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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I haven’t really counted a project as being officially started until I have ripped it out completely at least once.

I am notorious about deadlines if they don’t have to do with work or school. I joined NaKniMitMo with grand ideas of actually finishing one measly pair of mittens. I would like to attribute my success in completing a pair to the National Football League. If not for hours upon hours of football games, I likely would not have found the time to dedicate myself to knitting.

This pattern is Flip top mittens by Debbie Bliss (at Knitting Daily.com). I used Cascade 220 (Heathers I think). I just happened to have some left over from another project and they took considerably less than one skein.

I think the idea of  knitting flip top mittens are better than the real thing. If I had these to do over again, I would knit the underside in garter stitch so the opening doesn’t roll. I crocheted a border in an attempt to keep it from rolling, but that didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped. My fingers pop out any old time which isn’t that great when it’s freezing outside. I find that that is pretty typical of all the flip top mittens I own, but it is more difficult to maneuver my fingers back inside the mitten in these.
These mittens are knit flat, but the seaming is not nearly as treacherous as I thought it would be.

I wonder what I can knit during the Superbowl?

and I haven’t even finished my mittens for the NaKniMitMo KAL. Junk! Honestly I just have to seam them. It is going to be quite a task. I know what my mission is for the weekend at least!