New Love

My new love are the designs of Alessandra Adelaide. She designs needlework and her designs are so fanciful and elegant. I'm in love. Unfortunately, her designs are kind of pricy, and most of the ones I love are $15 to $21 for one design. Here's just a taste of her work:

You can go to her website by clicking on the title of this post. Also, her designs are sold in stores or through several online venues, such as yarntree.com. If you have stitched one of her designs or own one or just want to gush about how amazing they are, post away!

Exercise Week 4

Sep 6-12

Yoga - 9/8, 9/9, 9/10
Veggies at lunch - 9/8
Limit junk drinks - 9/6, 9/7, 9/8

Exercise Guild - Week 3

I should probably just title this "Exercise" from now on, since so far I am the only one tracking my exercise this way. If you would like to start, just comment with your personal goal for the week and then let me know how you do over the course of the week and I will post your results in the main post on this subject.

Here are my goals:

Yoga 2x/1hr 8/30, 9/1 and 20 min. on 9/4
Walk 5x/20 min.
Eat veggies at lunch 8/31, 9/1
Limit junk drinks 8/30, 8/31, 9/1

The Beach

I like the idea of setting a goal to go to the beach and swim in the ocean. This relates to a lot of goals I have for my life, including physical health, saving money for a long-term goal, and planning to do something fun with people. So, what is the best beach to set this goal for? Give me a few options, but keep them as inexpensive as possible. Just affording a trip period will be about what I'll be able to manage. Imagining that I had the perfect everything for the trip, including enough money, I think I would really love to go the south of France, Italy, Spain, somewhere like that. But I think that requires an awful lot more planning and money and it's harder to get other people to do the same to go on a trip like that with you. But if you say, I'm going to California, wanna come? I think it's easier to find people to go with you. So let me hear your suggestions of where I should plan to go.

Exercise Guild - Week 2

If you want to track your exercise with me, reply to this post with your goals and I will post them. Then reply either each day or however often you wish, and I will put your progress next to your goal. I am now in week 2 of tracking my exercise this way again and it is also week two of my rededication to eat better and exercise more. I'm doing better than I was before I was tracking my progress, but I would still like to improve even more this week. Last week was stressful and I hope that through exercise and a better diet, I can deal with stress better this week.

My goals:
Go to yoga class (1hr twice a week) 8/23
Go for a walk (around 20 minutes) 8/22, 8/24
Eat veggies at lunch 8/25 2 baby carrots, but I'm counting it!
Limit junk drinks 8/22, 8/24, 8/25 amazingly, I've been doing well on this

The Holy Grail

of cross-stitching, that is. Well, for a freak like me who collects cross-stitch patterns, I suppose. I found a website, crossstitchers.com, that has back issues of a ton of different cross stitch magazines. Ay yay yay! I could go crazy here. I had no idea there were so many magazines on the subject I had never seen, and therefore, have not yet begun to collect, let alone stitch. Sigh. I'm afraid none of you out there share this passion. But it was wonderful. Comparable to when Coldplay came to the back of the auditorium not far from where we were and did about 3 songs acoustically. Here are just 7 of the magazines I'd like to have for my own:

Ancestor of the Day

Reminiscent of my old "Coldplay Song of the Day" posts, this new feature on my blog will highlight one of my ancestors. It's a great way for you to get to know too much about my history (and possibly yours) but in an enjoyable way, not a tmi sort of way.

Today's Ancestor: Catherine Wingerter, my 4th great grandmother on my mother's mother's mother's side.

Wingerter was Catherine's married name and since she immigrated to the US from Bavaria, her name was probably originally Catharina and not Catherine. In Bavaria she left her deceased husband Peter Wingerter. She crossed the ocean on a sailboat and the trip took 40 weeks, according to her great-granddaughter Ada May Wingerter Jenkins. She came here with her 2 children: John and Mary A. Wingerter. They came to this country so that John (originally Johannes) could escape serving the mandatory time in the military. They arrived in the 1830s (loss of my genealogy files to a computer virus means that I don't have this at my fingertips this minute) and Catherine is listed on the 1850 census with her son John, his wife Barbara Dellit, and their infant son David. However, I have not found any information on what happened to Catherine after this. Whether or not she died before John and Barbara moved west to Ohio or sometime after that or if she remarried, I do not know. I don't know her parents' names or her own maiden name, the town she was born in or the date of her marriage. There's a lot I don't know about her, I suppose. But hopefully now you feel that you know more than you knew before reading this post. I think Catherine would love for you to get to know her more. If you do, please send along the information to me!