Domesticated

I am *so* proud of myself.

I joined the gym last Tuesday, started working out last Wednesday. An hour on the elliptical trainer every day and weight training every other day. Not free weights – I love the machines that practically force you to do the exercise right.

I’ve been watching my calorie and fat intake – and making better choices for meals. I am not starving myself and I’m eating pretty much what I want – I’m just choosing lower fat, healthier versions for meals and snacks.

Anyway…..

In a week, I’ve lost 6.8 lbs. and a total of 2.75 inches. (1.25 from my waist and 1 from my hips!)

I am so darn proud of myself, I can’t stand it!

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-0.0 lbs
-7.2 lbs total

I was HUNGRY after the workout last night. Carl picked up Jason’s Deli and I ate an entire Deli Club Sandwich and the potato chips that came with it. I pretty much ate enough to replace all the calories I had burned. I’ve got to start making healthier choices.

So back to the gym today. An hour on the elliptical trainer then I started on my weight training. I worked on my arms today, I’ll do my legs tomorrow, then my back on Tuesday and my abs on Thursday.

According to The Daily Plate I have a net caloric intake (after food and exercise) of 27 calories today. Much better

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I was exhausted today, but I went to the gym anyway. It took me 45 minutes to really get into the groove on the elliptical, but I did the whole hour on the machine.

-1.6 lbs
-7.2 lbs total (woo!!)

60 minutes, 4.2 miles on the elliptical trainer.

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I haven’t ridden the bike since November. I decided I was going to get back to it and get some exercise. So this week, I joined the gym. I’m focusing on cardio for two more days, then I am going to start adding in some weight training. One friend and encourager has been asking me why I haven’t posted my workout diary – well, it’s because I haven’t done anything. He said I should get back on it, so here it is.

Since the last time I posted:
-2 lbs
-5.6 lbs total

(see… during the holidays, I gained about 5 lbs…. Just by cutting out all the junk, I lost that already, so now it’s time to push it and lose even more.)

I worked out on the Elliptical trainer at the gym today and yesterday. Yesterday I only had time to do 45 minutes, today I did 65 minutes. It was something like 4.8 miles today and 3.4 miles yesterday.

Now I am tired and I am going to bed early.

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I enjoy doing handmade stuff for the holidays. As Carl will tell you, I usually get myself in way over my head and end up staying up all night long the week before Christmas just to finish everything. I do it every year.

The past couple of years, we’ve joined a Christmas card list on an online community we’re both a part of. This year, the list is up to 60 people so far. Combined with all our co-workers, friends and family, our Christmas card list this year is probably going to end up being close to 200 people.

Of course, I want to do something handmade for all these people, right?

Last year, we made lots of quilted postcards. They turned out being really cute, but they were quite time consuming. Carl did help by doing some of the embroidery – which was very appreciated.

This year, we’re doing something REALLY easy. Fabric snowflake cutouts fused onto cardstock. It’s so simple and no two cards will be exactly the same.

You will need:

• Fabric
• Heavy Duty Fusible Web
• Iron
• Rotary Cutter
• Sharp scissors
• Pre-folded cards or blank cardstock

Step 1 – Determine quantity of fabric and fusible web
Determine how big you want your snowflakes to be. I cut 4″ squares, and I wouldn’t recommend going much smaller than that. Our cards are going to be 5.5″ x 8.5″. I got 80 4″ squares out of 1 yard of fabric. You will need 3 yards of fusible web for each full yard of fabric.

Step 2 – Press your fabric
Press your fabric to get out most of the major wrinkles and creases. Don’t spend too much time on it – just give it a good once-over.

Step 3 – Press fusible web to the fabric
Cut your fusible web in lengths to match the length of fabric. I cut 1-yard pieces of the fusible web and aligned it with the selvedge of the fabric. Make sure your iron is on the highest setting (Cotton or Wool setting) with NO STEAM. Carefully press the fusible web to the wrong side of the fabric. I used 2 1/2 one-yard pieces of fusible web for one one-yard cut of fabric. The half piece of fusible web was cut lengthwise.

DO NOT REMOVE THE PAPER BACKING FROM THE FUSIBLE WEB YET.

Step 4 – Cut your squares

Cut your fabric into strips as wide as your finished squares will be. It might be helpful to fold the fabric before cutting these strips. Be cautioned that the paper backing of the fusible web is slippery – you will need to be very careful not to let it slip while you’re cutting.

Next, cut your squares from the strips. I was able to cut 3 strips at a time without everything slipping too much. I wouldn’t advise doing more.

Keep cutting until you have enough squares to make all your holiday cards.

Step 5 – Fold and snip – This is the fun part!
If you were going to make a paper snowflake, you would make 4 folds that would give you a 12-faceted snowflake. With the thickness of the fabric, fusible web and paper backing, this ends up being very difficult to work with. Instead, we’re going to make 3 folds and end up with a 6-faceted snowflake.

There are two ways to start the folds of the fabric:

Next, you want to fold in half again, but just to make a crease to find the center.

Now, this is the trickest part of the whole process. I hope you can see well enough in the pictures to get the idea. You want to fold the right side up and over to the left…

then fold the left side in the same manner.

Cut off the top points so that you end up with a triangle.

Now you are ready to cut away your snowflake design. Even with only 3 folds, it’s still pretty thick so be careful and don’t cut a finger off.

Don’t cut away too much fabric on the side folds – you don’t want your snowflake to fall apart.

This is the step where you can sit down in front of the TV with a whole stack of squares and just make a bunch of snowflakes. It really does go quite fast, especially if you can manage to enlist your husband’s help.

Step 6 – Admire your work!
Open up your snowflake and smile.

If you have any stray threads or not-quite-accurate corners, this is the time to trim them up.

Step 7 – Fuse to your card
Heat your iron to it’s highest setting, peel off the paper backing of the snowflake, position it on your card and press into place.

That’s all there is to it! Write your message, and send them on their way!

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Obviously, the huge news is my new niece. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to post anything and then poof! She’s born!

Her baby shower was in October. Of course I made her a quilt. I LOVE the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and when I saw the kit for a quilt featuring the caterpillar, I just had to do it. As you can see, it’s very bright and fun.

—–

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I went on a quilting retreat with a few girls from my guild. I went on one of these same retreats in June and I had a blast! I thought my Grandmother would enjoy it, and since that weekend was her birthday, I decided to take her on the retreat for her birthday. We had a blast! I knew the ladies we were hanging out with would love my Mamaw and she would love them. We spent the weekend talking and sewing and eating and shopping.

I didn’t really have any plans to make anything specific at the retreat, but I found this pattern the day before we left and I loved it. I ended up pulling together enough fabric to make 5 bags at the retreat. However, I only finished 2:

Mamaw loved the fabric for the purse on the right… when I was cutting, she asked me if that was going to be hers. So I finished it and gave it to her. I got so tickled at her in her PJs with the purse.

The entire retreat was a blast and it meant so much to me to be able to share that with my Mamaw.

—–

On another note, I am really loving Bakerella’s Blog. Her cakes and pops are so creative and so inspiring. I saw her post about Brownie Candy Cups and I think I started salivating right away. These things are so easy, especially if you use a boxed brownie mix. I made a bunch, took them to work, and they were gone in a couple of hours.

I really think I’m going to try the Butterscotch Brownies soon, too. Doesn’t it look delicious??

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Lots of stuff to post about since the last update but first, the biggest news: I’m an aunt!

My brother and his wife had a beautiful baby girl at 11:27 Tuesday morning. Her name is Ella Faye and she weighed in at 6 lbs 11 oz and 18 inches long. I was able to be present for the birth (apparently I was there for the conception, too… but I wasn’t in the same room, then.) and I can’t tell you what an amazing experience that was. I mean, we all know what happens when a baby is born, but actually seeing it was incredible.

It was quite a whirlwind for me – I can’t imagine what it was like for my brother and sis-in-law. It was very cool to see my brother jump in with both feet, though. I knew he’d be a good dad. I’m so proud of all of them.

There are several places for pictures. I have some in my gallery and then there’s my brother’s gallery. I didn’t get many pictures on my camera because I was in charge of taking pictures with their camera.

There are a couple of other things I want to post about, but I am still recuperating from the trip to Georgia so I’ll post about those later.

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The idea to make these cake balls has been floating around in my head for some time. I had a taste of these at a recent function and when I found the recipe, it just sparked ideas in my head. When I tried them, they were actually cake pops: the little bites were on lollipop sticks. I thought I would give it a try last night.

The process is very, very simple. 1 box of red velvet cake mix, baked according to the instructions on the box. Let the cake cool, break it into chunks and throw it in the food processor. Pulse until the cake is finely ground. Mix with 1 can of cream cheese frosting, form into balls, push a lollipop stick in them, dip them in white bark coating, and viola!

Or not.

It’s totally fun to make a complete mess on purpose. It’s totally fun to make tons of little balls of gooey cake.

My idea was to use floral foam to stand the cake pops up on while the bark coating dried. This was a good idea, but there are a couple of things I could have done different…

1. Many of the failed cake pops failed because I pushed the stick all the way through the ball of cake. When the bark coating went on, the ball got too heavy and slid to the bottom of the stick.
2. Next time, I will cover the floral foam with waxed paper before using them. The pops that slid all the way down ended up with floral foam fuzz on the bottom after the bark coating dried.
3. Of course, I didn’t read this post and the part that says, “Dip the tips of lollipop sticks into your melted candy and then insert about halfway into balls and then stick these babies in the freezer (covered) for a few minutes…” That would have helped.

I did get a few that turned out ok. I drizzled green and red chocolate over the tops of those. I took them to work to show them off (and get rid of them – like we need that many sweets in the house). They were gone by lunch.

Out of 50 original balls, I ended up with 16 good looking cake pops. That’s a 32% success rate.

Tonight, I had another bright idea. Instead of making cake pops, I would make SNOWMEN!!

Have you ever seen Calvin’s snowmen?

Mine are pretty much like that…

First I attempted to coat the balls individually and stack them up. The blob on the front right is the result of that.

Then I had the bright idea to coat a lollipop stick with the white bark and stack my “snowballs” up. That worked a little better. The bad thing about these is that as I was coating them, more and more red velvet cake broke off and the last few of my snowmen have pink dots.

I am still planning on decorating the 5 or so that turned out ok. That will have to wait until tomorrow night, though. I’m exhausted.

5 out of 14… that’s a 35% success rate. A little better.

If you have any tips on how to dip these things, I’d love to hear it. I am more than willing to practice more to get it right

On a happier note, there is a beautiful maple tree in the front yard. It’s firey orange right now and I wanted to get a picture of it before all the leaves fell off.

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1:42.46
21.11 miles
12.3 avg mph

Most of my time today was spent trying to work on my cadence. I adjusted my seat several times, but I still can’t get above 100rpms without bouncing. That’s pretty good, though. I can stick with 100 rpms.

I ran over ANOTHER snake on the greenway today. Abby 2, Snakes 0.

Saw a wooly worm, too. The winter doesn’t look too good. He was totally red.

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1:44.29
21.11 miles
12.1 avg mph

Carl went with me today. I was riding Dad’s road bike that he let me borrow, Carl was riding his hybrid bike. I wore him out.

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