Polgara Knits

It finally happened–the PT gave me dispensation to start knitting/crochet again! Woot! I’m on the easing-back-into-it program, started at ten minutes, a couple of times a day, and I’m up to about 20 minutes at a time now. I’m working on a crocheted star afghan in Bernat Satin for my niece, and it’s now large enough that I can’t finish a full round in my allotted 20 minutes, but that’s ok. I don’t want to rush it and ruin all the progress of the last four months, not when we’re this close to Christmas and winter knitting.

In knee news, it’s also progressing slowly. I’m back at work, but I’m still using a cane, as I can only go so far before the knee gets very, very tired. PT has banned me from big stores (Target, Michael’s, etc.), given how much walking one can do there without even realizing it. The couple of times I tried Target, I came out totally exhausted. But I can walk around my office suite without the cane and not feel pain, so that’s a plus, especially since the cane use is starting to screw with my back and hip.

I’ve been slowly, slowly emptying the shelves of the bookcases that I’ll be swapping with the entertainment center. I have no idea where I’ll put the bookcases in the interim, but they need to go somewhere so I can paint that wall, hopefully next weekend. I was going to paint it green like the attached smaller wall, but I’m also considering a complimentary blue. It will most likely be green, though, since I already have the paint for that, and I’m more of a path-of-least-resistance person.

That’s the it for now. Hopefully now that I’m back with the yarn I’ll be updating more frequently again. Yay yarn!

I had knee surgery two weeks ago, and have been holed up in my living room ever since. For the first week I was in recovery mode–not working, just lying on the couch, icing and resting. This week I’m working from home, resting the leg as much as possible before returning to normal activity. In all this time, I haven’t touched yarn ONCE, and it’s heartbreaking. My tendonitis continues to improve, but my PT hasn’t given me the all clear to pick up needles or hook. So much free time, wasted.

Honestly, it’s not just the yarn. There’s so much I could’ve accomplished during my sentence on the couch–scanning of old photos, shredding the bag of junk mail, learning a new software, redesigning this site, or even reading a book–but what have I spent that time doing? Watching dvds. Watching dvds I’ve already seen multiple times. (Except Dexter season two–that was new to me.)

A ridiculous and embarrassing waste of time.

And to make it worse? I gained ten pounds in the first week. It was my own fault, of course–my sister and brother-in-law were here from the East Coast to take care of me, and whenever I’m with them, something in my mind switches to vacation mode, and in vacation mode, I eat all the things I don’t usually allow myself. Add pizza, lasagna, cupcakes and chinese food to a week of lying on the couch, and yeah, it adds up to ten pounds. They’ve been gone a week now, though, which means I immediately went back on my normal diet, and I’ve already lost five. Not healthy, I know, but I’m going back to WW in two days after three weeks away, and I’d rather it not show me back to square one.

In other news, while the sis and bil were here, they got me a coffee table for my birthday. Yay coffee table! I am very fond of it, and am pleased with how that one little change improved the overall aesthetic of my living room. (Before, I’d been using a cardboard box covered with a blanket as my ‘table’.) Once I’m mobile again, my plan is to swap the positions of my entertainment center and bookshelves, and to paint the north wall (I’ve had a lot of spare time to think about this), but I fear my motivation is rooted in my inability to act at the moment, and that once I’m up again, I’ll lose interest in my home improvement plans. *fingers crossed* that I’m stronger than that.

It’s been a very long time since my last post–so long that I’m not even looking to see how long it was. Nothing has changed with regard to my ability to knit and crochet. I still have tendonitis and have been banned from all hobbies requiring fine motor skills. Fortunately I’m still allowed to type, otherwise my programming job would be in jeopardy.

I’ve been occupying my overabundance of free time with reading (Abby Cooper books by Victoria Laurie–two thumbs up!), riding my bike (weekends and short distances only, otherwise it irritates the elbow) and, this week at least, watching the Olympics (go Phelps!). I’m having knee surgery two weeks from today, and hopefully the ban will be lifted by then so I’ll have something to do while sitting on my butt recovering.

That’s really all I’ve got to report, unless you’re interested in hearing about the $50 I misplaced this morning…but I doubt it.

I did it–I bought a bike! Last Saturday, after my WW meeting, I headed over to my friend Lori’s to test ride her bikes. Then we decided to go to REI to test ride more bikes, and of course I fell in love with this one. So now I’m a biker, complete with all the accessories (except a mirror and a trunk rack, but I’ll be remedying those soon).

So far I’ve taken it grocery shopping, to this week’s WW meeting, and down to the local mall for some books and vegetables (the Farmer’s Market is in the same location). The street riding is going to take getting used to–I still panic a little when I’m on the street with actual moving cars–but otherwise it’s been a joy. I’m still trying to figure out a storage solution, though–I’m not ready to leave it locked in the garage where anyone can touch it, but I’m thrilled with parking it in my living room, either.

ION, I still have no updates in the knitting/crochet arena. I don’t want to inadvertently slow the healing process by working on anything right now, but I might change my mind in the coming weeks, as I’ll be travelling and nothing combats the horrors of flying coach like focussing on a project.

That’s it for now. My screen is doing a weird flashy thing while I type, so I think I’ll go figure out wtf is going on.

I have a bulky black brace on my left wrist/forearm, thanks to a nasty case of tendonitis in my elbow. And yes, this means no knitting or crochet for the time being. This is very unhappy making, not to mention painful. I’ll confess I did pick up a crochet hook, just to see if it was possible to manipulate it around the brace. The attempt, had you seen it, was laughable. Heck, I couldn’t even pick up a little hot dog wrapped in a pastry puff at the Sex and the City event I went to on Sunday–it made a hilarious series of bounces off my brace, my right hand, and my friend Kristen’s hand before rolling across the floor towards the bar. (Smart blanket-wrapped-piggy!)

So what should I talk about instead, during this enforced separation period between me and my hooks and needles?

Well, my latest obsession involves bicycles. I recently rejoined Weight Watchers, and this time I signed up with a group near my home instead of near my office, which is going to force me out of the house on Saturday mornings (a period I usually reserve for quality time with my couch). The meeting is about a mile too far for me to walk without my bum knee collapsing, yet close enough to make me mourn the gas usage. The answer? I must buy a bicycle! I’m not sure why I’m possessed with this sudden desire to ride a bike–many bikes have languished in many garages in my past–but really, I can barely restrain myself from running to Target and buying whatever I can afford.  I haven’t done this yet, because my friends have convinced me to test-ride one of their bikes first (which I hope to do this weekend) before committing to anything. Instead, I’ve been relentlessly combing the internets, researching bikes and frames and gears and customer reviews. Ideally I hope to find something on craigslist, because I can’t afford the $400 beauties I’ve fallen in love with, but so far no dice. I can no longer grab the first $50 comfort bike I find–I now know it needs to be aluminum framed and have at least seven speeds, or I risk becoming discouraged by trying to get a heavy bike up even a modest incline.

Also, I have returned to PT (did I mention this already? I can’t remember, and am too lazy to go check) in an attempt to cure my stupid knee once and for all. This includes making an appointment with a new doctor who will take new xrays and MRIs, and this time I picked someone *in* my insurance network, so I won’t still be paying off visits three years later. (I’m two payments away from being free of the last doctor, woot!) Here’s hoping they’ll find something concrete this time, something that can be fixed with more than a vague, “Physical therapy should fix that right up.” Give me more! I need an actual diagnosis this time, dammit!

Ahem. Anyway…. Work is hellish, but it’s of my own making. I really must get over my jealousy and possessiveness. Of course, I’ve had those traits for about 38 years now, so I don’t see how I’ll be divesting myself of them anytime soon. Yay. At least my review went well.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got. Nice to see the brace isn’t getting in the way of my typing skills, at least.

So last week, as I had mentioned, I went yarn shopping at Stitches from the Heart, and as we all knew would happen, I bought more than I’d planned. That’ll teach me to carry my vacation credit card with me when I’m no longer on vacation! First it took me forever to decide on a yarn for Haley’s blanket–cool colors, soft texture and machine washable is a tough combination to find!–but I finally chose Universal Yarn’s Classic Worsted LP (20% wool/80 acrylic) in the variegated ”purple allure” (aka 11418) pallette. But before I decided on that, I’d kept returning to the Bernat Satin wall o’color. So many bright and beautiful colors! I’d been wanting to do some amigurumi work, but you need a good acrylic for that, so the stitches don’t stretch and leak stuffing all over the place. In the end, I couldn’t resist all those beautiful colors, and ended up with twelve balls of Bernat Satin, in twelve different colors.

Of course, now that I have all I need for a cute amigurumi doll, I can’t decide on a pattern. Sigh.

But yes, I bought a ton of yarn last week, so hopefully that’ll carry me over the summer. There have been many yarn sales lately–at WEBS and at Unwind (one of my LYSs), but I haven’t even glanced at either one, so as not to tempt myself.

So back to Haley’s blanket–I started a crocheted log cabin, but so far I don’t love it. The yarn is great, but it’s the pattern–no matter how many of these I do, I still can’t nail the right number of stitches to add when crocheting across the side of a row, so some sides are longer than others, and there’s a folding/pinching issue where I picked up too many/didn’t pick up enough. I’m thinking of frogging it and making a star afghan instead. If I do that, then I think I’d switch to the Satin, ’cause the pattern would benefit far more from different colored yarns than from one variegated pallette. And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a “Haley’s Comet” blanket. Hmm….

In other yarn news, I haven’t done anything lately with the sparkly market shawl, the too-big pink slouchy hat, the pseudo fair isle tam from Knitty, the scratchy my so-called scarf, or Kristen’s hat. I really suck at finishing, yo.

And finally, on a completely unrelated tangent, I rejoined Weight Watchers this week, and had my first meeting yesterday. My plan is to relearn how to eat properly. Lindora did great things for me the first six months I was on it, but it just went downhil from there, and I’d like to be able to look at a potato again without freaking out or binging on them (or is it bingeing?).

That’s all I got for today. Have a great Memorial Day tomorrow!

I haven’t really done much since the slouchy hats. Having finished the second hat, it’s still waiting to be blocked, and I haven’t picked up the sparkly market shawl all week, mostly because I left it at my least favorite point–having to work in another color. I HATE switching yarns/colors, because inevitably the edge looks wonky and the row is obviously thicker. I love lots of colors, but working colors in is too much a chore, so I almost always work in single colors. This is also why I adore variegated so much, with its many colors and infrequent yarn-switching.

That’s all the yarn-related news I have, so I think I’ll go off-topic for a bit.

About Shopping
I’m going to a conference in Denver soon, so I went shopping yesterday. Woot! Shopping is my sickness, so I try to avoid it unless it’s well planned, otherwise I go overboard and come away with a wallet hangover that lasts a month.  I still went a smidge overboard yesterday, but there was room for it, finance-wise, and it was all for necessities–two pairs of jeans and a pair of shoes to replace my beloved yet beaten up black Aerosoles (all planned), and cute underwear and socks to go with the jeans and shoes (unplanned, but necessary given the styles of the shoes and jeans). Of course, now I’m wondering if I should go back for sensible shoes to go with my skirts (my skirt shoes were not made for walking, and the conference is not in the hotel), but the weather forecast for Denver does not look skirt-friendly, so I suspect I’m just looking for excuses for more shopping. I can’t go spending too much of the tax refund, ’cause most of it has been tagged for new tires.

About Digital vs. Analog
Last week, I bought a digital converter for my analog television. I applied for one of those coupons from the government, so it only cost me $25 instead of $65. So far, I don’t understand how digital is supposed to be an improvement. With my analog, a fuzzy signal meant a snowy picture with usually decent sound. With digital, when the signal fades in and out (which it does with varying frequencies on every station I’ve tried so far), the sound stops and the picture goes pixel. Holy crap is this annoying! Like, turn the tv off before I throw something at it annoying–a digital version of nails on a chalkboard. I’m considering giving up television entirely and just watching my shows online, but I hate to take such a step–I’d miss Diane and Robin in the morning (GMA), and Jeopardy while I have my dinner, two shows I’d never bother to catch online. Mostly, I’m pissed that analog is going away before they’ve perfected digital signals–I feel like I’m being pressured to go back to cable, but as long as it’s the monopoly it is (not to mention so ridiculously expensive), I refuse to yield.

About Work
I don’t like to talk about work too much, as I’ve seen too many stories of people who were fired because of what they wrote in their blogs, and while I’m sure those are isolated instances, I love my job and don’t ever want to jeopardize it. That said, work stuff has been claiming a big chunk of my energies the last few weeks, as we prep for the upcoming conference while working on a few other big projects simultaneously. The upside is that I’ve been working more and more with Flash, which is awesome because it’s exactly what I want to be doing. The more time I spend with it, the fewer questions I have to bring to my gurus. There’s one project in particular that occupied much of my time last week, that I managed to work out almost entirely on my own….before I hit the final roadblock that I couldn’t solve, but still! I’m very pleased with how far my skills are progressing.

Sadly I have no new pictures to show off, although I did have a glimmer of an idea–a goal, really– to attempt to take at least 100 new pictures this weekend, to try to jumpstart my motivation. It could still happen, given that it’s only Saturday morning.

Have yourself a marvelous weekend!

I got very little needlework done this weekend.  In fact, the only thing I did was finish crocheting the alpaca scarf, but I still need to weave the ends. Instead of knitting or crocheting, I spent my weekend baking, dining with my visiting cousin et al., spending too much money at the post office shipping gifts, and chilling out at my friend R’s holiday open house.

The baking involved Ginger Crinkles (from the Land o’Lakes website) and peanut butter brownie bites*. I made two batches of the cookies and one of the brownies, but I have to make more tonight so I’ll have enough to bring to my office, PT and catsitter.

I have to plan what project(s) to take on the plane with me when I go home in a few days, and also what yarn to pack for the two and a half weeks I’ll be away from my stash. Last time I was home, I needed to buy a new suitcase for all the yarn I bought while there, so I’m hoping to avoid doing that again.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Perhaps I’ll come up with something new for later.

*Peanut butter brownie bites: Using your favorite brownie mix and a mini-muffin pan, fill each mini-muffin cup about a third with brownie mix; add a Reese’s peanut butter cup in the middle, squishing it down so the mix rises up the sides; then top it off with more brownie mix so each cup is about 2/3-3/4 full. Bake for approx. 30 minutes (test your oven with a single mini-muffin, it may require less time–my oven bakes it at only 22 minutes).

I’m only posting because I’ve made it 25 days, and I’m going to finish out the month, but I’m too tired to write a real post. The short story–visited both babies yesterday; had lunch today with my much-missed former coworker visiting from Georgia; spent the rest of the day at the hospital with a friend.

I’m cross-posting this with my Polgara blog, because I’m too tired to write a real post for that blog, either.

Oh, but one last thing–Lion Brand Suede works much better crocheted than knitted. That is all.

I got no knitting done since my last post.  I suck.  But, look at the cutiehead baby!

What have I been doing instead of knitting? Well, some cleaning (I can see my desk! Woot!). Some uprighting of the tree (damn cats!). Some writing of holiday cards. And some sorting of knitting projects into neat, organized little project bags. I also picked out buttons to decorate the white and turquoise clutch. (I need cooler buttons.) That’s been about it. But I’m tired of writing cards, so I may do some knitting right now. Yes, I believe that’s exactly what I’ll do! Yay, knitting!