What I want writing to be, and what writing is

I want writing to be about starting at the beginning and writing through until I find the end.  When it goes like that I think, “See, I was right, that’s what writing is like!”  When it doesn’t go like that I think, “Aaahh, I’m failling*!”

I’ve been writing my fairy story since the beginning of this year.  I’ve written somewhere between 15 and 20k words in this story.  (It is destined to be a novel, unless I suddenly discover that Lo, there isn’t really a plot where I expected there would be a plot**.)  And partway through the summer I realized I couldn’t keep writing the scene that I was trying to write, so I skipped ahead a little.  I mean a little, like I skipped over a boring bit that you wouldn’t have wanted to read anyway.  And then I was stuck.  So I backed up and tried again, this time trying not to skip ahead at all.  I have learned, in my years of writing stories, that when I’m stuck it’s usually because there’s something wrong with the story as I’ve written it so far, not because I’m inherently lazy, nor even because the story is inherently flawed.  And so if I can find the right question to ask, I can figure out what went wrong and fix it, and then the story will go merrily along on its way.  So I backed up a little, and rewrote.  And the newer version read better than the older version.  And then I got stuck, again.  I could’ve pushed on, but I know that pushing is a good way to get a bad story that’ll have to be rewritten.  So in July or August, I ripped back*** to a scene I’d written in May (oh, how that hurt), and noticed several plot holes.  Whew, that’s been the problem all along! thought I, and happily got back to writing.

In September I went on a (non-writing) vacation for two weeks, and when I came back I couldn’t remember why this story was supposed to be interesting, and ugh who wrote this rat’s nest, and why am I supposed to care about these characters?  What crystallized for me was that there were too many complications.  Yes, I need to have complications to keep the story going forward.  But if I can’t keep track of all of them, then my reader will have no hope.  So I simplified.  I pulled out an event that happened in the third scene and I made sure I knew, in each scene, what each person should primarily be reacting too.  If they’re not, then it’s a problem.  These things gave me a lot of clarity, and I am not rewriting.  I wrote down what I want to change, and I can see how those changes move forward into the “now” of my story so that I can pick up from “now” and keep writing.  I won’t waste time on rewriting that I could spend on writing new words.  The first draft will not be coherent from beginning to end, but coherence can wait until the second draft.

In order to make these decisions, to see what needs changing, I needed two things.  First was distance away from the story.  Second was the recognition that writing is a process of figuring out what the story is—and also what the story isn’t.  Just because I don’t always know what the story is doesn’t mean I’m failing.  Or falling.

It means I’m writing.

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* Not merely a typo, but also “failing” and “falling” smooshed together into one word that should already exist.  I’m shocked I didn’t think of it sooner.

** It feels a lot like Columbus sailing and sailing and sailing, and then falling off the end of the Earth because, Lo, there really isn’t more Earth in that direction.  Luckily for all of us, there really was more Earth and he didn’t fall off.  But there are no guarantees for my story.  Mathy philosopher types like Euripedes^ have been positing for centuries that there is more story, but they could be wrong.

^ Was it Euripedes?  Who’s the guy from Egypt who calculated the circumference of the Earth to within 5% accuracy based on the fact that a pole in the ground had more shadow at noon than a similar pole 200 miles south?  That’s the guy I’m thinking of.  Except really I’m thinking of the metaphorical guy, who’s actually just one of the voices in my head, telling me that it has mathematically computed that there must be more story, and its circumference is about the size of a novel.  And other voices are pointing out that this mathy guy hasn’t really proven he’s not just pulling numbers out of his hat, so don’t trust him too much.  I’m trying to be neutral in this debate until I have evidence one way or another.

*** That’s a knitting metaphor, right there.  I’ve ripped back rows in knitting often enough, too.  I hate doing it more than once on a project—and again I think I must be failing—but sometimes it’s just part of figuring out what works and what doesn’t.  But in knitting there is no second draft.  (And if your second sleeve looks better than the first?  Then your sweater will look funny.  :-/)

Desire, Blockage***, Motion

I have this desire to write more.  I want to tell the world funny rambly stories about my life and whatever catches my attention, because—ooh, shiny!—I’m entertained by totally random things, and I firmly believe there exist people who will find my entertainment entertaining.  (Yeah, I can’t decide if I created that sentence on purpose or not.)

I don’t want to write about my day job.  It’s not relevant, and I have a tendency to drift into snarky rather than funny, which is inappropriate if I want to remain a respected employee.  I don’t want to be inappropriate, and I don’t actually want to be snarky more often than is necessary to entertain the people who find me entertaining.

I’ve noticed that I can tell tragic stories about my own mental processes in a funny way, and I can tell boring stories in a funny way (though they may still be boring).  And I can tell perfectly straight* stories in a perfectly straight way, though I usually bore myself halfway through and have to stop and write something random.

I have a desire to learn how to NOTICE good blog-post subjects, so that I can write about them.  I also have a desire to learn how to WRITE those posts, quickly enough that I’ll click “post” before losing the energy behind them such that I suddenly decide they’re actually dumb and no one cares.  I know no one ought to care, but I’m hoping that the people out there who find me entertaining will care even when the subjects are dumb.

So, what steps should I take to make those two DESIRES become MOTION**?  (Feedback encouraged…)

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* Straight=non-funny, straight!=hetero, in this context.

** And when will I stop with the random YELLING for emphasis?

*** Does this sound as gross to anyone else as to me?  :-/  I can’t think of a better word, though, so I’m not changing it.  And yeah, I totally added this FIRST^ footnote last.

^ And I’m still yelling.  Sorry, I’ll try to get over it for next time.

Customizing the fit of a sweater *before* I make it

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Staghorn Sweater

I said that I wanted to customize the fit of this sweater, and my theory is that it’ll be better to fix before I get started, rather than after I’ve made it and am disappointed. To that end—being the seamstress that I also am—I decided to make a cloth mock-up, so I could see what it’ll look like on me.  I decided to use muslin, for the simple reasons that it’s super-cheap (~ $1/yd.) and that thin cotton is easy to work with.

Muslin sleeve of the Pseudo-Sweater

Fortunately, this pattern comes with expected dimensions, and I have sharpies, a ruler, and a basic sense of geometry.  So I drew the pattern directly onto the fabric, adding a 5/8 in. seam allowance to each edge that was meant to be sewn together.  Unfortunately, I forgot that the pattern already included a 1-stitch selvage.  The gauge is 16 stitches per 4 inches, or about 1/4 inch per stitch.  So, if I wanted 5/8 in. seam allowance, I could’ve just added 3/8 in.  I noticed this before I sewed anything together, and sewed 7/8 in. seams to get a proper sense of how it will fit.

The other thing was that despite its cheapness, I didn’t want to use up as much fabric as it would take to make the whole sweater.  Since this was just a mock-up to get a sense of how it would fit, I created the whole back, one front, and one sleeve.  Three seams later (I didn’t bother setting the sleeve into the sweater… I hate putting in sleeves), I had a pseudo-sweater and a sleeve.  At first I tried to just put the pseudo-sweater on myself, but I realized I wasn’t getting a good sense of where it would hang on me, so I safety-pinned the critical points (shoulders, center back, side seams) to a tank-top.

Front of the Pseudo-Sweater (with the dart at the sides)

This sweater is meant to be baggy.  I’m ok with that.  But here’s the thing.  Yarn is forgiving.  You can make it much smaller than you’d ever make something woven, and it’ll still fit just fine, because (in general, and obviously this varies depending on the yarn and the stitch) it’ll stretch.  Also, with a bottom hem that just hangs down and isn’t tight to the body, no ribbing around the hips or anything, it’s likely to stretch out and become even baggier, one direction or another.  So starting out with a too-baggy sweater, it’ll only become an even more too-baggy* sweater.

The pseudo-sweater seemed to fit just fine around the hips, but around the waist it looked huge on me.  Turns out I’m not square-shaped.  So, I measured the difference between my hips and the narrowest point of my waist, and divided that by 4 to pick a starting point for how much to leave out of each quarter of the sweater (front left, front right, back left, back right).  Then I tucked in and pinned the side-seam by approximately that much (I totally eyeballed it, not having my measuring tape handy), and was impressed by the improvement.  It would still be loose, but not crazy-baggy.

Back of the Pseudo-Sweater (don't you love how I've used safety pins to attach the sleeves and mark a random point on my back?)

The next questions are: where do I make that dart**, do I make the dart in both front and back or only the back, and after I’ve decreased that much do I want to increase again back to the hip-width, or do I want the shoulders to be a little narrower, too?  Everything I can find about making vertical darts in sweaters indicates I should decrease at the side-seam, not in the back like I would if I were sewing a shirt, but no one seems to explain why.  While I will go with that theory, I’m still waiting for the why.  Since I took in the proper amount from both the front and the back in my pseudo-sweater, and it looked just fine, I think the darts should be symmetrical about the side-seams.  Double-decreases, and double-increases.  The third question, I’m going to play by ear.  I could see increasing to get the shoulders to nearly the width of the hips, without affecting how the sleeves will fit.  From there, I’ll also have to play the sleeves by ear.  From the fabric mock-up, they seemed about the right length or a little short, so it’ll just be a matter of how the yarn actually behaves.

So, I think I’ve identified all of the sizing changes.  Decrease several inches, with the decrease vertically centered at my waist (careful measurement and attention will be required for that…), then increase probably 2/3s as much as I decreased.  And then pay attention to sleeve length as I go.

No problem!  o_O

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* Check me out, rockin’ the descriptive adjectives.  Oh yeah.

** In knitting, they use the term dart just like in sewing.  But in sewing, a dart is where you cut out and sew together fabric, to make a 3D shape out of flat fabric.  In knitting, you just don’t knit those stitches, so they never exist.  Trippy.

Fits & Starts

There’s this theory that if you do a little of something every day, eventually you’ll have accomplished a whole lot of it.  For example, BIC—Butt In Chair—stands for sitting your butt in the chair every day, regardless of whether you “feel like it”, and just writing.  The corollary is, if you do a little every day you’ll get in the habit of doing a little (or possibly more) every day, and so it’ll be less of a struggle to do every day.  Twenty-one days to create a habit, or whatever that number is supposed to be.

But then there’s also this theory, which is mine, that there aren’t enough hours in the day, and there isn’t enough energy in my body, to do a little of all of the things I want to do every day.  Writing, house-keeping, paying attention to my people, WORKING for money, gardening, brushing my teeth (ok, I manage this one every day pretty well), sleeping (if I could only do without…), knitting, listening to interesting & educational podcasts.  Etc.  Oh yeah, and READING.  I do a whole lot of that already.

So instead, I tend to binge on those things.  I’ll spend a weekend vegging because I’ve been pushing too hard for too long.  I’ll spend another weekend away Doing Something.  I’ll spend the next weekend catching up on housework* and maybe knitting and watching TV.  I’ll spend another weekend on a knitting or sewing project.  Another weekend caring for my garden.  In most cases I’m not devoting the whole weekend to that activity, but rather a significant portion of my energy.  Same goes for weekday evenings.  This past week, I spent a lot of evenings between work and paying attention to my significant other.  Other weeks I manage to write in the evenings.  Other weeks I manage to at least compose a few blog posts.

I feel guilty when I haven’t written several days in a week.  I feel guilty when Ben’s hat is sitting half-made for several months.  It was his Christmas present.  With any luck it’ll be finished by next Christmas.  I have a sweater I want to start making some day**.  I have tomatoes that need my attention, and kefir & yogurt to make at least weekly, and …

But maybe it’s not so bad to accomplish things in fits and starts.  I do make progress on those things.  I keep them all going, one way or another.  Not always “on time”***.  The thing is, it’s not that I’m slacking off.  OK, I’m not consistently productive on any one thing.  But that’s not my style.  Maybe it’s time for me to accept my style as the one that works for me, and stop trying to be the person who does the same things every day, or even every week.

And by the way, I’ve read 27 books so far this year.  So I’m clearly not slacking off on my reading.  :)

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* Apparently it’s been four weeks since I last did laundry.  :-/  That’s long even for me.

** I have to buy yarn first.

*** See: laundry, hat.

I want to knit a sweater

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Staghorn Sweater
pretty yellow cable-knit sweater
Staghorn Coat

And I’ve decided which one.  :-D

See how purty?

My mom bought me this fabulous book, POWER CABLES by Lily M. Chin, which is all about knitting different kinds of cables.  And this sweater is one of its patterns.  See how pretty?  I haven’t made anything from the book yet, and I want to start with this one.

Honestly, though, I have trouble following directions.  Recipes, assignments at work, patterns, I always notice when they’re just not quite right, and adjust them.  Not right for me, of course, I couldn’t say if they’re right for everyone else.  (Some people like celery, can you imagine?)  This pattern only offers one size, and I’m concerned it’ll be too big for me.  So I’ve decided I’m going to alter the pattern.  That means a lot more work upfront, but I hope it’ll look better on me in the end.

Now, it’s meant to be an oversized sweater, and I’m ok with that.  It’s just that I want it to look like it’s oversized on *me*, not like a hand-me-down oversized sweater.  Furthermore, knitted things have a tendency to stretch, so if it starts out too big, it runs the risk of getting only longer and baggier.  I think it’ll be the right size around my hips, but I want it to be a little more shapely, and I think I’d like to make it a little narrower in the shoulders.  So, I’m thinking of putting in darts on the side-seams, to decrease through the waist and then increase again in the chest.

I’ve never made a sweater before.  I’ve been knitting for over half my life, and I’ve wanted to make something like a sweater for years.  But sweaters are a lot of work.  It’s daunting.  And worse, I have just two options.  Design my own so it will fit right, which is a lot of work for a first-time sweater-knitter.  Or follow someone else’s pattern, which wasn’t designed for me and won’t fit me properly.  Or option 3: follow someone else’s pattern, but modify it to fit me better.  I’m hoping option three will turn out best.

It’s OK to stay in bed and read all day.

Being exhausted, achy, and miserable yesterday, I spent nearly all day lying in bed, reading (and finishing) NORTH & SOUTH by Elizabeth Gaskell.

I just couldn’t convince myself to get out of bed for longer than a meal.  Part of that was because I was miserable and achy, and part of that was because I’d totally fallen into the mid-19th century England that Gaskell described.  Fancy clothing, proper manners, class distinctions, people dying right and left.  Cotton mills, and strikes, and a passionate, scowly man who, despite being part of the upper-crust of his city, wasn’t quite a gentleman—not by London standards.  I was sucked into it, I had trouble imagining what in my real world could possibly be more important or more interesting than Margaret moving to a strange new town, than Thornton and his mill, or—I’ll be honest—whether Margaret & Thornton could manage to both like each other at the same time.

I felt lazy.  I felt like I was stealing time from the things I need to do–chores, keeping up with people, contributing to feeding my significant other and myself, watering my poor plants—and from the things I want to do—continuing projects I don’t have time for during the week, working on that story I’m in love with writing, writing blog posts because I like telling the world what it’s like to be me.  Etc.

But I LOVE to read.  I get absorbed into other worlds, other people’s lives.  I love it so much that I’ve taken up writing my own stories, because they don’t exist for me to read yet and I want to know what happens.  I love watching movies and TV, but I love books in this whole other way.  It’s immersive, not just visual and aural, but a truly engaging book will give me a whole-body experience.  I feel emotions and believe opinions that aren’t my own, because the characters feel and believe those things.  When I read for an hour at a time, it’s a nice pastime.  But reading a book all day—that feels like living the story.

That has its risks, too, of course.  When a story becomes more important than real life, is something out of balance*?  Is it escapism?  Or is it just truly enjoying an activity that isn’t bad for my health?

I don’t know.  But aside from the guilt, I liked spending all day reading.  And I felt less exhausted, achy, and miserable.  So it must be OK, right?

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* Don’t they write creepy stories about books taking over a person’s life, a character sucking out the reader’s soul and living in her body?  Hmm…

writing update

I just noticed I haven’t posted about my writing in a while, and you might think I’ve quit.

Never fear, I haven’t!  I’ve been working slowly, but steadily, on the same New! Shiny! project I mentioned in January, THE LAST FAIRY GODMOTHER.  And it’s rolling along.  No angst, no bashing head into the wall, no pulling teeth.  I know what’s going to happen later in the story*, and so I keep writing until I get there.  My characters keep surprising me–there was a funny bit with a tea kettle I didn’t see coming–and a few things that showed up as throw-away lines have turned into plot points.  The coolest thing is that I’m still interested in the story.  I know that in a little while, they’re going to reach a whole new place and it’s going to be fascinating (to me) to find out who is there and what miscommunications will turn up.  I know there is plenty of room for miscommunication, and I know things will go horribly wrong, but I don’t know the details yet–and I can’t wait to find out.  I’m hoping it’ll be funny and meaningful, all at the same time, and hopefully not too much like watching a train wreck**.

At my current writing pace, I  might finish this (draft of this) novel in about 3 years.  o_O  I’m hoping to pick up speed somewhere along the way–NaNoWriMo would be an excellent opportunity–but in the meantime, it’s going along.  And I keep having new things to add to this story.  Until that stops, it’s all good.

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* Not that I’m going to tell you, of course…

** Incidentally, you can spend hours watching train wrecks on youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=train+wreck&aq=f.  I wish I were kidding.

Ahenobarbus

I’ve decided I need to name something Ahenobarbus.  It means golden-beard, it’s a Roman name (in fact, anyone named Domitius Ahenobarbus was known to be of a noble family, during the Roman Empire), and it was one of Nero’s names.  He was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.  Not to be confused with his dad, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus.  Nor to be confused with the name he was given when his mom remarried (she married the emperor, after he executed his third wife, who was Lucius’ cousin, for adultery, and then she arranged to have his aunt, her sister-in-law, the third wife’s mother, killed, too.  Oh and before all that, she [the mom, Agrippina the Younger] had been exiled for having an affair after her husband, Nero’s dad, died [cuz he was quite a bit older than her].  But she still managed to marry the emperor, and have him adopt her son.  And somehow her son became the next emperor, not the emperor’s son.  And then he, Nero, aka Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, had his adopted brother, the emperor’s actual son, killed.  And then, supposedly, he might’ve had an affair with his mom [ooh creepy], and later had her executed.  Or maybe he didn’t.), which wikipedia claims is Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, but I swear the teacher said it was Tiberius Claudius something Nero Caesar something else.  :-/  I’m a little confused* now.

Anyway, doesn’t Ahenobarbus sound like a great name?  A-HEE-no-bar-bus.  I can’t decide what it should be.  Maybe my new climbing rose**?  No, it’s a little too manly for a pretty climbing rose.  Umm.  My cell phone?  I dunno, calling it “Ahenobarbus” would take longer than calling it “my phone”.  :-/  Any suggestions?

But anyway, you should totally listen to this fabulous class I’ve been listening to, from UC Berkeley.  It’s a history class about the Roman Empire from several years ago, and the teacher, Isabelle Pafford, is funny and tells a great story.  And you know how I like a good story.  http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978539 Have I mentioned how Berkeley podcasts classes?  I’ve listened to several now, and it’s better than actually taking the class.  Mostly because I get to hear the cool stories, don’t have to do any homework, and I can follow along at my own pace.  Go check it out!

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* You aren’t confused, are you?

** I got an Autumn Sunset.  I thought the flowers looked like pretty skirts.  http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/66645-product.html I’ll post a picture as soon as I remember to take one.

Making Yogurt – Liza’s bastardized version of Indian directions

I’ve been making yogurt for a few months now, from a batch that one of my (wonderful) Indian co-workers brought me of her strain from India.  Just today, my best friend Sally took home some of my yogurt so she could start making it, too.  So, I’m writing down directions.

Here’s how I make yogurt:

  1. I make sure to keep at least a tablespoon of the previous batch of yogurt.  The instructions I was given were that one tablespoon is enough to make the next batch of yogurt, no matter how much you’re making.  I haven’t tried this too closely, I’ve been making 1-2 cups with one tablespoon of yogurt.
  2. I’ve been using a glass container, but you could use plastic or stainless steel (I hear Indian stores have fabulous stainless steel containers, but I haven’t managed to go look yet).
  3. Put the tablespoon of yogurt into the container, then fill the container with milk.  If I make two containers of yogurt, I use one tablespoon of yogurt per container.  I’ve been pouring the milk in cold, straight out of the refrigerator, but see my notes below about the proper Indian method.
  4. Put the container with the yogurt in a warm place.  I’ve been putting it in the oven with the oven light turned on.  I’ve also been using a thermometer to gauge the temperature in the oven (not in the milk/yogurt), and have found that it’ll go above 100°F.  I’m not very scientific about it, so I leave it in the oven with the light on for several hours, until it’s above 100°, then turn it off for several hours until it’s at 80° or lower, and then turn it on again, etc., until it acts like yogurt.  I after I turn the light off the second time, I’ll usually leave it in overnight.
  5. Once it’s wobbly like yogurt, take it out, put a lid on, and stick it in the fridge.  I haven’t been worrying about leaving it in the oven too long, and if I’m not sure it’s ready I’ll leave it in a bit longer.

My theory (and I haven’t done any research about this) is that yogurt bacteria like to be pretty warm to grow quickly.  It could be that getting the milk even warmer than that would be helpful, and then you might not need to leave it out part of the day and all night.

Proper Indian directions, per my coworkers who looked at my like I was crazy when I described how I’d made yogurt (I haven’t ever followed these directions*):

  1. Heat up milk in a pot until boiling.
  2. Take it off the heat, and let it cool off until it’s just warm.
  3. Pour the milk into containers, with a tablespoon of yogurt per container.  Put in the oven with the light on only if your home is fairly cold.  (I’m not sure about the technical definition of that, but I’d guess 70° is nearing too cold.)
  4. Let it sit for about 8 hours.
  5. Cover and refrigerate.

My theory about why my method is working just as well: Milk bought in the U.S. (>99% of it, anyway) is already pasteurized.  Boiling it is like pasteurizing it.  So here in the U.S. it’s an unnecessary step.  Therefore, the only actual need is to warm up the milk.  Maybe warming it on the stove or in a microwave would work better than putting it in cold, but it would take more steps before I could move on to the next thing in my day.  I’ll let you know if I ever try it.

What’s the difference between Indian** yogurt (or any kind of home-made) and store-bought?  Many things. First, home-made yogurt is made up of hundreds of bacteria that are good for your digestion, whereas store-bought uses just a few strains that each company has decided are the “best”, or maybe patentable.  Even the brands that advertise that they have live cultures only have a few very specific live cultures… and the strains may have been added in after the yogurt became yogurt.  Indian, or any kind of home-made, yogurt is yogurt because it was made with all of the strains of bacteria that were in the culture to start with.  (By the way, you probably could start yogurt from store-bought, as long as it’s the kind that has live cultures, but then it wouldn’t have very many strains of bacteria.  If you can find someone who has their own yogurt, that would probably would best.)

Second, home-made yogurt can vary quite widely in flavor, depending on what bacteria are in it.  The strain I have is a bit sweet, even when left plain.  Others can be very sour.

Third, because the beneficial bacteria in home-made yogurt are still alive and active, they don’t leave room for harmful bacteria to grow.  This doesn’t mean it can’t spoil, and I’ve been told to keep it in the refrigerator once it’s made (this also keeps it from getting more sour-flavored), but it’s less likely to go bad.

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* I don’t follow directions well.  Also, I was given yogurt before I was given instructions.  And then I decided to try it, based on what I know about kefir and what I’d heard about yogurt.  I guessed wrong, but it worked anyway.

** Other cultures make yogurt, too.  Only my Indian coworkers have told me about it, though, so that’s my point of reference.

I rode my bike!

Today was a beautiful day, and Sally came over and dragged me out on my bike to ride by my coast.  I didn’t freak out, I managed (with help) to re-inflate my tires, and I even rode down the hill that my house is on.  Last time I went for a bike ride, I walked down the hill, to avoid having to figure out traffic and a hill and riding all at the same time.  But I had my Sally with me, and we just powered on ahead, and it was fine.

The coast side trail we rode on is paved, nearly flat, and apparently goes about 3 miles.  And if you can stop panicking about balancing on this narrow little thing long enough to look up from the road, it has amazing views of the ocean and the hills.  It was sunny, and because it’s still spring there weren’t many pedestrians out (so I didn’t have to worry about hitting too many of them!).  Apparently there was a pretty strong wind, and of course it was with us on our ride south, and then against us on our way back home.

I started out very tense, very stressed, but once we’d been going a little ways I relaxed and was able to enjoy myself.  (I think, too, it hurts more when I’m stressed & tense.)  We didn’t go the whole three miles, because we reached a point where it was swarming with people cleaning up the beach and decided to turn back and stay out of there way.  Which was really just as well, because of that headwind.  The ride back was far more exhausting than I expected.

As soon as we got back to civilization (i.e. roads with cars), which is also where the hill starts, I got off and walked.  Sally rode back up the hill, and I was very impressed.  As soon as I stopped huffing and puffing.  ;)

And now, I’m lying on the couch, achy and tired.  Less than 6 miles*, and no hills, and I’m exhausted.

I need to do this more often.

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* I checked google maps, and between my neighborhood, and the distance we rode on the path, it was about 3 miles out, and since I walked part of the way back, it was less than 3 miles back.  :p