Up

This weekend my bicycle was stolen off our patio. For weeks, we'd bring it into the house at night as we'd heard such things have a tendency to disappear. Then as we became more comfortable I became complacent about it and started leaving it outside. After all, everyone is so nice here and Eugene just seems uber-non-materialistic. Squirt demonstrated over Labor Day that she can ride a two wheeler (despite her mothers skepticism), we bought her a new helmet Saturday, and now Monday morning I went to take a ride in lieu of a morning run. I was so anxious to ride bikes together with my buglet after school, but as I stepped out back I was faced with a stark empty space where my bike used to be. Silly trusting me. In four weeks we've been relieved of that and a child's scooter. My "Eugene-is-awesome" bubble has deflated a little. I'm sure I'll recover from the petty trauma in time for cherry tomatoes from the farmers market on Saturday, which will make me fall in love with this place all over again.

For today, I feel grumpy like this guy:

His Hotness and I have started a little "tradition" of trying new bottled root beers. It started on a trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in June. Walking though the local grocery, we spotted a cream root beer from a brewery in Durango. I snatched it up, took it back to camp and made sure to keep the bottlecaps. Our fridge is now a display gallery of bottlecap magnets highlighting all the root beers we've tried. Squirt grabbed the extra caps off the counter and asked me to make her some pins just like the above picture, and so I did.

Sort of. I took the easy way out and just attached the caps to safety pins using split rings, after drilling a small hole in the side. She promptly headed out to the playground to distribute them to friends. 

A silly little thing, but they are helping me feel up.