I worked on some swap projects this week.  The first one wanted quilt blocks based on a grid.  I made a convergence block.

Here’s that whole group together.

For the next one I could make whatever block I wanted as long as it was in the same color scheme as the rest of the blocks. I made a granny square.

I’m playing along with the Doctor Who Stitch Along!

Here’s week one. I’m not really sure how to embroider properly so sometimes I had to make up my own stitches to turn corners.

Thursday

We worked on figuring out our max lift on three moves.  I got 92 on the clean.  95 is still my mental breaking point on that exercise it appears.  I got 72 on the overhead squat and 88 on the bench press.  The bench press total is wimpy but I’m proud of that one.  I remember a few years ago when I was working out with the husband.  I could barely do the 45 lb bar.

Sunday

I’ve decided to work on my back strength to try to get pull ups.   I did 4 rounds of:

• 10 lat pull downs at 50 lbs
• 10 push ups on my toes
• 10 push ups on my knees
• 25 squats

For the last round I did P90x style pull ups where you put a chair in front of you and put your toes on it to support part of your weight.

Monday

I did 2 rounds of:

• 10 pull ups
• 20 push ups on knees
• 30 sit ups
• 50 squats

Then I did another set of pull ups and squats.

Have you heard of the website DietBet?  You join a group and put up some money.  You have 28 days to lose 4% of your body weight.  Whoever does it splits the pot at the end.  I thought it would be fun to do this at work.  I mentioned it yesterday and everyone was in.  I work with mostly skinny little 20 somethings who want to lose that “last 5 lbs.” Whatever.  Anyway, we mentioned to our boss.  In the tradition of men everywhere when faced with a bet he replied, “Let’s up the stakes a bit.”

The company is going to match the pot that we collect from everyone putting $10 in.  (I also work with mostly poor college students.)  At the end whoever has lost the highest percentage of their body weight wins the match.

Now it is a war.  The boss and I are highly competitive.  At any event with games we are cutthroat with each other.  We are nice to everyone else although I’m already planning on bringing in some yummy snacks in about 2 weeks for temptation.  And, I dare someone to come in and try to be obnoxious sometime this month with a clinic full of dieting women.  Yeah, try it.

Weigh in is on 5/21 which makes day 28 the day before I leave for Hawaii.

Tuesday

Warm up started with 3 rounds of:

• 300 m row
• 200 m run

Then we did some slow squats.  It was 10 seconds down and then 10 seconds up with a hold halfway up.  After that we had to do pushups on our partners.  One person held a plank while the other had to do a pushup with their hands on the partner’s shoulders, then hips, then calves, then ankles, and back up the other side.

We practiced pistols which are one leg squats.  We held hands for support and tried to go low.  It was hard.  We did 3 sets of 5 on each leg.

We had to do three hang snatches (bar from hips to overhead) every minute on the minute for 8 minutes at 70% of our 1 rep max.  The computer figured my 70% was 49 lbs.  I did that the first time and then heard, “Heather!  That’s way too light!!!”  My argument that the computer said so was ignored. He added another 15 lbs.  It was still easy.  I’ve been getting big strength gains lately.

The workout was as many reps as possible in 8 minutes of:

• 3 back squats 135#
• 5 slam balls 20# – Throw the medicine ball down from overhead and squat to catch it on the bounce
• 7 kettle bell swings 55#

I decided to go for the Rx.  That means that you do the weight that is listed and don’t modify any moves.  It was too heavy.  I couldn’t get full range of motion on the squats after the first few times.  I never really got the kettle bells all the way overhead.  I did it 4 times through and got up to 1 kettle bell swing on the next round.

This is how I feel.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michael Pollan examines four styles of cooking – barbeque, braising, baking bread, and fermenting. He goes into the history of each as he learns about them from experts in the field.

I like reading Michael Pollan’s books even if the subject matter isn’t particularly relevant to me. I’m not going to make or eat North Carolina style whole hog barbeque for example but it was an interesting story.

A Spoonful of Sugar: A Nanny’s Story by Brenda Ashford

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Brenda Ashford trained as a nanny in the premier institution in England in the 1930s. She expected to have a life serving the upper classes and their children but the war changed that. She served in evacuee homes and state run day cares for women required to work in the war effort.

This was an interesting look at a changing society through the eyes of a woman trained to serve in one way and then living another life entirely. She is considered England’s longest serving nanny having worked most of her life until her 90s.

A Perfect Proposal by Katie Fforde

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sophie’s family doesn’t take her seriously because she’s not an academic.  When she is shipped off to care for an ailing relative, no one expects it lead her to a trip to America to chase down a possible inheritance. 

This is a nice light read.  I’ve really liked all of this author’s books.  They are funny and romantic.

These quilts were made by at a sewing day at a local quilt store.

I’ve also mailed out two of these blue and white samplers.

The veterans who are receiving these aren’t able to meet in person so I’m mailing them.

Wednesday

This was still part of the Spring Cleaning week of enforced rest at the gym.  They offered a yoga class that morning.  I love yoga and don’t do nearly enough of it anymore so this class was a nice change of pace.

Sunday

I was due for a real workout so I decided to do Murph.  This is a charity workout that happens around Memorial Day.  You can pay to do it and the money goes to charities established in the name of a man killed in Afghanistan (I think).

• 1 mile run
• 100 pull ups
• 200 push ups
• 300 squats
• 1 mile run

This is supposed to be done while wearing a 20 lb vest to simulate armor.

I was doing this from memory so I managed to get it wrong.  That wasn’t the only thing that went wrong.  We got a new door on the back of our house.  I went out it to go for the run and tested it to make sure it was unlocked.  When I got back from the mile run, I was locked out.  I was then unhappy.  The husband was taking Z back to her mother and wouldn’t be home for hours.  It was not warm.  It turns out that the door will let you out without unlocking it and the handle will turn like it is unlocked but it will lock behind you.  The husband knew this and thought it was self-evident so he didn’t tell me.  He is of the opinion that it serves me right for trying to leave the house unlocked.

Anyway, I have a little shed outside so I started looking for what I could use to MacGuyver my way to the bedroom window which I was pretty sure was unlocked but was about 10 feet off the ground.  I had a 6 foot ladder.  There were two sawhorses and a sheet of plywood but the saw horses were way too flimsy.  I thought about using some chairs as sawhorses but they were too flimsy too.  Apparently stuff only gets put out there if it is crap.

I ended up using just the ladder and then giving myself some major pep talks.  I was pretty sure I could do it but was scared.  I knew I was going to have to jump up from the ladder to the window and I might flip the ladder when I jumped so I had to commit to it.  I also had Freckles at the window crying because what I was doing was wrong and Riley sitting on the sill getting in the way.

I ended up standing on the top of the ladder -  on the Do Not Stand Here You May Lose Your Balance step – and jumping so my front half was through the window.  Then I wiggled my way through.

An hour or so after that I decided to finish the workout.  I don’t have a pull up bar so I did lat pull downs.  I did the 200 pushups.  Then I did 300 sit ups because I didn’t remember the workout correctly.  By that time the husband was back and I was too tired to kill him.  I walked the last mile and took him with me.  I thought I was strolling but he said I was going very fast.

Monday

I did a half mile run and a half mile walk.

Tuesday

Our warm up required thought and coordination so obviously we screwed it all up.  There were 5 of us in class and we had 2 medicine balls.  We had to run 200 meters three times.  While we were running we had to pass the medicine ball to the person behind us.  When it got to the end, that person had to run to the front.  That’s all well and good until you have to turn around and go back.  Now, logic says that you just make a curving turn and keep going but it was early and we didn’t have logic.  We would just stop and turn around and then we’d get all out of order and flummoxed.

The strengths were situps.  We had to do 8 seconds down and 8 seconds up for 3 sets of 11.  (Remember the 300 situps two days ago?  Ouch.)  Between sets we did hamstring raises.  You get on your knees and a partner holds your feet.  Lean forward and then come back up on an eight count.  That is harder than it sounds.  You can only go forward a few inches.

The workout was 10 rounds of:

• 100 meter run
• 7 pull ups – I do modified jumping pull ups.
• 21 push ups (Remember the 200 push ups two days ago?  Ouch again.)

There was a 15 minute time cap.  I did 5 full rounds and got the run and one pull up done.

With a few days notice I had to completely empty out the sewing room.

It all moved across the hall into (and onto) the gym.

Now the nasty dirty stained thread-collecting carpet is gone and I have new wood laminate that can be swept up with a broom.

Freckles says it isn’t as comfy so she’ll have to use the dog bed that she’s rejected since we got her.

Good thing she has white on her or she’d be totally camouflaged.

Project number two was adding a breakfast bar to the kitchen to give us more counter space as Powder so ably demonstrates.

He found tile to match the backsplash in the kitchen. Anything in that picture with tile on a horizontal surface is brand new from scratch.

He also installed a new people door from the garage to the outside. I hate this door right now. It will feature prominently on tomorrow’s workout post so stay tuned for the story of my epic fail with the new door.

Thursday

The workout today was actually two mini-workouts. We started with a repeat of the workout you do on your first day.

• 500m Row
• 40 Air Squats
• 30 Sit Ups
• 20 Push Ups
• 10 Pull Ups

Unfortunately the computer didn’t save my time and I don’t remember what it was.  Then we did a harder version.

• 1000m Row
• 40 Squats 85#
• 30 Sit Ups
• 20 Push Ups
• 10 Pull Ups

The class before us had the women just using a bar instead of 85# on the squats.  We asked if our trainer wanted us to do that.  He informed us that we were the 6:00 class and therefore infinitely tougher than the 5:30 class and to put the weight on the bar.  We rolled our eyes at him but I was surprised that it wasn’t that hard to do it 40 times.  I did that one in 11:20.

Tuesday

It is Spring Cleaning Week.  That means that there are no regular workouts this week.  It is a rest week for everyone and there are classes focusing on mobility and stretching.  I went to one this morning focusing on stretching with bands.  It started out nice and easy with good deep stretches.  I knew it was too good to be true.  By the end we were doing variations on putting the bands around your waist and running sprints and patterns with another person pulling you back.  We were dripping sweat by the end.  I guess that’s the CrossFit version of “We’re going to take a week off with no workouts.”  The last drill we did used two blocks on the floor about 20 feet apart.  You started in the middle of them and had to go touch one and then the other with a person holding the band around your waist to hold you back. You had 45 seconds.  I was working with 2 women who are fairly new.  I think they both started in the last month.  One touched each of them 7 times and the other did 8 times.  I did it 11 times.  Sometimes it is good to compare yourself to people who haven’t been doing this forever.  I’m the wimpiest person in my class so I forget a lot that I really am getting in shape.

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tessa Grey is preparing for her wedding but her world is about to come crashing down around her. Her groom is sick and is dying more quickly than anyone realizes. Her enemy is trying yet again to capture her and may take out The Institute to do it.

This is the last book in The Infernal Devices series. I get this confused with the other series by this author in this world but at a different time. I wish I would have read them after they were all written instead of as they went along. I might have been more able to follow the details.

I wasn’t terribly interested in the first half of the book. The ending to the central conflict of the series seemed rather boring and anticlimatic. It was after that that the book got interesting. I loved the last part of the book that focused on the human relationships. I didn’t anticipate the resolution there at all.

The Great Escape by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lucy just ran away from her wedding. This is a big deal because she is the daughter of a former President and the press is everywhere. She accepts a ride from a biker she finds near the church and decides to run away and hide for a while until the furor calms down.

If you’ve read this author’s Call Me Irresistible you’ve seen the other side of the story – what happens to the groom after Lucy runs. This is Lucy’s story. That confused me at first because when I started reading the story felt very familiar.

I like this author’s books. They are light, feel good reads.

Ugh, boring and ugly. We both hate the exterior. Our neighbors aren’t in love with it either. Since we’ve been doing a lot of work like new windows and a roof they keep dropping, “Have you thought about painting it a new color?” into conversation.

The problem is choosing colors. I haven’t seen many mock Tudors painted anything other than yellow/cream and brown. Even Google isn’t much help.

Here’s a mock up of some suggested paint combinations. Excuse the really fast Photoshopping.

What do you think? I won’t tell you whose color ideas are whose – although mine is obviously the better one! Do you have any other color ideas to try?

I’ve been a bit of a slacker this week but I did manage to finish two and half hexagons. Powder is unimpressed as noted by the huge yawn. (Actually she looks quite vicious in this picture but trust me, it was a yawn.)

I did finish one swap block.

I do have quilts for show and tell though.

Ever since I’ve been the State Coordinator for Ohio for Quilts of Valor I’ve had a dream. I wanted to have a stash of a few quilts so I would have some on hand whenever a request came in. What I’ve been doing is emailing my state volunteers and begging whenever I have a request.

Now, I have a stash. A local quilt shop had a sewing day and made 7 quilts. I picked them up this weekend.

I love this flag design.

There are three of this sampler quilt.

A sampler in another colorway

A cute star quilt

Edge to edge stars

Even the backs are cute. This is the back on all the red, white, and blue samplers.

The first of these quilts will be going to its new home as soon as the soldier gets home from reserve duty in May. He’s been waiting for a bit because the quilt that was meant for him got lost in the mail. Now that we have a stash I can fill any requests that come in and maybe even help out other states!