Trying desperately to finish clogs for my mother tonight so I can mail them to Florida tomorrow in time them to arrive before she leaves for Michigan on Saturday.

Problem = doxie who just got spayed on Monday, sulking over wearing e-collar because she won’t stop biting her sutures, sitting on my keyboard tray, licking my fingers as I try to type.

It’s a rough life all around.

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And so commences the yearly knitting o’ the clogs. Here are 2007 and 2008, because I am ever a rut knitter and work the same patterns over and over and over again. Not that this is a bad thing.

left = mine ~~~ right = Rick’s

Rick’s are finished and fulled, minus the coating on the bottom to keep him from slipping and going splat. I’d rather he not go splat. I’ve knit one of mine, cast on the second. For some reason mine seem to be taking much longer to knit than his. Second sock syndrome in spades, I suppose.

Finished pictures when both pair are completely finished. This is the first time I’ve knit a pair for myself.

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Two weeks ago, because I’m a bad blogger and didn’t write about it yet. Plus, I can’t get any pictures I really like (because I’m a bad photographer, too). Blah blah blah.

And I whine a lot, too.

Apparently.

I do love this shawl.

Pattern: Feather Duster (rav download)
Yarn: KnitPicks Shadow in Jewels, one skein
Needles: KnitPicks Options, size 7/4.5 mm

I would will absolutely, positively, a thousand times over, knit this again. I love this stitch pattern. I love the symmetry of it and how it seems to flow like a stream from one plume to another. It’s beautiful.

I used one skein of yarn and probably should have used two to fit me better.

I’m not sure if my next lace project will be the same shawl again, though bigger (I liked it that much), the Misty Blossom Stole, Hanami Stole, or something else entirely. Leaning hard toward Misty Blossom… if I wake up thinking about it tonight, it’s practically going to be a done deal.

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Or something. Up super early for me lately, while I wait for Rick’s dialysis (Baxter PD) supplies to show up from Baxter. We are so lucky to be first on this particular driver’s route this morning. We get a month’s worth of supplies delivered from Baxter near the first of each month. This is pre-delivery; we’ve got a few too many boxes of yellow bags (yellow taped boxes) from a couple months ago when that was what the game was. There are six two-liter bags of solution in each box; yes, they are heavy! Now, it’s green green green and that’s what they will be delivering today - fourteen more boxes of green bags to add to the stack.

I know, that doesn’t make much sense but I’ve only had half a cup of coffee so far. If you know someone who is doing CAPD for dialysis you might be amazed at my off the cuff skills at glib dialysis talk. Annnd you’d know exactly what I was blabbering about. Otherwise, I fell asleep at 1:30 last night and my alarm went off at 6:30. You do the math. Does anyone come to a knitting/crochet blog to read about dialysis? Probably not so much. As we do it every day around here, it’s going to get mentioned. Ask questions if you’ve got them. If not, on to the knitting.

I am in love with Feather Duster.

It’s a seriously easy knit, if only in the ‘not at all tired of this yet’ sense. The pattern is well written and easy to follow, always a plus. I look forward to knitting on it every day, wish I was knitting on it right now and can’t wait to start another one. I think it’s beautiful.

Time to go… Baxter is here!

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Was Ravelry surfing (yes, I do that quite often, and you?) with my Mom, long distance on the phone at the same time. I found this pattern, Feather Duster, and will be casting on tomorrow. KnitPicks Shadow in Jewels.

(You can take this post as a sure sign of the incredible excitement and anticipation I feel to get started. No, I don’t know where I’ll ever wear it. I don’t know that it matters.)

Am still looking for the perfect pattern to knit the Dream in Color into, whatever that may be. Feather Duster is close, but I want something lacy for it. Besides, I can sit and drool over the DiC for a little while longer.

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I keep looking at my ravelry page, stunned and amused to see only two WIPs today. That doesn’t make much sense to me. I have my snowflakes, of course, though they’ve been sadly neglected for more months than I care to admit to just now. I’ve been thinking about them, more than usual, and perhaps will restart crocheting them on Mondays very soon. Like, Monday, for example. (Yes, I know. I’m a dork.)

I started a baby blanket for a newly expecting family member last week. Oh, how I wanted to do some pretty little granny squares or maybe some sort of rippled something or other. I picked through my baby yarns, dragged everything out and made a semi-decent pile on the sofa. I tried a few different patterns but nothing seemed just right. I hate it when that happens, nothing clicks and you lie awake at night, wondering and plotting. Finally I decided to knit a little basketweave blanket and that one has stuck. I’m enjoying the pattern’s simplicity and it is a very relaxing little knit project. Unfortunately, this baby was not to be, and while we all are saddened at the news I decided to continue on with the blanket for the mother-to-be.

Indeed, she will be a mother someday.

In the meantime, I’m pondering what sort of project to knit next, in the wings. Or even so, at the same time (sort of). Something lacy, something shawly maybe. In fact, I keep distracting myself from writing by surfing Ravelry… so what are your suggestions for this:

700 yards of Dream in Color Baby goodness. Chinatown Apple colorway. I know I want to knit a shawl with it. I just don't know which one.

What should I have in mind?

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It has been such a long time since I’ve written here, I almost had to search out a course in how to post. Life has pulled this way and that, up and down for so long. I haven’t been able to or felt much like writing for such a very long time. I make no real promise now, other than an honest attempt to do better.

The last eight months have been nothing short of a roller coaster. The six weeks for Rick to feel good (promised to us when Rick had his surgery in October) has stretched into almost the entire eight months. About seven months. He had surgery last Fall so that he would be able to start dialysis in November, and he did. Life got a little crazy, a little fun. Hospital visits, hospital stays. Sodium levels at dangerously low levels, broken ribs, so weak most of these passing months that even walking was difficult at times… We’ve been doing a lot of praying and waiting for those magical ’six weeks’ to kick in. Finally, finally, in the last month or so, a little longer, they have. Rick has been able to resume grocery shopping with me, a small thing to most but for him, monumental. He has mowed the lawn himself. He can walk the dogs with me in the evenings if he chooses to join us for exercise. I watch him like a hawk, I nag about his medications and whether or not he is eating. My job has gotten a lot easier over the weeks, finally. I’m very thankful and feel incredibly blessed that for the first time in a very long time, things are looking up for him. For us.

My bestest doggy Bosko is still with us, still making us smile and laugh every day. We are so thankful he found us back in December. I started squawking and whining for a little girl dachshund as I was the only girl in our household. Honey joined us in early February. She, too, is a HUGE reason I have not been much for writing these days.

Oh my goodness, she is a bundle of energy and if you ever come to visit, I warn you now to watch out for her tongue. I’ve never seen anything like it! She’s learned to behave around yarn once I got her priorities straight. Ha.

They are both very good dachshunds, my sweetheart is a very good sweetheart (of course) and I am content with our lives together. I’m knitting (built in blog posts - YAY!) and crocheting and walking dogs. Rick is doing better. I’m not sure I have much to complain about, truly.

More later. I’m certain of it.

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1. Woven Panel II, 2. Fetching I, 3. Fetching II, 4. Dashing, 5. Evangeline, 6. Millie’s Fetching, 7. Dashing for Reece, 8. Twisted Cable Rib, 9. match, 10. Fat Bottom #6, 11. Round dishcloth, 12. Swiffer, 13. 4 corners dishcloth, 14. 21 vs 16, 15. Rick’s Clogs, 16. Fat Bottom #7, 17. Amble, 18. mom amble, 19. allison’s blanket, 20. done and done, 21. Lichen Cowl, 22. Rick’s Raglan, 23. cheddar 2.2, 24. Candle Flame Shawl, 25. Simple Yet Effective Shawl, 26. Clapotis, 27. Clapotis #2, 28. Stocking #1, 29. Stocking #2, 30. Christmas Stocking #3, 31. Christmas Stocking #4, 32. scarf for Chloe, 33. Hat for Logan, 34. Hat for Katie, 35. Need for Tweed Dog Sweater, 36. Turn A Square for Rick

It’s been quite the year and the last month or two have been more than I could blog about to be sure. Rick had his surgery in October and just when he was beginning to see the benefits of CAPD at home, he slipped on rain-slick steps, fell and broke two ribs on December 10th. He is only just now beginning to not think “OW” with every motion and we’ve had some lovely blood pressure scares just for kicks as well.

My most wonderful and darling grandfather passed away on November 18th at the age of 90. Not a single day has gone by that I do not wish I could talk to him and tell him I love him. I was lucky enough to speak to him the evening he passed and did tell him then… I wish I could still tell him today. I know he knew that I love him. I just miss him. (See why I haven’t been blogging lately? Sometimes I think my brain was broken when he died.)

My grandmother is still with us and I do my best to call her in Michigan three or four times a week to help keep her from feeling so alone. It is really hard to be so far away.

The biggest bright spot in our lives since I wrote last is the addition of a four-legged trouble maker to our little family. I found (or was found by, most likely) a sweet dapple dachshund with no tags, collar or chip on December 5th. Rick named him Bosko after an early Loony Tunes character and the chocolate syrup. Because we’re just that cool. No signs have been posted, no ads published; we’re given over to this little doggy for better or worse. I think (though Lightning would NOT agree) that Bosko is the best thing to happen to us during a really difficult and sometimes painful few weeks in our lives.

How can you not love a little guy like that? We may never know how he ended up running up the street toward my car that evening but we sure are glad he chose me. I kind of needed the cuddles.

I’ve got some projects to blog about in the next few days that are pictured above but no real time this evening. I’ve also already started on what will be the first FO of 2009. I’m hoping to start writing more, both here and elsewhere. I miss it but have tended to run heavy on the emotion which drains me and everyone else. Twitter is great and I’m completely addicted and update fairly regularly but it isn’t the same. I will be back.

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42 years later, I’m finally back to write.

Rick’s surgery went very well, first and foremost. He had surgery for the placement of a peritoneal dialysis catheter on Oct. 23 and will start training class this coming Monday. He’ll be doing CCPD dialysis in our home, at night while he (hopefully) sleeps. I expect the first few weeks will be very rocky until we get used to the process, and indeed the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of doctor’s offices and hospitals and medications. Things are starting to smooth out and I hope and pray they will continue to do so.

In the meantime, I finished the second (of many to come) Clapotis last weekend. It took a whole week for me to find the time to finally blog about it. Poor thing.

My friend Katie is a willing model but not so willing to give back the shawl.

I’m bigger and older than she is, though. I win.

Plus, I share my meringues with her.

A little bribery will get all handknits returned and consolation handknits renewed love.

Clapotis #2
Bernat Satin Solids in Plum Mist Heather
Four skeins, size 9 needles

This one is for Rick’s niece, though she doesn’t know it yet. I still have to get it in the mail to her. Boxing it up would be a good start. I sense many more Clapotis in my future but am winding my way through Christmas knitting with football team colored stockings for my sister and her family. I never knit so fast in my life, lol!

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I missed you today. I thought of you while I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, waiting for nurses to be done poking and prodding Rick in preparation for his surgery on Thursday. I missed you so much. I know it’s partly because I’m sick. Stupid cold. Everybody feels lonely when they are sick. I just sat there with my arms crossed for that hour or so he was in the back, waiting, thinking of you and work craziness and life in general. About expensive orange juice and shoes. I missed you.

It’s the same hospital where Grandpa had his bypass surgery, you know. Was it a bypass? I can’t remember now. Five blocked arteries though, I do know that. And I sat there and thought about the last time I spent any amount of time in that hospital. You were there. You and Grandma and Dad, all four of us sitting silently in a row of chairs, waiting for news about Grandpa. I wondered how far I was from where we sat those few days; did we eat in the same cafeteria? Did we even eat? I remember the anxiety, the worry. I remember how people all around us carried on as if nothing was happening in operating rooms to their loved ones. We sat and thought and worried and tried not to worry Grandma any more than she already was worried. No conversations of any importance at all, just bad coffee in styrofoam cups and nervous smiles. The waiting room phone would ring and we would jump, anxious to hear if it was for us or someone else. I remember the waiting most of all. Long hours of quiet waiting.

But that was what, ten or eleven years ago? You’re in Michigan now, visiting Grandma and Grandpa and I miss you. I’d send this to your email but don’t want to freak you out while you’re so far away. I know the stress and sadness you’re dealing with now and I feel for you. I wish I could be there to help, not that I’d be much help at all. I’d hug you though, lots of hugs and make you coffee. Such silly words. I hope you’re able to have wonderful, perfect visits with your sisters. I hope everything is going well. I hope Dad is giving you all the hugs I wish I could give you and then even more from him. I hope you get irritated and grumpy from all the hugging, and then just know how much I love you. I hope you’re smiling.

So I’m posting this on my blog because I really REALLY want to tell you these things tonight but can’t. An open letter to my mother on my blog; I’ve never done that before. Maybe you’ll see it while you’re in Michigan, maybe you’ll want to show Laura or Linda my blog and what a shock you’ll get to read this. Hello and love to each of them if you do. Please know that I’m okay, really and truly. Just a little blue, more anxiety than I care to own up to about Rick’s surgery and flooded with so many memories. You know me very well and I AM OKAY. If you don’t see this until after you get back home, well, tell me I’m a dope and to get over the drama. By then, for sure, I will have.

I missed you today and wanted to tell you.

I love you.

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