Poor little abandoned exercise video

Between the novel writing in November and the general craziness of December, I've badly fallen out of my attempts at an exercise routine. Just made it through my most challenging video. (The embarrassingly named but still surprisingly fun "Crunch Fat Burning Dance Party". On one hand, it's totally lame, on the other, I actually have a really good time doing it.) Oh, my poor shaky legs. Yes, we are out of shape again. Sigh. More exercise needed, lest I stop fitting in pants.

And all kinds of unpleasant exercises are vastly preferable to the horror which is pants shopping.

I love you, sewing machine

I'm not doing anything special today - just hemming some pants, making some repairs, that kind of thing. I've got a blanket I've had for ages whose trim periodically falls off. I remember sewing it back on by hand in college - holy crap, took forever. Literally hours, if enough fell off. With the sewing machine? Zippety-zip and I'm done. Perfect tiny little stitches.

The only problem is that I keep it in the closet in the spare room. We keep the heat shut off in that room when no one's actively in there. This machine is so cold. Waves of cold rolled off it when I took it out of the box. Heck, I opened the little compartment the bobbins live in twenty minutes later, and it was still cold. So very, very glad I don't have to go outside today.

Spoke too soon

Should never comment mid-project. Tried to use too large a thread on too tight a weave, shattered a needle (dumb, dumb, dumb), and then spent forty minutes playing with higher needle gauges and different tensions before finally coming to the conclusion that the only khaki thread I have that isn't dry rotted is just too heavy-duty to work with the needles I have on hand. (It was originally bought for hand repairs to outdoor gear, really.)

*headdesk*

So I've got cream thread hemming my khakis now, because getting new thread and/or needles at five pm in the city without a car is just not a value proposition.

I do need to get a new packet of needles soon, though.