a whole lot of happiness

This weekend is a three and a half day weekend for me. I took of Friday to have a two day shopping extravaganza with my Mom. We went to the outlet malls in San Marcos. I got so many new cute tops, and four pairs of pants, and two pairs of new shoes, and a cute little wallet, and lotion that smell like you just brushed against a tomato plant in your garden, and spicy ginger perfume, and a cute little necklace with acorn charms on it, and I am completely and totally shopped out. I don't usually get so much stuff but it was Mom's treat and everything was super cheap! It was tons of fun. I got to eat at Freebirds for the first time and made a veggie and black bean burrito with lime juice. We got pedicures and I got my toenails painting an orangy color called Naples Syrup mostly because I have been reading about Italy, they also had Sicilian Vermilion but Sicily sounded so depressing that I didn't want my toenails that color. We had dinner at this cool pub in San Marcos right on the river, we watched kayakers and swimmers play in the water as the sun set.

My second accomplishment of the weekend (the first being spending someone else's money on tons of cute shit for me) was that I finally got up the gumption to ride my bike to work. I have thought that it would be an interesting experiment to ride my bike to work everyday, but I wasn't sure I could make it, or how long it would take. It takes me just over and hour, and I can make it, but I betcha my muscles will be complaining tomorrow. I like riding my bike. It is so much more experiential than traveling in my car. I smell everything I ride by, from that just mowed country lawn smell (totally different from the just mowed suburban lawn smell) to the sickly sweet scent of decaying roadkill. I see everything too. I see little yellow butterflies skipping across the purple bindweed, the lonely child's shoe that I can only imagine got chunked out an open window, little churches recessed from the road I never saw before, decorated mailboxes, parakeets hung in a little cage on a front porch, I see all this that I could have seen thousands of times before if I had just slowed down long enough to look. Another thing I become acutely aware of is gravity. It is my best friend and worst enemy. I feel it dragging me backwards as I defy it pedaling up the hill gasping for my next breath, and I feel it pull me forward in a rush of wind and joy as I speed downward. I don't think I am ready to make this trip everyday yet, but the fear is gone. I know I can ride my bike alone down a highway and not be scared.