Miyuki discovered the faucet recently and is obsessed. She loves sticking her face under the stream, drinking from it, and batting at it.

My most recent finished project.

Dress was self-drafted. I used rayon challis for the dress, polycotton for the bodice lining and crinoline for the skirt lining.

My dog chewed her harness. Here's the mending job. Mended with embroidery floss by hand.

Eggplant is one of my MIL's rescue cats. On my trip to see her, he has:

• gotten into my car (luckily I noticed him before driving away)
• attempted to nurse on a nonlactating dog
• stuck his head into a pen holding the dog who tried to chase him

I've recently started darning my worn-out socks (shoutout to that one poster who posted a tutorial) and so it's going really well! My socks are still comfy, and the woven patches do the job.

I had a week-long staycation while relatives visited recently, and weate out several times. I gained a couple of pounds. As of this morning, I have officially lost it all and am down to 152lbs.

My toddler has been going through a incredibly picky phase. He's been turning his nose up at foods he's consistently eaten before, and...it's been a struggle.

Recently, I made myself spaghetti for dinner. My partner had already coaxed our son into eating some eggs and fruit, and my son had shown no interest in spaghetti two days earlier, so I didn't make any for him.

Turns out the toddler does like spaghetti, and is very insistent on eating it if he can eat it off my fork, out of my bowl, while I'm also trying to eat from the same bowl. If I give up, give him the whole bowl and look for something else? Nah. Then it's no good anymore apparently.

Why are toddlers like this?

I started CICO, once again, mid-May at 160 pounds. Now at the end of June, I'm down to 153 lbs.

I'm a short person. I'm also sedentary and classified as overweight but not obese. As such, my TDEE is around 1600-1700 calories. So, to lose weight at the pace I'd like, I have to restrict myself to 1200 calories a day.

My partner is taller, fatter and has more muscle mass than me. He's talked about wanting to lose weight to get healthier, but when it comes down to it he won't do anything. Which is baffling to me, because his TDEE is high enough that he could eat waaay more than me and still lose weight.

Ugh. It's frustrating.

How long does it take you to get from never seeing a sheet before to playing at the recommended tempo? Just wondering what's typical.

It typically takes me several weeks at a minimum, with the caveats that I have little time for practice and am self-taught because I don't have money for a teacher.

My process is this: practice each hand independently in chunks, bring each hand up to the 'normal' tempo, then put the hands together at sloooow tempo and gradually raise the tempo. The last part takes the longest. Does anyone have suggestions for improving my process?