what a nice surprise....

sat down for dinner tonight (heart-shaped burgers handmade by my wonderful wife) to personalized place cards made by my daughter. yes, i shoulda been onna ride today... maybe tomorrow.

day late…

ever wonder where the time is going?? time just seems to be flying lately. i realized it’s already february when i went to pay some bills this morning. which reminded me i needed to flip my waffle house and bike calendars over to february.

this month the waffle house calendar is giving me a free sausage biscuit. i ran out of time to use the free coupon for bert’s chili last month. i’ll be sure not to make the same mistake this month. i also have a coupon for a free waffle and i think they’re giving away something for valentine’s day. if i play it right, i can probably feed the whole family for free!!

my bike calendar is a free calendar i got from an attorney pushing his business. the calendar is supposed to be one of these bikes and babes calendars. the only problem is the models aren’t really babes. i’m wondering where they found these models. out of twelve of them only one is halfway decent. i seriously considered just leaving my calendar on that month for the whole year.

the calendar got me to thinking that either bikers will settle or my standards are a bit higher. i was talking to my wife about the quality, or lack thereof, of the models in the calendar. i don’t even know that many people but i could probably put a better calendar together…

it could be worse…

that’s the phrase my father-in-law responds with when someone is complaining about something. when he first said it to me i figured it was his polite way of telling me to stop whining. but knowing my father-in-law, he’d just tell you to stop whining.

what he is really doing is reminding us that we should be appreciative. now i resist the urge to immediately complain about something and i look at the positives in a situation. i’ve heard him use it enough that i’ve adopted the phrase as well. it helps keep things in perspective.

and that perspective really helped when i was riding on sunday. i remember several rides at the beginning of last year that were cold. temps for those rides were probably in the twenties and thirties. maybe forties.

sunday’s ride was in the upper thirties. but i actually felt warm. so warm that i removed my electric vest and switched out my electric gloves for my winter gloves. it felt great to be out riding, i was enjoying it so much.

perspective… perspective made the ride feel so good. and the reminder that it could be worse. and it was worse that morning when i met up with a fellow rider to head out to thomasville - in thirteen degree temps!! now that was cold…