Fiber Crash Diet.

I'm on the yarn wagon for 120 days. I have enough to keep me busy and I need to remind myself of the lovely stash in my very own house, before I listen to the siren song of Lorna's Laces. I want an elliptical trainer, dammit. I'm loving the Clapotis from the MDS&W-acquired Roz Houseknecht yarn - if you are going to Maryland Sheep and Wool look for Dyed Dreams (thanks to Clara I found her in the KR archives!). You will not regret it. It's damn good stuff reasonably priced.

Wednesday night I unloaded the bookcases in the dining area of the kitchen - two large Pottery-Barn-very-rustic-plank-and-iron things, circa mid-90s. They have served well, but I think it's time to send them on to a new home. They are now in the garage, and this weekend the bookcases in the bedroom (Target, circa 1994, and they are still fabulous) will be unloaded and shifted to the kitchen (they've been there before, they like it there). Then there will be space in the bedroom for an elliptical trainer. I don't want to make the mistake of going too cheap, but I also don't plan to drop thousands on a gym quality machine. I do not have thousands, and if I did I would have at least 20 more important ways to spend it. A gym membership for the year for me and the Girlchild is $700-ish, so that's the price range we'll go for the ET. I'd go to a grand for one that is really quiet, compact and reliable. I'm reading online about various brands - suggestions of actual-home-tested, used and abused elliptical trainers you love are welcome.

Because I must do something about my ass. It spends too much time in a chair in a high stress job these days. I try to work in walking and a little random yoga (knitting is my true meditation) and I generally eat right, and I not only am not losing weight but I've gained a few pounds, thank you business lunches in places where there are NO salads on the menu. I'm not kidding - construction world lunch means barbeque, burgers and pizza. If you want salad you get coleslaw and a funny look.

The gym is lovely and I really like it, but it's just not happening - in the morning I throw in a load of laundry, run the dishwasher, read my mail, pay my bills, check a few blogs, let the dogs in and out eleventy-jillion times, shower and leave for work by 7:45. I already get up at 5:15, I just can't do an hour at the gym and a shower and all the other things. I could do a session on the elliptical trainer while the dogs are out (and in, and out, and in, and out). And I have learned from bitter experience that if I exercise in the evening I can't go to sleep before 11, if then, and did I mention that I get up at 5:15? That's Murphy's idea. I'd adjust my sleeping hours if I could, but he was imprinted by my husband's work schedule in his puppyhood, and he still firmly believes Mommy should be up and the coffeepot should be making coffee smells by 5:30. He goes out to pee and then back to bed - his work is done. I'm up. I actually, secretly don't mind. I like my quiet morning time before the work day madness kicks in.

I'm online tonight because I'm checking email. There's a good chance my father's decline is a whole new thing - lung cancer. Tomorrow he sees a new doctor. So far he's had cancer of the larynx (many years ago) prostate cancer (the slow-moving kind) diabetes and a bad heart. He's already one disease past the trifecta - lung cancer would be a bit too much, don't you think? What's next, malaria, bird flu and alien pregnancy?

I'm very, very tired. Very sad and very tired already. If I blog more it's a distraction, the way it was a few years ago, when I lived through hell with my husband.

I really want to go to Europe and drink wine in Rome, on a sunny day.