Cleansing Time

Hi everyone. Time has past and I was meaning to blog this weekend but I want to limit my time on the computer on the weekends (as I spend so much of my week facing one) so I didn't.

Last weekend was the long weekend here and B's birthday (happy birthday!). We had a good weekend at home (the weather was the pits) and spent some family time together. We took a trip into the city on Sunday to get some clothes for the ever growing Superstar and a gift for B. We also stopped at Chapters and I picked up 2 books. The first is a cookbook that I'll review in a few weeks and the second is a book called "Clean".

So what is clean? Well it's a book about cleansing or detoxing the toxins in your body. It's not a fast. You get to eat. They call it a nutritionally supported detox program. You can have a shake/soup/juice for breakfast and supper. Lunch is a real meal with food from the okay side of the Elimination Diet. The goal is to avoid the no foods and therefore give your body a break from digesting food and allowing the natural detox processes to happen. You get to do this for 21 days. Yes... I said 21 days!

I started reading this book in the car on the way home and finished it on Monday. I started the cleanse on Tuesday. I'm just so amazed by this whole experience. I have never cleansed/detoxed before so this is a first for me. I was pretty intimidated by the 21 day thing but I'm on day 7 now and I feel fabulous.

The great thing about this cleanse is the supportive online community at my.cleanprogram.com. I can ask questions in the forums, search for "clean" recipes, blog about my day, etc... It's a great resource!

There is so much info in the book, it's a little overwhelming. I'm finding that going back and rereading is helping a lot. It's pretty straight forward and easy to follow.

If you are interested in cleansing or have before, give this book at read. It's certainly got me thinking more about what I put into my mouth.

Cheers :)

Story Time

I remember going to Story Time when I was very small. Only vague bits and pieces, but I remember putting on my PJ's and going to the library and sitting in a circle. That's about it. I also remember the smell of the library. I love a good musty library to this day!

Yesterday I took Mr. Man to story time at our local library. They have it Friday mornings and he's finally old enough to go. Not only do the kids get to listen to Danielle read stories, they also get to do a craft. Last week was about bugs and Mr. Man made a spider. He loved that spider!

This week was about Teddy Bears. He even got bring a stuffed bear to leave at the library over night. Who knows what kind of mischief his Panda will get into.

They read books about going to bed (one was Little Critter, I love Little Critter) and made a bear to put on the fridge. It's pretty funny to watch a 3 year old try to glue sequence on, I think Colleen took pity on him and helped!

Here's a shot of the crew. A bit of a small group but Colleen says it grows over the summer. That's okay with me though, Mr. Man still isn't too sure about story time.

He likes the part that comes after though!

Sweet Stuff

Well I've been a busy girl lately. While I've read and kept up with the blogs I follow, I've been a bit lazy about posting on mine. Sorry about that.

Last week we had some lovely weather and things finally started to leaf out. My apple tree has turned green, the raspberries are looking wonderful and the tulips were blooming. Unfortunately we've also had some crazy winds and said tulips lost their petals in a hurry.

I took the warm weather as a sign to get out in the garden and plant some seeds. I got 6 rows of potatoes in and a few rows of lettuce and herbs like parsley and dill. I also threw (literally) some wildflower seeds in my front flower bed and planted some rows of sunflowers and hollyhocks.

The birds have busy fighting over nesting sites and lady birds and my friend saw an Oriole in her yard. So along with bird seed we have a few cut up oranges out to tempt them.

B has cut the lawn twice now and it is green green green! I love it! He rigged up a Kayak transporter to throw in my trunk. I can easily strap the yak to it and pull it to the water. I'm pretty excited to try it out. He also made some racks on the ceiling of the garage to store the yaks out of the way. They look pretty impressive I think. I'm glad he had time to putz around and make me stuff!

I've been admiring the Johnny Jump Ups that have jumped all over my yard. Here they are in my lower bed, but they also live in my lawn and next to the driveway, under the trees, and probably in a few more spots I haven't discovered yet.

In knitting news I've been busy putting the finishing touches on the latest swap in the Itty Bitty group on Ravelry. It's a cupcake theme and let me tell you, there are lots of things out there in consumer land that work perfectly for this swap! I had a hard time not putting things in the package. I knew it was going a long way away and I really wanted to make it special so I tried to keep the items high quality. I bought some goodies and some cupcake making do-hickies.

I also bought some local yarn. I went to Golden Willow (because I know she stocks items from around here) and bought some alpaca from Balgonie and some from Bolivia (not a close neighbor of ours but a really pretty gray alpaca!) and I bought some hand dyed yarn from doglover. I've bought her yarn before and I love the kettle dyed effect she gets. Really pretty stuff. I hope my swap partner likes it too!

I also added the knitted elements that make the swaps so much fun. I made the Cupcake Hat in the Itty Bitty Nursery book by Susan B Anderson. Actually I made 2. I'll tell you why after my partner gets the package. I also made the Cupcake Pincushion, also by Susan B Anderson. It's a free pattern on the Spud & Chloe website so check it out.

Today being Friday is my day off and I'm going to spend it taking Mr. Man to story time at the library and maybe the ice cream parlour. I know I'll be checking the post office for parcels (I'm expecting 3!) and of course knitting! I have a few projects that are really close to being finished.

Happy Friday! :)

What to pack for Rapture

I don't know about you but I've been laughing about the coming end of the world all week.

According to this man, Rapture is going to happen on Saturday, May 21st at 6 o'clock (I'm not sure if he took time zones into consideration when calculating this). After this day, if you're still reading my blog, then you've missed the boat so to speak.

So lets have a bit of cheeky fun...

I made a list of things I'm packing to take with me:

• yarn (or better yet a sheep or alpaca)
• knitting needles
• coffee
• chocolate
• comfortable shoes
• my iPod with all the current episodes of my favorite podcasts
• a copy of the book Pride and Prejudice
• my favorite jeans
• my camera
• chapstick

I'm also planning the menu for our last supper. I think it'll include beer (pop for the kids) and maybe pizza ...

How about you? Are doing anything special on Saturday to celebrate?

I'll blog tomorrow with a less silly entry filling you all in my week that was and plans for the long weekend that is yet to be! Cheers :)

FO - Made Up My Mind Tank

I finally have a FO to share with you today! I kinda lost my knitting mojo there last week and didn't get much accomplished at all. I did work on this tank whenever I had a bit of time and inclination.

I think that's my favorite part of this pattern. It's perfect for putting down and picking up and knitting a few rounds and doing something else. I was really happy with that. The knitting was interesting and fun and the stitches were easy to do.

So the pattern is called Make up your Mind Racerback Tank by Julie Crawford of Knitted Bliss fame. It's published for free in the Spring/Summer 2011 edition of Knitty. This is a link to my project page on Ravelry if you want a few more details.

I knit this tank out of 1 skein of TFA Blue Label Fingering weight in the Deep Sea colourway on size 4.5mm 16 inch Hiya Hiya circulars. I loved knitting with this yarn! It's super pretty and the colours pooled and shifted in such fun ways. Each panel is different. It's an eye popping blue so it looks really nice against a black t-shirt. I'll be trying it with a white one and also over a gray lacey tank I have (but only when it get warmer). I had bought 2 skeins just in case I needed the yardage and now I have one sitting all happy in my stash.

My collection of TFA is growing. I think I may need to start knitting with the Colour Club installments instead of hoarding them. This yarn is such eye candy for a knitter!

So the only mods I made were to cast on 132 stitches so I could do an inch of 2x2 ribbing before starting the pattern, then I just decreased in the knit row before the pattern started to the right number of stitches. If I was to knit this again (which I have plans to do already!) I will increase the length in the torso by increasing the panel lengths.

You'll have to forgive the Superstar's room. She's 12, and her room often looks like a bomb went off in it. Unfortunately the only long mirror in the house is in her room right now. Hopefully I can get B to snap some nicer pictures of this tank soon.

I've had a ton of compliments on it already. I wore it last night over to the library to help set up for the book sale happening today. I was too late to help, the ladies there had already finished but Karin really liked the tank and so do I!

Cute pattern Julie! Can't wait to see what else you're designing!