Gazing Fiercely Forward

I have to be honest, this month really got away from me! Makes The only thing I finished this month was this pair of socks for my mom, for Mother's Day! This pattern is Suska's Socks by Andrea Mowry, and I used some Knit Picks Hawthorne Kettle-Dyed held with some Rowan Kidsilk Classic. They were pretty easy and quick (if you don't mind a lot of purling), but I did find out after my mom tried them on that the cuffs were not very stretchy! These are a folded sewn cuff, and I guess I did not sew them down loosely enough, so my mom had to really tug on them to get them over the heel of her foot. So, lesson learned for next time, I'll either just do a non-folded picot bind-off or I'll just do a standard ribbed cuff with a stretchy bind-off. Faves This month, I have been obsessed with: Archer & Olive's  Vegan Leather Travel Accessory Pouch With Insert , but specifically the insert! They had released this last fall, and by the time I realized how cool it was and th

 Self-care is a big thing right now. Arguably, it should have always been a big thing, but especially now, people are always harping on self-care and how we shouldn't pour from an empty cup, etc. But are we having enough conversations about what self-care should look like? I have several self-care and wellness -themed sticker books from a well-known planner company, and there are a POOP TON of stickers that feature the bust of a woman with a towel around her head and cucumber slices on her eyes. Like, this is the icon that is supposed to represent self-care in my planner--a spa day and a face mask. And maybe for some people, that's what self-care is--letting go for a couple hours and sighing with relaxation. But as a representative image, I find that face masks don't even begin to scratch the surface. I had a conversation with a friend not too long ago, in which she mentioned reading an article that basically posed the question, "Is it self-care... or is it self-soothi

  I like how I wrote this whole post about how I'm going to take things step by step, be patient with the process, etc., and then I totally did the exact opposite. People love to throw around the phrase "F*** around and find out" on the internet (mainly regarding politics, however), but I regret to inform you, reader, that I did indeed f*** around, and I found out. About three-ish weeks ago, I went to Orangetheory Fitness and had a great time, and even managed to run the final 30-second sprint for the treadmill portion. (I didn't sprint---I typically walk the treadmill portion, so my "sprint" was really someone else's light jog.) The following week, at home, I decided I would try to do short spurts of running on my own treadmill, since running at OTF felt so great. This was mistake #1. For one thing, if you've never been to OTF before, you should know that their treadmills are SO BOUNCY. They are absolutely the best treadmills I've ever run on. T