Category Archives: exercise

Walking it off

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My Fitbit* Flex is a few years old and was a great motivator to get up and walk. (This model is no longer available.)

After I retired (and had a change in some medication – meaning I had to change to a not-so-great insurance plan), I gained 20 pounds.  Happy?  Not in the least.

Anyway, I’ve been doing these “Workweek Hustle” events with some other Fitbit users.

These have really helped me get out of my favorite knitting chair and move.  I only know one of the people in this group but that really didn’t matter.  What did matter was that I was motivated again to do something about the extra pounds.

And last week I won! 

Big time won!  Personal best week!!

I just need to keep walking to reach my goal of losing ten pounds by July 4th.  The only downside to this fabulousness is not much knitting.  I haven’t figured out how to walk and knit at the same time without doing any damage to the knitting or myself.

*Not a paid product review.  Just my story and my own personally purchased Fitbit.

 

Welcome 2017

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Everyone else is jumping on the New Year’s bandwagon, so why not join them?

2016 included more travel than I’ve done in any other year, home improvements, lots of sewing and knitting and many, many other things not blogged about.

2017 will be the year to finally get my house organized and updated with new carpeting (hopefully), paint rooms that have not seen a paintbrush since we first painted twenty-plus years ago, travel, revamp the staircase, and knit and sew more for others.

Also on the list is to reupholster six, count ’em six, chairs…four of which will go to Colorado.

I want to pick up my calligraphy pen again and make cards and envelopes exciting again.

And travel.

On a personal note I will work toward becoming more positive and less negative, clean up my vocabulary/mouth, give more of myself to others, exercise more, eat less and get rid of 40 pounds of fat.

What are your hopes and dreams for the 365 days?

Mind games

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A coupe of days ago I posted about turning my clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Savings Time earlier in the day.  I actually did this around 11:00 a.m.  Did it work?  Not really.

mind game op

It was me.  I kept reminding myself that it was an hour earlier than it really was.

So much for that mind game.

I didn’t go to the market Sunday morning after Mass as we didn’t really need anything.  I got my knitting out and promptly fell asleep for about an hour.

After our carb-heavy pancake lunch, I washed the griddle (too big for the dishwasher) and checked my email and played on my iPad.  And fell asleep.  Again.

Getting a good nights sleep Sunday night was out of the question.

So yesterday instead of playing another mind game, I played a body game.  Mr. Aitch wasn’t home last evening and I was restless.  I went outside and raked leaves from part of the yard, picked up fallen branches and twigs, spread the clumped up flowerpot soil I dumped out last fall, put back part of the collapsed rock wall around the raised beds in the front of the house, straightened the solar lights around the raised beds, and evaluated what else needed to be done.

raking_leaves

I went to bed at 10:15 last night, fell right to sleep and woke up 10 minutes before the alarm went off.

The wear-out-the-body game worked.  I sit all day at work and I don’t get much exercise.  I need to change that and do something every day. It’s supposed to get to 60 degrees toady so I plan to work outside again.

 

Felt

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There are a few definitions for the word “felt” and I’m going to talk about a couple of them today.

Mr. Aitch and our daughter have strep throat.  Mr. Aitch was at her house last week so they probably were exposed to it at the same time.  They felt pretty badly on Monday and Tuesday but feel better today after taking the right medication.

A couple of years ago I tried my hand at making felt Christmas ornaments.  I ran out of time.  Thinking about doing something is not the same as actually doing it.

So I am reviving that project.

felt-1

I have a few shapes cut out already.  Now comes the embellishing part.  I printed out some of my Pinterest pins from my Felt board for inspiration.  (You may need to join Pinterest (for free) to see that.)

pins

Sorry for the poor quality in these photos.  I was in a hurry and the lighting wasn’t good.  Plus all I had was my iPad camera.  Excuses, excuses.

I’m also working on my original  felted  CCM hat.

hat-1

I still wear it with only the one partial paisley embroidered on it.  It’s very warm.  And I love it with or without the paisley.

hat-2

I knit another one last spring and have not felted it yet.  The yarn sheds.  And I mean S.H.E.D.S.  I was afraid to felt the hat in the washing machine as I didn’t want to plug up the hose so I used a new plunger and bucket of hot water to felt the first hat.  It was quite the workout!!  It was too hot this summer to engage in that activity so I waited until it got cooler.

hats

What’s stopping me from felting this new hat?

I just haven’t felt like it.