Patience

Gardening

I spend an awful lot of time outside looking at my little garden and cheering on the plants. Despite a spell of good weather a week ago, it took longer than I expected for the peas, spinach, and lettuce to sprout. But lo, a pea shoot:

The plants from Sky Nursery are generally doing pretty well. I'm a little concerned by the yellowing of the Chinese Cabbage (background), but the broccoli (foreground) looks good.


There's still no signs of potato sprouts. I think I may have planted them too soon, or too deep, or too something. We've had a good bit of rain, and it's supposed to warm up this weekend. If they don't start sprouting, I'll do a little excavation to see if they rotted.

Excercise

I've started another long-term project...again. I've once again embarked on the couch potato to 5K plan. I tried it last year, then I tried jogging again last fall, in a less structured way. Starting didn't hurt nearly so much this time around. Either I have a tiny bit of lingering fitness from the last bout of running, or I've finally learned to jog slow enough to not kill myself.

Finished things

My friend Kristin is having a baby girl, which gave me an excuse to do some really girly knitting and sewing. I made a sweater

and a matching outfit.

And a quilt covered in ribbons.


Unfinished things
Remember how I said I was going to finish all those unfinished sweaters this year? I worked very diligently on Trent's fisherman sweater for awhile, almost finishing one sleeve. Then he tried it on, and the sleeve is too big. Not too long - too big around. So I'm going to have to rip the whole thing out and reknit it, starting with fewer stitches (I have a plan for that) and decreasing more rapidly. I could cry. Consequently, I've been knitting other things. Hopefully I'll make it back to the unfinished sweaters at some point.

R.I.P.

A Tragic Demise
Dear friends, we're gathered together today to mourn the passing of Melinda's first pair of hand knit socks. Let's have a moment of silence.

The socks gave 5 years of noble service in the face of machine washing (and sometimes drying) and being stuffed into an assortment of boots, shoes, and clogs. While the Koigu remained colorful to the last, it finally succumbed to wear and tear. The socks asked that they be allowed to pass peacefully, with no extraordinary darning measures taken.

Farewell, pink socks.

Still Running
I have no idea how or why, really. I'm now on my third week, except that I'm still doing the first week of the couch potato program because, well, I'm pathetic. Today I managed to time it so that I was out running during the heavy late morning snowfall. The snow promptly melted off, so I didn't really get the fun Abominable Jogger effect that I was hoping for when I came home. Well, I was abominable in the since of sucking at jogging, but not in the snow covered way.

I'm going to try to advance to week 2 of the program on my next run, in large part because I'm sick of the music on the first podcast.

And a final note
I'm with Rudy on appropriate behavior in late January.

moar funny pictures

Sad lack of pictures

We had a busy weekend, but I have no photographic evidence. Saturday morning I did manage to motivate myself to do my third run of the week. (Special note to concerned friends and family: yes, I am wearing supportive undergarments, and yes, I am being very careful to avoid the ice.) Saturday afternoon Nancy and I went to Ballard and visited the Quilting Loft (a bit of fabric was purchased). Saturday night we met up with friends and went to Mesob for Ethiopian food. It was very, very yummy, and I ate too much. Sunday we went to Accordi-o-Rama at Town Hall. It was pretty darn cool. Accordion players, by and large, don't take themselves too seriously, and the show ended with a polka band, so what's not to love?

This morning I hauled myself out of bed in time to go for my morning waddle. I'm repeating week 1, on the grounds that I'm pathetic. It was really damn cold this morning. Ouch.

I've got lots of projects in progress at the moment, but most are in an unphotographable state, and the camera's batteries are dead besides. Crap. Maybe later.

Running is still hard.

I actually hauled myself out of bed this morning and out to do my couch potato "run" before work. Observations:

• I vaguely feel that I've been invaded by a body snatcher. Who is this person getting up early to do something healthy? And where's my chocolate?
• Dodging icy patches leftover from our wee little snowfall on Monday night added an extra bit of fun.
• I hope I'm serving as an object lesson to the kids in that elementary school I trundle past. Kids, go out and play and exercise so you don't turn into that slow, pudgy lady.
• I felt a tiny bit better today at the end than I did on Monday. Perhaps I just went slower in the running intervals, but I'll take it.

Another bag, and a news flash from Obvious Man

Bag
I finished another messenger bag (I've lost count - #8? #9?), this time a rather late Christmas gift for Avril.

I had some help when I was cutting out the lining.

Running is hard.
Okay, this is probably Obvious Man territory, but wow, running is much harder than walking. In a spell of ambition combined with a little self-loathing, I decided I'd like to start running, and I decided to use the famous Couch Potato to 5K program, facilitated by the spiffy podcasts from Robert Ullrey. (Thanks to Rachel at Yarn-A-G0-Go for mentioning the podcasts.)

I don't exactly consider myself a couch potato. Yes, there's definitely a spuddish shape to me, but I do walk, sometimes for miles up and down hills. I can walk long enough to wear out Stella, so that seems reasonably fit to me. The first week of the program has you do 8 repeats of 60 seconds running/90 seconds walking. That didn't sound at all unreasonable.

Wow. I picked the flattest route available in my neighborhood. Maybe I just need to learn to jog slower, or maybe I'm more potatoey than I realized. Ouch. At the 6th jogging interval, Robert's podcast says something like "You should be feeling your work out, but you shouldn't be out of breath." Umm, okay, sure thing. I can breathe. This gasping is just like breathing.

It may take me more than the program's 9 weeks to get up to 5K. If you see a slow moving, gasping potato in your neighborhood, that's me.

ETA: I checked with the gmap pedometer, and I did manage to cover 2.2 miles in my 30 gasping minutes of walking and jogging (that includes the warm up and cool down), so I guess that's not too shameful.