In which Rachel loses things.

I was just going to do one of those entries about What I'm Doing Today, but then I read some earlier entries from this  year (there weren't very many of them) and one of them was about the little dress I knitted for Maddy that Rachel put on top of the car and then drove away and lost it (you can read it here.)

It was funny to read because I had forgotten all about that, but recently when I loaned her my old Kindle, she did exactly the same thing!  She put it on top of the car, along with her scriptures, after church, and then drove home to get something, and when she got back to church, Rich saw her, and gave her the scriptures, which had been picked up in the parking lot by someone, but the Kindle wasn't with them!

So Rachel was panicking, and she told me later that Ash drove home and she was practically hanging out the window so she could find that Kindle if it was lying by the side of the road.  And she did find it, lying by the side of the road, and it only has a little dent in one corner. 

When she told me about that close call, she said it had happened recently with her cell phone, too, but she had only driven a few yards, and then turned around to go back home for something she had forgotten, and when she got out of the car, she saw the phone had slid over and stopped at the corner of the sunroof.  What a doofus.

Another stinkin' hot day. This time with crocheting.

This afternoon I wrote a blog post all about how I am learning to crochet in order to make a little viking helmet for my niece Kate's baby, who is due in the Fall.  I wrote about how hard it was to crochet and when I went to the yarn store for help, Jeffrey didn't know how to crochet either, so he looked up stitches in a big crochet book, and we figured them out together.  Then I hit the wrong button and my post disappeared, so all you get is the quick recap.

I crocheted that little hat last night at work, but it didn't look right, and when Barb came to work this morning, I asked her for help, because she used to crochet, but it turns out she can't really read a pattern, so she wasn't much help.

Tonight I came to work an hour early (!) because Kathy was working, and I know she can crochet because I've seen her do it!  She turned out to be very helpful and I'm actually making the hat now, and it looks like it's supoosed to!  Yay!

It's still so hot and humid that it's killing me.  Rachel has been trying to get a walk every day, as well as biking and swimming laps, because she's training for the triathlon, so today she said she was going to walk to my house, pushing Maddy in her stroller, and she wanted me to walk down to the corner - about a half mile - and meet them. 

I went out to walk it, and it was only going to be a half mile, so no big deal.  The wind was blowing and when I was walking in the shady parts of the sidewalk, it was actually almost pleasant.  They weren't at the corner yet, so I turned to keep walking along the road to meet them, but then I was out of the shade and into the sunlight and it was so hot!  It was like walking on the surface of the sun!

By the time I met up with them I had walked almost a mile, and I could feel how red and overheated my face looked.  I was wearing black clothes, like I always do, so I was like a goth in sunlight, soaking it all in and overheating!

We walked back to my house, which was mostly uphill, and I was wailing about my misery and listening to my breath wheezing.  Maddy said, "Nan crying!"  Rachel says next time we need to bring cold water, sunblock for Maddy, and my inhaler!

In other news, it's hot outside!

It's been so long since I updated, that I don't even know where to start!

Hmm, since April (the last time I wrote anything), Kim has moved to Chicago, Rachel and I walked a 5K in the pouring rain, and Maddy broke her arm. In other news, my smart phone is still annoying.

Kim was home this weekend, not because she misses us, but because she wanted to get a bike to ride around Chicago to get to her dogsitting jobs. She is spending a lot of money on gas and she thought a bike would be the best solution.

I thought that sounded like a terrible idea, because Kim has hardly ridden a bike at all, and I didn't like the idea of her riding in city traffic, but when I told her I was worried about it, she reminded me that she rode a bike everywhere when she was in Taiwan. Oh yeah, I forgot. So I feel slightly better about it now.

Rachel needed to buy a new bike helmet to wear in the triathlon she is training for, so she picked me up and we went to W@lmart to look at bikes. I am not ready to spend a lot on a bike for Kim to get killed on get stolen.

We looked at bikes and found one that we thought was just right for Kim, and then we called her to come and look at it. She came over to the store and tried standing up on it for size, and it was good, and then she rode it down the aisle to see how it felt. Oops, no one told her how to brake on it!

She had a quick lesson in how to back-peddle to brake, because did I mention this bike is old school? It's a cruiser, with no speeds, and no handlebar brakes. It's bright fuschia with bright teal trim, very retro.

We bought a lock and a little medical kit that includes bandages and a tube of antibiotic cream, and she got a helmet from a friend, so she is all set to ride. She went for a bike ride with Sando yesterday to try it out, and then she took it back to Chicago with her last night.

So that's all I have time for right now, but here is a picture of Maddy in her cast for your entertainment: