Life, the Universe, and Everything

Many Thanks to Peg, Melly, Sarah, and Paige for their suggestions.

I have been listening to podcasts - listened to a new one (Planet-IRL is pretty cool, race fans!) today. Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me and NPR's Sunday Puzzle are standbys. I definitely plan to walk with friends on weekends - once I get one free, this summer is kind of slammed. The "walk to somewhere" thing is cool, but the only place I ever go is Birmingham - which is about 500 miles away. I think a monthly goal may be worthwhile, though. I'm going for 50 miles in July.

But today I'm at 42.5 miles, and I'm enjoying the Hitchhiker's Guideyness of it.

Thanks, friends! I'm excited about what's happening with my walking!

Milestones, Baby Steps, and Black Holes

Knitters talk of the phenomenon of the knitting black hole, in which you knit on your scarf or sweater or whatever for days and days and when you're done it's the same length you started with. I'm about to hit a stretch like that with the walking. I hit the 30 mile point on Friday.

I'm three weeks and 30 miles in, and I was proud of me, but so tired. I meant to walk on Saturday after weaving, but I was too exhausted, and stayed home, and then didn't walk last night either. This morning I set out intending to do a 2.5 mile Lap, but stormy lightning sent me home at the turnaround point - so only 1.67 miles were walked today. I'm trying to shake off the "but now it's not even!!!" annoyance and look at it like the knitting. If I only knit something when I can do a whole repeat, it takes me longer than getting a stitch or two in whenever I can. So maybe I'll even things up by taking another turn around the neighborhood loop on Wednesday, or maybe I'll just take a walk tomorrow morning and do the same length as today - it didn't take very long at all for a shorter walk.

Anyway, I'm looking for tips for the next 350 or so miles. Any ideas on how I can keep this interesting? I'm going to be walking elsewhere in July - two long weekend vacations will take me somewhere else and I plan to walk in both places. I have monthly goals to try and meet. Anything else I can do to make it fun?

Oh dear.

I took a weaving workshop. It's a three-day intensive, and Peg and I took the first day a couple weeks early due to work schedules. Day one was all about learning weaving - the terminology and the capabilities and the various how-to's involved in operating the loom. We tried weave patterns and a bunch of different yarns in a sampler on pre-warped 4-harness looms.

Yesterday and today were the second and third days. We started with winding warp, and threading the loom. We wound on by lunchtime, and this is what I had:



I started weaving, and soon had this:


Peg came by and took a picture of me, and this one cracked me up.


What? Weaving is serious business!

Our fabulous teacher, Benita, has posted the wrapup of everyone's work in her blog (And FYI, she's doing another workshop next month!). I finished up this morning, and went home with instructions for a light fulling. If possible, I love the scarf more now - the weave tightened up and bloomed and it's just lovely.

I'm in so much trouble. I loved doing this. I think I need a loom. And another two or three days in a week.

Happy Feet

A couple things finished in the recent past:

My Lost socks. Knit during the last season of the show, in Mandie's Oceanic colorway.



I wove in the ends during the pre-finale special.

I joined the Blue Moon Rockin Sock Club this year, and the second shipment was the one that first jumped on my needles. The pattern is Slip Jig, colorway My Wild Irishgirlie.



They're a little big, but that's ok, they're not for me. Such a fun and easy knit - these were finished just a few days before the 500.

That means that all the socks currently on the needles are some shade of black. Including the pair I pulled in May from my personal sock-of-the-month club.

So I'm thinking it's about time for a really brightly-colored sweater or two. Stay tuned.

Not there yet.

I woke up this morning and I really didn't want to walk. I had clean walking clothes, and it was before it was hot, but I really didn't want to go. I was tired, and there will be other less-fun tasks happening today, so eh. But I went anyway. I had downloaded a couch-to-5k podcast, and while I started the walk with the most recent Popcorn Dialogue, I switched to the 5k thing about 10 minutes in. I was able to run about two of those intervals, and I didn't even try several of them. But the beat of the music was good for getting me moving. So that's something. I think I did get done faster today, so that's something to think on.

Ok. 22.5 miles is not something I want to walk for as much as 20 or 25, but it's a step along the way. Tomorrow I'm hoping to be 5% in. And there will be knitting content soon, I promise.

I can apparently embed my spreadsheet in a post. I'm having issues doing the same with a sidebar widget. 7 Laps as of today. Realizing that branching out and extending the walk are going to be fairly natural. Yay for that, at least.

Are you having a good time?

Another Lap today, and I'm fifteen miles in. Six Laps total since last Monday.

Classes started back this week, so that's been an extra pile of work and activity. My walks are kind of a respite, hanging out with myself and my thoughts and my music. I definitely was glad to have it this morning. I like looking at my neighborhood, saying hi to other walkers and joggers, and waving as people drive by. It rained a little today as I was getting toward the end, and I liked that too. It's part of the way the world works, and I'm not going to do this 500 mile thing if I'm going to let a little rain stop me.

The pedometer issue is still unresolved. I replaced my el cheapo with another el cheapo, but it's seriously sad and icky. When I wore it on my 2.5 mile Lap (calibrated the same as the old one), it recorded about 1500 steps and 0.7 miles. Not ok. I can live without one for a while, but I'll definitely want to figure this out before I travel over the Fourth weekend. Sarah suggested the Omron, which another friend wears daily for a health insurance discount, so that's definitely in the running. Tammany and Kristen do the Nike+ thing with the iPod, and my dear Pod is four years old and starting to show it, so that's an option as well, but definitely the priciest of them (but if I have to replace one anyway...).

Pushing Through

Today I was going to walk. Yesterday was my first day back at work, and so I planned for an off day from the Lap, as I've been thinking of it. I wore my pedometer some at work, and some while shopping afterward. I'm still not sure whether to count that - I have a vague desire to only count in-daily-action pedometer steps in months that contain an R. (For whimsy, one might say.)

And this morning it rained and I really didn't feel like getting out of bed. So I went to work, and said "oh, I'll leave at a reasonable time walk when I get home, before knitting." Which is something, friends, I have said before many times. "I'll do it when I get home." And then I don't. I don't leave work on time, or I get home and sit down and stop, or I get sidetracked by an errand or two.

But today I didn't. I came home, changed into workout clothes, sat and watched tv for 20 minutes or so, and then went out. Stormclouds were threatening, but it wasn't raining, so I figured I would do the short walk if it got nasty out. I had deleted my playlist from earlier in the week so I just ran with my Defense playlist (made to psych me up for my dissertation defense four years ago), and went on out. It did not get nasty out, so despite some bargaining with myself about short-walk-or-long? I'm 3 laps in now.

(And I just checked my pedometer for yesterday's mileage and it's gone dead, so boo for that - need to get a new one before Saturday and the fiber festival.)