Feeling Inscure

I am feeling a bit insecure today about my weight. I know that I am down 3 dress sizes, since I gave up high fructose corn syrup, aspartame and the maid.  I know that I am wearing clothes that I have not worn since Teri was a Junior at the UofA, six years ago.  Has it really been that long? I know that with the exception of 1 spot that I am toned. I am also sure that will continue to slim down too.

Then why do I let myself be upset by one jerk who points out to his entire group at the supermarket the "fat lady over there". I know it would make no difference to a jerk like that to tell him he was rude, lacked basic manners and that I was down 3 dress sizes. He should have said something when I was really fat and out of shape.  I am now a member of the tucked in shirt gang for some of my outfits, including the one I wore today.

I worked really hard to get to this point. I know that I still am not perfect and never will be. I am just trying to be the best me that I can be. I should not be defined by my weight. That is so shallow. Or my inability to stay on a diet when I have found out life style changes are more important. I am a good wife and mother. I run a chaotic house with very few hiccups. I am a pretty good cook, but not perfect. I can spin a decent skein of yarn. I am a skilled knitter. I can write a basic knitting pattern. Give me a piece of fabric and I can come up with something original. I have a lot of good qualities so why do I let jerks still get to me?

My goal for tomorrow is to brush the crumbs off and go onward and upward.  And just to be on the safe side add a little knitting,spinning and cleaning.

Falling Tuna Cans and Other Harzards

I spent the morning cleaning and filling up the recycle bin, Finishing up the laundry from yesterday and making phone calls. Followed by some errands. I picked up Eric early from his program to get his afo's fixed and trimmed for his tennis shoes for winter. The best part was they were able to fit Eric's feet and the old tennis shoes so I have 1 less errand for this weekend. No shoe shopping. Happy dance time.

Today was going surprising well until about 4 pm. Then there were a slew of phone calls. I was trying to make dinner. We were out of meatballs for the spaghetti. When I went to look for the spaghetti a stack of tuna cans fell on me, they hit me smack in the glasses. If I look at you funny tomorrow it will not be because it Pirates Day according to Jo-Ann's Fabrics, it is because I am tiring to line up the old tri-focals. Did I mention that all the spaghetti in the house had expired too. I was ready for a melt down but held it all together.

So I made a stew out of the chicken, spaghetti sauce, mushrooms and olives. I served it with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and mixed vegetables which turned out to be mostly carrots. It was pretty good, but I do think I will get some pasta for the last of the sauce tomorrow.

I should cut it short tonight, as I have a busy day tomorrow. If anyone knows where I can find a time turner like Hermonies please let me know, I will need to borrow it for tomorrow.

The Quandary

I am in a quandary. I love to get out of the house and knit with my friends. I consider that a wonderful treat to say the least. We have fun. We check out each others progress. Trade yarn back and forth. Some times we knit in silence and sometimes chatty. We teach each other things we have picked up along the way. We like to consider ourselves a happy fun group.

The problem is that we have picked up a new member. She assumes that since most of us stay home alone working on chores or projects that are necessary or near and dear to our hearts that we need constant chatter. This has gone beyond the boundaries of normal social chatting. Today it got to the point of droning and not letting anyone get a word in edge wise. Today I had to skip lunch with friends because her constant drone and constant questions ( to read if I don't get the answer I want, I will keep asking the same question over and over again until you relent ) gave me a migraine that is now just going away. I am talking about the sun glasses stayed on for hours today, 2 bottles of cola and 2 doses of Excedrin.

I really don't want to be rude to her because 2 wrongs don't make a right. I know that everyone has a need for other people in their lives. Who am I to judge her? I really, really, really want to give her a book by Emily Post but fear it might be to rude or worse just go over her head.

I am open to Very Gentle suggestions. She is a few years younger than I am, so she must have gotten some of this in school and church. What would you do?

The last Monday of Summer

Today was a very mixed day for me. I got off to an early start a 6am with a lot of energy. I got 3 loads of laundry washed. Then packaged and addressed 2 parcels. Wrote a slew of checks and got them addressed. By the way in case you missed the last postal rate increase like I did the current 1st class letter rate is 47 cents, not 46 as I had thought. It must be a common problem because they had an envelope of penny stamps at the post office for that very reason. I also did some house cleaning on top of all the other activities.

By 10 am it was nap time which lasted until lunch time. Followed by a little more cleaning and a trip to the post office. I still had an hour before I needed to pick up Eric so I walked around the Brandy Fenton Park. I spent a little time in the butterfly garden. There were a few butterfly's. Then a lap around the rest of the park. I have decided that the water play area is nice and I need to borrow a friends son so I can go play in it. She suggested that we find a way to cover Eric's chair because we do not have a stroller for Eric to get wet and that he might like it too. I just hate to see what a stroller would cost that would fit Eric.

Eric and I watched the new episode of Sesame Street today. I think that they may have up graded their cameras over their break. I also did some finishing work and row counting so that I could update my counter for the 1 million row challenge. I added 970 rows to give me a total of 16,931 rows.  Here is a picture of one of the blankets that I did. Don't look for the pattern because it is a one off and I did not write the pattern down as I went. This one is a favorite and will go to a local hospital for a preemie.  After dinner it was more knitting and watching TV with John. For those keeping track of the World Challenge walk, I did manage to get in my 10,000. steps today. Well it is getting late, everyone else is asleep so I should be too.

Progress is Good

I have been very busy with cleaning around here. The master bathroom is 99.9% done. It is just a few very small things that I have to figure out where they go. I have made enough progress in the craft room to set up the sewing machine. I got 1 repair  and a blanket modification done for some one, that makes 2 things out the door of the craft room today.

For some unknown reason I had a very productive day around here. The bills were paid before anyone one else was awake. I brought at least 2 baskets of recycling out to the bin today and got it hauled to the street tonight. By the way I managed to fill it 3/4's of the way full, not bad. I also started working on my Mondays to do list. I know, what was I thinking? I will never get ahead of the curve ball on this one, but at least I have a plan for tomorrow. The laundry is 3/5 done for today, but then again I know there will be more than 2 loads tomorrow...

John and I stole an hour together and went out for dinner. While we were eating a a cricket ( I think, I am not an bug expert ) hopped on the hood of our car. It must have found a sweet spot on the hood because it made it from the restaurant all the way home with out flying off the hood. I did have to shoo it off the hood before we drove in to the garage.

I also had time for a lot of knitting and a little spinning. I would like to write more but I think I will call it a night.

Busy is Good

It has been a very busy day around here. I am almost caught up on sleep. The master bath reorganization is 99.8% finished, with only a few things left to be put away. 4 loads of laundry done. 

My goal was 5 minutes of cleaning in the sewing room, I landed spending 30 minutes. I find that when I limit my time on a tiresome chore I work a lot faster and manage to not notice the clock.  I almost have things ready to set up the sewing machine.  That act in itself will clear a lot of things out of the sewing baskets. Yes, you heard it right. I have almost got to the bottom of the sewing table.  

In the course of 3 hours, I managed to do 2 full hours of spinning on the Ashford Traveler.  I have also decided that the Ashford Spinning chair is going to be on my holiday list.  I have also found that I can spin pretty slim yarn on the Ashford. 

I got a lot of knitting done today.  I should be able to finish another prime blanket 

I am having trouble keeping my peeper open.  

I Need Shorter Work Days

Eric had a rough night last night. So I was up with him for about 2 hours. This left me totaly out of sync for today. I even managed to sew a poncho the wrong way, but was way to tired to rip it out.  Well there is always tomorrow. 

My biggest accomplishment today was taking all Eric's old cloth diapers and turning them into rags with the help of my serger.   I think that I will use them as packing material for Teri's next box.  I am quite sure she won't mind.  Here is the pile before John cut them apart. I did a daisy chain to save on thread, and John had volunteered to cut them apart before he knew that I was going to use the serger.  So the cutting was not as bad as he thought.  

Eric is having another rough night so I think I will get some charity knitting done while I count my blessings.