No more shits to give

I am not looking for pity or sympathy.  I just need to vent and I need to believe that someone, somewhere, might understand.

I think law school was the first mistake, maybe.  It might be that where it all went wrong was in deciding to stay here, I don't know, it hardly matters.  Here I am, ten years latter, alone, broke, and bereft.  Sure, I have some good friends and I have two and a half wonderful little dogs to show for it, but I also have a mountain of debt and no way to pay it back, constant pain, and a failed marriage.  I am trapped in a state I loath because of poverty and ongoing legal nonsense with a roof over my head only at the sufferance of my not-quite-ex-husband.  I want children desperately and I haven't the means nor the capacity to have them.  The man I really love, have loved for longer than I care to think about, is indifferent and I have no place else to go.  My own mother made that clear when I told her my marriage had irrevocably broken down.

Sometimes I think it would have been better if that car accident had been just a little worse, if I had died that day.  Better not just for me but for everyone else who has had to deal with the last five and a half years of crap that followed.  My health won't be getting any better, it has been and will continue to be a constant struggle.  I can't remember things, lose days and weeks, and have to struggle to follow most conversations.  Today I left the oven on for at least three hours after making my breakfast.

There are tiny sparks of hope, but just at this moment it's not enough.  I want my life back.  I want myself back.  I want to go home but there's no home to go to.

I have been trying, am trying, to do better.  To adjust, to find ways to manage.  But I don't know if I can do that alone, and how I can ask anyone to put up with this?  I am frightened and that just makes everything worse.

Some of this, God willing a great deal of it, is drug withdrawals.  In a few weeks my system will be clear of all of the medications and I can get a better sense of where I really am.  Do I think that will change the fundamentals?  No.  But it should help in my ability to cope.  Maybe I will be just clear-headed enough to see a way through.  But for now, I feel trapped and bereft, lost and very much alone.

Pi Blankie

I have decided I like knit blankets.  Something about the weight of them is very soothing.  This one was sort of fun to knit, the flower petals are really pretty and easy to work.  I do wish I had chosen a less variegated yarn but because the pattern itself is so simple they don't compete.

For those interested, the pattern can be found for free on Ravelry.

I think the main thing I would do differently next time is using a regular wool yarn rather than superwash.  Even with an aggressive block, the wool bounced back enough that the increase rows create some funny ruffle effects that I do not find pleasing.  It's worse on the last section, laid out it almost looks like I knitted a ruffle.  Or tried to.  That might just be the nature of Pi shawls, this is (amazingly) the first time I did one so I'm not sure.

Even with this yarn, I kind of wish I had knit a little tighter.  The drape is lovely but I have 2 small dogs who seem to love burrowing under this blanket in particular and they keep snagging things.  It's fixable and not that big a deal but seeing something that took that long to make get snagged is a little traumatizing.

Over an successful project.  It's an easy knit and the end results are quite pretty.  I think done up in a lighter weight yarn (not worsted) this would be a really beautiful shawl.

Lap blanket

My parents live in a fairly rural area of central California.  Not so rural that you can't see the neighbors, but the people around the corner keep sheep and alpacas and up the road is a heard of long horn cattle.  The town is more like a village, and they live in what passes for a suburb.

One of their neighbors, a couple just a few years older than they are, have become good friends, particularly of my dad.  The husband helped quite a lot with my post-wedding brunch, makes amazing cinnamon walnut bread at the holidays, and was just diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer.

There's not much any of us can do to help, he's undergoing treatment and seems to be in good spirits.  But wanting to offer what comfort I can from so far away, I decided to make him a lap quilt he can take with him to his treatments or just use at home.  A good friend of mine and fellow quilter on this side of the country is going through the same thing with her dad, and she very kindly shared some of the scraps from his quilt to supplement what I already had for my project.  We both like the continuity of that, somehow it seems as though they will both benefit from the prayers and well wishes directed at the other.

I decided to keep things fairly simple as I want to get this quilt sent out as quickly as I can.  Starting with a basic strip quilt idea, I added in some scrappy log cabin squares, strewn across a strip ground.  This was my first attempt at log cabin and I think the results were quite good.  They are kind of fun to do to, even though I felt like I was doing a whole lot of ironing.  I went with blue and green batiks for the strips, partly because that's what I had, but they seems like healing, calm colors.  The log cabin squares are done in darker shades with bits of brown thrown in, sort of like stepping stones in a stream.

Today I will quilt and bind the blanket and hopefully be able to get it mailed off by Wednesday.

Hoping for the best

As I mentioned in my last post, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia last year.  This came after nearly 5 years of unexplained medical issues (one of mt neurologists used the phrase "perplexing constellation of symptoms," not the best thing to hear).  I've had severe migraines, memory loss, tremors, aphasia, fatigue and a marked loss of cognitive function in addition to muscle and joint pains.  Some days are good, some days are bad, most days are some combination of both.

I've been learning to cope with all of this in the last year, trying to adjust to what is my "new normal" and learn how to get the most function out of each day.  I'm making progress, but still have moments where I mourn deeply for what I've lost.  Acceptance is coming in bits, the low times are less frequent, but it's still scary when I have a bad lapse.

To make things even more interesting, I've had consistent issues getting one of my prescriptions refilled in a timely manner for the last 8 months or so.  I've been taking cymbalta since last January, to help with the fibro and hopefully keep all of my symptoms on an even keel.  It mostly works but comes with some less than great side effects and EXTREMELY bad withdrawal problems when I miss or am late on a dose.  Because of this I've made the decision to stop taking this stuff.  I'll be weening off it for the next 6 weeks or so.

So here is where I need some help.  If I am acting flaky or spacey, if I don't follow through on something we talk about, please don't take it personally.  In all likelihood I don't remember the conversation or am having trouble finding my words.  I might act oddly or do some strange things, I assure you it's a lot more disturbing for me than it is for you.  I will eventually be ok, but I might need to be reminded of that and I could probably use a hug.

I just need some extra patience right now and possibly some help operating heavy equipment  :)

Carnival Rides

It's been a mad, crazy year since I last posted.  A lot has changed, mostly for the better, but as with all change it was a rough process.

Shortly after my last post I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  This was good news.  For the last 5 years or so I'd been in pain and having strange neurological symptoms that my doctors just couldn't figure out.  The diagnosis hasn't really changed any of that, except now I am on meds that help regulate and highs and lows a little better.  Getting that sorted out was no picnic, there is a space or about 6 weeks where I remember at most 3 days, the rest is a blur of confusion and not being able to figure out how to work my phone (or anything else for that matter).

In the midst of all that, my marriage finally fell apart and I moved out.  Not an easy thing to do when one can't work, is tripping from medication adjustments, and has no steady income of ones own.  But I'm adjusting and feeling much better and slowly starting to figure things out.

The trick seems to be managing my own expectations, and those of the people around me.  I can't do all the things I used to, most annoyingly I never know from day to do what I will be able to do.  Focusing instead on what I can do and letting the rest go with something like grace is the only way to get through the day.  Explaining all of this to people is the hardest (and most exhausting) part.

One of the better explanations out there is the Spoon Theory.  It works pretty well but I've found a better way for me to explain is to equate my day with a day at the carnival, you know the ones where you get ride tickets?  Usually at these things you can either buy a bunch of ride tickets or an all-access wrist band.  I used to have a wrist band.  Now, I get tickets.  Some tasks take one ticket, some take four.  It take eight or nine just for the basic functions of life, like getting dressed, showered, making meals, etc.  Anything else I do, I have to budget for since I never quite know how many tickets I will get each day.  I have to plan what to do with my "extra" tickets.  Laundry?  That's 3 a load.  Doctors appointment? Groceries?  Anywhere from 2 to 5.  Actually get some paying work done?  The sky is the limit.  Social time?  That all depends on what you want to do.   You can see the problem if I wake up with just 15 tickets for the day.

On the upside, I'm regulating myself better so I don't have such wild swings in energy and pain levels most days.  I'm getting better at maintaining a little bit of energy reserve so I'm not still a mess tomorrow because I overdid it today.  I can plan a little better, and have eliminated a lot of stress and anxiety from my environment.  But the hardest thing, the thing that takes the most tickets, is trying to explain all this to new people or old friends who just don't get it.  It's not that I don't want to go to dinner or play pool, or travel or go dancing, it's just that I don't have enough tickets for that ride today.  I might tomorrow, or I might next week, but I have to plan for it and rest up so I've got the best chance of a nice, thick envelope of tickets that morning.

Wall Hangings

OMG I am cranky.  2014 can, so far at least, go to hell.  It seems like things have not been going to great for much of anyone in my little circle of friends.  Sure, on a small scale there are plenty of nice things but we've had far more than our share of death, cancer, and other miserable chronic illness to deal with.  So, 2014, enough already!  We are done.  It's time to get with some nice weather, and give it a rest already.

On a personal front, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia last month.  This was actually *good* news, as I've been dealing with a whole range of stupid, annoying, painful and sometimes scary and terrifying symptoms which have been getting steadily worse and more numerous for the last 4 or 5 years that no one has been able to explain.  Finally after much poking, prodding, and inconclusive tests, my neurologist asked if we had talked about fibro.  I just about started to cry, I was so happy so finally have a test come back positive.  Not that I am glad that I have an incurable condition with no known cause that many people don't even believe exists, but at least I now know what's wrong with me, and there are things I can do to make it easier to cope with.  It's a relief in a really strange way.  Yeah, I still feel like somehow has been beating me with a stick most of the time, my head still hurts most days, I still talk like a Muppet or Kryton from Red Dwarf sometimes, and I can't remember the names of things, but at least I know why.  And I know that whatever it is isn't going to kill me.

Somehow in the midst of all this I am still managing to get my creative on, and that is a good thing.  Probably a better thing than ever, at least according to my therapist.  It's harder to make the kind of progress on anything than I would like most days (especially since it's been so cold lately), but I did manage to get two wall hanging quilts done so far this year.  The first I did for February, and actually finished about a month ago but somehow failed to post pictures off.  I cut out the hearts using my new Go! cutter, which I love.  The applique was fairly easy, but I still a ways to go before I want to do that on a quilt that will get a lot of wear.  All of the materials for this came out of my scrap bin.  I'm very pleased with the results, it's bright and cheerful but still modern and young looking.

The second quilt is based on the one of the wall hangings from Vintage Quilt Revival: 22 Modern Designs from Classic Blocks .  I love, love LOVE this book!  So many wonderful ideas!  Once again, I used the Go! cutter to so do all the HST's.  Probably this was not a great idea, even though my GAWD it was quick to cut them out, but it turns out that it cuts them with the bias going the wrong way, so when I sewed everything together I ended up with the bias edges on the short ends of the triangles.  Maybe this really does not matter, I don't know.  I think I'm going to try doing a couple of sampler blocks with the cutter and see what went wonky.  Really the main problem I had was getting the corners to line up and things pulling strangely at the intersections, but there are some other things I might be able to do to fix that.  We shall see.

Other than the cutting, I am pretty pleased with this.  The black and white prints are prints I stamped myself, so I wanted to show them off with some nice, bright semi-solids.  I was amazed at what a difference using the lighter color binding made.  It toned down the whole thing.  I also had a lot of fun with the actual quilting, using a sprial design on the black and which sections and inset squares on the colored blocks.

Wild Things Kindle Cover

My all time favorite book ever is Where the Wild Things Are.  Hand down, it's the best.  Ok, it's 17 pages long or so, and mostly pictures, but I love it dearly, have done so since I was three, and I don't think that will ever change.

Imagine then my joy and delight when I found Wild Things fabric at the Crap and Alleged Fabric Store over the holidays!  Usually they have a lot of licensed stuff of rather questionable quality, but this was not only my favorite characters ever, but actually pretty nice fabric!  Yay!  I got enough to do a quilt, which I will get started on sooner or later, and there was a remnant of one of the prints which I have made a new cover for my kindle out of.  The cloud print is from Debby Mumm and sort of goes perfectly.  I will eventually add a button to the cover as soon as I find the perfect Max crown button.

Sewing the case was quite easy.  The pattern is from Whislepig Creek, who (which? beats me) carries patterns for all kinds of different e-readers. I followed the directions for this one, using Peltex for the inside, but I think if I do this again I will use plastic canvas for the stiffener.  I like a trimmer, more tailored looking cover.  I'll need to change how the thing goes together just a little it to get the canvas to work right but that should be simple enough.  Overall I am very happy with this, it makes me smile and that's the main thing.