knitting more socks,,,

I am beginning to think that this addiction to sock knitting has gotten out of hand...  Until this morning, I had 3 separate sock pairs in progress, 2 of which are original designs.  I just finished 3 other pairs in the past 2 weeks, AND I do have some non-sock patterns as well that I am working on (or is that supposed to be working on).  But nooooo, this morning, while trolling thru the threads of my favorite group on Ravelry (Sock Knitters Anonymous, what else?) I saw the perfect pattern for some home dyed yarn that i just finished dyeing the other day... So, since that thread's cast on expires tonight at midnight (EST), I just HAD to cast them on TODAY...  They are going to be lovely, and the yarn is wonderful to work with, and the pattern is fairly easy, so I can rationalize this cast on.  For now.  Unfortunately, At the same time that the January thread's cast on expires, the cast on begins for February, and I have a pair of socks planned for that month too.  I will probably go ahead and cast them on sometime tomorrow, which will bring me back up to 5 separate sock projects again.  Like I said, I think the addiction is taking over my life again...

Of course, as it now stands, only one of these pairs of socks is for someone other than me.  One of the new designs I am working on are for one of my Ravelry friends,  I am really pleased with how it's looking, and I think it will be a popular pattern when I get it finished, so this is a good thing.  I'd love to get some testknitters started on it, but the recipient does not know what it looks like yet, and I'd hate to have someone accidently show it to her before she gets the finished socks, so I need to wait to ask for testknitters until i finish the pattern and send her the socks.

The other original design is a pair of colorwork greyhounds that I am designing to celebrate Awesome, the greyhound we just lost in December (3 days before Christmas).  I really need to work on these, because they were January cast ons too, and I only have until Feb 28th to finish them.  Only I have had to frog back to the cuff as I need to work on the design again - the nose was not looking like a greyhound to me...

The other pair is a test knit for another designer who I am helping with the English version of her pattern.  This means more editing and pattern writing in addition to knitting the pattern.  This also takes time, and it's time without needles in my hands.  I'd rather knit than write at this point in my life, so guess what keeps getting put off?  Hint:  it isn't the knitting...  Now I am adding a pair of socks with lots of cables (the last Jan cast on) and one that plays with self-striping yarn by making the stripes ripple and wave around the socks, and I can't decide if I want to do an already established pattern or devise one of my own, that has other elements in it as well... (I have another pattern idea...)  I will probably go with the new pattern that is in my head.  This will of course, mean even MORE pattern writing is in the near future.  SIGH.  See wa=hat I mean about addicting hobby?  

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Socks....

I am working on some new socks now.  This is a pattern I am creating for a friend from Ravelry.  I wanted something special, so I decided instead of making socks for her from someone else's pattern, I;d design my own pattern.  I have done that before, and the other patterns are ok, but not too complicated.  This is a lace pattern, with traveling stitches and (hopefully, IF I can get the count on them right) some cables as well.  All the things I've learned about knitting socks in the last year are going into this one pair of socks.  Nothing like jumping into the deep end.

The only thing I have NOT mastered thus far in my sock knitting career, is learning how to count and figure the number of stitches I need to cast on to do the number of repeats around the sock that I want.  But this is not a new problem - I have had problems with math my entire life, so why should it be any different for sock knitting? I cast on and tried to recreate the pattern in my head in yarn, and realized about halfway thru the first row that I didn't have the right number of stitches AND that it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do.  So I ripped it all out and went to graph paper and wrote down what I thought I wanted to do.  Then, I cast on some stitches (more than I needed, but that was intentional) so that I could try a swatch of the pattern to see if I had the ideas right on paper at least.  They weren't, but I did figure out hos to make it look like it did in my head, so I stopped the test swatch and cast on again for the real thing.  I THOUGHT I had figured that I needed 72 stitches per row, so I cast on that many, and started off with my improvised cuff that would flow (supposedly) right into the pattern.  I got thru the first row, but had screwed up my count somewhere and was off on the stitches (I thought), so decided to plod ahead and tink back a row when I found my error.  I went a long, and sure enough, there was a goof where I forgot to change from knit to purl, and I thought I was going to be ok... until I got to the end of that row and had 8 stitches too many.  I then spent about half an hour, counting thru the stitches I had done, and trying to figure out where I had screwed up, until it finally dawned on me that I should have only cast on 64 stitches!  FROG POND!!!!

I FINALLY got it cast on correctly and got thru the cuff and into the pattern.  I am about halfway thru the first repeat, and I must say, it is looking very nice.  My hands are a bit sore not, but I am satisfied with how it's going, so I'm happy.  And more importantly, I think Denise will be happy with the socks when they are done.

Sunny's pre-breafast snack...

Living with greyhounds is always an adventure.  Living with 7 greyhounds is sometimes just insane.  We have a pack, known affectionately as the "Brindle Mafia," mainly because all but one of them is a brindle.  The most senior of these crazy greyhounds is Sunny.  A 12 year old retired broodie, she has one annoyingly bad habit - she LOVES yard cookies.  All the rest of the greys have to wear muzzles (except Fritzie, our token GOOD greyhound) because they will snark and snap at each other and/or get into things that they shouldn't; Sunny wears hers because otherwise she will indulge in yard cookies when she goes outside.

It snowed the other night. And it has been very cold outside since, so we  still have about a half an inch of snow on the ground. Because of this, we figured we didn't need to put Sunny's muzzle back on before she went outside. This morning, I learned first hand that this is not going to work. 

I got up and did the first morning turnout.  This meant this morning, that i let them all out and then cleaned up all the accidents in the back hallway and kitchen because not all of them went out last night for last call (Comp is not good about making them go and he did the last turnout last night).  So imagine my reaction when I had just gotten all the poop and pee cleaned up and let the poor freezing greyhounds back in, only to have Sunny bring her morning snack with her... a huge frozen pile of  POOP!  Of course, she did not get any further than the back door with her 'treat' before it was confiscated and relegated to the trash.  I was not pleased, but I can't say I wasn't amused.  Apparently, the poop must age a certain amount of time before it is deemed edible by our little old lady, because there was enough 'yard cookies' on the floor this morning to fill her food bowl to overflowing.  Thank goodness for that!

Now to understand Sunny better, and why this is funny, you kind of need her backstory.  Sunny came off a very deplorable greyhound farm.  One of the backyard breeder type places, that even the NGA took exception to.  They helped me get this place closed down and the owner banned from owning and/or racing greyhounds for life.  We took 26 adult (or nearly adult) greyhounds and 6 unweaned pups off this farm when we closed it down, and Sunny was one of those greyhounds.

Sunny has always been skinny, since coming off the farm.  She had several different foster homes, including one with a vet who raises and breeds show greyhounds, and none of her fosters could get her to eat consistently.  She would eat for 2 or 3 days and them go off her feed for a similar length of time.  We were all frustrated.  Because of this and her age (she was already 9 when we took her off the farm), she was never spayed.  She just would not be a good candidate for surviving anesthesia.

Finally, after several years, Sunny found a foster home that loved her so much they decided to adopt her.  Unfortunately, soon after her adoption, her family had some serious reversals of fortune, and they AND Sunny ended up moving in with us and our pack.  It was while they were all living with us that we started to understand the pattern of Sunny's eating habits, or lack thereof.  It seemed that she would be fine for a couple of days, then she'd have a bout of vomiting and that would throw her off her feed for several days until she was so hungry that she would start eating again.  It was a fairly vicious cycle.  We tried everything.  We thought it was maybe an intolerance of the kibble, so we tried changing that.  She'd have about a week of eating before she'd be right back at the same old routine.  Her mom and I discussed this and decided to see if perhaps it was a disease related issue, so we took her off to the vet who then ran tests and discovered that she had Giardia.  So she got a full 2 weeks of antibiotics, and she improved.  For a while.  Then it returned, and we were no further along.  I talked to the vet, and he suggested that we give her the antibiotics for a slightly longer period - perhaps she just had a bad case of it.  So we did.  A month went by, and we ended the meds and within days of doing that, the Giardia was back.  The consensus from the vet, her mom and me was that she had chronic Giardia and may need to be on the antibiotics for the remainder of her life.  Thankfully, after about 3 - 4 months, when we did a week's worth of break from the meds, she did not go back to her usual routine, so we guardedly decided to see how long she went before getting sick again.  She didn't, the Giardia was gone!

Sunny is still with us, because her family ran into even more problems and had to give her up, we hoped temporarily, but it has turned into a long term situation that isn't going to get better any time soon, so she is now a part of the Brindle Mafia.  She is still skinny as a rail, but at least she eats all her food every day and manages to find room for the occasional yard cookie when we forget to put her muzzle back on after breakfast.  This silly old girl has managed to make it thru some pretty horrific things and reached the ripe old age of 12, in spite of her tendency to eat things that should cause her to have a return of the Giardia. 

disabilities - a lesson in frustration...

Somedays I get so frustrated.  Today is one.  It has been nearly 7 months since I had my Judicial Review of my Disability case with the Law Judge.  We STILL have no decision.  I wonder if my case has gotten lost in the system, if they sent it to my old address and the law firm I worked with in Florida or if the Judge died.  I call my current lawyer every week, and they have no new information either.  Because they are representing me, I am not supposed to contact the SSA directly to see if it somehow got lost in the system.  They tell me that there is no way something like sending it to the wrong place could happen, but let's face it, this is a government agency we are dealing with.  In most government agencies, FUBAR is a standard operating procedure, so why should we assume that the SSA is any different?

It's hard being patient when it's your life that is on hold.  I can't have any of the tests the Dr wants done unitl and if I get approved for disability because we just don't have the resources to pay for MRIs and other like procedures.  We also are barely making ends meet financially, so getting the additional income or at least knowing that we need to start the process over again is becoming increasingly necessary.  I am tired of living hand to mouth, and while we won't be getting any astronomical amounts from SSD, it should at least make things a bit more comfortable.  Heck, just having medical coverage would be a major savings.

But all we can do is wait.  I have never been a patient person, and this is really a challenge for me.  I try to keep my mind occupied on other things, like my knitting and the critters, but even there the fact that the disability case hasn't been decided is an extra burden.  I'd like to be able to buy yarn for myself once in a while, and I'd really love to be able to get some flea protection for the animals, but those things cost money that we just don't have.  Keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table are the 2 highest priorities, and all else is extra stuff.  See why this is frustrating?

But just because we are struggling does not mean we are looking for handouts from friends and family.  We are adults, and we do not expect others to help us out when we should be able to help ourselves.  Comp is looking into finding a part time job, partly for financial reasons, but also so he can have a break from his chronically depressed wife (and the not knowing what's next doesn't help the depression any either).  I can't say as I blame him, there are days when I want to get away from her too (how does one get away from themselves and stay sane?).  Today is one of those days.  It's a vicious cycle.

Limitations...

Learning to live with limitations isn't as easy as one might think.  Having been relatively active for most of my life, it's now hard to not be able to do much at all.  Even a trip to the grocery store has to be well planned, and allowances made for my energy and pain levels.  No longer can I push a cart around Walmart to shop and browse for the things I need/want.  I have to take the ever present 'list' and actually read thru it periodically so that i don't forget the important stuff. 

Yesterday was shopping day.  Comp had to drive because I am still having issues with vertigo, and do not consider myself safe to drive.  He HATES going shopping, especially with me, because I try to get the least expensive version of products and he prefers the brand names.  With the limited income, we have to be frugal or things like the phone bill and the electric won't get paid.  Anyway, he drove and stayed in the car while I did the shopping. 

First was Shetler's.  This is a bargain bin type store, run by the Mennonites, and it has products that are damaged or otherwise left over from other larger (Chain) stores.  You never know what will be there, so you have to look at everything.  They also carry products from the Amish community and they also have bulk staples.  It's a cool place, but not very big.  Thank goodness, becuase when we were there yesterday, the one motorized cart they have was already in use and I had to walk with a cart.  I shouldn't have, but then again, this is the limitations thing.  I got a few things, not all the stuff I was looking for, but enough good deals to make the extra energy worth it.

Then it was time for Walmart.  I still like doing the grocery shopping there because I can (and do) find good deals and inexpensive versions of stuff that would cost me way more at the other local grocery stores. Here, I HAVE to use a motorized cart. Because of having to use the basket on the motorized cart that doesn't hold as much stuff.  I figured I would be able to get most of the stuff we needed in it though.  We were out of many things, so I took longer then I had planned and spent more than I wanted.  Way more.  I had planned to also go to one of the other grocery stores to buy meat, but my energy level was plummeting by the time I got done in Walmart, and the budget was depleted, so we went home to unload the groceries and get something figured out for dinner. 

By the time I was finished at Walmart, my energy level was waining fast.  I have finally learned that I can only push myself so far before I will have to pay for it.  When the energy level drops off, it's time to go to bed and/or work on less strenuous things (like my knitting) until the energy rebounds.  Most   of the time, the energy doesn't rebound like I think it should, and I end up having to take a nap.  Sometimes, even the nap isn't enough and I'm basically in bed for the rest of the day.  That was yesterday.  In addition to my energy level bottoming out, I over stressed my knee and back, so I was pretty uncomfortable last night.

I went to sleep rather early (for me) last night, in the hopes that perhaps I would have a bit more energy today.  It sort of worked.  I was awake at 6am and managed to get up, let the dogs out, and fix myself something to eat before the energy level plummetted again and I had to have a nap.  This means I slept thru feeding the dogs, which means that Comp had to do it himself, but he manages to do that most of the time anyway. 

But I have been able to be up a bit more today, and managed to work on some things like a weekly menu so that we know what is for dinner each night and don't have to face the age old what's for dinner debate.  I purposefully did not get any TV dinners at the store this time becuase I want to be able to help with the cooking more often, and if we just rely on TV dinners, so that Comp doesn't have to fuss so much, we end up spending more money and eating less nutritionally.  Whether or not I will be able to prepare dinner by myself is not a given, Comp will most likely have to help with the browning of meat, etc, but I hope to be able to help.  I want to try to do more and begin to stretch my limitations a bit more so that perhaps I can someday be a bit more active again.  Will it work?  I have no idea, but the thought is that if I can do a little bit each day, perhaps I will be able to endure for a longer period of time between colapses.  This is the managing my limitations goal for now.

 Of course, I also have to factor in my pain levels... somedays, the pain is really bad and even simple things like walking to the bathroom are a chore.  On those days, I do have to stay in bed and work on stuff there... like my ever present knitting or something else less physically taxing.  then we come to the mental limitations... my memory isn't so hot anymore, and my attention span is shot too, so somedays, sleeping is all I can manage.  I hate those days, and would like to have them go away.

Something new...

I guess it's high time I started a blog.  Trust me to be one of the last holdouts in blogging.  It just takes me a while to decide I want to try something new. 

Life here at Greyhound Bend moves right along.  The greyhounds are hanging in there, right now, Brigid, my heartgirl, is sacked out next to me on the bed with Pixie the Piddle Pup at my feet and Dusty cat padding on my arm.  I guess they all like their momma today - at least so far... they hav en't gotten into trouble - so far today, but it's still early.

Been doing a lot of knitting.  My BFF Anita gave me a ton of yarn for Christmas, and one of the things i've been working on is a shrug to fit my plus sized body and keep me warm on those  chilly mornings when Comp hasn't gotten the fire started yet.  It's coming along nicely.  I am almost finished with the part that goes across my back and am ready to start the second sleeve.  It's a dropped stitch pattern, pretty much of my own devising, with nice wide cuffs and very full sleeves (to help hide my fat arms).  The yarn is some mohair/wool blend with some sivler threads shot thru it in a blue and grey color.  Very fuzzy and a bit thicker than my usual sock yarn (I mostly knit socks, this shrug is a new venture).  I can't wait to have it finished so that I can concentrate on my socks again.  A girl can never have too many socks. 

Dusty LOVES the shrug.  If I am working on it, he can be found sitting on top of it, padding and nursing until I have to chase him off so I can turn the work (it's getting a bit wieldy now).  If he isn't careful, I'm gonna stick is little self inside the sleeve and see what happens.  He will probably just go to sleep, and then I will never get to wear it myself!