Ent Armor....or all bark and no bite

A quick picture journey that went into creating a pair of bracers with a tree bark theme look.  I dubbed it "Ent Armor" when it was completed and am rather fond of that title.


Bracers cut out, pattern drawn on, lines tooled and getting ready to have the lines burned



a look at the pair of the bracers after burning the tooled lines



a close up look with the background tooled



Bracers dyed and holes for eyelets punched



The lovely model Coby showing the top view of the bracers upon completion

the opposite half view of the bracers

Leather Armor series - Shoulder Spaulder

So one of the projects I’ve previously mentioned has finally been completed.  Or completed enough that I can post a blog about it and add the finishing touches.  Of my blog posts one of the most popular posts was about making a gauntlet.  This is another chapter on leather work and in this post we’re covering how to make a Spaulder.

 If this makes you go “A what now???” fret not, I’ve done the same thing and have come to simply saying, “shoulder armor.”  You can check out the wiki page here to get a little more detail and the difference between a spaulder and a pauldron.

The first step was pretty straight forward I had to get a measurement of the person shoulders that this was going to fit.  I measure from about the collarbone over the shoulder to about the top of the shoulder blade to give me the general idea of the width.  Then I measure from the base of the neck to where it is to end.  Think of a trapezoid covering your shoulder and a portion of your bicep.

Once you have the width measurement it’s a matter of making enough pieces to cover the length you need.  There is a general patter out there that was brought to my attention a couple months back that can be used and found here.

My pattern is a free hand pattern inspired from actual leaves.  The first step is laying out the pattern onto the leather.  For this project I used a 8 / 9 oz. leather which is almost a ¼ inch thick.  I chose this weight of leather because it will look and feel more realistic than the thinner options.

Once the pattern was laid out I added a few lines for details and proceeded to cut out the leaves.  This particular spaulder called for a 3, 2, 1, meaning the top layer had 3 leaves, the middle layer had two leaves and the final layer had one leaf.

With them cut out I began to tool the leather which is making a design into the leather with various tools and/or stamps.

With the leather tooled it was wet down and formed to the individuals shoulders to allow me to mark where to punch the holes to connect the three pieces together.  This is also the time where I measure out the strap that is going to attach the armor to the body via across the chest and around the arm and mark those holes as well.

Once all three pieces were marked, and holes punched and rivets put through the holes, but not capped, to ensure it would fit how it was supposed to it was disassembled and dyed.

Once the dye had dried and re-applied as needed it was sealed and reassembled.  The rivets were now capped and cut off and pounded down to ensure the caps stayed in place and the sharp edges were removed. The buckles were placed onto the body strap and arm straps and then attached to the armor.

From the heart

The running theme for the year thus far seems to be to teach me to ask for help.  I’ve never been the type of person to ask for help, it’s always been a challenge for me to do so.  I’d always plan on doing something and tell people that if they wanted to join in they were free but it wouldn’t evolve to the point of asking anyone for anything.  I can’t really point a finger on when this change occurred or started to develop but the past six months now has been a lesson in asking. 

First off I started an undertaking in getting healthier, there have been good days, and some not so good days along the journey and I’m slowly learning things that I knew but never accepted before and am still working on bettering myself and overcoming obstacles along the way.

Part of that journey led to me to participate in the Tour de Cure bike ride for the American Diabetes Association.  Not having ever done anything of the sort I found that money needed to be raised in order for you to participate in the ride.  So thus began the task of asking for help from others to support me in the ride, which I did and some amazing folks took up the cause and helped me raise the funds to ride in an unbelievable experience.

There have been numerous other things along the way, such as asking for time from others to watch the kids while I work on costume pieces for people.

Now the next adventure has begun.  I’ve loved theatre and performing from the moment I stepped in front of a classroom and did a monologue.  I still remember being in 6^th grade and we got to do Tom Sawyer for our yearly production.  After that production sports took a greater hold and focus in my life and it wasn’t until I hurt my knee and decided to quit football shortly afterwards that I took theatre seriously.  Learning about acting and stage craft has opened many doors and taken me to some amazing places and I’ll forever be in debt to some of those amazing people I’ve learned from along the way.  When I started out doing seriously doing theatre I said there were three roles that I would want to do before I would say I’ve had enough.  Those three roles are: 1) Captain Hook in Peter Pan, 2) Lennie Smalls in Of Mice and Men, 3) Little John in Robin Hood.  Thus far I've had the honor of doing two out of those three.

A little over 4 years ago a man I had worked on a film with named Luis Rosa took a chance against what many people had expected and asked me to be Little John for the Robin Hood show he was planning on bringing back to the Renaissance Festival.  I, of course, said yes.  The first year there were three of us; Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, and myself.  We had a good year with a few learning bumps along the way.  The second year our Friar Tuck left and we re-did the show for just Robin Hood and Little John and we officially welcomed a new member in Will Scarlet. Last year we added two additional members in Much the Millers Son and Winter Scarlet and gently incorporated them into the show.  This 4^th year has found me taking more responsibility with the group and we’re working on two different shows.  One show with Will, Winter and Much and some tweaks to the Robin Hood and Little John show.  There are greater plans that lie in our future and hopefully those plans will be built upon as they have the previous years into something new and exciting in the upcoming years. 

Part of the process of getting a new show up and running is our show props, what you could call weapons.  While yes, these are weapons in a sense, they are what makes the show be the show that you see.  To me, there is something magnificent and almost romantic about the ring of steel on steel and that distinctive twang you hear that just isn’t duplicated with wood or other objects.  It resonates and grabs your attention and draws you into the sound.  With that being said, we’re all at the mercy of our lives, be it children, wedding planning, job searching, school, and life in general it’s difficult to find the means to fund those things we need. 

After some discussion and research we decided to start a kickstarter program in an attempt to gain some help in funding those items so that we can continue to bring forth our plans to entertain as many people as we can and see the new Robin Hoods Merry men show and future projects brought to life.  Working at the Renaissance Festival doesn’t pay for much beyond gas and what we can buy in materials to build our own costumes, when we ask for a hat pass that’s our true income.  I’ve done shows with cuts, concussions, and aches and pains that I haven’t had since football because I enjoy entertaining the audience and the children’s laughter and smiles we get from each show.  I truly love that and it brings me incredible joy to be able to be a part of something that I remember seeing as a child and can only hope to pass that passion onto someone else.

 

That being said, I ask you from the bottom of my heart to take a few moments and look at our kickstarter campaign and become one of our backers.  There are some truly, in my opinion, great offerings for those people who become a backer of our campaign. 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1057309805/robin-hood-stage-props-and-elemental-protection/dashboard?ref=email

Finally, and most importantly thank you from the bottom of my heart for each of you that have taken in one our shows for helping bring a dream of mine to life.

A mindset to change

Last night was a night of work and my client elected to walk.  We went for our walk and chalked up 4.37 miles before it was decided that we would be going to Snuffy’s for dinner.  Snuffy’s is one of those throwback burger joints that as soon as you walk in you realize the only thing that hasn’t changed since the building opened is the the staff and probably a few pieces of glass and dishwear. We took a spot at an open table and went through the ritual of what to order.  Being on the slow carb plan at a great burger joint is absolutely one of the worst things in the world.  So I decided to cheat, that’s right, I fully made the choice to cheat on my meal.  Last nights dinner was a salad and a turkey burger which I ate the bottom half of the bun.

<Insert gasp here>

 AND I ENJOYED IT

<Another gasp, followed by a few “Lord have Mercy”>

 I decided to eat the turkey burger first and follow up with the salad.  At about the end of my burger another couple sat at the table across the isle from us. This brings me to today's blog.

Without going into to much detail about any physical description beyond they were a larger couple.  Because lets face it I’m the last person who should be bringing up another persons appearance.  Being the building was rather packed I couldn’t hear what they ordered as I ate my salad.  As I finished quite a bit faster than my client it allowed me the chance to observe the restaurant and the couple.  They were brought their respective milkshakes and (I believe) cokes. The dinners were brought next, each a loaded bacon cheeseburger with the centerpiece of the meal, a family size order of onion rings.  The true horror lies in what happened next. 

The gentleman took the salt shaker and proceeded to cover every inch of the onion rings with a coating of salt.  I’m not talking a couple of quick dashes, but rather a vigorous shaking that had to have lasted a good 8 to 10 seconds until you could SEE the salt on the onion rings batter from my table away.  The gentleman then proceeded to take the top bun off his burger and do the same thing to his burger without so much as even tasting the burger to determine if it needed salt.

Part of me wanted to say something, kindly, to him.  Another part of me feared speaking up as, again, who am I to advise someone on what they eat.  A third and final part of me thought this might be a hidden camera thing which I quickly ruled out.  The lady then went to use the restroom and gave the gentleman the remainder of her shake which he finished and then took the last of the onion rings and finished them off save for one, which he picked up shook the basket to get the salt into a little pile and actually licked the onion ring and dipped it into the basket of salt before casually tossing it into his mouth.  She lady came back shortly after and they paid and left.  All of this happened within a half hour. 

I left there last night with multiple thoughts running through my head of that I should have said something, or what can I do and even to the thought of the recent news of Disney being the first major media to ban junk food.  To the Mayor of New York looking to ban large soft drink sales.  I know I made some bad food choices throughout my life.  There are those that use food like you would a cigarette or alcohol and countless other way.  I personally used it for comfort and got lulled into the appeal of food quickly while I was rushing from one thing to the next.  It’s been almost 5 months now since I’ve  made an effort to eat healthier and improve myself and as weird as it is to say, I get being healthier.  It saddens me that other people don’t and worries me on what it will take to change America itself from this mindset.



How to lose 10lbs and not die (just be slightly ill) in 5 days!!!

So I stumbled upon the newest and greatest weight loss gimmick, it's called exercise. I did a lot of it the past weekend.  As I mentioned in the last post I wasn't sure when I was going to start the new lifting plan.  I decided to put off new lifting plan until next week.  The past weekend was enough strain on my body that I need to take a few days off to recoup.  LETS RECAP!!!

Thursday: Walking with Client at the Zoo and one of the parks in the area - 4.5 miles

Friday: 3.5 hours helping a friend load a moving truck



all official like



Saturday: Tour de Cure bike ride - 45.5 miles (not including the 4 miles from car to park and back via bike) This was actually easier than I expected it to be, aside from missing the last water station and having a couple of leg cramps, okay 4 total, during the last 4 mile stretch due to lack of missing that last water station we did pretty well.

Sunday: Grand Old days parade - 3.0 miles plus another almost 2 thanks to Sean (This one is fun) For the longer parades that I do we establish a pick up and drop off because most parades are a straight line, walking back to the start of a parade in fest gear isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world.  Sean and I have done this in the past seamlessly.  He picked me up at the end of the parade and drove to the start.  Well Sean was a good enough guy this year to not realize to look and see the parade had flipped its start and end.  So instead of starting at Fairview and running to Dale, it now ran from Dale to Fairview.  I knew this…..Sean didn’t.  So we talked before and agreed that I would pick him and everyone up at the end of the parade and drive to the start.  I got there early, for once, and let him know.  He called and explained where he was and I told him that I had found a nice parking spot north of Grand avenue and would start walking towards the start of the parade if he wanted to pick me up.  He agreed and hung up and I started walking.  I got about 1/3 of the way to the start and got another phone call explaining that he was 2 blocks south of Grand Avenue and parked.  (It was at this time that I realized he didn’t hear me correctly when I said I had found a parking spot and was going to walk and that he also didn’t realize the parade had been flipped.)  So I told him that’s fine, I’ll walk the 4 blocks to the street where he is south of Grand if he would come pick me up.  I hung up and started walking again to get south of Grand Avenue only to find that the street he was on didn’t run to where I was walking because McAllister College was in the way.  With about 10 minutes before the start of the parade and at this point sweating like a snitch having dinner with a mob boss I called and explained that I would be able to be picked up on Snelling if he could get there.   Now jogging to get to Snelling to get picked up so we could attempt to find parking (and sweating like that same snitch only now my wire was giving weird feedback during the dinner) before the parade started.  We found parking and got to the start, formerly the end of the parade, with a few minutes to spare before we started moving and an additional 2 miles walked on my part. 

Monday: walked a total of 6.75 miles with client around a couple of parks

Now let me state, I may not be in the most pristine fitness condition but since I’ve started focusing on getting healthier in January I’ve gotten into better “shape.” The past 5 days put a bit of a strain on my body that I had, but hadn’t expected.  Most of Monday night and yesterday was spent dealing with symptoms of exhaustion, heat and general.  Last night I got a great night of sleep and today I’ve gotten my appetite back and am on the mend.

Gotta love the Eastern Bloc

So I have the Tour de Cure bike ride tomorrow morning and the Grand Old Days Parade this Sunday for the Renaissance Festival promotion.  If you’re planning on being at Grand Old Days for the parade and read this give me and all the Merry Men a Shout as we walk by with the rest of the performers.

So with that note it’s been a busy yet rather bland past couple of weeks since I really blogged.  I’ve been using Sean’s blog as my own for lack of better idea on anything to blog about and I haven’t really finished any of the projects that I have started (but some are close so that gives me material for the future)

The purpose of this blog is going to be pretty basic.  It’s going back to the workout.  The past two weeks I haven’t been hitting the gym and following my lifting schedule but rather have been doing what I dub the “Merry Men Ren X” Workout or “RenX” for short.  While the RenX workout is great it’s not as focused as I’d like.  What I mean by that is that we can only see results in lifting by making it easier overall and we can’t really add weights to the exercises at this point. 

So while I’ve broken the golden rule of changing your workouts every 4-6 weeks, I had the regular gym lifting for almost 2 months without any real changes.  I decided it’s time to change things up.  I’m going to give myself a pretty big goal, this one is Six weeks’ worth of workouts, so it will be done by the time fest starts.  With this weekend’s activities planned I’m not sure if I’m going to start next week or the following week yet at this point.  We’ll have to see how I feel come Monday after ride and parade.

Regardless the breakdown for week one is going to go as follows, each exercise will be three sets of 8 reps with little rest (1 minute) between each set.  Each week will be something close to this but have different changes enough to keep the body guessing on what’s going on

Monday (chest, Triceps & Biceps)              Tuesday (legs and Calves)

Bench press                                                  squats

Revers grip –BP                                           leg press

Incline dumbbell fly                                      leg extension

Cable crossover                                            Roman Dead Lift

Close-grib BP (negative reps)                      lying leg Curl

Close grip – BP                                            standing calf raises

Seated dumbbell overhead tricep ext.           seated calf raises

Barbell curls (negative reps)

Barbell curls

Incline dumbbell curls

Preacher curls

Wednesday (Rest)

 

Thursday (Back and abs)                              Friday (Shoulders & Traps)

Bent-over barbell row                                  Barbell shoulder press

Wide grip pull down                                    Dumbbell upright row

Reverse grip pull down                                Dumbbell lateral raise

Straight arm pull down                                 Dumbbell bent over lateral raise

Seated cable row                                          Barbell shrug

Hanging leg raise

Standing cable crunch

Saturday (rest)

Sunday (rest)

 The point of the first week is to totally shred every single muscle fiber in the arms.  This goes along with one of my favorite styles of lifting which is supercompensation training which was used by the Easter Bloc athletes.  If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about go look at the shot putters and weight lifters from the 70’s, 80’s and on from Russia.  The six week program is a progression that will ramp up the training frequency until week 6 when you back off the frequency.  I’ll explain the breakdown in the six weeks next post.

Save me from plagiarizing

save me from having to plagiarize and go read this: http://amerryrogue.blogspot.com/2012/05/tractor-tires-cinder-blocks-sledge.html

this post has been brought to you by workout week:
Monday: walked 5.75 miles
Tuesday: See this link http://amerryrogue.blogspot.com/2012/05/tractor-tires-cinder-blocks-sledge.html
Wednesday: Biked to work 17.85 miles
Thursday: walked 5.14 miles

We had a health screening at my work this week and I'm rather pleases with the results, no so much in what they are but where I've come from.

One more milestone

As the title says, I've reached 60 lbs lost since January 16th.  That is all, planning a costuming blog for Monday or Tuesday see you then.

I will not be tanning with this mommy

Generally come awakening from hibernation...I mean spring, I’m as white as a ghost.  You would think after years of working at the Renaissance festival I would be a hint or two shades darker but no.  At fest, For the most part,  I’m covered aside from my face from my nose down and a “V” where the collar of my shirt is. I mean I cut grass at night so that I can conserve electricity by leaving the outside lights off and letting the moon reflect off my arms to guide my path.  For many years I secretly harbored a Jealousy over people with those perfect tans.  That was until I scrolled across this recently.

somewhere Ed Gein is drooling

Good lord what is that?!?!?  This woman made the headlines recently when her 5 year old daughter said, at school, she went tanning with her mom.  She has garnered her 15 minutes and counting of fame by saying that her daughters statement was misinterpreted. That she was present at the tanning place but wasn’t in the tanning bed blah blah blah…..great whatever hopefully that gets solved and figured out justice taken care of as it comes to it.  In the meantime….is this woman going to get any help?  In the article she is quoted as saying “I tan, she doesn’t tan”…… Lady you’re way beyond tan, I have leather hide that is probably softer and healthier than you are. 

Seriously…she’s 44 and looks like she’s putting on “Black face.” It reminds me of a production Of Mice and Men I did where they didn’t have a single African American male audition and one of the gentlemen had to wear dark makeup to play “Crooks.”  I can’t help but picturing the healthy face infomercial or whatever where they show the effects of the sun on your face and this cream is supposed to help that or something.  I’m pretty certain this woman would blow up the machine or it would read as an error if she tried to get a scan. My only hope is that she gets some help on this, as I’m guessing it’s a psychological issue or addiction.  Until then I’ll be wearing long sleeves and keeping this in mind next time I look at someone’s tan and feel a bit of jealousy.

I'm shutting up and enjoying the movie now

Being that I’m the only person left on the planet that apparently hasn’t seen the Avengers movie it brought up a good blog plan in my head.  I’m not much of a movie fan in theaters.  I can’t tell you why I just have lost interest in seeing movies in theatres over the years.  I can count on one hand how many movies I’ve seen in a theater in the past 5 years.  I think you get the picture…I’m not big into movies in theatres.   Anyway this leaves me playing catch up with all the other character movies I’ve missed for the lead up release to the avengers.  I’ve watched the DVD’s of Iron man 1 & 2 before so that gave me a little background.  Last week I checked out Captain America and came away impressed with that and this past weekend I watched Thor, which I thought had its moments and gave the backstory for the Villain in the Avengers movie.  This summer the revisited Spider Man and Batman are scheduled for release as well.

So what does all this have to do with today’s blog post?  I’m getting to that right now.  Movies are fake, they have become increasingly fake as I’ve gotten older (maybe the theme for not wanting to cough up 10.00 for a movie on a 52 million inch screen) I’ve read “The Physics of Superheroes.”

I love this book. It brings about my point of the lack of detail that we accept in movies today.  Almost at the end of "The Dark Knight," The Joker falls from the top floor of a building. In real world setting if you or I jumped off a building we would splat in 4 seconds.  (Gives a whole new meaning to life flashing before your eyes doesn’t it.) Batman has enough time to see the Joker fall,  react by drawing his grappling hook, fire it and save The Joker. The grappling hook would need to come out of the launcher traveling perhaps 1,000 feet per second, nearly the speed of a pistol bullet. Anyone who has ever fired any sort of anything (gun, paintball gun, crossbow, heck even bow and arrow) will be able to tell you about recoil.  The recoil from the grappling hook launcher capable of firing a hook/cable combination that is “slightly” heavier than a pistol bullet would throw even a Gotham’s finest backward (heck the Hulk would get tossed  a little I’d bet). Then the Joker was snagged in midair and his momentum halted in an instant, force equals mass times acceleration means a transfer of many hundreds of pounds to Batman, who is holding the other end of the grappling line. This would rip Batman's arm out of his shoulder socket instead of just grunting from the effort as he does in the movie.

This brings me to Spider Man; this reboot visits Peter Parker when he was still in High School.  Those of us that are nerds (Raises hand) will instantly tell you that per the comic book Peter Parker received his powers in College, not high school.  You’ll also know that his original love interest wasn’t Mary Jane but Gwen Stacy.  The reason I bring this up it’s what I knew before I read the Physics of Superheroes.  Gwen Stacy is thrown off the top of a bridge (much like the Joker previously) and falls.  Spider Man Shoots his webbing to save her…one webbing….Like the above example this causes instant momentum stoppage.  The force of the deceleration caused Gwen Stacy’s neck to be snapped killing her instantly which the COMIC BOOK went on to  described in detail and helped launch the brooding Peter Parker. 

Maybe that’s my reasoning behind the ho-hum in movies….the fact a .25 comic (I don’t know how much it was originally, definitely cheaper than the 2.25 ones now) can get a simple scene down better and more realistically than a multi-million dollar movie production. 

I’m going to shut up and eat my popcorn and enjoy the Avengers now.

Pouch making 101

Pouch making 101…….

In my honest opinion one of the greatest modern conveniences is pockets.   Jeans, dress pants, jackets and whatever else generally have pockets somewhere to carry your belongings.  The Renaissances pocket is a belt pouch.  Pouches are and can be made out of any material one desires.  I’m partial to leather. (Shocking I know) A few months back I offered to make a leather item of choice to our Winter Scarlett for her birthday present.  She took time to think on it and decided on a pouch. Now I haven’t made a pouch in a while as I was given a good half dozen by a former festie and haven’t had the need to make any.  So this was a fun refresher. 

Items needed:

Material (I use leather)

Pattern (I based mine off one I have done in the past, Google pouch patterns to find one you like)

Sewing machine (industrial for the leather will save you needles and many choice curse words)

Hole punch

Suede lace



material



The first step was making a pattern; I had a general idea of what pieces I needed so I set out to collect the fabric and leather to complete the project and did a paper mock up pattern to make sure the thought process and what I remembered were on the same page.  Now I used a upholstery leather (think jacket or chair) for the body and tooling leather for the flap and securing base (I’m making these words up, I’m sure there’s a real technical term for it, mine are simple and I know what I’m talking about in my head, if you proceed to a leather shop and use these terms I’m not responsible for the confused look you get from them.)  The reason I use tooling leather is because it’s heavier and sturdier and will be more likely to withstand the constant pulling and tugging from the drawstring portion of the bag and be less likely to rip out in the long run.  You can use any material really for either pieces, this is just my preference.



Pattern



Once the paper mockup was completed I set out to transferring the pattern to the leather and cutting it out.  The pouch body is an oblong oval cut in half (front and back) and a wide strip (I use 2.5 inches) that runs the length of the outside (circumference) of the oval.  

I’ve added a picture  below as it’s just easier to show a closer detail of what I cut out of the tooling leather than explain.  Essentially the front is a smaller scale of the body of the pouch and the back is a circle joined with a rectangle.  The dots are punch marks for holes and the dotted line is where to cut for the belt to pass through.



detailed tooling leather section pattern

Once all the pieces are cut out it was a simply a matter of sewing everything together. First step was sewing the tooling leather to the respective front and back pieces of the pouch body and then sewing the whole pouch together.  Take a minute to line up the flap and base piece to their respective front and back pieces.  The back of the tooling pieces should be against the respective outside portion of the pouch.  Once the securing flap and base has been sewn on sew the pouch together ensuring the finished pieces (outside of the bag) are touching (the pouch is going to be constructed inside out.)  Once the pouch is sewn together turn it right side out and punch out your holes in the bag for the drawstring.  I punch two holes per tooling section, two holes on each side of the tooled piece, and one hole on each of the side of the strip piece. For those keeping score at home that is a total of 14 holes along the top of the bag about a ¼ inch from the top.  Thread your lace through the holes starting from the back and ending in the front.

There are four more holes to punch out on the securing base.  Once those four are punched out take another section of lace and starting from the top two holes go in from the front and come out from the back through the bottom two holes, this will give you a loop to secure around your clasp on the top flap.

Finally punch a hole in the top flap and secure the button/clasp you wish to decorate the bag with.  At this point you should have a completed pouch.  Take a few minutes to pull the drawstrings a few dozen times to close and then pull open the bag to get the pouch broken in a bit.

One thing to note, I had to go back and re-sew was the front of the pouch to the side strip piece because they didn't line up.  Keep the front and back pieces pulled taunt against the strip side piece.  If you don't do this you’ll find the front and back pieces have a tendency to not line up and you’ll have to go back and rip the seam out and re-sew as I did.  Also if you’re using tooling leather make sure you decorate (tool) punch the holes and dye the leather prior to sewing it to the pouch.  It makes it much easier in the long run as you won’t have to fight the pouch body to complete the tooling.  If you’re following this step by step for some reason instead of reading it all first then you’re kind of hosed at this point.

Ta Daaaaaa

Just do a freaking pushup already

This week has been a very “blurg” start to it.  Sunday I started out eating okay for breakfast and lunch and then skipped the rest of the meals electing instead to have a cinnamon roll that was leftover from Saturday for my second lunch and dinner.  I didn’t get the egg bake done on Sunday so I didn’t have a breakfast for Monday but I stopped at a restaurant by my work and got eggs and a piece of steak and for dinner that night I had an veggie omelet without cheese from Keys café and had a piece of toast. 

Come yesterday I couldn’t get myself motivated to do anything and it was the combination of the past two days and feeling like crap for not sticking with diet or allowing myself to cheat when there was really no need.  I made it through yesterday without any cheat sources and felt better today and thus far today I have been feeling much better.

For those two days I had a feeling of dread, that the diet was ending and that it was just a fad and all the newfound changes were……

<Anderson Pity party for one….your table is ready….Anderson party of one your table is ready>

Yeah, I threw a pity party for myself.  I made it through but it was the first real time I’ve encountered anything of resistance since I started back in January.    I’ve never been a fan of fears and I generally tend to avoid things that I know cause me fear.    For the past month plus now I’ve been doing assisted push-up (against a wall or countertop) before each meal along with air squats.  Gets the heart rate going and a nice boost of energy and gets the body needing food and being that the food I’m feeding it is healthy then it’s a good go round for all parties.

That little backstory brings me to my point.  I’m afraid of doing pushups.  Even when doing the p90x I did knee pushups.  The last time I can remember doing a successful push up was in football in High School.  I look back and I can’t tell anyone why I’m afraid of the proper pushup…but I am, kneeling, against a wall, whatever modified form you can think of I’ll do it.  But the traditional good old fashioned pushup frightens me.

Now why bring up the pushup you ask? 

Because……One of the goals I set for myself is to bench press 225.  Now….a regular pushup is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 – 70% of your body weight.  As it stands right now, if I can do a push up I “should” be able to bench press 225.  I haven’t tried the max bench press because each time I go to the gym it’s for a circuit exercise not to see how much I can lift; nor have I tried to do a push-up because, well I think I’ve hit that subject the last paragraph or so.

Last night I was home alone with my daughter and I thought I should give it a whirl, what’s going to happen?  I can’t complete one and she sees me on the floor and wants to play, I can and she sees me on the floor and wants to play?  I let the opportunity pass by and she fell asleep and I worked on leather stuff to support writing an upcoming blog with pictures.

Today I have thus far been struck down by the pushup Gods….It really started last night with my industrial sewing machine starting to act up on me while I was sewing a pouch and cowl together but I managed to make it through and cleaned out the sewing machine and readjusted everything to help it run properly.  This morning I managing to get a shower in this morning because I’ve been meaning to take a bath and relax at night but have neglected that for other projects.  (It’s rare I shower in the morning, I’m more of a before I go to bed kind of guy.) Driving in to work separately because I have to work tonight I got to my car pick up site and was getting my bag out of the car and smartly put my coffee on top of the car with my keys.  I grabbed my keys and the coffee cup got caught in the antenna and spilt over the side of the car onto yours truly.  So now I’m sporting the newest rage cologne “Eu du Espresso roast” I grab my bag throw it into the other vehicle that just arrived and grab my jeans and determine to figure something out.  I walk into work and we have a badge access system.  I go first and swipe my badge and hold the door for the person behind me as they scan their badge I start to go through the door and my badge leaps out of my hand back into the entrance hallway…luckily I have an old throwback football jersey here and am wearing that along with jeans, unfortunately I remember why I don’t care for this throwback jersey, it tries to strangle me, the neck hole is made for someone with a smaller neck, so it has been turned into a V-neck to avoid feeling like I’m suffocating myself for fun today….…..it’s going to be one of those days.

I need to just do a friggin pushup and get this over with

PS…if you never hear from me again it’s because I didn’t do a pushup….let it serve as a reminder to do your pushups!!!

A shift in the blog theme begins.....or as I like to call it...closer to Fest time

Quick Monday blog post.  The past week was a whirlwind to say the least.  Between house stuff, and preparing for selling children’s clothes at a consignment sale I didn’t really have anything to blog about.  I did make the leather hats, however I forgot to take pictures and it’s more of a viewer friendly activity than one to read about.  I will be starting on a pouch for a friend this week and I will ensure that I take pictures of that construction along the way.

I didn’t make an egg bake last night as a to-do list of more substantial things was needed to get done. So I will be making the egg bake after work tonight for the rest of the week.  I’m also decided that this week I’m going to give myself off of lifting weights and focus on the kettle bell swings 3x this week (Tues, Thurs, and Sat) and walking on Monday and Thursday for my exercise for the week that is scheduled, and hopefully a few bike rides this week for training for the upcoming Tour De Cure.  I’ve had a few nagging pains from my hip and bicep for a few weeks now and I don’t want to injure anything too much by pushing through them.  Tonight/Tomorrow I’m going to try to start the pouch construction so hopefully by Wednesday I’ll have it completed and can make a post about it.

With only 16 weeks to go until the opening Cannon of the 2012 Minnesota Renaissance Festival I’m thinking the blog is going to be switching more from health/food/fitness to more general focus on the Festival portion of life.  (Costuming, leather craft, story design etc.)

The topics that I have on the agenda are:

Doublet construction

Tights

Bracers/archery arm guard

Chain mail sleeve

Creating a story

These aren’t necessarily going to be for sure topics to post about but they are the most likely and it won’t be in any particular order, it’s what time is given/allotted to me in the “Real world” to complete and I remember to take pictures of (it’s much more fun to explain something with visual than with words unless completely necessary.)

What I'm giving up

Along my weight loss journey the most frequent question I’ve been asked of late is what “I’ve had to give up”.  I actually feel like I gave up very little.  Yes I traded processed food for home cooked meals and a scheduled eating pattern.  I tell them the only thing that I feel I really gave up is the Variety because I found it easier to eat the same meals day after day with the exception of cheat day.  To that most people respond “I don’t know how you do that” or “I could never do that.”  In reality, look at what you eat day in and day out.  I’m willing to bet that, for about 70% of your meals it involves the same or similar items at least 3-4 times a week.  Maybe I’m wrong maybe I’m right but that’s my honest opinion.  I don’t think that people have nearly as much variety in their food choices as they think, especially upon hearing that I have an egg bake for breakfast and chili for my two lunches.  My “variety” comes from dinner, and if I’m out with my client with work I end up having the Cobb salad without the blue cheese crumbles and Olive Oil and Vinegar for dressing.  The other nights it’s meat and veggies.  I am the type of people that can, and have, ate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch for months on end.   

But I digress; I don’t believe I gave up much of anything.  I gave up a half hour to an hour a day or so to make sure I got some exercise via biking, walking or lifting weights.  I gave up the idea that this is just something I can do to lose weight and hopefully not gain it back, because it’s a lifestyle choice.  Most importantly I gave up a lot of excuses and rather unhealthy lifestyle and accountability. 

I am looking forward to continuing to get healthier, and reach all my goals and set more along the way.  This is creating something inside of me that reaches the part of me that wants to help people.  I know that If I can do this with the excuses I’ve been allowed to tell myself and given myself and resigned myself for many years that this is how it’s going to be and to just deal with it, anyone can do this.  But it takes that moment of realization.  Unfortunately it didn’t set in a few years ago when it really should have, in my opinion. 

Three years ago today my father passed away from multiple health complications.  I remember looking at his pictures when he was my age and younger and hearing everyone comment on how much we were and looked alike.   Of my two older brothers, I am the one the most resembles my dad in all aspects of life.  There are still days that I long to be able to give him a call on the phone and hear him say what I know I’ll hear in the conversations with him but realize I can’t.  Those are the moments that help keep me committed to changing myself.  Because I don’t want my children to have to feel that they may have missed a chance to spend time with me because I couldn’t, or rather didn’t take the time to really change myself for me and for them.  Time is short and precious and it will be gone before we even realize it, so I intend to make every moment that I can count with friends and family that I can while I have it. 

RIP Pop, Love you

bye bye 50!

I finally hit the goal of 50lbs lost as of last Friday (20^th for those keeping track at home) I am fairly certain it didn’t happen the week before that (weighed in on Thursday instead of the normal Friday) because I had actually overworked myself and sent my body into a bit of a starvation mode, apparently it thinks that if I only give it around 1500 positive calories I’m trying to starve it. Sheesh, stupid body.  So I re-evaluated the plan and decided that the days I really hit the workouts I should add a protein shake or some substitute to really offset the loss so as not to send the message to my body we’re starving.

Last week apparently flew by because I didn’t have a single post.  In a recap, I watched both the kids (Mon), helped a friend work on his deck (Tues), cleaned the house (Weds), both jobs again (Thurs) and made cinnamon rolls for cheat day (Fri).  I had one bike ride in there and otherwise just the regular weight lifting and walking on Thursday with my client at the 2nd job.

Did I mention Cinnamon rolls……



go ahead......be jealous.....

Along the way last week I also decided to sign up for Tour De Cure the ride to prevent Diabetes.  Somewhere along the line the thought of riding a bicycle 28 miles seemed like a great idea.  I think it was the Free fee waiver for work and a bicycle jersey.  Yes folks, in less than 45 days yours truly will be donning a bright red bicycle jersey.  I think this is my punishment for running outside in the rain last week to lock up the shed and fix the water spout without a shirt on….come on it was DARK… I mean I’m sure I glowed like one of those snap and glow sticks you can really only find on the 4^th of July but dang. 

If you feel compelled take a look at the info @ http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR  Search by my name (Theodore Anderson, all official sounding and all) and donate whatever your heart leads you to do.

(Editors note: I just re-read the blog and found the humor in the fact that the first thing I talked about was cinnamon rolls followed in the next paragraph by a diabetes awareness bike ride.....)

Otherwise the only other things I ramble on about in this blog would fall under costuming or rehearsal for renaissance festival.  Neither of which had any major breakthrough/developments since the last blog.  I am in the midst of making a new hat for myself so we’ll see if I can bore you with enough for a post on that.

The man in the mirror

I had a moment today where I looked in the mirror and for the first time since I started this healthier journey I thought I could really SEE the difference in the person looking back in the mirror.  The stomach looked a little smaller, there seemed to be a bit less lumps and curves in the outline and yes, even the face looked a bit thinner. 

Then something that I’m not really comfortable with set in…

Fear…

I’ve spent so much of my life being the bigger, if not the biggest person; what happens if, no… when, I reach those goals? 

A lot of my identity is being larger than everyone.  I never had a fight, outside of football practice field, because no one wanted to mess with the larger guys. 

Then I rationalized things a little more.

I’m always going to be one of the bigger guys; I’m tall and fairly strong.  My build, I think I’ve mentioned before, isn’t going to allow me to be the Matthew Mcconaughey (First name I could come up with after couple minutes of thinking) size.

Speaking of size, I’m also weighing in today as tomorrow finds me off of work to help out a friend with some of his home projects.  So here’s to hoping that 50 lbs. has managed to drop off a day earlier so that can be another goal I can cross off the list.  I realize, looking back that I’ve spoken a bit about goals.  I’ve set a lot of goals, and have added more to them as time went by.  The point of each goal is to give me something to work towards.  It’s never something that I deep down know I most likely will fail at because that’s not the point.  That’s part of the reason I didn’t include P90X into my plan regularly.  I know that come the 3^rd or 4^th week I’ll have to be switching something around or have to skip and make up a workout here and there and mentally that will lead me to a sense of failure.  Something like 2 miles a day walking/biking/hiking/getyurarsemoving I can do….I can do the 2 miles during my breaks at work.  Not all these goals have to be shared; they don’t even have to be written down, though it does help.

So whatever it is, stick to it.  Yes, as I’ve found, there will be moments where you have to stop and realize that there is a change happening to you and with that change may come fear or any other human response.  But that’s okay, keep plugging through it and you’ll be able to conquer more and more with each step.

leather scale mail update and general thoughts

Back to the blogging trail today.  Yesterday found me home with a teething and growth spurt fever induced daughter.  Rather than face daycare calling every hour I elected to stay home with her.  We watched Mall cop in the morning on a recommendation of a friend, aside from a few chuckles that’s an hour and a half that I will not be getting back in my life.  Otherwise when she went down for her afternoon nap I managed to get some work in on the leather scale mail project and get the scales on the back completed.



Still pieces to be put in place around where the
bright green trim is, and buckles along the sides
but this is the meat and bones of it.



I have to say, now that the hardest part is done, I’m not feeling it.  I don’t see it working well with my mind’s eye view of Little John.  I’m hoping that once I get it fully completed with buckles on the side and the black scales dyed/painted more woodsy colors I’ll be able to picture it more. Or maybe with some accessories for the colder days it’ll work out.  Next on the costume schedule is a new Leather Robin Hood hat.

Last night I headed to work at second job and we ended up walking around Rosedale Mall.  I actually lost count after the first 45 minutes on how many laps we had completed.  I did download an App for my phone that tracks distance covered last Tuesday so I’ve come to rely on that for my rides and walks of late.  Tonight doesn’t look like there will be a bike ride as Sunday my rear bike tire met a sloppy seconds piece of glass that the front tire wanted nothing to do with.  Nothing warms the heart like a love story between glass and rubber and pushing a bike, bike carrier, boy and groceries a little over a mile home. I picture Jack Black playing my role.

Tonight there are plans in place after work and not getting home until later so it looks like the mileage goal will be met the good old fashioned way, with dog and leash.  I’m actually proud of myself in the fact that I’ve hit at least 4 miles every day in some fashion of distance covered since last Tuesday.  I’d say prior to that but the App wasn’t downloaded until Tuesday morning to make it official.

Any comments/thoughts on the scale mail project are welcome below!