Today I Was Ugly

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.

Packing for College Again

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.

Putting a Cap on the Week

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.