Winston-Salem won me over before we settled in. Something about the neighborhoods and the good coffee and there is a Costco.

And once we did settle in … walking. Everywhere. We’re lucky to live near downtown. Which means we’re a mile away from my work. And about a mile from groceries. A mile from restaurants and coffee. From an independent movie theater, even.

*****

I’ve had an allergy attack the past few days, so I haven’t worked toward my great outdoor adventures for the week. But yesterday, with this walkable city, I turned little errands into a chance to get fresh air.

A trip to pick up tickets to the RiverRun International Film Festival showing of Rising from the Ashes (if you get a chance to see this movie, take it; truly moving and fantastic).

(… Also, this puppy was on his second-ever trip away from the backyard. Every time he saw a person on the sidewalk ahead, he stopped and was like “What? Why are you there? Who are you? What are you doing?” So very, very cute. But also, I hope he wasn’t terrified.)

The trip with Patrick to the showing itself downtown.

And this morning when I woke up … why not? On the way to work. Fresh air. Six in the morning. Starting the day, before it starts.

New paradigm: I’m going to ease up on the writing. Still often, but not every day. Because guess what I’m finding out? I don’t have something interesting to say every single day. So instead I’m going to focus on doing good things and recording them when it makes sense. With some frequency. Just … less pressure.

My goal-setting self roosts right below the surface, along with the pattern-seeker and the data-collector.

I would maybe make a really good personal assistant to someone who’s too busy to organize their own life. I love to compose systems.

Now that I’ve made a writing habit, I want to make other habits.

Eat good food

This is a goal I have to reset every week.

This week: More big-ass salads; very little sugar and wheat; juice. And plenty of water. And less coffee.

I mean, what’s new? But if I don’t remind myself every week, then I end up eating a cookie here, a cookie there, mostly cookies. And that leads to me eating more in general. And not drinking enough water. Not eating enough vegetables. I don’t know why or how all these things are connected.

They are, though, and I aim to take hold of that binding string.

Get outside

I got on my bike last week and I fell back in love.

I have this thing: I’m not a “cyclist.” I’ll never want to be competitive. I don’t necessarily care about getting faster or stronger. I just like being on my bike. I do like going fast sometimes. I like climbing hills and going back down them.

So for the next many months that we have sunny hot weather: I’d like to get out on my bike — or hiking or walking Salem Lake — at least twice a week. Three? Four? At least two.

The sun is good for me. The fresh air, too. Seeing other people out. Mostly all that moving and spending time with my active brain.

Get back to the gym

It’s only been a couple of weeks since I’ve been to a Body Pump class, but that’s long enough to get dangerous — to fall into that black hole of no-gymness.

I think it’s this warm weather that makes me want to be outside instead of inside an air-conditioned, fluorescent-lit room. But working out with a class full of people who are working just as hard is great motivation to keep on the right path.

This week, and in the coming weeks: At least two gym classes. Two is nothing, right? One. Two. Done.

Little goals. Baby itty-bitty steps.

Man, I seriously cannot wrap my head around a singular focus. Here are some things I’ve been thinking about and doing lately:

Still riding my bike

And still really feeling good about it.

Patrick and I went for a Salem Lake ride the other day, the second time for me this week. Before we left, I told him “I’m inviting you on my bike ride, so I wanna go at my pace.” I did that not because he’s a jerk and rides too hard alongside me, but because I needed to remind myself that it’s OK that I’m slower, and it’s OK if he slows himself down to keep my pace.

On rides we’ve done together, I tend to build up judgments of myself that get in the way of me having fun. And this last ride? Didn’t happen. I think my proclamation was just the reminder I needed.

Cutting way back on wheat and sugar

I did a two-week cleanse, of sorts, during which I completely cut out wheat, sugar, soy, dairy, and caffeine (though I only lasted one week without coffee).

I did it because I just wanted to see. What would I feel like? What would I truly miss?

I truly missed: coffee (and the little bit of cream I put in it). Otherwise, I was OK finding alternatives or doing without the rest. And I felt … better. Leaner. More sated.

It just so happens I did my two-week cleanse-y thing in the time leading up to Christmas. So come holiday mealtime, I blew it out of the water.

I’ve been missing that leaner, cleaner feeling. So this week I focused on cutting way back on wheat and sugar. Baby steps. Easy peasy. Instead of bread and pasta, I added more grains and vegetables to my plate. Instead of sugar, nothing. Because I really, really don’t miss sugar when I don’t eat it (but when I do eat it, all I want to eat is sugar).

I think I’ll keep up this no wheat or sugar thing for at least another week. Just to see.

Juice juice juice!

Man, I made a pretty good grapefruit and berry drink last weekend. An ade? Is that would you’d call it? I put a little honey syrup in it, too.

Anyway, I’m still all about juice, and exploring new combos.

The thing is …

Budget budget budget!

I got on this kick last week. About us not spending money. I randomly told Patrick “OK, no more spending money for a week!” Except for X, Y, and Z (which we couldn’t help because they were, like, vet visits we’d already scheduled and a race he’d signed up for).

What it meant was no new groceries; which meant very little juicing (so we could stretch our fruits and vegetables as far as possible).

But it’s the end of that week, and we’re headed to the grocery store tonight. I’ll set a limit on our expenses. We’ll buy within it. And we’ll buy to juice. And we’ll buy to big-ass-salad.

…

And that is all the everything and the nothing that I’ve been ruminating on. It feels like it’s coming together in some sort of system that will help me eat better and move more.

I have started to get the itch to organize that system, and then impose it. I think I might be ready for a little more structure.

Tomorrow: goal-setting.

I almost refuse to believe that on Monday, I came home from work, played with the dogs, and then voluntarily got on my bike for an 18-mile ride out to, and around, Salem Lake.

Me. I chose it. I even spent a little too long with the dogs, warming up in the backyard and getting tired from the sun. But I did the ride anyway.

And it was a good ride.

I’m a loud-mouth-breather when I climb hills. It sounds pretty dramatic, and in the wrong mood it can convince me that I’m miserable. But today I saw the top of each climb and pushed to it and shook it off once I was done.

In between, I pushed hard. Or not. There were stretches of just enjoying the blue day.

I know, though, that I felt good the entire 18 miles.

And this is sometimes the most fun: whatever the max speed is. Being in it. Sometimes pedaling into it; sometimes opening up on a steep downhill and throwing caution to the wind in my face.

And this is what it’s all about. But how come we never talk about it? Being red faced and salty and smelling pretty bad and feeling grimy.

This space feels good.

(Also, I’d like to talk about how much I love my white hair. More of this please. Salt, salt, salt!)

Me and my bike. I forget how well we work together.

Patrick needed the car Sunday for a bike race; I needed to work Sunday morning. So it was the perfect excuse/reason/kick in the butt I needed to get myself back on the bike.

I huffed and puffed for a mile. I mean. It was only a mile, and I was huffing and puffing the whole way.

But some things I loved:

• That it took me only seven minutes to get to work.
• That I didn’t have to find a parking space when I got there.
• That I was wearing a skirt and tights and little heals and riding a bike.

Once I was done with my shift at work, it took me not long at all to get home, and then to head the few miles to a friend’s house for an afternoon of porch-sitting and a little beer and a lot of delicious food.

Here’s a little something I think is true: The more time I spend out in the world with people, the more I want to be well in the world.

I don’t know; that just struck me as I was riding back home Sunday evening. Going 30 mph down Main Street, bending low over my handlebars so I could go faster, maybe.

The first time I juiced a sweet potato, I looked at the pulp and thought how nice it would be, baked into a quick bread. It’s an almost pinky orange. And the machine we have produces a fine-textured pulp that I was pretty sure would bake up similarly to shredded carrot.

The promise of baking for other people is my best-ever motivation in the kitchen.

When we had my family over for a belated birthday dinner for my dad, I decided it was time. He’s got an unfussy palette; carrot cakes and pound cakes have always been his favorite.

So I decided to improvise a spiced pulp pound cake.

I used my simple pound cake as a guideline, and just added a couple of spices, and pulps from apples, carrots, sweet potato, and ginger.

Next time I think I may add a little citrus zest to help cut through the (really quite good) buttery texture and flavor of this cake. Otherwise, I was really happy with it, and to have found a new use for discarded juice pulp!

Ingredients

• 8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 8 oz. (1 c. plus 2 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp.) granulated sugar
• 8 oz. (5 large) whole eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 oz. (1.5 c. plus 1.5 Tbsp.) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 4 oz. (1 cup) pulp … apple, ginger, sweet potato and carrot worked great!

Method

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease one 9-by-5-inch baking dish or two small bread loaves (I used butter!).

1. Sift together flour, salt, and powder. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl.
3. Add eggs and vanilla; mix until eggs are broken up (15-30 seconds). Scrape down bowl.
4. Add dries and pulp, and mix until light and fluffy (scrape down bowl and mix again if needed).
5. Bake for 60-70 minutes (less if you’re baking two smaller loaves).

This one was a success. Tart and sweet.

I made a juice yesterday that I thought I would love:

• 1 grapefruit
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 apple
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 inch fresh ginger

I would have added grapes, but I was already well over a pint of juice by the time the machine finished with all those.

I was really looking forward to a fresh, sweet/tart lunch.

Oh, but the whole thing was incredibly tart. Just … tart! I didn’t even get much of a ginger kick (which I always get when I include ginger in a juice, almost to the point of overwhelming the other flavors).

Apparently, the sweetness of a single apple is not enough to balance out the tartness of an entire (huge) grapefruit.

So I remade the juice today, to see if I could learn my lesson …

• 1 apple
• 1 bunch of grapes
• 1 grapefruit
• 1 (generous) inch fresh ginger
• 1/2 sweet potato
• 3 carrots (sweeter than sweet potato!)

And it worked!

It’s funny, before I started juicing a few weeks ago, I would remark to Patrick at how little fruit I ate in the course of a week. We would buy a bag of apples and a couple of bunches of bananas, and I would eat hardly a one.

Now, my juices are mostly fruit.

In fact, I’m thinking it’s time to start exploring the world of savory juices. Spicy tomato juice. Green-y juices with lime. Something with turmeric.

I smell a challenge for the coming week …

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: All kind of a blur of shifting from vacation brain (and appetite) and back into something that’s like an everyday-life routine.

This is where I may have gone wrong with our trip to San Francisco: we got back to our house around 10:30 on Sunday night, and then I had to be at work at 7 on Monday morning.

Jet lag is a real thing, and I had it for the first time. On Tuesday, not only was the time-change dragging on me, so were four shots of espresso. It was like mixing drugs or something, because I truly and honestly had numb-mouth a couple of times while trying to help customers.

In any case, it took me a quick minute to get back to speed. And even once I did, I didn’t want to drag myself back into a healthy routine.

So, no gym this week. No long walks, even.

I liked this crazy salad: spinach, greens, feta, grapes, apple, salmon, pesto, black beans, buckweat!

I did manage to gob down some big-ass salads.

Juice: sweet potato, carrot, ginger, apple, grape, lime.

I did get back into juice lunches by Wednesday.

And we did do this crazy thing: We traded in both of our cars for a single, brand-new one. A Subaru Outback. It has electric shifters for the seats; it has cruise control; it has butt-warmers, people!

I think it’s real pretty.

I feel like a for-real grown-up seeing this car parked at our house.

I also feel like we’re starting a new adventure, where we have to figure out new ways to navigate our everyday lives with or without a car. Coordinating schedules. Dropping each other off at work.

And I already asked Patrick to do some maintenance on my Stinger bike, so I can maybe ride it to work on Sunday and then tool over to a friend’s house afterward. That sounds so much more sensible than driving those handful of miles.

I think Stinger’s been sitting, ignored, in my office for at least four months. Little man needs fresh air.

We rented a car our last day in the city so we could drive up the coast and back in time to have a final dinner with our friends and their brand-new baby. (Really, this second part was the main event, but that family is not mine to share. It’s Ms. Pincushion Treats‘.)

Before we headed out of the city, we did what we do on almost any road trip: stopped for coffee.

This guy at the slow-coffee station at Four Barrel. He was the best. He had an entire intellectual, respectful conversation with me about coffee. I have a feeling he would have been just as thoughtful with someone who knew less about pour-over. He may have even assumed I knew less than I did. He was just … good.

The whole process made that little cup of coffee seem so special. I’d ordered it for Patrick (who had to miss out on Four Barrel’s beautiful interior while he waited in a loading-zone spot in the car). And Patrick deemed that cup of coffee the best he’d had in the city.

Which came first, this sign or Wes Anderson movies?

Let’s retire here. Muir Beach.

Watching the watcher. Seriously, this was one of my favorite past-times during our trip, seeing Patrick take it all in.

—————-

This whole trip just made me want to turn around and make another one. But longer. So we could do all the things again, but with more time.