In Case You Were Wondering

The diet so far is going well - 4 pounds in two weeks, which is a healthy (and hopefully sustainable) rate of weight loss. I know the mention of the "d" word caused consternation among some, but this is really more of a readjustment of my relationship with food. Growing up in the South, there are three basic food groups - fat, salt, and sugar. Well, four if you count starch, but that practically never occurs without at least one two of the first three. Actually, they're kind of like the Holy Trinity of Southern Food - one does not exist without the other two.

To be sure, I ate an awful lot of fresh garden veggies and fruit growing up - Norma has given me cravings for fresh tomato sandwiches, which is one of those quintessential summery foods I have been missing, due to my conspicuous lack of garden. Still, most of my life has been spent in thrall to fat, salt, and sugar, so the bulk of my diet plan is to make a conscious effort to change that.

The biggest thing I've done, really, is to avoid the junk food that invariably shows up at work. Skinny twenty-something techs bring in bags of chips and cheesy poofs, big boxes from Dunkin Donuts, and all sorts of things that make me lose control the moment my hand touches them. So I've made a point of not starting, and it seems to be working well so far. Otherwise I'm eating quite well, just a bit better and a bit smarter. Only 27 more pounds to go.

The Other Kind of Fiber

The wrists are still complaining, so no knitting. I tried crocheting up a mouse to felt and stuff today - need to crank a bunch out before Rhinebeck, as that's where my yarn/fiber money comes from. It went okay, but I noticed that my wrist did tire quickly, not painfully as the knitting would do right now, but enough that I'm just going to lay off that, too, and concentrate on spinning. I've been spinning more of the Junior tonight and will do a bit more before I head to bed.

Even though I'm not picking up the pointy sticks, I'm still thinking of potential projects. One thing I want to do is test drive both the J & S Shetland jumperweight and their Shetland 2000 yarns for the Schoolhouse Shetland Pullover, so I think what I'm going to do is order a little of both and do up hats in a sort of shortened dubbelmössa design using one of the pullover patterns and a simple crown design like "tree of life" for the increase/decrease sections. That should give me some idea on gauge and the hats can then go to Dulaan.

Speaking of Dulaan, Ryan is having people vote on a logo design for Dulaan 2007. Personally, I prefer the 2006 design, which seemed to be the favorite when I placed my vote, but if you want to have your say and haven't voted yet, then go over there now and do so.