A race against time

OK -- I'll try not to go on and on about my virtual challenge, but I'm loving it. DH thinks I'm obsessing because I talk about it every day. And some people that I talk to think that the four of us are in a race against each other. NO - we're only in a race against ourselves. I have another challenge where I'm walking across Canada. Each day my FitBit transfers the miles that I've walked to the map. Since M lives in Vancouver and that's where I am right now (having started in Victoria), I thought I'd share my position on the map with you. She lives in Burnaby and I made sure to wave as I walked through!

Me against my pace marker

M - here's a close up of exactly where I am.

My exact position on the Cross Canada Walking Challenge

Now here's the thing. I set an aggressive pace - I must go back and look at what the daily mileage was, but the goal is to walk across Canada in two years. It's a total of 5,184.2 miles over two years. Just did the math - yikes. That equals SEVEN miles a day. My average in the past has been about 6 so it is a stretch to do 7 - EVERY DAY for 2 years. I was away last week and walked about 4.3 miles each day. Let's just say that it's no surprise that I'm about 15 miles behind. Both in this challenge and the one that I'm doing with the Quilt Posse group.

The virtual challenge that I'm doing with the other is to walk Route 66 in one year (that's MY goal). The total distance is 2,280.3 miles and that works out to 6.25 miles per day for one year. I've got to ramp up my walking each and every day to meet those goals.

So you can see - this is NOT about winning or being in front of the others - this is about keeping up to the aggressive pace that I set for myself.

On that note, I've already been to the gym and walked for 2 miles. What I need to figure out is how many steps is 7 miles. I might have to back off that Cross Canada pace a wee bit. I'm thinking that 15,000 steps should equal about 6 miles. Doable for me in a day, but 17,000 every day???  That's a bit of a stretch.

However, I've changed my habits significantly over the past year and not just because of these challenges. I used to use my car to do all my errands. I'd save them up and then take a trip to the mall, then the library, the bank or whatever else needed to be done.

Now, I walk EVERYWHERE - well almost everywhere. And do I group up those errands? I do NOT. I'd be happy to walk to the mall every day to get one new thing or drop off one book each day at the library or deposit one cheque a day at the bank. Then turn around and do it again the next day. I like walking in my neighborhood and I like getting the exercise. If I only go for one thing, it's easy to carry.

So when I saw that I need more liquid calcium this morning, I was thrilled even though I had been to the mall yesterday because it means I need to go to the mall again. It's all about rewiring the brain. I don't need a fancy gym membership to get in this kind of exercise. It's just plain walking in my neighborhood. Although as I mentioned, I was at the gym this morning. I need to get some serious miles in to catch up!

What about the time you say? Well - I'd rather be in great shape, getting my fresh air, and checking out the things around me than sitting at home watching TV or sitting in front of any kind of a screen. I consider this time an investment in my future. I see what happened to my Mom and I refuse to let that happen to me. She became complacent about moving around and has pretty much lost the use of her legs. Her balance and level of security of walking unaided are totally gone. I WILL NOT let that happen to me.

Good habits developed now will continue into my future. And if it's too icy outside - well, I can go to the gym or like I did last week - I walked the halls of the hotel and up and down the stairs to get the distances in. It's all about using what you have available. And if someone sees me walking the halls of the hotel? Who cares!!! I sure don't.

I suggested that our Quilt Posse go to LA once all of us have arrived virtually! Wouldn't that be a hoot.!!!

Speaking of walking in my neighborhood, I'm walking the girls in the woods behind our house. OH boy - we had rain - a lot of rain on Saturday. This is what we had to walk through. That's very unusual for January!! Normally this would be frozen over, but nope - we had to wade through it. Thank goodness for rubber boots. I don't even wear winter boots anymore - I just wear rubber boots. I love them as I can grip the icy surfaces way better with my toes through the thinner soles and so far so good.

The path goes through the water

We didn't have to walk through this puddle, but it's amazing how much water had accumulated in one day.

Water that accumulated from one day's rain in JANUARY

I think it was last year or the year before (It was December 2016) that I posted about all these page-a-day calendars that I've acquired over several years. I pulled them out the other day. This needs to be addressed. So I went through the EIGHT calendars (most had been used for the first month or less).

Page a day calendars

I found two that of them match the dates and days of the weeks as this year. TWO. One I know was from 2003. Not sure about the other one. I put the others away and I'll deal with them next year to see if any coincide with the dates and days for 2021. Not that it really matters as I don't rely on them for the date. But I'm a Virgo and we do like some order.

Two Page-a-Day calendars for this year

Both of them are just pictures. I should be able to manage to read the Dog Shaming caption and glance at the MC Eischer photo and then throw the pages in the recycling. I think I can manage that. It takes less than one minute. Both of them are currently sitting on January 15 - ready for tomorrow. If I find anything interesting in the MC Eischer one, I'm putting it into my inspiration journal.


I also found this tote bag that M bought me. Ritter chocolate is my FAVORITE. Yep - I still eat chocolate, almost every day. BUT I have four squares of chocolate NOT the entire chocolate bar. With all my mileage, I'm entitled to eat chocolate. Now the tote bag is hanging in the room downstairs with all the other tote bags. When I need a tote bag, I can grab this one. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being as organized as I am and can't wait to get the rest of the place cleaned up!!

Tote bag made from chocolate wrappers

Actually, I don't think it was made from wrappers - it appears to be laminated fabric where all the packaging was printed. I've tried most of those flavors, but not all.

Here's my quilt that I finished the backing for the other day. It's now moved into the "to be quilted" pile. I'm super excited about that!! One more bites the dust!

A quilt top, backing, and binding now moved to the "to be quilted" pile

So what did I walk to the mall for yesterday? Why yarn of course!! I wanted to buy ONE small ball of the cotton yarn so I could make the Swifter covers. Shoot - all they had were the big ones. I thought long and hard before I bought the big ball. What I don't use, can be made into dishcloths on the next road trip. To be even more environmentally friendly, I didn't get a bag, but just tucked that ball of yarn under my arm and walked back home.

Ball of cotton yarn

Now I can make several of the darn Swifter covers as I think we have three of those Swifters in our house. That's a job for next Monday or that would be an excellent thing to do in the evening when I'm listening to my audiobook. If I don't have something in my hands - I'll fall asleep.

Well - as usual, there's a whole lot that needs to be done today so I'd better get started.

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!

Cleaning up!!!!

OMG - I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I had a lot of fun unpacking boxes yesterday. I don't have time to share the photos with you this morning, but here's a couple of quilts that I've been working on over the last couple of days. My goal is to get ALL of the customer quilts sitting in the queue to be completed before the end of the year. I'll still have some community projects quilts to do, but those can wait. I want the few customer ones left to be done! I know there is more coming in, but those are for January!

Customer quilt - DONE

Customer quilt - DONE

Customer quilt - DONE

And yes - even though that long arm has a robot on it, I still have to know how to operate the darn thing. It's never a good idea to get into a groove and absently push the wrong button. Cause if you do - guess what? Now you've got a big problem to solve. I know how to solve most (I think), but I'm sure I could get myself into trouble if I didn't pay attention.

Setting up the long arm robot

I still have to be there to change the bobbin, advance the quilt, and load and unload so the robot does the boring part of the job, but it can't function without me!

Here's a picture of the cold storage room that's under the front steps. Three saw horses (where's the fourth? I haven't seen it so likely it's gone or why would I have an odd number?). The rest of the stuff is painting supplies - brushes, rollers, and other stuff. I need to go through all that and sort it out. That's a job for next year. For the moment, it stays there. But for the most part, this cold storage room is pretty neat and tidy.

Cold storage room

Good because I need a space to put some boxes. I have a "few" sewing machine, embroidery units and serger boxes that I need to keep. So I laid those big planks on the floor to keep the boxes off the concrete floor and now all those boxes that were cluttering up the basement are now safely and neatly tucked away in the cold storage room.  And NO the plank is not covering the drain in the center of the floor. There's a bow in the plank so should anything need to drain away, the drain is clear.

Storage for sewing machine boxes

 I did say that my goal was to get the basement completely done by the end of the year. I might just make it. I'll be sharing more with you later this week. It's a huge job and I know that once I'm done, I'll be starting over. Although I might take a break from the basement since it's not in bad shape. I might restart at the top of the house and go through closets and whatnot to get rid of more stuff. What I'm loving about this is that while I'm getting rid of stuff, there's practically nothing (or very little) coming in.

That's the most exciting part! And I guess I can't put it off any longer, but the office is going to need to be tackled. It's going to be a thankless job. I know I could spend days here and not make a dent. Should I pack it all in boxes to clear the space and then work on one box at a time? Or do I work through the mess? Hmmm - I need to figure that one out. Since the rest of the house is in pretty good shape, perhaps I give myself the entire year to clear out this mess in the office. Maybe that's a bit much!

So here's the thing. I have lied in the past. Come on - we've all lied about something or we've cheated on something. I think it's human nature to try and get away with stuff. In my case, it's been nothing big. But I can't lie to myself. Ronda persuaded me to get back to using the MyFitnessPal app to track what I eat. It's not that I was eating poorly or excessively, but I knew there were times when I had an extra cookie when I didn't really need it. I've been maintaining my weight in my 5-pound buffer zone for over a year. But I do know that if I eat more sugar and fat than I should be eating (note - I eat sugar and fat - I'm talking about excess sugar and fat) - well guess where they both go??? Right on my waist and I don't like that! So I don't gain weight per se, but my body fat content goes up!

Well - I can't cheat that stupid app! If I have something, I log it. Logging the food is a pretty painless undertaking. You can scan food in or look them up - the information is readily available. And I think most of us tend to eat pretty much the same things, so now the information is even more accessible since it's already in the app.

Now here's my problem (and it's a good one to have). If  I want a snack, I think long and hard about what kind of snack I have and how it'll reflect on my nutrition in the damn app!! Can you believe it? However, here's the thing - it's saved me from mindlessly eating and makes me limit myself to two cookies a day instead of three or four. I'll have yogurt or fruit as a snack instead. And yesterday? I walked to the bank so I could have an extra big snack! The more steps you take, the more calories it allows you to eat since the app is linked to my FitBit. I did over 15,000 steps yesterday and already at 4,000 for today.

I think it's hilarious. But then I saw a sign at the gym today "you can't out-train a bad diet!". That is so true.

Just for fun, you should download the app - it's free. MyFitnessPal. Log in a typical day of eating. Don't change anything. Then look at the caloric intake - the sugar, the fat and see what you're eating. You might be shocked! I know that I need to increase my protein. That's my biggest downfall in eating so I've got to try and have a protein shake each day.

I can't put it off any longer - I need to get more paperwork (administration) stuff done this morning. I want to sew all afternoon, but that's going to be a reward after the paperwork is done. Where's my secretary?

I did think of one more amazing gift that you could add to your list. Pay to have their car detailed - inside and out. That would be a wonderful gift for anyone! And go back and read the comments from yesterday's blog. People are changing, but it's going to take time! Baby steps - but we need to start taking giant steps!!! Kudos to those that are bucking the trends!!  I love the phone in a basket idea - we need to do that more often. DH says I need to do that at the dinner table, although last night, together we booked our movie tickets for Christmas Day!

On that note, have a super day!!!


Ciao!!!

Thinking ahead!

I didn't get a lot of sewing or quilting done yesterday. I'm going to have to rejig my schedule a wee bit in order to not lose that quilting/sewing time.

I'm doing the 60-day challenge at the gym with the intention of losing 10 pounds of FAT!  Every Tuesday, there's a class to introduce us to different classes at the gym. Yesterday was bodyweight training. Simple exercises that didn't require any equipment, but I was dead at the end! A very effective workout that you could do anywhere or only do part of them. Bottom line - it was great! There were 6 of us in the class - new gym friends!

Then I was off to do some errands in the afternoon - got rid of the old laptop - traded it in for a $70 gift certificate!, donated some Easter decorations and a few other things, dropped my book off to have the spine cut off and a coil inserted so the book lays flat.

From the errand perspective, it was a very efficient day!

But here's something else that I did on my errand day (besides watching a movie with Lynn).

Let's go back to the 150 Canadian Women quilt project.  What did/do you do with the blocks when you have completed them? And what do you do with the patterns? I was putting the pattern pages and the blocks in a page protector. However, you can see the problem with that.

The binder is exploding

 I've barely done a third of the blocks and I really didn't want to keep adding page protectors.

So I did this. I took all the blocks out of the page protectors and I combined the pages so that on the front is the write-up of the block on one side and the write-up the second block appears on the other side of the page protector.  Perfect - the binder is much thinner and I need half the number of page protectors.

The binder lies flat and has plenty of room for future pages

 How what to do with all those blocks?  You see, the blocks (hopefully) won't need to stay in the binder forever. They will be made into a quilt and so I might as well think ahead and plan accordingly.

The blocks so far for 150 Canadian Women

 I could put them in a Ziploc baggie, but those darn things are slippery. A HUGE thanks to Mary, Jane, and Rose who came to one of my classes this past weekend with the PERFECT solution. Look at the cute container that they found!!!!

Blocks are contained in a nice plastic case

Where did they get the case and what is it?  It's a mini scrapbook case that you can buy at Michael's. When I saw that on Saturday, I was so excited and I stopped at one Michael's on my way home. Nothing - they had NO mini scrapbook containers.

Yesterday when I was doing my errands, I stopped at a different Michael's and found the shelf where they were supposed to be, but there were NONE on the shelf. DRAT!!!!!  I really, really want these containers. I asked one of the staff and he asked me to show him the spot on the shelf where they're supposed to be. He scanned the bar code - they had FOUR in the store. Now to find them.

Two were in the drawer beneath the shelving unit and the other two?  Who knows?  I bought two of them.

Two mini scrapbook containers

 Here's a close up of the label in case you want to try and find some yourself. Good luck with that!

Label of the mini scrapbook case

I'm going to try and get two more and then I'd be happy. Trust me, I have several other projects where I'll be making small blocks and these are perfect to keep them from getting messed up!!

Thanks again to Mary, Jane, and Rose!!!


In an attempt to tidy up the office (well - it's all baby steps at this point), I decided that it was time to unearth this item that I bought several years ago. It's a weight scale that connects to the internet and the Fitbit stats. I told you - I love technology. I'm just not married to it!!!!

Fitbit scale

I tried to set it up this morning and darn - I think the batteries are dead!!!!  Even though it had that little paper in there to prevent the connection. So I'm off to the mall later today to find batteries as I don't have any of the required size in my battery drawer. Yes - I'm that organized that all my battery supplies (chargers, etc) are in ONE place.

I was at spin class this morning and already got my stats from that. Why is this so important to me? I've lost almost TEN pounds since I gave up sugar about 6 weeks ago. I know - that's hard to believe but true. I don't crave sugar AT ALL. I even bought DH dessert at the grocery yesterday and didn't drool once. Sugar is pretty much not in my vocabulary any anymore and I also watch what I eat, but I'm not starving or depriving myself of anything that I want to eat. It's a whole lot different when you eat because you need to, versus eating because you're looking for comfort.  I have another 8 pounds to go and then I'll be happy. Then it will be all about maintaining that weight and in the meantime, trying to lose only FAT and not muscle.

The only thing now is to figure out how to prevent my protein powder from clumping in my oatmeal. According to my research, it will clump no matter what I do so I should have oatmeal and a shake!  I could do that!!!  That's the experiment for tomorrow morning's breakfast.

On that note, I'm out of here - I've got a long overdue date with the long arm!

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!

On being HEALTHY

Many of you have asked me what M is doing. Well she has been hard at work on a project promoting healthy life styles and healthy eating.

She has created a kit that contains all the dry ingredients and recipes that pair with a fresh ingredient grocery list. The kit and list together are all you need to create a full day of healthy vegan meals. The kit is aims at people who want to live a healthier life but don't know where to start. The meals are all vegan because it is the most ethical and healthy diet. But rest assured they are still filling and delicious! You won't even realize they are free from animal products!

M is trying to change the way we eat on a large scale because she wants everyone to enjoy a healthy happy life. She has now launched her crowdfunding campaign to the world! Any contribution, even $5, makes a difference! If you like what she is doing then share this message to everyone you know!

Have a look at this link - FIT



I am very proud of her - she has done an amazing amount of work on this project.   Check it out.


Have a great day!!!!!


Ciao!!!!!!!!!!!!