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!

**Crickets** & Health

I have been kind of quiet here lately. There has been a lot of drama at my job lately and in my personal life as well. When I go through changes I tend to shut down a bit. I am trying to work on that - but change is hard. :)

We are trying to tighten our belt around here. This is impacting things in many ways. One of which is that I stopped my Weight Watchers account. I am pretty nervous about this, but I really have just been paying them to keep track of my weight for the last 6 months. I have been terrible about tracking my food, so I would do it a day or two and then give up until the next weight-in. Repeat weekly for months. So I decided to stop paying them to track my weight.

I took all my weight-in totals since last August when I joined and put them in a spread sheet. I will continue to weight-in every Saturday morning and tracking my weight, but I will now enter it on a spread sheet rather than a snazzy web site.

So my weight-in this morning was with trepidation. My first week without my WW crutch. Did I put on 5 lbs by clicking the "Cancel my Membership" button? Nope! I think the fear of going on my own actually made me more diligent then I had been in the past as I lost 3.1 lbs this week! WOOT! So now I am feeling like I can do this on my own and not pack the weight back on. I just have to use the principles that Weight Watchers taught me and keep myself honest about what I am doing. And yeah - I am still nervous about the decision, but having a good first weight-in on my own goes far in making me feel like I can do this.

So - My total weight loss thus far is 48.9 lbs. (SO CLOSE TO 50!)
I have lost 7 inches from my waist, 5.5 inches from my hips and 5.5 inches from my bust.
I was a US 16 when I started on Weight Watchers, and I am now between a US 10 and a US 12.

I still don't have an end number in site. I don't really feel like there is a finish line for getting healthy and strong. I am still overweight and I will continue to fight the fight. I want to get as much weight off my joints as I can so I can avoid spending my golden years getting new knees and hips if I can.

In the next couple weeks I want to teach myself to cook some new meals. I have been eating a lot of the pre-packaged Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine meals for many months. There is no reason I can't make those myself and save some money! I recently had the Epiphany that eating canned potatoes was crazy and started buying 5 lb bags of potato's. I don't eat them quite fast enough - but even if I only manage half a bag I am still eating a fresh potato rather than a canned one AND a canned potato costs so much more than a fresh one! Plus environmentally it's a win as well. Less cans to recycle. Less processing costs. There are so many little things like that which I would really like to change.

And how have all of you been?!?

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!

Hot and Heavy with a Flower on Top

I weighed in this morning and it wasn't very pretty. Not surprising - but not pretty. I put on 1.5 lbs this last week and actually I am pretty happy it wasn't more! I did half the work outs I normally do and I had a lot of food that is not really on my diet. (Eat more + Work out less = weight gain.) So this next week I will try and bring it around the other way. (Eat BETTER! + WORK OUT MORE! = Not feeling like a sausage in my jeans!)

This week has been a bit stressful. We had to get our hot water heater replaced which cost a pretty penny, and our central air conditioning stopped working as well. Normally if your Air is going to die May is a pretty good month for that, as our average temp is 70F (21.1C). However this week has been REALLY warm here in Minnesota and we broke the record high temp yesterday set in 1911 and ended at 93F (33.9C). Just. Miserable.

We had to have our windows open (sadly we have a lot of windows in our house that DO NOT open!) and the light of our TV at night attracted these charming fellows.

June Bugs. So very gross. I shiver every time I see one of these guys. They slam into our screens at night attracted by the light of our TV, and the cat just about poops herself with wanting to jump in the windows and swipe at these critters. Yuck. I will be happy when the go away!

I have been doing a little gardening this last week. I planted a bunch of viola in a red pot because it made me really happy. I love the red and purple combo.

I also picked up a "Pansy Bowl" which was on special for a great deal. It fit perfectly in our planter and I was thrilled with the ease of just dropping a plant in and not having to scrounge dirt and arrange a bunch of plants I paid too much for. Sometimes instant is thrilling! (Especially when it's cheaper than what I would have ended up planting!)

I got a set of these planters from my brother (who made them from siding and cedar! Clever!) and we place them at the front of our deck every year. They see a lot of heat/sun, so this year I tried a simple geranium surrounded by verbena. Hopefully they will survive and (dare I hope?) thrive in the hot summer sun.

And lastly I thought I would show off the cute little green berries that are popping out of our strawberry patch now. So cute! It won't be long until we have awesome strawberries to nibble on! Hooray!

Alright - Off to get my workout in before the temperature gets too much higher. I have been sweating for hours already - so I am trying to think how good a cool shower will feel when I get done with my workout! :) Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

How does your Garden Grow?

Part of the joy of having a mild winter and a warm spring is that all of our garden's have gone insane much earlier than normal. My Growth Hardiness Zone is in the 4 range here in Minnesota. The rule of thumb for us is that you don't stick a plant in the ground until after Mother's Day - which is the second Sunday in May here in the USA.

 It's still getting cold at night here, but that doesn't seem to stop the perennials from thriving. Which is wonderful! I love looking at my gardens and seeing what is coming up and what made it through the winter. The downside is that I am anxious to get in some annuals and my veggies. I spent a good chunk of time yesterday at some garden centers. They are scrambling to get stuff in. I ended up coming home with 10 bags of cedar mulch for my gardens. Got 7 bags down and the lawn mowed before it rained - which just made everything all that more lush looking.

My Lupine is very happy this year and there are lots of babies shooting up all over the place. I suspect I will be having to transplant some lupine out of this bed in the next year or two as they take off.

I have been slowly scattering my ornaments as well. We can't keep them out over winter or they will shatter, so ever spring I get to put the whimsy back in my gardens. And since the plants grow (and occasionally die) every year things are never the same year to year.

I struggle with hitting the right balance in my beds. This bed is a bit more shrub and fall blooming - so I should really plant some bulbs in here or something to get some Spring blooms. Although in the fall this bed looks really great. Balance is tough.

Our Strawberries are looking pretty good this year and we already have lots of blossoms. There are more bald spots in the bed this year that last year - but I suspect the lack of snow is partly to blame. If we don't get enough snow the plants seem to freeze out a bit. I have some plants in my new butterfly garden that I don't know if they made it. One has come back strong - but two others are barely there. I sort of can't tell if the plants have come back or if I am looking at weeds. Time will tell.

In Health News, I am still going strong with my new healthy life style. I am doing my Zumba 2 for my Wii 4 days a week for 45-60 minutes a shot. Still love it! Am still amazed that I can be dripping with sweat and smiling. It feels good to feel strong! I am still struggling with water consumption. I have no problem drinking a lot of water when I exercise, but on a normal day I struggle a bit more. I know it's important - so I am working on it. I have been taking my vitamins more consistently. I have to take them with food and it pretty much has to be my lunch meal. The vitamins really upset my stomach and breakfast is too light (and too coffee rich) to take vitamins with, and I suspect my taking them with dinner been a factor with my insomnia. So I am trying to remember to take them with lunch every day.

I tell myself every week I will track my points on Weight Watchers, and never make it through a week. I am still trying to drop weight and I know being accountable for what I put in my body will make a difference in my weight results at the end of the week, and yet I fizzle off a couple of days in. So that needs some work. I have shown a small weight loss the last two weeks, so that is moving in the right direction.

OK - This is getting kind of long, so I think I will sign off.  Everyone have a wonderful weekend!

Saturday Morning Health Check in

Good morning! I am getting back into the routine of doing a Saturday morning reflection and goal setting for my health. I weigh in on my Weight Watchers online every Saturday morning, so this is always a good time to reflect on what is going on with me.

This morning I had a slight increase in my weight with the weight-in again. I decided to pull up my statistics on Weight Watchers to see where I was with my Weight on January first compared to now. I am two pounds lighter today then I was on January 1st. I really have been bouncing up and down in the same five pound spot for the last 5 months. It was good to see. I can't really fool myself when I see the chart right in front of me. I have been working out a lot and I am seeing changes in my size and shape, but the weight loss has really dried up in the last five months.

So I am back to tracking my food and measuring it out accurately. I am going to spend some time looking at the recipes on WW online to try and find something exciting. I got out of the pattern of trying a recipe every week and have been way to dependent on sandwiches and box meals. This week I will get back in the rhythm of tracking my food. I feel like that is where I am going astray since I have never stopped working out and pushing myself that way. The good news is that I held a pretty good maintenance schedule over the last five months - so I know when I get my weight to a level where I am comfortable I can hold myself there with comfort. BUT I am not in maintenance mode yet - I still need to get my weight down.

The level of joint pain I have now compared to last summer is so much less with the weight loss I have already achieved. As I march proudly into my 40's I really want to get as much of my bulk off as I can so I don't spend my 60's and 70's having knee surgery and unable to garden or ride a bike. I am proud of what I have achieved but I still have distance to cover. I still have swollen knees that ache and I get excited thinking about what my energy level and my ache level will be like when I drop xx amount of more weight.

And no - I don't have an end number in my mind. I have an area I would like to get toward - but I want to see how I feel when I get to certain levels of health. I know for my height I need to get my weight down AT LEAST another 20 pounds to enter the "normal" range on the BMI scale, sothat is where my path is taking me right now. I would also love it if my Wii Fit didn't say "That's Overweight" after every weight in. (After years of it telling me "That's Obese" it doesn't seem as bad, but still - I want it to say something nice!)

So that's where I am at!

Health, Weight Loss and Feeling good

I haven't talked a whole lot about my health and weight loss lately. I am still trucking along!

Here is a picture of me on Easter a couple weeks back. I am feeling really good and loving all the new clothes I have been having to buy in smaller sizes. (I loved writing that!) There are so many things that I am loving about getting my weight managed, making healthy eating a way of life, and making exercise a part of my life. Things you don't think about or just take for granted.

I have been somewhat stagnant in my weight loss and am still hovering in that ALMOST to 50 pounds mark. I haven't crossed that threshold yet, but I will get there and beyond. Even though the numbers aren't moving much on the scale, I am still shrinking physically. I admit, it's frustrating to weight in week after week and to bounce up and down over the same 5 pounds, but I am still moving in the right direction, and I know plateau happens!

I have been working out with the newest version of Zumba for the Wii. I love it! It's really different in it's graphics, music and exercise then the last one so it was a bit of a shock, but I have to say I find this one far superior to the first at this point.  I am sweating, panting and soar from the exercise - and I LOVE IT!

I still have hopes that I will fall back in love with bike riding, but so far the 20 mile trail ride a few weeks ago is all I have under my belt. Since then I have just been the Zumba Queen.

I am still doing Weight Watchers online, but I have not been tracking my food. It's not shocking that my weight has not progressed much right around the time I lost my will to track my food. I know I need to buckle down on that, I just can't seem to get there on that one for some reason. Something to think about.

Saturday is my weight in day for Weight Watchers, and I used to blog about my weekly journey every Saturday. I would like to get back in the habit of doing that. I think I have been letting myself off the hook with accountability by moving away from that and away from tracking my food. It's too easy to gobble Skinny Cow treats when you don't have to put it on your daily points tracker!

SO....Back to blogging about my health journey every Saturday and back to tracking my food. (See what happens? You put it in writing and YOU HAVE TO DO IT!)

Checking in

I haven't been talking much about my weight loss goals and how things have been going. I am still working hard on my goals - but I have been struggling with the weight loss. When I weighed in yesterday (Zero loss/Zero gain) my weight watchers report told me I have lost 2.2 lbs in the last 4 weeks. Uffda. Something is not right here. They recently changed my daily weight watchers allowance from 29 points to 26. You wouldn't THINK three points a day would make that large of a difference, but it really has been throwing me for a loop. I used to have extra points every day, and now I am digging into my weekly allowance every day. Which has lead to me not wanting to track what I eat, which leads to only dropping 2.2 lbs this last month.

So I am heading back to the grindstone here. I have been exercising consistantly, but I am going to work harder on the food input and tracking. I am also going back to exploring recipies so I am eating some fresher foods that are more satisfying. As good as the frozen lunches I eat have been, they are still frozen meals.

I will also be taking a que from my Cat Izzi and trying to get more sleep!

January and February are always a hard time in Minnesota. It's cold. It's gray. There is no light. You feel like you are constantly bundled up and running from one warm area to another. We have actually had a very mild winter here this year, but it's still winter and it's still long, dark and cold. I know that affects my spirit. I am trying to not let stuff get me down, to take deep breaths, to slow down.

There will always be stressers in life. Always. So I need to learn how to shake them off and roll with the rough times. Something I have been trying to improve for awhile. It's not easy! But I am learning.

How is everyone else doing this winter? You all hanging in there? I know it's not winter everywhere, it's sunny and warm and awesome somewhere right now. I think New Zealand and Australia are in high summer now. Oh to be a Kiwi!

Maybe it's time to make an appointment to get a hair cut and throw some color on my toes. A little make-over might go a long way toward some much needed lifted spirits!

Where you at?!?

Time management is a bugger sometimes. I want to blog on a close to daily basis. Like 5-7 times a week. Lately I can barely squeak a weekly post in. I thought once the holidays were over I would settle down, but I don't feel like I can find a rhythm lately. It's tough.

I have been continuing to work on my health goals. I am proud to say I lost weight every single week of the holiday season and am now over the 40 lb loss for my overall weight loss and over the 25 lb mark on weight watchers. I often think about how much that weight is and try to savor it NOT being on my body anymore. So when I pick something up (like the 25 pound box of cat litter this weekend) and I am grunting away trying to get it into the grocery cart, I try and stop and say "this is how much you were walking around with on your body last August - and you dropped 15 pounds more to boot!" It's so easy to just see yourself as the same weight when you are slowly melting it off a pound or two a week. So I think it's good to step back and appreciate the enormity of the accomplishments.

Over the last couple of weeks I changed my work out routine and I now set a goal of 6 days a week. I do three days of tread milling for an hour session and three days of Zumba on the Wii (45 minute session.) I still love Zumba. Still smile while I am sweating my butt off. Love it.

And just so this post isn't all about me sweating my bum off, here are a few gratuitous pet photos.

 Emma is our dog and she is looking at me like I am a nutball for snapping her picture. You can see the curtain is parted - she loves to scope the front yard for raccoons and paper carriers in the mornings. (Not much else going on at this hour of the morning - you can see it's still dark out....) Izzi, our cat, is curled up in the heated cat bed and just happy to doze.

This is a day or two later. I think it was pretty cold out this morning. They were both curled up together in here when I came out for my coffee refill. (Please excuse the ghost eyes - it was dark in here and I had to use a flash.) My girls are just too cute.

Saturday Morning - Health update and goal setting

Saturday morning weight in and health evaluation time. I like to take time to think about the week ahead on Saturday mornings and how I can make it a better week. What can I do to be stronger and healthier? What are my concerns?

This last week was a struggle with food. I didn't go crazy - but I felt a little out of control. The voice of justification (It's ok - eat a cookie!) was in my head too much and usually that means other things are going on that make me feel like I need extra. Extra love, extra food, Extra stuff to fill the holes in my soul. I try to be mindful of that voice - it's a trickster and will lead me astray.

So I did the "Please let me not have gained" prayer as I stepped on my Wii this morning and was happy that I saw a little loss. Not even a pound, but it's the right direction and I consider that a win.

I have noticed my Zumba workouts aren't destroying me as much anymore, so I want to step up the workouts. Either the intensity of the short work-outs (Since I am on beginner) or trying the 40 minute work outs. I am not sure what makes sense to do yet - but I need to change something there.

I only have three more work outs to go on my 2nd tread-mill afghan and then I can be done knitting on my treadmill. I have been wanting that to be harder too, and I just can't go too fast while knitting. Visions of being impaled on my pretty hard wood knitting needles fill my head. No thank you! I have the incline at 50% and walk for an hour every time. It's enough that I drip with sweat every work out - but I am to the point that I really want to work harder.

I REALLY need to finish putting together my first tread mill afghan. I pretty much just have to finish stitching on the seed stitch borders surrounding the blanket and it's done. I run screaming from finish work.

I thought I would include a couple pictured of Emma in the cat bed. We purchased the largest heated bed we could thinking the girls might share. We find Emma in the bed as often as the cat. They have a nice view of the bird feeders from the bed and some nice sunlight. Pretty sweet spot.

This is how she curls - all her feet together in a pile of cuteness. She is giving me the "What? What now? I just want to nap!" look.  Love my fur-babies.

Saturday Morning Weight In

Well - I was chewing my nails all week, but I ended up having a really great weight in! Down 4.2 lbs this week! (Take THAT weight gain from last week!) So I am now a total of 36 lbs lighter than my heaviest weight and since I joined Weight Watchers I am down almost 21 lbs. Very nice!

I spent much of this week thinking about the weight gain last weekend and telling myself things like "You are on the right path!" and "Trust the process!" but it was really hard to beat down the Stinkin' Thinkin' that ran more along the lines of "You knew it was too good to last - and now you will slowly fail!" Or "Did you really think you could lose weight AND eat Skinny Cow ice cream and drink wine? You aren't suffering enough to be thin!" Yeah. My inner voice is a REAL beyotch. So I was really trying to stay religious on my point system this week and really trying to focus on positive change.

I know I will have set backs. That is life ya know? I think it's all about how you deal with them.

 So after weight in this morning I let Emma out (again) and saw a lovely sunrise again. Nice to keep having happy Saturday sunrises that make you feel all inspired and junk. Notice our AWESOME Mayfly sculpture. It moved to the back deck for the time being. Makes me smile every time I see it.

Emma looked at me like I was nuts for poking my head out in my jammies. I could almost hear her say......"Good God Human! At least brush your hair or throw on a bra before you poke your head out!" Heh. I am sure my neighbors find my camera activity just charming. Yeah. Right.

A mere six hours later this is the mess happening outside. The birds don't seem to mind it though. It's the humans who are collectively groaning at this. We had 8 months of snow last winter. Eight. Months. Just revolting. So I am pretty sure everyone in the Twin Cities area is sighing right now and looking for their scrapers. GROSS!

You can see the back deck is already completely covered. Guess I better turn on the weather channel and see how much of this stuff we are actually going to get.

Have a great weekend all!

Saturday Morning Weight in - OH NO'S!

Well - I knew it was going to happen eventually. I weighed in this morning and I showed a gain of 1.5 lbs. OUCH! I am trying to not focus on it - to go steady on and to believe in myself. Fluctuations ARE normal. These things happen. Blah blah blah. It sucks. Weight gain sucks. There I said it! I am trying not to focus on this - but I want to think about why I gained this week and correct the behavior so I don't see a repeat next week. I think the culprits are:

1) Birthday Entitlement. "It's my Birthday so I get to eat....." Dangerous thinking that. Why does an event entitle you to abandon your goals? I think I need to find a better way to handle special occasions. Especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up in the next few weeks. The focus will be on food and celebrations for the next couple of weeks and I need to handle this well or I will be on a painful roller coaster.

2) Too much drinking! This goes with the celebrations - but I had a hungry week because I was drinking too many of my calories. I stayed in my points for my Weight Watchers goals - but I didn't spend them well and ended up eating more than I normally would because of the wine and Salty Dog splurging. Alcohol doesn't do much for a diet. I need to watch this.

3) I hardly drank any water this week! I was on a good stretch of water drinking for weeks and lately it's slacking off. I think the colder temperatures make cold water less enjoyable - so I need to think about sipping Hot water instead.

4) Stress. I am stressed about work and family situations, which leads to "Stinking Thinking" and makes my sleep issues worst. My sleep issues are getting worse lately and I really need to make sleep a more important part of my life.

So this next week I am going to try and get more sleep. Try and drink more water. Keep exercising. And try and focus on my food. I saw a clip on The Biggest Loser where they talked about how important it is to sit and eat at a table with no television and no distractions so you are very aware of the food you consume. I am SOOOOO bad at this. I rarely eat at a table and always have TV, a book or a computer in front of me when I eat. Something for me to think about going forward. Focus is important!

Today I am going to roast my first chicken. I think it's kind of funny that I am 40 years old and I have no clue how to roast a chicken! I spent some time watching uTube Videos on how to do it and I think I get it. The one by Fine Cooking looked very simple and was easy to follow. This chicken is some of the meat we got when we were on vacation and we went to Ferndale Market in Canon Falls, MN. I am excited to have found a source of meats that is local and from farmers who are trying to raise there animals as naturally as possible. my next step after that will be determining Weight Watchers values on Roasted chicken. Hmmmmm. I might need to use my scale for something other than yarn!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Birthday Girl! Wahooo!

Today is my 40th Birthday.  Naturally I need to start my 40's off with a bang and I woke bright and early at 2:15 this morning and could not get back to sleep. Around 3:30 I got up and came out to my computer and started watching video's on Utube on how to Crochet. I always want to learn how to crochet around my birthday partly because I spent one of my birthdays over at my mom's house and we sat out on the back porch and she tried to teach me how to crochet. It didn't stick. I ended up missing a few steps in the process and the scarf I tried to crochet lost stitches every row (I suspect I forgot to chain one at the end of each row) and I gave up.

This morning I found a really nice tutorial on UTube and started following along. I tried first on my left over Sheep(ish) yarn from my KAL Cowl, but quickly decided it wasn't working and grabbed a ball of Sugar 'n Cream cotton instead. (Probably not the best choice for a beginner in crochet as the yarn is splitty - but I have knit about a bajillion wash clothes in the last 10 years - so I am pretty comfortable with this yarn.) I chained 21 stitches on my Size H hook and started trucking. A few short hours later and I have my very first finished crochet project!

I discovered a few things when I made this:
1. Crochet is soooooo fast! My knit wash clothes take days for me to make. This was my first one and I finished in hours. Wow!
2. Counting is important. I have a tendency toward confusing where the hook should go in, so I sometimes increase or decrease unintentionally. So I methodically counted every row until I had several inches done and that seemed to help.
3. Using variegated yarn is SUCH a great idea! The yarn I was working was always a different color from the stitch I was attaching too. It really helped me keep things straight in my head and I think I will stick to variegated yarns while I learn.
4. Ripping back is easy. I had to get over my "fear of frogging" but once I found out how easy it was to clean up a mistake I was ripping back all the time. It was great!

I am very pleased with my first crochet and I am going to keep working at it. I really want to be both a crocheter and a knitter. I think the two lend well to each other (crochet edges on knit items are awesome. Crocheting my knit squares together rather than hand stitching??? Um. Heck yeah!) and I would love to wear both crowns with pride.

In other knitting news, I was looking at my Caron.com weekly e-mail and saw that Vickie Howell had posted pictures and info about the Knit A Long  that I participated in. When I went to look at her blog I saw that my picture and one of my comments I made in the Ravelry Forums was posted on her Blog! It was strange seeing a photo of myself on someone else's blog! But admittedly pretty cool and probably the closest I will ever come to FAME so it was kind of neat. :) Sadly I am called "Literary Lady" not LiteraryLadybug - but what cha gonna do? It's still me! ;)

Today is Saturday and Yes, even though I was on vacation all week and even thought today is my 40th Birthday, I weighed in. I don't know what diet God or Goddess was watching over me, but I somehow managed to lose weight again this week! I lost 1.8 lbs this week which puts my Weight Watchers total at -18.3 and my overall at -33.3 lbs. I also got the excitement of buying smaller clothes this week! Smaller underwear, smaller jeans, smaller tops. It's so exciting! I feel so good! And to go into a dressing room with jeans a size smaller than I was wearing into the store and have them fit like a dream? Yeah. I almost got emotional in the dressing room. (Meaning - I had a moment of Holy Shit! and then a moment of proud tears and then I threw open the door and strutted around the area to show off my awesomeness to my husband.)

I am so proud of myself for losing this weight. I am excited to continue on my journey, and I can't wait to see where I end up!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Landmarks and Goals

It's Saturday morning and that means it's Weight In day! Today I hit a goal that I have been dreaming of for literally years. When I weighed in on my Wii it told me I was Overweight rather than Obese! I have never had it tell me I was anything other than Obese! Wahoo! I had hoped my little Mii figure would shrink a little in size, but it doesn't look like it. I am pretty sure I just barely crossed the line - but I will take it!

This week I lost -1.1 lbs, my Weight Watchers weight loss is -16.5 lbs, and my total weight loss is -31.5 lbs.

With the hitting of this goal and turning the big Four-Oh a week from today, I find my thoughts are turning to the significance of numbers and goals quite a bit. I told my husband that I wanted to hit 40 like a ton of bricks and not have 40 hit me like a ton of bricks. And I am very pleased with where I am in my health quest and am definitely feeling stronger and more in control of my life than I have previously. I know that the day I turn 40 I will really only be one day older than I was on the day I was 39, but I can't help thinking about the importance that is placed on a number or a date. I think because I am learning on a daily basis that you can erode negative habits just like you can erode positive ones, I am seeing the significance of every single day and how it can really impact your life to work towards something a little at a time but consistently. So I have to wonder, should I place so much weight on a number? My head tells me to celebrate a landmark, do a small victory dance, glance down the hill so I can see how far I have some, and then got back to climbing my mountain.

As for turning 40? It sure beats NOT turning 40!

So as a birthday present to myself I am off on vacation for the next week. I started doing this a couple years back after an unfortunate Birthday spent at work and having to scoop a customers vomit out of the sink in our public restroom. Yeah. Awesome. I vowed I would do my best to NOT have to work on my Birthday again, and so far I have been pretty lucky.

I am already thinking ahead and wondering how I will do on my health quest this week. A little voice in my head, the very one I keep stomping on with my workout sneakers, keeps telling me you only turn 40 once. You should have a slice of birthday cake when you turn 40! You should celebrate your weight loss and put on a fancy dress and go out to eat! Hu. Where does that voice come from? I cannot deny the importance that food has on a celebration. And after my Birthday is Thanksgiving and then on to Christmas. And the family will praise you for getting healthy in the same breath that they cram food down your throat. So I think I will be thinking about this a lot over the next month or two.

In other news, I figured out how to get my WIPS progress meters on my blog - so I have those staring at me now. I really need to get some of those cranked out and over with. My first tread-mill afghan has so little left to do! I would love to have that one completed before I finish knitting the squares for the second one. (And I am getting close so I really need to move my butt here!)

Last night I started my second mitt on my set of Wine about Winter Mitts (free pattern Easy Half Mitten 106 on Ravelry) and because I started it late at night when I was tired I messed up the ribbing and ended up frogging it out.Will start over again when I am NOT exhausted. Better success ratio.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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!

I'm Back in the saddle again!

Well - I made my first square on my treadmill afghan today. Again. I believe it was March last year that I pooped out on this thing. We got the dog, Tom lost his job, excuses, excuses....

So. We got a Wii and I have been doing the wii fit faithfully for 10 days in a row for 30 minutes a day. And today I dusted off my needles and headed down to the treadmill and made a square for my afghan.

I know it's cliche to start trying to be healthy again at the New Year - but now that the holidays are over and I have months of ice, snow and cold to look forward to, it just seems like a good time to work it out.

I am trying to not obsess over the numbers but facts are facts. I want the numbers to LOWER. One thing that is a blessing and a curse about the Wii is the tracking of the BMI and the Weight. I love it when it does what I want - hate it when it goes up. (guess that is a du.)

I am having a hard time setting goals in terms of numbers. I want to drop a lot of weight. If I do the math - and I set a goal of 2 lbs a week from now until June 1st - that would be a 52 lb weight loss. That would be amazing and wonderful - but it still would be well above an ideal weight for me. I am struggling with what is reasonable. Should I set my goal at a weight I haven't been since high school? As a woman pushing 40 - that seems a little unlikely. I guess that is why I have been silenced in my goal setting. I just know that I am not healthy right now and I know movement and a healthy diet are key to what I need to do going forward. I feel like I should not worry about where I end up so much as just putting my head down on the path toward healthy and just keep trucking up the mountain. I will know when I get there.