Feb goal review

Let’s see how I did….

(Can you change text color on this thing?)

 

Sewing-

1. Finish ribbon chevron top  Hmmm… I have it done except for the border.
2. Make the back for the twisted i spy top (and sandwich?)   Made;not sandwiched.
3. Plot and sew rainbow twister quilt. And start twisting, if I get that far  Started plotting, took it down, haven’t gotten back to it.
4. Finish and hang the fabric hoops for the kidlet’s room.   I hung the ones that were done, but didn’t make the rest.
5. OMG catch up on all my BOTM obligations.  Yeah… No.
6. Next project?
7. Finish cleaning and reorganizing sewing room      Still not done.
8. Put my sewing table together     No. 😦

Cleaning-

1. Get the house back under control in general.  heh.
2. Clean up office (which has somehow become the junk room the last few months) Ok. It is in pretty good shape. I want to go through the books and pull some for sale/donation, but other than that, it is in good shape.
3. Work on garage on weekends with hubs  We worked on it one day for a couple hours.
4. Get the baby’s swingset installed? Weather and helper permitting   Everyone’s been sick, and it has been raining a lot.
5. Closet  No.

• I’d also love to start my juice fast this month, but we are on a budget crackdown and juicers aren’t cheap.  Did Smoothie fast instead. It was hard. I lost 6.5 pounds and am still somewhere around 4-4.5 down. I am rethinking the whole juice fast thing.
• Read read read!  I’ve read two or three books.
• Start detoxing – I think this month I will tackle the kitchen I’ll have to do a separate post, but I have been using the natural cleaning supplies. That’s about as far as I got.
• Reach out to a couple friends  I think about doing this every day, and haven’t. 😦

WIP Wednesday – 3×6 blocks

I’ve been working the past few days on one of my 3×6 bee groups. This is my pinwheel group. I have 7 in my group, including me. I have completed 3, but may pull them apart and resew them. They are slightly large (12.75 instead of 12.5) and a couple of the outer points do not have a 1/4 inch of background extending beyond them, so they will be clipped when sewn together. I haven’t quite worked out why that is happening, but I know that I was erring on the side of too large rather than too small. Maybe I need to aim for just right? I have three more cut and partially sewn together. If my sick baby had taken a nap today, they would be done.

I realized I only have another month to get these done, and I have a whole other group I haven’t thought about yet. I think I took on a little more than I maybe should have, doing two groups. I think I will just sign up for one again next quarter. The good thing is that these are going together rather quickly, if inexactly. The longest part has been picking out the fabrics. Once I settle on that, the rest goes quick with this pattern. The seventh participant designated rainbow as her color scheme, so I am saving that for last, trying to work out how to handle it. I am going to have to cut each triangle individually, I think, and that makes me nervous for accurate piecing. My machine doesn’t like triangle corners.

At the bottom, on my ironing board, you can sort of see my basketball fabric that I am about to cut for the ABC I Spy swap. I have three letters – B, T, and G. I am using these and the boy swap that just finished to make quilts for my nephew and soon-to-be nephew. I think I have til June to get those done.

Linking to

Sunday Swap: Lizzy House pearl bracelets

I participated in a flickr swap for Lizzy House pearl bracelets. We got enough people to get the entire current, newly released collection. We each got two 5 inch charms. I was in a rush to get them out (they were due right after I came back from Florida) so I didn’t take a picture of my outgoing charms, but I got Grape and Juniper.

Here are my returned charms:

Since I sent in two colors, I actually got two sets, so four charms of each. But this is just one of the sets.

WIP Wednesday: It’s a mystery!

So I got my first mini mystery quilt block at the end of January, and I have spent most of the month kind of staring at it. I can’t show it to you — It is against the rules (even though at this point, the owner knows I have her block). I had a couple of ideas, but I had gotten some books on borders…

(one of those I got for a dollar on half!)

So after reading through those, my head was swimming with coping strips and repeats and decimals and I was trying to figure out how I was going to make all that fit into a measly 3 inch border allowance. I got stressed out, put it aside and worked on other things. After my sort-of break from sewing last week, I knew that my bee commitments had to be my priority over the next couple weeks, and picked it back up yesterday. I spent some time looking at some of the past round robin reveals, and realized they aren’t necessarily looking for perfect repeats or even necessarily matching borders. I was over-thinking again. I don’t think I can say much more, but I got three of the sides done yesterday, and should finish today depending on naptime (sleep did not go well last night).

Here’s your peek.

 

Good news! My first swap group finally filled and we are having fun picking out our fabrics to swap. I still have 3 openings in my polka-dot swap, and will be opening a new swap either after our mail date on the BWG swap or when the polka-dot swap fills, whichever comes first. I have some completed swaps to share this weekend, too.

Next up, I need to start working on my 3×6 bee blocks. I think I have the blocks picked, but need to test them out and get moving on them. I am way behind one of my groups. The other has been pretty quiet.

Linking to:

Reflections on a week gone by

So, I made it. This morning I awoke giddy that my diet had come to an end. First, the reveal: I lost about 5.5 pounds. I saw a tens digit on the scale that I haven’t seen in years… since I flew by it in the great weight gain after I got married. I am centimeters from buttoning jeans two sizes lower than the ones I have been wearing, which are literally falling off me. I don’t own the size in between… seems I always skip over it as my weight goes up and down. However, I am not convinced it was worth it for what I went through this past week. I feel I deserve to have lost 15 or 20 pounds!

I was good. If anything, I consumed less than I was supposed to – which is my husband’s theory why I didn’t lose more, though he does point out I have lost more in a week than he has in a month. I only had two cheats. One was the small tortilla I mentioned in another post. The other shouldn’t even count – We had to get out of the house one morning and I didn’t have the time or means to make and take a smoothie with me. I knew I needed something to get me through. I grabbed an apple and ate that on the way – something I would never choose normally. I had at best a smoothie and a half each day, but more like one a day. They just weren’t that appetizing and took forever to drink. Even the ones I liked got old quick.

I learned I would rather not eat than eat things I don’t like. I hate raw veggies. While I was never starving hungry, there was a definite underlying hunger throughout. Something that would normally send me grazing through the kitchen looking for snacks. I was shockingly easily able to resist those urges – especially when the option that faced me was raw veggies. I learned I hate tahini. That stuff stinks. I will be passing it on, though my husband seemed to like it.

I confirmed I hate cooking. I only had one bad cooking day. Most things left me plenty of leftovers to last a couple of days, and I got my husband to make a couple things for me. I hate the mess. I hate it takes so long. I hate the dishes. Etc,etc,etc.

If I were to do it again, I would cut out the caffeine first. It was especially hard going through withdrawal and diet at the same time. I would have tested some of the smoothies and things before hand, so I knew what I was getting into and the quantities it makes. I would not have bought everything on the ingredient list all at once, rather picked a few recipes and bought for those, since they lasted me a few days each, and we have a lot left. The smoothie ingredients (that I liked) went fast, though.

I had hoped to keep going. I actually liked most of the soups, though now I can’t think of having them, I am sure I will again in the future. I hoped to keep up the smoothies. I am having an aversion to the blender right now. The smoothies just weren’t what smoothies should be. Does that make sense?

A few days ago, I was out of my mind, filling my menu for today with Thin Mints, Cadburries, Ice Cream and Cheese. It didn’t quite go that way… I didn’t even eat today until about 2:30. Then, nothing really tasted the same. I know that sounds weird. But everything tastes off. Nothing is as yummy as it used to be. And of course, I filled up quickly. It was disappointing. Of course, I didn’t go though all this to just gain it all back, but I thought I deserved some rewards. And there is this weird film on my teeth (from last week). No matter how much I brush it doesn’t go away. What is up with that?

I thought long about having my diet coke. I went through hell to get off it. It is the longest I can ever remember going without it. I had one at dinner, and still haven’t finished it. It tastes funny. Maybe that is what this diet is really about. Making everything you used to love be unappetizing. I also had chicken for dinner. There goes the veggie promise. Well, at least for now. I still hope I will switch over, but I had low willpower and was craving hard the real, tough food. And I didn’t have to make it. That’s what will get me in the most trouble. I don’t want to cook, and it really isn’t economical of time, money or mess for us to be making different meals every night. If it is any consolation, it tasted funny. So, basically, as much as I have been dreaming about eating certain things all week, nothing has tasted good. How disappointing. Tomorrow I plan to get back on track – eating a little more sensibly, but eating. Food. And I hope to keep it to one diet coke a day.

In the end, I am proud of myself. There was a time when I seriously didn’t think I would make it past the first day. It wasn’t hard, I wasn’t starving, just awful. But I did it. I said I would and I stuck through it – through vomiting and gastric discomfort and cravings and all. I just don’t think I see any juice fasts in my near future, unfortunately. Glad I didn’t spend the money on a juicer.

Modern BOM class and quilt back complete

Last weekend, I attended my first session (since I was out of town for January) of my modern BOM at my LQS. Above is my completed February block (still need to make January’s). The solids are given to us each month, and we were able to choose our background color. I love black backgrounds. I feel like it makes the colors just pop. All my 3×6 bees are black background too. They were encouraging grey backgrounds because it is considered more modern, I suppose? But I really don’t like the grey. I feel like it washes everything out.

We learned a neat trick (which I am never going to be able to describe here) where you chain your rows in such a way that they are all connected in proper arrangement so that you know exactly which way to iron your seams so they nest. The little squares do get in the way a bit when you are trying to iron the others. I think I needed more length in my chain. I have done so many HSTs with my ribbon quilt that this wasn’t a problem for me at all.

I had one of the instructors look over my issue I have been having with my machine jamming when I try to start sewing seams that have corner seams (does that make sense?) as above. I pushed through my whole last two tops dealing with this issue. Unfortunately, the consensus seems to be that my machine can’t handle a 1/4 inch foot. It doesn’t give the width or pressure to push the fabric through. So I had to switch back to my standard foot. So annoying. It is working like a dream now, which of course is nice, but I really liked certain aspects of the 1/4 inch foot – especially when doing the hsts. Which, I guess I can just switch my foot back and forth in the future when I need to. I think I am taking a break from hsts for a while though, lol.

I also got my quilt back done for my I spy quilt. And we finally had a pretty day today so I could take pictures. (lots of pictures to follow…)

Day 3 and 4

Say hello to my new blender. My other blender’s bottom kept coming off yesterday and I had several messes to clean up, so we got a new one today. Oh well. Despite the trouble, last night I made a blueberry smoothie and tahini cream in it. The blueberry smoothie is very yummy. Even the baby thinks so. I took it easy on the kale. The tahini cream was so disappointing. I was expecting it to be like a sour cream, but instead it reeks of Pad Thai. Blech. I think the jar of tahini will be heading to my sister or mom soon. Now I really want sour cream. I had the lentil taco for dinner…. however, I did make a small cheat. We didn’t have any lettuce leaves to serve it in, so I broke down and used a small tortilla.

Last night was awful. I don’t think it was a good idea to eat all those lentils yesterday. I inflated like a balloon and was in a lot of stomach pain and couldn’t get much rest or relief. On top of that, the kidlet had a terrible night too. He was up three or four times, and after the first time, I was in too much pain to deal with him. We are finally (at 22 months) resorting to a sort of CIO method. Which I hate, but it is time and I think if we continue on the way we have been, he will still be waking up at 3am and sleeping with us til he is 40. I went in at 3 and changed him and cuddled him and put him back in his crib. After that, I think my husband went in a couple times to do the same (he throws all his things out of his crib when he gets upset, then is upset because he doesn’t have his things). Ugh. It was a bad night all around.

Today I used my new blender to make another blueberry smoothie. I am out of blueberries now, and almost out of bananas. I ate leftover minestrone to give myself a break from lentils. Tonight, I had the lentil taco, this time on lettuce, which my husband got when he got the blender today. I am not sure if I am squeezing in another smoothie tonight… it is already late and the blender is dirty. And everyone is really sleepy.

Day 2, lack of WIP

Yesterday went a bit better. I still had a horrible headache, but didn’t feel quite as badly. I started my smoothie earlier, but didn’t like it much. It was too lemony. Several hours later I gave up only halfway into it. For lunch I had my leftover minestrone, mainly because it was already made so I just had to reheat it. It was yummy. I actually had a little more. I figured since I threw up the day before and only had one smoothie, I had extra room. And it was really yummy. I will make that again. For dinner I tried another smoothie, the apple pie green smoothie. I took Becky’s advice to tone down the greens, and actually really liked it. I drank it all, though still not too quickly. I also made a quick salad and the vegan ranch. I didn’t like it. I am not sure which part – the salad or the ranch. But it was very sour, so I didn’t really eat it. I ended the day hungry. I really don’t like raw veggies. That makes this harder. I considered steaming some stuff, but it was so late by then I didn’t bother.

Oh, and look what came yesterday!

 

(I am not actually sure we got any tagalongs) But I am actually not really tempted right now. I will look forward to having some in a few days. 😀 As long as the boxes stay closed, I won’t have a problem.

Here is how I started my day today:

 

 

 

 

 

What a mess. What a waste. I decided to make another apple pie smoothie, since I seemed to like it yesterday. I didn’t quite finish it. For lunch I made the lentil soup, which was really good. I halved the recipe, and still have a good two more servings there. I’ve been enjoying the soups. I think I am going to go ahead and try the lentil taco filling tonight. The biggest problem I am having is the cooking. I hate cooking. It takes so long. It makes such a mess. It dirties so many dishes. I spent an hour prepping my soup, while my child and my dog were running around me like unsupervised twirling dervishes just adding to the mess and chaos. Then I had to wait an hour for it to cook. And clean it all up and run more dishes. Usually, I have my lunch while he is sleeping, it takes about 5 minutes to make, including a minute and a half in the microwave. Ten minutes later, I am done, with only a dirty dish, knife and fork.

I haven’t been doing much sewing, for a few reasons… I am trying to get the house cleaned up. It is just clutter everywhere. I’ve been ill and preoccupied with this diet. I’ve been napping. I did finish the back for my twisted Ispy quilt, but it has been pouring rain for the last few days, so I can’t take photos. But it feels good to have that done. I guess I have to tackle sandwiching and quilting now… for real. I won’t til I have my table put together, but I am both nervous and excited to try the next step.

I have also been spending my time cutting my squares for my I-spy boy swap. I finished that last night and sorted and packaged them today. They should go out tomorrow.

 

Day 1… didn’t go well

**This is going to get gross toward the end. You’ve been warned

 

So I started out with my smoothie. And by “started out” I mean it was probably about 1:30 when I finally got around to it. I don’t normally eat til the baby goes down for his nap, and that never causes me a problem normally. I made the spotted peach smoothie. At first, I wasn’t so sure about it. It didn’t taste horrible, but certainly wasn’t what you get at Smoothie King. I did finish it, though it took a couple of hours. That is a lot to drink… especially when it isn’t something you love. But in all honesty, I filled a jar with water and barely managed to finish that over many hours as well. It is just a lot! Oh, and that spout is sadly useless.

I took a picture of my packed fridge: We have a lot of stuff for this week. This is another problem I have with food. It goes bad. It doesn’t last long. And I know that all those preservatives are exactly what I want to get away from, but I hate the waste when stuff goes bad.

 

 

 

 

So for lunch (at about 3) I pulled out my food processor. That thing is heavy! And I wasn’t really sure how it all fit together. I was already starting to not feel great and was cranky and shaky. I almost cried over trying to put it together, but ultimately I must have figured it out because I got it to work.

 

 

 

This is my lunch – Cauliflower Tubbleh and what I thought was lettuce, but I think was really cabbage. You can see my water and smoothie in the back. It wasn’t as good as I was hoping. I think I over did it on the garlic. Which usually I love garlic, but it really didn’t sit well.

Well, by this point the baby was ready for another nap, and I really wasn’t feeling well. I had a killer headache, I was shaky, cold, and just not feeling well. I took a hot shower and got in bed and slept for a couple of hours. I woke when I heard the baby. And I felt awful. Shaky, weak, cold, nauseated, I could barely lift the baby. I thought maybe I needed food and was weak from not eating so much, but honestly, I don’t eat much more than that normally, just not as healthily, and I wasn’t hungry. I felt sick. I just wanted to crawl back in bed. I sat and stared for a while while my husband made his dinner and the baby played on the floor. I finally decided I needed to get up and get some food in me, as much as I didn’t want to.

I didn’t get too far. I couldn’t stand long at the counter. I kept giving up and sitting back down. Then I started making trips to the bathroom. Lots of them. And it was gross. When my stomach still wasn’t settled, I ended up vomiting into the tub as I was on the toilet. Then I did some more. I have to be honest, that helped. I felt a little less sick after that. By this point, my husband was pretty worried, making my dinner for me, and telling me he thinks I need to back off of this. I did eat my dinner, a pretty good minestone quinoa soup, but I couldn’t even think of making another smoothie. Just the thought send me running to the bathroom. I drank water and ultimately did break down and have quite a few saltines to settle my stomach.

Now I don’t know what to do. Today I don’t feel quite as sick, but my headache is near unbearable. I did a lot of reading on juice fasts and know that this sort of reaction is common. But I wasn’t expecting it with this. It is not as strict, it isn’t like I’ve never had veggies before. I eat a lot of veggies. And, I mean, it hadn’t even been 24 hours. I was really shocked to have such a violent reaction. I am also in serious withdrawl from my only drug, and that isn’t helping any.

I don’t want to give up. I hate giving up. I am stubborn and stick through crazy things. I had reasons for doing this. I know that my body is reacting and that is the whole point, but boy it feels awful. And I have all that produce that I have to eat. So, I made my smoothie earlier this morning. But I am still not even halfway through it. It is really slow going. I think I will try a salad for lunch and see where things are by dinner. I have my minestrone leftover. I don’t want another night like last night. I didn’t get anything done yesterday. It was terrible.

I also get creeped out by coincidences… I had both of these articles in my email this morning:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=1800

http://www.glueandglitter.com/main/2013/02/12/what-to-do-for-lent/

Here’s hoping today goes better. I need to finish this smoothie soon though…. I am not sure I can get through two a day. I don’t know how I ever thought I was going to do a juice fast.

Green Smoothie Challenge

So, I have been desperately wanting to do a juice fast for a couple of months, but we don’t own a juicer. After going a little overboard at the holidays and buying plane tickets for our vacation this summer, we are kind of trying to take it easy on the big purchases for the next couple of months. So, other than scouring craigslist for juicers, I am kind of stuck.  Then my sister put me on to a green smoothie challenge from a blogger she follows. It is a similar idea, but not as strict, and with a blender rather than a juicer.

I could go on and on for pages about my relationship with food, my weight history, my philosophies and circumstances. I will try to sum up. As I have been increasingly concerned with how I and my environment impact each other, my family has been equally concerned with how food and their health impact each other. While I am the heaviest member of my family, I am ironically the healthiest. I am sure that won’t last forever… And I did lose my gallbladder at 22. However, other than that and chronic migraines and sleep problems, I am relatively healthy. Even my pregnancy, which I was terrified about due to family history, went perfectly until the last hours. My 90 pound vegan yoga instructor sister has a heart condition, was on lipitor for years, and has a host of other issues. My mother, who, like me, has lost and gained thousands of pounds, has diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and on and on including bottles and bottles of pills. My sister and BIL went quietly vegan a couple of years ago. Once it was more well known in the family, my mom, the most vocally opposed, suddenly shocked us all my deciding to do the same. All have experienced improved health benefits. In addition, my mother has lost 40 pounds without even trying. And with no exercise whatsoever. Many medications have been reduced or removed entirely.

I don’t really aspire to be vegan. I have no problem eating vegan, and have quite a bit, but I cannot see myself being exclusively vegan. I can, however, certainly change my eating habits to be more healthy. While maybe for the first time in my life my main goal is not weightloss, I can certainly stand to lose quite a bit of weight. I hope between detoxing my environment as well as my body something will help with the headaches I am plagued with. I hope to have more energy to for my increasingly more active child. I hope to feel better. And, in the back of my head, while I logically know what happened with my labor was in no way my own fault (not a story I can handle sharing, sorry. Just typing this sentence is making me cry), I can’t help thinking if I had been healthier or thinner maybe it would have gone differently. I have been poultry only for almost 19 years. I have aspired to be vegetarian. I think my goal was to eventually phase into vegetarian. I guess that didn’t happen. After being with my family and opening my eyes a bit (and essentially being vegan for months at a time as I have stayed with my mother and seeing it can be done) I was hoping to break my juice fast with vegetarianism. So, now I hope to go from the smoothie diet to a juice fast to vegetarian. LOL We will see how that plays out.

So, anyway, we headed out to the international farmer’s market this afternoon. My husband, who has been doing very well on his own low cal diet, has been somewhat… unsupportive, let’s say, about all of my things. But we went, and he was excited by all the unusual options as well as the good prices they had there. He ran about fetching the items on my list as I entertained the baby (who was SUCH a good boy there). See, my other challenge is that I don’t cook. My knowledge of cooking is limited to boiling water and using my microwave. I have always been a believer that it shouldn’t take longer to make than it does to consume. So, I am somewhat dependent on others to feed me. This is part of why my husband is… entertained, let’s say, by my plans to alter my diet. I am kind of on my own. I have a lot of learning I guess. So, I pulled out the cool smoothie blender my sister gave me for my wedding (how’s that for foreshadowing?) and am about to plan out my menu for tomorrow.

And, because I feel I owe you a picture (I couldn’t take any at the farmer’s market – the baby had my phone) here is what will be the absolute hardest part of this whole thing. Going cold turkey. OMG. I want to cry already.