WiseArts

Last weekend I completed my second MS150 bike tour! It is the most fun way to raise money for a great cause—finding a cure for multiple sclerosis. Last year, I completed the ride on an old Trek mountain bike and did only a bit of training, but this year I had my stylish new road bike and a lot more training under my belt! It made a huge difference. I felt stronger during the ride, and much less pain afterwards! Thanks to my great sponsors, I raised even more money than last year too.

I was a member of my company team again this year, which is definitely the way to roll! As a member of a large team, you get a private team bus to take you to the starting point, and you get a private team tent to party under at the halfway point. Every year there is a contest for the best-decorated team tent. Our team picked a decorating/party theme of Mexican Fiesta this year, so our tent was decked out with colorful decorations, maracas and sombreros!

Our team mascot is a banana, so I decided I’d make our mascot into a pinata to go along with our theme!

First, my dear husband created this amazing 3-dimensional cardboard base for me. I filled it up with candy, added a strap to hang it up with, and taped it shut.

Next, I covered the cardboard base with a layer of newspaper strips. I used a paste made from flour and water. It’s messy, but washes off easily.

Then I wrapped this with a layer of crepe paper (it’s the stardard stuff on a roll that you buy at party/paper supply stores). I used the same flour paste on this.

For the next layer, I made slits in the crepe paper before I glued it on in order to get that authentic pinata look. For this I used YES! paste. I think it’s really designed for scrapbooking and book arts, but it worked swell for this. It’s a little thicker, allowing me to apply more accurately than I can with the flour paste, so only the non-slit edge gets glued down to maintain that “fluffy” look! I also added on arms and legs made from twisted-together pipe cleaners. I just poked holes in the pinata and stuck them on with gobs of glue.

Finally, I added facial features, hands, and feet that I printed on a laser printer. I printed two of each hand and foot as mirror images of each other and glued each set together with the pipe cleaners in between. The face parts were laminated before I glued them on to make them more sturdy.

We named him Juan! When he was hung in the middle of our tent, a sombrero was added, and maracas were taped to his hands. The kids on the team had a great time busting him open and eating all the candy goodness inside! It was a fun addition to the party.

Because the weather was so lovely today, my husband and I decided to go to “Pothole Park” and do some hiking and climbing. The park is really called Interstate State Park, but we call it Pothole Park because the park has potholes! It’s much easier to recall a park by its identifying features. Half way there, I realized I had forgotten my camera! My sweet husband offered to turn around and get it, but I thought that would’ve been rather silly. I just took some crummy photos with my cell phone.

One thing I love about the park is that the ground there is nearly completely stone with some deposits of silt/dirt here and there, and so the park is full of amazing trees growing up from the rock. I love how the roots are visible, twisting and vining every which way, supporting the trunk and gathering nutrients.

Here’s a pothole! I’d say this one is a mid-size pothole. There are many small ones, as big across as your foot. There are some that are much larger. The “Bottomless Pit” is 10 feet wide and 60 feet deep!

We saw a stickbug! I had never seen one in the wild before. Probably due to the amazing camouflage! We caught this one crawling up the side of a rock wall we were climbing. It followed us to the top and crawled up Ash’s leg, where I attempted to take a photo. Dumb phone cam. It’s blurry, but you can see it…

So we climbed around on the rocks until we were dripping in sweat, and then we walked into town and had a nice lunch at Schoony’s Malt Shop & Pizzeria. They have good pizza and delicious ice cream! Then we headed home.

So, back to Computrainer! Here’s my setup! I have the software on my hubby’s computer in the basement, and the computer is hooked up to a projector so I can ride courses on the big screen! I love it. I bought one Real Course video when I bought the trainer, it’s the Ironman Coeur d’Alene. I chose it for the scenery (I don’t think I’ll be doing an Ironman anytime soon!). I haven’t ridden the whole course yet, but it has been fun so far. The video speeds up or slows down according to your speed, and the resistance changes according to the terrain on the course. I seem to sweat more on the Computrainer than I do on the road. It must have a little more resistance than riding outdoors. That’s fine by me. Hopefully, I’ll have lots of time to ride inside over the winter, and I’ll be in great shape by spring.

Here’s a screencap of what I’m looking at. You can see a sample video of the course on this page.

Today, of course, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. To help celebrate this exciting day, I made these chocolate *ship* muffins for my mateys at work. Originally, I had intended to draw skull and crossbones on each muffin with white icing, but that was a big fail. So instead, I made up these little jolly rogers (pirate flags!) to go on each muffin.

I found the design for the flag on Wikipedia in a vector SVG file. Working in Adobe Illustrator, I resized it down to an inch wide, and copied it so there were two set directly next to each other. Then, I just copied and pasted that design so I had enough for each muffin. After printing, I cut out the flag sets, put Tombo Mono Adhesive on the back, and folded them in half over a toothpick. mmm piratey

In more exciting news, my Computrainer arrived today!! It’s a totally nerdy indoor bike trainer. I was a little disgruntled that the box was simply left on my doorstep by UPS, no signature required. I’m thankful that we live in a nice, quiet neighborhood. I would hate for someone to make off with that expensive box. O_O yikes. So I got the thing assembled, and I’ve done a little test riding. It seems that the heart rate monitor is a little finicky, so I’ll fiddle with that tomorrow. I need to read the manuals, so I’m 100% familiar with the system’s capabilities. I’ll report in tomorrow night with more details!