News

Thanks everyone for sympathizing with me on my bad week. Knock on wood, everything has been going just fine since then.

I do have to add that the potato soup that I was making when I got the vertigo turned out HORRIBLE! I know I missed adding celery, but I must have missed something else also. I just can't think what it was. I forced myself to eat 2 bowls before I made the decision to dump it. Honest, it was bad!!

On a lighter note, I wearing my sweater today that I finished knitting about a week ago. I still have to sew on 2 buttons, but I need smaller black reinforcing buttons to go on the back side. I only had 5, so I have to go buy some more. I have 3/4 length sleeves on my shirt and then the sweater over the top. The sweater is made of wool, but I'm amazed that it's not itchy. It was very nice and comfy on my walk into the voting precinct this morning. I have 4 1/2 skeins left, but not sure what I'm going to do with it. I need to get a new picture of it finished.

This is just not my week! (A.K.A my time to whine)

This has been the week from hell for me. Healthwise anyway. I hope when they say that bad news comes in 3's that it applies to your health also. Cause if so then, I done!

On Tuesday, I woke up with a migraine. But you know I never want to admit that it's a migraine. Instead I got up and took 2 Tylenol and went back to bed. No surprise when I wake up an hour later and it's worse. So I finally admit, yep its a migraine. Then I remember that I have new meds, guess I'll see how they work.

When I went to the Dr. last time, I took in my old prescription for Fioricet. I just knew when he saw the label he was going to yell at me. They were slightly expired; as in 2001. Wow I actually heard you gasp at that. Anyway he took one look at it and said yeah he'd renew it since it probably wasn't doing me much good anyway. I said I usually take one and go to sleep; works great. To which he replied "We call that the Placebo affect." And boy he wasn't kidding. I took the new med and went back to bed. Slept for an hour before I woke up because my hand had gone to sleep. Don't think I move at all after I fell asleep, since my hand was still tucked up under my chin. Of course then I couldn't go back to sleep. The fan was on low and on low it rattles. So I turned it up; now it's humming annoyingly. Then the cats see me move and decide if I can move I can feed them. Hungry gluttons, there were still a few nibbles in the bottom of their bowls. I really should have tried harder to ignore these things, but no I discovered that my headache was gone so I might as well get up. The meds might have killed the headache but it blanketed the rest of my brain with a major fog. It felt like it took me 5 seconds to blink! I actually thought to myself a few times when I blinked "Ok you can open your eyes now." I got to work and my bossed asked if I should be driving. I laughed and replied "too late for that now." We had a 10am meeting scheduled and I figured it would be a major pain to reschedule (since I had all the info). I made it through the meeting, but ended up taking an hour nap in my car at 1:30 for lunch. By then it was only taking me 2 seconds to blink. Big improvement! Needless to say, I went to bed 2 hours early that night.

On Wednesday night after work, I went to dinner at El Paraiso's (little mexican Mercado /restaurant downtown). They have $1 tacos on Wednesday. YUM!! As I was getting back in my car (it was facing into the wind), the high winds that we had been having all day gusted and blew my door closed. Or well it tried to, but I was in the way. The top of the door hit be in the nose and the top of my lip. Saw stars! Luckily for me it didn't swell and I didn't get a nose bleed. However my nose has been so sore ever since. I can usually ignore it. Except for those times when my nose itches and I forget and rub at it. Then OUCH.

Last night started out pretty well. I talked with McKelle for a while. Just chatting, I hadn't touched base with her in a while. Life just gets in the way you know. I decided it was cold enough out to warrant a nice hot pot of potato soup. I know sounds good doesn't it. I was cutting up the potatoes when I started to feel a little shaky. Ahh I thought, my sugar must be low. So I drank some grapefruit juice and had a Chex Mix Bar. Felt a little better, so I didn't think much of it. The potatoes where boiling when I decided to look in the cupboard the lid for the pot. When I bent over the world started spinning. Damn, it wasn't my sugar at all, it was Vertigo! Crap Crap Crap!! I had plans for the night! So there I was trying to hold my head still so I could finish the soup, I needed it for lunch on Friday also, when my mom called. She asked how I was doing and I said that I was royally pissed. Why I whined? Because I'm in the middle of making the soup and I feel like I'm gonna hurl if I don't lay down. I obviously wasn't thinking to straight. She calmly says "So turn off the stove, put the lid on the pot and go to bed." Damn why didn't I think of that?!? So I did. It took a while but I finally got situated on the bed so that the world stopped spinning and my stomach decided it wouldn't empty itself. I slept for 2 hours, then got up to finish the soup. The world was still spinning, so I just added my diced ham, the can of soup and some milk. Gave it a perfunctory swirl to mix everything and stuck it in the fridge. Luckily the vertigo was gone this morning, but I'm so totally exhausted. It's hard to get a good rest when every time I tried to roll to my side I would jerk awake so that I could stop myself. Laying on my side might be my preferred way to sleep, but it plays hell with vertigo. Tonight I get to get the "soup" out of the fridge and see how it turned out.

So glad this week is over with. Hopefully things will be better next week.

Dart for the Arts 5K Results

I participated in the Elkhart Dart for the Arts 5K on Saturday morning. All proceeds raised went towards the Lerner Theater Project.

Kelly and I went over on Friday night to pick up our pre-registered packets, which included our numbers, map, T-shirt, a pen, hand sanitizer and a packet of Light Multi-Grain English Muffins. I thought getting the muffins was kind of cool! (Gonna have one for breakfast tomorrow, because I was too brain dead this morning to think of it.) It was really fun talking to Kelly about what to expect in the race on the way over.

We got to the race around 7:15 and met up with Susan (who was entering also) and Rachel. Rachel got to knit while we were racing and I don't think that was fair. I know a 5K is about 3.3 miles, but let me tell you when its your first 5K ever, it's a lot longer than you realize. We wound our way around Elkhart's Riverwalk area. I think we crossed bridges over the river at least 4 times.

Walking on the treadmill is not a true indication of how fast you will walk. The treadmill moves you along and not necessarily at your own pace either. Based on my time on the treadmill, I estimated that I would finish somewhere between 45-60 minutes. My finishing time was 52 mins 34 secs, which I am satisfied with for my first attempt. My overall ranking was 116 out of 119 finishers. The timing guy said that 161 people had registered for the race, so I should say 116 out of 161, but well that doesn't seem right.

As you can see from my ranking, I was not the last person to cross the finish line. I was pretty bummed when I realized I had fallen to the back of the pack. There were 3 ladies ahead of me, then me, then the guy on the scooter who brought up the rear. The scooter guy told us as we hit the second turn from the end, that it was time to sprint from here. I said yeah right. He said he was game, to which I replied "get off the scooter and we'll see." Sorry, I was tired. He didn't want to do that, because he said he didn't think he would be able to do a 5K. Anyway, as we came around the last corner I decided to run across the finish line; because Kelly told me I had too! Well actually I decided that since I had signed up for the 5K RUN, I should probably run across the finish line. And no I did not sprint past the 3 ladies that were ahead of me. That would have been cool, but the truth is they stopped to chat with people in the crowd. I didn't think much of that, because you only got a timing chip if you signed up for the 5K Run, not the 5K Walk. So I crossed the finish line and told the guy that was collecting the timing chips that I was the last one. So basically he could start packing up. But when I bent down to take off the timing chip, the 3 ladies realized that they hadn't crossed the finish line and came jogging up behind me. YEAH I wasn't the last one!! Small victory but I'LL TAKE IT!!!

Pictures

I wasn't sure if Blogger was going to let me upload my pictures today or not. It does not like Photobucket for whatever reason. Or maybe PB just doesn't like Blogger. I know I don't like PB, but my phone won't let me upload them to Flickr, which I would prefer.

Anyway, here are a few photos of current projects. At retreat last weekend, I worked on my Ocean Waves quilt. I decided to do it as a "quilt as you go" project. I have the first 2 rows quilted and sewn together. Here's the front side of the 2 rows. (FYI, it's more neon than what the photo shows)

Here's a picture of the back side. You can see the seem where I sewed the 2 rows together. The loose blue fabric will get hand stitched down over the seem to hide it.

The quilting is pretty simple, but close enough to work.

And here is the progress I've made knitting my Slinky Rib Tee. I just finished the ribbing on the body and am knitting straight stockinette now. It's going so much faster.

This weekend is going to be so packed. Tomorrow morning, I'm walking my 5K. I had wanted to run it. And I just HATE admitting that my dad was right when he said my ankle couldn't take it. I have a 22 year old injury that limits its mobility. And it just ached all the time when I was running. You know, I don't know about you, but I really don't like it when someone tells me I can't do something. I need to figure that out for myself. Who knows, I just might be able to do it.

After the 5K, I'm heading to Vicki's house for a Fiber Frolic. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's several hours dedicated to fun, fiber (yarn, wool, roving) and food. I'm taking a spinach salad.

And if that's not enough, after the Fiber Frolic I'm head to Lily's house for more fun and food. Doubt there will be any fiber there. At least not the kind that I can knit. :o) She's talking about dinner and possibly a bonfire if the weather holds. Which it looks like it will.

Thank God I don't have to be to work on Sunday until noon!

Retreat Fun!

Retreat was really fun. Visiting with friends who share the same hobby is always nice. You get to see everyone's projects and new gizmos.

Helen had this really cool purple air cushion. When you sit on it, you have to stabilize your body and it made me sit up a bit straighter. I always find that I'm slouching when I sit at my sewing machine. I found them at Amazon.com. Think I want to get one of them and try it out. Who know's it might work for work also.

I've been wanting to do some machine quilting, but don't feel comfortable with doing something big or with free motion. Straight lines I feel comfortable with. I finished the blocks for my Ocean Waves quilt a year ago. I even sewed them into rows.

I had the idea that I wanted to try a "quilt as you go" type project. That's where you quilt each block (or in my case row) individually and then sew them together. That way it's more manageable. Here is a quick demonstration by Paula, The Quilter. I figured if it didn't work, I would have 5 long table runners for Christmas gifts. Well it worked, so I'll have to figure out something else for Christmas Gifts. I started with Row 5 so if my quilting was kind of crappy, it would be at the foot of the quilt. I got rows 5, 4, and 2 quilted. And I was able to sew rows 4 and 5 together. All I have to do is a little bit of hand sewing on the back to hide the seem. Can't wait to get the other 2 rows quilted. I did get them basted, so at least they are all ready to be quilted.

Will post pictures soon. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. I did had my camera with me, but just never dug it out to take photos. That's a real shame too as there were lots of wonderful projects being made.

We had a little bit of auto excitement over the weekend also. On Thursday night, JoAn was having transmission trouble with her car and when we went to leave on Sunday, my battery was completely dead. I had been planning on getting a new one before winter, but obviously that was a little to ambiguous a date for my car. However I know I got off the cheaper. Hope JoAn gets her car back soon.

Knitting Retreat and Fair Isle Knitting

On Saturday, I attended the Frog Pond Fiber Arts Knitting Retreat. Oh it was so relaxing and enjoyable. A good time was had ball all. Special thanks to Chris, Vicki, Sarah, Karen, Deb, Elizabeth and Janet K. for all their hard work and/or donations.

Elizabeth gave a Fair Isle class. We all got to pick our own projects and she would help us with tips and techniques that she has learned while doing her own projects. I picked the Linen Jeans Purse from the book "Norwegian Sweater Techniques for Today's Knitter" by Therese Chynoweth. I used a Berrocco Cotton Twist yarn in a Chocolate Brown and Blue.

I have did a Faux Fair Isle project not too long ago, so I knew a bit of what to expect, but I did learn a few new things. One is that the yarn that you want to show up in the foreground (the blue) needs to always be the top yarn and the background yarn (the brown) will be the bottom yarn. I tried to do 2-handed knitting, but my left hand is just too stupid to figure it out. I did better with the "throwing" method. That's how I normally knit anyway. In order to keep my 2 yarns in the correct top/bottom position, I figured out if I put the top yarn over the back of my hand I always knew where it was and could grab it and keep it in the top position.


Here is a picture of what I had gotten done by Sunday night. This was knit in the round and my tension was pretty good, except for the areas where I switched from one needle to the next. See my lovely floats. :o)


I finished the rest of the knitting on Monday night and then got a chance to practice my next new technique; Steeking.

Elizabeth didn't show us how this was done at the retreat, but she did explain it and she had showed some of us previously how it was done. For those of you who are non-knitters, steeking is cutting your yarn in order to either add a sleeve, neckline, or edging. It's very terrifying! I have this fear that as soon as you cut one thread the whole knitting project will just fall apart. Since my yarn is cotton/rayon, I had to run two rows of machine sewing on either side of the line that I was to cut on. If you look closely, you can just see them. Thank god Nicki had the idea of using white thread. I had planned to use black. Would never have been able to see them!


And then, you take several deep breaths, pick up your scissors and while holding your breath CUT!!


I was so relieved when nothing unraveled. Even with the lines of machine stitching I thought it would all fall apart. I picked up my flap stitches last night and was able to knit 4 rows on that before I headed for bed.

Son of a ......

I thought I would do a little home repair project this weekend. Nothing to big, just recaulking the tub/shower. It definitely needs it. And since I'm getting the bathroom window (which is in the Shower!?!?) replaced in about a month, I thought it would make it look a lot nicer.

The bottom of the surround has been bowed out since I bought the house. Well the reason is because the plaster wall was disintegrating behind it. So when I pealed off the old caulk, a shower of plaster chunks literally rained down into the tub. I must admit that my dad and I kind of thought that's what was happening, but we didn't realize how bad it actually was.

I talked it over with my dad and I decided to try a "quick fix" to see if it would hold. After knocking out as much loose stuff as I could, I cleaned the edge up and put some liquid nails type caulking behind the surround. Boy was that messy! I couldn't get the tip of the caulk gun far enough up into the opening, so I ended up squirting a whole bunch of it into my hand and spreading it myself. Yuck!! Then I laid a 2x4 along it and wedged another one between it and the side of the tub. I left it that way until Sunday night. When I removed the 2x4's I expected it to just pop out, but surprisingly it held. I decided to wait until the next morning to caulk to see if it would hold through the night. It did, so early Monday morning, I was recaulking the tub.

To my sorrow though, when I got home last night it had not held. The surround had popped back out. My Dad's coming over this weekend to look at it, and I'm thinking we're going to have to take the whole thing out and replace the plaster with drywall. The kind specifically made for bathrooms. So in the mean time, I slathered more caulking along the hole hoping to at least close it up temporarily so I can take a shower until we get it fixed.

Guess the house got jealous that I spent so much money on fixing the car last year that it thought it was it's turn. :o)

I had wanted to "SOMEDAY" gut the whole bathroom and re-do it. However, that day is not today! Would be nice though.