It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

A beautiful day for a neighbor- would you be mine, could you be mine? Won't you be... my neighbor.


Before I go on about my day, I have new BIKE BLING!
I ordered a handlebar bag from Trigo (an independent artist on Etsy).  It's made from recycled bicycle inner tubes.  It holds my cell phone and my inhaler on my stem where they are handy).
It's so cute!!!  At least I think so.  How can you be having a bad ride when you look down and see this cute guy staring up at you?

I digress..
It WAS a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  The morning's commute was chilly-willy, but since the wind was a north wind and I ride south in the mornings, it was at my back (thank goodness).  Not a lot of traffic out, so it was nice and quiet.  Just the way I like it.
Have I told you about the saweet setup I have at school?  I have an office at the back of the library.  Because my office was once part of the living quarters for the nuns that taught at the school years ago, I have a full bathroom in my office.  My bike gets parked in my office, and I have the option of showering if I arrive at work all sweaty and worn out.
It's a pretty sweet deal I've got going on there.

Me in my office with my bike in the background

The ride home was GLORIOUS!!!  The sun was shining, the wind wasn't too bad, and the lake was pretty deserted.  Score!!!  I rode 15 miles after work and dragged out the commute a little longer than normal.  It was so nice.  On the dam, the lake just looked so pretty.  Breathtaking.  Gorgeous.  I LOVE this lake!

It was such a nice day for riding, I almost didn't want to come home and have it end.  It was one of those days where I could have ridden into the night all the way to Texas (notice that I didn't say I wanted to ride north into the headwind). ;)

Thank goodness for the ability to ride!

Great day for a run- not so much for a ride

I wish this were taken on my run this morning.  The sun is shining here (it wasn't this morning) and the lake is calm (it most certainly was NOT calm this morning).  It's just such a pretty picture of the lake.   

Today was a beautiful day for a run.  I had considered biking instead, but with winds sustained at 25-30 mph, I didn't need to purposely feel frustrated for hours on end.  Turns out the run was just what I needed.
I headed out to run at 8:00am.  The sky was overcast, the humidity was high, the wind was blowing fiercely.  I ran to the lake, around it, and back home.  Battling the wind going south was hard, but it made me look forward to running around the other side and getting the tailwind that was sure to come.  Or so I hoped.  As I rounded the dam, I felt sadness at the level of the lake.  The water has dropped at least 6 feet and it doesn't appear to be getting any better.  Normally the lake level drops significantly in late summer, as the lake provides drinking water for north OKC.  However, the level is rarely this low in February.  It worries me that we're headed for a drought this summer unless the rains bless us this spring.
Anyhow- I rounded the lake and hit the tailwind on the way back north.  Can I get a whoop whoop??  The tailwind was glorious!!!  It was literally pushing me all the way back home.
My run was slow, but it doesn't really matter.  It matters that for 11.5 miles I enjoyed the beauty of nature and felt a part of it.  I smelled the delicious pine scent of the trees and felt the spray of the water on my face and the sound of my feet shuffling along the trail.
A great day it was!!!