Purging and Shopping

Last night was the first night that Eric decided to stay up all night and wanted to play.  I kept putting his covers back on and giving him stuffed animals to play with.  I did not let Eric stay home, but instead sent him to program and took a nap, which lasted until the gardener, construction workers and the noise of running water woke me up.

I went through another section of my closet today and went through all my tank top.  4 made it to the Goodwill box and I put a few on probation.  When the probationary one get to big they will go to goodwill too.  I will go through other areas in coming days

This has lead to some areas of my closet with not enough selection for more than a few days between washing clothes.  I have not lost enough inches to go to the next size down in my closet.  That will take 2 to 4 more inches off my waistline.  I have only managed to get 4 inches off my waistline since June 6th. So I went shopping today. I must have hit the sales just right. I got 1 long cotton skirt, 1 long sleeve top, 1 light cover up and 8 tank tops for $100.  They also threw in all the hangers too.  So all I need now are pants and skirts.  My well deserved Ganga* for the day.also I did not have to go to the plus sizes for anything.

If you think. my day could not have gotten any better. Care stopped by and helped with my personal de stash. She left with 1 bag of yarn to make blankets for foster babies.. and another bag to make gifts for her “step kids”.  John was very happy. I also finished hat number 48.  Eric is asleep so it’s time for me to go to sleep. Night all.

*Ganga is Tucson speak for a great deal.

More Progress

Each hanger represents a pair of pants or skirt that is now to big to wear. I am mainly losing inches right now which is OK with me to.

My diet has eliminated all high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, artificial sweeteners and 80% of the sugar that I use to consume.

Breakfast is dependent on my schedule with Eric, but usually cereal and tea.

My lunch and dinner plates now are in the 25% lean protein, 25% starch and 50% vegetables without margarine or butter. My snacks are vegetables, fruit nuts or a spoonful of peanut butter.

This is not the fastest way to lose weight. Although I think that replacing cookies and soda with vegetables and water are a better choice for me. Please check with you doctor before you embark on this or any other diet.

Random Acts of Cleaning

I find it simply amazing that such a random act like packing can lead to a random act of deep cleaning. Tonight while refreshing my kit, I noticed that my toothpaste had expired. So in my search for a good tube of toothpaste I inadvertently cleaned out a drawer.

What lead to this, is that I am leaving the guys home to go to a fiber retreat this weekend. I will be at Sheep Thrills in Prescott Arizona. Hopefully doing a lot of knitting,Spinning and relaxing.

Progress Maybe

I went shopping for a light sun cover up today. Instead I bought 2 new shirts. I was at J.Jill and the shirts were a size large in the regular J.Jill line. Not my usual large in the  Pure Jill line, which is their plus size.  I am not sure how many sizes down that is and I don’t care as long as the clothes are smaller.  By the way they did not have any sun cover ups that I liked.

Hats 50 and 51 are now complete.  The next 3 hats are on the needles.  What else do you knit when it is 109f out side?

Oops

While getting ready for this years Sheep Thrills Fiber Retreat, I found the 5 skeins of yarn that I spun last year. I had forgotten that I put them in my sample box. When I got home last year I was just so tired, I put the box in thn garage. Then as I was getting ready for next weekends retreat, I found the skeins.

I have started washing and setting the twist tonight.

Plying

I spent the day plying art yarn for the retreat next week. I plyed close to a thousand yards of art yarn today, with my largest skein being close to 300 yards.  I have a few more samples to make so tomorrow I will be spinning again. Pictures to follow as soon as I am finished.

More Hats and Spinning

The next 11 hats for 642 rows. These will go to the Flowing Wells SD Clothing Bank. Below that will be yesterday’s spinning.

Summer Harzards

There is an awful lot of construction going on in our neighborhood. Since we are one of the few houses with no young children or pets we have some interesting new wildlife in our yards.  It seems we have more lizards than usual, this may just be the reason that the new succulent plants have been eaten to the ground in just 2 days.  We also have at least 2 new non poinsions snakes in the back yard. All I ask of the snakes is that hey eat as many pack rats as possible.  The lizards are doing a great job in keeping down the bug populations.

All these new wild life friends lead to strange summer behavior such as knocking on doors before I go outside. Or walking down the walkway saying human coming. This gives the rather shy animals a quick  spaces

Journeys

I really think that I like my doctor's office scale much better than the scale that I have at home. It shows that I am 2 pounds lighter than my scale at home.  With that being said, I have lost one sixth of the weight that I want to lose. I have only 2.5 pounds to lose before I reach my 1st goal of losing 5% of my body weight. I know it is all about baby steps and moving more. With that being said I have exceeded my daily step goal by over 2,000 steps today.

I have finished knitting another hat today and am closing in on 4 dozen hats knit for the year. I was lucky to be able to book my Stitches West 2019 classes and hotel today. I only had to live through 2 computer server overloads. Thank goodness I called and entered my classes when registration opened this morning. By this afternoon the hotel was booked and 1 class that I am taking is filled.

Well it is time to call it a day. Have a very productive day tomorrow.

45

Hat number 45 for the year was finished tonight. With any luck and a little time I just might be able to knit a decent number of hats this year. I currently have 3 more hats in progress. I even managed to make the ugliest shade of blue look pretty by combining it with other yarn.  There is no use trying to get rid of this cone of yarn either. Every time I try some one hands it back to me.  I think I have about 6 hats left on this cone of yarn.  Then I am done with it.

Zenning went well today, I managed to get 5 bags of recycling and 2 bags of trash out of the house.  I have also divided books to go to some of my knitting friends which should leave the house this week.

Physical therapy left my foot stiff and sore.   Hopefully I will be done with this soon.  Although there is one exercise that I can not figure out and neither can the therapist.  Three different therapists have said this one exercise is done differently.  Oh well.

I finished my knitting weekend with 5 hats completed and 3 more hats in various stages of completion.  I finally got Eric in for his haircut and 3 inches came off. It should be much easier to wash his hair for about 4 weeks and then the haircut fight will start anew.  I should have started this earlier but Eric was fussy. So I will leave the blog in the same state as my chores, incomplete.

Day Fail?

Things did not go as planned today. I was up with Eric for 2 1/2 hours because of a bad thunderstorm. There was an awful lot of thunder and lightning, but not much rain. So this is my excuse for only knitting 1 hat today.

Although I did manage 15 minuets of Zenning and a little house cleaning.  I am heading to bed early.

More Hats

I have filled a project bag the size of a large size grocery bag to the top with yarn. I have pulled out U.S. size 13 knitting needles.  I really want to see how fast that I can knit my way through this bag of yarn.  I think that I am off to a good start today with 2 hats from the large craft bag and 1 hat from the small craft bag finished today.  In the small carry along bag I am using U.S. sizes 6,7 and 8.

I want to see how many projects I can finish this summer to burn through my yarn stash.  My definition of a project is one item finished no matter what the size.  Although the larger the projects the more yarn is used.  Wish me luck in this adventure.

While John was taking his after dinner walk I spent that time Zenning the craft room. If I have the energy after dinner I think that I can make decent progress in tiny bits of time.

The Mad Hatter? Perhaps Not

Besides physical therapy and chores, today was all about hats. I bagged and tagged 9 hats for charity. I cast on 9 hats, yes I really have emough 16 inch circular knitting needles to do that with out using all my 16 inch circular knitting needles.

So I am really not crazy. I am actually teaching a technique called the jogless join at knitting guild tomorrow. So instead of taking out my work over and over again I cast on 8 hats, one set for each demo. They will go to my charity project.

if I am indeed mad, at least there is a method to my madness.

Zenning for Health?

Today was a BBD for me.  So what else should I do besides sitting on the couch and resting?  Well zenning the house of course.  I started of with my Wool yarn stash, I have a full bag of tapestry and needlepoint yarn that makes  great hats if anyone is interested in the yarn, as a bonus I will throw in a tote bag.

I did what I call circular cleaning today.  I zip all over the house. As I find something that goes to another room, I head there to put it away.  Then I find something in that room to put away sometimes I stay in one place for a while, sometimes not.  The end result is a lot of things are now in new homes or recycled.

I did find time to knit, spin, wash some newly spun skeins of yarn and laundry too.  I skipped Eric’s planed haircut today. By the time he was ready it was raining.  I decided a haircut was not worth dealing with the rain and chair in the rain. So I opted to reschedule it.  There is always tomorrow.

Yarn

First there was the beginning of the Tour De France. Then the Tour De Fleece decided to cheer on the riders by spinning along. So I have a little extra fleece that wanted to be spun so I join the spinners. Here are my first 6 skeins of yarn. 4 of the skeins are 4 ounces and the little bitty ones area half ounce. all I have to do is wash and set the twist on the yarn.

Tour De Fleece

Today I spent 4 hours plying the yarn that I spun over the first days of the tour.  I have decided that Shetland Wool is not pleasant to ply when it is spun to a lace weight yarn. Masham Wool is wonderful as a thick and thin yarn. It’s even better plyed.  BFL is always wonderful to spin and ply.

I am trying not only to spin as much of my fiber stash as possible.  I am also trying to spin as many different breeds of sheep as well.  Each breed spins a little differently.  I am also trying to spin as many British  Heritage Sheep fleeces, batts and braids that I have.

Eight skins were plied today. There were 4 four ounce bobbins and 4 smaller skeins for the 52 Yarn’s to Spin Before You Cast Off Book. I am really too tired to take them all out of their bags tonight, so I hope tomorrow will be ok for pictures.

I think that because of my sore Achilles Tendon I will do most of my Spinning on my classic Louet S-15.  I also found out today that the Louet S-96 in Oak is no longer being made and I will have to settle for an S-95. I also found out that it will not ship until Mid-September.  That means that I will not have it for the Sheep Thrills Fiber Retreat next month. All I can say is it’s a bummer to have to wait so long for a birthday present.

Tour De Fleece

I have 4 bobbins of yarn to ply tomorrow and will show off my first Tour De Fleece 2018 yarn. Now what am I going to do with 4 new skeins of yarn?

Busy

It has been very busy around here this month. The Birthday gift for Teri sent just in time. The laundry has won, I have not been able to catch up all month. It seems to take about 2 days to knit a hat right now, I am barely over 3 dozen hats knit for the year at the moment. I am still in the midst of deep cleaning the guest/craft room, a lot is leaving. My craft books are next.

For Tour De Fleece I have 12 ounces spun and it is waiting to be ply. So I can not count that yet. I have one braid on each wheel going. Yes, it has occurred to me that I can only use one spinning wheel at a time, but with my Achilles tendon still sore I need to switch between wheels as not to get my heel mad at me. I will post under Team Into the Whirled with the #ITWTDF2018 on social media. This will happen once the yarn is plied. I have spun every day of the tour, even if it is only a half ounce like today. Into the Whirled is a great indie dyer. Give her page some love*. I just love spinning her fiber.


*I have paid for all my own fiber from Into the Whirled. No payment or samples have been given to me.

A Long Day

I have been up since 6a.m.  It is almost 11 p.m. and I am still waiting for Eric to go to sleep.  I am not sure that is going to happen anytime soon since he did get a booster shot at his doctors visit today.   Right now he seem to be talking to Elmo about his day.  I am falling asleep while I am writing this.  So it will be short.

Just a reminder, that if you are over 40 talk with your doctor about booster shots.  This is especially true for the Whooping Cough vaccination since the one we got as kids has worn off by now.  Whooping cough is very hard on the young and disabled.  Also with measles cases on the rise make sure you and your kids are up to.  You are protecting kids like Eric who can not have some or all of the shots.  

It finally quiet so I am going to call it a knight.  

Wow

Who would have guessed that the solution to Tendinitis of the Achilles Heel was 2 inch heels. Yes, that is right 2 inch heels. After I went to the orthopedic foot surgeon, John and I went shoe shopping. I left the store in one of the pairs of shoes.  I walked to the car without any pain.  The first time in about 9 months. I was pain free until I put on my 1 inch heel house slippers. I guess that I need new house slippers too.

My question is why don't any of the medical advice sites have this information?Also if you live in the Tucson area and are in need of a bright, well mannered orthopedic surgeon, with good patient side manners, who likes to try therapy first to avoid surgery give me a call.  I don't think it is my place to publicly recommend a doctor since I am not a medical professional.

Being pain free had a lot of plusses. Even though I am still at the tail end of the cold that Eric gave me, I had a lot of energy to get things done. I hope that this helps me play catch up this week as I am so far behind.

I did manage to weave almost 2 feet of a scarf tonight. I knit 3/4's of a hat today. Well it is time to make sure Eric is ready for bed so that I can call it a night,

Around the House

I am feeling better. I just have this nasty cough left. So I am slowly getting things done around the house. John has really done a great job picking up my slack while I had the cold.  My major accomplishment of the week was filling the recycle bin to the top. There was no more space so I have started a recycling bag for next week's recycling pick up already. I found another area to zen. So far most is being recycled or or sent to Goodwill. Very few items are finding a new home.

As usual when I miss a day of laundry, the laundry room was knee deep.  I stopped after four loads and left the rest for later. Since I got all of Eric's laundry done this should not come back to get me. The other four plus whatever Eric makes tomorrow can wait for tomorrow.

I also gave up trying to figure out where a can be added to my blog. I guess I will have to ask my techie about that or do a whole lot of reading. I really need to learn some basic coding. 

Hat number 31 was finished today. I have 1 hat that I need to weave the ends in. I also have 2 hats on the knitting needles. I am adding some rolled brim hats to the mix to shake things up a bit.  I think that I will get my bedtime snack and do a little more knitting tonight.

Eric’s Cold Part 2

I am still home sick with that awful cold Eric brought home.  I spent most of the day resting.  I am hoping to sleep tonight.   Last night was a wash for sleep.  Naps were a no go unless I was sitting up. So tonight I will spend the night trying to sleep sitting up.