Sunday, January 31, 2016

End of January

Last day of the month and time to revisit the goals I set for myself for 2016.

 First goal was to lose 5 pounds a month.  As of this morning, I have lost 7.6 pounds this month!  Yay me.

I set a goal to clean something out every week.  So far, I've cleaned the bathroom drawers and cabinet, the 9 bin organizer in my closet, the linen closet, the dry sink, and this past week, I cleaned out my food cabinet.




And my goal to work on and finish ufo's:  I finally got my Merry, Merry Snowman quilt quilted and the binding is on, and in the process of being sewn down.

For my diet:  I joined the Chip program (Complete Health Improvement Plan) thru the Y in collaboration with a local hospital.  This diet is totally vegan:  No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no sugar, no processed food, no caffeine, no snacking.
You eat lots of fruits, vegetables, and only whole grains.  We meet 3 nights a week and this past week was our first meetings.  It is very intense, lots to learn, lots of evidence of what a vegan lifestyle will do for you -- not can, will! They did blood tests and weigh-ins last week and we got the initial results on Thursday.  Many people have been able to go off their meds for blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides on this program.  All of my numbers are high, so of course my goal is to drop my blood sugar to normal, and lower the other numbers -- maybe even to go off my meds.  My doctor has been informed I'm doing the program, so she can monitor my meds.

I had set a goal for myself to lose at least 30 pounds this year -- well, my sheet recommended I lose 43!  Shocking when someone else says it!  So, my new goal is at least 40!
 
We also got a cookbook, a workbook, and a textbook for the class and a pedometer -- 10,000 steps a day.  So far, I've managed 7033 one day and 6196 yesterday.  Guess I'm going to have to work a little harder on the exercise, so my goal of exercising 3 days a week has now been expanded to at least 5 days a week!
I'll keep you posted on my progress with this program. (It's actually easier than I thought it would be - even though I thought it was vegetarian, not totally vegan!)

Until next time.....blessings.

 
 


 

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Keeping up with my goals

I am working on the goals I set for this year and keeping up with most of them.
One goal was to pick a spot each week to clean up or clear clutter from.  Last week's goal was my linen closet and I managed to do that.  Week before was cleaning out the 9 bin organizer in my closet and that, too is done.  This week's goal:  Clean off the top of the Dry Sink, which is in my office and a surface that manages to collect things - mostly candles and decor I remove to change out seasonal stuff.  So, I cleaned it off this morning:
I also managed to walk on the treadmill this morning -- this goal is harder to maintain, so I have to force myself to do it until it hopefully will become a habit. 

I have my Merry, Merry Snowman top (Bunny Hill Designs) on the longarm and am slowly custom quilting it.  It's not a great job, but I am learning so much stuff -- finally!  I need to finish it this week and get back to quilting homeless quilts again.

Until next time....blessings.

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Making some progress

I've been working a little bit with the donated fabric and the new cube organizer.  The top row of cubes has scraps and strips and squares that I've cut.  I got a little overwhelmed with all of that, so they aren't in any order, just basically thrown together.

 The two bins on top of the organizer are full of cut squares for the group at church to piece quilts together -- one has 3-1/2" squares for kids quilts and the other has 5" squares for homeless quilts.

Have you ever cut up your leftovers into squares and strips and saved them ala Bonnie Hunter style?  I used to, and over the years gave away everything I had saved because I didn't use them after I did all that organizing.  So, when we started prepping to make quilts at church -- there's a few quilters and about 10 non-quilters, so we had to teach the non-quilters what to do -  I started cutting squares and strips again.  Well, that's all well and good, but again, I wasn't using the 2-1/2" squares or anything else.  So the cubes are full of scraps and cut squares and strips.  
 I pulled a stack of 2-1/2" squares and started making 2-patches.  They will become 4 patches and maybe eventually, I'll add them to the 16-patch blocks I've had in the stash for years now and may become a quilt eventually!
I'm going to work with one cube at a time now to deal with leftovers and scraps as I go, and hopefully it'll all be organized eventually and all become quilts for the homeless.
Until next time....blessings.