February is here. Wow and wow, February is here! Training the last few days has been poop. It's hard to get motivated in the cold weather, with all the snow, but I'm getting it done. I just hate training when it's a chore. I always like to find ways of making it fun and enjoyable. Even if it's singing or downloading my favorite songs, I want the process to be enjoyable, because it's my hobby and fun is a choice. So, I would love to hear what some of you do to keep it fun and lively when you are getting bored on the trainer? Sometimes it's the tinniest things, like a new favorite hat, or a new song on the playlist.

After having traveled in January I came home excited about the prospect of being home the entire month of February. But then it snowed like every single day since I got home and now I'm ready to leave again. Haha!!

I will say though....I just applied for a travel visa....??!!!! To....???!!! Any guesses?

Some hints, I'm headed to a race, but I'm not racing. And..... it's sometime in March.

This past weekend while the Broncos forgot how to play the game of Football Annie and I were working on her Valentines Day box. Did you have to make these as a kid? Valentines day was my second favorite holiday as a kid. Halloween being my first. But Valentines day....ooohhh, the making of all the little cards, then putting them in all your friends boxes. Then getting to open up your box and read all the notes. LOVE! Like totally LOVE!

Since Kindergarten Annie and I have sat down and worked on her box together. the first year her's was covered with buttons and feathers. It was pretty cool and top notch for a 6 year old. Then last year we went big. We covered her box in the fake flowers. Actually, she covered it and I managed the glue gun. She said glue here, and glue away I did. It was beautiful and floral and amaze balls.

This year she had decided on an ocean theme and I was thinking to myself, how the heck are we going to pull this off? So we went to Michaels for our hour of meandering and crafting our plan. Well, at Michaels she found these fairy garden lawn furniture do-hickies. That's the best I can describe it. A trellis, bench, wheel barrel, you get the drift. The spark had struck. And then we were off. Rocks and fake plants (lots) and moss (several kinds) were procured. Then the idea of a pond was hatched, so pond rocks and sparkle ribbon was procured. I grabbed a few helpers, some more glue for the glue gun and we were out of there.

The process was the same this year. Annie thinks and brainstorms, says what she's thinking and I help make it happen. I run the glue gun, she pokes, and cuts, and puts rocks down, and moves things, and creates cute little flower pots full of this and that. This was the Annie show. When we got done, we were all itchy from the moss so we had to go take a bath, but after that, we sat back and marveled at it. It was her best yet. She can't wait to take it to school!

 

And I gotta say, much to the distaste of Troy I do not put up a stink about the financial implications of these projects. Fine art costs! So what if it's used for one day just to put Valentines in. We have so much fun with it, she's so proud of it, and I let her get whatever she thinks she needs to make it happen. So yes, $120 Valentines Box and I could care less about the money. The memories are priceless and timeless. It's the little things like this that are so hard to carve out for our children. The traditions that are so loved and cherished. These things are really important to me.

Yesterday I went on a cleaning and rearranging the whole house binge. That felt darn good. I moved some rooms around, finally got Troy to move his office from the family room, which I turned into a room for riding the trainer, into a spare bedroom we have. Now he has a room with a door that he can close and it's quieter and lighter in there. Happy Troy. Lots of throwing away stuff and boy did it feel great!

Today was super awesome. I spent several hours at Denver Fit Loft getting a Retul fit from Daniel there and it was awesome. I now am the owner of two fully built up TT bikes. Oh my! My CD01 frame was sitting in a closet and now it's built up and fit to me, and will live on the trainer. A huge thanks to James at Tribella who built her up beautifully. I almost felt bad for my Illicito because she looks a little drab next to the CD01 now. Daniel did great getting the two bikes to match even though they have completely different head sets. I also filmed a video blog at the Denver Fit Loft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc6jeowc8yE

Life for the rest of the week is about to get a little wild. Michelle has surgery to reconstruct her ACL Thursday and we are so excited that we get to bring her back here and take care of her for those first rough days after her surgery. Someone else for me to spoil with love! I'm really hoping that her recovery goes smoothly, so send her some healing vibes please.

Other than that, all is well and great! Oh and if you are looking for a good book to read, Katie and I are going to launch into Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. I loved her Ted Talk on vulnerability (13 million views!)

 

And Katie says we all need to watch the one she did on Listening to Shame.

 

Okay friends! I'm off to bed!