September 15th

Necessity is the mother of invention, and today's self-made is an example of that. Jon and I have been trying to get at least one nice bike date in each week while the weather holds out, and yesterday we went for a ride to Ukrainian Village, a neighborhood in western Chicago. It was about 24 miles round trip, so I was going to take the "sweaty day" exemption from the Self-made September rules. But a few minutes before we left, I realized that I couldn't find my ear warmer. My ears are overly sensitive and start to ache if they are subjected to wind in below-70 degree weather, so I often wear a band for my ears, even at temperatures where the rest of my body is comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. Yesterday the high was supposed to be in the low 60s, so I knew I needed ear protection. I have a lightweight "Turtle Fur" band that I love, but I haven't been able to find it, or three other cold-weather head pieces, since I moved. I figure they must be together somewhere, but they are eluding me right now. So I cut a long rectangular piece out of a polo shirt I had already started using for scrap fabric, tied it around my head, and set off! It's not really much of anything, but it meant I ended up wearing something self-made even though I hadn't planned on it.

In case you were wondering, our bike date was great. We had pierogies, went to a couple small museums, looked at pretty churches, and went to a few corner grocery stores that had all sorts of Eastern European goods. We may have found a Polish chocolate company we like a little too much. The bike ride was fun, too. There was a strong north wind, especially while we were on the lake, so we felt like we were fighting to get through on the ride up. The 7 miles from our apartment to Millennium Park took about 1:10 on the way north in the morning and only 40 minutes on the way south in the afternoon.