Still kicking

...but not typing so good.

Just a brief update today. I seem to have recovered from the round of pneumonia, except for some lingering asthma (which hasn't bothered me for years). Oh well, at least i"m still breathing. My wrist surgery was initially scheduled for last week, but was moved to yesterday due to a high number of trauma cases at the hospital requiring all of the surgeons to postpone their elective surgeries. The surgery went well, to the best of my knowledge, and i can wiggle my fingers, but i have a short cast (they called it a small splint, but it seems closer to a cast) so I don't bend my wrist, etc. I have to type using a pencil in my right hand, sorry for the typos.

OTOH, I have 3 days of morphine for the pain (+ codeine in case that isn't enough), so I'll be just fine. LOL I've started a pair of fingerless gloves for my DH, and have 4 fingers done on those. I'm not sure how long it will be before I am back to knitting. I'm supposed to use my fingers as much as possible, but I must balance it with the pain thing. I'll try to post pictures of the cast/splint and the knitting asap.

Here's a shot of my blue fingers. They're very pretty. LOL

Sick knitting & sock knitting

Well, turns out I don't have a virus/flu after all. Lucky me, I've got pneumonia! Isn't that just, erm, peachy? I've (thankfully) never had it before, and I hope I never have it again, but there it is. I have virtually no appetite, the fever finally left me sometime yesterday so I 'm feeling falsely healthy, and the least activity (going up and down the stairs, for instance) wipes me out. Then there's the lung-launching coughs. Wow.

I am finally feeling well enough for about 10 minutes computer time and then a day propped up in bed knitting/reading/watching bad TV. Of course, today I have last night's episode of House, but it won't last all day. Yesterday I found myself thinking, "What is this garbage and why am I glued to it?" . It was some celebrity fashion thing (100 worst or something like that). OTOH, it made for good background to the knitting.

The knitting. I'm back on my sock and I've turned the heel! Woo-Hoo! It really was surprisingly easy, once I jumped in and just did it. I'm very pleased. That was the last bit I finished before going to sleep last night, so I'm pretty anxious to pick it up again. Although, I have a new book I really want to read. I'll probably start with the knitting and see how it goes. I hate to say this out loud, but I will, I should probably read instead. This quite sick time at home alone is the only reading time I'll get. I can knit when the kids get home. You know? Still, the sock is sooooo exciting now that I'm in the final stretch!

I'm waiting to find out if I need to cancel my wrist surgery next week because of the pneumonia. My GP said yes, but the surgeon's office said to wait until next week to make a decision. If I have to reschedule, I won't be able to get in before the first of February, so it would be nice to get it done. But, I'd rather not increase my risk of death or something. I'm funny that way.

Well, I've taken a picture of the sock after I turned the heel, but it will have to wait to be loaded. I'm too wiped out just eating my banana and drinking my hot tea. Time to wander off to bed again.

Finishing fever

Well, here they are. Finished at last! And so am I. I'm seeing a bazillion flaws, why do we do that?, but when I compare them to the drawings of his hands, these should comfortably fit the student. The finger joins are about 60% nice & 40% dodgy, but when they are on, you can't tell that the joins are less than perfect. So, done.

I finished these on Thursday last week. These were a very fast knit, you know, in knitting hours and in spite of the length of time it took me to finish. I got distracted (Halloween costumes) and work, etc., so that took a bit longer. Still I liked them. What would I do differently next time? Well, for one, I'd use the pattern as originally intended, for fingerless gloves. The problem with the finger join was that the pattern called to join live stitches, which I just did not have on the fingers. It is possible that problem could still have been avoided if I had put the cast-on stitches on waste yarn to keep everything in the right place, instead of trying to pick them up again later. Jeez! I won't try that again! Lastly, I would have switched to smaller needles for the wrist ribbing to give them a better fit, although I think they fit fine, it would be nice if they were a little tighter.

The fever part. Oy! I left work on Friday feeling fine, by the time I got home, I had a fever. It is now Monday and the fever is still here. I hurt all over on Saturday, so I just stayed in bed while my DH took care of the kids. I hurt so bad I couldn't read or even knit! Talk about feeling lousy! I felt a little better on Sunday, not very achy, so I sat in the living room with the family and buried myself under blankets. I was still cold, and when I got around to taking my temperature, I found my fever was actually higher than it was on Saturday. So, I crawled into work today. We're down a person since our director has moved up the food chain, so to speak, so I need to come in and get things rolling in the morning and make sure all the student help is going to show up. Once they are all checked in, I'll be on my way to the clinic. This fever and a bit of a cough seem to be stirring up my asthma. Also, I have surgery on my hand next week. If this lingers, I would have to cancel my surgery and reschedule which would stink. I probably not be able to get in before the end of January.

Oh well, at least the gloves are done and I don't have any projects hanging over my head. Here's one more shot of a single glove, a little closer detail. I'll be back when I recover a bit.

Soggy, soggy day

But I like it! We were to have 5+ inches of rain yesterday, but we didn't make it. We only got about 3-1/2 inches instead, it has warmed up, though, so no snow. Still, there's been enough rain to raise most of the rivers to flood levels, send folks in low-lying areas to shelters, and still it keeps raining. I feel bad for the displaced folks, but I do love the rain. I just wish I was at home curled up with my knitting and a book. But then, I also wish I could knit and read at the same time - LOL! Still, I can take turns with each of them. We should be getting some breaks in the rain by tomorrow, but then it will come back and the temps will drop again & there will be snow in the mountains. Well, that's what the weather-folk say. Goodness knows what will actually happen. :)

The gloves are done, except for the sewn bind off, which should be done by the end of lunch today. Oh yeah, and then I need to sew up the holes around the fingers. So, two things that need to be done and I'm finished. Still, barring incident, these puppies are done in the next day or so. I'm really glad to be done with them before the surgery, it is a big relief. Of course, now my husband wants me to get started on his, but I won't have a deadline on these and the second pair should go faster, right? At least I get to go shopping for yarn. Woo-hoo! While I won't go so far as to say that I've been on a yarn diet, I have been avoiding any new purchases until I finished these gloves. Technically, I've been avoiding any new yarn purchases until I get more projects done, but I don't really want to make a formal commitment to that lifestyle. LOL Anyway, I still get to go shopping. I hope I can resist anything else calling my name, but I'm just not sure I'll be strong enough.

Cuff 'em

Yep. I can't believe how pathetically slow this project is going, though make no mistake, I'm still enjoying the knitting. I feel like a snail could get more knitting done in an hour than I can. But maybe not since they don't have hands. I should probably find another slow thing to compare my speed to, hmmm.

Anyway, life has just gotten so busy that I'm having a hard time getting things done. I think it was all the festivities last week when my boss left. Lots of lunches out, extra meetings with people I don't normally meet with, etc. Not as much lunch time to knit, and very little time at home. I'm working on it. The important thing is that I'm nearly finished, just the cuff in a simple k1p1 pattern. I'm thinking this will probably be the part I can't get done right. LOL Wouldn't that be a kick?

The bag pictured above is a lovely gift from a friend. Her sister just returned from a trip to Cambodia and picked up this nice silk bag for my knitting. It seems she saw me working out of a rather trashed plastic bag at my daughters' swim lessons. But, hey, I'm just recycling the plastic bags the yarn stores give me. I use them until my needles poke too many holes in them, then I use a new one (hopefully before I lose anything out of the holes). This apparently looks rather sad, so she thought I could use a new bag. Very sweet & I love the bag! It has been the perfect size for this project & likely all my socks as well. You know, when I get back to the socks.

Now for November

We survived the seriously cold weather last night. I was right about "Princess Jasmine", she nearly froze her bare little tummy off. The cape helped, and I brought along some blankets to help warm them up. DH had the brilliant foresight to get some hand warmers (like skiers use, etc.) and they carried them around in their hands and rubbed them on their faces (& tummies) to stay warm. It was enough to get them around the block. For some reason, we had about half the houses "open" that we had last year. I don't know if folks just didn't expect many kids due to the cold or if there were just more folks not around. It worked out though, if we'd had many more houses to go to, the girls wouldn't have made it.

Still, we had a surprisingly early night and minimal candies consumed - without even trying to limit them! I have no idea how that happened, but I'm sure they'll make up for it just as soon as they realize how much candy is still around the house. LOL Here's a little better picture of the bat wings, since I spent so much time trying to figure out how to make them work. I'm thinking about starting my costume for next year soon so that it will be ready for next year. If it is going to be this cold, I need something I can wear without freezing to death. Also, I'm still loving my new sewing machine, and I don't want to forget about it. LOL



On the knitting side of life, I've got three rows left and then I'm at the cuff. I underestimated how many were left yesterday, so I had more than I thought. I got most of them in after putting up the outside decorations (we were really behind this year) and before getting the girls. Mom took almost a whole hour for herself! I finally got to watch last week's ep of Supernatural and knit for a while. Nice. Good episode too, lots of laughs last week.

Hope everyone else had a nice Halloween. Now we will all be bombarded with the over-merchandising of Thanksgiving (for those of us here in the States) and Christmas.
Whee! (NOT)