It's been over a month...sorry...

I guess I've been busy. We're leaving to go to Virginia tomorrow to spend a week with my parents. DS is there already and is pretty homesick. I can't wait to see him and give him a big hug. The weight loss thing has gone totally out the window. I can't seem to stick with any plan.

DH and I bought swimsuits yesterday and I was mortified of how I looked and that was in basically a tank top and shorts. I'm going to talk to my mom while I'm home and see if I can get some pointers. I've joined a cal on Crochetville that has you put all your WIPs on their own index card and then pick one to work on for the day.

You have to get at least one row or round done before you can spin the wheel and move on to the next one. I was a little shocked to find out I had 29 WIPs. Actually, I think it's 30 now since I went out and bought the yarn for 2 more seraphinas. My project for today is to start my winter seraphina.

I got some lovely merino wool from the LYS in a dark pink, burgundy variegated colorway. I just know it's going to work up beautifully. I can't wait to get started but I have other things to take of first (like packing for the trip and other chores to be done before I leave).

I also have some work to do before I can play but what better motivation to get it done and out of the way, right?

Weight management

I just wanted to update my weight management progress. I don't own a scale that works so I don't know what my weight is but I've been doing fairly well falling under my calorie limit for the day.

Here's what I'm doing: I can have 1500 calories a day and that can be supplemented by activity calories and flex calories. The activity calories are based on what my pedometer says I've burned for the day and the flex calories are 1500 extra calories that renew each week that I can use however and whenever I want.

This has been working except when I see that I have a lot of extra unused calories at the end of the day, I am tempted to have a high calorie item just to "use them up". I thinking about banking them somehow so I will be encouraged to save them instead.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to do this yet but I'm thinking about reducing the number of weekly flex calories and letting my unused calories flow into that bank. We'll see how it goes.

Mike's surgery, my diet, etc

Mike had his surgery today and everything seemed to go well. The doctor said he removed 2 large bone spurs and cleaned out a lot of arthritis and inflammation. He's hoping that will reduce Mike's pain and give him a better range of motion. My diet has been kinda on again/off again here lately. I'm getting to where I really have to force myself to write in my food log.

It's getting to be a pain and I'm starting to come up with reasons not to do it. I've decided to take more of a weight watchers approach. I'm going to shoot for 1500 calories a day, I'm giving myself 1500 anytime calories (I can use these throughout the week as needed) and then for every 2000 steps I walk I get 100 activity calories.

Does that make sense? It's actually going to create a little more bookkeeping work for me but we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to eat more fruits and vegetables because they are "free". At the weight management class I took last year, the dietician told us she'd never heard of anyone getting fat off fruits and vegetables so we could eat all of those we wanted.

My Baby Birds continue to surprise and the Redskins had an interesting draft. I was proud of them for not trading away a single draft pick. We don't need Chad Johnson! I'm still working on William's Spiderman round ripple. I also started a Seraphina shawl a couple of weeks ago.

I'm using random yarn from my stash and am just making sure I'm comfortable with and understand the pattern. Then I'm going to go to my LYS and buy some yummy yarn to make a really nice seraphina with. We also drew for our little secret pals last Sunday. I was excited to draw the name of a precious 4-yr old little girl.

I've already found a pattern of a crochet doll to make for her. I want to make a small seraphina shawl for the doll and a matching one for the little girl. This will have to be part of the last gift because it will take me awhile with my schedule to get these done. I've finished my coffee and need to get up and do some housework since I'm home today.

My parents will be here before I know it and the house is still a wreck. Did I mention I won a Jimbo hook? It is beautiful and so smooth. I love it!!

It's been a week

It's actually been quite a week. I had to take my daughter to the doctor because she wrecked on my son's dirtbike (she's going to be ok). Work was rough (don't even want to go there) and the yesterday I had to pick my son up from school early because he was sick (feeling much better today). To update...first my Baby Birds...we spanked the yankees last night 8-2. That 7 run inning sure was sweet. I just love Dave Trembley and I hope they re-sign him to a nice long contract.

We need his kind of enthusiasm and knowledge of the game if we're going to get where we're going especially with the young 'uns we've got playing for us. I was watching Nick Markakis and Adam Jones run off the field together last night and I told my husband "There goes our future right there." His response was "what?" (He doesn't pay any attention to baseball.) Our future is definitely bright with those two to build around. Now if they'll just keep BRob.

I've also completed my food log for the week and have set my goals for the coming week. My calorie goal is 2100 and my step goal is 6400 per day. I didn't realize how many calories I was putting away in a day. No wonder I'm gaining 20 lbs a year. I'm going to see if I can't slowly bring that number down. Did I mention I got one of Jimbo's chophooks and I also won one of his hooks off his auction this week? I can't wait to get it. I'll use it to work on my son's Spiderman rr. I'm using the chophook to start a Seraphina shawl. Something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

This is going to be a practice shawl made from scrap yarn from my stash. I figure this way I can learn the pattern and then find some really nice yarn to make another Seraphina shawl.

My son wants to learn to crochet!!!

I got so excited tonight when my 10 year old son asked if I'd teach him to crochet. I've been working on a Spiderman rr for him and I had been working on it while waiting for church to start. I put it up once church started but he pulled it back out. I thought he just wanted to look at it and see what I'd done but then he got my hook out and put it in the loop and started trying to "crochet". He whispered and asked if he could crochet and I told him to go ahead thinking he was just playing but then he asked me to show him how.

That's too much to talk about in church but I told him I'd let him pick some yarn out of my stash when we got home and I'd teach him. So now he's got his yarn picked out and I'm going to start working with him tomorrow. He gets easily frustrated when something he thinks is going to be easy turns out to be harder than he thought so I hope he doesn't give up when the yarn doesn't flow right through his fingers like it does mine.

He wants to make an afghan and asked me before he went to bed how to change colors. I told him to let me teach him some basic stitches first and after he practices on something small we might could try a simple afghan pattern. This may go nowhere but at least for tonight, I'm a proud momma.

My poor Baby Birds, UVa spring game

After getting off to a hot start and a 6 game winning streak, my Baby Birds have lost 3 in a row. It's a scary throwback to what happened last year. Daniel Cabrera pitches tonight and he's supposedly been working on something new that will be a surprise. Whatever it is, I hope it results in him throwing more strikes and issuing fewer walks.

UVa is playing their spring game today. So far it sounds like they are focusing on the passing game. Presumed starting QB Peter Lalich has thrown 3 interceptions so far. We've got a lot of work to do before we open with USC this fall.

The time has come...

for me to try (again) to lose weight. I went to the doctor yesterday and I knew he would fuss about my weight but I wasn't expecting the talking to I got. He spent quite a bit of time talking to me about it and when I was checking out, I heard other patients complaining, wanting to know why they were having to wait so long. He asked me to promise him to do something about my weight and I promised that I would try and I am bound as a Christian to keep my promises.

So, here is my plan. I took a weight management course last summer and learned a lot of things I never put into practice. I hate measuring my food and keeping a food log but like my doctor told me, I don't need a diet, I need a lifestyle change. That's how I'm going to have to look at this, as a lifestyle change. I hoping that after doing this for awhile some of it will become second nature and won't require as much thought.

My doctor recommended Weight Watchers but I can't afford the montly payments so I am going to go with what I learned last summer. I am going to keep a food log for a week and continue to eat as I normally would. At the end of the week, I'm going to see how my calories I consume a day on average. I'm then going to subtract 100 from that number and that will be my goal calories per day for the next week.

I'll continue averaging my weekly calories and subtracting 100 until I get down to the recommended amount of calories for my height and age. It will be a gradual that hopefully won't be hard to do. That was the lesson from the weight management class and what my doctor told me yesterday. I need to make small changes that I can live with and not feel deprived. That's what's always killed me in the past, the more I tell myself I can't have the Reeses Cup, the more I want it.

I'm also going to try to drink more water. I bought a water bottle that I can take to work and keep on my desk. If I can just keep it full, I will sip on it all day. The other thing is exercise. I used to go to the gym regularly and loved it. I don't have time to spend 30 minutes to an hour in the gym anymore so I'm going to do the same thing with my steps that I'm doing with my calories only going the other direction.

I'm going to track and average up the number of steps I take in a week and then add 100 and make that my goal. Hopefully, I can find a way to get up to the recommended 10,000 steps a day. I'm going to try to post my progress and thoughts on this blog as a way to keep myself motivated. Hopefully, by putting my struggles into words, I can work through them instead of letting them get the best of me.