This is what has been keeping us occupied at the Library for the past week or so. It's a Southern Boobook owl who has taken up daily residence in trees planted in the "light wells" that give natural light to work areas below ground level. Therefore while he is sitting in the middle of a tree, he was at eye level from the ground floor of the Library. I've heard boobooks before but never seen one until we had our very own library owl.

I've been wandering around online after reading everything on Knittyspin and was very taken with Della Q's bags. However, knitting bags are something I have more than enough of. I am sewing CAW together and should hve a photo soon. I will be casting on socks for D since I finished socks for my boss. They were knit from an Opal yarn that somehow had the stripes repeat at exactly the same place in the 2 socks without my intervention. I never care about stripes matching in socks and assumed this yarn woud be the same but it wasn't.

I have been pushing hard with the cleaning out and managed to sweep all the fallen wisteria leaves out of the garage and neighbouring areas and put them down as mulch. I've also emptied the computer room filing cabinet to get it out of the house. Then when I clear out the cupboards in that room I can get my tradesman in to replace the grotty home-handy-man shelving with a proper wardrobe and then 3 of the 4 bedrooms will have BIRs (built in 'robes = closets). I'm also in the market (waiting for a sale) to replace the hanging lighting fixtures in the dining room and kitchen eat-in area. Meanwhile, all this activity has resulted in very painful leg muscles (again) so I am forced the "rest" which I am not good at.

The minute I posted the "poor me" bit I regretted it. I grew up with food on the table and clothes to wear, I got an excellent education and never suffered any abuse except emotional abuse. It took me decades to feel like I was a person worth being on this earth but now I can recognize that I have friends and family who love me. I will never complain about dancing lessons again (except how pudgy I was in a blue leotard).

My fall seems to have been worse than I thought. I landed sort of twisted with my right side coming over my left. My right knee has a lovely bruise which makes it hurt even more that it did. I haven't even past the 3 month mark that my surgeon gave me as the minimum for replacement of the right knee, but I feel like running to him and saying "Fix it!". I am exceedingly stiff all over but the knee is by far the worst. I am not going to exert myself much today and hope I can encourage healing by heat. I went out when my thermometer said it was 2C (our high yesterday was 4C) and did a massive grocery shop which will hold me over until later in the week. At least it's sunny today, which it wasn't yesterday. Let's hear it for solar gain!

I washed my sample skein of Robin's wool, and as I suspected, there was some oil and/or dirt left in the wool. When washed it bloomed quite a bit and I think will be best spun to an 8 ply or DK weight. When I remember how long the fibres are and draw them out instead of inchworm worsted spinning, they flow well, despite the odd noil, left because of the fineness of the fleece. Since I have a huge bag of this and another like it from a different sheep, I'll be spinning it for a long time. I truly view my stash (including the library) as my retirement fund. While I've drooled over lots of stuff on-line the only thing I've bought is some undyed novelty yarn to dye.

The Imp is asleep in the dining room (which faces north into the sun) but she's positioned herself in the one patch of shade. I expect she'd toast in full sun.

Sometimes the grind of living with fibro and RA is just too boring and frustrating to find anything to write about. I take handfuls of pills (or forget to do so as I did last night) but I still live with pain. My right knee has been swollen and painful for a couple of weeks due to nothing I can think of. It has suddenly turned into winter with highs in the single digits and the right knee hates that. But even when I'm bundled up in woolen jumpers and my ultra warm ugg boots, I still hurt. It's a struggle to get up and go to work and I mean that literally: it's the routine of getting dressed, getting a lunch put together, driving through traffic, etc. that I find tiresome. Add on to that all the miscellaneous bits and pieces like going to the chemist or the post office or pushing unwilling trolley through the supermarket. On top of forgetting to take my meds last night, I fell on my beautiful new front porch and landed hard on my left side. I was holding an armful of stuff besides my purse and my camera, and it was cold, and I was trying to get my keys out, and make sure The Imp didn't zoom out, and I just twisted my foot in my shoe (not my ankle, thank g) and splat. Without a knee to help get me up i scrabbled around a while, until I decided a knee was necessary and used my new one. It may not have been good for it but the right one hurts far too much to try that. Now I am sore all down my left side and both hands seem to have gotten involved. I stayed home due to the lack of meds, but I couldn't sleep much because of the pain. This is just one day, one typical day, which is why I have so little to blog about. I don't mean to whine or play poor me, because it's just plain boring and I never know how to answer when someone really wants to know how my health has been. Pain, insomnia, fatigue. It was so much easier when I had the Bear, because he picked up a lot of the slack and did a lot of the more difficult things like hanging laundry and grocery shopping for me.

The only fun part of life at the moment is watching Masterchef Australia. I now know I would never ever try to run a restaurant, which at one point was a fantasy for me. I never could figure out how a chef could guess how many meals of which sort a dinner crowd would eat. But the show has revived my flagging cooking interest which had descended into a very boring (there's that word again) routine of fish and vegetables. I did make a pot of Brunswick stew which I became addicted to while being part of a Virginia family for 15 years. I didn't add game (hard to find a squirrel around here and even rabbits are hard to come by) and my made up recipe tends to be on the spicey side, with liberal amounts of pepper and hot sauce, and the corn must be white corn. I have had to resort to growing my own butter beans since they don't exist otherwise here and I bring back shoe peg corn in tins from the US. I practiced on buttermilk biscuits last night but they didn't rise enough. Too much handling, I suspect.

I am reading Augusten Burrough's Running with Scissors, and while his childhood was way wackier than mine, I recognized the undercurrent or "this is not how childhood is supposed to be". I was miserable listening to my parents fight all the time and being told "No." to every request, while simultaneously being ordered to do things I didn't want to do. Why do I have to take modern dance lessons when I want to go horseback riding? Why do we have to drive to Florida at spring break when I'd rather have braces? My college years were some of the happiest in my life because I was out of that environment. I never knew a truly loving family until I married DH2.

My left cheek is starting to hurt so I must have hit my head too. If I'd fallen on the old front porch, it probably would have fallen apart under me.

You will only get the drivel of my brain since things have been deadly boring here at chez Swanknitter. I lost all of last week to a lurgie (ain't that a lovely bit of Aussie slang? Means bug or virus or whatever's going around). At the end of the week I was delighted to notice that my legs didn't hurt. Hurray! A cure for fibro--simply stay in bed all the time! When I said this to my GP yesterday (with heavy sarcasm), he said some people do just that. Because all activity hurts, they just retreat into being an invalid. I'd go stir crazy if I tried that. I got so frustrated when I was home recovering from my knee surgery and I couldn't go dig in the garden or even work around the house. Still, I didn't like waking up to sore legs this AM.

We have had about a week of heavy overcast skies and prediction of rain daily (just to give lie to my pronouncement about the lovely sunny winter days here in Canberra). We haven't had a drop of rain until today. And of course it rains today because I have a very industrious tradesman replacing my front porch. No power tools in the rain please. He is also going to replace the steps to the back deck which I now know were not made to code, with the last step being 3 cm too high. I always thought what last step was a doozy but now I know why.

I have been listening to a great backlog of Bush Telegraph podcasts and there were a series from the outskirts of Lake Eyre. When we (H2 and I) were madly in love with Australia, we devoured the whole Arthur Upfield series about the half-caste detective Napoleon Bonaparte. The Boney mysteries are now viewed at worst as racist and at best dated and patronizing, but for us they gave intriguing snapshots of life in various places like Broome, as they were in the 1930's when the mysteries were written. There was one written about the channel country and the sudden floods that could isolate vast areas of what had been desert. This year, floods in Queensland sparked what happens only about once a decade now, the flooding of Lake Eyre. It's a salt lake, 15 meters below sea level and when it floods, thousands of birds magically appear to breed. They even arrive before the water by some bird ESP so far undiscovered. I wish I could have seen it. Here's lovely shot of the lake in flood. If you Google "Lake Eyre flood birds" you'll get more info. Thus it is not strange that at least one Aboriginal group has as their totem animal the pelican, when they are hundreds of miles from the ocean.

So far I love my Macbook, and have become somewhat addicted to the trackpad. There are still a few manoeuvres that are a bit difficult, like when you are trying my move things all the way across the screen for instance, but the trackpad is very sensitive and I miss the scrolling ability when I go back to a PC. I have not been able to synch my bookkeeping files from the PC to the MAC but I may close out at the end of the fiscal year and start new.

A fibre update: I have almost finished the socks for my boss and by some sock magic, the stripes are duplicating themselves in exactly the same places even tho I didn't make any attempt to make them do so. I tried on CAW after putting the turtleneck in and found that, when the shoulder drop was figured in, the sleeves would be the right length. So the first sleeve got cast off and I'm knitting the second. Since the rest of the jumper is already constructed, all that will be left is sewing the the sleeves and doing the side seams. I am decreasing for the armholes on the back of the ribbon shell. I got one of the huge bags of processed roving, now to be called Robin's wool after the owner of the sheep it came from. I am not totally happy with my spinning so far but I will have to spin and ply a bit and wash it to see if I like the results. The loom is for sale on eBay but the only interest I've had is from somebody who wanted me to lower the price.

Somehow I managed to forget to take my evening meds TWICE this week, resulting in me missing two mornings, one work and one today (Sunday). I really don't like this. I feel like the time has been ripped from my hands and time is something I cherish. Time when I feel strong enough to get out and about, to actually do some things I had planned, to go to the Old Bus Depot markets which had their wool day today. Not that I need more wool, but they also sometimes have other bits & pieces that I like to collect like antique needlework tools or old pattern books. I also wanted to pick up some carpet pieces to repair the Imp's scratching post which is in sorry shape. She uses it, but then she uses other things as well, from the carpet in the lounge room to the tapestry chair.

Instead, when the headache had retreated to annoying rather than skull-splitting, I got up and made some progress on moving all files of use from the Big Computer to my new MacBook. (It needs a name, doesn't it? I'll have to ponder for a good apple name. Winesap? Here in Oz, Macintosh is an heirloom variety which seems odd to me.) I deleted a lot of files from the old computer, printed out a lot of knitting patterns that had been languishing, copied files to the MacBook, downloaded some freeware book-keeping software to replace Quicken, but I haven't trying the export and import of Quicken files to a new platform. As far as I am concerned, once that's done, I am no longer tied to the Big Computer for anything and it can go to computer heaven or hell. I only had to reboot it twice and once I had to unplug it in order to restart it. Think it's past its use-by date? No doubt the Bear could have patched and supported it but I am just not up to it.

I've plied the Wendy Dennis Polwarth and I managed to get some very long colour changes that actually matched up in plying so there will be stripes! I am more than halfway down the foot on the first of a pair of Opal socks for my boss. I had no idea from the ball of wool what would come out as a pattern, but I get several inches of a caramel-ish brown, then a blue stripe, a red stripe and a yellow stripe and then back to brown. Nothing that the ball announced. No doubt if I'd looked up the colour number I'd have known, but I just let her pick from about 6 different yarns.

Swans news (yes I now I haven't posted anything in ages) They won last night! Beat the Weagles by 5 Points! And I didn't watch! As a matter of fact I was already feeling unwell enough to go to bed at 9PM. If Essendon loses today, we'll be in the 8! I don't believe that this will be a tremendous season, just one to trial a lot of young players and give them more match experience. We can't rely on Goodesy forever. The membership department had to rely on Expresspost to get Canberra members their membership package and gave us our caps for free along with a min-scarf with suction cups, which is now in the back window of my car. If I clean the thing off well enough I will put the new season Swans bumper sticker on, as well as the Carolina one I picked up in Chapel Hill.

I am beginning to get back into the daily routine of my life, whether it's going to the mall for Medicare refunds, or going out to lunch with a good friend. I did both today, I will have to see if I am exhausted tomorrow or not. A lot of walking done which is good exercise but can inflame the angry leg muscles.

For any of you (besides my step-daughter) who read my blog and are interested in the saga of the superannuation, conciliation did happen (perhaps because I said it wouldn't, which by the way, was the assessment of my contact at the Tribunal, not a personal opinion). We met sort of halfway so I get enough to secure my future while hopefully meeting some of the needs of the children. I am glad it's over since it has been hanging over my head for nearly two years. I can now get some income from depositing it somewhere, and also make the repairs to the house that need doing. I've already started by fixing door latches and getting quotes to replace the front entry porch, which is falling apart and has no real steps, just piles of bricks. I need new carpet in the dining room which would mean emptying the china closet, which is not a small task. Then there's new fabric on the outside awnings.... I could go on.

I saw the surgeon today and, while he mimed mock horror at my not using crutches and driving early, he also was pleased with my progress. I can't wait for the other knee to be eligible but it will probably be this time next year. I no longer trust the intact knee to support me and revel in being able to do things with the new knee that were impossible just 6 weeks ago.

I found stuffed in my letterbox a box from Amazon with the latest in C.J. Cherryh's Forigner series, Conspirator. The Bear and I would practically arm wrestle over who got to read the latest. I am sorry he's not here to share it but this is one series I will hold on to. I love novels of culture contact, and speculative fiction regarding humanoids much larger than us, coal black with amber eyes, with elaborate courtly manners and singular bloodthirstiness, is just too juicy.

My final admission is I am writing on a new platform. I purchased (on credit) a MacBook last weekend. This was partially because Windows mangled the loading of iTunes, completely cutting me off from the application and the library. Della also had the type worn off some of her keys and the finish worn off the surface. She had also started to develop flakey system problems, the same type that have crippled the big computer. Without the Bear here to fix things, I had to move to a simpler system where I didn't have to know how to rub cleanup programs or download updates every week. I am even getting used to the whizz-bang new track pad, which I thought I'd never do. It is incredibly fast and the screen is crystal clear.

I have no excuses. I supposedly went back to work yesterday and then crashed in a heap today. I had been back to a "normal" level of activity for being up and about, walking, going to the grocery store and running various other errands. My knee is preforming beautifully which only highlights how bad the other one is. I don't have enough strength between the two of them to stand up easily without something to hold on to. They both get stiff when I sit for any length of time and the muscle pain from good old fibromyalgia is still at its only sometimes excruciating best. So I have a strong knee joint but everything else is the same. The bandage fell off shortly after my last post and, despite my squeamish anticipation, the wound was completely healed and I have a pink line down the centre of my leg. Part of the knee area is numb because of cut nerves, and it still gets warm with use, but I have had no pain with most activity. The quad needs to be exercised to build its strength and that's the only thing that gives me pain. The miracles of modern medicine, eh?

Tomorrow is the conciliation conference call with the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. Since I don't believe the other party has any intention of conciliation, and that the arguments have no basis in law, nothing will be resolved. Therefore, it will proceed to "review" by the Board and that takes 6 to 8 months. I wonder if I should go to Centrelink and apply for the dole now, or whether it would take 6 months for them to process me. I guess I continue to live on credit and the remains of the first super settlement to keep my financial head above water.

My BBBB is now Mother Tongues by Helena Drysdale. It is more travel writing than much hard research about vanishing native languages in Europe but is a pleasant read none the less. Food Politics was too boring and I just wasn't getting into it. While recovering I went through a series of murder mysteries including two by Monica Ferris. Her needlework mysteries are the only ones of the genre I find interesting, and the needlework is almost beside the point.

I am knitting up the turtleneck on CAW because I finished the instructions for the first sleeve and it looks terribly short. They advised measuring the drop from the shoulder seam after completing the neck, so that's what I am doing now. I also started knitting a shell out of Crystal Palace Choo Choo railroad ribbon in pink. It knits up to look tweedy, black and white and pink. It's a free Berroco pattern and I pray I have enough ribbon. The hat I started languishes, as do the socks for my boss. The shell had been Irving in a bag next to my recliner for about a year so I decided it deserved a shot. If I have enough ribbon it shouldn't take long.

It's been a while since I posted but recovery from surgery is rarely interesting enough to write about. I've been doing my exercises and walking around the house at least. I had one brief outing to the mall for a cup of coffee. I've had a lot of visitors and many phone calls checking up on me. I had a cold. I had a sore back for ages but today at least it seems to have left. I am tired all the time. I sleep a lot. I can stand and walk on my new knee without pain and don't use crutches around the house.

My biggest adventure was yesterday when I got into my car and drove, first to the chemist and then to the supermarket. Managed both shopping excursions on my own without pain and get home in one piece. We have been having very wild weather: high winds, rain (sometimes heavy, sometimes passing clouds) and more seriously cold than previously. It has prevented me from venturing out to walk much. It has been 4 weeks from surgery and I am very pleased with my knee. I was alarmist in my fear prior to the operation and I hope the other one goes as well whenever I have that one done.

And my favourite dancer won So You Think You Can Dance last night so.all's right with the world.

I have been grasping for something to post since it's not very exciting here at home. I've watched a lot of DVDs and Foxtel. I am in love with Clive Owen. I am reading Sherri Tepper's The Companions which, as all of her books are, is wonderful even if some of the main characters are dogs. I have almost finished my latest BBBB which is House of Rain by Craig Childs. This is an exceedingly readable description, told in the first person, about "what happened to the Anasazi." I put that in quotes because the book describes where they went and why. He literally walked hundreds of miles across the American Southwest and then northern Mexico following their tracks, some of which had been documented and some that had not. He describes in beautifully written prose what daily life was like between 400 and 1400 A.D. in these areas and his affinity with deserts and knowledge of the interconnection of water and people makes this book a 5 star. I may go back and read his other books. The Southwest is one place I've never been but would like to see.

The photo above is the only recent fibre I can show you. The three white skeins are my production of alpaca from the spinning I was doing pre-surgery. I washed them yesterday and I found it interesting that wet alpaca smells like wet hair: like a beauty salon after several shampoos, and not like wet wool. I am thinking of dyeing one skein red and knitting a Swans scarf out of it. The weaving is a dish towel from Laura Fry. Not that I would ever use it as a dish towel, but I admire her weaving and her knowledge which she freely shares with even novices like me. The towel is a twill in cotton and linen and is what I wish I could weave some day.

Post-surgery update: I am doing very well on the knee rehab. Walked yesterday again and want to make it 2 houses down where there is a footpath (sidewalk) to the next street over. My street has no footpaths and walking in the street or gutter can be a bit nervewracking with cars whizzing by and broken pavement. My back has been killing me but I think it's a result of unusual sleeping positions and soon I will clear out the bed of extra padding and go back to normal. Having one weak knee and a sore back makes moving around the house a bit challenging at times but I am managing.

Not only am I home, but I'm feeling pretty human. I have not used my crutches indoors since I felt no need (no pun intended). I can walk with a normal gate--no stiff leggedness, no limp, bending the knee as I walk. I have continued my exercises and about the only things I have trouble with are the straight leg raises. Some of this is unco-operative fibro muscles and I can only do so much about them. I spoke with my boss (who had a hip replacement in November) and asked her about what physiotherapy she had and she responded (unsurprisingly) that she had done no supervised physio and she is cruising now after lots of walking. I'm inclined to follow her example since I do not want to get into more arguments with well-meaning physios who seem to think that my falling back on fibro is somehow shirking my duty. I passed all their standards for home release without significant effort and I can stand and walk now without pain. In fact it gives me extra incentive to get the other knee done,since it still hurts. The one exercise I could not do was squats and that was the sole fault of the old right knee not the new left knee. I'd show you a photo but there's just a long bandage down my left leg with a waterproof dressing. I washing my hair and showered today and I'm feeling the need to cook. Everyone had showered me with dark chocolate, tis the season in in Oz to give chocolate to everyone: that's all Easter seems to mean.Maybe some oatmeal cookies would be a counter attack. Stock the freezer for return to work. I have 2 more weeks to wander the house and do things like ironing. I also have to find a tradesman to fix my front verandah which is verging on dangerous and I have withheld savings long enough. All I need now is to crash through a broken plank.

Miscrosoft has managed to strike at my heart by refusing to download an update to iTunes.and without iTunes I feel positively cut off. I may have to shift platforms earlier than I want to to but I've gone through all the recommended fixes and nothing worked.

Well, I have a new knee and what looks like a zipper up the front of my leg. I am too tired to go through excruciating detail of the experience, but 10 days in hospital has certainly cured my loneliness. I missed the Imp incredibly and she was overjoyed to see me home. We had a big cuddle where she purred louder than I've ever heard her.

I spent 5 days in surgery recovery, and 5 days in rehab. The pain I found totally bearable except one physiotherapy session when the therapist expected a fibromyalgia leg to do things it won't. I ended up in tears and had to recuperate a day. I fell twice, but then I fall a lot. It scared the nurses and bruised my dignity but did no damage to the physical self. I know there's a lot more work in the future because already it stiffens up if I don't keep moving it. Hard to do when you're asleep or even just blogging. I've already used up all patience with hospital bureaucracy. An example: I brought all my own medicines with me to hospital because I'd been warned about pharmacy bills for medications prescribed inside. The first night, a nurse didn't/couldn't find the box of one of my medications so ordered more from the pharmacy and once that box was open, it was used instead of mine. This happened twice.

I'll write more when I'm up to it. Coming home was very stressful because of a lot of hurry up and wait, having my staples removed while I didn't watch, and then having to manage in the outside world after living inside a ward for 5 days.

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 stripped 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How about I skip the apologies and just blog? I took last week off from work with the idea I would get caught up with things around the house, like cleaning and such and that didn't happen. I was flat out all week but it wasn't much doing things around the house. After the doctor's verdict, I attended a joint replacement information session and I have lots of people to contact about things like rehab and pain management. I also have found someone who will loan me all the equipment (crutches et al.) that I will need after hospital. I don't relish giving myself injections of anti-clotting agent, but I guess I'll have to. I have tried doing some of the exercises suggested by the surgeon to strengthen my leg muscles and ended up with muscles so sore I could barely get out of bed. This is going to be dicey because my leg muscles are so sore already that any efforts to strengthen them only makes them more sore. I understand the principle but it's hard to figure out how to actually do it. The fibro makes me stiff already but once I get going I can walk OK. In addition to that meeting, I had blood drawn for my routine tests, had a mammogram, waited 2 hours to see my GP, and got a new power of attorney form since hospitals are dangerous places.

J and I went to the NAB cup match between the Swannies and Port. Small crowd probably because there aren't that many Port supporters (but they were all at the match) and it was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Swans played like their usual early season selves, kicking directly to members of the opposing team, failure to complete when the ball got down into scoring position, etc. Rhyce Shaw pictured left is a new recruit from Collingwood and showed promise as a speedy little man and we haven't had many of those lately. The biggest shock was that Brett Kirk had cut his famous locks. Why? His shaggy head was distinctive in a sea of either no hair (see left) or blonde, and we have a LOT of blondes. Our new Canadian recruit played a little but if he wants to play ruck he'll have to jump better.

I also had to take some time to recovery from my 2 falls which have left some lovely bruises. Another reason I am stiff and sore.

I have finished the front and back of CAW and joined them at the shoulder with 3 needle bind off. I have cast on for a sleeve and am almost finished the cuff. I held the finished bits up and I think the neck opening comes down too low, but it's a turtle neck so I guess it doesn't matter. I am glad I shortened it because It now is the length of a normal jumper and I am sure it will grow (that is, stretch downwards).

Book report: The Fruit hunters by Adam Leith Gollner. This was another not really BBBB. Since I am a self proclaimed fruit-bat I was intrigued with all the new and mysterious fruits he tracked down, but there were not so gripping but well presented chapters on getting fruit to market, the rise of organic and heritage fruits, and a rhapsody on durians. They sell durians in my local supermarket, but since I've never eaten one and the odor of a ripe one is supposed to be horrible even while it tastes luscious, I'll give it a miss. I'm thrilled when my local market gets big fat beautiful fresh figs in an I pay too much for a couple because I love them. I always have bowls of ripening fruit on my kitchen counter and I eat about 5 pieces of fruit a day on average.

I confess I am also an addict of So You Think You Can Dance and am glued to the TV Sunday and Monday nights. This season I haven't found a favourite to champion like last year (dear Henry) but the choreography gets harder and harder.

I've been stewing instead of blogging. I'll get to the reason for the stewing in a bit, but first to catch up. So far this week I've had blood tests, a mammogram and will go to a meeting about joint replacement. I did sleep a lot over the weekend which is the first thing I do when I have time off--sleep to catch up on what I'm missing. Sleep deprivation really kills me and even 8 hours a night is not sufficient. The other thing I've been doing is in the photo to the left. Massive jam and preserve making. There is plum jam, plum chutney, zucchini pickle relish, wild blackberry jam, tame blackberry jam (from my back yard bush) and mixed berry jelly. The last was a bit iffy; it's set but a soft set as opposed to a firm one. All of the jam and other goodies are taken in to work and I solicit donations which go to charity. The mixed berry jam has a big fan club, as do the pickles. I'll have to watch out for more large zucchini. Of course, I always keep some for myself and for gifts, but you can't make one jar of jam.

Since I have wild blackberries I obviously have been blackberrying again. This time the temperature was more in the normal range and the berries were much bigger and easier to pick. I neglected to mention in the previous entry that we saw in the range of 35 yellow-tailed black cockatoos (photo right) who all flew over in small groups with babies in tow (you can tell by their call). I know in my head that they are common in the forest but it is still a thrill to see them. While I was picking berries among the plantation pines, I kept seeing what looked like brown paper flowers on the ground and I couldn't figure out what they were. I finally worked it out that they must be what's left of a pine cone when a cockatoo has finished with it. After M had picked enough and left, I kept going for another 20 minutes and managed once again to fall, but this time by stepping in a hole created by a rotten log, and landing on my butt, and there was precious little within reach to haul myself up with. More bruises, more stiffness.

What I'm stewing about is the verdict from the orthopedic surgeon that my knees were a hopeless mess and they should be replaced, which led me to sign up to have the left one done at the end of March. He's not even going to charge me extra, just take the insurance payout. Every surface of every bone in each knee was covered in spurs and growths. While I know I said I was going to do this, I am really nervous about it. My knees haven't been the bit of me that hurts the most (that would be my thigh muscles) and I don't know where the relationship of my fibromyalgia will intersect with joint replacement. Not having anyone here when I get out of hospital means I'm going to see if my insurance will pay for an extra week of rehab so I can get around. I won't be able to drive for a while, although since it's my left knee, driving will be earlier than the other. I won't be able to run or kneel, but I can't now anyway. I'm supposed to be exercising the knee and the exercises really do make it hurt. I hope I can rely on friends for rides for a while. After 3 months the other one can be replaced. Did I mention I was really nervous? I go through this whenever I have a medical procedure, even one I know is necessary and that I want to have done. I get cold feet and the urge to get as far away from doctors as I can. Who knows, maybe new knees will make the muscles happier.

I cannot comprehend what the people in Victoria have gone through. The death toll now has hit 200. One article I read today said that the very activity that the Bear and I were planning, moving to the bush, is one of the reasons why things got so bad. Not that we were moving to forested land; even I know a firetrap when I see one. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to have your entire life go up in flames, leaving you with nothing. My brush with fire here in 2003 really put the fear in me. I freak whenever I smell smoke in the air. I don't know how much money it will take to rebuild somebody's life. Furniture and clothes are replaceable but family mementos mean more than that.

My indoor/outdoor thermometer says its 43C outside and "only" 34 inside. I swear I'm actually getting used to this. It's supposed to change overnight and be back in the 20's tomorrow but this heat's gone on so long I feel like I should be wearing desert robes or something different than a singlet (tank top) and shorts. I have to wear shoes or my feet swell so that I can't move them but I'm in my cool Lands End mesh shoes. I'm trying to remember to drink a lot too. I am doing the evaporative cooling on the cheap trick, by doing wash and hanging it around the house to dry. I continue to hear stories about how cold it is in the US and the snow in London and wish that our respective temperatures could be moderated somehow
.



At right is the most recent pair of socks, these from Regia Bamboo. In searcing for a link it seems I am the only person in a English-speaking location who got a ball band that said "Bambu" and not "Bamboo". Strange. The yarn is light and lustrous, but tends to split a little too easily. The next sock is already cast on and is a Sockotta cotton in black and purple.




Below is a present given to me by LN and if you can't tell, it's a Peruvian clay spindle. Since I only know how to spin with a spindle that has a hook, and all I had to hand to spin was silk, I didn't do a very convincing job at demonstrationg how it worked. If you look carefully, the clay ball in the middle has incised markings. I wonderful thing to add to my textile bits and pieces. I like collecting these oddments, from bone crochet hooks to pieces of needle lace or filet crochet.





At right is the latest to come off plying and is the Targhee from Susan's Spinning Bunny in the the Clematis Vine colorway. Targhee is bouncy and not as slippery as what I have been spinning lately, so it is more uneven than I would have liked. It hasn't been washed yet but I imagine it will bloom some in the water. I plan socks for it and of course I didn't clount how many meters I had, but I can do that when it gets wound onto the ball winder.


Aside from today's photographic extravaganza, I can describe our black berry picking adventure yesterday. The mountains around Canberra are a) planted in plantation pines and b) full of wild blackberries. Very early in the AM M and I went to our usual spot to find that the forest service had blocked the road (to dirt bike riders) with numerous fallen logs and other associated debris. I made it over the obstacle path and we picked in our usual places. Lots of berries but small ones so not much to show for a bit over an hour's hot labor. On the way back over the logs, I fell, full length. It has made me sore and stiff today, both the fall and the contortions from berry-picking. When we left, I drove down the road a bit and found another patch with berries on flat ground and easy access so I expect we will try there next week, or even this week if it does cool down.

If this is a random act of weather, it's an act that needs to leave, stage left, immediately. I am really tired with this constant heat and the restrictions it puts on me. I can't do much when it's 36C outside and "only" 31C inside; that's out of my comfort range. It's lucky that the only part of my garden that got planted was the raised beds next to the back porch, because they are shaded much more than the baking heat in the other beds. Therefore I have cucumbers and zucchini, and a few bean plants, and one lonely tomato. The blackberries are getting baked on the vines so I am not getting as many as I had hoped. When I go to pick them, I find dried up little nubs rather than the fat black beauties I want. The shaded stalks are OK but the ones that get full sun are getting cooked. The one plant that is reveling in the heat is my grafted citrus.(at right). It has about doubled in size which is why it looks too big for its pot. It is also blooming like crazy, even on the new growth. It's so hard to remove all set fruit as instructed for its early years, especially since I don't know which are lemons and which are oranges yet! I hope I can keep it warm when winter arrives. The plum tree is netted and I have picked a bucket of plums, and made one batch of jam. I would like to make chutney and spiced pl6um sauce but I need cooler times to do it.

I also have been dipping into Italian cuisine, but only via the printed page. I have Autumn in Piedmonte by Manuela Darling-Gassner and The Italian Country Table. Should a day come when I dare heat up the oven, I have lots of ideas, but right now the closest I'm coming is a pasta salad. There are some lovely dishes for baked pasta, which has always been a favourite, but the thought of eating anything hot right now is beyond me. Salad and fruit. If I do lash out it will be for takaway, maybe a chook to graze on.

It's been way too hot to knit anything but socks and I have all but finished the Regia Bambu I started in Findlay, Ohio, in November. I have some purple and black Sockotta to cast on. I've carded a lot of alpaca but to spin it while sitting under a ceiling fan is asking for disaster.

The Imp has been very flat, sleeping the heat away. A good model for this weather, especially when you are wearing a fur coat, if only a light weight one. She had her annual trip to the vet and is supposed to get her teeth cleaned. I will when I have money. Squeezing every penny now, as the case moves into what I hope is its final stages. If my dear Bear knew that 18 months after his leaving I was still waiting for his super funds, which we had considered life insurance, he would be furious.