Three in a row

Thanks so much for your comments and good wishes yesterday. Sobriety truly is a one-day-at-a-time process, with daily – even hourly! – rewards, if we keep our minds and hearts open enough to look for them. I've been such a whiner lately about my heel, but have been slowly bringing myself around to a more positive point of view about it.

Yesterday also marked three consecutive good days of the food-and-exercise game. I'm going to continue not weighing myself for a while [Mondays used to be my weigh-in day], and just keep doing the next right thing. I want my focus to be on feeling good because of what I'm doing and how I'm treating myself, rather than on what the scale says.

In addition to rowing, I walked on the treadmill yesterday, and my heel feels fine this morning. I was careful not to pound it by running, but simply walked a nice, steady, 3.5 mph pace for a mile – about 17 minutes. Maybe the cushioned footpath helped, or maybe my patience is paying off. I think I'll add a couple of minutes each day this week until I'm up to 30 on the treadmill, and then start increasing the speed, evaluating my progress every day, of course. And I'll keep on stretching. Those exercises [link in post], especially done post-workout and first thing in the morning, really help.

On to some knitting progress. I've finished the back, front and neckband of the pullover I'm giving my grandson for Christmas. Only the sleeves remain. I don't do intarsia very often, but I'm very pleased with the way the Batman logo looks on the front. [The link will take you to the chart I used.] I'll be sure to post a photo after I block it.

I used The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd for my template, a most useful book for beginners and experienced knitters alike. I really like the way the patterns are presented, in a chart form with the size at the top of the chart and the gauge on the left side. One of the few published patterns I wrote, for a simple stranded cap, was done in this manner. E-mail me at shrinkingknitter AT citynet DOT net [you do know how to translate that, don't you?] if you'd like a copy; it's a .pdf file, so be sure you have a program that will open it.

On deck is an Aran cardigan for my granddaughter.

And finally, some stitch markers worth their weight in bling. [Scroll down just a bit from the top of the post.]

I have my favorite brand of marker [the pink and blue Clover stiff plastic rings, which are, for some reason, now hard to find]. I've tried using markers with cute little dangly things on them and find they get in my way. These just might pass muster. And with my newly learned beading skills, I can make them myself! To my daughter: What do you want yours to say?