Goodbye 2017 Hello better life

Maybe it's unrealistic to have hopes for a new year - it's just a flip over into a new day in a long string of days, and we know from experience that those have ups and downs in them.  Except in my case there was that one perfect day back in I think 1995, but let's hold that thought for now and instead look at the tea table I set out when Lannie came over this past week. 

The kitchen table works so well as a serving station!  and my red tea towel collection paid off yet again.  as did the super easy tea biscuit recipe from Company's Coming, 'Muffins And More'.   You know, you plan for these things when you are building, but until you get to try it out you never really know for sure your ideas will work.

Getting back to my immediate point though - and I hope you cannot relate to this remark at all - even if I look at my own personal level, 2017 was SO packed with dreck (Christmas tea party aside.)  I just gotta think 2018 will be better.  Yes, our house is still under renovation and not yet unpacked, and Yes, one of the two aunts in the hospital is not recovering well, and Yes, I am officially tired of spending money which I thought could never happen, but I have a lead on a guy who might be able to help finish the healing on last year's broken fingers, we are living in the house again and have the kitchen set up and running smoothly, and with luck I might soon find the digital scale I use to weigh two sock-sized cakes of yarn before snipping the connecting piece.  (in the meantime, I still have about eight bags of ready-to-go sock kits in my coffee table drawer, whew)

Also, Pete and I finally found mirrors we like for our bathroom and the main floor powder room today.  We have been looking for some since the end of July so this is big news, and the bigger news is that they were $100... for both together!

Actually that is more than a little scary isn't it.

But never mind, they are mirrors and it is a huge relief to think we won't have to trail into the closet just to floss a tooth.  (yep, the closet got a mirror before the bathroom did.  this is how upside down 2017 has been for me.)

Want to know about that one perfect day back in 1995 or so?  It went like this.  I woke up in the morning and I wasn't tired.  I had something to put on for work that wasn't uncomfortable.  Nothing bad happened at the office once I got there - it was a quiet, easy day with hardly anybody around except a few super nice friends.  After work I took the subway and bus to a coffee shop where I was meeting Doe - incidentally, it was Doe who gave me the Muffins and More cookbook - because we were going to a book signing with an author we both really liked.  This was back when Toronto coffee shops first started including living room furniture, and Doe and I scored the sofa and armchair, which was wildly lucky.  Doe had recently married and she had her wedding pictures with her, so we had a wonderful time going through them all and remember what a fun day that was.  Then we went across the street to the bookstore and waited in line outside... in perfect weather, naturally.  And finally, we got to meet Sue Grafton and get our copies of her newest book signed.

The next day and all the ones since have had their ups and downs, but I will never forget that one, and when I read yesterday that Sue Grafton had died (again, 2017 was a stinker), I sent thanks up to her spirit for being part of it.

And thank you too, Doe!

Okay, let's get down to the business of this post.  Normally, as you may recall from previous years when I was posting every weekday, before this crazy home renovation started, I spend New Year's Eve cleaning my office so I'm ready for a productive year of creativity.

Last year I didn't do that, and a couple of days later I broke two fingers and couldn't type or knit for I think eight weeks.  So I was a bit wary about again breaking with tradition... but I have decided to go easy on myself this year and leave my watercolour stuff out on the desk so I can just pick up where I left off next time I get a chance to sit there.

(To compensate, I cleaned up and reorganized the front hall.  Pretty sure the desk would have been easier.)

The going easy on oneself concept is the topic for today. Because as a rule I'm hard on me, and I'm really trying to make a change in that department.  Do you criticize yourself a lot and feel guilty for not doing enough?  I feel like everybody must do that to some extent - most of us are looking to improve in some way, so it's not much of a stretch to think we're disappointed in ourselves when we don't quite make it.  But I suspect some people are able to have lower expectations than I am, and I am certain I would never ask of anybody else what I do of myself.

Life's too short for bad habits like that don't you think?  Especially when you are looking at what a stroke does to a person.

So that's my New Year's Resolution for 2018.  I'm not hoping to master a particular knitting technique this time, or finish a challenging or just unfinished project, or even 300% commit to doing a post here every weekday again though I superhugely want that to happen.  I'm not even going to assert myself over my dream of making the last few drapes for the house.  I am just going to do my best to stand tall when I can, and to let myself curl up on a sofa when I can't, and not feel guilty if I have to do that. And I'm mentioning it in case you need to consider doing the same.

Other nice things I wanted to share from this month and didn't include the Christmas tree from the Eaton Centre here in Toronto:

It's so very sparkly isn't it?  Here's a closeup I took because I liked the stripey reflection of the red lights on the escalator:

Also, I managed to paint this a couple of days after burning my hand.

I am here to tell you that it is well worth running cool water over a burn for nearly five hours because I haven't even blistered yet. AND I was able to hold a paintbrush.

And for a parting story, can we just celebrate for a moment the fact that I've been hanging art in more than just my office?  It's been so hard to face putting holes into the walls knowing as I do how carefully they were drywalled and painted, I was barely able to commit to paintings going into specific spots.  Plus, I really like the unbroken areas of paint colour.  But I also like the paintings and I especially like the idea of not having stacks of paintings and mirrors on the floor waiting to be on a  wall.  So last week I finally overcame the mental block and hung a bunch, including this abstract by Ady that has been waiting for years to be framed and displayed.

Makes me so happy to see this as I come down the stairs every morning and all the other times I pass it.

And that's it for me for 2017.  Happy New Year all and I hope you have a wonderful January 1 to boot! 

Knitting Withdrawal Day Five

Hello all! Did you have a great weekend with loads of knitting in wonderful fibers? Do tell so I can live vicariously through you.  The best (though not all) I have to offer you today is my exciting new Broken Finger Mug Shot.

... and front view.

This cast is ... not as beautiful as my snowy-white splint. To say the least. But it will work and when it comes to mending broken things function is MUCH more important than form.  It's also extremely heavy, and it impacts all four fingers on my left hand instead of just the two broken ones, while leaving my whole hand more flexible and accessible - but I am getting ahead of myself.

After sending me for X-rays, the hand surgeon who saw me on Friday said that the emergency room reduction (aka putting my bones back where they belong so they heal straight) was not a huge success.

Then he gave me two choices, neither of which was the terrifying "Surgery to insert metal bars that stick out visibly for four weeks before being removed again OW OW and EW."  I was so grateful! but it was a hollow victory because the choices were these:

1/ Do nothing. Take off the splint, get fitted for a removable cast, start straight into physical therapy (OWIE), and move on with a life in which the two now-broken fingers work well enough but never again go all the way straight or contribute meaningfully to the making of a fist.

2/ Do another reduction. Take off the splint, get just two more needles but in the wrist this time (AIEEEE), have the bones straightened back out properly, wear a plaster cast for three weeks, do physical therapy, and end up with a somewhat better outcome, maybe even a perfect one.

Obviously I chose option two but it was REALLY hard to say so. The eight needles I got in the emergency room were some of the worst pain I've ever felt, and I've been through some painful stuff.  But, as I'd just been reminded in Emerg., you often have to make a fist for a blood test. Or to clutch a cane effectively, or prevent your opponent from stealing a look at your cards while playing Euchre. What if I live long enough to regret disregarding my long-term fist-making needs?

And what are two more needles after you've had eight?

Well let's be honest, they are the world, but I'm the kind of person who is ashamed to tell a surgeon who rescues people at risk of losing all hand function after surviving some horrific accident that I will gladly take reduced hand function for life just to avoid a couple of measly needles.  Shame ate me up for about five minutes, all I was willing to waste of this man's very precious time, and when I had established that it really was as simple as not wanting to have to be brave, I decided I had to be brave.

And you know what?

THE NEEDLES DIDN'T EVEN HURT!!

Seriously.

As he was looking over my bloated corpse hand he said Hmmmm, looks like they injected straight into your fingers... we don't do that... and I was thinking PLEASE TELL THEM THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

After the second reduction he sent me off for more X-rays and when he'd reviewed them told me my pinky should straighten completely and my ring finger, almost completely. Even surgery with scary pins would not have been an improvement over that.

And now I just have to get through the rest of the three weeks.  Just 21 days. Probably only about 18 evenings I might have been free for knitting.

I lasted one.

I mean honestly, can you blame me? All four fingers move, my doctor told me to practise curling them downward, I can even put a little pressure into the grip between my thumb and forefinger, and strictly speaking that's all you need to hold a sock needle.  I had to rest after 16 slow stitches but my tension was good.

By the time Lynn responded to my brag message with a warning that I might regret it though, I already did.  See, I forgot it's not the grip - it's the twist!

My whole left arm is already under tons of strain from holding a 2.5 pound cast up higher than my heart (on the off chance it helps the swelling go down - no sign of success yet). I didn't even get through a single round, but after less than the length of one movie my arm was doing that crazy painful spasm thing you get sometimes in the middle of the night in your leg.

So: I am not knitting again anytime soon. But I did paint something nice, so at least I have something pretty and non-cast-like to show you another day... another day when I have about ninety minutes to type a whole blog post with one hand, that is. I am really going to have to figure out how to post from my phone. Smaller keyboard = my friend.

Take care of yourself in the meantime, okay? and tell me about your knitting!

Many a slip twixt the skein and the cake

I don't know about you, but I will gladly put off non-urgent tasks until past the point of daunting.  Sometimes you need to work toward achieving an impossible objective to feel like you have some control over life, so on Saturday when I felt a bit overwhelmed - as opposed to Sunday, when the norm was to be more than a bit overwhelmed - I got out my accumulated Vesper Sock Club skeins.

And they were soooo far beyond daunting.  But also exciting, because there are a lot of colours in here I can't wait to knit.  And still daunting, because sometimes winding yarn into cakes doesn't go the way you think it will, and it takes a lot longer than you allowed time for. 

The first skein went well - only 15 minutes from braid to cake!  I started to relax, but that was a mistake.

It took twenty minutes to clear up a comparatively small snarl, resulting from cranking the caking machine too fast and watching Murdoch Mysteries instead of the swift, whose arms are perhaps a bit too short for anything faster than a Sunday-drive pace.

The one after that was just as bad, and the one after that too.  By the time I made it to five cakes - halfway through the job - I'd been at it for two hours.

Thankfully I figured out the problem (and Murdoch ended) so I was able to fight my way through the last five skeins.

DONE.  It took well into the evening, but I was DONE.  And if I had just stopped there... but no, I decided I needed a treat.  A nice solid-coloured yarn.  A skein of Viola.

Oh look, it's a hand-wound ball of yarn, rather than a cake.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Still, gorgeous yarn, isn't it?  And it sparked some ideas that aren't socks, so stay tuned, folks!

My evil two week plan

Today I thought I'd share with you an image of a beautiful blackberry tart:

Probably that's not very nice of me, especially if you read Hugs as you're starting your day, because you will now be craving blackberry pastry for the duration unless you are not at all into that sort of thing.  And good luck finding one if you are into that sort of thing.  I'd never seen one myself until I happened to stop by Epi, my favourite house-neighbourhood bakery, after a site visit to the house.  After site visits I keep walking over to the neighbourhood's big shopping street to get the bus home, hoping that I will arrive long enough before the next bus is due so that I can justify popping in there... and every time, the bus shows up as I'm crossing the street to the stop.  But not last week!

The tart was delicious, by the way, as was the challah loaf I picked up while I was there because Rare Opportunity.  Say what you like about the many splendours of downtown living, there are no bakeries to compare with the deliciousness of the ones within walking distance of our house, and I will be very happy to be in close proximity to them again some day.

The tart really has nothing to do with the evil two week plan though.  Also it is much prettier than the evil two week plan.

The Evil Two Week Plan

Here's the deal: around this time last winter I promised myself I would finish at least the first draft of an entire manuscript of a novel by the end of the first week of March.

Crazy as that sounds - and if you've ever tried to write a novel or renovate a house, never mind do both at the same time you're trying to deal with your day job, you will know it sounds very crazy indeed - I made good progress.  I would have finished well before Christmas if the people overseeing our house project hadn't turned out to be such a problem, to say nothing of the consultants they brought in - whew!  Anyway I had to take over and find a whole new team, and while that was the right decision in every way, it's cost me all my writing time.

But here we are folks: it's February 23 as I type this, with just two weeks to go before my seemingly arbitrary deadline.  Actually it's a very valid deadline as my schedule becomes even more insane starting from that point until probably next Christmas.  It's now or never for putting my head down and getting this goal met.

Obviously I can't pull that off without giving up something.  It can't be sleep either, because I'm already lucky to get six hours out of every twenty four (and sometimes it's twelve over forty-eight.)  And I'm not giving up posting to the blog every day, because I really like doing that and it was SUCH a drag when I had to drop down to once or twice a week last year.  I also can't give up the renovation management, obviously.

That pretty much leaves 'magic', doesn't it?  Let's hope some magic kicks in soon.

No really, the first thing to get tossed will be any semblance of meal planning or preparation.  Lately a lot of that has boiled down to a brief discussion between Pete and I that results in random takeout or cheese and crackers or pre-cut vegetables and dip or a grocery store salad, but for the next two weeks it's going to be Pete having that conversation with himself.  He's going to do what he did last year when I started this process, and visit my favourite posh grocer's for delicious salads and schnitzels and grilled salmon and lemon squares, so there's always something sensible in the fridge.  And I'm just going to barrel through as many hours as my brain will let me.

To cheat a little more quiet time, I have been knocking myself out to give everybody what they need on the house for the next little while.  Appliance selection?  Done.  Revised HVAC plan?  Approved by the city and installation on hold till the materials are ready.  Fireplace? Narrowed down to one, which we should go look at in person before ordering but might not because it is the only one we like anyway. Deposits for all sorts of expensive things? Paid, and I am trying not to think about how.  Custom designed in-floor heating material plan? Ready in (believe it or not) two weeks, after which they still have to make the boards.  Hardwood? Square footage locked down and ready to order as soon as we source stair treads and bullnose fronts to match it (don't ask.)  Tiles?  oh criminy.  Yeah, still not 100% on the tiles, but the samples from the shortlist are getting ordered and I can totally put off the final choice for another two weeks even if they arrive before that. 

(Tile-related digression (not to worry, I am containing this to one paragraph):I have been in denial about the tiles since we were pressured to choose them all last year around this time.  I didn't like what we'd picked but figured I could sort it out closer to the install date, and that is pretty much Now...  After a few paralyzing efforts I drew up a chart so I could see exactly how many things need tile and how many tiled areas can be the same as each other so there is less to choose.  You know why I was finding the tile so overwhelming?  Turns out I had to pick for the kitchen backsplash, the fireplace surround, the powder room and three other bathrooms - two of which have walk in showers with tiled shower floors that have to blend with the wall and floor tiles in those rooms - the front hall, and the laundry room.  That is a lot of tile. End digression.)

That, my friends, is the project management plan.  With all that done, I should be able to sneak off from that job for most of the day for two weeks and not hold anybody else up.

Thankfully laundry is something you can do while muddling through a plot point in your mind, so I can keep that from spiraling out of control.

And while there may not be a lot of time to knit, there will be some, so I know I can still have knitting things to show and tell here at Hugs.

I even cleaned the bathrooms last night.  Not sure how long they can stay nice and shiny, but at least they'll start out nice!

It seemed appropriate to close with an old picture of Rosa's amazing and totally magical walnut cookies.
Wish I could get her to cater my writing break with these babies!

What do you think? Can I pull this off?

(maybe better not to answer that.  just go have a great day, and I will see you back here tomorrow, okay?)

Friday night knitting

Last Friday night, Trish called to let me know that a knit night was happening in the Distillery District. In the really amazing shoe store.  Catered by the really amazing bakery.  With giveaways and limited-edition yarn for sale. And it was just about to start.

We both had other plans, but for five wonderful minutes we talked over how we could make it happen - ditching those other commitments and the people (in Trish's case, real live ones) who expected us to be around for them, Trish driving downtown and parking in the lot under my building, the two of us walking alongside the probably very darkened park for the 15 minutes it would take to get there... you know.  The usual.  Then we said goodnight and I went back to what I'd lined up.

Yep, sock finishing!

You don't even want to know how long it took me to clear off this sofa, aka 'clean laundry station' and 'discarded wardrobe ideas depot'.  I considered it a point of virtue to put in the time required to do it, kind of like I would be earning back the right to sit and run in ends if I did it.

Key to this whole process was setting up a DVD of 'Middlemarch'.  I don't love this production, and in fact feel quite annoyed at all the people in the story who make stupid marriages, but hello: COSTUME DRAMA.

Here's the thing.  Condo living has been a refreshing change from being in a house, but I have been getting alarmed by the complete disconnect from my old routines, many of which revolved around maximum knitting time.  And maybe an hour a day just for writing Hugs.  There are so many distractions downtown!  I can't remember the last time I sat down with a good costume drama and a project.

I'll tell you another thing, too.  There is a direct connection between how interested I am in the audiobook queued up in my Audible app and how tidy my kitchen looks.  Last week the snowdrift-like crest of mail, magazines, discarded sweaters, and completed shopping lists on the kitchen table and the desk I keep in there was equaled only by a three-day accumulation of pots and lunch thermoses on the counter.

So on Friday, between bouts of laundry-folding, I invested some time at Amazon and Audible and set myself up with a few audiobooks (Garry Marshall's My Happy Days in Hollywood, Sophie Kinsella's I've Got Your Number, and David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames) as well as some e-books because I was out of those too.  Result?  By midafternoon on Saturday, I had an incredibly clean kitchen, and a full day's worth of laundry done all the way from machine to closet.  Thank you live story-telling.

But back to my Friday night:

Thank goodness. Two and a half socks down, one and a half to go.  Not thinking about the ton of Vesper toes to close up, all clustered optimistically in a basket on the floor beside the sofa.

Saturday night, I managed to get a lot closer to finishing sock number three.

Good thing Middlemarch runs a few hours, isn't it?  I really need to find a different way to manage stripes, like running in ends as I go, or not doing stripes at all.  On the other hand, they are SO PRETTY, even when inside out.

I know I say this every time, but I think the purl side of a knit, especially with a colour-flecked yarn like this, is so much more beautiful and soft than the knit side.

Oh well, better get back to it.  Or rather, back to all the stuff that keeps getting left undone, and creating a barrier between me and finishing all those otherwise finished socks.

TV, movies, audiobooks, softly rustling leaves... what's your favourite accompaniment to running in a lot of loose ends?

Finishing for Christmas

Finishing off any knit is a nice experience, but finishing Christmas knits?  A week before Christmas?  That is as good as it gets.  And if you're running in ends on a cold grey day to boot, there's the bonus that you are justified in spending it inside, tucked up, doing essential things.

And the relief of four blocked cowls, drying!

Mitigated only slightly by the fear they will not dry fast enough.  These ones might need to go into a warmer room, I think.

Jan's socks are done at last, if not attractively photographed:

I can't remember such a gloomy December!  we haven't had much sun at all yet.  But you can tell these socks are purple, at least.  I only hope the brown doesn't put her off, especially where the toes went a bit non-matchy.  I could have planned that better!  But it's too late now to fuss.

There are still some more knits to finish - small knits.  Perhaps not quite small enough for me to have time to post tomorrow, but we'll see.  If I don't, rest assured I am curled up in lamplight with a good movie and some yarn, my typing fingers occupied with grafting the ends of a series of Earbud Pouches.

Take care and have a wonderful day - see you soon! With wrapped packages under my arm, I hope.

Weight loss for knitters

Knitters can do pretty much anything, but combining Crafty with Active?  Simultaneously?  That's hard.  And that can make 'staying healthy' - with the whole 'eat right and exercise' directive thrown in - a little challenging too.

People who spend their non-working hours running, or playing beach volleyball, or twirling around inside a hula hoop, are lucky because exercise is just built into what they love.  Our knitting time on the other hand has to come from someplace... and if you wanna knit, you're gonna sit.

It's the same for writers, or anybody else whose job puts them in a chair for the duration.  Sitting more than a few hours a day - in total, including driving or public transit time - has been linked to a lot of health hazards.  Plus, unless you compensate for all that sitting with a lot of exercise or calorie-watching, you're probably going to gain weight.  Yay!

True, you can get a standing desk.  You can even get a desk attached to a treadmill.  Those are terrific adaptations for people with space and/or money, not to mention motivation.

And that, my friends, is the word that gets left out of the Eat Right And Exercise message.

Motivation. 

As in, you need some.  Especially when there's yarn sitting beside the sofa saying Hello, I'm Delightful.


Weight management options

Pretty colours: highly motivational for this knitter

Let's look at a few popular weight-loss approaches and how they use motivation to help people achieve their personal goals.

Weight Watchers: widely regarded as the best system for getting a body to a healthy weight, whatever that means for the individual who lives inside it, this system is built around a social core.  You go to meetings.  You weigh in.  Humans are social beings and it's hard for us not to appreciate the reward of others' support and encouragement.  There's an online Weight Watchers option too, which shifts the in-person social support network to a virtual one.

The FAST Diet: this approach is based on the medical benefit resulting from seriously restricting how much you eat for no more than two days a week.  One motivator comes from the knowledge that you only have to do this today - tomorrow you can eat whatever you want - but another comes from the good chance that you will be reducing your risk of diabetes and heart problems by giving your body a rest from digesting, without losing as much muscle mass as you would through daily dieting.

The Really Fast Diet: I'm lumping several kinds in here, but you know what I'm talking about - the ones that enable super-speedy weight loss through shakes or vitamin injections or whatever.  The motivation there is that you see a significant change in an insignificant period of time.

The Prepacked Food Plan:  you can get this through big-business programs or from a local chef who will plan your menu and deliver to your door, but basically, your motivator is the fact that somebody else is going to worry about your food intake for you.  The rest is simple: just don't eat anything (much) outside that plan.  Surprisingly freeing.

The Boot Camp Approach: apart from taking up running or cycling or some other activity and pursuing it several times a week, this might be an organized exercise class that meets often, or a personal trainer who coaches you through and keeps you accountable, or even exercise videos you use in your own home with or without equipment.  How much and what you eat has less of an impact on your body if you ramp up your exercise time in a big way, and hello: Endorphins?  Once you get over the initial resistance to taking the time to go exhaust yourself, this stuff feels good.  And that, my friends, is motivational.

The Low-Key Eat Healthy And Exercise Plan: the motivation here is the simplicity of it.  You don't have to think too much about calories, and you don't have to move that much more than usual.  Often, this sort of system advocates walking - like, park a block farther away from work (not hard if parking is as hard to find where you live as it is in Toronto), or climb the stairs instead of taking an elevator.  It's slow - you might not even lose as much as a pound a week - but it's also not painful.  And it's pretty healthy too because you're going to ramp up your unadorned fruit, vegetable, and water intake.  Those things are super important.

The Food Diary: This one is a component in a lot of different programs, but it can be effective on its own.  Basically, you keep track of everything you eat, every day.  You don't need to be a fitness trainer to know that if you sat most of the day and then consumed 3000 calories, you're not likely to see a lower number on the scale the next morning.  A food diary keeps you accountable so that you are more likely to consume the right number of calories for the ones you're burning off.


Knitting: Can it possibly be - bad for you??

As if we didn't know it already without scientists weighing in, there is a lot of evidence that knitting is fantastic for your mental health.  It challenges your brain while soothing your nerves, it's tactile, and it increases your confidence even as it eases high stress.

If you don't do it in moderation though, what it does for your physical health is another story.  My own experience is that turning back to knitting after a 20-year break definitely impacted how much I sit.  And that in turn impacted my consumption/exertion ratio.

When I'm writing, I get up and walk around a lot.  Writing is hard work.  You have to think about how to say what you wanted to say, after you figure out what you wanted to say in the first place - and frankly, both of those things are more bearable once you've moved away from a blank computer screen.

But knitting?  It's not uncommon to sit for hours at a stretch because you're so incredibly driven to get to the next project.  And sitting for any length of time is really, really not good for you, quite apart from its not using up enough calories to support a delicious array of eating options.


So... which compensation approach is best?

Which exercise/consumption system to choose really depends on which goal is most inspiring for you.  And remember, that goal may change over time.  Any combination of any of the approaches I described at the beginning of this post may become part of your overall method for losing and/or maintaining your weight.

The statistics on keeping weight off in the long term show the biggest success comes out of the 'no more than a pound a week' camp.  So if your goal is both getting and keeping it off, the 3-4 pound a week approach might not be your best bet.  It's depressingly common to gain back everything you lost and more if you don't change your lifestyle in a way that is sustainable from this day to your last one.

Similarly, if your goal is "Please! No gallstones!" you might want to steer clear of super rapid weight loss and long-term calorie restrictions. I can't speak from experience.  But the comments I read from actual long-term users on review sites for some of those programs?  Yikes!

If endorphins are the thing that inspires you, then running and biking and the like are great.  Especially if you live in an area where it's easy to do that year round, or you have space for equipment in your house, or you can make yourself get to a gym to work out indoors in brutal winter months.  It also helps not to have any hip or knee issues going in (Hello: me, and insert: sad face.  I hated running most of the time I was doing it, but nothing puts you in good shape faster, and it really does feel good at the end.)


When it comes to simple weight loss, I've read many times that the most effective approach is tracking both what you eat and what you do - that in fact, without that tool, you won't be successful in the long term.  But it's got to be easy to keep those records, because if it's not practical for you to maintain whatever system you choose the results don't last.

It costs rather more than a pad of paper and a calculator, but my favourite tracking system so far is the mobile phone app for Fitbit, used in conjunction with a Fitbit One.  It's just so fast to tap in what you've just eaten, wherever you go, and the Fitbit device takes care of everything else.  Your only remaining interventions are pressing a button to note when you go to bed at night and when you get up, and recording specific activities like weight training or swimming or - okay, making stuff.  It all counts!  And the app offers instant motivations and rewards, thanks to the colourful bar charts and smiley faces that appear as you work your way through the day.

I mean: I will walk up and down the stairs at home for no reason other than to make those colours and images change on my phone's screen. They are that compelling.


Yeah, yeah.  But like we said: we're knitters.  What motivation will work for us?

Take a deep breath, folks.  What about - knitting?

Knitting a sweater?

Knitting a sweater that's a size or two too small for you, depending on your goal?

Rewarding yourself with knitting every time you complete a certain amount of exercise in a day?

Fitting into that sweater when it's done and then...

Knitting another sweater?

Just a thought.

Nothing to do with my finally deciding to pull out this sweater I started just as life started to get unmanageably stressful a few years ago, and stopped when I realized it would no longer fit even if I finished it.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get up from my desk and go for a walk.  See you on Monday!

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: the gift that keeps on giving

Right after I got home from visiting Italy, I read an online article citing that about 1 in 3 Americans experience some degree of fear about flying.  That didn't surprise me nearly as much as the enormous number of comments following the article, all of which focused on what combination of alcohol and sedatives are most effective in combating it.

That made me sad, especially for the flight-phobic readers who said they have to fly often for work or family, but it did explain why practically everybody I talked with about my fear of flying in the months leading up to my trip said, Oh, just get a prescription, or Oh, have a drink on the flight, you'll be fine.

Neither of these ideas was going to work for me.  I don't drink, and the last thing I ever want while dealing with customs and luggage and crowds and foreign countries is to be sedated.  So today, because everybody I've told gets very interested and wants to want to know more about how it worked for me, I thought I'd talk about what I did instead: cognitive behaviour therapy.


How Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Works

In my experience, the purpose of CBT is to teach you to counter thoughts or ideas that are problematic for you.

I think the easiest way to explain the principle of this is to ask you to imagine that you are standing beside a tree and looking out over an industrial landscape.  For you, from this perspective, the whole world might be black smoke and desolation, anchored by one solitary tree.  (or alternatively, full of lucrative manufacturing opportunity that is all the way down a cliff you can't climb easily.)

Now imagine moving to another side of the tree.  From here, you may still see the industrial area, but also the cheerful, well-functioning town that borders it. Or you may move further still and see that the tree is one of many trees, in which are living a huge range of insect and animal life.

All of these views are valid; they all exist.  But they balance each other, unlike problematic thoughts which may appear to stand alone with nothing else to temper them.


Applying CBT to Fear of Flying

When I began my CBT sessions, my thoughts went something like this:

a/ Turbulence = imminent crashing and death

b/ Getting on the plane = vastly increasing my risk of imminent crashing and death

c/ Sitting tensely gripping the seat and holding the plane up by sheer willpower = possible escape from imminent crashing and death

With help from my doctor, I slowly picked apart all my different fears and examined them.  For homework, I talked to friends who are pilots and watched programs about in-flight mechanical crises and how they were managed.  I also asked almost everybody I know for their thoughts on flying and learned that while some find it uncomfortable for various reasons, others absolutely love it.  I asked the ones who love it why they do and made a list: flying means vacation, it guarantees time to read a book, it's exciting to be up high.

This last one made me stop and think.  Some people love roller coasters and will give up both time and money to be terrified on them.  The feeling that I will do anything to avoid having?  they seek it out.  And yet: those people and I are all human! Bizarre, but true.

So, as I continued with CBT, my thoughts shifted to things like this:

a/ Turbulence is the result of currents of air, moving at different speeds and experiencing different temperatures, shifting into each other and disturbing their positions.  Planes ride on air currents like boats ride on the surface of the water, and even though you can see the water currents more readily than air currents, they are doing the same kinds of familiar things.  Turbulence does not mean the plane is malfunctioning; planes meet with turbulence all the time, especially over the middle of the ocean.  Turbulence is normal.  If it is severe enough to make passengers uncomfortable, the pilot will change position to move away from those air currents.  If s/he doesn't, then either it's not a threat, or the plane - however bumpy the ride - is still in the best possible position at this time.

b/ The plane I am on is very unlikely to crash and kill me.  Many, many mechanical issues can be resolved or accommodated in flight.  The most likely worst case scenario is that we will land where we did not expect to land, and change to another plane.  

b/ Omigosh, you mean I can sit for several hours and read a book, and maybe even doze off over it?  When do I ever get to do that?  Forget holding the plane up with the power of my mind - I'm gonna enjoy the downtime. 

I learned relaxation techniques too, including one that combined deep breathing with the tightening and relaxing of muscles, consecutively, from my toes right up to my eyebrows.  That one triggers your brain to release calming hormones that really help.  Yay!


Writing Off a Fear of Flying

My doctor recognized that I would not be able to fly multiple times just to relieve my fear of it (hello, time and expense?) so she gave me an exercise that worked extremely well for me because I am a writer. 

The assignment was to compose a script that included everything about the flight I knew I had to take, from the time I started packing for it until the time the first flight was over and I had to prepare for the next.   I had to imagine every thought that would be in my head, every sleepless worry-filled night leading up to my departure date, every caught breath as I walked through the airport terminal and checked in (to say nothing of getting on the actual plane.) The more realistic and in-depth I could make it, the more effective it would be in building my confidence.

After I'd written (and/or rewritten) this script, I had to read it out loud, and grade my degree and symptoms of anxiety before, during, and after each reading.  This really helped me to catch where I was still struggling and work harder to adjust my thinking in those areas.


Early Results from My Own Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

I saw a doctor specializing in CBT pretty much every week for nearly seven months to make my Italian holiday happen.

At the beginning of this time, I was having to drive more than usual and in busier areas than I like.  Which isn't saying much because I have never liked driving and had been developing an increasing fear of that as well.  But within a couple of months full of CBT exercises and discussions, I found I was no longer panicking the night before I had to drive.  Soon I wasn't panicking at all.  I still won't drive somewhere new without mapping out a route and testing it with a friend first so I'm not surprised by any fussy lane changes or construction projects, but once that's set I can do everything I need to do without having to think twice about any of it.

At about the four month mark, I did get on a plane, to fly on a small aircraft to Chicago.  I used all the exercises I had learned and by some standards - especially since those small planes have no cushion to dull turbulence - the trip was a resounding success.  Going out, I didn't become anxious until I arrived at the airport, and I did not cause a scene on the flight with a lot of anguished sobbing or hysteria.  (I did cry, but quietly... I don't think anybody even noticed.)  Coming back, I became anxious only a few minutes before the plane boarded, and I cried even less than I had on the first flight.

I also learned a new trick: looking at somebody who is not having any trouble flying at all, and emulating him or her.  In my case it was a flight attendant who was totally mailing it in at the end of a long day, completely blase about the motion of the plane.  It struck me that if flying was really that routine for somebody, it could be for me too - and once I decided it was going to be, I felt a lot better.

For some people, all of this would be enough, but I wanted to ditch my anxiety completely, so I kept on.


Digging Deeper with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

In the sixth month of my sessions, I finally recognized something that I had been staring at for many, many years without seeing it.  It's so simple, I'm embarrassed even to mention it, but it's such a powerful illustration of how our brains work and it seems to have turned on a lightbulb for so many people I've talked with, I'm just going to lump it.

When my dad died, I was living out of the country, and I had to fly home on my own for his funeral.

I didn't cry or panic on that flight; after racing to the airport I found it had been delayed, which allowed me to  pick up a bunch of funny novels in the bookshop there.  For eight hours I worked through them one after another, wedged into a tiny seat between a lot of much larger, silent people.  I was just fine.  Right?

Wrong.  I might not have noticed in the moment, but that flight was traumatic.  And trauma doesn't always present itself when it first happens.  Sometimes it needs a trigger, which in my case occurred after several other flights and just before a new one.  That's what made it so hard for me to see the connection: all those perfectly fine flights.  But once it was triggered, my brain took that huge lump of emotion, decided I couldn't cope with it, and plunked it into my air travel bucket.

In other words, I had metabolized grief as flight anxiety.

Once I knew that, and probably also because I had been developing some great new skills, it was incredibly simple to separate my sadness about losing my dad from the idea of being on a plane.  And I'm not kidding about the separation - it was as fast and as complete as a space shuttle ditching the part it needs only for takeoff.


When Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Works, Boy Does It Work

I did have very mild anxiety before my initial flights to and from Italy, but it turned out to be anxiety about missing the flights, and dissipated the minute I arrived at the airport.

I did not cry at all.

I enjoyed the down time: read books, watched movies, and met people.

I hugely enjoyed Alitalia's blood-orange juice.

I didn't need to actively pursue any of the tools I'd learned; I'd absorbed them all.

Turbulence, schmurbulence; I read a book, chewed gum, and - when things got super bumpy - I stopped to breathe.


The Gift that Keeps On Giving

Last time I was at the dentist's, he told me that strangely, every time one of his patients takes a vacation in Italy, s/he comes home with a cavity.  Well, I was in his office again earlier this week and guess what: I have two! And he's filling them as soon as possible.

Now, you can probably guess that a girl who fears flying and driving also fears the dentist, and in my case, you are so right.  But I am having zero anxiety about these fillings.  CBT, you are one of the best things that ever happened to me.  Mwah!


And: Done

There you go, that's my Cognitive Behaviour Therapy story.  I hope it is of some value to you or somebody you know.  If you have questions, throw 'em in the comments or e-mail me; I am happy to help out if I can.  Tomorrow I'm back to talking about the joys of knitting.  Hope I see you then!

Magical hat: the reveal

The magical hat, designed and knit with yarn I spun myself, came out great:

Soft and warm.  Stays on without hugging my hair into a lump.  Zero itch factor.  I call it a success, even when accompanied by the neck brace-esque matching cowl.

It had to do a couple of jobs, and keeping my head warm was secondary, but in that area: totally excelled.  I gave it a pretty tough test in wind and cold weather so I can say that with confidence.

Here is the hat in action during the test:

You may (or may not) notice that this is not the usual skyline one might expect as a backdrop for a girl who lives in Toronto.  Here is another skyline picture:

You probably can't read the biggest clue there, so I'll give you a closeup:

Yep, I've just been to Chicago.  And back.  In two days, which included daylight (if overcast) sightseeing, so you can figure out I didn't do it in a car.

I got on a plane.

Which is a big deal because it meant addressing a crippling fear of ever getting on one ever again.  I've been working really hard since September to make that happen... and even though I was holding a magical hat during the takeoffs and landings I found I have more work to do.

For now though, let's just celebrate the fact that knitting is a wonderful and very powerful thing, and have a great weekend!

Thankful

I'm not going to be soppy about all the things I'm thankful for (today is Thanksgiving here in Canada) even though I am thankful for a lot of very soppy things.  Instead I'm going to show you pictures of the baby sweater which is

FINALLY FINISHED

and I strongly suspect has a baby to put it onto already though I have seen only signs (for example absence of said baby's expectant mother from her usual haunts) of same.

I am so thankful. 

If you look really closely you can just make out the purple blanket stitch I did along one button band, where the colour changes were messy.

I checked with Louise, who made the purple yarn.  She says machine wash gentle, lay flat to dry, so all I need to do now is make a care tag and, with luck, go hold a baby.

Project details here, highlights here:
Merino wool and seasilk blend yarn
Vintage Patons pattern adapted for stripes
Untold amounts of chocolate for fuel

Hey there baaaaby (cardi)

Look, look!

Okay, it's not done.  I still need to blanket stitch one side of the opening and block it and find buttons and sew them on.  But it's sewn up!  And since that took more than two hours to do (don't ask me whether or not that includes sewing the side of the sleeve to the side of the back plus picking them apart again) I felt it deserved a day all to itself.

Now that it's in one piece I think it might be a six month size - whew! - which still won't put it big enough for this baby to wear at Easter, but maybe that's just as well.  Somebody might mistake him for a beautiful cuddly egg and try to put him in a basket for a table centerpiece or something.

Sweater weather

We interrupt this blog entry to bring you an important News Item: 

I drove downtown without an experienced driver beside me for advice for the first time this morning, and lived to type this message. 

And now we will return to our regularly scheduled wool chat (with added adrenalin.  PANT.)

It's only September and usually the daytime temperatures at this time of year are suitable for linen if you're lucky, but the last few days have been cold.  I mean, jackets and full-length pants cold.  Cold enough for either of the two sweaters I haven't finished, and don't feel too justified about prioritizing again until the baby cardi is done for said baby's imminent arrival.  Which explains why I have been moving forward with the cardi (finished the back last night! cue the confetti!)

I have been making stealth progress on the Deco though:

Honestly, sweaters in progress look like such a puddle of loose strings, don't they.  The best I could do with this picture of starting-the-back was to position the needles in a cute 1930s tapdance-arms way. 

You may perhaps have noticed that all the loose stitches are on holders, save for one sad little front shoulder on yarn.  It made me crazy that I couldn't find the last holder I'd been reserving for this very situation and I searched and searched - wasting all the time I would have gained by using said holder - before giving up, but when I put it all out to photograph it...

Yeah.  I'd clipped it to the strap of the bag so I could find it.  Le sigh.

Picking up where I left off

Remember this?

Much earlier in the year before my friend even knew whether she's having a boy or a girl I started knitting this baby cardi, and frogging and reknitting and going out to buy a second yarn so I could put in stripes and not have to stop at a body and half of one sleeve.

I dug it out of hibernation over the weekend so I could spend today reacquainting myself with it and getting it going again because: Baby is Due.  Maybe not for another two or three weeks, but definitely Due.  And as I recall, I was also wanting to make a matching hat if I had yarn left over, which will take time, of which there is not much left.

Sadly I had an unrelated time problem in the night, waking to a loud (but in the event nonthreatening) noise at 1am and not being able to get back to sleep again till I think 5.  Probably it was 5:15 but that is too scary to contemplate.  (don't you hate the nights where you have to count out your sleep in 15 minute increments?) 

In any case I'll have to nap during today's knitting time - I can guarantee I will doze over the needles, a clear safety hazard, if I try to work in this state - so it ain't gonna happen.  I'll just cross my fingers for tomorrow, or maybe sneak in some time tonight.  It can't take that long to decipher my sloppy old notes, can it?

Deco: the progress report

Two weeks ago I was gripped by an idea for a pattern that won't let me go - most annoying because every time I think I've worked it out it suggests some improvement to me and I have to rip out and start over - and between that and the spinning it's been a struggle to get going with Deco.

Thankfully I am nothing if not persistent:

I've finally made it farther than I did on my first try, which means I'm once again pulling yarn from a perfectly-wound part of the cone.  Huzzah!

Kate Davies writes patterns beautifully and I am totally in love with the yarn I chose (St-Denis 'Nordique') which does everything I want, is feltable, is incredibly flexible across many needle sizes, and feels not scratchy - a lot of ask from a feltable wool.  In fact, while knitting away at Deco in the car on the weekend I found myself concocting a pattern of my own for it which would require me to buy even more than the four cones I already have; I suspect the pattern is incidental to the opportunity to choose more colours.

Ideally I would work a bit on the cardi every day, and in fact I think I should make that a specific goal, like the way I made spinning every day of the Tour de Fleece is mandatory except on rest days.  But I don't think the gas meter replacement guys are going to understand why it was more important to get another row or two in on my sweater than to clear out the storage room so they can get to the exterior wall in the morning. 

Work: cut out for me. 

(after the spinning is done.)

The tale of the terrible tangle

Last week I decided the only way I was going to get to work on Deco during the cardi KAL was if I parked it inside the passenger seat of the car for summer day trips, so I did that and on the weekend I finally got going. Yay!  Then, about three rows in, I noticed my yarn was tangled.

How that happened:  After the first two frogs, I rewound the yarn around the cone, but looser than it had been before.  Pulling my working yarn off the cone from the bag I've been storing it in, more of the coils came off than were needed - coils from many, many previous winding points.  More and more, in fact, as I knitted merrily along without noticing the problem.

When I did spot it, I had to pull a whole hunk off the cone just to fix the tangle. I worked on the knots en route to Dinner Out, cursed myself for not bringing it into the restaurant (for which I would have been cursed had I done it), worked on it after Dinner Out and before Ice Cream Out, after Ice Cream Out (I had mango sorbet, and it was very nice) and after I got re-installed on the porch.

Here is what it looked like on arrival in my chair there:

And half an hour after that:

I tried to take a picture of what it looked like half an hour after that, but the sun was nearly down by then.

Here's the thing.  You can untangle a knot for just so long before you start weighing the value of continuing. You want to rescue all that yardage, but you also don't want to compromise the integrity of the project with a patch of wool that was worn and sad before it even got knit in. Plus, how much knitting time are you willing to lose?  And on the other hand, once you've invested 90 minutes in getting out a knot, don't you kinda half to go on and get the job done so you haven't lost 90 minutes of knitting time for nothing?  And on the other hand you wish you had so you could get more done in a day - who wants to run in ends when working on a cone?? The whole point of a cone is not having to run in ends!!  But of course the fourth hand knows that running in two ends takes about 3 minutes of which 2 are spent locating some scissors and a darning needle.

Sigh.

I only lasted the extra half hour, which put me I think at 2 hours of untangling before I went inside and got the scissors.  The yarn I was releasing from the knot was just an absolute mess by then anyway.

Yesterday I was in the car a lot again and after running in ends on one distracting Top Secret project and doing my daily spinning time - yay spindle - I had about an hour free for Deco which put me about half as far ahead as I would have been had I just cut the knot in the first place.

I'm not going to cry.

Honest.

Meet Hubie, the summer intern

Now that it's finally summer (I could tell by the calendar) I'll be starting to take a few days off here and there, which will affect the frequency of weekday posting here at Hugs.  I've been thinking it would be good to have an intern who could help out with that.

His name is Hubert, or rather Hubie; I met him a couple of weeks ago at the hospital gift shop.  On Friday I discovered that somebody had taken up with his twin so I didn't dawdle any further over my hiring decisions. He's spent the weekend settling in amongst the fiber, the results of which will doubtless unfold on my vacation.

Here he is with the current iteration of my Deco cardi for the Knitting and Tea and Cookies knitalong.  I decided to be optimistic and go down two sizes this time - wish me luck on having guessed right.  One good thing about this development - it takes much less time to get through a row, which is helpful when I'm so far behind everybody else. 

I can see some difficulties ahead for Hubie though - those arms are awful short for needles, and he'll definitely have to learn Continental knitting because there's no way he can do the throw method with stumps for hands.  H'mmmmm.