So Far…

I am so close to finishing the baby blanket that has consumed my knitting life for the last month.  I have one side of the edging done and the other 3 should be done tonight, if I can stay awake. Since I have been sick I haven’t been able to stay awake past 10 pm. It is so frustrating. That was my prime knitting time, when everyone had gone to sleep, I would put on a mindless tv show or movie then I would knit, knit, knit. Now I just sleep, and don’t get anything done.  Which is bad because besides finishing the blanket, I have to knit some legwarmers, a Jayne Cobb hat, some sweaters for teddy bears, and I just got some yarn for a cabled sweater. So much to knit so little time.

Since my last post, we had Evelyn’s birthday party, her actual birthday and my trip to SAFF. The party was good, she made out like a bandit. It was just a lot of people in my little house and I still wasn’t feeling well. So pretending I was happy to see all these people when all I wanted to do was sleep, was hard. I am still not 100%, but much better. Evelyn’s actual birthday was nice, we didn’t do much since she already had her party, it was just a day for her to do what she wanted.

Now the trip to SAFF was amazing. I had the best time with my 2 BKF (best knitting friends), Angie and Dottie. We got up early and headed off to Fletcher, NC (it’s just south of Asheville).  We spent the morning shopping, I got some gorgeous fibers, (I’ll post pictures later, don’t have the camera right now) I am so excited to start spinning again. After we had seen all the vendors, and pet all the fluffy animals, we headed to Asheville.

First stop was the Biltmore Village, we spotted a yarn store and had to stop. We shopped a little and then headed to a lovely restaurant called the Kitchen Corner. We enjoyed a tasty lunch and some good wine. We then walked over to the Red Stag Grill and proceeded to enjoy more wine. After another short walk back to the car, we drove to the Grove Park Inn.  I was hoping they would have their massive fireplaces lit, but no, it wasn’t cold enough. We did secure 3 rockers in front of one of the fireplaces and we sat and knit for a while, and enjoyed another drink.  When we realized that there was no way we could afford to stay the night, we started for home. Along the way we stopped at a place call the Tractor Shed, and enjoyed some amazing BBQ. By this time it was nearly 8 pm and we still had a 3 hour drive home. Angie drove all the way back home, while I fell asleep in the back, I felt so bad when I woke up. This was probably one of the best trips I have ever been on since having Evelyn, and it was all due to the company. Dottie and Angie are two of the loveliest ladies I know and I love spending time with them.

Sitting an knitting

Right now I am sitting here at my old job reading the Yarn Harlot (from the beginning) and knitting, I am blown away by how slow it is. I am glad this is just a fill in job for my friend otherwise I would be looking for a backup plan. It has been like this everyday I have been here, and I would have gotten a lot more knitting done on the baby blanket, but I was 2 inches from the grave. This weekend Evelyn came down with a fever that lasted almost 4 days, don’t worry nothing but a bad cold. Well guess what I got it and my first 2 days at work were spent fighting a fever, plus my period started this week too so it was win win (sorry if this is a little TMI, but I am mom and I have no modesty left).

Today has been better I actually feel like a person and that means I feel like knitting. I have been working on this particular block of this blanket for what seems like forever. While I was going back and forth, I noticed a little place about 10 rows down. I decided to ignore it, you know the saying if can’t see as you pass on a galloping horse don’t worry about it. Well I wasn’t on a galloping horse, I am stuck a job with nothing to but knit so every row I would see that spot go by. Finally I decided to suck it up and fix it. I thought I had just split the yarn, but no, not that simple. When I finally dropped the stitch down I realized I had split the yarn but in doing so I made an extra stitch. How it happened I have no idea, so there I was with a column of dropped stitches and no stitch to really pick back up. I tried to make 1 but it looked awful so I ended up ripping it all out. I was so close to finishing this block, I could taste it, now I am back to being only about half way through it. Next time I’ll leave well enough alone.

This blanket is all I have been working on since the baby is due in like 2 weeks. It is really starting to bother me I need a new more interesting pattern, this garter is getting the better of me and I still have 3 more blocks to knit plus the edging. I have been dreaming about a wool sweater, I desperately want to knit one. I have some yarn on hold for the February Lady Sweater that we are doing a KAL at the store, but that won’t be until January and I want something between now and then.

Ooooh, next weekend SAFF! So excited for this, last year I went Adam and we ended having a really nice day. We drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway and had dinner at the Dillard House. Like I said nice day, but that was before I had knitting friends. This year I plan on going with my friends from the shop, Dottie and Angie. I think they will really enjoy the trip, it’s their first fiber show and this one is impressive. So much fiber-y goodness in one location. I am hoping to score some copious amounts of fiber for spinning. My wheel has been most neglected since this spring as I ran out of fiber and haven’t gotten any in a while. I really love spinning and I miss it.

Other than that not much else going on, well I am having about 30 people over on Saturday to celebrate Evelyn’s birthday. Hopefully I can pull the house together by then.

One is the loneliest

This is a sad little ball of Berroco Flicker. It has been in my knitting bag for almost 3 weeks. It is so lovely and soft I am having a hard time finding the perfect project for it. Since that is the case I guess I will make something up for it. How about a mix of twisted stitches and lace?

Current Goings On

Right now I am in a deparate rush to finish a baby blanket I started 10 weeks ago. When it was announced that the recipient of said blanket was having a girl I rushed over to KnitPicks and placed an order for 3/4 of the yarn needed, or so I thought. One of the colors was completely not right and it has been added to my stash for something else. The other 2 colors remaining were very nice and I quickly knit up the first 2 rectangles of the blanket. Well one thing led to another and I never got around to ordering more yarn. Last week the recipient posted on facebook that she only had 5 weeks to go. After reading this I quickly ordered my last bit of yarn and have been feverishly working on this blanket. If you are familiar with the modern baby blanket from Mason Dixon Knits, then you know there is about 3 miles of knitting involved in this blanket. I have now idea how I am going to finish knitting this in time for the birth of the baby, and that if the baby is on time, what if it’s early. (Giant picture of it in the previous post)

Other things…Friday I stopped by the shop to drop off a pair of mitts I knit for a shop sample and Jane presented me with a much coveted book, A Third Treasury of Knitted Patterns by Babara Walker. I nearly peed I was so excited. I have been wanting some portion of the “Treasury” for a while now, but could never bring myself to spend the money on a book, when there was so much yarn to buy. I struck me as funny that she gave it to me the day I had just finished setting up my pattern store on Ravelry and changing over my blogs, separating the knitting from the weight loss. I feel it is kismet.

I have a few new projects running around my head right now, but I have to finish the baby blanket before I can work on anything out.

Rushing blanket

Here is a quick shot of the modern baby blanket I and desperately trying to finish.

A New Direction

I have decided to take this blog in a new direction (kind of gave it away in the title). I have recently designed my first knitting pattern and I plan of using this blog as a way to promote my new creations and anything else I am working on. I realized in order for me to progress with my designing, I will need a place for my patterns. I know I only have one, but hopefully that will grow. We all start somewhere. As more designs are finished I will be adding them to a new page just for patterns. Right now I plan on making my designs free, but hopefully with time I can  charge for my work.

Not that I have many followers, if any, but I will no longer be sharing my weight loss journey here. I wasn’t very good at keeping up with things anyway. Here is a link to my new/old blog, noting there yet, I deleted all my old posts. I will have it up and running later today.

So for now I guess that’s it. I will be changing this about here and there over the next few days. See you soon.

Progress

So far my progress has been a little slow. Right now my weight is about 226 lbs. That’s only about a 10 lbs. loss, I know, but I am seeing results in other areas. For one I can actually see a difference in my legs, they are more toned and leaning out a bit. The biggest changed I can see is my strength, before I started all of this, I could only do like 3 push ups from the knees and zero proper push ups. Yesterday I did a minute push up test and was able to complete 31 push ups from the knees. As far as real push ups I can do about 10 now. I have also been going back to some workouts I did a month ago and I have compared my scores, and the results are staggering, this is an example:

Low Jacks with Rope
last time 309 this time 347
Dead Lifts Right Leg
last time 72 this time 109
Dead Lift Left Leg
last time 69 this time 110
Jump Lunges
last time 87 this time 166                                                      (Cardio, Legs, & Core)

I am blown away by the amount of progress I have made. It really makes me want to continue with these workouts, so see how much more I can improve. I imagine quite a lot seeing as I have so much weight to loose still. I am less concerned with the weight loss now, since I have other tangible results I can focus on.

I am still struggling with my diet. I try to keep track of everything  but sometimes I just forget. I am still trying to get back into a routine since coming back from vacation. It’s amazing how easily a good habit can be broken. I am generally staying within my allotted calories for the day, but it’s how I am eating them I have a problem with. I am trying to eat more veggies and fruit but all I want are sweets and breads. Its going to take a while to get that out of my system again.

Speaking of vacation, we went to Amelia Island, FL the other weekend. We had a great time and here are a few pictures.

Yesterday was Tough

Yesterday was a tough day for me. It marked the day my mom passed away 15 years ago.  I didn’t want to mention it to anybody because then you get all the sympathy looks and I have had 15 years of that shit. What’s sad is that I had to look at a calendar from 1996 to verify that it was in fact July 7th that she died. All I remember is that it was the Sunday after the 4th of July. I guess it’s the kind of day you never want to remember. I just realized something my  mom was born August 8th (8/8) and she died July 7th (7/7), never noticed this before, I guess because I always ignore it.

Not many people in my life now actually knew my mom and the ones that did, don’t really want to talk about her much. I have tried to get an idea of what she was like, I mean I know what she was like from a child’s point of view, but I want to know what she was like from adult’s point of view. This is silly though, all that matters is what she meant to me. She was everything to me, mother, sister, friend. Growing up as an only child of a family that moved  every couple of years was hard. My mom stayed at home with me so she turned into my everything. When my dad and I would fight she was the one who was the go between and made everything okay and all my dad and I had to do was shake hands, well not really there was usually some “I’m sorry” and hugs but you get what I mean. So when she died all of that was gone. I had no one to talk to, and no way to talk to my dad, because we didn’t know how to talk to each other. My friends at school didn’t know how to treat me and basically ignored the issue.

When people ask how she died and I tell them breast cancer, they assume that she was sick and got worse and then died. Really it was more like she was hit by a car. One day we are planning the upcoming week and the next she was gone. Let me explain, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer stage 3, in late 1992 early 1993 (sorry I was only 12 or 13 so the time is a little fuzzy). She went through massive amounts of chemo, lost her hair and finally decided to a bone marrow transplant. She spent what seem like forever in the hospital recovering. She made it out of the hospital cancer free. Next came the full mastectomy with reconstructive surgery and that was a cake walk for her compared to the bone marrow transplant. She was in remission for about a year or so and then the cancer came back in lungs, liver and bone marrow. She started chemo again and lost her hair again, but everyone was hopeful, she had beaten it once already. Shortly before the 4th of July my mom went into the hospital for a routine procedure, to remove some fluid build up in her chest. Since she had some other surgeries and stuff she was given morphine for the pain. She had had this before so we knew she would be a little loopy from it, what didn’t realize is that her liver had started to produce toxins causing the same effects. She came home and she and I started to plan for the coming week, going to the mall, seeing a movie etc., this was Saturday. Sunday morning I wake up to my dad saying that he thinks this is it for my mom. I go into her room and she is in a coma. She died shortly after. Just like that the light in my life was put out. My mother was the most beautiful, loving, wonderful person I have ever known. I wish my daughter could have know her

I got a jump rope

So Saturday I got a jump rope and a new exercise mat. I didn’t realize how pathetic my first attempts at skipping rope would be. I am rubbish, I can barely jump with my feet together let alone do anything fancy like high knees.  Hopefully I can improve that.

Today was a big day for me, I did 2 entire workouts. I did one after breakfast and then one a little while ago. Both of them were time challenges. I can’t say I was happy about my times but I have no baseline to compare. I can honestly say that I couldn’t have done them  any faster. I am trying my best to eat better, for example I actually ate breakfast, 1 egg and 1 egg white, and some cantaloupe. Lunch was a disaster, Einstein’s. That was part of the reason for the second workout today. Then for a snack I had a 1/4 cup cashews, 1/4 cup raisins and about a cup of baby carrots. Dinner will be some chicken and pink eyed peas and some broccoli. I think my evening snack will be some yogurt and blue berries and some almonds. So far so good, well except for lunch, but tomorrow will be better, I am packing lunch.

Progress is going slow on the baby blanket for my cousin. I had to rip out and entire “round” because at some point I lost a stitch and it was only a 9 stitch blanket. We were on the go this whole weekend and I didn’t have time for any knitting, and by the time we got home I was too tire to knock anything out. I will admit that some of knitting time has been given over to working out, which I can’t say is a bad thing it just hurts my productivity. Maybe tonight I can find something good on netflix to watch so I can get some good knitting time in.

 

Body Rock Progress Update

This was a good week, I did 5 workouts.  I am really proud of myself. This is the first time since last summer that I have been consistent. Now I just have to work on my diet, still.

Here are the workouts I did this week:

Sunday 550 Rep Fat Massacre (had to do the push ups from my knees)

Monday Hot Body Beach (totally brutal)

Tuesday Power Girl (had to modify the scissor legs)

Wednesday Halo of Sweat (my thighs were going to burn off)

Thursday Beg for Mercy (again had to do the push ups from my knees)

Friday Run the World (yeah I totally did one today)

I have saved all my reps and such to spread sheets, so that in a month or so I can try some of these workouts again and see how much I have improved. I can tell already the my arm strength is better; before I started any of this I could do about 6 push ups from the knees and Sunday I did 50. Granted I took a couple of breaks to rub my arms and stuff, but I did them all.  I am really looking forward to doing the 550 Rep Fat Massacre again in a couple of months to see if my time is any better. I think in the coming month I am going to acquire a jump rope, Zuzana uses it a lot in her workouts and I definitely could use it. The more I can push the better. I think a dip station would be handy too, but I have plenty of workouts to do that use no equipment at all. Once I have exhausted the list then I will probably get a dip station and a sand bag.

My yarn came in for the 2 baby blankets. I started the ten stitch blanket and I am totally not happy with the way the yarn is stripping, the color repeats are totally not long enough, but I am just going to knit on it. I have 8 balls to get through and I haven’t finished one yet. I am really excited about the 2 colors we got for the modern baby blanket, they will look really good with a pink and purple. I will have pictures of both fairly soon. I am almost done with Adam’s fingerless gloves, I only have 2.5 fingers and the thumb left. Other than those not much going on my needles right now.