February Change

I have already changed my mind about the socks I want to knit for this month. That didn’t take long did it?

RED BRICK ROAD Knit.1 Magazine Fall/Winter 2008 #7.

I changed my mind because the yarn I am using is variegated and I think the Ornette pattern will just be too busy. I need something more mindless. I already got a late start so let me be a bit easier on myself.

Keeping the focus

I aspire at some point to run a marathon-namely the Big Sur International Marathon. To get there though, I really need to run a few more half marathons. It seems like the natural progression although, the first race I ever ran in my life was the half-marathon. I dream big, but not THAT big.

Last night the friendboy had a few beers and I drank some wine and sat around listening to music and talking. I love nights like that. As the night progressed I brought up running. Of course, because I love to talk about it and he is one of 3 people in this town who I know run. I finally persuaded him, with a little help from his good friend, bud, that running another half-marathon would be a grand thing to do. So! We are running the Chicago Rock n Roll half marathon.

I am excited. I ran the Chicago half marathon last year and liked it but this one has a different, more interesting route. Plus, the music is sure to be awesome.

We are running the Country Music half marathon in Nashville. Same series. Now we have something else to train for! There isn’t much else to do in this town so I may as well keep this train going. I became quite the couch potato after I finished the Chicago half so I am hoping to avoid that at all costs. And besides, I missed running.

We also threw in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade run. Just for fun. It will interrupt our training, but  we can always schedule our long run for another day.

I already blew it

it wasn’t even anything I did! The snow killed my internet connection. How? I dunno but I wasn’t up a running until this morning, so I have officially failed at NaBloPoMo. Buuuuummmmmer!

This morning, I suited up for frosty run-I knew it would be 30 degrees outside. When I got outside, everything was ice. The friendboy and I walked a bit of it because we thought that maybe it was just our side street, but it wasn’t. It was treacherous so we went to the gym and I managed to get some dreaded treadmill intervals in. At least training wasn’t a total wash.

Changes are happening!

I am both excited and nervous. My friendboy and I work opposite shifts. We have since I got a job. I work during the day and he works in the evening. I have all the glorious alone time I can possibly stand and we go out to breakfast midweek to catch up on all the things we need to catch up on.

Monday-

he will start working my shift!!

I’m excited because, although I am solitary, by Thursday I just want to hang out with him. On the other hand, I hope we don’t get sick of each other.

I have decided that today I cast on for February socks. I don’t know what I waste all my time on that has kept me from doing this already.

P.S. I did make my 8 miles before Saturday. 4 miles last night. 4 miles this morning. My right knee hurts, but I don’t think it’s life threatening.

A Year of Socks

At least that is the the plan. The links below are Ravelry…

• January- Jaywalkers–these are done and I love them so. This pattern makes me so happy. I will post them soon. The best thing about them are the yarn. Truly Buckeye socks.
• February–Ornette Socks. This pattern was one of 2 that the Chicagoan bought me for my birthday and the most fabulous knitting store I have been in since I moved to Illinois–Knitty Couture . It’s in St. Louis, but I dream about it. A lot.
• March–Roza’s Socks. Another Grumperina pattern. It must be a goodie.
• April–Bacchus Socks.
• May–Marlene.
• June–Boyfriend Socks. I promised him that I would make him some during the course of the year. He wears the pair I already made for him and his level of appreciation is to my liking. Last time, I used a formula from Knitting Rules, and  I may do so again. The pattern for this one is subject to change should I find one that are well-suited to him.
• July–Knotty or Knice.
• August–Monkey .
• September– German Stockings. This is the second pattern that my boyfriend bought for me. The bonus?? He bought me the yarn for them too.
• October–Tilting Cable Socks. Given the number of socks I have in my line up by this designer, I hope she writes well.
• November–Saviano.
• December–Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Set up for failure

I know this about myself, but I cannot log onto Facebook before my chores get done. Time escapes me and I get wrapped up in whatever dumb and meaningless thing I am doing. I know better than to even have the tab open while I am working in another one.

Last night, I was booger jiving until almost 11pm!! My bed time is 930! My schedule for the week requires that I discipline myself to go to bed early and get up early or I won’t get everything done in the day that I want to. Mondays I take off from working out, but since I waited until the last possible second to go to sleep, I told myself that  I would just run after work.

That just didn’t happen. I grouchy, it’s wretched outside and the only thing I can bring myself to think about is sleepy time. So now I have a predicament. Well, I guess not really a predicament, just a schedule adjustment that I dread:

5 mile run for Wednesday

at least 3 miles for Thursday

blah! I have a 7 mile long run for Saturday which means I need to spread 8 miles out over the week with a day of rest before the long run. I know better. I have run miles and miles and miles before, but this seems impossible right this second. I am sure that after I sleep like a fiend everything will look manageable.

Knitting Goals for 2010

1. Knit 12 pairs of socks- 1 pair every month. I have a tentative list that I will post and hopefully mark off.

2. Knit Odessa over. I have an Odessa and I don’t much care for the length so I want to do it again.

3. Clapotis – again

4. February Lady Sweater

5. Redo my crazy Homespun afghan. I hope that I can finally figure out some sort of something that I can be satisfied with.

Oh Woe

I’m not a tv kind of gal, but Mondays are my one night that I a whole schedule thing going. Since I have magically found 20 hours of free time in my week as of Sundays, I was really looking forward to watching some tube. My DVR is totally crapping out on me. I’m sorta bummed. I don’t want to have to watch tv in real time. It takes up way too much time. On the upside, I may just be able to finish my socks should that end up being the case.

Squeaky Gears

I am sick yet again and once more the friendboy is out of town. A lot has changed since last I logged on.

• we bought a house, it’s been keeping us busy
• I started a class to develop myself professionally
• training for our half marathon really took up a lot of time. That’s done with finally so now we are just doing whatever we used to do.

So, I have been really trying to take it easy this weekend and take care of myself. I managed to go through all the knitting patterns I have and get rid of the ones that I know I will never ever knit. The ones that make me ask me what I could have been thinking when I put that one up for later. That rekindled my knitting passion. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Football season provides great opportunity to knit. The games are so long that I can get ALL the knitting done.

So, before the game starts and before I have to study, I am going to spend some time on Ravelry. How exciting!

Out of sync

I managed to get away for a mini vacation last weekend! The friendboy and I ran away to Cedar Point. The weather was fantastic, albeit a bit cooler that I would have preferred. I spent most of my time mustering courage to hop on the rollar coasters, but I surprised myself and did not chicken out one time.

Disaster struck on the day we left.

I woke up with a sore throat. I was sick to my stomach the entire ride home (8 hours), and by Tuesday I was having a hard time breathing. I am officially ridiculously sick. Being sick especially annoys me because I am meticulous about washing my hands, eating nutritious food, and avoiding sicklies that I can readily identify. It is apparent that if one is destined to get sick, that’s just the way it’s going to be. I gave myself four days to feel and improvement in my symptoms and when I only got worse, I went to the doctor. Two visits later, and I still don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I am hoping that I will finally know today. The good news is that my brain is ready to get productive, but my body (and lungs specifically) are putting up a fight. I guess I will just catch up on my movies and enjoy my hot and sour soup.

Running Machine

One night, while the Chicagoan and I were drinking alarming amounts of vodka, he and I decided that running a half marathon would be the best idea we have ever had. It doesn’t carry the respect of a 26er but it is certainly nothing to scoff at AND it is completely feasible for us because as it turns out, we aren’t terrible terrible runners. Up until that point I could run 3 miles without falling down and dying. So why not!? 13.1, sounds like a plan. AND we have plenty of time (September).

I am following Hal Higdon’s novice training plan, and it’s kicking my wazoo. Well, it might possibly be that I am kicking my butt. I have some routes that I follow and I have just been estimating what distance I am adding with the help of the Chicagoan. We went for a ride to make sure that our last two runs have been the distance dictated by the training program, and we have really been over doing it by over 1 mile each time. On one hand, that makes me happy because my time running is not as demoralizing as I thought it was (my pace is actually half way decent) and it’s looking more and more like a marathon could be a possibility. I can’t believe that.

This weekend I went to the only running store I know of at bought my first official pair of running shoes, Mizuno Wave Inspire 5. Up until this point, I have been runningin Reeboks. After doing a lap around the parking lot, I suspect I will never return. I hate that, because I am pretty attached to my shoes, but these Mizunos are like running with fluffy clouds on my feet. I don’t feel the pain in the front of my leg, but the true test will be when I start putting miles on them. I am still in the process of breaking them in. I absolutely love them. It was so worth the time to consult with people that actually know what they are talking about rather than trying to do it on my own.

So the only question I have is, at what point can I classify myself as a runner?

A little wierd never hurt noone

I have put off taking pictures of myself in my finished forecast. The reasons are numerous.The first is that I am lazy. The second and probably more important are that I started the project much skinnier than I finished. I am terrified to put it on and it doesn’t fit. I have been using Sparkpeople.com to track my calories and my exercise and I have actually lost 12 pounds but I am still to scared. I guess my current pants will have to be falling off to convince myself that it is okay to try the sweater on.

La Desaparecida

I am found. No worries.

• Not only is my left shoulder junk, but now my right shoulder wants be act all crazy. I have tried to continue with my working out, but now I am convinced that no weights must be lifted with my upper extremities until I recover, however long that takes. I am going to have the most awesome abs and the sexiest legs this world has ever seen.
• I have quite my Personal Training gig. I really loved it but it was just taking up to much of my time. No knitting, no meal planning, no time to even sit for more than 10 minutes. I am still teaching boot camp and yoga but those two classes take up much less time.
• The curls have been unleashed. I am no longer a slave to the flat iron. It’s an amazing feeling. My chinos make me a little sassy.
• I am hoping my little seeds will grow so that we have delicious tomatoes this summer.
• I found a church I think.

100 reads meme

I found this at And She Knits Too! I think I need to get to reading judging by my responses.

The Big Read (http://www.neabigread.org/) said that, on average, adults have only read six books on this list. So … copy this list, remove my yeses and nos, and add your comments (favourable or otherwise) about the ones you have read. Don’t forget to include a total.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen – No

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien – I own the trilogy but I have never been brave enough to start

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte – no

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling – YES

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – YES

6 The Bible – Lotsa parts but not the entire thing. One of these days

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – No

8 1984 – George Orwell – YES

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman- No

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens -No

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott – Nope

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy – No

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller – no

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare –No

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier – 1No

6 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien -No

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks -

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger – no

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger -no

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot- no

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell – I have always wanted to

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald – YES

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens-

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – no

25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams -

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh – no

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky – no

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll – no

30The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame -

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy – no

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens -no

33 The Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis -no

34 Emma – Jane Austen – no

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen – no

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe -no

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini – YES

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres- no

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden – YES

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne –

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell -No but I bought it to read and it’s sitting on the shelf patiently waiting for me

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown – no

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez -I have started a million times

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving -no

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins – no

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery – no

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy – no

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood – YES

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding – no

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan – no

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel -no

52 Dune – Frank Herbert- no

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons -no

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – no, perhaps I should start reading jane austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth – no

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon -no

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens – no

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley – no but on the list

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon – no

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez -no

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck – no

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov -no

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt – no

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold – fYES and didn’t much care for it

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – no

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac – I read the first 40 pages and put it down, never to pick up again.

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy – no

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding – no

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie – no

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville -no

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens – no

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker – no

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett – no

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson – I love Bill but haven’t read this one

75 Ulysses – James Joyce – no

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath -no

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome -no

78 Germinal – Emile Zola – no

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray – no

80 Possession – AS Byatt- no

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens – YES

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell – no

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker -no

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro – no

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert -no

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry – no

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White – Yes

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom – no

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – no

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton –no

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – My sis read and said she hated it, so no, never

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupe – no

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks – no

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams -no

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole – no

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute -no

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – no

98 Hamlet – Shakespeare – no

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl – yes, many moons ago

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo -no

I have read a mere 11.

I’m a problem solver

it’s been cold her and I have to say that  driving with cold hands is one of my least favorite things. I can’t get over the problem that my flip top mittens are and this morning I made a command decision. I am going to take out the crochet border at the finger opening and I am going to seam the opening shut. It’s the best idea ever. I am sure of it.