From Couch to 500….

*Warning* LOADS of Photos…

This summer I have focused on my health… a big part of why I have partially “abandoned” this blog.   In February I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and ridiculously (near dead) low levels of oxygen in my blood stream… (The last two years of my life have been a crazy medical mess.)  The doctor put me on a CPAP machine and oxygen at night and they have literally

CHANGED.MY.LIFE

In the first week of May I dusted off my bike and went for a ride with Brent.  I just wanted to go around the block.  At the time that was an enormous feat for me.  So Brent and I rode our bikes… and I got to the top of the street and kept going.  And then we rode up to the mouth of Payson Canyon… which was about 3 miles… and IT DIDN’T KILL ME!  So we kept going for another 2.5 miles for a total of 5.5 miles on my first real ride… I wasn’t dead and it felt GREAT.

And then a few days later some wonderful friends invited me to go riding with them…  Here we are on our first group ride.

 
And our second or third-ish group ride.  The group always varied… people came when they could. Sometimes we rode with just a couple of us…

But we always rode somewhere beautiful.  Where I live there is always beauty to be seen on an adventure!

We pedaled on paved roads and dirt paths…

We had lots of laughs… and a few accidents…. Suzi went over a curb and lost a handlebar….

A highlight of one of our routes was to stop and see the new babies at the Arabian ranch…

 

We braved riding along the busy state highway…

An d enjoyed loooooong country roads…..

Brent and I even took our bikes on a vacation to see my family in Iowa… We rode over 50 miles that week! :) One of our rides was 15 miles!

 
Iowa has some amazing bike paths on the greenbelts…

We even got to stop and see horses on our Iowa rides… (with Mom and Brent on the 15 miler)

One day my sis came and visited and we went on a spin around the neighborhood with the kids… and then did a 10 miler.

  
I LOVED biking in Iowa…

When we got back to Utah I felt energized and inspired… so B and I had a crazy notion and went on a LOOOOONG ride…..

… out in the country…. from one side of the valley to the other… and around a mountain…

 

… UP this big honkin hill… it’s not that steep… but it’s a loooong, loooong uphill road.

 
And all along the canal….

 

 

The ride was my longest ride to date… 20.2 miles.  It took us 3 hours (with 20 min break when I passed out on the grass at a church in Santaquin) to go the distance.  I had the worst case of jelly legs EVER.

And back to riding with the girls… here’s me and Natalie at the end of a ride.

And me with Tonja and JoAn… the instigators of the riding group :)

 

Sometimes our rides took us past some craaaazy sights… This is a fountain  in someone’s front yard on the Salem Canal Road…

 
But mostly we rode surrounded by amazing views and beauty…

 
And one evening Brent and I rode with some friends in Salt Lake… along the Jordan River Parkway trail… gorgeousness!

Sometimes, because of crazy schedules, I went riding alone… Good times to think, talk with God, and enjoy the ride…

Sometimes I would stop and talk to the “wild life”… like these brand new babies…

Somewhere along the line a few of us started swimming at 6 am… (Yes, we were nuts, but it sure started feeling GREAT!)

 
In September my mom came out to help me get started packing up my house to move to Colorado… She came on a few rides with us…

In late May I decided to set a goal…. I wanted to ride 500 miles by the end of September.  I was averaging 6-10 miles per day and was going great… and then I had a few set backs… I got sick with some awful flu bug.  And then I blew out my knee again (it’s a constant occurrence)… and then we had horrid smoke in the valleys for days and days on end…

But with the support of some amazing friends and a totally AWESOME husband, I pedaled on.

And on….

Until this Sunday… September 30th.  Brent and I have been sick with colds… It feels like I have one lung that works… lol… but we got on our bikes and went for the last ride of the goal time frame… We went my favorite route… along the Highline Canal Road and out through the orchards… Brent set his GPS .. I had 6.56 miles left to go to reach my goal.

 
My one good lung was having some serious stress… and I got a pretty good sunburn… and I wanted to get off my bike and lay down in the grass, but it was just gravel or road so we kept on pedaling.

And I reached my goal!!!  I DID IT!  Halfway up the free way over pass the GPS read 6.56 miles.  I whooped and hollered and even cried some tears of joy.

And I got off the bike right there in the middle of the freeway overpass and pulled out the sign I had made for when I would SOMEDAY hit that 500 miles. When we got home the GPS read 9.21 miles… 2.65 more than my original goal!

 
I’m wearing the pants I started riding in… they were pretty snug when I started and now they are crazy baggy and they are now a reddish black.. faded by riding in the hot Utah sun.  That’s ok.  They have lived a good life :)

So there you have it!  The craziest physical fitness goal I have set for myself in well, most of my adult life.  From couch to 502.65 miles in a few short months… 502.65 miles gained, 38 lbs and several inches lost and more to go!

~ Inky Smiles!

Big HUGE News

Friends & Family...

We have some crazy news! And now that all our immediate family knows I can "say it on the webs....". hehe.

This last week we had a major curve ball thrown at us. We've had a feeling for several months (which explains a little bit of my distraction from my blog) that "something was in the works" for us. A week ago this past Friday Brent was offered a promotion/new position at his company's (Jab Broadband) corporate offices in Denver. We drove out  a week ago Saturday morning to look around and he met with the owner of the company on Monday morning.

For the past couple of years (each time we've traveled to CO for B's work) we have "joked around" that if the opportunity to move to Colorado ever happened we would move there...

Brent accepted the position last Tuesday. He will be the Director of Divisional Accounting (over 6 divisions spread out over 10 states). This is a huge opportunity for him and an excellent resume builder. He starts full time in Denver on October 1st. He will be commuting to Denver from Utah until we sell the house.

This is HUGE for us... and a little emotionally difficult for us... even with me being a former Army Brat... I've actually been planted here in Utah since 1994 and in this lovely little home we built in 2001, and Brent grew up here.  But it's also a wonderful opportunity and God has put people in our path in this adventure that we did not expect... I do not believe in "chance meetings"... I know God is preparing good things for us in this new adventure...

We are on the lookout for boxes and packing supplies... oh, and for someone to buy our house... so if you know of anyone looking in the Payson area send them our way. This is a FANTASTIC place to live :)

COLORADO HERE WE COME!!

Inky Smiles!

Erin

My Life’s Journey – A Mini Album

Wow, I’ve been gone quite some time from the blog.  No excuses, just busy living life.  Those of you who are facebook friends have seen what I’ve been up to.  (I hope to post about my adventures here in the next little while.)

At the beginning of August I attended a class by my friend, the fabulous Sue Neal.. I just LOVE Sue’s classes!  I don’t make it to every one of them but try to go when I can and I ALWAYS get a boost of creative mojo from her.  This last class - “My Life’s Journey” mini album was no exception.  Talk about a fabulous project!! 

Here’s the link to Sue’s blog & the original class project:

My Life’s Journey Mini Album

Most of my friends know that I am not usually one to follow the rules exactly… I usually veer off the path and wander…  At this class I MOSTLY followed Sue’s beautiful example. Well, I pretty much did, but then got home and didn’t have all the exact same supplies and didn’t want to go shopping to hunt down the few items I needed to complete my project.  All of the materials were provided, but I didn’t have the right color copics and my bottle of loverly homemade glimmer mist kerplunked on my kitchen tile floor and shattered from here to breakfast… (which is why you see some different whitish glimmer spray.. need to make some new brown glimmer and fix that)… and well.. yah, you get the picture. 

SO… like I said, I pretty much followed what I was SUPPOSED to do and added a few little bits and baubles to personalize it for me…  I did not purchase anything extra to complete the inner pages.. I used what was provided (there were lots of extra cool bits of embellishment pieces) and I stretched out what was provided.  I think the only thing I added from my stash were a couple of strips of paper (from the same line) for pockets and something else.. but 97-98% of the finished project was provided in the original kit. I still need to add the date tag to the front and lots of photos and then do the thinking part and write about my life…

I’ve been such a slacker about my blog… I get frustrated with the amount of time it takes to 1) create a project and then 2) take photos and then 3) edit said photos and 4) write a blog post and upload photos…. (mainly why I haven’t blogged in so stinkin’ long)… soooo… these photos are not staged all pretty… I snapped, did a basic edit (resize and watermark) and I’m tossing them up here on the web….

Cover:

 

First pages: Family History and Birth.   The left page pulls out a mini accordian family history record.

I love the banner… I thought every birthday needs a sparkly banner.  I added the lime green Stickles glitter to it and decided the glitter had to be a theme throughout the book… I think I was born with glitter in my hair :)

Childhood & Teenager Pages. 

 

Family & Learning Pages

Love & Home pages

 

Effort & You pages

That is supposed to say QUIRK.. I wish it said quirkY, but… I guess that’s just me… a little bit of an odd ball :)

Work & Friends

Last page

I just LOVE all the fabulous quotes and journaling prompts that Sue put in this mini album.  They are fun, they are thought provoking, they are excellent :)

I hope you enjoyed a peek at this as much as I enjoyed making it!

Inky Smiles!

E.