Do I hear fifty? Who'll gimme fifty?

It has been an incredibly difficult winter for me.

The weather has been cold and wet, and just when I thought things might get better, they got worse. Over the last two weeks, we've had some of the coldest temps this late in the winter. Nearly every night for the past week and a half has been below freezing. Today, it snowed. Again. All day, on and off until dinner time.

Being a freelancer who's currently not touring means I'm home a lot. In warmer weather I can always find a reason to go outside and ride my bike. But it has been ridiculously hard. I had ONE bike ride in the last week and a half. It was a sunny day with some wind. It warmed up enough for me to actually strip ;ayers when I stopped for coffee at Golden Pliers bike shop, but by the time I was ready to leave it was after 3pm and the temps had started to fall again. I got home with a very red nose and eyelids so cold they had begun to almost burn.

That was a few days ago.

Now, I understand that by the end of this week the temps should warm to near 50F. On Sunday I'll try to get out for a bike ride if I can.

But here's the ugly little secret of auto-immune illness: as you age, you naturally find it hard to sustain the kind of efforts you could when you were younger. Add in auto-immune disease and suddenly you are wiped out with every expenditure of energy. Even a modest ride to the store becomes a real slog, and you feel utterly drained when you're done.

I marched a mile with my community band last weekend, on a sunny and cold day (high was something like 43F). The next day, I was pretty useless and actually slept in until almost 10 am.
That's what fatigue can do.

So I'm hanging in there, trying not to feel too bad about not wanting to ride in this weather and hoping that things will break soon. I'm dreaming of those fifty-degree days and looking forward to putting my heaviest wool sweater back in the drawer, and my wool-lined winter coat in the back of the closet, until something like next Thanksgiving.

If I can go out on Sunday, I'll try and hit up the CCC Salvage day -- come find me there! -- and then go home and try and whip together a refugee bike (I've got one in the stand, and room for a few more donations if your old bike needs a home. Find me on FB to leave a message about drop-off).
Until then, stay warm and have a lovely weekend. Rubber side down, kids!

(Below -- memories of warmer days)