And suddenly there's no free time

I've been incredibly busy, which is saying something since I'm normally busy anyways. My second week with the Masters swimming group is coming to an end and it's been a blast. Entering a group in Sweden is always a bit of challenge as Swedes can be a bit reserved in the beginning and it takes time to get to know everyone. After 2 weeks I'm finally on a talking basis with 3-4 of the swimmers, and I'm loving the social aspect, something I was really missing. My colleagues are great but they are also 20-25 years my senior which makes topics of interest limited at times. The people swimming in the Masters group are between 25-35 for the most part, with some exceptions. Most seem to be PhD students.

With Andreas attending Art on Tuesday and climbing on Wednesdays and Sunday, and me swimming Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, we only have Monday and Saturday nights together. That means most cooking has to be done in advance now, and bigger portions for more leftovers. A bit of an adjustment but it's fine.

We received our growing lights yesterday so this weekend we will set up tomatoes and peppers inside. I'm really excited about this seeing as we've never had much luck with tomatoes. They usually end up way too tall and scrawny, with a very small harvest.

This weekend will be spent indoors seeing as the weather is still icky. It's cold and all the slush from last week's melting has formed into difficult-to-walk-on ice. Hopefully next week some of it will melt away, but we are still having very cold nights so I doubt it. Biking is completely out of the question at the moment as it is too dangerous with my bike tires. I think this weekend I'm going to try and get some knitting done, as I haven't knit at all in 2 weeks.

Lastly, we had a nice lunch out yesterday with Andreas' parents. They were passing by on their way home from Uppsala so we grabbed some lunch in the city! We are going to visit them in the beginning of May, just a short holiday which I am really, really looking forward to. I haven't had a proper holiday since I started working.

Oh that's right, this is supposed to be a knitting blog..

Last night I went to a local knitting group which takes place every tuesday after work. There were between 10 and 15 of us, which apparently is a large number and we were lacking a bit of space. Cozy, in any case.

I've been working away on my baby blanket that I started last year. I think I seriously underestimated the work involved. I have 8 skeins of yarn, and each skein makes ~10 squares, so 80 squares total. Each square takes about an hour, if I'm completely focused. That's 80 hours of knitting! I have about 20 squares completed... not much to show for my efforts I suppose, but the knitting goes a lot slower if I am watching tv or talking with Andreas while knitting.

On the other hand, this is quite a small baby blanket compared to what a lot of people knit. That'd be more comforting if I didn't know myself better... let's see how long it is before I start on the next baby blanket..


Anyways..
Just to spite myself and the title of this post, I thought I'd talk about the upcoming SM (Sweden Championships) that I will be attending. I signed up for the  following events:

Saturday morning: (tentative, if I can make it to the pool):
50m freestyle
50m backstroke
4x50m free relay (mixed gender)

Saturday afternoon:
100m medley
4x50m free relay (womens)

Sunday morning:
400m freestyle
50m butterfly
4x50m medley relay (not sure which stroke I will swim yet)

It feels fun being all grown up... I can do what I want and what I think is fun. I actually think butterfly is a lot of fun, hoping I can improve my stroke. I think swimming the 400m will be an awesome challenge and a walk down memory lane. I like the medley. And as you can see, I skipped my possibly least favorite event, the 100m free. Well... second least favorite, 200m free takes the cake. I hate sprints that are actually not sprints, just a prolonged painful sort-of sprint where you are just wishing you'd drown or finish basically the entire way, because you actually did sprint the first 50m and there's no juice left.

Tonight I'm going bouldering/rock climbing indoors for the first time. I'm really sore but hoping my body will forgive me.

Back in the Pool

Yesterday was my first day with LASS - Linköping Allmänna Simsällskap (Roughly translated to Linköpings General Swim Society?). I'm swimming in the Masters group which is about 20 swimmers. I think my coach was impressed once he saw me get in the water. As Andreas put it, I'm "very penguin-ish... not always graceful but damn you can swim".

My coach is actually an American from Minnesota. Him and his wife (who swims with us) moved here 1.5 years ago. I'm still not sure why they are here, I didn't get a chance to ask. I'm really glad he is American (who ever thought those words would leave my lips??) because it's very loud in the swimming hall and my hearing is so bad with background noise. Not to mention I'm blind as well. Sheesh... maybe time to invest in some prescription goggles if I really get into this. Luckily he was able to tell me what I was supposed to be doing.

We train 4 days a week, with 30 minutes strength training/boxing 3 days a week before we swim. There is a tiny gym attached to the pool area, really cool. I also learned yesterday that Swedish Nationals for Masters (25+) is in 5 weeks, and it's open invitation, so my coach wants me to go. It's 15-17 March in Södertälje, which is about 1.5 hours from here. It will be fun to hang out with my teammates and get to know them more, and I think this swim meet will be a great opportunity for that.

All in all, I had a very positive first practice and I am so glad I took the step and joined!

P.s. Today I'm running home from work (8km)... wish me luck ;) Wednesday Andreas is taking me indoor rock climbing too, so my week is absolutely full with activity. I'm going to kick everyone else's ass in this 12 week competition!

Food pics from the last two weeks

Some pictures of food we cooked over the last two weeks (Sorry for my poor food photography):

Chickpea and spinach soup... the color is crazy! It was delicious. 

 Here is the appetizer we ate 2 Sundays ago. It's sliced baguette which was drizzled with salt flakes and olive oil, and then baked in the oven. Upon leaving the oven, homemade mayo and fresh scampi meat was applied. 5 stars to this - it was incredible.

 A picture of the champagne we enjoyed. It was really nice but a bit acidic for my tastes.

And here is the result of our hard efforts. Beef tenderloin crusted

with pistachio and bacon, and side of crisp sweet potato chips.

Carrot Banan Muffins 

Fresh salad

Vanilla ice cream topped with almond biscuits

and cherry sorbet

Making pirogis (stuffed with cheese and root vegetables)

Pirogis right out of the oven

12kg in 12 weeks challenge

One of Reddit's subforums is the "Body Transformation Fitness Challenge", hosting over 10,000 people looking to improve themselves. Several times a year they hold a 12 week challenge to see who can become the fittest. A new challenge is starting this Friday and I've decided to participate. My goal is a lofty 1kg (2.2 lbs) a week of weight loss, for the next 12 weeks. It's a high goal and I'm going to take it a week at a time, focusing on the here and now, everyday decisions that make or break weight loss. I already lost 3-4kg in January and I wasn't exercising all that much, so I think I can do it.


The cornerstone of my plan is of course healthy eating with calorie counting. No more than 1500 kcal a day, no less than 1200. I assume I'll be sitting more around 1500 a day which is fine. Eggs for breakfast, sometimes with a whole grain compliment, chicken salads for lunch, yoghurt and fruit for snacks, and then whatever for dinner. I'm already doing this and I'm pretty satisfied/happy with my diet.

As far as exercise, I had hoped to join the swim team but they are being coy and not writing me back, alas. So for now I'm going to focus on biking to and from work as much as possible, even when it's shitty out. This will be supplimented with running, hiking, and DDR when I feel like it.

I'm going to try and stay away from sugar as much as possible still, although I plan to allow myself occasional dessert, as long as I don't spiral out of control. Easier said than done, so that part will be tricky, but it's important because it leads to healthy maintenance later on.

I really just want to get rid of the rest of this weight. Andreas and I are thinking about kids again (Andreas will be 30 this year!), and our child deserves a healthy body to grow in. I'm hoping that thought alone will propel me towards my goal. It will also be great to be better able to keep up with Andreas, hike longer, do more, and feel better about myself.

Wish me well with the hard work ahead of me!

I did it!

I signed up for the swim team. Well, sort of. I made an account on their website and signed up for the Master's group, although according to their website, there is a queue. I also emailed, inquiring about the cost and training times, and if there actually is a queue... which would suck.

I'm proud I took this step. I am quite nervous about joining, for several reasons really. The largest one is that my ears are very sensitive and get easily infected, so I've been swimming with ear plugs for the last 5 years now. Which is great, except I can't really hear anything with them in, and I've never tried to be in a group training while wearing them. This would be scary enough, except add onto that, that the instruction will be in Swedish, and I'm wondering how that will work. Especially since I don't know any swimming terms anyways in Sweden. The ear plugs are pretty easy to pull slightly in and out, so that I can hear a bit. I was also considering that I can wear a plug in one ear, and switch for each swim practice, giving one ear a rest each time. Still, I'm worried for infection and pain.

Of course another reason is because I'm not that fit and I'm large. I should just get over it and feel awesome that I'm taking steps to get in shape, but that is easier said than done. I won't let this particular reason stop me either.

The last big reason I can think of is that it is a large time commitment... they train 4 evenings a week, which is a lot. And the times aren't always exactly convenient, meaning that I'll have to eat dinner at my office and work late some evenings, etc.


BUT, today I conquered my fears, and signed up anyways. Because if I don't even sign up, I never gave it a chance. There are so many benefits if I do start swimming!! Meeting a bunch of cool people, getting in shape, feeling good about myself, and getting to compete again. Huge reasons why I should do this.

We'll see what answer I get back from them!

Skirt: check! (maybe??)

I "finished" the skirt. When I say finished, I really mean that I ran out of yarn, and decided that this skirt has a chance of fitting me one day, so I wouldn't need to buy another skein (which possibly wouldn't match). When I say one day, I mean one day when I have a 31 inch waist...  maybe I should buy another skein? I don't know, I can't make up my mind. And I also realized I need to rip out about 6 rows if I truely am done, because I skipped the instructions at the end for the button band. Kind of important. Anyways, I marked this thing as done on ravelry and I'm going to let it sit while I contemplate what to do.

The skirt probably looks very small but it is extremely stretchy because of the type of stitch and yarn.


Meanwhile, I have decided to work on the baby blanket I had started. I have a lot of yarn sitting around for it, and it's actually a fun project. At the time I started doing it, I really wanted to learn to continental knit, and the patterns made that difficult. Now seems like a good time, at the beginning of the year, to finish up projects I have laying around.


On the sewing side of things, I've committed to finishing this box bag I started. It's not a simple pattern as it also includes special material for strengthening the bag sides (can't think of the name right now!). But I have already cut the fabric for the bag, so I might as well get on with it..

.. so that I can start my other sewing project...

(This fabric is for the kitchen)

(and this is for the living room)

 Curtains for the kitchen and living room!It should be simple, except that it is a lot of fabric and might be tricky getting straight lines through the sewing machine. Luckily curtains will be forgiving. I mean, I assume they will? Whatever, it'll work it. We bought cute fabric that will let some light shine through.

In other news, we watched a really fantastic film yesterday, "Kyss mig" ("With every heartbeat" is the American title). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859522/ The scenery and music complemented the story beautifully, and the acting was phenominal in my opinion. I highly recommend it. It was released in the U.S. in October last year, subtitled I believe. Check it out!

New House

We finally moved to Linköping, where I currently work. Our new house is wonderful; built in 2008 and shiny. Very shiny.

I also have my very own knitting/sewing room now!

On the knitting front... well I completed many, many projects since my last blog post and I don't really feel like detailing all of it. But what I am currently working on is a very fun, quick project.. the Carnaby Skirt from Knitty Deep Fall 2010.

This thing is gorgeous! I'm using Rowan Pure Wool Aran in the Ember (679) colorway. I'm a little over 1/2 of the way done. It's difficult to find time to knit with the move, but I'm hoping to complete this thing within a week or two. Andreas is in Holland right now so I have some time on my hands while he is away.


Besides the house and I'm knitting, I'm trying to move more in general, be it cooking, walking the dog, or cleaning. I developed some bad habits when I started working in September, and I want to get fit again! I really enjoyed this article I stumbled upon recently. The message is change who you are, not how you look or appear to others. I like that, it resonates with me. I hope I can change myself for the better this coming year.

Wishing you a merry 2013 from Sweden!

Food! Week 3 of 2013

I really like cooking, and I love food. We often plan out a week menu, which rarely has the same dish  on it except for some tried and true favorites. So I thought maybe I'd start putting that here on the blog in any case, as it forms a fairly large part of my life and day. I usually start the week from Saturday because that is when we go shopping.

Week 3 food:

We are going fancy on Saturday, lobster bruschetta with roe mayonnaise as a starter, followed by grilled beef tenderloin crusted in bacon and pistachios, with sweet potato crisps. Recipe source: Allt om Mat, Nyårs, Nr 1 2013. For dessert, a red currant pie, from "Alltid hungrig", Renee Voltaire. It has virtually zero sugar added which is great since I banned myself from sugar for the rest of January.

Rest of the week:

Chickpea soup, Alltid Hungrig, Renee Voltaire
Polenta cake with spinach and red onion, Alltid Hungrig, Renee Voltaire
Bell pepper pasta with prosciutto, Allt om Mat Nyår Nr 1 2013
Mexican Stuffed Shells, The Girl Who Ate Everything
Burritos with spanish rice, Fatfreevegan

I'll post some pictures of this week's food with next week's post. This is just a start. :)