I try to participate in charity events as often as I can, but this weekend I participated in one that was really close to my heart. Some of you locals know a dear friend of our family, Missy Wylie, passed away on Valentine’s Day when her husband killed her in a fit of domestic violence. She left behind a 23 year old son who is a full time college student and a 7 year old son who is now left with his brother as his only family.

Saturday night we all pitched in to throw the Wylie Boys Musical Benefit behind Columbos Pizza, and I seriously can’t believe how great we did! There were 5 bands including my father-in-law’s band, The Strollbums, lots of food, and $10 t-shirts. We were all hoping to raise a couple thousand, and we’d be ecstatic if we could raise $5,000. Imagine our surprise when the totals were announced yesterday, and we found out we were $50 short of $13,000!!

We’ll definitely be doing this benefit again next year, and I’m hoping I can get some people together to add a motorcycle charity ride as well. This summer I was supposed to ride in two charity rides, one to raise money for Mesothelioma treatment and the other to raise money for local kids in need.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to ride this year, but I’ll still try to raise money any way I can. Next year even though I’ll have the baby I may have to try to find time to work in a few extra charity rides to make up for the fact that I can’t ride this year.

My best friend and I were having a conversation this morning about our motorcycle insurance.  She decided it was time to request free insurance quotes from a few companies because she hasn’t even checked her motorcycle insurance in a couple years to see if she could get it cheaper. Her current company has dropped her rates a great deal because she hasn’t had any incidents or tickets in the last 3 or 4 years.

So that leads me to the quotes. She couldn’t believe how much of a different she found between so many different companies just because one of her bikes is a 750cc. That I can understand because a lot of companies won’t insure anything over 600cc. Even though her rate with her current company has been extremely cheap, she could have actually been paying less with another company. Her current company is actually charging her an extra fee just because her bike is in the over 600cc class.

So basically where am I going with this? Just like with car insurance don’t run out there and buy the first policy you’re quoted. Don’t take the word of friends and family members for who’s got the cheapest rates. Do your own research, and in the end you’ll end up with the best policy for you.

One way Hubby has decided to help me feed my riding fiend is by recording his rides for me.  If I can’t ride I can at least watch the videos pretending I’m getting to enjoy my favorite routes.  I’ve been watching the rides as he’s recorded them, but as usual my laziness kept me from offloading them onto the pc to edit.  I figured I’d do that one day when I had the time to do it, then I’d pick a few of the videos to share here.

Well today I’ve had plenty of extra time, so after helping my sis search through job listings for administrative careers I decided I’d sit down and edit videos. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. I have yet again killed another card reader, and I can’t get the videos off my SD card. I swear I go through card readers like toilet paper! I’ll have to pick up another one tonight, and maybe I’ll have the time tomorrow to edit the videos because I’d really like to show you the areas where we love to ride.

I’m sorry you haven’t really heard from me here lately, but it’s been kind of hard for me to come up with content for my journal that is basically about the time I spend on the bike (or started out that way) when I can’t ride.   I don’t think you really want to listen to how I spent hours online shopping for area rugs yesterday nor do I think you want to hear about every aspect of my pregnancy. I always knew when we decided to start a family pregnancy would end up cutting into my riding schedule.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy we’re finally pregnant, but I always hoped I could plan for it to happen from like August to May so I could at least enjoy a couple months of riding.  Instead I’m going to be big as a barrel all summer.

I’m already jealous of all the riding Hubby gets to do, and I know it’s kind of making him ill.  We’ve gotten into plenty of fights over the last few weeks because I’ve asked him to cut his ride shorter than normal or because he feels bad that he can go for a ride while I can’t.  I guess it’s something we both have to adjust to, and we’ll see how it goes.

Man this has been quite the day.  We’ve been running our legs off all day, but at least we got a lot accomplished.  Tomorrow is going to be the same deal.  Hubby has to help his dad work on his bike in the morning, then they’re going to take a long ride while I go shopping with my mom.

I’d rather use talk about colon cleansers than go shopping with my mom, but sometimes I have no choice.  In the past I could just go riding with Hubby as my excuse for why I couldn’t go shopping with her, but not anymore.  Now she knows I don’t really have anything to do while Hubby’s out riding, so she takes advantage of the situation and drags me out to places I hate to go…like shopping.