Biking Ten Miles Uphill in a Blinding Snowstorm

Sort of.

I was determined to ride ten miles today. I am getting stronger and my knees feel looser from the riding, there was no wind, the temperature was in the 70s, so there was no reason NOT to ride those ten miles.

Until I felt some raindrops when I had gone about five miles.

I'm not afraid of rain. My days of worrying about what rain will do to my hair are long gone. (Helmet hair is a side effect of cycling, so why worry about rain on top of that?)

But rain, especially the first few minutes of a rain, even a gentle one, makes the pavement very slick. All the dust that's accumulated along with oils from passing cars mixes with the water and the roads get slippery. Corners and turns can be a nightmare - I have had my bike slip and fallen over to the side in the past. Brakes get wet and do not function as well, and even if they do, you skid on the dust/oil/water mix.

(To say nothing of the difficulty of seeing where you are going when the rain is coming down!)

I weighed my options and decided I would continue at a slower pace, especially in turns and at intersections. And, since it was the Saturday of a holiday weekend, traffic was nearly nonexistent.

 I made it! 10.11 miles (that would take me to Hershey!)

 Top speed today was 14.8 mph, a little low due to the rain.

 My glasses were spattered with water when I got home - visibility had gotten difficult.

Bonus! Under the heron roosting tree was a beautiful silvery blue feather!

What makes me feel really good, though, about making the ten mile ride is that ten miles is what I used to ride on a daily basis. 14.8 mph is also a more normal pace. My legs feel stronger and my pedaling rhythm is back. 

I feel like me again, and not so much like Lynn-with-the-replaced-hip-and-knees.

First Annual Isenbarger 4th of July Bocce Tournament

(Or so Curt has named it. I do hope we do it again next year!)

Yesterday was the 4th of July, so naturally we headed down to Indianapolis for a lunch at Jenny's in her gorgeous historic home.

It is a home in Irvington next to the original Butler campus where professors used to live. It also may be haunted. She has occasionally smelled pipe smoke suddenly in her living room. It makes her uneasy, but as she quips, "Well, the ghost must've accepted my presence because I am still here."

Okay, then! Just don't ask me to spend the night!

We brought our bocce and corn hole games with us - the weather was overcast but nice and warm without too much heat and humidity. A perfect day for outdoor games!

(Prior to playing, we got to talking about Leslie's recent mastectomy and since none of us had ever seen a prosthesis, Leslie pulled hers out of the cup in her bra and handed it around. The gals present all got the giggles when it suddenly occurred to us that, if we were short a corn hole beanbag, her prosthesis would make a nice replacement! Craig and Curt, the only men present, were just a bit red faced!)

We decided to play bocce on Jenny's front lawn. Her home is right across from a beautiful park, but her yard, with its bricked sidewalk and antique iron fence worked perfectly. So out came the lawn chairs and the bocce balls.

 Whoever throws the ball closest to the white ball wins.

 Team Yellow - since we had more players than balls, Leslie (prosthesis firmly back in place) and Lisa partnered up with the yellow balls.

 Green wins! You can't get any closer than this for a win, that's for sure!

 Lisa pitches for team yellow while Curt, Jenny, Vanessa, and Leslie watch.

After Curt, Leslie, and Vanessa had each won five matches, they had the championship round with Vanessa winning.

Leslie was the big surprise of the day as she'd never played bocce. I think it must be the tomahawk throwing she does at the Feast of the Hunter's Moon that gave her a feel for how to throw the balls close to a target.

After the official round, the Martin sisters had a round for sisterly bragging rights.

 Jenny and I intently watch Leslie's throw.

 Next up is Jenny.

My turn!

  I think Jenny looks a bit worried. (She needn't have been - I was no threat.)

Leslie won this year's sisters' round, and I have a whole year to practice before the next 4th of July. (I am the only family member who did not win one single bocce round. Ouch!)

We got home around 5:30 and grilled some hotdogs and brats for supper. Lisa's friend, Kit Weckel, came down from Minnesota to spend a few days with us (she has joined us several times in the past for Thanksgiving - it was good to have her here again.)

I remembered seeing a sack of fireworks in the garage, leftovers from my boys from several years ago. I searched for them and brought them out to the patio to see what was in the bag.

What a bonanza! Using Craig's fire pit, we lit off fireworks until nearly 11:00 PM.

Ella - Modeling for the Chicago Red Stars

Ella was chosen to model the Chicago Red Star's new jersey by Nike. They wore it for the first time yesterday in their 4th of July game against Abby Wambach's team, Western New York. (Red Stars won!!)

Ella-noise!!

Cherry Pie for the 4th of July

(Except that we didn't wait and ate it on the 3rd of July.)

I love to make pie. There's something homey/earth mother about preparing the dough, mixing the filling, rolling out the crust, and then sealing the crusts together and popping the pie into the oven to bake. Lisa says the smell of baking pies is what the holidays smell like to her.

That makes me smile, knowing that my children's holiday memories are wrapped around my pies.

Pies are not easy. I have baked hundreds of pies and I can honestly say that every single time, I worry that the pie won't turn out and will be a bust. (And a few have.) Homemade pie dough has only a few ingredients, but the dough is finicky - mishandle it, and you have ruined the pie. And pies are time intensive - generally a cherry pie takes me two hours to make (that does include baking time.)

Yesterday I baked two cherry pies, one for a student who had won the Pi Day contest back in March (he'd memorized Pi to 84 digits and wanted his pie for the 4th of July) and one for us.

I assembled the ingredients and materials for the crust on the island. 

Normally I prefer to use a pie dough cutter by hand to prepare the crust, but my arthritis has spread to my shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers, so I used my Kitchenaide. It works well, but I still prefer to do it by hand. (Sadly, those days are just about over.)

Here are the things needed for the filling. Not only does homemade pie take a lot of time, it takes a lot of space and uses many dishes, too!

 The filling for two pies. The cherries have been drained, and the sugar, juice and tapioca stirred together. I will mix them all together before pouring them into the pie shells.

 The filling is dotted with real butter before sealing the top crust. (I omit this when I need the pie to be dairy free.)

The top crust rolled out and ready to place on the pie. Then the crust will be fluted and into the oven she goes!

Terror on the 4th of July

It's the end of the day as I write this, and the fireworks are still booming outside. Indiana allows some pretty big at-home pyrotechnics, and at least four of our neighbors are enthusiastically firing off the kinds of displays that are usually sponsored by cities and parks.

We ourselves had some minor fireworks that I found in the garage. They have to be at least two years old, remnants of when our sons would go to Shelton Fireworks over by Covington and bring home grocery bags of the stuff. They must've forgotten them when they married and moved.

So, we decided we would just go ahead and use them.

As we sat on our patio, setting ours off while watching the neighbors' displays light up the sky, I became aware of some background noise. A constant chittering was coming from the woods. I suspected I knew what I was hearing, but googled it, just in case. I was correct - the woods was full of disturbed raccoons who were voicing their fears, terrified at the loud bangs and whistles (a few of those bangs rattled our walls and windows. It is LOUD outside!)

Poor things. I can only imagine their terror as the fireworks explode all around them.

"Just Let Me Look at That, Dear"

Lisa is getting knitting lessons from the pro - her grandmother!

 They're going very well so far.

Although we did all smile when Grandma, watching Lisa work, said, "Just let me look at that, dear" as Lisa had made a couple of errors.

Grandma got her back on track, and she began knitting and purling quite adeptly!

Congratulations, Don Owen and Urbana School District 116

This is wonderful news - Don Owen is taking over the reins as superintendent at Urbana School District 116. Some of my kids had him as a teacher, and he is a former colleague and friend of mine as well.

When he originally moved to administration, he helped me get Curt's transcripts - Curt was in Brasil and coming home soon. Te get into college, I needed to send his transcripts out, but the secretaries at the high school and Central Office would not give them to me, saying they needed Curt's signature. Obviously Curt could not do that, and if I could not get those transcripts sent out, Curt would have to wait another year to go to school. I contacted Don, explained the situation, and asked for help. He got me those transcripts.

I am still very fond of Urbana School District 116 and and delighted to know Don is now at the helm!

Don in his new office.

Here's a cut and paste from the article in The News Gazette.

URBANA — In the weeks that led up to the official end of the Urbana school year, Don Owen was both mentally and physically preparing for his new job as the school district's superintendent.

He'll start the job Monday.

While both his job title and office will change — he'll now sit at the front of the building, not far from the front desk — Owen made it clear that one thing won't: his dedication to Urbana' students.

The Urbana school board hired Don Owen as its next superintendent in January 2012, almost immediately after outgoing Superintendent Preston Williams announced he'd retire this summer.

Williams has been mentoring Owen since, Owen said, but that relationship started long before Owen was chosen as Williams' successor.

Williams hired Owen to his first eighth-grade history teaching job at Urbana Middle School in 1990, although Owen began his career in Urbana for a semester in 1989, when he was site coordinator for Wiley Elementary's after-school program. "We've been together since my first teaching job," Owen said. "It's not just big shoes to fill; it's a presence and a personality."

He said he's looking forward to continuing the work he and Williams started together. "I really am excited about coming to work every day," Owen said.

He intends to focus on students: helping them achieve their personal goals, and using the district's strategic plan to improve students' personalized learning. He plans to find ways to make sure "all levels of district decision-making" are focused on students' best interests.

"I think we are always looking to improve the way we do things at all levels to make (the district) better for students," Owen said.

He said he's well aware of the school district's needs. These include keeping an eye on electronic and mobile technologies over the next five years, and finding funding for them; supporting teachers as the district starts using the new state learning standards and the new tests that will accompany them; and "communicating the great things our students are doing and are capable of doing in our schools."

Owen believes Urbana offers more opportunities for students than any choice of private school.

Another challenge: funding in general. That Illinois schools rely primarily on property tax revenues results in "inequities across the state," Owen said. "It forces creativity and innovation (to create) opportunities for kids when the system is almost inherently inequitable," Owen said.

Urbana has lost property tax money because of the Carle Physicians Group's property tax exemptions and has been involved in a legal battle on the issue, as well. "If we weren't under that system, (Carle's taxes) wouldn't be an issue," Owen said.

'Extension of my family'

Owen loved teaching and still identifies himself as a teacher first. "I miss teaching a lot," he said, and liked it because, especially at the middle school level, no two days were ever the same. "I chose to be a teacher because I loved that energy students brought to my life," he said.

He's found working as an administrator is the same. "It's always exciting," he said. "It's always a new challenge."

Owen loves Urbana because it's a tightly knit community and incredibly diverse. "I love that diversity is a strength to the school system," Owen said. "It's small enough that you can really capitalize on diversity as a strength."

Over the years, Owen has been aware of other opportunities in other school districts. But they haven't been as attractive as staying in Urbana. "As far as the school system, it's always felt like an extension of my family," Owen said.

Ten years ago, he would have predicted that today, he'd still work at Urbana. He wouldn't have predicted, however, that he'd be the district's newest superintendent. However, he describes his movement toward his new job as "a natural progression."

He likes new challenges and has consistently taken on new responsibilities, volunteering for committees and taking on additional duties. He's always been involved in state-level education work on topics like curriculum and assessment.

"I like that involvement," Owen said, and it keeps Urbana at the forefront of what's going on in education and up to date on "what's good for kids."

He became a department chairman at the middle school and moved to Urbana's central office in 2002 when he became director of gifted education and staff development. He's been assistant superintendent for six years. In his new position, he'll have a broader focus rather than specifically working on curriculum, assessment and instruction.

He'll work more with local agencies, like the Economic Development Corp., the Regional Planning Commission and other municipal offices. But that won't change his first focus: his students. "I see myself ... grounded in the classroom," Owen said.

'A workaholic'

School board President John Dimit said he's looking forward to working with Owen, calling him approachable and easy to work with. "He has a great relationship with all seven of the school board members," Dimit said, as well as with the school district's staff members and administrators. "I have never heard anyone say they can't get along with him," he said.

And, because he has been in the district a long time and has children in Urbana's schools, "I think he'll be very aware of what's going on throughout the district," Dimit said. "That awareness will help him work toward excellent recommendations to" the school board.

Owen has a way of working through facts and data to show the school board what information is meaningful, Dimit said, and will be dedicated to the job constantly. "I'm afraid he's going to be a workaholic," Dimit said. "As good employers, we're going to make sure we don't overwork him."

Jean Korder, Urbana's director of curriculum, instruction and design, said Owen is particularly good at seeing many perspectives without getting caught up in them. Also, he believes in the school district, its teachers, students and families.

"He has a crystal clear vision of what he believes about our school district," Korder said. "In tough times, that will really see us through."

Champaign Superintendent Judy Wiegand said Williams was one of the first people she contacted for advice when she was hired for the job in December 2011. She passed that same advice onto Owen.

"His advice to me, which I gladly will share, is to keep in mind the main focus of our work — students," Wiegand said. "When the pressures of the central office start to become burdensome, make sure you take the time to get out to the buildings and spend time with the children. Take time to sit in an early childhood classroom or in the lunchroom at a middle school. It helps keep things in perspective."