Crafty Girl

Saturday we trekked down to Allegan for the annual Michigan Fiber Festival. I just love going there. Loads of beautiful yarn, animals and lots of cool people.

This year we went with the notion that we want to buy sheep. After looking at all the yarn and determining that I might like Blue Faced Leicester, Cormo, Corriedale or Rambouillet, I stopped at a vendor that had the most amazing Shetland fleece. The fleece was a blue ribbon winner and it was really fantastic. I don’t spin *yet* but I may have to learn.

Anyway, after looking at all the animals I went back to talk to the vendor with the amazing fleece. He and his wife are owners of Windswept Farms . They were very gracious and showed us all their sheep and answered all our questions and many we didn’t even think to ask. There is no doubt that if we buy sheep I will seriously consider purchasing them from the Ludlam’s.

Here’s Sam with a Blue Faced Leicester. He was entralled! They made him giggle and smile. I love anything that make him do that.

I buy a LOT of sock yarn at events like these. Mostly because it’s easier on my wallet than buying enough for a full sweater. The worsted weight below came from Yarn Hollow and is called Seattle. It will eventually be a pair of socks for Bill. I’d like to make a whole sweater out of it for him, but he’s a big guy and that’s a lot of yarn.

And more sock yarn for me. This is from Knitting Notions in Golden Olive. The booth was packed and rightly so! That’s were I first ran into Bonne Marie and Meg

Today was the my first time in the gym this week. I did some stuff at home, but it’s not quite the same. I’m really feeling it too. Kinda shaky and definitely worked out.

I started the final stage of Turbulence Training for women today. The front squats were harder on my wrists than I anticipated. And, boy oh boy, slacking off does not pay. The intervals on the elliptical, which only a few weeks ago I found barely challenging, were killer!

Yesterday
30 Min Step - Cathe Cardio Fusion

This Morning
2 sections of Rapid Results Pilates

Lunch
BB Front Squats 50lbs
Assisted Chins, 88 lbs assistance

Reverse Lunges 25
Pushups 8

Intervals 6/60 sec intervals on elliptical

This is the knitting project I’ve been working on all summer. I am a ridiculously slow knitter. Seriously. The tank top has replaced my “road sock” as my traveling project du jour. This is because I would like to actually finish and wear it this summer.

I am knitting this with a no name Ebay purchase that I originally bought (at least 2 or 3 years ago) to make a ChicKami but it didn’t match the gauge and I was to lazy to do the math to make it work.

The pattern for Soleil can be found for free at Knitty

Do you like to run? That is what a co-worker asked me yesterday when I arrived back at the office from my interval workout. I was sweaty, thirsty and my lungs were still burning. I quickly replied “No”.

But that’s not the real truth. As PE class reject, doing things like intervals and heavy weight training make me feel kinda like the jock I always wanted to be. I also appreciate that our bodies were made to move frequently…as mine lets me know when I laze around. Another benefit is the mood improvement I get from a good workout.

So there are three things that trump the actual painful physical act of working out.

• Increased self esteem
• Less pain later on
• Improved mood

Why do you work out?

Morning
10 minutes stretching

Lunch
Turbulence Training Warmup
Specific Warmup

DB Split Squat 30
DB Low Incline Press 30

BB Back Row 65
Single Leg Hip Extension-Swiss Ball Curl 8 (each side)

I’ve been struggling with motivation this week. I have reached my pre-pregnancy weight of 163 and I must be really comfortable with this weight because my enthusiasm dive-bombed. I’ve been eating more junk and exercising a whole lot less.

Theoretically, I would like to get to 155, just 8 more pounds. But I need to psych myself up for that I guess. I have 4 more weeks left in Turbulence Training for women to complete all 4 stages and this last one looks like a doosie. Really tough stuff there. That may be contributing to my lack of motivation…the fear of the hard work required in this final stage.

You know, it’s not like I totally crashed and burned. I finally had to work out yesterday morning because my muscles tend to get really tense and start spasming if I don’t do something on a fairly regular basis. I was lying in bed Tuesday night unable to get comfortable enough to sleep because my hips and back were so tight. I finally got up and did about 10 minutes of stretching. That was enough to motivate me to do some sort of workout on Wednesday morning.

So I didn’t work out from Friday-Tuesday. Not the end of the world. But still, mentally, I felt like I was a failure. A quitter. I need to get over this attitude that if I’m not going balls to the wall I might as well not go at all. Something is ALWAYS better than nothing.

Wednesday
Morning - Cathe DrillMax, Drills 1-4
Evening - 10 Minutes on the foam roller

Thursday
Morning - 10 Minutes Stretching
Lunch - 3 mile jog

So, I haven’t actually gone on the jog yet, but by writing it here, I certainly will.

UPDATE
Edited to add…
So I convinced my friend to go with me. She was thinking of going out to eat instead. Her boyfriend thought it would be a good idea to do intervals today.

Since I’ve been subbing bodyweight circuits for intervals lately, I thought, “Yeah! That’d be great!”

They kicked my ass! Seriously. We did block long sprints on the first half, then Indian runs on the way back. Or rather they did Indian runs on the way back. I did them about 1/2 way and had to resort to very slow jog/walk intervals.

Yesterday we had to demo our new stuff to the bigwigs in the company so I skipped the intervals and got back to work to make sure I was ready for my part. I’m still working on PocketPC apps, so my work life is still not as much fun as it could be.

Tonight, Bill and I are going to see Charlie Daniels at Interlochen. We’re leaving little man with Grandma for the evening. This will be the first time I’ll be away during his regular bedtime. I’m sure he will be fine.

Yesterday
Turbulence Training Warmup
Specific Warmup

BB Squat 85
Eccentric Chins 5

BB Romanian Deadlift 100
One Arm Shoulder Press 25

Today Morning
Cathe Bootcamp Cardio & Legs Only ~30 min
followed with the ab segments separately ~10 Min.

Today Lunch
Walk to the health food store and back ~30 min

TT Warmup
Specific Warmup

Split Squats 31.25
Low Incline Press 31.25

BB Row 75
Single Leg Ball Curl 8

Bodyweight Circuit X 3
12 - 2 Arm Kettlebell Swings (moved up from a 25 lb kettlebell to a 35 pounder)
12 - Kneeling Pushups
12 - Reverse Lunge (both sides)
12 - Bodyweight Rows with the Blast Straps
10 - Single Leg Hip Extention (both sides)
12 - Mountain Climbers (both sides)

This week has been a tough one. I asked my hosting provider to fix an installation of some software they provide. In doing so they broke the blogging software that I installed myself. I installed Movable Type years ago before they provided a free blogging tool and have been running it without any problems.

After they fixed the software they provided, I got the following error when trying to access the MovableType control panel:

Got an error: Can’t locate object method “instance” via package “Apache::Request” at lib/MT/App.pm line 174.

Eventually I figured out they needed to reinstall mod_perl and Apache::Request, but they were all like “We don’t support customer installed software”. But THEY broke it! And since I am a c# developer, not perl or php or that unix stuff, I had to dig up skills I haven’t used in like 4 years. Sheesh.

No workout today. We had a team lunch to celebrate the release of the latest version of our software. We all got nifty hats with our names embroidered on them. Yay for us.

Wednesday
Wow, I was feeling really tired Wednesday. I think the running on Tuesday contributed to that. I started into my warmup and thought…hmm, this sucks. I kept going though. Skipped the intervals.

Turbulence Training Warmup
Specific Warmup

BB Squats 80
Assisted Chins 84 lbs assist

BB Romanian Deadlift 105
DB One Arm Shoulder Press 21.25

Thursday
Morning
1/2 Hour Yoga
Lunch
Intervals 7 60/60 on the Eliptical