OK, so the bet's still on. 125 lbs by March 1st and I get $2500. If I don't hit the weight target, I sweat my ass off all summer long pushing a crappy half-broken down NOT self-propelled lawn mower, bag the grass and other various lawn duties while Jeff AND THE NEIGHBOR MEN sit in our driveway drinking beer while sitting in lawn chairs. Kansas City in the summer? Can we say 8th level of humidity hell? Sweat, blowing grass bits and flat hair on a redhead? Not a pretty picture.
At the beginning of the bet, it wasn't so unthinkable. I was about 155 lbs and a bit cocky (hard to imagine, isn't it?) The bet was started with 6 months to go. How hard could that be? Um, well, somehow 155 turned into 168. seriously. from 168 to 125? OH and in 3 months left. nice. Half-way through December I got seriously serious. eating better. exercising. ick. i hate that crap.
I'm now at freakishly healthy levels. Living like this could totally kill a normal woman. I start my morning with a glass of water with lemon. fiber and fruit. snacks are nuts and berries. lunch is veggies and beans. I do pilates in the morning. I either take a quick bike ride or walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon. more veggies and nuts and berries with beans of some form for dinner. work out at the gym with weights at some point in the day. It's all gonna be worth it. you know why? I hit ONE FUCKING THIRTY EIGHT POUNDS today. It's been a LONG DAMN TIME since I've seen the other side of 140. I was so happy I about hugged some poor old nakid woman putting on her swimsuit that was standing near the scale at the gym. I had to actually put my hands into my pockets to keep from picking her up and spinning around the locker room.
I don't have to maintain the weight, I just have to HIT IT. Then I'm licking the cream out of at least half a bag of oreos. Double stuff oreos. I think 135-140 is a much more reasonable maintaining goal for me.
Working my way through the STR socks, MAN they're fun. I just love watching the patterns that magically appear.
I had a good ol'd KICK IN THE ASS from the knitting goddesses last night. I was feeling my usual super powers after turning the heel on my STR sock, set it down, sighing at my amazing abilities. I picked up my start for the roses top. I had made a mistake in the lace edging at the bottom and was able to slip a stitch off the needles, follow it down a while, CORRECT the bugger, loop it just so with YARN OVERS, SSK's and various knit stitches through SIX ROWS. I was FREAKING SUPERKNITTER. Seriously. I should have had a malabrigo cape fluttering in the wind behind me and glorious hair to boot.
I started thinking. You know, my blog was started for my trials and accomplishments as a beginner knitter. I thought to myself "I am no longer a beginner knitter. I knit SOCKS, SEE mistakes, FIX mistakes, knit lace patterns, knit sweaters that occasionally FIT, I am knitting guru extraordinnaire." Yeah, anyone else out there been there done that? Know what's coming? a big old BITE IN THE ASS. After correcting the lace mistake and admiring it, I spent the next hour finishing the first ball of yarn and looked at the pattern again. Yeah, I've read enough about other's troubles with missing those little words "at the same time" that I've trained myself to read the entire pattern before starting a few times through. I didn't miss any at-the-same-time's. Nope, I missed "with the bigger needle..." Yup. The lace pattern needs to be knit WITH THE BIGGER SIZE NEEDLE. That gives it the pretty shaping where it's a little wider than the rest of the sweater without having to do decreases, etc. nice. I had no heart left to frog it, so I very calmly slipped out the needles and set it into a baggie and put it back in the damn drawer.
My sacrfice to the altar of the smart-ass knitting goddess. I am back to humble "beginner knitter" status. I am now half-way through the first repeat of the leaves on the right sized needles. Part of a violent femmes song kept drifting through my head as I re-started...."third verse, same as the first."
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