Monday, April 25, 2011

A plea...and hopefully I'm preaching to the choir.

This afternoon on the way home from the park and groceries, the kids and I nearly became a nasty statistic. We were in the left lane, northbound, on Route 202. There were cars on my right, two cars in the left turn lane, and two cars very close behind me. Evidently, the driver of the second car in the turn lane realized that the car in front of her was not going to move, because she swerved directly in front of me, and took the turn from my lane.

Did she signal? Nope.
Did she look before moving into my lane? Nope

What made it much, much more dangerous? The two cars behind mine, both way, way too close. They had to be going 60 in a 35 zone. And you know what? The guy right behind me was on his phone THE WHOLE TIME. And he stayed on his phone as long as we saw him...he may still be on it.

Thank goodness our brakes are good. Thank goodness I was paying attention. It was very much a prepare-for-impact moment. I was already trying to remember if I had our health insurance cards with us. We were seconds -- two or three at most -- from being sandwiched. Paul and Maggie are fine -- Paul did hit his head on the side of the car but he says he's okay. Mostly, we got a BIG scare.

So here's my plea to everyone: use your turn signals. Stop driving like you're playing a video game. Slow down. And most of all...STAY THE HELL OFF YOUR PHONE WHEN YOU'RE DRIVING!!!


- I wrote this on my iPad

Friday, April 22, 2011

I know, I know, Thing-A-Day came and went and I stopped blogging. The long, long winter got to me and I became sort of catatonic (I watched two -- two -- full series on Netflix: Ugly Betty and Larry Sanders, and I actually sat down to watch several episodes of Real Housewives of New Jersey.
I am not proud.) oh, and I severely sprained my knee. Call me grace. And then a bunch of other stuff happened, including an episode in bad judgment in which I took the cat in the car to pick up the kids from school. I am scarred. Literally. The cat, on the other hand, is just fine.

Mostly, I've been really busy putting together the Cheverly Day 2011 book. For the town's 80th anniversary, we did a 56-page program filled with thoughts from the locals about what makes Cheverly so great. Honestly, I didn't think so many people would respond! I'll post a link when it's time...
Next, I'm preparing for Handmade Mart in May (details soon) and some graphics projects that I'm looking forward to. I haven't been doing nearly enough cooking lately, and I picked up knitting needles for the first time in at least a month today...my hands ached!

Just thought you might wonder what's happened and whether I'd really fallen off the face of the earth. More soon. Promise. Really.

PS. I wrote this on my iPad but was forced to try to post from my phone. Oh, the humanity. And then had to try again from my iPad. Without photos, so you'll have to use your imagination. This doesn't feel very much like modern communications right now... Pretty soon, I'm going to hook up some yarn and two tin cans.


- Posted from the iPhone of Awesome