Reach up for the Sunrise!

Reach up for the sunrise
Put your hands into the big sky
You can touch the sunrise
Feel the new day enter your life~(Reach up for the) Sunrise by Duran Duran

 Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Saturday morning! Waking up after a solid 8 hours sleep to a quiet house. It's dark now until about 7:00 in the morning or so - so I had a little over an hour of quiet darkness. Well, quiet except for Emma barking at the deer in our backyard and breaking the silence of our sleepy neighborhood. But that is pretty normal.

Today I had my weight in and I was down 2.2 lbs this week! I was surprised I did so well as I had terrible insomnia this week, lots of stress at work and I only did two work-outs this week rather than the four. So I was trying to prepare myself for a less than stellar weight in this morning, but I guess I didn't need to! :) Yay! So my totals are: On weight watchers I am down just over 15 lbs in 8 weeks, and since my heaviest weight I am down just over 30 lbs! YAY!

I try to notice the little things, so here are some "YAY!" moments with my Health Quest this week.

1. Last weekend we were at a busy grocery store trying to shop. I turned around to grab something and my hubby and I got separated. When he turned around to see where I went to he spotted me and then was like "Wait, is that Jen's butt I am staring at?" (I was bent over some produce.) When I plopped the pear into our cart he looked at me and told me "You have lost enough weight and changed your shape enough that I wasn't sure if that was your butt I was looking at or not!" Um....YAY! Probably one of the best compliments EVER on my weight loss and really the only person who can tell you how your butt is looking is your Significant Other - so ....yeah! NICE!

2. I have been wearing the same belt for quite some time. (I refuse to show crack thank you very much!) Last winter I remember going out and looking for a bigger belt because I was kind of feeling tight on the last hole of my belt. (Not a happy shopping day. I did not end up buying a belt - I decided to just work harder and drop the weight.) Yesterday I went to put my belt on and realized I was on the last loop on the other side of the belt! I have lost inches off my waist and will soon have to switch to a smaller belt so I can still be a crack free vixen. YAY!

3. I have hit the point where I need to stop wearing some clothes because they are starting to look crazy big on my. Yesterday I put on one of my favorite winter long sleep shirts - and it was huge on me. So the pairing down of the closet and the letting go of my old wardrobe has begun!

So, even though this week has been tough, I am pretty pleased with all the positive things that I see in my body. Just need to work on this insomnia stuff.

The tree in my neighbors yard is quickly going bare. I posted a photo of this same tree two weeks ago in my Sunday Snippets and it sure has dropped a lot of leaves since then!

 The seasons are flying along and I even heard the dreaded "S" word in the forecast this week. (S=snow) It's been in the 30's in the mornings this week and I have had to break out my knitwear this week. YAY! I get to wear all the hats and scarves and accessories I have been knitting all year! As much as I loath winter - I do love rocking out my knitting. Wahooo!

Speaking of knitting, here are some pictures of my KAL Cowl I am working on.

Last night I did my first cable repeat on my cowl. It was a bit of a challenge to sit on the love seat with my husband, dog, cat and me trying to knit cables while watching Ghost Adventures too. I decided I would quit after only one repeat because I was getting crabby! This is the front view of the first cable repeat.

And this is the back view of the cable repeat.

I am really enjoying this project, but I have to say I prefer doing a cable when I have less distractions. I have to say I am really not fond of how the pattern is written out. I am happy that it's not just a chart I have to follow, but the directions are abbreviated quite a bit - so I am having to think them out a lot. For example: it states"Row 2 and all (WS) rows...." and then it gives directions for all the (RS) rows so your 10 row cable repeat only ends up having 5 lines of directions. You have to know what row you are on and then find the row it tells you to do instead of spelling out the row you are on. So on row 6 I have to look at the directions for row 2, and then remember I am on row 6 not row 2 when I complete the row and move on to row 7. Add to that the directions for the cable rows refer you to another set of directions - and it gets confusing.  I normally rewrite patterns so that I have the exact directions for each row and can check them off as I go, and I think it was a mistake not to do that with this pattern from the get go. I just always try and work the pattern the first time through as the designer wrote it - so I can really get the feel of what the designer did.

All that aside - I am really loving the product this is making and the KAL experience as a whole.

Time to get out of my jammies and into my work out clothes so I can get my weekend going. Happy weekend everyone!