Kiss My Knits!

That benadryl knocked me out yesterday. I got Em and we went home and I was in bed by 3. I got up for a while around 8, but I was still pretty sleepy.

I haven’t taken any yet today. I need to do things like pay bills and get groceries and didn’t want to be completely out of commission.

I’m still stopped up, but not quite as badly. I was running a fever of about 99.5 yesterday, so maybe it was a cold. Or maybe my system’s just in full freakout mode from lack of oxygen. Well, whatever, hopefully tomorrow things will be better.

Today’s Emily art: ” Jamie Is Talking To The Sun.” I think the object at left is a house, not a rocket ship. Or maybe it’s both, I didn’t ask. Emily sometimes tells me she wants to be the first person to go to the sun, so maybe that’s how she’ll get there.

A lot went on this weekend. Saturday morning, I hit a few yard sales on my way to the post office. I needed a few supplies for dyeing fiber on Sunday, and yard sales are gold mines for that sort of thing. I found a $1 enamel pot and a $2 extra wide crock pot marked “as-is.” Score! I plugged the crock pot in before I bought it, and it worked just fine. Here it is in action.



There was one other item I picked up, which I just couldn’t resist. These little ceramic saucers from a house a few blocks away. I probably wouldn’t have bought them if they weren’t marked “Made in Occupied Japan.” They were two dollars for the set of three, and one not pictured had a chip. But they are pretty, and they make me think about that time in America’s history. I chatted for a moment with the older couple holding the sale. I said I’d take them, and the wife said, “you’re breaking his heart!” It was a joke, but you could also tell that it really wasn’t. I promised to give them a good home. You just know there’s a story there, but I didn’t think to ask what it was until I was gone.



I spent most of Saturday running around being sure I had things – I’d rather not use our food steamer basket for the acid-dyed yarn, thank you – but that was fine. Since Em and my husband off having a blast at the Storytelling Festival of Carolina, I felt free to do whatever the heck I wanted without worrying about them. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

I did stay up late on Saturday, but still got up on Sunday morning for an abbreviated walk/run. Not quite up to usual standards – I’d classify this as “white zinfandel.” My knees are getting me some today, but I don’t know if it’s from the running or from standing up all day. We’ll see how they are tomorrow.


The hat I’d been working on has been ripped out and reborn as “My So-Called Scarf.” It’s a better use of the yarn, but I’m still not entirely sure it’s the best. Still thinking about it.

I have to wait for my fiber to dry before I can post pics and talk about the dyeing event. I’ll say this, though – it was fun!

Earlier this year, I laid off doing the Couch to 5K program for a while, but with the weather so nice, I was ready to start back up. After a week or so of walking 2 1/2 miles a day, I gave it a go today. I’m not dead, so that’s good! I am, however, as red as always. I’ve written about this before. It’s strictly a cosmetic issue, as near as I can tell.

I think from now on, I’m not going to use beats per minute as an indicator of how good a workout is. I’m going to use a color scale, like dentists do when bleaching your teeth. Today: strawberry syrup. Good workout!

Having my skin turn this red is probably bad for my complexion, but then, dying of health problems related to obesity would probably be even worse for it, so I can deal.

Flickr now allows uploading of video, so let’s try it out and see how it works. Is it visible?

This is my husband and daughter last night. Darling, this is not what they mean by “winding down for bedtime.”

I mentioned a medical mystery involving my mouth last week, and then I never followed up. Bad me. So here it is:

I have a weird taste in my mouth. It gets stronger and fades with the days, but it’s there. It’s kind of metallic, but not rusty like blood. It’s a little bitter and astringent as well. I have no clue what it is.

Last week when it was so strong that I kept thinking, “what is that taste and why won’t it go away?” every ten seconds, I made an appointment with the dentist. My teeth and gums look fine. He found nothing.

ETA: My husband says he hasn’t noticed any change in the quality of my breath, so whatever’s going on, it’s not manifesting itself that way.

I haven’t made any dietary changes. I’m not on any medications. I even discontinued my vitamins for a week to see if that did anything. I do have some dry mouth, but I don’t know if that’s a cause, or if it’s an effect – you know, like I keep swallowing to try to get this taste out so I have a dry mouth.

I decided to start keeping a diary of what I ingested (a depressing exercise) but nothing really turned up so I stopped. The taste seemed to diminish some, but today it’s back just as strong as ever. Last night we had takeout ribs and chocolate cake, because a) we had our IEP meeting yesterday and that always means headaches and stress all day so we decided to indulge, and b) we got our state tax refund and wanted to live the high life. So I guess I’ll start a food diary again, and this time I get to put down all the junk I ate yesterday. Swell.

My husband goes to the same dentist’s office I do. Different dentist, though. They usually don’t make the connection between us since we have different last names. I guess word got around of the medical mystery, because his dentist kept asking him all kinds of questions about whether I was still having the taste. Glad to know my mouth is water cooler material.

I guess the next step is to make a doctor’s appointment. I can’t think of any cause for this, and weird sensory changes should probably be checked out. Until then, if you see me making weird faces like a dog eating peanut butter, just ignore me.

In which my husband passes out and I use the F word.

At left: one of the best things about winter. Ahhh…

Speaking of orange, remember those two huge 4 pound cones I got in October? I’m down to about half of one cone. It’s going fast this time of year. I ordered more a few weeks ago, but God knows when that’ll come in. Brown Sheep, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

On a completely unrelated note, my lymph nodes are all swollen up. Well, not ALL swollen up, but definitely more so than usual. I don’t seem to be running a fever, and I feel fine, soo… go figure. I’ve had this happen mysteriously before, and it worried the doctor, who ran all kinds of tests and freaked me way the hell out, and then they just kind of… mysteriously went back down again. I suppose I shouldn’t be complacent, but I guess my body just periodically conducts some kind of systems test. I have no clue why.

If this were a TV drama, you’d be reading this post while sad music played behind you, dressed in nice clothes because you’d just come from my funeral, shaking your head at the injustice of it all. “If only she’d known,” you’d say.

Well, enough of that. I have hats to knit and Clementines to eat. Also, Emily’s surfing the Camp GroovyGirls website, and she wants me to play with her.

Mr. Tvini: So, I’ve dropped 25 lbs, and my face really does look different. Then I got my hair cut, and EVERYONE is saying “Wow, your haircut makes you look so much younger” and “I didn’t recognize you with your hair cut.”

Poor guy can’t get any credit. He’s worked so hard and it’s really paid off, and all he gets is, “great haircut!” I am amused but sympathetic. Poor fella.

For those wondering, I haven’t run in about a week, what with the rain and now school being out, but I plan to start up again tomorrow. Yes, we’ll be back at week one.

Greetings from beyond the grave! Yes, I moved to week two of the Couch to 5K podcast and I’m fairly sure that it actually killed me.

The first leg: “This isn’t so bad!”

The second leg: “This is more challenging than last week.”

The third leg: “It may have been too soon to move to week two.”

The fourth leg: “Maybe if I run toward the light…”

Everything else is just a blur. I arrived home with sweat pouring off of me like it was the very first day again. Now that I’ve drunk some water and squeegeed myself off, I’m red faced but much more comfortable. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll do week two again next time or go back to week one. Maybe it’s like childbirth: you have to forget what it was like before you want to do it again.

Yesterday I sent out a mass e-mail telling folks that Jayne hat kits were available again, and a buncha people signed up overnight, so I’m cleaning up, then stuffing envelopes while I watch To Have and Have Not which I snagged from the library yesterday. No worries, there will be no actual Tvini sweat on the yarn.

Got four Jayne hats out the door yesterday, so I’ll call that productive. Also got in an infinitessimal amount of earflap red, the color I’m lowest on, so production hasn’t completely ground to a halt. Next up are Washington, Australia, Indiana, then several for one person going to several locations. At that point, we’ll be into the orders that were placed on the 10th of September. I do not like being a week behind – this is the first time this has happened since Wear With Style opened. Grr.

However, on the up side, I’ve gotten to work on some non-orange orders. Also, since asked if I could get better quality photos of some of my work, I experimented with a setup that looks a little more professional. Until I get around to building a light box, I guess this’ll do. The trouble with getting good photos for is that most of the stuff I make goes right out the door as soon as it’s done, so I can’t really call it back for a photo shoot. I’ll try to make a better effort in the future, though, since clearly there’s some utility to having nice pics of these things.

In other news, Lamb’s Pride Red Baron is a pretty dead match for Pantone 200, which is the official red of UGA, University of Arkansas, Ohio State, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and many other colleges around the country. Sports fan knitters, take note!

While Jayne hats are obviously the main thing I’m working on, I have to occasionally stop and knit something else or I go crazy. So here’s another pattern repeat on the Vinnland socks. I’m really liking the way these are turning out. I’m going to bring them in a little after turning the heel, since my wide feet do not have wide ankles and legs attached to them.

This morning is Couch to 5k, this afternoon is our first Brownie meeting of the year, tonight is the weekly stitch night at Books-A-Million,and of course, there are many Jayne hats to knit in between these activities. All in all, this will be a full day. Time to launch into it!

I’m sweating like I’ve been locked in a sauna.

A sauna on the surface of the sun.

Apparently, when it’s 58 degrees F, it’s too hot to run in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I need a better solution for cool weather.