Truly miscellaneous

I attended the fourth meeting of our LiveStrong group at the YMCA this morning. First we did 5 minutes on both our favorite and our most-hated cardio machines. My favorite is the sit-down bike. No problemo there. My least-favorite cardio machine is the huge, frightening, body-wrenching "elliptical." I got through the 5 minutes and I am determined to vanquish that monster, but it is NOT fun. After that we went down to the weight room to do a few reps on three lower-body weight machines whose names I cannot remember. I am surprised by the hostility these various machines evoke in my heart. I mean - I like doing the exercises and even though I'm dead tired this evening, and will be tired and sore again tomorrow, I like what the exercise does for my bod but I loathe the machines. Nothing is made for people with short arms or legs, or weak hands. Just getting the settings changed is terrifically difficult with my hands. I've got a trigger finger and the end joints on my index fingers are developing arthritis so I get tiny stabbing needle pains in either of them at random, and I can tell my hands are slowly getting weaker as I get older (note to self: ask the coaches if there are hand exercises!).  And getting into and out of those machines is intimidating. They are HEAVY and immovable and HARD and the human body is no match for them. And I'm clumsy.  -- I know, gripe, gripe, gripe. Well - but aside from my grudge match with the machines, this class is going to be REALLY good for me, I can tell already.

The yellow sock. Harrumph. I was so determined to get 15 rows in last night, I thought then I could finish them today. Well - I finally stopped and tried it on, along with its finished mate - and my gauge is different for this second sock, and I just plowed right on past the row where I should have started decreasing for the toe. If I had checked earlier, I could have been done last night. Once I knew it, I thought, well, I'll decrease NOW and it'll be all right. But I knew deep down, it wouldn't be. It takes too long to decrease. The second sock will be far longer than its mate, and I will NOT be able to stand wearing them like that. So, I have to tink it back and do it right. But going stitch by stitch is incredibly tedious over like, ten rows. But taking it off the needles and ripping it back to the right row is completely hair-raising! Like SCREAM EEK scary, makes you think your tens of thousands of stitches are just going to unravel like wildfire scary. So I thought of how I could control the chaos there. And like most of my ideas, it's probably ludicrous, burdensome and clumsy. But I'm going to give it a go, and I'm going to take pictures and notes as I do, and I might just try my very first Instructable! (That link takes you to their Knitting section.) And I AM going to knit a few more rows on the herringbone stitch socks, my October socks, tonight, just to start the month off right.

Tomorrow and Saturday I prep the house for Game Day. My friends are coming over Sunday and we're going to play Betrayal at House on the Hill. (That link takes you to the TableTop show's video of Wil Wheaton and his friends playing it on YouTube. Much fun!) This will be the first time I've hosted our game day since my surgery - and as of today I'm out from under the surgeon's No Lifting restriction, so for once, I will really LOVE being able to vacuum the floors! (I've got a heavy old 1970s-era upright vacuum cleaner that works great but weighs about 40 pounds. Not a joke getting that puppy around on the flat floor, let alone lugging it up and down stairs! Don't worry, I'll be very, very careful anyway.) I also have a little treat for my friends that is quite in keeping with our Hallowe'en theme...nyah-ah-ah...there might be a picture after the event.