Kiss My Knits!

The weather yesterday was so perfect that I went out and ran along the Greenway. I only went two miles, but it’s been more than a month since I’ve gotten out there and pushed it at all, so that was enough for me to feel it a little in my thighs and chest today. But today, it’s even more beautiful! It’s sunny and 68 degrees. Just gorgeous. I may go out again late this afternoon, after my husband is done with his brewing. We’ll see.

Today I’m putting together some ClosetMaid storage cube type furniture that I got from a going-out-of-business sale at the local ritzy Home Depot Design Center. Home Depot definitely picked the wrong time to expand their business to begin offering high-end home furnishing and designer products.

Also on my to-do list: buy new shoes. Don’t fear for my feet too much. These aren’t my running shoes, they’re my walking-around shoes. Tomorrow I turn 40, so maybe it’s time for me to start wearing shoes that don’t look like I peeled them off of a sleeping hobo.

The weather’s beautiful, wish you were here. I hope you all have a wonderful day. I sure will!

Been trying to eat healthier recently, and it’s paid off. I finally moved lower than my previous weight plateau. The weight isn’t really going to start moving again until the weather improves and I can get out and run more reliably, but it’s still encouraging.

Last night, curious and maybe fishing:
Me: Are socks that I make for you more special than ones you get from the store?
Em: Well… I like them both. Both socks you make me and socks from the store are nice.

She is nothing if not honest. Okay, then I know a little girl who’s getting a bunch of socks from the $1 bin at Target so that these last longer.

This morning I prepare more packing materials. I’ve got two more Jayne hats ready to go out (Austin and Australia) that need cool boxes. But first, a little wii running. It’s rainy and cold, but I feel like moving my feet.

Yesterday, for the first time in about 110 days, I forgot to weigh in on the wii fit.

Just now, I weighed in and was mocked, “Too busy to work out yesterday, eh Tvini?”

Bite me, wii fit.

ETA: today’s run. NikePlus congratulated me for running 50 miles since starting with the NikePlus device. Wii fit could learn a few things!

I want to run today, and it’s not going to get above 50. I saw this coming last week, when the weather forecast turned bleak for the week. I wanted to keep running through the winter, and I only had one pair of good shorts and one good t-shirt, so last weekend I went shopping for cool weather running gear.

Now, we fuller-figured gals know that shopping for clothes anytime can be unpleasant. When I was a size 8, everything fit me perfectly and I could get in and out of a store in 15 minutes. Now that I’m… uh… no longer a size 8, it takes longer and I tend to get a little “HULK SMASH!” But I wanted to keep running, and I didn’t want to get hypothermia, so there was nothing for it.

I got very, very excited when I saw this little blue number on the hanger. Why? Because it would be so, so easy to pair it with black leggings (with shorts over, I’m not ready to shake my moneymaker quite that publicly) and then to sew a little Star Trek insignia on the chest. Presto! I’m a science/medical officer on the Enterprise, out for a morning jog.

The outfit is pictured at right. One hand is making the Vulcan salute and the other is apparently holding some kind of futuristic glowing power device. Or possibly a camera with a flash. Never let my valor be questioned, for lo, there is no bravery like that of a woman who displays what she looks like under the dressing room bulbs of death. “There Are Four Lights!”

What? I’m a great big geek! And I figure if sewing on the insignia makes me want to suit up and run, then it’s a good thing. Alas, even in size XL, this was far too clingy. I hadn’t realized when I put it on that it was compression gear. Supposedly it’s good for the circulation and muscles, but looking online, my suspicions that it’s more of a marketing ploy may be valid. Besides, neither I nor the world are ready for the sight of me bouncing down the street in skintight lycra.

The second thing about the compression gear is that it wasn’t so much that it didn’t fit because of my stomach, it was my bosom. Do big-chested ladies not run? What’s the deal, clothing manufacturers? It’s not like I have to special order my bras; I wear a regular size. I’m just, as my mother would say, “womanly.” Seriously, I’m not out there to show off the girls, I’m out there to exercise!

After trying on a few more things, I could feel a good head of steam building up. I was ready to let loose with a rant about how if you’re already in good shape, then your options are limitless. But God help you if you’re on the road to fitness but not there yet, because then you’re just out of luck! I was about to launch into it in the dressing room, and that would have been bad, because Dick’s Sporting Goods would have lost money when all the ladies in the rooms next to me left the store to get away from the crazy lady.

Anyway. At the end of the day, I came away with a pair of leggings, a long-sleeved shirt, and a third shirt which I’m going to take back because I wasn’t making the best decisions since I was all in a tizzy. A tizzy, I say!

So I’m about to grab a snack and knit some Jayne hats while I wait for it to warm up a little. Wish me luck – the cold and I are not friends, but I’m going to persevere!

Yesterday was day 100 with the wii fit. I planned this wonderful triumphant post about how I’d lost 10 pounds over 100 days, and how slow and steady won the race, and how I was looking forward to losing another 20 over the next 200 (or so) days. I was at 9+ pounds down when I took that picture. Then I stepped on the scale and I was up one and a half pounds! I was expecting to be down! STUPID HORMONES!!! Day 100 just fell on the wrong day for me. Sigh.

I’m counting it anyway. I’ll be back down in a day or so once my body settles back down.



Currently on the needles: NOT a Jayne hat! That’s right, someone ordered something other than a Jayne hat. Okay, they ordered a Jayne hat for themselves and another item for a friend. Often I’m so glad to be looking at something besides orange that I give a discount. Heh.

This is two strands held together – one of Skacel Posh and one of Crystal Palace Squiggle. Squiggle has a unique texture and is my favorite “novelty” yarn. Posh is much softer than most fuzzy yarns. The weave on this is nice and loose. You can pull it sideways until it’s over a foot wide. I think the client’s friend will like this.

I ran this morning. It was a great day for it, nice and cool, and I was able to hang around the house until almost 11am before going. I took my Nike+ iPod thingie and did week 2 along the Greenway. Unfortunately, apparently I didn’t press some critical button at the very end, because while I thought it had recorded my workout, it didn’t.

Now, I accomplished my goal. I ran what I wanted to run, I got exercise which is good for my body, but somehow I still feel cheated. I like seeing my little bar graph on Nike+, and I feel like I didn’t get credit for today! Obviously it’s not about credit, but still. I WANT CREDIT. I ran well today, maybe I could have gotten some celebrity congratulating me on a job well done. Hmph. Stupid Nike + iPod.

It wasn’t my best run ever, but it wasn’t my worst – and it could have been. There’s a house being built along my route, and the driveway is torn up, with mud and bits of concrete sticking out. Normally I go in the road and run around that bit, especially on weekdays when there are construction trucks parked out front. Today I didn’t, because this is Festival in the Park weekend, and there were quite a few people on the sidewalks, coming to the fest from the parking places they’d found miles away. I thought it was best not to weave in and out among the strollers.

However, when I hit the broken driveway, my toe caught a bit of concrete, and I went flying. I was in kind of a controlled crash, arms flailing, stumbling at a good clip up the sidewalk. I didn’t actually fall, fortunately. I looked kind of like Daffy Duck in Robin Hood Daffy when he’s singing his “to trip it up and down” song.” As I mentioned, the normally deserted streets were quite crowded, so fest goers got some added entertainment.

You know, perhaps it’s for the best I didn’t get a congratulations. I don’t want to hear, “This is Mary Decker. Congratulations on a really good tumble!”

Anywho, that’s today’s workout story. I worked out, but don’t have a technological record of it. At least it’s burned into the memory of a dozen strangers who witnessed my unintentional comedy routine. That’s something, I guess.


For those of you poor, deprived souls who don’t know Robin Hood Daffy, here it is. The bit I’m referring to is from about :40 to 1:20.

Yoiks! And away!

Workout clothes and busty lasses.

Wii fit, I really appreciate your enthusiasm for our well-being, but you’re starting to get a little creepy.

I’m waiting for the wii fit message that says, “You seem to be squinting. Have you considered getting your glasses prescription checked?” Or “I was speaking to the public library computer system. You seem to have an overdue book.”

Maybe I should rename it Hal.

Lately I’ve been getting to bed at a semi-reasonable hour, but last night I was up far too late. As a result, I don’t want to go running this morning, but I do want a bagel and a mocha so bad I can taste them. That’s how it goes – when I don’t have enough energy, my body craves the things it knows will give it energy, even if only in the short term. I’m okay with not running, since I walked Em to school this morning. On the return trip it was so misty that I had to take off my glasses. Back on the horse tomorrow.

I’m contemplating a fundraiser for my daughter’s school. There was a Donors Choose proposal that didn’t get funded before deadline, mainly because I didn’t see it until a few days before the deadline. I’ve talked to the teacher since then and she says that no, it doesn’t have to be that exact press, and no, she doesn’t need all the varieties of ink she asked for immediately. I think this project could be brought in for under $500, easy.

I’m debating whether this should be another “Jayne hat proceeds go to this project for a limited time” or just a ginormous stash sale. The stash sale would have the bonus side effect of also reducing the amount of clutter in my home. And really, I do have some nice things. Sock yarn from Creatively Dyed (one skein pictured at right), Koigu, Lorna’s Laces, Noro, Debbie Bliss, Mission Falls… it’s almost criminal that it’s going un-knitted. The last stash raffle I did raised over $200, but I might do just a straight bargain sale this time.

I’m still mulling over options, but what do you think? Straight sale or $10 raffle? Shall I release some of my gorgeous stash into the wild?

Day 3 with the Nike iPod revealed a couple of problems. Number one, while the workout screen is up, I can’t scrub through songs, only jump to the next or previous one. This is a problem because for some reason, my C25K playlist was randomized. So when Week One came up, I couldn’t just jump right to week 2, which was the next item on the playlist. Nor could I select an individual song from the playlist. Hitting the “next” button brought up a different section of Week 1 for some reason, so I had to keep mashing it Playstation style to get it to go to the next song. Which was not, of course, Week 2. Week 2 never did come up, and I was tired of standing there on the Greenway punching buttons on my iPod like a caveman trying to figure out a cell phone. I just found any song and let it play, then estimated the length of time I’d been walking and running.

A couple of times, the same song would come up very close to each other, or Week One would rear its ugly head again, so I’d have to fiddle around on my iPod to go to the next song. And remember, until my armband gets here later in the week, my iPod is in my bra. I never look my best when running, but rummaging in my shirt really added that extra touch of class. The songs that randomly came up, though, weren’t bad, in terms of pep.

Our Lips Are Sealed – Go-Go’s
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher – Jackie Wilson
The Girl Can’t Help It – Little Richard
Austin Powers (soul Bossa Nova) – National Youth Jazz Orchestra
I Want You Back (Single Version) – Jackson 5
Remind Me (Radio Edit) – Royksopp
Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (1946 Single Version) – Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five
So They Say – Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Lust for Life – Iggy Pop

In spite of the problems, though, there was a little bonus I wasn’t expecting. As I hit the “end workout” button, it repeated back to me how far I’d gone, average speed, calories burned, etc. And then a male voice came on. “This is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations! That was your longest workout ever!”

Casey the wii fit instructor could take a few tips from Lance.

Okay, time to hit the showers and then pick up my new glasses! Yay!