I Need a Time Stretching Machine

Are We Still Here? << >> Am I Back?

Hi, All. Time Flies! I don’t know where it has gone…It’s true. The older I get, the faster time passes.

I have had another eventful month and a half. I had a bunch of doctor appointments for my stepdad and myself. He’s good, I’m not. That’s a relief. I still have to get him in for an eye check and a colonoscopy. I think he’ll be done for a year then. Me, I still have to get my mammogram and see my endocrinologist for a bunch of tests. Plus, I’m finally going to have my first session at the Pain Management Center on June 12. I filled out the paperwork a month or so ago. I am really looking forward to it. I hope they can help me out. Whoopee!

We’re still working on getting the stepdad’s house in order. I have to go and spend a week or so just packing up stuff I want to keep. We’ve pretty much have gotten the whole place sorted. Goodwill has been getting a lot of nice stuff, too.

We had some more excitement with my stepdad. He got out of the home somehow and wandered through the woods and fell in a creek. He was fine. Luckily, some people found him and guessed where he might be from and got a cop to pick him up. What a nightmare. His ID still had his old address on it, so I had a new one done right away. Another thing I didn’t think of…I didn’t think that it was a big deal that he wouldn’t remember where he lived because I never thought he could get out of the home unsupervised. Well, the nurses at the home are sure going to be more careful from now on. I wasn’t mad…Just relieved that he was okay…but the supervisor was sure unhappy, as well she should be.

I have had some fiber fun! On May 11, four of us from our spinning group went to the Minnesota Shepherds’ Harvest and Llama Magic at Lake Elmo, MN. I was only going to buy some oddball fiber if I found any…Which, of course, I did.


I got 1-pound of white bamboo top, 4-ounces of white Optim fiber,

and 5-ounces of the most beautiful white Pygora fiber. All nice stuff. I’m looking forward to spinning it someday (sigh). I’m still spinning up the light brown Alpaca fiber that I’ve been working on for at least 4 months. I have about half of a bobbin done of what will be a 3-ply lace weight. It seems I’m only spinning once a month at the spinning group meeting. No time otherwise.

I went to Mexico, Mo and Topeka, KS for a week with my husband . He spent 2 days building a rudder for his plane and then we visited some friends for a few days. We went through Lawrence, KS on the way home and stopped at the Yarn Barn. Nice place to visit and spend money.

I got a pattern for this neat swirl pattern shawl/stole from JoJoland,


2 skeins of ‘Heaven’ lace-weight yarn that is 45% Tencel and 55% merino. Don’t know who makes it but it’s gorgeous. Each skein is 120 grams with 3100 yards. So, I have 6200 yards of beautiful light blue ‘shawl’ to knit up. Another project, but it was 40% off…What’s a gal to do? I bought some 000 straight needles and a 000 addi Turbo circular needle to knit it with and


some practice cotton. I’m going to play with a doily or two before I use my ‘Heaven’.

I got my fleece from Maple at Northstar Alpaca’s from her ewe Cardigan…

Cute name and cutie sheep…It’s a lovely dark shade of brown and weighs 2-pounds 10-ounces in the grease. It looks and feels so sproingy and soft. I soaked it overnight in cold water. The water was the same color as the fleece. Good for the garden. Now it's waiting for me to rinse and dry.

My Norwegian sweater is on hold…It’s gotten to the point that it doesn’t travel well, and the only knitting I seem to be doing is when I’m riding in the car. I’m knitting the Hemlock Blanket from Jared at Brooklyn Tweed for a friend’s baby that will be born in the next 2 weeks or so. It’s about 3/4 done. I’m using machine washable undyed worsted weight merino from Knit Picks. I plan on doing some dye-painting on it when I finish knitting it. I think it will be nice.

The loom has got all its heddles on and they're all marked. I’ve got the Dobby half way done, but there are a bunch of parts missing and no real drawings or instructions. I THINK since the previous owner converted the manual Dobby to the Compudobby, some parts were not needed. Who knows where they went? Anyway, the plan is to put as much of the rest of the loom together that I can and then contact AVL after I get some ideas as to how much I'm missing…I’m very frustrated and not just a little pissed off. Argh!

I have to change my living schedule somehow. I have way to many things I HAVE to get done and no energy to get necessary things done much less playing with my fiber. I tend to sleep all day and then I’m up all night. If I’m lucky, I get 4 to 5 hours a day where I can focus enough to do important things like bills, banking, etc. I feel guilty spending time either reading other's blogs or writing this blog, but sometimes I’m just too foggy to do much else. I should be knitting or something more productive, but I can’t concentrate enough even for that. Last week I started a new sleep hygiene schedule. I’ve got to go to bed at 10 pm, get up at 9 am. I usually need at least 10 to 14 hours of sleep with no naps during the day. I’m hoping that 9 hours will be enough if it’s “good” sleep. Just like a “normal” person. This way, my 4 to 5 “good” hours will start around noon. Then I can make phone calls and appointments during the day time. What a concept. I’m bound and determined to do this. Once I get the sleep thing tackled, then I’ll be able to start some sort of walking therapy and some weight training when I start the Pain Management Center. I turn 49 in June…By the time I hit 50, I hope to be well enough to get into fiber production for real again. That’s my goal. All that plus I WILL quit smoking this year. I can hardly breathe anymore. I got hooked on smoking by my baby sitter when I was 7 and the first time I tried to seriously quit I was 10 and couldn’t do it. It was easy to steal smokes from my parents and buy cigs from machines in those days. Through the years, all my babysitting and lunch money went for books and cigarettes. I’ve never been able to quit. I have tried every smoking cessation aid out there. The last one was Chantix. It made me puke, but I didn’t care if it helped me to quit. Well, after 7 weeks of puking every single day, I still hadn’t quit. The only thing that kind of worked was those Commit Lozenges. So, I’m going to buy a bunch and quit…Not try, but QUIT!

Well, this has turned into a long blather…Hope spring has sprung well for everyone. Today was the first nice day that we’ve had and I was able to spend some of it playing outside with my grandchild. It was a good day. Tonight is downtime and knitting before I hit the hay…Gads, 10 pm seems early. I hope the internal clock resets fast. Take care all and I hope to have pictures of the dyed baby blanket up soon.