Health and Happy things

My smurfy nail polish looks awesome next to the first Snapdragon to open in my garden this year

I weight in every Saturday and am still a member of Weight Watchers on-line. I still have work to do in the health and fitness arena, and I am just going to keep plugging away at it. I find myself bouncing between eating in a way that will help me loose weight and then giving up on other days and doing whatever I want. The yo-yo between being "good" and being "bad" is stressful, and I find the scale hasn't impressed me in months as a result.

Yesterday I found myself pretty crabby and feeling a little soul crushed after my weigh in. I had been "good" for two or three days before my weight in so I felt like I should have seen a drop in the scale - not a gain. Thinking back I realized I had been very NOT good the weekend before, drinking high calorie coffee's at Caribou and snacks (brownie and cookie) to go with them. Camping almost always means straying from my diet. And it often takes a couple days to reel myself in from a camping weekend. I wonder what the scale would have read if I hadn't worked harder the days leading up to it. Probably it would have been worse.

So I find myself spending time on the weekends reevaluating how I am eating and exercising, and this weekend has been no exception. I decided to do some pampering things to make myself happy, I puttered in my gardens and I have newly polished toes and fingers. I almost never polish my fingernails as my job wears nail polish off in minutes, but I just really wanted to gussy up my fingers and I went for it! It was fun and it makes me happy to see this vaguely smurfy nail polish on my fingers as I knit or type.

Sometimes little things like polishing your nails or playing with your dog can really make you feel better. Also, it's hard to snack with wet nails!

Saturday! Yay for Weekend!

Its Saturday and that means so many things to me. Saturday is the one day a week I sleep in without worry. If I sleep in on Sunday too late (which I often do!) I have a really hard time going to sleep Sunday night and Monday morning is pretty yucky. Monday already sucks without being exhausted to boot! It's also weight in day. I love that too as any sins I committed the week before (Like that donut that accidentally fell in my mouth last Thursday, eh hem) are washed away and I am reborn with shiny new points to start the week off with. I am still bouncing with the weight. Lost two pounds two weigh-in's ago, last week I gained almost as much back, this week I lost almost a pound despite the donut incident.

I had another really busy week, with much garden work and much knitting. Managed three Zumba work-outs this week. I had to skip my Thursday night Zumba as I finally went in and got my hair did! I am kind of blond now. Not true blond - but we really went light for me with the foil work this time. It's taking a little to get used to it, but I think it looks like summer fun. Makes me want to be tan - which is pretty much a no-no, so maybe it's time for some of that fake tan lotion.

I also made some really good progress on my KAL shawl. I know it was supposed to be done in a week (insert derisive snort here) but two months is apparently more my speed. I finished all the knit portion and am now up to the crochet portion. I am really happy with how it's looking. Here is a shot just after I did a Russian Join (which I LOVE!) and bound off all the stitches. It's 22 inches along the center spine and the top is 50 inches across.

Naturally anything I lay out is just a place for Emma to place her furry little butt, so right after I snapped that picture I snapped this one.

She is so helpful with the holding projects down so they don't run off. That's always a bummer when you spend two months knitting something and then it escapes out the fence. Her services are invaluable.

And then there is this. I am still not sure if I am going to make this into a felted pillow or a large bag? When I told Tom I was thinking about making it into a pillow he stared at me and said why? That center bit is scratchy as hell since it's mohair - so I guess a bag would make more sense. This is one of those projects that is sort of getting away from me and I still work on it but I can't see it's final outcome. Huh. We shall see what it turns into.

This morning will be spent watering my plants, then an hour of Zumba. Not sure yet what this weekend will bring, but hopefully some good stuff. I really want to finish my shawl this weekend - so hopefully I will have some pictures of it all finished in the very near future.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Discombobulated in a good way

Saturday is almost over and I feel like I have been running around like a crazy girl! I started out my day by sleeping almost three hours later than I do on a normal day, which is SUPER awesome. Sleep is so important and I never seem to get enough, so I love Saturday mornings with no alarm clock! But of course I feel all discombobulated as I am off my normal schedule. Still - hard to complain about being well rested!

I did my weight in and I dropped just over 2 pounds this week which makes me happy. I lost the weight I gained last week and a little more too, so WIN! I had a nice Zumba work-out after my weight in and then I took Emma outside in between storms and snapped a few pictures.

I went over to inspect our Strawberries and saw a flash of red! Yup! We have berries! Most of them are still green, but we have a few that are very red! I am going to leave them for my hubby to find. Strawberries are his crack. 

Our Peony bush is JUST about ready to pop. I suspect before next weekend we will have some really pretty blooms. The flowers are so pretty - but they have almost no odor which makes me sad. The scent of a peony is one of my favorite things. These are actually from Tom's grandma who lived here up until she died when Tom was only 1 or 2 years old. It's nice having plants that have been in the family for generations. When this gets too big for the bed I will split it and give half to Tom's mom.

Not long after I played Photographer we had another severe storm roll in  - this one has some nice sized hail along with heavy heavy rain. You can see the white chunk on our table on the deck along with the heavy rain drops making a splash. It's just been a wet wet day. Which means tomorrow when it is in the 90F/32C temps again it will be a steam bath. Yuck. We still have no air, but at least now we have the ability to open the windows in the living room. We had to take a hammer to one of the storms in order to get it out, but it is out and we can get better air circulation now. We should have done that 9 years ago when we bought this house. Yeah. Nine years of not being able to open the windows in our living room. I guess we just needed two really hot miserable weeks with barely any sleep to motivate us.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy your weather - what ever you may be having!