I PASSED, I PASSED....

As per Dan's comments on the last post though...don't expect me to be giving anyone suggestions anytime soon. I too stalled my bike (for future notice for anyone else...don't try starting in second or third during your test, doesn't bode well for avoiding stalling) while trying to turn left. Thank goodness there was no traffic coming, as it took about three starts for me to get the thing going... I also drove the wrong way down a one way parking lot area. I was supposed to just turn around, but I didn't want to break any rules, SO, I followed the signs down the way, and around and I was coming back and in the meantime the guy on the radio keeps radioing "anytime you want to come out"..."Just come out now" and other such wonderful things. SO, i figured forget following the rules (also something you should NEVER figure on a test) and let's just get out of here, so I cut across two parking stalls & started driving down a way that was clearly marked with arrows going the OTHER direction. AND that's when they decided to pull in and see where I was. OOPS!! Seeing as it wasn't part of their actual test, I'm glad they didn't fail me for it, but they totally could have.

ANYWAY, the whole point...I now have my official license and I can drive whenever I want where ever I want with whom ever I want on the back...of course, after hearing this story, I'm not sure if any of you are going to WANT to drive with me, but that's beside the point!

I take my test today...

Haven't told anyone here, but I figured you all will find out whether I pass or fail anyway...PRAY for me - I haven't ridden in a month due to gross weather, but I'm feeling confident anyway. Of course, all it takes is one stupid mistake...BLAH!

3:00 PT. Pray.

On another note: Anne is going well. Ken saw it for the first time last night (the artistic director of Gal. 7) and he liked it, which is good. He said it's really good for two weeks before opening, which is great to hear!

Took my "Practice" test today...

If it was the road test - I would have failed it - BUT he said I'll do fine when the actual test comes the day of, which is good to know. I haven't ridden all week (rainy and busy and cold), but getting on that bike today just reminded me of how much I do enjoy riding. On a nice sunny day it's such a great feeling, and I'm feeling much more confident - I don't have to think of every little thing (although obviously I do need to think of a FEW things a little MORE!!)

I'm really glad I took this course, if for no other reason than they walk you through step by step the process of getting a license. I took the MSA during the course, and now, after I scheduled my evaluation, they signed me up for my test right there at the office. He said he won't sign people up unless they've got a good chance of passing, SO that means I've got a good chance of passing...YAY!!

BUT they take all the procrastination out of it when they push you to the next step when you've completed the first - if they didn't, I'd probably not have taken my final test - and then my license would have expired, and I would have had to do the MSA again as well, and who KNOWS when I would have gotten around to doing that...So, in the end, I'm glad once again that I took the course, and have really enjoyed being out on a bike!

Yay...

BUSY!!

On a side note: I just ACTUALLY wrote busty instead of busy at the beginning of this blog post!! OOPS! It's been a while - I'm back at school and can instantly feel the busy-ness creeping up again. Which is, of course, why I haven't posted much this week. It's amazing - when you're not working, you can go out every night and do stuff and enjoy it, but as soon as I put a full time job in there as well, suddenly I cherish my evenings at HOME so much more! The desire to go out and visit others just isn't there anymore. I've been riding the bike all week - and I love the freedom it gives me, but I kinda miss Brad and all the hang out time we had when we drove together. As well, we would tend not to go home after work - so now we meet at home and we're both settled in and we don't go out again - we're going to have to work on that!!

BUT - it's good to be back at school, and I'm doing stuff that I should have done years ago and that will make me a better teacher (thanks to the Government expecting a ridiculous amount of stuff from us - some a waste of time (Government course outlines with IRP's), other stuff useful (Unit overviews for each unit I teach). So - I've finished ALMOST all of it - and that's a good feeling. My goal for the weekend - finish off that ONE last course, pick up my passport and hang out with Brad!!

Off to work!
Deb

So, I went riding the other day...

It's TOTALLY AWESOME and I LOVE IT!!

I got a thrill in my stomach when we went out onto the road. I was good at doing stuff. I only stalled two or three times. I got a compliment from my instructor (who is way better at yelling than complimenting, I'm learning), and I got to go fast, and up and down hills and around corners and all kinds of stuff, and I loved it, and I got my restrictions taken off today, and I'm going for a ride today all by myself and, oh yeah...

I love riding a motorcycle.

The end.

What's Up in my life...

Well - if my life was a juggling act, the way it would look right now would be me with a bunch of balls in the air. Some are fun (like riding a motorcycle), some are work (dealing with pictures is consuming a lot of time right now), some are literally work (did you all know I'm the church secretary at my church?), and some are simply what comes with living (seeing friends, spending time with Brad, sleeping, eating etc). Now imagine that I have an incredibly able bodied assistant (because I'm not stupid enough to hire an un-able bodied assistant) who is holding three really big meat cleavers, or swords or flaming torches, (or one of each, what the heck, why not). In two weeks, my assistant will hurl those murderous weapons at my head as fast as possible. One I will attempt to catch is adding an almost full time job (teaching) to my current workload, adding a play with Gallery 7 into my evenings...and my weekends - HA!! For the first three weekends after school (and the play) begin I am consumed with things, one a mere Saturday, the other two full weddings, one of which is in Portland. After which weddings, I will have to once again process all the pictures & put together books & give people CD's and all of that. AUGHHH!!!

Not that I'm worried about it at all. My one concern is, IF (and that is still an IF) if there is a baby in the picture, and my exhaustion returns the way it did last time I was pregnant, then all the late nights and the time consumption and the lack of time to just rest & relax may suddenly become much too overwhelming. And if morning sickness is also involved, well, that would be like my cruel evil and yet incredibly able bodied assistant starting up a chainsaw and throwing that into the mix without me even knowing about it, because he decided to blindfold me first.

So, in conclusion - yes, I plan on being just slightly busy for the next two months, but after that, things will slow down to merely completely insane.

My two requests:
1. Pray (if you're the type)
2. Don't be offended if I don't call you every other night like I usually do, or bring you soup when you're sick, or clean your house on the weekends, or even if the blogging slows down a bit **GASP**, as you can see, I'm busy and can't handle any more chainsaws.

I have helmet burn!

I bet most of you have never heard of that before!! That's right, remember those commercials for the pizza's you watched bake in your oven - and then people would go out with a lovely square on their faces that was burnt from watching the pizza. Well, I basically have a burn in exactly the same place, because of wearing a helmet a lot of the day yesterday, being out in the sun (after it stopped raining all morning), and riding around with my visor up and the sun beating down. It was lots of fun, and I passed my MSA (that would be my motorcycle skills assessment)!! What does that mean, exactly, well... BEFORE the test there were two restrictions on my learners, #10 which states that I can't ride in the dark, and I can't have a passenger and #11 which says I have to have someone who knows what they're doing watching me at all times, and I can't go faster than 60km. Now that I've passed, restriction 11 is GONE, which means I can ride by myself, even on the highway if I like. YAY!! I still can't ride at night, and I still can't take passengers, but otherwise, I'm good to go.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who are DYING to ride with me on a motorcycle, I'd just like to point out that I BARELY passed, so you may want to still give me a little time to perfect my riding before you hop on. BUT a pass is a pass, and that's good enough for me!!

Now, tonight I have my first road ride (what is that, you may ask, well, it's a ride on the road - up to this point everything's been done in a parking lot), and it'll be nice to go beyond second gear - ok, third, but I wasn't SUPPOSED to be in third...oops...and we'll be riding from 7:30-10:30 pm, so not only will we be on the road, we'll be in the dark. BUT we'll all get to ride together, and I think it'll be lots of fun, we've got a good group, and I feel confident about almost all of them riding.

That's all, I've gotta go work on wedding pictures now...

I'M SO TIRED!!!

Well, I just finished my first day of riding training. Some initial thoughts and impressions:

1. We all tend to focus on what we're NOT doing well, and see everyone else's successes.
2. It's fun to ride together and to go fast.
3. I'm good at turning corners, not good at figuring out how to accelerate in first gear smoothly.
4. Slalom SUCKS, but to do better with it you need to imagine it's a waltz ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three.
5. You need to look LEFT, right, LEFT before you start moving your bike every time you stop.
6. I still don't know my lefts from my rights every time (which leads to confusion when the brake is on the right, and the clutch is on the left).
7. Instructors are brilliant at telling you what you did wrong, even if you did everything right. The first time I got through the cones (only once of two times), without knocking any of them down, I was told to turn off my right turn signal. DOH!!
8. You need to stretch and exercise your hands before you start taking lessons (clutching and braking make you grip WAY more than usual - get one of those stress balls and use them).
9. At the end of the day you will be sore.
10. You will mess up trying to apply a brake - even if you've done it many times before.
11. I carry my stress in my shoulders ( They kept knowing I was anxious about what I was doing because my shoulders were around my ears - and it's BAD to ride stressed).
12. IT IS SO MUCH FUN, when you stop stressing out about it and just ride.

FOUR Andy's???

Well, as of Wednesday, I now know four Andy's, and am suddenly in a quandary. If the accepted number of Andy's to know is a mere two, what happens when suddenly your sphere of Andy'ness opens, and you meet more. Do you have to reject some Andy's in order to maintain the balance of two per person per time frame? My teacher's name is Andii at the motorcycle class, and this other guy in the class introduced himself as Andy, and my teacher would say "NO, I'M Andy", every time. It was kinda funny.

It's a weird class to be in. Much of what I've heard I already knew from my Car driving lessons at the tender age of 16, and from common sense, and from my supremely brilliant husband who has taught me both information about motorcycles as well as how to be a better and more alert driver. BUT there's little things that keep coming up and make it worth while. The thing that has stuck with me the most so far is this: When riding a motorcycle, you are worth spending some money on proper equipment, from boots to gloves to jackets & pants to helmets. The dutch in me has been fighting this for many years. Every time Brad would want some $100 gloves, I would cringe. Now I think: hey, if it's the difference between him having fingers or not having them, get the gloves! It becomes really REALLY obvious. SO - because of that, I've gone shopping - got myself some nice leather boots, and am going to buy gloves, and eventually a jacket too (although I'll probably wait for the motorcycle show in February for those) that are high visibility so that I'll be harder to miss on the road.

Tomorrow I start training on the actual bike. THIS should be when it gets a little more interesting!

Today is Tuesday...

Which means tomorrow is Wednesday, which means that tomorrow I start my MOTORCYCLE course. What am I excited about? Learning to ride - having the confidence to go out on the road on a bike (I kept hearing bikes as I walked around town today and kept getting a little thrill going "That's going to be me soon!!") What am I nervous about? A few things. I don't like not doing well in a class, and seeing as this is a practical application kinda course, I have the potential to not do as well as I'd like (I generally like being in the top percentile of the class, or I'm not happy - and there may be much more experienced riders taking the class with me). I'm also nervous because it's a lot of responsibility to ride a motorcycle - there's a lot of potential to get hurt on a bike than a car. I'm also nervous because once I'm done my course, I will need to take my biker's test with ICBC to see if I get my full licence, and I'm worried I'll fail. Of course, then I watch all the doofuses on the road who ride bikes, and I go "Hey, if that irresponsible idiot can pass this road test, then surely I can". Of course, if I fail, what does THAT say??

More details tomorrow!

Motorcycle Lessons...

I keep thinking about all the stuff that's going on right now for me, and basically hit the wall with the wedding we're shooting today, BUT, next week when that's over, I've signed up for a motorcycle class (basically drivers ed, but with two wheels). I think in some ways Brad's more excited about this than I am, what I'm looking forward to is having the confidence to be able to hop on my bike afterwards and take off and go somewhere, rather than feeling a little overwhelmed with the largeness of me controlling a 400cc motorcycle all by myself. I know I do better with a little bit of head knowledge behind me (that's why I like learning in a classroom setting so much), it gives me the confidence to do the practical stuff. SO, this should be a good course for me, and I'm looking forward to it a lot. I'm sure I'll have more stories next week!
Gotta go take some pictures!

A Homonym for you all...

Two days ago I rode on the road for the first time on the bike. I'm feeling more confident, but am also planning on taking lessons in the next month to help with that. What a fun thing to have a bike though. I have a number of friends who "discourage" (or outright ban) their husbands from having bikes, and some of them say to me "wait until you have kids...". I hope I will always be the kind of woman who encourages her hubby to pursue life passionately, and LIVE, rather than merely exist. Both he and I are much more interesting that way!!