Finished Project

I finally finished my lapghan. I wanted this to be a full blanket but decided to stop. I stopped for 2 reasons.

First, I ran out of yarn AGAIN. I had no idea how much yarn was needed to make a full sized afghan. I have been working on this lapghan for almost a year.  Crazy, right?  For this size, that's crazy.  Here's what happened.  I ran out of yarn, set it aside and decided I'd buy some more yarn and then finish the rounds and make it bigger and bigger.  Everytime I went to the store for additional skeins I ended up finding other colors and buying other colored skeins of yarn.  Something else always struck my fancy.

Second, I did this by using a traditional granny square pattern and just kept increasing ouwards in rounds. The result is that the lapghan is square, but most beds are rectangle. If I keep going and going until it is big enough to cover the length of my bed, then it’ll hang too far off the side. Here's what a traditional granny square looks like.

You can see they usually consist of 4 or 5 rounds.  They can be solid or multi colored

.
Because I stuck with the traditional granny square pattern the lapghan is rather holey. I didn’t think it would be a very warm blanket. Well, I have to say, this blanky if quite heavy and warm. So, maybe if I’m inspired, I’ll buy some more yarn one day and add a few more rounds and make it just a tad bit bigger. Until then, here is my finished product.

It actually is almost as wide as a twin-sized bed

No photo is complete without at least 1 of my beasties nearby.

The colors are hard to distinguish.  Think I need to take pics in better lighting next time.

Zumba Zumba Zumba

I haven’t written in a long while.  A lot has been happening.  I’m still faithfully going to the gym and exercising with my personal trainer 3 days a week.  I also go 2 additional days a week.  I’ve checked out Zumba twice.  I have to confess I’m not sure this latin dance class can really be called “exercise” but it’s definitely a good way to burn up cardio for 60 minutes.  So, hats off to the guy or gal or who brought Zumba to the gym.  I haven't yet decided if I'm going to make it a regular part of my exercise routine. 

OLW 2012 - Reluctantly Chosen

In 2010 my small group at church decided to work on a One Little Word study together. It’s based on several sites/bloggers but the best site is the http://www.oneword.org/ site. The idea is to adopt one word each year and focus your biblical studies, prayer and meditation on this word.

In 2010 I chose the word Transform. I was going through a bit of transformation both mentally and physically. I had a great accountability partner. We met several times during the year and talked through the worksheets and our successes and failures related to our words and to other goals in our lives. We grew to be close friends. Today she’s one of my closest friends.

In 2011 I chose the word Trust. As I have worked with my therapist one theme that comes up is trust. I have a hard time trusting people and myself. So, I thought this would be a good word to spend some time looking at and seeing what the Bible and God has to say about it. Well, it was a disappointing year word-wise. For the first month or so I had no accountability partner. I tried to partner with a woman in our group but she didn’t seem to have much interest in connecting and, honestly, I didn’t make many, if any, attempts to connect with her. At one point in the year, I actually forgot what my word was. Ack! That wasn’t supposed to happen.

So, for 2012 I’m struggling with picking word. It’s just not coming easily to me. I wanted my word to be commit or commitment. I have a habit of starting something and not finishing – diets, afghans, organizing, bible studies, books. The list is almost endless. You name it I can name a time that I committed to doing it and then didn’t. As I started researching the word commit I kept getting pointed to Ephesians Chapter 6 and other verses. There was a common word or concept throughout the verses. The word is Stand.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really like it as my Word. There are so many things that can be done with the word Stand:

• Stand firm
• Stand up
• Stand alone
• Standing
• Stand out
• Stand by
• Stand for

The list is almost endless.  How many ways can you think of to use the word Stand?

I just have no idea where God is taking me and my OLW this year. I’m not really sure which scripture I will be using. I had one picked out (which I lost) but it turned out that the word Stand in that scripture didn’t mean standing with God or righteousness. It dealt more with standing with evil. Yikes! So not only do I need to pick a scripture still I need to do very careful research and make sure the verse(s) mean something positive.

Regardless of all of that, I am making the declaration.

My
One Little Word
for
2012
is

Stand

Day One

Today was day 1 with the personal trainer.
I arrived thinking how bad could it be?  What could she do to me in 30 minutes?
Ha! I'm already sore.
Here's a pic of me now.

January 2012

I plan to blog and take pictures as I travel on this fitness path this year.
Not sure how often I'll blog but I think I'll take pics and see if we can see the progress.

The 2012 Bucket List

As I've already told you I don't do resolutions.  I do however have bucket lists.  I don't know if I'll accomplish all of this but im certainly going to try.  

Thankfully the list isn't very long.

• Meet with the personal trainer 3 days a week every week.  I've already signed up with the PT at my gym.  The only exceptions to this are vacation or work travel.  
• Get certification to teach the NRA Basic Firearms course.
• Buy inexpensive .22LR (a Ruger or a Browning hopefully) to use to teach students firearms basics.
• Go skydiving 
• Lose 80 pounds - this is pretty agressive but I think I can do  it.  I'm on track to lose my first thirty pounds by March 1.  That gives me 9 months to lose the remaining 50  pounds.  
• Finish at least 1 of the adult afghans that I have started.  I have pieces of at least 2 afghans in my box.  
• In support of the above, I am not allowed to buy any more yarn until I've used up all of this yarn.
• Go to the movies more.  I think I have been to the movie theater 3 times in the past year.  That's pathetic.  Yes, movies are expensive, but life is short and movies are better on the big screen.  

If this year is anything like last year, this is going to be a great year and I'll have plenty to blog about during the year and a great summary at the end of 2012.