A week from tomorrow...

Redskins
Can you believe it??? It's almost here!!! Football season!!! I didn't think we'd ever make it back and so much has happened in the offseason. We have a new head coach, a new defensive coordinator and a new offensive coordinator. Thankfully we didn't make any big free agency splash although we traded this week for Jason Taylor after Philip Daniels went down with a torn ACL and is out for the season. Getting JT seems to have energized the team and the fans. I'm anxiously awaiting the ES write up of today's scrimmage.

Crochet
My current crochet project is a name filet I'm working on for my now ex-manager. She was a wonderful manager, probably the best I've ever had. I'm really going to miss her and it scares me to think who they may get to replace her. I'm working on the solid border, then have to add the fan border and I'll be done. I'm ready to be done too. I want to work on something else. I bought some I Love This Cotton yarn at HL yesterday. It is so soft!! It must be new because I have not seen or heard of it before. I bought 2 skeins each of aubergine, buttercup and white. I'm thinking seraphina.

Orioles
My baby birds aren't doing so well right now. We've lost 4 straight. We're playing the angels right now who have the best record in baseball, then go to play the yankees who are doing their second half surge thing, then out to the west coast to play the angels again. This is going to be a rough stretch that's going to test DT and the team like never before. Our starting pitching is in shambles and there's no one in the minors ready to come up and play. One positive though is our offense. We're hitting like nobody's business and that's good to see and keeps us within stiking distance in most of our games.

What I'm reading
I just finished Odd Thomas for the second time and it was just as good and just as sad. I have started Forever Odd (also for the second time) but am only on the first chapter. I'm rereading the Odd Thomas series so everything will be fresh in my mind when I finally get to read Odd Hours. Then I want to read the Christopher Snow books as I hear his hat is worn by Odd in Odd Hours. So many books, so little time....

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.