Small World

It is a small world-  I know I live near Smalbany, but this is outside that small world reference.  In addition to being a knitter, I have become a runner.  I think I can say that since I ran a half marathon last October, and finished the damn thing and have the medal to prove it.  

I filled out a survey some time ago for Another Mother Runner a podcasting, author duo about running, being a mom and making life fit together.  I got an email last week from someone helping AMR write their book asking if I would like to talk to her about running and diabetes.   

While I didn't know it at the time, it was Adrienne Martini, from Sweater Quest, and she lives live an hour from me.  It is really odd to talk to someone you know quite a lot about ( I read the book quite some time ago) and not realize it is them you are speaking too.  She is also a runner. 



Not much knitting happening, having issues with shoulder pain and lack of motivation. Finished this most recently. Vortex shawl by Kristina McCurley knit out of gypsy girl gradations that I picked up at Rhinebeck in 2012 or so.
Sorry for the poor photo quality, I took this in a hurry and didn't have time to grab the photos from the good camera.

posted from Bloggeroid

Hello World

posted from Bloggeroid

It's time for my yearly post

Well, it looks like it is time for my annual post on the blog.  No apologies, my life, like everyone else's is busy. 

This past year has been a doozy!  I ran the half marathon on October and did as good as could be expected.  I was about 1/2 an hour slower than I wanted, but training was interrupted due to chronic pain and illness. 

I was diagnosed with endometrosis in September after a month of tests, painkillers, late nights and lots of doctors visits.  It was a tough time, and things got tougher as we progressed through the Fall.  There is no cure for endo, it is a painful, pervasive and terrible ordeal.  I'm just thankful I didn't show symptoms until last Fall.  The Fall and winter are really a blur for me, I don't think any of us realized how bad things were.  I was just trying to manage the symptoms as best I could, and trying to keep everything together though a haze of chronic pain, and uncertainty. 

I ended up having a complete hysterectomy in late March, and I am now completely recovered.  The surgeon was shocked when during the surgery they realized I was in stage 4 endo, not the stage 1 or 2 they had been expecting.  I was pretty asymptomatic for the years it took for things to get that far out of control.  I'm surprised at how good I now feel 8 weeks post surgery, and how fast I healed. 

Now to get back to running and training for the next race. 

Half Marathon...Here I come

Two years ago was the last post I made on my blog.  How a life changes in two years.

I got a job, a very good job just weeks after that last post, and I have been really enjoying the work (and the paychecks!).

The family is good, we bought a property last August and are working to rebuild and restore an older home. It is a lot of work, and is keeping everyone busy in the house.

Tim is still working on his PhD and we hope he will finish in about 18 months.

I started running just over a year ago and ran my first 5k on Fathers Day last year,  I will run the Freihofers Womens 5k on June 1 and I think it will be my 9th or 10th race?  I'll figure out all of them someday, but we have been doing a lot of races.  I signed up for the Hudson Mohawk Half in October and joined a running training program to get trained.  Looking at the schedule, it is pretty daunting.  So, I was thinking of using my blog as a way to track my progress outside of my nike run and talk about my runs.

Now that I can blog using my phone it shouldn't be too hard to keep things up to date.

Tuesday, May 14, run was 2.10 miles at the Crossings in Colonie. My time was pathetic at 37.19, 17.45 per mile.  I walked quite a bit at the end, so that did throw off my splits.   It was painful, not as painful as the Tuesday run I did with Jen that lasted 25 minutes, but it hurt.  I'm hoping as training goes on, this hurting part goes away.  I don't mean that the running itself is painful, it is hard to get going sometimes.  Mentally I keep wanting to stop.

I was looking back at both phone at the Nike app and I ran 100.4 miles with the iphone and 63.10 with the android!  163.50 miles since I started keeping track.  I think that sound impressive.

Baby Turtle

Tim found a baby painted turtle in the garden yesterday when mowing with the scythe-  he was pretty tiny!

 

With finals this week and all of the final projects that had to get done for school, I haven't been doing much knitting, but I did start a new sock during the royal wedding for myself-  made with my bamboo yarn, I wanted something I could wear in summer, and wouldn't get too hot-
Pattern is Roza's socks from Spring 07 Interweave Knits-  I made these before and really liked the pattern. but the socks wore out superfast-  either I wore them all the time, or...

But anyway-  here is the new sock

Rather than Study

So I mentioned 10 minutes ago that I have two midterms left and I would rather do anything than study, so I thought I would procrastinate a little longer and tell you about the new household experiment we have started this week.

Inspired by Stanley Family at http://www.savingsandstewardship.com/search/label/Eat%20from%20the%20Pantry, we too are going to Eat from the Pantry/freezer for March.

Our Pantry-  only a portion of the stockpile!

I have been stockpiling since last October and the grocery bills have been going down, but we still spend too much at the market and the pantry shelves keep getting fuller and fuller.

So, other than fresh produce and dairy (and coffee*) I can't purchase anything at the market.  I'm trying to keep the monthly grocery budget to $50.

So, I need to come up with some recipes that use what is in the pantry-  a new one to try this week
http://www.womansday.com/Recipes/Tuna-Stuffed-Shells
I'm not sure what the kids will think, but they can stand a shake-up once in a while and stop being so picky.  
 

*We are almost out of decent coffee and that is a staple I refuse to live without.  All I have left is one bag of the Eight o'Clock bogo coffee I got last Fall, Eight o'Clock is not my favorite, so I usually mix it with my favorite Green Mountain Dark Magic Espresso.  That makes it drinkable, and helps the Green Mountain go further.

I do have a couple of loopholes,
1.  if there are freebies this week at Price Chopper that I can get, so if it is free/nearly free I can purchase those.  What I will need in dairy/produce should help cover the 50% I need to get the double coupons, so we spend enough at the market.
2.  I can still get the papers as needed. 
3.  Over the weekend it was my Mom's birthday and she likes Carvel ice cream cake, so I went ahead a bought one of those ($18.99!!!!).  She is worth it and I can't make those chocolate crunchies like they can.  So that doesn't come out of my budget as it is a special occasion purchase and happened before I decided to do this anyway.

Midterms Already!

I can't believe we are at midterms already for this semester.  I guess that means the job hunts really needs to get kicked into gear!

Met with Deirdre yesterday and she gave me some great ideas, and she will be sending my resume onto some people she knows.  I would still like to work at the University again, but I'm not sure that opportunity will ever come through with the NYS budget situation.

Two exams down (both A's!!!!!!!   -  even in Intermediate Acct II!!!!!!!) and two to go this week.  And this proctoring has got to stop, what a waste of time watching undergrads taking exams in huge rooms-  I understand the need for proctors but why do they need so many of us?  3 people to watch 30 kids, really?

went to the market

I went back to Price Chopper yesterday and scored a few things with double coupons

Some types of Ronzoni Pasta was a on sale for $1 a box, I have six coupons for $1 off of 2 boxes so when the coupon doubled they were all free.  I scored 12 free boxes of pasta.  (it will last a long time, we don't eat pasta more than once a week)


The large bottles of Gain were on sale for $2 a bottle, I had 2 $1 off coupons from a P&G mailer, so they were both free. 
Betty Crocker Potatoes (in the box) were also free after the sale and doubled coupons, so I got 4 boxes of those (they also will last  forever, we rarely eat them)

I got a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk for $.25 with a sale and double coupon.  There was more, but I can't remember them all without my receipt in front of me.


I ordered a few coupons from the coupon clipping people, and will go back on Friday to score some more freebies!  For the things that remain after a few months, I will donate to the food pantry in town, so I can make more room in the pantry and keep my stockpile fresh. 

Cloissone Jacket

Last summer (Spring?)I started working on the Cloisonne Jacket from the Fall 2010 Interweave Knits.  It is a really pretty lace edge, colorwork cardigan. 

I hate doing colorwork flat and I can't figure out why Interweave thinks that its readers can't do steeking.  Why on earth would anyone what to do colorwork while purling?  It doesn't make any sense to me.  Learning how to steek is far easier than trying to handle 20 odd rows of back and forth colorwork while purling. 

So anyway, here is how I did it
 I knit the bottom lace like normal, then added six stitches to the count and joined the sweater in the round

From the six additional stitches, I made 1 purl, four knits 1 purl.  I added the purl stitches to have a nice turning round once the steek was cut and turned back.  I plan on cutting up the center of the knit stitches

when knitting in the round, just add these in, carrying the floats along like normal.

But, I still have work to do on this, I got through all of the interesting parts of the colorwork and I stopped at the armholes.  But February break is next week, who knows I may get inspired and pick it up again. 

Currently, I am working on a mobieus scarf for my Aunt's 75th birthday party on Saturday.  I need to accomplish six inches of knitting a night to get it done in time.  As it is knit on size 11 needles, this shouldn't be a challenge, but oddly when I have a deadline, it always is a challenge. 



Will I be jinxing myself if I say school seems easier this semester? 

I love to save $$

Last October I read a book called "Be Centsable" by Chrissy Pate and Kristin McKee.  I was really surprised how much money they saved by using coupons.  So, I got interested and started looking online and reading other peoples blogs and found out that you can use coupons to get stuff for free!
So, today was grocery day, and since learning how to use coupons, it has become a game and not so much of a chore.  I go to the Bennington, VT Price Chopper because they have double coupons, and it is the only store I know of that does in the Capital Region.  Before coupons and Advantage savings, I spent 364.09, but I only paid 245.86.  A good part of that was Advantage savings, but over $50 was in coupons.  Here's what I did really well on


Colgate Wisp-  I have no idea why anyone needs these, but they were on sale for $1.50, I had a $.75 coupon that doubled for $1.50 so they were free.  I assume the kids will have fun with them.

Friskies Cat treats-  Again, I don't buy too many treats for the cats, I mean Chubbs is gigantic, he doesn't need too many treats.  These were $1.69 a package and I had a $1.00 off one coupon so once it doubled  these were also free.

Hood Sour Cream 16 oz.  This was on sale for 1.89 each and again I had a $1.00 off coupon that doubled  to make them free!

Heluva Good Dip was on sale for $2, and I had a $1 off of 2, so when it doubled. they were only $.50 each. 

There were more-  but the best deal was Unilever products were buy $30 worth of products (before coupons) and you got a coupon for your next visit for $10.  There were tons of Unilever product coupons last Sunday in the paper, and Price Chopper had a ton of these products on sale, so I was easily able to get my $10 coupon. 

So, we have lots of food for our first annual anti-SuperBowl Party-  I'm so excited!


It was a good day.  I then came home and cleaned the house.  We are all ready for the weekend.