It's Monday Already?!

Had a great weekend. The weather was great – about 80 and sunny all weekend. If anything, it was a little too hot but I won’t complain.

My outdoor coed team lost on Thursday night, 0-5. We should have won. We played great for the first 20 minutes but after the first couple of goals the team just kind of fell apart and everyone started yelling at everyone else. It was weird. I am missing this week’s game but hopefully there won’t be too much tension.

Friday night we just stayed in and did nothing – I worked on making cards and the husband played video games.

Saturday was busy. I had soccer practice with my little girls in the morning. It was a great practice. The weather was perfect (no more cold and wind) and it was great to practice on the turf. I put my cleats (and shingaurds) on and participated in the drills with the girls. In the afternoon we went to Oakland (the nice part of Oakland that borders Berkeley) for a bloggers’ meet-up. I love going to these because everyone is really nice and usually there’s only one other female there. Although honestly, I don’t have much of a blog compared to everyone else that goes. But they are still fun. We had planned to go to my coworker’s daughter’s 2nd birthday party, but getting to Berkeley was a royal pain and we were so far behind schedule that we had to skip the birthday party. Something I ate did not agree with me because I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach pains. These weren’t “I feel like I am going to throw up” sensations but actual pain. At first it was part of my dream and I remember being very unhappy but I couldn’t quite figure out why. So I ended up taking Sunday pretty easy which basically meant that we skipped out on a bike ride we had planned but ended up doing some shopping and house chores.

I rode my bike in to work again today. The morning ride is usually pretty easy and uneventful. But my rides home always require a lot more caution. There is always a lot more traffic in the afternoon along with other incidents like construction. Here are a few things that I wish drivers did while I am riding my bike:

Signal – please signal! It’s annoying enough when I’m in a car. When I am riding along in the bike lane you really have to let me know that you are going to cut me off to make your right turn so that I can slow down.

Not being in the lane of traffic next to me when there are multiple, free lanes – this is especially annoying when there are cars parked in the bike lane (even if the bike lane is wider). Just like you always have to drive defensively and assume another driver is going to do something stupid, please assume that something might go wrong with my bike (litter in the bike lane, people getting in/out of their cars) that may cause me to swerve into traffic lanes if I can’t stop in time.

Getting out of their parked cars without looking – my coworker was finishing up a race when some lady opened her car door without looking (she was on her cell phone). My coworker rode shoulder first into the corner of the door and was sent flying across a lane of traffic. Fortunately there were no cars driving near him, but he did have to have major surgery to fix his shoulder/arm. Please, please look before you open your car door, especially if you are parked in a bike lane.

Happy Monday!