My goal is to run 1,000 miles in 2010. See how far along I am:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Kawaii Pencil Case!

At school, everyone has really cute little pencil cases! Even the guys. Tired of pens falling out of my bag, pencils breaking in  there, and the digging to the bottom, I decided to make a cute one!
I used some polka dot fabric that was left over from a skirt I made, and 1 sheet of pink felt for the lining and the cute little heart applique. It also has a lovely zipper that I put it and it does not eat the fabric! I'm so excited!!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Urchin!

Bonus to being home sick is extra knitting time. I started this hat about 5 times in different yarns. Finally I decided to use this Jolt from skacel, that I had kicking about in my horribly large stash of yarns. Its a thick, thin deal. The pattern called for 7mm needles. What the heck are 7mm's?  10.5 Us are 6.5mm, and 11US are 8mm so what are 7mm? I have no idea, so I used the 10.5's I should have used the 11's the hat would have been a bit bigger and I would have liked that. It is supposed to be a beret, but I can't really pull off the Beret effect with this hat. So it works well as a short-ish beenie. This will mostly not keep my ears warm. But I suppose a beret would not either. I think I may knit another with thicker yarn on 13's so I can get that nice floppy beret look, which drove me to knit this in the first place any ways. Go Knit it! Its really fast with those nice short rows in the there. Beenie? Or Beret?



Cruddy crud.

I'm sick. I feel like garbage. I cant stop coughing and choking on snot. I cant sleep because when I lay down I end up choking. Yuck. Hopefully in the next few days I will be better. I acctually stayed home from school for 2 days.
Even though I was sick I went out on Friday night. Matt played with the Aggrolites. It was absolutely amazing. They played in a small little venue called the Vibe Lounge in rockville centre. Amazing. I love that band. I love them even more live. I was so sick but felt great for an hour! Then shit for the whole weekend. 
I got a job at the hospital gift shop and I'm starting next week. I really didnt want to work while going to school, but I really need to. Things are super tight otherwise. And Matty's last minute root canal cost us over $600 after our insurance paid them. That threw us off finacially for a bit. Booooo! Yea, so now we will have a little extra money. Hooray!


Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Training for a Half Marathon! Day 1

For a while now Kate has been encouraging me to train to run a marathon with her. I finally agreed to a half marathon to start.
13 miles. 13 Miles of non stop running. 13 miles, for real? Yes. While I am notorious for planning to do things and never doing them, Im thinking the more people I tell that I am doing this, and the more people asking about it the more obligated I feel to finish what I started. (Case and point with my trip to Japan!)

I started yesterday. I ran, or i tried. I lasted about 5 min before I wanted to die. Then I just walked fast. After we ran (walked) around Kate's neighborhood, we went to the gym in her building. I did the elliptical for 25 min. and then on the treadmill, I would walk for 1 minute, and run for 1 minute, alternating. Then we did all the arm machines. I really *despise* the gym, although I felt less hatred for it yesterday. Kate says once I get past my distaste for running I will crave it. After our gym adventures, Kate made us salad for dinner. The other good thing about this is im already much more motivated to not each garbage.

Here is the schedule that I am starting off with. I need to be able to run 3 miles to start using the half marathon schedule.
This is a non offensive plan for when you are starting out never really running before. I changed the order of the days a bit to work with my schedule better.  Here it is. 

                                                    Sat     Mon   Tue       Wed   Thur     Sun   Fri
I will be doing my long run days on Fridays, because I get home from class around 12:30, so I can run in the middle of the day and relax after with out anyone around. I also believe that it will help keep me in check for the weekend, eating and drinking wise. If I want to go a little bit over board, Saturday is usually the day that happens. While Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are kind of optional on this chart, I am making Saturdays manditory. Tuesday and Thursday will vary, with school work and things. Hooray! Go Me!

Breaking the bottled water habit!

Really, is it absolutely necessary for you to keep buying bottled water?
No, it is not.

You are paying waaay too much for it. Yes it may *Only be a dollar for a bottle*, but at $1 for a 16 oz. bottle that's about $8 a gallon that your spending. Most of that bottled water you're paying for is the same water that comes out of your sink. According to the SCWA if you live in suffolk you pay about $1.46 for 1,000 gallons. And you bitch about the price of gas!

That plastic bottle that is sitting on the floor of your car empty is going to sit in a landfill much much longer. How long i dont know exactly but im sure its will be around longer that you will, and probably your grandkids too.
Plus plastic leaches crap into your water, which tastes nasty. Do yourself a favor and buy a Sigg bottle, they are made of metal and your water will only taste like water. Not chemicals. Get one here: Sigg

Water is becoming like oil. We're in for a shortage. Of all the worlds water about 3% is fresh water which is drinkable. Of that 3% about 2% is tied up in frozen glaciers, and about .5% has been consumed. Leaving about .5% for now. Thats not very much, so use it wisely, don't waste, and don't continue to keep telling Corporate America that you are cool with paying $8 a gallon for water, because you may have to in the future!


Last January Matt and I bought Sigg bottles for about $24 bucks each.
We used to buy the 1.5 Liter bottles for about $2.00 each.
2 a day x 5 days a week= 10 bottles a week
10 bottles a week x 4 weeks a month= 40 bottles a month
40 bottles a month x 10 months so far= 400 bottles so far that we have kept out of the garbage. And we saved $750 so far by not buying bottled water! We have a built in water filter in our fridge, and also a Brita, both are great.


Tell your friends!

Oh, my source of inspiration for writing this and spreading the info was:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2222424/34252081

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Pretty Thursday

I get to be off from school today. Its nice having extra days off. I just need days to sit around and do nothing. Although I will be doing some things today like:
  • Take Grandma out for a bit
  • Grocery Shopping at Trader Joe's
  • Bake Pumpkin Ginger Muffins from simply recipes, one of my Favorite recipe sites!!
  • Go to a yarn shop for a job interview. I may get to teach knitting classes there!
  • Start my new urchin hat from knitty with nice green yarn I should not have bought.
  • Cook fajitas for dinner in my underused cast iron skillet.
  • Study for Japanese quiz tommrow.
  • Look foward to the weekend!
  • Do laundry
  • Stop biting my nails.
These nails are gross. Ive tried to quit many times but now I really have to stop. I cannot help it sometimes. I have been trying since I was about 4. I can remember being in the car at preschool with my mom and her giving me some pennies for not biting my nails. And as soon as we were getting out of the car, i bit them. She took my pennies away. I filed them last night and put some nail hardner on them. I do it midlessly when I am driving or in class, or stressed. I bite them till they hurt and bleed. I really need to stop. Any ideas?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Thursday

    Im off today (and yesterday!) due to Jewish holidays. I kind of feel like crud though. Monday I was moving heavy boxes to find my fabric box (to make a skirt!) and I pulled my should and neck out a bit. Its not a sore today but I cant really turn my head to the left so much. And I have a really bad knot on the right side. Soo Achy. I just finished a massive powerpoint for my biotechnology class on the evils of Genetically modified foods. I was absolutly repulsed with what I learned. Matt and I are going to go as organic as possible, for our safety. 
   At least this is a quick short week. Just class on Thursday and I'm only going for a Japanese test on friday morning. Friday I am also going to a session about the JET programme!! Which I am excited to go to. The Japanese govt recruits English teachers to come to Japan and teach for a year! Its very competitive but I feel that when I graduate I will have a really good shot at it!
  The weather is gorgeous today! Im going to bake some flourless peanut butter cookies tonight! Yum!