My Inner Weirdo

Walking in the park a few days ago, there was this conversation:

Pretty (gesturing wildly, turning and dancing about): 

Most years, it seems like the trees aren’t turning very much, then poof! One day you wake up, and all the leaves are just gone! It’s so cool to be out here, walking through the trees, in the winds, seeing the leaves fall…experiencing the process!!!

Mr. Pretty (looking at Pretty, wonder in his eyes): 

You really are a weirdo. You do know that, right?

Luckily, I do know this, and I am totally ok with it. I’ve had to come to terms with my inner weirdo over and over through the years, and now I just embrace her. She’s a little “off,” but she’s also pretty cool (in her own way). 

I tried and I tried. I could not get a good
pic of falling leaves...see there in the circle?
There's a couple. They were in a hurry!

The trees are turning, most of them
looked like this. 

Either way, it is a beautiful time to be out of doors in my neck of the woods! We went 7 miles on that walk, and then there was knitting! Wanna see?

First up, Green Hat. I started this for Mork, but I don't think
Mork would really wear it, sooo Sweetie gets a new hat!

Mittens With a Flap for Dollface, my pattern!
See the sidebar for the free download. :)

The colors are truer in the first shot...but there
has to be a picture of it all open!

Headband for Dollface, in a yarn recently acquired, all this
needs now, really, is a super cute button!

Do you see the color theme? For some reason, there was a green, and orange theme to the knitting this week. I'm not complaining, but it's pretty interesting! Also, considering that my lap usually looks like this when I knit:

Tiny sock on the cat. That's how I roll.

I have to use bright colors so I can see what I'm doing! And brights are what I am drawn to when I don't get enough time outside in the fall...just look at the yarn I ended up with on the Yarn Discovery Tour:

I see a corny candy bag, a facecloth a skinny scarf and
a pair of mittens in there with that silly white
cotton that disagrees with the flash!
The headband's in there, too!

Wow, I've knit a LOT of that yarn already...Yayyy! for 6 weeks off work! (Well, except for the staples. If I said yay for staples, then I would have to disown my inner weirdo...that would be too weird for even her!)

So, that's a LOT of knitting, but you know what? Christmas is coming! I guess I'd better stop blogging and start some secret knitting! If you haven't started your holiday projects, I'm sorry I reminded you of the deadline. If you are finished with your holiday projects, I am a little jealous. Either way, thanks for stopping by the blog today, and Knit in Good Health!

The Rest of the Rest of the Story!

OK, I promise. This is it. I promise. Really. I went to the doc, and I've been told that I am healing beautifully (yay!!!), so surely I can get through the telling you about all of the rest of the recovery knitting, right?!? Let's hope so! And let's get right to it. 

First up is a fun little Skinny Scarf, knit from a single skein that caught my eye in a shop I visited for the first time a couple of weeks into my recovery. 

This scarf is almost like jewelry!
Love it with a blouse!

It was one of those skeins that makes you think to yourself (or exclaim out loud), "OMGosh! This is Be-A-U-TI-Ful!!! But what do you do with it? Do you carry it with another yarn? Do you knit it on it's own? What will I make with this beauty? Do I need more than one skein? I HAVE to have it, but how much do I really have to have?" 

See what I mean?

In the end, I only bought the one skein, but I love the scarf it made. I loved it so much that I made another scarf right away, but in a different yarn...aaand I challenged myself to a new technique!

The knitting goes every which way,
and it's pretty cool!

That's right, it's multi-directional! Bonus (because there are a LOT of bonuses lately), it's MMMMMMalabrigo! Mmmm, that yummy yarn! There was only one skein of this colorway, and I had to have it, so it simply had to be an Entrelac Scarf...not bad for my first time! Something I'm not knitting for the very first time, is another pair of Mittens With a Flap.

Didn't realize it was stripey until I started, but I like it!

It's a pattern I wrote, so I'm partial to the finished products, even when they're not quite finished yet! And this is a yarn that is new to me, so I am forming my opinions. It's called Järbo Garn Raggi Multi, and it's an aran weight, and I think I like it. :) 

OK, that's about it! Whew! Of course, in the week-and-a-half it's taken me to catch up and tell you about all I have been knitting, I've kinda cast on a few new things too...I'm a knitter, what can I say? I'll fill you in on all of THAT next time! So, what have you been doing the last few weeks? I'm so enjoying being back to the blogosphere, just in time for the winter knitting!

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

...the Rest of the Story

I promised to bring you the rest of the recovery knitting, so here it is. Starting with more stuff for Peanut, here is a sweet, stripey Sweater that was inspired by this little number from Knitty, but truly based on my favorite sweater pattern generator:

I used a self-striping (but discontinued, sorry!) yarn
that I love, from Knit Picks.

She likes it, hey Peanut!

Yes, there is a hat as well. How could there not be? You know what else I couldn't resist? Chicken buttons!

Because, if you have the choice to knit a sweater with button buttons OR with chicken buttons, it's really a no-brainer...gotta go with the chickens! And if you knit a sweater with chicken buttons, then you should knit some corn, right?!? Well, how about a Candy corn bag for Peanut's Halloween candy?

Yeah, I know!  Soooo super cute! (If you want to knit one, the pattern was kindof an improvised thing, and all my notes are on the project page, and I know you can do it...just sayin'!) Bonus, it's felted! So, your stitches don't have to be super pretty-and-even, and if you want it bigger, it's easy to just add some more increases and/or rows in the orange and/or yellow sections. It's totally customizable!

Peanut loves the candy corn bag already, because she just loves to carry things in bags, purses, and boxes. Sooo, when she was visiting last week, and having trouble carrying all of her "bee-bees" (balls, as in baseballs, footballs, softballs, bean-bag balls), it was only natural for me to run (err, walk, I just had surgery!) to the basement for some bulky yarn to make her a bag/purse of her very own!

Every evening, she would gather up her snugglies and bee-bees to take to bed with her for the night. Both Mindy and I were glad to use this bag as a third hand for that chore...and it was far less frustrating for Peanut to use the bag when she wanted to carry more than two small toys or bee-bees...so, we call this one a win!

Wow, that's a LOT of words, and I'm still not done! I guess I got more knitting done than I thought I did! Just blogging these few items has me winded again. Since it's Saturday, and since it's not even 6 weeks since my surgery, I think I'm going to take another nap. This week (on Tuesday), I have my official 6-week check up, and I return to work full-time (4 days only, but still), I'd better take advantage of the naps while I can! I guess I'll need one more blog post to finish catching up with everything...  =/ 

As always, thanks for stopping by; and until next time, Knit in Good Health!

Where'd Pretty GO?

So, I finished an Amazing Sweater and a couple Kitty Cat Hats, and then I disappeared in the middle of a pair of socks...what happened?  Well, the short story is that I had a little operation, and I'm still working on the recovery.  (If you want the longer story, it's HERE.)  But after just a little more than a month, Pretty's back!

Insert applause here.  Please.  

After 5 weeks with no blog comments, I need the validation. 

You might think that I must have gotten mucho knitting done during 5 weeks of recovery time, and I did get quite a few small things done.  Not as much as I had hoped, but I forgot to figure in the heavy pain meds, and a visit from Peanut (and her parents) in weeks 4 and 5...

Oh, and the naps...I didn't figure in the naps! I needed (and I took) quite a few of those along the way. I wanted to knit, to knit like the wind...but try as I might, I fell asleep with needles in my hands more often than I care to admit. I wanted to do other things, too..after all, my recovery included more down time in my own house than I've had in over a decade. But Sweetie took good care of me, and kept me from overdoing it. As a matter of fact, I spent a LOT of time looking at this guy:

Ain't he just dreamy? Well, he's definitely my dream guy, and he was a big help so I could rest and recover. And even with two or three naps a day, I did start and finish a few things! For starters, there were new toys for Peanut, like these Stackable Cats from Anna Hrachovec:

Oh, and I eventually finished those socks, plus another pair in the same yarn:

There was more, but I'm still recovering, and all this blogging has really worn me out this morning! I think I am going to go grab a teensy nap, and dream sweet dreams of the "Farewell Tonsils and Uterus" cake one of my local knitters brought to knit night for me (and a friend who had a tonsillectomy scheduled the same day as my hysterectomy) the week before surgery:

Friends who will have a tonsillectomy in support, and
or decorate a cake to mark the occasion,
are very good friends indeed!

I promise I'll tell you all about all of the other knitting that has happened in the next blog post or two.  For now, I hope that you are well, and that you are finding time to get in all the knitting (and napping) that your heart desires!  

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

If there was a Napping Contest, I'd win.

I tend to overshare.  It's just a fact of life that my family has learned to live with.  I try not to overshare all the time, but eventually it all comes out...so here's your warning:

This post will have a little bit of the TMI factor,  and if you are squeamish, there may be moments that you will want to look away (or skim read really fast past the gross stuff).  This is an oversharing post, and also a bit of an explanation for my recent absence from the blog world.

Two weeks ago, I had a hysterectomy.  The news that I was going to have an operation came as a bit of a shock to me...I mean, I knew that some things were a bit "off" in my system, but I did not expect to lose my uterus this year.  Backing up the train a bit, back in March, I found out that I had fibroids...four of them.  The family doc said my uterus was "slightly enlarged" but nothing to really worry about.  

I did some research online, and found out that fibroids could be the cause of my recent...ahem...female troubles surrounding my cycles.  Troubles like having to carry an extra set of clothes with me one week out of every five, and actually having to use them (or go home to change) quite a few times over the past few months.  Troubles like severe cramping, the kind that made me curl up in a ball, rocking and quietly weeping, until it was time to change my clothes.  Troubles that eventually had me seek out a specialist, to just ask, "How much longer until I eventually get through this menopause thing?"  If I just knew how much longer, maybe it would be easier to endure. 

Ready to find out how long this might last, I sat in the Gyn's office, and waited to ask her what tools were available (that I hadn't already employed) to make the best of it.  I was surprised when she did a quick exam, and then scheduled me for surgery in a month, because my uterus was (in her professional, medical opinion) "HUGE."  She said that it should be the size of a lemon, and mine was the size of a cantaloupe!  "Huge" must be the technical term for a cantaloupe-sized uterus, because she used it over and over.  It would be an abdominal surgery, because my uterus was too "huge" to take out vaginally.  Yes, that was my uterus that I felt from the outside of my lower abdomen, because it was "huge."

I won't tell you that I didn't worry in the weeks leading up to the operation.  It was major abdominal surgery, and I have had more than my share of breakdowns between then and now...there was worry and crying right up until I went under the knife.  I stopped crying and worrying when they started the anesthetic on Monday morning (I hear that's pretty normal),...

...and I started again once I was off the Demerol drip on Tuesday.  (I worry. It's what I do...especially when dealing with major unknowns.)  I was in the hospital two nights, home that Wednesday, and I've been told to expect a six-week recovery.  So far, it's been two weeks, and I am feeling pretty good...my pain is almost gone, but I'm still napping once or twice a day.  It's hard to believe how tired I am!

So far, here's what I've learned from my first major surgery:

Your hair falls out more than usual after surgery.  I think this is a stress reaction, but I really was not ready for it.  

Staples in your stomach (I had 12) are really uncomfortable.  This should be expected, as your tummy is now pierced with OFFICE SUPPLIES!  C-sections were not part of my birth experiences, this was new to me.

Having the staples removed from your tummy is a bit uncomfortable.  Again, think office supplies, staple remover.  However, it's totally worth it to have those things out!

Stomach muscles are used for absolutely EVERYTHING!  Not just sitting up (ouch!), but also rolling over in bed (ouch!), breathing (ouch!), standing or sitting in the same position too long (ouch!).  Besides the new knowledge, I also lived in fear of sneezing or laughing or burping for over 10 days.  By the way, ouch!
Crying is just what I do when I am overtired, especially if I am too uncomfortable to nap.  Luckily, with the staples out, being too uncomfortable to nap is now the exception, rather than the rule.

One more thing I learned through this experience is that hysterectomy is a fairly common procedure in my family...at least among the women...  With all that girls talk openly about in this day and age, I guess I'm surprised that I didn't know/realize/remember until now how many women in my family are uterus-less...my mom, her mom, Sweetie's mom and sister, my sister and a cousin have all had hysterectomies for one reason or another.  As far as I know, I am the only fibroid case.  And not just family, many of my friends are walking around sans uterus as well.  I guess it's just not small talk that comes up.

Anyway, there you have it.  I hope to go back to work gradually, maybe a couple of half-days over the course of the next couple weeks, so I can still take the naps.  I have to say, with all of the unpleasantness of surgery and recovery, I do rather like the naps.  :)  As a matter of fact, I don't know what I would do without the naps!  There has been knitting...down time is so good for knitting, but mostly there has been napping and napping.

Thank you to my family for taking such good care of me.  Thank you to those who sent cards, called, and brought food and smiles during my immediate recovery.  And, if you've made it to the end of this post, thank YOU for reading!  All is well in Pretty-ville, and we should be back to our regularly scheduled blog posts toot-sweet!  (Just another nap or two, ok?)

What's your favorite place to take a nap?