Since Sunday last week, I’ve lost 1 inch in my waist and 2 pounds. Whoop! Down 9 pounds since January 1 (when I started 2007 Taking Care and Improvement plan!). And that’s without much (any…) exercise due to avoidance and laziness and then being congested for over a week now.
This morning, I put on my gardening clothes (2 old t-shirts, ripped and sloppy green plaid flannel long-sleeve shirt, too big sloppy pants, hat with brim) and pruned the roses, cut down dying and dead plants, picked up dead leaves, pulled weeds - and got in my exercise for the day: bending, sweating, breathing hard, pulling, clipping, stretching, kneeling, crawling…
After our usual Sunday morning "breakfast by Bill" (2 whole wheat pancakes with sugar-free blackberry jam, 2 scrambled eggs, 3 slices of red potato), I took the You: On A Diet shopping list (PDF) grocery shopping, read a lot of labels, and discovered that we eat pretty well but need some adjustments. I bought more fruit and different types of vegetables than usual. And bought items we don’t usually eat: walnuts, almonds, semi-sweet chocolate chips, low-fat yogurt, etc.
There are a few items on the shopping list that I didn’t know what they are, such as calamata olives (also: kalamata olives) [dark eggplant-colored Greek olives, usually packed in olive oil or vinegar]. And some items were just not found (such as unsweetened canned peaches), so I substituted as close as possible (canned peaches in pear juice).
I’ve read the first 3 or 4 chapters of You: On a Diet and am taking care to read the sidebar items and review each figure. In a playful way, the book explains the science of how our bodies digest and use food and how different foods affect our hormones and organs.
I am excited about feeling better physically and mentally by making some key changes to the foods I eat. I’m still not keen on the exercise part of it, but think that when I begin to feel better, I’ll not find exercising to be such a sweaty, miserable burden.
The pink swatches in the first photo were made last weekend as I followed the directions in My Knitting Teacher for the Knit and Purl stitches and binding off. If you know anything about knitting, you can see that the Purl stitch swatch is incorrect - it should look like rows of Vs (I think that's because I didn't have the yarn in front).
Last night while watching The Shield on DVD (it's an excellent show - so riveting!), I started again from the beginning. I practiced casting on until I could do it (almost) rhythmically, then I practiced Knit and Purl, alternating K 2 P 2, slip stitch, and binding off. I pulled out the swatch several times until I was comfortable. The swatch in the second (right side) and third (wrong side) photos was started when I wanted to see how my tension was (pretty good!), and after a while I moved on in the booklet to yarn overs, increasing, and decreasing.
The My Knitting Teacher booklet is easy to follow - and provides instructions for left- and right-handers. In addition to 15 patterns (some outdated), instructions for casting on, knit stitch, purl stitch, slip stitch, and binding off, the booklet includes instructions on reading patterns, joining new yarn (different or same color), casting on while work is in progress, correcting errors, picking up stitches along an edge, making a cable, working with circular needles, knitting with four needles, working from charts, stranding (carrying yarn across the wrong side), finishing techniques, and making tassels, fringe, pom-pons, and twisted cords.
A few things I've noticed about knitting vs. crocheting: