Bake Sale Success!

Hello, all!

First of all, we would like to thank everyone at Stony Brook for making our Bike&Build Bake Sale a massive success! In total, we were able to raise about $200 for affordable housing, which in my opinion is fantastic. Thanks to all the students, faculty, non-students (those from U of Alabama), friends, etc for buying baked goods and donating time and/or money. You are all awesome.

At this bake sale we had SIX different kinds of cookies! My amazing sister (The Kitchen Politico) donated more than 200 cookies worth of cookie dough to our cause, and these cookies are legit. Seriously. A friend of ours (It's on Fire!)  donated some baked goods as well. All in all, Annamaria and I pressed some buttons on the oven and put the frozen cookie dough in until they smelled delicious; but we are still worn out from this experience, it was sort of overwhelming.

These are the cookies we had:
Molasses (my Grandma's recipe, and just about the best cookies ever)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
Monster w/ and w/o Toffee (crunchy PB, butterscotch and chocolate chips, M&Ms, and oats; Annamaria's favorite)
Oatmeal Currant (one of my favorites)
Chocolate Chip w/ Pecans
Citrus Sizzlers (lime w/ cayenne pepper, another of my favorites)

(I slept on the floor)

And our friend made Chocolate Loaf Cake, Chocolate Pudding Tarts, and Egg Custard Tarts.

Looks good, right? 

More big news - we both got our bikes this week! We were both up before our mail room was open yesterday, and as soon as they opened their doors we went to get our (enormous) boxes of bike. Annamaria put hers together immediately, I don't know where she found the time - mine is still in pieces: 

This means that we will start training for real, whenever we're free. But we will get our 500 miles in and be pumped for all day bike riding this summer!

Also, in a couple days we will be starting a raffle! We aren't sure how many prizes there will be yet, but there will definitely be one top prize of this awesome Doctor Who themed quilt (made by my mother!) and hopefully a Sonic Screwdriver. 

(We'll have a better photo in a few days)

We are still in the process of setting up this fundraiser, and will keep everyone posted on the progress. Hopefully it will be extremely easy and convenient for everyone involved. If you have any Doctor Who friends, let them know! The raffle will be through Rafflecopter, and it will be set up on this blog in a couple days, if everything runs smoothly. (Also, if you're not a Doctor Who fan, you should become one. Because it's awesome.)

So check back in regularly, because our wheels are really getting rolling (ha)! And we would love a ton of involvement from everyone. 

Geronimo!

Cycling Divas

     For Kathryn and I spring break does not lack of productivity.  During these past few days Kathryn and I have been kicking ass and taking names!  This week while visiting her grandparents and her sisters family Kathryn has been preparing every aspect of our bake sale fundraiser on Tuesday. That means securing a table, getting ingredients, printing our logos and confirming with our volunteer cooks all while keeping her grandparents company.

     My week began when Kathryn and I asked ourselves the question many women before us have asked.  How am  I gonna coup with cycling all day long during my period? (Just lost any male readers...) Luckily I had experience with an answer to this tricky question known as The DivaCup (a magical device which will make you forget you period exist, save you hundreds of dollars and decrease your carbon foot print... yea magical).  Realizing that this same problem would exist for every woman on our ride I immediately emailed The DivaCup company about our dilemma and boy did they come through!  They were stoked about our cause and were so eager to help they have offered to donate at cup for every one in our group...well for the women folk at least.  Problem solved! But that's not all! They also would like us to write a post for their blog about Bike & Build.  We're so grateful for their interest in affordable housing and would like to thank them for their donation!

Also major thanks to all our donors!  Next time we post we'll both have our bikes!

- AM

Spring Break! Woohoo!

Alright! So our Spring Break started today and we are both off on great adventures which are extremely exciting. I am off to Virginia to visit some family, and Annamaria is off to North Carolina to visit a friend of hers. Also, we both were able to order our bikes this week! Woohoo! Hooray! At the moment, though, I'm slightly more inclined to be excited about Spring Break because I'm all about the instant gratification.

Over the past couple weeks we've really been getting into a lot of cycling stuff. Before, we (I, at least) were more the kind of people who liked to go on bike rides and ride to class, but didn't really know anything more about cycling in the 'real world' (Annamaria knows how to work on bikes and I know vaguely how to change a flat). But we've been reading up on some of this stuff and it's gotten us super pumped! Not to say that we aren't intimidated; there is so much gear to have and know about, and frankly, the cycling community is enormous. 

Luckily, our Bike&Build route has its own website which has so far been incredibly entertaining and helpful. Who knew that going on a 15-20 mile ride without eating on the way would be bad for you? Would anyone have guessed that wearing spandex and cycling for 8 hours a day would create issues with your 'saddle area'? And wait... I really don't want saddlesores.* So the four fearless leaders of our B&B trip created this website to help us all with the transition from non-continuous-cycling life to continuous-cycling life (Thank you, fearless leaders!). You know when you're walking toward someone directly in your path, and neither one of you knows which one is going to move? That's kind of how some of their tips feel, because sometimes it's more like "Some people think this is good, but others think that is good. Just try them both." so you're kind of back where you started. But all in all, it's a lot of really great information! Annamaria and I didn't really know where to run first. 

But we decided on our LBS (local bike shop). Like Annamaria said in her last post, the bike shop right across from Stony Brook said they would give us a gear discount! Once we get back from Spring Break we'll pick up the most needed gear and be ready and rolling (ha) in no time! Another thing we'll be able to do is start our sweat equity, which is our time volunteering at a local affordable housing construction site. Sweat equity gets us to the point where we won't feel out of place on a build site when we join people across America on build sites (good idea, eh?). 

Also, we have been getting more exposed to some of the cycling magazines and websites out there, which only make us more excited. A new magazine started earlier in March, called Bunyan Velo, which is available to read free online. While only one issue has so far been published, it's enough to make Annamaria and I head out on our bikes for who knows where with a sleeping bag and some food. The entire issue is dedicated to stories of cyclists who have gotten on their bikes to go wherever the wind takes them. These cyclists write about their trips through Mexico, around the Great Lakes, or simply their love of winter riding. 

So basically, we are super pumped for everything that's happened so far, and we would like to send our super big thanks to everyone who has donated to our cause so far! If you haven't donated (or even if you have) and find that you've got some extra cash, we would be extremely grateful if you chose to give to affordable housing through either of us (Annamaria or Kathryn)!

* Everybody should know all of these things.