Hump Day Do Over Please. Minus the....

I started out today already behind schedule before I even got out of bed. Eric had an early morning doctors appointment across town. I managed to get there on time, but by the time they were done with their cranky computers we were 5 minutes late.  Since I did not get breakfast before we left, I did stop off at Nadine's for breakfast to go.  Two shopping bags full of baked goods later we were back in the car headed home.  After some green tea and Danish the world was a little better place. At least in my corner.

I also managed to break 7 nails today and the strange part is that I did not do any laundry. The cleaning bug hit between appointments and I got everything done but mopping the floors.  Then it was time to head out across town again.  

We managed to get there on time. Since it is snow bird season ( not one of the 20 or so handicapped spaces we need to deploy the ramp were open) we parked at the back of the lot and walked across the  lot. We also saw an older man park his truck, taking up 3 parking spaces for 1 truck. Get out of his car to check his parking. He seemed very satisfied that his truck was in 3 parking spaces and headed in for his appointment.  The appointment took so long that I finished 1 hat, then cast on hat 2 for the day and almost finished it too. I did manage to finish 3 hats today so for those who are keeping track that is 26 hats finished so far and should be finished well before the November Knitting Guild meeting.  Oh, by the way Eric is fine.

On the way home we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up dinner and a few odds and ends. It took John's will power to skip all the goodies. Did you ever notice that they sample more goodies at dinner time than they do durning the day? I even managed to pick up the wrong cheese for Thursday nights pizza , since there was not a line the cashier went and traded the cheese out for me. Then it was time to head home.

Eric was very happy to be home for his percussion treatment. Since we were running so late we had canceled Eric's aide for the night.  John and I make a great team and shared getting everything for Eric done.

I also think that this was the first time that we had dinner close to 7 pm since John retired. It was a simple dinner of tuna cranberry salad sandwiches on the marbled rye that I got at Nadine's earlier today with gingered beets and butternut squash with glazed onions from Whole Foods.

I also looked at my current yarn storage briefly tonight and may not have to buy more yarn storage containers after all. I think I will handle that on Friday afternoon.

A Mixed Monday

I had an odd feeling today. I swept it to the back of my mind when I went out to knit with the girls today.  As usual for our small group the food, talk and knitting were great. We had a visitor to the group today, it turns out that her husband works with Lisa's mom. I wish I could remember her name. It's such a small world.  She was also knitting the most increadable dress, I wish that I had the patients to knit swirls upon swirls, then sew them together. 

After knitting I did some errands and took a longer than intended nap.  In hind site that was a wonderful thing.  During Eric's shower the wild eyrps started.  I think I have decided if one is going to get sick the shower is the perfect place.  As gross as it sounds, it was a really easy clean up.  First rinse everything down the drain.  Then hit the barh chair, floors and walls with Scrubbing Bubbles. Let it sit for a few minutes then use the scrub brush on the broom handle.  Then rinse the entire floor and squeegee the rest of the water down the drain.  Only 15 minutes to clean up a very messy mess.  I am not sure the makers of Scrubbing Bubbles had this in mind when they went to project development, but it worked very well.

I did get hats 20 & 21 finished and am on the decrease rows for hat 22 on the 30 hats in 30 days challenge.  Thanks to Eric being home for a few days I might get them finished by this weekend. I only have 8 1/3 hats to go. 

I think Eric has settled down for the night. Since he is going to be home for the next two days it's time to get some rest while I can.  

Fiber Sunday

Not a lot got done that did not have to do with fiber today.  Since I was under the miss guided impression that filling my big red bag with yarn once would be enough to knit 30 hats.  I spent part of the day winding yarn and refilling the bag again. 

I finished 3 hats today and started a 4th hat.  I now have 19 out of 30 hats finished. I think it is entirely possible that I might just finish this challenge 2 weeks early.  I will give my row count for the one million row challenge when I am finished. I will also take a picture of all of them too.  

I am thinking that I should dip into my left over and odd bits of cotton to make hats for a local school. I will also use up the rest of the yarn in the red bag to go to that project too. 

Have a wonderful and productive week everyone.  

Update 30 Hats in 30 Days

Just 9 days in to the guild hat challenge of 30 hats in 30 days I have almost used up what I thought would be enough yarn.  My only request is that you not send or give me any more yarn.  I will just go to another basket and pull ore yarn out.  

Just how many hats are finished 9 days in to go through that much yarn?  The answer will surprise those of you who don't know me well.  I expect everyone else to say "What your not finished yet."  I have 16 hats finished and number 17 on the needles. 

I will post a picture of the pile of hats and a row count when I am done. 

In No Order

In no particular order the following got done over the past few days.

1.  Eric brought in 27 pounds of tabs to the Tucson Ronald McDonald House.  Our goal for the year was 20 pounds. Eric now stands 37 pounds. Way to go Eric.  If you are in Tucson you can drop your tabs off at the Tucson JCC.  If you see me on a regular basis I will still take them. 

I just cast on hat #15 out of 30.  I am going through yarn much faster than I thought I would. A big thank you goes out to Barbara M. For her wonderful pattern. 

Eric has gotten into waking up at 5 am. So I am a bit tired by the evening.  

A lot of projects got finished in the craft room including positioning pillows for Eric's day program. 

If fiber is a _______ to spin, then it is equally bad to ply.  

If you are wearing my hand me downs that I shrunk out of, you have no right to call me fat.  It's a shame that the person who made the comment does not read this blog. 

If you want me to teach you to knit, you have to let me have time to show you how and explain things. In other words stop talking long enough for me to say something.  

I am the luckiest woman alive.  I have Great kids.  A wonderful husband.  The best friends a person could ever ask for.  With that my ramblings will stop for the evening. 

BBD

I have been pusPhing myself a little to hard lately. Well it all caught up with me last night. I woke up to a BBD like I have not had in a while. 

So I slowed down quite a lot. Not that I had a choice. I did keep moving by doing more laundry. Eric made 2 loads over night. I also added house work  my goal was to keep working and moving even if I could not get out of 1st. gear. 

I am hoping for sleep tonight.  Wish me luck. 

Getting Crafty

I made a lot of progress in the craft room today. I got 2 dog pillows out the door and delivered today so that they are out of the house. Made 3 new pillows for Eric's bed, although 1 will require some sort of modification to keep the pillow inside. Repaired the skirt that got torn at Disneyland, I can't quite remember when that was, but I think Teri was in her 1L year. Its not perfect, but it is wearable. 100% silk is sure hard to repair. Repaired 1 bib for Eric and put it in the wash. That means that 1 of the 2 repair baskets is almost empty.

Outside of the craft room I got 6 loads of laundry washed and 3 folded. The rest of the folding can wait until tomorrow. I also finished 2 more knitted hats today. Took Eric with me to Jo-Ann's after his day program to pick up some clean fiber fill for more positioning pillows for the kids. After making more than 80 over the past 6 years I am beginning to wonder how they walk so fast. Discreet labeling saying Taglit Program or Property of Taglit does not seem to work. So I got some permanent art markers. I am going to have Eric and his aide decorate them so the kids will like them and hopefully this batch will not sprout legs and walk away. It is not that I mind making the pillows for the kids. What I mind is that people know I make them for the kids, they like them and take them home with out payment to me or the program and expect me to make more for the kids. I really think that is very selfish on their part. I also don't get stealing pillows from disabled young adults.

Well if I am going to get more pillows out the door tomorrow morning it is time to call it a night.

A Lazy Sunday

We had another lay low day today. Basically we did not leave the house, but that did not mean I was not busy. I have been doing laundry today and basically Eric made as much laundry as I did today so that was a wash so to speak. I got a newsletter article written. Knit 2 more hats toward the guild challenge, yes I plan on getting it done in less than 30 days. I see nothing wrong with getting something done early.

Speaking of hats, I organized part of my yarn stash today. I sorted the projects and yarn to make more efficient use of my space. I found among the stash yarn in various piles that just said "I need to be part of the hat project".  I just love it when the yarn knows where it is suppose to go and what it wants to be made into. Some yarns take longer than others to get to this stage. I put all my works in progress together, I have less than last time I did this. I also put new kits in one bag and shawls in another. I put in a solid hour and got this portion a little over 50% organized. I also now have 4 empty project bags, I know that I should not pull new projects out and refill them. Tomorrow the organizing should be finished.

Yes, the day of rest did Eric a lot of good. He is looking much better than he did at this time last week. I am really hoping that Eric has a really good week so I can finish organizing the craft room. Finish some work in progress sewing projects. I also need to find a time to work on Teri's blanket, ply some yarn and wash some wool.  Can someone please invent a longer day for me so that I can get all that I need to get done and want to get done, done.

I hope everyone has a happy, healthy and productive week.

All About Fiber

I spent the Saturday at Grandma's Spinning Wheel here in Tucson. I took 2 classes with Donna who is a wonderful teacher. If you have a chance to take any of Donna's classes consider yourself very lucky.  The first class was all about dying fiber. We dyed every type of protein fiber a beginner needs to know. We did use acid dyes which are almost all off my hands today.  We started off with adding a little color to a dark fiber with streaks of white in it. Then there were roving's, silks and yarn. With the yarn we did a dye over on an orange hank of yarn and had a blank hank of white yarn. Once everything is dry I will take some pictures.

While I had a terrific time and learned quite a bit, my fiber friends who dye my yarn and fiber need not worry. I don't think that I will be doing this at home any time soon. That being said I can't wait to see how it all spins and knits up.

After lunch I took the most wonderful class of the day. I learned how to comb fiber into top. I did  not realize how much physical labor combing was and can now understand why in the English Guilds the skill was passed from father to son. I also learned to use a diz. So now I can properly play with my dizes. A thank you needs to go out to everyone who has sent me dizes knowing before I did how much fun they would be to play with. I do have a small bag of combed top fiber to spin and I cant wait. Since this is so much fun yet so physical for me I think I might have to limit myself to about an hour a day. I noticed that when I got tired my quality went way down.

Grandma's Spinning Wheel also has a large selection of classes, knit ins, spin ins,  yarns, fibers, knitting and spinning supplies. For your first casual visit I would recommend planning to spend at least an hour in the store. If you are undecided  which spindle or spinning wheel to get, buy a bit of fiber and take a floor model for a test spin. If they don't have what you want in stock just ask either Vicki or Michael to order it for you.

If you are not from Tucson here is all you need to know about Grandma's Spinning Wheel. It is located at 6544 E, Tanque Verde #150, Tucson Arizona 85715. All the other pertinent  information can be found at www.grandmasspinningwheel.com.

This is my disclosure paragraph. John paid for my classes on Saturday and took care of Eric to boot. Isn't he wonderful? I did not get paid to write this blog. All opinions are my own. I did not ask permission from either Vicki or Michael  the owners of Grandma's Spinning Wheel to write this blog post. So I hope that they do not ask for a take down.

Hats

Today was all about hats. I finished 4 of the hats that I mentioned in yesterday's blog.  I only have 26 to go to make the knitting guild presidents challenge of 30 in 30 days.  Since each hat is taking about 1 skein of yarn do to using 2 strands of yarn to knit with at a time.  I should have 30 less skeins of yarn in the house when this challenge is finished.  This might sound like a lot of yarn, which it is by any standard, but I doubt this will make much of a dent in my yarn stash. 

So here is a picture of the first hat I finished this morning. All 32 rows.  Mixing a white yarn with a variegated yarn has a nice look to it.  

A Really Good Day

I had a very busy day today. With Eric at his day program, I was able to go to knitting guild today. Barbara Moore gave a lovely talk about the history of hand knit caps. She also gave us a pattern for a quick hat for charity that is a real stash buster. It uses 2 stands of worsted weight yarn. With about 1 hour total knitting time this afternoon I am half way through with my first hat. John made a suggestion of making a whole bag full for the next guild meeting to burn through some of my stash. The question I should have asked was what size bag, before I said that sounded like a good idea and agreed to it. Since the hat is not my own design I can not post the pattern here.

I also think that I may have insulted a few people at lunch by asking one person at the table to use her inside voice when she started yelling at the top of her lungs during lunch. I was ready to crawl under the table because I was so embraced to be with someone that rude. Not to mention that the entire restaurant was staring at our table. Teri would have loved being a fly on the wall when another person who did not know all about Eric, commented that we should not let Eric be such a slacker (her words not mine). We needed to motivate him  to be more like his older sister. I told this lady who is new to our group that we were content to have Eric in his day program ( I could have not drop a bigger hint), and we had no problem with him staying home as long as he wanted. Not everyone has to go to college.  I think the final round of me insulting the world came about when the server came over to offer us desert and I turned it down for the entire table.

After lunch, but before afternoon car pool I also managed to get some lovely fruit for snacks this weekend and get a 20 minuet nap.

John and I also went to a retirement dinner tonight. It still seems odd at times to think that we are retired.  The speaker was a Retired Air Force Major General. It was a great talk, that was surprisingly short. I should have written down the name of his book so I could read it.  Afterward John and I went to Frost and had a nice walk to help me get to my 10,000 steps for the day.

It is time to call it a day so that I can fill my day tomorrow with knitting, cleaning, laundry and hopefully some spinning.

Hump Day

The house is slowly returning to normal. Eric is feeling better. Which left me time to do some shopping today. What I found shows me that the economy is not rolling as it should be. I went clothes shopping and found sizes to be limit and less items in stock. This might make me change my policy of buying Halloween candy on the 31st.

I also found time for cleaning, laundry ( when do I not find time for laundry?) and knitting. Some days I think I put to much on my plate. I really feel that I should be able to get more done than I do. But I am also learning to say no.

Can I Have a Do Over?

First off we would like a do over of Monday here,that being said Eric had a better day today. John is hoping to get Eric out the door tomorrow. Me I think one more day.  

Every one slept well last night lets hope we can do 2 nights in a row.  Maybe I will get more done that way on Wednesday.  It is quiet so I am calling it a night.  

And the Answer Is...

We went to the doctors today and it is an ear infection. This is why Eric has been so sick and miserable the last 3 days. I was 100% wrong. I thought clammy kid with a fever, who was throwing up had a tummy bug. So we have changed course and started the antibiotics. He should be feeling better in a day or 2.

In the mean time I hope to have Eric sleeping through the night again in a couple of days. I promise not to give any sensible answer until I have had at least 1 full nights sleep. I will continue to try to knit until I can't see straight any more and after that all my knitting would result in is a lot of frogging...rippit...rippit....rippit...

I am not happy with myself for only hitting the 4 mile of walking mark today. With only 20 minutes of house work. With these pathetic numbers you would think some one around here was sick or something. But with it being almost bed time with me wanting to sleep tonight I will not partake in any more exercise for the day. I am also to tired to knit so I think I will find something mellow to do for the rest of the night.

Eric is Sick Again

This is night 3 that I am in Eric's room.  The first night was Friday, Eric was sick I managed to get 4 hours of sleep. Not enough by anyone's standards, but still doable. This was followed by a full day and a retirement party on Saturday. I was certainly not ready for another almost all nighter. 

Eric's plans were a lot different than mine. I got to sleep at 6 am on Sunday morning.  I cancelled all outside activities.  I also managed to keep up with most of the sick kid laundry.  It is now the wee hours of Monday morning. I am hopeful that I will be able to get some sleep soon. 

Even if Eric is still home on Monday I will need to get out and get a little shopping done. We are down to 1 bottle of pedialyte and out of children's tylenol. The fruit drawer looks a little on the empty side too.  

Guess what. Eric has fallen asleep. So I will end the blog here so I can get 6.5 hours of sleep.  At least that is close to normal. 

The Purse

How do you know that you have come upon a purse of a knitter?  There are a few major clues.  First it is usually easier to find a pair of knitting needles then the head phone buds of the MP3 player that resides in the purse. 

The second clue would be the small knitting project in progress. If that project is almost done you will also find the next project or skein of yarn for the latest 1 skein wonder. 

Then there is the small zippered pouch that has at least the following items in it. A small pair of scissors, a few extra stitch markers, darning needles, at least 1 crochet hook and a tape measure. Depending on the current work in progress you might also find cable holders, small bobbins for bits of yarn, dental floss for lace knitting and stitch holders.  

Then we can't forget about the nail file so we don't snag our work. Lotion and nail creams to keep our hands soft so we don't snag things like silk.  

I often wonder if our male counter parts keep their knitting in small backpacks. Do you have a knitters purse?

Wheelchairs, Yarn Crawls and Dog Pillows

Well I did over do it on Monday. Tuesday I paid the piper. Absolutely nothing got done on Tuesday. I had to try to recoup some energy for Wednesdays Yarn Crawl. Nancy, Carolyn and I started out early about 8 am for the Phoenix leg of the crawl. We had a great time, but it was a lot of driving for me, I did not get back home until 10 pm. Next time I am going to bring a friend to do some of the driving. We went to a lot of yarn stores, some were fabulous and I would go to them again if I had reason to be in Phoenix. Others not so much, some look like they had seen better days and were in desperate need of a little sprucing up. There was one were the staff was down right rude and condescending, they seemed all about needlepoint, but had yarn in the store for some unknown reason. There were a few mix ups on the times when stores were open. Did you know that in downtown Carefree Arizona the streets roll up by 4 pm with the exception of a few places to eat and the grocery store? I would also like to thank the Gilbert Honda Dealer for taking care of a check tire light for me and suggesting the most wonderful locally owned place for dinner. I will do a review later this week.

Today we picked up Eric's new wheelchair with the custom molded back. Most everyone including Eric loved it. It weighs half the amount as the last chair and it is easier to move. We did get it in wheelchair green (that's an Eric colorway, we could not get anyone one else to name this shade of green with the same name). You will notice that the laterals are gone. The seat back was molded to fit Eric. We just have to remind him to lean back until he gets used to the laterals being gone. We have only had 1 aide complain so far about the new chair and the lack of lateral supports. Oh well you can't please everyone. I would like everyone to notice how clean this new wheelchair is because this is the very last time you will see this chair so clean. My conclusion is that even though it took 18 months to get through the process we landed up with a great chair for Eric in the end.

I also started to make some more dog pillows for the aides with dogs at Eric's day program. I think I will need a volunteer stuffer. Eric has also graciously agreed to hand them out 1 or 2 at a time until we either run out of stuffing or aides with dogs.

Rocking It Today

Despite have a little arthritis pain in my knee last night and today I rocked my to do list. I did spend a little time in the craft room and a few things got done in there too.  I also got the kitchen floor mopped.  To relax after dinner I finished knitting one more scarf. Frogged a wash cloth re cast on and knit at least 2 inches.  

My plans for Tuesday are a bit more modest. A little knitting, sewing and shopping.  If my knee feels better a little spinning on the Ashford other wise it will be the Louet.   

Just in case you missed my to do list for today here is a picture of it.  John did the a/c filter.  Eric's wheelchair hopefully will be ready Thursday.  

Recharging

It was a very quiet weekend around here. We all took the time to recharge. All that got accomplished was a bit of cleaning, laundry, knitting and spinning. I almost forgot, we wondered over to the Apple store to look at the colors for the new 5s. I am still not sure what color I will get, but the gold color is still not shipping and is not the greatest shade of gold around. I may just go with the black and get a very colorful case. Something that won't get lost in my purse. Apple that may be your next goal, a phone that won't get lost in purses.

I have time to do a quick to do list for tomorrow before I call it a night.

My Diet Secrets

As a lot of you know a dear friend, Kay from Texas convinced me to give up anything with aspartame, high fructose corn syrup and any other artificial sweeteners. She sent me a few reports on the subject. I did more research on my own. I started this about 1 1/2 years ago. If you need a better time frame you can check past blogs.

It started out with giving up diet soda. I did drink about 6 cans a day because they were calorie free.  I did have a lot of headaches with that one. I found it took more tea than diet soda to get my caffeine quota for the day. After a few months I also gave up my multi time daily soy chai tea, a very high calorie drink. At about the same time I purged the house and my body of anything with high fructose corn syrup. It took about 3 months for all the junk to leave my system. .

After about 3 months I started getting more energy. I started walking. At first I was lucky to do a walk up and down the street. The more I walked the easier it got, yes it took about 9 or 10 months to get easier. Around this time I dropped my 1st dress size and 5 whole pounds. As I started getting more energy I got rid of the housekeeper. At first I did doubt my sanity on this, but at this point I find housework provides most of the exercise I need. I also try to walk 10,000 steps or more a day. Sometimes it is less and sometimes it is more.

I find a little really deep cleaning a week helps a lot. To me this means pulling out a drawer or a shelf and emptying it completely. Take the linen cabinet for example. After every thing is removed for 1 shelf at a time. I wipe down the shelf. Go through all the linens on that shelf. I divide it into to 4 piles charity, rags, trash, then wash and fold everything that I put back. This might not seem like much exercise but being as out of shape as I was everything and all movement helps. Not to mention that with each project finished I felt better and was less likely to snack at random. I am sure that Teri and John like this too, since they tend to be more organized than I am.  I did start out with 10 minute projects and built up to longer periods of cleaning. After you tear apart and reorganize a whole linen cabinet let me know if you think it is enough exercise to skip the gym. I can now do up to 8 hours of deep cleaning at a time if Eric is having a good period.

About 18 months later I am down 3 dress sizes and 15 pounds. I seem to be building muscle because my body fat went from 50% down to 43% during the same time. I don't have a weight goal in mind. My goal is just to feel much better and have the most energy possible.

I still read all the labels. I think that you will find as I did, that so much of the very processed food that we eat are laden with this stuff. I started making more food from scratch and eating more fruits, vegetables, breads and nuts for snacks. You also need to know that I have not given up chocolate and have a little bit each week. I have not gotten rid of my chocolate shelf in the fridge. I still have a sweet tooth, but am less likely to eat a whole box of cookies in a few days. I am more likely to have some then forget about them and toss them out because they became stale. When I want a soda I go out of my way to find soda that is made with real sugar.

So to recap I eliminated aspartame, high fructose corn syrup and any other artificial sweeteners. I added walking with a goal of 10,000 steps per day. I also added a lot of house cleaning. I know that this is not the fastest way to lose weight but its better than a lot of diets I have tried. This is not so much of a diet but a life style change.

Free Fall

Last night was a very bad night. Eric started out the night with nightmares at 11:30pm. It took over an hour to calm him down. Followed 2 hours later by suctioning. Followed 2 hours later for more suctioning and positioning. By 6 am I was ready for pancakes.

I then tried to recover my day by getting all 5 loads of laundry washed, folded or hung to dry on the line.(don't worry Eric already has 1/2 a laundry basket filled for me.) Along with a little picking up. Some how that was not enough to turn my day around. By 10 am I felt like I was in total free fall and it went down hill from there.

Just the usual stuff like a call from his case manager, that she just got a promotion and her last day with Eric would be Friday. This is like a new one every 6 months. I swear I did not break this one she really did get a promotion. Eric's day program might not have their fall fund raiser that I have been working on for 6 months. I have tons of earrings and hand knit stuff so I might have to do a craft sale on my own. If anyone knows of a local church or non profit that is having a holiday boutique that has space, please let me know. I can do a table fee plus a percentage of the sales as a donation. It just seemed that today hit that rare day when things just hit the wrong way.

The best decision I made today was to take a nap at 4:30pm instead of hitting the kitchen and baking up a storm. It helped, but I am still out of sync. Please be patient with me tomorrow as it might take a day or 2 to get back into sync.

Hump Day

The most important part of the day is that Eric got out of the house and went to his day program. He had a great time. John did double duty today, he did both car pool runs and all the cooking. I am at the tale end of the cold Eric shared with me. I rested a lot and took a long nap.

I did manage to finish one hat and cast on 2 more projects. The good news is that with this intense effort to finish things, the UFO / yarn pile is noticeably smaller. You can actually see some of the wood on the table that I piled things on.  I am also only working on projects that I like and want to finish. I want to do a little fancy knitting, the kind not suitable for most charity projects.

Now on to the odd thing that went missing this time. John went out to fix the solar lights on the walkway this afternoon after lunch. He made a list of what needed to be fixed. He went to the box of spare parts and extra solar lights that we keep in the garage. The box was cleaned out of parts except for the rock that he uses to pound in the stakes and put back into place.  It is my hope that the right kind of Karma follow the people who take things.

This leads me to one simple request to the solar lighting industry. Instead of saying our lights are 2 or 3 times brighter. Not mentioning what they are brighter than please, please, please just list the amount of Luminous intensity you lights produce. It would be so much easier for all of us. Best of all they do have sensors that can give you that information. With that request I will end the blog post for tonight.

We Made it Through the Cold

It has been a crazy couple of days around here with Eric sick, yet again. I almost kept up with the laundry. The most wonderful news of the day is that Eric is  back on formula as of 6:30 tonight.

I did manage to finish one knitting UFO project per day for the last few days. So my pile of UFOs is getting just a touch smaller. No big dent made here. Not a lot of spinning got done either because Eric needed so much of my time. I am totally exhausted so this is a really short post tonight.