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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Where Does the Time Go?

Saying that life has been busy sounds so lame, because whose life isn't busy, really?  

The school year started off with a bang.  I made lists.  I decided to do a deep clean / purge around the house.  I took a day or two with each room and took a number of boxes to Goodwill and filled up our garbage can week after week.  How I can stuff a kitchen-size garbage bag full while cleaning my son's room is beyond me.  How can all that trash be in there and we can't see it?  

Anyway, as a reward for my organizational efforts, I'd knit.  I came up with 2 patterns since school began, both of which are being tested now.  I'm hoping to release a pattern for fingerless gloves in a week or two and a pattern for a double-knit cowl in November.

But crazy health developments have cropped up once again and have been biting at my heels, not allowing me to do everything I'd like.  I have some sort of undiagnosed swelling problem that happened 3 times last month.  Once it was my bottom lip, once it was my top lip, and once it was the upper side of my nose near my eye.  I know going to the emergency room for an IV dose of Benadryl stops the swelling and sets things right, but who wants to do that every 7 days?  I went once and joked with the nurse that they probably think I'm a drug seeker.  But really I was.  I came in, announced that I had swelling that has been seen by a few different doctors and no one can tell me why it happens, but I know what to do about it.  They gave me the Benadryl and I slept most of the day away.

In an attempt to keep the swelling under control & maybe not have a major reoccurrence, I took a lot of oral Benadryl in September.  Which means many of my days went like this: Wake up, take the kids to school, take a dose of Benadryl, sleep for 4 hours.  Wake up groggy, try to find something to eat, attempt to stay awake until kids get home from school.  It was not the end of the world, but it definitely put a cramp in my style.  

But nothing has swelled up for about 3 weeks now.  I thought I was on the upswing, then last week I managed to catch a virus that is basically a very minor cold with severe head and face pain.  It's the craziest thing I've ever had.  I would be worried that I actually had something seriously wrong with my teeth or jaw except the pain arrived at the same time as the cold (and when I say cold, I mean no fever, enough sinus stuff that I might blow my nose 3 times in a day, and I might cough or sneeze 3 or 4 times a day).  Plus, because of the wonders of Facebook, I've seen a handfull of friends post status updates over the past month about their kids coming home from school with bad headaches.  When I posted about it on Facebook, I was immediately answered by two friends that currently have this virus and one who said her husband had it and it lasted a few weeks for him.  Meanwhile, I'm considering buying stock in Tylenol, because it has become my new BFF.

So all this is just to say: the blog has just fallen off the list for now.  I look at it occasionally and want to update it, then immediately think of 5 other things that are more pressing.  Yesterday, during the 5 drugged-up, pain-free hours that I manage to have every day, I wrote up 4 proposals for new knitting patterns and sent them off to yarn companies.  One sweater, one that would fall into the "housewares" category, one summer sleeveless top, and one hat.  I'm excited to find out which one I get to start first!

I did accomplish one other thing so far this fall.  Early this year, after I gave my husband a hand-knit sweater for Valentine's Day, he asked if I would consider making him another one.  I said, "I'd love to, but I can't take knitting another mile of brown worsted-weight."  He said, "I totally understand.  How about gray?"

He's cheeky, that one.  We agreed on a pattern, and when I was ordering some yarn on-line for a couple projects I wanted to do but couldn't find the right materials at my LYS, I showed him some options of tonal gray yarn I'd be able to stand knitting with.  He picked one and it sat in the stash all summer.  I kept telling him I'd work on it when the weather cooled off.  

But his birthday is at the end of September.  Perfect timing for a new winter wardrobe piece.  I knit on the sweater when he was at work, I knit on it on the evenings that he played basketball, I brought it with me to Knit Night at the LYS.  In 6 or 8 weeks, I had sneaked around enough to have a finished men's XL sweater.  

He said he loved it and he's backed up that claim by wearing it about every other day.  It reminds both of us of a sweater he had in college when we first started dating.  He wore that sweater until it had holes in it, so I had a hunch that re-creating the thing might be a winning idea.  

Anyway, here's a picture of him in his birthday sweater.  He's a cutie.  He has also recently lost about 20 lbs, so feel free to tell him in the comments how fit & trim he looks in his stylish new sweater!

One other bit of excitement: a fellow knitwear designer who showcases different indie designers on her blog decided to feature me!  She published her post today, so head over there and check it out.  I was very flattered that she had such nice things to say about the patterns she chose to feature. 

Back to resting for me....the headache is kind of under control from the Tylenol, but we've had roofers at our house yesterday and today, so the pounding is not helping the situation.  I'm going to put in some earplugs and see if I can take a little nap before the kids get home from school!


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