Shopping Adventures

For the past few weeks, I have been adoring Sunday morning yoga.  This morning I was fully planning on going...but when I woke up, my new goal became: STAY IN BED AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.  That's right, I decided that embracing my last day of summer and lolling around in bed was more important than yoga.  I blogged, wasted time on facebook, online shopped, and finished a mindless book.  BLISS.  Eventually I decided it was about time to get out of bed, and set out with my dad on an exciting shopping mission--looking for a new bike!!!  To illustrate how necessary a new bike is, let me share with you the story of my current bike.  It is a Huffy mountain bike (read: cheap) purchased in 2001 (read: old) from Walmart.  Clearly prime craftsmanship.  My bike has served me pretty well over the years (and lasted a pretty long time, considering!).  It even accompanied me through my first Muddy Buddy a few years ago.  Check out the amazing decorations from that race:

But I am WAY overdue for a new bike.  Since the two Muddy Buddies I've raced have been pretty much the only off-road biking I've ever done, I'm pretty sure a mountain bike isn't the right bike for me.  Instead, I decided to look for a road bike.  Ideally, I wanted one that was fairly decent that I wouldn't have to sell a kidney to afford.  Which is a pretty tall order, it turns out!  Anyways, Dad and I hit up his favorite bike store and after working with a "bike guy" (technical term....) there to figure out what size bike I needed, I fell in love with this bike:

It was love at first pedal.  Because I didn't want to rush into anything, I decided to have them hold the bike for me for a few days, but even driving away from the store, I knew I'd be coming back soon with my credit card.  Hopefully in a couple days this bike will be mine!  Since running is doing me no favors lately, I'm excited to get a little more into cycling.  There is a LOT I need to learn (it turns out I even get on and off a bike the wrong way!), but I am excited!  Oh, and I have a secret: Another reason I wanted a road bike is that I'm thinking a triathlon is in my future for next summer...Any advice, triathletes?

The rest of my Sunday involved a trip to my favorite store, Trader Joe's!  Since I moved into my apartment in June, Trader Joe's is pretty out of the way for me (or even more out of the way than it had been while living with the parents), so I haven't been going there as often.  Today's trip involved the very important task of restocking my school snack drawer!!!  Last year's snack drawer:

Well, once again I went in without a list.  This time, though, instead of leaving with only 4 random items, I got a little carried away.  This always seems to happen to me at Trader Joe's...I get excited :)  Case in point: I bought a basil plant.  This was before I was even in the store.  They were set up on a display right outside the door and before I knew what was happening, I had one in the cart.  Definitely an indicator of how the rest of the shopping trip would go...

My Cart

The haul

School Eats (chocolate espresso beans are MANDATORY)

What better way to justify buying a basil plant to myself than immediately making caprese salad when I got home?  YUM.  Does this count as cooking?  I'm going to go with yes...

I did finally make it to the gym for a pathetic workout this evening.  I haven't done any real exercise since Thursday morning, but for some reason when I hopped on the stationary bike my legs were crazy sore!  I stopped after 15 minutes!   Oh body...what is wrong with you...I lifted weights and foam rolled for a little bit before just deciding to call it a day.  Some workouts you power through, others it's just best to say, "I'll try again tomorrow."

Check out my new book!  No, I'm not eating vegan, but I'm interested in hearing the case for a vegan lifestyle.  I'll let you know what I learn!

School starts this week.  WHERE DID MY SUMMER GO???
What did you do this weekend?