Didja miss me?

While we were in North Carolina, my sister Sandi looked at my huddled, pitiful, hacking self, and said, "You don't get sick often, do you?"

{cough} "No, " I said. {cough, cough, hack, cough}. "I'm never sick." {cough, cough}

"I can tell," she said, not unkindly. "You're not very good at it."

Truer words were never spoken. I started coughing a week before I left for NC, and I assumed that I would either will it away, or ride it out quickly and easily. Almost 4 whiny, complaining, ugly weeks later, the cough had morphed into a whooping/gasping/nasty sounding thing that made it impossible for me to even walk 2 miles on the treadmill without losing a lung (and running, especially running out in the chilly air, was, and is, totally out of the question). Still, I had taken penicillin (okay, it was OTC Mexican Penicillin, but it was medication, and I did a full course) and I thought I was on the mend. Then on Saturday night I had a breathing episode (which is a misnomer- it was more like an inability to breathe episode), which quite frankly, scared the bejabbers out of me. On Sunday, I went to the Acute Care Clinic where they took one look at me and prescribed an inhaler, steroids, and a strong antibiotic, and very sternly told me that if I wasn't markedly better in 5 days, that I was to return. They didn't lecture about the Mexicillin, but I sensed deep disapproval.

The antibiotic put me to sleep (10 1/2 hours the first day), and the prednisone keeps me up, and the inhaler makes me cough (this is my first experience with one- I bought into the commercial animation, where a puff of magic stuff opened your airways and you breathed easier... not so. The inhaler makes me cough, and it makes my lungs hurt, and it tastes vile and it can cause thrush if I don't rinse my mouth thoroughly, and I have to use it for a full month). But... this morning I had a sensation that I did not, at first, recognize. Then I realized that a car was not parked on my chest. So I may have turned the corner on this thing.

In addition to all that (and Sandi was right- I am terrible at being sick: I whine, I feel sorry for myself, and I am just enough of a hypochondriac that I think I'm far sicker than I am, while at the same time resisting going to the doctor*, which means that when I really am ill, I am REALLY ill by the time I finally do something about it), we have had company for the last 5 days, and I am deep into the first draft of my YA Fantasy (which I rashly agreed to have done on Dec 1)(Is it gonna happen? Maybe. I hope. if I don't sleep for the next 3 weeks).

So, blogging (like my daily 3 mile jog) went by the wayside.

But when I was awake, and not coughing and not blogging and not writing and not sleeping and absolutely not running, I was able to knit and catch up with my fantastic (and very patient) sister-in-law.

I finished the festive socks.

They turned out pretty cool.

And a friend of mine was having trouble with the charts for the Traveling Woman Shawl, so she asked if I would look them over for her. I decided knitting it would be easier than just looking- and I got a good start. I'll post links and all of the stats and the comments tomorrow.

But right now, I think I'll go take a nap.

*this is how pitiful I am- not only do I think I am very ill when I have nothing more than a hangnail, I am afraid that whatever it is that I have, is a whole lot worse than anything that I can imagine, so I put off going to the Doctor because I don't really want to know the real diagnosis. Like I said, pitiful (the only thing that I'm pretty sure that I don't have is Housemaid's Knee).

Another Stash Busting Notion

I came home from errands the other day and found a bag on my porch, with some old candlewicking yarn, and this page, torn from a catalog:

There was no company name on the page, but I typed in the link, and found Gardener's Supply, which looks like the sort of place where I can waste a lot of time just clicking links and dreaming.

At any rate, I'm sure that my friend Lorah dropped this off for me because of the felted wool bird houses. I have to admit that the notion is intrigueing- I still have a huge stash of fiber, and those look pretty cute (though I don't think hanging houses would survive in our winds).

How do you suppose they were made? Each one was felted individually, obviously, over a form. But what kind of form was used? A balloon wouldn't hold up to vigorous felting, and a solid sphere would not be removable. This looks like a fun (wet, finger pruney) craft to do with The Grands, if I can figure out how they were made. All suggestions welcome.

In the evenings, after I finish writing the Chapter of the Day (they're short chapters), I'm still plugging away at the Blue Moon socks. I can't say that I love this color combo, or the very vivid striping, but the socks are mindless fun to knit. They'll be good Holiday Socks.

A New Time Zone

I am now entering Crazy Daylight Time. In the past, I was content to let my fiction come at its own pace- write a chapter, let it percolate a bit, figure out where the story went from there, take a couple more days off (or a month), and then write another chapter. That's not going to work this time around- I have 30 days to finish the first draft of the YA Fantasy I'm writing. I'll grant you that my deadline is informal, not a contractual obligation, but it's real just the same, and I'm not going to get to the end on time unless I sit down and outline the rest of the story (and even that's iffy, given that we have company coming this weekend, and Thanksgiving approaches, and Real Life is very inventive in the ways it manages to interfere with writing time).

So I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming, into something most writers do as a matter of course, which means that I won't have much brain-power left over for blogging because once I get the outline done, I still have to do the actual writing. On the other hand, maybe all I'll just use my scientifically proven psychic powers to remember the book that I have already written in the future, and just put it all down on paper again...

Since writing is my Day Job, in the evenings I'm plugging away on the Triangle KAL Shawl (I might finish the knitting tonight), and I've started a pair of socks.

This is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock yarn, bought and wound so long ago that I have no idea what the colorway is called (though I'm certain that it's no longer available anyway, so it doesn't really matter). It's my usual generic sock pattern, with a texture (K 3 rnds, next rnd: *K 2 tog, YO*, repeat) that looks good but wars a bit with the diagonal striping. They're not exciting, but it's nice to take a break from 4,000 stitch lace rows...

P.S. If you're a US Citizen, and you haven't voted yet- please do!