Breaking Through Barriers

Okay, I'm going to start by being realistic.  Scales can change day-to-day, up and down, influenced by a variety of factors including water, menstrual cycle, and the angle Venus makes with the Moon and Uranos.  You know: whims of the fates, etc.

But I have had a pattern for quite a long time.  I have got on the scale and seen a number.  The number was higher than I wanted it to be, so I started watching, being careful, and a few days later I would see a new number, N - 2.  I would rejoice! And try more.  And soon, within a week or two, the number would be N - 4!

Then, oh, then, my body's monthly cycle would change around and the number would go back to N - 2.  Okay, I would tell myself. It's just water weight from carrying around all that fluid.  No biggie.  But then stress or chocolate cravings would take over, and I'd muddle my way through that time of the month, not keeping up with even a slight exercise practice, eating whatever popped off the shelves, and I would end my monthly cycle back at N, or even N + 1.

This time, though, I made it through my miserable crampy logy couple of days with the help of my friends and with just a little walking, and keeping track of my food.  I was at N-4 when it started, and I went back up to N - 2, just as always, but at the end? I was back at N - 4!  Good going, Lauren! Keep up the good work!

And then? This morning?

N - 6.2

The number on my scale is one I didn't see when I was exercising for months last winter.  It's one I haven't seen in a good two years.  Even though I realize it will probably be gone tomorrow, (Moon, Venus, Uranos, you know!) it feels like I have broken through a barrier that has sneered at me for years.  I can keep on.

I can do this!

Knitting break??? WHAT???

Well, you don't think I'm gong to completely stop knitting, do you?  But it's the April Holidays in the House Cup.  We're still a couple of days out from knowing who won.  Professors are still calculating Bonus Points, Things are being discussed, and a ton of off-month activities have been posted (including the silliest April Fool's Joke ever.  Really, awesomely epic, and included a manatee in a space suit.  How could you go wrong, right?)

So, no knitting for points this month.  So I have a pair of socks going--trying to perfect my knit-to-fit method--and I just finished and sent out my Reducio swap yesterday--and I still have the Epic Shawl of Doom to complete, since it didn't get done for a badge this month and it still needs finishing.  And I'll be swatching for next Term's OWL later in the month--but I'm really aiming at that being the only new thing I cast on this month.

I shall fill my time thusly:

• I shall SEW!  I have several projects that want working on.
• D1's new comforter/blankets.  I've had the fabric for a year now.  Seriously.  I could at least get one done.
• The corners (and this is hand sewing, as I almost busted my machine trying to do it that way) of a blanket I've been making for ages for River.  Sigh.  
• The lining of Mary's Christmas stocking
• I shall BE HEALTHY!
• Thanks to OneNeedleKnitting, I found a site called MyFitnessPal.com.  It is another diet/weight loss/exercise tracking site.  All right: I love SparkPeople.  I love the SparkPoints; I love the trophies; I love that so many of my friends have found their way there.  But their nutrition and exercise tracking tools are hard to use.  So here's the plan:
• I will track my food and exercise on MFP.  The mobile app is easy to use and has--get this--a bar code scanner! I can scan about 90% of my food instead of trying to look it up!  So easy!
• I will use "quick track" on Spark People to keep track of fruits and veggies and exercise (I get SparkPoints for minutes tracked, but I get to eat more on MFP for exercise tracked, so I will do both.  It's not that hard).
• I will re-vamp the House Cup SparkTeam to make it a little more user friendly and encouraging.  More challenges!!! Hooray!
• I will continue to walk or do some other kind of exercise at least 5 times a week.
• I will continue to track my food.
• I shall conquer Lego Harry Potter!
• After the boy goes to bed
• I have my own copy for the DSi hidden carefully away.  Someday I shall also play it on the Wii... but I won't hold my breath.  April I will play a little LHP every night.  I've already finished the first Year, but I still have a lot of stuff I can go back and get after I gain more spells.
• I shall READ
• The Hunger Games.  So good!
• The Spark.  I'm finding it much more interesting and empowering than I thought I would.
• Catching Fire (book 2 of the Hunger Games cycle.  I will move on to book three if I have time).

So that's the plan!  I like plans.  But not much actual knitting will happen this month.  Still, wanna see what I did last month?

What? Blogging again?

Should I really write again tonight?  Yeah, I'm procrastinating; I should be knitting my O.W.L.  But here I am.

So, cool things: I discovered, thanks to one of my wonderful Ravenclaw sisters, ChoreWars.  Seriously!? (Interrobang!)  A D&D game where your chores are your Adventures!  David and I are both in; he's on the team earning points.  I totally beat him to making his lunch.  I told him he had until 8:00 to come volunteer to help me, and he didn't, so I got the 15 points!  Go me.

Is it silly? Er, yes.  But way more fun than doing dishes without battling a Water Goblin.

Other cool things... let's see.  I am Kitchener Stitch away from finishing an Elephant.

I made David some socks!

And that'll be 5 days tracking food on SparkPeople, thank you very much.

Less good things: David takes his very first ever installment of the MCAS exam tomorrow.  Joy.  And Netflix is not working.  Pout.  I wanna watch reruns of Xena Warrior Princess!

Streaks and Sparks

I don't even, as I start writing today, know what I'm going to call this post.  I think I'll wait to see what it's about.


Okay, I started back on SparkPeople again on Friday, and started trying to take walks during my break at work on Thursday, and it's been a pretty good run so far.  I have tracked my food every day--including today.  I walked Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Sunday was impossible: we had D's Blue and Gold Banquet and in between church and that, we cleaned the guinea pig cages.  By the time we were done, it was time to get ready.  So okay, I let Sunday go.


I didn't want to let today go, though.  I really didn't.  But it was snowing all day today.  And I'm sorry, I can't take my knitting and my iPod for a walk in the snow.  It's just Not Fun.  So I thought, okay, I'm going to go to the gym tonight.  When T comes home, I'll ask him if he'll hang out with the kid, maybe help him with that last bit of homework, and I'll go to the post office and fill my gas tank and go to the gym and spend 20 minutes, even, on a treadmill.


Except poor T is still at work.  It's 10:10pm, and he's still not home.  His fault?  Heavens, no.  He is working at keeping his business afloat and thus keeping us in a house and clothes and all that great stuff I appreciate so much.  But I really wanted to go for a walk today.  Someday we will own an elliptical trainer.  But right now we don't.


I think my only choice at the moment is one of my 20-minute Yoga videos.  I don't want to just give up at this early time.  So far, I'm on a "streak" and I want to keep it up.  I've finally chosen things I'm actually going to do to record, and I think I'd like to, you know, do them.  Every day.  10 minutes of exercise? I can do that each day, I can.  I've joined a Spark Challenge that has a trophy for doing 10 minutes of exercise every day.  Today, I start it.  I like trophies.  Trophies are wicked fun.  I need more pixelated trophies in my life.  It's like badges in the House Cup.  I will do a whole lot for a badge.


I'm reading The Spark.  I don't know why I resisted reading it for so long; I thought I knew everything there was to know by getting on the website.  But some of the things they ask you to do make sense now that I've actually read a few chapters, and, put in context, I now want to do them.  Spark Streaks are one.  


I'm adding a counter gadget--probably just me filling in numbers--for how many days I've been on my streaks.  Officially on SparkPeople I'm now on day one of most of my streaks, because I just set them today, but it's really day 4 for food tracking.


Okay, that's not the brilliant idea I had for a blog post this afternoon during lunch, but I can't remember that idea now and at least I've written something, right?


You wanna see my badges?

Seriously quick

I have about 7 minutes before my body decides to shut down, so I'll be quick.

I've spent the past week feeling lousy, going to doctors, having people prod me.  I have an ultrasound scheduled for January 27, and at that point I will really know (rather than just having my doctor "strongly suspect") which lovely feminine ailment I'm facing, and I'll probably be ready to share.  It's not dire, it's not terminal, but it's extremely annoying.

I spent two days feeling horribly sorry for myself and dragging around and crying and eating whatever came my way.

Then I decided this is just not how I want to live my life, so today I started writing down my food again (I haven't recorded it all, but I am very sure I was extremely careful and did not go over, and I will get the rest of it down tomorrow).  I am ready to embark on my 3rd week of dieting, I am down five pounds, and it's time to pull out the exercise. I'm going to start with a very gentle yoga routine, because I think that's probably about all I can handle at the moment.

In other news, I started a fabulous shawl which is a gift for someone who could, potentially, see it here, so I'm not saying who and I'm not showing pictures.  But it's fabulous. 


And for having thus teased, I shall now present a picture of the other thing I did this week: A very sparkly candystriped sock:

and the roving I've started spinning on my new drop spindle.

And we had a SNOW DAY today!  It was rockin' awesome.  This was at 7:45 am, when it had been snowing for fewer than 8 hours:

And the kiddo has the day off tomorrow as well.  And Friday, school was already closed.  And Monday? Closed for MLK day.  Little stinker.

I'm off to bed.

Accidental Success

Yesterday I just did my best to not eat the house.  I didn't write down a single thing.  I was feeling blah... I've been feeling blah all week, which is why I haven't posted since Monday.

Tuesday night: that's when the blah began.  It actually began with much worse than just "blah."  I was sitting there innocently playing with my new ball winder and culled-together-from-household-objects swift (lookie: I was so proud!):

...when all of a sudden, my body started to feel really weird.  I was cold, shaking, and a bit nauseous.  I managed to finish winding my yarn; I need that yarn for my OWL swatch this weekend, darn it, and you can't just leave yarn 2/3 wound, especially with The Evil ChesterKitty lying in wait.  But directly after finishing my yarn cakes (ain't they pretty?) and clearing up (Yarn + ChesterKitty=Bad, remember), I put on my beautiful full-length green Sylvi sweater and went to lie down on the couch and take my temperature.  It wasn't high.  But there I was, shivering, feeling like crap.  A few minutes later I pulled myself together enough to go upstairs and get under the covers, still dressed and wearing Sylvi.  I fell asleep.

In the morning the horrible shakes were gone, but I was left with a blasting headache, and pain in my abdomen (at the lower-left "corner," as it were) and a distinct desire to go to the doctor.  The doctor's verdict, several hours later, was "some kind of infection, maybe a UTI, maybe diverticulitis."  The treatment for either is an antibiotic, so I got a shiny prescription and orders to call on Friday if I didn't feel "much, much better."

I didn't.  So I called.  And of course both my regular doctor and the doctor I saw on Wednesday were out.  I left a message at 9:10am, and got a response back at 1:15pm (which I missed, of course, because cell phone reception at my school is terrible).  By the time I called back to clarify what exactly they wanted me to do and why, it was 2:45 pm, and the call to my gynecologist took another 15 minutes (because, did I mention, I've also got some bleeding, and the doctor was a little baffled).  So now I have an appointment at 7:30am on Monday morning, woo-hoo, in Waltham.  Which is at least a 30-minute drive.  Thank heaven for GPS because I don't think I'm finding the place while half-asleep.

(Note: at this moment, ChesterKitty is sleeping across both my hands while I'm typing.  I'm going to try to keep him from posting this prematurely, but I make no promises).

So, anyway, I have been feeling kinda down and unmotivated and unSparkLike, and so I got a little spotty about tracking my food.  Yesterday I didn't track at all--but today I went back and tracked, and guess what? I was right in my range for everything: calories, fat, protein, and carbs!  Go me!  And better yet, I got on the scale yesterday morning, and I was down 4.5 pounds!  Go go go!  I know, that's just the beginning-of-the-diet weight loss, and it won't be so quick going forward, but it feels good to be down that much!

In the knitting world, I have finished Tom's hat, and one other project, and started a glittery pair of candy-cane socks for me.  For "valentine's day" (though I will wear them year-round and at Christmas too!) They're from one of the luscious skeins of holiday sock yarn I got when MariaCrafts, SparkSearcher, and I went to WEBS in December, and I can't wait to put them on my feet!  I also got to preach the Ministry of the Knitting Bag to some cub scouts last night, as I sat and knit at a mom's gathering (put all boys in one room and let them do whatever while moms sit around and eat and drink and be merry and turn deaf ears (but not Deaf ears) to all but the most egregious loud noises).  I ate 4 Doritos--yes, four!--and drank water, and that with bowls of chips and chocolate chip cookies right in front of me--all because I was wielding Very Pointy DPN's and sparkly yarn.  And a couple of Cub Scouts--all 3rd grade "Bears" from D1's den--came up and asked what I was doing and asked me to show them how, and proclaimed it "cool!"  I wonder if there's a knitting badge for the Cub Scouts?

I'm off to banish the Christmas decorations to their proper January location: the basement.  I leave you with a photo of some new KnitPicks Chroma.  Ain't it lovely?  Can't wait to start swatching!

Enter, rejoice and come in!

Enter, rejoice, and come in
Enter, rejoice, and come in
Today will be a joyful day
Enter, rejoice, and come in!


Don't be afraid of some change
Don't be afraid of some change
Today will be a joyful day
Enter, rejoice, and come in!
                         (From the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition)


Back to church today after the holiday break.  D1 lit the chalice during the service, which he did beautifully.  No churches were burned down in the lighting of today's chalice, and he looked calm and collected while he did it (and was I worried that Wiggle Boy would, perchance, wiggle mid-candle-lighting and accidentally drop the lighted flame on the rug and start a fire? A little bit, yeah).

We had a break-in in the church office last night; the Ministerial Intern and the DRE arrived this morning to find that someone had taken a crowbar to one of the doors, and they were still trying to figure out exactly what was damaged and what was missing.  With sadness I reflect that had whoever it was just knocked on the door during the day, they would have been given what they needed.  Enter, Rejoice, and Come In, my unknown brothers and sisters.  We mean it.

The Ministerial Intern, Michael, is a big solid rock, who knows, from his theater background, just how to make his words resonate.  It was clear he was shaken by the event though: he told every adult he could find about the break-in, including me.  I too know that desire to share: Something goes wrong? Call mom.  Saw something that made me angry? Post to Facebook. Discover that my knitting pattern makes an amazing zig-zag?  Post to Rav.

Sharing weight loss is harder.  I am always worried, deep down in my spirit, that I am being a pest to other people.  Really.  I'm trying to lose weight, and you are too?  I don't ask you to go the journey with me, because it might annoy you if I ask.  Weight loss isn't the only thing I have this feeling about, but it's a big one. My Ravelry friends have helped me through this a lot.  My self-worth is far higher than it was two years ago; I no longer hesitate to volunteer for something because I think my contribution won't be valued.

There are those who denigrate the online world.  Those aren't 'real' friends, they say.  But my Rav friends are very real, both the many I've met in real life (fifty? At least!) and those with whom I share a warm, caring relationship that's only online, because miles separate us.  That Maria and Julia (whom I've met) and Jen and Crystal (whom I haven't) are walking the road with me makes me feel I can walk just a little father, and the support of those I haven't met means just as much as the support of those I have.

Don't be afraid of some change... change in the New Year seems natural and right.  As we turn the calendar, we start new projects, try a new endeavor, seek a healthier lifestyle.  The light is returning, and that's change I don't fear.  Weight loss scares me a bit; I acknowledge the truth in fearing to look and feel my best, even though I don't completely understand what's at the root of that fear.  Change isn't easy to contemplate; in fact, the thinking about it is often harder than the actual change.  How long didn't we sell our house because we were afraid it wouldn't sell?  And then it sold in a flash.  Perhaps picking up my calorie-counter will be easy; perhaps that crazy bit of knitting at the center of the Shipwreck shawl won't be as hard as I think it is; perhaps going back to work tomorrow will be joyful.

Today will be a joyful day! Even though it means taking down the Christmas tree and saying goodbye to home and hello to work and stress, I'm going to make today a joyful day.  Enter, rejoice and come in, New Year!

Ten PM, Munchie Time

Well.  It's 10pm, and as certain as clockwork, I have the munchies.  I find myself anxiously looking around the kitchen, thinking of food.  If I have to get up to do something, I look at, touch, and itchily consider eating pieces of food.  This is a difficult time for me.

Fortunately, today is the first day of Term for the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry!  I'm an official Sixth Year now (which means I've been at it for six three-month Terms, so going on two years at the end of this Term).  We're a big old humongous Virtual world, and let me tell you, I love it.  There are eight classes to choose from--you're only supposed to do six, though I've known people to do all eight.  I'm plotting *two* OWLs this term--long term, bigger projects that take at least a couple of months to craft.  So tonight I'll be starting a hat.  I've already done one small project (Mom!  You have earrings now, I just have to take pictures!) today and now I'm on to more ambitious things.  My yarn for my big projects isn't here yet, because I didn't order it until late.  It should be here on or about Thursday, and then I can swatch for my projects during the weekend.  So I would like to burn through a couple of projects this week: the hat, a pair of socks, and maybe start on my amigurumi design project.  And finish Tom's gloves.  Really really, I want them done.  But apparently not enough to, you know, actually work on them.

And my gals from the House Cup are joining me on SparkPeople.  Not only is Julia my buddy-sweet-buddy, but my Claws have a Spark Team just for us.  That was the problem for me on SP before, I think: I didn't know enough people.  My friend list has grown from 4 people (if you include the guy who started SP, who friends everyone) to 16 in two days, and I've been given credit for referring 4 people, which just makes me happy.  The other 3 people are two friends from Real Life and another Virtual Friend, Aunt Barb, whom I met hatching virtual dragons on LiveJournal about 4 years ago.  I love my Virtual Friends.  You can meet people online that you'd never meet in Real Life (Barb lives in Nebraska... when is that ever going to be on my travel list, right?) who have similar interests and care about the same things you do.

So before I sign out, I will give a recap of my eating day: we went to a party, so I didn't keep track.  I tried to make the healthiest choices I could, though.  I ate yogurt with fruit; squash soup; pickles; veggies and hummus; a couple of crackers; one scone.  At home I had stew I made in the slow-cooker, and it was delicious and nutritious (only about 218 calories for a 1-cup serving).  And I'm still hungry.  I think I will have to eat something.

I believe I will be going to find the yarn for Tom's hat now.  I have to finish a finger of that glove before I can cast it on, as they use the same size needle, which will bring the glove one finger closer to completion.  Good all around.

Er... a picture... um...

Detail of the Castle Cardi I made for EazyC last term.