::Slice of Life::

Infusion

Iron Infusion.  Doesn't that kind of sound like a yummy juice drink or ice tea from Starbucks?  I wish.

After my iron test the doctor wants to give me one of those.  Cheri says it was not fun but definitely made her feel better so I will look at it as a good thing. 

small successes

I have lost 4 pounds since I started on the treadmill 2 weeks ago.  That isn't much (yet) but considering I haven't change my eating habits one bit, I think it is pretty cool. 

Flash to the Past

One of my favorite shows as a kid was Buck Rogers. Came out in 1979.  It was definitely a lot "cooler" back then but still fairly cool. =)

I've now got the full first season in our Netflix queue!

Karate Kick

I think I have talked about Frankie being in Karate before.  She goes 2 days a week and she really loves it.  She wants to be on the competition team also but that would be 2 more days a week plus competitions so we said not right now.  Maybe in the summer when there are less things competing for her time.  She is up to the Orange Belt now (White, Yellow then Orange).  But you can't earn the solid belts until your 7 and since she is 6 she gets the white with a colored strip. Not sure what that's about but that's the rule.

Here is a picture of her doing her roundhouse kick (I think that is the right name. lol).  See how her foot is above her head, toes pointed, that is supposed to be really good.

Still Motivated

8 days in a row as of yesterday.  So far it hasn't been that hard to get myself out of bed at 6:15.  I am still feeling the motivation.  I didn't go on the treadmill this morning because I gave blood yesterday and they told me I shouldn't.  I know they are overly cautious but since my iron is still low I thought it was probably a good idea.  It wouldn't be a good idea to faint on the treadmill and hit my head and die.  lol

Speaking of low iron.  I had an iron test 4 months ago that showed my iron was seriously low.  I have had somewhat low iron for years (I knew because when I give blood they check your iron and some months it was too low to donate).  I have tried in the past to improve it based on diet but it really never worked.  I had avoided taking iron supplements because they have some side affects I don't like (TMI) but after this test I did start taking them anyway.  The sideaffects weren't great but after a few weeks I think my body got used to them and it mostly stopped.  I have taken iron twice a day for month now and when I gave blood yesterday it was still low.  Just barely high enough to give blood.  So I e-mailed my doctor and he is having me come in for another iron test.  He said "If your iron stores (Ferritin) are low, you may benefit from iron infusions".  Iron Infusion sounded kind of scary but when I looked it up it didn't sound so bad.  Either a shot in a muscle (ouch) or an IV over like 8 hours.  So I will go in for a test in the next few days and see what the results are compared to last time.  Part of me wants to get the infusion to get it fixed but part of me doesn't.  =)

A different motivation

For 4 days in a row I have gotten up early and gone on the Treadmill.  I am feeling very proud of myself for this small accomplishment.  For a number of year I have gotten up at around 8am (to get to work by 9 or a little after).   Then a few months ago I started needing to make it in by the 8:45 meeting so I started getting up at 7:15-7:30.  But lately I have been regularly getting up at 6:30 or earlier so waking up even earlier to exercise is definitely an accomplishment for me.  I need to do it in the morning because I know myself and I will never exercise in the evenings after work.  I am tired and way to unmotivated after work. 

Motivation & Change

One of the things I often struggle with is getting motivated.  But I always get a bit of a bug up my you know what around this time of year. 

Almost every year we take the weeks after Christmas and go through the kids closets and purge the stained, grown out of or just plain ugly clothes, they have accumulated over the previous year.  We also go through their rooms and get rid of a bunch of their toys.  Partially to make room for the gobs of new toys they got for christmas but also because there are always a bunch they have grown out of and just don't play with anymore. 

This year I have mostly got the clothes purged but have not gotten to the rest of their rooms because 1) Frankie has moved into Elisa's room because Kari's mom is here and there is to much chaos to really go through things and 2) Kari hadn't been able to help that much and it turns out she was a big part of my motivation.  She also did the part where after we decide what needs to go she made it disappear.  =)

I'm not sure if it is because I haven't gotten my purge fix on the kids rooms or what but I have a serious urge to purge.  I keep looking at the garage and the kitchen cabinets and I see so much that we don't need that makes it harder to get to the stuff we do need. 

I read on a blog today about a woman that at the beginning of each year goes through her house and writes down what needs to be done in each room; fix the curtains or fix the hinges on the cabinet or whatever. so she has a list to work on to get things done.  I was thinking about doing this with my purging urge and go through each room and decide what needs to be gone through.  I would break it down into small manageable chunks and then try to do one a week until it was all done.  And then do a big Goodwill drop off.  =)  Well see how long my motivation lasts.  lol

Projects

Has anyone ever heard of OPAM (one project a month).  This is for when you have a whole bunch of things you want to get done but don’t know where to start.  You pick one project and commit to getting it done by the end of the month then pick another project for the next month. 

I really want to finally decorate the master bedroom in our house (after 6 years of living here).  My first project is to make a new Quilt for the Bed.  I am doing the room in Blue, White & Tan and the Quilt will be Blue & White.  Nothing Fancy just 12x12 square and the quilting will go diagonal across the squares.  Here are the squares all cut out ready to piece together for the front.

Another quilting project I am working on is a very old quilt that Kari’s Great Grandmother made.  Actually she made the front piece but never finished it. It is all hand stitched and the cloth is from old clothes from people in the family including Kari’s mother.  It was given to Kari’s sister to be finished and the person who did it machine stitched part of it and then just did yarn ties scattered around in the middle instead of actually quilting it.  To machine quilt when the piecing was done by hand is just so wrong.  I am taken out all of the machine quilting and am hand quilting it instead.  I am working my way from the outside in and removing all the yarn ties as I get to them also.  This is a family treasure and I just couldn’t stand to see it finished in such a bad way. 

And I haven't had the urge to scrap one bit.  I'm not sure if or when the urge will come back.  But I'm not worried about it.  I'm enjoying sewing again.