the booths.  2nd Cycle runs events specifically targeted at non-male bicyclists to teach basics about bike upkeep and care.  It's a pretty sweet organization.  There was also a fun booth where you could get a helmet-friendly hair style.  I showed up with my helmet-friendly hairstyle (fishtail sidebraid FTW!), so I didn't use their talents, but they had lots of pictures of fun ideas for cute hairstyles that are also helmet friendly, which was inspiring.  I think it'd be fun, now that my hair is long enough, to do a helmet-friendly hairstyle tutorial series here on the blog, eh?  Especially since it's bike season, woo!


 

After the initial event in Tollefson Plaza we all gathered our bikes and took the scenic route to the Harmon Tap Room for some beer, food, and raffle prizes!  I was in serious need of beer and food.  I proceeded to order pizza.  And the Lord sayeth, It was GOOD.  Seriously.  After riding miles in the rain, a gulp of cold brew and a bite of hot pizza brought me back to life.  The ride wasn't difficult, mind you, but it was rather chilly compared to the weather we've been having recently, so warm food in the belly was much appreciated.  Oh!  And I won something in the raffle!  Well, everyone did, because there were enough prizes for everyone, but I got a Seal Line bag!  So perfect for riding in Tacoma, especially in winter since they're waterproof.  I like carrying my small bag, or my computer/camera bag when going to the coffee shop regularly, but in the winter it's nice to know your stuff isn't going to get soaked.  Dan has a nice, waterproof Timbuk2 bag, and now I have one too!
It was really awesome to have a group of biking ladies from all walks of life there.  There were a couple bike-in-dresses types (hey-yo), regular commuters, younger people, older people, and some people who simply looked like they walked out of an REI ad.  But it's cool to know that we're all women who bike, supporting one another.  It doesn't matter if you wear clip in shoes or heels, spandex or tights.  I've long wanted to organize some bike events with ladies in the Tacoma area, but have never felt like I had the infrastructure or a way to reach those biker chicks, and now with VeloFemmes I do!  Hopefully we get to do a few more events before the summer ends and we're back to daily rain-biking.  

 


 

top/courtesy of modcloth :: jacket (similar)/forever 21 :: pants/courtesy of for elyse shoes(similar)/courtesy of blowfish :: bag/courtesy of hearts helmet/courtesy of nutcase :: photos of me by my friend Teri

black + white + red all over

My obsession with maxi dresses continues.  This one reminded me of an Oscar De La Renta gown I remembered seeing from their Spring 2013 collection, as well as a lot of pieces from the Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2013 collection.  I guess big, bold stripes are "in" this season, eh?  This dress feels fancy, but it's made out of jersey-knit, so it's still easy to wear and can be casual as well.  Like most maxi dresses, I need heels to keep it from dragging on the ground, but nothing crazy tall or anything.  By now I have some favorite go-to heels to pair with maxi dresses.  I never wear the heels I'm wearing in this post, mostly because they're not wearable in an all-day situation.  They're going-out-for-dinner-and-sitting-mostly type shoes, but I just love how fabulous they are that I bring them out for those rare occasions.  Dan and I ended up deciding to walk to one of our regular joints after these photos, so I switched out for my red Blowfish t-strap cork platforms, which I can walk miles in.

 

dress/courtesy of modcloth :: shoes (similar)/courtesy of lulu's :: photos by Dan
Know what  I love about clothes?  They can make you feel fabulous.  I mean, I feel pretty fabulous without a stitch of clothes on, but sometimes putting on an outfit that makes you feel like a bombshell can be so powerful.  In a way clothes can literally be armor.  I know that I personally will wear sunglasses on occasion to physically keep people at a distance.  Sometimes you just don't have it in you to deal with other humans and dressing in a certain way, like wearing sunglasses to keep people from making eye contact with you, can do that.  But it's not just in that self-protective way, that's just one example.  Dressing yourself in a way that makes you feel more powerful can actually make you act more powerful.  There's a reason they call it a "power suit."  Just like forcing yourself to smile can make you feel happy, dressing in a way that makes you feel confident can actually increase your confidence.  And that's pretty awesome.  Mark Twain once said, "Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society."  And I think that beyond the obvious fact that naked people probably don't influence society because they're not out and about, influencing while naked, clothing yourself in a certain way can be powerful.  Maybe the clothes themselves can influence others, but I believe it's more that the clothes make the wearer feel more confident, and it's the confident clothes-wearer who does the influencing.

my fitness routine pt. 3 // insanity + running

I have a very hard time with motivating myself, especially if I have to come up with a workout on my own everyday and I don't have an end goal in mind.  Insanity is great for me because it has a variety of workouts to do throughout the week, it's structured, and there's an end goal.  I started doing Insanity back in November of 2012, and made it through the first month, but then I got sick and we moved and then we went to Alaska and my computer died, so I restarted in January.  But then I couldn't keep up with it while we were re-siding our house for two weeks (though I tried!), so I restarted again at the end of February and finished the entire program last month!  At the beginning of June I restarted Insanity from the beginning in order to keep in shape for Warrior Dash next month.  Since working out is all about moving your body, I thought making a video would be a fun way to talk about it, showing movement rather than my regular old still images!


After doing Insanity all the way through, I definitely feel more fit and toned.  My body doesn't really make huge changes in size/shape, but I can see differences from some of my outfit photos last summer to now.  Like I said in my first fitness routine post, working out for me isn't a weight loss thing, it's really just about being strong and healthy.  I love feeling strong and now I actually have a reason to be strong, which is rock climbing!  I can definitely tell that the strength I'm gaining from doing Insanity helps me do better at rock climbing.  While rock climbing uses some odd muscles (like crazy forearm muscles for gripping the holds), it also uses lots of legs, arms and core muscles, all of which I workout when doing Insanity.  Plus, I'm way better at cardio than I was when I started, which is helping a ton since I've started running.  One thing I like about Insanity is that you do Fit Tests every 2 weeks, so you can actually see yourself getting better, even if you feel like you're still dying during every workout.  When you get better at the fit test, it's proof that your body is actually getting stronger!


As you heard me say in the video, I'm doing Warrior Dash next month, which is going to be awesome. It's also a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is even more awesome.  If you'd like to support St. Jude, you can donate through my fundraiser page here.  They are one of the world's premier centers for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.  If you read my father's day post, you know that my own brother's survival has depended on cutting edge medical research and numerous experimental surgeries, and the work St. Jude does helps families like mine keep their precious children alive and kicking.

time flies

A new week.  How do we get here over and over again?  Wasn't it Monday just yesterday?  Time is such a crafty little fox.  It seems to get better at tricking me as I get older too.  When we were kids days and weeks dragged on, lasting forever.  I miss those endless days as a child.  Especially summer days of waking up in the morning and playing until... well, in Alaska the sun didn't go down far enough for it to get dark, but you know what I mean.  Until your parents told you to come inside and brush the dirt off.  I wish adult days lasted that long.  Remember when an hour seemed like an eternity?  Now it's like an hour is nothing.  I have an hour to do something?  That's not enough time!  I sit down to write a few sentences and look up and an hour has passed already.  I wake up, open my laptop to check email, facebook, etc, and the next thing I know I've been awake and hour and my cereal is gone and coffee is half drank.  

 

top/courtesy of wildlife works :: tandem tour shorts + cardigan/courtesy of modcloth necklace/courtesy of adorn by sarah lewis :: tights/target custom hat/courtesy of tittle millinery :: shoes/courtesy of minnetonka

 

on father's day

I was lucky enough this year to actually get to spend Fathers Day with my Dad in person!  My parents were down here the past week doing some work, and are currently at the airport on their way back to Alaska, but they stopped by this morning and I made a Fathers Day brunch for them.  As I was laying in bed last night I was composing a Father's day post, and I thought about getting out of bed to write, but knew I had to wake up early to go out and buy bacon (Fathers Day brunch without bacon?!  No way), so I shelved my thoughts and decided I'd write something today.

For some reason my mind was fixated on the extraordinary ways in which my father has been a dad.  Perhaps it was an article I'd read yesterday about premature infants and advances in NICU care for critically ill babies.  My brother Ben was born with barely a 10% chance of surviving his first two weeks of life.  His heart was severely deformed, and on top of that he had Sotos Syndrome (which is somewhat similar to Downs, but obviously different, just not as widely known).  Not being a parent I can only imagine the heartbreak of taking a son home, not to nurture to grow strong, but to love for as many days as possible until having to say goodbye.  Those of you who have been around the blog for a while know that my brother has outlived that 2 week survival estimate by about 24 years.

When I laugh about being stressed out about having a kid and being freaked out about nurturing a child and "keeping it alive," I'm mostly joking.  My Dad, on the other hand, has literally kept my brother alive, on more than one occasion.  The summer before my 8th grade year on an August evening, my mom picked me up from the barn where I was working and drove me home.  As we turned the corner onto our street, we found our driveway clogged with emergency vehicles.  Firetrucks, Ambulances, Cops, EMTs everywhere.  There wasn't room for us to park, so my mom pulled the minivan onto the front yard.  I was out of the car before it stopped moving.  In my young mind, I was convinced my Dad was the cause of the emergency.  He had surely fallen off the roof or something, as he was always working on the house, doing projects.  It wasn't.  It was my brother.  A pale blue, redheaded boy came wheeling around the corner on an ambulance gurney, surrounded by EMT's desperately trying to keep him alive.  What I learned later was that the person who actually had kept him alive was my dad.

My youngest brother and his friend had found Ben, unconscious on the side of our house, crushed into moist earth and not breathing.  They ran to my Dad who told them to have the neighbor boy's parents call 911, and then immediately ran to Ben to start CPR.  I can only imagine turning that corner to find your precious son, your miracle son who had outlived his 2 week deadline by 10 years, laying lifelessly on the ground.  I can't imagine it, in fact.  I can't.  I can't imagine checking his pulse– none.  Checking his pupils– fixed and dilated.  And then proceeding to give my entire being to bring the clinically dead body laying before me back to life.  Compressions. Breaths. Compressions. Breaths. Compressions.  The EMTs arrive and try respirating with a bag, but it's not working.  He pushes them out of the way and proceeds doing it himself.  Compressions. Breaths. Finally they get Ben on the gurney, wheel him to the ambulance, and he's gone.  I'm left in the driveway with our neighbors, and I can't remember if it started raining, or I just remember it that way because I can't imagine the whole Earth not sobbing in that moment.

Someday I will be able to more completely understand what it means to have a child.  What it means to imagine losing them.  And hopefully not having to come face to face with it, as my father has.  I hope to never have to be a parent the way my father has.  To never have to be shocked by my son's pacemaker trying to give him CPR again a few years later, when he goes down again.  To never have to bring home a tiny blue baby, who I try desperately not to grow attached to because I know I'll have to bury him in a few short weeks.

But while my dad has been through things I never want to have to go through as a parent, I can only pray I'll be as good a parent as him.  Someone who fought tooth and nail to keep his child alive.  Not once.  Not twice.  Over and over.  Someone who never gave up believing that miracles could happen.  Someone who fought to keep his child alive, despite knowing he might be severely disabled, both physically and mentally.  My dad has taught me so much over the years.  How to work on cars, on houses, on boats, on anything really.  How to drive a stick.  How to tie to a cleat properly.  How to drive a boat.  Almost how to fly a plane (never got my license).  How to take apart a dashboard and put it all back together.  How to camp in -20º F weather.  I can't count the amount of projects we've worked on together.  We've landed on mountaintops and bristol bay, served espresso to mushers on the Iditarod Trail, boated through the Lake Union locks, commercial fished, drove cross country, and more.  He's always made me feel like I could do anything I put my mind to.  He's helped me with his time, with his finances, with his sweat, and with his tears.  But for some reason this year, I'm struck by what he taught me about being a parent and giving everything to your kids, even if it means giving them CPR on the side of your house.  Even if it means having a disabled child.  Even if it means flying to Boston last minute for experimental surgery to keep your baby, who was only supposed to live 2 weeks, alive a little longer.  I can't imagine having a more incredible man to call my father.