Thanks for the words of encouragement, guys. Over the last week, I made a few changes to the bike to make it feel a bit better for the time being. I went to my LBS and had a stem riser installed as well as a new seat. I went with a Serfas RX women's saddle. I like the shorter nose on the women's saddle versus the longer nose on the mens. The day I had that stuff, I headed straight from the bike shop to a 20 mile trail that was nearby and rode the whole thing in about two hours. It was pretty cold that day, and it even snowed for a few seconds about half way through it, but it didn't phase me much. I was pretty well dressed, so my own body heat and layers of clothing kept me plenty warm. I had rode the same trail once before on my old cruiser, and I was ready to die by the time I got to the end, but this time, I had the feeling that I could have done another 10 miles, so I'm getting in better shape, and I'm sure the nicer bike helped a lot as well.
I'll be sure to post some pics of the new bike and the old one later today, but for now, I'm going to head out to our local nature preserve and ride some of the off road trails they have. Now that my bike is capable, I'm finding that I really like riding through the woods much more than on paved trails. It's just so much more fun to me because it's a much more challenging ride mentally and physically. When I ride for 30 minutes off road, it feels like I got more accomplished than I did in an hour on pavement. Off I go.