Interweave Felt ... and other ramblings

Ooooooh ... must ... have ... this ... magazine ... as i've been addicted to felting lately. Too bad it isn't out until SP10 is over because I would soooo buy one for my secret pal. She's an admitted handbag addict too. Good match, huh? Speaking of SP10, i'm really looking forward to sending my last package to my pal next month and revealing myself. I have something super special planned for that one. I just sent her second package this past weekend but let me tell you ... I had a hard time letting that one go. She said one of her favorite yarns is Malabrigo. Well I've never seen it in person until last week when I got some in the mail that I ordered for her. It's a good thing for her that I already planned on sending it to her before I ever saw it because I might not have been able to let it go. That yarn is sooooooo soft and pretty. I love the saturated colors and variations. And the book I ordered for her I could have kept for myself as well but that wouldn't have been very nice now would it? :) We have such similar tastes that it's easy to buy for her but hard to let it go as it's always things I want for myself.

You'll have to excuse this bad picture and even worse background but here's the camera case I knit for our new camera. I wanted a picture of the case on the camera but then I can't very well take a picture of it now can I? I picked the red, white and blue yarn because it reminds me of summertime fun and fireworks. I love the summer and I love the fourth of july. Friends, family, food and fireworks ... usually involving boating and the river or beach ... oh yeah, and some ice cold beer as well. Which I almost forgot about since i've been pregnant/nursing for the last several. And my birthday is the next day so maybe i'm a little biased. It's my favorite holiday though. No pressure to get the right gift. Just lots of fun. And this year will be extra special because we'll be in Tampa with a group of our college friends on my birthday since my very awesomely special friend Rachel is getting married two days later. Yay!

And speaking of weddings and bridesmaid dresses .... I lost some more weight so it looks like I may have to get my dress altered after all ... which i'm really excited about. So far i've lost seven pounds of the twenty I want to. I'm hoping I can drop another five before having my dress altered around the middle of June. Shouldn't be a problem at the rate i'm going now. And speaking of weight loss ... I went to the gym on saturday to walk the treadmill since it was smoky outside. I don't know what came over me, I guess it's because i'm finally back to eating healthy and taking care of myself, but I had this huge burst of energy so I started running (cue forrest gump here) and I couldn't stop. I thought "for sure this won't last". Well I ended up running for close to twenty minutes. I haven't been able to do that since before I had kids. It was awesome. I was all out sprinting at the end too. I felt great. (well until the soreness set in the next day ... i'm walking a little funny still but it's starting to go away) I really think a lot of the energy came from the smoothies I made us for breakfast that morning. I tell ya ... if you want to lose weight ... smoothies are the way to go. They give me so much energy and I don't get hungry for quite a while that day. I've been keeping a food journal where I write down everything I eat and I tend to eat so much less when I've had a smoothie that morning. It is really making a difference for me. Like right now, I have to remind myself that it's lunch time so I should go look for something to eat. It's so much easier to make healthy choices when I'm not hungry. Before my smoothie kick I would just grab the first thing I could find for lunch because I was usually so hungry by then. I've always been bad about not eating breakfast and I know that's bad for your metabolism but I just don't feel like eating first thing in the morning. Maybe that's why I like the smoothies so much .. because I can drink them instead of having to eat something. Hmmm. Probably so.