Da Agony of Da Feet . . . okay, i'm sorry for that

My feet have been hurting for the past few months. I go to the health club about five days a week, and I walk 4.5 miles each time on the treadmill, plus I spend some time on the elliptical trainer and I do some arm exercises with free weights. Anyway, one day as I was massaging my aching feet after I got home from working out, I suddenly remembered the sales guy who sold me my walking shoes telling me that I should replace them every 300 miles or so. Hmm, I've had these shoes for 13 or 14 months, which means they have about 1,200 miles on them. I smacked myself on the forehead and said, "Duh! No wonder my feet hurt!" Of course, ever since I realized that, my feet REALLY hurt!

I've been kind of looking at new shoes the past week or so, whenever I've been out and had a few minutes. But you really need to spend more than a stolen moment or two to try on walking shoes. So today I decided to spend the whole day looking for new shoes.

We have a dinky little mall in our small town, but it has three shoe stores, plus shoe departments in three department stores. We also have an outlet mall, and it has six or seven shoe stores. I also need a new pair of dress shoes, so I thought I'd shop for both, seeing as how I was going to be at all those shoe stores. So I had quite a job ahead of me.

Well, it seemed like a good idea this morning.

Shopping for dress shoes and athletic shoes at the same time is just a really bad idea. No matter how comfortable a particular pair of dress shoes might be, they just aren't going to be as comfortable as tennis shoes, and so all those dress shoes that looked so cute on display got rejected because they failed the comparison test with the tennis shoes.

I did ultimately have good luck. I found two pairs of walking shoes on clearance in my size, and once I bought them, I was able to focus on dress shoes and found a pair that'll do for now, also on clearance.

I am now looking forward to my workout tomorrow, with not-aching feet for a change!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Boy, has it been a busy summer! And it just flew by too! I can't believe I haven't updated in so long.

Our summer plans this year were based around Brigid. She went to the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University for a three-week honors physics class that covered a full year of material. She's planning to major in astrophysics in college, so this was her idea of good summer fun. And although it was a lot of hard work, she did have a good time there — enough that she wants to go back next year and take something else.

While Brigid was at Northwestern, Ron and I got a preview of what life will be like in a couple of years when she goes off to college. (She's a junior this year.) We had a lot of fun being just a married couple for a change and not parents. Brigid is a really good kid, very responsible and mature, but even so, parenting is a huge responsibility and a lot of hard work. We really missed her, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when she does go off to college, but for three weeks we had fun.

Northwestern is in Evanston, Illinois, which is essentially Chicago. So we spent a few extra days in downtown Chicago at the start of her program and another week after her program was over. We went to all the major tourist sights — the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Art Institute. And we spent a few days shopping as well. We managed to be in Chicago during the big summer clearance sales, so I got some great bargains at the major department stores. Nothing like a 70% off sale!

Chicago is about five to six hours away from us by car. I am not a good passenger; all those other drivers on the road drive too fast and too recklessly! But Ron and I have discovered that if I crochet, I'm too focused on what I'm doing to notice all the crazy drivers, and so the trip goes much smoother. I had lots of time to crochet on the drives to and from Chicago.

I made a tank top and a shrug to go with it for Brigid. I used Jessi's Sherbert Tank Top pattern (click here) and Mrs Who's Any Size/Any Gauge Shrug directions (click here). For the shrug, I used a simple (dc, ch 1, sk 1) pattern. Increases were a really easy v-stitch, just (dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1) all in the same stitch. If Brigid ever cooperates, I'll take some pictures and post them here.

Now that the school year has started again, I'll be back into a better schedule, and I hope to update more often.