luxe

so, firstly, thanks for the kind emails and phone calls. i have been really out of it. yesterday, i did some dyeing and apparently overdid it, i get so excited when i feel good enough to actually do stuff that i overdo. i talked on the phone, sat outside in the sunshine, did the dyeing, hung it up, sat outside and talked, dyed some more, hung it up, made dinner (jake didn’t know what to do with himself) i even packed up the leftovers for 2 days lunches for him. last night, not so good. i had a fever, but my body was cold, i had a bad headache, i think i vomited a couple of times, and to make it even more special, my nose was so stuffed up that i couldn’t breathe. it was a miserable night. the night before, i hadn’t slept at all, literally, and then got up and did all the stuff, so i guess it was payback. i didn’t get out of bed today. i kept trying to get up, but i would fall back asleep. at 5 pm when jake called, i was still in bed. insane, eh?

so let me just send a little note to a long time “friend”…hey lupus…you suck my ass. big time. i always say that we coexist and i accept it and it is okay. it isn’t. you seriously, seriously suck. and to make it even better, i can’t even use you as an excuse for having to leave things early, not go out at all, etc, etc, because it makes me feel like i am making excuses. and your buddies chronic fatigue, epstein bahr, fibromyalgia, migraine, arthritis, and the awesome bouts of anxiety and depression that hang out with you, they all suck ass too. bunch of freeloading arseholes. if you wanna hang around with me, you need to start paying some sort of rent. bring a bag of chips, chip in for all the medications…something.

i had a custom order for chocolate brown yarn, and for any of you non-dyeing gals and gents out there, brown is a very tricky color. i initially dyed the fiber, and it came out so not right that i decided to spin the yarn, ply it and then dye the finished yarn. it took two shots at that, and it still has some light spots, but it looks okay. unlike oil paints, the fiber dyes just don’t follow color theory. they are made up of so many different things that even on their own they pull out odd colors depending on the fiber. i have also heard that different pans can make colors change as well. i got some really pretty fiber. here are a few photos. i will be listing that and the other ton of fiber that i still haven’t gotten around to listing. and i finally am getting my my electric carder from angela. yay!

i also took a photo of this “peaks” i have been crocheting. i have some really really big ones. this one was crocheted with noro yarn meant for machine knitting. it is almost as thin as thread. so i used a teeny hook and it took me forever to make. i don’t know what they mean, but i feel compelled to draw and paint and make them. here is one, not stuffed yet, finger included for size…and dye stained nail. ew.

xo
n.

i am having a really hard time getting up. i have stuff that has to get out today and i have just now gotten my coffee and pep pill. i am so tired. my mind has been racing with all of the things i want to make and do, but the body is just not cooperating. it is a funny thing, on lupus group online i notice that people make comments that lupus sucks, or chronic fatigue sucks, or whatever. i consider it to be a part of who i am. it is strange, when i really think about it. i have always felt that way about all of my various maladies, that they just are a part of me, just like the parts that i like. is that a healthy way to think? i dunno. i never think of any of my issues as things that will ever go away. it just is a part of me and i don’t really judge it beyond that. it just is.

regardless, the trip to LA really pooped me out. any trip or event tends to put me in a tailspin. that part of me is frustrating. it keeps me from traveling or participating in things i would like to be a part of. i am always in fear that i will be too sick and have to ditch out, which happens more often than not.

last night i kept waking up with a migraine, and this morning, too, so i guess this is the fallout from last night. i feel scrambled and tired. i figured i would moan about it a bit.

okay, getting up. getting going. wish me luck.
xo
n.

well! i have been feeling tired and out of sorts and have missed jake more than i could have imagined. we only spend a few hours together at night usually, but i guess even just having him sleeping next to me while i work on whatever project means more than i thought it did. he came home for the weekend and then left again super early this morning. poor pavel misses him so much. when he had his luggage downstairs ready to go, poor pavel went up and downstairs over and over and rubbed his face on everything and kept looking at me as if to ask if papa was REALLY leaving again. after he left, pavel walked around the house crying. poor boy. anyway, we miss our jakie. we really do.

i have had some bad medication days which is a killer. i end up sitting on the floor in the shower until the hot water runs out. it is the only thing that helps me deal with my skin crawling, hot/cold, etc, etc. it sucks. gah. it just really tires me out, i guess, so i have been doing NOTHING. i am sooooo behind on everything and it bums me out.

what have i made? well, here is a bit of stuff. i have done a bunch of neckies and poppy scarfalettas and some crocheted bracelets that i really like and are really comfy. i even made some non child-sized ones (you guys know about my freaky small wrists, right?) for the normal peeps out there. woot!

so i got a gorgeous package from ms chocolatte herself (who i STILL owe a nice package back to…i haven’t forgotten you, i am just the slowest in the world. on the upside, i keep adding stuff and adding stuff, so it is worth the wait. i think.) thanks thanks thanks! i wasn’t expecting anything and i was tickled! i need to take photos when it is light out.

i also got a package of superwash wool from the sheepshed and some lovely black mohair top. the fiber is softer than the stuff i have gotten in the past. it seems like some colors are softer than others, but once you wash the stuff out of it, it softens up, too. woot for dyed fiber!

i am leaving on thursday for my brother’s wedding in LA. i am excited to see everyone. there are peeps coming from all over (like australia!) pretty cool. it is at a hollywood mansion so i will have to take loads of photos and then tell everyone that i live there. good idea, no?

i got softies in the mail as one of my birfday purchases, which is just a gorgeous book. i am not a pattern follower, but i still feel compelled to buy the books. on one hand, i love to see how other people make things, and on the other, i am a book nut. in my family, we all are, i reckon. i feel compelled. anyone, it is really cute and has a lot of the great softie makers out there in the book. really good. two thumbs up. they also have paper patterns in the back. kewl?

i have finally learned that when i am awakened by a kitten bite on the mouth, it means “feed me. now.”. just so you know. she used to purr and then squeak at me. ah well. i guess i order at restaurants by biting the waitress on the mouth, too.

off to do my thang. whatever that is. mwah.
n.

man, i had a bad run. the last week or so i have just been feeling like poo. yesterday, worse and today, really bad. i am not exactly sure what the deal was. i did a bit of snooping on a new site i found called www.butyoudontlooksick.com that basically deals with all kinds of things that we deal with…at first, i thought it was just the lady problems that were making me flare up, i guess that is pretty normal in all of the maladies i have, but it got really bad. i had the sweats, the chills, heebie jeebies, i am not sure if i had a bad batch of patches. i ended up taking a shower, sitting down and drying off, getting dressed and back into bed and then basically getting back into the shower. by the 6th time, i took a chill pill (literally) a pain pill, put new patches on and was so exhausted that i sat down in the shower. i am not sure what it was that helped, but by the time i got out, i felt human, was able to watch ugly betty with jake and go online! wha?

i am super behind in getting any work done, getting orders out, returning and checking my email. it is beyond frustrating. i know i can only do what i can do, but it doesn’t change the fact that it drives me crazy. when i can’t even get myself somewhat under control with medications, i really start to freak out. i have been more emotional than i usually am, i am sure due to hormones, but still, when i don’t do anything, not even things i enjoy…don’t read a book, knit, talk on the phone, make something…anything, it just drives me crazy. i don’t wanna whine anymore, i just wanted to vent a bit.

jake is so sweet to me. he keeps asking what he can do, what he can get, what can he make…meanwhile, i haven’t even done a minimum of housework, cooked dinner, scooped litterboxes, nothing. i barely can get out of bed and take a shower. i am too tired to make a cup of coffee. he is just so kind. he never makes me feel guilty. he acts like it is crazy for me to think i should help out around the house, or do anything more than lie in bed all day. i don’t know that i could work as hard as he does, come home and do whatever needs to be done and still be so nice and sweet. i don’t think i could. i love you jakie. you is the best. you my flowa.

okay, gotta check some emails. to-morrow, as jake always says, i will feel better.

mwah!
n.

so. i know, i have been absent. everyone knows why. a combo of lupus/cfs/fybro/migraines….and….ISOBEL. she eats my energy for breakfast. again, if you have children that are alive and have thrived…my hat is off to you. i am not wearing a hat, but you know, my hair hat. my kitten is off to you, anyway. so, i had a hectic weekend which involved errands on friday, the in-laws for dinner, they were gracious enough to come over here because izzy had been left alone for a few hours whilst i ran my errands and she doesn’t travel so well anymore. she is so fast. on the upside, she ran around downstairs and played the whole time we ate dinner, so she was pooped that night. i had a bad-ish headache and jake let me sleep in on saturday, which i hugely appreciated and then i went out to meet shannon (aka the knitgrrl), andi and lovely heather who unleashed her enormous stash of yarn on me (woot woot!) i felt guilty giving her two batts and charlotte sometimes (the pink bird with the white scarf, which is good because cleveland is cold!), so i will have to make her another package. all of the yarn is still sitting in bags in my bedroom, but i did look through all of it and ooh and aah. we met at ikea which is normally a bit more than an hour away in no traffic, i had a headache when i woke up still, but we had afun time and then by the time i was leaving, it was getting hurty. the traffic was backed up bumper to bumper all the way home, so it took me an extra 1 1/2 hours to get home. with the bad migraine. i actually got the panicky “i am stuck in a car an indeterminate amount of time away from home and i keep almost vomiting and i want to cry” thing going on. that night i totally conked out. let me add that i scored at ikea. i got these gigantor plastic bags…that thick plastic like the bags that mailmen use…from ikea that have handles and deep zippers, literally i could fit inside of the one, and the other is slightly smaller. i had to fight not to buy a bunch of em, but i can now take my stuff to the post office without having to attempt to hold the post office bag up over my shoulders to keep it from dragging. although, after my last deliveries of packages that made me have to do two trips, i think i will get pick up. i just don’t want to leave it outside, ya know?

so sunday, i did groceries and target and the pet store and then walmart because the pet store didn’t have the formula that izzy prefers…nay, the only one she will eat. so i spent the whole day out and today i woke up at 3pm and got no work done because i was so exhausted. so. to-morrow i am excited to do some of the halloween yarns and work on some buttons and get stuff listed. i have a stack of stuff. i feel like a jerk. i haven’t added much stuff in ages. gah!

wanna see some of the new neckywarmers with the handmade buttons?

not much else, i loaded up some new photos on flickr of izzy. she moves really fast, so they aren’t great, but they are cute…

she is all about getting into everything and if she is awake when i attempt to check my emails, she will run across the keyboard to hear the bong sound that the mac makes, swats at the screen and tries to eat the cord. the battery is dead on this laptop, so if she eats the cord, we have to buy a new one. so. if i move her or tap her on the snoot, she just goes right back to it, in a second. bad bad monkey. i actually lost my temper last night and just closed the computer. i would be a bad mom. she has pooped and peed on the floor by herself, which is good. we are trying to get her to use the litterbox, but she isn’t into it. i got the feline pine stuff because you aren’t supposed to use regular litter lest they eat it. i may need to get something different. additionally, i cannot get her to eat off of a spoon or saucer. she will only drink her milk and out of a bottle. really soon, she needs to get onto the 2nd step formula to get enough nutrition. i am mixing the two to get her used to it. wish us luck. all kittens, all the time.

i will take photos of some of the new knits and yarns. i have some ideas for some scarves with handmade felt roses. maybe fabric. i have loads. i dreamed about it.
eeeeee.

xoxo
n.

at the risk of sounding like a bitcher and a moaner (i kinda am though), i will just say that i have been too tired to do really anything. i have been trying to push to at least get something productive done no matter how bad i feel…crochet a necky thing, do the fimo part of buttons in bed, small things, but i get so bummed out and depressed. i know i am hard on myself, but it really is torment to feel so lame. i have the creepycrawlies quite often, which i have had issues with for ages and took zanax for it years ago and had insanely bad memory problems (beyond the usual) so i don’t take it. it did help with that stuff though. additionally, from the 2 hour feeding schedule with the baby kitteh, i am just in another world. i have a headache pretty much all the time and have had 2 really bad ones that didn’t want to go away and i got panicky that i would have to go to the ER which then puts me down for a couple of days from the drugs they give me. i am really sleepy and tried to avoid getting online, even though my head feels a bit better, but after taking my pain pill, which made the migraine manageable, but i can feel the migraine underneath the pill, if that makes sense. i am nauseous and tired but can’t sleep. i have so much that i need to get done and caught up on and i am just so behind and it bums me out. i got super behind on emails (don’t even ask about blogs) and then some wholesale orders and listing stuff and packing swaps and things for friends, etc, etc, etc. some people (like katrina, jakie and barbe) are so patient with me it blows me away. i am flaky. i admit it. anyway, here is to hoping i am feeling more normal (in a good way) to-morrow and can get stuff done. if i wake up with a migraine i am going to be seriously pissed off.

in isobel news, she has learned a new gear…reverse! and fast, too. if you shake her toy at her or something she will just run backwards really fast. i was impressed. i showed jake and he cracked up, too. she is climbing her carrier bag and when she is out of it, i lay it on it’s side for her and she plays inside of it with the zipper open and will fall asleep in there on her own. we used the same bag for pavel because i had to take him to the tattoo shop with me to feed him, etc, and he was fine sleeping in there, but once he got mobile, he just wanted out. izzy seems to like it in there. her little nest. she does bite, her baby teeth just came in and i try to redirect her with her crocheted toy, but sometimes she will come up to my face and bite my nose or lips, but she does it really gently. odd. pavel bit(es) like he was trying to eat you. not good. at all.

this photo of izzy is from a week ago i think.

i barely slept last night so i am going to try to do that now. wish me luck.

oh, also, i used fimo to make an ergonomic (if ugly) handle for my smaller crochet hooks. i haven’t used any of the small ones yet to check it out, but i think it should be better, although i saw that susan bates, my preferred hooks, is making metal hooks with bigger bamboo handles. finally. sheesh.

xo
n.

yesterday i was exhausted after our day out. i forget sometimes why i don’t go out a whole lot. i start to think that i am just being lazy or uptight. in reality, i get really pooped really fast, like a baby. or a cat, maybe. anyway, i woke up this morning feeling beyond exhausted. i was hoping to get up earlier, but i had to take meds before i felt well enough to even check mail. i will be heading down for coffee in a bit and i have been up since before 8. it is now after noon. i hate it. we had a really good time yesterday.

while we were out jake took some photos of me unbeknownst to me (i was in a junk induced euphoria) and when i saw the photos i was truly horrified. i am not trying to be self deprecating, i really am unhappy with myself. the worst part is that i know it is because i don’t exercise. i don’t eat a lot and i really don’t eat anything bad, or not very often, anyway. i have major food issues as does my mom and my grandmother. i was on the atkins diet and lost a bunch of weight but literally lost the urge to eat. anyone that says that diet doesn’t work isn’t actually following it (or has a serious hormonal issue. my appetite absolutely went away. and i was thinner than i had ever been and was totally addicted to losing weight. the thing with that diet is that i am an all or nothing obsessive kinda gal so i couldn’t start adding carbs. ones i was off of the extreme phase which is less than 20 grams of carbs a day, and i was literally doing way less than that. just sugarless gum, sugar free chocolate (i found some brands that are soooo good) and coffee. if i have to start adding carbs to do the maintainence, i can’t do it. i fall off the truck and slowly gain the weight back. which is what has happened and i am not happy about it. i have to exercise and the thing that sucks is that i know that i have limited energy and if i blow it on that, i may not have any left for work. my mom keeps telling me that i will have more energy if i work out, but lupus and chronic fatigue (and then some) are not the same as just being out of shape, you know?

okay, well, coffee time. yay!
xo
n.

okay, so i have been a bit absent lately. all of the horrible things that have happened this week, i just didn’t even know what to say. on the same day, the shootings in virginia and all of the car bombs in the “safe zone” which barely made the news at all. horrible. all of it, horrible. and in this area, on the same days as those things happened, and last night, shootings all over the place, plane crashes, crazy stuff.

kurt vonnegut passing away kicked off the bad week. jake and i both are huuuuge vonnegut fans. i have read most of his books (and that is a LOT for the non-kurt peeps out there) and i will have to make sure to read the ones that i haven’t read. maybe my favorite one of his books, dead eye dick, is about a guy with the worst luck in the world. he is messing around with a gun and the bullet goes through a series of different places and ends up killing a pregnant woman who is vacuuming her house. needles to say, he is called deadeye dick from there on. poor fella. i imagine that kurt is somewhere else raising hell and smoking cigarettes. in the end, he was right, cigarettes wouldn’t kill him after all. go figure.

i have had a week of exhaustion. my least favorite thing in the world. oh wait, i hate the heeby jeebies worse. i used to get that skin crawling feeling all the time and it is unbearable. anyway, this weekend we were rather busy, i pushed myself to do a bit more and go out with jakie. monday i was really pooped. tuesday, pooped. donna came and hung out with me and sat in my stinky bedroom and watched tv and looked at pattern books with me. oh, and taught me to do 2 socks on one magic loop! i knew how to do one, but i am so excited to have learned two! here is a photo of it in progress, since ripped out. but this is my own handpainted yarn. pretty, right?

i actually ended up tearing out the original pair and starting over, and i even think i understand how to finish them. i will keep you posted. so thanks donna! we have a nice time together.

so then yesterday, i got work done and then was so exhausted that i got nothing else done. jake cooked dinner. i feel awful when i am too tired to help out. i had a hair appointment today and dragged my butt out of bed, no time for coffee, was yawning at the salon and started in with the creepy crawls (sigh) and went hom afterwards rather than doing the stuff that i needed to do. grrr. my hairdresser gave me an awesome new hairstyle. i absolutely love it. wanna see a bad photo of it? okay…
it is in a pony tail in the back, so it is still long…

i realize i should have had jakie take photos for me, i will do that to-morrow. it doesn’t really show the hair very well. it has a sideswept bang that can go straight down, to the side or be pinned back, some shorter wispies on the side and then long in the back with a bit of layers. i feel like it softens my eyes a bit so they don’t look so buggy. what do you guys thing? we put a section of dark through the middle of the blonde and i like how it looks a lot better. worked out really well. i think she was pleased to do something different. right before cutting me bangs, she asked if i was ready…i told her that unless she had something evil in mind, like a mullet (although those are um..stylish again. yipes.) that i wasn’t worries. just hair. although when i got the two worst hairstyles of my life it wasn’t just hair.

so i came home, relaxed in hopes of recharging a bit. i haven’t really been sleeping so well and have horrible nightmares. i wish i knew a way to make them stop. i have had nightmares all my life. my niece, maddy has really bad nightmares, too. i feel like she was meant to be my daughter. i never thought i would have felt so connected to that little girl. i sent my mom a wrap that i knitted for her from an ironstone yarn kit that was cream with sparkle and texture, really pretty, i put in some really cute day of the week underpants for maddie and some dance ones, too, maddy, like me, needs her underthings to match her outfit. i have been that way since i was little. my mom said it was a pain how specific i was about everything and she is the same way. i am that way still, if not very fashionable. and my underpants most always match. if they don’t, you know that i must be really out of sorts. anyway, she demanded that she had to put the frog ones on immediately to wear to sleep in. it cracked me up. not many 4 year olds are excited for new underpants (*i hate the word “panties” and refuse to use it.). my mom said she really like that wrap and being someone who has everything, if you give her a scarf, she will only wear it with a specific outfit, so she may only ever wear the things i make her once (at least once, i hope.).

i really avoid posting when i feel cruddy. i don’t wanna moan and groan more than necessary. and frankly, i don’t even have the energy at those points to complain. i lie down and do…nothing. weeeeee! however, if you are having pain or depression problems (or both) and need to talk about it…do! don’t hold it in. it makes you feel like you are going crazy, when it is something that lots of people deal with and often, people are happy to talk about it. don’t let it fester. find someone to talk to.

warm fuzzies,
n.

welp, here i am! i have been extra exhausted and migraineful when not so, and needed to get work done so i took my “pep” pill that my doctor gave me for such times. it is odd because when it wears off, it is so drastic, like a battery going dead…dead. so yesterday, i took a half, and about 4 hours later, it wore off. i was falling asleep around 5p and jake said i should take the other half so i wouldn’t fall asleep and wake up when he was sleeping, so i did and then was hyper like a maniac when he was trying to fall asleep and clearly annoying the crap out of him. i rarely can tell i am annoying him. when i take them, i am able to get so much done, i feel sort of winded, like i have been running (not that i really know what running would feel like) but i feel hyper at the same time. if i didn’t have the lupus and chronic fatigue, etc, etc, i wonder what i would be like? it is silly to really bother thinking about it, but i think i am fairly productive, all things considered, and i wonder if i would be manic and uber productive. who knows? not i. anyway, i got several mixed media pieces done which i really like a lot…wanna see?
this one is “come see”

this one is “jump”

and “what now?”

and “march 5, 1974″

the little journal page is from a gardening journal i got at an auction that only has a few pages per year, at the beginning of spring until the end of summer saying the temperature, what is coming up and when and little clippings from the newspaper, mostly about gardening and gardening clubs. it is a bit odd. i have 3 more collages in the works. i overdid it a bit today, worked about 9 hours straight through which is a lot for me. i have had either a headache or bad nausea all day but don’t want to take my nausea meds because it makes me sleeeeeepy. i may just take it soon. gah! barf!

i printed out my shipping stuff which took FOREVER, it was a lot of packages, but i had other things that i had to handwrite that i need to mail off to-morrow. i had someone send me all of her weaving threads and stuff she didn’t need anymore that i was supposed to send some stuff, except that i can’t find her address (i saved the box for the label, but i can’t find it. anywhere.) i then searched through 2 of my email accounts and couldn’t find anything there and went onto knitter’s review forum where i met her, i think, and the conversation was gone, so i don’t have any idea how to even email her. i don’t remember what her username was. grrrr. i left a couple of posts and hopefully someone if not her will read it and contact her or me. i feel like a jerk. i actually almost sent the package to the wrong person. it is loaded full of good stuff that i know she will want, but…sigh. disorganization does have a price. i write everything down, but can’t remember where i wrote it. i couldn’t find any of my pencil sharpeners and after tearing the place up, i found it in my desk drawer. smart, eh? i do that a lot, put things in the place they should go, and then am not sure where i put it. sigh. i annoy myself sometimes. imagine how poor jake feels.

the studio is an utter pigsty and i need to clean it up after i get the last batch of orders out. it is so messy that i can barely move in there. i need to clean out my closet because i can store all of my fiber and things that are for sale on the shelves, so i have room for supplies i use on the studio shelves.

what else? one of my best clients sent me all of her yarn and fabric scraps plus a zillion of the little jewelry packs that had the bunny beads in them. i am soooo excited. once i get my errands done to-morrow and the cleaning up done, i hope to do some bunny yarns. she is the beeeeest! you know who you are lady!

i had a crazy nightmare the other night where a got caught in the middle of two gangs and they put everyone on their knees and told us to close our eyes and were cutting everyone in half vertically with a big piece of sheet metal. i couldn’t decide whether to keep my eyes closed or not. i didn’t want to make it easy for them…right as they were about to wack me, jake woke me up. there was actually a lot more to the nightmare, but a lot of it didn’t make any sense once i woke up. it did involve a sleezy hotel room that barbe booked for jake and i for our anniversary or something as a gag and we stayed there because we felt like we should, but it was super creepy and dirty and the only thing you could watch on tv was dirty movies. old ones. it has always bugged me that i only have creepy nightmares, never dreams. it seems like a reflection of my soul and self, that even in my own mind, i don’t get to be dazzling and successful. sigh.

a thunderstorm is starting, so i best get off of the computer. i love the rain!
mwah!
n.