I suppose it's time for a post

It's been a while since I've posted here though I HAVE been posting fairly regulary to earrings365.blogspot.com. Truth by told, I haven't really been doing much other than making jewelry. But I can give a quick update:

Well, right now I have some pumpernickle bread in the oven, so that's pretty exciting. If I remember, I'll take a picture when it comes out. I just made the recipe that was on the back of the rye flour as King Arthur didn't really seem to have much in the way of rye flour recipes. It called for whole wheat flour in addition to the rye, but Ididn't have that so I just used white flour. Interestingly the recipe called for molasses and, are you ready for this, cocoa powder! Dessert! Yay!

What else? Although I really, really need to be training for the triathlon I'm doing in August, I'm not. I went for 2 mile run this morning and it was all I could do to not stop walking after the first mile. I"m outta shape man! I have a 5K in early June and I'm not even ready for that. I DID go for a 6 mile bike ride last weekend on my new bike, just up to the end of the White Road and back. I'm glad I conquered my newly found fear of the bicycle (formed as soon as I got on my new bike and realized it was inevitable that I would eventually fall off or crash). It was fun. I forgot how fun bike riding was. Swimming I have done virtually none of, but I hope to get to the pool tomorrow.

Not much else going on. Work is stressful and I think my Fridays off are numbered. The garden is looking pretty and I want to go out and start foraging but there are just too many things to do.

Oh! We went to see a guy named James Hollis speak last night for the Jung Instititue. We've both read a few books by him, mostly having to do with "finding meaning in the second half of life." I thought he was very interesting. He read a quote by Rilke that goes "the purpose of life is to get defeated by ever greater things." I like that. When you're afraid of failing, you don't even try, so why not just accept the fact that failing is ok, and go for it anyway? I'm all for that. The triathlon coudl be a perfect example of that. : )

Well, that's all. I just finished some birthday earrings for Samara. I'm going to get her one more thing and ship it off. We're taking Mom & Dad out for Mother's Day tomorrow.

Oh! One more thing - we are thinking about refinancing the house once again. In my "dream book" one of my dreams is to get the house paid off by 2020. If we refinance for 10 years, that will take us to 2021, a few years closer than we currently are looking at, plus we'll save $10-$20 K on interest. It would mean a bigger mortgage payment during Jon's lean nursing school years, but I'm hoping to get a raise soon so maybe we will be ok. I'd just really like to get this monkey mortgage off my back.