Category Archives: My Life

A snotty bicycle health freak

As a general rule, I keep work-related things out of this blog, but I happen to be in an area of work that is very related to some of what I blog about here, namely, the bicycling, active transportation, and health aspects.  So I’m going to break my rule and share a link to an article about my work over the last year-and-a-half.  You can read about it here*.

Surprisingly, the comments haven’t gotten too out-of-control yet, but they did provide inspiration for the title of this post** 😉

In other news, I completed the basic Cycling Savvy training over the weekend, which included over 20 miles on the bike on Saturday (~ 13 miles in the course, plus biking to and from the training).  My bum knee and the rest of my 6 1/2 month-pregnant-body performed quite adequately.

The training included one element that put me outside of my comfort zone (biking southbound along Kingshighway from Manchester to Shaw) and otherwise offered good opportunities to hone my cycling skills.

I hauled Baby Jake out for the article photo op and was pleasantly surprised to find he still offered a comfortable ride, and perhaps a position that is easier on my knee than BUB, so Baby Jake became my ride of choice for the weekend.  Now that it seems my knee has healed (at least mostly), I’m looking forward to biking regularly again.

*All things considered, the article came out pretty well, which means I didn’t do anything like this.  That said, I wish I had emphasized the importance of quality, comprehensive bicycle education, from which all cyclists, adults and children, those who have been cycling for years and those new to the activity, would benefit greatly.  Instead, on the questions about bicycling safety, I somehow managed to use the word “helmet” three times — cringe!

**I’m not sure how the commenter knew about my cold and the resulting snottiness I experienced over the past couple of weeks, but I’m feeling much better now, thanks 🙂

Last day in Rome

So I’ve written about the beginning of our trip, which started in London.  In between London and Rome, we visited Florence, Cinque Terre, and Siena.  Today I feel like writing about Rome, where we ended our trip.

We began our final day in Rome with a large dose of cuteness.  A quartet of perfectly fuzzy ducklings salvaged Rome’s otherwise not-so-memorable botanical garden.  (We recommend Kew in London, and Siena’s small, but nice (and free) Orto Botanico.)

After our garden time, we headed across town for lunch at Il Margutta.  This vegetarian restaurant has a buffet-style brunch.  Huge variety, and all top quality – the soup was the only flop, but by then we were so stuffed it didn’t matter.  For affordability, both here and at the Naturist Club (another vegetarian place where we enjoyed a meal the previous day), lunch was definitely the way to go.

Only catch?  Instead of the typical U.S.-style “all-you-can-eat” buffet, Il Margutta limits diners to one plate.  So, as you can see, we made the most of our one trip through the line.  We thought we were embarrassing ourselves, and being “those Americans,” but there were some real authentic Italian diners with plates that rivaled, and perhaps exceeded, ours.  We both cleaned our plates and were actually NOT uncomfortably full when we left — so no food wasted!

Fully sated, we made our way to the beautiful Borghese Gardens (wish we had more time to spend in the park) for our reserved slot at the Borghese Gallery, home of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne sculpture, as well as a number of other beautiful Bernini pieces.  We paid for the audio guide, which was nice accompaniment.

For our final meal at Rome, we ate delicious pizza at ZaZa, followed by gelato at a shop Matthew frequented ten years earlier.  We also bought pizza to sustain us on Thursday’s plane ride.

We ended the day with a moonlight stroll through Rome, including a pass by the Trevi Fountain.  I tossed in a coin for good luck 🙂

Into the 3rd

Well, here we are at 28.5 weeks!  We got back from our trip almost three weeks ago now, and I realize I’ve written very little about it.  I spent the first two weeks exhausted, fighting the third cold I’ve had this pregnancy (poor little immune system), a Roman superbug, and diving right into a busy time at work.

After the sore throat, runny nose, etc., the superbug announced its presence in my sinuses last Monday with a sudden onset toothache affecting only the teeth on the top right side of my mouth.  For a few hours, I sat at my desk, feeling like my face was going to explode.  The tooth pain abated on its own, but since that time, I’ve upped the neti pot to twice a day, which seems to be working.

I’m actually trying to be good about resting my bum knee, which means almost no biking, because I need it to get me through an entire day in the saddle for the Cycling Savvy training this Saturday, followed by a community bike ride on Sunday.

I’m still keeping active with some walking, upper body weights, and the prenatal yoga class I just started.

I hope to get back on track here soon, with some posts on our time in Italy and green baby prep.  Until then, here’s hoping for sunny skies to dry up the soggy ground and healthy knees for biking!

Traveling while pregnant

I purchased our tickets to Europe back in December, still early-on in my pregnancy.  I’d already checked with my doctor and midwife about international travel while pregnant and received the green light, with advice to travel during the 2nd trimester if possible.  With that in mind, I nervously committed a large chunk of money to the trip, not knowing how I would feel, or how big I would be, or if there would be any pregnancy complications that contraindicated travel when March 22nd rolled around.

Fortunately, I felt great during the 2nd trimester and my still-small belly, while sometimes frustrating because I wanted to “look” pregnant, made for relatively easy travel, with just a few challenges.

Challenge #1 — The Bladder

In London, I could count on relatively easy restroom access when out-and-about by ducking into a Starbucks or McDonalds.  I became accustomed to walking in, quickly scoping out the place and the most likely restroom location, and making my way there, and back out, without making it too obvious that I wasn’t a paying customer.

Italy was trickier on the restroom front.  In Florence, I ducked into a small restaurant and waited an agonizing 10 hours (okay, more like 10 minutes, or less) for the father and little girl  who stepped in just before me to vacate the restroom, all the while hoping that the staff in the nearly empty place would not approach me and ask what I was doing, or call the polizia and haul me off to jail.

In Rome, we wandered for at least two hours trying to find a restroom one afternoon.  I should have just sucked it up and played the pregnancy card, but the one time I tried to do that, in a small gelato shop (where we actually PURCHASED something, by the way), the rude woman denied my request.

Now I suppose it was POSSIBLE that they really didn’t have a restroom, even for employees, in the tiny shop, but I doubt it.  There I was, a customer, obviously pregnant and in distress, and this woman wouldn’t help me.  I left the shop fuming and in tears.  When we finally found a restroom, it was at least an hour later 😦

Advice: Take full advantage of any restroom opportunities you get.  Always go before leaving a museum, restaurant, etc.  You never know how difficult it will be to find the next toilet.  Though it didn’t work so well for me, don’t be shy about playing the pregnancy card.

Challenge #2 — Lots of walking while carrying extra weight

We walked EVERYWHERE in London and Italy, which was great from a physical activity perspective, but turned out to be hard on my body.  Despite my relatively small size, I’m already carrying an extra 20 pounds — not insignificant!  That, combined with loosening ligaments due to pregnancy hormones, led to some painful times.  From the night of our second day in London, until sometime in Florence or Cinque Terre (about 6 days later), I walked around with excruciating foot pain and seriously thought I may have stress fractures in one or both feet.  Miraculously, this went away on its own, despite being on my feet constantly.

Unfortunately, about the time the foot pain resolved, I started having issues with my left knee.  Although I think that may finally be getting a bit better, it’s been at least two weeks now.  It’s been especially hard trying to be good and stay off the bike since we’ve been back.  Since I nigh upon refuse to drive anywhere within easy biking distance, I’ve felt like a prisoner in my own apartment.

Advice: Keep in mind the additional stresses that pregnancy puts on your body, even if you’re in relatively good shape.  Don’t expect that you’ll be able to do everything, and plan to scale things back a bit.  Tune in to early warning signs that you may be over doing things, and adjust as necessary.

Overall the trip was great, and I’m really thankful we had the opportunity and that it went so well.

There’s no place like home

Before trip
Three weeks later . . . in Rome

All of the sudden, I look significantly more pregnant.  So what changed?  Turns out I’m having twins — my regular baby, plus an Italian food baby 😉

Right now I’m enjoying being home and trying to recover from some bug that manifested itself partway through the return flight from Rome [glares at the woman on the plane who had that nasty phlegmy cough — yes, I blame you, although realistically I must have been exposed to something prior to the flight].

The trip was great, and, of course, I made many observations on the green and not-so-green aspects we encountered on our travels, which I’ll be sharing here in the coming days and weeks.

Ciao for now!