MS150

About a year and a half ago Nick decided he wanted to get into biking. He didn't have a bike at the time, but before long he found an incredible deal on a used racing bike. And he started biking. And he loved it. Couldn't get enough of it.

Last summer he raced in two duathalons (run-bike-run, for the uninformed, like myself), rode with a team, rode to work, rode on weekends, rode early mornings, rode late evenings.....get the idea? He loved it.

I loved that he loved it, but I'm really not into endurance sports. Heavy lifting? Yes. Pull-ups? Heck yes. Cardio for more than 30 minutes seconds? No.

Well, over the winter both Nick and our friend/biker extraordinaire/Nick's introduction to the road racing world were really pushing me to re-think my biking stance. Eventually I found myself saying it would be fun to ride together on weekends. Just occasionally. For fun. Nothing crazy.

And then our friend/biker extraordinaire started sending me Craigslist postings of bikes. Daily.

In the meantime, Nick and I went for a quick 3 mile ride around a local lake. He was on his super-speedy road bike, I was on my mountain bike I've had since I was 8(?). He pedaled approximately 3 times over the course of the 3 miles, while I worked my little heart out to keep up. Not super fun.

So! I bought a bike! I found exactly what I was looking for on Craigslist and bought it. That was last Friday. On Sunday we decided to break it in with a little 22 mile ride. (Go big or go home?)

And that night we signed up for the MS 150. (Deep breath) We will ride 150 miles on June 8th and 9th. I have ridden exactly 25 miles in the past 10 years. June 8 & 9 is 6 weeks away. I'm not the best at math, but even I can figure out that's not a good equation! 

But here's the deal - our friend/biker extraordinaire has a very personal connection to MS. He has family members who deal with very challenging physical circumstances every single day because of MS. I think I can deal with challenging physical circumstances for 2 days if it brings hope that someday their lives, and the lives of those who will be diagnosed in the future, might become a little bit easier. 

So. We're riding. 2 days, 150 miles, 6 weeks to train, and the dream of a world free from MS.



Notes for the curious:

• I'm not completely crazy. I'm a CrossFit athlete, and one of the things I love about CrossFit is that it prepares you physically for just about anything. (Except, maybe, all those hours on a bike saddle. Ouch.) As CrossFitters we say we're training for life and this is a chance to put that to the test! We have also scheduled in as many training rides as we possibly can over the next 6 weeks. I'm also buying those fancy padded bike shorts.
• The purpose of this ride is to raise funds for MS research as well as fund existing services for MS patients and their families. Nick and I need to raise $300 each in order to ride, but our goal is to raise at least $500 each. If you're interested in supporting us on the ride you can access our pages here (Nick / Cindy). Thank you, friends. 
• And finally, yes, it would have been great to sign up/start training sooner. Our main roadblock was finding a bike for me, and that unfortunately took longer than we hoped. So, 6 weeks, here we go!

floating shelves: filled!

Remember how I said it was going to take me three months to fill our new floating shelves in the kitchen? I was kidding. I'm not actually that patient.

The shelves have been officially filled. I wouldn't necessarily call it "styled" (please see: I have no idea what on earth I'm doing), but I was even more happy with the end result than I thought I would be.

I don't love the glass pitcher and glass bowl next to each other, so I'll probably keep swapping some things out and tweaking but for a first attempt.....I'm in love. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the contents of these shelves change over time.

I'm also thrilled that I could finally dig out some beautiful gifts out and see them everyday. The red wine glasses on the lower shelf are too tall for our cabinets, so they have been waiting patiently in a box for their chance to shine. And those white mixing bowls? They make me happy every time I see them.

If you've ever thought about putting open shelving in your own kitchen I highly recommend checking out Kim's post about living with open shelves.  I am a little nervous about how the "dust" factor will work out, but I guess time will tell. I was also a bit concerned about how my OCD/symmetrical/nothing-ever-looks-right personality would do with the shelves but in the end I love it. We are officially marking this project down as a success!

getaway in the sun

Can I be honest for a moment? (yes? thanks.)

Winter destroys my soul. The cold. The soul-sucking unrelenting cold. Snow. Ice. A 45-minute-turned-2-hour commute. Nick’s completely unpredictable work schedule. The cold. Stir-crazy dogs. Mind-numbing cold. Also, the cold.

I actually write a note in my planner every year, usually sometime in March, reminding myself to be gentle with me while I just try to survive the final months of Winter. Well, this March, while Nick was in Alaska and the cold was eating me alive, my dear friend asked me to join her on a little getaway to Scottsdale, Arizona. I told her I hoped she was serious, because I jumped all over that offer. I actually booked a flight the very next day.

If you follow me on Instagram (cindygermann, but only follow me if you want to see excessive pictures of my dogs. You’ve been warned), you’ve already seen some of these photos. We spent 5 days in the sun, soaking up sunlight and feeling alive again. I know that sounds dramatic, but honestly? Winter is that bad for me.

This trip, though, was amazing. We spent a lot of it poolside and just relaxing, but I do have a couple recommendations I want to share.

First. The Greene House in Kierland Commons. Go. Seriously. It was amazing. Open air dining, fantastic wine and possibly the most delicious salad I have ever had (and guys, I eat a lot of salad). The truffle fries are also delicious. Ok, fine, everything we tasted was absolutely delicious. In fact, we loved it so much that we went back two days later and ate there again. And I got the same salad (The Greene House Salad, top right in the photo below). So good.

We hiked Camelback Mountain on Friday. I definitely recommend the hike, but it was more intense than I expected it to be. Definitely bring water. More water than you think you’ll need. Also, it’s all sun all the time. There is almost no shade on the entire trail, so bring sunscreen and keep re-applying. And leave early in the morning so you don’t overheat. We started out a little too late and it was hot. Plan on hands-free hiking, too. Once you get close to the top you’ll need your hands to scramble up the rocks. This isn’t exactly a stroll-in-the-park type trail. Totally worth it, though.

More than anything we just layed low, relaxed and enjoyed the sun. Also? No sunburn. For a pasty-skinned redhead seeing the sun for the first time since last Summer, that’s pretty darn good. Spray-on SPF 30 for the win.

We actually got bumped off our return flight, which meant one extra day in the sun…but our bags flew on without us. Our new flight home made a stop in St. Louis before continuing on to Minneapolis which meant we landed exactly 1.5 hours before the wedding of two dear friends. I assumed my bag would be lost, but by some miracle it was waiting at the baggage claim office. Another friend picked us up and dropped me off at the wedding. I quickly changed clothes and everything worked out perfectly. Total win.

And now it’s 34 degrees and snowing and there’s a thick layer of snow on the ground and seriously Minnesota what is the deal?

open shelves in the kitchen

Alternately titled: FINALLY.

Two years ago, when we were ripping out the kitchen (and, at the same time, my sanity) I told Nick I wanted open shelves along an entire wall in our kitchen. When I made this proclamation we had an ugly bump-out (highly technical term. Duh.) running up the entire wall, which was necessary to hide a collection of water pipes. It’s possible that I considered foregoing a heated house in the name of gorgeous open shelves, but at the time it was January in Minnesota and apparently heat is necessary for things like….survival.

  

We worked through so.many.options trying to figure out how to accommodate open shelves and the pipes. We had settled on building a shallow cabinet from the ceiling to the countertop, with a row of small cabinets “connecting” that tower to the cabinets on the adjacent wall. The open shelves would be inside that space. It was an ok option, but the shallow cabinet would be right next to the window and block a lot of light. In the name of finishing our kitchen someday, I agreed to the plan.

BUT.

My dad came over to help. And my dad is really really good at coming up with creative solutions to pretty much everything. He figured out a way to put all the water pipes in the wall up until the last foot or so at the ceiling. It was perfect and left plenty of room for those gorgeous shelves that were floating around in my head.

And then we decided to chase a little dream and finish the house in less than 2 months and put the house on the market….all during the infamous marching band season (when Nick works an extra 10-40 hrs per week on top of his normal job) and instead of shelves we put a clock on the wall and called it good.

  

But the day we took the sign out of the yard I started talking about shelves again. SHELVES! BEAUTIFUL SHELVES! It took me a while to finally confess that I wanted floating shelves. No brackets. While I love the look of a chunky shelf support, I didn’t want to drill into the tile backsplash. Someday, someone down the road may want to take those shelves back off the wall, and they would probably be sad pandas if they suddenly had holes in the tile. Plus, I really just wanted floating shelves.

Nick put on his woodworking cap and built these beauties for me. This kind of thing just makes sense to him, so he didn’t actually use plans, but he did use Ana White’s shelves as his inspiration. So if you’re looking for something similar I would highly recommend checking this link.

Anyway. The shelf project got delayed while Nick took a quick (week long) trip to Alaska, but a couple days after he got home I was talking about them non-stop. He got the hint. The day I drove back from my weekend with Kim and Michelle he was busy attaching shelves to the wall. It took me almost a week to get them painted, but it was completely worth it.

I am officially in love.

(A couple things you should know - first, our house is not actually on a slant. I'm just completely incapable of taking a straight picture. Second, this photo was taken in the evening. I thought I had better lighting than I actually did. Our walls are not actually lime green.)

Now I’m working on filling them up with pretty things. That will probably take me another three months. Just kidding. Kind of.

And while I work on styling the shelves, Nick is already ready to go on his next woodworking project! Any guesses??

quad cities adventure #2

I spent this past weekend with my two favorite bloggers - Kim (NewlyWoodwards) and Michelle (Decor and the Dog). You might remember our previous adventures (documented here and here), and if you've ever met either of these girls you know it was bound to be another fantastic weekend. I absolutely love these two and I'm glad they either like me, too or pretend to like me enough to hang out with me two weekends a year.

The plan for the weekend was to craft and cause trouble but I think we may have done quite a bit more eating than crafting. That's actually a perfect plan in my world, because I love to eat.

Starting in the top left... 

1. The only photo of the three of us this weekend, courtesy of Michelle (and Nate. Nate, thanks for being great. Sorry we're so obnoxious). Although we look fairly put together in this photo, there was a club soda explosion in the kitchen just moments before. We're pretty entertaining, really.

2. We have all heard about Michelle's homemade doughnuts. Kim and I demanded proof these delicacies existed. After some thorough research, I can confirm the doughnuts a) exist and b) are absolutely delicious. Really, really delicious.

3. Michelle promised me Starbucks coffee without needing to change out of my PJs and/or leave her house. Once again, Michelle came through for me. Coffee, doughnuts....pretty much everything I need.

4. After many Instagram comments every single time Michelle goes to Whitey's, I finally got to experience it myself. De.licious. Also, a perfect pick-me-up when a day of shopping adventures gets too tiring. (My life is hard, clearly.)

Ok, things you need to know about me - I don't craft. I have an obnoxious level of perfectionism/OCD that makes crafting a less than pleasant activity. However, as shown in the photos below, thanks to some very patient teachers and lots of good food (and possibly some fabulous sangria), I found crafting success this weekend. And I even enjoyed it. I am now thinking up more crafting adventures. Watch out, world.

1. We had planned to spend just the morning shopping and get right to our crafty creating, but suddenly it was 7pm and we were just pulling out the crafting supplies. We worked hard for 45 minutes and then had to break for dinner. Obviously. I wasn't kidding about the eating. We ate really well. Nate whipped up some deliciousness for dinner and then we were back to work.
2. The OCD came out in full force when I tried to put the sticker on the jar for glass etching. I think I pulled that sucker off at least 12 times on the first jar. Thankfully, the stickers were very forgiving and eventually I got it right. Or right-ish. Right enough to be happy with the end result. (Also, by "first" I mean the first one I actually did. I made Kim do the first one for me. She had the sticker on in one shot.)
3. I CRAFTED! You guys, are you so proud??? Glass etching was a total success. No one lost any fingers (paranoid much?) and the jars turned out pretty darn cute. Now I need to figure out what to do with them (other things I struggle with? decorating. I'm such a good house blogger).
4. I had been home for less than an hour when Shalai pulled our other crafting adventure out of my bag and......ate it. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS. Just kidding. It's why we can't have paper things. She will eat anything within her reach that's made of paper.

In case it's not obvious from the photos, I had an amazing weekend. Kim and Michelle can make absolutely anything fun and I love being with them. We probably burned off everything we ate just by laughing. I can't guarantee everyone is as great as these two are, but if you have the chance to meet up with bloggy friends in real life I highly recommend you do it. I think the people you meet are absolutely the greatest thing about the blog world and I'm really glad I met these two. Thanks for an awesome weekend, ladies! I can't wait to do it again.

pupdate

I have been informed by a number of people that I need to blog more. Well folks, I aim to please. I really truly do have house updates for you and more projects up our sleeves that I can't wait to jump into, but I thought it was time for a little update on the pups.

Our big adventure this Spring is learning to walk on a leash. They're both terrible at it. We're probably terrible at it too. On one occasion Nick actually carried Shalai home because he was so frustrated trying to walk her. One of my coworkers recommended the EZ Walk harness, so we're trying that and it's making a huge difference. Beemer is really great with the harness (except he barks a lot for no reason...at least no reason we can figure out). Shalai thinks we're way too slow, so she spends at least half our walk hopping along on her hind legs trying to go faster. We're getting there. Slowly. Maybe. Also? If the ice could go ahead and melt that would really help. Walks have been extremely treacherous this week.

We're quickly coming up on the one year anniversary of Shalai's emergency surgery. Dang, a year later I still tear up just thinking about it. I know it's ridiculous to love a dog this much, but I do. As difficult and high maintenance as our hounds can be I still adore them. Anyway. After that rather scary and expensive weekend we decided to get "major medical" insurance for both of the dogs. Our ultimate goal is to have an emergency fund for the stinkers and drop the insurance, but until we can build that back up the peace of mind is worth it to us. That experience showed both of us that we are willing to spend whatever it takes to save our dogs lives (whenever it's up to us!) so this was a choice that made sense for us. Anybody else have insurance for their dogs? And yes, I realize how ridiculous this probably sounds. But that's ok. It works for us, and I hope we never have to use it.

After a really rough start two and half years ago, Beemer is finally turning into a mama's boy. Thanks to this bundle of love I'm hoping to foster dogs someday. Friends, if you have the opportunity to rescue a dog please please please seriously consider it.

I am really fortunate to have the opportunity to work from home on occasion. Shalai insists on sleeping in my lap while I work away at our dining room table. It's hard to say no to such a sweet snugglebug.

 While sorting through some stuff we had packed up while the house was on the market we found my favorite stuffed animal as a kid - Puppy (I had a knack for super original names). Beemer quickly took possession of Puppy and spent the next hour cuddling with him. So, so sweet. Shalai would have torn Puppy to bits in less than 5 minutes, so I couldn't believe Beemer just wanted to cuddle. And lick Puppy's face.

So there you have it - a little update on the furballs we love so much! Next time it will be a house update, which will include the open shelves in our kitchen that I have been dreaming about for, oh, two years. Dreams are coming true, thanks to Nick's handiwork. I just need to paint them. And then we need to get them on the wall. Stay tuned, it should be exciting.

random thoughts with cindy

Happy Friday, friends! I don't know about you, but I am definitely ready for the weekend. It's snowing right now, which I'm hoping stops in time for Nick to come home for a dinner date with friends. As much as I don't really like snow, I'm really just thankful we're above zero (fin.a.lly). We spent a good chunk of the week hanging around -25 degree windchills. Negative. Twenty. Five. I have completely run out of good reasons to live in this state.

Although, there is snow golf to entertain the dogs. Good move, MN.

In related news, there were ridiculously cheap flights to Seattle again this week. It took everything in me not to book another trip for next week.

After a bout of doggie-flu last week, both hounds are healthy again! We spent the better part of a week getting up 2-4 times a night with sick puppies, so we're happy everybody is sleeping through the night. Well, except me. I don't make a habit of sleeping through the night. After talking about it for a while we decided to go ahead and switch up the pup's food once they were healthy. I want to have them on it a while longer before I talk about it, but so far we're liking the change.

Shalai also likes dragging her towel onto the bed, apparently?

I know it's been quiet on the blog-front lately, but it's also been quiet on the house-improvement front. We're finally getting back into it, as represented by the fact that our basement is currently a shelf-making workshop. If we can just get the snow not to ruin our weekend plans we should have some new shelves in the kitchen soon.

I bought a new duvet cover from West Elm that I'm really excited about. Naturally, buying a new duvet cover means we need a new rug. And curtains. And a new wall color. And a bed. So much for an inexpensive duvet cover.

My favorite candle in the whole wide world is Yankee Candle's Autumn Wreath. I love it deeply and dearly and burn it all Fall. I saw the car-scent version on clearance the other day so I picked it up. While it smells better than the scent my car was sporting (Wet Dog/Banana Peel, for those who are interested), I realized that is a scent that is so much better as a candle than a car air freshener. I'm back on the hunt for something a little lighter. Suggestions welcome!

Happy weekend, friends. May your weekends be warm and full of family and fuzzy critters.