Spring?

Last week it was really lovely and warm, spring was clearly in the air... And now it's freezing. Come on mother nature, get a wiggle on! I want sunshine, not snow and sleet and cold!! Anyway, I thought I'd share these seasonal photos from my garden:


snowdrops


sunset

I'm sticking with going to the gym, but not making it as often as I'd like. Today I did my weekly weigh in (I just use the scales in the gym on a Thursday, nothing formal!) and was delighted to see it was moving in the right direction. I can't remember exactly how much I weighed when I started, mostly because of the blip where I put on weight to begin with, but I'm at least 1.5 kilos lighter. I'm really pleased and it spurred me on to have an extra hard workout today! Anyway, many thanks for the kind words of support - this will be a long journey for me!

March goals

I've been so busy the last few weeks I've hardly had time to post. Mostly work unfortunately! I'm away again this weekend, so thought I'd post my goals in good time. Mum had her knee replaced on Monday, so I'm off to visit her - it's also her birthday on Saturday. She's doing really well and will be coming home tomorrow - she's doing so well she's taken the doctors by suprise - she was fit enough to come home today, but all the paperwork wasn't in order! We really expected her to come out on Monday, although we did know if she did well she'd be out tomorrow. I'm so pleased she's getting around so well, and proud of her ability to do all her physio exercises to levels that exceed expectation!

Yesterday I was in Reading for a meeting, but took the opportunity to see my good friend Jane and meet her baby, Molly Emma, for the first time. Jane's cat is also called Molly, I wonder when they'll let her know she was named after the cat... Anyway, we laughed over the idiocy of my plans for the Las Vegas picture - I took along all that I'd done, plus the 8 pages of chart. Seriously, I do wonder about my sanity some days... Anyway we picked out a different wedding sampler, Wedding Day in the Elliot and Buttons range by Anchor. I ordered it today, and hope to start next week.

Today I hit the gym in earnest (thanks for asking Dani!), I needed to work of the cake consumed yesterday! I did just over an hour in the gym, then went for a short, relaxing swim and enjoyed the steam room and Jacuzzi too. Sadly this left me ravenous, I seem to have eaten all day. Hopefully not too badly - there was lots of veggies and fruit in there! I'm not getting to the gym as much as I would like at the moment - work keeps getting in the way, and I've also been away most weekends. My plan is to swim tomorrow morning and have a proper workout on Sunday when I get home - which will be a total of 2 swims and 2 gym visits this week, and a vast improvement on last week when I only made it in once! I was a little lighter when I weighed myself today... but given what I've eaten this week I suspect it won't stay off. On Monday Chrissie asked me if I'd lost weight, so maybe I've toned up? (unless I'd chosen to wear especially flattering clothes that day!)

Anyway, goals. This is my recap for Feb:
1) finish the centre panel on FT - done the xs, will tackle to bs on Monday
2) finish birth band - yes
3) finish ornie and start another small - yes, started and finished J'taime
4) work on Waiting for Ships - not yet but taking it away for the weekend.
5) work on Peacock Firescreen - a little tonight
6) start new lace project - yes, I must take a photo...
7) pick out a new wedding sampler for Jane - yes, we chose this one

That's pretty impressive, as the list was ambitious to say the least! I also worked on Eeyore's problem a little.

March goals:
1) bs centre panel and do xs of border on FT
2) continue with my lace
3) start Elliot and Buttons Wedding Day, and make good progress
4) sort out chart for birth sampler for Jamie's son, possibly kit up
5) stitch a little of waiting for ships
6) stitch a little of Peacock firescreen
7) stitch a little of Eeyore's problem

busy month!

January is turining into a busy month, although I have to admit a lot has been self inflicted! The main reason I've not had chance to blog, is that I (whispers) joined a gym. I've been fed up with my weight and fitness level for a while (well, most of my life to varying degrees, but really fed up of late). Since we moved to Leeds and bought a car my exercise levels plummeted. I was a member of a gym nearby, but eventually I lost my motivation, so I quit 18 months ago (needed to use the gym membership for house-buying related expenses, but really I just wasn't going). About 2 months ago I got motivated again, but needed to get past Christmas (and buying the new car) before I could afford to join.

I have to say I'm doing quite well so far. I joined a week ago Saturday, and since then I've done 2 yoga classes (which made my ribs really ache - I couldn't laugh for 4 days!), done 4 sessions of 1 hour each at the gym, and been swimming 3 times. I'm planning on trying aqua aerobics tonight. I already feel healthier, which is my aim. But this is cutting into my stitching and (more significantly) my blogging time quite a bit.. so fewer posts here.

Anyway, I have made some progress stitching wise. Sonata is about 3/4 done - I'll take it away with me this weekend, and am hoping to finish it then. I've actually stitched on FT for 2 Mondays running (and for part of last week), and somewhat amazingly I've picked up Las Vegas - I'm going to try and focus on this until the end of the month, and hopefully get the first page or so done.

I also picked out and started soemthign new, to replace Phoenix - I chose Mirabilia's Waiting for Ships - I've had it fully kitted up for a while now. I bought the fabric (PTP's Fathom) on my first trip to St Louis to see Amanda and Phil, and it was my first piece of hand dyed fabbie. I chose WFS to go with the fabric. I just hope I'll have enough contrast with the dark areas of stitching. It looked OK on a floss toss, but you never quite know! Luckily most of the design is quite pake in colour. Anyway, this is where I've got to so far:



Happy Stitching everyone!