Ketchup

Pattern: Boheme
Yarn: Paton's Classic Wool Merino (less than one skein)
Needles: US 5
CO: Feb 22, BO: Feb 25
As usual, a pattern is just a suggestion and I substituted feather and fan for the lace work with several rows of garter stitch at the bottom. Crocheted around the edges and added loops for buttons. It's supposed to be a six month size, but it's certainly a newborn size.

Haven't gotten much done on my Badger Sweater. It's a KAL, so I have to wait for the instructions each day. Worked a bit on a long sleeping project, EZ's Pelerine. I started it on November 4th with hopes it would be done by Inauguration Day. Best laid plans and all that.

I think I might start this Mitered Scarf KAL. I'd like to know how to do it! And isn't this a cute baby sweater? I may have to start one of these, too.

Life goes on here... I'm pretty much adjusted to my meds, the digestive upsets a thing of the past for the most part. Meds are working. My blood sugar numbers are dropping even still to relatively normal numbers.

Still juggling the diet, though, balancing carbs, proteins and fats. It's still very hard to find high protein, low fat, low carb foods. Fish works, but it's expensive. Tuna's great, especially with some TVP added. But it gets old fast. I keep telling myself I'll eventually be able to encorporate all these changes as "matter of fact" in my life and not obsess about it all. At least I hope so. LiveStrong is a great asset. I record all my food and it tells me the balance of the three components as well as calories. Over the course of the day, I can pretty much balance them out, although it leads to some rather bizzare nighttime snacks. Last night I finished up tuna salad with TVP and some non-fat yogurt.

My weight has plateaued so I'm going to have to find an additionl exercise routine to break through it. Was looking at another Wii game, Outdoor Challenge. My Fitness Coach looks like another good one.

Life Style

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Remember a few weeks ago I said I'd be here less cuz I was incorporating exercise in my life? Well, the Universe must have known what was coming.

I was diagnosed with Type 2, non-insulin dependent diabetes a week ago. All the hoopla that goes with that, meds, finger sticks, diet changes (many of which were already in place due to aforementioned life style changes) have been dominating most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones, too).

I've found this really great place, LiveStrong, that tracks my carbs, proteins and fats, among other things. It's great for someone wanting to keep track of many areas of their health...including how the exercise affects their calorie count. The most amazing device, I think, is a little pie graph that tells me what percentage of a food or of a menu or all the food eaten so far is carbs proteins and fats. I've found that counting grams of these items will make me crazy. So the percentage system spread out over the day makes it manageable. My total intake of food should end up with the calories from carbs being 45-55%, from proteins, 30% and fats less than 20%.

So far, I've been doing pretty good without having to go out and buy all new foods and cooking just for me. Surprisingly, my biggest issue is not eating enough. Go figure. I'm trying to loose weight and my diet along with my exercise is putting my total calorie count really low... At least I think it is. The upside is I really can eat as much as I want, as long as I exercise and keep my percentages. This wouldn't be true for most people, but I really don't eat very much.... I just have metabolic disorders (thyroid) along with the diabetes. Complicated.

On to other things. My BFF, F and his hubby, gave me two web cams for Christmas. One for me and one for my son and his family in TN. We finally got everything up and running yesterday and had our first "video conference." It was way too much fun. Using MSN LiveMessager we were able to talk to each other and see each other. We even got a mini tour of their new house. I haven't seen my grandson, except for stills, since last March. Yesterday he and I played with our Winnie the Poohs!

Knitting? Yes, some! I've started Meg Swanson's Badger Sweater. It's part of a KAL over at Knit Baby Surprise, a Yahoo Group. This is the first couple steps and I'm now waiting for others to catch up.
So I cast on Boheme. I decided to use the Feather and Fan pattern for the bottom half of the sweater. I also changed the increases to YOs rather than Kfb. I just don't like the way the Kfb looks with garter stitch.It'll make a cute tiny baby sweater for someone!

So, that's life as I know it today, February 24th.