The Right to Bare Arms

I have this sinking suspicion that this will be the last image like this for some time to come now, our winter has come early and come with a vengeance. So awesome, right? Notice I said "winter" and didn't mention "fall", seems we've skipped right over the whole fall thing into winter. But, enough about the weather.

Where have I been? Today I got stopped by a reader on the bike path, noticed by my record-holding amount of headset spacers, and it's not the first time today that I've been reminded that I've not blogged for some time. Yeah, about that, oops. Been over a month, actually. Yeesh. So what's happened? Where have I been? I refer to it as the quad-fecta: I'm back in school, the kids are back in school, work is busier than ever, and we have this toddler guy in the mix. I do lots of typing for work and school, so blogging has fallen by the wayside in a terrible way. And so has my cycling, and my health overall.


That photo was taken last week on a particularly miserable day - it was 40 degrees, raining steadily with a wind blowing right in my face, and I wasn't at all prepared for it clothing-wise. I lucked out and had a rain jacket in the car, and my light windproof gloves kept the cold at bay a little bit, but man.. it was wretched. It wasn't just that, though, my self-discipline has been particularly terrible lately with regard to the old intake thing, and terrible with regard to the whole exercise thing, that day it was wearing hard on my head as I realized I couldn't just hammer it home in 10 minutes like I used to be able to pull off. The cold muscles managed to get me there in 20, with a 5 minute stop to get out of the rain and convince myself to keep riding.

I'm human, it's becoming all too evident, but man I'm getting tired of falling off the wagon, then having to write about it. I've written a lot about it, but thing is, getting back on is tough as nails - but you can still get back on. I figure that I'm still ahead in the getting back on vs falling off score, which in the end is all that matters - but at some point you've got to just man the hell up and do it. I can find more excuses not to do something than I can find to do it, and I can find all kinds of excuses why I chose not to do it - or I could just use all that energy and freaking do it.

Did that little thought rollercoaster make any sense? Still on board? Hah

Anyway, someone said something today that really hit me - "baby steps are just procrastination", ya know, so true. I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, and he continually emphasizes this magical concept of "hard work", and the benefits thereof. I'm still adding them together in my brain, and waiting for the output.

So how many times have I made one of these "I'm back on the wagon" posts? Hell, I don't even know at this point, and even I am sick of reading 'em, but I'm hoping that maybe someone reading goes "well crap, happens to someone else, guess there is a way out after all". That's it.

But man, I'm really sick of writing them. Maybe just sick enough for once to do some size 14 steps.