Loads of Hope

I'm a service oriented girl. I think life is more meaningful when you are in the service or your fellow man. And so when I see something like this, I think it is a very cool idea. I had no idea that Tide did this!!

So read, enjoy and go buy a shirt. I can't decide if I should get blue or yellow...hmmm... what color do you like?

Tide Loads of Hope helps in the aftermath of a natural disaster by providing clean clothes and a sense of comfort to families in need. Partnering with Feeding America, we travel to disaster affected neighborhoods with the Tide Loads of Hope truck or vans, our free mobile laundry service.

Tide Loads of Hope truck:32 high-effiency washers and dryers stationed on the truck can do 300 wash and dry cycles a day -equal to one year's worth of laundry for a single family. Will wash about 9,000 loads of laundry over a four-week period. Leveraged during massive disasters where electricity is unavailable in the region.

Tide Loads of Hope vans:
In partnership with a local laundromat, the Tide Loads of Hope vans provide free laundry service at the same load rate as the trucks. Leveraged during disasters where neighboring communities still have a source of electricity. To date, Tide Loads of Hope has washed more than 35,000 loads of laundry for over 20,000 families. Most importantly, the Tide Loads of Hope program means we're equipped to take action whenever and wherever there is a need in our country.

Tide Loads of Hope Vintage Tees:
Tide Loads of Hope can also be supported through the purchase of a Tide Vintage Tee. All profits go to support families affected by disaster.

Where it all started:
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the need for clean clothing became critical, and Tide found a way to help. So in November 2005, the Tide Loads of Hope truck headed to Camp Hope in the Metairie, LA area and cleaned over 10,000 loads of laundry. The spirit of this first venture informs and inspires everything Tide Loads of Hope program does.

How can you help?
P&G has asked us to help get the word out about their efforts to raise money via T-Shirt sales to support families that are affected by disaster in this one-of-a-kind program. The shirts are vintage-looking and support a great cause.Shirts can be purchased through this link:http://tidetshirts.pgvillage.com/c-9-show-all.aspx?_vsc=tide4

My commute

Ok, so my camera phone isn't quite built to take photos at night so maybe we'll get better photos starting next week when the time changes....but here's a little photo from my commute home...which means I remembered all necessary items to allow me to ride my bike home!!! hallelujah!!!

It was not an easy ride home. The cold I've been fighting for the last two weeks has definately affected my strength. My quads were burning going up the hills. I even had to stop and take a break...something I haven't had to do in a long, long time...

Anyway, I couldn't figure out why there were SO many cars on the road. Where did they all come from? Until I stopped to take a breather and looked across an open field to the freeway.... Yep, that line of cars that you can barely see in my photo is from the freeway. Apparently there was an accident and traffic was backed up quite a ways....

And that's why it's still more fun to ride my bike when my quads are burning....than it is to drive my car home!

Pictures from my ride home??

I've been meaning to try and take some pictures on my ride home, but once I get on my bike I never think of it again. But yesterday I remembered... probably because I didn't really ride home.

The other day we (Candace, Josh and I) rode from Alpine to Rancho San Diego. It was so much fun, mostly because it was pretty much all downhill. Notice that I did not say we made a round trip. That's what cars and bike racks and husbands and friends are for.

Well as we went down one particularly fun and fast downhill, I heard something fall of my bike and start bouncing on the ground. Turns out my rear light bounced right off my bike. (I didn't install it, so I'm not sure what happened.) I retrieved the light, but sadly I forgot to put it back on my bike...

So fast forward to Tuesday and.... I unlocked my bike, put my helmet and gloves on, reached back to turn on the light...and...no light.... No way I can make it all the way home before dark so I called Josh and then I rode back and forth along the back of campus until he retrieved me.

Thankfully it's a beautiful view so I took a couple of pictures....

Of course the whole thing was made funnier by the fact that I had actually forgotten the entire bike in the morning. Yep. Josh put the rack on the car and we drove off. Neither one of us put the bike on the car. Josh figured he either needed to bring me my bike later, or pick me up from work...so he dropped the bike off for me later.... and then picked me up from work anyway. Lovely! I'm so glad we're saving gas!!

Since I didn't actually take pictures on my "ride home" yesterday, I thought I'd take one today. I hope you enjoy it.

What? The view looks the same as yesterday. You're kidding? Could it be because today I forgot my helmet and my gloves? Yep...it's that bad folks. I think the cold I've been fighting the last week and half has damaged some brain cells.

There's always tomorrow... I wonder what I'll forget this time?

Blog Stalker...

Hello, my name is Dawn and I am a Blog Stalker!

When I first started riding my bike I started researching info on the internet. At first I probably googled "does your butt ever stop hurting" or "pain relief for sore muscles." Then I realized I was addicted and I wanted to know anything and everything about cycling and bike commuting and bicycles and touring and....

One of the first cycling blogs I found was Up in Alaska. Jill, the writer, absolutely fascinated me. Here was this girl that would go out on these tremendous bike rides, every day! Not only that, but she rode in EXTREME conditions, like snow! There are pictures of her on her blog with snow/ice on her eyelashes and her eyebrows!!!! She had to pack snacks that could be eaten when frozen. She had to come up with ways to keep her water from freezing. Reading her adventures helped me to realize that every day is a good riding day; no matter what the weather is like. It's hard to wimp out on a ride when you know someone else has to put on three layers of clothes, just to stay warm!

Once I got hooked on her blog, I had to get Jane hooked on her blog. (Candace doesn't read blogs, or we'd make her read it too!)

So here we are, almost one year later and I still check Jill's blog every day.

Well...on Friday night Jane and I went to Happy Hour at Dos Picos with Candace and a bunch of her/our friends. (Candace knows EVERYONE so we get to meet a lot of people because of her.)

Here's a little re-enactment of our conversation....

Candace: "Rick's sister Jane lives in Homer, Alaska and runs a newspaper there."

Dawn turns to Jane (San Diego Jane) and says "Homer? Isn't that where Jill lived and worked when she first went to Alaska?"

San Diego Jane: "I think so!"

Candace: "Come on, I'll introduce you to Jane"

We then proceeded to make complete fools of ourselves by asking Jane if she knew Jill and yes, sir indeed...she did!!! I think the only thing that truly saves us is that this all happened at Happy Hour. Jane from Alaska doesn't know that I don't drink, so she can just assume that a couple of crazy drunk people from San Diego asked about someone they have never even met as if they were best friends.

In all seriousness, Jane from Alaska was very sweet about the whole thing and seemed to think it was really cool that Jill had reached such a wide audience with her blog. She said that Jill was an amazingly talented person, but maybe not quite as outgoing as we are. haha Surprise, surprise... You mean she probably wouldn't have gone up to a complete stranger to ask about another complete stranger? Yeah, we probably shouldn't have done it either...but then I wouldn't have a funny story to share on my blog.

Be careful all of you bike bloggers, I might meet one of your friends at the grocery store!

New Obsessions

Hubby was home for 9 days! We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves even though during that nine days, he had a 24 hour flu bug and I caught a cold. Fun times! Don't feel too bad for us though, we went to a fun Valentine's Day party and we (the non-drinkers) had a blast at happy hour. Yummy $1 tacos will sucker us in to paying premium prices for fountain drinks anytime. Haha!

Hubby also spoiled me while he was home. He saved up to buy me a kindle, but ended up buying me a new bike instead. It was a tough decision.. kindle...bike...kindle...bike.... I decided to continue on in the fitness regime and go for the beautiful new bike. Sport (aka new bike) and I have been trying to get to know each other. I struggled with the whole toe clip thing and thanks to Jane, decided to give up! I plan to buy clip in shoes/pedals at some point so why stress over figuring out how to use the toe clips/cages when they aren't going to be there forever anyway. Love that logic!! Especially because now I am excited about riding home...instead of worrying over how many lights I'm going to have to stop at.

And I have a new obsession - Hooping! http://www.hooping.org/ (Like I really needed ANOTHER obsession). It's all good though. I had fun hooping when it was raining and I couldn't ride my bike and it's fun for a quick little workout at home. And there are so many more things you can do with a hula hoop than I ever thought possible. It should keep me entertained for a while. The only bummer is that I haven't found any cool hoop blogs...you know so I can tie a couple of obsessions together.

Sympathetic Ear Does Wonders

One of my oh so "favorite" tasks is scheduling appointments for hubby.

Me: "Well he needs an appointment and he might be home on the 11th, but maybe not until the 12th or the 13th and then he might have to leave on the 17th, but if he gets home late then he could be here until the 19th...."

It's even more fun when you call a number over and over and over again and it is busy. I mean busy for days, busy for weeks....

Today I went to the internet to try and find a different number and I found a live person and I left a message. Sadly they didn't call me back (yet).

Then I decided to leave a message for his doctor. Maybe they can help me.

Lucky me, I got a man who used to be a trucker and he was oh so kind and helpful. Actually he couldn't really do much for my problem, but he was sympathetic and could relate and sometimes that makes all the difference. (Plus we swapped horror stories about parking trucks in San Diego...without getting a ticket.)

He gave me a little tip on when to call the appointment center and GUESS WHAT?!? I got through.

Let's hope hubby comes home late this time because he has an appointment on the 17th.

Let There Be Light....

So I was riding home from work today and it was one of those magical rides when you feel great. I felt strong and energetic and I was totally loving my ride. The weather was absolutely perfect. I was zooming down my big hill and then I heard clunk, clunk, chink, clunk... My front light popped off my bike when I hit a little bump. (must not have been completely locked in...ooops)

I slowed down real fast, pulled over, looked back and so far nobody had run over the light. I quickly walked back up the hill, cringing each time a car came down; hoping nobody would run it over. I ran out to the street, grabbed the light and ran back to the sidewalk. It looked pretty good. My Hello Kitty rub on/decoration was a little worse for the wear though. Sadly the little switch was missing. I kind of glanced around, but it was getting dark and the piece was small and it's a busy street and I needed to get home fast if I was going to do it without a light.

I quickly realized I was not going to make it home before it was just TOO dark to chance it. (I still had my red blinking light, but that doesn't help ME see...or help dorky drivers notice me before they turn Right....right in front of me....grrrrr.......) So I headed to my dad's house thinking maybe I could stick a paperclip or something in it and turn it on.

I made it safely to Dad's but couldn't turn the light on so I called slave boy Josh to come fetch me and spent some time visiting with Dad and Carmen.

Thankfully I bought Josh the exact same light and he's not using it so I asked him to loan it to me. Apparently he wasn't quite ready to part with his light so he compared our lights, took his apart and found out that the "switch" was a magnet!!!! I just have to put my light up next to the magnet for my bike computer and it turns it on!!! How cool is that? I put a spare magnet in my first aid kit for emergencies, but I'm pretty darn excited that my $40 light survived a fall and still works.