knitting Pictures At Last!

KNITTING

On the knitting front I'm still plugging away at the stepping stones jacket. But finally here are some piccies

. The left front and start of right front

I read other peoples knitting blogs and they're so full of beautiful things and people knit so fast. still I'll plod along in my usual fashion !

I'm up to the boring bits in this design now. I have to fill in all the spaces in between the triangles. picking up stitches all along. its really tedious. But never mind. theres a few socks waiting at the end of it!!

FM

On the FM front things are alot better. I think these pain patches are finally working. Which reminds me I was supposed to change it at 11 am today and I've forgotten!!.

I've been out and about on my scooter which has really cheered me up and given me a sense of freedom. Friday I went to the library and delivering some cards. One of my friends invited me to stay for lunch which was nice. Today I've had a bit of a disaster with the scooter. O dont think it likes the cold weather plus hills. It kept stopping and the back wheels locking. so I kept having to turn off the ignition restart it and push!! Just near home it gave up the ghost and died on me!! I rang hubby to come from work and bail me out! But in the end I managed to get it going slowly and ended up pushing the dam thing home!!

I'm getting very bored at home which is a good sign and I feel very restless.

We went out for a meal yesterday for an indian. it was yummy. Saturday nights are getting me down as Rachel is always out so we've no sitter for Josh so hubby and I have decided to go out Sundays insted. next weekw e're hoping to just go for a drink. I've organised my mid week socialising so I'm going out for lunch most weeks but not twice in a week. I've spread them out so I have something to look forward to.

Send in the Fire Brigade!!

FM
The gloom and threatening depression seems to have lifted thankfully. I'm feeling much brighter mentally. Physically is another matter! The pain patches are helping with the aching, but not the burning. I'm on fire. I dont know where to put myself at night so I've not been going to sleep till 3am ish. Send me a nice handsome fireman to put the fire out!!He, He!
funnily enough I'm feeling better because my neighbour who takes me to swimming has had an operation and cant go obviously. So I'm using a taxi. it gives me a sense of more independence. sounds silly but because I have to make the decision to go swimming myself and order the taxi I feel freer. I just hate relying on other people. Infact I've refused the care vouchers from Local authority as I want to be as independent as poss for as long as posible.
I was going to go out on my scooter this afternoon as the sun is out and do some errands, but last night the tumble dryer decided to suddenly make horrid grating noises so I've found an engineer to come this afternoon. bet he turns up at 5pm when its dark. Even though its freezing the sun is out and I'm itching to step outside. Ah well. The best laid plans as they say.

Knitting
The Stepping Stones jacket continues to grow. I've done 1 side of the front and started on the other side. I'll try and take piccies to make the blog more interesting.
I was going to pic up a sock and finish it and send them to my sis fro her birhtday, but I want to finish this jacket off. that 'll be a first for a long time. Sticking to one thing and finishing it. I usually have 4-5 on the go and alternate.


general
Theres not much to report. Josh is behaving -ish. Rachel has cooked alll the meals this week and done a beautiful job. I'm so grateful. Sam did say he was coming home this weekend, but change dhis mind.
a
short blog this week.

The return of the pain patch saga and more in the saga of an 11 year old pre teen!!!

FM
I was hoping this blog would be a mainly knitting, non moaning blog. But a certain little unwelcome visitor rules my life so I'm going to moan away.
Last week was the pits! Un known to me until Monday, I had a bug and temperature. How would I not know? Well I feel like I've got the flu most of the time. I ache esp my legs and my skin is sore to touch. Some days its so 'alive' I cant bear wearing clothes next to my legs. I've had to stop wearing jeans as they're to heavy for my legs and wear soft trackies or a skirt.
Anyway, back to the bug. Sunday my legs felt like my bones were broken. Smashed into smithereens. Nothing unusual there. it also hurt to swallow. nothing unusual there. my throat flares up constantly. I was really tired. Nowt new there either! Mon I went to swimming but came home and went to bed. In bed I was sweating. Nowt new there either! I often have periods of sweating. its the SSRI's I beleive. Any way, just out of curiosity I took my temp and low and behold it was 38C. I slept then for the whole of monday afternoon, evening and night!
So I was housebound for the rest of the week. I'd decided to go swimming Friday, but my cleaner let me down so I had to do a bit of cleaning in between rests. I recon I could probably manage the house if I did one room a day, but I prefer the cleaner and save my energies for other things. So by Saturday I was climbing the walls. Rachel asked me to go to town with her as she wanted to go to Primark. Primark on a Saturday! OMG!! You need to steal yourself to go there esp on an electric scooter! Anyway I'd said yes on Friday, but when Saturday came I was so stiff and sore from over doing it on the cleaning front Friday that I stayed in. actually I had rather a nice afternoon. Josh was over the road at his friends so I put my U2 Vertigo Tour DVD on a sat knitting, singing along!wishing I'd been able to go to the concert in '05 Grrrr-bleeding illness. Whenever the next U2 tour is I shall be there! even if I'm strapped in a bed!!!
and now to this week. More moaning I'm afraid. I went to the GP's Monday coz I've run out of tramadol. I told him about the pain pathces. 5mg not enough-10mg too strong. Should I remain on tramadol until I go back to the pain clinic in march? he asked me to try the 5mg patch again for a whole month as see what developed. so here I am 48 hrs later with no pain cover again going mad as they take 3-5 days to absorrb into your body. I was so uncomfortable in the night thatI didnt go to sleep until 5am! Then I was up at 7am and finally fell asleep at 9.30 am until 12.45pm! I was woken by my neighbours frantically ringing the bell to see if I was OK. The curtains were shut downstairs and they were worried about meWhich is very nice, but I feel like some old dear.
I'm feeling very down again about the whole FM thing. how boring is my life? I rely on Norman for everything. I need xyz, I have to wait until weekend when he can take me. I'm so pissed off with it all. I want my life back but its not going to happen.
And to cheer me up even furhter today, my throat is bad and I've a mild temp again. I suspect this temp of mine is going up more than I've realised.

Family
And to cheer me up even more, last weeks crap news was that my Mum needs another lot of Chemo. This is the third lot she's had now. I'm more upset now than in the past I think coz as it gets further down the line you wonder how much she can take before it totally overhwelms her. Also wwith Josh's barmitzvah a year in April, I want her there. In fact last night I tried listening to my weight loss CD as it usually relaxes me and I go to sleep. But one of the images is seeing yourself in the future, slim , with a new outfit on. My Image is of me infront of the mirror on the morning of Josh's barmitzvah looking slim in my posh suit. But last night, or 3o'clock this morning I couldnt cunjour the image up. I kept thinking of Mum and the uncertain future and it got me upset so I abandoned the tape. But she's held the C off before now twice so lets just hope. its been 4 years now that she's been battling and I just get this sense that time, god forbid , is running out. I hope not.

other than that rachels' had some of her mock results and was in a foul temper last night as they're 'not good enough'. She has mostly A's but a few B's. Fine by me. I said to her she's worked really hard and done her best and the results were fine. I think she was hoping for a string of A* but its not the real thing till May. Sam got 11 GCSE's 4A* and 4A's so she pitting herself against him. Actually overall, in her school work Rachel has always been brighter than Sam so I dont think she should worry.

Josh-Oh Boy!! that kid is like Bart Simpson and just lurches from one disaster to another. he came home Monday after school and asked me had Mrs so and so rang? No she hadnt. well?.... I'm waiting, what have you done now? Turns out he'd punched a girl friend in the stomach, he thought playfully, but it was really hard. The girl had to see the school nurse! Josh was to stay in 'exclusion' all yesterday and have an afterschool detention aswell as punishment. He , according to him, didnt do anything. But then he never does. The world collapses around him and he's done nothing.
He came home yesterday and said exclusion was fine! he'd sat in a classroom all day with some other naughty kids, read a bit, done some homework and played the system. With each teacher change into the classroom he'd asked to go to the toilet. some times he's needed it and sometimes he's wandered around the school for 10 mins and wandered back! He didnt have an after school either. some punishment!! Its like water off a ducks back to him. whatever we or school do, its like'wha'ever' in that Katherine tate voice! grrrr!He was so rude to me and Hubby at dinner time last night that I told him he couldnt go across the road to his friends. He was answering us back and giving us hell, so I turned round and said' dont you dare speak to me and your father in that disrespectful manner. We didnt put you in exclusion all day . YOU did that by your own actions. So speak politely to us or not at all.' That shut him up!!!
He was nice as pie after that. Hubby took grumpy Rachel to a sixth form open evening at school and I sat with him. warned him I was in pain and tired so to behave. he had a bath at 8pm and was in bed for 9pm which is what he needed. I made a fuss of him so he was mollified. He's exhausting that child!!

Knitting
well considering this was to be primarily a knitting blog until some little sod of an illness rept in a stole the shwo!, there isnt alot to tell. I'm plodding on with the Stepping Stones jacker. I've done one front triangle row and am filling in the side triangles which is laborious. To be honest I am now bored. I've finished the back and the front is a replica and I'm finding it tedious. But I'm determined this time to finish one project at a time and not have 5-6 on the go! But I can feel another sock beconing me! Dont give in.

Weight loss
yay another 1lb off this week!! I'm so happy.

A positive start

Weight loss

This first week and a bit has got off to a good start. 2 lb off in the first week! I'm finding cutting carbs very hard, but I know that as I'm so inactive and on all these meds that mess up my metabolism, its the only way I loose weight. I'm listening to Glennn Harolds weight loss CD which is helping. I have had a few bowls of cereal though and 1/2 a jacket last night but overall not much. TThis is NOT Atkins BTW! I tried that once and lasted 1 week. dreadful idea, all those eggs and cheese and cream YUK!!! I felt sick so abandoned it. I'm eating low GL and cutting out bread, spuds and pasta etc but using beans and lentils and barley for carbs.

Typical day;

Breakfast- stewed compot with goats yogurt

L- bowl homemade soup-at the mo its curried root veg and barley

D-tuna steak with veg/chicken of some sort with veg etc

snacks- fruit/nuts/seeds/humous and carrots

My idea was to up the exercise so apart from swimming to finally use the yoga DVD gathering dust on the shelf. Thankfully the DVD is titled Yoga for Energy and is aimed at people like myself with CFS/FM etc and is in stages. I managed the opening stretches and lying poses but then had to stop. eventually I'll staedily increase and be able, hopefully to do the full dvd. This is why I've not re-joined a yoga class. I reckon I could only manage 10 mins at the most.

KNITTING

On the knitting front I'm still doing the stepping stones Jacket from Colinette; finally a piccie of the back in progress and one of Cinders attacking the yarn whilst I'm trying to photograph it!!

FM

On the FM front I'm the same as ever. I went to The Trafford Centre again on Saturday, but on my scooter as I really couldnt walk 2 steps that day. I bought some own brand 'Ugg'Boots for £25 in the sale so that pleased me , and a large shoulder bag to go crosswise over my chest when I'm on my scooter. What drove me MAD on Saturday were the poeple who just barge into you or fall over you as they dont see you. or they stare at you like you've got 3 heads or something. It was worse still in the wheelchair though. Now I know how babies feel in their buggies.

My legs felt like My bones were full of broken glass on Sunday and Monday. and I was really exhausted. I just put it down to FM being worse than normal, but Monday afternoon I climbed into bed and the sweat was rooling off me. As my throat hurt to swallow, which is also normal for me, my tonsills flare up regularly, I decided I'd check my temperature. Low and behold it was high at 38c . No wonder I felt ill. I slept for the whole of the rest of the day and night and felt better yesterday. Thats it though, I can never tell if I have a bug coz I feel like I've got 'flu all the time!!
General Musings

Rachel is well into her GCSE mocks and is studying hard. She's wonderful as ever. I was only thinking on Saturday how unselfish she is. NOT typical of a teenager who's nearly 16 at all. she made a beautiful apple turnover with caramel sauce in it yesterday so I had to have 2 mouthfuls. it was devine.

Sam is back at uni, in the middle of exams and Josh is not too bad at the minute. I think the recent groundings may have done him some good. perhaps its sinking into that brain of his that we mean business and he cant behave just as he wants. Still he's only been back at school 3 days so we shall see how things go. he's been moved down 1 set in Ivrit which has cheered him up as he clashed terribly with his previous Ivrit teacher and he likes this one. lets hope he sttles down a bit more now its his second term.

I often think of things to write on here in the middle of the night and then forget them by the time I've woken up!!