It's not size that matters!

For the past few months I have been thinking my hand spun yarns should be thicker. That I should somehow be working against my natural tendency to spin fine yarns. I love the look of handspun bulky yarn. I love the natural lumps and bumps that appear. The new Spin Off Magazine cover has a lovely picture of coiled yarn. It’s amazing. The colors, the texture, the uniformity of the bumps all tantalize me. I read the article telling how to achieve this beautiful yarn. I slept on the information. I let the thoughts of thick and thin yarn spin through my mind for the next couple of weeks. I worked on a yarn in progress. It is lovely. It is about worsted weight. That is chunky in my spinning world. (Pictures will appear here soon!)

Then I started spinning Vitality. With the first bits of fluff drawing from my hand to the spindle I knew this would be a lace weight yarn. There are many reasons for this. The original reason was I have a small amount of fiber. The batt is less than an ounce. A finer yarn will have more yardage per ounce than chunky. This is logical. Then as I continued to spin my thoughts of thick and thin yarn played louder in my head. The artistic quandary finally started to fall into place. I enjoy spinning thin singles. I enjoy seeing how thin I can make the yarn without it breaking! Beyond that challenge, I enjoy knitting lace and socks.

Thus as much as I enjoy the beauty of the bulky handspun yarns and the artistic achievement of coiled yarn, when would I knit with them? What would I make with them? I suppose I would have a lovely scarf or two. I might have a cool hat too. That would not be so bad. It would be fun to show them off. But the deliciousness of the accomplishment is just not the same for me. I will continue to spin my fine even singles. I will stop thinking I need to spin chunky yarn just to prove something to the spinning police. I will love my yarns. And I will knit the delicate accessories these yarns are meant to be knit into!

Vitality

In October I spun a lovely batt of wool, bamboo, and firestar into my first ever chain plied yarn, Stained Glass. It was the theme for the October Spindlers group challenge on Ravelry. The experience was ground breaking for me. I found myself looking at family relationships I had avoided because of the pain associated with losing my father. I was open to working through this. I listened to the messages that came while practicing the meditative act of spinning. I gained more than insight with this experience. I gained courage to renew my faith in close relationship. I gained courage to reach out and make friends with people I may never meet face to face. I also won the random drawing to pick the theme for January.

I spent almost a week thinking about the theme. I am a personal trainer and coach many people about their life force. I wanted the theme to be about life energy and how we express that. What I came up with was Vitality. We all possess a vital energy, a vital life force. After choosing the theme I didn't spin much. There were holiday gifts to knit.But now we are in January. I have to spin for my chosen theme.

So I spent some time looking at my stash of fiber. I thought about what it says about vitality. I went out into the cold and picked a friend up from the airport when I really wanted to be home where it was warm. I played on the internet looking at space weather. I slept on it.

This morning I looked at the fiber again. There is a lovely blue Cotswold Wool. There is a nice brown with red fleck Jacob Wool. And finally a white Mohair and soft wool blend.
I carded up some and tried it out. A smallish sample of about 2 yards. It is lovely. Beautiful sheen, nice halo from the combo of Cotswold and Mohair. But it did not speak to me of Vitality. I remembered I had another batt hidden away. It is the Tea Cup Yorkie that came with my newest Yorkieslave Artworks spindle! I pulled it out and realized it looks just like the videos of the sunspots I was watching last night. Talk about Vitality! Where would we be without the sun?

May the life force energy fill you and feed you as the New Year unfolds into it's perfection!

Time Warp

So I thought I last posted sometime in July. Turns out if I just wait a few more days it will be a full SIX MONTHS!! Summer happened. Fall happened. There are stories and laughter and photos too. Hopefully they will arrive sooner than later and be a slight bit entertaining. For now though I have promised to return to sharing my words and thoughts and creations. Particularly food creations.

Yesterday I made soup. It was not a super hard soup. It was leftover soup. Perhaps we should start with the Monday night crockpot dinner that was the main contributor to the leftovers.

Monday night chicken...
One roasting chicken (I prefer organic)
One lemon
One white onion
Two cloves garlic
One sprig rosemary
Fresh cracked pepper and sea salt
How to: slice the lemon into pretty circles about 3/8 inch thick, slice the onion into wedges (I usually cut it into at least 8ths), chop the garlic smallish. Layer the onion (save a bit out and put it into the cavity of the chicken) and lemon on the bottom of the crock. Add the chicken to the crock. Cover the top of the chicken with garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. Add 1/4 -1/2 cup of water to the crock. Turn on high for 1 1/2 hours then turn on low for another 3-4 hours.

Why the varied cook time? I am starting this at lunch and bopping home between my 6 pack at 6 class and my 7:30 Firestarters class to check on it. I used the meat thermometer and turned it off when it was 175 degrees. By this time it was falling off the bone and the crock was full of juice!

Leftover Soup
We did not eat all the chicken. I just put the crock in the fridge for leftovers. Then yesterday when it was time for dinner I pulled it out. I put the whole contents into a stock pot and added a quart of broth. The broth can be purchased broth or some that you made and stored for later (expect news on this next week!!). I brought the whole thing to a boil. While it was boiling I did stuff, cleaned the kitchen, searched out veggies, fed the animals. What veggies did I find? Baby carrots (great they were already peeled!), a couple of sweet potatoes, some fresh kale, the remainder of a bag of broccoli, and some already cooked veggies that wanted to be eaten up. All the veggies were cut into bite sized pieces. Once the broth mix was boiling I strained it out. The chicken bones and meat need to be picked through and the veggies need to go into the broth to start cooking. While the veggies were getting going I picked the meat off the bones and added it to the veggies and broth. The soup was ready in about an hour!! Cutting the veggies into bite sized pieces makes the cooking time FAST. The lemon gives the soup a refreshing taste. We did find the soup needing a bit of salt and pepper but I usually like to add that in later anyway.

Next up? Adventures in fiber from the summer!!

Finally Caught

For the last 3 weeks we have had a visitor in the ceiling of our personal training studio. I heard it talking over my office. We were hoping for a squirrel but raccoons make such a distinctive noise there was no doubt that we had one. After spending 2 hours in the crawl space straightening insulation and reconnecting the heat and AC duct work Cahoulin was sure there was no critter left up there. This was May 3. The hole where he could come and go was boarded up. We all left that day certain we had outsmarted a wild animal. By Wednesday we knew he was still up there. For the last week we have tried to catch it in this live trap. What do you put in a live trap to catch a raccoon? We tried a variety of fare. Apples are favorites. The soy power bar was eaten. The chocolate candy gave it diarrhea as did the gluten free breakfast bar. Why did we try such weird food? This is a personal training studio. We don't eat bad food here. (The candy was left here by a client who needed to get rid of temptation. The temptation was not yet removed from the building when the need arose for more bait.) Until today it was able to get the food without tripping the trap. Today it lost. Or you could say today it won. FYI suspending the bait in mid-air works. The animal has to get to it by entering the trap and cannot possibly fish around through the sides. We called all around but no one will rehabilitate raccoons. Everyone wants to kill them because they spread rabbis. I will not tell where he is. I will tell you though he is safe. He is no longer in the studio.


Kam and Cahoulin, trainers here at The Fire!

Verdicts

I have a few things running through the brain right now that need to be determined. Just thought I would share the verdicts. In no particular order they are...

1) I am in process of writing a book. This is a non-fiction work. As many aspects of my life (such as decorating my home) the format is eclectic. Part memoir/journal, part how to, part self improvement, part fitness, part cookbook, all a work of love from my heart.

2) I am not as strong as many women my age. There are advantages to this (refer to verdict #1). I am forgiving myself for getting this way and moving forward.

3) I need to grow 10-15 pounds of muscle (refer to verdict #2). This takes a long time to complete. I am confident I can accomplish this task in a decent amount of time. What is that? It is sooner than years from now but probably not by the end of the summer.

4) I am addicted to my knitting. I am learning there are also advantages to this (refer to verdict #1). My skills are going up and that makes me happy. I am learning to enjoy lace patterns. The ones that are memorize-able are the best.

5) I don't need to be famous. I like my privacy. Right now I can pretend I am not known by anyone who passes me on the street. Not being famous means I don't have to worry too much about getting "caught" doing something "wrong".

6) I love coffee. I enjoy the taste of it. I enjoy the smell of it. Most of all I enjoy the side effects. Feel creative and alert. I don't drink coffee very often. I try to avoid it on a regular basis. I save it for that Sunday treat.

7) I love chocolate. I don't intend to put it out of my life. It's there to keep me sane in the world of healthy eating and lifestyle. Besides that dark chocolate has many health benefits, raised serotonin, weight loss, and a happy mouth just to name a few.

8) I enjoy my job. I love seeing someone dig deep and pull their personal power out to make the workout worth the effort. Everyone has a different look for this. Some make faces and others reach a serene state of confidence.

9) I like spinning with a drop spindle. I have fun pulling the fibers out into a thin thread. When they are bouncy and springy it makes me want to spin more. I am using a bottom whorl spindle. I like the way it spins. It is as though I was playing with a top. I am trying to use a top whorl to spin silk. The silk is very fine and I am learning to respect the fiber. Hopefully with enough respect I will have a beautiful yarn.

There may be others later as I continue to sort through the pages of my mind. But for now, these will do.

Soreness

I have given quite a good deal of thought to the subject of soreness over the last few years. Kam has gone through phases of building muscle and insisted that the sore muscle thing was great. I never really understood this nor did I subscribe to the same thought process. Sore muscles were painful in my book. With that in mind it is no wonder that I also could not understand why someone would voluntarily workout with the intent to make the muscles sore. I understood the reasoning behind being healthy and fit. I even did workouts to target muscle groups with the intention of toning. My definition of toning was firmer muscles without pain.

Twelve years later Kam and I own a personal training studio. I am a personal trainer. I have studied the science behind intentional muscle soreness. I have studied the thought processes of individuals looking to raise their self esteem. I have studied what it takes to support someone through tremendous weight loss and to support someone who is in need of building muscle mass. I have gone through much trial and error with my own body. The gaining and losing of weight takes quite a toll on the body and mind. I have been through this. I know first hand what my clients are experiencing. (This is with the exception of those who are in need of burning more than 40 pounds of fat. I have not had the need to burn more than that personally.) I also took the time to learn about nutrition both in college last spring and throughout the last 14 years of my own personal journey into health.

Ten weeks ago today I had major surgery. I had a hysterectomy. Two years ago in April I broke my leg requiring surgery to repair the damage. Both of these surgeries demanded recovery time. One of them gave me the insight to persue my future in the psychology field and to specialize in fitness or sports psychology. The other gave me the freedom to live in my body and appreciate my total health. After four weeks from my hysterectomy, I began to increase my cardio workouts. At the six week mark I began to reintroduce my weight training. Now, at the ten week mark, I am working out with my clients, teaching classes, and leading a 20 minute ab class 2-4 times per week.

Over the course of the past 10 weeks I have been in some state of soreness. In the beginning it was surgical pain. Then I had sore abs, also from the lapriscopic surgery. Then I was sore as I started to move my body. The new beginnings of cardio and weight training brought about some post surgical setbacks I had not anticipated. I found myself needing to take it easy. I could not demonstrate for clients and use any "real" weight. This would take me back to the couch with forced rest.

But about four weeks ago I had a shift. I felt a "mental pop" of sorts. As I was coming back from my six week check up there was a voice in my head. (Don't worry my degree is in psychology. We (psychologists) are supposed to have voices in our heads.) That voice said, "You should go workout. Stop at the studio and lift weights. BIG weights." I was almost worried. What I did was start to increase my activity. I started doing my own workouts with light weights. I started playing more with clients. I started teaching more classes. I started to get SORE. At first I wondered what was happening. I asked Kam, "Why is *insert body part here* sore? What did I do that would make me sore there?" Bless her, she was always patient. She always takes the time to inform me of my body and remind me that exercise can make you sore. She smiles, but never laughs at me, when I tell her I don't like being sore.

Today marks the first day that I intentionally did a workout because I was NOT sore. I get it now! I woke early. (You really need to know this was not by choice. There were too many snoozes on the alarm clock. All three animals thought it was time to get attention. I was doomed not to sleep another minute.) I left the house and started my workout by 7:10 AM! I realized that my upper body was not sore. I wanted to workout. I wanted to try harder. I wanted to push myself to the very limits. I wanted to see the strength of my body. I felt that power. I felt the pride of completing what I set out to achieve. I get it now! I have the drive and the desire to explore the depths of my personal power! I am so excited about this. I want to share it with my clients. I have always wanted to support and assist them in discovering their own health but now I have a personal understanding of how that health goes to a very deep level!

Lessons Learned

Today is about learning lessons. Or perhaps it is this week/month/year/life that requires the lesson learning. The lessons currently?

Knitting:
Gauge! When the pattern says 36 st = 4 inches that is important. 32 stitches is not 36. It is actually a difference of 4 stitches. One stitch per inch. What a slight difference. Really might not make much difference right? Wrong. This translated into an 8 stitch difference and an additional inch. Now if I were making a shawl or even a cozy pullover that extra inch might be manageable or even forgivable. However, I am working on socks. An extra inch in socks is not a good thing. They become sloppy. They bunch up when you walk. They slouch down the leg. This led me to finding new yarn, smaller needles, and sadly, knitting a new gauge swatch. You may be thinking, "Why did she not do this before?" I did, sort of. I had a pair on the needles, they were 32 stitches = 4 inches. Those needles were 1 1/2 (2.5 mm already quite small). I needed a new pair. The LYS (Local Yarn Shop) had a pair of 1s (2.25 mm even smaller). Usually when I go down one size I end up with the perfect gauge. I feel I must admit here that I am using the word usually with a very loose definition. Usually would imply some sort of pattern. One of the lessons here is that there really is no pattern to my usual gauge/needle/yarn. So what happened with the new yarn and what size were the needles? The needles I started with for this next attempt were size 0. What I ended up with was size 000! I got the gauge. Now am doomed to knit socks with tiny needles. They will be wonderful socks though. I started with latte colored yarn and a slightly darker bead. These were/are called Bailey's on the Rocks Socks. They are the Mystery Sock from Knitter's Brewing Co. The new ones? The color is apricot. I am pretending it is peach. Yes, peach is more orange than apricot sometimes. But couldn't they be interchanged? In my imagination they will be peach and I will call them Fuzzy Navel Socks. They will fit my feet. I will wear them with the giddiness they deserve.

Exercise:
Time! There is always time for exercise. Half an hour can be fit in between clients. That is a good amount of cardio-knitting. Two half hours will add up to one whole hour of cardio, and probably 1-1 1/2 inches of additional sock! I too can do the Power Half Hour training routine. Concentrating on myself for just one half hour at a time will add up and my results will be stunning.

Soreness? I keep wondering why I am sore. I keep working in those sets with my clients. I have been doing steady cardio workouts. This would mean that I might have a few sore muscles. I might have muscles that are growing and repairing themselves. Somehow I don't seem to be catching on to this. It is not as if I am thinking I am above getting sore. It is more like I am having trouble understanding the mechanics of the human body when applied to my body. Yesterday I worked back and biceps. Today I am aware of those muscles. There is a good chance that as the sun goes down I will be even more aware of them (the workout was at about sunset yesterday). General rule-muscle soreness sets in 24-48 hours after exercise and can last for 24-48 hours. Lesson learned here? Keep training and the body will keep changing. You may be more aware of the changes some days than others.