roya plus yarn

So these are the adventures of Roya, Amber, and dying yarn with kool aid! We each bought two skeins of 100% wool to work with. In this photo, I am separating mine - I did 5 different batches so I could play with colors. Amber did two really big ones.


The next few pics are the yarn heating up - we mixed the kool aid in cold water first, then added the yarn. At first we were worried that it wouldn't take, because the yarn didn't really soak up the water like we thought it would. We had to scoosh it around with a fork for it to submerge. But then we heated up the water and the yarn just soaked it up. The only issue we had was once the yarn went over the edge of the pot a leeetle too much, and sort of caught on fire...so I have one skein that's now a bunch of smaller pieces. :P
























After we dyed it and rinsed it, I hung it up in the backyard to dry. Pretty cool looking, huh? I like having curtains of yarn outside my kitchen window.
And here are the final products!

Tuesday morning update

I am so sleepy, that for once I am glad it's cold in my office. Last night Adam and I went to the gym pretty late - I worked on mah abs for a while and did the elliptical, and then we did day one of WEEK FIVE of the couch to 5k program. Holy cow, this week is going to kill me. But I do feel really good after I run - I hope I don't stop. It's pretty miserable, but I keep hearing people talk about how much they love to run and I want to be like them! :P I can see running has the potential, but right now, it's just pain. But I'm sticking with it - I have gone running three times a week for the last 5 weeks, so one day I hope it'll turn into a fun, good habit.

I made cupcakes on sunday using yellow cake mix and a diet soda. Very interesting. It totally worked and I was mucho suprised. I definitly want to experiment with this!

Adam will be gone from Wednesday to Saturday and then gone again all day Sunday. I feel the need for an Office Marathon with my little sisters already.

Today I have a doctor's appointment - that all throughout writing this post is what I've been thinking of. I finally have an appointment with a specialist, and I am a little (more than a little) nervous, but trying not to be. Wish me luck.

The thing that I keep focusing on is being able to finish my second calorimetry in the waiting room. I am knitting it with smaller needles and a smaller weight yarn - manos del uruguay, which is my one true love. then I am going to make some fingerless gloves using my kool aid yarn.

Here I go!

perfect sunday

Yesterday was one of those perfect weekend days that you just don't want to end. It started early (for me) I woke up at 7am, and didn't go back to sleep! That was great, because I love wakign up early, I just also love *not having to* - so I watched the new episode of The Office (my personal addition), and hung around with Adam, did laundry, dishes, etc. Then I went over to a friend's house, where I used to live in Seal Beach (while my parent's house was being rebuilt after the fire), and we headed over to Long Beach to go to the farmer's market! I am madly, deeply, ridiculously in love with farmer's markets, and have been meaning to go to this one for ages and just keep missing it (it's over at 1pm and somehow I never get there on time). I bought green beans, snap peas, apples, corn, bok choi, onions, carrots, etc. etc. etc. Then we headed over to Sunset Beach and went for a bike ride with a friend of hers.

The weather was beautiful - clear, bright blue sky - and a WIND like you would not believe. Riding south towards huntington beach, we didn't even need to peddle. Unfortunately, on the way back to sunset, we sure made up for it. I think I am still getting sand out of my teeth. :P

Theennn we headed to 2nd street to meet up with some of her old friends at Legends, then went to Alamitos Bay Yarn company - our local yummy yarn store. We spent a huge amount of time in there watching a lady do some needle felting, which I can feel in my bones is going to be a new obsession one day soon. Then we headed to Michaels to buy some cheaper yarn, and stopped at the store to buy kool aid packets, got back to my house, and..

dyed yarn with kool aid! It was AWESOME. The colors turned out really amazingly bright - we used a few packets of the ice blue lemonade for blue, fruit punch for red, the limeade for the green, lemonade for yellow, and half grape half strawberry for the purple. Each color turned out really vibrant - we mixed it in the various pots, added the yarn, then turned up the heat. The yarn totally soaked up all the color, and by the time we poured out the leftover water, it was devoid of all color and poured out clear. We rinsed the yarn, and hung it up on hangers in the backyard to dry. I will try to post some of those photos soon.

Afterwards I made a stirfry with all the veggies I bought at the farmers market, we ate food, she went home, and Adam and I cuddled and watched our sunday night ritual tv shows. I didn't sleep til about midnight - so it was a long, satisfying, wonderful day, full of good food, good company, art, and physical activity. Hoo-rah.

of course, my kitchen is a mess because I didn't feel like cleaning it up last night, but... ah well. That's what tonight is for.
Tonight I also need to do some reading for my abnormal psychology class. I am taking it online, which is useful, but I am fascinated by this subject and wish I had a teacher and classroom full of students to discuss it all with. The chapters I just read were about anxiety disorders, phobias, obsessive compulsiveness, and PTSD. So now every time my heartrate accelerates I end up thinking about panic attacks, but such is the nature of this class.

I am almost finished with week 3 of tracking my points, a la weight watchers. I haven't lost any significant weight, but I know I am eating better and I am proud of myself for it. The key to my success this time does seem to be making sure I write everything down once a day - no skipping days! Also, I have collected a variety of websites which have done all the point calculating for me, so it makes it easier. It's lunchtime, which is why I am now starting to think FOOD FOOD FOOD. I have leftover stirfry and some tomato soup, and new Manos del Uruguay I am going to knit on my break.