Hi Everyone
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything for this blog. Looking back on what I have posted, it will have been about a month between drinks! I’ve been drafting a few more posts for this blog, I’ve been stitching like mad, taking short trips to Melbourne and to the South Coast, NSW and working towards changing my career direction. Not much running, but I have been doing a lot of fitness alternatives until my body is ready for it!
Stitching like mad…
I’ve been stitching like mad on a photo I’ve converted to a cross stitch picture. The image below shows the progress I’ve made on the first page of the pattern and the following image is the photograph I’m basing this project on.
As I continue to stitch this project and referring back to the original image, I can’t help but make myself nervous about how it’s going to turn out. Whenever I start to get nervous, I remind myself that I am testing this out and I’ll be able to make alterations for future projects – whether it be this project or similar ones!
Trip to Melbourne…
My boyfriend is a keen supporter of the Sydney Swans (an AFL (Australian Football League) team). Since we’ve been together, I’ve really gotten into watching it with him and going to a number of their games up in Sydney. By getting a feel for what it’s like to watch the match live, I’ve been really keen to watch at least one match in Melbourne at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground, aka the G). The importance of this is the MCG is the mecca for the AFL and the grand final is always played at the MCG! So going to see a match at the MCG was on my bucket list. The challenge will be seeing the Swans play at the MCG in a grand final!
It was fantastic seeing the game at the MCG. Unfortunately we lost by 10 points and we were sitting in enemy territory – something we didn’t know until we got there and sat down at our seats. So the loss of the game was felt a lot more than if we were sitting anywhere else in the stadium.
However, the weather for the entire weekend was beautiful and we did a lot of walking around – especially along the Yarra River (aka The Yarra). Below are images of what we came across as part of our walks:
The unfortunate thing with all of the walking we did, was the muscles around my left knee decided to let me know that they were very unhappy about the amount of movement it was doing. It swelled up and became stiff and very uncomfortable to walk. It thankfully has settled down since then and I can walk around with minimal problems.
I have tried running on the treadmill with limited success. About a week ago I went for a jog on the treadmill and within the first 50 to 100 metres it became too uncomfortable to run. Since then the elliptical machine/cross-trainer has become my favourite machine and I’ve really enjoyed listening to my music and the Zombies, Run! app. One of the things I have had to be careful of when listening to Zombies, Run! is how I react to it. There have been many times when I’ve been close to jumping out of my skin, or cringing significantly because of the sound effects or even wanting to talk to the characters (like I would if I were watching the t.v.)! I realise it shouldn’t matter too much since I’m at the gym early in the morning, my back is to the back of the gym and most of the gym-goers are too busy with what they’re doing to worry about what I’m doing!
So all in all, I’m still here, alive and kicking! Hopefully in a few months time I’ll be able to share with all of you an update on how my mini mushrooms picture is progressing. I’m also hoping that I’ll be running soon – quite probably in enough time to start being worried about swooping season!
Until next time,
Happy stitching!
The XStitching Runner 