Just to prove I have been doing something while sitting here, the hank above is the 4 oz of BFL I bought from Sheepish Creations in January. It was a pure delight to spin but then BFL always is. I haven't gotten my hand on any of the superwash version but I think it would make superb sock yarn. I was surprised at how what looked like small patches of colour in the roving managed to spread themselves out over the entire hank.

It's been a long slow grind here, but I'm close to being back to functioning normally. Last night the muscles in my right ankle and lower leg decided to go berzerk on me and they are still sore today. I know this is a transient thing (unless this is how the problem my sister is suffering with started) so I will push on. I was going to try driving today and going to grocery shop, but I'll stay home and iron instead. My main problem with the knee is stiffness after being in one position for an extended period. I can sit at a table or desk with my feet flat on the ground but getting up and walking afterward is awkward. I am supposed to go to work next week and it's the sitting at a desk part of it that may hold me back. I also get tired quickly but we al know that FM can be blamed for that as well.

I have been knitting too and these are my latest socks. Opal Neon in red, red, and red, with a little orange and pink. I've started a new pair using the hand spun blue yarn I finished a while back. My first hand spun socks! I also received my copy of Knitted Jackets and it has several designs I like. I have enough pullovers but not enough vests or cardigans/jackets, so that's where my knitting will go. The Irish XO vest it done to the arm holes so I feel like the end is in sight.

My Swannies have been doing very well. J took me to the markets and retired to my house to watch them thrash the Roos on Saturday. There were patches of beautiful flowing football when the team played like a well oiled machine. And this with a team that we still had to watch with player list in hand to answer the "who's that?" questions. Some of the new line up like Bradshaw and Mumford look like really valuable trades. Hannebery was outstanding. We're in 3rd place on the ladder with 3 wins and one loss.

Book reports: I finished Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. It started off promisingly with altered geopolitics, nanotechnology revolutionising society and, for the characters of the story, high 19th century Victorian Britian being the social standard. But somewhere along the line, as the central character grew up, the novel lost its way and sputtered out in a very unsatisfactory ending. I have his Baroque cycle in the to-be-read section and I hope it doesn't leave me disgruntled as well. Eleanor and Franklin is almost too interesting to be a BBBB. I was surprised to learn that Eleanor was very shy and self conscious, due to her atypical upbringing. She was also very conservative in some ways, being in favour of Prohibition and against women's suffrage. She never forgave Franklin for his first infidelity and therefore for most of their public life they were estranged. She still loved him deeply but could never forgive that loss of trust. I'm now reading S.M. Stirling's The Sword of the Lady which is the 5th novel in his series about the US after the Change. The series is quite addictive. I have the latest Peter Corris calling to me, and the latest C.J. Cherryh Foreigner novel due out in a week or so, not to mention the other things in my bookcase. I will be sorry to give up my reading time when I go back to work.

I have been thinking about fibromyalgia a lot since my adventure in hospital and the way my body continues to throw pain at me all beyond "reasonable" amounts for the action involved. I had my staples taken out yesterday and, while on the scale of painful experiences, this should have been low, I was a basket case. Some of it is natural squamishness about medical procedures, some anxiety about what would or could happen, and some is just unreasonable pain reaction. From MedicineNet.com: "The cause of fibromyalgia is not known. Those affected experience pain in response to stimuli that are normally not perceived as painful." It's so hard to explain why you are in agony when you look and act like a normal person, and even when your rational brain is telling you the pain isn't really as bad as the sensations you are perceiving. I am beginning to think of it as neurological and not rheumatoid-ish. The only medication currently working is Endone, which I understand can knock normal folks out, but with me, it just takes the pain away for a couple of hours. I am now only taking one or 2 a day unlike the regular stream I was getting in hospital.

Meanwhile, I read, watch TV, knit, do my exercises, and otherwise manage healing. It's hard to believe that 2 weeks ago I was being operated on and today I am walking around the house and feeling more or less OK. (Of course, I am always in pain but we don't talk about that)

Just a quick update to let you know I am alive. I came home from hospital after 6 days and bypassed rehab completely. Apparently they were short of beds and they started me on exercises while I was still in the surgical ward. I was up and dressing myself at 3 days. I did go through a nightmare ride with pain management. The anesthetist didn't really understand fibro pain. I got a spinal injection of morphine instead of a general and that was supposed to cover all my pain needs for 24 hours. After 12 hours I was climbing the walls and begging for my own meds back. Instead I got a morphine pump and still was withheld my normal meds and sleep aids. I didn't sleep for about 3 days until they pulled the pump, put me back on my normal meds, but the on-service dr couldn't believe I still needed sleeping pills so wouldn't give me a full dose. To be fair to the anesthetist, who came to see me later, she really didn't understand how pain works in fibromyalgia, that the pain is in my brain not really in my muscles. I just wish these folks had looked at my medical history, spoken to my GP even, to understand that I had been on the regime for years and that they couldn't just start playing around with pain meds because they thought some arbitrary dose was sufficient. They also dispensed the meds at their convenience and since I am so dependent on several of those drugs, a three hour delays could make me cranky.

I also loathed the hospital. The nurses with few exceptions were super. The food was horrible. I had friends bring me fresh fruit because there was none on the menu and few veggies either. One day I ordered nothing but sandwiches and they were a bit concerned, but I had my fruit and tomatoes. Nothing to drink but coffee, tea, juice or water. The beds had very thin mattresses on a metal base and I had that to add to sleeping problems. That was also my reason for jumping at the option of going home. My nice soft adjustable bed let me sleep for 10 hours straight and also to elevate my leg to reduce the edema.

I am slowly working on the knee, trying to balance bed rest healing and exercises to gain flexibility. It already feels so much better to stand on than the old knee. I am eating out of the freezer. The Imp is delirious to have me back but she doesn't understand why she can't sit on the right side of my lap. On the other hand we have had many games of fetch and lots of petting and cuddling,

Today you get thought hot off my brain, as long as I can remember what it was I was going to say! Some may know I have a Masters in Linguistics, or that I was ABD (All but dissertation) on the road to a PhD in Linguistics. My field was sociolinguistocs which usually got short shrift in formal linguistics because of the reign of Noam Chomsky, with whom I disagree almost entirely. Chomsky viewed what actually came out of the mouths of speakers as insignificant compared the the black box of language in the brain. Besides the fact that brain research has shown that language is not a black box (read Oliver Saks) unless you consider the brain as a whole as the black box, you know as well as I do that people from different places speak the same language differently. Most commonly this is in pronunciation. I have learned how to spot a Kiwi (New Zealander) in 25 words or less. There are certain phrases that Aussies quote as telling signs, but I hear it in the change of different vowels. "Definite" come out as "difinit"

I've been collecting Australianisms since I got here and add new ones every week. Last week I heard "the duck's guts" meaning "everything" or maybe "kit and caboodle". Now I didn't stop and quiz the speaker about whether this was something his mother said and where she was from, but this was new to me. To Americans, "to take a squiz" or "hit for six" may be as mysterious, but they are now as part of my vocabulary as "the whole nine yards".

What prompted today's post was reading Meg Swanson, who is practically a god to us knitters, write about the enormity of Elizabeth Zimmerman's contribution to knitting. I should give up on "enormity" whose dictionary meaning (Mirriam-Webster) is "an outrageous, improper, vicious, or immoral act" but is almost universally used today as "a huge amount". I can see people needing a noun to use from "enormous" but "enormity" ain't it. But I might as well forget it as I have forgot my battle over less vs. fewer. In linguistics classes, especially grammar and meaning forums, you would frequently be given sentences that you could signify as ungrammatical, and in papers read in conferences votes could be taken about whether sentences were grammatical or not (and what about that black box, Noam?). I have to restrain myself from correcting people or even grilling them on where a phrase came from (dialectology, very not-black-box). Written language is even worse and it's not just non=native speakers who mangle it. Yesterday I got an email from the Library's own book store apologozing for getting a "sir name" wrong.

I've got a lot of phrases from my mother, but I've lived in Australia long enough that I can't even tell now whether I'm using American or Aussie terms for things. I remember my first problem with "haberdashery" which in the US means men's clothing but here means what Yanks would call "notions", those extra bits and pieces for sewing, like tape measures and needles. Americans rarely lose their accents here, but my vocabulary is a dog's breakfast at the moment.

I am also crushed to find out that the only day President Obama will be in Canberra will be the day after my knee surgery. I was ready to stand outside the US embassy and wave a flag but I won't be able to now. I'll be physically close since the hospital is just a mile away but not good enough. Rats.

Another friend is now fighting cancer, and I have been told I better get used to this as I get older. There are a few people my age or older who are disgustingy healthy but for the most part nearly every one I know of my age has some medical condition that they are battling. I know our genetics is not wired for us to live this long, so naturally things start to fail with age. Medical science can keep us alive longer (see BFLB's blog) but the cost in dollars and angst and pain is not insignificant.

Apologies that the Weather Pixie seems to have disappeared again. I haven't removed the link in hopes that the site revives as has happened before.

Today you get photos. Above is the result of my spinning some of that really long alpaca I showed you before. I spun directly from the locks and it was pretty easy and it seems to be a really firm yarn, due to the very long fibres. I may try it as warp for a scarf.

Next is a shot of my crepe myrtle, one of the many things planted by the precious homeowner in ridiculous places. This is between the two driveways with my next door neighbour. The drought has been so bad it hasn't bloomed in years but all the rain that we have had here has finally coaxed it to bloom. It's right against a utility pole as well, and sometimes gets the not very gentle attention of utility folks. The other pink shrub in front is an oleander which blooms no matter what the weather.

Since I've mentioned rain, I'll tell you that we got 60 mm. in one day this weekend. Thunderstorms and lightning (very very frightening) (sorry, I couldn't help it) and torrential rain. My back yard was soggy and no lawn mowing got done. Today was supposed to be sunny but isn't; it's overcast and breezy and I hope we get some sun because the lawn now needs to be mowed. I have larvested some more potatoes, and continue to get tomatoes.

And here is my main knitting project at the moment, the X & O vest from Folk Vests, knit in a mohair and natural brown wool given to me by BFLB. It's knit in the round, and around me is a long way. Each row seems to take forever. I need 6 repeats of the X and O cables to get to the armholes, and I've done 2. I'm using my Knitpicks Options needles with a long cord.

I am very dissatisfied with how much weight I've gained. Back to what I was before I went on a brand name diet and lost 30 kg. I am not eating all that much and don't snack but I know it's because I am not getting enough exercise. The problem at this particular point is that exercise, even walking, makes my leg muscles spasm and hurt. This is only solved by rest. Only 11 days to my surgery and I hope this will let me walk naturally for the first time in years, and also be able to target weight loss. Since I've decided to postpone my next trip to the states, I need to work on fitness, just to take the trip, even without weight loss.

I have just looked out the back window into the garden and saw a flock of about 15 silvereyes. They are so tiny and travel in flocks, so you can be surrounded by a dozen tiny twittery jewels. They are common in my back yard, but seeing them sitting in a row on the back fence is not common.



I now have a scanner that works and I have a bunch of old photos to scan and potentially to share with my unknown readers. This is the noble Haile Selassie, when he was still a kitten and not yet noble. He was my first cat and in some sense my favourite cat. He had a very grave and quiet personality, although he was good at cat soccer with a crumpled piece of paper. He lived first in ex-1's dorm room at my uni, then with my parents for a year until we found a place that allowed pets. He moved to Washington from Chapel Hill, and then to Ohio where he finally succumbed to old age at 18. He was loving without being demanding or clingy, a good lap cat and tolerant of the kitten we later introduced into the household. The kitten worshiped Haile so there was no conflict and Haile's nobility at having this small orange thing follow him around and sit next to him was charming. I though all cats were like that and I was very surprised to discover each cat has its own personality.

Here are the almost-Olympics socks, which I finished a few nights ago. I have since started a new pair, back to wool this time, in Opal Neon which is red, several shades of red but red. I am halfway down the leg on the first one. I have also been knitting on the Irish vest but one row is a very long one, since it's knit in one piece. Lots of seed stitch and cables. Unfortunately, I am discovering that after an evening of knitting knit/purl in either ribbing for the sock or seed stitch for the vest and my hands are quite sore the next day. They don't hurt while I'm actually knitting so I refuse to give up, but I try (even though it's excruciating) to do nothing for a little while at least while watching my evening TV. Doing nothing does not come easily to me.

To the left is the produce of my garden from yesterday's work day. I was digging up weeds near the potatoes and noticed they were dying back, so I dug a little further and produced about 8 potatoes, some of which I had for dinner last night. I thought that the eggplants had succumbed to the weather but they had produced fruit even if it is small. Likewise, I thought the beans had given up, but when I looked deeper, I found beans! And of course, a selection of tomatoes, from Black Russians to yellow cherry tomatoes.

Books: I raced through Sue Grafton's U is for Undertow in record time. I am beginning to bore with her style and this one I felt was contrived. You could tell from the way it unfolded how it would end, and Kinsey's chance of being at the right place at the right time was a bit too convenient for me. I am also tired of being stuck in 1988. I am now reading William Gibson's Spook Country, which is spare and elegant and makes you feel slightly off centre.

I am slowly getting the house ready so I can go off to hospital and then recuperate. I washed my bedspread today since yesterday's rain never materialized and now find the forecast for today is 40% chance of rain. I hope it will dry without another rinse. If is stays dry I may mow the lawn. I'm arranging to get my car repaired while I'm unable to drive. My Foxtel box is full of movies and other things of interest. I enjoyed Monarchy which showed the Queen as a very alert and energetic lady, although I still wonder what's in that ever-present handbag. She alone must support the millinery industry of the UK, not only by her own use, but by all the people she receives wearing hats as well.

Unfortunately, life is back to boring routine leaving little to blog about. The girls went blackberrying again this AM but the berries had passed their peak in the rain and we left with little to show for our efforts (and I fell once). The rain totalled 130mm in my rain gauge. I have lots of pumpkins and the lima beans are climbing vigorously. I had to mow the lawn for the first time in months due to the downpour.

The Imp had her annual vet check and has been put on a diet. I thought she looked a bit chubby and her weight has grown too far. No more "Fussy cat" food for her. Maybe I need to play with her some more.

I have been enjoying the figure skating at the Olympics. I am not officially in any knitting Olympics groups, but I have been charging along on the lime green socks because I can knit on them without thinking. I adore figure skating and we hardly ever see it here in Oz. To make up for that, I am watching all of the cable broadcast stuff, from Estonia to China, seeing all the skaters, not just the top ones which you'd see in the USA. Therefore, I have seen many pairs and men (so far) fall on the ice, which was practically unheard of in the 80's when I was seriously into skating. I have never skated myself, having discovered early on that ice is very hard. With my balance issues (I can't even use crutches) skating would be one big bruise.

I finished Nine Dragons and it was one of Michael Connelly's best. Where Harry goes from here will be very interesting and new territory. I have turned at last to the next S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God, in his series of The Change. I find them really engrossing and full of detail. The initial trilogy was top notch and I hope he can maintain the momentum. For my BBBB, I have also finished American Colonies and have turned for a change to Eleanor and Franklin, since I realized when visiting Hyde Park how little I really knew. To read in the first page that the Roosevelt ancestor started out in Dutchess County by buying Beekman Swamp, and my great-great-grandfather was born in Beekman, I felt a tie already.

I'll skip the grovelling abut how I haven't posted. The only valid excuse I have is that I am trying to stay away from the computer for physiological reasons: I have edema in my legs that gets so bad I can barely walk sometimes and sitting for long periods doesn't help. I have to do it at work, but I don't at home. And there are other tasks at hand that involve standing up. We went blackberrying in the mountains a couple of weeks ago and I therefore made blackberry jam. It is the season for zucchinis of blimp proportions and while my own plant hasn't produced any, I have another source. Thus I make zucchini pickle relish, which has some rather addicted fans. Lots of standing.

The photo at left is to demonstrate that both residents of the house are birdwatchers. There are a lot of baby birds around and The Imp appreciates large noisy birds on her front lawn.

The only news I have is that I have a date for my right knee replacement: March 24. So in a little over a month I'll be back in hospital for about 10 days and home for a month. The X-ray showed up a strange growth looking like a second knee cap above the real one. My surgeon said (obviously) that he couldn't tell what it was till he looked at it but now that I know it's there, I can feel it. Oh, and I fell on my right knee again, tripping over a garden hose. but it's mostly a scrape of the sort we got as children and has left no lingering aches.

We have had very unusual weather for Canberra. While I say this, I have been looking at all the photos of Washington in a blizzard, since I have several close friends there, one of who I talk to daily. I actually miss snow. I grew up in New York and remember lots of snowy days, wearing snowsuits to school and rubber boots, sledding down the modest hill near my house. Even 12 years in Ohio didn't dampen my enthusiasm, especially with a fireplace to make things toasty. I don't like driving in snow, especially when so few people know how to drive safely in it, and I don't like that feeling when you put your foot on the brake pedal and the car continues on its original course. Here, however, all we've had is rain. After so long without it, you forget what it's like to be damp. Last night it rained all night, and we had 40mm in the rain gauge this morning and now it's raining again. My tomatoes and pumpkins will certainly appreciate it. Too bad it's too late for the beans. We officially had one of the hottest Januaries on record.

I mentioned a few posts back about an attack of buying spinning fibre on Etsy and here are some of the results of that late night splurge. The batt to the left top is called "Cashmere Camping" from JAHtsemer.esty.com, the bottom pouf is alpaca from Alpaca meadows, the two spirals are Rambouillet from cjdelights, the purple hank is merino & tussah silk from Birds Nest Yarns and the far right is merino and Tencel from Woolgatherings. My fingers itch to spin. However, finances will not be tempted this way again. I will not succumb to insomniac shopping again even when the Aussie dollar is so strong. Besides, I have 2 bobbins of the long brown alpaca spun and I'm dieing to see what it looks like as yarn. In the meantime I am knitting my lime green cotton socks.

Book report: I finished Alistair Reynolds' The Prefect and really liked it. A very far future mystery and a real page turner. I've read most of his work and he is one of the best of the new breed of what seems to be called space opera, but I would just call hard science fiction. With so much of the sci-fi sections in bookstores taken over by fantasy, it's sometimes hard to find good stuff. Another advantage of letting Amazon suggest things, but I rarely buy a new author without being able to read the front and back matter. I'm not as bad as the Bear was, since he read the end of novel before the beginning. Heresy! I understand Reynolds has a new novel out but I will attempt to stay away from bookstores for a while. I've started Michael Connolly's latest Harry Bosch novel, Nine Dragons. I expect to race through it like I do most of the series.

To the right is what I bought from Sheepish
Creations when they were having a sale. Two hanks of BFL but no choice of colour. I am not disappointed.

I have been very careful not to spend money and then I had a visit from my dear MIL and she is a bad influence. We spent most of Weds at the mall, doing things like going to Medicare, having lunch, seeing Avatar in 3D. But she was very taken with the product of my bread machine. I explained that it would only do one type of bread and that it had no "bake only" cycle which is what I need to make sourdough in it. She also decided that my toaster was too old (it was yellow plastic and bought about 15 years ago and can be temperamental). She decided she would buy me a new toaster (it you are thinking Cylon you know I can relate) so we went off to Myer while in the mall, and we chose a toaster and she also replaced my electric knife which had died a while ago. It is much easier to cut homemade bread with an electric knife. While we were in small appliances I took a look at bread machines and of course fell in love with one of the most luxurious models. MIL insisted that I needed it and I succumbed. This one will do everything except slice the bread and butter it. We had to come home and do a test loaf before we went out to dinner. It is faster than the old machine, has a "bake only" cycle and you can even specify how you like your crust. It produces a loaf that is more standard in dimension than the tall loaf produced by the old Panasonic. Oh, and BTW, MIL wants the old bread machine! I am now testing the new Breville on pumpernickel which the old machine made bricks of. My credit card took another hit.

I have not been sleeping well, or rather, I have not been sleeping. Falling asleep before 2AM is the exception, not the rule, and though I needed to see my GP, I simply could not get up at 6AM today after not getting to sleep until 3AM last night. You see, I am now back to walking around malls, working, etc. and my legs have started to hurt again. I spent a day taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree while MIL was here which of course is all standing, What do I do when I can't sleep? I try reading. I toss and turn, I play Mah-jong, read blogs, have toast. None of those worked last night so I headed back to Etsy and naughtily bought spinning fibre. The LAST thing I needed but my will power is very low in the early morning. Too bad I can't swap some of the alpaca for it. I have started spinning the long alpaca straight from the locks and, I might be wrong, but I think this is strong enough to be warp. I of course need to sample, but 6" long fibres tightly spun feel strong enough for warp if they can stand abrasion from the heddles and reed.

I have cast on the Irish XO vest from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests in Brook's Farm moorit wool & kid mohair (a gift from BFLB) and a pair of summer socks in Katia Mississippi 3 in lime green. I am rethinking the cabled cardie as another simpler pattern has caught my eye and I am in the mood for something simple. There's also the possibility of knitting Girl Friday in Berocco Softwist Bulky which I bought at half price on the last trip to the states with the Bear.

Last evening I was alerted to some commotion in the back yard involving a lot of unusual squawking. I took myself and the camera outside to find the plum tree festooned with juvenile king parrots. They didn't really care about me so I watched the parents feed and fly off, and the babies retire to the power lines in the back. I could walk right up to them and snapped away hoping to get the action of the parents regurgitating food into a baby (just as big but dependent). Unfortunately it was so far into dusk that I only got silhouettes. This is the first time I have seen young king parrots in my back yard so I am glad that all the Cheeps have produced new parrots. I also heard on a podcast at work yesterday that superb parrots are making a comeback and I now know that they are in my neighbourhood as well. They prefer a particular type of acacia which I should research.

The day before Australia Day is about to dawn, I am finally back on-line. I have been sick for 2 full weeks, and only now am not totally exhausted. Back to work tomorrow, still coughing a little. I'm sorry I deserted my reading audience but there was nothing left to write about unless you want to know how many boxes of tissues I went through. I managed to tack a cold on the end of the infection so I ended up blowing my nose a lot even though my head was clear when the infection started.

I finished Mappa Mundi and it ended as a good thriller ought to, although I still can't believe the main premise of the science part of it would be manageable in our lifetime, and the novel was set pretty squarely in the present day, with a few computer whiz bangs to make it all work. I raced throug C.J. Box's Open Season, which is the first in his series on a fish & game warden. A real page turner even if you did sort of see it coming. I tried reading a straight novel, and found it too close to reality for me. I didn't want to read about somebody else's unhappy childhood when I have one of my own. So I've started Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect, and while I don't remember a lot of the details of his universe, it feels more comfortable than 1954 suburbia. I read to escape, not dwell in the past.

It's been a blue day here as I miss the Bear most on Sundays because we had a Sunday routine that I can't replicate by myself. My dear MIL arrived this afternoon for a 3 day visit. She is always welcome here. We'll go see Avatar together and take down the Christmas tree.

Good news or bad news? How about good: here are my completed knitting projects pushed along by enforced house arrest. The shell is knit out of Cyrstal Palace Choo-choo yarn, in the colourway actually featured at Yarnmarket. I picked up balls here and there until I had enough for the shell. I have a weakness for ribbon and there's more in the stash. It took my a very long time to finish this which has nothing to do with the pattern or the yarn, just intertia. It fits, but will be worn under another layer for my aged modestry. The other is my second attempt at lace (that is, successful attempt) and is only feather and fan in Touch mohair. It is soft and scrunchable and I don't think I'll block it. It went in with the moth-balled winter stuff. I am next starting on a cabled zip front cardie, which will require me to sit down quitetly and establish the pattern. Out of medium grey handspun in sorta bulky weight. I am also going to start a vest an I'm leaning towards a Chris Bylsma design. Trying to use a gift from BFLB of merino and kid mohair in a toast brown. What can I say--I'm addicted to cables.

Healthwise, no good progress to report. I continue to cough and wheeze. I saw my GP on Friday morning and he said the hospital was not needed but put me back on steroids and more antibiotics and wants me off work and to see him on Tues. So I cough and wheeze and am generally tired because I can't sleep because I cough and wheeze. The steroids do make my RA better--my hands are much less inflamed but I still can't get my rings on, so I guess the joints are still stuffed. Without steroids, the RA in my sternum would be screaming by now and I'd have to be on steroids. I have a lung infection that is apparently going around and causes weeks of coughing. Coughing is my friend, because I am still coughing gunk up, but it's not fun. I am very tired and would love to nap, but find myself parked in from of the TV watching National Geographic and BBC dramas. I enjoy Torchwood, Innocent, Carrier, Eureka, and The Story of India. As you can see my tastes are eclectic and I trhow in the odd nature documentary or sci-tech explanation. No day time soaps for this viewer.

I am also still on my quest for perfect bread. I bought one sourdough starter through the mail and have 2 more on order. I am reading Classic Sourbough
which seems like a very sensible and down to earth approach. I watched a show on The Food Lover's guide to the Planet (Nat Geo Adventure) about bread and they showed 4 different breadmakers all using live starter and not bread yeast. May not all be classic sourdough but live starter seems a good start. Tuscan bread is a favourite and that's what they do. Ed Wood also goes someway to demystify flours. There seems to be a blokes network for sourdough on line where women seldom are heard, but I made sourdough for years in in North Carolina without serious analysis and I am sure I can do it again. Good bread is the staff of life. When I'm not miserly eating low-fat yoghurt for lunch, I eat bread, cheese and fruit. I don't find that excessive.

I am reading Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson, and while the plot is racy, this is one where the Bear would say the science doesn't hold up. I cannot believe that they would have cracked the link between physics of neurochemical reaction in the brain and control of personality/will in our life time. Yes, it is a horrendous idea but the science doesn't convince me, all though the conspiracy theories and good vs evil is intriguing if implausible.

A brief post for those of you who care about my health. I am once again knocked down by a mystery illness. No mystery about the symptoms, just origin and cause. The cough I developed last Friday by Sunday was keeping from sleeping and I was developing a chest so wheezy that the noise of that was alarming, When I woke up at 6AM Momday I decided to do something and went back to the clinic to see any doctor. He put me on Ventolin and antibiotics and told me to go home and rest for a week. I am still coughing but the little I cough up seems to help with the wheezing, as does the Ventolin. I finally got some sleep yesterday. I can really only not cough by sitting up so I have watched a lot of TV (a plug for Foxtel) and finished the ribbon shell finally. It shows a bit more flesh than I should at my age but over a light T shirt should do well. I wove ends on the lace scarf, so I shall have to pull my wits together for a new project. I want a around the house cardigan or a vest out of my handpsun so I shall have to brave the studio's pattern library.

The first week back at work was not thrilling, but then I didn't have high expectations. Unfortunately the collection development people thought the crap I had was wonderful and a valuable addition to the catalogue (groan) so I am forced to catalogue it. How a 1960's catalogue of machine parts can arouse so much interest is beyond me, but I serve an apparently weird clinetele.

The visit with SIL and BIL went fine, with the stand-out in their estimations was my pumpkin pie. Huh? Since they have no such thing here, it must be as exotic as a pavlova is to an American. BIL voluntarily took on a piece of home maintenance I have been unable to deal with (back screen/security door sticking) by removing the door, adjusting its wheels and cleaning out the tracks. The last bit I could have done but not the rest. Thank you, G.

We are in another patch of 35C+ temperatures, until Tues or Weds they say. I shudder to think of my electricity bill but I am able to do stuff around the house with a/c where last year I would have been flat on the bed sweating. Instead I managed to iron, and poke away at genealogy. I have no berries except blackberries which have outdone themselves. I may actually accumulate enough to make jam. I have lots of green tomatoes but no ripe ones. The pumpkin vine is beginning to expand and my last lima beans are up. I've had one cucumber but no zucchini.

Reading The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and while he's very excited and enthusiastic about the global economy, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yes, isn't convenient we can buy cheap clothes from China but should we? I realize that there isn't much hope of resurrecting the garment industry in the US or Australia, and we reap the benefits every time we shop, but there has to be a down wide to this. The Chinese worker is making much more than they would have pre-globalization but are they going to want more? Are we ready for China to deal with a middle class with greater aspirations than buying cheap knock-offs of designer labels? Since I tend to shop at K-Mart I am at the bottom of the food chain, but I worry about the big boys throwing punches above me. I don't think the flat world is a fair world, maybe fairer than it was but a lot of people lost jobs along the way and I don't see former clothing workers re-inventing themselves as designers of bleeding edge aerospace components, just because that's where the jobs and money went. I know I couldn't live without constsnt Internet connection and that has a wider reaction than me being able to do genealogy research at a distance. Something to think about and watch in the future.

Meanwhile I have suddenly developed a nasty chest cough with no other symptoms to help excplain it. I coughed all night and don't look forward to doing it again and would like it to go back wherever it came from.

Greetings to 2010. For once I did not stay up to watch Sydney fireworks, which I understand were their normal stupendous standard. Instead I went out to the movies with D to see Avatar and then came home and uncorked a bottle of bubbly, had some cheese & crackers, and talked until nearly the magic hour. I have never put a lot of emphasis on when the clock ticks over the a new year, but I do like Sydney's fireworks, which why I usually stay up.

As expected I have spent major portions of the week off work sleeping, sleeping and then taking a nap. I also spent almost 3 hours waiting to see my GP which I hadn't anticipated but there were already 8 people ahead of my on his queue before I got there, and I got there before he did. When it wasn't raining it tended to be hot, so I haven't done as much outside work as I would have hoped for, but the garden chugs along without me. I've done the occasional weeding and re-typing of tomatoes, put bird netting over the plum tree, and got no berries at all. It was either too hot or too cold and they just didn't mature. My neighbours did a halfway job on cutting back the overhanging shrubs--just the minimum they could do to meet the letter of my request, but not enough that we won't be back to square one next season.

Then there was the problem I had putting up the bird netting. A couple whom have been close to the Bear and I since I came here came over. Since he is tall, I asked for assistance in putting the bird netting on the plum tree; I had already had one cockatoo shredding tree and green plums. When I reached out to get the ladder to climb up for my end of the netting, I failed to notice a wasp nest under construction under one of the rungs and I got stung 3 times in rapid succession. I don't react well to insect stings (especially wasps), and insects will sting me and leave everyone else alone (I was the only person stung at this time). I expected swelling and irritation but more than 24 hours later and my forearms and right wrist/hand were very swollen, red and hot and the swelling was progressing rather than receding. So I called the toll-free health network and spoke to a nurse who advised me to see a doctor within the next 4 hours. By this time it was 7PM New Year's Day. Fortunately my clinic was open and there were only a few other people there so I was in and out, with a script for Prednisone and an antibiotic (just in case). Today most of the swelling is down, but the back of my hand is worse and bending my wrist is like trying to bend an overinflated balloon. I expect another dose of steroids will fix that. My SIL and hubby are due to visit in Tues and I'd like to do a little more cleaning before they arrive.

I did go through the huge box of the Bear's slides, which indeed went back to the 60's. I found the wedding photos from his first marriage. Luckily I have been in contact with his first wife so I could ask her if she wanted all the slides of their honeymoon (she said no). I scanned and kept every photo of the Bear and/or the rest of the family. This took about 2 days.

Finally, as if I need to, I'll give a huge plug for Avatar. It literally blew me away. I almost don't want you to go to the site and download the trailer; I want you to go with zero expectations, as I did more or less. It is so real, so overwhelming, so vivid, so imaginative. I felt I was living all those science fiction novels I had read about first contact. We didn't go to the 3D version but now I think I want to see it again, maybe in 3D this time. I had to remind myself (when I was not totally embedded in Pandora) that this was animation. Those wizards at Weta in Wellington (NZ) outdid their Lord of the Rings and I know when Avatar comes out on DVD I will wait for the 5 disc ulta-extended edition and may even spring for a Blu-ray player for it. If you go to the website, try to do so after you see the movie. Don't spoil all the wonderful surprises that are there for you to see with eyes wide open. and jaws thoroughly dropped. I dreamt about the movie that night and I can't wait to see it again. One thing I am very glad about turning 60--I can get into movies cheaper. Thus my suddenly going to movies all the time! D and I spent a lot of time gasping at each other. "That was so amazing/fantastic/overwhelming/wonderful!!"

Merry Christmas! I've been absent and I have no excuse but surges (mostly down) in my mood and unbearable heat. I swear I must have insulted the weather gods by installing air conditioning, because we have had more multiple day stretches of 35C and over before Christmas than I have experienced in 19 years in Canberra. While the a/c makes daily life a lot more pleasant, I'm still loathe to turn on the oven and I actually lose my appetite when it's that hot. Also, I try not to be greedy with my a/c and only aim at 24C (I am still arguing with the thermostat) which is really too hot for me to sleep in comfortably. I'm a sleeper who likes a chilly room and lots of blankets to burrow under, not a stuffy 24C. So I haven't been sleeping and not eating much, my right leg is giving me fits (a euphemism for pain) and I've been depressed. Oh, and the garden is nearly cooked. No berries to speak of, although I do have lemons. For Christmas day I am delighted that we are having good steady rain. Not cheery, or covered in snow like parts of the US, but needed badly. Above is my Christmas tree, each ornament has a story, and it has few lights this year because 2 of my strings had died. Since I brought them with me from the States and they weren't new then, I can't complain. I'll buy some new ones for next year. The Imp has taken to chewing on the lower branches, which I don't get, but so what else is new? The angel on top was a gift from BFLb, there are many animals (especially bears) native to both the US (squirrels, cardinals) and Australia (emus and wombats). My Christmas presents to myself were sourdough starter and a lapis lazuli square spindle. My dear MIL gave me the latest Harry Potter DVD and a seafood cook book. I have a tray of mangoes so I suspect I'll make mango jam either later today or tomorrow.
This is the skein of Optim from Conjoined Creations I've been spinning and it does feel like silk. Instead of finishing the several projects I have going, I suddenly decided to knit a mohair scarf, so a feather and fan scarf in pastels is 3/4 done. I hope to use the next week to finish off at least two of the projects languishing. But my first priority for the holiday break is sleep. I am now going back to bed with the latest Kathy Reich mystery and hope I fall asleep. Christmas dinner is going to be cheese and smoked salmon on crackers, cherries and mangoes, and pavlova for dessert.

Today you get ruminations of my mind from the past few weeks. I went through a spell of severe depression that lasted a little less than a week. I cannot discern a reason but as one person put it, when the things you enjoy doing no longer give you joy, you know you're depressed. There seems no way out, you are at the bottom of a deep hole and only want someone to fill it in and leave you. I cannot deny that I still grieve for the Bear every single day. The emptiness he left in my heart still hurts. But this was a more generalized black spell when nothing felt right, I hated my job and my life and nothing seemed to be worth waiting for.

Now I feel really good and am revelling in summer in Canberra (no, I don't like 36C but I have a/c now!), watching parrots destroy silky oaks (see right) which are in full bloom at the moment, eating beautiful cherries which are the signature fruit of December, enjoying clear dry days and cool nights. I've managed two full active days and one day of rest for my weekend, so that this week should not be a repeat of the disaster of last. I will promise to remember to take my meds every night and not be knocked out like I was on Thursday (on a day when all power was cut off due to electricity pole replacement). I spent time on Saturday tidying up the berries, which are not doing very well this year because on my neighbour's overhanging shrubbery, predation by possums, and the erratic weather. My tomatoes are doing well and the peas are done. I'll eat the last of them tonight.

I have finished the bag of long brown alpaca. That leaves one full of brown and one of white, and half a bag of black. I will be carding more white soon so I can spin it. I knit for 3 hours last night on the silk shell which I suppose makes some progress although it's hard to tell without measuring. The marker went past my fingers several times so I know the roswe of 220 stitches were going by. Tonight is the season finale of "Glee" (sob!) so it's back to DVDs and Foxtel. I have finally found a mate to go to the movies with on a regular basis and we've seen two movies ("Time Traveler's Wife" and "9") in the past fortnight. Her tastes match mine and she has a flexible schedule. If the price of growing old is getting into the movies cheap I am happy to declare my age! For the benefit of my opinion "The Time Traveler's Wife" was a very literal version of the story told in a linear fashion, without any of the personality shown in the novel. While I love seeing Eric Bana nude, read the book. "9" was another wonderful Tim Burton animated gem that was so much fun to watch and I was just marveling at how one determines camera angles for animation.

I have been going through a very bad patch of not sleeping and therefore feeling like crap the next day, and not sleeping again in a constant cycle. During this time my white noise machine died as well, but I have been making do with a fan. Apparently the only source for them in Australia is to make babies sleep, so that's where I have ordered my replacement. I finally slept through the night (mostly) night before last and finally feel halfway human again. I also managed to forget my meds one night in there but, unlike most other occasions, I could not sleep the next day to make up for some of the horrid withdrawal feelings. I don't know how people cope with FMS without drugs. Either they have much milder cases than I do, they don't work, or the are very stoic. I get to a point where I lie in one position for X minutes and then the pain of lying like that wakes me up, I turn over and sleep another X minutes, repeat ad nauseum. That's when I sleep at all and am not up at 2.30AM drinking sherry and trying to bore myself to death reading about 17th century Virginia.

There are two new books in the house that have once again inspired me to do things I don't have time for. One is Woven Shibori by Catherine Ellis. I had seen photos of the results but I couldn't imagine what "woven shibori" actually meant. I am a big fan of shibori as I have ranted in earlier posts, culminating in my purchase of a vintage shibori-decorated kimono several years ago. Because I am afraid the Imp might try climbing it, it is not on display but hidden away in a wardrobe (pity). Woven shibori means you weave the strings you will pull to make the shibori pattern into the cloth rather than gathering the cloth up with stitches afterwards. Obvious some shibori patterns are impossible to do this way, but the results in the book are mindblowing and I look forward to the day when I can try some out.

The second book is Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont (of Abby's yarns, link to the right). I wish I had had this book when I was learning to spindle spin. It explains so much and inspires so much. I love my Roberta electric spinner but I love spindle spinning too. I happen to favour Bosworth spindles, but in my first blush of love affairs with spindles I bought quite a few I really don't use. I have just commited to buy a lapis lazuli square spindle from Butterflygirl because it was beautiful. Before I could even click on it to buy it, somebody else bought it. Fortunately she was able to make a twin. I've never used a bottom whorl spindle; I like swan neck hooks, and I prefer a notch. There are some spindle makers who simply refused my requests for those last 2 features and I don't buy spindles from them. I am spinning camel down at work on a Bosworth mini; camel down is so short I can't imagine having enough control on a flyer-driven wheel.

For light reading I've finished Alan Steele's first two Coyote novels and am about to start Coyote Frontier.

When I was growing up, my mother had a darkroom in the basement. She had several impressive cameras and was always taking pictures. The photo on my blog ID is hers because I was a very cute toddler. She shot a lot of black and white and slides too. When she died (1981) and my sister and I went through her things, we found slides but not a single black & white negative. I don't have any idea what happened to them; mildew in Florida can destroy a lot. I have a couple of prints that were mounted for entry into photo shows, and framed them to remind me. Her Kodachrome slides are just as good as they were when she shot them, some of them now older than I am. I recently acquired a slide scanner to digitize some of the hundreds of slides I have and the photo above was one of hers. What prompted me to finally get a slide scanner (aside from the price coming down) was finding a huge box of the Bear's slides, some of which supposedly go back to the 60's. The other thing is that my mother's hobby became mine in the late 70's & 80's (before my eyes got bad). I had a darkroom in the spare bathroom and printed and sold a fair number of photos. I remember going to the "serious" photography store in Ohio and X2 saying the chemical smell was awful, but to me it just reminded me of my mother and having prints drying next to the washing machine.
This is one of my photos and I should have scanned it sideways and rotated it. I shot mostly landscapes and wildflowers and my "signature" shot was the vertical slice of landscape. This was taken near Lexington, VA, and of course both slides lose something in the scanning process. Full professional scanning of hundreds of slides is beyond my budget and I'd be happy just to have access to some slides that make me happy as well as seeing what the Bear was taking pictures of before I knew him.

If the story was the weather last week, well, it's the weather again. We had an abrupt turn resulting in very cool days and nights and lots of clouds with occasional rain. My poor garden won't know what season it's in. The cool weather veggies like asparagus and peas loved it but the cucumbers look a bit bewildered. I even had to turn the heat on last night as it was 12C and one small cat is not sufficient heating.

I've been finishing off a bunch of spinning projects to free up bobbins. I bought this lovely roving, which is merino, bamboo and nylon from Fat Cat Knits, colourway called Duck pond. So I plied and wound off camel down spindle-spun, silk (the last of the spindle spun) and plied the lovely Conjoined Creations Optim. I am almost (and I mean it this time) done with the bag of brown alpaca. Another night or two flick-carding and it will be done. Then I'll drumcard some more white so I can spin enough to ply with the full bobbin already done. I've been plugging away at socks in the meantime.

I know I need more sock yarn like the proverbial hole but I spotted this on Etsy and couldn't resist. It's hand dyed superwash Blue-faced Liecester, which is one of my favourite wools. From Stash Up Yarns, thank you very much. Meanwhile I am knitting away at some wool/cotton blend socks from Bendigo Woollen Mills. They don't advertise that they sell sock yarn, so you have to hope they have it when you're there. I am also knitting the sleeveless shell out of silk/rayon blend. It's knit in the round in plain stockinette and is rather boring.

The real story here has been the weather and I am soooo glad I got air con installed. Friday we reached 39C (according to my weather station), which is somewhere over 100F. It's gotten somewhat cooler (only 32C today) but the weather gods can't decide whether to give us a thunderstorm or sun. I have gotten all my plants in the ground bar some rhubarb seedlings and mulched everything to keep them cool, damp and snail-free. I won't have any pumpkins this year because they kept disappearing and I gave up. Why rhubarb seedlings when I planted 2 rhubarb roots this spring? They weren't red! This is the second time I've planted rhubarb only to get the variety that isn't red. It tastes the same but it just isn't real rhubarb to me if it isn't red. I picked all the peas off the first planting of peas (Early Crop Massey) and had a feast last night--they were so sweet and tender. The second crop was Dwarf Blue Bantam and they didn't come up so I replanted some of the Early Crop but they are struggling in the heat. The third crop was Tendergreen and they are doing well and filling out their pods now. The asparagus has stopped for the most part. Beans doing well and I must stake the tomatoes. I will have to plant lima beans somewhere when there's room from the peas. My citrus has set fruit but I don't know yet what's what. One of the great vigorous branches it produced turned out to be from the root stock and not the grafted bits, so it got pruned off. I have pots of geraniums and portulaca and hanging baskets of nasturtiums on the back deck. Aside from lots of pruning and weeding and judiciously watering or praying for rain, it's now up to the plants to perform and produce.

Yesterday I got my new awnings installed and they look spiffy. Instead of white with green stripes (or rather grunge with green stripes), I have green with tan and brown stripes. and the side I see from inside is solid green and completely blocks the sun. The funniest bit was the reaction of the Imp when the installer took down the awning of the window she was sitting it. She nearly exploded trying to get away. Since I got an unexpected $900 dental bill (I knew I was going to get a bill but not that much) I may postpone replacing the brush screens at the front till next year.

Today is the anniversary of the shooting of JFK and probably the day a lot of kids my age suddenly entered the adult world. Killing the President of the US is such a cowardly and obscene act and I can remember that day vividly. The principal of my high school told us the news over the PA (I was in Latin class) and that was the first time I ever went to a Catholic church. I think it was Sue who took me with her to pray and light a candle. I was so shell-shocked and that day and the following ones are etched in my memory. I watched a movie last night that J gave me for my birthday because it is a musical using Beatles songs, Across the Universe. The movie clearly showed what the end of the '60's was like for kids of my age, altho J is of a different generation. It showed the hippie life, psychedelia (loved Bono as Dr Robert) and the anti-war protests, culminating in the general university strike of 1970. So much changed in American culture in that decade that many younger people take for granted today, from political activism to feminism to tie-dyed T shirts. I felt truly alive and like I was growing in every way then; we thought we were creating a revolution and I suppose in some ways we did. However, I am not the only person in my age bracket who looks at their present life with a feeling of disappointment. Sort of "Is this all there is?" after a lifetime of work. We thought the future would be different, and it is and it isn't.

I promised studio photos when I cleaned up the studio. That doesn't seem to be high on the list these days and I feel like I owe my loyal readers (whoever you are) promised content. So, at left is part of the right wall. Out of view further right are bags of alpaca, more of Robin's fleece, and a wardrobe with miscellaneous other textile stuff such as dyes, quilt fabric and a half done quilt, my sewing basket, an unwashed fleece, etc. The bookcase houses all of my craft books, and behind the doors at the bottom, boxes of magazines. I've dropped all my subscriptions except Interweave knits and Handwoven. I seriously have enough patterns and ideas. The two white bookcases have my coned yarn (weaving) stash. Most of it mill ends since shipping fibre from the states costs the earth. The black thing with the red patch is an apron from the ANU School of Art, and the white thing is the Bear's old lab coat. Between the bookcases covered with a plaid cloth is my inkle loom, which I have also neglected. It has a second warp of my hand spun and dyed English Leicester which I intend to make a tote style bag out of. In the blue plastic bag in front of the back bookcases is clean brown alpaca. Beyond the bookcases is my spinning stash (5 plastic boxes).

Turning left and taken from the opposite end of the room are my two looms. They are on a cheap door bought at the hardware store for $20, which is supported by the Bear's school desk and a filing cabinet. I was thinking I'd have room for my sewing machine but that was before the 16-shaft arrived. The 4 shaft is closest to the camera and has my sad tea towel on it. I haven't warped the other one yet, but a tea towel I bought from Laura Fry is draped over the breast beam to taunt me. Since they each cost a whopping $200, I don't feel as guilty as if they were expensive and neglected looms.

It's unfortunate that I get spurts of energy and ideas when I don't have the time to do anything with them. Plus the old fibro thing makes me so tired all the time that, given the choice, I usually take a nap instead of doing something interesting. That or do chores around the house. Today it will be ironing. When I retire and can wear T-shirts eery day instead of trying to look halfway presentable at work there will be no ironing.