Famous last words regarding my return to running: “I’ve been keeping up my cardio… so it shouldn’t be too bad.” Um, no. I did my first run of the year the other night and it was awful. Still, I was super glad that I did it, and I’ve not had any issues with pain in my foot so my stress fracture must be healed up now.

Had dinner with Daniel last Friday and heard all about a trip he’s planning on taking, talked about the trips I am working toward for this year and next. It’s always fun talking with Daniel. It had been really warm that day but as we were leaving the restaurant it started to hail! I only had to make it to the T but Daniel was on his bike. Luckily, it abated quickly, and everyone made it home in one piece.

This weekend was supposed to be a snowshoeing weekend with my running friends at Jillie’s house in NH, but I started feeling bad on Friday night and spent all weekend pretty much reading in bed and sleeping. I really wanted to be out and about, not to mention spending time with my friends, but I just didn’t feel up to it.

Made a couple of sketches for this project I’m working on with The Runner. Man, my drawing skills are rusty. I ended up drawing the dog (sleeping) to get that muscle memory and that way of looking at something back, and that helped. I tried to draw the cat, and you would think this would be easy because cats sleep all the time, but no. He kept waking up and moving around and being a general pain, which is pretty usual for him. The dog is a much better subject in terms of stillness, but he’s harder to draw because he is all black. Anyway, it was fun to draw again after all this time.

I’m hoping that the weather will warm up this week so that I might be able to get a little ride in, if only to run errands or whatever. I was thinking today that with everything going on in Libya and the predictions of gas prices rising to $4 – $5 a gallon that there will be a lot more people taking the T (meaning delays and crowds), a possible fare increase due to fuel costs, and that more people will start biking to work and for short trips around town (at least I hope they will).

I was told last fall that at the grocery I am known as “that girl who bikes” because I am often seen carrying (or yes, even wearing – DORK!) my helmet inside the store. I admit that I don’t often see cyclists around my little town center, even though we are still City of Boston, and not far from JP which has loads of cyclists. Still, when the cashier mentioned it to me, she followed it up with “… and I think that’s rad,” which made me smile, and made me a little sad at the same time, because it implies that biking is unexpected or unusual.

West Roxbury is pretty small. We have some good bike parking options in town, and traffic isn’t awful. The risk of theft is pretty low. There are bike racks at the library (which is next to a pharmacy, so you can two-fer on that errand), the grocery, the paper store/bank/Starbucks building next to the grocery, in front of the post office (plus there’s a fence and benches to lock to in a pinch), the other CVS/liquor store/restaurant/UPS strip mall, and at the train stations. That’s just off the top of my head, so I’m sure there are more. I see plenty of people walking in town, and carrying groceries by hand or in carts sometimes, but rarely do I see bikes. It’s odd. Still, I try to run my errands on my bike if the roads are clear enough to do so, or if my loads aren’t super heavy. I admit, I’ve never carried a huge bag of dog food or a pizza on my bike, but maybe one day I will get out my bungee cords and try it!

Anyway, that’s the weekly summary. :)

Holy cow, I can’t believe it’s nearly February. I only have 2 more weeks of class at RISD, and then I’ll be working at Redstar full time, which will be a bit of a change of pace. I’m looking forward to having my weekends, back, to be honest. I think that if I’d taught this class before it would have been a little easier to do both, but given that it’s new, plus it’s 10 hours a week of class time, it’s a lot of prep work and whatnot. I am loving it though and hope that I’ll be able to teach a web design class there in the fall. We’ll see. Fingers crossed.

This week has been so brutal on all fronts. Between all the snow — another 8″ or so at my house, and there is no place to put it — and the cold, and cancelled flights, and changed plans, and disappointments over changed plans, it’s been a very depressing week for me. And when I get depressed, I either hole up and make bad choices about things like food and exercise, or I go all out and hit the gym for 2 hours a day and eat super healthy. Unfortunately, I chose the former this week, and I was feeling really down about it. Even Bo could tell that I was depressed.

But today I took matters in hand and made it to SuperSpin, which is an hour-long class (instead of the usual 45 minutes). I love this class, and our instructor (Debbie), is fantastic. She really pushes us without being a scary drill sergeant, and I always feel spent when I am done. And totally sweaty and gross; I feel like that, too, but in a good way.

And related to taking things in hand, I think I have a sense of what this year is going to be like as far as the rest of my life is concerned, which is far better than just waiting and guessing. I am planning a trip out west for roughly April, and one to Austin for sometime soon. I think I just need to go visit friends and spend some time evaluating what it is I want to do. Basically, in the longer term, do I want to stay here in Boston or not? Boston has been very good to me in a lot of ways, but I don’t know… Maybe there is someplace else I should go, to really let me stretch my wings a little bit. We’ll see, I guess.

Anyway, my goal this week is a repeat of last week, plus one nuanced addition: I will go to the gym at least 3x, and I will go on a day that I have class (Mon or Tues). Also, I have to watch my food this week. Too much eating out and being lazy about cooking for myself. Time to get back on track this week!