Living in Crazyville

So I haven’t blogged much for the last three weeks, but I also haven’t gotten much of anything else useful accomplished, either, primarily due to a streak of crazy events that have stretched my patience and coping abilities completely to the limit (or maybe a bit beyond).

On Tuesday, May 7, we received a call from our grandson’s mommy saying that he had crashed his bike and his daddy was taking him to the ER. A mere 15 minutes later she called back and said that he was being airlifted to a Springfield hospital. Needless to say, we gathered up my knitting bag, water bottles, and a few other necessities and made a beeline for the aforementioned hospital. The drive normally takes a solid hour, but not this time! We received the phone call at 6:56 p.m. and were walking in the door of the Springfield ER at 7:45. After sitting for some time in the waiting room with Kindon’s other grandparents, his aunt, and his great-grandmother we were finally allowed to briefly go back to see him. As we walked into the cubicle, Kindon was lying on the hospital gurney with an IV in one arm, a blood transfusion running in the other, heart and respiration monitors and a pulse-ox all attached in various locations, and a neck brace as a precaution. He looked over at us, smiled politely, and said “Hi, how’s it going?” Sigh…..

He was diagnosed with a laceration of his liver, which fortunately was no longer actively bleeding, so the decision was made not to intervene surgically but to admit him to PICU for observation in case the bleeding started again. Thus began a more-than-week-long ordeal for him in the hospital. After the first 24 hours, he began asking every nurse or doctor who came into his room “Can I go home now?”

Meanwhile my sister had been ill and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. The day after Kindon’s accident she emailed to say that she had gall bladder removal surgery scheduled for Friday morning – a mere 36 hours away. Normally I would have arranged to fly down to Florida to help care for her during this time, but the combination of Kindon in the PICU and the very short notice made such a trip virtually impossible. Thankfully the surgery was completed uneventfully and her recovery was quick as well.

On the following Tuesday I got the happy news that Kindon was discharged from the hospital, followed almost immediately by the shocking news that my Aunt Carol, age 68, had passed away in her sleep in Waukegan. The family was beyond stunned at this turn of events since she had recently been in the best health of her adult life, and indeed had gotten a clean bill of health at her most recent doctor visit a couple of weeks previously.

On Wednesday, I got a call from my son informing me that Kindon was on his way back to the hospital with vomiting and abdominal pain. I had no sooner hung up from that conversation than our scanner went off with an ambulance being paged out to my in-laws’ address for a “93 year old male having breathing problems”. So after being assured that Kindon was essentially in stable condition we spent the evening hanging out at the local ER while my father-in-law was poked, prodded, tested, and x-rayed before being pronounced healthy enough to go back home. Later follow-up tests did not reveal any serious ongoing problems and he continues to do well.

On Friday morning I left town with my cousin, brother, uncle, and aunt to head for Waukegan to the visitation and funeral. It was a long and tiring trip but the time spent with family members I hadn’t seen for some time was very precious (although I would much have preferred to be gathering for any other reason than this). One highlight of Friday afternoon was receiving the phone call that Kindon had once again been released from the hospital and was resting comfortably at home. The funeral was Saturday morning followed by a dinner at my uncle’s church – a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with distant family members. We headed back toward home after the dinner and arrived home about 8:00 that evening.

At church on Sunday, one of my (many) prayer requests was for a less eventful week. I skipped an out-of-town church meeting on Sunday afternoon, choosing instead to rest and enjoy some much needed calm and solitude. The next two days proceeded more or less uneventfully, and then on Wednesday evening I received a text that my nine month old daycare baby (aka Bitty Girl) had experienced a seizure and was being airlifted to Springfield. Thankfully she recovered quickly and was home from the hospital late Thursday and back in daycare on Friday – along with my Little Dude whose mommy was having gall bladder surgery.

The first two days of the holiday weekend were spent at the Macoupin County Historical Society’s Spring Festival, with over 130 craft booths, craft and other demonstrations, a tractor parade, and many other exciting activities. Unfortunately due to the rain on Saturday and my general level of stress and fatigue, I completely neglected to blog or update my Facebook page about the festival and didn’t manage to get any photos at all. Monday was spent preparing for a family cookout to be held that evening.

On Tuesday morning, Mike left and Bitty Girl fell asleep for her morning nap. I sat in the living room alone, stunned at the overwhelming quiet. Although it didn’t last long, it was a wonderful oasis of peace in a flood of craziness. Although I hesitate to mention it for fear of jinxing anything, it has so far been a relatively uneventful week. This weekend we have plans to attend the wedding of a young friend (wedding gift pics to follow – as soon as the knitting is finished! LOL!) and I’m greatly looking forward to the month of June with great expectations of moving out of Crazyville and back to our regularly scheduled chaos.

I am incredibly thankful for all of the wonderful friends and family who prayed for all of us and supported us as we did our best to survive the last three weeks. We are well and truly blessed!

My Version of the Prismatic Scarf

A while back a friend posted this photo of The Prismatic Scarf by Huan-Hua Chye on the Facebook page of our local knitting group.

I was intrigued by the pattern and did a Google search to locate the Ravelry page where the free pattern download is located.

Last week I went out to our local Walmart which has just recently begun selling yarn again after a hiatus of several years,

bought a few balls of Lion Brand Amazing,

and knitted up my own version of the Prismatic Scarf.

Of course, I rarely knit a pattern exactly as written, and this one was no exception. Instead of a regular long-tail cast on, I did a provisional i-cord cast on, then picked up the beginning provisional stitches to form the second selvage. I added one stitch inside each i-cord selvage which I knitted on every row to eliminate the long floats when a row ended up with sl 3, sl 3. Finally, when I had about 2 1/2 yards of yarn left, I did an i-cord bind-off and then grafted the last three stitches to the 3 stitches of the selvage so that the scarf appears to have an endless i-cord border. You have to look really closely to see the half-stitch shift where the ends are grafted. Bonus: no leftover bits of yarn that are too big to toss but not really big enough to do anything with.

 
My scarf ended up approximately 8" wide and 3 feet long, which is about right for tucking in around a coat collar. If I'd wanted a larger scarf to loop around my neck a time or two I would have needed a second ball of yarn. Overall, I loved the pattern and will probably make it again.

Finishing Touches

Although it has been a while since I have posted, the knitting continues (almost) nonstop. Typically if I'm heading out to a meeting, a class, or an all-day conference I'll choose a project accordingly, which means that sometimes I'll end up with a handful of almost-finished projects that either don't have enough knitting left in them to accommodate the time frame I'm dealing with or have grown too cumbersome to carry around. 

Today I was able to stay home with no scheduled meetings or projects, and so I worked on completing the mostly-finished projects that were multiplying alarmingly quickly around the house.

I finished up a prayer shawl that has to be presented at church tomorrow morning, as well as a handful of projects for my upcoming craft fairs: a couple of mobius shawls, a pair of dishcloths, and a tuck scarf. In the midst of all this finishing, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to assist a dear friend with her current knitting project. It was definitely more fun to do all this finishing up accompanied by good conversation and companionship.

Of course now that I have those things finished I'll have to get something else started so I'll have "knitting to go" for tomorrow morning. I don't actually knit during worship, but it's pretty helpful for me to have a project in my hands during Sunday School class. And fortunately (or unfortunately) there is no shortage of knitting projects remaining on my to-do list.

Getting My Knitting Mojo Back

A couple of weeks ago I was unexpectedly felled by a very nasty virus, presumably a strain of Norovirus. Without going into excessively gory details, I spent half of one night on my knees in the bathroom, the entire next day and night in bed, and was actually too ill to knit for four entire days. Although my energy level has taken a serious hit, and I clearly don't bounce back nearly as quickly in my old age (or perhaps it's just that I have never before been this sick in my entire life!), I'm happy to report that I'm finally making some headway on my knitting once again.

The first and most pressing issue was my "big" project that I was working on, a baby shower gift with a definite deadline to be completed. My overall lack of energy helped out to some extent, because I used time when I didn't feel up to doing anything else to catch up on my knitting, and I finished the baby gift with a little more than 24 hours to spare. Since it was presented at the shower last Saturday, I can now post photos:

 

The pattern is my original design Double Hearts Blanket, worked in sage green and white because the recipient isn't really a huge fan of pink and so there is no reason to assume that her precious soon-to-arrive daughter will be either.

I'm also busily preparing for my next upcoming craft show, the Triad Spring Craft Show in Troy, IL on March 2 & 3. I've stocked up on my selection of children's hats, including apple, grape, pumpkin, strawberry, cupcake, ruffle, and football hats. 

I've also made a few more ruffle scarves from that goofy yarn where you pick up and knit the loops along the edge, and I'm also making bow knot scarves, where one end tucks into a loop to secure the scarf in place. Last but not least, I have made a couple of Mobius shawls from the pattern in One Ball Knits Accessories: 20 Stylish Designs Made with a Single Ball, Skein, Hank, or Spool.

I still need to restock some slippers and dishcloths and finish a couple more baby blankets that I have in progress, and there are several other things I'd like to do before the show that realistically are not likely to happen. I have another children's hat pattern floating around in my head but it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to pull that off or not. 

As always, the project queue continues to outstrip the available knitting time by a factor of approximately 5 to 1. But it's so good to be back to knitting and actually accomplishing some things!

Missing…..

Over the past few years, I’ve accumulated several wristbands which stay on my wrist virtually 24/7.  The first one, a white one with the Nike swoosh and the word “dream” came from a Presbytery meeting which I attended with my then-pastor, Jeff Johnson. I wear it to remind me of the things I learned that day and of God’s guidance in my life. The second band is bright green, with the words “soy”, “rice”, “veggie”, and “chicken”, and came from a packing event for the charity group “Kids Against Hunger” where we packed balanced, easily prepared meals to be shipped to areas in our country and the world where hunger is prevalent. The four words comprise the “recipe” of the meals we packed in sealed bags which are prepared by adding water and boiling for 20 minutes. The third band is pink, with the word “hope” on the side, and represents breast cancer awareness. The fourth band is purple and reads “gotta have faith”. I received this one shortly after my grandson’s first grade classmate, whose first name is “Faith” received a diagnosis of cancer on Christmas Eve. The fifth one, also purple, promotes autism awareness and was given to me by my daughter Katie, who works for The Autism Program in Springfield, during April which is Autism Awareness Month. These bands have been on my wrist for so long that I barely notice them anymore, and as they are slightly smaller than my hand they don’t come off easily, so it was quite a shock last Wednesday evening when I realized that two were missing.

After racking my brain and mentally retracing my steps I realized that the two most likely places for them to have gone missing were at my friend’s house when I stopped by to pick up a desk, or at Walmart when I stopped by to pick up a couple of things I needed right after that. A quick message to my friend yielded no results, and I didn’t have time to make an extra trip to Walmart right away. So you can imagine my delight on Saturday evening when my dear husband came home from Walmart and handed me the missing wristbands. He had been out on an errand and stopped by the service desk to check their lost and found box. I’m still not 100% certain how they made their way off my wrist, but for now I’m very happy to have them back.

Aaaah............

And so it is that we come to the end of yet another crazy busy week in a long line of equally crazy busy weeks, all parading along at an alarmingly swift pace, leaving huge piles of stress in their wakes; more doctor appointments and evaluations for daycare baby, hoping to find a reason for the ongoing issues; family members experiencing medical issues of varying severity; committee cohorts expecting more in the way of time/talent/availability than I'm remotely in a position to provide; and a to-do list that seems to erupt exponentially if I so much as blink in that general direction........and life is crazy, hectic, almost unbearably overwhelming.

But - hooray! - it is finally Friday evening! Daycare baby has gone home to her own family, the diaper pail is emptied, baby bottles rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher, miscellaneous items of infant paraphernalia stashed away for the weekend, dinner prepared and enjoyed, and finally I sit quietly, wrapped in a warm knitted shawl, relaxed in my favorite chair, alone, knitting, knitting, knitting......

Tonight I'm making a tuck scarf, where one end will tuck into the other to secure the scarf in place. It's a very simple project, chosen as a way to help reduce my excessive yarn stash, requiring little in the way of counting or attention to detail. As I knit I am struck by the incredible gorgeous beauty of the yarn colors I'm working with: a melange of pink, rose, orchid, purple, mauve, coral, gold, all blended into the beautiful shades of a misty spring sunrise. It's not often that I have the opportunity to watch the stitches flow onto the needle and the colors flowing softly into one another forming the most beautiful scarf. I knit on, mesmerized at the glorious loveliness of these colors together, and gradually allow the peace and contentment and promise of a fresh start to saturate and rejuvenate my entire being.

And finally the scarf is finished - knitting completed, yarn ends woven in. I tuck one end of the scarf into the other, hold it up and admire the colors once again. And I smile, calm and content.

 

Sigh.......

I simply cannot believe that it's already 2013! Honestly, didn't we just have Easter a few weeks ago?? I guess that's yet another indication that I'm just not keeping up with everything. This will by necessity be a short post, as I've been away long enough that I'm also having to relearn the Blogger interface which has changed quite a bit since I last posted.

Of course I'm still knitting - but for some reason I haven't been nearly as efficient at taking and posting photos lately. I did three custom order stockings before Christmas and didn't manage to get a single photo of any of them! I'm not horribly disappointed, though, because they were for repeat customers and I do have photos of the previous stockings in my files. I was so happy to be finished with stockings early this year - and then, less than two hours after the last ones had been picked up (on December 20), someone came knocking on the door asking whether I was the lady who made Christmas stockings. I had made one for her grandson nine years ago and she wanted one for her new granddaughter. I told her that I was happy to make another one but there was no way I would have time to finish it for THIS Christmas.

In other news, my dear darling husband finished the custom-built cabinet for my sock-knitting machine the week after Thanksgiving, just in time to move the machine to make way for the Christmas tree. I haven't managed to crank any socks yet but I have definitely been stocking up on sock yarn. My goal is to have at least a few pairs ready to go for the first craft fair of 2013, the TRIAD Spring Craft Fair on Saturday and Sunday, March 2 & 3. 

If you're on Facebook, don't forget to check out my Facebook page. I'm able to keep it updated more frequently because I'm on Facebook pretty much every day. That's also a good way to contact me if you want to place a custom order, make a purchase, or just find out what I might happen to have in stock at a particular time.

And now I'm back to the knitting needles. I have a couple of projects that I hope to be able to post soon, if I can have a sunnier day to get some decent photos. Happy New Year, everyone!