Attention Deficit Knitter

A son in college and life goes on

Wow.  We moved the older son off to college yesterday, and I'm kind of exhausted.  Woke up at 3:00 a.m. because we were nervous and anxious and afraid of oversleeping.  Finished packing the cars and headed out for Auburn at 5:45.  I rode down with Will, thinking all the time that this was my last chance to give profound motherly advice!

It rained.  We negotiated the major college dorm move-in procedures without mishap.  Handled the incomprehensible parking procedures like educated people.  You know, a university that maintains its own fleet of tow trucks is not messing around, I'm just saying.  But we got it done, and managed to change a tiny, prison-like cell into a rather cute and livable dorm room.  Although I did have a few tears when we said good-bye, we left him smiling and excited and happily making plans for his first evening at college.

In other news, I've lost ten pounds.  But more importantly, I ate really well this week.  I only had one day when I felt the urge to "graze" and I ate no artificial sweeteners or HFCS, and only a couple of slices of white bread.  I ate a LOT of fresh fruits and vegetables.  The organic blueberries I found at Target of all places were huge and sweet and delicious.  I've rediscovered kiwi.

Also, I'm starting to find solutions to my problem of not liking whole grain foods.  It's a slow process of reading ingredients and trying things out.  I had one success and one fail this week.  I found a cereal that is a nice, crunchy, clustery mix of a bunch of grains and honey and cinnamon.  It's good, even dry without milk.  And it takes a long time to chew, so I'll bet it takes a long time to digest.

The fail was a package of "whole grain" crackers that looked wonderful, all seedy and grainy and brown.  I thought I read the ingredients carefully and didn't see anything bad in there.  When I ate some, I was surprised at how good they were.  With a little cheddar cheese, they were yummy.  Then I read the ingredients again, and saw that they have "corn syrup" in them.  Why, people?  I'm sad about this, because they went to so much trouble to make something really healthy, and then they blew it.

This week is a busy one, which is probably a good thing.  Monday and Tuesday night I teach seminars for volunteer parents who will be helping out on band trips.  ("How to Travel with 250 Teenagers Without Losing Your Mind").  Later in the week I'm making plans to reconnect with good friends I've sorely neglected the last year.  I plan to work out at least three times, and I'll be working more on my "good foods and good meals" notebook.  And I might actually dust a little or possibly clean a bathroom.

My unorganized week

This week is crazy.  Major life changes, y'all.  The 16 year old starts school tomorrow.  We did a major shopping flurry over the weekend to get the last things he needed.  Jeans, tennis shoes, new shirts, underwear.  Everything except school supplies, which we can't get until he goes to class and finds out what he needs.

College-bound son is sort-of, kind-of ready to go.  The Big Pile of Dorm Stuff in my living room will be transferred to the car Friday and we will leave early Saturday morning to take him to school.  We have an 8:00 a.m. move-in time.  I'm trying not to think about it.

No working out this week, probably.  I just can't make myself spend time away from home right now.  Next week I'll get on it.

In spite of how unorganized life is right now, I'm eating well.  I managed to grab the essentials yesterday, plus a few things I've been wanting to try.  Today has been a good day as far as eating.

Breakfast was a smoothie, made with organic strawberries, organic plain, low-fat yogurt, and ice cubes.  I did have to add 1t. of sugar.  I used Stonybrook Organic Yogurt.  It was fine, I guess. Plain yogurt always baffles me.  It has no taste at all unless you add something, so why do we eat it, again?  I'm wondering if my smoothie would not be just as good made with fat-free milk.  And there would be NO fat or cholesterol.  I think I'll try that tomorrow, or whenever I next make a smoothie.

Other product news: organic raspberry vinaigrette is good.  Adds a little zing to raw vegetables, and I think it would be very good on spinach.  The organic blueberries I bought were awesome.  Sweet, and some were as big as my thumb.  Organic peanut butter is, frankly, weird.  You have to stir the daylights out of it to mix in the oil.  And it has to be refrigerated after opening.  But it tastes yummy, and I like looking at a label that has exactly ONE ingredient: peanuts.  That's it, just peanuts.

PB is definitely a splurge, since it packs a lot of calories, but sometimes I just have to have it, and I like knowing I can without eating HFCS.  I can get used to the stirring.

I can tell my problem area in this whole clean and healthy eating thing is going to be grains and breads and pasta.  I LOVE white pasta.  I LOVE white rice.  Brown rice, whole wheat pasta -- I'm just not a fan.  Whole wheat bread I can get used to, but I don't eat a lot of actual bread.  But trying to switch to the other things is really going to hurt me.  I think I've sort of avoiding grains and all that because I just don't like them.

Anyone have tips for making that switch?  Suggestions for brands or recipes that are actually good?

Taking on something daunting

I've been complaining for years now about the disaster that is my body after age 50.  I have told everyone who will listen, friends, doctors, family members, my poor, poor husband.  Of course, all that complaining doesn't make me thinner, in better shape, or more flexible.  It doesn't keep my hair from falling out in handfuls, it doesn't make me sleep through the night or have energy during the day.  Doctors literally shrug their shoulders and say, "Yes, that's all very normal at your age."

Suzanne Somers has written several books about women's health after menopause and her general idea is that nature decides women are pretty much done for after child-bearing is over and our bodies just start getting ready to die.  That's putting is sort of bluntly, and her philosophy is "oh, hell, NO!"  She's going kicking and screaming, and I can totally get behind that.

After about two years of befuddled, confused depression over the state of my health at mid-life, I've decided that no one is going to do anything about this but me.  There is no magic solution.  I love my doctors for what they do, but they are worthless when it comes to this.

I am an intelligent person.  I read.  I study.  I graduated from law school, so I know how to research.  So, if anyone can figure this out, I can.  And it turns out, several other people have already started.

I knew that the problem had something to do with hormones and metabolism.  I am 53.  I'm not menopausal quite yet, but I'm getting there.  I have gained over 20 lbs. in the last year.  I reached my all-time high weight this summer of 185.  I'm wearing a size 16, and I shopped for the first time recently at the big women's store.  I'm not happy about any of that.

A week and a half ago, I started a diet.  I did what I know works: I cut calories and increased exercise.  I averaged about 1,000 calories a day, and I worked out three times on the elliptical trainer and recumbent bike.  I drank 48 or more oz of water a day.  I lost 5 lbs.

That's great, right?  It is.  I feel good and my clothes are slightly looser.  But I know I can't keep this up.  I know from experience that the first week's weight loss is never representative of what will happen later.  My body will start resisting, and hanging onto its fat.  And heaven forbid what will happen when I inevitably have a couple of day's lapse.

I have read what other people have to say about this syndrome.  Many of them have come to the same conclusion, that this is NOT normal, it is NOT inevitable, but that we are killing ourselves with food additives and preservatives, and that all these things are really screwing up our hormones.  The best book I've read on this lately is Jillian Michaels' Master Your Metabolism.  She outlines EXACTLY the problems I'm having, and tells why she thinks it happens.  And tells how to fix it.

It's not a simple fix.  Getting rid of the bad things in our diets means huge, wholesale changes in the way we shop, cook and eat EVERY MEAL, EVERY SINGLE DAY.  For a long time, I didn't think I had the energy or the willpower to make those changes.  But this is important.  I'm sick of feeling bad.  I've decided my life is at stake.

If someone was threatening me with a gun, I would take drastic action to avoid dying.  That's all I'm doing here.

Maybe it's totally self-indulgent to blog about food and body issues and exercise.  Maybe no one will care but me.  But I've decided to record my progress toward my goals here, and if others read it and relate, then great.  If not, also great.

I'll still write about knitting, and family, and life in general, because, well, those things are me, too.

My first step is taking all artificial sweeteners out of my diet.  I'm still going to be logging my foods, and keeping calories down, and working on my exercise plan, but my first step toward a huge, wholesale change in what I eat is going to be the artificial sweeteners.

I have been a huge fan of Nutrasweet and Splenda.  I know they're bad, but I have resisted giving up sweetened coffee and Diet Coke.  But they are going away.

Studies show that artificial sweeteners confuse our bodies.  They are called "excitotoxins" and they mess with our bodies' mechanism for controlling appetite and knowing when we are full.  They make you think you're hungry when you aren't.  And there is some evidence that Aspartame causes permanent damage to the centers of the brain that control this stuff.  I'm sad, because Fiber One cereal, which looks so healthy, and which I love, has Aspartame in it.  So I won't be eating it any more.

It's not as simple as getting rid of the chemical sweeteners.  High fructose corn syrup is the same deal.  And it is in EVERYTHING.  Seriously, EVERYTHING.

So, my goal for this week is to still eat low calorie and healthy, the way I have been, still exercise, the way I have been, and work on getting all the Nutrasweet, Splenda and HFCS out of my food.  I'm working on a notebook, compiling menus and recipes and brands and shopping info to make it easier to know and remember what foods are good and don't have these things in them.  I'll share my notebook in a PDF form when I have made a little more progress.  Of course, it will be tailored to me, to foods I like, but some people might find it interesting.

In other life news, band camp is over - yay!  It was miserably hot for the kids, with heat index in the 110's almost every day.  But they made it, and did a great job.  If you're on Face book, check out Hoover High School Band.  They are awesome.

In knitting news, I'm still plugging away on the second sock of a pair.  Not much progress there.  My best friend's daughter who is a new knitter asked for help figuring out Judy's Magic Cast-on for toe-up socks.  Wow, that was frustrating.  Neither of us could do it.  It's back to Wendy's short-row toe for me.  It's just difficult enough to be interesting without being frustrating.

This week: school starts for the high school sophomore, and next Saturday we move the college freshman into the dorm.  I'll post pics.

The Summer of Socks

I've been living up to this blog's name, neglecting it for over two years.  There are a lot of reasons for that, most of them boring.

It's been the summer of socks around here.  I think I've completed five pair, and for me, that's a lot of finished socks!

Knitting has been cranking along.  I'm not a fast or prolific knitter, and I tend to jump around from project to project.  The last two years have been a time of weaning myself off tons of projects and getting down to a handful I actually like and will finish.  The Starmore "Little Rivers" sweater is still going.  Front and back are finished, and I'm working on one sleeve.  I still love it.  I wonder how many people have a sweater they knitted over the course of three or more years?  One of these days, I will wear it with great pride and happiness.

Socks have helped me train myself to work on a project and finish.  I have forced myself to knit on only one project until both socks are done.  I'm getting better at avoiding second-sock syndrome.

In other life news I have cut back, in a lot of ways, on my volunteering.  For the last year I did only one job.  It was a big one - Chaperone Coordinator for my sons' high school band.  It means lots of phoning and e-mailing, and travel and organizing details.  There were 15 football games last fall (our school won the State Championship) and a trip to Washington, DC with almost 200 kids.  I love it, but it is very time consuming.  I'll be serving in that position again, this year, and then I will back off my band involvement a little.

Will, my older son, graduated from high school in May.  He will be heading to Auburn University, majoring in software engineering.  It is exciting (for him) and terrifying (for me).

Younger son, Ben, is a sophomore.  He's excited about going to the "Senior Campus" (our high school is huge, and sits on two campuses a mile apart).  He is in Band Camp this week.

Fun times!

In progress right now is a pair of Kristen Kapur's Mystery Socks '09.  It's a fun, interesting pattern.  I'm on sock one of the pair.

Pee-yew

My neighbors are burning their trash outside.  Again.

That makes it sound like I live out in the boonies of rural Alabama, but really I live in a suburb just next to a major metropolitan area.  The sixth largest city in the state, we are.  However, I live right at the very tip-end of it.  Over the back fence of the house two down is apparently, The Country.  That's where you can burn your trash outside with impunity.

I have nothing against The Country, and trash burning.  Except that the stink of the trash burning is coming over here and getting inside my house and making me cough and wheeze.  My hair now smells like trash smoke -- bleagh.

Also, it is windy today, and I have some concern that the trash fire may migrate over here into the yards and shrubbery of my house and my neighbors'.  We have been in a drought for about a year, and I'm fire-shy.

I didn't mind so much when the Country neighbors had goats and chickens that used to visit our yard.  The chickens were fine.  The goats, too, except at Christmas when they ate the red bows off our mailbox.  They don't have the chickens and goats any more.  Just the trash fire.

I should be knitting.  I just read Yarn Harlot talking about knitting one thing when she should be knitting another.  She's knitting some fabulous socks out of wonderful multi-colored yarn that just changes and changes and changes.  Who could put those down?  Sometimes I feel so inadequate reading others' blogs.  Stephanie was talking about wanting to finish the Must Have Cardigan before leaving for a trip.  In 48 hours.  Lordy, the back of the Must Have Cardigan would take me 48 DAYS to knit.  We should not compare our knitting speed to that of knitting goddesses.  It just makes us sad.

Two...two...two socks at once!

I am a desperate sufferer of second sock syndrome.  It almost takes the enjoyment out of knitting socks for me.  Who needs more guilt, right?

But there are just so many luscious sock yarns out there, and hand knit socks are so beautiful and cushy.  How can I not knit them?

So.  I bought Melissa Morgan-Oakes' book  2-at-a-time Socks and I bought a long size one circular needle, and I started a pair, both socks at once.  Now, Melissa's book includes top-down patterns and I was going to use Wendy Johnson's toe-up pattern, so that made things a little complicated.  But I finally got both socks started, and adjusted correctly on the needle, and I got the round and round, first sock, second sock thing going.  I've got it down now.

The pros?  Well, THE pro is that when I get finished, I'll have two socks.  Done.

The cons?  Ladders.  It is harder to pull the first stitch of each side of the sock very tightly on the circular, so I'm having some ladder issues.  It is getting better as I go along, so maybe it is just a skill issue and I'll overcome it.

Also, I have to get used to how slowly it seems to go when you're doing two socks at once.  They just don't grow very fast.  I knitted for an hour or so this afternoon while I listened to a couple of chapters of an audiobook, and, jeez, it doesn't seem I have much to show.  But I do believe it will be worth it when I FINALLY bind off two finished socks at once!

I'm using Claudia's Handpainted in Chocolate Cherries (like everyone else in the world) 'cause it's coming up on Valentine's Day.  I'm doing a plain foot and I'll do a lacy leg (lace to be determined).  If these turn out nice, I'll give them to my friend L, who LOVES and appreciates hand knit socks.

I'm still avoiding the green Refined Raglan because of the yarn issue.  It taunts me.

A couple of rows got done this morning on Little Rivers.  I'll take it and the socks with me tomorrow to work in the hospitality room at my son's high school.  It's parent/teacher conference day and we put out snacks for the teachers.  I'll be sitting and making sure there's ice and cups and whatever anyone needs for a couple of hours, so that should be some good knitting time.

Pictures tomorrow.  I'm too lazy tonight.

Nothing kills the ride like running out of yarn

I decided that this would be the weekend I would finish the green Refined Raglan.  I was cookin', too.  I was in that groove you get in near the end of a project when you just knit and knit, and you can see the end, and it's all coming together.

Then I went to the bag to get another ball of yarn.  Yikes.  I just attached the next to last ball of Mission Falls 1824 wool.  Am I right to be worried?
Okay, maybe it's not as bad as I thought.  I am decreasing every other row, and the rows are getting shorter and shorter.  And I had already decided that I would not do the hemmed funnel neck, but a ribbed crew neck instead.  But this is scaring me.  Mission Falls 1824 only has 85 yards a ball, and I've been chewing through some yarn on these long rows.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The thing that had me stalled on the Refined Raglan is that I started Alice Starmore's Little Rivers last week.  I know, I know.  I have tons of stuff I need to be finishing up, and I started THAT monumental project that will probably take me a year????

But it is just so pretty, and as Starmore sweaters go, it is an easy pattern.  It is one I will really wear and enjoy, so there is incentive to get it done by next winter.
Here's the progress:
But I can't touch it until the raglan is done.

We had snow!

The first measurable snowfall in Birmingham in eight years fell yesterday!

It wasn't really all that measurable.  The photo below was taken out my front window at about 10:00 a.m., and it snowed a little more after that.  By lunchtime, it had stopped and most of it was melted by late afternoon.  It was fun to see my little next door neighbors who had NEVER seen snow, playing and squealing outside.
I had to rip the second sleeve of the green Refined Raglan.  I started it out on the wrong size needles.  I managed to convince myself I could fix that with blocking, but then I worked the increases too close together -- every six rows instead of every eight.  I don't know what I was thinking.  After about seven inches, it was clear that it was wrong, so I ripped it and started over.  I really don't enjoy doing the hemmed cuffs, but I am doing this one over so it will be right.  I think I can get the second sleeve finished by tomorrow, and then it will be time to put it all together and do the fun part, the raglan decreases with the lacey cable insets.  I love the part when the sweater is getting smaller and smaller at the top.  It seems to fly.

I do plan to do a different neck finishing on this sweater, instead of the funnel neck that the pattern calls for.  I haven't decided what it will be yet.  I may experiment a little.

My promise to myself is that every time I finish a project, I will finish or frog two WIP's before I cast on anything new.  I'm going to be ruthless about frogging some things I have been hanging onto for a long time.

In non-knitting news, I've discovered another computer time-suck.  Library Thing is to book collectors what Ravelry is to knitters and crocheters.  I'm in the process of cataloging all my books.  My library is seriously out of control, and I'm going to use Library Thing to get a grip on what I have, and what I can let go of.  I have no idea now many books I have, but I think it is in the neighborhood of 500.  Yikes.

Massive knitting weekend

I had one of those knitting in the zone weekends.  I Produced Some Fabric.

I will show you a picture if you won't judge me.

Yeah, it's a big old stockinette thang, y'all.

It's really the body of the Refined Raglan.  I knit one last year for my friend, L. She says her 16 year old daughter steals it and wears it a lot, so I'm making E one of her own.

I photographed it up close because it looks like a mess.  It's all curly and freaky and looks wider than it is long.  It also looks MASSIVE.

I hope I don't ruin the body image of a young woman by presenting her with a sweater that swallows her whole.  "Thank you for the enormous sweater, Aunt Liz.  How big did you think I was????"

(I know some people actually measure their intended giftees, but I went another way.)

Here's the beginning of the first sleeve:
I'm doing picot edges to give the sweater a little more youthful and feminine look.  Of course, the picot on the body is totally rolled up -- vertical picot, as it were.  Another reason I didn't photograph it.  But not to worry.  It WILL submit to me in blocking.

I'm using Mission Falls 1824 Wool.   I had never used it before, and it is lovely and soft.  It's allegedly washable, but it seems so delicate that I'm afraid of excessive pilling.  Anyone care to share experiences with this yarn?

Well, that was quite a break!

I've been feeling the pull of the blog again lately, so I finally decided to sit down and post.  The knitting has actually been going very well for me.  It's the rest of my life that is a mess.

Last summer and fall were insane.  As a full-time wife, mom, and homemaker, I justify my lack of income-producing work by doing tons of volunteer work, mostly involving my kids' public schools and specifically their fine arts programs.  Our small city has been in turmoil for the last three years since a new mayor and city council were elected and started a junta against the school system.  I have spent countless hours reading, attending meetings, e-mailing and writing, to keep myself and others up on the changes in our community.  We moved to this city, with its expensive property and high taxes, because of the excellent public schools.  I'm so angry and worried that our leaders don't seem to value education and are willing to let a good school system deteriorate.

Anyway, it is a long story I don't have time to tell here, but the bottom line is that I have just about exhausted myself with political activism and volunteer work and had reached a point of exhaustion and depression before Christmas.  But then we took a much-anticipated family trip to Arizona with my son's high school band --- they marched in the Fiesta Bowl Parade last week.  The trip did me tons of good.  It was great to get away from here and see another part of the country.  And you just can't be depressed when you are traveling with 220 teenagers -- you have to be at the top of your game -- ready to sew snaps into a uniform jacket, or fetch water bottles, locate safety pins or clarinet reeds, have tissues and Dramamine at the ready, and always -- ALWAYS -- know where the nearest restrooms are.

Here's some pics:
This is where the marching competition was held.  That is our band, heading down toward the tunnel to go onto the field.  At the left is the area where they roll the whole field out into the open to let sunlight reach the turf -- no kidding.

Here are the kids on the field:
This was a really high-level competition.  Our kids are just starting to compete at this level, so everyone was pretty nervous.  They did very well, though.  They made the finals and improved significantly in the second performance.  I was very proud of them.

Next day after the field competition was the parade:

Don't they look awesome!

Check out that most handsome trombone player:

That is my older son, W, age 15.  How lucky that he happened to be on the end of the row!

After the parade, we packed up the instruments and uniforms and the fun part of the trip started.  Here we are on the way, by train, to the Grand Canyon.  We left from Williams, AZ at 8:00 a.m. and it was FREEZING!

That's me on the right in the blue hat, and younger son B with the hot cocoa.  That is my best friend, L, behind us.

Okay, just so there is SOME knitting content in this post, here is a shot of my hat at the Grand Canyon:
Did I mention it was COLD?

That is the Sister's Hat, designed by Janet Gallagher.  Her pattern is available here.

We celebrated the arrival of the New Year in Sky Harbor Airport, and made it home around 5:30 a.m. on New Year's Day.  After a short bout with a stomach virus acquired on the plane, we all are now back to normal.

This post is long enough, so the knitting content will have to wait until the next post.

I did get on Ravelry this fall and have my notebook pretty much up to date.  I'm LizW9294 there (there was already a LizW!)