Why Do You Ride?

https://bikerbooksandyarn.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/why-do-you-ride/

Camera Clicks – Helicopter

There we were, out on the boat, anchored up at very popular sandbar and all of a sudden here comes the Coast Guard. I can’t believe I was able to get so many shots on a boat bobbing around in the bay. 🚁🌞🌊

The Reason for my Absence

It’s been a couple weeks….let’s see if I can sum it up quickly.

A sick toddler, an impending birth and a death.

Who knew being a grandparent would be so hard yet incredibly gratifying?

I lost someone very dear to me, I couldn’t go to her in her final days because of a very sick (& contagious) toddler. Then when it came to the end this guy was coming into our world…

Happy New Year 2020

Beginning the Keto Journey

Hi There, this is probably the wrong time of year to start watching what I eat, but “there’s no time like the present”, right? 🎄🎅🎉

Well heres my thoughts on that.

First, I seem to gravitate towards doing things the hard way. LOL Know anyone else like that? 😁

Second, (cliche alert!) Nothing Easy is Worth Doing! 💪

And least but not last, I’ve gained 20lbs and its freaking me out! 🙀

You see, I’ve had bariatric surgery and lost 123lbs as a result. To say this was a new lease on life is an understatement. That was 6 years ago.

I’ve gained weight for a couple reasons: 1. I got fooled into thinking I could eat anything I wanted; total LIE! and 2. Mother Nature is a Bitch; Hello Menopause! ⚖🥵

So I’ve come around to Intermittent Fasting (IF) and the Keto diet. I’ve done alot of reading and searching to find what can work with my unique situation. These 2 things allow me to change it up to fit my lifestyle.

Let me say right here, THIS is my personal journey. I am NOT being sponsored or gifted anything. I am just journaling and sharing my ups and downs.

I am going to do atleast a weekly check in post, so please feel free to join me.

Let’s do this!

Here’s to a new day❣

From the Lady Cave: Just Do It!

I am speaking from my own personal experience and hindsight.

I’ve often said “Be like Nike; Just Do It!”

(No this is NOT an endorsement)

What is your first thought when you hear this statement? I am willing to bet it starts with “But…”and then you list all the reasons why you can’t.

I get that there are financial constraints, so please don’t use that excuse.

What I am getting at is “How do you know unless you try?” Believe me, I know something about this; I haven’t lived this long without figuring out that I am the only person standing in my own way.

If you read my last post you’ll know that procrastination is not good.

Take that step, one little step! Nothing easy is worth doing, but I’ll guarantee that once you “try” you’ll realize it’s never as hard as you thought it would be. Sometimes doing stuff outside your comfort zone is Scary as Hell! But holy moly can it be an amazing experience; like driving my own motorcycle.

Aengus

What’s the worst can happen? You find out it doesn’t work out? So what! Now you have a better idea of what will work, so you back up and try again.

Recently for me I’ve discovered that in crochet, I really can do most of the things I thought were way to complicated.

Did I do it all on my own? Nope, sure didn’t. I used video tutorials, asked experts and I leaned heavily on what I already knew and BAM I FREAKING DID IT!

Poncho and baby Newsboy hat for one of my granddaughters.

Thank You!!!

I just wanted to say Thank You to all my blog followers, I now have 200!

So exciting! What a learning journey this has been. I really appreciate all the comments and input from all of you, it has really meant alot to me; more than I can adequately express!

2019 Vacay with the Harley (Part 2 of 2)…this is a long one folks.

Morning! We are headed to Washington, DC! So excited, I’ve never been. I do have some anxiety about what we may encounter, what with all the crazy stuff in the news. But in the meantime…We got the truck and trailer loaded, jump in and look up….there’s something stuck in the wiper…

Funny, funny….if you read the first part of this journey you’ll know why. 😆Off we go, we’ve decided to take the route Google has suggested, which takes us through NYC…little excited, shouldn’t be to bad for a Sunday.

Moving along, no major traffic issues…

Made it to Pohick Bay Regional Park outside Washington, DC where we will be camping with 2 of our most favorite people. Let’s get this party started!

We are all so excited about going to DC, but how do you fit in everything? Well, honestly you don’t unless you have 7 or 8 days to spend. We don’t, so we all talked about what was our #1 must see places, which were: Arlington, Museum of History, Library of Congress and Vietnam/Korean Memorials.

Having coffee and I have to take a few test shots…

Monday morning we went straight to the local train station. We rushed up to buy tickets and activated them, THEN we checked the train schedule…wanna guess what happened next? If you guessed, THERE WAS NO TRAIN COMING after 9am (we were basically an hour late) you’d be right! LOL

So we improvised and drove 2 hours to Colonial Williamsburg. This was on our list if there was time…neither my hubs or I had been, What a Cool Place!

To think people lived here in to the 60s and 70s in these original buildings. What I mean is, in some cases, descendants of the original families that built or founded this area lived in these homes that we now tour is mind boggling! Definitely would love to come again and stay here to have a full experience of colonial life.

Tuesday, July 2 we Uber’d to Union Station to play it safe this time. Lol

Wow! Ok, I am from Florida and am used to tourists wondering around with their mouths open, ok that was totally me.

But our next experience goes in the books as the weirdest, nastiest thing I have personally ever witnessed…and no it isn’t anything you could imagine AND thank goodness there is NO pictures…in short, I witnessed a lady washing her lady parts in the public restroom in FULL view of the doorway!!! 😱🤯🤢

I couldn’t believe my eyes, when she saw us she stopped and waited for us to go into a stall so she could finish “Freshing up!”

Moving on, Union Station was absolutely beautiful!

We arranged for a Capital tour through our local Congressman, I highly recommend this otherwise you will be in very very long lines. This was a major highlight of our trip. I would like to say at this point, I have never been prouder to be an American. Washington, DC is a place of History that ALL Americans should visit and know about. In some cases, it will help you brush up on the Historical facts of how we came to be.

In other cases, it will help you educate yourself on the sacrifices made for our country so that we all have rights and privileges that others don’t have.

I am going to do a separate post of this visit, so many pictures to share. We can’t wait to come back again❣🇺🇸

We got our picture taken in front of the White house…

I am drawn to the amazing architecture of all these magnificent buildings. Then we head to the mall area where the memorials are:

World War I:

World War II

Arlington National Cemetery

Vietnam War

Korean War

The Reflection pool (I was having a Forest Gump moment and a guy was coming from the other direction yelling “Jenny”) and Lincoln Memorial, because of the July 4th festivities we were not able to go up close to the Lincoln memorial.

We also spent time in the Smithsonian National History museum

and the Library of Congress which has the original collection (what was left of it) Of Thomas Jeffersons extensive Library. They are in the process of digitizing it. He had books from the year 1555!

It’s an amazing American Heritage story. This was my personal #1 place i wanted to see, I bought the book about its history and I didn’t realize it’s actually 3 different buildings.

And to cap off this years adventure, we head to the Charlotte area to visit our newest granddaughter.

And just like that vacay is over! For the record we still walked a total of 65 miles on this trip, even after all the Driving, Ubering, and Train/Subway riding. Woo Hoo what a journey❣

💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗🇺🇸💗

Lady Rider – Carpal Tunnel Recovery

Good Morning! How was everyone’s weekend/Father’s Day?

We live in Florida and it has been a very wet few weeks. Its officially been a whole month since I had Carpal Tunnel release surgery on my right hand.

You know as a motorcycle rider, that’s a pretty important hand. Those who drive a motorcycle know this, but for my non-rider friends, with your right hand you control the throttle aka the gas and your front brakes.

I have to say, I didn’t expect it to take this long to recover. I am mostly chalking it up to “the older you get, the longer it takes” theory. I am not saying I like it, but I haven’t ridden my bike in 3 months. I’ve been a passenger a few times, but haven’t driven because of various reasons that include carpal tunnel issues and the after effects or recovery from this surgery.

90% of the carpal tunnel issues I was having before is completely gone! Thank Goodness!

I am wearing a compression glove during the day mostly to help with swelling. Once it starts to swell then it gets really sore. I’ve been also using a 3lb weight ball to try and strengthen my hand and to help the scar tissue flatten out.

So I went for a nice easy 40 minute ride down to Harley to buy a new rain suit; I know you get what you pay for but those things are expensive!

My hand was pretty sore after that first leg of the ride which I expected, “No Pain, No Gain”, right? I did have the compression glove on. It felt like I had a rubber ball (the size of the ones you get in a gumball machine, hell I can’t recall seeing those anymore lol) stuffed in my glove all the while working that throttle and brake. I worked through it, because that’s what we do, right?

So we bought the suit and headed back the way we came because the rain clouds were building. We did get wet but not the worst we ever experienced. I took the glove off this time to see if that helped, at first it did but overall, No.

So here we are on the verge of our yearly motorcycle trip and I will not be taking my bike. Poor Aengus is going to have to sit this one out.

Overall, this recovery has been slower than I expected but, it has been a relief without all the other issues from the carpal tunnel.

Stay tuned for my blog posts on this years trip, it’s going to be Epic!

We are going to UpState New York briefly, Boston/Danvers, Washington D.C. and Charlotte, NC in a little more than 2 weeks. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

Left Handed Adventure – Day 1

So I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand yesterday. I thought I was prepared to be able to use only one hand, my left hand. So, since I’m sort of out of commission for my normal routine I thought I’d give this a go. Lol

I am attempting to type left-handed only and use the microphone to jot my thoughts.

Have you used your other hand or non-dominant hand for any length of time?

I’ve had a few surgeries over the last 5 years and have managed to go to the bathroom and that sort of thing by myself, so I figured this wouldn’t be any different.

Today I have managed to brush my teeth which was kind of awkward I don’t think I’ve ever done that before even with my surgery experience, with my left hand. The funniest thing so far today was blowing my nose. I think just for a giggle, you should try blowing your nose with only one hand and your non-dominant hand at that. 🤣

Somewhere I read it was good to use your non-dominant hand more frequently because that activates the opposite side of your brain. Anyone have any thoughts on this topic?

Its funny sometimes you want to be taken care of, when I have an opportunity like this what do I do? I figure out how to do most of the stuff by myself. LOL I have folded some towels made coffee emptied the dishwasher and now I’m blogging.

Next on my agenda besides more coffee, reading! I hope to finish a couple so I can do a book review, it’s been awhile. And, I need to order a new phone, I finally broke my Samsung 6! I am thinking a Samsung Note…but we’ll see about that.

So I’ve had carpal tunnel for a while now and have been babying my hand and arm quite a bit. I have managed to do most of the things that I like to do like driving a motorcycle, photography, blogging, crocheting, & things like that. All of that requires good hand dexterity, good grip, and now it had become more of a problem and I had to resort to this minor surgery.

Anybody have any tips and tricks on how to deal with carpal tunnel after surgery? I use a lot of ergonomic items from my desk to my crochet already.

I was going to include a couple of pictures but try taking a selfie with your phone left-handed or non-dominant hand, they don’t come out very good. Lol

But here’s one anyway….just keeping it real 😁