Monday, sunshine and lollipops!

It's wonderful, it's how I feel when we're together! and my bike is up, again!

Got home Friday and we went out to dinner at a little hole in the wall with really good food for fair prices. It was hot and nasty so we took the little red truck so we didn't have to put all those clothes on for riding the bikes.

Came home and got into the booze and a movie, that was fun! The math on that is that it was fun later, too.

Having washed all the work week out of my system, I woke Saturday to a lovely day and what passes for a cold front getting the temps down to the 70's during the night. I cranked some of the windows open, mate got the others and we sipped our coffee down with fresh air and bird song serenades.

I morphed into my computer personality ( none) and did some more research on a web host. Think I have one line up now. Fixed a sale page for a customer and posted some ads for a friend all while trying to beat high score on Collapsed. (thanks to rotten kid that turned me on to it.) Got the email and such between page loads and read a few blogs. Noticed that we all go away on the weekends. Yay, us!

I realized the Mate had mysteriously disappeared an un-measured time lapse ago. When I had stretched and found more coffee I wandered out to find him working on the brakes of my bike in the garage.

I went in the house, changed, went back out and spent the next couple hours working on bleeding the brakes with him. Yay, again! The brakes are fixed! Then we decided to run to town for a new battery. That way I have one on the charger and one in the bike. 'Til we get the 'stator fixed this winter I can just swap them around when one gets low.

So now I am feeling MUCH more jolly, life shouldn't be so melancholy. We went off to town. Two miles out there's a yard sale sign. Nice mate says, ya, it's just up the road a piece, out of our way. I started to get all hum buggy again and he skipped the turn. Hurrah for me! I get to hit a sale!

Got the sis and mate's eldest daughter stuff, got some mop heads for a quarter, picked up a new keyboard and mouse for work for 3.00. The boss paid for the last one and on day one I spilled my coffee in the keyboard. It was ruined for life, of course. Now I feel better, having replaced it.

Went on down the road and mentioned I saw a sale that also had coco lab puppies for sale. Mate heavy sighed but turned in. I knew he would, he's a sucker for babies, puppies and kittens. Got some books and a weird hat - child's real leather tri-corner- that I plan on selling to the sis. Bought mate a Coke and got to see the two puppies, they were little dolls!

After that the mate called "no more sales" and I settled back, content with the two we had hit. We got to the new store in town and he went to find my battery while I grabbed some mini-mums that were cheap and got some allergy meds. I also grabbed some beef jerky while he got some string cheese and we snacked on them all the way home.

We got the groceries unloaded and put away. He put the battery on the charger and I got around stuff for lunch/dinner. Later I went out and worked in the gardens. I moved the poor bleeding heart again. It hasn't been happy no matter where I put it so I moved it to the west side of the big tree with a bag of new potting soil. I hope it does better there.

Then I watered the far garden and hoed the circle garden. I put in the mini mums, seeded some mystery plant, dill and anise to see how they do. by then I was about worn to a frazzle. I dragged the hose around and watered everything, picked tomatoes (roma), gathered pea and spinach seeds and crawled into the house to sit by the air conditioner.

My lavender is still just tiny but the rest of the herbs are spreading like crazy. Mate is going to get me a plastic barrel to cut up into 10" deep rings for the peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, thyme in two varieties and oregano. The goal is to contain them.

I was exhausted but in a pretty good mood and so was he. Friday night was part of it, my bike being back up was the rest of it. So Saturday night was fun, too.

Sunday morning I would like to say we slept in but I can't. Seems like I wake up early even on weekends most of the time now. Hate that. *shrugs* Coffee was yummy, rolls I bought were bland and boring. Cinnamon rolls should have a little snap to them. Won't get them there again.

I went off to get email and mate wandered off again. When I dropped back from virtual land I noticed he was missing. I went looking and found him out in the back yard detailing his little red truck. So I hollered, mine next! and ran to get dressed for washing vehicles.

We ran both trucks and both bikes through in a few hours. the weather was warm but breezy, we had plenty of shade and the day was lovely. Aside from a couple hose accidents everything went well. The bikes looked beautiful and I thought we should grab a ride but the mate was beat so we made dinner, rode the regular bikes only two miles and stayed in for the rest of the evening.

The whole weekend was so NICE. Pleasant Valley Sunday nice. We did whatever we felt like and had no schedule to meet.

The reason this is noteworthy is that normally, for the last eight years anyway, we would have been jammin'' since Thursday to get around and go camping at the state rally for our winger group.

Now don't get me wrong, I love our riding buddies and we have the best time of the year at the state rally, but it seemed like everything else had to take a back seat to the group. Family and friends were scheduled around the many events we held and went to each summer.

It's just too much to keep up with and still get the gardens in and kept up, keep the house up and such. With the extra expenses of calls to Germany, trips all over and at least one more for the mate to FL in October, we decided to let our membership lapse this year. The group is a going to miss us a little but we will still be around as friends, we just won't have any responsibilities to weigh us down.

So to have the weekend all to ourselves to enjoy anyway we wanted was a special treat and we both really had a good time. This decision will give us more time for the kids and other family we enjoy and to spend riding with our friends in an unorganized and more spontaneous way. I like it! Mate liked it! Dogs that got to romp outside the pen liked it! Budget liked it!

And then, having rested up this weekend, I got up to a lovely morning, cool and breezy again, to be able to ride the real bike in to work. I bungied on the keyboard and the lunch bucket, got my helmet on and got on the bike. Pulled the kick stand up, turned the key, she started right up, bless the new battery.

She was running like a brand new bike, the day was perfect, no critters on the road, no farmers and I was on cruise for about 5.5 miles, just kicked back and enjoying the ride. I stopped to put some gas in her and was a little bummed that I was only getting 34.5 mpg. But what do you want for a 27 year old bike? I had also noticed that I couldn't get more than 11.5 out of the new battery. I'm thinking I better suck up to the worlds best motorcycle fixer and get him to check some more wires. Maybe the gauge is off.....hmmmmm.

Now it's back to the salt mine and the regular rama lama ding dong Monday shipping rush. Hope you all had great weekends and make it till Totally Tuesday whose main claim to fame is that it isn't Monday anymore!

(Excuse all the exclamation marks. I'll try to have less fun. Or invent another punctuation mark that means "extra fun", maybe <* for < that was one star fun so you could say Friday night with the mate was <********** )