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Day’s Verse:
All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after the wind and there was no profit under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
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Sitting on the couch at 7:05 am this morning, I told Ian, “I think today will be one of those days I’ll wish I never got out of bed.”

Oh how right I was.

Then how wrong I was, in deciding to ride to church. Granted, the underlying logic makes sense: Ian had sound. He wanted to arrive at church two or two and a half hours before the service started. I, however, have no desire to sit around church for a couple long hours. The crazy raining had stopped and we saw patches of blue sky, so the weather seemed to cooperate. Yes, I knew it was windy; I heard the wind chimes (after I reattached the bottom dangly thing, which had fallen – thankfully on our porch – when the string snapped), saw the trees and leaves whipping around, heard the whistle as it went around corners.

Little did I realize that sustained headwinds of 15 to 20 mph winds with gusts up to 30 mph would not only utterly exhaust me after 25 miles of riding, but it would also make the temperature so significantly colder than I expected that I would lose feeling in my toes by the time I arrived at church. Partway through, I gave up hope of even reaching church before 10:30, although I left the house at 8:20. You may think two hours to ride 25 miles sounds rather slow, but again, the constant, battering, steady hard headwind forced me to just put my head down and pedal steadily, not worrying about speed.

It actually ended up taking me an hour and 45 minutes, giving a grand total of 13.74 miles an hour. Normally I ride between 15 and 16 miles an hour. I was grateful to make it to church at all, no matter how long it took. And I am incredibly grateful that I live in a relatively calm place so that these winds are extraordinary, rather than status quo. Still, the rest of the day has been a haze of exhaustion and misery (for various other reasons as well) that I admit I will gladly bid it farewell when I go back to bed in a couple hours.

I also got the estimate to complete my Charlotte-into-an-Xtracycle conversion: $1,110, including repairs to Charlotte and the conversion. I have $825 right now. I guess that project will have to wait for a while, too, like so many other good things only hoped-for in our life right now.