It’s been a while…

Hi there,

It’s been a while since I posted. About a year when I look at my post history. So what has happened in that year?

Work was a blur for the entire year. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and things should settle down a bit. The product launch is behind us and now it’s back to the usual grind. With the pile of work stress, I wasn’t able to do much else in my life. Only so many spoons as we say.

In sewing, I did get some things made. Looking at my review history on sewing.patternreview.com (I review all my makes under user @Cyphgirl) I made mostly basics and gifts.

Some highlights were this tank top, I did french seaming and ended up adding the lace trim, I thought it turned out really cool. I didn’t grab any pictures though, so imagine it in a floral on black rayon voile with black wide lace at the bottom. I also made this grocery bag, actually, I made 2 one each for me and my mom.

This was one of them. It looks like a cute little strawberry all folded up, I love it. I have more fabric for some blue ones. It’s so handy to have in my purse when I need a quick bag instead of getting a plastic one from the store.

I also made jeans. It’s my first successful pair. My first pair was from when I was about 14 in sewing class in high school. I kinda cheated my measurements and it was the super low rise style that was popular at the time. I could never get them over my tush. It was bad. I don’t have pictures of these ones, but I have more denim in my stash so I will be making another pair, maybe not the same pattern. I want to try my hand at non-stretch jeans.

Another highlight is that I made a winter coat that was fully lined. My first jacket/coat with a lining.

It’s nice and warm and I have gotten so many compliments from even complete strangers. My only complaint with it is the fabric has a tendency to pill, but it is slightly fuzzy so that is inevitable. I’ll have to get a de-pilling brush and correct that.

In other news, I have changed up the diet again. With work stress, I ended up ordering a lot of takeouts and ended up gaining weight again until about November. In November I was doing Weight Watchers for a bit. Their purple plan is very vegan-friendly and I was having good success. I was noticing that I was going back to an old way of eating for me that was very successful. When I was eating that way I was at the lowest weight of my adult life. That is Whole Food Plant-Based, low oil. Given that I decided to stop paying the 20+ dollars a month for WW and just go back to that style of eating again. At the very least WW got me to pay attention again.

I have been using the Daily Dozen app from Dr Greger to make sure I get my nutrition in. I read his book How not to diet and it really spoke to me. It reset my focus on how to do this. Using the app has really helped me focus on the important bits. I am really working on making sure I get all those fruit and veggie servings in. When I do that I don’t really have a lot of room for much else so that helps, and I know I am getting the nutrition I need. So far I am down a little bit. Since I started again in November I am down about 8 lbs depending on the day, which is not bad.

Another thing I did that was big was I switched from coffee to tea. I was drinking about 2-3 cups of coffee a day. I switched that over to a mix of black and green tea throughout the day. Tomorrow is the beginning of week 3 without coffee. The withdrawal has been rough, it’s getting easier now though. I think I finally turned a corner on that. I am still trying to settle in on a favourite tea. I have so many I like it’s been nice having the variety. I usually had the same coffee every morning so the variety is also nice. Sometimes there are too many decisions for first thing in the morning though, it’s a trade-off.

TTYL