I am a coffee fiend.

 Stitched this in one day because I was stressed out over doctors' appointments. One of them got canceled and I just sat down with my project and got to work. The 'tabletop' was only partly finished the night before after I had drawn the design out on the burlap. 

The 'tabletop' is cross-stitch. Then I got bored. The coffee drops on the right hand side was an attempt at satin stitch inside an outline. It looks uglier in person. The coffee beans on the left side was the same and you can really see how the burlap didn't work well with the satin stitching.

The motto is back stitch. The coffee in the mug is cross stitch. I reconsidered cross stitch for the whole affair and used tent stitch for the mug (switching the direction of the stitch for the handle). The saucer is back stitch. I failed to realize that I couldn't do it in tent stitch and maintain the spacing that I had planned.

Stitching on burlap is on one hand a lot easier to pass your  needle through than stitching on 14 count Aida cloth. On the other hand, it has a lot of the same hang ups and it tries to shred itself as you're working. I wore an apron so that I wasn't covered in burlap bits.

I had my three month follow up with my general practitioner doctor (long way to say our family doctor) to discuss the bloodwork that he ordered and how I was doing with my diabetes, as well as any other health concerns I had. It was not a super great visit. He's a good doctor with excellent bed side manner and a great sense of humor. At the same time, he got serious when he pointed out the trend over the last six months that my A1C is going up. Nine months ago, my A1C was 6.4 units. Three months ago, it was 6.9 units. I got a little nervous but he said that it was still a good number because it was below 7. This time, it was 7.2 units.

Then we talked about my cholesterol. It went from being in the ideal range to being up 20 units, and that was the bad cholesterol. I confessed to stress eating cheese, a lot of cheese. He said that was the most likely culprit and that I should work on cutting down on the stress eating. He reassured me that the situation wasn't dire but I needed a course correction. He told me that I needed to start exercising more and work on lowering my stress levels. It was explained that stress can elevate blood sugar levels and prolonged stress can elevate your A1C due to the elevated blood sugar levels.

So, I'll be posting more pictures of stitchery that I have been working on in an effort to calm the fuck down. I am also going to try to see if maybe I can do walks at the park and take pictures of their gardens or something to help me be accountable for my exercise. Today, I paced back and forth in the kitchen spinning some alpaca roving for 30 minutes. Apparently, 30 minutes of walking is a good number to start out at. At one point the diabetes magazine I was subscribed to (which is no longer in print) had a couch to 5k program that would get you ready to run a 5k in a month. I laughed and moved on to the next article. Now, I'm starting to think that couch to 5k program, with the goal of walking it might be reasonable.

I don't know. I just know that I feel kinda shit and the reason why is all my own damn fault. So, I have to make changes to my diet and schedule. I don't know how I'm going to fit in the exercise time, but if I can get back to where I can stay awake after the kids get on the bus because my blood sugar didn't spike after eating breakfast, that'd be great.