Things are great this week. It’s warm and beautiful outside. Clark slept well last night. My back is all better. I was able to do a TON of housework yesterday.

After being on my feet all day, I sat and knit on my mother-in-law’s shawl last night and this morning, and am well into the edging. I can see the end! Very exciting.

Today I have to make sugar cookies for a church function tonight. We’ve had 70 women sign up, so there will be at least that many there. That’s a lot of cookies. And I’m on a diet. What was I thinking?

Nate and I have started doing day-dates. Since he works from home, he’s been able to schedule a couple hours a week to go out, and we save the money and hassle of finding a babysitter. Last week we went to Moorehaven, which is a fantastic spread of ponds, unique animals, gardens and such. It’s lovely. They sell fish, supplies, and foliage for ponds. There is one pond there with enormous fish in it. I don’t know if you can see it, but the black fish in the bottom of the picture has to be around 3 feet long.

I was emailing with one of the mom’s from Liv’s class last week, and she thanked me for the mitts I made her in October, and said that she wears them every day.

(If you recall, she has this weird medical condition where her body thinks it’s freezing to death at any temperature under 72 degrees, and routes all of her blood to her vital organs, leaving her appendages in the lurch. So basically, her fingers will die and need to be amputated if she doesn’t wear gloves all the time. That’s horrifying).

Considering it’s spring, I thought that she should have something to wear that’s a little brighter and cheerier than black Cashmerino, so I bought some green Koigu (lucky girl) to make her a pair of fingerless gloves.

Do you have any great pattern suggestions? I don’t have one in mind, so I’ll be winging it otherwise. Koigu is fingering weight.

Wow. What a week. I’m totally bugged I couldn’t exercise after Monday, but my back is a lot better. I’m hurting at the moment sitting on a barstool at the computer, but I am much better now than I was on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I’m still in love with CalorieKing. It’s been so interesting to see how calories and nutrients add up in a day. I’m not struggling as much to make it up to my recommended calories, but I frequently have a couple hundred extra at the end of the day, so I enjoy a hazelnut steamed milk, or an italian soda sometimes. Thursday night, I had 32 Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate baking chips (those are the big ones) and was still in good standing with the diet. How is this possible?

Also on Thursday, I wore a pair of jeans that I haven’t been able to wear comfortably in several months. It felt really good.

I weigh 222.6 today. Which means I’ve lost 2.4 pounds this week (only exercising once, remember) for a total of 5.2 pounds in just shy of two weeks.

I thought it would be more, since I was 221.8 yesterday and I’ve been going down every day. But last night we had people over and I ate a very heavy dinner, plus one cookie which put me over my calorie target by 190 calories. I was going to walk it off on the treadmill later, but by the time they left, I was really tired, so I just went to bed.

So here we are again this week. I’m eating more. I’m losing weight. My calorie percentages are as follows

50.8% from carbs
23.9% from protein, which is a little higher than recommended
25.3% from fat

CalorieKing is awesome. It tracks everything. Here are my nutrients averaged since I started

Daily Averages

food calories: 1,798 cals
exercise minutes: 22 mins
exercise calories: 116 cals
net calories: 1,682 cals
fat: 51 g
saturated fat: 14 g
carbohydrate: 231 g
sugar: 80 g
protein: 109 g
fiber: 26 g
sodium: 2,365 mg
potassium: 1,246 mg
calcium: 1,481 mg
iron: 6.3 mg
zinc: 2.4 mg
cholesterol: 122.6 mg
effective carbohyrate: 182 g

This is so cool. And again, it’s easy because they aren’t telling me what to eat. I can eat what’s available (making healthy choices, but still) and I’m losing.

CalorieKing also tracks measurements.

I’ve lost 1/2 inch in my chest
1 1/2 inches in my waist
1 inch in my hips
and 1/2 inch in my thighs

since last Saturday.

I can tell, too. The past few days, when I’ve put my hands on my hips, my waist has felt smaller. You can imagine, I’m sure, how nice that’s been.

Blah, blah, blah. Me, me, me. I’m sorry. I’m just so excited. I’ve been stalled out for SO LONG. Months at a time of checking in every Saturday at Health Group only to say, “I’m a loser. I haven’t done anything. I’m eating bad, I’m not exercising…..”

I’m happy to have something different. And I’m thrilled that it’s been so incredibly easy. Surprised that it’s been this successful. Fascinated by what I’m learning.

So, I’m going to try to exercise today. Lightly so I don’t mess up my back more. There’s a big family dinner tomorrow and I’ve discovered over the past two weeks that social eating is when I have trouble. I’m going to try really hard not to blow it.

How was your week?

I played around with an edging idea yesterday.

I’m giddy.

Speaking of giddy, be sure to come by tomorrow for Health Group. I can’t wait.

Speaking of giddy, Ellen’s Majacraft Rose was lovely last night. (Thanks Ellen)! I spun on it for over an hour. I spun silk, a targee rolag, silk blends, some corriedale top, and some of the gorgeous kid mohair fleece I have. Straight from the locks. I just fluffed them and spun away. It was beautiful.

My back is better. It still hurts and seizes up on me spontaneously, but I’m much more functional now. Thanks for the well wishes.

The shawl is fixed. Hayden was over last night, and I tried it on her again. It was plenty long enough. It’s amazing to me how much difference height can make. So, now I need to decide on an edging. I think the edging in the book looks a little heavy, probably because it’s garter stitch. What do you think?

I could just edge it in the seed stitch on the neckband. I could find another edging (I haven’t had much luck in finding a suitable one yet). Or I could try to mess with the pattern’s edging a little bit. Maybe adding more yarnovers, or trying it in stockinette (tho’ it might roll).

I’m going to Village Yarn and Tea tonight to spin on a Majacraft Rose, to see if I might like the Suzie. I’m very excited. My birthday is in 2 1/2 weeks. Nate and I were discussing the possibility of ordering it early so I could have it on my birthday.

Well, I was discussing it. He didn’t say very much. Actually, he didn’t really say anything at all.

I can walk, barely, but I can’t move/bend/twist at all. I wasn’t able to exercise yesterday, and I messed up my shawl.

I was knitting along, halfway through what I intended to be the last repeat when I noticed a mistake, a rather large one, and it started 8 rows previous. I spent a long time messing with it, and could have fudged it, but it was in a very visible spot, and I just didn’t want to live with the messed up gauge of a fix.

So I pulled the needle out. Completely out. Stitch markers and all. It’s sitting in a vulnerable, needle-less heap on the counter right now. I’m going to rip back the 4 rows and then try to put it all back together. Lame.

In the meantime, I was able to try it on without the restriction of a needle, so I did.

Getting that second picture was a trick. I have 14 shots of various angles of my bathroom and parts of my head. ‘Til I had the brilliant idea to zoom out (better chance I’d make it in the picture) and then crop on the computer.

Even though my mother-in-law is significantly shorter and smaller than I am, I think I’m going to get more yarn and make it longer.

In the meantime, I’m grumpy. I can’t move. Can’t exercise. Can’t knit. Can’t lay in bed and ignore everybody. But I might try. Goodness knows I want to.

I don’t know what happened. My back’s been good. I’m doing my physical therapy regularly right now. I haven’t had pain, but just now I have a spontaneous flare up in my trouble spot from the car accident. It really, really hurts every time I move. So lame. I had high hopes for today.

I guess this means I’m going to be sitting a lot in the hopes that it’ll calm down enough for me to get my walk in.

Which means I’ll be knitting and spinning today instead of putting a second coat on the dining room door I painted last week.

It looked like this-

which was the last remnant of how the dining room looked when we moved in. Now it looks like this-

It needs another coat, and a doorknob, but it’s so much better.

I also wanted to make bread, granola, mop the floor, clean the butler pantry (behind the newly red door), get a good start on laundry, give Clark a bath, and maybe get to the store.

Nope. Not me. I’m going to be sittin’. But I’m going to sneak a batch of bread in.

Last night I made whole wheat linguini from fresh ground flour and served it with an italian turkey sausage red sauce. It was so amazingly good. There are leftovers, and I’m eating them for lunch.

Good morning. It’s been a very interesting week for me.

You all know I signed up with CalorieKing.com on Monday, so I’m 5 days into it. The program they have me on is a daily calorie target of 1690 calories a day, plus however many calories I burn in exercise. I’m supposed to exercise 150 minutes a week. They suggest 5, 30 minutes sessions. Once a week I record my weight and measurements.

There’s a place to record exercise, water, and food. They break it down into different nutritional elements. One day, although I was well within my recommended percentage of fat, a little tag popped up telling me that I’d had too much saturated fat. I was surprised and looked at what I’d eaten, and the breakdown they do as to what’s in it. It was the dairy. I’d had butter on bread a couple times for a snack, and a cup of 1% milk, and cheese. The butter was the main culprit, but all the saturated fat in the dairy added up.

It’s been fascinating to see how foods add up during the day, and what meals have what calories, and that I seem to eat higher calorie lunches and smaller dinners.

What’s been really weird is to see that I have to work at eating enough. I’ve heard of overweight people that hardly ate a thing, but I didn’t think I was one of them, probably because of the days when I eat a ton. But that’s not my norm. My metabolism must be totally screwed up. I know now that on a normal day, I don’t get enough calories, and then periodically, I’ll go nuts and eat a ton, mainly when desserts or snacks are available. So I’m guessing that my body hangs on to all of it.

The first two days I ate a lot of carbs. I noticed at the end of Monday that I was way shy of my recommended calories and carbs, so I made a huge bowl of pasta and still fell short by 331 calories. (The website of course didn’t believe that I hadn’t eaten enough, so it’s automatically generated comment the next day was to make sure I remembered to record all of my meals).

I was extremely tired in the afternoons on Monday and Tuesday, I assume from the jump in carbs and blood sugar levels, but since then, I’ve felt great. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I’m feeling hunger more. Considering I’m eating more, this wouldn’t make much sense except that I’ve already experienced something similar with water.

I used to live extremely dehydrated without even knowing it, years ago. (I haven’t been very good to my body, apparently). Once I realized, and started drinking water, I was suddenly thirsty ALL THE TIME. The more I drank, the more thirsty I felt. 16 glasses of water a day, and I’d go to bed thirsty. After awhile, it died down but I’d still feel thirsty a lot. If I ignore the thirst and don’t drink, after a little bit, the thirst goes away, too.

I’m experiencing the same thing with hunger this week, in that I feel it a lot more. I feel hungry when I wake up in the morning (this never, ever happens). I’m hungry halfway between breakfast and lunch, so I eat a little snack. I’m hungry at lunch. I’m hungry between lunch and dinner. Hungry at dinner, then I’m good for the night.

So I’m eating. More than I normally do. And I’m content. I’m not craving anything. I’m snacking on good things, watching my percentages on the website, recording everything….

It’s very labor intensive, and the first half of Monday, it was a total pain in the butt. But then it became fascinating, and now I feel like I’m learning a lot about my body and how to take care of it.

It feels weird being on a diet and eating pretty much whatever I want. The best part is that I’m not afraid of food. I don’t have to feel guilty for eating. As long as I keep track of it, I know where I am in my daily allotment. In the afternoon, I can look at my percentages and see what I should focus on for dinner (ie more carbs or more protein). It’s completely awesome.

So, I’ve lost 2.8 pounds since Monday.

And I’m eating more.

I had two soft bean burritos from Taco Time for lunch on Tuesday. How is this possible?

After a couple obsessive days of reading, emailing, calling, thinking, and talking it over, I think I’m leaning towards a Majacraft Suzie Pro.

One of the biggest advantages to this wheel is that the wheel itself, like on my Clemes, is solid as opposed to spoked. So little Clark can play with it (which he’s going to do anyway) and not pinch his hands or fingers when the wheel turns. Plus, as Nate pointed out, it’s a much more subtle wheel than most of the others, and isn’t going to be as much of a draw to kids, ours or otherwise, as much as a larger, fancier wheel would be.

So now I have to spin on a Majacraft to see if I even like it. (And figure out how to pay for it. Birthday or not, it’s a lot of money). I expect to like it, and certainly hope to like it, but you never know. It’s kind of silly to have made up my mind before even spinning on one. But what can I say?

Last night, the mess in the house was getting to me, so I spent between 3-4 hours cleaning it. This morning I woke up and felt so completely free… like the day was open to me and I could do whatever I wanted with it.

So I dug out 4 gallons of paint from the garage and started priming touch up spots.

That’s so pathetic.

I’m excited for Health Group tomorrow. So excited. Be sure to stop by.

Hayden was over last night, and I got another inch done on the shawl. She has a much smaller frame than I do (like my mother-in-law) so I had her try it on, and I think I’m almost done! I’m shooting for 1 1/2 more repeats, and then an edging. I’m not quite sure which edging I’m going to use, as I don’t really like the one in the pattern. It seems a bit heavy.

I’m anxious to get back to the uptown boot socks, and thinking about it, I have no idea where they are. Crap.