A workout kind of post

It really is a problem when your workout affects you knitting. Sometimes I’m so sore that my arms hurt when I’m knitting. Ow. But really, knitting should count as a workout on it’s own. After all, if you’re knitting a bulky project, you’re definitely hauling around a mass of yarn. I remember knitting blankets, and once you hit a certain point, you’re handling a significant amount of weight on your knitting needles and thus on your arms. That’s where circular needles are waaaay better than straight needles.

Like many other people, I’m not a fan of going to the gym. It’s the going part that’s hard. I have to drag myself there, and I’ll be constantly whining in my head that I could totally use a day off. Or I could work in a yoga practice, and that would be just as good. I hate running, so that one is out (too much impact on my ankles and my knees).

From CollegeHumor – they have a whole series of funny realistic gym workout diagrams

Once I do start working out, and I’m in the groove, I’m ok. A big part of that is that I’ve started listening to audiobooks while working out. That way I’m not constantly looking at the display, counting down every second. Instead I’m invested in a story, and it’s a great way to ‘read’ with your ears. And in the end, I remember that I actually do feel better when I’ve gotten some cardio exercise in.

I don’t want to knock Pilates or Yoga or other forms of exercise. I’ve tried both, and they’re great. Most of my Pilates experience has been on the machines, and boy, you get a whole new appreciation of your ab muscles. I’ve mostly gone to yoga classes, some of which I liked more than others. I really think the teacher makes or breaks the class. I’m now trying to work in a daily yoga practice of sun salutations…

I also play audiobooks during strength training. The thing is, I really need some kind of strap to hold my iPhone. Right now I’m currently wedging it against the workout bench – which is how it dropped and kind of damaged my headphones. Goshdarnit! So now I do have to replace my headphones though – the stop/play button on my headphones doesn’t seem to work anymore. I’m contemplating investing in a an iPod Shuffle or Nano since you can just clip them on, and I don’t have to worry about water damage to my iPhone.

I love when late spring eases into summer, and the weather gets consistently warmer. There are all those great things of summer to enjoy – sunshine, hanging out with friends outside, salad, ice cream, the prospect of a vacation, light and breezy clothing, and so on. But, summer also means summer tops and sleeveless tees. Yeah.  You’re showing of your arms.

If your happy with your arms, yay for you. But me, I’m not happy with them. I have really good arm strength, but I would love to have skinnier arms. More correctly – arms that are more toned. The tailor in India being surprised at the size of my arm muscles when measuring me for a sari blouse, and my Mom telling me to be careful during Karate training so my arms wouldn’t be so big. I’m not a body builder, and my arms are pretty normal, apart from their flabbiness, but a lot of young Indian women have ridiculously skinny arms.

I’m always on the lookout for good arm exercises to help with arm muscle toning and definition. So when I came across this Summer Arms Challenge the other day, I just had to share it with you. I think the workouts are doable, and they don’t look like they take up a lot of time. Want to join me? Or do you have your own workout suggestions? I’d love to hear from you.

Pin is from Zippy Pins – they have all kinds of awesome knitting and other craft themed pins. I’m going to have to get some for my project bags

Cookout!

Do you want to get into the cookout mood? Just start singing “Rollout” by Ludacris and substitute “Cookout” for Rollout. There, now you’re ready to hang out outside.

We finally have less rain. No more April showers which is good since it is almost June. We have more sunshine, it’s warmer which means cookout season has started! It’s warm enough. Yaaaaaay! The kids can play outside, hang out on the swing, play Easter by hiding and finding things (yes, they really do play that). And if all else fails you can always have ‘sprinting competitions.’ The perfect way to grab a few quiet moments.

Shaved Fennel and Zucchini Salad

Now, while cookout season is great, there are also health risks surrounding the eating of grilled meats – the whole carcinogenic thing is something to pay attention to. If you want to know more, just google ‘grilling health risks‘ or something like that and you’ll find reports on the findings about cancer. (Don’t run an image search – the Google images on cancer are pretty horrific).

There have been and currently are enough cancer cases among friends and family that it doesn’t hurt to prepare plenty of non-grilling options at a cookout. (Yeah, it’s been a rough time all around). For us, a cookout is a collaborative effort where every one brings something, and then it’s not such a workload on the hosts. My favorite contributions are salads that don’t need refrigeration – careful on the mayonnaise, side dishes that can be prepared ahead of time, and dessert options that are non-melting. Pretty much common sense.

I’ve come to be known as the salad queen in the family, so my standard contribution is some kind of crunchy-ish salad. One of my friends always contributes a basic lettuce salad with vinaigrette. So that’s taken care of, and I can play around with different takes on salad recipes.

This one is my current summer favorite: 101 cookbook’s Shaved Fennel salad. Yes, it’s a non-smitten kitchen recipe! It’s so good, I can’t believe that it didn’t make it into the cookbook. It’s really easy to make, you can assemble parts of it ahead of time, and it’s light and fresh. I used to be a bit iffy about using fennel in my cooking – I’m not a fan of liquorice so I only liked my fennel roasted, and the spice had to be toasted enough that it wouldn’t remind me of some kind of digestive tea. You know that little condiment that you get at the end of a meal in an Indian restaurant? That little bowl of fennel with little candied sugar pearls? Yeah, that taste. Btw, fennel ice cream post-dinner instead of that fennel mix? That sounds like a win-win situation.

But – I’ve found that I totally love fennel in my salad. If it’s sliced really thing, then you aren’t chewing on the fibers in the fennel. Plus the fennel gains a surprising delicacy. If you have mandolin, have fun slicing (it’s just way faster), but you can just as easily get lovely thin slices with a heavy Chef’s knife. Same with the zucchini – it has more moisture, so I don’t know who it’ll hold up on a mandolin, but I suspect just fine. I haven’t tried a box grater, but the fennel should work just fine, but the zucchini – I doubt it.

The recipe suggest letting the fennel-zucchini-lemon juice-olive oil-mixture marinate for 20 mins to an hour. Yes, I left the dill out on purpose – I just don’t like it very much. I let it marinate somewhere around 3-4 hours before assembling the salad, and I think the marinade could easily marinate longer. There was no more fridge space left, so the mixture marinated outside, but since there was no mayonaise it it I figured it would be ok. And it was. The arugula was already in the salad bowl, dried, and sitting in the shade. All I had to do was mix the arugula with the remainder of the mix, add the feta and the pine nuts. And voila, you have the perfect cookout contribution. The salad disappeared so quickly, some people didn’t manage to score seconds. Oh, and one friend ate the remaining dressing with a bit of focaccia – she pronounce it delicious. I really recommend you try this salad on your own – you’ll love it.

Featured post image from Stackmatic.

(Y)arrrrrrrrrn along!

Another Wednesday, another day to check in and see what I’m knitting and reading. My current read is Winnie the Pooh, which I read for my nephew over Skype. We both love Winnie the Pooh. We have a few other books in that series, but the Honey Cake mix-up is by far his favorite. It’s a really cute story – I must have read it to him a hundred times already, but he still enjoys it. I think there’s something really comforting for kids (especially the young ones) to reread a story, and to know what will happen. Oh, and for all of you Winnie the Pooh lovers, there’s a great series of YouTube videos about “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” It’s a real treat for my nephew, even though he’s only allowed to watch a bit.  He’s kind of scared by Owl, and that funny mole, and Tigger is a bit too hyper – he’s too fast for him to understand, but he loves the songs. I have them memorized by now, too – and I keep thinking of the “Up, down” song when I’m sweating on the elliptical.

As for my knitting, well, I have finished one of my wips, the pleated scarf, I just don’t have a picture of the finished object. And the mystery KAL shawl is almost done – I’m waiting on clue#6, the last clue, and then I’ll have another FO for March. It looks really pretty so far, so I’m curious to see what the finished project will be like. And we’ll apparently need buttons – I guess for optional sleeves?

Now, why did I cast on for another project even though I already have two other wips on the needles, including last week’s project? Well, last week’s melody shawl is going to be my mindless project, the one that I work on while I’m in the car (not while I’m driving!), or waiting anywhere where I’ll likely only be able to knit just a bit at a time, and where I don’t want to worry about keeping track of where I am in the pattern. I’ve made a bit of progress, so this will probably turn into another endless project (and it easily fits into my handbag, as you can see).

The other project is for my cousin and his fiancee – the better than better than pea soup blanket. I really do need to get cracking on that one since I’m probably headed to San Francisco in May or early June, and I’d love to take it with me at the time. It would be rather inconvenient to bring it to the wedding. Plus, I really want to finish this up before it gets too warm.

Ok, so back to the topic at hand. The German Wollmeise group (on Ravelry) is hosting a knit along called 12 Wollmeise in 12 months, with the goal to knit some of your treasured skeins instead of letting them linger in your stash, unknit. You pick out the skeins beforehand, give them a number and each month one number is drawn, and that skein is to be knit up. I’ve knit up January and February’s skeins, but I was late in working on my March project since my time was sucked up by my other Wips. So I’m a bit late to the party, knitting up this beautiful skein of Campari Orange light. It matches my mother’s hat really well, and she’s pretty excited to get this scarf.

The pattern is Anne Hanson’s Fernfrost, a really pretty pattern that shows of the colors beautifully. I thought that this would be a labor of love (well, more or less) since I was all scarfed out after that darn pleated scarf. But this one is flying of the needles, it’s so much fun to knit. I have till Saturday, so I’m hoping I’ll make it. And this time I’ll cast on for my April project right after that so I won’t be under such time pressure at the end of the month. Btw, I’m making this scarf narrower with only two rather than three pattern repeats, as per request, even though I tried to convince her otherwise. And now I’m wishing I had another skein in the color, to knit up a spring-inspired Windward for myself.

Phew, this was a long post. I’m participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, and through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday. Oh, and then there’s Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series too!

sorry…

I said I’d blog way more regularly this year, and I’ve been pretty delinquent. I’ve been really bad at responding to people’s comments. I’ve also been knitting more than playing around on Ravelry. And I’ve been especially bad at keeping up with my friends…

I know Easter is right around the corner, and it’s rather late to start fasting, but I’m thinking to start a detox later this week – both food-wise, but also mentally. I’m trying to streamline my life a bit and get a jump on healthier living resolutions, including working out more regularly. The challenge for me is to set realistic goals that I can actually achieve instead of setting such lofty goals that I can only strive for them for a bit, and then I crash and burn ’cause I get frustrated and then I just fail. But still, there’s such much clutter in my life that I sure could use some spring cleaning. And I guess that should include my stash as well…

Yarn Along

Another Wednesday, another Yarn Along post. I’m currently still working on the same Wips as last week, but I’ve added a new Wip: a Melody shawl for myself. I cast on for it since I wanted (another) mindless knitting project. One of my friends knits while at the movies, so I thought I’d try that myself. But first I was busy with my bucket of popcorn, and then I was so engrossed in the movie that I never brought out my little Melody shawl loop. Oh well. (Btw, sweet popcorn at the movies = win!) It doesn’t look like much right now, but it sure is fun! The yarn is Sundara fingering silky merino: ridiculously soft, and so very gorgeous. I don’t wear much purple, but this, this I’ll wear. A lot.

(Btw, the movie was ‘The Iron Lady” – very very interesting. And what a tour de force performance by Meryl Streep! No wonder she won the Oscar for her performance. Her body of work really is amazing, and I am always amazed how she can portray these characters, some of them very iconic, so well that you absolutely forget that it’s her.)

The book is a good book on Pilates. It explains a lot of the background of Pilates, and really creates a good system to build your skills. I used to go to Pilates to build back and abdominal strength – I used to get really bad back pains, and Pilates helped a lot. I went to Pilates ‘machine’ classes, and haven’t tried mat classes so far, so this will be an interesting exercise. I sure can use more core strength, plus flexibility.

If you’d like to Yarn Along too, just visit Ginny’s Yarn Along post where you’ll find more information. Happy Wednesday everybody!

 

Audible

I’ve discovered the perfect place to listed to audiobooks: while working out. It takes my mind of how many more minutes I need to sweat on the Elliptical, etc. and it’s actually peaceful enough for me to concentrate on the story, instead of constantly being interrupted and then losing the rhythym of the story.

So far I’ve purchased my audiobooks on iTunes, but I’m thinking of trying Audible… I’m just wondering if I can actually download the audiobooks to my computer, and if there’s another form of DRM attached to the Audible downloads… Have any of you tried Audible? What has your experience been like?

Sore

Working out → strength training → very sore arm muscles → no knitting

Ow.