A new demographic
Yesterday was my 35th birthday, pushing me out of the so desirable 18-34 set and into the less marketing friendly 35-50 (? -- I actually never paid any attention to where this age group ends). I'm actually feeling pretty good about how I look and feel and where I am with my life, so this is not bothering me one little bit. Plus I had a pretty great birthday, with highlights including: lunch with some work friends, getting exactly what I asked for plus a little something extra from my husband, Zack letting me sleep in for almost an hour, my boss letting me scoot home early so I could see Becky, and being greeted by Becky with "Happy day Mama birthday Mama!" I love my birthday.
173, or, it's that time again
You may (or may not) remeember that before I got all knocked up year or so ago, I was on the exercise/eating (relatively) healthy/losing weight train. And actually doing quite well. So now I'm 3 months post-baby and ready to get started with all that again. One of the things that really helped motivate me last year was posting my progress (and un-progress on occasion) on this here blog. And so I shall begin again now.
I've already been doing a little exercise -- mall walking while i was on leave and then last week I exercised on my Tony Little Gazelle (love you and your crazy fluffy pony tail, Tony!) before work on Thursday, which I'd like to continue doing. My plan is to exercise on the gazelle Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, pop into the gym on Tuesday for some quick weights (I have an early meeting on Tuesdays which precludes me exercising at my regular time. Anyone who has had the pleasure of waking me up in the morning can tell you that "getting up early to exercise" is just not ever going to happen for me) and then I'll try to work in one more day of weights/stretches/etc. over the weekend, which now includes Fridays. For awhile at least I'll be able to do it Friday mornings because Grandma is picking Becky up from school on Thursdays for a while (until it's time for her summer migration down to the Shore) and I won't get her back until at least mid-morning on Friday. So that should work out nicely, and then I'll figure out what to do when that ends.
I'll post my weight every week -- hopefully I'll have something up over in the sidebar soon -- and try not to dwell too much on this aspect of my life. Basically, my goal is to be healthier and get back into clothes that fit well and make me feel attractive. So. My weight this week is 173. And so it begins.
Too much of a good thing
Yesterday was my first day back in the
office, and it was (mostly) good. A little weirdness, mostly about my new proposed work schedule -- I'm going to be keeping Becky home with me on Fridays so I can spend some 'quality' time with her and then making up for the work time I'm "missing" (Fridays are notoriously unproductive days) by working on projects that don't need to be done during normal business hours -- but mostly it was really good and nice to be back. It looks like I'm going to get to work really closely with the marketing department, so I'm really happy about that.
But I did miss my little Zackerdoodle, so when he woke up at 3am I told Kit I'd take him, even though it's not my shift. Kit was kind enough to allow me to intrude on his quality time with The Boy (read that last bit with sarcasm dripping off it, because I'm sure Kit was laughing all the way to the sleep bank on that one). It was really nice...I changed him, fed him, he fell asleep in my arms, I put him back in the crib, he flailed, I changed him again (flailing during sleep means a wet diaper, usually), he peed all over me, I went to put him back in the crib (after changing his whole outfit and thoroughly waking him up, natch), he spit up all over me (and his fresh outfit)...see if you can pinpoint the exact moment in there it stopped being "nice" for Mommy. I don't know what his father does to him...he doesn't behave like that during my shift!
Lots of big changes lately...got a mani-pedi, and the pedicure was amazing. I don't like pedicures, usually, but my feet were just rough and gross (shaddup, Kit) and it needed to be done so I gritted my teeth and scheduled an appointment and...and...it was seriously amazing. Especially considering how (relatively) cheap it was. I
will be going back. I also got a haircut and changed my hairstyle for the first time in I don't know how many years. 5? I was pretty much letting it grow out after the tragic shmeckie head incident of aught one and I just never stopped. So now it has shape and bangs (in a good way -- pics next post) and I feel stylin'.
I'm also trying to dress a little more professionally. Heels, nice pants/jeans, the occasional jacket, etc. The environment I work in is biz cas, but there are degrees, you know? One thing I'm discovering is that pants fit differently when you wear them with heels. Something about the hips, I think. Pants that are even the least bit loose on me start to fall right off if I wear them with heels. It makes for an interesting day at the office. This is also affecting the knitting projects I'm choosing (the dressing better, not the pants falling off), and I'm finding
Ravelry to be a tremendous help with that.
The other day I was looking for something to make with a particular yarn I already had in stash but that didn't work with any of the patterns I had in my queue. So I looked it up on Ravelry and went to see what other people had made with it, and a bunch of people had made or were making the
Cable Down Raglan (scroll down). Now, I have a subscription to this particular magazine, and never even considered making this pattern. And you know what? It still doesn't appeal to me based on their yarn/color choice. But the ones on Ravelry, knit in the yarn I have, in similar colors to what I'll be using, look really great. So. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere, and it actually reminds me of one of my favorite anecdotes from a few years ago.
I was a member of a huge knitting email list -- one of those where the members all email back and forth, asking for help with various problems, sharing experiences, etc. A nice little community. So this one lady emails the group asking if we can help her find a pattern for a top down sweater. She has a particular yarn in her stash that she wants to use and she just can't find the right pattern. So a bunch of people respond, the links and book recommendations are flying, and this lady is appreciative but none of these hundreds of patterns are really turning her crank. Finally someone asks if she can maybe tell us what she doesn't like about the patterns she's been looking at. She responds that they're very nice and attractive sweaters, but none of them are quite the right shade of blue. Seriously. The lady couldn't bring herself to knit a pattern in a yarn that was a different color from the one in the picture. I kind of feel like the same thing happened to me with the sweater I mentioned above, but the other way around. I know I didn't conciously decide not to knit a sweater becasuse it happens to be a color I don't find tremendously appealing -- I almost never knit sweaters in the yarn shown, much less the color. Nevertheless, I did pass it by, and it's a sweater that has the potential to look really great on me. Something I need to be careful about in the future.
How do I love thee, Intarwubs?
Let me count the ways...
Okay, remember I mentioned that I wanted to try and get a weaving project done before I went back to work? Well, I start back next week so I really need to get a move on. I'm going to need to actually do this project at least twice to get the results I want, so I would the first warp Friday, and then I brought the loom up from downstairs this morning and I was getting ready to start dressing the loom (don't worry if you have no idea what I'm talking about; it's really not important to the story except to recognize that there's a sequence of events happening that's about to come to a crashing halt) when I notice in the instructions that I need an 8-dent reed. I have a 12-dent reed. Crap. So I go on the internet to see a) how much a new reed costs and b) how soon I can get one. They're about $40-60 -- more than I want to spend, but doable, and I can probably get one before the end of the week because there are some equipment dealers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and so shipping won't take long at all. But then, lo and behold, one of these equipment dealers (
Halcyon, who I've bought yarn and knitting equipment from before and like very much) had a
reed substitution chart available for free, right there on their website. This tells me how to use my 12-dent reed with an 8-dent threading...which means I don't need to buy a reed. Sweet!
