It is 2007 already?

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm damn glad 2006 is over.

I don't normally do this, but this year I'm making some necessary health changes, so I have some New Year's Resolutions :

1) Mindfulness / Meditation every day - to help me cope with life and take better care of myself as a priority!

2) Swimming once - and eventually twice - a week. Starting gradually, and building up.

3) Losing 16 kg (this may take more than a year) - but I have to do it, as both my bloody hips are increasingly crippled with osteoarthritis (result of congenital deformity & masses of surgery as a child), and the less weight-bearing stress they have the better. I'm hoping to postpone the inevitable surgery for as long as possible. I'm having x-rays in the next few weeks (when I can face it).

When I was a little girl I had experimental surgery carried out by the famous surgeon Wayne Southwick at Yale University. He developed a new way of doing open reductions on dislocated hips, and I was one of his few guinea pigs. I remember going to his lectures, lying on a table out the front, so the students could see what he'd done. A bit galling for a 6 year old. But I ended up with a hip that worked pretty well (and a slightly twisted leg), where other surgeons had repeatedly failed.

Anyway, my plan to achieving this seemingly impossible task will be following Dr Rick Kausman's general good eating guidelines, having a low-fat & low-GI diet (which I have to cook now anyway for my daughter, who has diabetes), and more exercise (see #2). It won't be fast, but hopefully slow and steady and long-term. There's a ticker thingy at the bottom of my Blog page just to help keep me motivated in public!

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On the knitting front, I've made several false starts on my cotton top. On the good advice from L from our SnB group I decided to have a go at designing my own pattern for a simple cotton singlet top, using some gorgeous thick (~12 ply) satiny cornflower blue cotton I was lucky to receive from a SnB member. I can do this, I know I can. Honest. However, early signs are not promising :

I've knitted about 4 gauge swatches, on different needles, measured and recorded the data in my knitting notebook. I even washed and dried the last swatch to see how washing affected the gauge (it did - it shrank visibly vertically by about a row's worth - the fabric feels much nicer since it's been washed, too, more compact and 'together').

I've calculated sizes. I've cast on. Two times. The needles were the wrong size. I decided to add a border of lace around the bottom, to help make the cotton go further. So I've knitted umpteen lace swatches too. I finally found one that felt right. My 5.5mm very cheap bamboo circular were driving me nuts (the tube linking the needles is just that - a tube, not a thin cord - so the stitches don't slip along it at all). I ordered new 5.5 mm 80 cm Clover circular bamboo needles (bliss). And waited for them to arrive.

I cast on again. 159 stitches in the round. I was 6 rows into the lace border when I realised (last night) that there were TWO TWISTS IN THE CAST ON. Fucking hell. I was knitting a 'double' Mobius tube. And no, having two twists does NOT mean you can just 'untwist' it. Maybe if I'd caught the error in the cast on row, I could have remedied it... so. Unravelled it AGAIN last night, after taking a few photos with my son's new digital camera (so hopefully I can post some pic soon). Starting to think about knitting it flat!

I will prevail! It would be nice if it was finished before the hot weather ends, though...