Light as a feather

I am and have always been a petite person. But I got into the habit of weighing myself every morning when my roommates had a scale in the bathroom. And also having read somewhere that people who weight themselves regularly are more likely to maintain a healthy weight, I wanted my own scale.

But I am cheap so I put it on my ginormous list of things I’d like but am not currently willing to spend money on. I also asked around the family and lo and behold when I was home around Christmas my Aunt brought me over an old bathroom scale that no one was using.

After haven eaten much delicious food at home as is appropriate I figured I might actually be up above my normal 105lbs. So when I stood on it and it showed a number sub-100 I was a bit startled. Running and stepping on my parents scale revealed that I was above 100, but not by much. So the thing was off by 3 or 4 pounds.

Since being home I have continued to use my slightly skewed scale most mornings. And well I’ve settled in around 95-96. So even if I add in the missing weight it seems entirely possible that I may be weighing in under 100 pounds. [Or its also possible that I’ve managed to find many skewed scales, one never knows.]

Now I also happen to be quite short. So my current weight is actually just about on the line of normal/underweight. And I feel perfectly fine. I’m quite capable of being physically active. I have my ballet class and am a relatively decent biker when the weather cooperates. Frequently I surprise people with my lifting capabilities. Most importantly I’m perfectly happy with the way I look.

But really now, it is just weird to have to worry about not weighing enough….sheesh.

Do not call. Please?

Recently I had to RSVP for a friends bridal shower. I absolutely hate/dread making phone calls so I put it off and put it off.

Before I knew it I had put it off too long and I had to call. Even that day I put it off and put it off for a number of hours. I went over what I could/should say in my head dozens of times. Eventually I dialed.

The phone rang a few times. Is someone there or has it been long enough will the voice mail pick up? Something clicked on. Voice mail. Oh thank goodness.

I muddle through my somewhat prepared message. All of the calling I have to do at work, which I have gotten relatively decent at, makes me sound very professional on the phone. I leave my message, name, and number. Very clearly, I think. It may have also been rather softly. Oops.

After the call I was rather subtly shaking.

Now I just heard that in attempting to arrange for car pooling I must call someone else.

Death on a stick.

It was a beginning.

I started re-reading the first of the Wheel of Time Books: The Eye of the World.

The first night I think I must have been quite tired. Such as I really have no idea why I thought it appropriate to read before bed, but nevertheless I did and only got through the prologue. It was not all bad however as the prologue is pretty awesome and made me a bit excited for when things start really rolling later in the series.

On another night I picked it up and only got about 20 pages in or so. I’m thinking my recent yarn craft obsession is really cutting into my reading.

But then finally on Sunday I had a mostly all free day. So after accomplishing much crafting in the afternoon I devoted a few hours of the evening to my book.

Closing the book I was over 100 pages in and quite proud of myself. Until I realized that I am reading a ridiculously large book/series and so still have at least 600 pages of The Eye of the World to go.

I have a feeling this series re-read may be a love/hate task.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

Too cute.

I hadn’t crocheted for years. But I kept drooling over the ridiculously cute Amigurumi patterns I found online. And the fact that there were Penguin patterns was eventually more than I could resist.

So I took this free Lion Brand pattern and decided that it couldn’t hurt to try.

I like him.

Sometimes my own abilities to do pretty much anything amaze me.

is reading better than tv

The other day I read an online article titled “Watching TV shortens life span, study finds”. Now the idea that watching television is a (relatively) unhealthy activity is nothing at all new. But it got me thinking…what about all of the other sedentary activities found in our lives.

Most specifically I wondered about reading. When reading one is distinctly physically non-active. And yet this activity has absolutely none of the stigma that television does. Perhaps because too many people don’t do it? Or it’s quite likely that there are other correlations that exist between the variables. For example: reading is considered to be a higher level thinking type activity and better educated people are typically healthier.

I wonder as to which activity has taken up more time in my life? For most people I’m sure the answer is TV. But luckily for me I am highly abnormal. As a child my parents would only allow us to watch a very limited amount of TV. And as a child I was a ridiculously voracious reader. These days I’m sure that my tube viewing hours dominate by far. I like to try and justify this as also being in correlation with my craft time (unless I am absolutely exhausted or hanging out with the boy I never watch TV without a craft or sometimes a meal). But just knowing how much I read when I still had those empty hours (before high school) I really have no idea which activity would win out.

Moral of the story: I really ought to be more physically active but I'm really not too concerned about it.

Being square

I’m not sure where or how I first heard about it (probably my craft geekyness) but I’ve been a member of Ravelry for maybe a year now. Ravelry is an online community for knitters, crocheters, and spinners. It’s awesome.

Mostly I like to use it as a place to find patterns and keep a list of what I would like to make in the future. Plus I can keep track of everything I’ve made in the past. But the site also has a large number of groups and forums.

Having completed my holiday knitting I went on ravelry to decide what to do next. They have groups called “alongs” where the idea is that a pattern is posted and everyone goes off on their own and makes it. If you need help you can always ask, and once you finish you can share it with everyone. I quite enjoy the idea but have never given it a try….until now.

First I found the “Knit a Block a Month KAL” (KAL=knit along). The idea is to knit up 12 different 12 inch squares, one for each month, which are then sewn together to make an afgan. The patterns are progressive and designed for the beginning knitter who will learn something new each month. I am not a beginner and some of the patterns are really really easy. But some of them have color work which will be new for me.

Often times, as with the Holiday crafting, projects will quickly loose their luster when I’m working on them. And so I thought the block a month idea would be an excellent idea. I went hunting for more….

Quite happily, although somewhat cautiously, I found a Crochet a Block a Month group. Same deal, different yarn craft. Years and years ago I taught myself to crochet. But I never did much with it. And only just a few months ago did I again pick up a crochet hook to make a cute amigurumi penguin. This group will hopefully help me to get into crocheting!

It’s very excited and I’ve made quite a bit of progress which I shall save for another post.

He went to the chimney and stuffed the tree up!

This year for the holiday's I got a real Christmas Tree.

I absolutely love the holidays and it wouldn't feel like Christmas with out a real tree. But I did learn some things.

Firstly the watering of the tree is very important. By the time I was taking the lights off of the tree on this Tuesday just leaning into the tree would cause bunches of needles to embed themselves in my shirt and pull right off of the tree. Needless (but much emphasis on needles) to say this resulted in ridiculously large quantities of needles being shed upon my carpet.

After managing to move the tree outside (this involved untying it from the ceiling as it had fallen over sometime early December). I was very impressed with myself and feeling good. I figured I ought to try at needle removal with the vacuum cleaner.

This was a mistake as after 2 minutes or so of more or less futility….*zzzt* everything went dark.
I have now learned many things about fuses, crazy old ones in particular. While rather ridiculously inconvenient the generation of this knowledge I feel will definitely be useful later in life.

I strongly recommend shop- vacs for needle removal.

well oiled machine

I am turning into a yarn crafting machine.

Crafting burn out.

As has happened to me now for many years I went and had some big ideas for my holiday crafting. This year it was all about the hand-spun (by me of course) alpaca yarn being used to knit stuff for people. Needless to say I bit off way more than I could chew and even having only 3 projects just finished knitting a gift last evening.

It’s some crafting burn out. Mainly the problem is I feel like I must devote all of my free time to these projects which tend to be not the most exciting or something that I’m really into. Plus all while I’m (theoretically) furiously knitting or spinning I’ll be drooling over all of the other things I could be doing instead. Very sad.

But the holiday’s are over! And I even managed to make a big push to finish the one "IOU" project that remained.

Here's what I made:

All three of course started as raw wool and so required: carding, spinning, plying, washing, then finally the knitting. So overall I suppose only having gotten through 3 is ok.

But I'm really looking forward to all the new and exciting projects I can tackle!

Simple Delights.

A few weeks ago I decided I wanted croutons for a lunch salad. The debate was then should I buy a box/bag or should I try making them.

Quick research indicated $2-$3 for store bought. Then I found this recipe for homemade. And as I actually had all of the ingredients it was the obvious winner.

At some point I decided that trying to eat a whole loaf of bread on my own was ridiculous and so I have a loaf of sliced wheat bread in the freezer. I pulled out two slices. Frozen bread is awesome in its ability to thaw in absolutely no time. I chopped up the bread (crust and all).

Then I melted probably 2 tablespoons of butter. I suspect that this was overkill. However I started with a smaller amount and it just disappeared when I mixed it with the cubes so I was afraid some of them and soaked up nothing. Even when I added more it still seemed iffy.

Having inherited garlic salt from the pantry of my old shared residence I made the first use of it in what I suspect has been a few years when I sprinkled it liberally over the cubes.

I spread everything out onto a foil lined pan and popped them into the toaster oven. When the cubes had reached some varying degrees of brownness I pulled everything out and gave them a taste.



Best. Croutons. Ever.

Utilities

So since moving into my very own apartment which I don’t share with anyone else I’ve quite loved it. But this winter the utilities costs may be the death of me.

When I first moved in things were pretty ok, with the exception of evil Comcast ridiculous charges. My first electric bill was like $19. I was being pretty ridiculous about not having anything on and come to think of it I also didn’t have much stuff for some of the time.

Things have changed.

Mainly I blame the cold weather. I knew the cold factor was pretty much going to be the demise of my thriftyness. To combat this I set the thermostat originally at 65 but soon down to 60. Then sometimes I’d turn it up to 65 if I were home for the entire day (weekend). But now even if I’m home I tend to leave it at 60. I survive mainly by more or less sitting on top of a space heater when I’m at home in the evening. And to sleep I typically wear: socks, pajama bottoms, 1 or 2 shirts, and a sweatshirt. Plus on the bed is: a sheet, a velour blanket, 2 comforters, a decorative fleece blanket, and a seriously retro (probably from the 70’s) electric blanket (donated by Mother) which I try to turn on 30 minutes or so before bed and then turn off while I’m sleeping. I most always wake up toasty and it is awesome.

But attempts to save/conserve are only getting me so far. The electric bill is around $40 now and I’m dreading what it will be now that the rate caps have expired. For me the uncertainty is worse than anything.

The oil is the heavy hitter however. Early December I almost ran the tank dry (which is very bad). So to fill it was 214 gallons. It was 2.60 something per gallon I think. That hurt, a lot. But I hoped it would last me a good while. Then when I looked at the tank gauge approximately 2 weeks after it was filled there was already ¼ of the tank gone. Doom!

Just yesterday I arrived home and found that they’d come and filled the tank again (I signed up for automatic delivery so I don’t almost run the tank dry again). And even though it was a little under 100 gallons thankfully, the price was up to 2.90 something. More Doom!


The carnage (so far):
12/12 – $557.06
1/6 - $274.95
Total: 832.01


I predict things will be getting a bit worse before they get better on this front.

Witty T-shirts make me smile.

Stumbled across these gem's today:

Most awesome ever?

Reading into the future.

I fell off the bandwagon for quite a while again. Oops.

So without further ado back into the randomness that is my brain:

In 2009 I decided that I wanted to read at least 1 book a week. For a while it was really easy. Then it got more difficult. I latched onto a boyfriend and gee-wiz all of my free time was gone.

But I still did it. Mostly because I got ahead of schedule early on and cheated by counting audio books (it's a very different experience but my primary goal was to acquire the knowledge of a story so it didn't matter through what means to me).

Currently I stand at 53 books. I anticipate finishing 2 more before the end of the year. Yay me.

But now as I stand on the cusp of the year looking into 2010 I'm having difficulties deciding what to read. For a normal person this would seem a very strange thing. But I am odd and here's my situation:

In November a new book was published that I have been waiting for years for. It's the first part of the last book of the Wheel of Time series. The whole story of the series is a long one so to try and be concise: Really long books, really long series, author died a few years ago (when I heard the news I actually yelled "no!" in desperation), series being completed by someone else.

I was thinking I would re-read the books before consuming the new awesomeness. However it's a huge undertaking: think over 10,000 pages. So that's why I didn't include it in the 2009 book a week deal (even I know 800 pages in a week is a bit much).

So in the meantime I've gotten very good about finding books that look interesting and adding them to my "to read" list on the website Goodreads. And well if I read through all of the Wheel of Time I don't get to read the other new stuff. As a general rule I don't re-read (or re-watch etc.). I always go for something new.

This is quite the conundrum. I'm thinking maybe I'll alternate. One WoT, one new book. I kinda doubt that I'll make it to the new book in a year (especially since the boy is still in the picture and well I kinda have a life - weird), but one can't have everything.

Plus it's entirely possible that if I'm too slow the next book (part 2 of "book 12" the final book) will be out. Or if I'm really really slow the 'final' (I kinda almost don't believe them) book will be released.

Choices...choices...

We just had to forgive ourselves.

In the past couple of years I’ve occasionally been hit with things that make me realize that I am growing up. At first they were more passive: friends being engaged, married even, myself buying ‘adult’ things like a bed, and generally paying for all of the things that one takes for granted as a youth.

Lately may things have been happening lately that make me realize much more actively that I myself am becoming an adult. I’ve found my own apartment, procured furniture (albeit mostly donated by the family), trying to budget my own utilities (it’ll be a while before I really know), and I’ve met a guy I could actually picture spending the rest of my life with (not to get ahead of anything however).

It’s crazy and hard to believe sometimes. But then in some ways it is also exciting I suppose.

"Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up."

Open my closet.

So I am currently displaced. I have no home. It’s de-friggin-lightful.

On Saturday when I was packing my suitcase I put together 5 outfits for work. It’s a slightly tricky kind of year because it’s just now starting to get cold. But even knowing it wasn’t a very smart idea I went and put together mostly a selection of not so terribly warm outfits.

Inevitably one of the many many many downfalls of women’s fashion is that it does not work particularly well in conjunction with staying warm. As someone who is always cold, this stinks.

When I was packing I also did not realize that I’d left my fall-appropriate jacket at home at my parents house. Ouch. And so on Sunday I went back into my temporary storage facility (old neighbor’s garage) and pulled out another sweater and fleece.

This morning it was on the chilly side so I went with a nice layered (all-be-it ¾ length sleeved) outfit. I’m slightly concerned it’ll just get colder in the week and then I’ll wish I’d waited, but so it goes. Then I also put on my fleece as a jacket type thing.

When I arrived at work it was, as always, cold. So I just left the fleece on. And of course turned on my space heater.

Around 10:30 I went to the bathroom and realized the fleece was still on. So returning to my desk I removed the layer. Life was much more sad.

It’s amazing how much more comfy work would be if I could wear absolutely whatever I wanted.


“If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.”

Too much of a good thing.

8/20: Send message in response to a guy’s online post.
8/21-8/30: Many long emails.
8/24: Exchange phone numbers.
8/24-present: Many text messages.
8/30(? ): First AIM conversation.
8/31-present: Many AIM conversations typically running quite late (who needs sleep?).
9/7ish: Schedule date for Hershey park on 9/12.
9/8: First brief phone call in-between house hunting.
9/8-9/9: Schedule date for 9/11.
9/11 afternoon: Scrap Hershey park for free tickets to the Baltimore Symphony opening night concert gala plus bus trip.
9/11 evening: 1st date. Appleby’s, Ice Cream, Bowling.
9/12: Free trip to Baltimore, dinner at Cheesecake Factory, hear Lang Lang. Best Date Ever.
9/17: Spontaneous “3rd Date”.
9/18: Made dinner at ‘home’ and Harry Potter in iMax.
9/19: Ridiculously gorgeous weather for Hershey Park.
9/26: Lunch and then he helped pack and move all of my stuff to the neighbor’s garage.
9/26 evening: Officially apply boyfriend/girlfriend titles.
9/27: Early evening walk in the park and dinner after.

"Too much of a good thing is never enough"

Relief and deathly fear.

Yesterday in the comments of one of the blogs I read (Indexed) I found this gem:

"Is there a word for the mixture of smugness, relief and deathly fear of losing jobs that those of us who got into employment in 2007 feel?"

Oh heavens too true.

Anchors away my boys, Anchors away

Jo is joining the Navy.

This is 100% uncool.

Firstly: I need a new place to live. Gah

Secondly: She's my only friend in Harrisburg.

I hate change.

Starting Christmas Presents

I've started knitting my first Christmas present!

Yup, I intend to be prepared this year (finally). And so I've started this scarf using my very own handspun alpaca:

 

The problem is I have approximately 122 yards of the yarn. And I'm pretty sure that it's going to take over 700. *sigh* 

 

The color is not great but it's a view of the back side and my progress so far (about 5 days of occasional work).

By the glare of life.

I finally did another decent ride this past weekend. It’s quite sad but I’ve been suffering from severe lack of motivation and drive this summer. And cycling is one of those things that has been dramatically affected.

A good bit of it has to do with the fact that I’m completely on my own now really for any rides. Every time I ask Jo if she wants to do a ride, be it around town or a sponsored ride, it’s not worked out. Really quite a bummer.

However one of my father’s co-workers, who happens to be close to my own age, has taken up biking. And so she was kind enough to invite me to a ride earlier this summer and then to a second ride which was this weekend.

It was a metric century. So 100KM, or 62 miles. When I signed up for the ride I figured that I had plenty of time to go riding more and get back in shape. This never really happened. A week before the ride I was fairly desperate and pushed myself on two good rides totaling 50 miles. And then I started to feel more and more off. By Thursday I was downright sick. Go figure. Luckily really only hit me that one day and so despite large quantities of gunk in my head and trepidation about my ability to survive the course, I went anyways.

This ride is not a fundraising one in that I had to ask people for money, yay, but it is a fundraiser for the group because they get so many riders. It was rather crazy. Like traffic jam off of the highway to get to the event. That and I got up at like 5am to make it in time. And then waited for my riding buddies to show up.

We left the start at about 8:30. The weather was nice but promised to get hot. Which it did. It was ridiculously hot by the end. And the route is such that there’s barely any shade. It wasn’t particularly bad when we were moving. But when you stopped at a rest stop you felt completely encased in heat and could just feel the sweat building.

 

 This is actually from a previous ride, but same people and same area!

This was not so good for me with my complexion. I think because I pretty much never go outside during the day and especially not for long periods of time I half forgot how evil the sun is. Although I did have a little travel size one with me that I put some on my nose and back of neck and such at some rest stops. But I think the sun is just too evil because my nose is still a bit red. Then I also got burn in a few places where I either missed or didn't reapply enough like the side of my neck, thin bands on either side of my watch, and bands just below the shorts line. If I tanned I would most certainly have a distinct bike tan. Very annoying.

Stand out moments from the ride for me include: Sometime around mile 6 I think I must have zoned out going down a hill. But I was doing probably 20+ miles and I went off the road…oops. Somehow I managed to just continue down the hill on the field/rocks for probably 100 yards or so and then regained the hill. Whoa.

Also it is notable that I was mildly sick. Got some kind of a cold or allergies or something. It was at it's worst on Thursday when I actually left work early and slept. But I was blowing my nose through the ride. Maybe that's why my nose still burnt. And anyways I had just blown my nose (while riding, no easy feat) when I was informed that bee had flown into my pocket. This was a bit disconcerting because I didn’t want to be stung through my shirt (is that even possible). So after a bit of jiggling around I was informed that the bee was out of the pocket and then it proceeded to crawl around my back up near my shoulder then under my arm etc. And all of this narrated by my fellow bikers being as I have no way while riding of turning and seeing my own back. It was amusing.

It was 62 miles and I came in strong. I felt like I could have done more. And yet it's rather odd because I do still in my mind think it was a good ride, and yet when I think about it all of these painful things come to mind...ah well.


“He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburnt by the glare of life.”