Sorry for not posting in a few weeks. Life has just been a bit busy and when it wasn’t, I was playing with my new Wii. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, especially with the Wii Fit. I have to be pretty careful with what I do though because I am currently dealing with a small tear in the medial meniscus of my left knee. It happened recently when I was running on the treadmill.

I went through a round of x-rays and an MRI before getting my actual diagnosis last week. As for treatment, I’m waiting on the approval from my HMO for the physical therapy the orthopedist ordered. My orthopedist did clear me to get back to gentle walking (no more than 3mph), cycling/spinning, and swimming. I can’t do anything that requires bending my knee more than 45 degrees though which lets out several of the activities on the Wii Fit.

Of course, the downside to the injury means that my half marathon in June is now off. My orthopedist said that it would just be too much too soon with the meniscus tear. He said that doing a half marathon isn’t out of the question forever, but is definitely on hold for now until we can get the meniscus issue resolved.

Anyway, due to having said new Wii, I haven’t gotten in nearly as much stitching time. However, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve really posted any stitching photos, so I thought I would share a few updates on the projects I’ve been working on lately. As always, you can click on the images here to see a larger version of them.

Just Peachy Santa
Design by Libby Sturdy (Just Libby Designs)
Canvas
Fibers: Anchor, Caron, Rainbow Gallery
Progress as of April 17, 2009
Click here to see a finished model

Sophie Stocking
Design by Shepherd’s Bush
Fabric: 18-count natural linen (stitched over 2)
Fibers: DMC #5 Pearl Cotton
Progress as of April 10, 2009
Click here to see a finished model

Acorn Hill
Designer: Little House Needleworks
Fabric: Vintage Maple Sugar by Lakeside Linens
Fibers: Belle Soie silks
Progress as of April 18, 2009
Click here to see a finished model

Saturday was the monthly open stitch class at my LNS, so I headed over for that and had a good time. We have such a wonderfully diverse group of stitchers who all get along so well. I definitely look forward to it each month.

While I was there on Saturday, they had a finished piece from local designer Margaret Bendig on display. I was in awe of the beauty of the piece. I love counted canvas pieces, especially when they are geometric like this, so this design “spoke” to me immediately. I learned she would be offering the piece as a class later this summer, so I asked the shop owner to put me on the list! I don’t remember the exact name of the piece, Plum something, but here’s pic of it:

Designer: Margaret Bendig

I do have a few other photos that I wanted to share, but I think I’ll hold off on those for a day or two. I don’t want to overwhelm a single blog entry with a ton of pics. ;)

In closing though, I do want to share the link for a blog I discovered this weekend. It’s called “The Making of an American Sampler”. The blog is written by a woman who has embarked on a mission to stitch a sampler of the Gettysburg Address to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. She began the piece on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12th, and hopes to finish it by Independence Day on July 4th. She is calling the project “272 Words” which I think is brilliant! Here is a link to her blog:

The Making of an American Sampler

Well, that’s it for this entry. Until next time …

It’s late. I’m tired. I have nothing creative to say. I’ll leave you with a few random photos I took yesterday (Tuesday) as I was out and about. As always, click to biggify (thanks for such a great word, Annette! )

Ferrari Sandwich:

At one point when I was driving to work yesterday morning, I realized I was driving behind a brand spanking new Ferrari. When I glanced in my rear view mirror, I noticed there was another one behind me! I was the middle of a Ferrari sandwich! I switched over into the next lane just so I could snap the photo at the next traffic light. The front car was a hard top and the one in back was a convertible.

Denny’s Madness:

As I’m sure all of you who live here in the US were aware, Denny’s was giving away (yes, for free) their original Gland (oops! ) Grand Slam breakfast (2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon strips, and 2 sausage links) yesterday between the hours of 6am and 2pm.

As I was driving by the local Denny’s near my office at 10am, I was amazed at how long the line was! This photo was actually the side view of the building. There were at least as many, if not more, people lined up across the front of the building as well. I don’t even want to think about how many people were inside waiting in the lobby. I realize it’s a free breakfast and all, but for me, my time is worth FAR more than waiting that long in line for a free meal that 1) normally is only $5.99 anyway, and 2) isn’t very healthy to boot.

Paw Check (or, how I spent two hours of my Tuesday afternoon):

As many of you know, I’ve been battling on-going issues with my right foot/ankle. I’ve had on again, off again problems with plantar fasciitis in my right foot for the past couple of years. Then, on top of that, I developed a case of gout in my right ankle about three weeks ago. I had a follow-up appointment yesterday with Dr. Bennett (my podiatrist).

Unfortunately, he was running a bit behind, so I spent quite a bit a time sitting around — first in the waiting room and then in my exam room before seeing him. I got bored, so I naturally started taking pictures with my iPhone. Once he did actually see me, he gave me the all-clear with the foot/ankle, so I’m off and running again. Well, not literally running, but at least I can get back to my normal training routine.

I did discuss with him that fact that I’m starting to train for a half marathon. He said he was really happy to hear that I’m moving up from the 5k distances and thinking about some longer distances as well. He said that if I feel like the PF is holding me back from my training at any point to just give him a call and he can give me a cortisone shot. He said that should easily get me through my event and then we can decide how to go forward with the PF issue after the race.

Ok, so maybe I had something to say after all.

We’ve had some unusually warm temperatures the past couple of weeks, even for southern California. As a result, some of the trees are actually in bloom.

I stepped outside my office and was almost knocked over by the fragrance of the blooms. Of course, part of that could be due to the fact that I can finally breathe/smell again after nearly 10 days of the cold/sinus infection.

Since I’m finally on the mend from the aforementioned cold, I actually got out for a wog (walk/jog combo) last night after work. It felt really good to actually be able to get in a workout again. I missed most of January between all my various illness/injury problems. As a result, I’m going to have to revisit my training schedule for my upcoming half marathon to see if I need to adjust things. It’s still a few months away, so I may be OK and not have to adjust things too much.

As a follow-up to my post yesterday, sadly, the Lady Vols didn’t get the win last night. They played a good game, but were playing on the road against Oklahoma who is the #2 team in the country right now (the Lady Vols are #15). On the upside, our next game against Georgia is back in Knoxville which would be pretty nice for Coach Summitt to reach that milestone at home on the court named after her.

Of course, the downside to this is that last night’s game was on ESPN, but the Georgia game is on Fox Sports South which I can’t get here in California. So, I guess I’ll have to try and find an audio feed for the game online somewhere so I can at least hear it since I won’t be able to watch it.

I started a Couch to 5k (C25K) training plan yesterday. Instead of the original C25K plan from Cool Running, I’m using a more conservative plan from Beginner Triathlete. They have both a 16-week “aggressive” and a 28-week “conservative” plan there. I’m following the 28-week plan since they said it was recommended for those who still have weight to lose.

The conservative plan starts very slowly which is perfect for anyone just getting back into exercise. In fact, the plan starts out with all walking for the first month. There’s not any actual running time until week 5, and even then it’s a very gradual increase over time. Given the amount of weight I still need to lose, I think this plan is perfect for me. It will allow me to get back to my love of running, yet still afford me the time to work out my PF issues and lose some more weight before I start running longer times/distances.

Starting this plan now actually coincides perfectly with the half marathon (Rock n’ Roll Seattle) I’m signed up for at the end of June, too. I was initially planning to walk the whole thing, but now I hope to run at least part of it.

If anyone else is interested in reading more about either of these plans, here are the links:

16-week “aggressive” C25K
28-week “conservative” C25K

Hope everyone is having a GREAT week!

just because I have the hottest fashion accessory around and you don’t! Yes, that’s right people, I have that oh-so-trendy and sought after Night Splint. I’m just gonna be one hot steamy ball of pure sexiness in bed now. Then again, since I’m not currently in a romantic relationship, I guess it doesn’t really matter after all.

Yep, that’s right. I’m going for round 2 with my Plantar Fasciitis (PF). As some of you who have been reading my blog for a while may remember, I battled it about three years ago as well. At that time, I was able to ward it off with a set of custom orthodics for my shoes and a lot of stretching exercises.

Well, around the time of my vacation to Hawaii, it started rearing it’s ugly head once again. I went back to performing the stretches, but it just wasn’t getting any better. I finally broke down and went to the podiatrist. The course of treatment this time is more of the stretching, another set of the custom orthodics, the night splint, and a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory medication. If all of that doesn’t clear it up, the next step would be cortisone shots. He said if that still didn’t clear it up, then we would look into “other options”, but he never specified what that might entail.

I’m actually signed up for a 5k race with my friend Darla on Sunday. I’ll have to play things by ear to see whether or not I’ll actually do it. It will depend upon 1) the weather and 2) how my foot is feeling. The weather is definitely a big factor. The forecast is calling for a chance of showers and temps in the low 50′s at race time. Now I’m sure that might sound wonderful to many of you, but for those of us in southern California, that might as well be a Nor’easter. My biggest concern is that a damp cold could aggravate my PF even more, and I don’t want that.

I’ll be heading back to my Weight Watchers meeting on Sunday for my first weigh in since starting the new Momentum program. Given that I’m doing the 5k race right before my meeting, who knows what number I’ll see on the scale. I don’t usually go out for a 3 mile walk/jog before stepping on the scale at WW, so I’ll likely either be really happy or really disappointed.

In training news, I’ve actually revamped my training schedule for the Rock ‘n Roll Seattle half marathon as well. The new plan will kick off on Monday, Dec. 29. Until then, I’m just going to focus on trying to get out several times per week to walk. I’ll post more about my updated plan sometime this week.

Hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!

I had a great time stitching on Friday night for the Let’s Stitch blog’s weekly stitch-a-thon (SAT). My piece of choice this week was the new Sea to Shining Sea silk thread pack series from Diane Williams of Little House Needleworks.

I actually started this piece earlier in the week on Tuesday after getting home from the polls. I volunteered as a poll worker at my local voting precinct that day and felt like working on something a bit patriotic to unwind when I got home that night. Since this series is called Sea to Shining Sea, it seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Here are my before & after pics for the SAT:

For some reason, must be the difference between taking the photos in daylight vs. night time, the fabric looks different in each picture. It’s 32-count Natural Raw linen as called for in the chart. The fibers are Belle Soie silks from Crescent Colors which are included in the thread packs.

Yesterday I went an all-day stitch tomorrow at my LNS. As usual, we had a great time and lots of good food. We always have a potluck and it seemed like this month everyone went for either hors d’oeuvres or desserts. There’s wasn’t too much in the way of “real” food, but we all enjoyed it none the less. I stitched a bit more on Sea to Shining Sea and also stitched on an ornament. I won’t be posting a picture of it though since it’s for an exchange coming up in a couple of weeks.

I know I’ve been remiss the past few weeks since vacation of getting my weekly walking schedule posted. I’ll try and get that posted tomorrow to help hold myself accountable. I really need to focus on it all the more now because not only is it training for my half marathon in June, but it will help me earn Activity Points for Weight Watchers. I realized this weekend that I really need the accountability of the meetings, so I went back on Saturday morning and rejoined. Even if it was cheaper, trying to lose weight on my own just wasn’t working. I’ll just have to find some other places to cut back a bit to help offset the cost of the $40 monthly pass to WW.

I do have a couple of areas in mind already on how to cut back a bit on my expenses. I’m planning to help accomplish that goal is starting to take my lunch again which will save me not only money, but calories as well since I’ll have more control over what I’m eating. The other plan is to start making my own iced coffee at home rather than stopping at Starbucks or McDonalds. That should actually save me quite a bit as well since I would normally stop a couple of times per week for coffee.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Ok, as promised last week, it’s time to follow up with how I did this past week with my training schedule. In addition to the recap of the past week, I’ll alsoprovide the schedule for the upcoming week. The half marathon is now 38 weeks away.

I ended up missing a day this past week. I was sick for a couple of days and that prevented me from getting out as I would have liked. I walked a bit farther than was called for a couple of other days, so I still ended up exceeding my total miles for the week. So, overall, I feel good about what I did for this first week.

Here’s the weekly recap:

Day	Planned	Actual
Sunday	Off	Done!
Monday	1 mile in 17 mins (3.5 mph)	2.4 miles
Tuesday	1 mile in 18 mins (3.3 mph)	1.1 miles
Wednesday	1 mile in 17 mins (3.5 mph)	Sick
Thursday	1 mile in 18 mins (3.3 mph)	1 mile
Friday	1 mile in 17 mins (3.5 mph)	1 mile
Saturday	1.5 miles in 30 minutes (3.0 mph)	2 miles
Weekly total:	6.5 miles	8.5 miles

Here’s the schedule for this week:

If you want to see the full schedule, you can find it here.

As I posted earlier this week, my friend Tracy and I have decided to do a half marathon together next June. We’ve registered for the Rock n’ Roll Seattle Half Marathon. Tracy is going to walk it and I’m going to probably do a combination of walking & light jogging. Today starts our 39-week training plan.

I’ve decided to post my training schedule here each week to help hold myself accountable for actually following it. If you want to see the full schedule, you can find it here. So, here’s the schedule for this week:

Since Sunday is an off day for the duration of the schedule (gotta love a schedule that STARTS with a rest day ), my goal is that each Sunday from now until the race, I’ll post a recap of how I did completing the previous week’s training. I’ll also post my schedule for the upcoming week.

As many of you know, I’ve been plagued with a nagging shoulder injury that had pretty much side-lined me from doing any training for my triathlon since I wasn’t able to swim on doctor’s orders. Well, there’s been a slight change in plans that will now let me race after all! Terri, with whom I was planning to do the tri, asked if I would be interested in doing it as a relay. So, now the plan is that Terri will do the swim, Darla will ride the bike, and I will do the run. Well, I’ll actually be wogging (walk/jog combo), but it’ll be in the run portion of the race. ;) Regardless, I’m so excited and can’t wait for Oct. 19th to get here!!!!!

I also made a decision that since I’m not sure what the future holds for me as far as triathlons go, that I would get back to focusing on my wogging. As a result, my friend Tracy and I committed to do a big race together next year and have already registered.

Yep, that’s right. I’ve registered for the inaugural Rock ‘n Roll Seattle Half Marathon! It’s actually taking place on the weekend before Tracy’s birthday, so that will make it an even more fun trip.

Hopefully I’ll have better results than the last time I registered for a half mary. As some of you may remember, I was registered for the Long Beach Half Marathon back in October 2006. Sadly, not long after registering and starting to train was when my back issues got so bad. By the time the event actually rolled around, I was on disability and was just a few months after from my spinal fusion surgery. This time, I hope to cross the finish line with a huge smile on my face.

Until next time …