A Little Yarn On The Side

I thought by now I might have become sort of interested in the Ravellenic games again, but I don't think it's going to happen.  The fun of it was the silliness and having uninterrupted knitting time.  Well, with the whole back saga, uninterrupted knitting time has really lost it's novelty and I can't quite find the silliness in it just yet.  Maybe next time. However, Valentine's Day is one of my favorite days on Ravelry, because they always have these wonderful old fashioned Valentine's people can send each other: I'm just old enough to remember Valentines a bit like this before they became a merchandising plug for cartoons, so it's a truly fun bit of nostalgia. So, while I've been staying off of Ravelry in general, I did log on this morning to send Valentines to all my knitting buddies.  However, I had forgotten that you have to send them to people one at a time, and having been a moderator for 6 years, this was going to take a VERY long time...

Tuesday after our Great Decisions group met, one of the members saw the knitting in my bag and asked about it.  As it turns out, she is a knitter as well, and has promised to bring a picture next week of a scarf she's knitting that will replicate her Scottish husband's clan tartan.  I can't even BEGIN to tell you how much I love this entire idea--especially since I'm not the one trying to figure out how to knit plaid.  I know where some of my ancestors are from, but the only tradition that I know of that has been kept is the oyster stew on Christmas eve from the Norwegian side, and no matter how obsessed with knitting one is, it's just hard to see seafood soup as inspiration--especially since I don't even care for it.  But it's always a thrill to find out that someone one knows is also a knitter.  I imagine the glimpse of needles or wool in a purse must be a lot like the secret whatever of the Masonic handshake, and I made a mental note that if this person h...

Two days in a row completely out of bed now, though my bedtime might be creeping up just a bit each night.  Yesterday I was out and about some, meeting my Great Decisions group in the afternoon and rummaging through some charity shops for a cheap but not too icky desk for the back bedroom, and just did a short walk at night to limber up the muscles without pushing them too hard.  Today I got up, maybe a little less enthusiastically than the previous two mornings, and took the cats to the vet for their annual check up and shots.  Since I've been hauling Theo around so much, I had bought a bigger carrier for him, so this was their first joint visit, and I can assure you that hauling around 35 pounds of cats is a lot of work no matter WHAT has been going on with one's back.  The room has pheromone mist for the cats, but they could really use a martini dispenser for the humans--or at least free chocolate.  After their ordeal, I brought the cats back home, grabbe...

I made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was out of bed for an entire day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Okay, I might have been in pajamas and curling up in bed around 8:00 pm, but that would never be that unusual for me in the winter--and I was REALLY tired.  7 weeks of bronchitis takes more out of one than I thought. I avoided pretty much everything I associate with illness and the last 2.5 years, so no Facebook, no Ravelry, no movies.  I didn't even knit until I had curled up in bed, and then I only did one row because I was too tired and was sound asleep well before 9:00 pm.  I tried to avoid our bedroom completely for the entire day, but it is the best spot for doing my physical therapy as the downstairs has hardwood floors.  Luckily, ever since Andy painted my sewing room and built me those beautiful shelves, I haven't really spent much time in there because I wasn't able to sit at all for so long, and so often the meds made me sick enough to be in bed most days.  So...

I am still not willing to say there was really anything good about 7 weeks of bronchitis, but I will concede that it gave me my first day totally free of any back pain in years.  By Christmas day, the sharp, grabbing pains that are the biggest danger to me had been gone for a few weeks, and the constant aching on days it snowed had finally stopped.  But there was a chronic ache in the small of my back that never stopped or let up, and I thought I might just have to live with.  It was still the farthest I'd gotten, but it was always there .  But after the first week or so of bronchitis, it had finally let up.  And, while the bronchitis was completely and utterly miserable, my back didn't lose ground or stiffen up, which my therapist was quite pleased to see. I was pleased too, and would have been pretty giddy about the ache going away if I hadn't still been sick and stuck mostly in bed anyway.  It's wonderful to make progress, but if you still don't feel wel...

In the morning, Theo needs half a capsule of his "de-stress" meds, and both morning and evening, he needs a capsule of the glucosamine blend which treats his peeing problems.  They are capsules, and the vet said that it was easy and cats loved it, so all I needed to do was sprinkle the powder on his food. I want to send Theo home with him for a weekend.  Because I am trying to give Theo wet food, he prefers dry.  He prefers his food in the new blue bowls because the disposable cat food containers I was using last fall are now no longer acceptable.  Leftover cans from the fridge must be left out to warm up slightly.  If I put the bowl too close to him, I'm too eager and obviously trying to poison him.  Seafood works best, except the expensive tilapia cat food, which neither cat will eat.  Beef is fine, but no chicken, though turkey is acceptable sometimes.  And it can't be pate--it has to be shreds or slices in gravy.  And sometimes for no...

What I can now tell you about the emotional roller-coaster of pain and pain medication is that you can't see it from the inside and no matter how odd or weird or trivial something really is and will seem to you after the fact, it's totally real at the time. Because of the burns this week, I went back on the pain meds this week, and having been off of them for a while, I had forgotten what they were like.  I have a TERRIBLE time with drugs, and have been known to cry over "Star Trek" on them--and not over William Shatner's acting.  This time, I got upset over something on a Ravelry board that was not a big deal at all, but at the time seemed HUGE.  I can only imagine that the other mods must have felt that they had ended up in the Twilight Zone.  Interestingly enough--and this is actually the point of this whole story--is that the person who responded with "chill" and "back off" was the one who could actually see what was happening and was t...