Friday, March 20, 2009

I've been not posting (as you may have noticed) but the stats are through the roof. A mystery. I've been depressed. I've been in pain. I've been sleeping. I've been missing somebody. I've been angry with somebody. I've been terrified of the the surgery. I've been lonely. I've been thinking about the future. I've been grieving. I've been living inside my head too much. I don't like being alone so much. I guess being in hospital for 10 days will cure that.

I was waiting to see my GP this morning and listening to one of my favourite podcasts, All in the Mind, and the two episodes about dreams in particular. I have always had extremely complicated, vivid dreams that are like surreal motion pictures (sometimes there are even credits). According to some theorists, if you believe dreams don't mean anything, then your dreams are random. Mine certainly have no themes that I can fathom, but frequently I can see the origin of a concept in a dream from something that happened recently in my awake life. The dreams became even more bizarre when I went on heavy duty medication for fibro and my shrink said the drugs could be causing that. There was a famous one involving a pregnant water buffalo, and I'm pretty sure that has no cross over into real life. One thing I have noticed is that I rarely dream about my current husband. I have been married three times. I never dreamed about the Bear until he had passed away, but I dreamt about H2 all the time. Now that H2 is more present in my life, last night I had a dream about H1 and I can't remember the last time that happened. In typical fashion, it was surreal, beginning at a ski resort (I don't ski and I can't inagine H1 skiiing), and then proceeded to a restaurant where we shared a table with a couple we had met at the resort. The restaurant seemed very nice, in decor, menu, etc., but the service was abysmal. H1 became so incensed at this state of events that he jumped up and str
ipped down to his underwear to gain the attention of the staff. I cannot see where any of that would come from my conscious mind.

Last night I watched an episode of one of my favourite food shows, Cheese Slices, and Will was in Campagna and eating mozzarella. I remember when I was in elementary school, my good friend Susan introduced me to grilled cheese sandwiches made with mozzarella and I've been addicted to this cheese ever since. I had no idea how mozzarella was made until I saw it being made here in Australia from the milk of imported buffalo. I watched one Italian chef TV show where he stated that he never heard of the fascination with buffalo milk mozzarella until he got to New York. All I can think is he must have grown up in Tuscany or somewhere else in Northern Italy, because there were lots of buffalo in this episode. I think I would have to go out to a deli stocking imported cheese to find anything like the real stuff here (a very dangerous adventure to my wallet and my waist) but I might get some of the wet soft mozzarella for my pizza since I am dissatisfied with the garden variety in my supermarket. It melts and slides off the pizza! Will had some wood fired pizza (which would be on my menu for my last meal) and the pizza cooked in 5 minutes because the oven was so hot. I aim for that with my pizza stone and have gotten it down to 7 minutes.

I have been spinning a lot in the evenings since I use my left leg to control my Roberta and
that may become difficult after the surgery. I finished spinning the 500 gm of purple roving from Bendigo (it's actually darker than in the photo) and have another kg of it to spin. I intend on making the Celtic Icon hoodie from Inspired Cable Knits by Fiona Ellis. As the one in KnitPicks has, I intend on putting a zipper up the front. I've also been spinning alpaca, and carding more as I run out. I'd like to have two full bobbins before surgery and I am 3/4 of the way to that goal. This is the white alpaca which is the only thing I have much washed. It's also what I had 3 garbage bags of, so there's lots more to come.

Soon it will be time to get out the woolen stuff. I managed to get my furnace lit for another year. Hurray! I dread the autumn when the service man tells me it's a lost cause.

Monday, March 09, 2009

We have a three day weekend (4 for me) and I hate to say it but I slept most of it away. Yes, I had a cold which I think is 95% gone. I was in deep chesty cough mode yesterday but better today. I polished off the last of the plums and blackberries by coming up with a plum & blackberry conserve. It's got an interesting flavour since it's mostly the intense sweetness of the plums with the odd tart explosion of a blackberry. All the canned goods are labelled and in the boot of the car to take to work tomorrow for the annual charity sale.

I wish I knew why I have been so crushingly tired that I have slept so much. I worry that I won't be able to pry myself out of bed tomorrow but it may just be my normal mode of curing a cold. It's just that sleep produces no concrete results as in clothes ironed, dishes washed. A bit of vacuuming hardly stems the rising tide of clutter. I keep reading uplifting words about decluttering your life, but I seem to fail to find the nerve. I have come to the extremely painful decision that I am selling the big loom. It is a countermarche which requires a lot of on the floor tying-up and fiddling and my knees will never be good enough for that. The surgeon says kneeling isn't on the cards even after surgery. It's beautiful and I love it, but I have to get realistic about space requirements and the probability that I will use it regularly.

When it comes down to it, I have too many things in my life already that I really want to give time to but only do so at the sacrifice of something else. I love to cook, for example, but end up microwaving a frozen dinner because I wasn't thinking about cooking when I should have in order to have something to eat at mealtime. I'm trying to stick to a diet to lose as much weight as I can by surgery day which, for me, takes a lot of the fun out of life, because I love food, cooking, wine, and all its associated rituals, flavours, smells, equipment, ad nauseum. Telling me to eat fish and vegetables every day, which is certainly healthy and I like eating fish, but it gets boring real quick. I love good bread and bread is a no-no. I cheat occasionally and get a loaf of sourdough from the supermarket but I would rather make it, Some how that seems like a bigger "sin" that buying a storemade loaf and nibbling on the thinnest slices I can cut. Eating well should not make you feel guilty all the time. I have my mother's genes and there's only so much I can do to fight that.

Enough ranting. As you might gather I am not all that happy with where I am in my life, physically or emotionally. A lot of inner turnoil that I don't care to expose here and feeling too old for the ideas I have in my head. Why didn't I do these things when I was younger? You younger people! Go out and do something you've always wanted to do but have been putting off, even if it's just going to a place you've never been before in your own town. You might discover new platforms to take off on new ideas.

Friday, March 06, 2009


Your Word is "Hope"
You see life as an opportunity for learning, growth, and bringing out the best in others.
No matter how bad things get, you always have at least a glimmer of optimism.

You are accepting and forgiving. You encourage those who have wronged you to turn over a new leaf.
And while there is a lot of ugliness in the world, you believe that almost no one is beyond redemption.

This was the result of a quiz on Blogthings that I saw in somebody else's blog. I find it surprisingly accurate. I am generally hopeful even wirth chronic pain and depression. This week you haven't heard from me since I have a cold. Yesterday I was about to put that in the past tense but then I coughed all night and am coughting today. It's a beautiful day and I was all set to make pickles but it's back to bed for a while anyway..

I've been spinning alpaca at night while watching season 2 of The Unit, one of my favourite TV shows and one that gets jerked around by Aussie networks TV. Season 3 has been released in the US but I don't know about here. These were a rental. I adore Dennis Haysbert as well as the rest of the company; I thin even the Bear would like all the gunfights and explosions, but I like the characters.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009























I'm cheating by using Farmgirl's technique of the daily dose of cute. One reason there hasn't been much to say is I spent several hours on Saturday ironing with the Imp for company. These are a couple of her poses while I was ironing. When I get reborn I want to come back as somebody's cat. It's gotten cool enough that she sleeps with me all the time and I wake up to a tangle of feet sticking in to me. Last night I was sitting at thw kitchen table and heard her behind me very noisily chewing on something. Since there was nothing edible there, I turned around to find that she had pulled most of the stuffing out of one of her toys and was trying to eat it. I followed a trail of wet fluff back into the living room. Wha?

I am home today because I have no voice. I slept all morning and maybe knocked this on the head before it gets a grip. I have slept very little for several days which is dangerous as it lowers my immune system's ability to fight off random bugs. I cannot have the sniffles or an open cut when I go in for surgery.

Monday, March 02, 2009

I had occasion over the weekend to sincerely doubt the wisdom of having my knee replaced. I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep and my leg muscles were screaming. Who cares about the knees when the muscles are in spasms? I really hope that I can make it through this adventure and I am glad I chose the left knee to try first. It's nominally the stronger knee and only really hurts if I twist it (like I did in bed last night). I hope my muscles come to the party and I get through rehab. I've been walking around the outside of the Library on breaks, and doing a little exercise but not to the point of inflaming the joint. Exercise this weekend was taking my new pruning saw to the wisteria and the privets that have sprouted between the fence and the garage (a space about as wide as my hips), so lots of twisting and reaching, but I did not fall, and no joints hurt. Privets are a noxious weed and I will need to dose the stumps with Round-up. I found 2 new monster zucchini so maybe another batch of pickles is in my future.

I called and got confirmation that I could move to rehab after surgery with a referral from my surgeon, and I need to line up a physiotherapist as well. Found a friend of a friend who has all the aids like crutches and the over the toilet lift that I can borrow. I hope The Imp can curb her enthusiasm when I come home from hospital and not use me as a trampoline.

CAW has fallen into the dreaded ditch I have when projects are 75% done. I don't mind the making up, blocking, sewing pieces together, weaving in ends. But when I have the majority of a project done I stall. I will finish it, but right now I'm knitting socks (just cast on the second sock of the Sockotta), and spinning alpaca. The Surgery seems to loom over me even though I have 4 weeks. We are having absolutely stunning weather and it seems a sin not to be outside enjoying it, but one does need a paycheck, even a small one. If anyone cares about the superannuation saga, I await "conciliation" organized by the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. No idea when that happens. I had to do a financial statement and discovered I am living on less than $100 a week for food, petrol, other necessities of life after all the routine bills are paid. No wonder I'm living on credit and my savings are dwindling.