Justifying your fears....

shouldn't hurt so much.

There are two things in the world that I am absolutely terrified of and hate with ever fiber of my being (okay most vegetable fall in that category but that's another story):

Ladders
Bikes

One is justifiable, the other wasn't until last Tuesday when the two of them came together in a really bad way.

Go back 28 years. Picture 8 year old Jenni, her mom and her big sister Chrissie riding through Hartenberg Park in Mainz, Germany on a lovely summer day.

Now Jenni hasn't been riding a bike without training wheels very long since well she's really really short. So she's a little unsure of herself. She sees that they are approaching a really big hill that promptly whips right back up into a steep incline and stops dead in her tracks.

Her fearless sister keeps on going - down and up quick as you please ( such a show off ). Her mom heads down after telling Jenni to walk her bike down. So Jenni does as she's told and starts walking down. The bike is heavy, she's little, she's thinking (her first mistake) that if her sister can do it, she can do it and up on the bike she goes and ...

The next thing Jenni knows she's on her mother's bike screaming "GET ME OFF THIS BIKE" at the top of her lungs while a kind German lady helped her mother push the loud little banged up banshee back up that evil hill while Chrissie flies back home to get their dad.

One concussion, broken nose, banged up elbows and knees later Jenni vows she never getting on that stupid bike again - it didn't even have the decency to get a single scratch after flipping her over the handle bars because she didn't know how to ride the brakes down the hill (in hindsight Jenni now assumes that she freaked out and accidentally hit the brakes for the front tires first and that's what flipped her off the bike, but she was unconscious and doesn't remember and therefore can continue to blame the bike). Thankfully Jenni doesn't remember the point of impact. And Jenni kept that vow for 2 years till her father made her get back on the frakking thing. Thusly, do this day, little Jenni hates bikes in every way imaginable, but she still occasionally rides, even if she is certain her demise is imminent.

Back to present day - or at least last Tuesday.

Hubby and I have rejoined Jenny Craig. A certain someone in our household has atrocious eating habits (who me? - perhaps) and let's just say my cooking skills are less than stellar.

So to get on the exercise part of the JC bandwagon, I decided to ride my bike to the post box to mail some bills for hubby.

Well my bike lives in the rafters of the garage. If something is going to mostly spend it's life collecting dust, it should be out of the way. However I am still insanely short and cannot get it down without a ladder. Next time I think I'll just pull over a chair. They like me better.

So up the ladder I go and I get one wheel down. Move the ladder over to the second tire. Get that one down, flip the bike over so the wheels are pointed down. Hold the bike in one hand, assume I'm balanced (physically - obviously not mentally), head down the ladder.

Next thing I know, I'm on the very HARD concrete floor with one hand up keeping my bike off of me, in pain, with a little Scrat monster on my chest (he must be part cat - the little opportunist) trying to figure out how the heck I ended up on the floor with a twisted ankle, lovely bruised hip and yet another bike without a scratch.

At some point I'll post a picture of the evil bike and damage inducing ladder so you can see what they looked like before I reduced them both to scrap metal.

In construction news - the roof shingles are on. Hubby got the sky lights installed while I was in the SF visiting my sister Sunday. It's officially weather proof.

I got a night off and made it to the local Borders Knit night last Wednesday, where the evil bamboo scarf has morphed yet again.

If you can guess what it will be, I'll send you something (probably stitch markers made by yours truly).

T you cannot guess as you know what it's [supposed] to be lol. And besides, I already made you stitch markers.