Start Making Excuses

It's the season of giving thanks, which is always a good time to appreciate what you have and make improvements where you may be lacking. I've got a lot to be thankful for, but recently, I've been thankful for my ability to make excuses...

...to ride a bike. My grandfather lived to be 93 and rode a bike to get his mail every day until about 6 months before his death. He didn't have to, but he made a point to do it. I think making his daily routine active contributed to his longevity.

Since I've moved, things in my out-of-work routine have become a little less active, and I don't ride nearly as much as I used to. Living in a semi-suburban environment, it's easy sometimes to be lazy and decide to jump in the car for everyday errands. I've been better about this recently, but I still need to continue to "make excuses" to ride regularly. 

In the spirit of the season and not being much of a Black Friday shopper, I decided to create one of these excuses on Friday by biking four large bags of our daughter's lightly used clothes to a couple donation bins located less than a mile from our house. It took multiple trips, but it was worth it (of course), if for no other reason than to burn off all the extra calories I'd packed on the day before:

Perhaps I should also mention that I'm thankful for the boss giving us the day off on Friday. This whole thing took about 1.5 hours, and I'm really glad I had the time to do some good and enjoy some unseasonably warm weather in the process. Anyway...there are bins located on either end of our nearest Kroger parking lot, each supporting different organizations, so I split the donations just about evenly:

All told, she probably gave me 100 pounds of clothes to donate. Cleaning out a closet never felt so good. Mine is next up on the list, which will surely lead to several more excuse rides. For now, one of my ongoing favorite excuses to ride has become recycling drop-off, which I've lost count of how many times I've done in the last month or so. I made another trip on Saturday:

We always like to tell our children not to make excuses, but I found myself using our daughter for yet another excuse to ride on Sunday morning, as we all took the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful Autumn day to return her library books just down the road:

You may have seen that bike rack on this blog before. It's still one of my favorites around this area.

Not wanting to waste a beautiful day (they've been few and far between), we went further into the park connected to the library and sneaked in some extra family riding time:

Additionally, the girlfriend and I cleaned out a bunch of things while decorating the house for Christmas. I took them to our nearest thrift store on the back of my bike. No picture, but we have some more cleaning to do, so I'm sure I'll be back over there soon.

And finally, sometime yesterday evening, I rounded up some more recycling and hit up the grocery store on the way back:

Here's hoping someone comes to empty those recycling bins some time soon. As you can see, the weather was not as nice yesterday as it was over the weekend, and today is actually considerably colder and a tad snowier. Still, I plan to head out briefly for a bit later this evening. A light dusting of snow is no excuse not to ride. See what I did there?

Basically, sometimes making an excuse is a good thing. Do what makes you feel good, be thankful for it, and most importantly, keep riding!