Zen and real estate, and bikes

I'm feeling much more mellow about the sale of the house and the move to Hawaii. Nothing has happened yet, though we did have a couple of agents show the house yesterday, so that's good. And as far as I can tell, the sellers of the Ala Wai place that I love didn't accept the other offer that they got, so that's good. But if I don't get the place that I want, we'll find another one, and if the house takes longer to sell than I'd like (which it's already doing), so be it. One of my good friends is going through a terribly rough time right now, and it's putting things into perspective. I've got no problems.

In other news, I feel like my life is consumed by bicycles. I now own three of them. A road/racing bike, a hybrid that's definitely seen better days, and my new mountain bike. I took the hybrid, which is my commuting bike, in for a tune-up, and quickly realized what a junker it is. It's heavy, the gear-shifting mechanism is awkward and temperamental, it's got bottom-of-the-barrel components, and the seat pole isn't completely stable so the seat moves a little bit when I pedal, causing me to lose power. The upside is that hauling that piece of crap up and down the hills of Buckhead and Decatur twice a day is making me much stronger on the racing bike.

So we went bike shopping, but had multiple objectives to fulfill. I wanted a bike that I could commute on comfortably, and Jason wanted me to get a bike on which I could go trail-riding, because he wants me to go with him. We found a really cool, reasonably priced Ironhorse, with disc brakes, easy shifters, and front shocks. It's as light as a mountain bike that doesn't cost $5000 can be expected to be, and it rides great. And I'm excited to ride with Jason -- he's a really good technical rider, he's a very patient teacher, and we always have fun together.

But last night I had a dream about bicycles. I didn't ride in today because I take Mondays off, but I'll probably ride to the Y to go swimming later on today, and I'll ride in the rest of the week, plus do a long training ride on Saturday or Sunday. I find myself obsessed with acquiring new gear that will reduce my transition times in a triathlon. My drain rack is full of water bottles.

On the other hand, I go to bed every day physically very tired from the exertion, and it helps me calm down about the other things in my life that I normally worry myself sick over. It keeps me zen.