me & my Schwinn

One of my favourite parts of summer is riding my bike! Here in Minnesota, biking season (like so many other outdoor activities) is limited to a short 4 or 5 months. If I was a hard core biker, I'd brave the cold and maybe even the snow and ice....but I'm not. I'm the most leisurely bike rider around and am often left behind in the dust when I'm biking with friends. I just don't see the point of rushing. As A.A. Milne would say, "There is no hurry. We shall get there someday."   I'll definitely never understand people who live such hectic lifestyles that they can never sit back, breathe, and wait their turn. There're so many people in this world who have no patience, who are always going going going and who always have to be first. I swear I'm about the opposite of that. Maybe if I'm running late for work or class, then I'm hurrying. But I think that's the only time. If I'm late, oh well. The world still turns and at least I didn't get myself worked up in a panic along the way.   Speaking of leisure, I wore this outfit yesterday when I went out for bubble tea with my good friend Travis. He had texted me a month or two ago saying, "We have to have bubble tea soon" and since then it's become a weekly, bi-weekly, as-much-as-we-can tradition. The nearest bubble tea manufacturer, Tea Garden, is down on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, near Mcalester College. It's about a 15 minute bike ride through a neighbourhood deeply shaded by huge ash trees and I often find myself lost in thought instead of concentrating on peddling and not getting hit by absent-minded drivers and people in a hurry.   Bubble tea days with Travis are extremely relaxing. We sit in Tea Garden for a couple hours, drinking our tapioca pearls and chatting about break ups, workplace gossip, exes, food, summer, politics, and anything else on our minds. Then we meander down the street to find food. There's a very good Mediterranean restaurant which has excellent cake, there's also a nice cafe (though usually trashed with college kids & their laptops), and a Afghan restaurant. There's also an art shop and a nice odds-and-ends shop that we often go into and talk about art and stuff we don't need but want anyways. I love these days with Travis because they're so perfect and a great escape from our stressful, busy lives.   Since I always bike down to Tea Garden, I need to wear bike-appropriate outfits. I got these shorts from my aunt a few weeks ago. She had made them when she was younger and they're constructed of a really neat fabric. Sturdy. They're definitely one of my new favourite pieces and remind me of summer camp and Girl Scouts, Nancy Drew and canoeing and freckles.   I realised yesterday that this whole outfit cost me $6 - which would be the cost of the shoes. They're beat up to pieces and I'm almost sure that my mum is going to throw them out the next time I go out of town.   The green belt was from my great aunt. She gave me a bunch of old belts when I was about 8, thinking that they'd fit me around the hips....and now here I am 10 years later wearing them around the waist as they were originally intended! This white blouse is the same one I wore last week under my horse sun dress and is from the same aunt who gave me the shorts. She pretty much gifted me a whole new outfit!   Last week as I was leaving the library, I found this little bow pin on the ground. It's positively cute and fit my outfit well at the time, so I pinned it on and carried on my way. I was in the grocery store the other day and the clerk said, "I love your pin!" to which I told her, "Thanks! I found it on the ground." It's funny when you have clothes or accesories like that.   So in conclusion to everything that I'm wearing here, 3 of the 5 things are from aunts, and the outfit total cost me $6. Hurrah!   Well I think I've done enough talking for today. I'm going to make cupcakes and then I'm off for an evening of watching movies with a friend. I hope everyone is enjoying lovely weather right now and has a bit of time to relax out in the sun.