This week is insane. Both Nate and I each have a million things to do, so the house is trashed and everyone is stressed.

I can’t speak for Nate, whose craziness is work based, but for me, I need my down time. I need quiet, alone, nobody-talk-to-me-because-I-need-to-think time. When I have to go out and do things, or be places at certain times for days at a time, I freak out.

I’m sure I’m mental.

But I’ve had commitments everyday for I don’t know how long, and it’s getting to me. And Veronica won’t stop talking, even when I ask her to.

Today is my last day to try to organize my life before we ditch the kids to go to a John Mayer/Ben Folds concert tomorrow in the Portland area.

As of right now, neither of us wants to go. I’m sure we’ll love it, but it’s just too much to cram in to not enough time. But we’re committed, so we’re going.

Last night, I made it to a local knit meet-up that I only manage to hit once to twice a year, tho’ they meet weekly. I really enjoy the group and it was fun to see everyone. Plus, I got to see Diana ride her new Vespa. So cute! Cream Vespa, cream helmet, cream pants, green shirt. I wanted to be her so bad last night as we were all leaving the parking lot to go home.

Mary’s green cable mitts are done, but I need a second set of hands to get a picture, so you’ll need to be content with a beginning shot of mine.

I didn’t end up liking the gusset on Mary’s, so I’m trying something else.

I’m making the increases flanking the center knit stitch, as opposed to the more traditional way of increasing at the edges. We’ll see how it goes. I like it so far, but I might be frogging.

Who am I kidding? I’ll definitely be frogging.

Since this gusset is a different style than the yarnover half-gusset type thing I knit into the green ones, I’m not sure about placement, frequency of increase, or anything else really. But I’m going to see it through and hopefully be able to knit it right the second time if this one doesn’t work out.

And we’re off again. Veronica and I have a lunch date with a boy and his mom from school.

The second one, which was actually the first one, only needs fingers.

Woohoo!

And the pair only took one skein of Koigu! And they feel dreamy.

I’m going to start a pair for me, where I’ll fine tune the pattern and make some adjustments before writing it.

Rock on.

I’m up a pound this week, measurements are the same. And I’m really ok with that. I ate way too much this week. Lots of indulgences. My birthday weekend was extremely high calorie and spanned three days. In fact, I think that Wednesday was my only somewhat respectable day in terms of food.

I exercised a lot this week, and much more intense than usual. It felt good. I was excited to be able to push myself that hard.

I’m still feeling really good. The thing that is bothering me the most is that I’ve wanted more food than usual. And I go over my saturated fat limits almost every day. The littlest bit of cheese and BAM! It sucks.

I’m still plenty motivated, and I’m sure I’ll do better next week. I still need to focus on drinking more water, eating less fat and more vegetables, staying in my calorie target but truly, this is the first week it’s been difficult for me. Maybe I’m premenstrual. ‘Cause I’ve been grumpy, too.

How was your week?

Thanks to all that are knitting mitts/gloves/handcoverings for my friend Mary. It means a lot to me, and I know she’ll be, like, dumbfounded.

It’s a surprise.

My progress is slow, because I’m a moron, and keep having to rip and redo. This last frog was the gusset of the second mitt, because I didn’t reverse the yarnovers so the gusset was jutting off into the wrong direction.

Danielle’s are looking lovely. Perfect for spring and summer.

Stephanie’s are gorgeous. GORGEOUS! She’s a kindred spirit, in that she’s ripping a bunch, too. While I am sorry for her and can certainly empathize, it’s nice to be in good company.

I’m very excited to see Katie’s in person. I love that pattern from the picture. (It’s linked on my original post).

I don’t see pictures on Suzette’s blog yet, but she has the cutest stinking puppy pictures ever! They’re soooooo sweet. Congratulations!

And then there’s Monika. Monika needs help. I was preparing to post about the awesome mitts I saw in progress on her blog, when I went there just now and saw her latest post. I think they’re totally cool, but now agree that they may not be particularly wearable. I’m still thinking about that one. They look fantastic in photographs. A work of art. Hmmmmmm. Tell her what you think, help her out.

I’ll post pictures as I start receiving. You all rock.

My birthday ended up turning into a 2 1/2 day junkfoodfest. I’m anxious to have a good, healthy eating day again, because I don’t feel good when I eat like that, despite how enjoyable it is. So, I’ve had my Strawberry-Orange-Fiber shake and vitamins this morning, with 2 glasses of water down so far.

And I remember what I wanted to talk about yesterday! I’m confident that I’m not the first one to have thought of this, but it occurred to me a couple days ago that I could possibly both knit and exercise at the same time on a recumbent exercise bike.

Have any of you done this?

My in-laws have one, so I hauled Mary’s Koigu glove-in-progress over there last night to have a go.

It works.

HA-hahahahahhhhhh!

I think I could easily work out an hour a day if I’m knitting! And I was looking for a new thing to do because walking isn’t always getting my heart rate up where I’d like it anymore. I still weigh too much to jog, and if I continue my upper body weights a couple times a week…. I don’t see a down side to this.

What are your thoughts?

Moving on, I’ve cast on for the second mitt and I’m probably still not going to have enough yarn to finish off the thumbs, so I’m going to go back to Weaving Works to look for a coordinating color that’ll blend more than contrast.

FROG!!

and reknit!

and, there’s not as much yarn left over as I thought there would be. I must have knit more length into the palm this time. I’m hoping I have enough yarn, because heaven help me, I don’t want to rip it again. However, if I need to, it’ll only be to the thumb stitches, not all the way to the start of the gusset again.

This glove feels so good on! I’m always sad when I have to take it back off. I’m really, really liking it.

Nate took me to Salty’s for dinner Saturday night. We had a table right on the glass, with a perfect view of Seattle. I had Copper River Salmon for the first time. It was very good.

Earlier that day, I went to my two favorite LYSs to see what they were doing for the Local Yarn Shop Tour. At Village, they had a bunch of Fleece Artist Kid Silk 2 ply

It will be a sweater of some sort. Then at Weaving Works, I bought 4 more skeins of Koigu,

adding to the available choices for whoever wins the drawing for Mitts for Mary.

That’s right, you get to choose from my stash, 2 skeins, same color, any of my Koigu. Even the new stuff.

See anything you like? Knit some mitts! At this point, your chances are probably 1 in 2 that you’ll win something.

I KNOW there was something I really wanted to talk about today, but I’ve stalled as long as I can, and I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. So, maybe tomorrow.

I’m 32 now! That’s so weird.

Still plugging along. I wish it was going faster, but at least I’m still going down.

I’m down 1 pound this week.

1/2 inch in my chest.

1/2 inch in my waist.

1/2 inch in my hips.

1/4 inch in my thigh.

More than that, I feel thinner. (So why am I still fitting into my clothes)? It’s slowing down, so I worry a bit about next week’s check in. But I’ve been thinking about what I can do to help, and I have some ideas.

My water consumption, while still adequate, is half of what it was the first couple of weeks. If I step it back up, maybe that will help.

I should be eating more vegetables, and I could eat a bit less protein, according to Calorie King’s recommended percentages.

This is where I’m at

The recommended percentages are

Fat, 20-30%

Carbs, 40-60%

Protein, 15-20%

So I’m a bit off. Not much. It’s been great eating carbs again. The first two days, I felt really tired in the afternoon, and I was worried about the blood sugar crash associated with eating carbs. But since then,

I’ve. felt. great.

Really great. So while the progress is a little slow, the process still isn’t difficult. I’d say it’s even enjoyable because of the complete lack of guilt and worry. My brother took me to lunch at an italian cafe yesterday for my upcoming birthday. I had the eggplant penne, and snitched some of his linguini with manilla clams. We ate the warm focaccia. It came with a fabulous cesaer salad.

I came home, input it to the best of my ability into my online calorie diary (pretending it was Olive Garden, because those meals are in the system), went a little light on dinner, and I was fine for the day. The calories, the percentages, everything. And as it usually turns out, if I eat a high calorie meal, I’m not usually that hungry for the next meal, so eating a little less isn’t a problem.

I’m meeting my exercise goal of 150 minutes per week and my calorie target every day. Even through last weekend which I was concerned about. Flying colors. This rocks.

How was your week?

Yeah, so, I’m going to run out of yarn. I’m ripping back almost the entire thing (again, I’ve done it once before. I feel like a hack, not a knitter) to make the cuff shorter so I have enough yarn for the fingers. Dangit.

The round on the glove pattern I’m referring to with my general construction questions starts in a different place on the glove than the round on the gloves I’m knitting. (Sorry, I don’t know how to word that sentence clearer). So I’m getting confused and having to rip more than I’d like. I’m hoping to be able to write a basic pattern for myself, as I’m sure I’ll be knitting more koigu gloves and mitts in the future, so I’ll only have to reinvent the wheel once. If I were to frog completely and start again, I’d do some things different.

But they’re cool.

Clark fell asleep at breakfast this morning, face down on the tray of his highchair. I picked him up, he stayed asleep, and it was so delightful, I had to take a picture.

Sweet baby. I don’t get to hold a sleeping baby much anymore. He’s mostly grown out of that. Well, except for the times he wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, insists on being held at the threat of endless screaming, and then falls asleep. So long as I hold him. But that’s not so delightful.