Knitting Machine

I feel like a knitting machine. I've been working on little baby hats like a machine.  I think I'm down to having four left to get done.  Phew!

I think I'm going to have to take a photo of this great pile of hats when they are done.

This means I can really get to work on finishing the blanket for my own little one.

Not so much with the interesting crafty stuff

I haven't really posted lately about my adventures in knitting as well, they haven't been terribly adventurous.  I've been churning baby hats out by the dozen it seems.  Well maybe not by the dozen, but it does feel like a lot.  It would seem a very large number of people I know are procreating.  I hope I cant get them all done in time.

Soon I hope to get back to the baby blanket I'm making for my own little wee one who should be arriving at the end of January.  I did a bunch of work on it over Thanksgiving weekend, but it still needs to be a little bit bigger.

Ontario Artisan Share

This is a pretty neat service I was just introduced to yesterday. There is a store up at Eglinton & Mt Pleasant called Culinarium that provides this service.  It is a weekly (well in winter biweekly) box of organic locally grown veggies, meat, cheese and some sort of pantry item.  Seems pretty cool to me.  They even offer an email with all sorts of recipes you can try with the items you have received.  Part of the plot is to get people to try all sorts of local foods you wouldn't normally think of.

The only downside to for me (hence why I'm not trying it right now) is that they don't do home delivery.  They only deliver to a "hub".  My office is considering becoming a hub.  Since I won't be at the office for part of the winter program it wouldn't work for me.  But I'm hoping when I'm back I can participate in the program.

www.ontarioartisanshare.ca

Perfection

A friend shared the blog post linked below about what he calls the disease called perfection. I found it very to be very true.  The perceived need to be perfect does drive most of us to hide what we feel are flaws and try to attain some unachievable goal of perfection.

I often compare myself to others and find myself lacking.  But then at the same time, I'm sure there are those out there who may be doing the same thing, but comparing themselves to me in some aspects of their life.  So it is quite possibly a vicious cycle for just about anyone.

So one shouldn't assume that because someone's life looks to be perfect, it may not be.  I highly suggest people read this article.

Buttertarts

Well, my buttertarts from the other week turned out quite tasty and nifty, but didn't look so good because I forgot to grease the little tart tins. So I didn't take any pictures of them.

I also discovered I didn't have quite enough tart tins so I didn't get as many as I had hoped. Now I must keep an eye out for at least 8 more tart tins so I can at the very least make 2 dozen.

Nifty Beer Tote/cooler

Yesterday when a friend and I were shopping at Homesense, we came across these nifty 6 pack holders from NYC Built. My friend had been looking for awhile for one of these in a local store. So she grabbed one immediately and recommended it.

So I bought one too. Tried it out last night too and we quite liked it. I don't know if would keep your beverages cool all night, but it did keep them nice and cool for the trip over to party we were attending.

We also got quite a few comments on how nifty it was. So I would highly recommend one.

I'ts Buttertart Time

Today is the day I find out how the homemade pastry I put in the freezer a couple of months ago has done in the freezer. I will be attempting for the first time ever to make completely from scratch my Mom's buttertarts. I hope they end up tasty as I plan to give them to someone as a gifty.

I'll post some photos a little later on should they turn out.

A place of some tasty recipies

Lately I've been pouring over recipes looking for some new ones to use at home that are healthier, more variety and just plain different from what we've usually been making here at the old homestead.

Tonight via a Facebook share I found the Noble Pig Blog.  There looks to be some tasty recipes there.  Especially the Bread Egg Bowls.  It think i'm going to have to try that out some saturday morning soon.

In fact I think I've actually accumulated a giant pile of recipes I may not make it through.  But it's been fun checking it all out.  Bought some brown lentils to try working with today.

Wow, it's a baby boom

Just when I thought I was done with the baby hats..... I've found out in the past week or two that two of my co-workers and a couple of the footy peeps are having babies. That included with the friend who is having triples, brings me up to 7 more hats to do. Not including my own. It's going to be a busy busy time. And I still have the blanket I am crocheting for my wee one. It's a good thing I have until January to get some of these done.

Apparently I've just become some sort of knitting factory.

Well, I should get off the computer and back to the knitting if I'm going to get it all done.

Poor Neglected Blog

My poor blog. I have been neglecting you for a few weeks. I apologize. It's been fairly hectic around here and I haven't been doing so much in the way of crafts, exercise or anything else for that matter. So not much to say.

I did finish an emergency baby hat for a co worker who didn't tell me he and his wife were expecting their second child until a couple of weeks before the date. But I did make the deadline. Got the hat there before baby arrived.

I did also find a home for the lovely pink baby blanket I made a little while ago. My cousin and his wife had a baby girl a couple of weeks ago and it was perfect for them. So hopefully they will get it early next week as I was a little slow in getting to the post office.

I think my next project may be to make a sock Monkey. Hopefully I can start it tomorrow sometime. I have all the pieces pre cut, so it shouldn't be too bad to put together.

Now to see about a bike ride on this beautiful day before it gets too hot.

The Yarn came today!!!!

Woop, the special yarn for the Blues Baby hats came today. I had all but given up hope. I ordered the yarn at the end of May and just realized that it hadn't come yet. I was about to email them and ask about it when our office clerk wandered by with the package.

Excited about some yarn

I have been making some baby hats for my husband's Aussie Rules Football Club's new babies this year. The club is having a bit of a baby boom. I had gone looking for the right blue in the right yarn for these little hats.

I got some that wasn't quite perfect, but seemed ok. I haven't been happy with how it knits up as the hats come out a little on the large side. But since it seemed to be all I could come up with I went with it.

On a footy trip one of the girls was helping out by making a hat too. She had this wonderful dark blue wool that seemed to work perfectly. Trouble is that the company doesn't seem to make it anymore.

However, I did find a site last night that had 6 balls of this yarn. So I ordered and away I go. I'm excited. I hope it arrives soon as I do need to get some hats done!

Oh those shoes I wanted :(

I was in New York City last weekend for a trip and thought to myself that it would be a great time to pick up a pair of those Vibram Five Finger Shoes.  So I looked up a couple of stores to check out and away we went during our touristy time as the store City Sports was in the area we were going.

Sadly they did not have the colour, model and size i wanted.  But they were very nice, let me try on the size and called their other stores in the city to see if they had any there.  Again sadly no.  But now I can order them online.  The only problem is that no one seems to have them right now.  They are super popular.  Especially black ones I guess.  Even the manufacturers site doesn't have them right now.

So I guess I will have to be patient and wait.  Ebay has lots, but in the wrong colour and in fake.

So of course I will check every day :)

Pink Baby Blanket

I had this fairly large ball of pink cotton yarn leftover from some project or it was given to me or something.  I'm really not sure.  I'm not really a big pink fan so I don't see myself having actually purchased it myself.

But I'm on the this big no buying yarn unless I absolutely had to.  So I thought this might make a nice crochet baby blanket.  I just finished it last week and it turned out pretty well.  So now I have a give for someone if they have a baby girl.

Neat Shoes I Might Like

I'm going to look for a good deal on some interesting shoes that have been brought to my attention.  They are the Vibram Five Finger Shoes.  They are meant to have you walking as if you are barefoot.  A friend who runs recently got a pair and one of my coworkers also got a pair and loves them to bits.  I remember doing lots of barefoot walking as a child and think it would be neat to try them.

They seem pretty nifty and I think I want a pair.  Now to find a pair.  I'll probably have to buy them online, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I'm such a chickenshit Cyclist

Today marks a bit of a big day.  I won't lie, I'm afraid of the cars.  They are crazy and large and could hurt me really badly.  Somedays it seems like cars are out to get me.  So for that reason I don't like riding in traffic.  I much prefer the bike lanes and the bike path.

Currently I've been going west on the waterfront bike trail as the trail goes a really nice long way before it dumps you out into traffic again.  The eastbound bike path on the other hand has a section around Harbourfront that just dumps you into traffic in a reasonably narrow spot.  Most likely why there is no bike path.

I tried going that way once last summer and go freaked out and came back.  Tonight I tired it again as my hubby suggested I visit the footy practice at Cherry Beach.  You know, drop by and say hi to the guys.

Funny enough, if you do it late enough in the day, there isn't all that much traffic and it was nowhere near as bad as the last time I went.  It was a nice ride and I think i'll do it again in the near future.

Always good to have options as it can get a little boring doing the same ride over and over and over again.

Also, I've never really spent much time in the Cherry Beach area and it would be nice to explore.

Preemie Hat

A couple of weeks ago some friends of ours had their baby about 6 weeks early. A beautiful, healthy but tiny tiny baby girl. I had knitted a baby hat for them, but of course at the moment it is a little on the huge side. So decided to try making a preemie hat. Found a pattern for a preemie cap at Lion Brand wool, knitted it up, but added the "umbilical cord" hat (From the Stitch n Bitch book) topper to it. It turned out kind of cute and hopefully just the right size.

And some other hats i made as a size comparison.

Back in the Cycling Game

Today I went for my first actual bit of distance ride since October and before the whole cancer incident.  I went down to the waterfront and biked to the Humber Bay Bridge and back (King & Bathurst area).  From Google Maps it looks like it's about 20 k (well if you drive on roads that far so......).  I was kind of afraid that I wouldn't be able to do it, being so out of shape and all from sitting on my ass for 2-3 months.

However, the ride was awesome.  It was almost like I hadn't stopped.  Mind you I'm feeling the effects now.  My hamstrings are very unhappy with me.  Mind you they weren't so happy with me to begin with after yoga on Thursday.

This is a good thing as someone at work has been trying to talk me into doing the Becel Ride for the Heart this year and do the 50 k option.  I was thinking the 25 k would be the option to do, but on the basis of the ride today, I think I might be able to do the 50 k option.

It's funny, in the early fall I had been thinking that doing something like the Ride to Conquer Cancer.  But then all the stuff happened.  I still might do it next year, but I think you have to do serious fundraising for it.  I'm not sure if I'm up to the serious fundraising.

New Yoga Studios

So a group of us have been looking for a yoga studio that can be the right fit for a bunch of us.  We're still working on it.  We tried a new place this week called the Octopus Garden.  Not the right fit.  I was mostly ok with it.  It was hard and more flow than I really wanted to do.  I figured it was extra hard as I hadn't done much in the way of exercise and nothing in the way of flow yoga for more than a year.  Which may be the case, but it is now two days later and I still hurt.  So yeah, not the right place for me at the moment.  The good thing is is really wasn't the right place for the rest.

So onwards and forwards with the hunt.

In addition to doing yoga with the group, I've found myself interested in this type of yoga called Yoga Nidra.    Mostly due to the fact that I do not sleep well so anything to help out is worth trying.  So I may be making a trip or two to the Downward Dog as it seems to be one of the only places in the city that offers this type of yoga.

Now off to see if I can my bike off the wall and go for a ride.  My hubby installed a bike hook this week in the kitchen and we hung it up last night for the first time.

Regent Park

This afternoon at the office we had a screening of some National Film Board films about Regent Park in the 1950's and 1960's. Mostly touting how wonderful this housing project is and how much better the area would be. Onenof them was narrated by Lorne Greene.

In the first one they where showing us the "slums" of Oak street that ended up being turned into our modern day regent park.

Didn't quite turn out how they intended now did it?

Several of us who were previewing them commented that these slum building seemed surprisingly similar to the fixer uppers we all seem to live in and that all cost piles of money now

The more sarcastic among us have now named our houses "Slum Chic".




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:King's Highway 401,South Stormont,Canada

Yoga Book

It't kind of funny. Last week I ha been looking at yoga books and the one I wanted was a little out of the range I wanted to pay at the moment. It was that iyengar book I was talking about before.

So of course this wee I'm given a lovely gift card for Indigo for my Birthday (which isn't until next week).

So the book has been ordered (yay) and there was enough leftover to treat myself to Season 2 of True Blood when it comes out in May.

Life is good.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Subway

A Good Sunday

Today was a glorious day.  It was beautiful weather, had brunch with good friends and visits with not 1 but 2 small people today.  They made my day with their giggles and smiles and just general good natures.  Such beautiful girls they both are.

Apparently my blue heart necklace is very very attractive to wee ones.  They both zoomed in on it.

Now I think it is time to attempt to bake something.  I have a sweet craving and nothing sweet hanging around.

Meditation Bandwagon

I'm admitting it. I've been terrible at mediation lately.  I really have to get myself back on the bandwagon.  Meditation is one of those things you know is good for you and you feel better when you do it but seem to procrastinate about.

I think one of my impediments to meditation regularly is my constant need to be doing things and accomplishing stuff.  Intellectually I know I am accomplishing something with mediation, but it doesn't feel like I am at the time.  Or maybe I'm just not looking after myself well enough.

Things to ponder, things to ponder.

Not so much knitting production this week

It's funny.  I have all this knitting I need to do for baby hats and the like and I've done not much this week. Two reasons really.   The first is that I've been doing a lot of very repetitive data work at the office (read drag and drop, drag and drop and repeat) so my right hand has been acting up a little bit.  It does seem to be feeling a little bit better now.  But also one of my cats bit my finger in the midst of a treat frenzy this week. Index finger right where the pad hits the mouse.  So that's been on the owie side too.  

Hopefully this weekend I'll get some in.  I have 5 baby hats to knit before too long.

Anti Gravity Yoga

Ok, I so want to try this. I might even be willing to do a trip to London (Ontario) to try this!! My cousin who lives there was telling me about it and she wants to try it after she has her baby.

Not traditional yoga at all, but pretty neat.

Video about Anti Gravity Yoga

Anti Gravity Yoga Website


I'm hoping that a studio in Toronto will try opening a studio for this.  I know it will be all trendy and the like, but that's ok.  I'll still go.  

Yoga Book

Last night after yoga, one of my friends that goes to the Yoga classes and I stopped of at Indigo to see about getting an Iyengar book as I've decided I really need to start trying to remember the Sanskrit names for all the poses.  We ended up having a chat with an Indigo lady who was asking us about yoga while we looked.   I didn't buy anything because the book I found that I was interested in buying (B.K.S Iyengar Yoga the Path to Holistic Health) was $50.  A little bit too much for me to spend right now.  Although I noticed that it's even more at Amazon.com.  Owie.  But it looked like a really good book.  So I'll think about getting it at some point.  Just not right now.  And there may be another couple of books written by Mr. Iyengar that might be a little more affordable.  We'll see which one I get.

We then wandered about trying to avoid purchasing a ton of books in the store as we both have book buying habits.  Although we did find one book we would buy for someone as a gift:


It was hilarious.  I think we listened to almost all the Zombie translations.  There was also another book on how to defeat your clone.

Amazing person

A few minutes ago I was having a brain fart on the name of our yoga teacher. So off I went to the website to see if her name was listed.

Since I was there, I thought I would read all the yoga teacher profiles and one really really stood out for me.
Ida Robinson.

This lovely woman started taking yoga classes when she was 65 and loved it so much she has become a yoga instructor. This woman rules. I can only hope to be that accomplished at something I pick up when I'm 65.  I haven't met this wonderous person, but I would hope to some day.

Link to profile here: http://www.yogacentretoronto.ca/teachers.html


In other news, it was a really good class I took tonight.  I'm going to be sore in the morning.  

Sometimes I'm such a geek

I spent a most fascinating afternoon yesterday researching the history of the office building I work in at the Toronto Reference Library. I haven't gotten that absorbed in any research I have done in awhile. The time flew by while i was checking the city directories and the like for information. I even paused a couple of times to see things like who was living in my house in the 1920s and the like. I think there may need to be more trips to the library in the future to find out neat things about different buildings in the city.


I also think I need to take a trip to the Toronto Archives for fun sometime soon.

Pets & Photography

My brain is a little melted today as it would seem I am sick. I had no voice all day and people at work kept wanting to chat with me. Tonight I babble about my love of photography. I love taking pictures. I'm not always good at it, but it's fun. Every once in awhile I come up with a good one. Fantastic even. Today's photo is of one of my cat Cranberry that I particularly like:

It would seem that most of my photography is of my pets and Aussie Rules Fooball Players and my finished knitting projects.  I think I need to expand the list of things I photograph.

Yoga Toes Update

So I've been using the Yoga Toes I mentioned in a previous post.  I think they might actually be doing some good.  I noticed today in my yoga class that my toes were actually spreading apart a little bit.  This made me on the happy side.

Now back to nursing my cup of lemongrass tea and hoping that my voice comes back.

Hats, Hats and More Hats

All of a sudden it would seem I know a whole pile of people having babies in June. I now have 5 hats that need to be done for June. I think I missed a memo or something. Off to the yarn store with me on Saturday morning I think. Many of them I think I can make with my current stash, but there are at least three that need to be specific colours. In other news. The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee keeps making me cry this week. One of the blog writer's cats died last week of old age and I keep tearing up when I read the posts about wee Drewey. They are sad but positive. I'm such a sap.

Biking.

Sunday morning I was all excited about the idea of going for a bike ride. I haven't been on my bike since the middle of November and I really miss it.  Last year I really started bike riding again and I've got plans to try doing some distance biking this year.


I hadn't gone out on Saturday night so I was up at a reasonable hour an got myself all dressed up in a my biking gear and away I was going to go.
Then..... denied. The tires were flat. I forgot what happens when you don't ride your bike for 4 months. This is usually an easy problem to solve as we have more than one air pump for inflating bike tires, real tires and footballs. But no, apparently my fancy bike has a special tire valve that I didn't know existed. But a trip off to MEC yesterday and voila for $1.25 I now have a valve adaptor and tires full of air. All set for riding now, but I look out the window and see rain. So no riding for me today. I have a couple of other items I should pick up for the bike, but they didn't seem to have them yesterday in the spring rush. I need some new gloves. Mine fell apart last year. But all they had were the expensive ones. Perhaps next time.

Yoga Paws

Again with the gadgets I go.  I got Yoga Paws a couple of years ago when I was going to Australia with my husband when he was part of the Canadian Northwind (Canada's National Austrialian Football Team). I figured it would be a good way of being able to do yoga and not have to bring a mat.  Because who really wants to take a mat on an international flight.

Sadly, the only Yoga I did do was at the Melbourne Baths where they had mats for us.  I think I'm going to have to try them out and see if they really work as advertised.  But speaking of yoga in Australia.  That was the coldest yoga I've ever done.  I was there in winter and the room we were doing Yoga in wasn't heated. I felt like I should have been wearing a sweater and I was ever so glad I had the blanket at the end.

Even though the Yoga was cold (I'm sure it's fine in the summer) , the rest of the facility was fantastic.  There was a wonderful salt water pool, sauna and whirlpool.  I think I swam most of the days we were in Melbourne.  I really wish we could have a facility like that around the corner from our house (it was literally around the corner from the hotel).  I think it would be a gym I would join.

Beets

Over the past couple of months I've take more of an interest in cooking and trying new foods etc... than in the recent past.  I've also been trying to work more and a wider variety of vegetables into our diet.

I've rediscovered one of my favorite foods.  Beets.  They are just tasty tasty tasty.  Lately I have been roasting them with sweet potatoes and onions.  Super super tasty.  And I have on my list of things to try, a beet humus and mashed potatoes with beets. 

The only thing about them I don't like is how pink my hands become when I'm working with them.  

Gratitude Journals

Gratitude journals are an awesome thing.  I learned about them in the second part of the meditation classes I took in 2009.  I was a little on the skeptical side at first.  I often am with these sorts of things.  Mind you I'm slowly changing my mind about being skeptical.

However once I started the exercise I found that it having to think of 2 things or more (depending on the exercise that week) each day that I was grateful for, put me in a more positive frame of mind.  

So you would think I would keep this up if it makes me feel good.  Nope, it gets tossed into the "Roundtuit" pile.  I really do have to make more of an effort to keep it up.

Most of the information on keeping gratitude journals suggest keeping them in a lined notebook.  I being a geekish type tends to use my online journal instead.  I just tag my entries gratitude so they are in the record of everything.  

If you are looking for some resources on how to go about keeping a gratitude journal you can check out the links below:

ehow's guide to gratitude journals

30 Days to Gratitude

The Secret Gratitude Book

Toe Stretching

I admit it, I'm a sucker for gadgets.   So awhile ago I bought some Yoga Toes.  The idea is that they help you stretch your toes and help you with your yoga.

Of course I purchased them and used them a couple of times and forgot about them.  Since I'm somewhat seriously doing some yoga again and was able to find them, I've started to use them.  I haven't seen a huge difference yet, but I think it might actually help.

I'll post again in a few weeks to see if there really is any benefit.

Dilly Meatballs not so good

Tonight I tried a new recipe for dinner called Dilly Meatballs from Company's Coming Make-Ahead Meals.  It was not so great.  I thought it would be tasty, but it was just kind of bland.  Which is odd as there are a good number of recipes in that particular book that are on the tasty side.  The meatball part was tasty.  It was just the sauce that wasn't so yum.

It was a combination, of ketchup, sour cream and dill.  There was just something missing.

Granny Squares

Well, I seem to have about 45 granny squares as it stands today.  I think I need to take a little break from the granny squares though.  I forgot how hard on my hand the crochet thing is.  Well that in combination with all of the data I've been moving around at work.  So a little resting of the hand is in order.

Pasty Success

Our pastry making session was pretty much a success.  We ended up making far more pastry than we actually needed by accident.  But that's ok.  I now have enough pastry put away in the freezer for about 4 more pies.

We did have one accident with the pastry making.  We had several Deep Dish pie plates and a couple of shallow ones.  We had a cherry pie filing for one of the pies.  When we put it into one of the deep dish ones it kind of,  well, wasn't quite enough.  So the brilliant group of us decided to try a whole pastry transfer to a shallow plate.  Didn't work too well as you can see from the photo, but it was funny as all hell and we named our cherry pie "Victim Pie".

All in all it turned out fairly well.  I need to work on my pastry rolling skills.  I found it wasn't as thin as my Mom's usually is.  But that will come with time.  We may try the blind baking too so the crust doesn't get to soggy too.

All the pies together

The bats

The great pie transfer

The Victim Pie

Pastry

Today is the day I'm trying to make pastry for the first time.  Hopefully it will go well.  My Mom has given me the recipe for her never fail pastry dough and some of my friends are coming over to partake in the pastry madness.

Here's hoping it goes well.

We will be attempting, cherry pie, raspberry pie and chicken pot pie.

Yoga and Wii

I've been feeling much better these days and I'm sure it's in part due to my increased activity level. Still exhausted as I'm not sleeping well, but the body is getting back to normal post surgery. Hopefully getting to better shape. I need to get more activity going. I went to my second Iyengar class this week and it was great. More difficult though. Which was good. There were a couple of poses that put some pressure on my incision scar, but it wasn't too bad. It also highlighted for me my issue of wrists. I have a hard time staying in the downward dog pose for any length of time because of my wrists. They always start to hurt and I have to drop in and out of the pose. One of the instructors gave me some exercises to see if we can strengthen them. Overall, it is making me happy to be doing yoga again and be able to do it with some friends. I think I may want to try a hot yoga class sometime in the near future. In addition to the Yoga, I've been using my Wii fit to slowly work up my activity levels.  
This morning I managed a Wii fit milestone. I tried all of the routines in the Wii Fit Plus section all in one session. It was pretty good. I even did the running one. And I can't stand running. I'm forcing myself to do it though so I can get in better shape. I didn't do too badly either.

Chakra Meditation

One of the types of mediation that was introduced to us in the second meditation course was Chakra meditation.  I was quite interested in it, but both times we had the guided Chakra mediation I fell asleep.  My poor body and mind were exhausted at that point and took that opportunity to get some rest.  I also had a tendency to do the same thing during the Body Scan.

Now i'm reminded that I need to find a good Chakra mediation to explore that type of meditation further.

Wikipedia Entry on Chakra Meditation 

Granny Square Update

I had said a few posts ago that I was going to try and work on a granny square a day for the next little while to use up yarn and make an afghan.


I seem to be getting more done than I thought.  I started just over a week ago and I already have about 16 done.  I really should slow down a bit though as my poor hand is starting to ache a little from all the crochet and computer work I've been doing lately.  

Yoga & Meditation Room - Before

I decided a few months ago that I really needed a dedicated spot to work on my mediation and yoga.  The living room isn't really the best spot for yoga as the space between the two couches is a bit narrow.  Also, trying to meditate in the living room when my husband is at home is a bit on the obnoxious side on my part.

So I'm in the process of converting our smallest middle bedroom into the yoga/mediation/massage room.  My husband has recently taken a course in massage and needs a spot for the table as well.  

The process is going slowly as I'm trying to find homes for all the items that were in the room.  I'm pretty close to emptying it, then it just needs to be painted and all should be good.  Right now I'm considering a colour called pickle green.  

Here is the before picture:

Hopefully soon there will be an after picture.  

Meditation

Last spring I took a Mindful Based Stress Reduction course through a wonderful teacher Heidi Walk.  I took the level I and Level II courses.  Both were eye opening and I found did me a lot of good.  I was a little skeptical that meditation would do me any good.  However, I was proved wrong as I generally found that the more regularly I did my mediation practice, the clearer my head is and the busy bees worrying in my brain didn't buzz so much.  I highly recommend her course.

The Level I course is based on the Mindful Based Stress Reduction course designed by Jon Kabat-Zim at the University of Mssachusetts Medical School.  I highly recommend the program.

It is a combination of meditation and yoga.  Our course used the Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness  and the  Guided Mindfulness Meditation CDs.  It takes some work and dedication, there is about an hour's worth of work to do during the course each day.  I found both the book and the CDs highly worth while.  I uploaded the Cds to my iPod and use the audio frequently.

I'm sad to say that since the second course ended in November, I haven't been very good at keeping up with my practice.  I've been very erratic about when I practice.  This has to change as I would like to get back to feeling the way I did while I was taking the courses.

Getting back to yoga is going to help me get back ino this as the yoga and meditation go hand in hand.

It's a cooking and cleaning type of weekend

On Wednesday night we hooked up our new freezer.  I have been wishing for a freezer for a good long while.  I hate always having to wonder if I have enough room in the freezer when I'm at the grocery store if I see something on sale, or having to eat spaghetti sauce twice a week because there is no room in the  freezer after making a big batch.  We've also got fairly busy schedules so it's nice to be able to have something reasonably easy to thaw and heat up.

I've been very excited about this and have gone on a cooking binge as a result.  Last night I made a nice large batch of spaghetti sauce that should last us a good while.

Today, I had the bright idea that I should try making meatballs since we had no special plans for the night.  I've only ever made meatballs once.  And that was with a friend's help.  They were actually turkey meatballs from Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes by Gilda Laurentiis.  These ended up being quite tasty and I should try making some again.

For some reason making meatballs has always intimidated me.  But tonight i decided to go for it. I found a recipe in Make-Ahead Meals (Original) from the Company's Coming Series.  I keep being gifted with these cookbooks and there are usually a few good recipes in each one.  So far they seem to have turned out well, none have fallen apart.  I did for some reason think it would take all evening to make the meatballs, but it didn't take me super long.  Waiting around for them to cook on the other hand.....


Now I'm debating whether or not I should bake myself some corn muffins.  Could be tasty and good to take to work next week.  It might be more fun than the cleaning I've also been doing.

On Starting Yoga again

Over the years, I've been practicing yoga on and off.  I've tried Ashtanga, Hatha, Restorative, Iyengar and the "whatever the community centre teacher is teaching today".  For the past 2 years though, I've been actually practicing yoga pretty much on a weekly basis.

However, due to the need for some abdominal surgery in January, I haven't been doing any Yoga at all since mid November.  I've really missed it.  There is a sense of well being that I often get from the practice. For the most part since about April of 2009 I've been working on the restorative with a few classes of Iyengar thrown in.

This past Thursday I was able to start yoga again.  There is a group of us that decided to go to the Yoga Centre Toronto to take the fundamentals of Iyengar classes (6 week course).

I was a little nervous about the class as I often still have pain in my incision and since yoga does involved a lot of muscles stretching, I  thought it might hurt.  Thankfully I was wrong.  I was able to do all the poses we did that night.  The only pain I experienced was my muscles elsewhere that I haven't been using.  And that was a good pain.

The instructors in our class were quite well informed and made sure that everyone understood what they needed to for the poses and helped with alternative poses if needed.  I also found that there wasn't that sense of "you have to keep up with the rest of the class" that you often get in group fitness classes.  There was a lot of emphasis on going at your own pace and that everyone is at a different stage in their practice.

I'm already looking forward to next week's class.

As an aside, I've previously been having a lot of problems with working on the bridge pose.  we did the beginnings of the bridge in the class and I found I had no problems with it.  This made me quite happy as it had been bothering me to no end that I wasn't able to do it before.

For some reason, I've always seemed to have trouble with seed stitch. Couldn't manage it for some reason. Which is silly as it's a relatively simple stitch. Then this summer, I seemed to get the hang of it and started making the Big Bad Baby Blanket out of the Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook.  It was going along swimmingly, until about part way through November.  I was just over a half done the blanket.  Then I got some bad news about my health and that apparently made me lose the ability to do  seed stitch.
Of course I had to rip about 5 rows out several times to realized I should just put the blanket away and wait until my brain was in a better place concentration wise.  I was quite frustrated.    So it has been sitting in a bag waiting for me to come back to it.

Now that I'm feeling better I think sometime in the next few weeks I will see if I can salvage my poor blanket.  Mind you I am kind of distracted by the granny squares I'm crocheting right now, but perhaps I can pull myself away.

Leaf Hat

I've been spending a lot of time over the past year or so making little baby hats for friends, family and coworkers. Most of the time I've been making the Umbilical Cord Hat from the Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook. However, after you make 15 or more of the same item, no matter how cute, it can be a bit boring. So I've been experimenting with other hat patterns. One of them was the Berry Hat Pattern I got from the Random Stitches Blog. almost identical to the Umbilical cord, but with some intarsia that requires some thought. I really liked how the hat came out. So the next person I know having a girl. It seems like a girly hat, will be receiving this wonderful hat.

Oh and I would like to introduce you to my hat model. I'm really not sure what "stuffed toy creatures" she is, but I bought it one day when I was feeling down and carried it in my arms all the way home. Then I discovered it was just the right size for being a baby hat model. She doesn't have a name yet, but I'll get around to it.

Granny Square a Day

I think I may try making a granny square a day for the next little while. They take almost no time to make up and I would still have time to work on my many other projects.

This is how scattered I am right now. I have the following under way:

1 baby hat - on hold due to the fact I lost a dpn and I'm waiting for some to show up in the mail.

1 bunting bag - I am stuck on

1 scarf - it's a scarf and just straight garter stitch. Sometimes I lose interest for a few days.

1 baby Kimono - the needles i have are too short and I' waiting for some circulars to show up.

1 baby blanket - having seed stitch issues and I put it away.

Too many things on the go. I'll hopfully whittle this down in the coming weeks. But for now I'm on the obsessed with making the granny squares.

Granny Squares - Woop

I've been dithering about with what to do with all the bits of yarn that are left over from my projects. I was going to just crochet up a big old ugly blanket. Crochet because I find it goes faster. So I started with the bits of yarn I had. But that was sure to the ugliest blanket ever. So I started looking around for patterns that might be of interest. I did of course think of granny squares, but I didn't think I had the talent for crochet that it required. But I thought I would try. So off I went and downloaded some patterns. Sadly I didn't really understand the patterns as I haven't learned crochet pattern reading yet. In fact, I really only know a couple of stitches and hope that things turn out all right. I got a little frustrated and then I recalled.... we have the intarweeb. There must be a video on Youtube. And I was right.

I found this wonderful video that showed me how easy it is to make granny squares. This is going to make using up those bits of yarn far easier. I've already made several squares.

The new place for my Craft Blogging

I've broken down and moved around the blogging of my crafting. I think this blog should be more accessible for the world in general and I won't be cluttering up my friends list on my slightly more private journal. Many of my friends on their probably don't need to hear my babble about my knitting, photography and other crafty type stuff on a daily basis. So i present it here! Lucky all of you.