Trudging on, regardless....
Well I was away being sick last week, but it's time to put on my big girl pants and get back to work...
And I'll just take this moment to mention that my aforementioned big girl pants are now another size smaller! Wheee...... As of this week's weigh-in, I have officially passed the halfway mark of this journey, at least according to the scale. I have lost more than I have left to lose to get to my goal, and that's very wonderful indeed. I spent a great number of years (since 2004?) rather convinced that I would never be able to lose all the weight I regained when pregnant (kids!!), and it finally seems like I've found the recipe that works for me. This is all the more amazing when you realize that I am sitting in the categorically worst bracket for someone who wants to lose half their starting weight: I'm a 50 year old woman with fibromyalgia. Between hormonal changes, slowing metabolism and the inability to exercise at a consistent, elevated pace, the odds were certainly not in MY favour. Well the odds can suck it. Yay, me!
I'm working through a JavaScript tutorial at Codecademy right now; they are pulling it on the 6 October to retool it, but I figure I would benefit from doing their old series and then their new one. I did the same thing with their Python tutorial. I'm not sure when they are putting the new Python one out.
I didn't get to read any of the Pragmatic Programmers book last week, so I'll need to put more effort into getting through the final two chapters because it's due this Saturday and I've renewed it the maximum number of times. I also have a Python maths book waiting to be wings. There's just not enough time in the day. Well, there would be, but the kids come home at 4pm, and I have no choice but to switch gears because the chaos level is too high to do anything else but capitulate.
Of course, the evening is usually when I get to work on my crochet. I did do a bit during the day while I was unwell, but I'm in the midst of a project that had me tearing my hair out by the weekend. I decided to take part in a crochet-a-long (CAL) with a Facebook group I joined last year to make a sampler blanket. This year they are making a poncho. Apparently all the cool kids are wearing ponchos this autumn. (And I say "they" but the group is really lead by a single woman who makes her living teaching crochet and knitting through YouTube videos and hawking for Red Heart yarns. I have a love/hate relationship with her because her voice bugs the crap out of me (typical high-pitched American accent with a touch of Southern drawl/nasal), but to be honest she's started to grow on me. And she's a lot less annoying than other crocheters out there on YouTube, trust me.)
Anyway, I decided to make the poncho because I had the prerequisite amount of yarn already on hand -- it was a stash I'd purchased on eBay to use to make more scarves for the craft fair but never did. To be honest, the variegated yarn wasn't my favourite colour scheme, but it seemed like a great way to use it up. Fast forward nearly a week, when I'm more than halfway through my first panel. Here I discover that while the yarn *looked* like the type the CAL recommended, it turned out it was much, much heavier. So not only was it going to be too heavy for me to wear, it was going to require me to buy more yarn to finish it. Well I didn't want to buy more yarn that I didn't like much to begin with!
Logically, I should have just bowed out of the CAL gracefully. It's not like I don't have other things to fill my time. But instead I made the mistake of looking online for thinner yarn, and found some I fell in love with. Long story short, I ended up spending £30 I shouldn't have spent, and have started on this poncho from scratch again. It is working up so slowly, and I'm already nearly 2 weeks behind -- so I'm still wondering what in the hell I was thinking. I guess I just didn't feel like I had enough stress in my life!
It's King Cole Riot DK in the colour "Autumn". :)
Time to get back to JavaScript.
And I'll just take this moment to mention that my aforementioned big girl pants are now another size smaller! Wheee...... As of this week's weigh-in, I have officially passed the halfway mark of this journey, at least according to the scale. I have lost more than I have left to lose to get to my goal, and that's very wonderful indeed. I spent a great number of years (since 2004?) rather convinced that I would never be able to lose all the weight I regained when pregnant (kids!!), and it finally seems like I've found the recipe that works for me. This is all the more amazing when you realize that I am sitting in the categorically worst bracket for someone who wants to lose half their starting weight: I'm a 50 year old woman with fibromyalgia. Between hormonal changes, slowing metabolism and the inability to exercise at a consistent, elevated pace, the odds were certainly not in MY favour. Well the odds can suck it. Yay, me!
I'm working through a JavaScript tutorial at Codecademy right now; they are pulling it on the 6 October to retool it, but I figure I would benefit from doing their old series and then their new one. I did the same thing with their Python tutorial. I'm not sure when they are putting the new Python one out.
I didn't get to read any of the Pragmatic Programmers book last week, so I'll need to put more effort into getting through the final two chapters because it's due this Saturday and I've renewed it the maximum number of times. I also have a Python maths book waiting to be wings. There's just not enough time in the day. Well, there would be, but the kids come home at 4pm, and I have no choice but to switch gears because the chaos level is too high to do anything else but capitulate.
Of course, the evening is usually when I get to work on my crochet. I did do a bit during the day while I was unwell, but I'm in the midst of a project that had me tearing my hair out by the weekend. I decided to take part in a crochet-a-long (CAL) with a Facebook group I joined last year to make a sampler blanket. This year they are making a poncho. Apparently all the cool kids are wearing ponchos this autumn. (And I say "they" but the group is really lead by a single woman who makes her living teaching crochet and knitting through YouTube videos and hawking for Red Heart yarns. I have a love/hate relationship with her because her voice bugs the crap out of me (typical high-pitched American accent with a touch of Southern drawl/nasal), but to be honest she's started to grow on me. And she's a lot less annoying than other crocheters out there on YouTube, trust me.)
Anyway, I decided to make the poncho because I had the prerequisite amount of yarn already on hand -- it was a stash I'd purchased on eBay to use to make more scarves for the craft fair but never did. To be honest, the variegated yarn wasn't my favourite colour scheme, but it seemed like a great way to use it up. Fast forward nearly a week, when I'm more than halfway through my first panel. Here I discover that while the yarn *looked* like the type the CAL recommended, it turned out it was much, much heavier. So not only was it going to be too heavy for me to wear, it was going to require me to buy more yarn to finish it. Well I didn't want to buy more yarn that I didn't like much to begin with!
Logically, I should have just bowed out of the CAL gracefully. It's not like I don't have other things to fill my time. But instead I made the mistake of looking online for thinner yarn, and found some I fell in love with. Long story short, I ended up spending £30 I shouldn't have spent, and have started on this poncho from scratch again. It is working up so slowly, and I'm already nearly 2 weeks behind -- so I'm still wondering what in the hell I was thinking. I guess I just didn't feel like I had enough stress in my life!
It's King Cole Riot DK in the colour "Autumn". :)
Time to get back to JavaScript.