Tuesday, August 16, 2016

The Snail is Winning

My hand has good days and bad days. Sometimes like tonight, it just wants to stop working in the middle of a task, like making dinner. I have to say that John had perfect timing tonight. He drove up just as my hand gave out when I was 3/4 of the way through cutting up the chicken. He not only finished cutting up the chicken and getting it in the oven, but did the whole preparation on the green beans too. Then cleaned up after dinner.

I am still a bit frustrated at the rate I can work on projects too. Take the Tunisian scarf that I have been working on for one and a half weeks, really a week and a half and I am still not done. I also have one scarf on US size 19 knitting needles, that is going even slower, I am lucky to get between 50 and 100 individual stitches done about every third day. This translates into no more then 10 rows every few days. I am really glad that I have no commissions right now or I would be up the creek without a paddle. My plan for tomorrow is to finish packing projects to get them ready to go and then try the sewing machine, I may have more luck there.

My hand really hates it when Eric is sick. The longer hours seem to make my hand stiffer and more sore.  Talk about 50 steps back in a single day. What I find really odd though is that the more I use my hand the more stiff and sore that it becomes. What about the old adage use it or lose it? Does this lose meaning with hand surgery? I know it has only been a few weeks, but last time I had hand surgery, I did not need physical therapy and I was knitting the same night. Yes, I know I sound like an impatient 10 year old right now.

I know it is late, but as soon as I can put Eric's swim stuff into the dryer and hand his swim suit I will call it a day.

Friday, August 12, 2016

More Hand Stuff

Ok, I know that in some things that I am the most impatient person in the world. I could give any 10 year old kid a run for their money. Take my hand for instance. The stitches have completely healed and my hand should be 100% in my humble opinion. I am so wrong about this. Everything below the surface takes longer to heal than the stitches. So these are my new temporary rules to live by.

1. No folding laundry, seriously my hand throbbed for 8 hours after folding one load. The therapist took that off my plate for now.

2. If it hurts stop, do not continue. Whatever it is.

3. No putting my hand in odd positions to accomplish anything.

4. Do my therapy 3 times a day.  I now have 3 exercises, one involves knitting           needles....Really....

5. Reintroduce my hands to textures, it's part of the healing processes. Sounds           odd to me, but I will try it.

6. Take things slowly, things should get better in time. This is the hard one for          me.

7. Make time for rest breaks, although it is just my left hand that has to heal.             Apparently the whole body goes through the healing transition. I really don't         get this concept. But I will do my best to follow the rules.

So it is time to rest before Eric gets home.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Happy

Eric's day program finally had enough staff so that he could go to program today.  I skipped my to do list and took a nap.  July left me exhausted between the guys getting sick, surgery and Eric home for 3 weeks, all I can really say is that I could not keep up.  I fell behind and will take some time to play catch up on everything from paperwork, chores and sleep. 

Eric had a great time with his friends today.  So all is well.  I even get to start therapy on my hand this week. I think that I will call it a night.  

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Fun

Today John was gracious enough to take care of Eric while I took 2 classes. The first was Tunisian  crochet which I can do almost all right handed. It is very fun to do. I think it is geared towards someone with a large yarn stash like mine. The second was triangular weaving, a bit more challenging for me. My hand gave up 3 rows before the end of the piece and the instructor had to finish my piece for me so that some one else could use the loom. I think I like the ridge heddle loom and the coaster loom better for me. It is time to give my hand a rest. Besides that my one fingered typing is just awful, just ask my spell check. 

Friday, August 5, 2016

A First Post Surgery

Today I knit for the first time post surgery.  I wanted to finish the scarf but stopped before my hand got tired. Yes,I am using size 19 knitting needles. That's the smallest knitting needle that I can hold. This will be a charity scarf. 

Thursday, August 4, 2016

More Progress

This afternoon I finished 1 more coaster and started another coaster. I was able to spin about a half of an ounce of wool tonight. I am really happy with that progress.  So tomorrow I plan on plying a little bit of yarn to get a 2 ply yarn. I am very happy with my slow progress.  

Eric had a bit of a tough start to the night. I just have to wait until the washer is done before I can go to bed. I have a full load for the dryer. 

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Search is On

I am not always as organized as I would like to be. Sometimes that leads to cleaning sprees like today. I misplaced my copy of Mollie Makes Magazine Issue 58, 2015. So I started out looking in the most obvious places. No luck. Then I went through all my knitting bags that I could find. No luck there either. Then it was off to the craft room. I tore everything apart. As I was putting things back I did some organizing and tossing. I also decided that it was not worth repairing some items so they got tossed too. 

The end result is that I still can not find my copy of Mollie Makes. There is less clutter in the house. My crafts are more organized. I put some of my yarn into the Old Pueblo Knitters yarn stash. Which means more things out of the house. The recycle bin is over halfway filled, I also filled one bag for the trash bin. I found some weaving warp in the wrong place. So the warp yarn went with the other warp yarn and more yarn was put into the drawer and out of bags. I also found the Valentine gifts that I got for the kids while Teri was still in college. I hid the gifts so well it took me a long time to find them. Ooops! I did not even remember that I misplaced them. Luckily it was not chocolate. 

I know that I will find the copy of the magazine when I have given up looking for it. Just like the Valentine gifts. In the meantime I will keep looking, organizing, cleaning and tossing. Also I am not sure why the majority of the post is not like the first line. Sorry.