Ten Things

I was inspired by the openness and honesty of this photo and meme posted by Sharon; and you know what they say about imitation and flattery...

Photo credit goes to my munchkins (who would never say it's weird that mommy wants pictures of herself all sweaty after a run)

I've parted ways with 18 pounds since this time last year. Yay!

1. I dream almost every night; more nightmares than I'd like, but also some very revealing scenarios.

2. In the last 10 years, I have given up 3 of my very favorite things for the sake of better health - dairy (except butter), chocolate, and wine. It still stings a little, but they are slowly being replaced by an addiction to daily exercise.

3. I worry constantly about being a good mother. Mine is awesome, and she set a high standard.

4. I'm becoming less sociable as I get older, and I'm OK with that. Some of you reading this are saying "Um...yeah, right."

5. I have 2 herniated discs. Most of the time I pretend that I don't so that I can continue doing what I want to do, not what my body tries to tell me I should be doing.

6. Good music with a strong bass line makes me ridiculously cheerful.

7. I'm convinced I married the only man on earth patient enough to put up with me. I feed him well though, and I think that's a fair trade.

8. I knit.

9. I believe I have experienced what is known as a "Runner's High". I want more.

10. I spend oodles of my downtime hours lurking on Facebook, Ravelry, and Flickr. These are easily my favorite online hangouts, and I don't think this will change anytime soon.

A Day at The Fair

New Habits

I'm going to use this space to start documenting the new habits I've been developing latetly. That way when I forget my productive path, I can look back here and remind myself that sometimes I have great ideas and they pan out well, and they work for the greater good.

Recent New Habit - Project Packs

I've started using my umpteen hours on Ravelry for more of the organizational benefit for which I originally signed up. I can spend hours on that site browsing patterns, people's projects, and the forums. Unfortunately, that doesn't directly increase the amount of actual knitting that I get done - go figure! I'm not making any commitments to stop being a Ravelry junkie, but I am trying to spend a bit of time each visit doing something that does contribute toward my larger goals. One of those goals is to pair patterns and projects more often, and plan ahead for things to knit. This is meant to accomplish 2 things primarily - (1) use my stash since I have gone Cold Sheep this year, and (2) reduce the amount of pattern hunting and replace it with more pattern making. Enter Project Packs...

The filtering feature in Ravelry's project pages that allows me to see the yarns that are already in my stash and have been used for a project is GENIUS. It's like most of the thinking has been done. All that's left is for me to make a nice crisp copy of the pattern and put it in a Ziploc Bag with the selected yarn. When I finish a project, or when startitis hits, these are like ready-made solution kits! Don't get me started on how this has re-shaped my thinking about the many "one ball wonders" I own - OY!

Now...I don't want to become an environmental hazard with too many print outs and plastic either , so I'm doing something similar electronically. When I find a project on Ravelry and see some good options in my stash for making it, I will use my stash page to store links in the Yarn's notes section under "Project Ideas". In this format, when I'm browsing my stash online (and I do that alot now, it's like virtual shopping without any effort or additional expense), I can see what I had in mind for many of the yarns; the potential is intoxicating!