A Little Yarn On The Side

Yesterday I was out and about most of the morning, starting with a dental appointment followed by errands, and at about 1:30, my back hurt so I came home to rest.  Today I am trying to take it easy, but this is not helping.  So far I have managed to keep myself away from the garden, but I think I might need a break from walking today, and that's a problem.  It's supposed to rain this afternoon, and I am probably the only one around who is hoping for it. I'm much easier to control when it's icky and raining.  A solid month of icky weather while I get stronger would be ideal.  Since it was an unseasonably warm 57 degrees on Monday, I don't think it's going to happen, but one can hope.  Yesterday I did get some knitting in, and the scarf is now more than halfway done.  I'm dragging a bit on finishing sweaters right now, and I think it might have something to do with the back issues as well.  For well over a year now, I haven't been able to we...

Friday we had a truly delightful evening with two of our favorite people, then Saturday morning we decided to go out and about to look for an inexpensive desk for me to use in our back bedroom, which we are hoping to convert into a library/guest overflow/office for me and is currently a junk/boxes/disaster area.  Eventually, Andy will build some permanent furniture in there, but we had run across a fairly decent desk for $50 at a charity shop that had just been sold, and 7 years is a long time to not have a desk with drawers.  So it was such a novelty to be OUT and it gave us the chance to meet up with another one of our favorite people for lunch, so we ended up being out most of Saturday and had a wonderful time.  Being in the car was the hardest part of the week, and when we got home I still went for a walk around the neighborhood to loosen up the muscles, but mostly I was just exhausted.  Yesterday I went for another 3.5 mile walk, though a bit faster than last we...

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...