Taking the Bull by the Horns

I've always wondered about that phrase having grown up around cattle.  I always thought it was a rather fool-hearty person who would consider taking a bull by the horns, unless he was a tame creature but even then things could go seriously wrong.  My daddy had bulls who were rather tame and bulls who were rather crazy.  I couldn't imagine going up to one of those giant creatures and taking hold of him by the horns....or anything else for that matter.

That said, I truly do think I may have done just that--taken a bull by the horns.  I have decided once and for all to get my weight off whatever it takes.  David and I decided to do a doctor supervised weight loss plan that will completely realign how we think of food.  The doctor promised we will lose weight quickly and sent us home with lots of packets to make food to eat most of the day and then at night we'll make some sort of meal consisting of lean protein and vegetables.  It's a high protein, low carb diet that, according to the dr, retrains our body how to metabolize food (and I think secretly teaches us that we CAN survive without bread and sweets).

Once upon a time we succeeded fairly well on Atkins, another low-carb approach to eating.  So I know I can live without bread and sweets, but it's always creeped back into my way of eating somehow...Also,  Atkins doesn't have much in the way of portion control nor do any sort of supervision...This time around we considered doing Atkins again, but decided that we needed guidance, accountability and commitment, so...

...we grabbed that proverbial bull by the horns and are going for it.  Please wish us luck, pray for us, or whatever else you do to provide emotional and spiritual support.  It's time for us to take charge and make our lives whole and wonderful!

Today's picture is of a hat I started yesterday.  I'm on spring break and doing whatever I want, so please don't comment on the fact that I've also started 2 pairs of socks since last week :)  Anyway, the cap uses stranded color work.  You use the pattern (on the left) to determine which color you knit with to create a lovely, in this case, connected pattern that goes around the hat.  It feels a tad like cross stitching in that I'm placing stitches in a grid, but of course it's knitting.  So far it's going very well and is beautiful.  I'm having fun with the color work, but we'll see how GOOD I've done after I've taken it off of the needles and can stretch it out.  I've tried to make sure that the floats aren't too short and will cause the hat to pucker, but one never knows!