A Knitter's Wonderland

Memorial Date

2008-04-27T17:09:00.002-05:00

Susan's memorial will be Saturday, May 17th at 1:00PM. The location is Lakeside Assembly of God, 6810 NW 122nd St, Oklahoma City. The church is east of Rockwell.

No flowers, please. Anyone wishing to might consider making a contribution to the American Cancer Society in Susan's name.

The memorial will be followed by a reception/party to be held in the church's fellowship hall. The party was a part of Susan's plan. She wanted her friends to be happy for her and celebrate her big move "upstairs!"

In Memory of My Darling Susan

2008-04-18T02:34:00.002-05:00

Susan Barrington

June 5, 1952 - April 17, 2008

To All of Susan's Many Friends:

I wish I didn't have to write this. Regretfully, I must inform you Susan passed away Thursday morning, April 17th, at about 7:10AM. She was originally diagnosed April 15th, 2005 and fought valiently the entire three years, keeping her resolve and sense of humor to the end.

I will be planning a memorial service and "going home party." Susan, always thinking of others, truly wants people to know she's with her Lord and is now well and happy. To that end, she asked after the memorial service is complete, her friends enjoy a little food and some music! As the Book says, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

The memorial and party will most likely occur during the middle of May. We want to give any family who plan to attend ample time to make travel reservations without breaking the bank. Please check here. I'll post when the events are planned.

Thank you for all your prayers.

Jim Gorges for Susan

Short But Sweet

2007-10-25T12:45:00.000-05:00

The good news - My follow up MRI today shows I'm stable, meaning the cancer is still gone.

The bad news - I still have some sbrain welling and inflamation so on the day (today) I was supposed to be able to cut my steroid amount by half, I ended up having to double it.

The good news - Jim's sister Eileen is here for a visit and we are having a great time. Tomorrow or Saturday we are heading to Norman to check out yarn stores.

The bad news - The MRI triggered a mini seizure in my left hand so no knitting for the next few days.

Yhe good news - Eileen will be coming to KC with me this week - yeah!

My Sister

2007-10-06T08:11:00.000-05:00

My sister has been visiting this week and we've been having a great time shopping, talking, eating and knitting. She's been going thru some horrendous personal experiences brought on by a singularly evil now ex-husband.

She has a new nickname -Jet; a new GORGEOUS tattoo, and, God willing, soon a new home here in OKC. We drove thru some nice neighborhoods this week to give her an idea of what's available.

Her tattoo (done at Tornado Tattoos by Rich) is based on Isa 40:31: 'Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings of eagles. They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.'

The picture does not do it justice! Rich took two real eagle pictures and drew a composite - 5 hours on the table - but the detailing is exeptionally striking.

Now you know where I'll be getting my 3-d butterflies done.

God has given her a tremendous testimony out of this whole nasty business and the Dr. Phil Show has approached her to be on their program.

So no knitting content to speak of. She finished a DW and I finally started the second teddy bear.

More Trip Highlights

2007-09-26T23:53:00.001-05:00

I'd like to introduce you to my niece Sarah. She's smart, talented, and just graduated from high school with a full year of college completed also! Do I sound a little biased. All my nieces and nephews are great! At 18, Sarah really struck me with her determination and enthusiasm, among other things.

Here she is with a group of friends she brought to the hotel to pray for me. She's on the far right.

She's also a scrapbooking queen! 'm doing a Bible study on watching how you talk and hated the cover of the study book. When Sarah heard that, she redid the cover in less than 15 minutes in the hotel lobby no less! Isn't this gorgeous!

The picture doesn't do it justice. She is my youngest brother's oldest and her mom made my cat blanket.

The final highlight of our trip was at Lake Tahoe where Jim got to go soaring.

This is his instructor.

And the obligatory picture of the lake across from our hotel.

We're Back!

2007-09-20T19:15:00.000-05:00

We got home late Saturday night and I have been sleeping almost continually since! It was a very wearing but fun vacation. Here are the highlights:

First stop was Rancho Codordoba in CA to visit Brother Bruce and SIL Wanda - only 1 ½ days- not nearly long enough. They have the cutest house with lots of cats. You could look around and pick out a pair ears here or a little bit of twitching tail there – kind of like a “find it” game. Of course we left the camera at the hotel so no pics here.

Wanda works in management at a Hallmark super store, so even though I had promised Jim “no shopping”, it doesn’t count if your cool SIL brings you presents from Hallmark – LOL!

Second stop: Seattle where most of my sibs came to see us. Two brothers and their families, another sis drove my folks in and a niece I hadn’t seen in years came with her family.

Another cool SIL, Linda married to my youngest bro Bill, works at JoAnnes Fabric. She brought me a bunch of yarn and made me a fleece blanket – STILL NOT SHOPPING! LOL! Linda just learned how to knit so showed her how to purl. I was amazed how even her tension was for just starting.

Got to meet my middle bro Dennis’ wife Tammy, and as with all the families,
not nearly enough time to visit with everyone. Tammy’s 11 yr old had just
taught herself to knit (very impressive) so I showed her ho to purl and she was off and running.

We had about 14 family members altogether at that point. Nieces and nephews I had never seen or had seen so many years ago I wouldn’t have known them!

My niece Tina, her husband Bruce, almost one yr old Justin, and three yr old Natalie drove over from Spokane. It was so nice to see them! First time to meet Bruce and see the kids. Tina is my sister Jan's oldest.

Well ya'll lucked out, I was going to post more family pics but the few I have turned out too dark to see. Tomorrow or the next day, I'll post about the other highlight of our trip.

And I made six DW's and gave them to family members as fast as they came off the needles.

One More Post

2007-09-02T14:59:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd do one last post before we leave tomorrow. Wanted to share my little bear. This is a pattern I cobbled together from several different patterns. I like it because the bear is almost cartoonish.

Bear front

Bear back. All my bears have tails. It's always a surprise to me that most knitted bear patterns don't include a tail! This one is a little hard to see - but it's there.

And the oblicitory DW

We'll be gone a couple of weeks, so I'm taking yarn for another bear and EIGHT DW's. I'm hoping that will hold me. We have a long layover both coming and going so you know what I'll be doing.

Have a great Labor day weekend!

Ya Gotta Have Friends!

2007-08-29T12:12:00.000-05:00

I have actual knitting content today but first I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have supported me through these two and a half years. Without your prayers, good thoughts and kindnesses, I doubt I would have gotten well as fast or at all.

First, huge thanks to those of you who sent me cards, letters, emails, who called to check on me, who sat with Jim at the hospital, who came and visited me, and brought all kinds of wonderful fibery or floral gifts. Such day-brighteners!

To you who made or gave me hats, I appreciate them so much! I have hats for all occasions. I have worn most of them and when I get a little more hair, I’ll wear all of them.

To the sock makers – I know a lot of you thought I was kind of whiney about the socks but the bottom line was – socks are hard to make and it meant a lot when someone made me a pair. I can’t tell you the times when I felt so sick and I would open up my sock drawer and just look at them and think, I have to hang in there, people care about me.

To the Prayer Shawl makers – My shawls are in the cedar chest until the weather cools off, then they will be back working to keep me warm. I love my shawls.

To the knitted blanket makers – I use my blanket every single day. Sugar and I have worn holes in it! I’ve already had a good friend repair it once and am trying to be more careful with it.

The same with my quilt, I use it every day also and enjoy it so much.
Thank you one and all, each of you have added so much to my life – you have NO idea

OK, enough mush. Here are the two sets of slipper socks I just finished. They aren’t perfect but not too bad. The blue set is for my brother and the yellow for his wife.

I also finished a DW cloth. It took me a little bit to get back in the rhythm but I plan to make a few more before we leave on vacation.

Right now I am working on the first of three teddy bears for my three great nephews first birthdays. The first one knit up fast and I am sewing it together. Will post a picture in the next day or so.

Thought I'd leave you with a little Sugar -

Again, thanks for your support!

Back With Big News!!!

2007-08-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

I sure hope there are at least a few people out there who still check on my blog from time to time. I can't believe how long it's been since I posted! But up until just a few weeks ago, I couldn't knit, couldn't type, couldn't use my left hand/arm to do anything!

Big News #1 is knitting. I am KNITTING again. I'm really slow and can only knit about an hour at a time, nut have managed to make TWO pairs of slipper socks. I want to try the DW washclothes next and see if I can handle the slip stitch.

Big News #2 (which should probably be #1). I had my "every two months MRI" done on Monday. Saw drs yesterday - the news:

I AM CANCER-FREE!!

Two months ago, my neuro surgeon was asking me to consider another brain operation to help improve my quality of life. Well actually to make me more comfortable in the short time (18 months) he thought I had left.

Yesterday, he ccould hardly believe it. He tested my legs, my arms, my hands, my strength, my dexterity and after each test his eyes would get a little bigger and his eyebrows arch a little higher (towards the end you couldn't see his eyebrows at all). I kept saying God had healed me (because He did) and my dr finally admitted it was a miracle. So I'm giving God all the credit though I recognize the crucial roles my drs played.

Cancer-free, cancer-free - two and a half years doing the cancer tango, not one of my drs thought I would survive. Praise God! Not only will I survive, I have big plans.

At any rate, I'm still stuck in a wheelchair for the moment but don't expect that to last much longer. I am still typing with one finger so this will be short.

If you have a question or want more details, just give me a call or send me an email. CANCER-FREE!!!

Three Times This Month!

2007-05-27T21:15:00.000-05:00

A little less than my planned 3 x a week.

As you know, the first part of the month was kind of bumpy. The 2nd half has not been nuch better. about two weeks ago I lost the ability to get my left arm to respond. It's not numb, just not listening. To make a long pitiful story (Jim always offers me cheese with my whine), I can no longer knit. I think this is the hardest challenge so far. Conseqently I skipped two of my favorite knit gatherings.

So no knitting pictures and no knitting content.This may be the last post for awhile cause I'm typing with one finger And it's HARD! (I've always liked Gouda)

Hope I'll be posting again soon.

Sunshine!

2007-05-12T12:12:00.000-05:00

It's so nice to see the sun again! I love rainy days but several weeks worth is more than enough. Over the last few days the cats have spent every waking moment (and quite a few sleeping moments) on the porch enjoying the heat. They even like to be out there when it rains, provided it's not too windy. The wind seems to really scare Sugar. Thunder and lightening don't seem to ruffle any of them but let that wind get a little rowdy and Sugar is in the house.

I noticed the other day I have a nice little bear family starting. These mostly came from family and each one is so soft you could just cuddle it for hours.

They all have a special function. The big purple bear is a "secrets" bear. He was given to me by a friend way back at the start of my illness, so I'd have someone to tell my secrets to. Since I don't really have any secrets, he's just a really cute, really big bear. The white one is a Huggy bear. You can flip a switch and he begs for hugs, the brown bear is a tickle bear, squeeze his foot and he laughs like a little kid. You have to laugh with him. The pink bear is a beannie baby awareness bear. I enjoy all my bears. I plan to make a barrington bear to go with them. I am NOT collecting teddy bears - but I really like the ones I have.

And here is what other family members are doing today. Sugar and Blue are in the office looking out their own private windows. The rocking chair between them belonged to one of my great grandmothers. When I was in my twenties, my grandmother surpised me with it. I was very close to my great grandmother and am thrilled to have one of her chairs.

I'm almost done with Eileen's scarf. My shoulders are still bothersome so I can't knit for extended periods of time but I'm already shopping my stash for yarn to make my brother and sister-in-law slippers.

If you've noticed, I've added another blog to my reads list. Why I put it under knitting is beyond me. It's called Home on Pine Creek and it's my youngest sister's blog. Her family is gutting my parent's house which was built in 1906 or earlier and will be modernizing it. This sister doesn't knit but the house-in-progress pics are interesting.

I went to my hair stylist on Wednesday to see if she could shape up my dryer lint locks. She gave me a really nice cut then added streaks of fushia- wow was it different! But not bad. I didn't feel compelled to come home and wash it out. In fact I added some burgandy and pink I have. Even Jim thought it looked okay!

The Roller Coaster Effect

2007-05-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago I posted my MRI had come back showing no activity. The very next day after getting that good news, my oncologist told us the MRI report SHOWED activity and I was out of options. Talk about up and down. It took my drs about a week and a half to finally decide there is probably no activity but we won't know for sure until the June MRI. Needless to say it has been a rather stressfull two weeks!

But I've always said no one runs my show but God and He is certainly capable of healing me (which is what I'm expecting). I have a Bible verse that keeps running through my head from Psalm 118 "I shall not die but live and proclaim the works of the Lord." I also know that way back when this all started I was pretty sure the Lord had told me I'd be fine. So that's whats happening here.

I'm back in PT and while I would love to knit, it's really hard because it hurts my "still-frozen" shoulder. I'm managing to get a couple of rows done a night on SIL Eileen's scarf but it's slow going.

Anyway, I thought I'd update ya'll on why I haven't posted for so long.

Good News

2007-04-21T11:13:00.000-05:00

Had my first follow up MRI done on Thursday. Both Drs say no activity that they can see. We will have the official report on Monday but needless to say, we are happy! I now will go on an every two months MRI schedule for a year. I'm back in PT on Tuesday. Even went and had a mammogram yesterday just to be sure nothing new is in the offing.

Now if I could just get back to knitting...I've seemed to have lost interest and I've got a LIST of projects I need to get started (and finished). Any suggestions?

This will be short as I have no pictures or other interesting things going on at the moment.

Rainy Weather

2007-04-15T12:49:00.000-05:00

I love rainy weather. Maybe because I lived in Tacoma, WA for so many years. I like to watch it come down, I like to watch the lightening flash, I like to watch the cats jump when leaves hit the window. I just wish it would warm up some so I could go out on the porch and watch it.

It's been relatively quiet around here. The cats can't go out because it's too cold but that doesn't stop Sugar the Hulk from trying to RIP the plastic cover off the pet door. It's not enough she's pounding and clawing on the door but she's yelling the whole time! Good Grief! I think Jim's spoiled her!

I'm finally getting back to knitting. Here is the scarf I've started for my SIL Eileen. It's a chevron stitch from the book "200 Ripple Stitches" and I really like it. I'm making it in Cascade 220, my favorite all purpose wool. I got this far and decided the needle size is too small. I started it on size 9's but am going to rip it out and go to 11's. It's just too dense on the smaller needles.

And as always, I had help in the photographing of this scarf. Sugar is pouting because she was trying to be SO helpful. Just seconds ago she was trying to help me straighten the scarf out by walking on it, playing with the yarn, laying on it, and just in general being a real unhelpful pain.

Otherwise it's been pretty quiet around here. My arm is healed up but now I have a "frozen shoulder." Whatever that is. After next week I'll be back in PT and hopefully able to work on ALL of the malfunctioning body parts. We are just waiting to get through the next MRI to verifiy "no activity" and I can get on with my life.

And the only other thing of minor interest is I'm having a temporary crown replaced on Monday but I won't be out in the world between now and then. The hygentist took it off to clean it on Thursday and now it WON'T GO BACK IN!

BTW, raise your hand if you've heard Trout Fishing in America. I just ran across them and some of their songs are so funny I had to get them! If you know and love them and happen to have the cd Big Trouble, could I borrow it? Where else could you get a copy of the Teddy Bear's Picnic as though a Harley Biker was singing it - beer in one hand, foot up on the rail.

If you haven't heard of them, let me know. I'd be happy to indroduce you to such hits as Pico de Gallo, My Hair Had a Party Last Night, or Nobody Did it, It Did It All By Itself. (yes, yes, I've heard these are suppose to be children's songs but they are HILARIOUS!)

So I'll be looking forward to hearing how guild turned out.

Short Post

2007-04-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

I've nanaged to catch a nasty spring cold, It started on Friday and I have spent the last THREE days in bed, coughing, sneezing and sleeping - mostly sleeping. I'm hoping I feel MUCH better tomorrow cause it's hard to accomplish much if you sleep 18 out of 24 hours.

Here's the picture of Sugar I mentioned in my last post. She sacked out the afternoon tmy sis and family left. Keeping up with a baby is a LOT of work. She didn't even open her eyes when Jim took the picture.

That's about it. I'm woriking on my SIL's scarf but not quite far enough along for pictures. I'll post more when I feel better.

n the meantime, don't let anyone sneeze on you!

Family Fun

2007-03-25T18:20:00.000-05:00

They came, they beat me at Cribbage (which I hadn't played in YEARS so I don't think it counts to gloat) and we had a wonderful time! If you're hoping for knitting content, there is none. If you want to see really cute baby pictures (AND the baby wearing my fuzzy hats), then you're in luck!

My sister Janice, my niece Celia, and Celia's baby Cameron came and spent a few days with us. It was wonderful! First time I've seen Cameron, though Ceilia's been really good about sending me pictures. Cameron is seven months old (I was telling people he was five months old - duh - am blaming it on the steroids). He is the cutest little guy and he LOVED my fuzzy hats!

We'd put one on him and he'd just LAUGH and not once try to pull it off his head. We had planned to do all seven colors but got sidetracked,

Here he is in the purple. Stylin' for the ladies (meaning Mom and Grandma). I have never seen a little kid like hats so much. You know, this means I'll be knitting him one of his own in a MANLY blue (Fun Fur is on sale this week), and making it just a tad bit smaller.

He was trying to dance but the silly hat was TOO big! It kept slipping down over his eyes. Still didn't cause him to want to take it off.

I think it was his first time on hardwood floors. He's almost crawling and hardwood is so slick he could push with his knees and pull with his elbows and get pretty good pace going. Sugar thought he was extremely interesting. She followed him around at a safe distance though the whole visit (sorry no pics - just forgot).

And here we all are: Celia, me, Jan, and Cameron. First time I got to hold him. You can see Jan has her hand on his leg. I was really concerned I'd drop him (broken arm syndome) but so pleased to get to hold him even for a few minutes.

And here's Sugar after the visit. Keeping track of that baby just WORE HER OUT! Well, blogger is not letting me put up any more pics so will put it up next time I post.

Hope you're having a relaxing weekend.

Yes, There IS Knitting Content

2007-03-20T13:50:00.000-05:00

The arm is still broken but the x-ray (finally got the report yesterday) shows it's healing. That means I can go back to LIMITED exercise and walking with the walker to build up strength in my leg. Lots of little strange physical things going on. I figure they all have to do with getting off the steroids and healing.

And I did manage to get one more little charity hat done for guild. We had a great turnout last Sunday. The new board has lots of new and exciting projects planned for this year. If you're not coming and you knit, you ought to think about it. Voluntary dues, great programs, fun people and always a good time.

Look what showed up on my doorstep yesterday afternoon:

Isn't this gorgeous! It's a prayer shawl that Shelly made me. It reminds me a griant purple butterfly. It's smade of Knit Picks Superwash wool. I've already been wearing it. And notice how long the tails are; she made it so you could wrap it around and tie it in the back. I LOVE it! Warm and pretty.

And speaking of pretty, here is our redbud shrub (well it's suppose to be a tree but we haven't gotten around to trimming the branches up on it yet). I love having a redbud (state tree) in the backyard. Now if I could just get a Scissortail (state bird) and a Swallowtail (state butterfly) to come hang out in the backyard, I'd be thrilled.

I love spring before the rains hit. Having breakfast this morning, I thought I saw a SNOWFLAKE ! IMPOSSIBLE! Then I saw a few more swirly white flakes and realized the Bradford Pear blossoms were being blown around the backyard. How fun to have "snowflakes" on a sunny spring morning.

And this is what is looks like almost every morning when it's warm enough to open the cat door to the screened-in porch. All three of the cats line up as though waiting for a train. Rimsky was actually third in line but when he heard the camera turn on, he left.

the girls, however, sit and look at each other as if to say "After you," "No, after you." And what normally happens is they sit and look at each other and at the cat door for awhile then Sugar finally goes out.

A second or two later Blueberry follows and Rimsky shows up about five minutes later.

YES - we DO have a cat door installed in the wall. It's so much simpler just to let them come and go as they want. They can only go into the screened in porch so I'm not worried about them leaving or some other creature coming in.

Thursday my sister Janice, her daughter Celia (the one who stayed with us while I was going thru chemo), and Celia's new baby Cameron are coming out for a visit. I'm so excited! Jan was out in July, I haven't seen Ceilia since last summer and can't WAIT to see Cameron who must be four or five months old. They'll be staying about a week. I've never had to think about baby-proofing a home so this will be quite an experience. I just hope the cats are good.

So that's the latest in this little "Bradford Pear flake" corner of the world.

Baby Hats

2007-03-14T00:14:00.000-05:00

I've been working on my charity knitting as my arm will allow. Yesterday and today it's been really sore. I'm hoping to get one more little hat done between now and Guild but at least I have two to turn in.

I'm sure you can see the YI's tail wrapped around this one. She is SO helpful! I really don't think she shows up to see the hats but because it's a photo op.

Here is the second hat. I braided the three doodles and tied knots in the ends. The YI appeared to like this one better. I always want to try them on her but it might be the end of the hat if I tried.

And here's the YI in peson, looking quite bored with the everything. She really prefers yarn in the rough...or I should say...ball. She has tried to run off with the fuzzy yarn for these hats more than once.

When that didn't work, she tried to sneak off with the large PINK ball of Cascade 22o I'm going to use to make my SIL Eileen's scarf. Certainly no one would notice a black cat with a huge pink ball of yarn hanging out of her nouth But it's like a little kid, you can't laugh while they are doing it or you just encourage them. And she needs VERY little encouragement.

I haven't had a chance to play too much with my talk and type software - Dragon Naturally Speaking. I keep thinking I'll get to it and then the next thing I know, it's time for bed! Ihaven't even gotten another wire sculpture ring done. Mostly I've been sleeping. I've have had a bit of a cold and everything just wears me out.

Tomorrow I go get the arm x-rayed. I hope we get good news. I'll let you know how it turns out.

And The Good News Is...

2007-03-02T19:30:00.000-06:00

The first follow up MRI scan showed no changes (as opposed to activity). And I'll be getting a follow up x-ray on my shoulder in about two weeks to see if the bone is healing (which it BETTER be). So all things considered, God is good and life is good!

I have even started knitting again. It doesn't hurt quite as much - which I'm taking as a sign of healing. So I've finally started SIL Eileen's scarf. I picked a feather and fan variation called traveling vines. It looks pretty good so far.

And here are a couple of pictures from our zoo day. Bruce and Wanda were not so sure they liked being where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. They weren't too hot on no mountains and few trees either. It took me two years to finally realize the clouds on the horizon WERE NOT mountains, so I certainly understand.

And here is the tiger I wanted Jim to climb the fence to get a better picture of it. Very pretty cat. He "barked" a few times (not at Jim, just in general).

And because I have a broken arm but MUST still type on the computer, my great hubby got me a piece of software called Dragon Speak. You actually talk to the computer and it types what you say. I am in the process of going through the tutorials. This is just the coolest program. I remember taking a look at it several years ago but it was really clunky. It 's pretty sleek now. The hardest part is remembering from one screen to the next how to give it commands. Thank goodness for quick start cards!

Hope everyone has a terriffic weekend!

What a Great Week!

2007-02-25T18:06:00.000-06:00

My brother Bruce and his wife Wanda came in on Tuesday night from CA. It was just wonderful to see them. I had never met Wanda and hadn't seen Bruce in years. We talked until late almost every evening, got caught up on old times (I was a senior in high school, Bruce was a junior when our parents married), and generally bored Jim and Wanda to pieces.

On Wednesday, Jim and I had to be AT the hospital for my follow-up MRI at 7:15 am so we left Bruce and Wanda sleeping (5:15 am CA time). After the MRI, we saw both my radiology oncologist and my neuro surgeon. The initial report is it looks about the same as the baseline MRI I had back before the Gamma Knife or the areas look slighty smaller. No change or smaller is good. I'm due back for another follow-up in 2 months unless the symptoms come back - which they BETTER not!

So good news there. I'm having to baby my arm more than I expected so I haven't been knitting any. It's really hard not too knit until you try and it hurts. Knitting should not hurt. I've been keeping the sling on more and trying not to use it as much. I still am trying to do 2 laps in the walker around the kitchen, fiber room, living room every day just so I don't lose the ability to walk.

Friday we went to the zoo. Did you know OKC's zoo is one of the top 10 in the nation! Jim and I hadn't been in years so much of what we saw was new to us. The gorilla exhibit was fantastic. We arrived just as they were being fed. It was really a kick to see the biggest ape sit down opposite whoever was sitting next to the window. The gorilla would look over his shoulder to see if the person had noticed him. A couple of the smaller apes would peer in, shading their eyes to see better. We hung out there quite a while just because they were all so entertaining.

Then we discovered the Cat Forest. This was immensely cool! We just happened to be there when the tiger was laying out in the open. Jim took several pictures (it's hard to get a good cat picture with all that wire fence and I couldn't get Jim to scale it so we could get a better picture).

Well I WAS going to put up the pics of the tiger, snow lepard, and lion but blogger has decided I've uploaded enough for the moment.

Blueberry really liked Wanda and Bruce. I'm sure she could sense they were animal lovers. They rescue kittens and cats, socialize them and find them good homes. They also have an African Grey parrot that talks and a pretty little rottweiler. So needless to say, they are truly animal lovers.

Snd Sugar has been super cuddly the last few days. I don't know if the wind makes her nervous or she just feels the need to snuggle but she doesn't go very far away from me right now.

As soon as blogger will let me, I'll put up some other zoo pics. Have a great week.

I Found a Few Pictures

2007-02-16T22:53:00.000-06:00

Some I had planned to post but blogger wouldn't let me. So I'm going to see if I can post them now.

This is Sugar helping me with Christmas dinner. She was explaining why fresh vegetables are good for rabbits or gerbils or mice but really - chicken is a much nicer snack.

When she realized Jim was taking her picture, naturally she had to turn around and pose!

Like the pink hair? I haven't had my wig on since the brain surgery in January. The second Gamma Knife left me with bruises that still haven't healed up. But it's okay since I have about six of these hats and they are comfy and not tight. I actually picked up some sky blue fun fur, some multicolored (can you say "clown hair") and some black to fill in the color gaps. When I get back to knitting I'm hoping to get them made up pretty fast.

This is my youngest sister Lori when she was here in January. Does she look a little sleepy? I don't know why - it's only about 5:30 am the morning she left.

And you'll notice there are no pics of her and I together. Well, I have a couple but she looks so much better than I do, I'm not posting them.

And that's about all the interesting things going on at the moment.

Life in the Slowest Lane Possible

2007-02-12T18:16:00.000-06:00

As some of you know, I have a broken right arm. It's broken close to the shoulder joint so it can't be casted or even taped down. I'm wearing a sling which seems to help, but thank you steroids, it will take longer to heal than a normal break.

We think I broke it when I fell in November after I got out of rehab. It's the only fall I remember where I landed on my right side.

Anyway, about six weeks ago or so, I noticed my shoulder was bothering me (about a week before my sister came out). I didn't mention it to my PT until last week. She kind of scared us as she was concerned the cancer might have moved to my shoulder bone. I had a rush MRI THAT NIGHT (8:30pm) and was in the tube for almost 2 solid hours. Why is it they can do my head in 45 minutes but a shoulder takes 2 hours? Oh well.

The good news is I have a broken arm! The better news is the cancer hadn't moved. And another good thing is the numbness has disappeared. Back in Oct 05 when Ihad the mastectemy, my arm was numb from my elbow to my shoulder. My arm is no longer numb!

Actually the even better news is the cancer had better be GONE this time! Three times in the same area is about all I can handle. I have a follow-up MRI sometime the end of this month to see what's going on.

It's kind of funny - I haven't really felt good since this last Gamma Knife - no energy, no motivation, and my joy had fizzled almost completely away. Haven't done any knitting since I started wearing the sling - whine, whine, whine.

But I woke up this morning with joy back! I feel much better (still tired and not kniting) but wanting to get back to life. So my first thought was to get the blog updated.

I don't have any knitting content to report. I did buy some bright colored Fun Fur at HL several weeks ago when it was half price so I could make me some more "hair" hats, I have to finish my SIL Eileen's scarf (and start it and make some swatches for it) and one of the young ladies at my office has a baby due in March so I wanted to get her something made. We'll see. I already told Eileen she'd be wearing her hat and scarf NEXT winter but if I feel up to it, I may actually pull out some patterns and see what I can come up with.

I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier or not but my brother and his wife are coming out after Valentine's day. He wants to be here for the MRI report - how sweet is that! He is a year younger than me and when I was in high school I couldn't just go drive around or go to a party but I had to take a sib with me. Bruce and I used to go together (I'm not sure why our folks thought that two teenagers would be more responsible than one - we could probably tell them stories and my mom would never need to get a perm again!)

I haven't seen Bruce in years, though we talk on the phone once or twice a year. I've never met his wife and am really looking forward to this visit. Then in March my sister Jan, my neice Celia (the one who lived with us during my chemo treatments) and her baby Cameron are coming out. I am so looking forward to seeing them!

And that's the way it goes. Hopefully I'll feel more like posting as time goes on or some other interesting things will happen (but not TOO interesting) I can share.

Quick Update

2007-01-21T10:37:00.000-06:00

This is a short update from Jim (Susan's husband) to let everyone know how Susan is doing.

She received Gamma Knife treatment last Thursday. This time it was done at Mercy Hospital by people who actually cared about the patient! Susan did not experience any pain when the frame was placed on her head. In fact, the only pain was a headache (a good one, too!) when it was time to go home. It was such a blessing to have really skilled, capable, caring medical people work with her, unlike the (expletive deleted) animals at "the other unnamed hospital."

Now, its just a question of waiting. Susan slept most of the afternoon on Thursday. Some strong pain reliever took care of the headache. She's been up and around in the wheel chair and has used her walker for short distances. Unless there is some radical change in symptoms, she'll go back for a followup MRI and to see her neurosurgeon and radiation oncologist in about one month.

And The Bad News Is...

2007-01-10T20:02:00.000-06:00

They changed my Gamma Knife treatment to NEXT Thursday, not this Thursday. And I am NOT a happy camper. It seems the doctors couldn't get their schedules to match. I hope they get it figured out by next week.

Mysister arrived safe and sound but will be going back the Wednesday BEFORE next Thursday. We are having a great visit , I'm just sorry about the way it worked out. I haven't managed to get her into knitting --- YET--- you know how tenacious I can be.

So the good news is we're having a great visit, the bad news is symptoms are starting to pick up, the steroids are making me puff up and for the first time I'm a little anxious about waiting a week (because of how fast this cancer seems to grow).

But as always, I know Who runs my show and He knows the outcome. I am trying to rest patiently with Him. As soon as I get another update, I'll let you know. In the meantime, thanks for all the prayer and support, I really appreciate it!

I Can't Believe It - an Actual Post!

2007-01-07T13:43:00.000-06:00

It's been about two weeks since I posted. If there is anyone still out there reading this, I apologize for the long delay. A lot of things have been going on and I simply didn't have the information nor the inclination to post sooner.

Knitting Update:First let me zip thru the last two weeks - I finished a "barn scarf" for my sister Janice's hubby. Seems he really liked her alpaca scarf but if you're in the barn or on a tractor. the alpaca, though warm. will be thoroughly out of place.

It's prettty long. I ran across some chunky yarn with a definite wooly feel in my stash and just knitted until I ran out. I had a tiny bit of the blue left so before sending it out the door, I put a smattering of fringe on both ends.

I just did a a real simple cable stitch and for a "barn scarf", I think it turned out pretty well.

I've been knitting a glorious red fun fur hat from yarn Gloria R. brought me in the hospital. Fire engine red. It's going to be an eye-ball buster - I love it! I also finished some charity knitting and my SIL Eileen's hat. I just need to make a matching scarf and felt the hat. She should see it about the time flowers are blooming in TN. And that's about it on the knitting front. I am planning to get at least two of my UFO projects done this year but I keep finding smaller, more fun things to work on....hmmmmmm.

Sugar Update: I don't think I've ever had a cat with as much personality (though she can be VERY wearing at times). For Christmas Jim and I bought a ceramic wood gas fireplace insert. We had been wanting one since we moved in but simply hadn't found the time to go look. We found the perfect one the Friday before Christmas and it was installed the Saturday before Christmas. If you've ever seen our living room, you know we have a long coffee table between the couch and the fireplace. Jim moved it over under the window so the installer could get to the firebox. Sugar kept a vigilant watch on him from on top of the corner of the coffee table. When he went outside to get something from his truck, Sugar hoppped down and went over to inspect the fireplace. As soon as he came back in, she returned to her perch on the coffee table.

He had brought a box in with the ceramic logs and I noticed that as soon as he had emptied the box, a little fat black cat was checking out the inside of the box. I didn't see her get out so when he went to pick everything up, I mentioned that the cat might be in the box.

He turned to me so solemnly and said "Ma'am, if that cat was in this box I'd have to use two hands to pick it up." Do you think he might consider Miss Sugar a little overweight - it was very funny!

She also felt compelled to help me with Christmas dinner. We had bought a kitchen stool so I ould sit at the counter and not have to stand so much. But before I even had a chance to sit down, Sugar was on the seat explaining why she thought fixing fresh veggies was a waste of time. Well blogger is not letting me upload those pics. I'[ll try to get them up later.

Health Update: And here is why you haven't heard from me for a while. The cancer is back. We started noticing symtems about three weeks ago but until I started having seizures again, I basically just ignored them. My physical therapist insisted I call my doctor and he insisted I have another MRI immediately. I had it last Thursday.

The worst part of all of this is I am back on steroids. I'd been off a whole week with no symptoms. Having to pick up the steroids depressed me more than the cancer coming back!

Anyway, one tumor area shows no signs of anything, just the normal aftermath of surgery. The other area however shows a growing clump of cancer cells which have already put out feeder extensions. Because this is such a small area, my only option is the Gamma Knife.

You know, just because a doctor says your options are very limited, doesn't mean the Great Physician has limited options. So I am where I've always been with the cancer tango, expecting the Lord to handle things His way.

I am scheduled for Gamma Knife treatment at Mercy this Thursday at about 5:30 am. The nurses and doctors have been super about reassuring me of no barbarious treatment and I have always felt very secure with the Mercy staff. It will be very similar to the first one (without the torture). I'll be home by noon and sound asleep the minute I get in bed. Will probably sleep most of Friday but after that I should be fine (I can not remember what happened the last time - the entrance trauma has completely deleted it).

My youngest sister, Lori, is coming out to "babysit" me so Jim can work and not worry about me. I am just thrilled! I haven't seen her in years and she's never been to Oklahoma. She's coming on Tuesday so we'll have Wednesday to get her aclimatized to the cats, computers, and TV.

So that's what's happening here. I can't guarantee too many posts but perhaps the Yarn Roadie will leave a couple of messages (I have NO clue who Garcia is!) to let you know my progress.

Christmas Meme

2006-12-23T15:16:00.000-06:00

I saw this on both Kay's and Carolyn's blogs and really liked it. Here's my version.

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1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? I like both. Hot Chocolate when it’s really cold and Braum’s Egg Nog at some point iduring the holiday season.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just leave them under the tree? When I was growing up, Santa always left presents under the tree. The wrapped ones were from family.

3. Colored or white lights on the tree? Colored, the more the better (I’d like a 747 to be able to land by the lights on the tree)

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No need. I can get a kiss whenever I want one.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Well, we haven’t put up a tree for a few years now, but our new tradition as of next year (assuming I’m more mobile) is to put it up the day after Thanksgiving, and the rest of the decorations the day after that.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? We have the same thing every Christmas – roasted cornish game hens. It’s the only time during the year we have them and they are delicious.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child – Hearing Santa walking on our roof on Christmas Eve with jingling bells. I found out when I was older, my dad would climb up on the roof and walk around while shaking jingle bells. And mind you, this was in a state where we usually had a fair amount of snow by Christmas.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don’t remember. I was the oldest and I remember being sworn to secrecy not to tell my little sister or brother, but I don’t remember how old I was.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes. We got to open one mom-approved gift.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? With the exeption of three boxes of regular Christmas balls, most of our ornaments are handmade. We also buy a dated ornament every year. We started this the year before we were married (we got married in January). As of this Christmas we have 22 ornaments.

11. Snow! Love it or leave it? LEAVE IT!! I hate being cold. My fair-weather atttitude does put a bit of a damper on knitting wool sweaters.

12. Can you ice skate? I used to ice skate when I was growing up. I doubt I could to it now.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Absolutely! I was in 6th or 7th grade and I wanted to be a writer. I begged my parents for a typewriter, any kind of typewriter. I wanted one so much my stomach hurt from anxiety. And do you know what Santa brought me? A beautiful aqua blue kid sized typewriter. I loved it and used it constantly! The sight of that typewriter under the tree is blazed into my memory and is wreathed in so much emotion - excitement, wonder, surprise and gratitude. I should ask my Mom if she knows what happened to it. I probably wore it out.

14. What is your favorite thing about the holidays? Turning off the phone for three days (well, it meant a lot more when I was actually working).

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? .Pumpkin pie or lemon merengue pie, or buttermilk pie.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Christmas Eve Jim and I sit by the fire with a cup of Jim’s special Christmas tea and he reads the story of Jesus’ birth, then we talk about how God has blessed us during the year.

17. What do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving because I try hard to match the gift to the person.

18. What tops your tree? An 8” tall angel I thread crocheted years ago. It’s amazing it’s lasted so long!

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? I don’t have a favorite, I love most of them from the silly “I’m Getting Nuthin’ For Christmas” to the beautiful hyms.

20. Candy canes, yuck or yum? One is okay for eating; after that they need to be decorations.

May you have a peaceful and blessed Christmas!

Lots of Knitting

2006-12-20T13:48:00.000-06:00

But, as usual, no pictures. I even carry my camera in my knitting bag and only to discover it AFTER the events are over. DUH!

On Saturday I went to Knitty Committee. It was a smaller group than normal but still had plenty of great knitting and visiting. Gloria brought some wonderful holiday bread WHICH I COULD EAT. It was delicious and she sent the rest of it home with me since there are so few things I can eat right now. I was able to enjoy the bread for a couple of days and then my taste changed and I couldn't eat it. But I really enjoyed the couple of days it tasted good!

Anyway, KC was fun. Bette showed off her round pink baby blanket (and a picture of it would be right here if I had remembered to take one). The blanket is done in wedges with short rowing. She used three different colors of pink and it turned out great. It's on my list of patterns I want to try. Right now I have a list of projects to finish before it. I need to make Jim a shadow scarf (Yarn Roadie), a BIL needs a warm wool scarf, and I am working on a hat and scarf set for my SIL Eileen. Plus there is always charity knitting on the needles.

I also made it to the Guild meeting on Sunday. It was a lot of fun and we had about 23 people show up. We had lots of great food and played Dirty Santa". I ended up with a commemerative Christmas ormament which is gorgeous. We had at least one new person who had just started knitting and was making a sweater out of really fuzzy yarn. Pretty impressive!

Jim had to drop me off early to go do an open house so I rolled around the library looking at books and killing time. Right now my wig is still a little tight across my incisons so I was being festive by wearing my green fun fur hat. A young man (aabout 15 or 16 yrs old) walked by me. Under his breath I just barely heard him say "I like your hair." Quite a complement coming from a teenage boy!

Next guild meeting (Jan 28th) we vote for new officers. I have really enjoyed being President this last year. It gave me something else to think about outside of health issues. I'm really proud and grateful to the Guild members for making the dream of the guild come true.

Health Update - I have PT three times a week so I'm worn out most of the time. ;-) But my leg is gettting stronger. My taste buds are in constant flux, and my eyesight is not changing for the better yet. I have no doubt all these things will get in line at some point. In the meantime it's a good excuse not to work very hard!

I feel good. I think the worst I've felt thru this whole thing was when I had to do chemotheapy - nasty stuff! And speaking of nasty stuff - I will be done with taking steroids on Saturday. This Friday is my last day. I can hardly wait!

May each and everyone of you have a wonderful, blessed Christmas!

And Some Pictures

2006-12-15T22:31:00.000-06:00

Here are some of the charity hats I've been knitting. I can make one of these in about 2 hours and they are just SO cute.

This isn't a very good picture but I have one of the two fuzzy hats on the end:

While I was in rehab at the hopital, one of the nurses brought me two balls of the short eyelash yarn specifically for charity knitting. I'm just sorry she didn't get to see these, they are really cute.

This will be a super knitting weekend - tomorrow is KC (Kitty Committee) and Sunday is the Guild meeting. I feel like I haven't been to either group in months and am really looking forward to both of them.

And as usual, I make plans and my body goes on strike. I keep forgetting how tired I get with just a modest amount of activity. I thought I was doing pretty good today, until I was standing up in the kitchen to chop vegtables for dinner. I have been sitting ever since. Other than that, I feel great and am REALLY looking forward to seeing fellow knitters in knitting circumstances (rather than the prone position of a hospital bed).

This post wouldn't be complete without a cat update. Rimsky is still going strong though not going as fast; Blueberry has decided she doesn't like us too much during the day but night time is a different story. She sleeps either on top of or next to or between our legs; and last but not least, Miss YI has started taking her job very seriously again. I picked up the charity yarn from Anna the other day and brought it home (first time I'd had a chance to see it). Sugar BURROWED into the box holding the scarf yarn and all you could see was her fat little head poking out. Never a camera when you need one.

Catching up

2006-12-12T23:33:00.000-06:00

I know it's been a while since I last posted. If there is anyone still checking here, I apologize for the lenght of time.

Thought I'd post some pictures taken in Tenn at Thanksgiving:

Here is my great nephew Brody, wearing his new pumpkin hat.

This is the doting Grandmother (SIL Eileen) with her first grandchild. Look at the curly dark hair Brody has! He is SO cute.

And Grandad (BIL Joe), also enjoying the benefits of being a grandparent.

When we got back from Tennessee, my parents came out to visit. And wouldn't you know it, they arrived at the same time as our blizzard!

We had a great visit, snow or not. Wayne and Kathy even invited us to their house for dinner one night! It was great and 5 year old Ryan and my Mom struck up a friendship immediately.

Apeaking of striking up an immediate friendship, guess which cat took an instant liking to my Mom - Blueberry! The ghost cat, the invisible cat - YES. She was touching noses with her, she would come when Mom called her, whe would lie next to her on the sofa. OH BROTHER! I just recently got Blue to sit on my lap. I offered to send her home in a suitcase but my folks seemed less than enthused.

I'm doing physical therapy three times a week. I am resolved to be walking as soon as possible so I am also doing exercises at home. My p.t. therapist has okayed me to walk using a walker without supervision - YEAH! Sugar must have really missed the wheel chair because she insists on riding when it's moving and she sleeps in it when it's parked.

Enough for tonight, I'll try to get some of my charity knitting pics up tomorrow.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

2006-11-29T11:47:00.000-06:00

The last four weeks or so have been a whirl wind of activity. As you know, I went into surgery on Oct 27th, spent four days recuperating and then almost threee weeks in rehab. THEN we went to Tenn for Thanksgiving. Got home late yesterday afternoon and I'm spending today resting.

The hospital stay was okay but boring. I had one and a half hours of both O.T and P.T every day (except Saturday and Sunday. Those days were only an hour of each). If it wasn't for the cards and visits. I would have broken out of there after the first couple of days. Thank you so much for coming to see me or sending cards and things or praying for me. It meant a lot to both Jim and me. We both are so grateful and thankful for good friemds!

And Tenn was great fun! We hadn't been there in over ten years. Got to see my new great nephew, visited a couple of yarn stores, a beading store, and went to the museum at Oak Ridge - one of the secret cities working on the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in WWII. We had a great time even though Jim had to push me around everywhere. I have pictures but haven't gotten around to putting them on the computer yet. Jim's sister Eileen is one of my favorite people. We have a lot in common, especially knitting. She and I got to spend considerable time just knitting and gabbing. Plus she's an awesome cook. As Jim said in the airport in Houston as we tried to eat a little lunch "This will be the last bad meal for at least a week" and he was right.

I haven't been slacking on the knitting either. In the hospital I made two fun fur chemo caps for a friend recently diagnosed with lung cancer; several baby hats for the charity knitting; finished my sister's scarf and fingerless mitt set and two hats that would need felting. In Tenn I made a pumpkin hat for my great nephew who is all of one month old; a ski cap for his half-sister and a blanket and three preemie caps for the guild charity.

Were the cats glad to see us when we got home? Two were but one wasn't sure she even knew who we were. Both Sugar and Rimsky started talking the minute we got in the house. Sugar was in my lap purring, snuggling and talking all at once. Rimsky was a little standoffish for about five minutes, then he decided being petted was better than pouting and he followed Jim around most of the evening. Blue finally stopped running for cover whenever she saw us and allowed both of us to pet her A LITTLE.

Sugar, of course. had to be a little bit different. Once we unpacked and I settled into my recliner, she would suddenly start meowing loudly, run over to my chair, hop up into my lap and snuggle for a couple of minutes, then go off to do cat things. She did this about every half hour all evening. Guess she just wanted to make sure I was still there. This morning I have all three of them on the bed with me but you-know-who is under one of my arms sleeping and has been since early this morning.

So here's the latest update healthwise - I am walking short distances using the walker, I have a limited amount of feeling in my left leg (whichI haven't felt since last Jan), I have limited movement in my left leg and foot which thrills me no end, and my eyesight still comes and goes with shadow words and people disappearing. The eyesight is probably the hardest thing to work around at the moment since not only do I not know exactly where my left foot is, I am unsure as to what I'm seeing. On the plus side, people are starting to look right again (for the last few weeks, no one looked the way they should. Sometimes I only knew who they were when I heard their voices. Very weird), I start out patient P.T and O.T. this week, and my incisions on my head are starting to feel sore (this is good because the right side of my head has been completely numb around them).

When I was in rehab, everyone was asking me what my goal was and at that time it was to be able to walk. Now when the theripists ask me what my goal is, I tell them "to dance!" I get some kind of funny looks but before all this started. Wayne and Kathy and Jim and I were taking dance lessons. It was so much fun I want to go back to it. Sothat's my mew goal...well seing where I'm stepping might be a good goal too.

So P.T. and O.T starting tomorrow, follow up MRI on Dec 6th and my parents come out to visit on Thursday - life in the fast lane.

Another Brief Update

2006-11-16T08:55:00.000-06:00

Good things are happening, thanks to everyone who has been so supportive of Susan!

Yesterday, Susan was able to move and control her left knee and left ankle. This is something she has been unable to do since January. Walking is getting a little better (with the use of a walker,) but it's still very tiring. She says she has to think about every step -- it's like learning to walk all over again.

The best news, and the news that made her happiest, is the doctor has told her she will probably be released from Mercy on Saturday! We have plans to fly to my sister's home in Tennessee for the Thanksgiving holiday. Susan wouldn't have been too pleased to have missed that. She told the doctors if she had to crawl out the hospital on her hands and knees in the middle of the night, she would be on that plane!

Again, thanks for your thoughts, prayers, phone calls, cards, and visits. They have been of great importance to Susan and to me.

Jim
"The once and future Yarn Roadie!"

Brief Update

2006-11-09T09:35:00.000-06:00

Here's just a brief update on Susan's condition.

I'm sure you know she moved to the "rehab" floor last Wednesday. The therepists have been working her very hard for the past week, but she is making significant progress. She is beginning to have a small amount of control of the left leg. Her balance is still a problem, as in the fatigue, but she's determined to succeed! (You know Susan!! :)

The therepists think she should remain as an inpatient for 5 to 7 more days -- pending insurance company concurrance. We're still hoping she'll be able to travel and that we won't have to "engineer an escape" for her to go to Knoxville for Thanksgiving, but only time will tell.

Thanks for all your support! She really enjoyed the e-greetings sent to her at Mercy. She's in room 234. Visiting is best after 3PM because her 8 to 3 schedule is chock full of working on the leg!

Jim

A Message from Garcia

2006-10-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

This is Susan's husband, Jim. This is just a short post with a brief report of Susan's condition for all her fantastic friends.

Susan's surgery lasted only 3 hours. We had been told to expect a duration of 5 hours. She was out of recovery in less than 30 minutes and spent the remainder of Friday and half of Saturday in ICU. She had a CT early Saturday which showed no bleeding. Her surgeon visited and was pleased with her rapid rebound from such a traumatic event.

Saturday afternoon, Susan was moved to a private room and has been resting comfortably. She is very weak and, although having sensation in her left leg, has been unable to move the leg. From the time she arrived in ICU, she has been "wise-cracking" with the nurses. She says she feels relatively good, with the exception of a headache that comes and goes. Fortunately, the intensity of the headache has decreased markedly since Friday. She rated her pain as 8.5 to 9.0 on a scale of 10 on Friday. Today, she says it started at 2, increasing occasionally as high as 6, but that hasn't been too frequent.

It will be early next week before pathology reports are available for the tissue samples taken during surgery, so there probably won't be much to report till then. Many thanks to all who have been keeping Susan in thoughts and prayers. We both appreciate that more than you will ever know.

Jim

Be Back Soon

2006-10-26T22:17:00.000-05:00

One last post before the hospital. I expect to be back in a couple of weeks. Then it'll take me another couple of weeks to get caught up on everyone's blogs. And I've got my hospital knitting already picked out.

I got a surprise package of yarn in the mail a couple of days ago. My sister Jan sent me the alpaca she was supposed to be knitting into a scarf. Now I'll knit it into a scarf for her. I'm thinking of using the same lace pattern as my Emily scarf, if I can remember where found it. Knitting the alpaca is like knitting kittens! It is SO soft and fluffy. She got it at Gourmet Yarns when she was out here.

No pics to post and the sole knitting content is in the above paragraph. I really appreciate the prayers and support from all of you. It makes a day like tomorrow a little easier to handle.

I love you all!

The Mad Hatter

2006-10-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

Before I threw myself into charity knitting, I had knitted three hats and a bag to felt. The pattern is everywhere on the net

and is very easy. I made one with Lambs Pride and yes, the black band was knitted in. It turned out very cute and felted perfectly. I made another with Ali's handspun and Cascade 220:

The picture doesn't do it justice! It's really red with the black band knit in and the Cascade 220 at the top matches the blue in the variegate. But it's a little big. I'm thinking of refelting it to see if I can get the size down a little.

And I also made my sister Jan a hat and bag. She picked out the yarn when she visited a couple of months ago. I used the same pattern Carolyn used for the hat and it turned out very cute. Unfortunately I was doing guesstimates on the size of the purse so it will also get another hot bath to see if I can get down to the size she wanted:

The bag does look a little wonky! I am planning to make another of the rolled brim hats in black but make the brim a little wider.

I was visiting with Eileen, Jim's sister, and ended up volunteering to make HER a hat. The rolled brim will look really nice on her so I neeed to get over to Gourmet Yarns and buy some more Cascade 220. It will probably be a hospital project.

Did I mention hospital? Yes, a matter of fact I will be back in for surgery on Friday. It appears the Gamma Knife was unsuccessful in frying the tumors and they are growing. So come Friday at 6:30 am(!!! What is wrong with these people? Are there no night owl sugeons?!) I'll be back at the hospital for a baseline MRI and getting my head shaved (of course since I actually have hair again).

The good news is both tumors are on the surface of my brain, not embedded, and both will be removed. I'm going to try to post one more time before Friday but it just depends on how life goes.

I appreciate all the prayers and good thoughts!

Kitty Kapers

2006-10-19T14:24:00.000-05:00

Our oldest cat - Rimsky - is 15 years old. He recently had an abscess inside his cheek! Our vet could find no reason for it but thought it probably had been building for quite a while. Rimsky's poor little face was so swollen on that side he couldn't open his eye!
We took him to the vet on Monday. Poor guy. He had to stay overnight so they could try to get the swelling down before draining the abcess. He was once our biggest cat and now he's down to 8 lbs! We've watched him change over the last couple of months. Now we think it was the toxins his system. We picked hm up on Tuesday and brought him home. He has a drain tube in his cheek (which looks really gross so I won't be treating you to pictures of it) and a shaved face. BUT he's starting to act like his old self and not like an old cat. We are certainly thankful for that!

Now who do you think was scared to death of him? That's right - Sugar. She hissed and growled if he came within ten feet of her! He must have smelled really odd. She jumped up on my lap, sniffed my sweater, and hissed at me! I had him on my lap for a few seconds while Jim got the carrier. So all last night Sugar sat under the coffee table and hissed or growled or both at any cat who came into the living room. She's a little better today. She's still hissing at him but now she's trailing about five feet behind him. Maybe she just wants to keep tabs on him.

And speaking of Sugar, you know how she feels compelled to be in the middle of things if it seems the least bit interesting. Jim and I play Yatzee once in a while. Here is Missy Big Buns trying to fit into the box. Of course she doesn't, the box is too small. But that doesn't keep her from trying to lay down in it EVERY time we play. She's probably hoping for a bigger box (which, believe it or, we provided for her. But it wasn't the box we were using so she didn't want to sit in it - spoiled, spoiled spoiled)
As for Blueberry, she's like a little gray shadow flitting through the house. Except for the times she's racing though the house after Sugar, which happens at least once a day. And all this time I thought she was six but Jim and I were working out cat ages the other day and it turns out she's only FOUR! How I got her to six, I'll never know!

Well I was going to post a picture of Blueberry in her vulture pose, waiting for Sugar, but blogger is not cooperating.

I'm off to finish a couple of listing packets. I am going to look at two houses tomorrow to see about listing them.

No Rain On Our Parade...I Mean...Meeting

2006-10-16T20:09:00.000-05:00

The Guild meeting yesterday was packed full of things! Try to come if you can, this is just a fun group. Dispite the rain, we had 17 - 20 people show up including two new people. We had a charity knitting program, a swap meet, and several other things. Here are a couple of pics of the swap meet. This is Anna and Jo Ellyn checking out the yarn:

Here is Helen and Helen checking out the books, patterns, and magazines:

We had a great assortment of yarn and patterns. It's always fun to do the swap meet. When the October Guild Newsletter goes up, I'll put up some more of the guild meeting along with pictures of the big surprise Carolyn told us about.

All of my knitting has been for our charity knitting lately and I did win a prize (so did Jo Ellyn) for the most charity items turned in. I got some darling christmas cards and a skein of PURPLE Lustersheen. Very fun!

And I finally got the pumpkin hat and booties done and will try to get them in the mail tomorrow. I apologize for the picture - I was leaning half on my walker and half across the table to take it. This set is cute, fast, and easy!

Enough for now. Hope your week is going spendiferously!

Knitting on Hold

2006-10-10T22:38:00.000-05:00

I finished the pumpkin hat and booties for my third niece's new baby (I have three nieces who all are having or had babies in September/October). I have tried two or three times to put leaves on the booties but they just look silly, so I'll probably send them leafless.

I need to work on charity knitting the rest of the week. Anna Hester, who is in charge of charity knitting for the guild, has offered a prize to the person who brings the most knitted items to the meeting on Sunday. I can make a hat or a pair of booties in an evening so all other knitting is on hold while I see how many little sets I can crank out.

And I have more mobility - thanks to Polly G. She lent me a walker and now I can get around the house without Jim having help me. It doesn't seem like a big deal but believe me, it's great to be able to make a cup of tea, go to other rooms on my own, etc., and not have to interrupt him all the time (okay, he DOES have to carry the cup of tea for me). It allows me a little more independence.

I never did tell you the results of the petscan done in September. It was, and this is what the report said, "unremarkable." When I was going to radiology the other day, I told the receptionist I'd had three cat scans already that morning and didn't see why I needed any others. She looked really surprised and concerned. "Where did you have them?" she asked.
"At home," I said, "I have three cats."

It's About Time!

2006-10-07T14:48:00.000-05:00

After harrassing Wayne about not posting on his blog for ages, I figured I better put something up before he REALLY starts to pick on me.

Not much of interest in my world and no pictures. I finished another preemie layette but haven't gotten around to taking pictures yet. Have almost finished a pumpkin hat and booties set for another grand nephew. I'll post pictures when I get it done. I only lack sewing the leaves on the booties.

And another Sugarism - We rented a wheelchair in September so I could go to the fair (which was really fun), and have found it to be very useful at home. We have one small black problem - if Sugar is ANYWHERE within sound of the wheels turning, she comes on the run yelling all the way. She LOVES riding in the chair. I don't even have to be in it! She just loves to ride!

Oh, another great reason to have a wheelchair - if you are stupid enough to fall down the stairs at the house you are going to list and sprain your ankle! Not a great way to start off a meeting, let me tell you! At least it was the left side which isn't working correctly anway. And it gets me out of PT (which I secretly blame because my knees are weaker now than before I started it and I am really embarrassed about being so clutzy as to fall off the bottom step).

Back to Sugar. Rimsky has started sleeping on Sugar's blanket. I keep her blanket next to me on the bed for whichever cat want to use it. Sugar rarely uses it, she prefers to just sleep on top of me (if any of you would like to see what it's like to sleep with a heavy bowling ball on your chest, I'd be happy to lend you Sugar). The other morning, Rimsky was sound asleep on the blanket when Sug popped up on the bed, saw him and laid down next to him.

How cute, I thought, they're finally getting along. The next thing I see is Sugar CASUALLY STRETCHING. Everytime she stretched, she poked Rimsky. She continued stretching (and poking) until he got up and left. Did she lay on her blanket? Of course not, she came over and did her impression of a bowling ball.

Leave me a comment and share what strange or funny things your fur-babies have done or what kind of personality quirks they have.

Friday, Friday

2006-09-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

Had a pet scan this morning but won't get the results for a few days. Not that I'm expecting anything. This is just a regular maintenance scan.

But it was funny. I went to Mercy (if you have to go to a hospital, this is the one to go to) for it. A nice young tech came to collect me in my wheelchair (Mercy is HUGE, I always get a chair) and started wheeling me down the hall toward the cat scan area. We zipped right past it and he wheeled me right out the back door! Down a ramp, across a driveway, and right up to a big Winnabago (okay, it wasn't really a Winnabago). As it turns out, the pet scan team comes to Mercy Tuesdays and Fridays in a huge motor home!

There is a lift that takes you from street level up to warehouse accordian- type doors that open by pushing them up. I swear, I felt like a refrigerator being delivered to a trailer house. After that it was a pretty normal scan, except they wouldn't let me knit while the radioactive sugar was coursing through my veins. The tech said it would just go into my hands, couldn't watch tv or listen to music because the sugar would set up mainly in my head. So no knitting but lots of complements on my felted market bag holding my projects.

The volunteer who walked us over to the radiation department started telling the waiting room crowd - all six of us - jokes. The best one was this:

What's the difference between a nothern zoo and a southern zoo?
At a southern zoo, under the name of the animal in the cage, is a recipe.

And look at this great picture Carolyn sent me of Miss Savvy wearing her Princess crown. Carolyn sent me several but I really like this one:

I'm planning to be at GYKI tomorrow afternoon unless I have to go write a contract for a house. If I don't see you, have a great weekend - well - have a great weekend even if I DO see you!

More Tales of Sugar

2006-09-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

Carolyn came by this afternoon and we knitted and got caught up on family stuff. I forgot to take pictures but she is knitting the cutest baby sweater for Daxton on SIZE ZERO needles with tiny cotton yarn. It's going to be very cute but goodness!

She also sent me pictures of Savvy wearing her princess crown. I'm hoping she'll email me a single photo so I can post it. Savvy is so cute and the crown looks like it actually fits her.

And what have I been doing, you ask? Well, two MORE DW's. The picture doesn't do either of them justice. The colors are much better in real life.

The Quality Control Inspector showed up just as I was getting ready to pick things up. She has to put her cat scan of approval on all knitted items. No sloppy dishcloth work around here. I guess it passed as she sniffed it a couple of times and then tried to chew on it. I always take that to mean she likes something.

I spent most of Monday in bed (kind of a hard weekend for me). Here I am under my blanket and Sugar is under her blanket. I couldn't get her to sleep with her blanket next to me - oh no, if she wasn't laying right on top of me, she wasn't happy. Heaven forbid Sugar is unhappy! Can you say SPOILED? Me too. And I said it as I dumped her and her blanket off of me for the third or fourth time!

And she has ANOTHER new little quirk. Emily was over recently and when she petted Sugar, black hair flew everywhere. So, with very little hope of this working, we bought Sugar a pet brush. She sheds vigorously. If shedding were a sport, she would definitely get a medal. Anyway, we had a big surprise - she LOVES being brushed! If she hears the drawer open that holds her brush, she will RUN and leap on the table purring, sometimes she leaps so hard, she slides right off the other end (okay, she has only done that once but it sure was funny)!

She lays on one side, then on her back, then on her other side. She purrs the whole time and is really disappointed when we decide we've got all the loose hair for the day. I have NEVER had a cat let me brush her.

Blueberry has decided she can be brushed for 3 and a half seconds. After that, she's done. And she only does it to annoy Sugar.

I started making a hat for my sister to match her purse and about five inches into it I found out I was short *10* stitches. Two stitches I could fake, four I could add, but TEN is just too many. So I've completely frogged it and will start over again tonight. No watching tv, no blog surfing, no interruptions until I get back on track. And someone will have to explain the closed door to Miss You-Know-Who.

So wish me luck!

The Yarn Inspector

2006-09-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

I swear, Sugar needs her own blog! She does some of the oddest things and I'm sure if she had a chance, she would have a reasonable explanation for every one of them (or not).

Such as yesterday - I went into the kitchen and found Sugar on top of the hutch (a new thing and I haven't the faintest idea how she got up there) and Blueberry on top of the refrigerator. A doorway sized space separated them. Blueberry looked pretty unhappy to be at eye-level with Sugar since Blue is pretty sure SHE rules the world not that upstart black creature.

I ran off to the the camera only to find the batteries had died. But it would have been a great picture, the black bear (is that a bearoness - bad pun) and the lioness glaring at each other. Well Sugar wasn't actually glaring. Blueberry still intimidates her immensely, but she was keeping tabs on Blue in case Blue decided to cross the great divide and beat her up - again.

So, now besides the "dead beetle" sleeping pose, we have the "I own the top of the hutch" stance. I'm just glad Rimsky is old and couldn't care less what the silly girls are doing. His biggest thing is if a cereal bowl shows up, it better have a skiff of milk left in it for him to lick out.

And some knitting conent. The last two DW's I made.

I'm designing a sweater for some souvenir yarn I bought four or five years ago in CA. We went stayed at a bed and breakfast in the hills close to the Nevada border. It was a great place to stay and had several yarn stores within a half hour's drive. I've finally decided what I want to do with the yarn, just need to get the GAUGE figured out.

BTW - I didn't make this very clear. In my last post, I had a picture of my sister, brother-in-law and baby. The baby is actually their grandson. Why my niece, the baby's mother, didn't pose with them is beyond me. Thought I should clarify that.

Hope everyone is having a relaxing holiday!

Posting Some Pictures

2006-08-31T19:13:00.000-05:00

Here's my sister Janice, her husband Vern, and baby Cameron. Look how big he is at only three days old! When I talked to his mom, my niece Celia, she said he's already wearing 1 - 3 month's clothing. None of this newborn stuff for him! So I'm making things for 6 month sizes and getting it to him QUICK! The picture is a little fuzzy because it was taken on a phone camera. I'm just happpy to have it!

Did I ever share this little project? I wanted to make Carolyn's granddaughter something special when her baby brother Daxton arrived. This is what I came up with. It took me weeks to get it right but hopefully she's enjoying it. I give you the

PRINCESS SAVVY CROWN

This was really fun to create. I knitted two sets of "points" and sandwiched plastic canvas between them to hold the shape. The ornaments took me the longest to put together. I had to find just the right sizes and colors fit for a princess. I did take notes, in case I ever wanted to make another one. I just hope I can figure them out!

I had everything on but the bottom stars and I thought it was finished. But when I showed it to Jim, he thought it needed more "sparkle" so I added the last row of stars and he was right. It looked far more regal with them. Eventually I expect to see a picture of the little princess wearing it (hint, hint to some mimi if she's reading this).

Well, I was going to put up one last picture of the YI doing her job but blogger has decided I've put up enough pics so I'll save it for another time.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Games

2006-08-28T20:20:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a book called "How to Become More Creative; 101 Rewarding Ways to Develop Your Potential Talent" by Alex F. Osborn, L.H.D. (whatever that stands for). It was written in 1952! Consequently, women get about two paragraphs going on about how running a house is really creative. Otherwise the book really focuses on those captains of industry, i.,e. men.

Even so, it's been an interesting read. He mentions - and remember this is in 1952 - only 52% of adults ever open a book afer they leave school, based on a survey by Columbia University.

Each chapter is a different type of creative endeavor. He covers sports, reading, exercise, children, writing, arts, hobbies, etc. But the one I found the most fun (and have been driving Jim crazy with) was the word game, Inky Pinky. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. Jim said growing up in Cleveland, OH, a DJ used to play the same game but called it Onesy, Twosey. Here's how it's played:

You think up the rhymed equivalent of a simple statement. Like "a five cent cucumber" would be "a nickel pickle" or an "obese anthropoid" would be "a chunky monkey." If you are a word person, this game quickly becomes almost obsessive. The rhyming words can be one syllable words or four syllables long. Here are a few more. See if you can figure them out. You can check the answers at the end of my post.

1. A motorcycle made of pennies
2. A fish doctor
3. Eat glue
4. Solidified fat
5. A profitable bedding plant

This game reminded me of another word game we used to play on car trips. It's called "Endless Chain." Each person has to come up with a noun (no proper nouns) that starts with the last letter of the last word, i.e. elephant, town, nut, tutu, umbrella, etc. The fun of this game is to try to think of a word with a really hard last letter. So far I haven't gotten Jim into this but we haven't gone on any long car trips either.

And the only other word game I remember from my youth was "I'm going on a picnic" where every person had to remember all the picnic items and add one of their own until the list was so long NO ONE could remember all the items. I really hated this game - I couldn't remember more than ten items (and I bet I couldn't remember that many now!).

So what word games do you or did you play? What games did you or do you play with your kids on long trips? And what Inky Pinky's have you thought up since you started reading about them?

The answers to the above Inky Pinky's
1. A copper chopper
2. A sturgeon surgeon
3. Paste taste
4. Hard lard
5. satisfactory matress factory

Have fun and post what you come up with!

Time to Post Again

2006-08-27T14:43:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's been almost a month since I've posted anything. All I can say is August has turned into a very hard month but it appears to be getting better. September will certainly not be as bad.

That said, let's get on to more interesting things, like KNITTING! I've been working on several things. Finished a preemie layette; hat, booties, and blanket; (which went to guild on Sunday, though I wasn't able to go)

I also finished the first of several sleep sacks. This one is going to Tennessee with me at Thanksgiving. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. These are bright rainbow colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I have changed this pattern a little. I put a placket collar on because baby heads are so big and I use a crochet tie instead of a ribbon at the bottom.

Two more DW dishCLOTHs. I am to the DW as sockknitters are to socks. I always carry one with me and can almost finish one in the time I was waiting for a dr to show up. But blogger won't let me upload the picture :-(

And BEADING: I made myself a purple glass bead bracelet. This is a close up of the focal bead and the little charms I added.

BABIES - The first of the three due between August and October has arrived. Cameron weighted in at 9 lbs, 3 oz and was 22" long. He arrived on Thursday August 24th. This is my neice Celia's baby. Well blogger has decided I've uploaded enough pictures and won't let put up Cameron. Take my word for it - he's a cutie! But I'm going to have to upsize what I was planning to make him.

MORE KNITTING. I had the pleasure of getting to spend quality knitting time with both Polly G. and Tracy T. this week. It is such fun to visit and knit! Tracy and I even went to a couple of yard sales (okay, they were two houses away from my house, not like I had to walk very far).

AND KC was on Saturday. Nice turnout, about 18 people showed up plus a brand new knitter. I got to see a "Charm Quilt" that Laura had hand pieced together (something like 400 little hexigons). I had never heard of charm quilts before, so for those of you who are as ignorant as I am about quilts, a charm quilt means there are no two fabrics alike! Those 400 or so little pieces were ALL different! It was just gorgeous and what a lot of work! I hope whoever the receipent of that quilt is, they really appreciate it!

SUGAR. She has a new little quirk. She now sleeps between my legs on her back with all four paws in the air. I swear she looks like a dead beetle, except every so often she kind of waves one of her front paws...and she SNORES!

Do You Like Popcorn?

2006-08-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

YESTERDAY'S KNIT IN
The Gourmet Yarn Knit In was it's normal, spectacular, rowdy event. Large turnout and I saw several people taking pictures so check the other blogs for those. This is such a high energy, electric group. I love going even though it wears me out and I can only handle about two hours (well, I can only handle about two hours of anything with more two people involved). And it was so nice to see friends I hadn't seen since the Harlot's visit.

TATTOOS
Both Theresa and Rachel asked me about my next tattoo (skip to the next paragraph if you are anti-tattoo. I have a nice sized one on my left leg above my ankle and plan on getting at least one more.)

I found a picture of a three dimensional monarch butterfly tatooed on a woman's foot. It is very realistic and gorgeous. I plan to have a set of three butterflies tattooed on my thigh, just above my knee, like they just landed there. They will be mostly Oklahoman butterflies in as close to their true colors and sizes as possible.

I'm planning on a yellow and black swallowtail, a blue and black Melissa Blue or Reakirt's Blue, and a small violet copper (we have coppers but I don't think any of there are violet - but violet ones do exist in other parts of the world). So that's my plan. I should have done this four or five years ago. Now I'll have to wait at least two years but in the meantime I'm working on my design.

POPCORN
Finally! Are you a popcorn lover? Do you use your microwave as your primary or only popcorn maker? Want to find a better way to make popcorn for pennies compared to buying those packets? Do I sound like I'm trying to sell you something?

Here is my popcorn journey. Back in 1995, during one of my parent's visits, my Dad came into the kitchen carrying a little flat lunch bag and said "Where's your popcorn maker?" I pulled the hot air pop corn popper out of the cupboard and he said "No, no, I mean your popcorn maker." He was looking for a microwave oven. We didn't have one. Silly me, I thought we had no need for one.

Well, to make a long story only slightly shorter, they ended up buying us a nice microwave and Dad taught me how to make popcorn. The hot air popper went into a yard sale and we have made popcorn in the microwave ever since. But now I can't eat commercial popcorn. Whatever is put on it, it just doesn't taste good. So I haven't had popcorn in over a year.

But I just became hooked on Alton Brown and the Good Eats program (I don't really cook and have never been interested but I've been sucked in big time. I'm thinking about buying a cast iron skillet, for Pete's Sake!). In the process of all finding "All Things Alton", I ran across his book "I'm Just Here For the Food" (checked it out of the library) and came across an astonishing (to me, anyway) way to make popcorn. Some of you may already be doing this but if you're not, you need to try it.

Homemade Microwave Popcorn
Pour 1/4 - 1/3 cup of regular cheap Jolly Time popcorn into a regular 50-bags-for-a-buck lunch sack. Fold the sack edges over twice with about a half inch fold both times. And get this - STAPLE each corner!!! It turns out the staples are shorter than the microwave waves and are not even detected if they are in each corner! So use only TWO staples at least three inches apart.

(And since I am really lazy and didn't want to walk clear across the house to get the office stapler, I bought a KITCHEN stapler at Dollar Tree. Who would have thought THAT would be a neccesary piece of kitchen equipment!)

Put the bag in the microwave and cook on high for 2 - 3 minutes or until the pops are about 5 seconds apart. Take out the bag, open it (watch out for the steam) and pour your own amount of butter on. Alton, my food hero, also suggests putting a tablespoon of brown sugar in the bag once in a while. As soon as I can eat sugar, you know I'm going to try this.

We did go though two or three bags before getting it right, but at this price you don't even flinch when the whole bag goes in the garbage (we did take a batch outside for the birds but they were singularly unimpressed).

I can not believe how well this works and how cheap it is. I figure we are paying less than five cents a bag for popcorn and I CAN EAT IT! This is about the coolest thing I've run across in ages. Anyway, give it a try. It took us a couple of times to get the cooking time right for our microwave and to get the amount of popcorn right for the lunch bag. Cheap GOOD EATS!

My Sister's Visit

2006-08-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

This is my sister Janice. I haven't seen her in over ten years! The last time she came to Oklahoma, she got a tattoo. I got one shortly after she left. I would have got mine at the same time but didn't have my sketch completed. We went to Derby, Kansas for our tattoos so I'm really glad it's finally legal in OK. I plan to get another one to celebrate getting through all this big C stuff.

As you can see, she has made a couple of dishclothes (boy, I had to keep reminding her "When you knit them they are NOT dish RAGS!!!) And can you believe it's 5:30 am! I tell you, I didn't look this good!

She hasn't knitted in years but wanted to try it again. So I started her out on an easy dishcloth - which she finished in record time. Next she tried a DW dishcloth. She wasn't as taken with it as some of us are.

And I finally found someone to take the enterlac bag off my hands. She actually like the colors and was thrilled to take it home. The other thing she really wanted was a felted purse. So we made a run to GY and she picked up some Cascade 220 so I could knit and felt her a clutch type purse. I'll be adapting the Lopi bag and the purse from the front of the enterlack bag book, kind of morphing them into a single purse. She picked some nice colors, a light sage green and a darker green for the contrasting stripe. It should look very nice.

But after the second dishCLOTH, she decided she really wanted to knit a scarf. I had shown her my Emily scarf and she just loved it. So back to GY, where she told me she was allergic to wool. So what is as soft as wool but not wool? ALPACA!

She found some gorgeous, tweedy looking alpaca and decided that was what she wanted. We found her some size 13 needles and started trying stitch swatches. She was still working out the stitch when she called to let me know she made it home okay. There is nothing like having another family member who knits!

And the steroid reduction plan kind of hit a snag. Last Thursday my dr dropped me down to 1/2 a prednesone tablet (10 mg) and I was fine for about one day. Then on Saturday I started having some really unusual symptoms - all I wanted to do was sleep, I wasn't one bit hungry (I liked this one), and my knees were really giving me fits when I did get up. Jim did some checking on the internet and it appeared I was having some pretty strong indicators of adreanal instability. So I took another 1/2 of a prednesone and within half an hour felt fine.

I see my dr tomorrow and will see what he says. It's extremely frustrating sometimes. But I have hair long enough to actually feel. GI's still have hair longer than mine but at least you can kind of see it. I seem to have a bald spot right up front and since I'm not looking forward to wearing a toupe the rest of my life, that spot better fill in!

Sugar's Blanket & The End of My Harlot Saga

2006-07-31T16:55:00.000-05:00

As we were sitting, eating, and waiting for people to get through the book signing line with the Harlot, Shelly gave me this:

It's a blanket for Sugar to match mine! How sweet is that! I know Shelly made the striped square. There seems to be some confusion as to what this stitch is called. Shelly called it the star or daisy stitch, but I did hear someone call it the "marjuana" stitch. Hmmmm....

Polly knit one of the purple squares and now I don't remember who knit the other two. Hopefully one of you will take pity on me and let me know. I really like the stitch patterns.

And as I was looking at the square's stitch patterns, here came Sugar to claim her blanket. Can you see the little ear sticking through the crocheted square? She crawled right under the blanket, stretched out, and promptly went to sleep.

I couldn't sit there and hold her so even though I got up, she stayed asleep (or pretended she was). She likes the blanket and hopefully when she feels the need to chew on wool, she'll pick her blanket instead of mine.

BACK TO THE HARLOT

After the book signing was over, several of us were fortunate enough to take Stephanie and Jayme out to a late dinner. We went to Louie's over on the lake and it was a little noisy but didn't keep us from visiting. Stephanie has a very interesting way of holding her needles and several of us were enthralled by the very little movement she used to move the yarn.

I asked her what method she was using (continental, throwing, lever, etc) and she said for speed, she uses the cottage method. This is where you tuck the right needle under your arm, between your legs, or use a holder of some sort. No wonder she is so fast! I haven't had a chance to really looked into it, but if that's where the speed is, then that's what I want to learn.

And there isn't much out there in Google-land on cottage (also called "process") knitting. I'm going to have to do more research. If you know of a good resouce, let me know - thanks!

So it was a wonderful event, we had a fabulous speaker, the chairpersons and volunteers performed heroically, both the library and GY were excellent and we will definitely do this again. In fact, be thinking about who YOU would like to come next. We'll be discussing this at guild next month.

Playing Catch-Up

2006-07-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

OMG! The Yarn Harlot was here on Tuesday, my sister arrived on Wednesday (hadn't seen her in TEN years), we knitted straight for practically three days (with two runs to GY for project yarn), and she left this morning at 5:30 AM! So not only am I behind on posting, but I have TONS of things to post about! Think I'll break this up over the next several days so this post isn't 26 pages long.

Tuesday, July 25th, the Harlot comes to OKC! What a great event! I have been out following links and clicking on blog lines. First of all, there are knitters here in the city I didn't even know about, and second, there are some wonderful pictures on almost every site. Now if you read my posts once in a while, you know I ALWAYS take my camera. I just never manage to get it out of my bag. So do I have pictures of the Harlot - of course not! I recommend if you want to see some great pictures of the event, start down my sidebar. I think the best post is the Harlot's.

Here is the finished gift basket the guild gave her. I'm going to do a single post on the contents of this basket alone. We had some really awesome donations and I sure hope she liked it.

Since I have no great photos to offer, how about some behind-the-scenes commentary. I really want to thank Kay, Emily, Anna Hester, Linette, Katie, Rosemary, Anita Roseler, and Margaret for the huge amount of work they did getting this event off the ground. You are the BEST!

And yes, we did have a couple of gliches but these people were able to fix them and move on. We learned a huge amount about putting on an event and will be much better prepared for the next one. Oh Yes, there will be a "next one." This one was way too much fun not to do it again. And what a great team GY and MOCKG makes.

One of my high points was getting to go with Margaret to pick up Stephanie and her publisher, Jayme at the hotel. As those of you know who met her at the book signing, Stephanie is even more delightful one-on-one than she is on her blog or even at the speaking event. I have to tell you, finding out 3.2 beer is "food" is the funniest thing I'd ever heard. I'm thinking of keeping a case in the pantry for those days I don't have time to cook! (just kidding - I don't drink, but I still think it's just too funny)

They told us about going to the Murrah Memorial and how it effected them. I'm glad they went and I'm glad I didn't have to take them (all these years and it still makes me cry). Once at the library, Stephanie went off to a vacant office to gather her thoughts and we went in to find seats. Of course Stephanie had the place howling with laughter within the first two minutes of her talk. Afterwards, (yes, the whole room DID sing "Oklahoma!") we zipped back over to GY and watched the long line of knitters with their copy of "Knittng Rules", in line to get her autograph.

Do you know, she visited with each and every one! She is so gracious and would make a GREAT Okie! I know she received some fun gifts. I saw a tiara, a tornado in a bottle, and stitch markers. There were probably other things but you can see these on the blogs if you have time to look.

And I am WORN OUT! But in a good way. I plan to rest up tomorrow. The steroid reduction program has me down to half a prednesone every day and I'll be calling my dr tomorrow to see what the next step is. I am so tired I've about lost my voice (okay, maybe Jan and I talking non-stop for three days had a LITTLE to do with it), but I know being tired certainly is contributing. So I'll be back in the groove probably by Tuesday and will catch up with emails then.

Well, blogger isn't letting me put up any other pictures tonight so will save the next fun thing for tomorrow.

Monday Evening

2006-07-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

We had a terrific turnout for KC on Saturday. This is just such a fun group. Everyone is knitting something different and it all looks so nice. I took my camera but was unsteady enough I asked Kathy K. to take pics for me. Consequently you get to see eveyone but her (and Bette who won't let anyone take her picture - I have no idea why) .

And we are on the downhill run to the Harlot's arrival. I can't believe it will be tomorrow night. I hate to admit it but I don't know which I'm more excited about, the YH being here or getting to see my sister after so many years.

The steroid reduction continues. I'm now down to one a day which I take half in the morning and half at night. The symptoms are still the same with nothing changing. A good sign I guess. Wouldn't want any big changes at this late date.

Another Mail Surprise!

2006-07-21T23:28:00.000-05:00

We had a lady from Austin Tx come to a guild meeting about two months ago. She was very nice and seemed to enjoy the group. Look what she sent us:

She made a burial bunting and blanket for our charity knitting and:

If you look close, you'll see it's an Oklahoma dishcloth. It was hard to get a picture of this but interesting that a lady in TX would knit a OK dishcloth to put in the Canadian Yarn Harlot's gift bag.

And speaking of the gift basket, we have been given some awesome handspun yarns, rovings, soaps, and something I've never seen before, silk cocoons! This is going to be one great gift basket. I got an xxxx large basket shaped like OK to put all the YH's gifts in. I hope she likes it.

I've been working on my felted hat. I have it almost done and am excited to get it felted. Should be very interesting. And I'll do the before and after like Carolyn did on Wednesday. It's already starting to look like a Dr. Suess hat.

AND one of my sister's is planning to come and visit. She should arrive the day after the YH leaves. I'm very excited as I haven't seen her in over 8 or 9 years. Family doesn't come out to visit much.

Felting Fun

2006-07-19T23:01:00.000-05:00

Carolyn came over today to do some felting. I wanted to refelt both my large square market bag, and my little green handspun to see if I could get them to tighten up a little more. I was really unhappy with the market bag before, we'll see how I like it after it dries.

But who cares aout the bags. Carolyn made the cutest cloche hat but was not totally sure it would actually felt up the way it was suppose to. Why do you think she thought that - LOL! Here are two "before" pictures:

She said she was smiling for this picture. It's funny how we are all creatures of habit.

And here is the finished product. It turned out so cute and she only had to wear the wet hat a little bit to make sure it matched her head size.

Felting is like magic. We both had bags to felt, plus she had the hat. I have a fedora hat pattern I picked up about a year ago and am planning on making and felting that. Then I plan to get some Cascade 22o at Margaret's and make up the homespun Ali sent me, along with some black and steel blue.

Can you guess I got all the fruit caps done? Now I just have to make to rainbow sleep sets and I can get back to making another short sleeve tee for myself.

Fruit Hats

2006-07-18T18:57:00.000-05:00

Inspired by the Yarn Harlot, I too am making fruit hats for the multiple babies either here or getting ready to put in an appearance. I managed to make two apple hats and a watermelon hat. I plan to get the booties for the apple hats finished today or tomorrow and then make watermelon booties.

I mentioned at guild about not wanting floats on the inside of the toes of the booties and Anna Hester (creative woman that she is!) suggested buying fabric paint and just painting the seeds on. BRILLIANT! In fact, I may even make another watermelon hat and paint on the seeds. Duplicate stitching the seeds on the hat was a lot of work!

And look at this fur baby. Blue has completely burrowed into the quilt, turned around, and is asleep, I think. At any rate, she is ignoring me if she's awake. She is a funny little cat.

Sugar, on the other hand, likes to sleep on her back with everything exposed, totally trusting no one is going to do anything mean to her. Well, she sleeps like that with me and if I rub her tummy she starts talking in her sleep. She also feels she must spend every waking moment with me (especially if she can find a knitted boob laying around to chew on). I've been using my blanket as I get cold so easily. She loves the blanket also. She has finally stopped trying to "taste" it as this gets her kicked out of the bedroom rapidly.

We had a super turnout at Guild on Sunday. We are having about 25-30 people come to every meeting and it's not all the same people! If you haven't come you should, it's a great group, we learn something new every month and we get to KNIT!

I've started the great steroid reduction again. I'm now on prednesone and the plan is to be off the steroids completely in about two months. So symptoms are a little more weakness in the knees, balance is pretty bad, and eyes are really watery. The good news is I feel good even if I am having trouble walking.

And one of my old/new hobbies is making small books. I have called and looked everywhere in town for a small bookbinding awl to punch holes into pages to sew them together. If you know of any place that might have them, please let me know. I can tell you who DOESN'T have them - Hobby Lobby and Micheals, Lowes, Home Depot, Triangle A& E, and Ace.

Here is what they look like

I guess I'm going to have to get a couple of corks and make my own using large needles. Now I just have to find some corks.

Gorgeous Socks!

2006-07-15T15:20:00.000-05:00

I love getting surprises in the mail! When I was little, I used to save cereal boxtops, box bottoms, cut out the coupons, and even send money, just so I'd have a continual chance of a daily surprise in the mail. Times change and if I could, I would still do things like that but there doesn't seem anyway to make that happen. Except when someone sends you handmade socks! What a great surprise. This package came today from Ali:

Not only gorgeous socks, but she sent me a skein of her handspun. Her fourth skein to be exact. I have NEVER given any one any of my handspun. I keep every nanometer of it. I am so impressed. And her fourth skein of handspun looks great.

Look at how the colors are plied (well, it's kind of hard to see but there are a lot of colors in this).

The pictures just don't do it justice. It has plies that look like velvet, plies of two or three colors together, just too pretty. It's 96 yards of of blue faced Leister. I'm thinking I should be able to get a cloche or fedora to felt out of it. Would be very pretty I think.

She also included some English Breakfast tea, her favorite scone recipe and some yummy Classic Rose All Purpose Salve. It smells great and I've already rubbed it into my poor, raggidy cuticles.

Thank you Ali!

But before I could take pictures of all these things, Jim had to remove FIVE sparrows from the screen-in porch. Luckily the cats hadn't discovered them yet. Poor little things, they were so scared. Jim propped open the screen door, then walked around the out side and literally herded them to the open door. The phrase "bird brain" takes on greater meaning in situations like this. But they all managed to get out and both Sugar and Rimsky were a little unhappy no one invited them to help.

I'm going to see if our handy man can fix some kind of threshold up to keep them from coming in under the porch door. There's about a three inch gap and it looks about little bird size to me.

I'll be posting some actual knitting I've done tomorrow after guild but wanted you to see my latest socks and some fun handspun.

Oh My Gosh - You Have To See This....

2006-07-09T13:29:00.000-05:00

I have the best group of friends! Friday night Kay called me and said "Come to Gourmet Yarns tomorrow at noon."

"Why?" I asked.

She said "I'm not telling you, just be here."

And, of course, I went. There are just a handful of people who, when they say do something, I just do it.

So I showed up a Gourmet Yarns at noon. A small knitting group, Rosemolly, Kay, Shelly, Terri, Emily, and Margaret (well, Margaret was working but it was nice to see her). And I'm thinking, this is really nice. I hadn't seen Terri, Shelly or Rosemolly in a long time. And this is just a fun group to knit with.

Then, Emily says, "We need to do this." And the next thing I know I've got my eyes closed. When I was told I could open them, this is what I saw:

Okay, the YI wasn't there but isn't this gorgeous!! Everyone made one or two squares or maybe three. I have a chart of who made which square and the stitich but Jim put it some place when I got home yesterday and I can't find it at the moment.

But there is a DW square (of course!) a several crocheted squares, a fiboroni number stripe sequence, a square with raised hearts, and some stitch patterns that are really cool but I don't know what they are.

Here it is again without the YI helping. She decided to come and sit with me on the sofa while I took this picture.

Unfortunately this picture managed to cut off just about all of the first row of squares.

As soon as Jim gets home, I'll update this with some close ups of the squares and stitch patterns. I just couldn't wait to get this up so you could see it.

And I understand there are pictures of the work in progress and some stories about clandestine knitting. I sure hope someone posts those - they sound like fun.

I don't know how you say "THANK YOU" for something like this. I know I will use when I'm cold whether the outside temperature is 98 degrees or 40 degrees and I will feel wrapped in LOVE! It's been a really hard month in more ways than one and this is just wonderful!

THANK YOU DEAR FRIENDS! I love each and every one of you!

More Backyard Pictures

2006-07-06T22:25:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd see if Blogger would let upload the rest of the backyard pics. We have the hose there to water the Buddleias. Wayne planted those last year and we are TRYING to keep them alive. This is also a pretty good picture of the screen in porch.

The Crepe Myrtle is almost at it's peak. I love the pink color, it just shines against all the green!I have one hosta under the tree. I have full ring around the tree out front but it looks like this is solitary survior. But it's in bloom and that's all that matters - lol.

I have some actual knitting to share. I'm making a baby sleep sack for one of my niece's who is pregnant. I decided to make in the colors of the rainbow. It's a fast knit but I'm going to have to set it aside so I can make a couple of fruit caps with matching booties for my dentist. She is just about due and I haven't even started anything yet. Anyway, here is the the sleep sack.

All in red heart. I'm to the point I'm knitting in the round. I may stop and finish the sleeves just so I know I have enough yarn to make it all work out.

The YI is never very far away. Although she really just wanted me to get the stuff out of her chair. She didn't seem all that interested in the sleep sack.

Last but not least, a good report from my oncologist. We will move to prednozone on Wednesday. Both tumors are shrinking with no inflamation or activitiy. Now I do meet with my radiology oncololgist tomorrow and he will have actually read the MRI. My Oncologist just received the results. But it still sounds pretty good to me!

Friday Morning

2006-06-30T08:26:00.000-05:00

I've been out on our screen-in porch since 7:30 am, enjoying the balmy weather, a cup of tea, and the company of cats.

When we first moved into this house, all I wanted was the back patio screened in so I could sit out there (I am SO anti-bug it's not funny). Then the next thing that happened was the cancer and I spent hours and days in a zombie chemo fog on the porch.

I realized this morning, my screened in porch is one my favorite places. Let me share a little bit of it with you. Here is the lantana and spruce oasis:

In the cool of the evening, about 8:30 or so, two different hummingbirds and a handful of butterflies come by for an evening meal. I think the orange flowers are Lantana and the spikey looking flowers are the spruce. It's really fun to sit out here at dusk and watch the hummingbirds dip and sip.

Then later, out by the crepe myrtle, the fireflies start putting on their show, looking for a mate.

We don't use chemicals in the yard because as most of you know, firefly grub live in the ground. I prefer extra bugs (the reason the porch is enclosed) to losing fireflys. Yes, the picture is crooked. My balance is not quite what it could be.

And the trees are alive with birds and bird calls. We have Bluejays, Mockingbirds, Robins, Pigeons, Grackles, and a very shy Baltimore Oriale who makes an appearance maybe once every two weeks. Most live in or behind our redbud.

And yes our backyard is not landscaped, though it will be one of these days, it's still plenty cozy for us. We used to live on an acreage between Edmond and Guthrie and belive me, this is much nicer!

I had a few more pictures I was going to share but blogger has decided I've shared enough. I do have a question - I'd like to put up some hanging plants on the patio, any suggestions for someone who has the "thumb of death" where most plants are concerned?

Has It Really Been That Long...

2006-06-29T16:31:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted! But the last couple of weeks have been kind of miserable so I guess that the answer. That and I've actually been working. At any rate, the Guild committees are really working hard on getting everything ready for the Yarn Harlot. You have one more day to pre-order your book from Gourmet Yarns to get the discount.

I've actually got some more knitting done too. I made this layette set with a drop stitch and really think it turned out cute. Little blanket, bopper hat, and matching booties.

The blanket is about 17" x 17" and made from Jiffy as are the booties and hat. It's funny you can see the drop stitch really well in one bootie but not in the other. I've been having Jim take the pictures for me as I like to take them outside in the sun but am not up to doing it at the moment.

And, of course, another DW, just because I am now carrying them on showings and can knit to and from.

Hmmmm....it looks like this is the back not the front....Oh well, it's another potpouri ombre. And turned out very pretty - even the back looks good.

I have a baby sleep sack in rainbow stripes on the needles for one of my nieces. The other niece STILL doens't know what she's getting so her stuff will probably not get done in such a timely manner.

As soon as the sleep sack is finished I plan to start the chevron tee shirt. And is it possible that someone out there has an older Knit Picks catalog I could borrow? I originally was going to make the fingering weight fair isle, then decided there simply was no way I was working on size 2 needles and threw out all my old cataloges. Now I wish I had a picture of the sweater so I could use it for color coordination. I've decided to make the sweater but on larger needles and using motifs of my own liking. So if anyone has a copy of the catalogue and would let me borrow it, I just want to get a look at the color scheme. Thanks!

And that brings us to a medical update. I have my followup MRI on July 5th. I've only fallen twice in the last week (Kay keeps saying she's going to get me one of to Samuri body suits - boy, that would be fun). Once when Sugar tripped me and I landed on my rear and once when I realized my left foot turns inward if I don't watch it closely.

I'm being very careful walking because if I go down, I can't get up by myself, which is very frustrating. But eventually this will all come to an end. I know most of this is steroid induced and my dr is trying to bring me off the steroids as fast as possible. Which is fine by me!

The BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

2006-06-19T21:26:00.000-05:00

The Yarn Harlot is coming to Oklahoma City complements of the Metro OKC Knitting Guild and Gourmet Yarns!!! She's COMING HERE!!! July 25, speaking at the Village Library from 6pm to 8pm, then a reception and book signing at Gourmet Yarns!

We are so excited!! Margaret at Gourmet Yarns is offering a 10% discount on her book if you order and pay for it early! I ordered mine this afternoon, I didn't want to miss out! And the Guild committees are starting to meet to get the word out. We don't have much time and we don't want anyone to miss a chance to meet Ms Stephanie in person! So sign up, get your book, and get ready for a truly huge event in the world of knitting! IN OKLAHOMA CITY!!!

And speaking of knitting, here is the baby blanket I managed to get finished for my charity knitting for the Guild - it's a basket weave and very fast to finish.

I've got another one on the needles, same color, Jiffy brand yarn but this one is a drop stitch which also is easy and cute.

And I even took some pictures at Guild. I managed to get down one side of the room before my batteries ran out. POOH!

We had a really good turn out considering it was Father's Day. I figured over 30 people showed up! By the time I remember my camera, some had already left.

Look how industrious we all look! This is a great group and we are growing steadily. Every month we get one or two (or four) new knitters and they always come back!

And wonder of wonders, last night at about 9:30pm my knees came back! I've be really weak for almost a week but today they were still back! So maybe the steroid reduction program is starting to work.

I've been swatching for my next sweater. I have an assortment of blue cottons from Rosie's Cellar and I plan to make a striped chevron tee-shirt out of them. I just need to find a gauge I like on a needle size I like and I'll be off and running.

Don't forget to order your Yarn Harlot book from Gourmet Yarns!!!

New Knit In

2006-06-15T20:25:00.000-05:00

Yeah! Another knitting group! This one met last night at Starbucks on 63rd and Western. Okay, there weren't many of us and I forgot to bring my camera but me and Emily, Anita and her daughter, and Jo-Ellyn enjoyed ourselves immensely. We will be trying to meet the second Wednesday evening of every month. You should come. It was fun!

And I actually have finished the side to side tee shirt. I had Jim take pictures. It's kind of long so a little hard to photograph.

It fits nicely. I may decide to take the sleeves in just a bit, they seem a little wider than they should. But at the moment I really don't have time.

And in the great scheme of things I made another DW. I can't remember the name of this and I'm too lazy to get up and go look at the label. At any rate, I just keep turning them out. I think I'm going to try the one from Mason-Dixon knitting book. It's an interestng pattern and would look good in a variegate. Anita also mentioned a pattern she thought would look good. I may try it instead. Expect I can't remember the name. Will have to get it from her at guild on Sunday.

Speaking of Guild, I know it's Father's Day. Some of us have Dads here and won't be able to make it but some of us (like me) have Dad's out of state and will certainly be there. I might just say we have a HUGE thing getting ready to happen here in the Metro and it will be announced at Guild FIRST! You might want to come if you can.

It will also be announced next week. So it's not like you won't find out.

I am still having kneeless days. Which means I'm having a hard time getting up and down, sometimes walking. I am assuming the steroid reduction program has something to do with all this. I noticed this morning my face is still huge but my nose is back to normal size!! How funny!

And on the needles I have a little basket weave layette blanket for our charity knitting. I will finish it then begin my chevron sweater with souvenir yarn I got at Rosie's Cellar in Philly a couple of years ago. I also think I will start a drop stitch scarf with the yarn Terri gave me. I just realized it's a thick and thin and should look gorgeous!

Some Actual Knit Content

2006-06-09T23:03:00.000-05:00

I've been working on my side to side knit tee shirt between actual real estate appts. It's tough to get knitting done when you have to work. Any way, no pics of it yet. I just need to sew up a side seam and put in the bottom seed stitch. In the meantime, guess what I finished:

I couldn't find the band for this so I'm calling it "sunshine ombre". It's really a pretty lemony color. And, of course, I've started another one from my drs appt yesterday.

Also managed to get some charity knitting done. I'm planning on a baby blanket also in Jiffy. Just haven't had a chance to start it yet. But these turned out cute. I didn't have enough orange to make a blanket or I would have.

While sitting on the back porch the other day, I watched Sugar pick a fight with Rimsky. The one year old and the 14 yr old. Sugar doesn't pick on Blue. I think she's still really intimadated by her. But for some reason poor old Rimsky turns out to be fair game.

Rimsky is laying in the sun minding his own business. Step one: Sugar comes and lays down close. Then she starts poking him. He trys to ignore her.

Step 2: She starts rolling around on her back, poking him and poking him, until he finally sits up and decides to give her a whap.

Step 3: She finally gets him going. They roll around whapping each other for a few moments, then Rimsky gets tired and goes off to sleep in a corner or on a chair, leaving Sugar still on her back ready to play/fight.

For the last two or three days, I've been having trouble with my knees and feet. Walking is just not as much fun as it could be. I'm hoping the steroid reduction will help. Tomorrow I drop another pill. I can't wait!

Lookee, Lookee, Lookee...

2006-06-05T21:42:00.000-05:00

At what showed up in my mailbox today!

It's sparkles, it beguiles. It's called "Darling" and is a nylon, wool, acrylic blend from the Woolie Ewe in Plano, TX.

It came from Terri for my birthday! What a sweetie! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! How did you know today was my birthday?

This yarn is definitely petting yarn. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet but for sure petting yarn. I love it!

And on a more boring note, here is the DW I tried to get up last night -

It's called "Spice Pot" and it looks nice. I've started another one in a yellow varigate but am only about half way thru it and am bored. The front of my side to side tee shirt is almost done. I'd planned to work on it this evening but fell asleep on the patio.

I didn't get much sleep last night and this morning, in celebration of making it another year, took a tumble in the kitchen. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I know I turned too fast, lost my footing, slipped on the rug and crashed into the counter. Luckily I landed on my left side first then hit my head. I thought maybe I'd broken my shoulder but just wrenched it really good. Tonight I feel okay, shoulder is a little sore. I expect it will be more so tomorrow. But I didn't really get hurt, thank goodness. I need a stunt double!

And this didn't stop me from going to Hobby Lobby to pick up some more beading supplies, because you can never have too much yarn or too many beads!

I noticed there are lots of new knitting books coming out. Brand new - a whole book of cuff to cuff sweaters, a book I saw at Margaret's called "Every Day Style", "Yarn Stash Workbook" on Amazon,and a couple of others. This is the time to be a knitter, that's for sure!

I Went To a Garden Party...

2006-06-03T22:00:00.000-05:00

And lots of my friends were there....Well, not actually a garden party but a tea party at the Gourmet Yarn Knit In this afternoon. It was really fun and a great bunch. AND I remembered to take pictures! Check out Terri's cool vintage hat!

Jan and Karen. Karen was nice enough to indulge me. Since I never know what I can eat, she helped pick out some goodies for me to try and then MOST graciously removed the evidence of what I couldn't eat. She also had the coolest tea cup I have ever seen! You wind it up at the bottom and it played music!

Knitters were busy knitting, drinking tea, eating dainty finger food, visiting and laughing. This, folks, is a high energy Knit In. Always a treat to get to go to it!

And look at this! This is dedication! This woman is knitting with HER ARM IN A SLING!!! Too impressive for words!

Anyway, it was great fun and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Carolyn came over to collect the guild library books last week and brought some knitting to work on while we visited. Guess who showed up and promptly made herself at home in Carolyn's knitting bag - Oh who else!

And one more DW. One of these days I'm going to go back to the beginning of the year and count how many of these I've made. Certainly my fair share. Well, blogger is not letting me upload any more pictures so will post the DW later.

As most of you know, I underwent the Gamma Knife last week. Now we wait for 4 to 6 weeks to see the outcome. Prognosis is good. The drs say everything went exactly as expected. So far nothing has changed except the fatigue is back big time. But it's not keeping me from knitting!

No Actual Knitting Content

2006-05-29T21:24:00.000-05:00

And I'll explain why in a minute. But in the meantime, we have cats in halters and ON LEASHES. Okay, maybe not totally happy cats but at least not totally freaked out cats either.

They wore their halters about two hours today and both got a little taste of being on a leash. Needless to say, Miss Blue was not at all enthralled by the adventure. Here she is on the back patio, trying to lowcrawl with the leash on. It's the first time she's been outside the porch. Pretty big, scary world.

But she was walking and looking and then decided grass was not a good thing to have under her feet so we went back inside the porch. After removing the leash, she zipped inside the house, raced up the cat tree and promptly fell asleep on the top platform. Those 15 seconds outside just WORE her out!

On the other hand, our little Sugar Bear wasn't quite as afraid of the leash or the great outdoors.

She found things to sniff, things to look at, and tried to crawl into the lantana shrubs. She also was not interested in the grass underfoot. She didn't mind the bricks or the dirt around the shrubs, but that grass...I wonder if it felt prickly.

At one year old, she's the one who will adapt to all this and take it in stride. Miss Blue will probably never get used to the leash, though she's doing quite well with the halter (all things considered).

And here's a picture of Jim's birthday present. His birthday is tomorrow and we've talking about getting a grill for several years. Not that he'll be using on his birthday but it's nice to finally get one.

And I took some time to create a multi-strand Bible bookmark for my daily reading. I had six different bookmarkers I was juggling. It seemed just as easy to have one central ribbon. It took me weeks to plan out how to attach it to my Bible, then I realized I just needed to knot the ends, stick them down the spine and put the ribbons where I wanted them. Simplify, simplify!

Unfortunately these were very hard to get a good picture. What you can't see is the letter beads on either side of the colored bead in the middle. Just in case I forget what book is where. But I like the finished product and will be making another one (with fewer ribbons) for the study Bible I'm getting for my birthday. (Yes, Jim and I have birthdays only days apart but mine will be slightly compromised this year - no big deal).

And now the reason there is no actual knitting content. I was zipping along doing the front neck shaping on my side to side tee when I realized the stitch count was off. Not just off, but WAY off. I ended up having to rip back over 2 inches! So it's sitting in the knitting basket waiting for me to feel like working on it again. I hate frogging but I especially hate frogging when I could have been paying better attention.

Hope everyone had a fun, safe, happy Memorial weekend. Hug a vet, they deserve it!

Knitty Committee Today!

2006-05-27T18:50:00.000-05:00

We had a great turnout at Knitty Committee today. About 15 people showed up even though it was the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. And as usual I forgot my camera! I know Kay was taking pictures so hopefully she will post them on her blog.

This is such a great group. But it looks like they are trying to turn it all to the dark side. Bette is making socks, Sherry is making socks, Janet brought double points and she is making a premie hat but can socks be far behind....? I'm not making socks but I'd sure be able to WEAR socks if more of them showed up (not pressure, just a little hint).

Kay was working on a clapotee, Terri had a dishcloth going, Emily was working her cowl, Judy was crocheting an orange and black afghan, Kathy was helping her daughter with a Knit Wit which makes knitted tubes. I didn't see what Barbara, Laura, or Delores was working on. And I was working on my side to side tee-shirt. We were a busy group around the table knitting and chatting. It was great!

After KC, some of us wandered over to Gourmet Yarn just to see what was new. And wonder of wonders, they had charity knitting yarn for the Guild! It is always such a surprise to me, people are so generous. Of course it's all acrylic but that's what we want. At the last Guild meeting I noticed we were really going through the yarn so was very happy to get more.

Hope you are all having a fun, safe holiday weekend!

Yet Another Dishcloth

2006-05-24T21:45:00.000-05:00

Here is the latest DW dishcloth. These attest to how many dr appts I have that take forever! I believe this Sugar and Cream is called Denim Ombre. Anyway, it's pretty. No closeup. By now everyone should know what these look like!

I also finished the back of my side to side tee shirt and have started the front. Here is the neck and sleeve shaping.

And here you can see the length. I'll be adding about three inches of seed stitch at the bottom when I get it finished.

And here's a closeup of the stitches. I really like the slip stitch I added for texture. Even though it has a nice rainbow look to it, it just needed something.

Sugar has been hanging pretty close to me since the weekend. Guess she can feel the tension in the air with this next procedure coming up. She has pretty much been close no matter what I'm doing. Here she is watching me knit in my recliner. In about two seconds she decided the floor was no place for a cat and she was on top of my knitting in my lap. It's very hard to knit around a large black furball.

And talking about treatments, as most of you know, I'm scheduled for a Gamma Knife for the large tumor on June 1st. I'm still getting tests done to make sure everything is on track. Had a CT today to make sure there was no new tumor activity and am having another MRI done in the morning to rule out any other complications. I don't mind telling you, this is starting to get old!

But did manage to go look at a house to list and do a showing today. Will be listing a house tomorrow after dr appts.

Don't know when the next halter practice will be. Had planned to do it today but ended up too busy. Rachel asked how fitted the halters needed to be. I've found with other cats we've been able to train to a halter, if I can fit two fingers under the halter and it's just snug, that's perfect.

Sugar will be ready to try the leash the next time. Blueberry still needs to get used to the halter a little more before I freak her out with a long teal tail following her. And Rimsky just looks smug because he knows he doesn't need no stinkin' halter.

And the Halters Are On...

2006-05-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

for the moment. The halters stayed on for a couple of hours this afternoon. Sugar was much more adaptable (though not happy). But she did display some unusual, even for her, behavior.

I was on the back porch, sorting yarn from the guild meeting and Sugar slept on the black plastic garbage bag. That had to be HOT!

She only moved once. And that was when I moved her to get the rest of the yarn out of the bag. I think she's going to be fine. We'll try out the leash towards the end of the week. She does walk kind of funny, like she thinks she's going to fall over but at least she's not as weird as Blue.

Blue lowcrawled next to the walls and refused to come out to the porch. I finally just picked her up and took her out with me. She wasn't amused.

She crouched next to the cat door and as soon as she saw I was back working with the yarn, she was back thru the door and up on the cat tree.

We have one of those misting systems around the screened in porch. I thought for sure the cats would enjoy it, but no. Rimsky liked it but he doesn't have to wear a halter..

Also finished another DW washcloth. I'll post the pic tomorrow. I'm too lazy to get up and take a picture. Actually I only got about five hours of sleep last night because of the steroid increase. And I am tired!

And if you didn't make it to guild you missed a good time! We had about 25 people show up. Some of the regulars were feeling under the weather due to allergies - and we still had a good turnout. Four brand new knitters, two who learned last month and had come back, plus our regular group.

If you have never come to guild, come. Our programs are very interesting, we can teach you to knit, and we have a great time.

I Have a Dream

2006-05-18T20:30:00.000-05:00

I have always wanted to take the cats with us when we go on day trips or overnight or weekends just to get out of town. To take cats ANYWHERE (because they think "anywhere" just means the vet), they will have to be able to wear halters and be on leashes. Well, except Rimsky. He is way too old to take anywhere BUT the vet's.

So my new idea was to start getting Sugar and Blue used to wearing halters. As it just so happens, I have two halters that fit them perfectly, after some adjustments. Here is Sugar in her jaunty, purple, small dog size, halter.

Of course she didn't like it at first (not so sure she likes it now) but after some rolling, backing up, and finally giving up, she adapted and wore it without a problem about an hour.

We were going to wear it again today but for reasons I will soon be explaining, we will probably try it again on Saturday. It still needs a little tighening to fit her better but she was being so good I hated to mess much more with her. Next week we will be adding the leash.

And here is Blueberry.

Notice she is NOT wearing her lovely teal halter. She is rolling around after being chased all over the house and she apparently believes she has won.

Here she is laughing at Sugar (who is still wearing her halter, btw). I tried twice to get the halter on Blue. Both times it was too big and she zipped right out of it. Now she won't come near me. So we are waiting until I can calm her fears, i.e. fake her out, that the halter episode is a thing of the past and I can actually get close enough to touch her.

Yes, I know it's mean to try to fake out cats, but I really think once we get past the scary halter thing, the scary leash thing, the scary car thing, she will LOVE traveling. Yes, yes, hope springs eternal!

The steroids have kicked in with all their glorious vigor. I'm sleeping four hours a night and eating 90 times a day. Makes for a kind of foggy afternoon but as soon as I take my afternoon steroid I'm good till about 9 pm.

I'm about half way through the back of my side to side tee. Will post a pic when I get a little more done so you can see how it's turning out. And hopefully by Saturday I'll have pictures of a grey blur in a teal blur. I know they say you can't out-stubborn a cat but I'm hoping I can at least out-fake one.

Let Them Eat Cake!

2006-05-16T19:47:00.000-05:00

Today has been an interesting day to say the least! We had the second consultation this morning with the radiology oncologist for the Gamma Knife treatment. Everything ran right on time! So I go NO knitting done - can you believe it! So no photo content tonight. I don't know about you but I could go without seeing another one of those dishclothes.

This doctor is going to be gone on May 21st so they've moved my appt to June 1st with all assurances that the extra days will make no difference in the treatment. Still looking at an almost all day extravaganza but I'll have drugs and probably nap most of the day. She said I could bring knitting but why knit when in 24 hours I'll probably be tearing the whole thing out again anyway.

And about the cake - I haven't been able to eat cake in almost a year and a half. This may not seem like a big deal to most, but I LOVE cake. It's about my favorite comfort treat (right after vanilla ice cream which I haven't been able to eat for the same amount of time).

And it probably wasn't even real cake. We went to a Hunan Buffet where I was able to pick and choose quite a few items for dinner. Then I saw they had 1" lemon cake squares. So I tried one with some fake ice cream. AND I WAS ABLE TO EAT BOTH. I had three lemon squares and one chocolate square of cake plus 2 half bowls of fake ice cream! If I had know, I would never have filled up on regular food. Is God good or what!

So I told Jim he would have to start eating lunch there so he could bring a take home box of a few cake squares! He wasn't quite as excited about the prospect as I was but I'm sure I'll see cake once in a while now. And I just hope it tastes good every time. One of the problems I have with the steroids is flavors change from one time to the next. But at least I had cake tonight!

An Interesting Weekend

2006-05-14T19:48:00.000-05:00

I spent most of yesterday sorting through yarn for the guild. We have been gifted with so much! I wanted to put the thinner yarns together to make them easier to find. We have a ton of Paton's Canadiana, perfect for layettes. We also have some worsted weight for the larger hats. So it was kind of fun. I just like to organize things.

I also spent some time trying to figure out how to line my big felted tote bag. I had found a tote bag I'd made years ago (I sewed it - wow) and thought maybe I could adapt it to the felted tote. After ripping off the handles and doing some adjusting, I realize I could make it fit if I TOTALLY resewed it. Okay, that's not going to happen at this point in time. I was so disgusted I put both of them in the closet to be dealt with later!

Then today I ended up on the south side presenting a contract, then later doing some showings. I kept telling people it was Mother's Day but since I'm not a mother and we don't normally take this day off, working was okay.

Thought I'd show you the side to side tee shirt in progress. This yarn is called Santana and is a rayon, acrylic blend. I really like the way the colors change making it look striped. I'm just starting the neck shaping.

I took it out back to get a better light. I don't know if that helped or not. But here's a closer look at the color changes.

I added the reverse knit line for a little texture cause I thought just the color changes were boring. I think this is going to be very nice when finished. As it turns out, you make the back then the front, then sew the side seams. I had forgotten that.

Also, spent Friday at OU Medical Center, getting info on the Gamma Knife, which I'll tell you about in a second. But you know what you can do when you sit around waiting for drs all morning:

Does this look familar? Here's a close up of the colors:

This one is called Potpourri Ombre. I still have several balls of colors I haven't tried yet. I'm getting ready to knit and felt a little pouch JUST to carry one ball of cotton and the #8 addi circs.

Anyway, taking the items outdoors into the sun makes a difference I think. But it freaked the two little girls out. I was going out the screened porch door to take pictures and they just couldn't imagine that door opening.

Sugar is watching the cat door and Blue is sitting at the back door. They both sat there until I came in and closed the back door. Then they both went out the cat door. Cats are TOO strange.

So my big event, the Gamma Knife, is May 25th. I have to be there at 5:30 am!! The procedure takes about 6 - 8 hours of mostly waiting between each step. I saw the neuro-physicist on Friday and on Tues I meet with the radiology oncologist. These are the two people who will plan the right placement and doseage for the treatment. The one on Friday said I was an excellent candidate for this treatment and I have an 80 - 90% rate of complete removal of the tumors.

I also got to see the MRI's. The one when they thought they were mostly gone and the one from last week showing they were back. It was very interesting. They slice your head starting at the chin, then through your nose, then eyes, then the white and grey spots where the tumors are.

And the steroids have kicked in big time. Back to Olympic eating and puffy to the max. But my taste buds have come back (thank you steroids) so eating is not too bad.

Well, I'm off to work on my tee-shirt.

I Obviously Need A Better Plan

2006-05-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

than thinking socks could ward off tumors. Remember a couple of weeks ago I announced I was cancer-free. Well as it turns out. I am not. Those two little tumors in my head are back. And growing. And I'm not a happy camper in the least. This is starting to get old and is making me cranky. So tomorrow we go to OU Medical Center to find out about the Gamma Knife. And not just to find out about it but to get scheduled for it as soon as possible.

And what can you knit in two hours (that's how long we sat around at Mercy this morning)?:

What a surprise! It's another one of those darned dishclothes! This one is called Newport. Here is a close up:

The YI was out on the back porch hoping for another bird to accidently slip under the porch door so she pretty much ignored my picture taking. Early this afternoon, I noticed a little sparrow frantically trying to find its way out of the screened in porch. All three cats were glued in place as they waited for it to wear out and come down to a closer level. We herded them inside and Jim opened the screen door. That little bird was out like a flash. Of course the cats were also back on the porch in a flash, trying to figure out where their entertainment had gone.

So Sugar has been out there almost every moment since. Hope springs eternal, I guess. But I do have a picture of Blue. I had laid my prayer shawl on the bed (made for me by Tracy Terrell) and Blue discovered it. She burrowed in, turned around, and fell asleep. Here she is just waking up:

Seems like the only pictures I take of her are when she's just waking up. But when she's awake she won't hold still for a picture!

I've also been working on the side to side tee shirt but don't have enough done for a good picture. And of course tomorrow I'll be carrying yet another dishcloth just because it's good, mindless knitting.

And I'm thinking maybe I just need some more handmade socks...It couldn't hurt!

Thursday Again

2006-05-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

And I've made two more DW's. It's an addiction, a sickness, an easy, mindless two hour knit.

The dark one is "Jewels," the pink one is "Strawberry Cream." I finished one at Carolyn's yesterday. I have to start carrying my camera with me. She has a new puppy. He is just the cutest thing! He's a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.

And since this is the full extent of my knitting adventures, I thought I'd do the A-Z list.

Accent: Every so often, someone will ask if I’m from back east because of my accent. I say ‘ya’ll’ a lot, where do they get the back east accent?!?!?!

Booze: I don’t drink, haven’t in eons.

Chore I Hate: House cleaning but I can’t do it so we have a house cleaner come twice a month (chemical induced asthma – really!) I hate grocery shopping but Jim does that (and has since we’ve been married). I guess I don’t have a chore I hate.

Dog or Cat: Three cats – 14 yr old Rimsky, 6 yr old Blueberry, and 1 yr old Sugar.

Essential Electronics: Computer, PDA, Cell phone, Inhouse Wireless Internet, Cable Modem

Favorite Color: Purple, any shade

Gold or Silver: Mostly gold but I like silver once in a while.

Hometown: Tonasket, Washington

Inner Sanctum: Knitting, it is a real stress reliever.

Job Title: Knitting Realtor, Historic Homes Specialist.

Kids: Do the fur babies count?

Living arrangements: Hubby and three spoiled cats.

Most admirable trait: I don’t think I have one

Number of Places I’ve Lived: Five – Tonasket, Spokane, and Tacoma Wa; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; OKC, OK

Overnight hospital stays: Three - when I was seven to get my tonsils out, in Oct for my surgery, in Jan because of the head thing.

Phobias: Spiders

Quote: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknolwedge Him and He will direct your paths.” Prov 3:5,6

Religion: Full Gospel

Siblings: Three brothers and two sisters. Can you guess I’m the oldest?

Time I wake up: Around 7:30 am

Unusual talent or skill: Organizing, negotiating, delegating.

Vegetables I refuse to eat: Okra and lima beans

Worst habit: Impatience/bossiness

X-rays: Several. Broke my arm and then my hand when I was young. Have had several more over this last year.

Yummy foods I make: I used to make a wonderful cheesecake, pavlova, and crème brulee

Zest for Hobbies: Making up my own knitting patterns. If you can make a swatch you can rule the world (at least your knitting world).

Another DW Cloth

2006-04-30T22:25:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know this is getting old. This will be the last one for a while. The overall picture was fuzzy but here's a close up of the colors. It's Sugar and Cream - Sun Kissed Ombre:
I found a UFO and frogged it. I am designing a cuff to cuff tee-shirt with the yarn and I think I will like it much better. This is what the UFO looked like:

I found a pattern in my "The Ultimate Knitted Tee" book and I have a pattern I made a couple of years ago called "Melody Top" by Sweaterkits.com. I'm thinking between the two patterns it's only a matter of getting a gauge and redoing the numbers. So I am swatching right now to see what will work. Yes, I could follow either pattern but both call for size 6 needles and this yarn (Santana from Patternworks) really needs to be on size 8's.

And here is Sugar's latest perch. It's the top of my exercise bike. When Blueberry is too mean to her, she zips up to the top and clings to the handle. Here she is trying to get her balance and talking the whole time. Is it just me or does she look slightly psycho?

Anyway, once she gets her balance she is queen of all she surveys (until she gets down and Blueberry clobbers her):

And speaking of Blueberry, here is a picture of her on one of the porch chairs. She does look kind of crabby but I think it's because I just woke her up so I could take her picture.

And we went to a birthday party yesterday. The young man just turned one. It is so fun to watch a one year old whap his first birthday cake into pieces. Actually he just whapped it flat, got chocolate cake and icing everywhere and had a great time. Lucky for the rest of us, his mom had another cake for the guests. I had planned to take my camera so I could get some pictures to put up, but of course I forgot to even bring it. Perhaps Wayne has pictures on his blog.

It's been a busy week but the steroid reduction is going well. On Wednesday we drop to 2.5 ml.

I Can't Believe It's Thursday!

2006-04-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

This week has simply flown by. I've been working! And then napping...but busy nontheless (is that a word?).

And busy knitting also. I finished two more DW clothes. They are so fast to make, talk about instant gratification! I can make one in around two hours. They make a great carry along project. For Theresa and Rachel who asked for the pattern, here is the link. I use size 8 needles and cast on 3o stitches, keep the "knit 3 sts" on each end and follow the pattern.

Here are the two I just finished. The first one is in Peaches and Cream called Potpourri:

And a closeup of the colors:

The second one done in Peaches and Cream is called Butter Cream Ombre:

My picture to show you the whole thing turned out fuzzy so this is just a close up of the colors. I have about five or six more balls of different cotton to try. I just love how the colors works up.

And I got my secret project done. I've decided to share it with you because I really doubt the recipient reads this blog and if so, she may not figure out it's for her anyway. So what do you think this is? This is the front. (this reminds me of Cousin It from the old Addams Family show)

Here is the back. This should make it easy to figure out:

Yes! It IS a dust mitt. A knitted dust mitt. A labor intensive knitted dust mitt. I couldn't find a pattern so I created one and ended up putting on the front strands individually. I'd say the knitting took one evening and the strands have taken me several weeks! So if you want to make a knitted dust mitt, just let me know. I'm happy to share the pattern (like there's going to be a big run on making knitted dust mitts).

And I'll share my secret for making the stranding go much faster - Carolyn was watching me work on it and said "why don't you just do every other row?" Well DUH! Why don't I! And I got the rest of the stranding done in about two evenings.

I was going to end with pictures of the cats, but Blogger won't let me upload any more pictures so I'll post them next time.

Knitting and Other Interesting Things

2006-04-23T22:38:00.000-05:00

Knitty Committee was Saturday. We had a nice turn out. Tracy T. brought us some books and magazines to go through, which is always fun. And lots of great items being created around the table. Polly (with her back to me), Cheryl, Norma, Mildred and Gloria, and Janet (with her back to me also).
Janet, facing, Shelly, and across the table, Tracy and Dolores.

Here is Laura, Kathy, and Becky looking through the books and mags Tracy brought. Studiously avoiding me is Bette.

And I made another DW dishcloth while enjoying KC. This one is Sugar and Creme in Fairy Tale.

And I got a couple of premie slippers done. These are really small. And today I started another DW dishcloth at my open house. I always try to do some knitting at an open house.

And we managed to make it to church this morning too! What a busy weekend! And my apologies to Kay. The YI prefers to spend every spare moment out on the porch. It's enclosed so it's not like the cats get to wander around in the backyard. But they do get quality bird watching and interesting smells.

Kitty Kandy for Kay

2006-04-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

Sugar is a year old. We aren't sure of her exact birthday but we think is was the first of April sometime. Tonight we just decided her birthday could be April 1st, it seems to suit her! Tonight I had to drag her out of a sound sleep so she could help me look at yarn. It didn't take her long to get into the role of Yarn Inspector.

I was going through the cotton Polly gave me, picking out a pretty color to take to KC tomorrow. As you can see, the YI was making sure I picked something suitable.

She liked both of these variegates but I wanted something a little brighter.

She thought the pink was nice but it's not multicolored. She's giving me the LOOK. I'm pulling out a handful of balls so I can give you an idea of the different colors. And she knows she's next. I don't know why I make her get out of my yarn boxes. I'm sure it would be in her best interest to just leave the lid open and let her finish sampling the yarn.

The YI samples yarn to make sure it meets her high standards. As far as I can tell her standards include a) it's some kind of yarn b) to check good yarn you have to put it in your mouth c) an even better test is if you can carry it while running, especially if some human is running behind you yelling (probably cheering you on to see how fast you can go with a large ball of yarn in your mouth) d) try to do test b and c without a human around. Then you can check the yardage by unwinding the whole ball and suck your sister Blueberry in even though she doesn't really care for yarn. But she does love a good chase.

Here is a sample of the colors. Here is the YI thinking it's about time standard b went into effect.

Here they are a little closer and the colors are better. I am now watching the YI like a hawk as she has already tried standard b AND c while I was setting yarn out. Though I caught her before she got very far with standard c.

So at Knitty Committe tomorrow I'm working on another DW. They are my favorite dishclothes for multicolored yarn. I do have enough white to make several Kuper clothes (round, short row dishclothes) made famous by Cheryl Kuper who has probably knit a thousand of them.

And I found out today the reason I've been so sick the last few days is because I'm having adreneal insuffiency. Simply put, my body is not making enough steroid to keep me going. So the Dr boosted my intake for today and tomorrow I'm back on 7.5. I'll be at KC if I have to come and lay on the floor!

Some Actual Knitting

2006-04-20T15:42:00.000-05:00

I managed to fit some knitting into my busy schedule this week (my schedule consists of go to an appt, come home and nap, go to the next appt, come home and nap, leaves little time for knitting). Yesterday a good friend came by and we knitted and visited.

Polly Garvey, sweetie that she is, gave me a ton of cotton dishcloth yarn. So visiting and knitting yesterday I was able to complete one of my favorite dishclothes - yes you guessed it - the DW.

This particular color of Peaches and Cream Cotton is called "Gumdrop." Very spring-like and cheery. Here's a close-up:

I'm looking forward to making a lot of DW's. Most of the cotton yarn is verigated and some colors I simply have never seen. This is going to be great fun!

And my Emily scarf is done! I haven't blocked it yet but I did make a matching flower:

That's pretty washed out picture. Here is a close up of just the flower. Notice the beads in the middle. Makes a nice touch. I figure I can pin this to a hat and look very "together" -WooHoo!

I just love the way the scarf and flower turned out. Now I can get on to other things (not to mention the charity knitting I need to accomplish this month).

Thanks so much for all the good wishes on my great news. I appreciate you folks no end! You have no idea!

And The Answer Is...

2006-04-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

42!

Oh, wrong question.

Actually I got the results of my Pet scan this morning. Since I've shared every other milestone with you folks, I'm certainly going to share this -

THE ANSWER IS NEGATIVE! Cancer-free! Do you hear that? That's the sound dancing in the streets (okay, dancing in the house, well, happy wiggling in bed). My dr called early this morning to tell us the good news.

When I had the pet scan done, the tech decided to include my head when he found out about the tumors. Now here is what my dr said about that part of the the scan. He is, and I quote, "cautiously optomistic about the tumor. No metabolic activity was detected which means either the tumor is gone (which is what I think) or what's left of it is so small it's not showing up." I am CANCER-FREE! I'll still have to have the second MRI of my head next month but all that's going to show is no tumor.

So good news first thing today. Now I just need to get thru this steriod jaunt and I'm ready to get back to life!

My Emily scarf is almost done. I decided I needed to knit a matching flower to pin on a hat. I've been going thru patterns on the internet and in my books to find something I like. Isn't it funny how you can make a whole item but when you want an accessory it takes forever to find the perfect thing!

Well, I don't have much else for today. No kitty eye candy, no knitting to share, just some basic good news.

Recovering Emily (The Scarf, That is)

2006-04-15T21:55:00.000-05:00

We did one showing today and then I spent most of the afternoon working on my Emily scarf. The frogging the other day was so disheartening. I just hate frogging! But, while I didn't get it quite recovered to where it was, it's pretty darn close. I wanted you to see what it will look like on my hunter green coat. I personally think the color combo is stunning! The picture doesn't do it justice, the coat is really green and the scarf is much brighter!

And a close up. Of course I haven't blocked it yet, but it's going to be very nice.

I also have a small baby hat someone gave me for our charity knitting projects. I apologize for the fuzziness. Tonight has not been my night to take pictures.

And I don't know where the Yarn Inspector went. Usually she is so vigilant about checking out anything I'm photographing. As soon as she hears the camera turn on, she's usually right there. She must be sleeping someplace...no...she can hear a can of cat food being opened in the kitchen when she's on the back porch with the door closed. And these are cans where you just peel the lid off, kind of like sardines. Hmmm....makes you wonder.

And the update today is - not great. I don't understand but it seems just like clockwork, come Saturday and Sunday I don't feel anywhere near as good as the rest of the week. I had planned to clear out the piles of papers, knitting books and mags, and assorted stuff I've managed to accumultate around me here in the bedroom. I managed to get one stack of stuff put away before feeling dizzy. Really hoping I'll feel good enough to go to church tomorrow.

Have a Blessed Easter Holiday!

And The Week Winds Down

2006-04-13T20:27:00.000-05:00

Just in case you think I'm just laying around sleeping most of the time and listing a house or two in between naps, I thought I'd show you what I've been working on. Here is Beauregard modeling a premie cap. Yes, he is on top of the tv, the light was better.

The little pointy things on top of the hat are three dingles. I don't know what else to call them. I just like them and I put them on most of the baby and kid hats I make. For some reason I think a little kid or a baby just look cuter with dingles.

And the photo shoot was going just fine until Mom (Ms. Lana Lyn) decided Beau needed some directing. She was saying things like "Sit up straight, Look happier, Smile, etc" Beau was not very happy as you can tell by his expression. Nor was Mom when she realized he wasn't paying any attention to her.

Her intense little face says she'd like to climb right up to the top of the tv and SMACK him! But she couldn't, so she didn't but I did notice there was quite a little discussion going on later. I ignored it as I didn't want either one to think I was taking sides.

And I put almost EIGHT inches on my Emily scarf over the last couple of weeks. Here's what it looks like:

SIGH! Yes most of my inches are in that large pile of frogged spaghetti and my Emily scarf is back where it was when I started two weeks ago. I noticed an unfixable error right where I started. Oh, believe me, I worked and worked at trying to fix it without having to frog but in the end I realized I wouldn't be happy. Those eight inches were so pretty I'm just going to have to redo them. So the spaghetti has been rewound and Ms. Emily is back in her bag until I can bring myself to start again and be MUCH MORE CAREFUL!

So onto the Med update - Okay, going from 10 mg of steroid to zero was a mistake. My dr thought it might work, it was worth a shot. Hense, sleeping and feeling really, really crummy. So I'm back on 10mg until Friday. Then we go to 7.5, a week later to 5, the week after 2, the week after off.

I had an ultrasound yesterday (my dr was concerned about the swelling in my neck). It came back fine. And I finally had my Pet Scan done today. If you want to know a place NOT to got to have things done, email me privately and I'll be happy to tell you who and why. Won't know the results of the pet scan until Friday.

So now that I'm back on a higher dose of steroid, I feel better. I'm a little irritated my adrenal glands didn't even TRY to kick in but hopefully the more gradual taper will fool them into getting back to work.

One thing I have noticed (and no one else in the whole world would probably notice), I think my face is getting smaller! Well, my cheeks are not as tight, the splits on the inside have healed up, and I'm having trouble focusing my eyes. When I started to puff up, I had a couple of days where I had trouble focusing so I'm hoping this is the reverse process.

I'm off to try to get my little secret project finished so I can get it delivered.

Guild was Sunday

2006-04-10T23:23:00.000-05:00

And it was really good. Of course I forgot my camera but I noticed Kay taking pictures so hopefully she will post some pics on her blog or send me a couple to post on mine.

We had about 29 people come! And two brought their young daughters. One was making spool jewelry. She has promised me, if they come back next month, she wil bring me some examples of her finished work. The second young lady was knitting LACE! On double pointed needles! With crochet thread! What do you suppose she'll be knitting when she's in her teens...

Our program was done by yours truly on the importance of swatching, knowing your gauge or tension and knowing the secret formula so you can turn any sweater pattern into a pattern that not only fits you but also lets you use the needles and yarn you want. I think it was pretty good program.

Then we went around the room and found out what projects everyone was working on. This is always so inspiring! And we had three new knitters come to learn how to knit and we had someone who came last month and learned how, come back for a refresher.

We are always thrilled by these things!

Our charity projects continue. It looked like we had a handful of baby hats turned in so we are getting good start on our projects. I managed to make one and had another about half done but decided I didn't like the stitch pattern so, of course I frogged it and started over.

I was a little late for Guild as I had shown a house earlier in the day and then the buyers decided they wanted to make an offer on it. Not a problem. I was only about five minutes late.

But it has been really busy last week and this week looks like it will be the same. And today is day one of NO steriods. I'll probably be fine up until about Thursday, if the other decreases are any indication. Then I'll fight my way thru the weekend and hopefully will come out on the other side fine.

This has be no fun whatsoever but I've decided that unless I actually collapse, I'm not doing any steriods. I want to be done with this! And I'm feeling fine mentally, not very fuzzy at all today. Physically I'm not quite as good but I blame it on the steriods (I blame EVERYTHING on the steriods...If I get a knot in my yarn I blame it on the steriods...if one of the cats does something odd, it's the steriods...etc). I'd like to call it denial but really...it's the steriods!

12 Things

2006-04-08T23:33:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I haven't posted since Tuesday! I have been really busy with RE but the big thing is, if I do more than two things, I have to come home and nap. So rather than knit or bead or do something fun - I'm sleeping. Then today a number of new symptoms popped up and I slept most of the afternoon and evening (which explains why I'm doing this so late).

Since I have no pictures or even knitterly content I thought I'd share 12 things you may not know about me:

1. I DO NOT like chocolate! I can eat really good milk chocolate (like Godiva) provided its wrapped around a cream or caramel center.

2. I really like Snickers bars, Junior Mints, and M&M Peanuts (little chocolate, lots of other good stuff).

3. I can't stand lima beans, coffee, okra, or grits.

4. We lived for two years in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia (1986-1988)

5. We've been to Kenya, Iceland, Australia, Bangkok, Singapore, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Italy, Belgium, Holland, France, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt.

6. We got lost in little, tiny Luxemburg and circled the main square several times before finally figuring out what road actually let you leave town!

7. I was married once before for about 12 years - the last five he had a girlfriend.

8. Jim and I met via the computer back before there was an internet and only geeks had computers - lol. I wouldn't do that now!

9. He was in OKC, I was in Tacoma Wa. A year after our intial meeting we were married.

10. I was a computer programmer.

11. I have started at least two small businesses and dropped them as soon as they became successful.

12. I've been in real estate longer than any other career field (but then, this is where I'm supposed to be right now).

Busy, Busy Day

2006-04-04T21:44:00.000-05:00

Well, day two of the half dose of steroids. I have some side effects but mostly I feel fine, except my knees are very weak. In fact, I can't climb even a small step without a little help. This better change pretty quick is all I can say. I almost fell twice today because I couldn't get my knees to bend correctly. Well, they bend but they have no strength to straighten back up.

The season of the house is upon us. I had two listing appointments today, one on Thursday and one on Friday. This is typically the time of year to buy and sell and it's getting brisk. And I am not complaining. I love helping people either get the right house or get the right price for their house. It's a career field I would never have chosen but it was chosen for me and God has blessed me in it. It is the only service area I know where you can make a huge difference to benefit people. And since I work mainly by referral, I spend little time talking to people I don't know.

And I have been knitting. Put a couple of lace repeats on my Emily scarf. About half done with my little secret project and want to get a premie layette done before Guild so I can get it turned in. I still have to do my homework for Guild. This meeting is going to be so much fun and so informative - I can hardly wait.

Well, It's About Time!

2006-04-02T21:51:00.000-05:00

Today has been wonderful day! We went to this church for the second Sunday in a row and really enjoyed it. And surprise - Wayne and Kathy were visiting there too! So we had lunch together and had a great visit. And I have a chaste tree coming...., so Wayne was checking out the backyard to see where it should go and when he came back in he asked us if we had any bats in our bat house.

Bat house? Bat house? It seems the box on the fence is a bat house (okay, I thought it was something like a toad house until Wayne pointed out that toad would really have to JUMP to get into it). We've never seen any bats (or toads, for that matter) around it but we aren't usually out on the patio at dusk. I'd like a bat or two to move in. Wayne says they eat three times their weight in mosquitoes every night. So we need to entice bats. Guess I'll have to ask Wayne how to do that.

And then, I spent the afternoon beading! I haven't felt this good in over a week.

I apologize for the picture quality. It's hard to get a good picture of beaded items. From the top, a faux turquoise bracelet, a faux turquoise stretch bracelet, a glass bead bracelet, a watch I am experimenting with, and two pairs of art bead earrings. Here's a little better picture of the bracelets.

I'm still really shakey so it took almost two hours to get the bottom two finished. I was twanging jump rings all over the kitchen!

And lest you think I've had no knitterly endeavors, here is a scout master hat in Boy Scout Red I made for a friend who is - tada - a scout master.

I'm also working on another project but since I don't know if she reads this or not, I'm keeping it under wraps until I give it to her. Then I'll post pictures.

Med Update-MRI was Thursday. Great report. The smaller tumor is gone. The larger one has shrunk considerable, and the brain swelling is almost gone too. No other signs of cancer activity, so the radiation did its job. I have another MRI scheduled in two months to be sure the first tumor is gone. If it's not, then we talk about the Gamma Knife but I think the tumor will be gone and I'll be able to get on with my life. I have things to do and people to annoy!

I still have to have a PET scan, probably some time the end of this month. This is the one where they inject you with some kind of sugar (it might be glucose, I can't remember at the moment), then check from the neck down to be sure there are no other signs of cancer in your body. Again, I expect this to come back clean too.

And the steroids. This is the fun part. On Tuesday my doctor put me on Prednesone. The same amount of cortisteriod my body is suppose to normally produce. I was not bad for for a couple of days, then I felt awful. Spent most of Friday and Saturday in bed. And tomorrow, when I check in with him, his plan is to cut the dosage in half and by the week after be off the meds entirely. I expect this next week will be quite interesting.

Short Post

2006-03-28T21:13:00.000-06:00

Just a short post to let you know I'm still around but the steroid changes are taking their toll. Today was the first day on prednisone at a dose my body is suppose to produce naturally. After the heavy duty steroids, the lessor dose has left me a little shaky, weak in the knees, and very tired.

So it will probably be a few days before I post again. I'm still around but will need time to get my act back together.

Thanks for your prayers and support!

Knitty Committee

2006-03-25T19:37:00.000-06:00

And I took the camera and forgot to take pictures! We had a wonderful turn out today! Around 20 or more. And so great, several women with their daughters or daughter-in-laws came. It's so fantastic to see the next generation picking up the sticks! Cecelia, the lady from the real estate class, also came with her daughter. People were knitting the most amazing things. Becky was working on an alpaca lace scarf that was to die for (you'll just have to take my word on this - I didn't even THINK about the camera), Dolores was working on a gorgeous multicolored baby blanket. Bette had a sock going, Carolyn had a dainty enterlac baby blanket in blue and white, Amanda was ripping out a fun fur hat, Kathy was working on a baby blanket, Abby was learning to knit and Terri M. was working on knitting and PURLING, and that was just my end of the table. I didn't make it down to the other end to see what all kinds of great things were being made!

But I did take some pictures when I got home. The most wonderful thing happened near the end of our time. My dear friend Bette slipped in behind me and gave me the most wonderful pair of socks! I love socks...well I love Bette more! We been friends over 10 years now.

At any rate, Bette made me my very first pair of socks over seven years ago! She brought them to one of my first open houses. I have babied those socks, handwashed them, seldom wore them for fear of wearing them out. Here is the first pair of socks I ever had, made by Bette:

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Beauregard thinks Ms. Lana Lynn, his mom, is too boring. So he had decided if a certain cat can pose with yarn, he can too. He also somehow managed to get a look at Rachel's penguin and hasn't been the same since. I'm thinking we may be seeing lot of him.

And here are the socks I got today:

Aren't they gorgeous! And they fit perfectly! I don't know how sock knitters do this. I think it's pure magic! My next thing to buy are shoes to show off my socks! I know I go a little bonkers over socks but you have to remember - I WILL NEVER MAKE SOCKS! So in my little world, socks equal love and support in a way nothing else does.

And watch out for this little guy! He has an attitude that just won't quit. He's sulking because I didn't let him sit on my foot when I took the sock pictures.

The steroid story continues to ebb and flow. Yesterday I was on 1 1/2 today I am cutting back to one and will probably do the same tomorrow. Shelly told me the reason steroids are such a pain is, and I quote:

"The reason it is so difficult to come off of steroids is that your own adrenal glands make cortisol for your body. When you take corticosteroids your adrenal glands just take a vacation and totally quit producing cortisol. Then as the dosage is lowered, your adrenal glands are frequently sluggish to wake up again and start producing your natural cortisol. When you aren't taking a sufficient replacement dose of steroids and when your adrenal glands are still vacationing....that's when the big problems hit! Sometimes it takes a few dosage lowering attempts before the adrenal glands get the hint that it is time for them to get back on the stick and get to work!"

WHO KNEW! She and I are both dealing with steroid reduction and it is not pleasant! But it has to be done and I see no other way than to just fight though it. So we both are! Keep us in your prayers!

And thanks for all your support! It means more to me than you could ever realize!

SNOW!

2006-03-23T20:18:00.000-06:00

We had a real estate continuing ed class this morning and as we left the house I had Jim take a picture of the front. We got a little bit of snow overnight!

But by the time we got home about 1 pm. It was all gone, sun was out and the snow had melted off completely. But at least I have a picture to prove it was there.

And at the class (which was about 1031 exchanges - what an interesting way to handle investments and not pay capital gains!), I noticed a lady up one and over one table pull out a sock to work on! Well I managed to contain myself until the class was over, but you know I was right over there before she had a chance to even get up. I think I surprised her. I asked her if I'd seen a sock pop out of her bag and she said yes and I told her about guild and about the groups that meet and she was very excited! I invited her to KC on Saturday and will be emailing her links to all the different groups and such including the Guild. Another knitting Realtor - what fun!

As for updates, I had pretty good day today. Went to class, came home, went to bed for a little while. I get really tired and my knees just kind of give out. But managed to work a bit and make dinner, and still feel pretty good.

And now I'm going to work on my Emily scarf cause I actually have a bit of focus tonight.

Finished Baby Sweater

2006-03-22T08:37:00.000-06:00

All I managed to do yesterday was finish the green baby sweater. It did turn out cute and I was so happy to find buttons that matched it so well!

And here is the finished felted marktet basket. Now I have three. This one is really a good size and will probably become my default tote bag. I'm trying to decide if I should line it or not (not that I sew) but for sure will put something in the bottom to keep the shape.

And after feeling so good over the weekend, the dr had cut me back to one steroid a day on Monday. By noon I had a hit a wall. Bruises just showed up on my legs and I felt awful. So now I'm on one and a half sterioids a day. But my NOSE has shrunk back to it's normal size! Is that weird or what! I wish I could get other face parts to shrink!

Today was a pretty good day. What a difference 1/2 a steroid makes. Shelly said it was tricky coming of them and I can see that. Just don't understand it.

I'm back laying down, have a couple of projects I want to start so will do some swatching while lying around. And Knitty Committee is Saturday!

And I Forgot My Camera!

2006-03-20T22:08:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was the Metro OKC Knit Guild's first meeting at the Belle Isle Library. What a great group. We had over 20 people attend, picked some charity knitting projects, had a great special speaker talk about socks, and then had a swap meet. It was really fun. And thank goodness for Kay, she has pictures up!

And I was busy the whole weekend getting stuff together so didn't get a chance to post until now. I finished the first baby sweater. Gee, it only need the front band and buttons!

And I have the green one yet to put the band on. But it's the same. And will take me all of an hour to finish up.

Also thought I'd share my lastest knit boob. I'm still making these out of cotton. But at Guild during the swap meet, Anita gave me some chenille that will be fun to try.

These look like knitted hocky pucks to me for some reason. I have yet to branch out and try these in anything but cotton. I can make one of these in about an hour. So trying the chenille will be a pleasant change.

And for a really fun read, go see Rachel's post. The penguin is so cute and the sweater is so cute and the post is so cute!

And good news all the way around health-wise. Saw my heart dr today. My heart function is up to 45-50. I have my last echo test in two months. He's sure the valve will not leak, the heart will back where it needs to be and everything will be fine. So a good report!

Also talked to my Oncologist. We are now doing ONE steroid a day. On Monday the plan is to switch to Predesone and then be off of it in two weeks. WOW! But I'm feeling pretty good. My energy level is hanging in there. I can go longer without eating (about THREE hours now) and today my knees didn't hurt.

So good news all the way around.

You've Got Mail!

2006-03-17T20:34:00.000-06:00

And look what arrived on my doorstep THIS afternoon:

Oh My Gosh! It's a package from Theresa, knitter extraordinaire! I have SOCKS! Divine smelling soap, a pretty sachet, the cutest little wooden daisy, Rhode Island Lip Balm, notecards, and did I mention SOCKS! Guess who else thought this was a great package:

She really liked the soap and the sachet. I was watching her quite closely for fear she would try to run off with a sock but she really wanted the sachet! Go figure. Like she has some cat's pajama's to protect from moths!

And the socks fit perfectly (ever notice I seem to have this "tail" in every picture)

I love this package! Thank you so much Theresa!! (and for the rest of you naysayers, whining for socks cause I had to go thru radiation treatment is working and I DON'T feel the least bit guilty!)

Don't forget, in my world, handknit socks are like the greatest gift a person can get because I think they are little miracles!

Friends, Ya Gotta Have Friends!

2006-03-16T23:39:00.000-06:00

It has been a rather long day. Cutting the steroids has caused more muscle weakness and I actually have felt sick more than once today. And I had to have a heart echo test to be sure the muscles were working correctly and I have a leaky valve. I'll find out more on Monday when I go talk to my heart doctor.

So we are coming home and there is a box on the welcome mat. And look who it is - Ms. Lana Lynn and her baby Beauregard:

Are they not the cutest things! Look at the wisdom in those eyes. They are super soft and snuggly and they make me smile everytime I look at them.

And they came to me by way of my good friend Terri who saw them and thought they needed to live with me. Thank you so much Terri. I just love them. Beauregard is a little worried about the cats but so far the cats have ignored him. That's because I finished the cat toys.

They may not look like much, but I wore out three cats with these before I took the pictures. I put a nice amount of catnip in all three. I was going to take pictures of the cats playing with them, but blurs do not look all that great on film.

I also spent some time putting more lace repeats on my Emily scarf. But then realized I was a stitch short. So ended up pulling out everything I did. This is a very simple lace pattern and I'm having trouble counting it! This tells me I need to be working on something else because even an easy counting pattern is going to be too hard right now.

So I'm making another knitted boob. No counting cause I use markers. Just plain knitting. Pictures tomorrow.

Toe-ectomy

2006-03-15T20:53:00.000-06:00

And the fuzzy feet are done! We did have to do a toe-ectomy. When I calculated the length of the instep I obviously did not do it correctly (but at least I was consistant, I did it to both slippers). Both sides were a about 3" too long. But after snipping off the unneeded toes and sewing them shut, I give you FUZZY FEET FINISHED!

For some reason I had a hard time getting a good picture of them. Here they are on the hoof. Jim really likes them (square toes and all).

Don't you think the square toes are just too cute! They will take a couple of days to dry and then I'll put the puff paint on the soles. And everytime the temperature drops below, say 50 degrees, I'll suggest maybe someone needs to wear his fuzzy feet so his feet won't get cold.

And the toe-ecs. Sugar will get two more toys out of this. I had put one on her head to see if she needed a hat but she wasn't as keen on the hat thing as I was on her wearing it. So toys it is.

Med Update - dr cut me back to 1/1 steroids today. Only real change I've noticed is I get so tired I just kind of crash. And not a blood sugar thing either (I know this because I now eat about every hour whether I need to or not to try to regain some energy). He is still shooting for Monday to have me on Prednesone. I have extreme weakness in my legs but not enough to keep from listing a house in Blanchard USA today.

Hope everyone had a Wonderful Wednesday!

Fuzzy Feet! Fuzzy Feet! We Have Felted Fuzzy Feet!

2006-03-14T21:21:00.000-06:00

But first - this afternoon I started putting together a box of acrylic yarn for the charity knitting projects for Guild. As I filled the box, I got a little help from my friend.

She climbed into the corner of the box and refused to move. I piled yarn around her. She just sat there. You can't see it, but her face is covered in yarn lint.

And just when I thought she might want to get out - oh noo, she decides to help me arrange the yarn in the box!

So I guess she isn't a total yarn snob. She was just checking to make sure this particular ball of yarn is a good one for our charity knitting.

Now onto fuzzy feet- a before picture of the fuzzy feet. They are a trifle big.

And after felting, they are still a trifle large. But the heel fits perfectly. So the plan is to let them dry a bit, do some molding on them tomorrow and a bit of create surgery on the toes if need be. These felted up very dense. They are gonna be WARM!

I got some puff paint to put on the bottoms, in hopes of slowing the wear. I'm thinking now that leather half soles might be a better idea.

So this was fun. Felting IS magic! But I think that's all for now, since I've felted everything I'd planned to felt. The market tote is still damp, as is Sugar's toy. I'm hoping I can take the market tote to Guild. But it's got a little wave on one side so I think I'm going to get out my steamer tomorrow and see if I can get it to lay down a little.

I had a close friend come by for lunch today and a nice visit. It is so much fun to get to spend time with people you really care about. She and I haven't had a chance to visit in ages and I'm hoping we can carve out more time in the not too distant future.

And the update - Not a bad day, my knees have been kind of sore all day but not extreme. I don't notice any difference with the steroid reduction today since my knees hurt periodically anyway. I'm really ready to be off the steroids!!

Let The Felting Begin!

2006-03-13T22:43:00.000-06:00

So tonight I decided to felt the tote bag. It was so huge and I was really curious as to how much it would felt down. Remember this little photo from last night:

Well, look at it now:

Yes, it's still much bigger than I expected, but I really like how it turned out! The size is market bag and the homespun color is really pretty. I discovered I have quite a bit of roving I dyed a long time ago, just waiting to be spun up. So eventually I plan to make more totes. This is too fun!

And yes that IS the YI's tail. Want to see what she's doing?

She is laying on her wet toy! Are cats crazy or what? Anyway, when this dry I'm going to roll it up "won ton" style, sew it together and see what she thinks.

Tomorrow night we felt fuzzy feet. Yes, now that the weather has become balmy and spring-like, I am finishing the slippers.

Med update - saw my dr today. I was planning on increasing my steroid doseage cause I felt so rotten. But he has cut me back to 1/1/1. Then I call him on Wednesday and tell him how I'm doing and he plans to cut me back to 1/1. Then he thinks I'll be on prednisone by next week. He thinks I'm making great progress and really wants me off the steroids.

So unless I have some major reaction, I'm just going to have to fight my through the steroid thing. I did decide to take Rebecca's advice and am eating a yorgurt every day. The mouth sores are much better (the dr had given me some drugs to help get rid of them) and I am rinsing with a baking soda rinse several times a day. But really mouth sores are the least of my problems. I'm still eating every two hours because I'm HUNGRY! And I've managed to gain about 10 lbs mostly in my face!

This too shall pass. Eventually things will get back to normal. And Guild is Sunday!

Preparing For A Felting Marathon!

2006-03-12T20:56:00.000-06:00

So here is what I did MOST of the day:

I sewed this together. It took me ALL day. Doesn't it look like a nice size tote bag. This is my handspun I dyed with easter egg dye.

Here is Sugar sitting on it. Does this give you an idea of the size of it yet? She weights more than 8 lbs, she is not a small cat.

Here it is next to my enterlac bag! IT IS HUGE! What size will it actually felt down to? I love felting, it's so much fun. But I'm kind of wondering if maybe I got a little carried away with the tote.

At any rate, the felting will probably start tomorrow or the next day, depending on how I feel.

Med update - this has been a really hard weekend. The steroid reduction has brought on mood swings. I have never had mood swings before and am having a bit of trouble coping. Plus my left side decided to take yesterday and today off so I'm back to being kind of unsteady on my feet. At one point today I thought maybe I should go ahead and up the steroid but decided to wait. Tomorrow I see my dr and find out if we're on the right path or not.

In the meantime, I'm laying around, sewing up projects to be felted.

I-35 - NORMAN!

2006-03-10T20:49:00.000-06:00

What a great time we had last night! Great group of ladies, lots of inspiring projects, lots of laughter - just a really fun time! I actually didn't take these pictures. I sat down at one end of the table and didn't move all evening. I fully expected to get to this end of the table but got so caught up in the laughter and visiting at the other end, I just didn't make it.

So I asked Kay to take some pics for me.

Sweet Shelly with her chubby cheeks.

And my end of the table. You can barely see me working on my I-cord. This is Rebecca, Rosemary, Janell, and Angeli.

Angeli had a great idea for my felted bag. She suggested I get a nice button and and just make an I-cord closure for it. So the felting marathon will wait yet one more day cause I have to make MORE I-Cord.

And NO fiber hangover! I have spent a the day on Tylenal because my knees hurt but I listed a house today. And didn't even go back to bed until about 6:30 pm.

Going to Norman was a real energizer. Even Jim commented on how I didn't seem tired at all at 10 pm.

Short Post Today

2006-03-09T15:50:00.000-06:00

I tried to get on blogger last night to post but it insisted the page could not be found. So I finally agreed with it and gave up.

And this will just be a short post since Emily, Polly Garvey, and I are going to go down to Norman tonight and join the Norman Sit N Stitch knit together. Really looking forward to this! This is such a nice group of ladies, okay, kind of rowdy - you know, typical knitters!

Today my company had it's yearly awards banquet. Yes I went. Yes, I won an award. Yes, God has blessed me so much! I had been concerned last year about falling behind and then at the end of the year, we had several properties sell and I didn't fall back at all. Now, mind you, I didn't do any better, but I am just thrilled that through out all this we stayed in the same place!

And the mouth and throat sores have kicked in with a vengence, caused by the radiation. Everything has to be bland, bland, bland. Jim has bought all the white soup he could find! He will be making a big batch of tapioca pudding (with stevia since I can't do any other sugars) tonight and stocking up on potatoes (mashed, a little butter, no salt). All the info I can find says I'm looking at 6 to 8 WEEKS of this! YEEK!

It is the first thing that I've run up against that is making me honestly CRABBY! I'm trying hard not to share my delightful personality right now, cause it certainly isn't anyone's fault.

On a much more positive note - while the steroid reduction hasn't helped my pilsbury doughboy face, it appears to be helping in other places. I can feel the floor with my left foot! This is major! I haven't felt anything with my left leg or foot for months! Very happy about that. Have noticed twinges and prickles in my left leg also. This is really good. Like the brain impulses are trying to get through.

So I will leave you with a little kitty candy. And know I plan to have a fiber hangover tomorrow - Yeah BABY!
How did that gray roving end up in the hutch?

Oh, it's Miss Blue trying to find a quiet little place to hang out!

My Emily Scarf

2006-03-07T21:58:00.000-06:00

So I finally found a lace pattern I like for my Emily yarn (thanks Rosemary, now I'm naming YARN -LOL)
Isn't this gorgeous! When finished and blocked, I'll take a picture of it on the coat. This is the yarn Emily brought me when I was in the hospital. She had some very wise words for me when she came to visit - "Knitters," she said, "do not bring flowers to other knitters in a hospital. Knitters bring YARN!"

This yarn is called Holly Hock. It is made by Malabrigo out of Uruguay and is kettle dyed pure merino wool. It is so soft and wonderful to knit with, very easy on the hands. One skein is 215 yards and will make this most beautiful scarf.

Now, can anyone see the really stupid thing I did with this? Yes, I took a lace pattern OFF THE NEEDLES TO PHOTOGRAPH IT!!! When I went to put it back on the needles, I find I'm missing a couple of YO's. Hmmm....hopefully will not have to pull out too much to get back into the flow.

And am almost finished with the little tote bag. Just need to finish the second side, i-cord some handles and sew it all together. I have this huge felting marathon planned. I also am trying to decide whether to make a felted flower for my enterlac bag as a closure. I had put a big snap on it, but it still wasn't staying closed the way I wanted it so I'm thinking about making a tab closure with a flower on it.

Med Update - Have cut the steroids back to 2/1/1. But couldn't sleep again last night. I don't know if this is a function of the steroids or the radiation sickness or what. But getting up around 3:30 am to start the day is just a TAD early in my opinion - lol!

Shelly, what's your experience with this? Is this steroids or something else?

And for you gardeners, I was able to help Wayne on his blog. So keep checking in over there and encourage him to keep going.

Monday, Monday - Updated

2006-03-06T09:04:00.000-06:00

Hope you all had a chance to check out Wayne's blog. I know we will all really benefit from having an actual expert to talk to about gardening!

And I spent some time working today! What a surprise - LOL! The Dr cut back my steroid dose and I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works out. But more energy today even working - things are looking up!

Just a short post. I'm trying to get another tote bag finished so I can felt the Fuzzy Feet, Sugar's toy, and this tote bag all at once.

Also spent some time trying a couple of stitch patterns on the Emily yarn. That yarn is so pretty I want to find just the right pattern to show it off! I plan to make a scarf with it. I have a hunter green wool winter coat and that mulberry color is going to just pop! But no pics as yet, nothing really to show for it.

+++++++++++

Wayne did get this blog up last night! Wander over and say Hi! He is a master gardener and a great source of information on growing things in OK. All you gardeners are in for a real treat!

Okay, he does tend to stream of consciousness but I think it's because of all the years wandering around out in the OK sun - LOL!

And he used to KNIT!!! In high school! Now his wife, Kathy, knits. She's super too! Anyway, check out his blog, he has a keen, dry sense of humor and is very enjoyable to read.

I also have started another web journal. I haven't done much more than just get it set up so don't expect to much at the moment. But I have plans....

Gourmet Yarn Knit In

2006-03-05T19:09:00.000-06:00

What a great time we had yesterday! Gourmet Yarn has a monthly knit in (1st Saturday of every month from 4pm to 8pm) and thiswas a full house! Must have been at least 20 knitters or crocheters there! And rowdy! OH MY GOSH! The energy in this room could light Seattle for a week!
This is only one quarter of the room. But you can see we are all being very industrious. And as you can see, I didn't take this picture. I was up and wandering around and forgot to get ANY room pictures! So I borrowed this one from Kay!

This is Shelly and I - the founders of the Chubby Cheeks Club - Yeah Baby - Steroids! Don't we have fat cute round little faces. Shelly told me she wants to get a wonder cheek bra to keep hers in place - LOL! I don't need a cheek bra, mine are so fat and tight they aren't going anywhere!

And this was originally suppose to be the CCC but I see some kind of thin cheeks in this crowd! Across the back, Emily, me, Kay, in front Shelly and Rosemary.

Speaking of Kay and Rosemary - look at this:

I have new socks! Aren't they beautiful! These are my RosyKay socks (Rosemary names all her socks so I'm following suit)! And I DO NOT CARE what anyone says about guilting people into making me socks - I love handknit socks! Hand knit socks say love in a way that is beyond compare!

It turns out Kay got the yarn and Rosemary made the socks. And I've been wearing them today because I haven't felt as good as I could. And I LOVE MY SOCKS! Then I realized I'd seen them on Rosemary's blog. Didn't even dawn on me...

Yesterday was great! Got to meet some of the ladies from the Norman Sit n Stitch. It's always nice to put names to faces. It was great they could up for the Knit In! And it sounds like some of them will be able to come to Guild.

As for today - well, I may have overdid it a little yesterday. I got home about 7pm last night, ate some dinner and fell asleep! Woke up about 1pm and then it was up and down all night with pain in places I haven't had feeling in. This is a good/bad situation - heheh. Good to feel something, bad to feel something so much it keeps you awake. Spent the majority of today laying down but really can't complain too much. Feeling pain means no numbness in those areas.

And tomorrow I get to find out how much to decrease the steroid dose. Another good thing.

And one final fun announcement. I have a friend who is a master gardener, knows the culture of horts, and is a very funny writer who I am trying to encourage to start his own blog. The only problem is he is scared of knitters (okay, he's scared of clowns first and then knitters but I think telling a knitter than is pretty stupid!) I'm not sure how to encourage him any harder so if you have suggestions, please let me know.

Oh and on the personality test thing, less than 3% of the population has my personality type. I thought that would make you all feel a little better - LOL!