Saturday, March 29, 2008

Saturday Check-In

When I stepped outside the door for my long run, it was overcast and had obviously rained during the night. The prediction was only 30% chance of rain, but it looked like more than that. Using the logic that if I left my sunglasses at home the sun would surely come out, I did just that. And it did. I got sprinkled on a little, but toward the end of my run, the sun did come out and it ended up being a very nice day to be running around town.

As an experiment this week I decided to see what would happen if I didn’t bring any work home from the office. Dumb idea. By Thursday I was behind on things and felt awful about it. I made significant progress catching up on Friday afternoon, working from home where I wouldn’t be interrupted all the time, but I’m still going to have to do some weekend work to be on track by Monday morning. It’s frustrating, although at least I work with people who seem okay on the concept that if someone has to work extra hours, they should at least be allowed to choose the venue and time of day for those hours. Especially when it’s all unpaid. You can bet if these management jobs were hourly and paid extra for everything after 40 hours a week, we’d suddenly have much saner workloads!

I finished my alteration project on the $2.50 capri pants I bought last week. They’re black with three bands of ribbon trim at the cuffs, and oh-so-cute! And now they don't balloon out at my hips. Joy! I wore them to go have Indian food today and I have a feeling these are going to become this summer’s favorite pants.

I have another alteration project going on, but it’s much more complicated and I don’t know how long it will take me, especially since I don’t have a sewing machine and have to do everything by hand. In addition, I have decided I should have an apron if I’m going to keep on with all my recent baking projects. The easiest thing (which I’ve seen on the Wardrobe Refashion website) is to convert an old sundress. I was pretty excited about that idea until I realized that: a) most of my summer clothes are still buried at the bottom of a huge wicker chest, and b) I think I gave all my unwanted sundresses to charity when I moved. So there’s a potential dilemma here. We’ll see what I find once I start changing out my closet for spring.

I baked some carrot cookies tonight. I tried adding a little molasses to see if that would make the end result a little less crumbly. It helped a little, but I’m going to have to keep tweaking this particular recipe. I used craisins (dried cranberries) instead of golden raisins and it added a nice little flavor punch. Highly recommended! Now if I can just get the moistness right, I’ll be in business.

Not much else is happening. The week went by unbelievably fast, even with me not working from home in the evenings. I hit all my workouts though, and things are coming along well with my new novel, so I’m happy.

Recent Workouts
Monday: 30 minute elliptical (intervals), weights and abs
Tuesday: 7 mile run
Wednesday: 45 minute spin
Thursday: 35 minute elliptical
Friday: scheduled rest day
Saturday: 19 mile run

7 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

ACK, sorry about the deleted comment above -- hideous typo, hideous. Just... hideous!

Sounds like you had a very productive week, and that's great! I'm glad to hear things are going well with your new novel, and those capri pants sound super-cute! :)

Indian food... mmmmmm. Carrot cookies... mmmmmm. I'm feeling hungry now!

Una said...

I swear we work at the same place. It's a given that you work unpaid OT. Blah.

Your capris sound adorable! What a great feeling you'll have every time you wear them.

Apron at the thrift shop maybe?

the Bag Lady said...

The Bag Lady wants to see the capri pants! They sound so cute. But don't you find wearing black in the summer makes the sun burn through to your skin? Or does that only happen to fat people!?
How tall are you? What size do you wear? The Bag Lady can certainly help you out with old sundresses to cut up. Or she can just send you an apron (she has many from her time as a short-order cook.)
And she commends you for altering your capri pants BY HAND!! No sewing machine!! Wow.

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

BL- No, I don't find wearing black to be a problem in summer, but Houstonians aren't known for spending a lot of time outside in summer, anyway. We go from one air-conditioned building to another, usually by air-conditioned car.

I also have a high heat tolerance. Eight years of distance running in a town with 8 months of summer will do that to you. :-)

As for size of sundresses for apron-creation, I don't think it would matter too much. Here's what one person did on Wardrobe Refashion. I wouldn't be attempting anything so ambitious or dress-like. I just want a pretty pattern to work with, ideally something that buttons all the way up the back (although front would do) and without bust darts, since I'm small-chested. The plan would be to cut the dress to knee length and then use the fabric to make ties to tie the apron in back. If buttons are in the front of the dress, I would reverse the dress, cutting a new neckline on the old "back." I would prefer to work with a dress that has a fairly snug fit (I typically wear a 4), but if I found the right dress and it was an 8 or 10, I could still work with it.

It's quite likely I have something around here somewhere. I just need to go through my stuff. It's time to switch out my clothes for spring/summer, anyway. I have a distinct memory of having a purple sundress with a pattern of small white flowers and it would be perfect. It's cotton and it has the buttons I want. It has a small tear that I mended but have always felt self-conscious about. I just don't remember if I donated it last summer when I moved. I gave away enough things to clothe a third world country and still had to stash things in the spare bedroom and under the closet after moving in! :-0

the Bag Lady said...

Omigosh, that is cute! The Bag Lady can relate to the stashing...she's such a packrat. Guess she can't off-load any on you then. (Darn!)

RG said...

Now lookee here .. are you sure you aren't just some old fat man sitting at a library computer making this stuff up????

Or Martha Stewart in her younger days?

You get so much done!