Archive for July, 2005

Saturday, July 30th, 2005

Health Group- Year 2, week 8

Hi all. I’m posting from the Apple Store in Bellevue Square! Nate and I are on a date. We just had lunch at Chipolte, mmmmmmm, and now we’re going to the Bellevue Arts and Crafts fair. So, real quick…

I did some stretches this week, but no exercise to speak of. I’m having a MAJOR flare-up this week, so I’m icing my back frequently, and taking Advil. On Wednesday, I was barely able to walk. It isn’t the usual aching, it’s sharp, extreme, gasping pain. Dangit. So, no exercise to report. I’ve been eating ok, not great.

My stupid dog ate my Roma tomatoes. Off the vine. I’m not very happy with him. I wish he wasn’t so cute so I could actually be mad. I try to give him a piece of my mind, and he literally goes “Hollywood” on me, tilting his head and looking beyond innocent, wagging his tail and trying to figure out what I’m saying. It worked enough to get me to question my girls repeatedly, but once I found the still green tomatoes in the grass with the type of puncture wounds that only come from dog fangs, well, he’s busted.

Yesterday and today so far, my back has been better. Not great, but better, so I’m hoping that whatever in the heck happened to make my spine wig out has gone away, and I can resume exercise next week. I’ll let you know.

On the plus side, I found a super-cute swimsuit on Tuesday that I actually enjoy wearing! I feel pretty in it! The problem is that it takes the term “cleavage” to a whole new level. I’m going to have to do something about it. I don’t mind showing some. I have so much, there’s really no way around it. But even Nate (a huge fan of my cleavage), said it’s way beyond “a bit much”. Well, I still feel cute. If everyone’s staring at my chest, they aren’t as likely to notice my thighs, right? :-).

So, how was your week?

Thursday, July 28th, 2005

Nooooo, just let me sleeeeeeep!

I don’t WANT to wake up. I’m exhausted! Ok, fine. But then I’m going to bed. The baseball game was fun. I thought they overdid the knitting puns, like, a lot! Our craft is already fraught with puns, and being thrust into a concentration of them felt, well, quite silly. BUT, it was a good time. I’ll post more about it and our trip to the beach on Monday.

Today, I am simply leaving you with this.

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It’s the front of Cable-Eight, and it’s DONE! But if you want to see something REALLY nice, go check out Meg! (Hers is done, too).

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

An amazingly gorgeous day

The girls and I had a wonderful day of shopping, lunch, and summer play. It was fab. We are going to the ocean on Monday, and needed supplies. (I have seriously wanted to go to the ocean for five years. No joke. Five years!! Haven’t made it yet. But on Monday, we’re going. It’s about a 2 1/2 hour drive). We needed beach towels.

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We needed sand toys. I needed a swimsuit that fits and cool beach clothes. We needed a Slip-and-Slide.

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What? No wait, that’s not for the ocean trip, but we needed one.

Side note- Until yesterday, I had never actually seen a Slip-and-Slide. I’d heard of them of course, but had never used or seen one. Now I have both used and OWN one! It is very great!

We ate lunch in the mall. We had tacos. I got some great clothes that were all 50% off, because I’m late at everything, (finding sand toys was difficult, everyone is sold out), and they took an additional $25 off of my total because they’re nice!

Then we came home and played in the sun for over 2 hours ’til I had to make dinner. When Nate came home, he brought a truly lovely package in from the mailbox, containing a lot of candy and these…

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Isn’t that little bag the cutest? I LOVE the colors! Kathy in Oregon, one of our Finchy Gifty winners, sent a thank you package. She said she likes to recycle and felt thrift store sweaters, and turn them into new things! I think the purse is great, and looks to be the right size to house a sock-in-progress. Thank you so much, Kathy!

An apology from Laura-

I am very sorry to those of you who are local and have not yet heard about Stitch ‘n Pitch. Tonight, the Seattle Mariners are hosting a knitting night, where they offer cheap seats and t-shirts to knitting baseball fans. There are going to be booths, and “experts on hand”, sounds like a grand time. Nate and I are going, and it didn’t occur to me to tell anyone or post about it until yesterday. I got my tickets and forgot about it. So sorry! I just assume that everyone reads Jessica’s site, which is where I first heard about it, and I have since found out that not everyone does. Well, you should. She’s hilarious. I want to be her friend.

Right, so we’re off to the baseball game tonight, but not before I take the kids to the beach to try out their new sand toys. We may not have an ocean within easy reach, but there are lakes everywhere, and we have the Puget Sound right close. Off to the beach we go!

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005

The trouble with me is,

I frequently fail to step back and contemplate which option would take less time.

Option 1, frog cable mistake (see yesterday’s photos) and reknit.

Option 2, insane stitch surgery.

I am usually so excited at the prospect of performing some incredible feat of knit-fix, that I forget to approach it logically. Yesterday, I washed up, put on my scrubs (so-to-speak), and got to it.

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I did a pretty darned good job of reconstructing the stitches on either side of the 6 that were supposed to be cabled.

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See? Nice, no? Look at that 2 stitch knit rib on the left. Beautiful, I say. The only reason this is worth boasting about is because we are dealing with cotton. Wool is very accommodating, and jumps into place quite easily after being messed around. Cotton, is vengeful.

OK, so I got to the cable itself…

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Looks good, doesn’t it? Well, in this case, the photo is lying. I did the cable THREE times, and couldn’t get it right. This final time, all seemed well until I started knitting back up, and realized that the center two stitches, despite my careful efforts, somehow managed to be KNIT stitches. They are supposed to be PURL stitches. I SWEAR I purled them! Humphf.

At that point, I realized I had been at it much longer than it would have taken to frog and redo, and if I continued trying, I could easily be at it that long again. Plus, being cotton as I mentioned earlier, and the fix being right at the top of the front piece, I figured I’d be much better off to rip and redo.

Normally, I would end this post with the throw away phrase, “Live and Learn”, but I have proven that in this particular situation, I don’t.

Monday, July 25th, 2005

So, I’m zipping along…..

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WHAT THE???!!!!!!!!

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Go ahead. Laugh. Nate did.

Sunday, July 24th, 2005

Well, looky there

I told you I was going to do it! Bye, bye sweater!

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No more sweater.

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Hey, there’s a sweater!

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Once again, now that I’m actually knitting it again, I have to say how delightfully lovely Cotton Fleece is. It drapes like a dream, and I love this color! When I hold it up to me, I feel all… girly! Even though it’s orange.

I have messed with it a little bit. I wanted to knit the 44 inch size, because my chest will never fit into a 38 inch sweater, no matter how thin I get, and 44 is the next one up. BUT, the 44 inch size has an even number of cable panels. I like it better when it has an odd number, causing one panel to go right up the middle of the sweater, like in the photo. SO, I’m starting my cables one rib in from the sides. My only concern is how it will look along the armholes, but I think it will be fine. Having the sweater mostly knit before I frogged it, I had the luxury of trying it out with both the “odd number effect”, and the “even number effect”, shifting the sweater back and forth until I could decide what I liked. The odd number of cables won out.

Saturday, July 23rd, 2005

Health Group- Year 2, week 7

Good morning! It’s been a pretty good week for me, aside from an unexplainable yet substantial increase in back pain.

Monday, I did treadmill and upper body weights.
Tuesday morning, I took the dog for a walk.
Wednesday was the second day without the kids, and I didn’t exercise.
Thursday was back on the treadmill, and physical therapy exercises.
Friday I spent an hour doing a full body workout on the weights and physical therapy exercises. During which time I could tell my abs have taken another leap in strength. That was exciting. I wish I could see them.
Today, I hope to get some aerobic exercise in.

I ate pretty well this week. My main downfall was the extravagant meal we ate Tuesday night at my favorite Thai restaurant. Plus dessert. Other than that, I’ve done pretty well. AND, I’m down 2 pounds from last Saturday, which puts me at 225.5. I’m not dancing in the streets or anything, because I’ve been fluctuating like crazy, but still, I’m happy.

I told you I’d tell you about the juicing books Nate and I bought Tuesday night. We came home with two. The Big Book of Juices and Smoothies is a well laid out, beautiful book that I’m very excited about using. I’ve enjoyed learning about different fruits and vegetables and their particular health properties. Did you know celery is a natural diuretic? I had no idea. I love celery anyway, so now when I’m retaining water, I can eat a bunch. There is a lot of great information in this book, but I’ll have to read it a few times before I can remember it all.

We bought the second book, Ultimate Juicing, because it had wheatgrass recipes, but also, it has the most ridiculous juice names and bylines. We were both sitting on the floor in the aisle of B&N, he was looking at juice books, and I was trying to read Ultimate Juicing to him, but I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t get the words out, so I’d just hold up the book and point, while doubled over in laughter, eyes watering and mascara running. So that one came home, too.

Let’s see. In other news, I made soymilk this week. It went pretty well, except for the fact that I turned on the burner to cook it, left to check something on the internet, and forgot about the stove. Nate yelled from the kitchen a few minutes later, and I ran in to find a huge, boiled over mess. Fortunately, the only thing that burned was the soymilk that left the pan and hit the heating element. The milk still in the pan was fine. I picked up a fabulous tip from this recipe, telling me to put a chunk of either orange rind or ginger in the milk while cooking, to diffuse the “beany” flavor. I had some ginger on hand, so I tried it and was amazed. There was the tiniest hint of ginger flavor in the milk, and the strong bean flavor was gone. So cool. I’m going to need to continue fussing with the recipe to get it right. My first batch was certainly usable, but it was a little watery. If anyone out there happens to have successfully made soymilk, I’d love some suggestions.

Ok, enough about me. How was your week?

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

I’m GOING to do it. Really, I am.

Ok, so another Cable-Eight along post arrives, and your flaky hostess is empty handed. Well, I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. And as you know, I’ve gone through many different plans to take over the world. She was going to be a v-neck. She was going to have “official” short sleeves. She was going to be a long sleeved raglan. She has been knit in the round. Well, the more I think and contemplate, the more I want to frog the whole thing and re-knit it exactly as the pattern suggests, and wear it over long sleeved t-shirts, like I originally envisioned.

I think what made me re-contemplate my Cable-Eight was when one too many people, upon hearing my explanation of what I was about to knit, and how I was planning to wear it over other shirts, said, “Oh, a vest then!” This didn’t sit well. I don’t like vests, unless they’re really cute, cropped vests on really cute, skinny girls. I don’t see Cable-Eight as being a vest, but I was concerned that when it was all said and done, it would be one. This doesn’t mean I don’t love all the fab Cable-Eights I’ve seen on the rest of you, they’re totally great! It just means I was uncomfortable with that “vest” image as it related to me.

Well, phooey. That’s what I say. It isn’t a freaking vest, and it’s what I wanted in the first place! I have not been looking forward to the math and inevitable frogging and re-working ahead of me if I proceed with the long-sleeved raglan that I’m not even sure I still want. SO, I’m going to frog it. I’m going to re-knit it. And I’m planning on starting today! You can call me a liar, or express feelings of doubt if you want. I deserve it. But that’s what I think, it’s what I’m going to do, and I’m going to need hand holding once it gets down to that crochet insanity. Maybe I’ll just ship it off to Drew and have him do it. He seems like a friendly and accommodating guy, and we all know he’s perfectly qualified.

Anyone else have anything? I know that our dear Meg has been working on hers, and has run into a bit of math trouble herself. Go and give her some moral support, will you?

Wednesday, July 20th, 2005

Back to life, back to reality”….

We’re back. We had an amazing time together without the kids. Nate took me to Rainbow Run, and to those of you who clicked the link, yes, it really is that gorgeous. It’s an 18 hole putting course that is set up like a real course, instead of the cheesy obstacles typical of Putt Putt golf. Even though we only used our putters, it sure felt good to get the clubs out again. I haven’t golfed since my back injury 2 1/2 years ago, and since I was hurt in early spring of that year, it had been even longer than that since we hit the links.

Well, I WAS in a good mood, but now as I’m trying to put together this post, I realized that I’ve permanently screwed up my very favorite picture…

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I wanted to PRINT that! Now I’m going to cry. So, here’s some pictures, and I’m done.

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It was a wonderful time, and the rest of the evening was just as good but right now, I don’t have the heart to talk about it. My favorite picture is now permanently 500 pixels wide. I wanted to print and frame a big one, and now I can’t. This is one of those rare moments that I actually wish I swore. Hayden will have to do it for me. I’m confident she’s up for it.