Hot or Not: June

Once again bringing you what is Hot and what is Not in AB-land this month.

HOT

Slow Cookers

It's that time of year again, where hour-in and out I reach for the coffee cup. Unfortunately this year the coffee is often replaced with the decaffeinated variety (Bleh!) or some kind of herbal tea...call me a hippy, whatever.
However, there are some good things about winter, like pleasant sunny Brisbane days, the ability to go and do kilometres in the afternoon, a renewed vigour unleashed upon red wine drinking, daggy pyjamas and couch time.

Insert some joke about a slow euro pro here.

But perhaps the one that takes the pot *guffaw* is slow-cooker recipes. Admittedly, I am no slow cooker expert. In fact I haven't had one until this year, but I am excited about chucking a bunch of ingredients into a big electric pot in the morning and having a steaming vegetable tagine to greet me in the evening.

Singlespeeding

Surly? Well yes, most of the time.

Singlespeeding is perpetually on my top list, though it should be on the 'Not' list at the same time right now, because I still lack the old punch that gets me up man sized hills with ease. So despite loving the SS, the man-sized hill fitness is lacking. But it is infinitely a more fun bike to ride than the other one with gears.

Plus it fits me a whole lot better; I don't know if it's a good, bad or indifferent thing that I descend 7secs quicker on my singlespeed than on my geared bike down a 2min 30 technical descent. There's something not quite right there...

Dramanti Artisan Espresso

I was introduced to the luscious Dramanti roastings by a friend who works in their city cafe. He brought over a packet of the sweetest, most chocolately beans ever. They were sublime when concocted into a very short ristretto on my Giotto.

It made my long time friend, Merlo Espresso, beg to be allowed to stay in the kitchen after years of amicable relations. I have since picked up a couple of bags of an Indian Blend, which I haven't yet sampled but Aaron (city cafe bloke, friend and all round nice bloke) assured me that it was also very very tasty. I can't wait to crack it open!

Cloth Nappies

Yep, still loving it. It's a labour of love but really, it's not that labour intensive. Plus I have (fingers crossed...) manage to overcome the bumrash issues that plagued little E for the first 8 weeks or so.

So we are happily gliding along with my fitteds, prefolds and assortment of pre-loved pockets as poorags. I am excited about 'upgrading' E's poorags to Itti Bitti's in time... as I have heard great things about them. I think i'll have to trial one first. But they come in zany colours and prints which is uber cool.

Loving the lime—Cyclinic Baby?

NOT

Insomnia

You would think I would be relishing the fact that E has had several nights sleeping entirely through the night without waking up. In fact, even doing one wake up is perfectly fine—it's easy to manage life with only one get up per night. However my body has different ideas, and sleep isn't one of them, unfortunately.

Elva is asleep from just before 7, and I follow suit around 9...but I am lucky to get any good quality deep sleep in before I wake around midnight, expecting her to wake up. So I check she's ok, then toss and turn until she does wake up from 1am-3pm, or until I have had a complete waste of potential sleep if she wakes up at the lovely 5-7am mark. WHAT'S GOING ON!?! My sleep hygiene has not changed, the only thing I have noticed is that this sleeplessness seems to relate to doing harder rides, which is a bit counterproductive really. The time I really need that sleep to rest, replenish and recover is being wasted tossing and turning for some bizarre reason I-don't-know what!

Bergs

OK, so I should be loving the Berg rides, not hill too tough yada yada yada, but they really hurt. I'm loving the ride where you can jam in as many signs that state the road is climbing 15% and more (I counted about 7 on the last ride—needless to say I returned home with a very low average speed and sore legs). But it's a love-hate relationship at the best of times.

I am sure they will pay off at some stage, but at the moment the feeling of being heavy and unfit really peaks with the gradients. Go figure.

Lance Armstrong Doping Charges

Does anybody think that ANY good can come of this? I personally don't want to know, the only loser will be the Livestrong charity, and while I pay out the thousands of people milling about with silly yellow wrist bands, they do good things for Cancer fundraising, so I kinda wish it would all just go away. I bet Lance does too.