I am back to school in my second semester. I am loving my new classes.

He said

As we compose this post this week we sit 5 Sundays away from Spring which given the amount of compacted ice and snow I have shovelled from our driveway in the last couple of weeks hardly seems like a reality. But we are already well into February and the groundhog that matters, Wiarton Willie predicted an early Spring when he didn’t see his shadow. So, we are super hopeful he was right and we’re having an early exit of all this snow and shovelling crap. And truthfully, while we really haven’t had that terrible of a winter, I am already over it.

Last week, Emelia started her new semester of Grade 9 and good news because it is her favourite semester. Her classes this semester are English, Geography, Family Studies and Gym. And no surprise our ever active girl’s favourite class is Gym. She’s made the decision to retire from Wrestling as while she did enjoy the new sport, she is worried that she could injure herself which would impact her Competitive Cheer season when it matters the most. Plus the practice schedule would put her at school 2 days a week before school for an already busy girl with 2 practices a week for Cheer. She’s reserving her school activity this year for Track & Field.

And, in the ongoing battle for warranty on the spin bike, this past week we finally heard back from the company and they offered two solutions: 1) they refund us for 50% of the cost of the bike; or 2) if we paid for shipping, they would ship us a whole new spin bike to replace the other. Given than the seat had broken, we opted to go for the second option and get a whole new one shipped. The reality is we could strip parts we figure might be need for replacement down the road from the original to keep as backup and take the rest to the metal scrap yard and be able to recoup the shipping, if not be ahead from a money sense. The replacement bike should arrive this week.

Lastly, this week I have started some deeper-dive winter maintenance on my gravel bike. After putting over 5000 kms on the bike this year, it was high time for some wear-and-tear maintenance on the drivetrain. Both the cables for the derailleur and the mechanical disc brakes were worn and needed replacement as well as the chan was showing the age and duress of all of the riding I had done last year. One of the goals I had set for myself last year was to require someone else do service and maintenance on the bike at lot less. Given the down time of the snowy months I decided to take January and February to become my own service guy.

I have started with the brake lines and then will move on to the derailleur cables next. Lastly will be the replacement chain, if all goes well, then not only will I have saved myself some money, I will have learned some very important skills to keeping my bike running tikity-boo. I am excited about this upcoming summer of biking, but even more so if I am able to ride on the fruits of my learning, being able to service and maintenance my bike, myself. For now, the countdown is to gee the work done, in time to get the riding done!

She said

The focus for Emelia was getting back in the swing of school and setting in to her second semester in grade 9. This semester she is finally back to some sort of normal school existance. This term for the first time since the pandemic hit high school students are taking their normal class schedule. So this means that Emelia is taking 4 classes every day. So far she is loving her new classes. After such a heavy course load last term she is happy to have a more balanced course load. Although she did amazing grade wise last term she is happy to have these classes.

So far her favourites are Family Studies and Gym but has already started loving English and is really liking Geography as well.

This week Emelia was messaged by her wrestling coach that they would be starting training again to wrap up the season. She really thought it through and asked if we were okay if she didn’t return to the team. She was really worried that she could be injured at a meet and with her cheer competitions fast approaching. Her commitment to her cheer team was too important to risk it as far as she was concerned. And honestly we agreed. Add in the 6:45 morning practices we were all good with her decision.

Emelia’s focus right now is firmly on her cheer team and the competition that is coming up fast!

For me I am finally getting more in the swing of my new role. I have been put on some key working groups and I am loving all the work I am doing. I am really loving my work and my co-workers. It has been the change I really needed and the growth opportunity I have been working towards my whole professional life. It feels pretty amazing.