~ poofy knee and bruises going down ~
I have not felt as though I have anything interesting-for-other-people to write about. For a while now, I have been having trememdous difficulty getting up in the morning. This has been the case throughout the duration of my existence, but it's much worse these days. Today, I got out of bed 7 minutes before I had to leave for work. When I arrived, my office mate mentioned that I looked like I had just rolled out of bed and I said, "Pretty much." I also had a super busy weekend and did not complete all of my weekly "getting my life together" items, such as putting the apartment back in order, so my life has seemed like a big mess (quite literally). Nevertheless, life has remained good.
I experienced a big epiphany over the weekend. You see, I have become somewhat obsessed about the concept of becoming a homeowner. I've even started a high interest savings account for this long term goal and am throwing in all of my extra money each month. There are a few barriers with this goal, however. The first is the price of homes in the location where I want to live. As I feel location to be tantamount to everything, I would want a home right off of downtown in the North End. Yet, as I have been combing the North End, where every third home is currently for sale, I am appauled at the price that these homes are "worth." For example, there is a crappy, run down, what appears to be a crack house, a few blocks down from me that is going for almost a million dollars. It's big, but it's super ugly and looks like it's about to fall to pieces. The best deal that I've found is a 900 square foot SUPER CUTE place that's almost $300,000. The average price for a modest sized (2 bedroom) home is about $450,000. In short, not likely to be anything that I could afford, what with the working at not-for-profit organizations. And I don't much feel like living farther away where I would have to return to commuting and not having downtown at my beck and call. The other major barrier to this goal is the notion that I'm not committed to living in Boise for the rest of my life. I've given a lot of thought to moving somewhere with a mild climate year round. These sorts of places, such as Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo, tend to have very high home prices, so the likelihood of my being able to become a homeowner there is much less than in Boise.
The other day ago, it occurred to me that it's ridiculous to live somewhere that I'm not completely satisfied with in order to save money to buy a home that I might never be able to afford. Also, you know, life happens. Saving Money=Good, but something tells me that I'll never be able to afford a half-a-million-dollar home. And since compromise is not one of those activities at which I excel (which is to say that I have no interest in those homes/doublewide trailers miles and miles away which I could afford), I'm pondering alternatives to my living situation which might allow for me to both have and eat my cake.
In other news, wow. My degree in political science has done nothing to help me navigate the politics within my organization. I mean, HOLY HEAVEN AND HELL ON EARTH, who knew that my job would be reduced to little more than thumb twiddling due to the political deadlock that ensued over my and my boss' attempt to get for me the tools necessary to perform my job?!! Little did we know that in order to get afore-eluded to tools, that we would have to take it to the upper echelons of the organization, a political card that we decided it wasn't worth playing. I am hoping that my masters program will assist me in knowing how to navigate these kinds of politics and bureaucracies better in the future, as I am confident that politics are deeply entrenched in this non-political organization. To sum up my feelings on the matter, SHEESH!
Here's a "brief" mountain biking update (feel free to skip, for those of you not interested):
On Saturday, Josh and I completed a big 24 mile mountain bike ride. We rode up Bogus Basin Road, up Hard Guy, up Ridge Road, and then had an 11 mile descent down upper 8th Street. I had to pause on several occasions in order to pour water onto my head and exposed skin areas. The temperature was pretty hot and I continue to have issues with overheating. Josh has procured a cyclecomputer with an altimeter, so we were able to determine that we completed about 3,000 feet of climbing. Riding down Ridge Road was both fun and
On Monday night, I participated in a women's mountain bike skills clinic, taught by some local women mountain bike racers. We began by learning "quarter punches" (a technique to lift the front wheel) and going up and down curbs. It was pretty basic stuff, but I have wanted to improve my technical skills for a while, so I was fully engaged and participating. Then, we started to ride up a trail to find some rocks to practice on. The problem was that this group of over 20 women had such variance in skill level and biking experience, that we all ended up waiting for a ridiculous amount of time for the brand new/never riden a bike before people. I was of the opinion that they should have grouped us up a bit by ability level, but as there were three instructors and over 20 participants, that would have been difficult. Anyway, we'd ride 50 feet, wait five minutes for everyone to catch up, ride 50 feet, wait, 50 feet, wait. In over an hour and a half, we were able to travel about three miles. Which is why I made the decision to leave and go on my own bike ride. I rode off and continued to practice my new skillz. Eventually, after a little miscommunication mishap, Josh met up with me and we went off riding up Red Sands. We stopped at an intersection where there was a connector trail turning off from Red Sands going down towards Your Mom and practiced going down something super scary. This trail began as a turn to the right, was banked going into the turn, with about four big ruts cutting across, then it dipped down dramatically, was crossed by another rut filled with loose sand, had a big bump, and then the trail continued down very steeply and was off camber in the opposite direction of the way that it had been banked. I practiced trying to ride down it a number of times and couldn't pass the first turn. One of those times, I bailed and fell over and knocked my knee hard. Said knee is currently all swollen, bruised, and painful. Even though I wasn't entirely successful, I felt good that I was trying. Then we contineud to ride around a bit.
Last night, we rode Sidewinder, and I had a blast. Josh had performed some minor surgery on my brakes that afternoon, filing down the brake pads, in an effort to make the front brake less powerful and to give it increased modulation. It seems to have worked well - - I now have a wide spectrum of braking power with the front brake, and the possibility of grabbing it too hard and going over the handlebars, hopefully, reduced. I have decided that Sidewinder is a good trail for me to practice my form and technique. It has a number of mild challenges that would allow me to work on some skills and regain my confidence at going fast, yet there is nothing scary or unnerving about it. Also, it's short enough to make it a great trail for later in the evening, when the temperature has cooled down sufficiently. Last night, we didn't dare venture on a bike ride until sometime after 8pm because it was just too hot. We were coming down the trail right at sunset (around 9:15 or so) and it was a wonderful time of day and temperature to ride in.