The break-up...

I did not, as previously posited, get much knitting done this weekend.



But I can tell you this: The Lizard Ridge pattern and I broke up yesterday. On my 13th attempt at successfully completing row 4, which was failing miserably, I stopped and looked at it and said, "This is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. And I'm not concentrating well enough for this pattern to be fun and enjoyable. Time to find another pattern. Lizard Ridge, I think you're beautiful, but you're not for me right now."



Hours of searching later, I settled on Sarah Bradberry's Psychedelic Squares stockinette mitred square pattern. Because it looked accessible to me. I'm taking the Noro Kureyon I have and doing the entire square in the same skein of Noro, instead of the awesome stripes in hers, but i am using that pattern, minus the yarn-color changing.



And it worked. This is the first unblocked square, in Noro 219.

If I can find time this week, I'd like to cast on for a pair of socks for Sean. And I know that for easier, ego-boosting knitting, I can pull out the Noro and knit a mitred square for Ann's blanket.

The house seems quiet without her there, and Sean and I both miss her a lot. I suspect we'll see her more as the next couple of years goes on, which is perfectly fine with us. I may not post that much in the next few weeks.... second quarter close starts as of Wednesday morning, and it'll be all I can do to keep my head above water. But I will try to jump in once in a while and post whatever meager progress I can muster on my knitting.

heading for the weekend!

The sun is rising in the sky. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me!

No progress on the Lizard Ridge front. I didn't have to wait long to see Dr. Emily yesterday, so I only got a chance to do the 3 rows of stockinette at the beginning of the 8th iteration of the square.

But Sean, Ann, and I went to see Rent last night at the Orpheum Theatre! It was amazing! I've been a fan of the musical since it came out and became such a phenomenon. I'd never seen it, so to see it with the Broadway touring cast was fantastic!

We went to Palomino for dinner...




And this is Ann and I at the theater during intermission:


I'm so glad that I saw the ad for this performance before she got here so that I could get us tickets. Much fun.


We also had fun playing Guitar Hero: World Tour yesterday, and I'd forgotten how much I like that game. Because I have become obsessed with knitting.


We're heading to Iowa tomorrow, meeting her mom for lunch halfway between here and home. I'm really going to miss having her here. When she runs over and gives me a huge hug, I just melt. I don't want kids of my own, for various reasons, but I definitely don't mind being a stepmom.


I also got to spend time talking to Dr. Emily yesterday. Dr. Emily is who Sean was assigned to when he broke his ribs before Christmas, and so I went to see her too. She's fantastic. The biggest reason I procrastinated on going in to see the doctor over the last month, as this exhaustion thing has been getting worse, is because I was afraid that the minute the fibromyalgia came up, I'd be told that it was just related to that. Now, it may be related to that, but to me, it feels completely different than the usual hallmarks of fibro flare-ups that I get. So I want to make sure we rule other things out before we start treating it as another manifestation of fibro.


And she gets it. She said that she understands why I've been hesitant, but that she firmly believes that it's important to rule out other things before we call it fibro-related. They're running the tests to see if anemia or my thyroid are the culprits, and I should know next week if that's what's going on. And if those tests come back normal, she said we'll explore other avenues, like a sleep study, since I know I do have trouble sleeping.


It's such a relief to find a good doctor. I found a lot of not-so-good ones when I was trying to
figure out what was wrong 13 years ago and was diagnosed with the fibro, and it makes me a little leery.


So, here's hoping it's something easily treatable. I'm at a great point in my life, and I want to have the energy to enjoy it!

It's just short rows.... why is it so difficult??

Despite working on it for hours, the yarn and needles for my first Lizard Ridge square look the same as the photo I took yesterday afternoon.

I've started and frogged the square no fewer than seven times. I feel like a dunce. But I just can't seem to work the pattern repeats in row 4 so that I come out with 3 stitches at the end of the first 2 bubbles. Once, I came out with one, and another time I had four, but never 3.

I'm determined to figure this out. Plenty of other people have done so. It's frustrating, but I am determined. Especially since I ordered 15 more skeins of Kureyon yesterday. I have to do something with this stuff, and I'd like it to be the Lizard Ridge blanket. Grr.

I'm also -this- close to trying to start a Clapotis, just to see if I can do that any better than the Lizard Ridge. And another, probably more reasonable part of me, says that I should work on an easier project, given my current concentration problems. :)

I ended up just not feeling up to trying to wrangle the Lizard Ridge pattern in public, so I stayed in last night after I got home. When I walked in, Sean and Ann showed me the spoils of the day - they bought out the hobby shop (Ann was working on a model of a 1966 VW Beetle) and Costco (omg, Gummi Bears!) while I was at work yesterday afternoon. Sean cooked up an excellent fajita dinner, complete with awesome spanish rice, and I had a surprise in the mail.

Although it wasn't supposed to be delivered till today, my Amazon Kindle was also waiting for me at home yesterday. I'd had a chance to use Sean's, and it's quite shiny. It certainly takes up less space than books! I like it very much.

And today, I had some bacon, and the dashboard turtle made an appearance, and I got hugs from my wonderful husband and my super stepdaughter before I left for work. A girl could get spoiled by all this awesomeness. Oh, wait, I am spoiled.

I think that all the awesome things in my life are why it took me so long to hit this wall as regards how poorly I'm feeling. If I had super stresses in my life, I'd have hit the wall of frustration with feeling unwell much, much sooner. At any rate, I'm looking forward to my doctor's appt later today.... to at least start the process of finding out what's wrong is a bit of a relief, even though I know it's going to be a while before we know what's going on.

The terrible twosome is going to terrorize Twin Cities museums today, and then they're descending on the U tomorrow for an all-day extravaganza of tours and exploring. I have to admit, after this week, I really would love it if she ended up at the U. She'd be a few hours from her mom and home, and would get the full college experience, but she'd be close enough that we could help with laundry or make her dinner once in a while.

I'm also looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. And our road trip to Iowa will be nice, too. The Audi is quite the comfortable road trip car. Okay, back to analyzing returns data. Weeee!

Genesis

I was going to work on the Lizard Ridge square over lunch, but Sean and Ann came and took me out to lunch instead. But here's a photo of the 1st 3 rows, and of the gorgeous Noro Kureyon yarn I found:

I'm just itching to get this first pattern repeat -done-. Want to knit. Must work instead. Bah. :P

Update...

I have a dr appointment tomorrow afternoon. Because I was sitting here, realizing that if I can get an appt for this particular piece of things Real Soon Now, then I should. Waiting till April 20 to combine it with my general physical is only going to make me crazy(ier?).

I have a list in my notebook of all the things I've noticed/have been going on, and hopefully this appt can be the beginning of some relief. Because I really am not handling this well. No matter how much I sleep, I'm more exhausted than I've ever been. I am equally exhausted when I can catch up on sleep, like last weekend, and when I can't, like all week this week when I can't fall asleep.

I have fibromyalgia, and at one point in my life, it was so bad that I pretty much dropped out of society. And this feels worse than the worst of my fibro symptoms. Just for scale.

As much as I want to go to Knittin' Kitten tonight, I may opt for going straight home after work - I need to save up energy for going to see Rent tomorrow night at the Orpheum with Sean and Ann. I can still work on the Lizard Ridge square at home. And I haven't been at home much in the evenings during the week for the last few weeks. Which has been great for my socialization, but I need a night at home.

Dragging.....

There is snow on the ground. Snow. SNOW. Welcome to spring, where snow is as common as 55F temperatures.

I finally hit the frustration wall with my health yesterday. I called and made an appointment for April 20 to go in and get a checkup. I may well call back today and see if she's got any openings yet this week for the more immediate need, which is to find out why I'm feeling so exhausted and like I have a low-level cold all the time anymore. I sat down yesterday and wrote out a list of the things I've noticed.

I was absolutely exhausted when I left work yesterday, as it has been lately, and really just wanted to go home and sleep. Instead, I dragged myself to knit nite @ Borealis. I got there at 4:45, and made it till 6 before I left. No offense to the fine knitters at Borealis last night - I just needed to go home. I attempted to start one square of the Lizard Ridge blanket last night, but I messed it up somewhere, and started over. I'll get the pattern, eventually.

The goal is to have the blanket made by the time my stepdaughter, Ann, goes off to college (she's almost done with her sophomore year of HS). We shall see. I need to finish one of the 21 squares first, to make a true assessment of whether she'll get it when she goes off to college or when she graduates. :)

Knittin' Kitten tonight - it remains to be seen if I can stay awake long enough tonight to make it there.

So, I went home in a pretty down mood last night, and it was nice to go home and have my family there. I got lots of hugs from both Sean and Ann, and Ann & I worked on a project. It tested my new skills at dealing with frustration, and we did something awesome. When Sean and Ann were at the Science Museum the other day, she bought a ColorCube puzzle, and we put it together. I'll take photos of it tonight (we made the 3-D puzzle and hung it up over the sofa).

Today's not starting off much better than yesterday was, though. I managed to forget my purse at home, and I feel much like I did yesterday. No amount of caffeine touches this, though I keep trying.

I also want to get started on a Clapotis, but am still unsure about yarn. I have some beautiful Malabrigo that feels quite slighted at this point, but I was hoping to make a lighter weight Clapotis than that yarn. Maybe I'll just have to make one in the Malabrigo and another one later in a lighter-weight yarn. We shall see.