Monday's Meanderings

Is it safe to be normal again? I think with Monday being the first Monday of the new year, it's okay to pretend the holidays are behind us and believe that we can get back to a routine. I was right back into it with an early morning session of PT and then a trip to the grocery store. We keep a magnetic white board on our refrigerator door where we write things down when I need to buy more. It has worked quite well, and it also gives Mike a chance to make special requests. If he writes it on the list, he finds it in his stash of food goodies after my next trip. So, all of that to say that I needed to pick up something for dinner yesterday, but I was saving my big shopping trip for today. Still, I ended up with 20 items on my list, most taken off the white board, and the rest for one night's dinner (plus leftovers). We had split pea soup made in the new crockpot Santa brought for me, and it was so yummy. I used the ham bone left over from our New Year's Day ham. Today's grocery list has 37 items on it, so I'm glad I broke it into two pieces even if it does mean another trip.

There was no time for sewing yesterday, although I did make more progress on my Cornflowers table runner on Sunday.

All of the flower stems and petals are top-stitched now, and I started on the yellow leaves. There are 35 leaves, and I was able to finish 8 of them.

They go faster than the petals and stems, so I'm hoping to finish those today. The only other thing I did on Sunday was to change my mind about Sharon's Let's Book It Challenge.

Not that anyone cares or even is paying attention, but I spent some time reading the instructions for the quilt I'd chosen originally. Reading what I needed to do to make it all come together right started hurting my brain, and I could see that this was frustration in the making. Besides, I was going to need to buy fabric for it, and so I went to my second choice, still from the same book:

Call me a chicken if you want to. I was afraid if I stuck with my original version that I'd be writing a lot of blog posts with four-letter words, and I was thinking of you, my bloggy friends. You wouldn't want your eyeballs to catch on fire reading all those bad words, now would you? I decided to go with this scrappy table runner called Outback Sunset. 

Here's an image of the whole thing:

And I had all the fabrics I needed...leftover from other projects. I did need to purchase a red and black stripe, but that will work for future projects as well.

So I'm hoping to get some more sewing done today, but I don't know if I will. I'm starting today on my annual promise to myself to get more exercise and lose weight. I'm not dieting, strictly speaking, because I've come to the conclusion that dieting (for me) is a waste of time. For one thing, I don't really over eat. I do eat a lot of baked goods and therefore plenty of sugar. But calories-in-calories-out-wise, I'm still pretty sure I break even. What I really need is to get more exercise and I think the weight loss will take care of itself. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

So my new goal is to get some exercise four times per week, and for now, I'm counting my physical therapy day in there. The pool has been closed for the past three weeks, but it reopened yesterday, and so I'm headed there this morning. My goal is to swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays, walk with Sue (or by myself, if necessary) on Fridays. For now, Mondays are my PT day. If I ever get to quit PT (which is anybody's guess at this point), I'll add another day of walking on Mondays. We'll see if I can stick to it.

As I said, this is my annual goal. I think I've been setting this goal for about five years now, and I have yet to manage to keep it for more than a few months. 2014 is a sort of a big year for everyone in my family, however. Maybe that will make a difference in some psychological way. As for me, I'm hitting the big 6-0 on my next birthday. Matthew will graduate with his engineering degree in June. Erik and Mae will hit five years of marriage and they are celebrating with a trip to Hawaii...Mae's first trip. Mike will hit eligibility for social security this year, although he's not planning to draw on it. Still, it's a milestone, and something worth celebrating. So I figure it's a good year to actually make that exercise/weight loss goal stick, but I'm also keeping a healthy dose of realism in my planning.

What about you? Did you set any goals for yourself in 2014 beyond doing lots of sewing?