October 2007 Archives

Dude, I am like so obsessed with squash right now. It is so delicious and cheap. I got an acorn squash for 50 cents. I halved it. I saved half for later. I took the other half, scooped out the seeds, and toasted them with salt. Then I took the half a squash and sliced it, and roasted it with cumin, salt, and a little oil. Then I drizzled molasses on it. Then I ate it.

Now that I'm finally building a wardrobe of technical dork wear, cycling is so much more enjoyable. My absolute favorite things right now are these leg warmers I got from teamestrogen.com. They are fleecy, windproof, and semi-waterproof. Super cozy. Also, since the company is based near Portland (Hillsboro?) they arrived the day after I ordered them.

The sad thing is, I just got these, and a base layer, and a long-sleeved jersey, and I am only like half done with gearing up for winter. I feel like such a yuppie! Good thing I don't have any kids to send to college!

I've been inspired and entertained lately by photo blogs and my friends' flickr accounts. So I am trying to remember to take pictures, upload them to flickr and put them on my blog.

This is my cat.

My company, Imbibe Magazine, took part in Portland's Bike Commute Challenge during the month of September. When I started I was the token quirky bike commuter, but I'm happy to report that I've roped my coworker Siobhan into sharing that role with me - and we make up half the office staff, so not so quirky now! She had been considering bike commuting but was discouraged because she had to lug a bunch of crap to and from the office, post office, etc.. I brought her a pair of panniers I had that I wasn't using, and that was apparently the missing link because now she is commuting by bike, 30 minutes each way from North Portland, at least once or twice a week.

I am totally impressed, not just by Siobhan, but by the demonstration that often the factors that influence our decisions are actually quite small. I started running (and hence began my irreversible plummet into excercise geekdom) when a friend who worked at Adidas gave me some free shoes. Once I finally bought a couch, I started reading and studying more. You know how it is - waffling about buying something, not knowing if you can justify the extra expense, putting it off. Well, I just want to say, if you've been on the fence about shelling out for that new rain jacket, or gym membership, or dance classes, or chef's knife, or upgrading from your Schwinn Varsity, or whatever, you should probably just go buy it, because it might make a disproportionately big difference in your day-to-day life.