Fresh from safety training, here I am during my inaugural ride yesterday on my birthday. The bike had been parked in my garage for a year, due to the need to manage through a health detour you know all too well. See link below to a video of my ride.

What a birthday I celebrated this week! I had to tell you about it here.

One year ago we decided to get a new motorcycle with the hope that I would learn to ride.  As fate would have it, less than two weeks after getting the bike the phone call came with the biopsy report of my breast tissue.

Plans, dreams and hobbies were put on hold. Life’s central focus shifted to setting a path for sorting through diagnoses, treatments, surgeries and more. Through God’s grace, the latest tests show the most positive outcome possible, a PCR or “pathologic complete response.”

So this week, it was finally time to turn my attention back to the bike. For my birthday, Belynda paid my tuition to a  motorcycle safety class where I spent last weekend learning to ride. Unfortunately, the bike provided for my lesson was a very small motorcycle but I did learn the basics.

So yesterday, one year after its purchase, my motorcycle came out of the garage and for the first time I was ready to roll. It was very intimidating at first because of the difference in size compared with the much smaller model I had used in training. But with Belynda cheering me on and building my confidence, off we went. Here’s a short video.

My sister, Deb, had to be out of town for my birthday dinner last night at a neighborhood pizza spot, but arranged to have sent to the table a Scotch with a sweet note of good wishes.

As for other festivities of the day, there was breakfast out, dinner with friends and family, and finally good pals from Florida arriving for more fun over the next few days. My sister, Deb, had to be out of town on business but arranged to have a Scotch sent to the table with a message sending love and saying that Mom and Dad would be proud.

I had ordered wine a glass of wine so for a moment, with two glasses in front of me, it probably looked as if I was really celebrating.

A cousin fetched our out-of-town friends from the airport to join us at the restaurant and at one point he turned the aisle in the pizza joint into a dance floor and we took a spin to the applause of our fellow guests.

In more ways than one, yesterday was a sweet, sweet ride.  Happy birthday to me!

Even the serving staff and fellow diners seemed to get a kick out of our birthday celebration.