Hopefully Optimistic

Right now I am hopefully optimistic about Eric. He went to his day program in what seems like forever, but I know it has only been a month. He had a great day and was all smiles when I picked him up. He has not fallen asleep yet. I am hoping that this is a good sign. I don't think he will ever be a five day a week kid ever again, but just to be able to get Eric with his friends 2 or 3 days a week will be a great relief to me.

I used my time off to knit 1 row of lace. I now have just 1 more lace pattern row and 2 purl rows before the last 3 rows of garter stitch. It should be done in time for the Old Pueblo Knitters Fashion show next month. If you are in Tucson and want to come just follow this link, Old Pueblo Knitters. Even if you don't knit it is fun seeing all the hand knit creations. Then I will work on an art piece for a local knitting competition.

Now its is time to get some sewing done.

A Lucky Break

This week while doing laundry, I accidentally put one of my favorite shirts in the dryer that was suppose to be line dried. You have guessed by now that it shrunk a bit. This is one of those rare moments when it was a very good thing. I bought this shirt last time I went down a size and it was getting to the point of needing to leave my closet. It was getting to be a bit to big. The good news is that it shrunk to exactly my current size, so this means that I can wear it a bit longer. I am not sure that I will try this little "accident" on any other shirt at the moment though.

While Eric is resting this afternoon I think that I will put a little more time into house work. I have already finished the laundry for the day and put 2 bags of recycling to the big bin. Then it will be time to knit and weave. I need the loom for another project that has a deadline and the shawl has a looming deadline also.

Eric is feeling a little better each day. Have a great weekend everyone.

Everything

I did it all today. Knitting was 336 purl stitches and 4 knitting stitches which equals another row of lace work.. Only 6 more rows of lace and 3 of the boarder before I cast this project off.  Spinning was 3 ounces of merino wool, before my hand gave up. Weaving was 8 inches on a 6 foot table runner. Walking was a little over 10,000 steps which is just over 4 miles. As usual most of the walking was done by doing laps in the house.

John had Eric today.

Trying to Keep Up

I think that I might be wearing ruts in the tile. I am keeping up with my walking at least 11,000 steps a day this week. Today will top 13,000 or just over 5 miles, and the farthest I got from the house was the mail box. The walking keeps me from craving junk food.

Eric's recovery is going slower than we would like, but he is still making progress. I am starting to get into a rhythm with Eric at home. I still did not finish my to do list today, but I got more finished.

Today I started playing around with a quiche recipe made with duck eggs and goat cheese. When I get the recipe perfect, I will post it on the blog. All I can say now is that the taste was perfect, but the texture needs a little work.

I am going to see if I have any energy to knit now.

Baby Steps

Eric and I had our first outing today. We went to Einsteins for knitting and breakfast. After 2 hours we went home and both took a 3 hour nap. I am glad that I did not have any errands planned for after knitting. I have forgotten how tired I get when Eric is home for an extended time. I only got a third of my to do list done today. I am ok with this right now. This seems to be my new pattern.

My plan of attack for cleaning has switched from deep cleaning, to just getting rid of clutter. Just getting the basics done. This can be done in smaller time frames. Deep cleaning will resume once Eric is well enough to go to his day program again. I am trying to get better at pacing myself.

Knitting

My big knitting accomplishment was knitting a 440 stitch row of lace. I still have to look at the pattern for every repeat and I count aloud while I am knitting the lace. John must have the pattern memorized by now, sadly I don't. I think I have 9 more rows of the pattern left and 5 of those are straight purling. Some how knitting 440 purl stitches is a lot easier for me than the pattern row.

I also got some what caught up on up on my shopping. Eric is doing better. So all in all a pretty good day.

Still Crazy

Everything is still topsy tervey around here. Eric is tired of being at home. That means he is doing better. I am trying to get a lot of things done at home,but seem to be in a rut. I am only getting at best 50% of my to do list done. One would think that after so many years of doing this I would have things worked out by now.

I need to get a lot of knitting done this week. So wish me luck.

Life Goes On.

Eric and I went to the doctors on Monday for a post hospital check up. The last round of AP took a lot out of him. So here is all the information that I have at this point. Eric will be home for 2 solid weeks. We will then do a 2 day a week trail run to see if he still has the stamina to hang out with his friends at his day program. I am really hoping that this trail goes well. Our Fingers are crossed.

If he flunks the 2 day a week trail we will either go to a 2 hours a day 2 days a week or have a DTA set up at home with an activity specialist coming to the house to do activities with Eric. This will hopefully give me some me time to create or even go to the store to shop for groceries during the day. To quote a song which I can not remember the title or singer, "The times, they are changing".

In the meantime, I am using this time wisely by doing some cleaning and tossing. Yesterday I managed to fill the trash barrel before Waste Management had time to pick it up. I got a few things out of the garage. Also even though I am house bound, I will still try to get my 10K steps in a day even if it means walking around in circles for a couple of hours a day. I will let you know if I walk ruts in the tile.

Better

I spent the weekend playing catch up. I am now to the point that I can finish last weeks to do list. Wish me luck

Home at Last

It has been a rough week here at Casa Karobonik. Apparently when I stopped to catch my breath from the very busy time around here, pneumonia snuck into Eric's lungs. Eric has been sick all week and Wednesday we landed up at Tucson Medical Center for 3 days. They were at overflow capacity so they took 1 unit from pediatrics and made it into an adult over flow unit. The staff was very nice and we worked well together. The end result is that Eric is now at home in his bed sleeping with his 2 favorite friends.

This trip did leave John and I with a little hospital bed envy. Tucson Medical Center now has the Stryker S3 MedSurg Beds that fit Eric to a T. He was so comfortable in it despite being so sick. It was so much easier to use than his current bed which we bought used ( 20 years old ) 15 years ago. We were talking about how nice it would be to have one of the new Stryker S3's for Eric at home. We then looked at the hefty price tag for the new ones and realized that this was out of budget and that the insurance would probably not cover it. So we will try to see if we can get Eric's current bed serviced.

This weekend we plan to lay low so everyone can get back to center after this week. Surprisingly I do not have that much laundry to do, mostly John's and mine. Eric will be home with me next week. We will have a few short excursions out, but they will be very limited.

My left hand is still not up to par and I did not even get a fraction of the knitting done that I usually do when Eric is in the hospital.  My hand is more sore than it has been in quite a while. I hope that with less tension in my life that it will start to feel better, until then I will do some weaving.

A Long Day

Today was a very long day. The good news is that Eric is on the mend for at least the current moment. I spent the day taking care of Eric and cleaning. I am so tired that I can not see the progress, but John says that he can see it. So I must have gotten something done.

No craft or art projects were finished today. I am on day 5 of a hand knit hat. I have not taken so long to finish a hat in almost a decade. I hope to finish it tomorrow night. Meanwhile I have lost enough weight that at least 4 skirts need to be hemmed, but I need someone to do the pinning. I can drop another size because of the construction of the skirts, but 2 inch heels are not cutting it right now. I am tripping on the length and wearing holes in the hems from walking around the house without shoes on. I know that this is a good thing. I just wish more of my friends sewed so that I could trade a favor for them pinning the skirts.

I think that that I am ready to call it a night.

Busy

It has been crazy busy around here lately. Eric had about a week and a half where he went to program everyday. I did get to relax and get a lot of cleaning done. I also found that with adequate sleep I got my creative mojo back. So a lot of projects were finished too.

That at all went sideways this morning at about 3:30 this morning. I managed to get a total of 1 hour of work done before Eric care took over my day. The good news is that he is now feeling better.

Even though I am trying to move and do more my arthritis seems to be getting the better of me now. Not even hitting the 50 pound weight loss point seems to be helping. Although I can now claim a smaller dress size. So since December of 2009 the totals are down 50 pounds, 4 dress sizes, 2 shoe sizes and 6 inches off my rib cage. The way this was accomplished was by giving up anything with high fructose corn syrup, aspertame and any other artificial sweeteners. I am also moving more.

Weaving vs Knitting

I like both knitting and weaving a lot. The only problem with weaving is that I have to finish a project before I can start another. It's not like knitting at all. With knitting I can start as many projects that I want to as long as I have empty knitting needles.