Seriously Anxiety!

I’ve taken a few more days off from working out than I had been planning. My mom’s visits usually do that. But now I’m suffering the consequences.

Today’s anxiety is sort of like an unexplained dread. I’m starting a new adventure (I am taking on a second massage job) and the great unknown is unnerving. My husband is also trying to lay the groundwork for his own performance garage, but we currently have no startup money for a space or tools.

The kids are out of school for the Summer and we have almost no plans and no camps scheduled. We will be together a lot. They do have more friends in the neighborhood, but I’m not sure how much that will give me a break, or add to the crazy.

Maybe I can convince myself to do some yoga tonight. That might help. Then I’ll make sure to workout tomorrow. I’ll try to plan my next workouts too. I change them up every two weeks/rounds through because I get bored and it keeps it fresh.

At least I, mostly, finished mowing the lawn today.

A Magical Bakery Mystery and Knitting

I finally decided to go ahead and let myself read the books I really want to instead of not reading at all. I have every intention of continuing to make my way through Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, but it takes a lot of focus and I really want to knit at the same time.

So I picked up the newest edition to my home library, Brownies and Broomsticks by Bailey Cates, and settled in with my needles. I knew it was a murder mystery, but forgot that as I merrily read along about the young woman moving close to her aunt and uncle for a fresh start after her fiancé ended things.

Hints of drama began as they were backed into hosting a gathering before their new bakery was ready to open, but the magical elements of the tale had me feeling at ease and even a bit whimsical. Then, BAM, someone is dead and I’m all shocked. That’s when I remembered it was a ‘murder’ mystery.

I’m only 50 pages in and am already really attached to these characters. I’m intrigued by the light, magical tone of it all and how different this one feels from other mysteries. It’s definitely making it easier for me to get through these washcloths. I only have a few days before school lets out for the Summer.

I Got Distracted

I started out working on my oldest’s sweater. A variation of the one I recently finished for myself. I’ve made some really good progress, but then I had an idea.

Washcloth sets to sell at work. Now that I’ve got the four patterns established, it should be pretty quick to make a bunch. Then I had another idea.

I want to give my kids’ teachers something nice as a thank you. It’s been a tough several years. My kids have had a really rough time and they were very nervous to start at a new school. All three are thriving better than ever, and it wouldn’t have been possible without their teachers supporting them. So washcloths with a giant apple and another with the letters of their school (I haven’t gotten to making that one yet, but the pattern rough draft is ready).

Then, my youngest started wearing this toddler cowl around her waist as an accent to her dress. I stretched it a bit and she thought it would be cool to knit a skirt. Now I’m adding stitches until it’s wide enough for some flare and will hand it over to her to knit. She’s pretty good with needles.

Cooking with Nothing

Another meal created by playing ‘what’s hiding in the kitchen?‘. Egg noodles, leftover cooked ground turkey, kidney beans, peas, corn, and cheese.

I cooked the pasta and put the frozen corn and peas in the oven with butter. After heating that for a bit I mixed in the beans and ground turkey. Salt, pepper, minced garlic from a jar, coriander, and chili powder. Then I remembered I should use a cream of something soup and found one can of cream of mushrooms in the pantry. Mixed that in with the noodles and let it cook in the oven for 15 minutes.

Then I mixed in shredded cheese and milk, covered it and cooked for another 15 minutes. Mixed it all up again and let it cook 5 minutes more. It was amazing. My husband made sure to give his compliments. I had a second helping.

Mixing Seed and Basketweave

These are some of my favorite stitch patterns. Simple. Repetitive. Yet varied enough to keep me engaged. I’m really enjoying this cotton yarn, too.

The brown one is a diamond stitch with a basketweave border. The green is moss stitch. It took me a bit to get the stitch count right so the patterns work. I made a couple attempts that didn’t turn out to be what I wanted. Then I finally landed on the right combinations.

This green one is a checkered seed stitch with a seed slip stitch border. The brown one is a double basketweave stitch. This green one is still a practice run, so the next one I make will be with a different yarn and a larger border.

Happy knitting!

Trying Some Self Care… Again

Well, I’m at it once more. Trying to start a workout routine. I’ve been in too much pain and feeling really weak. My anxiety has been leaving me flat and tired way too often. It’s time to make a change. Again. So, I’m trying a new approach and maybe even a bit of my own advice.

I have three sets of goals for each day. My highest goal is am and pm workout with yoga and afternoon stretching. My middle goal is am and pm short strengthening and stretching yoga with some afternoon stretching. My lowest goal is am, pm, and afternoon minimal yoga.

The main goal is to encourage myself to do what I can each day. The point is to move more and reacquaint myself with myself again.

Yesterday was day one and I met my top goals for the morning and the afternoon, but fell asleep without any evening stretching. Although I did some bicycling after dinner. I even drank the right amount of water. This morning I woke up feeling really good. It’s been a while since my anxiety wasn’t the first thing to greet me in the morning. And it’s been staying soft all morning.

Motivating myself has been easier today and the little voice that tells me to quit my workout early lost to the one that knows I can do that last set. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes, but so far I’m proud of myself.

Knitting Away Anxiety

Today was spent choking on my anxiety. There were things I wanted to do. Projects I wanted to make progress on. A lawn that needs mowed. A house that needs cleaned.

I tried to just rest and not let all my to-do’s swallow me, but I wasn’t very successful. I played Sims on my phone, drank coffee, and felt myself being slowly nibbled away by all the scary thoughts in my head.

I finally picked up my needles and began to stitch the tension out. I weaved in loose ends as I counted the minutes until pick-up time. Slowly, the pressure on my chest eased. The fear in my gut simmered instead of roiled. As the evening approached my anxiety quieted down and I found some rest.

Motivated to Cook!

These are the two latest magazines in my recipe collection. They are chalk full of amazing ideas and I’ve made a couple meals so far, even if they become something fairly different in my kitchen.

Cut up sweet potato tossed with oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then baked for about half an hour or so.

Tonight we’re having cheese topped black bean burgers with sweet potatoes and rice with veggies. It feels really good to be cooking real meals again. My body was so happy we managed a decent workout today (30 minutes of upper body weights). I’m hoping to get in some yoga before bed.

Chopped bell pepper and broccoli with corn sautéed with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parsley.

My regularly scheduled massage is tomorrow and the consistency of my appointments has been really helpful too. I’m trying to find my balance again.

Pouch chicken broth rice. Quick and easy. The bean burgers are Morning Star, topped with white cheddar.

The kids have been pretty happy with the meals, but we’re all retraining our tastebuds a bit. There has definitely been too many sugary treats lately.

Kid’s plate and my plate.

Waffle Iron Inspiration

When it comes to cooking at home, I have been really uninspired for a while. Meal planning has not been successful. Grocery shopping has been off the chore list. Our diet has been crap.

So I bought some recipe magazines filled with things I’ll actually make. My mom visited and is great at setting the house to right, so we can actually see surfaces again. My oldest loves doing dishes. All perfect for getting back on track.

Tonight I made waffle iron omelettes. While I cooked bacon in the oven, I mixed pre-made potato hash with oil and seasoning and heated some spinach on the stove. Then I layered the potatoes, egg mix, spinach, cheddar cheese, bacon, and topped it with more potatoes in the waffle iron and ta dah!

Those magazines gave me some great ideas. I got a good meal plan put together and some real grocery shopping done. Maybe I’ll even get into a more consistent workout schedule too.

Starting Over

This turned out to be the rough draft. It’s going to be a nice, loose fitting, sort of T-shirt style Spring sweater. I’m having a lot of fun with the stitches and figuring it out as I go.

These are stitches I’ve never done before. Mesh and dropstitch, but they’re not completely foreign concepts. The mesh just took me a few rounds to get used to and, now that I’ve gotten a good look at the dropstitch pattern I was using, I can write it out the way I’d prefer to do it.

I also got a good look at the size this was and, wow. That was going to be a lot bigger than I was aiming for. So, as frustrating as it can be to start over, it was clearly the right choice. The hours spent knitting this were totally worth it. Now, to begin again.