Lesson learned

Monday was cold. Bone chilling cold. Static hair cold. Super dry flaky hands cold.

So I wasn't surprised to see that we had a large number of orders for the No Crack hand creams. No Crack is THE best hand cream I've ever used. As long as you are diligent and put it on several times a day, especially after hand washing, your fingers and hands really do stay in great condition throughout the harsh winter months.

You'd think, that with all these orders for No Crack, it would have prompted me to fill up my own small container. We've found that the best thing to do is to purchase a larger jar of No Crack and a small sample size jar. Then you have one for your knitting bag (or purse, or car dashboard!) and a larger one for your kitchen or bathroom. When the small one is almost empty, you can re-use it, by filling it up from the large one. In the afternoon, I dropped my kids off at the gym for tennis. I scooted over to Healthy Living to pick up some produce, and then drove back to the gym to watch the girls play. And knit. Since I didn't even PICK UP a knitting needle this weekend (house & basement cleaning interfered) I was excited to start the collar on my Sublime Luxurious Wooly Merino Vest.

I was chilled to the bone, so I kept my long down coat on, but took off my hat and mittens. I grabbed a great seat in front of the courts, and pulled out my knitting. After a few stitches, it was clear that my poor dry hands needed some attention. They were pulling and snagging on the yarn, and it was just awful. I bent over and pulled out my small No Crack jar. It was empty. Completely empty! I had a mini-panic attack. I'd looked forward to this small window of time to relax with my knitting, and without lotion for my hands, it wasn't going to happen. You'd think that all that packing and shipping of No Crack at work would have reminded me that I needed to fill up my jar. But no.

I spied a teeny weeny bit of lotion in the bottom corner jar, so I went to work extracting it. I took off my wedding rings and put them (really "it" - they are soldered together) on my lap. I eeked out the last of the lotion and then started knitting. I sat there for 45 minutes, watched, knitted and relaxed. It was nice.

And then at 10:15pm, at home, when I went upstairs to get ready for bed, I realized that my left ring finger was eerily bare. I had never put my ring back on. Another panic attack ensued, and this one was not a mini one, it was a MAJOR one. Of course the gym had closed at 9pm, so there was nothing I could do about it, other than stress and imagine all sorts of awful endings to this saga. This has never happened before. I am SO good about putting my rings right back on after applying lotion.

It was a sleepless night, with an early morning trip to the gym, to find out that a ring "had been turned it" but "come back later when someone is here to open the safe". I felt a little better hearing that, but what if someone else lost a ring that night too? (You never know.) A second trip to the gym gave me a huge sigh of relief because this was finally back on my hand:Thank you SO MUCH to some incredibly wonderful person. I wish you had left your name!

After this scare, I'll be extra careful when removing my rings. And my biggest lesson? I'm keeping the No Crack filled up. I'm even getting another small one to have on hand... just in case.