Week Eighteen: Testing, Testing

This week was the third exam for my calculus class (I started sitting in on this section just after everyone else had taken their second exam). Lately I’ve discovered that although I’m learning the new concepts, my foundations are still shaky — particularly when I’m dealing with trigonometry. My professor has realized this, and graciously extended the time she’ll allow me to make up last semester’s Incomplete. I’ve proposed to her that that I do acres of homework to catch up to where I should be, and finish when I can. It’s work I need to do for this kind of math-work to become second nature, so I’m fine with that. I just have to take little breaks when I realize I’m wasting good time after bad. So yesterday, while everyone else was taking an exam for which I was woefully under-prepared, I was holed up in my “office” working on concepts about two chapters previous. But it’s starting to click. Mostly.

Paige’s problems ARE the material I’m covering in class!

The school year is also, of course, coming to a close for the kidlets. My daughter informed me recently that there were only 20-something days of school left, and that she knew this because “the fifth graders are keeping a countdown.” Personally, I’m not so sure it isn’t the teachers who are counting down the days. Both my parents are retired public school teachers, so I know they’re capable of it. Hey kids! Don’t forget you’re signed up for Session 1 of summer school!

Other “doings” include knitting. I went nearly a week without knitting a stitch, and I just felt so frustrated that there seemed to be no time right now for something that relaxes me so much. Over the weekend I holed up in my library-bedroom and knit furiously on a baby blanket for someone who refers to herself as “the nice lady from the library.” And she is! She has three young boys and doesn’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl, but either way, this child deserves something new. I know from experience that boys don’t really “hand down” things of much value, unless you like your jeans with holes already in the knees. And then, one day, I looked at the blanket with honest eyes, and realized that the edge intended to be the short one was about four feet wide. Ten more pounds of yarn, and this would be an awesome blanket for me. So I (brace yourselves) slipped it off the needles, pulled out every stitch, wound up all the yarn, and started again the next day.

On Monday night I reached a milestone in my double-top-secret ginormous long-term project. It took me a couple of hours, but I laid out all the sections of it on the floor, and switched parts around to match dye lots in certain places. I figured out how to seam it all up, then carefully packed up each section so that I would be able to start assembling it, column by column.

No, not THOSE kinds of columns.

My other knitting has been touch and go. I’m designing a scarf that is a giftknit for a friend, but I’m kind of stalled on it right now. And a “brainless” knit I was working on, then set down, proved to need extra brain power to sort out when I had the time to pick it up again. It’s been a week since I got input from a professional designer, and I just haven’t picked up the needles on this one. The baby blanket and the ginormous project really must get done sooner, as they both have organic deadlines.

I’m reading… I’m thinking about my life… I’m exercising… I’m taking care of errands that have waited for months… I’m cooking… I’m straightening up the house… I’m writing… I’m playing outside with the kids… I’m busy.

It’s nice.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Registration is now open for the 6th annual Unwind social event, held in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin!

How do I sign up, you ask?

Well, just click the small image below, and it should open, full size, in a new window. Then just right-click (Mac users, control-click) the image below and you can download and print a PDF of this year’s registration form. Ta daah! Oh, and you can make plenty of copies for your friends — one person per form, please.

This year we will be selling T-shirts with a new design. They are $12 each, available in sizes S through XXL, and must be ordered when you register.

Details will be posted on Ravelry on my profile page, and in the WI Sheep and Wool group page.

Any questions? Ask them on Ravelry, so we can all share the answers.

Hope to see you there!

Week Sixteen: Decisions and Revisions

The calculus train is barrelling along past Reimann Sum station now, and I’m staying in my seat and taking all the notes I can. I’m keeping up with my homework on antiderivatives, summation notation, indefinite integrals, and definite integrals. There will be an exam in two weeks covering this material, and I’m not scared of it. The biggest problems this week have been (a) slipping on the frosty ramp outside the house and bruising my hip, shoulder, hand, and ego; (b) getting almost to school and realizing I was driving the car that didn’t have the commuter window-sticker; and (c) getting so wrapped up in my homework that I lost track of time and was a minute or two late to class. They didn’t all happen on the same day (but two of them did).

The smaller the interval you measure, the closer you get to an accurate estimate of the area under the curve.

Of course, I know me by now, and when things are going well I tend to extrapolate the success to the nth degree. If I solve one computer hardware issue I think I should work as a Genius at the Apple Store. If I write a haiku I wonder how I’ll ever have time to finish my epic metered saga. One good pot of soup, and I’m thinking up graphic treatments for a cookbook series. If I think of an improved mousetrap design, I fret over my inability to purchase enough warehouse space to store all the inventory. That sort of thing. It’s more amusing now that I can catch myself in the act of making ridiculous or disproportionate future plans, and ground myself gently back in reality.

Thoughts like these have started me wondering about my academic future. Enough people have asked me if I were going back to school this fall that I started wondering, too. I went from “no” to “probably not” to “maybe” to “I think I’ll change my major to Pure Mathematics and get a full time job too and edit at night and invent cold fusion” in the space of an afternoon. Well, except for the cold fusion. I’m sure someone else has that all worked out by now.

I caught the thought, then I held it and took a more critical look at it. The physics professors seem distressed at the thought of my being a math major. What are you going to do with a math degree? Well, the same thing I was going to do with a physics degree at age forty-coughcoughcough — learn everything I can about what I’m interested in, while I still can. I’m interested in education but not in teaching, but who knows? With four technically oriented kids, being able to teach math might come in extremely handy. I’m interested in the history of math, the history of science, and the history of language. I don’t have five lifetimes in which to read everything, so I need to choose my reading matter carefully. For that, a structured course seems like a good idea. What’s it all good for? Well, it’s going to help me become more like me. That should be the purpose of education — to help you develop your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. It’s your choice as to whether you apply that towards finding a job or not. Personally, I think that this experience and education will eventually land me in a place where I’m making a living, but I just can’t see all the details from here. Not yet.

The math-and-numbers side of me is now being balanced by my words-and-letters side. I’m not just playing Words With Friends and Scramble any more; I’ve gotten a client who would like me to edit his book manuscript and help him get published. While I’m waiting for him to sign and return his contract, I’ll go ahead and hard-copy edit his first two chapters and keep track of my time so I can figure out my rates for future jobs. I’m also editing a friend’s dissertation for chapter-by-chapter publication in an academic journal. I’m reading fiction and nonfiction. I’m writing every day and blogging every week. And I’m still playing Words With Friends and Scramble. Finding point-scoring combinations among the letter tiles isn’t interfering with my “mathing” any more, so I’m just trying to stay balanced.

Then there’s knitting, that combination of wool, coding, artistic expression, and applied topology. I’m doing finishing (weaving in loose ends) on a huge project, turning a heel on a sock, designing a mathematically and artistically geeky scarf, and knitting a lace-edged narrow shawl that’s a therapeutic exercise.  My friend Bonnie has taught me how to do a Long-Tail cast-on — in fact, this patient woman has taught it to me twice so far — so I have a new tool in that particular toolbox.

As usual, all I need is time. T.S. Eliot assures me that won’t be an issue:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
— “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Week Seven: Renewal

After much agonizing, I have decided to renew a library book which I detest. Two weeks ago, there I was at the library, minding my own business, having dropped by to pick up a series of graphic novel-style mathematics books for my 6-year-old son. On my way to check out the books, I happened to notice a new arrival — a book on Euclid and his amazing book, Elements. I thought it would make a good introduction to book and author before I sat down and tackled Elements for myself.

Wrong, wrong, couldn’t have been more wrong. I started hating this book on Page Three.

Don’t even point.

Wait — now that I look back at it, I realize that I started hating this book waaaaaay before Page Three. Because I hate that the quote from Blaise Pascal that appears before the preface is in untranslated French.

I also hate the preface, which gave me my first sense of the author’s writing style.

It got worse from there.

I soon decided that the only proper course of action for me was to write a scathing review of this book so that I could warn off any of its potential readers. Time is precious these days. If I could establish that this book is a waste of both time and space, we could all move happily on to the next item in the queue. However, I didn’t think it would be fair to be nasty about a freshly published book that I didn’t actually finish reading. (Think back to high school. Can you imagine your Literature teacher’s reaction if you had attempted to turn in a book report on a novel you didn’t finish?) So, I struggled forward, trying to keep my temper. It wasn’t my book, so I couldn’t throw it with great force. I did toss it aside often, though. Then I would think, “It’s not that long. I can really get through this” and pick it up again. Then I would yell “I HATE THIS BOOK!” and put it down again. So my progress in the reading of it was not that swift or consistent over the last two weeks.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the library… the book is due this Friday. I had 48 hours left to read the book, and 96 hours’ worth of more pleasant and useful things to do within that 48 hours.

So I’m going to try to renew it tomorrow. Between chapters, or segments, or paragraphs perhaps, I shall be sharpening my pen and charging up my electrons. I have two more weeks…. unless someone else, perhaps the author’s mother, is on a waiting list for it.

Slop season. Not spring.

One might also look out one’s window here in Wisconsin and imagine that spring is coming and this is a time of renewal. Think again, bucko, it’s only mid-February. Just because you can see patches of grass amongst the snow, slush, and mud doesn’t mean the crocuses are coming any time soon, nor should they dare. And you should probably stay inside yourself if you know what’s good for you. Flu, whooping cough, and black ice are laying for you.

So. Until Spring is really here and there are better things to read that don’t have such a tight deadline and bizarre moral imperative, there is knitting to do. The dropped-stitch lace scarf is complete and has been entered on the Finished Projects page. I have cast on for a Wingspan scarf/shawl and gotten a couple of sections done. It has kind of an unusual construction, but the knitting itself is quite easy. So far, there are three of us in my local knitting group who are making them.

Wingspan in progress

(I don’t know why I can’t get the photo to show up. Sorry, just click the link.)

During the past week I have also gotten my oldest child signed up for his freshman year of high school. He is almost 14. He is almost as tall as I am (he checks this every morning). However, he is nowhere close to understanding just how ambitious his desired schedule actually is: Honors English, Eastern Cultures, Science 9, Geometry, P.E., German 1, and Intro to Engineering. I can’t wait until we get started on this in the fall and pour hormones into the mixture, add heat, and see what happens! He is a bright boy — he will just have to work harder at this than he realizes.

And now, a special announcement:

UNWIND 2013

I’m happy to announce that we are in the planning stages for the 6th “Unwind” social event, to be held Saturday, September 7, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin.

This event is NOT an official Sheep & Wool event, nor is it an official Ravelry event. It is a private party that you are invited to! The price of admission (which is cheaper, the earlier you register) covers dinner, a goody bag, a chance at a door prize, and the chance to hang out with some seriously fun knitters, crocheters, spinners, and others! And yes, you can and totally should bring your needles, hooks, wheel, spindle, and what-have-you. All the cool people are doing it.

On your registration form you can also choose to purchase a T-shirt. When you arrive at the Festival on Friday or Saturday and check in at our table in the main building, which should be just in front of the fence around the Silent Auction items, you will pick up your goody bag and T-shirt.

We have a cap of 150 attendees, so if you want to come, please sign up early. We can take walk-ins at check-in time at the Festival grounds, but NOT at the event itself.

Updates, discussions, and Q&A should take place in the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival group on Ravelry.

If you would like to help sponsor the event or donate a door prize, please email me or PM me on Ravelry.

I hope to see you there — I’ll be the one wearing the Doctor Who Scarf!

Week Six: Degrees of separation

I’m enjoying a more contemplative day today as the snow gently falls on the pines and the pastures. Having ignored the urgings of the weather service to heed instructions for French Toast Alert Level Orange, I’ve done my driving for the day without adding to my stores of milk, bread, or eggs. Quiet music plays from the TV’s music channel. Knitting is being accomplished; reading, contemplated.

Not taken from my house, but it might as well be.

As I was driving back from “town” this morning I was thinking about how people keep saying that the internet has allowed people to opt out of personal interactions, that we are not learning how to effectively interact with people face to face. I wonder about that. If you know me, you probably know I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I check in several times a day, sometimes for hours at a time. I post, comment, share, like, friend, and play a popular game using letter tiles.

Through Facebook I have been able to connect with interesting people, stay in touch with relatives, and reconnect with more distant souls. My Facebook friends range from my first friend (born two days before me to the family two houses down the street) to people on the other side of the planet, sometimes cyberfriends of cyberfriends. I can peek over the shoulders of my twin third-cousins as they work their way through medical school. I can look at the first photos of the first grandchild born to someone in my high school graduating class. I can witness the silly exchanges between two best friends, or between partners. I can see a list of the songs my sister-in-law is listening to on Internet radio, and with a click of the mouse I can hear them, too. These are the kinds of events I wouldn’t ordinarily witness. They are a view into ordinary life that a class reunion, a family reunion, or even a phone call or a letter doesn’t have a way to truly include.

Through Facebook I’ve been allowed to participate in more joy, anxiety, humor, pain, happiness, and sorrow than I thought my heart would have room for. Babies are born and celebrated, and babies die and are grieved. Kids say the darnedest things. Students study, party, win, lose, and goof around. Pets get sick. Friends make plans, issue invitations, meet up, and share the photos afterwards. Grandparents fall down. People have surgery. Prayers, positive thoughts, and (((hugs))) fly back and forth like electromagnetic waves. Funny jokes and silly pictures are circulated. People are poked. A classmate waits in vigil for her comatose sister to open her eyes and rejoin the world, and her classmates wait invisibly with her.

This is more connection, not less. These are the kinds of shared events that used to only happen within a family. Because of Facebook, our families have grown if we have allowed them to. And not only have I discovered things about my friends and my family — I’ve discovered more about myself. I could compare my accomplishments with those of others and be depressed, yes; I can also encounter unsolicited viewpoints that make me stop, think, reconsider, reaffirm, adapt, change, and grow.

I’m not indulging in these musings just to distract you from the paucity of my knitterly and academic accomplishments in the last week. While the variable weather and the resultant slick (and sometimes invisible) roadways have kept me from getting to campus to work on my math, I am 29 rows (1,218 stitches) away from finishing the dropped-stitch scarf. I have a shawl project all set to go that a real-life, in-person kind of friend is making at the same time. I’ve also initiated a Valentine’s Day cyberspace knit-along event involving a whole batch of friends I’ve never met in person. And I’m making bits of progress on my longer-term knitting projects as well.

This was not a stated goal, but I’ve gotten all caught up with both “Downton Abbey” and “Castle,” and I’m starting on “Top Chef.” Ten more episodes to go on that one. If I have a marathon I might be able to finish in time for the live finale, but I’m not sure. I also have a stack of interesting books I’m trying to make time for. I miss reading.

Week Five: Quantum of Progress

This week I’ve stayed busy, but until a few minutes ago I didn’t think I was getting anything done. Then I looked at what I did today:

• Went to knitting and drank one chai latte. (This list gets more impressive, I swear.)
• Turned the heel on one sock.
• Finished one blanket square.
• Knitted one repeat on a scarf.
• Gave away one of my typewriters.
• Worked on calculus homework for about an hour.
• Read one more chapter of Plato’s Republic.
• Left some cookies on campus for friends.
• Filled up the gas tank.
• Thrift-bought the shirts for tomorrow’s Spirit Day.
• Went to the bus service to look for our lost mittens.

The list really does go on and on. And if you look at the whole week, you’ll see more of the same. Had a new washing machine installed. Had the old washing machine hauled away. Baked a batch of cupcakes. Mixed a batch of frosting. Caught up on “Castle.” Applied for one job. Made a pot of chicken soup. Swapped out the rear axle on my bike. Little things that didn’t take much time to do, when considered in isolation.

In my fantasies, it would be really nice to spend the day doing one thing all day long. Like, read a whole book, reorganize the whole upstairs, give away all the clothes that need to be donated, sew up a complete quilt, write a whole short story, watch a complete trilogy. But I don’t get that kind of time, and I suspect my brain doesn’t work that way. Besides, when I do try to spend a day that way — if I don’t almost immediately get a call from somewhere, saying someone has been hurt, and I must come and get them Right Away — I can no longer see the tree I’ve gotten done through the forest of neglected tasks.

My task is to keep spinning the plates. Not even all of the plates — spinning most of them is fine as long as they are the right plates. Some of the plates deserve to crash or be replaced with new ones. And I need to forgive myself and move on when I think I’ve broken the wrong plate, or am not spinning enough of them.

• Wrote one blog post.

Week Three: Then there were six

With Resolution #2 out of the way, and steady progress being made on Resolution #1, you’d think I would have taken care of Resolutions 3 and 4 by now.

Well…not yet. But I have been working on the reorganizations necessary for accomplishment of #3, and some votes are in as far as the particulars of #4. Unfortunately, there’s a tie, so either (a) more people need to vote [did you know you could vote for more than one item?] or (b) I will have to learn TWO new cast-ons.

Until the ballot boxes are stuffed, I can report that I have made progress on a couple of projects. The drop-stitch lace scarf has 9 repeats complete on it now, and a few minutes with a gram-sensitive kitchen scale and a wooden ruler showed me that I ought to be able to squeeze 28 total repeats from this quantity of yarn, making the finished scarf about 42 inches long.

This is the 33 percent.

I also cast on for another pair of cotton slippers for my grandmother. I have made several pairs for her over the last few years. She wears them out and asks for more. I meant to have started these much earlier, but. I started watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey yesterday, and decided it was the perfect time to cast on for the slippers. And so it was. I have already finished one slipper. Then I decided to take a little break by using the leftover yarn from the first ball to start a matching dishcloth. I’m more than half way done with it, then I should have enough yarn left over to make the second slipper. I’m thinking of edging the washcloth with crochet…. maybe just to see if I remember how.

The little-seen Matching Dishcloth and Slipper set.

Downton Abbey is perfect for garter stitch, or any other knitting you can do without checking on it constantly. And in the episode I watched today (okay one of the episodes; I’m trying to catch up so I can watch Season 3 with the rest of the world), there was the first depiction of knitting. Different sorts of needlework are constantly being mentioned and shown, but this time the red-headed Irish maid, Ethel, had a ball of green yarn she was apparently working into the panel of a sweater.

This is probably Ethel’s most respectable talent.

The weather right now is sunny but cold, and this weekend we go from a high of 38° on Saturday to a high of 15° on Sunday, with temperatures expected to stay frigid for several days. No snow, just bone-chilling cold. Perfect knitting weather. I’m looking forward to finishing these projects and casting on for new things in bright, cheerful colors. Maybe even wild and outrageous colors! Or maybe I will just cast on to make a pile of mittens to replace all the ones my Darling Children have LOST this year. It’s gotten so bad that I have even purchased insulated gloves from the STORE, only to have a child come home wearing only one of them on the afternoon of the first day. ::headdesk:: Perhaps I should just pick a signature color of washable wool blend (I’m considering you, Wool-Ease) and just Never. Stop. Making. Mittens. Out. Of. It. Year-round. For the rest of my days.

They don’t seem to lose the scarves. Maybe I should start making the scarves with the hand-pockets on the ends?

Week One: Scarf Who?

I’m almost done with Resolution #2! Just six more stripes left to knit on Ginnie’s Doctor Who Scarf…. actually, that adds up to 114 rows of garter stitch, which works out to be 7,524 more stitches. Then there is fringe to cut and attach to each end. It probably sounds as if I’m quite a long way from finishing, but trust me, if you could see how much I’ve already done you would have less reason to question my sanity. I can take a picture tomorrow, but for now, just trust me — I’m close to the end of quite the awesome project.

Of course, the fact that I’ve just written a post about it means that I’m also working on Resolution #1. I may just designate Thursdays as “Chocolate Sheep Days” and call it a plan.

I’m considerably further behind on my other goals. I haven’t worked on any calculus yet, I haven’t found any new jobs for which to apply, and I’ve not even begun to look around for new knitting techniques to learn. But I’m going to work on just one or possibly two goals at a time so I don’t stress myself out.

What resolutions did you make?

Greater resolution

It’s time again to reinvent myself — to move forward, to learn more, to do more, to be more.

To blog more. Let’s make that #1.

Thusly, I resolve that, in 2013 (!!!) I shall:

1. Blog on Chocolate Sheep again, and regularly. Dare I say, weekly?
2. Finish the Doctor Who scarf I’m knitting for my friend Ginnie. COMPLETED!
3. Complete my calculus class.
4. Learn one new cast-on.
5. Find a Most Excellent Job in my chosen field of technical and scientific editing.
6. Learn one new cast-off.
7. Help my kids be awesome.

Seven looks like a good number, don’t you think?

Knitting to Alcatraz

Here I am… between room overhaulings and giving the kids their 30-minute computer time slots for each thank-you note they’ve finished writing, I have about five minutes to write this post.

Resolution updates:

1. I am publishing this post on Saturday as I promised. Check.
2. There is no more progress on the DNA Scarf today than there was on Wednesday. I have done 2 or 3 more blanket squares for a very long-term WIP.
3. This week I took a day and cleared out the area in front of my closet. It’s the part of my house that really makes me look like a hoarder, because I know what happens when I put things like quilting/sewing, scrapbooking, and knitting supplies out in the free-range areas of the house. They (and the things around them) get ruined. This particular project I would have spread over three days, but I didn’t have three days. Did it in one. I still have some items that don’t yet have a proper place, but I’m working on it ad I can actually use my closet, which makes me feel better and calmer. (Today, the dining room. The Pinewood Derby is next Saturday, weigh-in is next Friday, and Jack and I still have “cars” that are blocks in the box.)
4. School starts on Tuesday, so my g.p.a. is still intact.
5. I did get in a Wii “run” and the scale said I lost 1.1 pounds since Wednesday. Or Thursday. Or whenever it was. I think this puts me right back to where I was last Wednesday, but the important thing now it that I have a downward trend upon which I should capitalize.

Since January 1
Saturday blog posts: 2 of 2 (plus a bonus post on Wednesday)
WIPs completed: 1
Needles liberated: 1
Clutter reduced: filled a garbage bag with adult-size clothes for the thrift store, plus three pairs of shoes.
Grades: school hasn’t started yet
Pounds lost: I’ll get back to you later

OH WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!! I can’t forget this. If you are in the U.S., please plan to watch the Fox premiere of the series “Alcatraz” on Monday night. Air time is 8pm Eastern, 7 Central, everyone else you can work it out. I was not originally planning to watch this show even though it has a possible time-portal concept, but now I’m definitely watching the pilot because one of my sister-in-law’s songs will be played on the show. Her name is Lydia Loveless, the album is Indestructible Machine, and the song is “How Many Women.” I’ll tell you now that most of her songs aren’t, ahem, eligible for air time such as this. Pesky FCC. Lydia has been described as a “pissed-off Patsy Cline,” if that gives you an idea. She’s on tour right now and this could be a huge break for her (and therefore also my brother, who plays bass in her band) if people watch the show and start buying the song and the album. So please, help spread the word and give it a watch and a listen.

Slowly out of the blocks

This week is my last week at home before school starts for me again next Tuesday. (I haven’t figured out why college has the day off but all the other schools are open, but hey! it gives me one last kid-free Monday morning knitting meeting before I never see my “morning friends” again.) I’m trying to finish up loose ends, make phone calls, start preparing for the new semester, and generally fix a lot of things this week.

In the past few days I have been wondering a few things.

1. I don’t stay wide awake while I’m reading textbooks like I used to 30 years ago. I wonder why that is?

2. I will be on campus from 7:45am to 3pm every day. (Add an hour a day of travel time.) I wonder when I will keep up with my social networking?

3. This also means I won’t be able to attend Monday and Thursday morning knitting sessions in the group I founded. I wonder how I’m make progress on my lofty knitting-related resolutions?

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm….

Anyway, I’ve been struggling forward with my DNA Scarf. It’s a pattern that takes a lot of concentration on my part and/or silence on the part of others. Or at least the “right” kind of noise. As of this post, I have finished 2.5 repeats. I know where all the errors are, and the scarf is well aware it is being created on borrowed time. If a fatal error does occur, I will NOT re-knit this yarn into this scarf, but into something completely different. A lace shawl, perhaps. Yes, a lovely Kelly Green alpaca lace shawl….. And then I will stuff it in a box and refuse to let it see the light of day. (If events escalate to this point, the yarn and the pattern will have deserved it. Trust me.)

DNA Scarf - 2.5 repeats

In the meantime, I’m approaching the project as a test of the strength of my own stubbornness. Do I really want to make this scarf? Do I really want to keep all my resolutions? Do I really want to follow my own rules? Do I really NOT want to have to announce on my blog that I screwed up so wretchedly that I decided to knit a massive lace rationalization?

In other struggles, I weighed in this morning on the Wii before I did a 30 minute free run. My weight is up a little from last time, but overall it’s still a loss from a week ago. If I keep at it on the dual fronts of Europe diet and Russia exercise, I will get all my numbers down and get healthier and stronger over time. Not-eating-doughnuts would probably help, too.

See you on Saturday for the regular blog post with all the Happy Happy Fun Time Number Crunching!