Weil Week 3 Update

We did pretty well with Week 3, but I'm still struggling with the meditation. Vitamins and broccoli are no problem but meditating is just not happening. And I actually like meditating, so that's not even the problem!

Since there are a few more things I'd like to work on (meditating and stretching especially), and since I didn't sit down and plan the new projects for Week 4 yet, I'm going to repeat Week 3 this week and move on to Week 4 next week. That should help me get a little bit more settled into the meditating routine (I hope).

Iraqi Bundles of Love

I first read about this project on Ellen's blog and thought it sounded really cool. Basically, a soldier stationed in Iraq noticed that the local folks had a strong tradition of making handcrafted goods but badly needed sewing and knitting supplies, and he asked people to send over "bundles" of excess fabric and other supplies for his unit to distribute to the locals. Since I'm such a new quilter, I don't really have much of a stash yet (although I'm definitely working on it) and I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to put anything together by the September 7 deadline.

Then I saw Sew Mama Sew's post about Iraqi Bundles of Love and noticed that they are selling "bundles" through their online store. For $15, you can buy a bundle, which they will ship to Iraq for you. The $15 includes fabric, sewing needles, pins, scissors, a pincushion -- and shipping to Iraq. It's the perfect way to contribute if you can't put your own bundle together. What a wonderful project -- and 2 great ways to help out!

What a Weekend

The last week or so has been really fun and busy, especially last weekend!

I finished a baby gift for a dear friend who is expecting her 2nd baby in October and had lunch with her and several other friends on Saturday. (Pictures of the gift to come!). It was great to catch up with everyone!

My husband and I had craft night with Ellen and her husband (who grilled an absolutely delicious meal to sustain all that sewing) and got a ton of sewing done on the first of my 5 secret surprise projects. I'm hoping to get the quilt top finished in the next day or so. Can't share pictures of that one until it's delivered but let me just say that I am thrilled with how it's turning out!

I had lunch with my husband's family -- my father-in-law's top-secret chili recipe and mother-in-law's banana pudding really hit the spot. Then Ellen and I went to the first meeting of the Rockwall Project Linus group. Abby and Jennifer of Texas Quiltworks in Rockwall set up the meeting for folks who were interested in working with the Dallas group but needed a closer meeting place. I had been thinking about making blankets for Project Linus "someday" and when Abby and Ellen mentioned the meeting to me, I just had to go. (It didn't hurt that Ellen was going to go too and willing to carpool -- turns out that Rockwall isn't really closer for me...)

We hung out at Texas Quiltworks for several hours, sewing and chatting and eating Ellen's cupcakes (made from scratch, no less!). I was super excited to make my first-ever string block, and of course I didn't think to take a picture of it because I was so excited to finish it! I brought more fabric home to make a few more blocks, though, so I'll take pictures of those when they're done. I also grabbed a kit to make a small quilt. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get that done (my to-do list is growing longer by the day!) but I couldn't pass it up.

Then back home for a lovely dinner with my husband and more sewing on the secret surprise quilt #1. Not quite what I would call a relaxing weekend, but fun nonetheless!

Weil Week 3

This week's to-do list:

• Eat extra fruits and vegetables with at least one meal this week.
• Eat fish at least twice.
• Replace at least one serving of meat with a soy food.
• Keep taking vitamins & supplements.
• Walk 20 mins/day.
• Do some simple stretches daily.
• Keep meditating.
• Ask for recommendations for inspirational books (anybody have any suggestions?)
• Make a list of friends in whose company you feel happier and more optimistic, and make plans to spend time with one of them this week.
• One-day news fast.
• Buy more flowers.
• Find out how to grow some of your own food (this one is optional!).

I think my main focus this week is going to be on the meditation! That one seems to be the hardest for me right now.

Weil Week 2 Update

Here's how we did with our 2nd week of optimum health:

• We are not planning to get a water-purifying system because our fridge has a built-in filter that is supposed to removed chlorine, among other things.
• I'm pretty sure each of us managed to eat fish at least once and broccoli at least twice.
• We ate some whole grains.
• We tried edamame, and I continued to drink soy milk with my cereal.
• Drinking green tea pretty much daily.
• Still taking the vitamins & supplements.
• Got our walking in nearly every day.
• Made plans to got to the mountains for Labor Day (that's our visit to a natural place, in addition to walking with the dog in the evenings).
• Took a news fast -- I managed to go most of the week without reading the news!
• Meditating is still hard for me but I'm working on it.
• I did buy flowers -- yellow roses -- and put them in a place of honor on the dining room table next to the Frog-O-Sphere.

Moving on to Week 3!

Quilt Plano

The Plano Quilt Guild's show was this weekend! What a wonderful day!

My husband and I met Ellen, Abby, and Abby's friend Jane at the show. Ellen and I also ran into Sharon, who we had met at the Garland Quilt Guild meeting earlier this month -- it's a small world! We saw so many beautiful, incredible, inspiring quilts. I can't begin to decribe them all!

Then we shopped. I wasn't even planning to buy anything but I just couldn't help myself! I met Michelle, who designs fabrics and quilt patterns in a Southwestern style. I loved everything in her booth! The designs are gorgeous and unique and I want to make them all. I ended up buying 2 applique patterns -- 1 features blocks that look like Mexican tiles, and 1 features a variety of different Southwestern-style crosses. Then I ended up buying some solid fabrics from another vendor so I can get started on the Mexican tile quilt.

We also stopped at the booth for England Design Studios, which also had patterns and fabric for sale. The patterns all have a naturalistic style -- we were especially drawn to the bird patterns -- and are made using a technique called picture piecing. It's similar to foundation paper piecing except you don't have to sew the pieces to foundation paper. I'm not sure how hard it's going to be but I just had to try it, so we got a pattern and fabric kit to make a small bird feeder wallhanging.

Plus I got a Norman Rockwell Santa Claus panel (no idea what I'm going to do with that), a kit (including backing!) for a cute Christmas wallhanging, a set of fat quarters from the Katie Jump Rope line (also no idea what I'm going to use it for), and some yellow fat quarters for a baby gift I need to make.

And then we bought Ellen an early Christmas present -- a lovely old quilt. I don't know anything about how old it is or where it came from, and it has a few tears and 1 unfortunate coffee stain, but it's pretty, and we liked it, and Ellen liked it, and it was affordable, so we got it. I don't have a picture of it because we already gave it to her -- nothing like instant gratification! -- but maybe she will post a pic of it.

And then after all that I managed to get a ton of sewing done on 1 of the 5 surprise gift quilts I'm working on. Plus I washed and ironed some of the new fabrics. So I did manage to do some sewing in addition to all the shopping!

Weil Week 2

We're starting our second week with Dr. Weil. Our action items for this week include:

• Get information about a water-purifying system. Dr. Weil is especially adamant about avoiding chlorinated water.
• Eat fish once this week.
• Eat broccoli twice.
• Eat more whole grains.
• Try a soy product (I'm thinking edamame rather than tofu....).
• Drink green tea (we've been doing this already but I'm going to buy more tea for us to try at home).
• Keep taking the vitamins & supplements.
• Walk 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week.
• Visit a park or other natural space.
• Take a one-day "news fast" -- no reading, watching, or listening to the news for an entire day.
• Continue meditating 5 minutes a day and add a 1-minute meditation exercise.
• Buy fresh flowers (we were supposed to do this last week but didn't get around to it).

So far, so good. Everything on this week's seems pretty do-able!

Weil Week 1 Update

Here's how we did on our first week of Dr. Weil's health plan:

• Getting rid of unhealthy food: We still have a few salad dressings made from oils other than olive, and we still have diet soda, but we are doing pretty well otherwise.
• Eat salmon 1 time: Done
• Eat broccoli 2 times: Done
• Take vitamins and supplements: I skipped them one day, but otherwise done.
• Wak 10 minutes a day, 5 days: Done
• Meditate 5 minutes a day: Started out good here but haven't done it lately. Turns out I need to find a different time to meditate, because meditating right before I go to bed just puts me straight to sleep.

We're ready for week 2!

Sampler Block #4

It's finished! This is the aptly named Basket and Birds block. The basket is pieced (more tiny triangles!) and the birds and flower are applique.

This was my first foray into applique. I fused the birds and flower to the background and then handstitched around them with a blanket stitch. I really like the fabrics in this block but I had to borrow the dark green for the flower stem and leaves from Ellen; my growing stash of 30s fabric does not include dark greens!

This block seemed to take absolutely forever to finish, but I eventually started to enjoy sewing by hand. Now I want to do more hand sewing -- and it turns out that the September block of the month for the Garland Quilt Guild is an applique pattern using 30s fabrics... That just might be the perfect (small) project to start for those times when I'm away from my machine and want something to sew!

Guilded

I went to the Garland Quilt Guild's August meeting last night with Ellen and Abby. Ellen joined last month and invited Abby and me to come with her this month. The guild ladies were all so nice to us -- I met Cheryl and Marie and Hope and some other sweet ladies whose names I can't remember.

It seemed like everyone was working on some hand-sewing project or other during the meeting; Abby was embroidering these labels, Ellen was embroidering a cute quilt block, Hope was sewing paper-pieced Grandmother's flower garden blocks, and a lady at the next table was knitting. I definitely need to bring something to do with my hands next time! I've never embroidered before but now I want to learn!

Ellen was lucky enough to win a door prize -- a gift certificate to a local quilt store. Ellen was also brave enough to share her happy quilt during the show-and-tell portion of the meeting. The guild does a block of the month each month, too. You make the block (see the instructions for September's block here) and bring it to the meeting, and one lucky person wins all the blocks for that month! One of the show-and-tell quilts was a block of the month quilt that one of the girls had put together after winning the blocks. It was beautiful! I probably won't do the block for next month, but you never know.. I might! I do happen to have plenty of 30s fabric, which is what we're supposed to use for September's block...

The main part of meeting was a presentation on applique by Pebble Rehm. She had brought several absolutely gorgeous quilts to show a variety of different styles and techniques, including a Baltimore album quilt, a Hawaiian quilt, and a Jacobean-style applique quilt. I'm just barely starting to learn applique for my sampler quilt (I'm nearly done with the first applique block -- pictures coming soon, I hope!), and I was really inspired by Pebble's work. All in all, a fun evening!

8 Weeks with Dr. Weil

I started reading Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health last weekend and thought I might give the program a try. I'd heard of Dr. Weil before (I already had the canine version of the book, 8 Weeks to a Healthy Dog by Shawn Messonnier, and I've been using some of Dr. Weil's mind-body techniques for a stress-management program at my internship). When I ran across 8 Weeks at Half Price Books, I thought I'd give it a try.

Dr. Weil is my kind of doctor; he went to medical school and learned typical "Western" medicine but he has also studied alternative methods and believes that the best medical interventions are the least invasive ones that work. Plus, he believes that true health involves the mind and spirit as well as the body, and so his program incorporates both mind and body.

This book outlines an 8-week program, with different "projects" for each week. At the end, you are supposed to be much healthier than when you started. My husband is willing to humor me (for the moment, anyway), and so we started with Week 1 on Sunday.

The program starts out with small changes: In the first week, you are supposed to throw out unhealthy foods (those with transfats, any oils besides olive oil, artificial sweeteners, or artificials colors), eat broccoli, eat salmon, take vitamins and antioxidants, start walking 10 minutes a day, and do 5 minutes of meditation each day.

We started out with a trip to Whole Foods for vitamins and supplements. My husband, gazing at the infinite variety of expensive supplements, said, "This must be a health plan for rich people." We selected a variety of different health-inducing supplements and a 6-pack of beer to wash down both the vitamins and the sticker shock.

We have been taking the vitamins, walking, and meditating. We had our weekly serving of salmon, and we have broccoli on the menu twice this week. My husband is not yet willing to give up diet sodas (and I did have a diet Coke with lunch, although my goal is to cut back to one soda a day). We have both started drinking green tea (which isn't on the itinerary until Week 2, but I like tea anyway so I was happy to start early).

We'll see how this goes...

More Reading, Less Sewing

This weekend started with an after-dinner trip to Half Price Books, which meant I spent most of my time curled up in one comfy spot or another, reading.

I have 4 new (old) books:

• Andrew Weil's 8 Weeks to Optimum Health
• Melody Beattie's Beyond Codependency
• Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear
• Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living

So far, I've finished The Gift of Fear (it's about personal safety and predicting violent behavior -- a must-read, though a bit scary), started 8 Weeks to Optimum Health (more on that later), and skimmed Beyond Codependency (not really impressed with that one, but I heard about the author at my internship and thought it was worth a try).

I'm looking forward to starting Full Catastrophe Living, even though I don't really know what it's about; I'd heard of that author from one of my grad school professors and that was the only book of his I could find at Half Price.

I did get a little quilting done around all the reading. I cut out all the fabrics for 1 of the 5 (FIVE!) quilts that I need to have finished before Christmas, and I hope to start piecing it this week. I'm still working on washing, drying, and ironing all the new fabrics I got last weekend, plus I'm nearly done with block 4 from the sampler quilt (remember that one?). And I've got another knitting date coming up this weekend! Definitely keeping busy around here...