Phobias

Today I took my car through a car wash. It was incredibly filthy due to all the freeway driving that I do and the fact that it's winter. Now, this may sound strange, but I'm a little phobic of drive-thru car washes. I have no idea why. I realize phobias by definition are irrational, but at least some of them make a certain amount of sense. I mean, you could fall off a high place and go splat, or get bitten by a snake or spider and die. My other phobia is of needles. At least needles hurt, which could contribute to fearfulness. Also, there are those traumatic childhood memories of being held in a room by a bunch of strangers (doctors and/or their assistants) and poked repeatedly by needles in an attempt to draw blood while screaming for my mother who I could see, but they wouldn't let in the room. But car washes. That's just strange. And I was fine until I got into the car wash itself. Then I got this little panicky feeling, my heart started beating a little faster, I'm sure my blood pressure spiked, and my hands got a little shaky. It's so weird. I remember being scared of car washes as a little kid, but I have no idea why. Maybe it's a weird derivitave of claustrophobia...I feel somehow trapped, and then these weird arm things move all around me and make me feel like I'm moving when I'm not and cover my car with soap and I can't see anything. Now, I'm better about it than I was as a small child. I used to cry and scream and carry on out of sheer terror. Now I just get a little panicky. No screaming or crying. So weird.

Booties!

I came to a realization the other night. My friend Kelly is pregnant and is due in early February. It's already January. She is having a baby shower a week from Sunday. I need to do something about a present. I usually knit something for people's baby showers, unless caught almost completely unprepared (like, I find out about it the day before). I've known about Kelly's shower for about a week or so, but it didn't really sink in until Thursday night at about 11:30. With a deadline of just over a week, I would normally try to whip out a pair of baby socks. I've given out a few of those in the last year and people seem to like them. However, I'm in school and free time isn't in great abundance, particularly during the week. So, socks, even baby socks, take more time than I have to devote to them right now. I then went on ravelry.com and did a search for patterns for baby booties, and limited the search by needle size (and picked a slightly larger size, as things knit more quickly that way). I found a pattern called Wave of Babies as a free download, which I started working on yesterday. I've completed one pair of booties in blue yarn and I'm just finishing the first of another pair in orange. It's a really quick knit, and they're very cute. I think I've found my solution to short deadline baby gifts.

The Hula Hoop Experiment

On Monday I bought a hula hoop. Yes, it does seem a bit silly for a grown woman with no children to buy a hula hoop. I bought it for myself. I read an article over the weekend in a magazine that said that hula hooping was good exercise. It uses all of the muscles that make up your core, including both the inner and outer obliques (which is not so common in most exercises). Also, exercise is supposed to be fun, and this seemed fun to me. So, I went to Kmart on Monday and purchased a shiny, silver hula hoop. It only cost $6, which for a piece of exercise equipment is a bargain. I have used it every day since I bought it. The article says you'll see benefits from using it for ten minutes twice a day. I've done at least that much so far. I've been looking for something that I can do at home pretty easily that isn't boring or expensive. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I don't even have to wear special clothes to do it. This morning I decided to take my pulse when I was done to see if it actually raised my heart rate significantly enough to do any good. My heart rate was at 120 bpm, which is exactly my target heart rate for aerobic activity (according to this heart rate calculator). I figure that's a pretty good deal. I'll let you know further results as they become more evident (i.e. better fitting pants, inches lost, etc.).