What is it .....

about having a new bike?

I am not a Walmart shopper. In fact, I abhor Walmart - there is something about it that makes me want to run out of the store the second I enter it. The narrow aisles make me feel claustrophobic. The store seems dirty even though it is not. And so on. However, they have the cheapest school supplies.

So once a year, I trek to Walmart and spend a few hours merging school supply lists. The $0.17 notebooks are a steal - so much so that I buy 50% more so when the kids need notebooks during the year, I am not spending $3.50 for the same notebook I bought for $0.17 in August. Then, there are the glue sticks - the school calls for large glue sticks but no one stocks large ones. The kids freak but I insist that regular size glue sticks will do. The escapade continues through index cards, pens, wooden pencils, plastic forks, band aids, etc. Every item brings on a debate with one of the kids .... but I don't use wooden pencils, I want mechanical ones ..... the list says I need a protractor  .... but you are not taking geometry .... why do I have to have blank index cards instead of ruled ones.

I yell,  "THAT'S WHAT THE SCHOOL REQUIRES. READ THE LIST AND YOU'LL SEE, THESE ARE FOR GENERAL CLASSROOM USE!" Okay, so I don't yell it at all. It is a conversation in my mind. It's like the saying I posted on Pinterest the other day. "I AM CALM" (except in the middle it used the *f word.

Okay, I have totally digressed. Needless to say, it is never a fun trip. A ray of sunshine appeared on this trip. When exiting the story, I noticed an adorable bicycle displayed on an outdoor rack. It's white trim and blue inner wheels provided an adorable vintage look. The bike called to me saying "Take me home."

The pull to the bike was not strong enough to make go back inside the store but I kept thinking about her. Two days later, we revisited and Caroline and I both got new bikes. Mine is not the one I saw on the rack but better. The frame yellow, the fenders are hot pink, and the inner wheels are hot pinks as well. Our neighbor calls it "sexy"! Everywhere we ride, people comment on it. I made her whole with a front wicker basket. So cute!

It is a cruiser style bike which is so much easier to ride than a racing bike. And amazingly, I love to ride. What a shocker for me. I actually like riding. It's exercise. I should not like it. The kids love that we are going for bike rides with them.

Perhaps I like biking because it allows me to notice the beauty around me while I am burning the calories. This is what I noticed yesterday.