Weekend update – Running, hockey and crafting

This weekend has been a rather good one for me. I’ve achieved a couple of things.

Saturday I got up at 7am as usual to take my sister Kate to work. She stays at my place Friday night and I drive her to work, otherwise mum would have to get up an hour earlier and drive her in (I’m a good sister!).

I love the morning drives at this time of the year, because its all foggy and sunrise-y and pretty.

If I get myself organised next week I might even take my gear out and go for a run out there – it’s so pretty!

After that I went to yoga. I’m enjoying it a lot and its great that each class is a bit different, although there’s some things that we do every class like downwards dog and cobras. I’m glad I started going, and I’m using some of the poses for my post run stretching as well.

After yoga was some breakfast, and a bit of shopping. I have been looking for a long sleeve running top for winter. I have one, but I wanted a second one to be able to rotate through and make sure I always had a clean one to wear. I don’t like anything flapping about when I run, so I need a relatively fitted one, which doesn’t provide too much warmth. I get very warm when I run but I need to keep the cold air off my skin – this is one of the few times I get fussy about clothing.

I also don’t like clothing with huge logos or brand names on them, and also since pretty much all my running pants are black, I wanted colour. Colour would be safer for running at night anyway.

I found the perfect top in Lorna Jane, so yes it was a little pricy. But it’s a lovely colour.

Next was watching my sisters play hockey. I’m pretty impressed with how they are – they have both picked up a lot of confidence and are getting into the game more.

After that was a run (with my new top). I set out planning to run 5 – 6 kms. As I headed out I decided to run to federation hill, climb the steep bit, run along the top track, and then back down.

Here’s an old picture of the view from federation hill:

I like to think of this one as Mount Doom

So I did that, taking some walking breaks on the way up and the way down. Coming down is pretty steep as well so its hard to run full speed anyway and still be controlled.

Then something clicked and the rest of it was easy. I don’t know if it was doing all that hard work first, but I maintained a pretty steady pace for the last 4kms and didn’t need to stop at all. I ran to 6, and felt good so I kept going. I got to 7kms, and I thought to myself that I might as well do 8. When I got to 8 I felt like I could keep going – after all, it was only 2kms more to make 10 and I’d already made 8. But I decided to go home as it was getting a bit late and I was hungry. It took me almost exactly an hour. I was pretty proud of myself.

Some stretches and plenty of water later, I still felt awesome.

Sunday was hockey for me. I was put up on the forward line again and it paid off.

I scored our first goal. It was wonderfully easy too …. I ran up the wing, got myself away from my defender, our centre passed it across to me and I slapped it straight in. I was so happy with myself – I’ve been on the back line for the last 10 years or so (feels like it anyway) and then I get a goal!

Then one of my team mates got another one in, and we won! It was great. We don’t tend to get many wins, particularly in the first half of the season.

I’m loving the past couple of weeks, with me playing a forward because I’m running more and being a little more versatile. The instinct to drop back down the field and defend is still there, but I’m working on that.

After that I watched my brothers game (he is goalie for division 1). They won 7 – 3 so it was definitely a good game to watch.

Sunday night I made a plate of nachos (with vegan cheese) they were delicious, and I put quinoa in the bean mix for an extra nutrition boost. I’ve been using it a lot lately. Need to thicken a stew? Quinoa. Making a Mexican themed bean soup? Quinoa. Want to reward yourself with delicious plant based proteins after a great game of hockey? Quinoa. I love it.

I also threw some guacamole and chopped coriander on top

Then, while we watched Community, I decided to start a new crochet project. I have this beautiful wool that has been sitting in my cupboard for a while and I didn’t know what to do with it. I’ve decided on a basic cowl, with a twist (so its a möbius). I was going to play around with some fancy stitches, but the colour in the yarn is going to look nice with just a few rows of straight double crochet, I think. I’m kind of just making this up as I go, and depending on how much yarn I have left I might make a set of matching basic gloves to go with it.

I love the colours!

We also picked a ridiculous amount of pumpkins yesterday. I might make that a separate post though, and I’ll be looking for more pumpkin recipes to use them all up.

these all came from a single vine!

All in all, it was a good weekend.

quick update, and a recipe.

So I’m not great with keeping up with this whole blogging thing when work gets busy…

but heres my latest Goings On…

1) My gym work is clearly getting me somewhere. I came home frustrated on Tuesday, went to the gym and SMASHED out my workout. 20 minutes on the elliptical, set for a low intensity warmup that turned into a fairly intense cardio session because I was angry and listening to disturbed and that always pumps me up for exercise. Then I got straight on the stair machine for half an hour and did 142 floors.

But here’s the thing – I found myself grinning like a madman. Because it struck me somewhere along the way that in regards to my abilities at the start of my gym attendance, I was beating the crap outta my gym work. So there I am, dripping sweat everywhere, drinking a litre or more of water, listening to angry Disturbed music, grinning like a maniac and feeling like I’m made of awesome. Then I did some work on the weights machine and some crunches and went home to eat Venison steaks with Sweet potato mash and silverbeet from the garden.

2) I love my honey mustard marinade. It’s so delicious. I have adapted it from….. somewhere. Anyway, here’s my recipe for it:

Honey Mustard Marinade (great on chicken destined for the BBQ)

equal parts wholegrain mustard and honey.
I use about a quarter of a cup of each for 500g of chicken.
A generous splash of good olive oil.
A few cloves of garlic (about 2 should do for this amount – you only want a hint of garlic)
juice of half a lemon.
a dash of cayenne pepper (optional)

Mix all together and marinade for a few hours – overnight is best.
personally, I think this marinade is best used on chicken which is then BBQ’d – I usually chop chicken breast into chunks and skewer it once marinaded then grill it. This week I marinaded chicken wing pieces and basically baked them by putting them on a tray and closing the lid on the BBQ.

which leads me on to my next point:

3) I love our BBQ. It’s so much nicer than trying to use our oven. and there’s nothing like quite like coming home from the gym (on Tuesday) to the smell of venison steaks cooking on the BBQ… or stepping out of the shower (Wednesday) and smelling the sweet honey mustard chicken smell… Also there’s much less mess and it doesn’t heat up our kitchen too much.

4) I feel really crafty so there might be a “finished projects” post coming shortly.

5) Those surprise seedlings are basil! HELL YES! delicious basil. I’ve already told them they need to grow up big and strong so I can smash them to a pulp and make tasty tasty pesto.

and that is that for the time being.

Oh, wait, I also discovered Pinterest. I quite like it.

Finished project roundup.

I thought I’d do a quick post to show some finished crochet projects. I’m sending this from my iPhone because
that’s where my photos are. I’ll hopefully come back and edit later to link to my ravelry projects.

What I’m wearing right now are these little gems:

Made from an 8ply 90%wool blend, I’m in love with these warm fingerless gloves in this beautiful colour. It’s a simple design, done in the round with half treble crochet (a half double crochet in US terms). The thumb hole is a simple matter of chaining in one row then doing the next row of stitches into the chain space.

Also in this lovely yarn is my completed möbius wrap: now it’s complete and stretched a little, it hangs loose on the mannequin. Looks nice on, but hard to take a photo of myself with it on.

It can also be worn as a large scarf:

I have also made myself a cowl, my first design other than plain rows of stitching. Anyone reading this from work will recognise it because I’ve been wearing it a lot there.

This one is an acrylic yarn. I think I want to make another in a wool, but I’ll take a few repeats out and make it shorter.

Next is a headband I made up, again In the lovely blue wool blend. Again, hard to take a photo of me wearing it. No pattern for this one – it’s improvised.

I also made myself a crochet hook holder. This is another acrylic yarn, in an totally awesome purple. The star stitch used is pretty easy.

And lastly, here’s a knitting project I did several years ago. It’s still kicking around. I call it my happy scarf.

Work in progress – möbius wrap

Here’s a little project I’m working at the moment. Using some 8ply wool remnants from the Wang wool mill in a really nice blue/purple.

It looks a little rough at the moment because I have a bunch of ends to weave in (that’s what I get for using remnants – lots of little balls rather than large ones so more ends to deal with)

It’s a pretty easy crochet pattern, an what you see here is a couple of hours work. This is about the size of the pattern however I want to make it bigger.

For those who are unaware (and I was, until starting this project) a möbius strip is a strip with one twist and joined – essentially it becomes an object with one surface and one edge. Kinda weirded me out when I was trying to understand it but stitching along one edge for two rounds is the only way to get back to the start. You can make one by creating a rectangle, twisting it 180 degrees, and joining the end. This one is stitched as a möbius strip – the twist is created in the starting chain and you go from there. It does my head in thinking about it, but making it without thinking seems much easier.

I don’t think I can explain it properly. When these situations arise they can be solved with Wikipedia: what wiki thinks

Anyway, in other news…… Well there’s not much else. Apart from the fact that I played hockey again after a few weeks off with a torn calf. Felt good to get out on the field again but I’m certainly not up to 100% yet.