EssieWB: Knitting My Way Through

After the First Treatment

2012-01-24T11:03:00.000-08:00

Many years ago when I attended Baptist church, they listed the "sick and shut-in" members in the program every week. Right now, I have made myself a shut-in for ten days to try and improve the success of my chemotherapy treatments. I had a treatment last week. It went well and I am already improving, seeing the flare dissipate. In the past, sometimes I've had the second treatment delayed by minor infections and ailments. I am trying to avoid that by staying home, away from foreign germs and out of trouble until the next treatment. I only have to make it another eight days. I went to knitting with my buddies two days ago and then realized that might not be wise. I am pretty sure that getting off schedule with these treatment makes them less effective. The cell killing has to take place at a certain time to hit the greatest number of them.

It might sound like I am suffering in my isolation, home with no company, no fun. Hah! One of my sisters just left after hanging out with me for a while. We were on line looking for little Valentine's gifts for the teachers at a school where she volunteers. After my sis ran a couple of errands for me, she picked up a turkey burger for my lunch. Now I'm going to knit little heart pins to go in the teacher gift bags. About.com has a pattern that works well if I use thinner yarn and size 3 needles.

Anyway, I am better, the medicine is working, and that's how treatment should be.

Peace.

...And So It Goes-More Disease, Less Romance

2012-01-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Could my topic be more depressing? There's a reason I don't like to blog when I am sick. I hate the lists of symptoms and complaints and canceled activities and extra doctor appointments and new or increased meds. I figure others hate reading about it as much as I hate writing it. But I have promised not to sugar coat this lupus thing, and the only way to adhere to that is to be true to the real battle. So...

I had a long flare last November. I had to take prednisone (corticosteroid treatment) for a whole month to get it calmed down. I had previously been able to stop prednisone altogether, and the weight was melting off me like an icicle in June. The big dosing and long taper stopped that. When I saw my doc again, 5 of 16 pounds was back. That same visit, just a few weeks after ending the big prednisone, my sacroiliac joints were showing some inflammation. They hurt like hell whenever I stand or walk if they are inflammed, and direct injections of steroids into the joint area is the only effective treatment for me. So I got injected-one big needle at the top of each buttock-in December.

The first three weekends of December were the only Chattanooga Market sessions I could attend, but they were the holiday markets and I enjoyed them immensely. I seemed to have some respite from my symptoms as I interacted with customers, friends and market folk. I knitted during the market hours, went home and produced as much as I could before the following weekend. My stock of fingerless gloves seemed to disappear at each market session, and I was making up to ten pair per week, rising at 4 a.m. to buy some extra knitting time. By this time, those gloves were made without planning or diagrams or notes. I have developed a consistent way of building my gusset (that triangle that makes room for the thumb base) and I use designs that can be easily read, so I can make sure the second glove looks like the first. I had a lovely time with all the ribs, intricate stitch patterns, columns of lace, cables and spirals that came from my head without much thought. I knit in every weight from sock yarn to chunky, and every pair but one had a real gusset and thumb base, rather than just a slit for the thumb. If I had to pick a favorite yarn for fingerless gloves, it would be Aslan Trends Bariloche. Or Koigu Kersti. Or Karabella Aurora 8. Something like that.

Christmas fun truly started with the markets and continued as my daughter came home, my son made a drive-by, one-night visit, and we had our first Christmas in the Woods house without Mama or Daddy. My sister did a remarkable job of getting a bunch of family together, amassing mountains of great food and keeping things festive enough to take the focus off the parental absence. In truth, Christmas hadn't been truly a family event in that house for a few years, as the parents became weaker and less able to tolerate company.

Somewhere in that December whirlwind my relationship ended. It was an amiable parting, sad but inevitable. And that's enough of that.

January is doing its best to remind me that I have lupus and that lupus ain't pretty. The sacroiliitis that quieted with previous injections came blazing back. I cannot stand for three minutes, and my slow, labored walking is hampered by the feeling that my lower back is made from brick. Because of its severity, my doc has agreed to move the rituximab treatment up by a month. Tomorrow I will go have my long day of tests and IVs, and hopefully next week I can sing a brighter tune.

Peace.

November 2011 - and I thought August was for change!

2011-11-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

The biggest change in my life in many years has occurred. I have a partner. He is the right man at the right time and place. As Detective Monk would say, "He's the guy." He's been around a few months and I'm happy with the path my life has taken. That's it. Nothing else to say on that topic. All further rejoicing will be done quietly.

Meanwhile, lupus has laid it's little finger on my summer and fall. I was ripe for treatment in August, but had to have the second round delayed for infection. I'm sure now that this produces a less-than-optimal result. The months following these disrupted treatments don't have that crisp, healthy feeling. They are more likely to be dotted with occasional short flares and problems. Nonetheless I was able to stay off prednisone for more than two months, a real record for the past 19 years! It only resumed five days ago when I burst into a big flare. I hope this will be gone quickly and only require a short prednisone taper.

This hasn't interfered with my enjoyment of the summer and early fall. I've seen lots of gorgeous foliage in Tennessee and Georgia. It's my favorite time of year, and the crisp coolness pulls me out to make short walks in parks and explore new places. Every summer I question my decision to settle in the south. Every fall reminds me why.

I knitted like crazy to produce samples for the Minnesota boutique I associated with last winter. They have selected a nice number of pieces, easing my anxiety about being totally inadequate as a designer, and letting me breathe again. The holiday shopping season starts immediately, and I want to start setting up at Market in two weeks. I will have help, but I need this flare to get out of the way. In addition to my usual hats, scarves, cowls and fingerless gloves I have been playing with hoods.

The photos above are of a blue hood (and details of the cables), a Noro hat which features stone buttons, and a Colinette Point 5 mitten set which also has stone buttons. I am nuts for little adornments from natural materials. I'm searching for more suitable wooden ones and other types of stone, and maybe sea glass.

I'm ready to continue my 2 cents worth here. There shouldn't be another three months to wait for a post.

Peace.

August 2011 - Change Time

2011-08-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Wow! Lots of changes this year. Some are good, some not so much, but we've reached a point in the year when all are evident. My daughter is transferring to a different university to finish her art degree. It is a friendly environment, a little easier to reach by car, and it has the area of concentration that she desires. It took a move from old university apartment to home, then big sorting and editing of possessions, then a move from home to new university house. Can you hear my joints creaking? Actually, my girl is strong and energetic. She carried 75 percent of her things, probably 98% of the upstairs moving, and I concentrated on sorting and putting away belongings. Now that the chores are done, I can reflect on my comfort with her recent choices. She picked a school and program that seem suit all her needs, and she's already making friends there.

Both of my parents are gone. Mama followed Daddy by just four months. We knew that after 70 years she was searching for her connection with him, but her death was still a shock. I feel unmoored. There's no one to call to report my car troubles or my latest encounter with one of their church members. When I made butter cream frosting for the first time, I almost picked up the phone to discuss the results with Mama. At least once a week I wonder why Daddy hasn't called to check in: "Hey, Esoo, how are you getting along? Haven't heard from you since last week."

One of my sisters and her hubby will arrive in town soon, buying the parents' house and making Chattanooga their retirement place. With four sisters here, that will strengthen the family hub. I've always liked living in the place where relatives are most likely to visit.

I have custom orders lined up: a large blanket made of a variety of Lorna's Laces yarns, a shawl in a complicated rainbow of colors. Just finished a matching hat and booties to go with an organic cotton baby blanket. A baby boy in New York will have a bright welcome. If I can figure out how, I will add the photo my daughter took with her phone.

All is well. This is a chemo (rituximab) week, so I will put my feet up and knit.

Peace. Peace.

Better? Better!

2011-07-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

I have to remind myself to post when I am doing well. I forget because I have less free time when I feel good, and because feeling bad makes me need to vent and share the weight. Lately I'm better. I go sometimes as long as ten days without a single pain pill. I walk faster, and there is a spring in my step. I go to the market and participate fully in set-up and packing out. I have an easier time sticking with my eating plan.

Methotrexate shots have been added to my regimen, and just as before (I was on it for several years in the past) it has provided some immediate improvement. I'm hoping that with metho and rituximab together, I can - wait for it - get off of prednisone. Won't know until about September or October, but that is the goal. Meanwhile, I already have a pretty severe Candida infection of the skin, but it is localized and seems to be responding to the anti-yeast meds. (No, not there. You get yeast infections of exposed skin when you are immunocompromised.) More immunosuppression, more infections. Goes with the territory.

My store is doing better, too. I've opened a branch in Minnesota. My sister volunteered to take some of my work to her local farmer's market, where there seems to be greater appreciation for handmade items and natural fabrics, and greater knowledge about eco-friendly products. My things are selling quite well. Here in town the Brainerd Market is attracting more patrons, and I am selling more products. Which leads me to...

...my 3D explosion. I love three dimensional design. I've been knitting giant bowls, cannisters and other vessels, and felting them. I've experimented with different edges and shapes and yarn types. I'm excited by what I've learned and the vessels I'm producing. I began with plain yarns that were not of my premium stock, but I've begun to use the more pricey yarns, too. Hand-dyed wools, especially variegated ones, make such gorgeous pieces. I've shown some above, including a before and after photo, documenting the magic of felting.

Finally, the gloves. I had a commission for a pair of gloves and a pair of mittens from a cold New Yorker. The gloves were the most difficult to design. The first pair I tried had fingers for an elf. The second design is what you see. Karabella Aurora 8 is my favorite merino worsted, and it made these gloves look beautiful, falling into its blissfully even stitches with such gorgeous definition. The customer was very happy with both pairs, making me feel it was well worth the extended time spent on design.

It's good to be living.

Peace.

Matlock Makes Me Laugh

2011-06-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

Defendant's wife has an explanation for her affair that is laden with therapy-speak. Matlock says he understands: "You were hot for each other." Andy Griffith has been one of my heroes for decades. He always played characters that had good common sense and seemed much less intelligent than they actually were. His characters seemed to accept that people did strange and sometimes humorous things, and he was not too sophisticated to exclaim at them. Even as Matlock he sometimes pulls out his guitar and gives us a great song.

I am often watching Matlock this time of morning, turning from the Today Show as soon as Kathy Lee Griffin opens her mouth. This morning I need it more than ever, as I have been obsessing about my Turtlefat/Turtletots sales. I mean lack of sales. In five market or craft fair sales since the season started, I have barely covered expenses. I've been looking at my products and my displays and the economy and the things people are buying and how other vendors are doing, and on and on and on.

This is the first season that I have pushed so far into hot weather. I am discovering that people admire my scarves but it is too hot to try them on, yet I've sold one linen/cotton wrap. I've sold a few baby items (booties, hats). I've sold a few household items (cup cozies, organic cotton washcloths, grocery bags). People express interest in the fibers that I choose, chat about the soy, bamboo, corn, organic cotton, like the way children's clothing especially is done with less toxic choices, but they don't buy.

I'm doing better at labeling the items in my store so that people can recognize them from a greater distance and see the variety of items. I'm considering whether I should group them and only sell one class of item each time (baby things this week, household next week, etc.). I recently decreased some prices and made sure that every item had a fresh tag that was clearly labeled. I culled items that had been around for a while, and things that no longer conform to my aesthetic.

Yesterday I began exploring some fun creatures I call Shrunken Heads. Maybe what's fun for me will be fun for others. Maybe this will keep my mind off the constant worry about the stores.

Peace.

Preparing to Have a Flare

2011-06-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've had a backache for a few days. I've set up for the Chattanooga Market twice this month, and gone to a smaller farmer's market once. I figured the pain was from hauling stuff and bending, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, etc. This morning I woke myself up singing the pain song. What I mean is that I was whimpering in my sleep because my body hurt, and the noise woke me. I could see right away that I was in trouble. I got up and began walking and my thighs were stiff. It felt like I was expending major energy to make my legs move. There were annoying little shooting pains in my lower legs even when I sat. This is a flare until proven otherwise.

Obviously I can't prepare for something that begins so precipitously, but I've got some moves for when I recognize the inevitability of the flare. First, I put in a call to my rheumatologist. It's Thursday and I don't want to get caught out on the weekend trying to reach someone. Might as well get some instructions now. Second, I look at my schedule. For the next few weeks I need to determine what is absolutely essential, and cancel everything else. I will need the extra rest and I'm probably going to lack the energy or good will to do more. Third, I rally my moral support. Telling one or two sisters, my daughter, and a few good friends alerts everyone that I may need a bit of help, if only an ear for my complaining. It also lets them know that I'm not turning down activities with them because I've suddenly developed an aversion to their company. Fourth, I start recording my food intake. If I'm going on a higher dose of prednisone it is going to drastically increase my appetite. I need to monitor what I eat and make sure I stay on program. It will be especially difficult with the low carbohydrate plan my new internist wants me to try, as prednisone makes me crave baked goods and other carbs in a remarkable way.
Since my usual day is built around my crafting, specifically knitting and crochet, I don't have to change my basic purpose. I still want to get up in the morning, see what I can learn (reading or on the Internet), do maintenance on my stores, and then work on projects. The flare will put a kink in my ability and energy for photography, so I try and do it in short sessions at the times when my energy is best.
I sat down to record this plan so that I would stop obsessing with what this flare might mean. Yes, it might be a three-month disaster, but it also might respond to steroids right away and be a non-issue in three weeks. Yes, it is going to bring more pain, but my pain tolerance is high and my distraction skills have stood me well. Yes, there's going to be some disappointment in having to give up some activities and adjust my thinking to active illness mode, but that's happened dozens-hell, in 20 years, maybe hundreds-of times and it eventually passes.
Damn. My wrists hurt.
Peace.

Preparing to Go to Market

2011-05-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Top photo is box of labels and a set of baby headbands that I've just labeled. I have to be careful to label adult and home items with http://essiewb.etsy.com and child/baby items with http://turtletots.etsy.com.
Second and third photos show scarves hanging on the new clothing rack. I hope this will show them off and allow shoppers to easily access them. I love people to touch my products and try them on.

Fourth photo shows the ends of the spiral scarf, loose yarn ready to be sewn into place.

I've been going to market events to sell my products for several years. Each time there's a process I go through to prepare. Because I am always knitting and crocheting I usually have a pile of new products that need to be labelled before I can pack them. I have printed tags on which I write the price, fiber content and care instructions. These are tied to each product with a length of yarn. I've learned that most people like tags. Some are too shy to ask, some check out tags to decide if they can afford to shop with you. Others, however, never glance at a tag, asking me for the price of each thing they examine. Go figure.

Next, I go through the products already in my rolling dufflebag and remove any that are out of season or that I don't want to display at the coming market. I replace these with the pile of new things. During this process I am also checking the condition of the items to see if anything needs refolding or a pass with the iron. If there are prices that need adjusting, I put on new tags. The few items that don't fit in my duffle (like felted rugs) are fetched and laid out with the bag so I don't forget them. I never feel compelled to take everything with me. I always have way more stuff than I have space to handle, and I'm constantly looking for ways to display them better. I'm toying with the idea of only taking one class of products at a time (housewares day, baby items only, etc.), but folks who are familiar with my store come up looking for their favorites when I finally show up to market. It's difficult when I don't have hats that day, or they've come for a newborn gift and I don't have them.

Getting my car ready is as important as preparing the products. My car is a large sedan with a decent-size trunk, but it wasn't made for hauling equipment. I must clear the way to put in a folding garment rack (new for this year!), two long folding tables, two portable chairs, a dolly, and totes filled with wrapping materials, a couple of knitting projects to work on during the market day, a money container, some snacks, my Turtlefat Collection sign, and extras like duct tape and a screwdriver and scissors, just for good measure. Oh yeah. I have to pack my tent-unwieldy and heavy, but with wheels on one end, thank goodness.

Many of the things that I take (and leave at home) are the result of many sessions at market, the trial and error of having too much of this or none of that, learning what makes it easier, what makes me function better during those long hours with my limited endurance and tendency toward swelling and pain.

Obviously, after I empty the car, I have to load all my gear. Sigh. On the other end I will have to unload it in the parking lot and haul it into the pavilion. Sometimes that affects the order of packing, other times I just go for random placement and hope for the best. We used to be able to drive into the pavilion and unload at our booth site, but that's no longer allowed.

There's always something waiting to be finished that I want to complete and take to the market. Today it was a spiral scarf that needed about 30 rows and then finishing work in order to be ready. It doesn't need blocking, so I knew it was a realistic goal. When I began this scarf I hated the short rows and turning it every few stitches. To avoid all the turning I taught myself to knit backwards. I hold my yarn in my left hand and knit continental (forward, that is), so I just leave the yarn in my left hand and throw it around the needle when I'm knitting backwards. Anyway, I finished the spiral scarf and showed it above, needle ready for weaving ends.

I haven't mentioned that I am excited the whole week before market. No matter how tiring, the preparation boosts my anticipation. Can't wait for Sunday's Strawberry Fest at the Chattanooga Market!

Peace.

2011-04-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Something significant happened today: I decided to make a slipper-sock. I chose two yarns-a skinny, self-striping sock yarn (Felicity by KnitPicks) and a light worsted merino (Luxury Merino by elann.com). After one false start I got the number of stitches right to do a ribbed low ankle cuff. I added a cable on each side just for good measure. When I pulled into heel territory, I decided without much deliberation that I wanted a short-row heel and that I would make one tiny, center short row and then run my short-rows from cable to cable.

The perfect thing was that knowing the construction allowed me to pull this off without big calculations or consultations or any kind of pattern. I knit four pairs of socks two years ago, but I could hardly call myself a sock knitter, so this was a revelation. I could see the three-dimensional shape I wanted to achieve in my head, and I knew how to use the short-rows to make that cupping. This signals my arrival at a level of expertise that I have only reached before in medicine. I have lived with this knitting thing long enough that my understanding has a depth beyond the ability to follow a pattern. It's been integrated with my other knowledge of geometry and engineering, the fiber finding its place and making use of what's already in my head.

As usual, I haven't photographed the thing I'm talking about, but I do have photos of the lace scarf I mentioned last post. It now hangs with the rest of my summer scarves, ready for the Chattanooga Market to open next Sunday. I also have things that I never offered before-linen/cotton hand towels with tiny ruffled borders, organic cotton face cloths, mug cozies. I'm experimenting. We'll see how it is received.

Peace.

Black Women Do Knit; If I Wasn't Depressed I'd Put it in Caps

2011-04-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't posted in a while and I forgot that I changed my format. I was excited when I saw the orange swirly background. I came because I learned something today. I was fooling around on Ravelry and found Ebony Elite Sistah Friends group - a large group of primarily African-American women knitters. Yes, we do exist! More than 600 members strong, 26 pages of members, overwhelmingly sistahs, pages of tan, brown, beige, light, bright, almost-white, ebony, near-ebony women who know the joy of craft. Hallelujah. Locations include most of the states, many in the UK, a few in the Caribbean, and at least one in Ireland. Black women knit. Amen.
I looked at every photo/icon, feeling irrationally that if a woman was brown and lived in my time and knitted, I must know her. It probably seems crazy, with all the knitters I know and have as close friends, that race is anywhere in this equation. It's just that I was afraid we were not feeling the joy of this fabulous past-time/obsession/preoccupation. I didn't want it to be some elite, separate activity like tennis or golf, with just a trickle of exposure for Black women.

I am doin' more than just talking about knitting. I'm proud of the lace scarves that I've created lately. I promise photos when they finish blocking. I'm also happy with my "little" things: mostly wash cloths and makeup remover squares knit in organic, undyed cotton. They are sweet little luxuries that make me feel pampered while also saving a lot of waste (disposable makeup pads), and I hope others will feel the same. I hated the super-thin synthetic wash cloths they sold for babies when I was a new mom, and I'm going to encourage them as baby gifts, too.

I've struggled with depression this spring. Nothing seems right-the unsettled weather, the absence of my father, the illness that kept my daughter from finishing her semester, the chaos in some of my relationships...I go from painful, stiff mornings when I wonder if I can keep this up to more active afternoons when I am giddily grateful that my meds have glued me together for one more day. I automatically work to boost my mood, but that constant striving takes lots of energy and concentration. I also try to maintain a stable schedule, which means I've got to stop rambling and go to bed. Rest is a good thing.

Peace.

Curiosity and Knitting Innovation

2011-03-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Jumbleberryjam asked if my survey on the knitting experiences of black women had yielded results. The answer is "yes", but nothing usable. Unfortunately, it wasn't circulated to enough women to get out of the circle of women whom I know are knitters or crafters, whose contacts would more likely be knitters. I have tried to pursue the question on Ravelry (an on-line community for knitters and crocheters which is wildly popular). I did so by searching for groups that would-by name/subject of interest-suggest predominantly minority involvement. Most of them I confirmed by examining more closely individual member names and icons. It appeared that more of those groups were crocheters than knitters.

You might wonder why this question makes any difference to me at all. Well, some of it is curiosity. I just like to know who's doing what and why. Some of that curiosity can be easily satisfied by publicly available statistics; that wasn't the case with knitter demographics. The other reason I am interested is that I have enormous fun with my knitting. It also relaxes me, helps discipline my mind, and produces beautiful items for personal use and for sale. I want to share this with people and encourage others who may not have found their crafting niche to try it.

Aside from the above noted research, there are several things in my personal experience that lead me to think black women are underrepresented among U.S. knitters. First, when I am out at the market knitting and selling my stuff, people often stop to comment on their own experiences with knitting (their personal knitting or that of family members). These people are never African-American. Second, among my own acquaintances I only know a few black knitters, while I know many black crocheters. Third, only rarely has a black woman asked about joining the group of knitters that are my weekly companions knitting in a very public place. This experience has been echoed by some of the other black women I know who knit.

Lately I have been obsessed with nontraditional designs for scarves. I want to show a few of them and describe how they came into being. The top scarf was knit with self-striping yarn, a Noro that is primarily silk and cotton. I wanted to create some three-dimensional pieces extending from random parts of the scarf. To do so, I knit down a row to the spot I wanted to use, cast on 15-30 stitches to my right-hand needle, then used both needles to cast off those same stitches. That produced a two-row, coiling piece that could be pushed to the front or back of the piece before I continued to knit and complete the row. On the second photo you can see the triangular holes. I knit the posts in between the holes without a real plan, just knowing that I had to either start wide and decrease to a point or start with one stitch and increase gradually. I tried to keep the same number of rows in each triangle so the segment wouldn't make the scarf crooked. I cast on stitches in between their ends, picked up the end stitches of each triangle at the appropriate spot, and eventually had a new row to proceed from. This scarf has a variety of stitch patterns along its length, including a segment of cables and some rows of drop-stitch.

The experiment with the second scarf is knots. I wanted to create three-dimensional segments by making strips of scarf that would form knots or with other strips. I chose a place to start a strip, knitting and turning for a three- or four-stitch piece until I had several inches to work with. Then I finished the original row, keeping the piece in its place to form a loop. In some later row I would come close to the width that the first loop arose from and start another strip. When the strip was long enough to reach through the first one and back to it's home row, I would thread it through and then finish it's home row. I did this with vertical and horizontal loops, as you can see in the photos. By the way, that yarn is two lengths worked together, a bamboo from Southwest Trading Company.

Hope this is clearer than mud.
Peace.

This is What Better Feels Like

2011-02-22T06:26:00.000-08:00

I think I've described what it's like when I am sick or in a lupus flare. I was treated twice in the past two weeks with a very specific therapy that targets B cells from my immune system. (Those are cells that contribute to lupus, which comes from an overactive immune system.) I tried to pay special attention to what is better now that I've been treated.
Within three days of the first dose, my joint pain improved and my energy increased. At the end of that week I was able to take my first decrease in prednisone dosage. By ten days post-treatment, I was using approximately half the pain medicine as before. In the past week I've done house cleaning and grocery shopping much more easily. I walk faster and I can go to more than one store when necessary. This week I decreased my prednisone again, and with no rebound of symptoms. When I woke this morning I realized that-once again-I can start my day with no pain.
There are a few foundations that help patients like me pay for this treatment. Without their help, my out-of-pocket expense would be more than $8000 per year, impossible for me and my post-recession economitis. Medicare only covers a fraction of the cost. It's a frustrating situation, as my being free of flares means less other medication has to be subsidized by Medicare, my need for expensive physical therapy is reduced, I can care for myself independently in my home, and I have less possibility of side effects from prednisone, which can cause expensive chronic diseases like diabetes and osteoporosis and cardiac disease.
People think of preventive medicine as being about physical exams, vaccines, cholesterol screening, mammograms, Pap smears...For me, prevention is about minimizing the debilitating effects of lupus and of the treatments for lupus. Both kinds of prevention are good for the country's annual health care expenditures.
On the knitting front: Lately I have been consumed with ideas about nontraditional design. I'm trying to throw away some conventions and produce pieces that are more sculptural and texture-driven. I'll get some photos this week and post them.
Peace! All power to the Wisconsin workers!

Back to School on Etsy

2011-02-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday I went to school. I turned on my computer and accessed the Etsy site, where I was directed to a seminar on improving your Etsy business. I heard Lorrie Veasey, Vanessa Bertozzi, Nancy Soriano, Noah Scalin, April Bowles and Michelle Ward, a wonderful array of speakers with impressive credentials inside and outside of Etsy. I was in school all day long, running for snacks and meds on the breaks, taking notes and participating in creative challenges.

This is an aspect of Etsy that most people don't see. When you go to http://Etsy.com, you see a beautiful opening page of premiere products, all either handmade or vintage. If you are there to shop, you put the item, store or seller you seek into the search engine, and proceed from there. But if you are an Etsy seller, one of the thousands who has an active store at the site, you can get a lot more from that front page. Under the heading of "Community" there is a wealth of information. It contains blog entries on every topic related to selling on Etsy: marketing, photography, competition, pricing, rules and regulations, successful seller biographies, pertinent law - those are the ones that immediately come to mind, and there are many more topics that are presented and updated for the use of the community. There is a virtual roadmap for anyone opening or considering an Etsy store.

People ask how I got the nerve to open my store, and how difficult was it. I got the nerve because I had shopped there and seen that sellers were people like me. They had products that they thought were desirable and wanted to put them out there with less overhead or in smaller quantities than a brick-and-mortar store would require. They wanted to work independently. They didn't necessarily have any business or sales experience. And the difficulty-well, on a scale of 1 to 10, getting the store open was a 3. I had to follow instructions, step by step, filling in the blanks as they were presented. I didn't have to know anything about building a web site or writing code or setting up a shopping cart. Moreover, the only charge was the $.20 (yes, that's 20 cents!) fee to list each item for three months, and a 3.5% fee on anything I sell.

Maintaining my shop is the biggie. Yes, I have to make new products, but I also have to come up with accurate and hopefully catchy descriptions. I have to photograph them to best advantage. I must relist my products frequently so that they show up early in the long list of things presented in a search. Each re-listing is another 20 cents, adding up to a considerable advertising budget. Periodically I read my introduction to the shop and my policies, and see if they are a good representation of what I do today. I update the photo for my shop banner as my artistic vision changes. And I am constantly developing new designs and patterns, updating my products, making them appropriate for the season and for my clientele. That means I have to constantly learn new techniques, refine my knitting and crochet skills, and understand what trends are current.

Anyway, enough with the how-to stuff. One of the creative exercises presented last Tuesday was as follows. Noah asked us to think of an object, then use the materials around us to create 10 likenesses or representations of that object in 10 minutes. My object was a ball of yarn. I scrambled around my house gathering materials and twisting them into "balls" and the photo shows what I came up with: from upper right corner, moving clockwise, it's a pair of pants, a hairdryer, a tape measure, a knit headband, dog leash, plastic bags, paper towels, decorative flowers with bendable stems, a hand-knit scarf, and in the center a bra and a cloth belt. That doesn't include the drawing of a ball of yarn that was my first piece. Yes, 12 items. And yes, I was having fun.

Peace.

Weathering the Flare II

2011-02-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I wrote Weathering the Flare, and I made an inadvertent omission. Somehow I forgot to mention the instant pick-me-up. One of the worst feelings when you are dealing with the flares your illness metes out is helplessness. When I don't feel useful, it's hard for me to relate to the world, to find my place in it. I know intellectually that I have value beyond my ability to give, but it drains my confidence and self-worth none the less when I cannot do it. A quick, almost effortless move can fix that. I turn on my laptop and navigate to The Hunger Site. In one minute I can click on all the contribution buttons (Hunger, Breast Cancer, Animal Rescue, Rain Forest, Literacy, Child Health) and sponsors will make small donations to each cause. Instantly I feel the satisfaction of having done my piece to save the world that day. The best thing is that my chronic poverty doesn't stop me from doing my part, either. I just have to pay attention for a minute.

Second in line, and requiring a bit more stamina, is to use my telephone to pick up someone else's spirits. I've noticed that fewer people are using their phones for encouragement and contact. The sound of a human voice is infinitely more comfortable than the buzz of your phone, followed by a two-line text message. Granted, you can text or email in the thick of your busy day when a call would be impossible, but many have convinced themselves that a call is never possible. We need to re-learn the art of the quick, "I'm just checking on you" phone call, and use it frequently. I know this approach requires a little more stamina than clicking on the Hunger Site button, but the extra effort brings a proportionate swell in my sense of having touched another human being and lifted their day. I try never to use this on annoying people who are a drag on my day; those individuals need only be dealt with when I have extra energy and the right frame of mind. Instead, I pick as my target someone who isn't expecting the call and won't abuse it.

It is important to me that my effort have tangible rewards. I don't spend a lot of time throwing prayers up for other people, since they always generate uncertainty of being heard or answered. That's just more stress. Instead, I go for the direct hit of sending cash via sponsors or sending good will by way of a phone call, and I can be sure of my result. Good ol' useful me, saving the world on a daily basis.

Peace.

Weathering the Flare

2011-02-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

If you have lupus, you have received information on how to get through a flare. It probably includes advice such as get plenty of rest, perform stretching exercises as tolerated, and avoid over-scheduling. The more difficult part is how to handle the severe disability that you may be experiencing.
My first reaction to having flares of any severity was to arm myself with all the devices and aids that could make my situation easier. I have canes in my car and home, a wheelchair folded in the garage, and devices to reach under beds and onto shelves when I can't bend low or climb on a stool. I also have the requisite housekeeping aids - a Swiffer mop that I can sit down and push around the floor, a rolling stool in the kitchen, a slow cooker for easier meal preparation.
It is much harder to arm yourself mentally and emotionally as the flare drags on. The tools I use here were more slow to develop, and run the gamut from simple repeated thoughts and mantras to complex plans. This morning, as I struggled to make breakfast and worried that I didn't have the motivation to finish, I tried to catalog some of those techniques.
My frame of mind on these days has to be "Do it now, make it better later." With every task that I complete right now, I can see a clear space where my life is easier ten minutes or two hours later. That is powerful motivation for me, seeing that I can make myself a better day with a little effort right now. It is especially helpful since I am alone. I need to reassure myself that I am capable of saving my own day. Having a victim mentality and feeling that I must wait for someone else to make it better would be deadly.
When I was a little girl, I loved The Little Engine That Could. I hope I have the title right. There's no time to look it up. Anyway, the little engine would chug up hills saying "I think I can, I think I can..." I used that in college when I would walk across campus at the end of the day, trudging over to the Peabody College music rooms to practice piano. I would have finished a long day of engineering and premed courses, and deeply desired my piano time, but had little energy for it. I imagined myself to be a steam roller, rolling slowly but relentlessly across the landscape, making my way to Peabody. I would tell myself again and again that I was rolling onward. My current mantra derives from that relentless forward motion and varies from "I'm doing this" to "one more, one more, one more"
I have to be my own best cheerleader. No one is here in the middle of the night to encourage me to get up and take the pain pill that will enable me to move in the morning. I have to say "Come on, Es, you got this!" and then I have to believe it. Faking a positive attitude works just as well as actually having one. As soon as you say the words, you are halfway to finished.
Anyway, all this is on my mind as I prepare to go see the oncologist and get my rituximab today. It's taking all my mental resources to push these aching parts forward, but I have prepared coffee, eaten a bit and taken my medicines, and I'm steeling myself for the bath. After all, if I don't go today, tomorrow will only be worse, and I can't deal with that as long as it is in my control.
Peace.

But of Course I Am Still Knitting

2011-01-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

I should be thanking the woman who ordered the scarf that is drying on the ironing board. She was insistent on Colinette's Point 5 as a jump-off point, but the addition of several other yarns and a mixture of stitches is what makes it super special. It has me thinking of garments in a different way - more art, less consistency. The bottom left segment is the original Point 5 in the Morocco colorway, knit in a herringbone pattern. Next is a segment of self-striping yarn from Universal, doubled to provide a long, continuous change of colors instead of just the three stripes. The next section is a long swath of Point 5 knit 2 rows at a time, alternating with 2 rows of a dusky rose single. The final portion is the dark purple/red segment in Point 5, with knitted fringe extending several inches in chunky strands.

I am knitting in two directions just now. It is a very cold, snowy winter in most of the U.S. It is going to continue for at least two more months, and I want to keep making warm things. You can see the teal fingerless gloves above, knit from a gorgeous hand-dyed yarn I purchased from http://kittygrrlz.etsy.com. On the other hand, the retail cycle has clearly moved to spring and summer and I need to produce a box of samples for Larue's. It will include cool scarves in bamboo and cotton that are decorative and comfortable for warmer weather. The pale lilac lace is a soft, silky bamboo. The multicolored, hand-dyed cotton is that herringbone pattern again, in a Cherry Tree Hill yarn that I believe is discontinued.

Everything I show here is pleasurable knitting. The process of taking the yarn and turning it into something that uses its attributes and becomes a useful, beautiful garment is so pleasing to me. This work is saving my life. In the midst of the pain and fatigue, I have something to grow.

Peace.

Sick and Angry...and Sick

2011-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Every part of me hurts. It was torture getting out of bed and back in this morning. My hands are stiff and my fingers ache. Yesterday I ran out of steam in the old way, finding myself only able to sit and look. I have been on increased doses of prednisone for two months with no relief from this flare. This is how it used to be, the long flares I was accustomed to before I started taking rituximab.

When I began rituximab, we quickly determined that six month intervals between treatments allowed my flares to recur. My treatments were scheduled for every three to four months, and I had some blissfully better years. I was making progress with my life, enjoying some social activities, working much more capably in my home. I could see this concretely in better meal preparation, housekeeping and mental function. Then my rheumatologist decided that every six months was better for me. My last treatment was August. I am an angry mess. I don't know why I had to go through this again. Frankly, if there are long-term consequences to taking this medication more frequently, I am willing to trade them for the short-term life that it brings me.

I saw my psych guy this week. I can't call him a therapist. He is a drug manager. He gets a 30-minute update every three months and decides of my medications should be changed. No therapy involved. I realized after the visit that I must have sounded angry about everything - my health, my finances, my family, politics, injustices my daughter has recently suffered at school. I was a smiling, angry person.

I think what I was feeling was impotence. I am sick and I know it could have been avoided and I can't make the decisions that control that. I am in the typical patient position of being afraid to contradict the doctor too strongly, for fear that I will never get what I want and need. I need to be "good" and let him do his six-month experiment, and then be grateful that I am finally at the end of it this week. This sucks.

I have seen other patients in this position, and I encouraged them to go shopping. I may need to do the same. I have pushed others to treat the medical office like they treat a grocery store - if you feel that you are being mistreated, if your needs are not being met, if your questions are not answered - try somewhere else. Now I am looking at it with limited financial resources and the insurance least desired in physician offices, and trying to decide if I should do the same. I will speak to my doc first. We've always had good rapport, and I think a conversation is preferable to defecting without warning. I hope I won't have to shop. But I can't endure this again.

Peace.

Daddy Is Gone

2011-01-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

Here I am, a month later, and again someone has died. This time it's my father, a precious, wonderful man who made his family the most important thing in his life. He raised six daughters and left each of us feeling our own special connection to him. In his later years he worked to strengthen those connections, calling us, telling us how important we were to him, always reminding us that he loved us. Even as he was dying, word from one of his daughters made him smile and his voice would get stronger: "Baby girl! My baby girl said that?" One of the last coherent things he told me was "All my children are great. All my children are great."

We marked his death in stages. We were women observing and discussing, and we noted every change and worried about its significance. There was his diminished appetite, and then dwindling intake, and finally refusal to eat. He lost weight, and his doctor confirmed that his chronic kidney failure had worsened significantly. Then he was unable to walk. In bed, he woke to acknowledge us and ask for water, ever appreciative of each sip that we gave him. "Nothing like cold water. That's some good water." Finally he slipped away, never really waking, no longer seeing us even when he opened his eyes.

He spent those last days at home, able to decide for himself when he would no longer seek medical help or go to the hospital. My heroic sister rearranged her life and made it possible for the parents to live in their home until they die. When I go there today his empty hospital bed will make me cry again.

I cry in spells. It hits me without warning, the blessing of his life, his 92 years, the pain of his leaving. I blow my nose and keep moving. He taught us everything about living and being useful, and nothing about sitting still and grieving.

Good-bye Elizabeth Edwards

2010-12-08T06:52:00.001-08:00

Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday. She was prepared, had her family and friends around her, and had made all her good-byes. I didn't know her personally but I knew her situation. She put a face on the woman who was left by her husband after a terrible diagnosis.
Of all the parts of traditional marriage vows, the "in sickness and in health" seems to me to be the touchiest. When men promise to stay under those conditions, they rarely know what they are talking about. Most haven't been caretakers, don't have that nurturing mothering instinct that women seem to have, and have not been periodically assaulted by their bodies with normal occurrences like pregnancy and menstruation.
I was a woman like Elizabeth Edwards - a professional woman who had managed a career and family, with a good income and personal health. I ran and played tennis and did sit-ups with my toddler sitting on my belly. I hiked with my baby in a Snuggly. That was my baseline when I was diagnosed with lupus at 35.
The diagnosis hit like a brick. I already knew that I was ill, because my ability to run and play tennis and even walk had been compromised and I was in pain daily. But the knowledge that I had a disease that wasn't going to go away...whole new ballgame. My dearly beloved didn't crack a book to learn about the diagnosis or what to expect, or to learn what living with chronic illness could be. That means the good and the bad were unknowns for him. I tried to put pamphlets and information in his hands, to no avail. Without a more objective guide, his perspective came from day to day changes and challenges.
Long story short, we were divorced within two years. Long sad story.
When your man leaves you before you get a chance to even adjust to the new circumstances, you are viewed with sympathy and pity, like Elizabeth Edwards in the vast public eye. She held it together and kept a wonderful dignity and calm-no public bashing of John, a wise acceptance of the fact that he would continue to be the father of her children and their caretaker after she was gone, and still a public presence that didn't give in to tragedy and hurt.
In my practice and in my life, I have seen the abandoned women often, and yet I can name only a few men in the same situation. Many, many times a man with chronic illness was accompanied by the woman in his life, who often knew more about his disease than he did. She was inevitably a positive force, helping with his care when necessary, picking up the financial slack by working harder or returning to the workforce, making a way for the children to continue a relationship with the sick parent. I do not fault these women; it is the way it should be, in my view. But the dichotomy sickens me. For someone to say "you are not the woman I married, you are weaker, less attractive, less able to give to me, less able to earn"-juvenile and sickening. And all too common. Makes me want to say "Suck it up, little boys, the world isn't your playground every day of your life. Grow a pair and hang in."
Sigh.
Peace. If you can.

Who Do You Talk To On A Bad Luck Day?

2010-12-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about writing today, and I couldn't decide what to write about. In my mind was "Who do you tell when things are rough?" and "Look at my sweet baby heirlooms" and "Yay, my knees are so much better!", not to mention that this morning a friend got me started thinking about "Following Your Instincts", which has many ramifications for my life. I was a little distracted from my dilemma by the back and forth creeping of a huge truck, another delivery for the house that's being built two lots down from me. Suddenly BOOM. I ran to the door to see my mailbox laying on the ground and its pole (with the electrical light at the top) tilted 10 degrees to the left.

The young truck driver immediately came to my door, apologizing and calling his boss for me to talk with. We arranged repairs as I stood in the doorway in the 30 degree cold. The driver was sweet and apologetic. Still, I feel that awful "last straw" feeling.

It was not for nothing that I contemplated "Who do you tell when things are rough?" I've been worrying about money, my parents, my child, my health. It's been a time of very hard work and few victories. A few days ago I FINALLY had one of those wonderful days when I woke up and nothing was hurting, and I was hoping it might be a bit of a downhill stretch for a change. It was my first such day since before I broke my arm in July. A little hint of maybe some better health for a bit, a chance to build strength and improve my endurance.

One of my sisters caught up on my blog a couple of days ago. She remarked that she can never see my pain when she's with me, that I don't speak about it. Part of that is because I don't know who to tell. Or what it would help. My daughter tells me that she complains to me sometimes just because she needs to say it, and that she feels better after. I haven't had that person to "just say it" to for a long time.

I used to think that your romantic partner was the natural "just say it" person. I slowly learned that wasn't necessarily so. Sometimes that person doesn't understand their function as the supportive sounding board. They may feel less than useful, or bored, or galvanize into action to solve your problems for you. At worst, they may use your downloading of problems or fears against you. I once made a long-term partner a confidante (as he seemed to make me his) only to find that he was making a long catalog of my discussions to justify calling me mentally ill.

Anyway, just this moment, I am sitting on the couch with my cauliflower and brown rice, making this neat little entry to document that today is a rough day, and that I am working hard to make more good days but I could use some luck. Just a little luck. And I would do anything to have my one sure-thing person back to talk it over with. I miss you Lorri.

The Busy Season and the Bad, Bad Knees

2010-11-19T05:27:00.000-08:00

A few minutes ago, I picked up the beret I was knitting and stitched my way about one-fourth of a round. Suddenly I realized that my cables had disappeared. I had turned over the hat and stitched on the wrong side. I took out the errant stitches and decided it was time for a break. I've been knitting furiously for days. Yesterday I finished an earflap cap in organic cotton, then immediately started a bright beret in Noro Silk Garden and Silk Garden Lite. When I finished the beret, I wanted to line up work for today, and I grabbed a ball of Kureyon and began the band for another beret.

That's the pace I've been keeping. This is my busy season and I want to have plenty of beautiful pieces on my table at the Market and in my Etsy store, as well as my custom pieces for Larues. It makes my heart swell to see a piece turn out better than I imagined, and I've vowed to only produce things that I love. Unfortunately, if I keep running my body like a machine, I'll end up with tendinitis and have to take a prolonged rest instead of this morning break.

Last night I struggled with my plans for the remainder of the season. I had hoped to sell at the Market weekly until the middle of December, but the first two weekends wore me down a good bit and pointed out the severe difficulty with my arthritic knees. I've written a good many "doctor notes" advising people to stop activities that are not good for their conditions, but I can't afford to have one for myself right now. I can only pay my bills if I add handiwork to Social Security. I'll have to keep working on opportunities to sell my work that don't involve lugging many pounds of heavy equipment, loading it in and out of my car, setting up and taking down my equipment and products and the long hours in the booth doing customer service (my favorite part of market sales).

With this disease, I find myself compromising at times. Take the knees. For more than a month I've endured the severe pain and difficulty standing and walking. I didn't want them injected with steroids because I know the effect it has on my metabolism and weight. Finally, last week I gave in and started a hefty steroid taper, taking my prednisone up to 40 mg daily and gradually bringing it down over two weeks. If I had been in town I could have gone to my rheumatologist for intraarticular injections, but I was out of town and had to settle for increasing steroids orally. My knees are better and I'm not hollering when I stand up. It makes me much better company. The compromise is in dealing with side effects. Makes me want to growl.

Today is lesson day. The two young girls that I am teaching will be over after school. It's good incentive for me to do some picking up. I can get so focused on work that my home (which is my workplace) is neglected. My Hoover could use a bit of work.

Today I'm writing about such ordinary stuff that I wonder why it should be here. My life is ordinary with the usual hassles that affect everyone. They don't go away because I have lupus or because I'm neck-deep in a new creative venture. Sometimes I'd like to daydream them away. Hah.

Peace.

Turtlefat Collection Goes Retail and I Can Write Again

2010-11-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

The only thing that could keep me from blogging for almost two months is the need to keep a secret. Finally I can reveal what made me keep silent! Only a couple of people knew that my handknits were being considered for retail sale in a lovely Minneapolis boutique. Last week, Larues officially gave me my first order! I am thrilled beyond belief. I never thought my hats and gloves would find their way to a sweet, fashionable, modern store like Larues! My baby sister lives in Minneapolis and shops there, and she thought we'd be a good match, so she asked me to send her some samples to take in. Thanks, Dot!

Meanwhile, I had to get back into the swing of the Chattanooga Market, so I've had three days of great sales and fun there. With a limited display I can do setup and breakdown alone. I will have to endure whatever weather we have for the next few weeks, but this year the Market will have two weekends of preChristmas sales at an indoor venue! I'm going to be at Warehouse Row on the 10th and 11th of December, and again on the 17th and 18th. Hurray for working warm.

I hate to mention health right now. I am really feeling my weight. My knees hurt terribly with any walking or standing, and even sometimes when there's no weight on them. My fracture is healed by x-ray, but I still have a good bit of work to get my full motion and strength back in the right arm. I am having digestive problems and hoping it doesn't herald another episode of colitis. I've been free of it for years, and it has only occurred rarely, so I can't remember if indigestion and stomach pain preceded it before. I just remember having bloody bowel movements. I'm not anxious to have another colonoscopy but if it recurs I certainly will.

I've been looking into surgical weight loss procedures. I think I've exhausted my alternatives. I can't make my body handle the prednisone any better. I'm not making headway using a very sensible, reduced calorie diet. My exercise options have shrunk drastically. I'm ready to start seeing surgeons. (The time is now...did the Walrus say that because she had a big belly, too?)

The good good news is that I am inundated with design ideas. They are in my head multiplying all the time. I'm excited by color and texture to a ridiculous degree - a gorgeous hank of hand-dyed yarn can make me tear up. I showed some of my recent favorites. The hot pink with navy accents is Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. The flowers are crochet. The blue/gray/tan beret is knit with Noro Silk Garden, one of my all-time favorite yarns. The combination of silk, mohair and a touch of wool always feels great to me, and I admire Noro for his perpetual production of organic yarns using innovative, ecofriendly processes. The tan scarf with the ruffled edge is organic cotton. I've had enough people tell me they don't tolerate animal fibers to convince me that it is worth making some winter hats and scarves from the bulkier, thick organic cottons like this Blue Sky undyed. The scarf pin is a hand-dyed polished wood from one of my favorite Etsy stores, South 4th. I've used a number of his beautiful pins and buttons. Just running my fingers over them is soothing.

Enough! I am running over with conversation because of my long absence. I can write more later.
Peace.

On Pain and Medication

2010-09-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today discovered Dana Jennings, who blogs with great insight about his experiences with prostate cancer. I read one of his posts about pain, treating it with modern medication versus the stoic, sometimes misdirected handling of it in some ancestral communities. It brought me right to my current situation.

Two days ago I was overconfident about the recovery of my right arm. I carried something that was too heavy, and now I am paying for it. I've had two days of intense pain. I've medicated it enough to dull it and make me functional, but it underlies every thought and activity of the day. I've even put off my knitting group for a bit because I'm debating whether I can be social and not grumpy and distracted.

Pain has been an issue for me ever since lupus was diagnosed 18 years ago. In the early years (until about three years ago, I believe) I avoided pain medications. I would handle a day of pain by sitting quietly and doing some activity that took my mind off the pain. I would avoid using whatever joint or limb was hurting. I could effectively keep myself from dwelling on the pain, and everyone around me congratulated me for it. My psychiatrist said I should teach others how to do that. My rheumatologist laughed at the way a bottle of pain medicine that was written for a month would last for a year. I patted myself on the back for my extraordinary powers of self-control. After all, I had worked in methadone clinics and seen the pitiful souls who allowed themselves to become addicted to prescription pain medicine. I was not going to wind up like that.

What nobody saw, including me, was that I so severely restricted myself from using pain medications that I also limited my function and fitness. No one advised me that I should take enough medicine to get off my couch and be more active. No one related my persistent weight gain to that lack of activity and avoidance of pain. In the end, I didn't become addicted, I just became a sedentary lump.

My medical background did me a disservice. I was intent on taking medications that cured or helped my disease, and avoiding those that just provided comfort. If a medicine didn't decrease the immune response or stop inflammation or make nerve cells work better, it wasn't worthy of my use. I underestimated the importance of treating the pain that attended my condition. In the end, that wasn't good medicine. It contributed to weight gain, osteoporosis, fatigue and depression. It left me less able to care for myself and be independent. It was this that finally opened my eyes and made me more responsible about treating my whole being, and not just the disease.

These days I take my pain medicine thankfully, grateful to the researchers who developed ways to keep us functioning despite the pain, happy that I don't have to use so much energy enduring and ignoring this discomfort. My life is fuller, more productive, and I am more useful to myself and others.

Peace.

Free Hat Pattern: Rolled-Brim Bulky Hat

2010-09-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow! I'm here for the third time in a week. Who died and left me Blog Queen? I don't know. Maybe I'm just discovering once again that making this download of emotions and reporting my activities more faithfully increases my sense of well-being.

Anyway, today I made a perfect hat by accident and I decided to share it. Sometimes a yarn says "Try this." I've learned not to ignore those pleas. When I sat down next to a ball of Point 5 this morning, it was begging to be a hat. Not a structured, carefully shaped hat, just a simple pull-on hat with absolutely no embellishment in the way of stitch-work, cabling or ribbing. As always, my patterns are copy-righted, so feel free to use them for personal use or gifts, but please do not reproduce the pattern or the product for sale.

SIMPLE BULKY ROLLED-BRIM HAT

Yarn: Colinette Point 5, 1 hank

Supplies: Size 10 needles for working in the round; yarn needle to weave ends

This simple hat is a one-day project. It is knit completely in stockinette stitch in the round and the beauty of the yarn is all the adornment needed. It is highly customizable. You could add a knitted bow or flower on one side, attach long braided ties over each ear, or change the rolled brim to a fitted, ribbed one. For a whimsical change, you could add tassels to the top, or knit ears and attach them. It is an easy, quick, multi-purpose hat pattern.

Finished size: 20 inches (51 cm) circumference.

Gauge: The thick and thin nature of the yarn makes gauge difficult to assess. To be more accurate, you should measure at least three times in different places on your swatch and take an average. Be sure not to miss the smaller stitches in the thinnest strands of yarn when you count. 11 stitches = 5 inches.

Cast on 42 stitches. Join to work in round.

Knit every row loosely until piece measures 7 inches long.

Decrease rounds

Round 1: *Knit 7 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 2: Knit.

Round 3: *Knit 6 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 4: Knit.

Round 5: *Knit 5 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 6: *Knit 4 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 7: *Knit 3 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 8: *Knit 1 K2tog repeat from * to end of round.

Round 9: K2tog repeat to end of round.

Cut yarn, thread through remaining stitches, pull tight to close hole. Weave ends.

Enjoy!
Peace.

Today I Was Ugly

2010-09-11T14:04:00.001-07:00

Today I was ugly. Not physically - I was well-groomed and matching and had a new product in my hair - but emotionally. I was irritable and once rubbed the wrong way, there was yukky resentment bubbling inside my head. A friend at knitting complained about her job, and all i could think was what a blessing it is to be able to work. She named some legitimate things that are a problem with her work; inside I said "You should be glad you can work." She complained about her schedule; "Hell, my schedule is totally dependent on what my body and this disease are doing today." She continued to complain, "Jeez, would you suck it up, you big baby." I just didn't have graciousness and light in me today. Thank goodness I was holding it in, although I think the tone of some of the thoughts I actually uttered was not the most generous.

I've been struggling. This long ordeal with having a sudden worsening in my health, and having to set a new standard for making myself deal with pain and fatigue and disability, it has just been wearing me down. Lately I ask myself every day why people do this, if there's a point, if it is worth it. So far my answers have always been "because we have to", "yes" and "yes", but will I get to a day when those answers change? It's just so damn hard, all of it. The sitting down and the standing up. The awakening and the laying down to sleep. The cooking, the fetching, the dressing, the washing. The household chores.

But the past week has brought some relief, even if it hasn't completely chased away my doubts. My arm feels stable again. I no long feel that nagging weakness and feeling that things are out of place. I am confident when I raise my arm that the muscles won't spasm and make the fracture shift and make me scream. I can reach for something without wondering how it will go, or whether I should have used my left hand. Pain is still there, but not gnawing at the bone, keeping me awake and making it impossible to sit still.

Other good things have moved me this week. My knitting is better. My hands no longer feel like they are accommodating a weak link when I hold the needles. I can knit my usual hours and end a day feeling okay, able to get up the next morning and knit again. I've especially enjoyed my baths, as I can trust myself to lie back and put my head in the water and relax. No arm spasm will interrupt and make me flail and catch my breath in fear.

I Skyped with my daughter today. You might think we do it all the time, but sometimes the missing is too intense, and neither of us can tolerate a flood of tears and the dredging up of sadness. We talked for an hour. She toured me around her apartment. She showed me classwork she has completed, fascinating now that she is creating every day in so many ways. The photo is a piece of cloth that she dyed to match a flowered shirt, an assignment for her fabric class. And she made me laugh my ass off. Falling over, bellowing, not carrying how I looked laughing. It washed out some of the ugly. Maybe most of it. I feel inspired now, to do something interesting. I'm going to experiment with some slip stitch crochet that I just read about. My evening will be fun, and hopefully I won't be wondering if this day was worth it.

Peace.

A Day for Action

2010-09-08T05:51:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I woke like this - alert, moving, ready to go. I've had a series of minor setbacks with the body, plus been through a round of rituximab treatment. I felt like I was putting fingers in multiple dikes, just trying to make it to the next hour, next day...a painful way to survive. No thriving involved. But today (courtesy of lots of meds and a good night's sleep) I am good. I'm actually waiting for the post office and drug store to open so I can do the errands that I want to complete before it hits 90 degrees again.

I have so much going on in the knitting arena that I have to list it to make sure I'm pushing each project forward: one custom cape, one custom afghan, one custom baby ensemble, patterns and ideas for my book, a box of products to post to a northern boutique for consideration, a couple of local Christmas markets to apply to, and refreshing my Etsy store with new photos and products. At some time in the past this knitting thing officially crossed the line from hobby to business. Now I'm trying to make it a profitable business, and sell more wisely.

One thing the broken arm has taught me - don't rely so much on physical methods of doing business. I have not been able to return to selling at the Chattanooga Market, and I don't know if I'll be ready by the end of the season. My days of heavy lifting and tedious setups in bad weather may be over. We'll see. The arm has made progress, maybe the rest of me will move forward a bit, too.

My girl is safely off to school in Georgia, three hours away. It's a blessing. She loves the UGA art school and sends me teeny phone photos of her work. Our conversations about ideas and creating stimulate my work and make me think of new ways to do things. Seeing the way she tends to the tiniest detail on her drawing and fabric work reminds me that I can do much more embellishing with my knitted items. I even have plans for some embroidery on pieces that I'll publish in the book.

The loneliness from my daughter's absence is a lesson to be learned all over again. She was here for a year, and I forgot the void that her leaving creates. Moreover, the past two months my sweet pooch was cared for by a friend while my arm recovered enough to be the caretaker again. I have talked to the walls and the television set and mostly to myself during this time. I've had to learn again how to laugh by myself, and how to breathe out the pain and sadness and let myself be okay. Some of us are created to be social, and it is a struggle to be physically restrained from that. My body as anchor, keeping me rooted to this spot...

I have had more than enough thinking time. I have come to terms with the fact that desire and will power and hard work may not be enough to reign in my weight problems. I'm totally satisfied with the way I am managing it, trying to keep my prednisone low, moving when I can and cooking healthy meals. I must accept that when I get on my bike for 10 minutes and then have a week of inflammation in my knee, it is beyond my control. Yoga? Chair yoga is my next exploration. I so want to lose. Even 50 pounds would make it easier to get around and care for myself. I've cut some real favorites out of my pantry (peanutbutter!) and stocked up on high-fiber ingredients. The price of tofu just dropped dramatically at one of my favorite groceries, and I'm learning more ways to enjoy it. Curry is in my kitchen vocabulary, and I'm baking regularly instead of buying $7 loaves of bread. My strawberry muffins are to be envied.

Can you have a fling in your mind? An old flame has been in touch, and reminded me of the positives in our relationship, long past. For a few weeks I entertained thoughts of us together, brought to an abrupt stop by some recurrences of behavior that is intolerable for me. I didn't have to think twice about mentioning this here - one huge incongruity in our non-relationship is his refusal to learn any computer function beyond email. Oh well...

Enough supposing. This day is for action! Peace!

Retreat, Regroup and Return

2010-08-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

I have found a limit today. Evidently, four weeks of forced helplessness and pain is my limit. I didn't know it when I woke, but suddenly I am ready to turn off my phone, tell people to leave me alone, get rid of the extra tabs in my browser, and cry when I can't find a measuring cup. I've had it. It's so bad that I am here on my computer, typing with my arm in an uncomfortable position, making pounding noises on the keys that I haven't produced in four weeks.

I am usually a social person, happy to hear from everyone (except the people I hate, who are few) and quick to find some energy for communicating. My patience is gone. Every time my phone goes "beep beep beep beep" to indicate a new text message, I startle and then curse loudly. In my mind, there are legions of torturers out there who are trying to distract me and put me to extra effort pushing buttons and answering inane messages. The Terminix man appearing at my door and saying "good morning" is only there to force me out of my chair and across the room, letting heat into my house as he lounges in my air conditioned foyer. I have one (ONE!) chore to do on my computer and I'm angry at the friend who hasn't called with the information that I need to complete it.

In a minute I'm going to cuss someone out on the intercom, grab two beers and take the chute route from my plane. I will do the ultimate "take this life and shove it". It doesn't matter that this whole thing is my fault. I packed yarn in a space bag. I left a space bag next to the door of my bedroom. I walked across the room without looking at the floor. No wait, it goes back way further. I ignored my family history and past symptoms and chose a stressful career that would certainly make me a setup for an autoimmune disorder. I took extra prednisone so that I could keep working (and playing) longer, destroying my bones and increasing my weight. I produced a body that would almost certainly break when challenged.

Okay, you can see where this is going, right? Pretty soon I will be convinced that I produced the all the bad stuff in the world, including climate change and political conservatism. I am on a downward spiral that will leave me huddled in my recliner watching Fox News and the Lifetime network. Self-pity, anxiety and self-indulgence, you are my friends.

Fortunately the last ring of my phone occurred just after the third paragraph and a friend reminded me to "retreat, regroup and return". Just the right coaching for today. Any other advice would have been too religious or too complicated, just the things to make me angry instead of contemplative and calm. For once, I'm going to listen to outside help instead of knitting furiously until my mind is numb and my body hurts more.

Peace.

Training and Dating and Training

2010-07-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

"...if you make your resident look bad, she'll torture you until you beg for your mama." Dr. Bailey, surgery resident, season I Grey's Anatomy. Or maybe she'll ask you out.

No matter how much they teach housestaff about boundaries and professionalism, the sad fact remains that-during your residency days-if you don't date someone from the hospital, you have little chance of dating at all. The hallowed, horny halls of Seattle Grace Hospital on Grey's Anatomy are full of resident-attending relationships. That's a pretty sticky pairing, and I only saw one during my three years of internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. What was much more common was dating between fellow residents, residents and students, house staff and nurses, house staff and other hospital staff...you get the idea. After all, the hospital was full of reasonably educated, young, single-ish people, all conveniently under one roof.

We did occasionally make the effort to diversify our selection pool. Once in a blue moon I would go out to a club with one or two fellow residents and meet some of the local fare. We usually lied about our occupations and claimed to sell shoes at a department store, mindful that many folks had misconceptions about medical residents. Some guys automatically avoided us, expecting a superior attitude and surfeit of brainy wisdom. Others heard "doctor" and expected hefty incomes instead of the meager stipends we were paid. My forays into the real world were never productive. I would drink, dance, have fun with my girls, and go home alone.

So yes, I dated as others did. It was the early '80s, no one was on line, there was no Sunday afternoon speed dating, and the hospital was full of men. Men in hospital world were judged much like men on the outside. We evaluated looks, intelligence (yes, there was some variation-a smart monkey can memorize a good chunk of medical school curriculum), origins, and whether our call schedules matched. We considered whether this was a man that would push to spend the night but forget our name during lunch in the cafeteria or rounds on the ward. Most importantly, did he have any life going on besides the lengthy to-do list of daily patient care. None of us had time for big activities, but we could read, see a movie, talk about hobbies...

Once I developed a friendship with a student and we wound up dating for months. One thing that was perversely in his favor was his ability to understand that only a portion of our internal medicine teaching would help him in his future specialty. Once our offerings crossed that line, he politely excused himself to work on improving in his own specialty or having a healthy life. I was appalled that he didn't want to stay up all night watching a new onset diabetic receive hourly shots of insulin, but he wisely chose to get some sleep. A nice corollary to this behavior was his refusal to memorize medical trivia just to suck up to the attending physician. I've never liked a show-off.

]Peace.

Do Women of Color Knit?

2010-07-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Last night I slept laying down. Talk about being grateful for small things! For ten days after my fracture I slept sitting, as my arm lost its therapeutic position as soon as I reclined. Every day my legs and feet grew more swollen. It was more difficult at the hotel without my recliner. I struggled to prop enough pillows and balance against them waking every hour to readjust everything.

Oh yes, the hotel. I was bored and stir-crazy in my little house, so I returned to college town with my daughter while she finishes her last week of summer school. Alone in the hotel I have gained a new perspective on designs for my book, as well as a few more words to be said.

I grew up knitting at a time when knitting was an "old lady" hobby. Funkier new crafts were being taught-think macrame-and more portable handcrafts like crochet seemed to be favored. The back to the land movement that followed hippie life seemed far removed from me, as I worked to acquire highly technical, scientific knowledge for my career. By the turn of the century and my retirement, knitting was on the rise with new fibers and better tools and a younger following who created modern, wearable gear.

When I joined that modern knitters movement, what I didn't see was women of color. Without fail, I am overwhelmingly outnumbered in groups of knitters. I am aware of only one African-American woman who regularly appears in knitting design circles, my hero, Shirley Paden. Drawn to a career in knitting design after her high-powered business position suddenly ended, she became incredibly successful. I am trying to determine if the scarcity of minority women in knitting is personal experience or reality. I've fashioned a brief survey to help assess that. Feel free to participate or pass the link to any adult women you know. I will publish the statistics.

I always like to share what I find, if it is useful and good. Knitting has done some amazing things for my life, and if there's a population that isn't getting the exposure, I'd love to aim some teaching in that direction.

Peace.

A Broken Arm?!

2010-07-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

this is not about the punctuation or the caps. it is all i can do to use my right hand to help type here. eight days ago i slipped in my own room and fell, producing a right proximal humerus fracture that is now in control of my life.

i tried to think how to talk about this ongoing episode. descriptions of pain are always inadequate and quickly become boring, so let's just make pain a given and move on. there are all kinds of sequelae (consequences we say in the real nonmedical world) that i would like to relate.

this fracture - my right arm, up by the shoulder, resulted from a fall. in my house, i slipped and fell. i sprained my foot at that time, so i had a getting-off-the-floor dilemma. after the paramedics came and the biggest one told me he could bear-hug me and lift me up, we tried. i screamed and we quit that trial. i scooted over to a chair while holding my arm, wrenched my good foot and bad foot into position, and stood up. you do what you have to do.

who knew a fracture made you sick? the first few days i felt feverish and tired. yesterday i went out for the first time, and i slept deeply for hours after. i have been fortunate to not dive into a lupus flare. i have been hungry, i suppose for the extra nutrition required to heal.

when you are hungry and your main hand doesn't work, it is good to have friends. my friends have come to my home with amazing, tasty, fresh cooking. lentil and oatmeal loaf, minestrone full of home grown vegetables, tiny strips of collards stir-fried with fresh okra, whole wheat biscuits and tortillas...grow some bones with that! with a little help i've stirred some pots too, making one loaf of banana bread and a corn/tofu/cornbread mix casserole.

i can knit a little and finished a baby blanket order today. that makes me happier than sunshine. i am on my way to recovery.

Patterns Plus Talk Equals Book

2010-07-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am writing. Turns out this whole pattern writing/design thing just flows without any big worries. I have decided that this group of patterns should have a theme, and be published together. I think that is called a book. Since I have great difficulty just stating the facts, it will have to be put together with lots of other words, chiefly a collection of my essays (or should I say "Essies"?). This will give me an excuse for lots of talking. I think I need that right now. Whenever I am consigned to living alone, I begin to have these long dialogues in my head. Putting them down on "paper" is a good way to silence those voices and bring the conversations to some kind of natural conclusion.

My patterns for this book are going to be done in some of my favorite yarns. I've ordered a bagful of them, old favorites and favorites-to-be, and just seeing them close up brings to mind the garments and home items that I should design. These are just crying out to be knit up into gorgeous pieces. One cool thing is the affordability of this bunch of yarns. I didn't go out and shop at Wallyworld (I don't ever do that, on general and political principles). I headed for a type of yarn that typically provides lots of yardage at reasonable prices. I threw caution to the wind in my selection, going with colorways that move me rather than practical solids and neutrals. Well, occasionally I am moved by a neutral, but only if I can really feel the fiber in it and maybe smell the sheep. I do have a variety of fibers represented, including animal and plant fibers, but those hydrocarbon-eating synthetics are at a minimum.

Speaking of synthetics, I've been requested to make some baby blankets that are going to get an ungodly amount of washing. For them, I found synthetics to be my best bet. I knit the first one in Lion Brand's old reliable Homespun. The second is in progress after a search for another yarn, one easier to knit. The inevitable snagging in Homespun's boucle construction drove me crazy in a way that only a frustrated knitter would know. I enlisted my daughter's sensitive skin to help me judge other synthetics and we settled on Deborah Norville's Serenity chunky weight. It is impressive in its softness and knits very easily, even on the $2.99 bargain plastic circular needles that I purchased with it. I'm enjoying working with an acrylic, even though my brain keeps circling back to that hydrocarbon issue. I think I would consider this for my next afghan that requires lots of washing, like one for an invalid or someone immune-compromised. It would also work for chemocaps, as they sometimes go on very sensitive scalps. No I don't have an interest in the company, but it is nice to see Deborah Norville's success since she's from Dalton, GA, 30 minutes from here.

Yesterday I served as babysitter for a wonderful toddler. It was great thinking time. Watching him play reminded me of the mobility and speed of that age group, and the qualities that their clothing should have. It also made me remember trying to satisfy a two year-old's ideas about proper dressing. I'm designing some clothes that can quickly change an outfit from down-and-dirty to church-worthy. Kids need that single piece that you throw on after they have dribbled toothpaste on the shirt or picked the same plain-Jane dress for the 50th time. I think I've got it covered. Hahaha, that's a pun. Some days I am just plain smart.

Peace.

Knitting with Arthritis

2010-06-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

That title is about the mechanics of how I knit, as well as the plan to use knitting for my life with lupus. I know, with me it's never just one thing. Can't help it, that's what the brain does - leading me here and there, tying together things that I find along the way.

This week the wonderful hat anthology that Annie Modesitt put together is being released. 1000 Fabulous Knit Hats is exactly what it sounds like, with gorgeous photos of hats knitted by scores of knitters, and ten special hats that were chosen as the best original designs. The patterns for those ten are included. Eleven of my hats are included. They are scattered through the book but can be found in the Contributors index, where I found my name under "W" for Woods Bruell. I don't think Daddy understands the significance of my persistence with my maiden name - his name - but it means a lot to me. I was stunned to see a detail from one of my hats on the Introduction page. It was such a tangible proof of my involvement there. I will probably have palpitations when the books actually arrive. You can see them here on Amazon.com, where there is a hefty discount.

I hope the book sells a million copies. The editor, Annie Modesitt, is a legend in knitting circles. She is an innovator , teacher, designer and writer. It takes big work to share your thoughts and designs in the huge way that she has. Her combination knitting techniques have revolutionized knitting for many of us. On a personal note, I would not be pursuing this second career without it, as those innovations have made it possible for me to knit well and endure longer knitting sessions, even with my painful arthritis. Annie has recently come to understand the endurance barrier herself, as she has dealt with severe symptoms of fibromyalgia. She writes honestly in her blog about everything in her life, including her husband's ordeals with cancer, her travels, and her feelings about her own new illness. She is deserving of every success.

I don't profit from the 1000 Hats book. It's just one way of showcasing what I love. I always enjoyed tangible proof of my work. Seeing a patient make progress, getting an education certificate, signing the payroll checks in my office - I had those in medicine. Now it's the printed pattern from Cherry Tree Hill Yarns, the calls for my custom work, counting the till at the end of a good market day. A long time ago I considered a research career. At the end of my Hopkins training I accepted a fellowship at the University of California San Francisco. For all the wrong reasons ("love") I decided to come home and continue in clinical primary care medicine. The outcome was fortuitous - instead of spending countless hours in a lab, putting tubes in the throats of lab rats, I started my family and my medical practice. I was infinitely better suited for the latter. The wonder of watching my child grow up, and the day to day satisfaction of working with people in a field that required creativity and constant change was satisfying in a way that research couldn't match.

Right now I have two custom projects under way, with a third waiting in the wings. I'm having to use all that I know about knitting with arthritis in order to run this stretch. In addition to combination knitting, which allows me to form stitches without undo twisting and turning of my needles, I have placed every project on circular needles, which keeps the weight of the growing fabric resting on my lap. When I discovered that one project was a third wider than necessary, I took off the 4 inches of work and began again. I figure this saved me at least 6 hours of extra knitting, even though I had pangs over the work I lost. I am using smaller needles than necessary on one project in order to maintain the gauge I want without having to knit very tightly. Knitting looser keeps a lot of strain off my fingers. It is especially helpful when there are intricate stitches like twists, cables, and even knitting two stitches together. That little bit of extra room to maneuver makes a huge difference. I discovered that one of my twists had moved over a stitch, and (GASP) I left it there. It was only visible to the closest inspection of a discerning knitter eye, and I didn't feel the need to undo many hours of knitting to fix it. Sometimes perfection is not the perfect option. I take frequent breaks, massage my hands, stretch, and get up from my chair. Arthritis involves more than just my hands, and my knees and hips and feet need a break, too. I keep water on my side table and take frequent drinks. It's easy to neglect hydration when you get involved in a project. My sketch book is also on the table so I can transfer those random ideas quickly as they occur to me. A few days ago, I had an idea for a sock pattern. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't put it directly into the book-I really don't do socks. Anyway, knowing that I don't miss any ideas keeps me from being anxious and tense while I'm knitting.

Peace.

Packing for College Again

2010-06-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

I am watching my daughter edit. Fortunately, I staked my claim on the territory occupied by my computer and my butt, as she has covered the rest of my bed with piles of her clothing. While we listen to Two and a Half Men reruns and marvel that Charlie Sheen can be serving time for domestic assault and be the highest paid man in television, she is packing for summer school at UGA. She believes that she will remove some clothing from some of the piles and leave it at home. I am waiting for proof. Packing for college year four and a half basically involves lots of clothing and two television sets. Anything else can be borrowed, appropriated or picked up on a visit home.

Next to me is the pair of wild hot pink fingerless gloves that I've almost finished knitting. They are in my favorite sock yarn, Colinette Jitterbug. I think they are going to need a flower over the wrist closing. I'm getting crochet-happy, and flowers come off my hook at the drop of a hat. I've knit them to be identical, with the tab directions matching. I liked that quirky plan, one closing with the tab on top and the other with the tab underneath, and it will be enhanced when I put non-matching flowers on them.

I've been designing like crazy. My daughter inspired me. She had pushed me to make some crochet jewelry, and finally she put some drawings in front of me and said "You're making this." She even went to the craft store and purchased plastic rings and wooden balls for me to cover, and got out a pile of beads from her own crafting stash. With her designs and beading, and my crochet, we had a pile of necklaces for the Chattanooga Market last week. They seem to be a big hit.

As I said, I'm inspired by Dayna's persistence and creativity. I've been writing patterns like crazy, and some are already submitted. Others are at the re-test stage or need photos. If I'm gonna sell patterns, I might as well get on with it. In the back of my mind I have a theme for a collection of patterns. I've written myself an email to keep it from slipping away. Focus, focus, focus.

While I try to focus, my child is diving flat onto packed heavyweight zipper bags. She tries to expand and roll around and squeeze the air out, then quickly slides the zipper. She calls this making her own space bags. Her current packing technique involves lots of these "space bags", several laundry hampers, and doing a little dance when she leaves the room.

I'm doing little dances myself these days. This week I made it to 20 minutes on the exercise bike, and I've been doing it daily. I haven't had this much exercise capacity in many, many years. Prednisone at 10 mg alternating with 5 mg each morning - my doc predicts good metabolism. Hope he's a colossal prophet.

Summer is so fun. Peace.

No Market, But Plenty Work

2010-05-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

It is Sunday, a month into the Market season, and I am not there. Moreover, I have promised myself not to return until my health is better. I have been struggling with the physicality of it. I could continue to struggle, and beat myself up every Sunday, but I don't think there's enough profit in it. I will miss it, but not the fatigue and pain.

The truth is that I have many other ways to work right now. I've sold my first pattern and it is available here at Cherry Tree Hill Yarns Supersock Store. I've completed several other patterns that I will put up for sale in my Etsy store and on Ravelry, where I am "Tempeh". The patterns that are currently for sale include a pair of women's mitts with cuffs at the fingers (the gold and red multi-colored ones above), a pair of men's textured mitts, a baby/toddler hat, and several women's hats.

I was approached a few weeks ago by a local photographer, Tony McDaniel, to make baby hats for use at his photography sessions. I had a ball designing cute little hats, and I will do more as needed. That job is pure fun! Tony's website makes me regret that I didn't follow Dayna's growth with regular photos. He and his wife, Leah, are extremely creative in their photo shoots, and use natural home settings so that the kids are in unique surroundings.

I have a custom design opportunity that will be a top-down, red, linen/cotton poncho style jacket. I've got it ready to go in Knit Picks Cotlin, and I'll probably release that pattern when I finish the piece.

One upcoming job has sentimental roots. I've been asked to complete an afghan that was started by an elderly women whose health has since declined. It is a beautiful cabled piece and I'm looking forward to picking up the needles on that one.

All this means that while I will miss finishing the Market this spring, I can be plenty busy while I wait for my painful ribs to heal and make myself capable of a little more exertion. It's all good.

Peace.

Celebrating Mother's Day and Writing Patterns

2010-05-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

This is the day that occurs each year when I say "Why do I live in southeast Tennessee?" It is the day when I realize that, once again, I have to become accustomed to sweating. It is the day when I notice that 90% of my wardrobe makes me too hot and I have to rush out and purchase more short-sleeved, loose, light-weight, natural fiber clothing. (I don't know where it goes from one summer to the next, but I know that when the cool clothes are gone, it's an emergency.) I flew to Catherine's (a shop for big, beautiful women like me) and came back with seven tops. That'll hold me for two days.

While the heat has been creeping up on me, I've been preoccupied with work. Funny how much I talk about "work" now that I'm officially disabled, but it's hard to call my hobby anything else when I've taken it to such extremes. I don't have to make googobs of money to feel useful. Last week I sold my first pattern to a yarn company. You can see my mitts midway down the page on the right at the Cherry Tree Hill blog. I also began an association with a photographer, Tony McDaniel, providing baby hats for his photo shoots. In addition, I took on the task of completing an afghan begun by an elderly woman who can no longer knit. None of these things will actually keep me in summer clothes, but it feels so good to be branching out and using my skills in a variety of ways.

One friend has been urging me to write a book of my patterns. It is an interesting possibility. At least I'm beginning to write patterns down, and keep track of design ideas. It requires me to be a little bit disciplined and less scatter-brained, and that's a good thing.

I'm watching Seinfeld again because I canceled all my "excess" cable due to economitis. I feel sheepish admitting that I'm enjoying it. Who needed all those extra channels? I have some new ones, like the Create channel, and I'm catching up on old sitcoms that I never knew existed. How cool is that? Hmm. How dorky am I for thinking that's cool?

I had a birthday lunch with a good friend yesterday. We had been talking about it ever since February. Cinco de Mayo is close enough, right? Maybe by the 4th of July we'll get around to celebrating her March birthday. We're on top of it. Speaking of celebrating, my girl and I will be kicking it some place fun on Mother's Day. We've had some kinda year. We double D deserve it.

Peace.

The Way It Goes on a Bad Day

2010-04-28T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is how it goes. Your medicines are getting low. You call in for refills. One of your medicines needs prior approval, the pharmacist informs you. They will call the doctor's office and request it. Two days later, you drive to the pharmacy. None of your refills are ready. The tech doesn't know why. Please come back later. You drive back later, and one medicine is ready. The Medicare drug plan denied approval for the other, and it costs $243 for half a month's supply. "Never mind." You take the other and go.

The drug you can't get is Lidoderm, a newish pain medicine that works well for you. You slap on a patch, the lidocaine soaks in through the skin and relieves the pain underneath for 12 hours. No addiction, no side effects, no fuss. You could take a huge dose of narcotic pain medicine and get the same relief, but it has obvious drawbacks - nausea, drowsiness, the risk of physical dependency. Unfortunately, the insurance company doesn't care. Lidoderm is expensive, generic pain pills are cheap.

You go home and get out the computer. You have to research this. How do you make an appeal to that Medicare Part D provider? Does the drug company have a patient assistance program for people who can't afford their medicine? Did your doctor say the wrong thing in trying to obtain the approval? Lots of angles to attack.

So today you have knitted and washed clothes and changed bedclothes and cleaned up the kitchen. You made salmon patties for dinner. You let the dog in and out, in and out and fed her. You bathed, cleaning the bathtub after. You did the appropriate maintenance to live in your home and care for yourself. All this with severe pain in your joints and no patches.

In addition, you have taken all your meds, watched your diet, logged your activity and exercise.

This is why people with chronic illness get depressed and discouraged. It's not just about knowing what's wrong and how to fix or manage it. It is about mind-numbing interactions with people who don't give a damn that their mistakes make your life miserable. It's about dealing with businesses that have all the power over your health and won't use their deep pockets to give decent care without it being legislated and enforced. And about trying to keep your finances together after more people who were selfish and greedy used your money to line their deep pockets and drained your resources.

Today my ears are ringing (they have been for two years), my sacroiliac joints hurt, my bath made me tired, and my brain is holding too many thoughts. I had to get my joy from my daughter, my new power tool toothbrush, knitting baby hats, and still being alive. The margin is very narrow.

Peace.

Continuing the Afghan (Part 3 in series)

2010-04-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! I've been absent from the blog for a month, and things have changed radically. Physically, I'm back. The rituximab helped every lupus symptom, including my energy and the sacroiliitis. I can put my feet on the floor without pain. I'm back on my stationary bike and I've lost five pounds. Onward!

Prep for the Market continues, and I've signed up for a number of sessions early in the season. I'm nervous about this Sunday's opening. I've added a few display pieces to make my setup easier, and I'm leaving a couple of things at home. Big trial. I made a short stack of baby blankets and added some baby garments.

In the midst of the Market prep I noticed that Cherry Tree Hill was looking for designs for their new yarn, Fingerpaints. It is a self-striping sock yarn, all merino, in yummy colors. I chose the Morning Glory and whipped out the Muffin Top Mitts that you see in Cheryl Potter's company newsletter here. I'm so excited to see my design in that spot! The yarn is fun to work with, and mitts are such an essential for me.

I haven't forgotten that I was to finish the afghan posting here. I finished both of the red panels, whipped out the stockinette stitch gray center, and duplicate-knitted OSU on it. The connection between the panels is created by making a row of single crochet on each connecting side, then using single crochet to stitch them together. It makes a nice raised seam that is decorative and sturdy. No worry about loosening of a sewn seam. That's it in the photo above.

News flash: I'm knitting MYSELF a sweater from Noro's Taiyo (cotton 40/silk 30/wool 15/nylon 15). It's a gorgeous colorway with greens, browns and pinks, and I'm happy to have my hands back on their incredibly beautiful, organic yarn. Something to show soon, I hope.

I'm back! That includes back to writing. Peace.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

2010-03-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

I'm separating my lupus woes from my afghan series so I can concentrate fully on getting good pattern instructions out for the latter. I'm suffering on the former front, and I can't wait to be better. I have pain in several joints, including the metacarpal-phalangeal joints of my hands (where the fingers meet the palm). Those joints are swollen and tender and a bit reddened, looking like the rheumatoid arthritis joints that they are. My mom's hands looked like this before they took on the typical RA deformities. My knees ache and have sharp pains at unpredictable times like the lupus joints that they are. My sacroiliac joints are incredibly inflammed, so walking and standing is torture. Meds only partially suppress any of this, so I am a cranky hurting person.

I'm finally allowed to return to my rituximab therapy, and I had one IV session yesterday, to be repeated in two weeks. Oh joy. Seriously. I'm happy, just don't feel like smiling right this minute.

I've continued knitting during this flare (surprise!). I have my mind on completing custom orders and preparing for the Chattanooga Market. That means I'm knitting a wool hat and scarf, a custom afghan, and cute little summer hats at the same time. Must look a little schizophrenic from the outside. Right now I'm focused on spring/summer items for the Market, so the striped hats are a major step in that direction. They are knit in elann.com Esprit, 98.3% cotton/1.7% elastic, an easy care comfy yarn that knits well. It's identical to Cascade Fixation which gives me an expanded color range if I need it. I'd love to offer some little sleeveless pullovers for kids in the same yarn. We'll see. My colors were chosen by a kind of rigid formula of my own making. It has pushed me into some nice color combos that are new for me. I made each color combo in at least one adult and one child's size, so one can choose to match their offspring. They are simple enough that I'm willing to make more custom sizes if needed.

Peace.

Continuing the Afghan (Part 2 in series)

2010-03-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

I read last week's post about Starting an Afghan, and realized there was some vagueness to the initial instructions, so I will reiterate in more formal pattern fashion:

Materials: Approximately 15 balls of Knitpicks Shine Worsted yarn, one size 9 circular needle, at least 24 inches long, one yarn needle for finishing work. Yarn can be divided 10/5 balls between two colors, or 5/5/5 between three colors.

Finished measurements: Approximately 40 x 60 inches, measured hanging but unblocked.

Stitch pattern 1: Multiple of 8 stitches. All RS rows: *K2, P2, K 1x1 RC, P2 and repeat from * to end of row, ending with P2. All WS rows: Purl.

Cast on 72 stitches in first color. Purl one row (WS). Begin stitch pattern 1. Continue for total of 40 inches, ending on wrong side row. Cast off on right side using K2P2 pattern.

There. That's better. The photo shows the almost completed 20 x 40 inch panel. (In the last post, I measured the panel at 18 inches wide, but with continued handling it relaxed to 20 inches.) I'm very pleased with the pattern and its fancy ribbed effect. The piece drew many compliments as I finished it in the chemotherapy suite yesterday. It is incredibly soft and comfortable to the skin.

My gray yarn still isn't available, so I've cast on another 72 stitches to repeat the red panel. I will use the gray yarn to make a center panel. The gray must contain a good-sized area of stockinette stitch so that I can duplicate stitch "OSU" (for Ohio State University).

To be continued.

Peace.

Starting an Afghan

2010-03-07T05:34:00.000-08:00

I'm on a knitting high this morning. I just finished the third of four afghans, and I am starting the fourth. I thought I would walk through this project as I do it. It will help keep me on track, and explore some of the thinking that gets me into a new piece.

In general, my afghans are 40 x 50 inches. I'm not fiendishly obsessed by the numbers, but that's about what is expected for a full size throw. As always with a custom project there are some guidelines from the client. This throw is for an Ohio State University fan, and therefore it will be red and gray. I made a striped OSU baby blanket for the same client, and she liked it, so I am using the same yarn. This keeps me in the realm of the familiar. I know how this yarn acts and approximately how much it will take. The yarn in question is Knitpicks Shine Worsted. It is 60% pima cotton, 40% modal (beechwood fiber), has a lovely sheen, good stitch definition, and is soft as a cloud. With the amount I need for an afghan, the price is right, too. I don't have to charge an arm and a leg to cover an expensive yarn choice.

There are always other factors that influence my knitting. In this case, I ordered the red yarn first because I was also using it for another project. Meanwhile, the gray sold out, and I have to wait a few weeks to order it. This makes knitting the afghan in strips not only a nice design feature, but an essential time-saving factor. I can knit all the red strips now, and add the grey once the remainder of the yarn is available.

Last week I ordered a stitch dictionary - 400 knitting stitches from Potter Craft. I have paged through it, admiring various stitches, not really studying any particular one but letting them soak in and broaden my scope from the patterns that I've used frequently in the past. The last afghan I made had a diamond/triangle pattern (see the photo of the gold and black throw) that evolved without much thought. This time, I decided to swatch. I wanted a ribbed look but something more complicated than just a flat rib like knit 5-purl 1-knit 5. Lately I've been in love with cables, but a complex cable is beyond the scope and price of this piece. (Yes, I charge for extra complexity.) I decided to rib as follows: *K2, P2, 1x1 RC (right cable), P2 and repeat from *. You can see the red strip that I've worked so far, and a close-up shot. By the way, the gauge with a size 9 needle is 16 stitches to 4 inches and 24 rows to 4 inches.

A small digression: I measured gauge using Knitpicks combined needle sizer and gauge measuring device. It has a clear strip over the ruler that magnifies your swatch, making it very easy to count stitches and rows. This is one of the handiest knitting tools I've purchased, and it was only $2.99.

It just so happens that the strip I showed you was knitted from one ball of Shine Worsted. Measuring it I get about 18.5 inches x 5.5 inches. I can use this information to check whether my supply of red yarn will be adequate. In the case of this particular piece, I can also finish out my red yarn and order enough gray to make up the difference. Knitting one color at a time is helpful that way - your strip width can always change to accommodate the yarn supply. Some might ask why my initial strip is so wide - after all, 18 inches is a big chunk of 40. I'm avoiding the "scarf phenomenon", my term for the time wasted when you are constantly turning a piece of knitting to start a new row. It's just not practical to knit a bunch of narrow strips. You want a piece wide enough to keep your rhythm going and spend more time knitting than turning.

Questions are welcome. I'll continue until this piece is finished.

Peace.

Bulldozing the Obstacles

2010-02-21T06:24:00.000-08:00

I have always been able to see time in a very concrete way. Days stretch out before me, empty three-dimensional blocks, partially filled with activities and obligations. I can reach out my long planning arm and place an appointment into a slot and see how much of the day is obliterated. Different kinds of scheduled activities make the day lighter or darker, depending on their desirability. I can see obligations that are not firmly rooted being pushed to more distant blocks as I add in more urgent appointments. My days are balanced on a health platform that is also quite tangible - a slanting summation of physical capabilities that can make or break a day. That, too, is somewhat scheduled. I know when my treatments and medication changes will occur, and I can take full advantage of the associated energy, strength, and pain changes.

I describe this to explain why I am now in an uncomfortable position. Last week the surgeon threw me a curve ball. He wants to wait until my healing nodule shrinks as much as possible before excising it. This makes sense; small nodule means small incision means easier healing. If it becomes infected again, we will rush to remove it. In addition, a curve ball from the chemotherapy guys. No more rituximab until the whole nodule situation is resolved. So...I have a surgery appointment floating freely in my calendar matrix, and the health platform tilt has been completely changed in an unpredictable way. I don't know what happens when you only have one out of two infusions of a rituximab dose. Do enough B cells die to hold back the flares? Is there a risk of rebound flaring if the dose isn't "reinforced" by the followup?

I'm supposed to be able to travel soon, a big trip to Minnesota to visit my sister. I tend to regress with travel, so I try to be as strong as possible in anticipation of it. I also need my endurance for exercising (no weight loss without it on my pitiful metabolism), keeping up my house (no cleaning service in the budget now), finishing my current projects and stocking up for the Chattanooga Market opening in April. I've gone out on a limb scheduling things that were appropriate for my level of health over the past year, and now there may be a radical change.

So, we've dealt with the perception. What about the feelings? Well, I feel...um...okay, this is not my forte, the feelings stuff. I have to sit still and be nonintellectual and try and decipher what my gut is saying. I am anxious. Fearful. Unsettled. But I am also curious, challenged, and a little excited. The wall of adversity is climbed in our minds moreso than with our arms and legs. I have climbed it before and I know I can now.

When I was a freshman at Vanderbilt, I had a hectic schedule. I was taking engineering and science courses with lots of projects and long labs. I was introduced to independent living and using my feet for transportation. I was continuing my instruction in classical piano, making the long trek to the Peabody campus to practice for hours daily. As I walked to the music department every day, I would say to myself "I am a bull dozer, plowing relentlessly forward." I made a running narrative of my trek, detailing my progress up and down hills, across the campus lawns, up stairs and down halls. It was entertaining but it also kept me moving. That kind of narrative serves me well at times like this, where I need to keep the excitement and not get stuck on the fear.

Peace.

Dreary Lupus Details, or Tales from the Land of the Immunocompromised

2010-02-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

When I began my blog 400-odd posts ago, it was my intention to relate tales from my daily life with lupus. Many other things have been discussed, but when the disease takes a turn that controls my day-to-day activities, I have to make it the headline. I'd rather be talking about the mittens I'm knitting for afghans for Afghans, or my current obsession with slouch hats, or a design in my head for a vest, or even the wild and interesting dreams I've had lately. Instead, there's this lump...

I keep a good eye on my skin, staying alert for rashes and bruises and lumps and bumps. When one is immunosupressed as I am by prednisone and rituximab, infections of the skin can come frequently and progress quickly. Anytime I see a little infected hair follicle gone wild with redness and swelling and tenderness, I take a brief course of antibiotics. Once in the past I delayed too long, and developed an infection in a closed, very painful space that had me calling my doctor out of church to lance it and put me out of my misery. I try to avoid that scenario. Last week one got by me. Midweek I noticed a painful swelling about waist-high on my back. If it had been where I could see it, or where something pressed on it, it wouldn't have gone so long. Anyway, it was maybe 1 x 1 cm and the skin over it was very red. I started antibiotics the next day when it had grown and was even redder. It took 48 hours for the antibiotic to control the swelling and redness as the infection continued to develop. It peaked at about 5 cm, exquisitely tender and squishy, indicating the pus within. It never drained. From there it shrunk every day, the redness diminished, the infected, cystic space becoming consolidated. I'm left with a 3 cm, firm nodule that must be removed, capsule and all.

Alongside all this is my scheduled rituximab treatment. I had to miss the second dose last week, as I can't take immunosupressive treatment when I have an infection. I rescheduled for this week, but I still can't go. I'm on for removal of the Big Lump Friday. I don't know what I do from here, so I've got a call in to my doc.

Okay, so the real nitty gritty. I missed knitting last week because I had a huge, fluctuant thing on my back that I was afraid would open and drain in the middle of the meeting. That is neither convenient or sexy. Or hygienic. It is stuff like this that can crop up and take control of my life. Just another piece of the lupus story.

On a much better note, grumpy post not withstanding, I received a lovely Valentine's phone call from a lovely man. Who knew?

Peace.

Gag, Puke, It's Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

Already people (all female) are calling and texting Valentine's greetings. I hate this day. Its wholesale acceptance and commercialization makes it second to none in the humiliation of single women. If you are over the age of 5 and not recently widowed, the lack of a Valentine signifies some socially unacceptable deficit in your person. Every commercial shouts that a male of the species is going to deliver candy and flowers, and make a romantic evening out of showing you how special you are. No candy and flowers-not very special.

Single women are holding their breath today, hoping that someone (the UPS man?) will come forward and admit to a longheld, secret admiration, and present the candy and flowers. Even women who are preoccupied with their poverty, child-rearing, aging or illness feel that glimmer of anticipation, and the inevitable letdown as the day passes without acknowledgement.

Single men, on the other hand, make jokes about breaking up with nonessential girlfriends before the holiday to escape expensive gift purchases. Since they are the initiators, they don't have to sit around-circa 1960 dating-waiting for the call and the gift. Instead, they blow it off and enjoy basketball or-this year-the Olympics. No pressure, guys.

For most of us, it is nice to be appreciated by our men, current or past. You know, the ones whose children we are raising (alone), the one we feed every time he shows up on the doorstep after a year-long silence, the one we helped in chemistry lab or saved from flunking out of engineering school...oh yeah, and the ones we dated faithfully while they hid multiple other partners from us. Did I mention the liars? After all, we gave them all pieces of ourselves, and probably did much ego-stroking and complimenting and being nice when we wanted to scream.

When I was a young girl, my Daddy purchased valentines and candy for all the girls in his life-his wife (now of 65+ years) and his six daughters. We felt appreciated and loved. This was reinforced by getting all those classmate valentines, with the teacher's mandate that everyone be included. Maybe this was some sunshiney hiatus from the real world, but 35 years later I'm still hoping for some appreciation from the men. Maybe the early "you are special" thing was just a set-up for false expectations. Men really aren't much the sentimental, you were nice to me once upon a time creatures we'd love them to be.

This sounds really mean and snarky and bitter. It is intentional. I truly hate this day. I've tried to turn it into something else, like acknowledge all your friends day, but it doesn't work. Once I was married to a man who believed that the only thing a woman could do to warrant flowers was have a baby. Only Valentine's Day makes me remember that.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the greetings I hate most are the ones that remind me that if I don't have a man, Jesus will fill my need and be my man. Seriously, I can tell you where to file that one.

No peace.

Knitting at Home

2010-02-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

It takes me at least a year to learn how to live in a new home. I have to unpack a reasonable number of my possessions, weather a full round of the seasons, travel and come back to the home, and do some entertaining. Being chronically ill added a few items to the list: see how I feel about the home after a spell of being sick, and check out my friends and family for willingness to come to me when I can't come to them. This learning process includes the neighborhood, as I must familiarize myself with the local services and establishments and make new paths for shopping and entertainment.

I'm not very far into the first year of this home. I'm 85% unpacked, and quite happy with the space for my crafting. My yarn storage/display works great, with shelves in the family room and my bedroom. I have wonderful areas to sit and knit-my room, the back porch, the family room, even the front stairs. When I am outside, I can glance up and enjoy the view of the hills east of the city. Oddly enough, it looks back towards my last suburban home. I have no nostalgia in that view-just enjoyment and a feeling that I left at the right time.

Entertaining sounds very formal. What I really mean is this: can my friends and family be comfortable coming to this place? It's nice to be close enough for my sisters to drop in, and 10 miles nearer for friends who formerly had to calculate the distance and time into their visits. But there is also the welcome factor. I love my home to be a peaceful haven where people can grab a coffee or a cookie, sink into a comfortable chair, and talk, knit, laugh, watch television, or just vegetate. I was raised in a home with plastic slip covers on the furniture in a living room that children didn't invade. People called before they came, and they didn't put their feet on the furniture. I was determined that-whatever my circumstances-I'd have a comfortable, plastic-free place to sit and visit. I would welcome visitors and their children, and appointments wouldn't necessarily be required.

Case in point-yesterday. I hosted knitting group. Eight of us managed to eat, drink, talk, knit and even have an impromptu lesson in my family room/dining/kitchen space. We pulled in one chair from my bedroom (a wonderful find from Target.com), put a few folding tables to use (including one stained with Dayna's paints), and still had elbow room. One friend who is a regular visitor gave 60-second home tours. I got to share the art that I love. No one judged for the messy bedrooms and not yet organized craft room.

My friends surprised me yesterday. They brought wonderful food and home items, declaring that it was also house warming. They lingered. They picked up after themselves. They included my daughter. It reminded me why they are considered my friends, and not just people from a knitting meeting.

Peace.

Finishing the Hand Towel, Another Afghan Down

2010-01-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

I am enjoying the feeling of making art. More and more people approach me with only vague descriptions of what they would like: a dark helmet hat appropriate for a man; a pink/purple/white afghan that isn't acrylic; a pastel scarf. This is followed by the question "Can you make that?" I always say "Yes, I can." (a) I need the money. (b) I love a challenge. (c) I don't worry about the skills, because I have enough experience and references to teach myself what I don't already know. (d) I can't resist!

Here are the latest: the green St. Paddy's Day hand towel that I started in the hand towel tutorial, and the above-mentioned afghan. Top photo is the towel, with a duplicate knit four-leaf clover. The three-stitch seed stitch border was continued to the bottom, and the towel was finished with three rows of seed stitch before binding off. The duplicate knit clover was an easy unplanned addition, but I can publish a chart if desired. Bottom is the full view of the afghan, one strip of each color, all knitted, with a crochet strip between the strips and around the circumference. The rose strip is double moss stitch. The violet is stockinette with groupings of garter stitch. The white has columns of stockinette alternating with reverse stockinette, separated by short groups of garter stitch. Between the rectangular strips I crocheted. After creating a row of double crochet on either side, I joined the tops of those rows with slip stitch. That made a rounded elevation the length of the seam, a nice textural element in addition to the stitchwork. The second and third photos show these seams. The fourth photograph shows the edge trim, which is single crochet rows of white, then pink, then violet. Overall the piece measures about 41 x 51 inches. It is Southwest Trading Company Beyond Bold (pink and violet) and Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (cream).

On to the next!

Peace.

Almost Too Tired to Knit

2010-01-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

When I awakened today nothing hurt. Right now, the hurt is not the point. That's not the hallmark of my flares. I've been noting flare symptoms for a few weeks, and denying them to myself, but the lupus has pulled out the heavy guns. I am tired. It's difficult to explain the fatigue from this disease. I am incredibly tired, sometimes suddenly, and without the ability to override it. Today I sat on my bed and played Scrabble on the computer for a couple hours, and sat and watched old Law and Order episodes for a few more. I did very little knitting. I was kind of limp and bleh and it seemed like it would take superhuman strength to lift my needles. This afternoon I tried to jumpstart my energy organ (which is that? spleen? thymus? appendix?) by drinking a cup of coffee and taking a second Rhodiola rosea. It worked enough for me to fix a simple dinner (scrambled eggs) and read a few articles. Now I think I can knit. I'm not going to be like this for long. Treatment is scheduled before the end of the month.

At some point this evening my television viewing changed from Law and Order to Bones. I watched several episodes before the eggs and another during. Neither brain nor stomach grumbled about the viewing of numerous scenes of "gross" anatomy. Guess I have a serious case of doctor brain. You don't want to know.
Peace.

Basic Knitted Hand Towels

2010-01-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

January started with barely a pause for contemplation. My 2010 agenda is preset, and I'm on it. If last year was the year to move households, this is the year to make the business soar. I began with a handful of custom projects already ordered, and that list has grown a bit in the past week. It thrills me to have people show up for repeat business, and trust me with their special requests. A lot of faith is involved when you put your money and order in someone's hands and ask them to create something that is a one-of-a-kind.
One thing that bothers me is the list of obligations left from last year. I promised a few people patterns, and it's time to come through. These are not hard-and-fast patterns, but templates to work from to create some simple household items. I also received a request for a hat pattern, but I can't publish that one without charging for it, as it is unique and I am currently selling from it. So, here we go.

Hand Towels

I like hand towels to be approximately 16 x 20 inches, but many prefer a smaller, approximately 12 x 16 inch size. That's a convenient size for most guest use. It's large enough to dry hands effectively, but small enough for that little bar next to the sink, or to roll and place in a fancy towel basket on the counter. Some particulars that I like when making hand towels: a good washable material, like a cotton/linen blend; a design that makes a flat piece with no rolling edges; and an absence of fancy appliques that rub off or wear when one uses the towel. With those requirements in mind, I started a demonstration towel which should make approximately 12 x 16 inch towel.

Seed Stitch Border Hand Towel

Materials: pair of size 5 needles; 1 skein of Knitpicks Cotlin (70% Tanquis cotton/30% linen; 123 yd/50 g)

Cast on 60 stitches.

Row 1-3: Seed stitch. K1, P1 for first row. Rows 2 and 3, purl the knits and knit the purls. This makes a non-rolling border.

Row 4: P1, K1, P1, knit across to the last three stitches, K1, P1, K1.

Row 5: K1, P1, K1, purl across to the last three stitches, P1, K1, P1.

Continue this pattern, maintaining seed stitch border for three inches on either side, and doing stockinette stitch in between. When you reach the desired length (or within 1/2 inch of it), change to seed stitch for three rows, then bind off in pattern.

This creates a very simple stockinette stitch towel with a seed stitch border. I like it for towels that I wish to decorate, as I can duplicate stitch a design or picture or words over the stockinette body of the towel. If you decide to use duplicate stitch for a pattern, keep in mind the way the towel will fold in half to hang over a towel bar, and place your decoration centered in the lower half of the towel.

To use texture itself as decoration for your towel, try a simple box pattern.

Box Pattern Hand Towel

Materials are the same. Cast on 60 stitches.

Row 1: K6, P6 to end of row.
Row 2 and all even numbered rows: Knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches.

Row 3-8: Repeat rows 1 and 2.

Row 9: P6, K6 to end of row.

Row 10 and all even numbered rows: Purl the purl stitches and knit the knit stitches.

Row 11-16: Repeat rows 9 and 10.

Continue in this sequence until towel is desired length, bind off in pattern. Sometimes I will vary this by making boxes of different sizes. The boxes above are 6 stitches x 8 rows. I might do a section with smaller boxes - 3 stitches x 4 rows, or larger boxes - 12 stitches x 16 rows, or even a mixture of different size boxes together. This makes an interesting pattern for the eye to follow.

It may seem obvious, but the simplest of hand towels can be beautiful, too.

Garter Stitch Hand Towel

Materials are the same.

Cast on 60 stitches.

Knit every row. When you reach desired length, bind off.

You get the idea. When I finish the green hand towel with the seed stitch border, I will publish a photo.

I've had questions about making wash cloths, so I will publish that next.

Since I last blogged, I've created a custom afghan. It was made from three kinds of cotton (double strand of Jo Sharp, single strand of Knitpicks cotton/viscose and bulky cotton), crocheted in a ring pattern. The smile in the photo is a "whoopee I'm finished" smile. I'm naked behind the afghan. Just kidding.

Peace.

Happy New Year, Lorri

2009-12-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

Last day of the year. I was zooming along with my designated morning errands when Clara Parks of Knitter's Review put a roadblock in my path. She asked a new question in the KR forum - "what knitterly things make you particularly grateful...?" As I answered, I realized that the top of my list was the contact with people who share my love of knitting. I belong to two Etsy teams, two on-line forums, and a local knitting group that meets weekly. I correspond with a number of enthusiasts, some of whom raise sheep and provide supplies, others who are consumers like me. I thrive on this contact, and concidering it made me think of my best friend ever in this life, Lorri.

I met Lorri on the escalator in the main classroom building of Jefferson Medical College. We were freshman medical students, nearing the end of the year. Our class of 220 only had about 40 female students, but we hadn't officially met until that time. We were discussing the student talent show, which had featured some skits that were degrading and insulting to women. It was 1979 and I had found my first truly feminist friend.

Becoming close friends with Lorri taught me the wonderful difference in having female friends. We shared a number of interests, as well as many political and social views. In every situation, we had each other's backs. We taught and learned together, shared experiences, and planned our lives. Once Lorri was diagnosed with a brain tumor and I with lupus, we even contemplated our deaths.

Lorri died 14 years ago, just before computers became an integral part of personal life. We never exchanged email. She never joined an on-line discussion group or looked up patterns for a craft. I found myself mulling over that fact this morning, knowing that she would have rejoiced with the open sharing and international contacts produced by this new world of communication. Once again I feel the need to live my life better, appreciate this world more fully, make up for the absence of one who cannot participate because of leaving us prematurely.

Happy New Year, Lorri. Peace to us all.

December 26

2009-12-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

Day after Christmas. In my mental barometer yesterday ranks as good, low pressure. That figures large in the way I'm spending today. I had dessert for breakfast, another dessert for lunch, a long nap in between. I'm not rushing to see anyone that I missed yesterday, nor am I hustling to get to knitting group. My daughter is with me, we're watching King Kong, there's peace in the house.

I think I've perfected the dessert-for-meal thing. I used to conscientiously eat a meal in order to get the desired dessert, netting twice the calories (or more). Now I eat what I want and stop there. If the desire is for something other than dessert, the principle still applies: eat the dressing, leave the turkey and greens and corn. It's a strategy.

Yesterday I saw my little old parents. This is their first Christmas with both of them in their nineties, and my sister had made it perfect for them. They sat in their living room, surrounded by piles of gifts, both wearing festive touches supplied by my sister - a light-up necklace for Daddy, a red flowered headband for my mom. They were delighted by their special day, the visitors, the love from family. I made a short video to preserve the happy time.

I cooked and entertained more this holiday than in the past five or eight years. I stopped for rest when I needed it, then resumed my activity. I am incorporating my ten minutes of biking each day without undue strain. This morning I felt the pain of achy foot pads and the difficulty of motivating myself to action. I stopped to think about it for just a minute. I have so much to get up for, so many reasons to keep moving, it has become automatic. I don't have to stop and brace myself before putting my feet on the floor. Forward, forward.

Peace. Happy holidays.

On a Healthy Note...

2009-12-21T15:45:00.001-08:00

I am not sick. I felt like a flare was creeping up on me last week, but most of those symptoms have lessened. I still feel some weariness, but I truly believe it is appropriate, born of recent activities. Last week, with tendinitis creeping in, I officially went on holiday. I put off knitting orders and let my needles have a good daily nap. I put away crochet hooks completely. I've minded my posture, rubbed with Aspercreme, and propped my feet up.

In spite of these alterations, I'm still enjoying holiday activities. We cleaned out the Pod to prepare it for pickup, and emptied the boxes that were cluttering the living room. Suddenly it seems ready for our little forest of fake trees that takes up about two square feet of table space. We can turn on the lights, invite our friends, and be in the season. Christmas gifts are bundled in shopping bags, waiting for wrapping and delivery. Um, yes, that includes the ones for sisters in far cities. I've given lots of thought to what each person wants and needs, and how that fits my budget. In spite of far greater financial constraints, I find shopping was fun and I'm happy with my finds.

My holiday shopping never reaches the big mall. I began at the Chattanooga Market, took a turn through a sale that three artists had in a home, and pulled up some favorite places on the Internet. Of course my on line course included Etsy. I even did some shopping in my own store inventory. I was happy to use my needles to produce a few custom pieces, including the hat that my sister requested. One of my sisters (we all know who she is, but I can't say it here!) has a big head and lots of allergies. I made her measure the circumference of her head after she kept claiming that all the hats she tried were too tight. 24 inches! That's 2 inches larger than the average adult! I hope she donates her brain to science, or maybe I could just get a look at an MRI...I digress. The only fibers she is comfortable with are natural, non-animal fibers. You can see her hat and mitts: they are organic cotton, a very soft, thick and thin, undyed one with the vibrant red organic cotton from Blue Sky. The hat fits loosely at the top, kind of slouchy and cool. I'm finishing the second mitt now. My daughter has tried on the mitts a dozen times. I feel a request coming.

I'm getting some special cooking in. Made a 7-Up pound cake two weeks ago, some shortbread last night. I'm the designated turkey chef for Friday, and I'm planning a few other goodies.

Overall, you can see that I am not sick. Clearly I will not allow myself to be. There are fun things to do and I'm going to do them all. Not to mention the daily ride on the exercise bike - not fun before, but definitely great to look back on.

Peace.

The Flare That Won't Materialize if I Refuse to See It

2009-12-14T17:09:00.000-08:00

I started my last post "Today was marvelous." I wrote one paragraph, then accidentally made it disappear. That's probably a fated ending. As I wrote, I realized that I was describing a day that was good, a day in which I accomplished a lot, but not a marvelous day. I worked hard with my daughter this afternoon. We brought all my Market supplies and products in from her car. Then we unloaded piles of things from the Pod. It felt good to know that we only need one more session to empty that giant box completely. I'd like to have it out of my driveway by Christmas.

While I performed all the physical work, I didn't feel the endurance and strength that I built up through the fall. Every lift and carry was hard. I was out of breath quickly. I didn't worry, because I know from my recent stress test that my heart is fine. I just felt a little discouraged, as though I've been working so hard and still don't see much in the way of sustained results. Later I stared in the mirror as I brushed my teeth, and noticed that my lupus rash is bright pink. I've been feeling the warmth in my cheeks for a couple of days, resting my hand there without the meaning of it really registering. When it sunk in this evening that I may be starting to flare, a familiar feeling of dread washed over me.

I understand why denial is such a powerful coping tool. It allows you to function without constantly fearing the inevitable--no, let's say the probable. I've pushed the mounting symptoms aside as far as I could, even the mild symptoms of colitis that showed themselves this week. Denial kept me from anticipating a flare or dreading a flare, or even acknowledging that my symptoms indicated a flare. Now that it is beyond obvious, I will call the oncology office and see when I'm scheduled to be treated. Maybe we can head this off without much fuss.

Still and all, this day and the one before it have had some of the properties of marvelous. I've been with my daughter and my newest adopted child. We went to an artists' sale yesterday, made small purchases, talked to people, ate fabulous snacks. I cooked. I knitted, coming close to the end of a very large toddler blanket that I'm making for a custom order. It is Knitpicks Crayon, very fluffy and soft with two strands drawn together. (See the pink and black above.) I began a pink and purple afghan from Southwest Trading Company's Bold, that expensive cotton cable yarn which I stashed when I found a sale.

Not only do I have yarn organized on shelves, I have art work on my walls. This place is feeling more and more like home. We've worked a simple system. We bring in a large load of stuff, put it away or organize it for donation, then we bring in another load. Gradually it is shaping up. One difference in this house is that my daughter is amenable to putting more of her own work out for us to enjoy and others to see. With fewer square feet of display space, they will take the place of family photos and art that I was not wholeheartedly supporting. Our collection will get better.

I failed to mention that I have stopped using my exercise bike for a clothes rack and book shelf and have been riding it. Ten minutes today. I was reading Dakota by Martha Grimes as I rode. It's a testament to her amazing writing that I didn't realize the time had passed. I've read all her Richard Jury mysteries and several of her other novels. Thankfully, I can look forward to a few more.

My Christmas shopping is finished. If you see me in a store, slap me silly.

Peace.

Dream Knitting

2009-11-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

I am dreaming about knitting. I see myself designing flowing capes and stylish hats. My hands are busy with beautiful yarns, and I stroke them and sort through them, letting each inspire me with a new creation. This is my dream, but it is also my daily life. Taking the yarn from bags and arranging it on shelves and in bins has been a spiritual experience. The beautiful colours and assorted textures take away my breath and make me sigh with contentment.

There are wonderful products on my plate, some for my store, some as custom orders. Handling all those balls of beautiful, randomly striping Noro made me fall in love with it again. I am halfway finished with a Silk Garden loose cowl which has a feather-and-fan lace bottom and ribbed neck. I'm crocheting some heavy wools, mostly Brown Sheep Burly Spun but also some Artyarns hand-dyed, into a rug. That will be a fun felting project, probably in someone else's washing machine. A friend wants a ruffle scarf appropriate for Miami weather (my choice is a silky bamboo). I just finished a custom scarf knit from cream Burly Spun with two strands of Mini-Mochi in a gorgeous red/purple/rust colorway. I've ordered yarn for a custom pink and black striped baby blanket that will have the little girl's name duplicate-knit in the center. I'm using two strands of Knitpicks Crayon to make it fluffy and soft. My second order of Therapi has arrived, so I'm finishing a salmon-pink cap with cables all around. I made myself get out of a right-cable rut and learned to make left-cables without using a cable needle.

Lately I've come to think of my Chattanooga Market booth as a real store, not just a place where I tote my wares and set up a make-shift sales venue. I requested the same location for the remainder of the season, wanting to be associated with a specific place in the minds of our regular shoppers. I cried when I was too sick to attend Market this week. I had repacked my car the day before, making everything more efficient, assuring that I had the maximum number of products that are appropriate for the season. I woke on Sunday with coughing and wheezing. Still I bathed and dressed in warm "work" clothes and went out in the rain to sit in my car. I was so uncomfortable that I knew I couldn't go, but I sat behind the wheel for a while, savoring the feeling of being ready for market day. I have three more days-November 29, and the December 4-5 special holiday weekend.

Today is the day that I finish getting yarn on shelves. I'm off to Office Depot for a few more small, clear bins.

Peace.

Ruffled Scarf and Other Market News

2009-11-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

I am writing at 3:30 a.m. because I fell asleep before 9 p.m. My brain thinks it is morning, so I'm taking advantage of relative alertness to make this update.
Sundays frequently end early, as I'm up by 6 to start the hectic market day. I begin by loading equipment and products into the car, if I haven't completed that task the night before. Then I have a quick breakfast and get cleaned up and dressed to present a nice vendor image. After I drive downtown, I check in, get a cup of coffee, and unload my equipment. It takes about two and one-half hours to put my booth together and get all my products displayed.
Yesterday was a milestone, my first run of three consecutive market weeks. Now that I know I can do it, I have prepared for the rest of the season and the coming spring by upgrading my equipment a bit. No, I didn't hit SmartFurniture.com for a fancy display setup (think $3000). I spent a few bucks at Bed, Bath and Beyond on snap-together cubes made of metal grids, a reduced flat bedsheet and two rolling hanging clothes racks. For less than $130, I now have a nice cube system that sits on top of my table and holds items like hats and wash cloths, plenty of hanging space for scarves, baby sweaters, baby blankets and adult clothing. I was thrilled to have a more professional looking, organized store yesterday.
With a proper display system, I attract more lookers and shoppers. People were stopping in awe just to say "Did you make all of these yourself?" and I could proudly say that I designed and knitted or crocheted everything in the shop. It was much easier to show what I had and help buyers select things for themselves and for gifts. I even had a proper packaging station set up, and room to write down my credit card purchases and special orders.
One of the most fun events of yesterday's market was recruiting neighboring vendors to help me sing "Happy Birthday" to my mom. It was her 90th. I knew I would be exhausted and that call would have to do for the day. We sung with enthusiasm. No one would have special-ordered that performance. I asked my mom how it felt to be 90, and she said "I feel old." She's entitled.

Special orders have increased lately. Last week I had three from the market, and I completed the pair of extra skinny fingerless mitts, the green ruffled scarf you see below, and an entrelac organic cotton wash cloth this week. The holiday hand towels you see were knitted for another special order, and I finished Valentine's Day and blocked them both for mailing tomorrow. The little Christmas trees and heart are duplicate knit. Simple patterns like that can be free-handed, but if I have any requests I will publish the diagrams.

Speaking of patterns, here's the ruffled scarf:

The scarf is worked back and forth on circular needles. The final length is about 74 inches. Gauge is unimportant.
Materials: approximately 220 yards of worsted weight yarn (I used Superwash Worsted from elann.com, but their Wool/Bamboo would have worked nicely, too.), a long circular size 6 needle, a long circular size 7 needle, and a yarn needle for weaving ends

With smaller needle, cast on 180 stitches loosely. You don't want a tight, uncomfortable edge around the neck.
Row 1: Knit.
Row 2: Knit into front and back of each stitch. (360 stitches)
Row 3: Changing to larger needle, knit.
Row 4: Knit into front and back of each stitch. (720 stitches)
Rows 5-7: Knit. You can make the ruffle wider by adding more rows here.
Final row: Cast off loosely.
Weave in ends.

A note about the hand towels. They are knitted from knitpicks.com Cotlin, 50% linen, 50% cotton. It handles beautifully, softening as you knit. Most of my series are knit on size 5 straight needles with a fairly simple block pattern. The Valentine's towel is the exception, as the lacy pattern suited the theme. Keeping in mind where the center fold would be, I knit a section of stockinette into each towel to serve as a background for duplicate knitting motifs. You want this in the lower half of the towel so that it shows when you fold it over a towel bar. I have two more to complete this custom holiday series (I began with Halloween and Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick's Day and 4th of July will complete it.) I'll publish stitch counts and basic construction as I work on the final two.

My early morning awake time is fading fast. I think I can manage two more hours of sleep.
Peace.

Am I Moved YET?

2009-11-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

Holy cow. No, that's not it. HOLY COW! That's better. I've had three reschedules from my mover, followed by an incomplete removal of the last few items from my house. The trunk of my car (a rapidly aging Volvo sedan) contains ten cans of paint+kitty litter (don't ask). There is only a two-foot wide path through my new garage from the door to the driveway. My piano is in the garage. I've checked here on HGTV but there is no "how to" that will fix this.

On the bright side, this is the end. The End. Closing is this week. I will take a break before closing on the new house, which I have leased til now. I have no deadline for hanging pictures, unpacking winter clothes, getting the remainder of the books onto bookshelves. There is only what my sensibilities will tolerate, and I am feeling pretty darn flexible. I won't cry if I can't get Ringgold and Joysmith and Ali on the walls today. No, I am not hallucinating. I have a Mohammad Ali limited edition print from his art period. He hadn't moved much past keeping it in the lines, but the idea that he attempted it charms me.

Oops, relaxed too soon. I went back to the new house this afternoon to deal with a pile of stuff shoved in the attic by unnamed young people staying in the guest room. It includes enough hangars for the Russian army and some used sheets which were "stored" there instead of washed. 'Nuff said. There is nothing in Spock about this.

So...I'm on a first name basis with the receiver at my favorite center to donate unwanteds. He saw me coming today, waved and almost smiled. An almost smile is the max for him. When you see him collecting things from your car one bag at a time, you know that he doesn't waste any muscle movement. We're starting to get very real about the things that can go. I had a carload today and I'm sure I'll have another tomorrow. I am all about knowing that the memory will be with me always. I don't need any more physical reminders of anything.

Mary Z reminded me the other day about using professional shredders. They'll be here tomorrow. I see 10 more cubic feet of space becoming available!

I met my buyers today. That ordinarily doesn't happen until closing, but I've let them out of motel hell with their young baby to live in the house a few days beforehand. I think the baby likes me. He was all red hair and smiles. Me and mom talked about knitting.

I did a good bit of knitting in the drive-through pharmacy line just now. I've never seen the lines so long, wondered if it is an H1N1 epidemic thing. Glad I started a hat from my pink Therapi (the yarn with merino, silk and jadeite fiber). I managed to do all the increases that will go from the head band to the start of the flare for the kind of beret shape (knit 1, yarn over, knit into the front and back) and repeat all the way around. Turn on the car, move one spot, pick up your needles.

Keeping up the surviving. Peace.

Prednisone Blindside Response

2009-10-31T00:02:00.000-07:00

I have been perplexed. The past few weeks I've noticed increased appetite and disrupted sleep. Increased appetite is an understatement. I've been ravenous. My usual lay down, close eyes, and fall asleep routine has been failing, and I awaken in the early morning, hungry and unable to return to sleep. I blamed it all on the extraordinary circumstances of my packing and moving, the excitement of house sale and new house. Tonight I it all came to a head. I was upset at my hungriness and the way it prevented sleep, and beginning to despair of having any improved health from my increased activity if all it meant was more appetite. As I bit into my low-cal, high-fiber, whole grain English muffin it hit me - my steroid dose is up. This is a sneaky steroid increase. I'm not taking a higher dose of prednisone. My oral dose remains at its baseline, not enough to cause these symptoms. However, almost three weeks ago I had a joint injection - a large dose of steroid (corticosteroid) medication was inserted directly into my left knee joint to treat an acute flare. We do this kind of treatment to put the medication directly where it is needed and to minimize the systemic affect of the meds, but a goodly portion is still absorbed into the bloodstream and disseminated to the rest of the body.

I am greatly relieved to realize the source of my symptoms. I've had such an increase in activity that I'm hoping to see better overall health. I thought it was being thwarted by my need to eat more, but now I know it is temporary. Moreover, having insomnia and being on an irregular schedule has never been good for my lupus. Keeping the wolf under control is much easier with adequate rest and a predictable meal, sleep and medication schedule. I should be close to getting over the steroid symptoms. One way I've been fighting them is to feed my appetite with huge amounts of plain steamed vegetables. My Publix had a $1 sale on microwavable vegetable packs, found in the produce section. I scooped up a pile and I indulge in them liberally. I also invested in several cases of my favorite sparkling water (yes, at $4 for 12 cans, it's an investment), and I fill up on bubbles.

A disease that has affected you for 17 years isn't going to be controlled or conquered overnight. I'm happy for every little insight that helps me manage better, even if it comes at 3 a.m.

Peace.

Getting Buff

2009-10-28T04:52:00.000-07:00

I am on the craziest exercise program. I didn't sign up, it just caught up with me. It's free, and a good thing, as I'd never pay for such torture. It goes something like this:

Hmm. Today I'm going to sort all the stuff in my daughter's old room. I know she already sorted it, but I'm sure her heart and her short attention span got in the way. Okay, here we go, up 14 stairs. Oh my God, there are forty-seven or sixty items left here. That's okay, we've nothing but time. Closing is a week away, after all. Just sit down and calmly go through them. Oops, need a couple of boxes. Get up, fetch boxes, come back. And a trash bag. Get up, fetch trash bag, come back. Lord, what is in this tote? Lead? Lift it up, empty the lead ten pounds at a time. Oh yeah, this is the rock collection from kindergarten. I think it can go now. Repeat forty-seven times. Now let's check the closet. I'm sure she emptied...oops, two prom dresses, hiking boots (complete with dried mud), a plastic drawer set with long-forgotten junior high school clothes, a bin of books from-oh yeah, that pharm tech program. Let's just haul everything out of this closet. Bend down three more times for tiny stuffed animals. They are falling out of every crack. Where is the donation box? Over there-that's okay, we'll get some jump shots in. Donate. Donate. Donate. Wonder if they care if I put clothes in with a cow-head vaporizer? Now just lift the boxes and separate donate from deliver to house. All those trash bags of donated linens can be tossed over the rail down into the living room. Heave-smack! Heave-smack! Heave-smack! Whew, the fun part.

Next, I'll finish the guest room...

I am not joking. This particular exercise regimen is building muscle where prednisone had stolen it. Some of the challenges are unexpected. One of my helpers brought his 66 year-old mother and 8 year-old son. Son is a whirlwind, and I move more just keeping up with his antics and making sure he doesn't unpack all the "interesting" stuff that I packed. If I stay one step ahead, I can keep him busy carrying things up and down stairs. The mother is a smoker and not in great health, but she takes the stairs faster than me and insists on making three trips up and down and I... will... not... be... outdone.

I can do things now that I wouldn't attempt six months ago. It is hard training this way, but the results are evident. When this little adventure ends (you know, after I unpack the pod and get all the yarn on shelves and hang all my art) I'll be ready to head to the rec center and lift some weights.

Peace.

Counting Down to Closing

2009-10-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

One week 'til closing, and the sale of my house is all consuming. I held my breath for inspection and came away with a short list of repairs and investigations to be performed in this brief final period. I had to miss knitting group to meet a handyman-a definite indication of the urgency of these activities.

The chaos of moving holds some treachery for me. After a few near-misses, I tripped over a box and fell, doing a slow, continually sliding, grabbing, descent against the side of my recliner, and ending with a number of bumps and bruises and what feels like a broken toe. This morning I am feeling the full effect, limping and learning which limb to favor for which activity. Adults are not made for falling. We think too much on the way down, rather than letting the natural instincts take over. Moreover, I was grabbing at a recliner that was slowly changing position as I went down. My chances would have been better with the floor.

Ah well, if this is the worst result of my real estate adventures, I think I've come off well. I finished the night reading aloud to my daughter from a favorite Agatha Christie. She had a migraine and was bored to tears with lying still in the dark. Why Didn't They Ask Evans always has her imagining herself to be Frankie, the sassy, adventurous daughter of an earl. My daughter's expressions and gestures had me laughing, contributing to my hoarseness from reading 11 chapters.

I'm in hand towel heaven with my current custom project. I've become very comfortable with Cotlin, Knitpicks.com's cotton 50%/linen 50% DK blend. It softens very readily with handling, and knits quite nicely for me on size 5 needles. I've been knitting hand towels that are holiday designs. Christmas is ready for blocking, and I'll cast on Valentine's Day shortly and figure out how many hearts to throw across it.

I took on an experimental crochet project last weekend without the desired result. Dayna hoped for an interestingly patterned scarf from Spud & Chloe's Aztec Scarf pattern. She wanted a soft, flowing, indoor version, and we attempted it with Cotlin, but it didn't fill in the pattern enough. I may try again with another yarn, but she's already on to the next project. She had admired the bands of V-stitch on my crocheted baby blankets, and now that is the basis for a long crocheted scarf. V-stitch goes quickly and loooks lacy and beautiful. An easy teach is found here: http://www.woolcrafting.com/v-stitch-crochet-pattern.html. I showed my "client" both the half-double and double V-stitch, and she preferred double, so my work is more open than the example photo shown at the link.

I've relisted all my hats and scarves, as the season is here. No sales at the store yet, and I've not been able to free up time and energy for the market. Maybe next week. I've no doubt that the heavy work of moving will make me much more fit for market days. Swinging those metal grids in and out of the car, setting up tables, hauling bags of product-none of those seems difficult now that I've dismantled and sorted the old house.

I finished all my cardiac testing last week. A summer of cooking less (no food odors in the house you're showing, please) and eating out more left me with an elevated cholesterol and LDL. I'm on medication now, but hopefully regaining my better habits will render that unnecessary. None of the other test results have been discussed yet.

Okay, first neighbor complaint. The folks directly behind me have a boat. Hubby insists on weatherizing it himself. He treated us to a good spell of deafening noise yesterday and I went out and hollered over the fence to see if anyone was dying. We had a congenial meeting and he explained his mission, and that he will save $200 by doing it himself. Hah! It is 8:45 a.m. and he has just started again, revving his boat motor and drowning out my thoughts. Hmmph. That ends my blogging for today.

Peace.

Nostalgicus Interruptus

2009-10-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday evening and I'm suffering from acute nostalgicus interruptus. My undergrad alma mater, Vanderbilt, had homecoming this weekend and I was all signed up to attend. I was especially excited that there would be events for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Association of Vanderbilt Black Alumni. There were many friends that I have thought about recently that I hoped to see. Alas, it was a typical lupus week. Chest tightness and palpitations led me to my doc and to an appointment with a heart specialist. Both thought my symptoms warranted a work-up (battery of tests to determine if a problem exists). I spent 24 hours wearing a heart monitor and I'm scheduled for a fancy nuclear medicine stress test in two days. Between the symptoms and tests and my already pressing need to sort out the old house, I had to stay home. Pooey.

Ironically, I seem to have already given myself the stress test. For the past three days I've worked hard at sorting, packing, and delivering stuff. I've hauled huge bags of trash, carried boxes filled with old office records, helped move a dresser from my daughter's room to the garage, spent hours feeding paper into the shredder... I didn't plan it this way, I just felt energetic and recovered from my recent Rituxan therapy, and so I worked when and how I felt like it. Needless to say, I've not had a single twinge in my chest. Not one. The cute little bottle of tiny nitroglycerin tabs that the cardiologist prescribed remains sealed.

None of the above means that I've had a bad weekend. I'm sitting on my bed, feet up, listening to Patti LaBelle's powerful voice. This evening I combed through YouTube to hear a variety of selections from Al Green, the Isley Brothers, and Patti. It was still nostalgia time, whether I made it to Nashville or not. I was focused on the music that I was hearing when I was in college. It featured strong voices, defined rhythms, and words that made sense. Lots of it talked about love and peace and the "good stuff" in the world. I was first married after my sophomore year at Vanderbilt, a whole 19 years old. My husband was in his mid-20s and had already mastered the art of using music for seduction, but our listening choices also extended to revolutionary soul (Gil Scott Heron, Stevie Wonder), jazz (Pharoah Saunders, Jazz Crusaders) and more instrumental rock (Santana).

Hmm, that could be a formula for a good Sunday evening. Stop all work, put your feet up, and focus on music that you love. I learned about formulas from my daughter. When she was four she came home from school and said, "This is how you make friends at my school. You stand by somebody in line and you hold their hand." The formulas were simple and straight-forward in those days, but she has continued to enlighten me on occasion, summing up her way of doing something and presenting it like a gift.

The association of men in my [past] life with music is a strong one. I wonder sometimes why many of the women I've been close to have not had strong musical preferences and affiliations. In the string of important men (members of that group shift from time to time) there is a very particular classical music fan and accomplished violinist, a rock enthusiast (but no "California rock" thank you), a jazz artist who played with a high school band as a kindergartener, a talented dancer who stayed current on the latest rap and contemporary music, and one man with a lovely voice and multiple instruments who used it all on sacred music. What a range. And of course, that's not the whole of the group.

Patti LaBelle is in my face singing "Love Never Dies", a tribute to one of her sisters who succumbed to cancer at an early age. This moment if feels like a commentary on the ability to focus on the positives in my past. Patti LaBelle is always in your face when she sings. Whether you love her or hate her, you cannot ignore her when she is singing. One of my favorite New Year's celebrations was Luther Vandross and Patti in concert at the Fox Theater in Atlanta.

Hearing live music is still one of my favorite outings, and it has been far too scarce in recent years. I was every bit of grateful this week when I was able to attend a concert at a local church. The music was modern classical, a pianist, a classical guitarist and a violinist. Fab. Makes it worth taking your meds and getting out of your house. Once I had a list of performers that I wanted to hear. I envisioned traveling to catch their concerts, using my vacations and taking my daughter. Several years ago, Dayna and I saw Jill Scott at Ryman Auditorium with her informing me that she was the youngest attendee. I could have repeated that scenario a million times, following all my favorites, but I was too ill for that kind of plan. I see myself now at the point where I can make my list.

Good lord, am I still writing? Music loosens my fingers and lubricates that connection between my thoughts and my hands. I'll have to continue in my head.

Peace.

South Carolina Makes Me Read

2009-10-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

A friend in South Carolina - hmm, possibly my only friend in that state - sent me this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/nyregion/12towns.html?_r=1 about a woman who vowed on Oct. 8, 2008 to read a book a day and discuss it in a blog: http://readallday.org/.

I won't do this often, but today you are privy to my top-secret email. This was my response to S. Carolina:

Hey in South Carolina! This is the perfect way to pique my shame. I have not been reading. It's been weeks since I closed my last book, and I would say that I have no time but there really is no such thing. I could open a book and keep it bedside to peruse instead of bedtime tv and midday Scrabble breaks. I could put a rack in the new bathroom and furnish liturature for the prolonged visits. I could even pop a borrowed cd into my cd player in the car and hear a story or two. I miss it and I have no excuse. I admire what this woman has done. I've ready about 20-30 of the books (so many titles from the past tickle my memory but do not give me a clear picture). I've read maybe 30% of the same authors, or more. She hit some of my favorites: Martha Grimes, my two favorite Japanese authors (they might as well be named Yamaguchi and Itchiguchi for the trouble I have recalling their names), my science fiction loves - Orson Scott Card and Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler (I'd read all of theirs including the ones she read), Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Toni Morrison, Tana French. Overall, her list could be used for one of good varied reading, especially fiction. ...and E. Danticat! what a pearl she is. I'm still being reminded of things I've read and should read, favorite authors that I've abandoned in favor of - primarily - knitting and crochet.

What I didn't say to my friend was that I am going to the book shelf immediately. I will place a book on my night table, and it will be read. The last books I read were a young adult series about an alternate world with vampires and demon hunters: City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass. I finished them several weeks ago after my daughter recommended them, and I was impressed that they were much more intelligently conceived and written than the Twilight series. The plots were complex, the characters believable, and the sci-fi grounding held up nicely.

Of course, when I say I'm not reading that does not count knitting, crochet, and general crafting literature. Those books and periodicals are ever present, part of learning more about my trade and producing the goodies that I work on daily. That declaration also doesn't take into account the reading I do on the Internet daily. I might spend an hour going from blog to news to opinion site any time I open my laptop. This "machine" is tantalizingly full of information and entertainment, and if I allowed myself I could read all day right here. Not allowed, however. I'm going to the book shelf.

Peace.

Singing the House Sold Song

2009-10-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

I am singing a song. It goes something like this:

I sold my house.

Dee dee dee dee you heard me baby

I sold my house.

Oh yes, I sold it,

I sold the house.

Dee dee dee dee I know they'll love it

I sold the house.

I promise you I was not waiting for an acceptable offer to post here. I've just been totally, daily, happily involved in moving. The movers made their official trip from old house to new exactly two weeks ago. My daughter and I made an immediate scramble, putting away enough items to get the boxes and bags out of walkways and keep us functioning with daily necessities. Since then, I have struggled to continue cleaning out the old house. If you remember, new house is less than half the size of old house, so we couldn't have the movers pick up all the old contents and dump them over here. Instead I am sorting, selling, donating, discarding at warp speed, managing the leftovers and spillovers and other overages.

During that process I decided to hire painters and make the entire inside of the old house an indisputably neutral color, something that would make the most white-bread buyer comfortable. I chose something that would erase that black/Hispanic zest for color that injects such life into our dwellings-vanilla brandy, the paint company calls it. The smooth, creamy cafe au lait color is nice, but the only way I could live with it would be to plaster the walls with my colorful art collection.

Speaking of art, I have not hung one painting in the new place. It also has contractor walls - a creamy beige with a hint of green undertones. Lovely and calm, and desperately in need of my art. Unfortunately, there are things that take priority, like getting curtains hung so that I am not parading in front of my neighbors in ugly pajamas. It will feel like a party when I finally select the spot for each piece and start hammering nails and slinging those frames up where they can be seen.

You might think that I've been too busy to knit, but something has to happen when I hit the wall and can't pack or unpack boxes any more. Most days I spend a few hours on moving, an hour or two on administration (schedule appointments, pay bills, change utilities, maintain my store) and several hours on knitting and crochet. I've finished two baby blankets for a special order. The red and gray stripe (sorry for the washed out colors in the photo) is for Ohio State U for a baby boy who isn't at all brainwashed, and the pink is a crochet piece for a baby girl, equally brain-washed but in a different mode altogether. The other pieces are for the store: First a blue and cream crochet cotton baby blanket, then a striped hat in Noro Silk Garden. Finally, a multicolored, hand-dyed cashmere/wool scarf and mitts, crocheted in a ring pattern. There are more items that haven't been photographed yet, including a pale pink cashmere bumblebee hat that I must get my model to show off. Nothing else would do it justice.

I have a whole set of hand towels to make for a special order. They are six holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and 4th of July) and one college emblem. I'm having a ball duplicate knitting symbols on them - you should see my turkey! Don't worry, photos coming. I'm making most of these in Knitpicks.com's Cotlin - a 50/50 mix of linen and cotton that is lovely to knit with. It comes in lots of colors and handles well, and I really like how my towels look. I haven't learned how to put my photos where I want them on Blogger, so scoot back up to the top and look at the unblocked Halloween towel. If you must ask which it is, we need to have a serious talk.

I think it might be evident that I'm enjoying myself. Just in case you can't tell, let me say it. I am enjoying myself. It's a good space here, sharing digs with my daughter, working on the new house, reveling in the down-size project (hmm, maybe becoming a little self-righteous about it). It's one of those times when my life seems to fit just right with no awkward bulges.

Peace.

Missed While Moving

2009-09-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

I am moving. Yesterday we took two vehicle-loads of boxes to the new house. While we were there, we met our two-doors-down neighbor. Today I unpacked seven boxes, inspected the new fence, and read two mail order catalogs in the new house. All this busyness has me missing the blog. I write all the time in my head, but it's not being transmitted.

These interesting events transpired in the no-writing interval:

1. The dog ate my pizza. We have very little food prep equipment left at the old house, so we've been ordering out. Today I left 70% of a wonderful barbecue chicken pizza on the couch in the box. I was hurrying to meet the fence guy at the new house. He wanted his money. When I returned home after three hours, the poor old crippled dog who hasn't been on the couch in four months had jumped way high and devoured the pizza. She'd better not throw up tonight.

2. I restarted my point-counting for Weight Watchers. Because it works and I needed to. Already lost some lbs.

3. I took two Rituxan treatments. At the second one, a couple was referred to hospice for end of life care for one of them. The patient asked questions and tried to sound light-hearted. The partner stood silent.

4. I visited the barber. He gave me a great haircut, then killed it with some awful sticky gel that turned my do to plastic. It was okay once I came home and washed it. No more hair gel! Who likes that stuff?!

5. Packing has continued in fits and starts for weeks. Recent concentration has been on essentials - kitchen equipment, dry goods, bathroom necessities, clothing. I've left a minimum to get me through the next week 'til the movers come.

6. Better than packing, sorting and discarding has continued. Many carloads of gently worn goods have made their way to charity. The trash volume has quadrupled. Faced with a 1325 square foot dwelling, your definition of "necessity" changes quickly.

7. There is a science experiment in my garage. Weeks ago I purchased 40 lb of kitty litter. My daughter and a friend pried the lids off every old paint can in the place and put in kitty litter to absorb and dry out the old paint. When they are dry and hard, I throw them away. Fourteen down, at least ten to go. My daughter recognized most of the paint. She pointed out that some was left from when we painted her bedroom yellow and purple - that's right, alternating walls. Because that's the kind of mom I am.

8. I've come across many reminders of my first host son, Kris. Dead of suicide at age 17, he was a bright light and happy voice in our lives for several years. We moved after his death. The house no longer felt right without his frequent visits and insistence on sleeping in the family room where the sun rose shining through all the glass. Moving again, now five years later, I am reminded of the emptiness and grief I felt that year. I found a photo of Kris in a stack of papers, and while I debated about my readiness to frame it and view it daily, the tears came without warning. Five years is so short and so long.

9. I purchased the carbon fiber plate to put in my shoe, and I'm walking on it daily. It reduces the pain in the one tiny area of arthritis in my right foot. Ridiculous for such a small area of osteoarthritis to produce so much pain. Meanwhile, the left knee is begging for steroid injections and the left shoulder is making terrible scraping if I move it right (or wrong).

10. At least three times a day something happens that makes me want to grab my computer and begin writing. I've gotta start making notes.

Abstract Me

2009-09-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Today I was crocheting a water bottle holder and it turned into a cosmetic/jewelry pouch. A circle done in crochet can easily get out of control. One or two extra rounds and you have the base of a purse. Another couple of rounds and it's a placemat. Keep going, it's a bedside rug. It doesn't take long to knit a house cover when you're going round and round in crochet. That is one of the things I like about using that crochet hook. You can pick a stitch, use it mindlessly, and just keep going. When you are finished, you cut the yarn, pull it through one stitch, and voila! it's a whatever-you-want-thinga-ma-bobby. It is very easy for me to make three-dimensional shapes with crochet, making rows turn and take off in other directions, connecting parts to form cones and rings and knobs, or satisfying my desire for caffeinated, off-the-charts asymmetry. I know that there will come a time when I stop worrying about the sale-ability of my crochet pieces, and turn them into the abstracts that they long to be.

Sometimes I think I was meant to be an abstract. I am older, with the softened jawline and fuzzy dumpling shape of a 52-year-old who has lived on prednisone for almost two decades. As parts get saggier, lumpier, more affected by gravity and medicines and lupus, they show their asymmetry more. Seen in the dark, or as a shadow on the wall, I can imagine myself a mysterious, amorphous creature that is the sculpture made by a mad scientist-artist like...myself. Oddly enough, I appreciate this, or at least I do not run from it. I can look in the mirror and see interesting shapes and evolution without crying for that past body. I know that my slim, crisp, muscular shape, the 35 year-old body just before lupus, was healthier and more conventionally attractive, but this is the body that holds me now. Now I am older, wiser, experienced, more compassionate, much more patient. Now I let my creativity reign, enjoy my own humor, and listen to my feelings. In its own way, the body works well. It is hearty, flexible, endures pain well and expresses pleasure luxuriously. It is not a shell to be discarded.

I think about this when I meet new men. Can they appreciate the miracle of health and life hard-won, the number of treatments this body has endured to be functioning so well in the present? Or do they just see the asymmetry and lumpiness and "lack of self control" that modern morons see as the basis for all bodies that blossom with obesity? Unlike the stereotypical woman polled, I do not prefer death or stupidity (a kind of death) to obesity. I'll take what I've got and live in it.

In elementary school, my daughter would say, "Mommy, you are soft." She never asked if something was wrong, or why I wasn't thinner or harder like other moms. Now 21, she draws and paints abstracts.

Peace.

...Like a Chicken with His Head Cut Off

2009-09-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

You probably think I haven't blogged because I'm laying out on my deck enjoying the sun and the mild weather, but no...that's not been on my agenda. In the words of my mom, I've been running around "like a chicken with his head cut off", taking care of all the details in my life (and a few others). It's time to move, my new place is ready for us, and that necessitates contracts like the fence-building and movers, shopping for a new refrigerator, and acquisition of fancier packing supplies such as dividers for crystal glassware.
In the midst of this, there is the unceasing health care stuff. I finally saw an orthopod (oops, orthopedic surgeon) about my year-long foot pain, only to find that there's some weird process making cysts in my bone and calcifications in the soft tissue of one of my foot joints. "Probably some lupus thing," he says. I lay on a hard, narrow table and slid into the ring of the CT scanner today so that thin cross-sectional pictures could be made to further delineate the process.
Oh yeah, not just my health care stuff. I have one sister in the hospital with a stubborn kidney stone, a child with an infection, and a dog still fighting ringworm. (Yes, the dog counts! Who do you think gives her the pills and the alternate day baths with fancy medicated shampoo?)
Actually, the fact that I'm able to move through all of this without a break or paid help is great evidence that I'm a lot healthier today than I was this time last year, and not even in the same league as I was in two years ago. Recovery is all relative.
So, what's interesting now? I've missed every political health care rally planned for this area. Today I got a notice about a meeting including speakers from various health-care and political arenas. It is planned for my county by my favorite state legislator, Andy Berke, and will take place Friday, September 11. If all goes well, I will have pushed aside some of the other work (maybe even completed it!) so that I can attend. Speaking of work, lately I've had some invitations to do easy, temporary work. It's nice to still be thought of as a doctor. I knew I should keep up those continuing ed credits for something other than lingering interest.
Other interesting developments include blossoming friendships. I could not have looked at my knitting group a year ago and predicted this, but I have grown much closer to some of my knitting mates, and it is lots of fun to be learning about them on a deeper level. I should have a visit to a scary three-D movie coming up tomorrow with one of them.
I know you are holding your breath, wondering what I am knitting. After all, that has to be included under "interesting". I'm two-thirds finished with a little boy's vest, using two balls of blue and grey Lang's Mille Colori, wool 50%/acrylic 50%. That's not a mix I use commonly (acrylic production is heavy on hydrocarbon use), but I bought it on sale, it feels soft and nice, and will be easy care for some busy dad. Photos soon. I'm on my nth Beehive Hat. More photos of those soon. (My model has been busy with school.) I've got a longish list of things for a custom client, including two baby blankets and two hand towels. Both the cotton crochet baby blanket and the hand-dyed cotton baby blanket are finished, and I am happy with the completed products. Photos soon, no model required.
Altogether, a very busy time. If you see me on the street and I give a blank stare, bear with me. Insist that I take a chat break. I'll love you for it.
Peace.

Friends and Elevations

2009-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

When Saturday morning comes and six or four or twelve of us are gathered around a table, knitting and talking, my thoughts inevitably turn to the topic of having friends. If there is anything in this world that makes my heart beat faster with gratitude, it is my relationships with family and friends. After a few years of isolating myself due to illness and an ill-chosen religious home, I am thrilled to be in contact with so many friends. Lately they seem to be coming out of the woodwork. I signed up for Facebook, and amazing people from my past - usually ones that I never suspected would hunt for me - have turned up and "friended" me. I've made friends at the chemotherapy suite who are still regularly checking in by email. People are stopping me in the grocery store, in restaurants, hugging me and vowing to get together. Younger family members have been calling and keeping in touch. My friendship cup runneth over.
I have grown close to my group of knitting friends, and I felt comfortable sharing with them today that I've been a bit manic lately - what a psychiatrist would label as "hypomanic". How can I tell? I am emotional - tears of joy flow very easily. I feel more religious fervor than usual. My everyday, normal-mood approach to religion is pretty dry and matter-of-fact. Today I was blasting gospel in my car and singing at the top of my voice, even entertaining the idea that I might detour and go to a church service instead of
to knitting group. I gave away a cashmere hat that I would have sold for $50 to an elderly lady at the chemo suite. Hmm. I might have done that last one under any circumstances. But you get my drift - when I am manic, my heart is open.
However, there is a downside. I may find that my opinion of something has changed completely from, say, last month, even though I felt very firm in my conviction before. I can be more irritable and short when things don't go well. I may confuse and frustrate my friends and family with my inconsistency or change of mood.
Does this need medication? Complex question. I took lithium at one time, when I was in my early thirties. The evening-out that it did affected some things that still seem surprising to me. Yes, my mood was more consistent, but I also had a more normal appetite and my music sight-reading improved. Those things were nice, but I had to give up lithium when I began some of the medications that were essential for treating lupus. At the time, there weren't good alternative medications. That has changed drastically with the introduction of a number of anti-seizure drugs which have been found to be quite effective for bipolar illness. At any rate, I have remained on antidepressants, which smooth out the other end of the spectrum and keep me from the most serious side effects of this disorder. I now recognize the occasional manic spike and can control my symptoms much more easily, as I have grown older.
What the heck?! I didn't designate this day as mental health blogging day. It has, however, been on my mind because of (1) my own change in mood and (2) the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, who championed the inclusion of mental illnesses in all health care coverage, something that has not yet been achieved. As much as I value my Medicare, it pays painfully little for me to stay in the care of a psychiatrist. The knowledge that I need an objective specialist managing that aspect of my health doesn't make it any easier to pay those giant-size bills.
So here we are, back at health care reform. No change in my opinions on this one. We need a public health care option. We need to provide health care for every single American. I missed the last rally because of joint issues. I will try my best to attend the next one.

Peace.

Putting a Cap on the Week

2009-08-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning. I'm taking stock of the past week. It was a whirlwind, helping my daughter get enrolled and find classes at the local university. We made a last-minute decision that she would stay home this semester, for a variety of reasons, but executing that was very difficult. I had the renewed experience of being "Mom" in a way that I haven't for four years. I drove to and from school while she waited for a parking sticker, I stood in line to help get some of the administrative chores done, and I helped with the search for classes that would be useful to her and have credit to transfer to her main school. It made me admire what these young people do when we drop them off at college and come back home. I hadn't seen the process up close before. As a so-called "transient" student, my daughter was not eligible for advising or financial aid, so this was a particularly difficult registration. It was gratifying to see her sail through it.

Recently, I put a new category of blog post in my long list of things to write about. I wanted to begin dissecting one of those constant parental worries - how to tell what kind of job you are doing (or have done). I suppose that this should be one of the entries - Watch Your Child Get Started in School. It was fascinating to see my daughter function this week. She was adept at maneuvering through the decision tree involved in registering at a new school. She didn't agonize over which section of which course to take - she started by getting one class locked down, then building around it to make a workable schedule. She knew that she was already late in the process and didn't worry about which instructor was better, nicer, more lenient with grades. She accepted pot luck and went to class with an optimistic attitude. She quickly made acquaintances in each class, exchanging phone numbers and email addresses so that notes could be shared in case of an absence.

Her approach to instructors in closed class sections (where enrollment had already reached quota) was especially interesting. When she confronted one professor with the hated blue form (permission to enroll in a closed class), she was told "No." Her response was to smile and ask if she could remain for that class section and speak with him afterward. After class, she made her case and was accepted into his section. Shades of Cher, in Clueless. Everything is negotiable.

The big excuses seem to be gone from her vocabulary. In one class, she began on the second day, and discovered that the teacher had made lots of assignments on the first day of class. The daughter didn't ask for extensions or release from those writing assignments. She dug in and worked until they were done, completing the last one an hour before departure for the Friday session. I read them and was impressed that her writing had matured in the past four years. Hmm, maybe the big tuition has been worth it.

So much for watching the offspring. I listed a half-dozen new products in my stores yesterday, and one has already sold. It was the second sale of the weekend, very gratifying. I have more to list, as well as pushing ahead with my plans for fall products. The beehive hats (photo above) are coming along, I now have three to photograph and list - two cashmere, one organic cotton. I think the fibers are exactly right. The hand-dyed cotton blanket lacks only 20 rows. I'm ready to start another custom order. Everything is moving along.

Peace.

Welcome to EssieWB on Blogger

2009-08-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

What a new day! This is me, writing in my blog and giving it a new address so that GoogleAds can fill the margins with little money-making notes. Had to do it, folks. The times, they are a-changin', and not for the better or the worse but for the poorer. (No, poorer and worse are not synonyms.)
I tried my damndest to bring the contents of the old blog, at http://essiewb.wordpress.com, to this new site in its entirety, but neither of the sites has decided to bend their tools to that kind of cooperation. So...I've put notices on both sites and I'll start here by noting the old stats, and then we'll begin new.
I began to write this blog in December 2007, at a time when my then 15 years of systemic lupus was weighing me down with physical limitations and diminishing hope. As an optimistic person, I was grabbing all my resources to stay afloat, including resurrecting my lifelong love of writing to help educate others about this life and give me a way to express my feelings about my journey.
350 posts later, after 30,303 visits from readers (mostly a half-dozen great friends), I am still writing. I don't want to stop. Correction: I cannot stop. Writing becomes me. Writing soothes me. Writing is part of my healing. When I am not writing here, I am composing in my head, reminding myself to bring particular thoughts and experiences to this forum and open them up for perusal and comment.
A lot has changed since December 2007, and you can find it all by reading the first 350 posts of this blog. Okay, okay, just kidding. A brief summary: My health is much improved, due to the initiation of a new medication that is just beginning to be used for lupus. Barack Obama ran for president (and WON), bringing me back to politics and citizenship in a way that I never dreamed. My Etsy store, at http://turtlefat.com, has grown to two stores, the newer one holding my children's creations at http://turtletots.etsy.com. My daughter turned 21. I cut my hair and grew it out and cut it again. My posts have followed all of these happenings, in no particular order. Thank goodness they are searchable, so that the free knitting patterns and medical information isn't lost in musings about hair length and parenting.

The past week has been excruciatingly busy. I've tended to details about our new house, my daughter's semester at the local university, my health, my dog's health...and today I am tired. Matter of fact, I'm so tired that I just didn't get going this morning in time to make my rheumatology appointment. I'll call them after while and let them know I'm not dead.

One of the "funner" occurrences of the week was a visit to my sister's house for lunch. It was a spur-of-the-moment plan, me texting her at 7 a.m. to see if she wanted to get together. We went to the new house to meet with the builder about last-minute details (shelves for my yarn, darling!), then she cooked. I took my Alli like a good girl, then enjoyed wings and potato salad and strawberries. I fixed her stereo on the way out.

Oh my gosh, don't think I've even mentioned Alli. A few weeks ago I concluded that my eating away from home is a real deviation from what it should be, and I slowly began to take Alli with those much-more-fatty meals. It is speeding my weight loss a bit, a nice thing to see with my creeping metabolism. Alli makes a good deterent for me to eat too much high-fat food, because I'm not interested in having any side effects. (Read the label.)

As much as I'm enjoying chatting you up, I've got blueberry muffins to bake, bills to pay, one more college phone call to make, and a dog that needs a therapeutic bath.

Peace.

Harsh Words, Soft Beehive Hat

2009-08-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a hard day. I won't call it a bad day, because in the end we accomplished what was necessary, but it was hard.
We made some decisions yesterday, as a family, about a direction for our near future. We set out to put those decisions into action. In the process, I walked a long way in stifling heat, waited patiently for service, and explained the circumstances that led to us being there. Then I tried to ask the questions that would educate us about necessary procedures and what we could expect in the future. In return, someone half my age greeted me with disdain and told me I should be "nice". I contemplated that for a moment, then asked the person if they were saying I had not been "nice". The reply was that I wanted a special service and should "at least be grateful".

I am being deliberately obtuse about the particulars of this encounter, but trust me when I say that the "special service" I requested was only the lifting of a deadline, and I was asking to pay my own money for something that should be available to everyone in Tennessee. I am afraid to be more specific in this public forum.

I was shaken by this encounter. It was humiliating. Degrading. It made me go home and question myself, look in the mirror to see what about me was so offensive that I could engender a negative reaction just by being there. I saw a short, fat, light brown-skinned woman with close-cropped hair and glasses. In private, I cried. I didn't know that I am still so vulnerable to that kind of ugliness.

In my teen years, I would have hurt myself after that experience - literally beating myself up for not being "acceptable". In my 20s I would have made a long, loud, eloquent rejoinder and demanded to see the person in charge. In my 30s I learned tact, and my response would have been modulated, but still extremely voluble. Yesterday I was at a loss, because I have not dealt with such a blatant approach in a long time. My guard was down, so I met it with puzzlement and quiet. I returned to my home and quietly did housework.

Last night I knit until my hands hurt. I worked out my hurt with my needles, relishing the solid metallic clash of one against the other, making something that I love out of the hatred that I met.
I just learned an Estonian cast-on that is very stretchy and decorative. The video where I learned (Nancy Bush teaches the technique) is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frc5_9AIVy0. It is very similar to traditional long-tail cast-on, and it didn't take me long. I used it as the brim for a hat. Having extra stretch at the forehead edge is always nice. The bottom photo shows the new edge. The bottom of the cap can turn up as a cuff. The second photo shows the "wrong" side. Still pretty.

The hat is a new design, my Beehive. The yarn is Karabella Supercashmere, about 110 yards (a little less than one and one-half balls). I cast on a purple one this morning, to repeat the pattern. I plan to do a couple more in organic cotton. I love the design, and it feels and looks soft, very flattering.
Design and knit - my dose of healing.
Peace.