See! I said it wouldn’t be long!

So this shoulder stuff is for the birds! I am right handed. My right shoulder is what hurts. Just about every activity I want to do or need to do requires my right arm to be functional. Yes, I am whining. Many people are much worse off. BUT I HAD PLANS!

There will be no pictures today. My camera is in a place I can’t reach with my left hand.  I can’t even draw a picture for you.

What I am able to do is slowly sort my stuff and rearrange my nests. Most people have only one space in their house where they nest. Everything needed for whatever activity is performed in that area is within reach. Since my shoulder injury, I have knocked over and spilled trays of beads, containers of chain in progress, tools and I don’t even know what else. Of course the stuff is between and under pieces of furniture. I can’t even vacuum there until I have salvaged the things I need. There I go, whining again.

So far November and December have been full of doctors. I get new glasses in a few days. Then my MS doctor wants me to have another MRI. The doctor taking care of my shoulder wants an MRI.. If the insurance company would hurry up and approve the shoulder one, I could have it all done at once. But that would probably seem too sensible to someone. They will probably ask me to make the fifty-mile round trip twice in one week.. One of the big problems with MS is the fatigue, and those trips really exhaust me

The other thing I am still able to do is knt. I had better get back to it!

Life just keeps on going…

Just Twiddling Threads Blog

It has been almost two years since I have posted here. Some might believe this is because nothing important has been happening. Others know that so much has happened that it is hard to choose what I will write about.

I have been doing a lot of knitting. Some of it has been for family and friends.

Some of it has been for designers like Donna Druchunas.

I don’t know where all the pictures have gone!

A lot of the time has been spent with the grandchildren.

Tesla looks so much like her father! . It is truly a delight watching them learn and interact with each other and with me. I like being able to see them interact at daycare via the internet. They are beautiful children, so much like their parents. (I am not at all biased!) They both are real hams when the camera comes out, and…

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winding down

a room of my own

in less than two weeks i will be officially on leave, and at the end of my academic year. this is the end of my first full year as a permanent academic, and my third time running my subject (it runs every semester, so i dont get a break). it feels good to have a whole year under my belt, and i feel like im finally coming up for air. being so busy really helps to pull things into focus i think, separates the wheat from the chaff, as they say. i’ve learnt heaps, had some successes, made some mistakes. i still have a lot to learn, but i’m grateful to be in a supportive and caring environment (one of the few such in modern academia i fear).

this week just gone we had 6 hours of meetings to declare all of our student results, and i pulled out my knitting.

i…

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Life just keeps on going…

It has been almost two years since I have posted here. Some might believe this is because nothing important has been happening. Others know that so much has happened that it is hard to choose what I will write about.

I have been doing a lot of knitting. Some of it has been for family and friends.

Some of it has been for designers like Donna Druchunas.

I don’t know where all the pictures have gone!

A lot of the time has been spent with the grandchildren.

Tesla

Charlie

Tesla looks so much like her father! . It is truly a delight watching them learn and interact with each other and with me. I like being able to see them interact at daycare via the internet. They are beautiful children, so much like their parents. (I am not at all biased!) They both are real hams when the camera comes out, and they love watching videos of themselves.

Tesla and Zaius

Zaius

Their parents up and got married on Halloween at a local haunted house. Neither family heard about it until the deed was done. We couldn’t be more pleased. I have considered Hilary a daughter for several years. It is fun to have the legal stamp!

I had planned to have my Etsy store opened by now. I am accumulating handcrafted jewelry inventory, I have supplies for making more. My body is not cooperating. I had cataract surgery on November 4. My vision is still changing. I may have to have the other eye done sooner than planned. Then I dislocated my right shoulder a week ago, and again on Sunday. It is one of the most painful events I have experienced. It is really hard to create with only one hand/arm, especially your non-dominate hand. We will see what the doctor says after the muscles calm down. The MS symptoms come and go, but nothing major on that front. I hope it stays that way!

Sooooo that is a brief update. I promise it will not take two years to get back here!

Musings on Christmas Eve

I’ve written dozens of blog posts over the last few months. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they were all in my head.

I will compose a post at midnight, while I am knitting, thinking I will write it out the next day. But then life happens and another week has passed.

This has been the year for dealing with health issues. While there have been no major changes, I have had lots of annoying things that have required medication or other attention. Just when I start feeling nearly normal, something else crops up.

Through it all, I got to spend some very nice time with my granddaughter, Tesla. She is so wonderful! We sing and giggle and carry on like two-year-olds. Oh, right. She is a two-year-old.

Tesla’s birthday party

She loves cuddles and books and people.

The dogs also keep me busy and happy. The were born the same week as Tesla, but two-year-old Border Collies are very different than two-year-old little girls. They can be very mellow, or all wound up. Most of all, they are very loving.

While they spend quite a lot of time inside with me, they love to run the whole two acres.

I haven’t done a lot of sewing the last few months, but the knitting needles are rarely idle. The biggest problem there is that I forget to take pictures for the blog or Ravelry before they go to their new homes. There have been several pairs of socks, some hats, things for Tesla and the new baby.

Did I not mention the new baby? Tesla’s new baby ‘bother’ (brother) was born this afternoon at 2:10.  The planned home birth didn’t get to happen, and he was perfectly content to stay inside. So after much discussion and consultation, a c-section happened.

He is here, he is healthy, and he is Zaius Charles Babbage! We hope he lives up to his name!

Reflections

When we moved into this house in 1990, I was still in nursing school, the boys were in high school, and hub worked 15 miles away.

We had lofty goals for this place. I wanted several garden areas, vegetables, herbs, flowers. We did that on a limited basis but school and kids place quite a demand on energy. Hub built his shop and has been adding improvements as we go along. We completely remodeled the kitchen and bath room, new septic system, new roof, skylights, carpet and paint inside and out. We hired contractors for the big stuff, but did a lot of the tear-out and prep work ourselves.

Somewhere in there I started working full-time. I was still able to be very involved in the house and yard, but was starting to run down fast. I was becoming more heat-intolerant and more clumsy.

I started having tremors and spasms in my hands and feet, but I still hadn’t put it together. Then, after seeing a Dr for a different problem, I fell in the parking lot and fractured my elbow.

A month later I was in surgery for the same elbow that wasn’t healing. I’m still thinking ‘we’ll get this taken care of and I will be back to work’ Ha ha ha!

I’m stuck at home with my arm all wrapped up, staring at all my projects. That was when I was starting to realize that some of my goals would not be met, unless I won the lottery and could pay someone else to do things.

 

To be continued…

Super Bowl?

As I sit here listening to the final minutes of the big game, I realize that I am finally awake. Two weeks ago I watched my beautiful granddaughter, Tesla. One week ago I started having symptoms of ‘THE CREEPING CRUD’. Coincidence? I think not!

I have spent the last week snerking, sneezing, coughing and sleeping. I am finally starting to feel nearly human. I might actually finish my swirl!

 

Swirl

Hello, My name is…

My name is Jeanie, and I am a procrastinator. For the last six to eight weeks I have THOUGHT about blog posts, but obviously have not written and posted one. We have had a lot going on at the place hub calls ‘Rancho Babbage’.

There was a cougar siting.

I was in the family room, and saw this creature through the window. I grabbed my camera and shot some pictures through the window, but since he was not in a hurry to leave, I went outside and shot some more. It wasn’t as foolhardy as it sounds as there was a fence and a creek between us. I just wasn’t sure anyone would believe me without pictures!

We celebrated the boys’ birthdays the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Younger son brought remote control cars to play with.

Granddaughter showed off her walking skills.

She has almost outgrown the sweater I made for her!

We put in a driveway from the house to the barn. Next comes more fencing.

We got ready for Christmas with a small tree

I didn’t get too carried away with decorating this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there was the injured Ike. Tina had broken a casserole dish she was trying to take outside. She carried pieces out instead. Ike stepped on a large piece and slashed his toe. Trying to keep his dressing clean and dry has been a real challenge in our rainy part of the world.

 

And of course there has been knitting.

There was a dress for Tesla…

 

 

And gifts for her parents that I never photographed.

There was the hat that she seems to love. She has put it on by herself most everyday since she got it. It is Cat Bordhi’s ‘Anemone Hat’. There were several gift items that I never managed to get pictures of before they went away. Other than that, life has been pretty routine around here. It is nice that life is fairly calm as I really could use a quiet time!

Saying Good-bye to Lucy

Lucy joined our family in 2001. She was a stray, hanging around the shop where hub worked. But there was a big problem. The company was moving, and soon. A lot of the employees had been feeding her and no one wanted to abandon her. So she spent time with several different households, but for one reason or another she was denied a forever home.

When hub talked about a trial at our house, I insisted that she be given a fair chance. I found out that at all the other homes she had only had a night or two. I told hub that she got a month to prove to our resident dogs that she would fit. At the time, we had Scruffy and Jethro. Scruffy was a 10 pound wonder of mixed breed, who was about 13 years old. Jethro was a Rottweiler/ German Shepard mix at about 4 years old. He weighed about 90 pounds and Scruffy had raised him from a pup. They got along very well, and we weren’t sure how a middle sized adult dog would fit in. But we shouldn’t have worried. After a few days, it was hard to remember a time without Lucy.

Fast forward to 2010, and Lucy is the only dog in the house.  Scruffy had lived to be 18, and Jethro had made it to 13. When we got Lucy, the vet had estimated her age at 4 to 5 years old, so she was about 14 and showing it. She also seemed lonely without Jethro. So that summer we were going to get her a puppy. It had worked for Scruffy, after all. Plus I knew it would be easier on me if I already had a dog in the house when Lucy’s time came.  So entered Ike and Tina.

And Lucy helped teach them good puppy manners. Although she was getting slow and grumpy, she handled the pups very well.

She also started taking meds for her aches and pains and seemed to be doing fine.

But now the pain meds aren’t working, and Lucy is crying a lot. She wakes up yelping when she moves, and has a lot of trouble going outside. She’s not eating much, and just seems miserable. Hub insists that it is time. I guess I agree, because she doesn’t seem to have good days any more. We are down to good minutes. But it is hard to say good-bye…