I’m back to work this week, but off today, thanks to some guy who “discovered America.” Or not. Anyhow, I won’t really argue with a holiday, dubious origins or no.
Since my MIL will usually watch The Dude on Mondays, we went ahead with a test drive of that plan, so I am free 🙂 (And a little tear, a real tear.) My to-do list included picking up a fifty pound bag of whole wheat pastry flour from Local Harvest — not exactly something I could toss in the milk crate on the back of my bike. I was resigned to driving the car for the 1-mile trip when I remembered . . . the new bike trailer!
The trailer has been sitting in the basement since we bought it a few weeks ago, completely dissembled, as that was the only we managed to cram it (barely) into our car. I pulled it out of the corner and got it all ready to go, everything locked into place, wheels on, air in the tires, flag ready to fly . . . and then I tried to carry it up the basement stairs, only to discover that I had to remove the wheels and trailer-pull piece for it to fit. Oh, for the love of a garage . . . .
Oh, wait. What’s that in the background? Could it be . . . a garage? Why, yes, but only classic car owners willing to pay big bucks to park their toys there need apply, who cares if the apartment tenants would put it to good use on a daily basis.
After all the hassle of getting the trailer ready to go, I was feeling a bit negative, thinking the trailer was a big mistake and a waste of money, but that disappeared once I hit the open road. I found biking with the trailer surprisingly easy, even fully loaded.
Given the hassle of getting the thing in and out of the basement, and the dubiousness of biking with a 3-month-old, I don’t think the trailer will be getting much use until spring (older baby and a new apartment with garage space, we hope), but I enjoyed taking it out for a little test drive on this beautiful fall day.
Her Green Life 
Welcome back to work! I clearly remember my entrance back to that world, that is before I left it again…well mostly. My best piece of advice is to make a master list of all things that must be done each work night. Keep it on your fridge with a magnet for each item. As each item is completed, you cover it with a magnet. This ensured that my husband and I were always on the same page, even on nights when direct communication was infrequent. I even put non-daily items on it, such as wash diapers. Getting to cover those items on nights when they weren’t needed, just added to my sense of accomplishment.
Also, I am wondering how much your bag of flour cost. This would save me gas and time to comparison shop. I need to consider more bulk purchasing for baking, especially bread. Do you know if they offer other flours in bulk? I will assume that you like their quality. We talked before about locally milled flour and I was wondering if you happened upon any yet.
Yes, it’s a whole new game with being back to work. In the evening, we basically eat dinner, put him to bed, get things together for the next day (lunches, baby’s bag, etc.), wash diapers or clean the kitchen, and have 5 minutes to sit and breathe before we wake him to “top him off,” and get to bed ourselves, before waking up and repeating the whole thing the next day!
The 50# bag was just under $55 including tax. If you call them, they can order almost anything in that size (we bought a huge bag of sugar a few months ago), and you get a slight discount compared to buying smaller quantities from their bulk bins. WF will do this as well, but, at least for the ww pastry flour, they were more expensive.
Thanks so much for doing the legwork here.
I work some still and I do know the evenings are not your own. It gets better. My little one went down at 7:52 pm tonight…yipee…although an early bedtime is a little sad since I did work today and thus didn’t get home until 5:30 pm….not enough quality time for me. But the tight hugs when you get home certainly help. 🙂