You gotta push it

Aw, remember Salt 'n Pepa? Me too.

Anyway, this past weekend was the first cycle-touring (i.e. camping) trip of my life! It was a very local conservation area, and four of us made our way out there Friday evening. Rob was a champ and pedaled the bike trailer plus excessive amounts of alcohol (for cycling, not for 4 people). We did a couple local mini trips to buy food and 5 bags of chips (seemed logical at the time).

Saturday, we got on our biked and made our way to St. Agatha, 11 km west of Waterloo for the strawberry festival We dreamed up a scenario with flats of strawberries everywhere and were a little flummoxed when we actually found 1 pint of strawberries, crafts, a classic car show, petting zoo and so on. so, not so much with the strawberries but a good day out. The route was very very hilly and my bike (my 13th birthday present) only let me use 4 ears. Rob rode the bike we found recently and fixed up a bit. Even still, at least Rob kept up with the other two. I...have a little conditioning work to do ;-)

C kicked it up a notch by biking home early Sunday morning to run a 10 km road race on top of everything, hard core chica! She even pulled of a PB, which is awesome.

All in all, it was a very successful weekend and we are looking forward to the next cycle trip. Possibly out to Elora Gorge, where we can swim. Supa!

This week's Master's goals:
1. complete draft of ethics approval (needed to talk to people in thesis)
2. Complete a point form of all major topics, subheadings and major points in thesis lit review
3. Brainstorm a list of menial thesis tasks to use interspersed with writing to keep progressing
4. Set up next 6 months of calendar plans for major goals

I have till Friday to see what I can do. I am frustrated with feeling like I'm swimming around with no real plans other than "do thesis" which is not task-y enough for me! So, time to break it down and make crap happen. Feels much better.

Hope you all had a good weekend. Stay hydrated, dudes.

Quick one

I'm sure you'll all be relived to know that the vet thinks Ludwig is so much better that he doesn't need his originally scheduled 3rd visit! Yay! That's about a $40 savings which is nice, to say the least. And also the healthy cat is good. Obviously. He's still a fatty bu they are surviving on their 1 cup of food a day so they'll stay on that for a month or two and then we'll seek advice to lower it more. Maybe we'll invest in a a little diet cat food or something.

In other exciting news, our washing machine which has been broken since before christmas has been fixed! No more hand washing important stuff only! We did about 4loads yesterday and have a few more to do if we can find the change to do it. Look at all the clothes we have! It's nuts, but so, so nice to have to have that modern convenience back. We also can kind of see the bedroom floor now.

In following with my Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook obsession, I've now made muffins out of the book. The mocha chip ones, but whatever, they're super good. That means I've made 2 kinds of waffles, a fabulous spinach curry, muffins, split pea soup and more from this book. It never disappoints and the ingredients are simple but fabulous. I ed-veganize sometimes since we now seem to use cow's milk more than soy milk, but the recipes are. SO.GOOD.

I can't wait to pick up the same author's cupcake book. I've tried the chai latte cupcakes and they are amazing. Yay delicious food!

Anyhoo, I haven't done any Texas prep yet, but I still have US traveller's cheques from Australia so that's nice. I'll pack the night before/the day of. Mostly I'm worried about having stuff to do in the car. I plan to knit a lot, and I am on a mitten kick so I'll have to hit up the second hand stores for mitten wool to get that ready too. An adventure! I can already feel that I'll be a bit homesick though. I like our little home and I'm pretty used to being with Rob most every day. A little time to make the heart grow fonder, I guess.

I am currently avoiding more thesis work, though that won't go away, so research I must. I know the info is there if I'd only look, but it's all about breaking the ice and getting into it.

Rob's at the walk in clinic. Hes been a sickie all week and this weekend was the worst. I've got him on fluids like mad and he thinks he may need a little more to fight whatever he's got. wish him luck :(

Back to it. Hey, as a placeholder thesis question (it'll get refined over time, that's for sure) what do you think of:

What role to environmental innovators play in promoting sustainable communities?

I like it.

yay.