AfricanKelli

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{Quick road-trip to Tucson with Carl to pick up Little P; turn on slow drip to soak front garden plot; oil change, car wash, fill up car; groceries; craft store; coffee shop for garden grounds; pregnancy portraits for M & S; birthday lunch with Elaina; Lowe’s for bricks and compost; back to garden to pull out oleander and honeysuckle, plant bougainvillea; bake brownies for grandpa; bake cake for Mattador, plan birthday gift for Jason; bake buttermilk biscuits for Super Bowl party; cut out two more Taxi Totes — one for each of these nuts; pick out new knitting project; make correspondence list; plan children’s moment for church tomorrow.}

I am attempting to form a routine of enjoying Sunday at church, with my family friends and nothing more. This leaves Saturday a bit hectic. Then again, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have that darn oleander out of my garden and tomorrow wide-open for new adventures.

~K

The final Taxi Tote completed and ready to be sent off to its recipient. Yahoo! I am glad I pushed myself to learn how to sew bias tape. And I’m thankful for your patience in reading about this silly theme for nearly a month. I think improving in sewing, like many other hobbies, is truly just a matter of patience. The more you are willing to give, the better the result.

Patience is one of those characteristics that doesn’t come easy to me. My mother? She regularly detangles my jewlery box and can sit, binding a quilt by hand, for hours in sheer happiness. My father? Yes, well. Let’s just say I have his passionate Irish temper. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen him angry, but it hasn’t been pretty. I’m not terribly attractive when I lose my patience either. As for the headline, one of the easiest ways to piss me off is to honk at me in traffic. I’m not a great driver, but I am also not in your way.

So there!

Happy Friday peeps!

~K

{Housekeeping: if you leave a comment and ask a question, I always try to respond. That said, please double check your email address and make sure it is correct so I can get back to you! Thanks! Also, I buy my sewing labels here. I shoot a Canon Rebel Digital that desperately needs a tune up. I pay this dude to design my site. He’s great.}

Still not 100% perfect, but better. I managed to use skinny bias tape on this Taxi Tote and it took a good bit of patience to turn — see the 10,000 pins above — but with each bag, I am a bit happier with the result.

I’ve got one more of these almost done and then a stack of new projects I’m looking forward to. Have you make your fleece hoodie or baked the lemon drop cookies for this month’s Craft-along yet? Get to it! One day left to add them to the Flickr pool to be included in the January prize.

For the record, I made the lemon cookies and they flopped. It was my own fault because I don’t have a mixer (this is another story dealing with my lust for a KitchenAid and superstition) and they just didn’t work out like they should have. They were still quite good, but flat as pancakes. Eh, next time I’ll try to stick the batter in the fridge for an hour or so, per Ms. Snappy’s recommendation, to get a better result.

~K

*AKA: The Day I Made Bias Tape my Bitch

My minster emailed me this horrifying photo yesterday; there was a potential threat of posting it to his Facebook page, so I am taking back the power and fully making fun of myself before he has the chance.

Ah, seventh grade, how I loved thee. If nothing else, apparently I didn’t have a vain bone in my body. Pretty sure I’ve got 3,000 different layers of bangs going on, not to mention that stylish plastic jewelry. To my credit, we were leaving for a work trip in northern Arizona and I’m pretty sure we were headed to Slide Rock park, hence the ever-so-stylish cut-off jean shorts. That’s a fair excuse, right?

Yeowza.

~K

I was reading the other day how you shouldn’t trust the calorie counters on cardio machines at the gym; they can be misleading, even if you enter your accurate weight and regularly have it keep up with your heart rate. I conducted a bit of an experiment this morning and wore my heart rate monitor while I worked out on the treadmill. After 42 minutes, the machine said I’d burned a whopping 540 calories. Woo!

But not so fast. My heart rate monitor says I burned 384. Which one is correct? I have to go with the lower number, but considering they are using the same information, it does make me wonder. What’s the equation and which one is correct?

Also, do I need a new heart rate monitor? Because if I had the extra $400, plus $80 a month for the subscription fee, I’d be fueling my obsessive compulsive nutrition and exercise hobbies with that fabulous Bodybugg thing The Biggest Loser participants wear. Have you seen those? Wow. (You think I’m crazy now. I’d be super nuts with one of those.)

Alas, it is just simple math for me: calories in vs. calories spent. I’m not sure I’ve got the math down perfectly, (still having a hard time figuring out what I burn on an average day without wearing the stupid monitor all day long) but I am learning more everyday from my trainer, the nutrition blogs I pour over and spending time with friends with similar interests. I am also pushing myself just about as hard as I can go in the gym and loving every second of it. Also? Learning how to eat every 3.5 hours with diligence. It speeds up my metabolism and also helps with portion control. I’m eating fewer calories than the typical 3 meals a day and don’t deal with the blood sugar highs and lows of eating large meals.

I’d love to hear your experiences with nutrition and what’s working for you.

~K