Progress!

I wrote this last night, and am posting it today!

I finished my first pair of socks! I could easily have cast on 10 fewer stitches per sock, as they are a bit big, but not unwearable! I'm so excited.

I am turning my sights to knitting a pair of socks for Sean. I have a nice fingering weight Opal self-striping yarn for the socks, and though I learned to do my first socks cuff-down 2-at-a-time on magic loop, I'd like to do my 1st pair of socks for Sean as a toe-up 2aat on the magic loop.

I was looking at doing the magic cast on, but that was failing miserably, so I am now trying the turkish cast-on. My first attempt at it failed, but I think I see what I was missing, and I should be able to be successful with the turkish cast-on tomorrow when I am not tired. ETA - found a version of the turkish cast on that works and I'm now working toe increases on Sean's socks!

We went to see Regina Spektor Friday night at the State Theatre. Regina was awesome. Her opening band was Little Joy, which is a side project of the drummer from The Strokes, and they were quite good as well. looking forward to getting their cd.

We went to the hobby shop yesterday, and Sean bought helicopter parts and a new airplane to fly. We went back today and got some things straightened out, and he's now heading off to an airfield somewhere on the northwest side of the metro, and I'm at home, poking along at socks and probably going to take a nap because I'm not feeling that great, surprise, surprise.

I'm still here!

Have I really not posted since July?!?!?!

Wow. Well, it's been a busy summer. I just finished the 4th of my 4 sock knitting classes - I took a class @ The Yarnery w/ Jean Christensen on how to knit 2 socks at once w/ magic loop!

I love it!!!!!

I have about 10 rows left on the toe decreases and to do my kitchener stitch, and my 1st pair of socks will be done. Hoping to do that yet today, tomorrow at the latest. I'll find all the bad cell phone photos I took and take a nice one with the D80 and post 'em up this weekend!

I'll be casting on for socks for Sean this weekend!!!

I'm so happy to have found a sock knitting method I love! dpns and I are not friends. the end. I think that once I get started on his socks, I'd like to make a concerted effort to finally finish the Clapotis, and then I can devote myself fully to socks for a while.

Otherwise, we're heading into year-end at work... FY09 ends 9/30/09 and I won't surface till sometime in November. Hoping to do a long weekend of R&R in Puerto Rico in mid-November to shake off the year-end cobwebs.

Things continue to go swimmingly well for Sean and I.... :) We begin the birthday celebrations (his is next week, mine's 10/3) tonight with a Regina Spektor concert and dinner at the decadent 112 Eatery. And next week, we're going to another performance, which is still a surprise.

The State of the Kelly - June edition.

Well, hello there!

It's been almost a month since I posted! Eek!

Of course, quarter-end close got in there and messed things up for a few weeks. But we're on the other side of that now, and it's a race to year-end, which means October will be a crappy month. :)

But I've actually started knitting measurably again over the last few days. I thought I irreparably broke my Clapotis in May @ the Seattle airport, but I finally took it out of its bag the other day and found out it was salvageable - it's got something goofy going on, but no one else will notice it.

So, I made good progress on it over the weekend. A little more than halfway through the scheduled straight rows, and I just might be able to extend the straight rows based on the amount of yarn I have. Or make myself something else out of the leftover egyptian cotton yarn.

I've got a couple of other projects on the needles, and need to get back to socks one of these days. I really want to take a class on doing 2 socks at once, either on 2 circs or magic loop - I just don't like dpns, and I get bogged down with one sock at a time, and that's making me not knit socks. So, I typed that, and then went, found a class, and signed up. 4 Wednesdays, Aug 19, 26, Sep 2, 9, I will be learning how to knit 2 socks at once, magic loop style. :)

Our new elliptical machine was delivered to our house this morning. It's in the box, and likely won't be assembled till we have time this weekend (Sean's actually in MN this week, but will be way too busy to help with that project), but at least it's in our abode. I got out for a nice 6 mi bike ride on the Cedar Lake Trail this morning, thanks to Sean's gentle suggestion that since I didn't have to rush off to work right away, I had time for a bike ride before starting work at home.

I had a dr appt this morning about this exhaustion issue. Now that all the tests have been run, including a 12+ hour sleep study, we have ruled out everything, and it comes back to fatigue, and likely is tied to the fibromyalgia stuff. It's not usually how my fibro has manifested itself in the past, but it appears to be doing so this way this time.

I have recommendations - 0.5 mg of Melatonin at 5 pm daily, trying to get to sleep about an hour earlier than I do each night, and a book recommendation, to help with guided relaxation and other techniques to turn off the brain weasels. :)


He's a young doctor, but very bright and personable. I have hope that I can get some relief from this fatigue without sedative medications. I'm going to stop and find melatonin and get that book on my way home tonight.

There also may be a component to this fatigue that is job-related, so I continue to try to work on that angle. I'm also considering potential career shifts, and we'll see where that takes me. I might take a class in a different discipline this fall, just to see what I think.

We're preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Ann this coming weekend. She's either staying for 1 week or 2, depending on how she feels. I'm looking forward to seeing her. Sean's going to be busy with work, so she's going to be stuck with me a lot this trip, but I think she'll manage. It'll be good to see her!

So, that's the state of the Kelly, more or less. Still laboring under crushing fatigue, but still happy with my life in general, and determined to still find ways to enjoy what I can.

Never a dull moment!

Well, about 24 cumulative miles into riding my new bicycle (a beautiful Trek 7.3wsd), I have officially christened it.

I was somewhere between 1-2 miles into my ride with Sean this morning, on the W River Parkway Trail. The sun was shining brightly (boy, was it humid and warm at 6 am!) through the trees, and I came up on a tighter curve in the trail more suddenly than I wanted. Sadly, I responded to that realization by jamming on both brakes. I felt myself starting to go over the top of the handlebars, but managed to lean to the side enough that I took a header that way. Bruises and scrapes on my leg and arm, and a pretty owie neck and back sprain, but I got back up and finished the ride, going 6.37 miles this morning total, since I was sore, but nothing was broken, and if I was going to ride the ~2 miles back home, I might as well ride a couple more and finish the ride. :)

I'm going to run a couple of errands after work and then go home and climb into bed. My body's screaming at me to let it rest, and so I will. Maybe a hot bath if I can stay awake long enough.

I learned about shifting my bike this weekend.... now I need to learn braking, apparently. Well, I learned the lesson - when needing to stop quickly, don't put on both at once vehemently!

I scraped up my arm, and that'll bruise a little...

And I scraped up my leg too, and the bruise is going to be quite spectacular!

I think either the handlebar or the shifter caught my leg as I got tripped up on the bike.

Also, this one thing...

DSC_0365, originally uploaded by empire74.

This was taken in Hawaii. We got these stuffed Iiwi birds from the Haleakala visitor's center. They chirp like Iiwi do. Sean fell in love with them. I adore this photo - it captures so many of the things I adore about Sean, from his propensity for being silly to the kindness in his eyes to his slightly mischievous nature.

Hawaii Photos are posted! Not much knitting, though!

I'm not dead! I'm just not posting much. I'm not knitting much.... I knit a little on a square of my Mitered Squares blanket last week at knit nite, and that's about it. I think about it, and want to knit, but then my hands don't feel like doing the actual work. Hrmph.

This past weekend was good - we went with a friend to the Farmer's Market in Mpls Saturday morning, and then she helped us find tennis courts and a way to bike to Theo Wirth from our house, and we played tennis and biked home, and there was cooking, and on Sunday, I cooked Sean breakfast in bed for Father's Day, and also cooked a nice tilapia picatta for dinner.

So in the absence of knitting-related stuff, I posted photos of our trip to Hawaii!

Here are the links to my Flickr sets:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/empire74/sets/72157620162709751/
These are the photos I took with my pocket camera. I also posted these to Facebook.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/empire74/sets/72157620274586440/
These are the photos I took with my trusty Nikon D80, including the stars @ 9000' at Mauna Kea, the helicopter ride over Hawaii (now with active volcanoes), and other awesome things.

Bring out yer dead...

This is a short entry to let you all know I'm still here!

We went to Hawaii and it was awesome. Then on the way home from Hawaii, I seem to have acquired Deth Cold 2009, and have been down and out since returning from the Aloha State.

I'm vertical today (mostly), and at work, and am hoping to make a post about the vacation (with photos) this weekend.

Still alive, barely, then.