[Mistr]

Mistr takes a step back

 

I feel like I've been running too fast to think for months. This challenge my goal is to not push so hard. I want to take time to sit still and consider what I'm doing instead of just picking the next thing off my to-do list.

 

 

I am starting this challenge late because I was on vacation last week. The "vacation" part was more of a hope than an actual restful time. I did get to do a bunch of fun things and went to my family's cabin on a lake. I brought along my computer and planned to have time to write my challenge and read what everyone has been doing. The only thing I did with my computer was send an email to my boss asking for time off for a dentist appointment that I forgot about.

 

I did get my knitting project going again. I cast on (for the 5th time) and made it through enough rows that I think it is going to work. I learned some things that make the later rows look better than the first few rows, but I am not going back and starting over again. I did some exercise and some zen. Dumbledore and I did some exploring and had good conversations during the road trip.

 

I would like to kvetch about stuff, but I don't have time for that either. Tonight I am going to the dojo for the first time in a couple weeks. I will check in when I can.

[Mistr]

I am happy to report that I made it to the dojo last night. I knew the chief instructor was out of town, but thought one of the other senior people would be teaching. Nope.

 

Turned out to just be me and four students. Two are quite new and two are getting ready for their second test (for 4th kyu). We worked on the basics of a technique they need to know. It was fun, but not really exercise for me. Probably not for them either, because we were working on form rather than movement. I'm glad I was there. They would have been stuck if I had not shown up. I think I need to talk to our chief instructor about lining up substitutes. Having the senior student teach is fine when there are lots of people there. Post-Covid, we can't count on that anymore.

 

I signed up for the 30 Days of Walking challenge on the NF Journey app. I am not sure yet how I feel about it this time around. Getting outside and walking is my preferred way to deal with stress. I went for a walk in the neighborhood by the dojo in the evening after class. It was lovely. I'm just not sure if I want someone else telling me I have to do anything right now.

 

In local news, I learned that another team member is leaving in October. We just had two new people start at the beginning of September. Two people are leaving, so we will be two down again. It feels never-ending. We have another second interview and a first interview tomorrow. We might be able to fill both open positions soon. 🤞 Assuming that happens, the team will have a lot of new people and we will have done three rounds of training back-to-back. I am continuing my resolve from last challenge to not work late. Running faster is not going to get me any closer to the end. I will work on making good use of my time at work, and putting it down at the end of the day. There will be more to do the next day regardless.

 

Dumbledore (my partner) has been doing strength training with a coach for a couple months and is seeing progress. He is now looking at improving his eating habits. We talked about this on vacation. He said he is more willing to cook healthy meals for me than he is for himself. I am encouraging this plan. I don't want to take as much time for cooking and it would make me feel better about our division of household chores.

 

For my part, I know that I have been stress eating sweets. I am going to deal with the stress part first. I am also working on keeping to an 8-hour window of eating most days. I hope that helps. My weight has been stubbornly within a 2-pound range for the last six months. I would like to lose 10-15 pounds to get back to my pre-Covid weight.

 

In family news, Cleo is doing well and devoting herself to being a full-time student. Elf just quit their new job again. This time it was because people were staring at them and making comments. I was afraid that might happen at a manual job in a small town. Our area is very progressive, but the small towns around us are not. Cleo is supporting Elf in going to school part-time. I hope that Elf can find a part-time job that lets them get enough money for expenses and go to school.

[Harriet]

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

He said he is more willing to cook healthy meals for me than he is for himself.

 

Noice!!!

 

19 hours ago, Mistr said:

I did get my knitting project going again. I cast on (for the 5th time) and made it through enough rows that I think it is going to work. I learned some things that make the later rows look better than the first few rows, but I am not going back and starting over again.

 

Understandable. Is it a sweaterrrrr? Socks? A small tent for winter?

[Kishi]

2 hours ago, Mistr said:

In local news, I learned that another team member is leaving in October. We just had two new people start at the beginning of September. Two people are leaving, so we will be two down again. It feels never-ending. We have another second interview and a first interview tomorrow. We might be able to fill both open positions soon. 🤞 Assuming that happens, the team will have a lot of new people and we will have done three rounds of training back-to-back. I am continuing my resolve from last challenge to not work late. Running faster is not going to get me any closer to the end. I will work on making good use of my time at work, and putting it down at the end of the day. There will be more to do the next day regardless.

 

FWIW, it's going around. We can't keep people on my job either. Putting down the job at the end of the day is honestly the best thing you can do for yourself. Sounds like the work isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Sorry to hear that Elf is having a hard time. They're still young. A hard-scrabble life is normal, unfortunately; I'm sure it's even harder for them. Good for them that you're there to look after them.

[Mistr]

3 hours ago, Harriet said:

Understandable. Is it a sweaterrrrr? Socks? A small tent for winter?

 

It is a hat.  The idea is to use up the extra yarn from the scarf I made a few years ago and have a hat that coordinates. 

 

There are two challenging bits. The first is that it is double-knit in the round. The double-knit part is fine, but working on multiple dpns was challenging. I tried to cast on using a circular needle, but the stitches need to be tight to stay in place for the foundation row. They got too loose when they got to the cable part of the circular needle. Then I had trouble losing stitches at the transitions between the dpns. This last time I used more needles, so I cast on using 6 dpns instead of 5. Then I moved to a circular needle after the first row was done and the stitches were more stable.

 

The second challenging bit was learning to increase and decrease in double knitting. The pattern I am working from has stripes with an increase on one side and a decrease on the other side of each one. That makes the stripes spiral up the hat. The instructions I used first for increasing did not work well. I think I have a better option now. 

 

 

BTW, I am not using the cable design shown in the pattern because my gauge is different and the stitch numbers did not work. I am using a celtic knotwork pattern that I graphed out myself.

[Harriet]

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

It is a hat.  The idea is to use up the extra yarn from the scarf I made a few years ago and have a hat that coordinates. 

 

There are two challenging bits. The first is that it is double-knit in the round. The double-knit part is fine, but working on multiple dpns was challenging. I tried to cast on using a circular needle, but the stitches need to be tight to stay in place for the foundation row. They got too loose when they got to the cable part of the circular needle. Then I had trouble losing stitches at the transitions between the dpns. This last time I used more needles, so I cast on using 6 dpns instead of 5. Then I moved to a circular needle after the first row was done and the stitches were more stable.

 

The second challenging bit was learning to increase and decrease in double knitting. The pattern I am working from has stripes with an increase on one side and a decrease on the other side of each one. That makes the stripes spiral up the hat. The instructions I used first for increasing did not work well. I think I have a better option now. 

 

 

BTW, I am not using the cable design shown in the pattern because my gauge is different and the stitch numbers did not work. I am using a celtic knotwork pattern that I graphed out myself.

 

That's super impressive! The complex techniques and the fact that you graphed your own design is awesome.

[RES]

On 9/20/2022 at 5:57 PM, Mistr said:

This is beautiful! Almost makes me wish I'd learned to knit...but I get frustrated enough with crochet so maybe not

 

[Mistr]

In my experience, knitting is both easier and faster than crochet on a stitch-by-stitch level, but knitting has worse failure modes. If your hook falls out in crochet, there is just one loop that is free and chances are good that it will hold still if you don't pull on the yarn. If you drop a stitch or a needle slips out in knitting, you have a bunch of live loops that want to make trouble.

 

Crochet gives you a lot of options for how to make individual stitches and where to put them. That allows for more creative shaping of projects. Shaping in knitting is possible but more limited. The structure of crochet makes for a fabric with hard lumps that holds it shape, while knitting makes a softer fabric that is stretchy. I would choose crochet for making a stuffed animal and knitting for making gloves.

[Mistr]

I made it to aikido last night for the first time in a couple weeks. I am not counting Monday, because teaching is a different beast. It was great to practice. I can tell that I am more out of shape. Clearly aikido is an important part of my cardio, although it is not continuous movement.

 

I know things are out of balance when I look forward to going to the dentist because I can knit while I am waiting for my appointment.  

 

I am taking some steps tom make things better. I just set up time off so that I will have a long weekend in October and another in November when I am not going anywhere. I have these earmarked for working on the downstairs bedroom project. I also took off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because Dumbledore wants to have a big dinner this year. Prep cooking is key to making Thanksgiving a fun holiday for me. If I'm good, I can get all my stuff done on Wednesday and stay out of the kitchen on Thursday.

 

The short term is another story. Dumbledore and I are doing another road trip this weekend because my MIL will be in town at his brother's. It would have made more sense to combine this trip with the one we did two weeks ago, but my vacation time was already set and could not be moved by the time we learned about her visit. We are doing what we can to make it a fun and low-stress trip. I can do knitting in the car for part of it.

 

I have hope that I can do fun stuff at home tonight in addition to packing and necessary things. If I am really lucky, Cleo or Elf will grill the chicken and pork chops that have been marinating in the fridge since Monday. They expressed interest, but nothing happened yesterday. Dumbledore is talking about cooking too, but I am sure that won't happen until next week. I am less concerned than I might have been because the cafeteria in my building just opened this week. I can get healthy lunches here for a pretty reasonable price. 

[Harriet]

 

On 9/22/2022 at 4:04 PM, RES said:

This is beautiful! Almost makes me wish I'd learned to knit...but I get frustrated enough with crochet so maybe not

 

With practice you can get pretty rapid and confident with knitting. It takes me a few tens of hours to knit a whole sweater for myself. So it's usually done in a few weeks or months if I do a little each day.

 

On 9/22/2022 at 5:56 PM, Mistr said:

I made it to aikido last night for the first time in a couple weeks.

Excellent, excellent. And, um, enjoy the dentist 😅

[Mistr]

The weekend roadtrip went really smoothly. We got on the road before 5:00pm on Friday. That is practically a miracle. It usually takes us two hours past our target time. We stopped at a Chinese buffet for dinner, which is our typical healthy choice for travel food. This one was much better than average. I asked Dumbledore political history questions to keep us amused on the trip. That was fun and educational for me.

 

On Saturday we went out to breakfast before going to his brother's house. We called early to check in about timing, but did not get an answer. After breakfast we headed over anyway. As we were getting there, Dumbledore's phone rang.

 

Dumbledore: Good morning brother

Brother: Hey, where are you?

Dumbledore: We are outside your front door

Brother: Really?!?

 

This is the second time we have been on time or early to their house. We are going to get a bad reputation.  

 

We had a nice time with family, saw friends on Saturday night, and saw friends at a stop on our way home. Much catching up was had.

 

The downside of the weekend was that the motel did not have exercise facilities and we did not have time to get out and do much. Dumbledore went for a walk with one of the nephews. I went for a walk later while I was waiting for Dumbledore to do an errand. Luckily, we continued our timing miracle and got home before 6pm.

 

I made a point of doing my bodyweight exercises on Sunday evening. No progression on Sunday because it had been 9 days since my last workout. I did them again today and increased reps. I am up to 3 sets of 20 bench pushups. Time to move to a lower step.  

 

I have an optimistic goal of doing strength training again on Thursday and this weekend. I will be working onsite the rest of the week because we will have a houseguest staying in the same room where I work from home.

 

I told Elf that they are responsible for feeding our guest. I also told them that I have confidence that they can handle it. The guest is one of their oldest friends.

 

Cleo has completed finished one of her fall semester classes. She is working on doing the same thing for another class that has posted all the assignments and tests. She just used some of her financial aid to buy a laptop of her own. I am really pleased to see how she is taking charge of her life and moving forward.

[Mistr]

Challenge update

 

I am looking at what I can do and how I have to adapt.  I think I can still make progress toward my larger goals if I am willing to give up my usual habits for the next week.

 

Food - My strategy for losing weight while eating whatever I want is to have just two meals a day, plus some extra treats. First meal about 8am, second meal sometime between 1 and 3pm. I can have a snack around 5 if I am hungry. No food after 6. 

 

Zen - do this at work if possible until our houseguest leaves. I can do meditation in the construction zone of the spare bedroom if I have to. I could also go to the dojo early or stay after class if necessary.

 

Down time - I can take my knitting, laptop or a book and go to a coffeehouse to get away from people at home. I can go for a walk or drive somewhere and go for a hike. I could even work on the basement bedroom project at home.

[Kishi]

Sounds like a long week! But this all looks totally doable. Glad to hear that you're making down time a priority.

[Mistr]

I was much relieved to learn that our house guest is leaving on Friday. That means I won't get to spend much time with her, but that is okay. She is getting to spend a couple days with Elf and Cleo.

 

We might have another friend crashing on our couch tonight. I hope not, that is just too many people and from different groups. They are both lovely people, but it would be awkward. Plus I did not sleep well last night and want to crawl into a cave rather than being sociable.

 

I was good and did zen at lunch so I would have the evening open. The plan is to use our fire ring and make bourgeoisie s'mores. These use ginger snaps and Ghiradelli chocolate squares instead of graham crackers and Hershey bars. Dumbledore is very keen on this plan. I like the idea of sitting around a fire in crisp fall weather. If there is enough light, I can prep wool for washing at the same time.  

[RES]

House guests are wonderful, some when arriving, some when departing  (only slightly joking there) I do understand the feeling of relief you have though.

I'm going to borrow that s'mores recipe, I've never heard of doing it that way before and it sounds amazing! Hopefully D will get the back yard cleaned up enough with the cooler weather that we can use the fire ring soon

 

[Mistr]

Last night's events were mostly successful. Hermes was over and had fun talking with our guest. She mentioned that she likes lemoncello, and I remembered that we had a bottle in the freezer that was a given to us a while ago (2015). That shows how much we drink when we don't have people over.  We finished it off. Elf and Cleo got a fire going in the fire ring. I made fancy brownies that have mascarpone cheese in them.

 

When everyone went outside, I stayed inside and did Duolingo. Too many people and too much activity. Also not enough sleep. I had been thinking of doing stuff, but instead I just did prep for the next day and went to bed.

 

It is finally Friday. I am going for a hike with Dumbledore and taking some downtime. We have brownies and leftover pizza. Also wine and beer. Have a great weekend everyone!

[Harriet]

19 hours ago, Mistr said:

Last night's events were mostly successful. Hermes was over and had fun talking with our guest. She mentioned that she likes lemoncello, and I remembered that we had a bottle in the freezer that was a given to us a while ago (2015). That shows how much we drink when we don't have people over.  We finished it off. Elf and Cleo got a fire going in the fire ring. I made fancy brownies that have mascarpone cheese in them.

 

This sounds lovely. But I also hope you get some equally lovely guest free time, too, and soon.

[Mistr]

Our guest did indeed leave on Friday evening, although she got stuck overnight in Atlanta between flights.

 

Saturday was lovely. I went to the big central farmer's market with Elf and Cleo. This is the first time I've gone since the pandemic, and their first time ever. The weather was bright and cool, perfect for walking around. We got apples and veggies. Cleo got a smoothie and honey sticks. She was surprised at how big it is. Elf was happy to see her having a good time. Me too. It was a reminder of how little she has gotten out of the house since she moved here.

 

In the afternoon I got my bivalent booster and worked in the back garden. I took down the string from the trellis poles in the vegetable garden. My cucumbers are dying even though we have not had a hard frost yet. The vegetable garden did not do well this year. The cucumbers looked healthy in the spring, but they were not productive and the cucumbers were weird shapes.  The lettuce did not sprout, although that could be due to old seed. The tomatoes in the garden did much worse than their siblings in pots. The peppers are just starting to fruit now. The only thing that did well are collard greens. I still have hope for the carrots.

 

I am going to put a bunch of fresh compost on the garden after clearing it out. I might even do that this coming weekend. I'm not going to lose many veggies by pulling the plants now.

[RES]

13 hours ago, Mistr said:

Our guest did indeed leave on Friday evening, although she got stuck overnight in Atlanta between flights.

 

This happens a lot, personally I think it has a lot to do with a certain large airline based in Atlanta not having enough pilots to fill the schedule since they retired so many during the pandemic....

 

I love the sound of that farmer's market, I've found a little one here but would be nice to have more variety

[Sovalis]

How have things been the last few days? Sorry I have been away, just got back and caught up. I am happy that you had such a good time at the Farmer’s Market. I wish we had a good one here, but I will live vicariously through you!  

[Mistr]

The idea of taking a step back is good, but the practice is something else again.

 

I got out of work on time and took downtime in the evening several days last week. On Friday I made a point of going straight to aikido and staying for both classes. Saturday I went to aikido and took things fairly easy. I can really feel that I have not been exercising regularly.  I got to do some fun things on Sunday but was also feeling stressed about not getting not-fun things done.

 

I fell off from doing strength training again. I plan to do it first thing in the morning, but don't have the  energy when I get up. I have done some walks, but not the aerobic fast walking like I was doing in September. No surprise that my weight is up. I was hoping that more sleep and relaxation time would give me energy and motivation. That hasn't happened yet. Sleep has been mixed too. I have kept my resolution to not have caffeine this week so I'm not sure what the problem is.

 

My zen practice has been on and off. I still like zen and my teacher. Unfortunately, my teacher has delegated running the local group to a local Buddhist priest. Sounds good, but I am not happy with the changes he is making. I felt like zen dropped in my lap when the practice group started meeting at my dojo six years ago. Now the meeting is happening halfway across town and on Sunday morning instead of Sunday afternoon. That means I have to choose between aikido and zen on Sundays. Not that I have been regular about doing both recently, but I had aspirations to go to aikido and stay for zen.

 

I went to the first session at the new location the weekend before last. There were only four students there, which is less than we normally had at the dojo. Instead of two 30-minute zazen sessions with walking meditation in between, we did three 40-minute sessions with just short breaks to stretch. My hips were screaming at me by the end. They don't do that when I sit for 30 minutes at home or at work during lunch. Taking ~3 hours on a Sunday for zen was already a stretch for me. Taking ~4 hours and having the practice be much harder is not encouraging me to go. To top it off, Patreon is not processing my monthly subscription for the group. Maybe that is a sign.

 

Family news

Cleo and Elf have been devoting themselves to school. They are both taking fully online courses. Cleo has completed all the assignments and exams for two of her classes. The other three are did not post everything at the beginning of the semester. She is working to stay ahead as much as she can. Elf is not as gung-ho, but is making steady progress. They are both looking for part-time jobs that they can do along with school.

 

Cleo just found out that she has a gluten allergy. Apparently the clinic did a blood test back in February when she went in for an endoscopy/colonoscopy. They have had the results for six months and did not tell her. She had an appointment with a nutritionist yesterday and they talked about it. Cleo told me that now she knows why her stomach bloated and hurt after eating so many types of food, or drinking beer.

 

We do okay on regular food being mostly protein and veggies. I am going to need to change up my baking so Cleo doesn't feel left out. @sarakingdom, do you have favorite resources for gluten-free cake and cookie recipes?

 

 

[sarakingdom]

1 hour ago, Mistr said:

We do okay on regular food being mostly protein and veggies. I am going to need to change up my baking so Cleo doesn't feel left out. @sarakingdom, do you have favorite resources for gluten-free cake and cookie recipes?

 

These days there are a lot of bagged flours, even store brand (Target has one), that are one-to-one replacements for regular flour. That's probably the best way to go. Virtually everything else is just a way of trying to come up with a DIY replacement mix, and that involves buying lots of flours with different properties and various gums to replace the gluten structurally. Better to let a corporation that has good reliability testing and massive resources do that part for you. Then you can just bake regularly with that. They're not cheap, but there's not really any gluten-free flour that is.

 

It's basically all faux white flour, so if you need a replacement for whole grain flour, I'd add 10-25% flax meal to your gluten free flour. No need to worry about the binding gel ratio being off, flax produces a mild binding gel of its own, so it should be close enough.

 

The next thing to look for are recipes that are traditionally gluten free, like peanut butter (and other nut butter) cookies, meringues, macaroons, macarons, flourless chocolate cakes, etc. They're good, reliable things that won't take any thought or special ingredients. Breads are a little thin there; traditional corn-based things (tortillas, older types of johnnycakes, sliced polenta, etc), farinata-style flatbreads from the Mediterranean (chickpea, but I'd bet it works with corn, too), and Brazilian cheese bread (you can get a mix, it's amazing) are the only ones I can think of. I think Brazilian cooking has some good gluten-free cookies, too. They do some random gluten-free stuff that seems unusual.

 

After that, if you want an alternative to replacing flour with highly processed starches, paleo and keto baking can be a good resource for baking that uses a lot of nut flour or coconut flour. Xanthan gum is a standard binder there, though some recipes will use a metric ton of eggs instead. That's a bit more work to figure out, since those flours work very differently from standard baking.

 

Oats will likely be a problem, possibly even supposedly gluten-free oats, so don't count on them. Oats are naturally gluten-free, but are nearly always contaminated in processing. When you buy uncontaminated ones, about 50% of people who react to gluten will react to them anyway, because they have a similar protein. Probably fine as, say, a cookie, unless she's super sensitive, but you wouldn't want to make it a baking staple until you know how she reacts. Also, non-stick and teflon coatings don't really clean well enough to be considered gluten free after use with gluten, so lining non-stick tins with parchment paper would be a good idea. If she's not celiac, maybe this isn't as big a deal, but it's the best practice, and maybe you just wanna rule out even subclinical reactions. (On this note, not baking related, but watch out for soy sauce and any related sauces or dips. Most people don't think to look, and there's only one common brand that doesn't have wheat in it. It's never the brand they use in processed foods with soy sauce, either. She'll probably get away with eating restaurant Chinese food, but it's sort of a cross your fingers and pretend you don't know it's there kind of deal, and if she reacts after, that's likely what it was.)

 

But basically, for moderate amounts of baking, the best way to go is just to buy bagged gluten free flour from the store and make your usual recipe.

 

And finally, just cuz it exists - his stuff is pretty kitsch and not always good, but often unusual.

 

 

Haven't tried it, but it looks like a way to make a pretty reasonable cornbread without any special ingredients.

 

 

First two only are gluten-free, though the chow mein cookie can be done with coconut, so arguably three. The corn cookie uses a fairly small amount of flour, so it would be a way to be economical with a gluten-free flour.

[Kishi]

Can confirm that Dylan Hollis' recipes are good, or at least the one that got foisted on me without my knowing it. There are some hidden gems in there, especially if you need to avoid gluten in your baking.

[sarakingdom]

42 minutes ago, Kishi said:

Can confirm that Dylan Hollis' recipes are good, or at least the one that got foisted on me without my knowing it. There are some hidden gems in there, especially if you need to avoid gluten in your baking.

 

Quality is definitely secondary to historic cookbook hilarity, but a huge number of his historic recipes really work, and you can be pretty sure that a recipe from 1920 isn't going to have anything too exotic, so if it works, it's gonna be super accessible and not very expensive. Like, how much easier and cheaper is it to boil your rice to a paste, rather than try to source rare rice flours and add liquid? It's the same damn thing. I'm still not precisely sure what's holding it together with only one egg , but corn is a little sticky when it cools, so I can sorta imagine it working. It's a little bit brilliant.

 

That sort of thing is why old "always was gluten-free" recipes are winners for me. A bag of gluten-free flour isn't going to break the bank a few times a year or anything, and it's pretty indistinguishable from the real thing (apart from the high end yeast breads), but it's not the cheap staple that wheat flour is, and it can be weird being the only one with special diet recipes every week. It's sometimes nice to just make a flourless chocolate cake, or a cheesecake with a pecan crust, or some peanut butter cookies, and all share them. (I'm not saying it isn't sometimes nice to have a whole GF cake to yourself, mind you.)

[Harriet]

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Cleo and Elf have been devoting themselves to school. They are both taking fully online courses. Cleo has completed all the assignments and exams for two of her classes. The other three are did not post everything at the beginning of the semester. She is working to stay ahead as much as she can. Elf is not as gung-ho, but is making steady progress. They are both looking for part-time jobs that they can do along with school.

 

Great!

 

16 hours ago, Mistr said:

Cleo just found out that she has a gluten allergy. Apparently the clinic did a blood test back in February when she went in for an endoscopy/colonoscopy. They have had the results for six months and did not tell her. She had an appointment with a nutritionist yesterday and they talked about it. Cleo told me that now she knows why her stomach bloated and hurt after eating so many types of food, or drinking beer.

 

What the flip??? That's a pretty big oversight and I'd bee A BIT ANGRY at the doctors. Anyway, good Cleo knows now. I ate gluten free for several years, and in my experience nothing can reproduce the elasticity and bounce of wheat in bread, cakes etc. But gluten free pasta is adequate, and things that are meant to be crunchy or flat should be okay. It was honestly less disappointing to eat meals that were never designed to have wheat in in the first place than to try and recreate them.