Walk On

For a long time, I have resisted the lure of the wrist-worn fitness tracker.  I have wanted one but told myself that Map My Ride and the My Health app on my phone were enough.  But yesterday, I finally caved and bought a FitBit.  And am quite enamoured.  The arguments in my head that kept me from buying one in the first place still are sounding .... Will it make a difference in my activity level? In the short term, I can confidently say yes.  Beyond the short term, we'll see.  Will the wristband tell me anything more about my sleep that I don't already know?  I could tell without the wristband that last night's sleep was lousy but we'll see what happens on a regular night.  Do I really want another device to know where I am 24/7?  Not really but I still couldn't resist..

A couple of early benefits ... I have entered into challenges with some of my team at work who have recently bought FitBits.  And I've connected with a sister-in-law who I never see to challenge each other.  And so we walk.  Hopefully farther than my desk job regularly takes me during a day.  We'll see!

Washington

I've been telling myself for a while that I'll get back into posting to this blog.  So here I go, trying again.  This year, to date, has been a mix of big challenges with some very nice things in between.  I guess that is the experience of life compressed into the last 10 months.  After a really rough period at the end of last year and beginning of this year, I've had some travels that have really given me that mental rest that I so desperately needed.  While I'm not out of my mourning phase, I feel like things are starting to right themselves again.  Things will never be the same, as they never will be with big loss, but a new normal is on the horizon.

In addition to a lot of upheaval, I had one of those milestone birthdays that is an upheaval in itself!  I still feel like I'm 30ish, not my real age which I'm not even admitting to myself, let alone my blog!  So in between bad things, we went for a very nice trip to Washington DC.  It is a long drive from Toronto but not unreasonable so we set out.  I loved Washington.  As a Canadian, we can't help but be exposed to US history, politics, pop culture and so on.  So most of the sites in the city were "familiar".  We spent our 3 days there walking, walking and walking.  All along the mall (my favourite spot was the arboretum but I also recommend the Museum of the American Indian and its cafe for lunch), to dinner at Restaurant Nora (a delicious restaurant, conveniently located near Looped Yarn Works, a very nice yarn store where I managed to spend a bit of money, quelle surprise).  All of the war memorials were moving and my favourite presidential monument was the FDR Memorial.  Beautiful and not seemly well known based on the limited number of people there.

At one point on day 2, we rented bikes from the bike share (manly because my feet were killing me and I whined until we rented bikes).  And wouldn't you know it, my bike was a lemon.  I ride my bike all the time and this piece of less-than-stellar engineering made me look like a rookie.  The gears wouldn't change without a good amount of persuasion and the steering was suspect.  I'm not sure how much of the issue was the need for bike repair and how much was the part where I'm used to a very nice road bike … I'm blaming the bike but I guess you also get what you pay for.  We rode from just outside the Capitol,  through the parts of Arlington Cemetery that you were allowed to ride bikes (which was not very much) to Georgetown where, after a couple of tries to find an empty rack, I said good riddance and got back on foot.  I really liked Georgetown but, on a Saturday, so does everyone.  There was a bakery I was hoping to try but the line up out the door dissuaded me.  I considered that to be a positive thing in the end.  Given the other gastronomical delights we experienced while we were there, baked goods, no matter how good, were not really necessary.

On another portion of our DC hike, walking back to our hotel from the mall, we happened upon the Canadian embassy.  No matter where I roam, it is always nice to see a bit of Canada.

The Fair Isle Period

I am really attracted to knitting fair isle lately.  Specifically fair isle hats.  I think part of the attraction is that my focus on stash busting and a fair isle hat are a match made in heaven.  This one is called SchKnit Happens.  It is really just a hat recipe that requires some imagination (or a good fair isle chart book) to come up with the patterns.  I am not completely happy with my colour combos but like it overall anyway.  It was also good practice at learning colour selection and will hopefully set me up for choosing better on the next project ... the Crofthoose Hat from the Shetland Wool Week website.  Off I go to dive into my sock yarn leftover bits ...

Ten Thousand? Unlikely!

I discovered She Makes Hats when I knit one of her patterns using bulky yarn a few months ago.  Then the other day, I read about her goal to knit 10,000 hats in her lifetime.  Knowing that was a big number but looking for context, I compared it with my 52 hats since joining Ravelry and am impressed.  Inspired?  No.  I love knitting hats but am distracted too easily by other projects.  I will continue at my more moderate pace and watch Robin from the sidelines, cheering her on as she moves towards that goal.

In the meantime, I was able to contribute a stash of hats to the 25000 tuques project.  Thanks to Main Street Yarns for collecting them.  And there is Robin's hat in pink, top right ...

Synchronicity

When I was trying to follow The Artist's Way a couple of years ago, one of the things Julia Cameron talked about was synchronicity, which I remember as being essentially coincidences.  If I could find the book, I would write a better definition.  Anyway, I have had 3 synchronistic events lately that were hard to miss:

1.  A couple of weeks ago, I rode on the Don Valley Parkway in the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Ride for Heart.  And it was the worst day (well, if it had been snowing it would have been worse, or a lightening storm perhaps).  Anyway, it was rainy and cold.  But as I rode up to York Mills, I thought, this isn't so bad.  It is wet but I'm warm enough from the climb up.  No big deal, I thought.  Until I went back down the hills to Exhibition.  And my feet got soaked.  So soaked, my shoes made squishing sounds on the downstroke.  It seems that going downhill through puddles kicks up a lot of water.  Then I felt cold.  Really, really cold.  About 5 km away from the end, I started singing in my head some lyrics to the Bastille song, Pompeii, mostly the chorus and, more frequently, the lyric ... "how am I going to be an optimist about this?"  Anyway, I finished the ride and, feeling quite a bit like a popsicle, made it back to the car where my husband was waiting to drive me home, changed in the parking lot (hopefully there were no cameras and if there were, I really didn't care), started the car and what came on the radio?  First song.

2.  This morning, a co-worker was telling me a funny story about an interaction with another colleague who I have never met and and never thought I would meet.  This afternoon, I was on a conference call and who was one of the presenters?

3.  This morning on my way to work, I was listening to the podcast #Herstory which is a series of 50 podcasts talking about inspirational women.  The podcast this morning was about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who I had never heard of before.  Tonight, while finishing dinner, my husband and I were watching Jeopardy (further evidence of my geekdom) and who came up in one of the clues?

Back to the Start

I still really like the idea of cooking the world.  Getting waylaid by the broken foot put a damper on the idea and then I just got distracted by other things.  So I'm trying again.  Since my random globe trot lacked focus, I decided to start at the beginning with Afghanistan.  Mostly.  By that I mean, there was a little move away from 100% authenticity but I'm ok with that.

The bread and the meat portion of the meal were from Flatbreads & Flavours, a book I've had for many, many, many years and rarely cooked from.  

The bread ... Afghan Home-Style Naan was very good.  It tasted like most whole wheat flatbreads so wouldn't say it distinguished itself in any way.  But it was good.  And looked fancy with the cuts in the centre of the dough.  The downside ... there were sesame seeds everywhere and, despite best efforts to clean them up, I'm confident we'll be finding them around the kitchen for a while yet.

The chicken ... Chicken Street Kebabs with Mint and Yogurt Sauce.  Very tasty.  One of the things that kick started me back into this project was that a number of recipes I was finding in various cusines made use of the grill.  Since warmer weather is here, somewhat, the grill is getting a good workout and I'm always looking for ideas that depart from the same old tried and true recipes.    

Finally, I turned to Global Table Adventure (which I don't want to copy in this project but am going to use as a resource and possible source of some ideas ... why let all of her hard work go to waste!), for Burani Bonjon, or Spicy Braised Eggplant, a very tasty eggplant and tomato combination.  While I enjoyed the whole meal, I would have to say that this was my favourite part.  

At this point, a little bit of cheating happened in my Afghan menu.  At around 5, I got worried that I didn't have enough food.  Since our friends were arriving at 6:30, I didn't have a lot of time to research another recipe and get to the store to buy the ingredients.  So honey roasted carrots came to the rescue.  I rationalized that carrots and honey are part of cuisines the world over and found both in google searches of Afghan recipes.  Also, for dessert, I couldn't pass up the fact the rhubarb is in season, is sprouting in my garden and grows in Afghanistan.  So Rhubarb Crisp it was!  

So while not 100% authentic, most of the meal was as close to "real" as possible.  It tasted great and I'll be making both the chicken and the eggplant again.  

The Lemon Squeeze

There is that saying about lemons and lemonade that I'm constantly reminding myself of as I go through the broken foot journey.  The lemonade I'm trying to make is awareness through paying more attention to the world around me.  And what have I learned and observed?

1. I have learned to have a little more patience.  Like most people in the big city, I'm generally in a rush to get where I'm going.  A broken bone will not be rushed to healing.  Particularly when you are 40-something.
2. I have learned to pay more attention to my surroundings - there is that other saying about smelling the roses.  It is easy to point yourself to where you are going and ignore everything in between.  When you are one of the people being knocked into when others are on that journey, you appreciate the impact of that attitude on the world around you.  
3. I have learned that not all mobility issues are visible.  People talk to you when you have a cast on your foot.  And you learn about their injuries (the lady also recovering from a broken foot but about 4 weeks ahead of me so in shoes but still limping), the lady I used to sing in a choir with who told me after we got to our destination and after she had given me her seat, that she had a knee replacement.
4. I have learned that it can be tricky to get around Toronto when you need some degree of accessibility.  I am at least mobile on two feet but try to get into a taxi with a cast on your foot when you have to jump over a snowbank to get there.  Or, when you are having trouble walking and realize that the elevator is pretty much at the opposite end of the platform from the accessibility car on the train or it is out of order.  I'm not sure what someone in a wheelchair does when that happens.
5. I have learned how kind people can be.  There are the many people who have held doors, the people who have given me seats on the train, the bus driver who got out of the bus to clear away the snow that the city couldn't be bothered to have dealt with and then held my hand to help me out.
6. I've been reminded of how much I love being outside.  I have been pretty housebound in this snowy, icy winter and am really missing my long, weekend walks.  I already appreciated these walks but will now do so even more when I get back to them.
7. I have yet another reminder of the benefits of being fit.  I don't know how I would have gotten around the first several days with the foot if I hadn't been strong and fit.  Never mind leveraging myself in and out of the bathtub.  At least the quickly acquired stool installed in our basement shower has made this easier but I still need to do a lot of one-legged squats in my morning routine.  This realization has kept me exercising through the injury.  Thanks to the Nike Training app for the Ab routines and previous bouts of personal training that have taught me what to do with free weights. 
8. I appreciate the Canadian medical system.  Sure it might take a little longer to get through the process and I wouldn't mind a few more minutes to chat with the doctor than he has had time for,  but the system has been really good to me through my injury.  Sure I had to wait in the emergency room but the only thing I had to pay for was parking and the removable boot.  I could have had a plaster cast for free but really???
9. I have learned that you can get a lot of knitting done when you have a broken foot and need to spend a bit of time lounging in chairs with your foot up.  Nine projects and counting.

I do miss my car.  And curling.  I can't wait until I can drive myself around so I'm not so trapped in the house.  My husband has been a fantastic chauffeur but he hasn't been here 24/7 so I've had to amuse myself in the house a bit more than I'm used to.  Another big contributer to #9, above.  It's a good thing there has been a lot of curling on TV.  It is a bit harder to watch when not playing but at least I'm hopefully absorbing some strategy I can use when I get back on the ice.