It's hot like Hell or Arizona.

What I am knitting today:

• Viking hat for Kate's baby. Actually that hat is resting while I work on other things because it's kind of a pain. I got help with reading the pattern from Kathy, and also, Russell and Mike at knitting group, so I can finish the body of it, only I need to use a bigger hook for the last few rows, because it was getting smaller and smaller and I had to rip those last rows out. The good news is, it's easier to rip back crocheting that it is to rip knitting.
• Finishing the second sock of a pair, and it's going slowing because they're for a man, and men have bigger feet! The foot is going on and on...
• A sweater for Kim that she picked out. I am using the actual yarn called for in the pattern, and having a bit of trouble getting the gauge with it. Also, it's hemp yarn, so it's not really pleasant to work with. I hear that it washes up well and gets soft and drapes nicely, but I have to see that to believe it.
• Just finished another little sweater for Kim. It's a shrug, from a Chicknits pattern called Cinnie. It's very cute, knitted with Cotton Fleece in lavender. I hope she likes it. Still need to weave in the ends and take a picture. Hah! You know I won't remember to take a picture.

What Kim is doing today:

Kim came home for the weekend, but she's not really home. She spent the night here on Thursday, then got up and tuned her harp, loaded it into my van, and drove to Iowa to play at her roommate's sister's wedding.

Kim took my van and left her car here for me to drive. She took the car key off of her keyring and gave it to me so I could use the car. Last night when I was leaving to go to work, I went out to her car, and fumbled the key when I tried to unlock it, dropping the key on the ground. It was dark, and I couldn't see where it fell, so I cursed loudly and felt around on the ground for it, but of course I couldn't find it.

I pulled out my phone and used the lit screen as a flashlight to look for the key, and there it was! It had bounced under the car, and was laying on the driveway under the middle of the car!

So I had to kneel on the pavement and re-e-e-each underneath the car to get the key. Good thing I've been doing all that yoga! I was able to stretch and reach the key without having to lay facedown on the filthy driveway!

How Rich is entertaining himself today:

He bought himself a new water-filled standing punching bag for his birthday, and today he is filling it. He ran a hose from the bathroom up to his office to fill it, but he just came back down and said he overfilled it and has to drain some out now. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

In other news:

Maddy got her cast off last week, and her life is much better now that she can go swimming again. I asked her where her cast was when I saw her without it, and she said, "Cast gone!"

Scott and Carolyn are coming to visit in August and they will be here in two weeks! I'm so excited!

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:

In which I do not like to touch!

So a couple of weeks ago, I wanted an android phone so I could be cooler, and also because I just like to change things once in a while to make my life more interesting.

Kim had just gotten a new cell phone when she opened an account on her return from Taiwan, so she gave me her old android phone from before she left the country, and I had my account switched over to the 'new' (to me) phone and started using it.

That phone had a touch keyboard, and it didn't take long for me to start hating that touch keyboard! I missed the buttons on my old Blackberry so much! I had the hardest time hitting the correct keys! I improved with practice, but it has never made me truly happy.

So today, with less than a week to go on my current phone contract agreementbeliever plan thingy, I went in and got a different phone. With a keyboard. I hope this phone will bring me the happiness I deserve!

What I'm knitting today:

I finished the sweater coat for Maddy, and I'm just working on a pair of socks for Scott in Lorna's Laces Shepherd yarn. The color is very Autumn-ey blend of oranges and browns, that I would not make for myself, but I bought it because the name of the color is Robot Overlord. You know I had to get that for Scott!

Oh, and I'm making a baby cardigan for a friend's baby with some sage green acrylic that I had in the yarn stash. It's an easy top-down cardi pattern that I have made so many of that I know the pattern by heart.

That's all the news for now.

In which a terrible thing happens!

So remember a few days ago when I proudly reported finishing some knitting projects? One of them was a little peach-colored dress for Maddy that I started knitting ages ago, and finally got it sewn together and bought the ribbon to tie around the waist, and tonight I gave the dress to Rachel to take home. I also gave her the package of ribbon, because you know I didn't actually sew that on yet.

I saw Rachel carry the dress out to the car when she took Maddy home tonight, but half an hour later she called me on the phone to ask if she had left the dress here, because she couldn't find it!

I glanced around the living room, but I didn't see it and anyway, I know she took it with her, and I told her so. She said she had checked to see if she left it in the car, but it wasn't there, either, and I said, "I know you didn't put it on top of the car and drive away with it," and she kind of gulped and said that's what she was afraid might have happened!

So I put on my shoes and went out to check the driveway and the road in front of my house, but I didn't see a little pink dress. Rachel came over after she put the baby to bed, and she hadn't seen it in the street on the way here, but we both needed to go to the store, so I got in the car with her and we drove back toward her place, which is the way to the store, and then, in the middle of the road, there it was!

It was a soggy peach blob in the middle of the street that had been so mashed down into the sloppy snow that you could barely see it! We pulled over and Rachel jumped out and grabbed the dress! She gently laid it on the carseat and said she would wash it when she got home. She was sure she could save it.

She just called me and said she washed it carefully with shampoo, and again with dish soap, and got the tire track washed out (!) and she had rolled it up in a towel to soak up the excess water, and it was spread out to dry. Wouldn't you know a tragedy like this would happen to something that has to be handwashed? (The dress is made of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.)

She also said that she found a spot where I had dropped a stitch, so I'll need to go over to fix it when it's all dry. That poor dress. It took forever to finish, and it's still not quite done.

I need to knit something for Jenna's new baby, but I think I'll use Encore yarn - it's machine washable!

In which I am just catching up.

This weekend I finished four of my UFOs (Unfinished Objects)! That's right, four! Two of them needed buttons, and you know my hatred of button-sewing, but on Monday I went to the fabric store and actually bought buttons! Amazing!

Then I was going to start the Owl Cardigan that I want to knit for Maddy, but Rich showed me his dog-walking mittens and they are so shredded that I can't repair them anymore, so I spent two days knitting him a pair of plain grey wool mittens, when all I really want to do is start that Owl Cardi!

Now that the mittens are done, yay! I can start the cardi tonight at work!

In other news, Kim has been going to the accupuncturist and is being treated for her tendonitis (from texting!), acid reflux, and anxiety. She has six little tacks taped to her right arm, and one in front of her ear. They are so tiny you barely notice them. She says she thinks it is helping.

Kim is sitting on the couch right now, playing a video game with Sando over the Xbox. He is at school and she is here, but they are playing this game and talking to each other through the Xbox. Amazing. They were doing this on Monday, and Sando heard me laughing at a joke that a friend had emailed to me, so I forwarded it to Kim's email (from across the room) and she read it out loud to him. Ah, the wonder of technology!

I have read several books since the last time I posted, and right now I can only remember two that I liked enough to recall the titles. The Cart Before the Corpse was one, Diary of a Chav by Grace Dent, which I have read before and it is so funny that I needed to read it again, and I just remembered one more, Dead is the New Black. I can recommend all of them.

Okay, gotta go take a nap before I go to work.