keep the Princess rolling

Today I broke out my bike, zipped over to a gas station and pumped my tires full of air, then rode downtown.  Within four blocks my front tire was almost flat.  Uh-oh.  I'm a fair weather bike rider, I'll admit it.  And I'm impatient with small hassles that mess with my plan for a day.   Oh, and forget about me fixing the tire myself.  I'll get my hands dirty with plenty of things, but this really isn't one of them.  At least not at this point in my life.  I guess it's a Princess point for me.  

Anyway, the weather was nice, so I figured I could walk my bike around.  I made it to Biga Pizza for my lunch date then went on to finish my errands.  I stopped in and saw my pal H-bomb at The Red Rooster, who reminded me that conveniently, Missoula has bike shops all around town and one is literally in the middle of downtown.  So, I pushed over to Hellgate Cyclery for a tire repair.  They had my bike ready and rolling again in thirty minutes.  Zippety-do!  Now, that's living like a Princess!

  

days of greatness

Days of greatness is an expression my friend Dyna taught me.  The idea is like a birthday party extension. You get as many days of greatness as the years of your age.  Your days of greatness happen in the time around your birthday.  And you can even start them before the actual birthday if you like, but you only get that many days.  During that time, your friends and family are supposed to treat you with extra special kindness, affection and generosity.  Like a queen.

My 'days of greatness' have been especially rich and full this year. I'm just mentioning a few highlights here.

Emily took a picture of me wearing my new bike helmut hat.  B had to order it from England cause there isn't a retailer in the U.S. yet.  I can order more hat covers to change out for different fashion choices. It's absolutely great.

And then he made Hand Pies.

Just like it sounds, these are little pies that you can hold in your hand.  

It started with a recipe that I saw for Pie Lollipops.  He went for a larger size than the lollipops for a better pastry crust-to-filling ratio and abandoned the stick. An excellent decision. 

He made several kinds of filling: fruit compote, Nutella, apple, strawberry and combinations.

They were fun to make.

I helped with the details.

And they were so ridiculously cute as objects.

He was right-on with the proportions so every bite was a sweet and flakey balance.  They were a big hit at the party, of course, and saved us the stack of plates and forks to clean.  Plus, the informality encouraged everyone to help themselves. Because of the modest size you needn't feel guilty to go back for seconds or thirds, either. 

Since he made plenty, I enjoyed them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert for a few days.  That is definitely my idea of living like a queen.

The days of greatness are over now but I'm still feeling pretty damn lucky.