Shop Hopping and a Crash

Wow, July was a busy month!  We've had hot, humid weather and plenty of rain.  Actually, the grass and trees look lush this year - many times it's very dry and starting to get brown by now.

I was lucky (crazy?) enough to go with Mom on a 2-day bus trip to 10 quilt shops.  We had a great time with the usual bus load of wild, silly women acting like naughty children half the time, and seriously looking for just the right fabric at each shop the other half of the time.  

This was the annual Quilt Minnesota shop hop, and we were visiting the shops in the Metro section.  (If you visit all shops in any section, you are eligible for great prizes.) There is a line of fabric designed specifically for Minnesota, and the shops only have a limited amount of the fabric.  You know what that means - women are crazy to get what they want of this fabric, and it goes fairly quickly.   

 I usually try to get the fabric because I do like it, and it's just fun to have specialty fabric that has limited availability.  Needless to say, I picked up a few yards.  And patterns.  And kits.  Well?  I'll make something.  Aprons, pot holders, table runners.  Probably after the wedding, but at least I have plenty of projects for winter!  Ha.  

I got a new vehicle last week too.  My car was beginning that nickel-dime activity, and we decided not to put any more hard earned nickels into it. So, I got a 2016 Chevy Trax.  It's a great little urban SUV that gets great gas mileage.  

I had the new Trax for a little less than 48 hours, and while tooling around with my Mom, got rear-ended.  Yep.  Brand new vehicle, heading out for lunch on my BIRTHDAY with my Mom, and bam. Rear-ended by a kid looking at his phone.  Mom heard some phrases she didn't expect out o.lf my mouth!  Fortunately, everyone is OK and the damage is minor.  I will get a new bumper, but ugh.  The inconvenience of it all is frustrating.  I hate seeing people on their phones in the car, and I see it so frequently, it's startling.  My new Trax has the standard Bluetooth capability, and I can answer my phone with buttons on the steering wheel,- woo hoo!  Not that I'm a big phone chatterer, but ...  My phone stays in my purse anyway, but this is new technology I haven't had before!  Very convenient, and amazing to me.  I think I'll like this new Trax.  I better - I'll have payments for awhile!  Haven't had to deal with that for several years, so it's a shock to the accounts, LOL.

AND, for our birthdays - which are only 4 days apart - we decided to get nice bicycles.  Good for our health to get some activity, and we really have beautiful biking trails and parks nearby.  Not crazy about too much healthy activity outside in the humidity lately, but we are enjoying nice rides when the weather is tolerable.  The goal is to ride the paths along the river into Minneapolis, where there are wonderful restaurants with outside patios for lunch, and plenty of sights to enjoy.  Hopefully we'll get to do that this fall, but we need a bike rack on the Trax first.  Have some research to do!

On with August.  This next week will be hot - close to 90 with more humidity.  I really hate it when my glasses fog up just stepping outside.  Ish!