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.)

One lap down, 199 to go

My 500 started a little before 9 this morning, and I walked 2.5 miles in about 50 minutes. I stretched after a little warm-up and afterward, and I'm feeling really good, except for a little sunburn, but that has to do with yesterday, not the walking.

So there are a couple new links in the sidebar. One is to Timeanddate.com, which is a fabulously geeky calculation website. It's a countdown to next year's 500. The other is to my google spreadsheet where I'm planning on tracking my mileage.

As to how I'm tracking mileage - here's my two major tools: Gmaps Pedometer and a fairly standard $5 pedometer. I haven't gotten the little digital pedometer quite calibrated, but it's less egregiously undercounting than it was two weeks ago, so I'm feeling better about using it. And truly, I'd prefer it undercount than overcount. The Gmaps tool will be used for pretty much everywhere I walk or hope to walk more than once. I've already measured 1.6 and 2.5 mile routes in my neighborhood, and the block around work is .5 mile.

I hope to check-in here every week or so, and let y'all know about any cool/fun walks I run across. This Saturday I'll be taking a couple laps around the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. See, fiber hobbies don't have to be sedentary!

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

So this has been May, and while I've had some time to relax and not work and to think about life and goals and stuff. And to clean my house some. And meanwhile I've spent major parts of three weekends now at the racetrack. I live in Indianapolis, and a love I've learned from my husband is the race-fan love. IndyCar racing is pretty cool, and the Indy 500 is amazing. He's been watching and listening to races his whole life, and the way he gently turned me on to the sport and the event is a testament to how well he knows me.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and walk 2.5 miles in my neighborhood. Two and a half miles is the length of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track. This will be the first lap in my own Indy 500. I got back tonight from attending my fifth 500. And I have a goal to walk or run 500 miles before the next one.

I have more to say, but I'm going to leave that on the table tonight. Tomorrow will be time for details, and tracking, and all that. Tonight I'm gonna be the girl who will walk 500 miles.

Piles

Here's a pile of socks.



March's Rockin' Sock club, my March self-imposed sock club in pinky-green black, my Lost Socks in Mandie's Oceanic colorway, and that black hole in the middle? There's a sock and a half there that were first seen in this pile of socks. Yeah, that was more than eighteen months ago. They're flat black, patterned, and not for me.

Whittling down this pile is one of my break goals. I think I've knit a full sock's worth since finishing the spring semester a week ago.

I've also spun this: 2-ply shetland. Yum.



Oh, and since we're talking about piles, here's a pile of handspun yarn:
This is the yarn, minus the shetland, that I've finished since March. Yum!

Meanwhile, I'm flirting with the idea of weaving. Stay tuned.

Spinning Round and Round and Round

The Spunky Club group on Ravelry is having a Great Stash Spin-Up, where people are committing to spin down their stashes. The thread is really encouraging and inspiring, and so I've joined in. Here's what I've done since early March:


A worsted-weight chain-ply from Twisted Fiber Arts' Festive merino-silk fiber, colorway Circle. This should stripe and it's a yummy squooshy skein.


Two small skeins of fingering-weight singles, in Wensleydale fiber, colorway Cold Front. This was December's Spunky Club fiber, and it's a really neat yarn.


This is a dk-weight three-ply. I started it on my Sock Summit spindle around Thanksgiving, this is Bluefaced Leicester fiber from Spunky Eclectic, in the Diet Coke colorway. I'm so proud of this one.


And most recently, a fingering-weight three-ply. More Spunky Eclectic fiber, in the Panda base (merino/bamboo/nylon) and colorway Strawberry Fields.

There has been knitting, but not much to show lately. The mittens are stalled out while my brain is occupied with school stuff. Various socks, yeah. Spinning all kinds of good stuff as well. Yay yarn!

Down the Mitteny Rabbit Hole

I will admit, post-Olympics, I had a bit of knitting ennui. There had been some lovely victories, and I couldn't see past them. I had some kind of bizarre anti-startitis where no new project was good enough. I spent a day on Chris's neverending black socks, and then it came to me: mittens.

I'm going to a mitten retreat in Chicago in May, and I really don't have all that much experience with full-hand mitten knitting. Fingerless, sure, but I've only knit the one pair of mittens. And honestly, I'm a little tired of them. The angora/wool blend I made them from is still amazingly soft and warm, but they're sheddy and felty and not as pretty as they were back then.

I found an amazing pattern for lovely faux-traditional mittens with Seahorses. And as I spent the start of spring break (as it seems I do almost all my school breaks) trying to manage my yarn stash, I decided to break into the Smooshy collection and use two colors of that. I had followed the Yarn Harlot's Frankenmitten saga last fall, and did something similar.

I started winding yarn on Wednesday morning. Saturday morning this was finished.



I'm afraid it's going to be a longer time before my happy mitten has a mate (or a thumb)- this week has been too brain-destroying to knit colorwork, and so a week later I'm through the cuff of mitten 2. But really, is it so awful to have a longer project when it's this lovely, and squooshy? I think not.