Monday, January 4, 2010

The shawl is growing....I didn't think I was getting very far- I only did three repeats at Job #2 on Saturday, and another repeat last night - but then I compared the pictures, and it's quite a bit bigger. It's about 24 inches wide.
I think I'm going to knit to 30 inches, then look for another stitch pattern.
I only have one skein of this (400 yards) - so it is going to be a shawlette. But I made Travelling Woman in my Fluffy Cat with one extra repeat, and I still had a fair bit left, so it will be interesting to see just how big I can make this one.

In other news - I realized I hadn't yet blogged about my resolutions. That's not a huge deal, but my thinking was if I said them out loud to all of you - it my help me keep them. Yeah, it's a slim chance, but a girl can dream can't she?

1) Get healthier - yeah, I made this resolution last year and failed miserably. In fact, I got LESS healthy. But the fact that the scale is creeping up on 200 lbs, and none of my pants fit (and to get knew ones means I have to officially go shop in the Plus section) has lit a little fire under my butt.
Let's hope I can keep that flame going. I've got my bike, I'm walking on my lunch, and I went to the grocery store today and the only "junk" I brought home was a box of Lucky Charms. (I have grown up cereal too, but every so often I like a little bowl of "fun") In fact, the only other "junk" I have in the house is some microwave popcorn and the massive 2 ft Toblerone Dave gave me for Christmas - it's going to take a while to get through that one.

2) Eat better - this is obviously tied in with above, but this also encompasses all the "prepared" foods I eat. I really like the idea of clean eating, but I'm not crazy enough to try it - I know I'd never last. But I do want to reduce the amount of prepared, processed food I eat - less fish sticks, chicken fingers, meat pies etc. It means being proactive and taking stuff out of the freezer before I leave for work, but I want to try to get as much fresh food in my diet as possible.

3) Get my sorry butt out of debt - I want to make a serious effort to get myself out of debt. While I have a really good feeling about this year (I have a feeling something BIG is just around the corner) I also work in a volatile industry (newspapers) and, while here in Canada, we didn't get hit as hard by the recession as our American friends, I also feel that the worst is yet to come. I want to be ready when it does - and if I'm wrong, well then I've just made my life a little more comfortable and I can finally start saving.

4) Knit from the stash - This is a large part of above. My stash grew considerably over the last year - and it's where most of my expendable and not-so-expendable income went. I have three shipments of yarn coming - some Debbie Bliss Stella, some Debbie Bliss Cathay and some Angora/Alpaca, but other than that - I will not be adding to my stash unless I need it for a specific project (like Dave's fingerless gloves). I am however making a one day exception for Julie's tent sale in the summer - that's just too good an opportunity to miss!

So, in the spirit of keeping those resolutions, I'm going to go hope on my bike for 3o minutes, eat a healthy snack and getting knitting!

8 comments:

Samantha said...

The shawl looks great!! I really love that colour. :) Good on ya for the resolutions. I have a couple this year, but nothing major. The biggest one is to stick with my exercise program and lose that last ten pounds. Another one is a continuance of last year -- I'm not knitting anything I don't choose to knit. :) Go me!

Anonymous said...

Steve and I are definitely trying to eat less processed food. We certainly feel better when we don't eat so much junk.

Good luck with your resolutions.

lexa said...

I told my boys that after Christmas I was cutting back on the amount of junk food in the house. (But one has a birthday this week, the other next week, so there will be two cakes to eat!) I want to lose weight, too. I know I'm at least 50lbs heavier than I was a month after having the Littlest One. (I was so happy then -- two weeks after I had him I could wear some of my pre-pregnant jeans! I treadmilled three times a day and watched everything I ate....) My BF might be coming home from Alberta in Feb/March, and she's a skinny little runt who can eat anything. Grrr!

I don't have much in my stash besides sock yarn. I do have some yarn to make a couple of sweaters. This year I want to knit more for the kids and Hubs. I also want to knit two shawls and a couple of sweaters, and I MUST finish my mother's afghan that was started in 2008!!

We were doing excellent with our debts and bills til the accident happened. I actually saw light at the end of the tunnel that I haven't seen in a looonnngggg time. However, he'll get money from the insurance company for lost wages and such, it just may be a little bit before we get it.

Knitting Linguist said...

Good for you! Those sound a lot like my resolutions -- I finally got the exercising thing down last year, so now I need to work more on the eating. One thing that helped me once upon a time when I was really doing well was a farm share; I don't know if they have them there, or if it's something of interest, but it certainly expanded my vegetable repertoire! Welcome to the new year :)

sheep#100 said...

Our parish priest did a good homily on New Year's regarding resolutions. He said, "don't say 'I'll get healthier', that's when resolutions fail. Instead, say, 'I am going to ride my bike three days a week for 20 minutes a session.'"

This is classic behavior modification, by the way. (Friend in psych field taught a class in it last semester - learned lots by osmosis.) Make your goals measurable and observable.

You are on the way! You are walking at lunch - write that down somewhere - put it in a spreadsheet - track your progress: it is very motivating.

We reduced the amount of preprepared food in our diet to nearly nil. Number Guy and Neatnik do eat commercial cereal for breakfast and she likes yogurt for lunches/snacks, but almost everything else we eat is made from scratch. This is a biggie - you never know what calories/carbohydrates are hidden inside factory foods.

Sorry this is such a long comment and I hope you are not offended. I've been where you are (honestly and truly I have) and I know how tough it is to leave there.

Consider me a shoulder to cry on when the cravings get tough, okay?

Rhonda said...

I guess if you can knit from the stash so can I.
bhwaahahahaha

Susan said...

Those are really good resolutions, ones that I think you can actually keep. I always do ridiculous ones. And I love the shawl, it's turning out so pretty.

Bea said...

The shawl looks great. Love that color. Good luck on your resolutions. I've found that the knitting from the stash is surprisingly not that hard. I'm working my way through mine and loving it.