I made it! I've been focussing so hard on getting ready for what seems like weeks --I'm now not quite sure what to do with myself.
First there was the party -- Celebrating the Solstice, welcoming Winter's official first day. For that, my house got cleaned to within an inch of its life (okay, the first floor did anyway). And the living room got wholly rearranged ... and infested with candles and Fathers Christmas.
Then I spent a day cooking, and chopping and generally preparing. The party was grand. But then I had to clean again, freshly launder sheets for the guest room, and finish the holiday gift gathering/knitting and wrap things...
Not only were the gifts finished in time for the giving, I finished them before the recipients arrived. (Okay, the stocking is not finished yet. It's much closer, but I couldn't accomplish that in time to hang it by the fire).
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with my Mom & Dad and LJ (and of course, Golf Pro, Kitty, and Bookworm). (Ham, honey-mint carrots, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, with cheesecake for dessert).Then the girls and the Golf Pro opened the traditional Christmas Eve PJs. My grandmother always gave us PJs or nightgowns on Christmas eve. Now my mother gives my daughters PJs. Evidently, the Golf Pro started feeling left out...so he got some this year too.
Despite promising that we'd all behave, and donate the money we'd have spent on presents to worthy charities... we still had an embarrassment of riches under the tree. There were also envelopes. We gave each other donations to Heifer International, and to my local rape crisis counseling center, the chapter of Habitat for Humanity that is local to my parents, and the DaPonte String Quartet. Between us, we've provided food, shelter, jobs, counseling, and music for many less fortunate than ourselves. I feel good about that.
I also warmed my family a bit:
My Mom's wrists - with a pattern I call Cellist. I'm working up a second pair to test it, and will publish this one soon.
LJ's Illini ears
And my Dad's and Bookworm's heads and ears (need pictures for those yet). I'll have to knit Dad's again -- I designed that one for him and need to test the pattern and obtain a hat that stays at home to be photographed.
There were socks --- lots of socks -- all of them store bought (I'm so embarrassed).
And then there was the Christmas feast: Turkey, stuffing, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potato/apple casserole, green beans, Waldorf salad, cranberry sauce, cranberry-apricot chutney (a gift from Janna, some of which I've hoarded for this meal). We were so full, we didn't even bother with the pecan pie that was watiing for dessert.
Tonight, we're going out. Someone else gets to cook (and more importantly, clean up). All I have to do is finish knitting my step-mother's present before they arrive on the 30th. I like that.
Every so often, I whine a bit about my hip. It's been a problem child for years.
When I first complained to the doc, and showed her the funny way it pops when I shift my hips just so, she said, "I've never seen that before." But did nothing. After all, at that point, it didn't actually hurt.
As the years went by, I pushed. In 2003, I complained again. Not only did with have the fun noises, it was starting to hurt. So... after checking things out and discovering that my gluteus medius muscle had, essentially, abdicated its role in helping me move around and atrophied a bit, I got Physical Therapy to strengthen it.
That worked for awhile, but the popping and hurting and abdicating and atrophying behaviors have returned. This time I got a different Physical Therapy approach -- more geared to discovering the cause of the problem. After a few months of trying various things, and having no luck, they sent me in for an MRI ... which revealed nothing.. and a consultation with the Spine Clinic doctor. She's the same one who sent me to Physical Therapy in 2003, having discovered the weakness in that muscle. This time, she's diagnosed ethesopathy. According to Wikipedia, "In medicine, an enthesopathy refers to a disorder of entheses (bone attachments)." Essentially, the place where that muscle attaches to the bone is right pissed off.
So, now, I'm seeing the Physical Therapist, and getting a nifty treatment called iontophoresis with dexamethasone. It's evidently a new thing, 'cause I can't find an easy to follow link for you. Basically, they use low dose electrical current to push a drug that's really similar to cortisone into the relevant tissues. It's on a patch that I leave on for 24 hours.
I'm also supposed to be RESTING that muscle, so that the medicine can do its work, and the poor enthesis can heal. Since I hostied this big party this weekend, I still had to do a certain amount of shopping (food, beverages, etc). And then there's the additional Holiday Gift Buying trips. Not the most restful activity for one's hip. So, I'm using the nifty little electric carts they have in the store...
What an eye opener! Lene, I had no idea! (Okay, I still have no idea, since I'm not dealing with serious pain the way you are.) Let's start with the simple things. Most aisles are wide enough for the ChairCart. Unless, of course, there's a post, or another shopper with a basket. Or... some employee has left a ladder in the aisle, or empty boxes or...
But the stuff is where you can't reach it, and the cooler doors require fancy dancing in the chair to let you get to the handle, and then move around so the door is open in a way that lets you reach in. But then again... the stuff you want is up high. I have the privilege of standing when I want/need to. Not everyone who uses those carts can repeatedly sit/stand/sit/stand without feeling a lot of pain. And folks in wheel chairs? likely can't stand at all.
And who puts the 36 pack of water bottles stacked up that high? It is impossible to get one down if you're in a chair (or ChairCart).
And let's not begin to discuss the rudeness. There was one old lady pondering some tarantula gift thing.. her cart dead center in the aisle. She saw me... looked at me for a minute... and finally asked, "am I in your way?" DUH When I explained that unless her cart were all the way to one side, the ChairCart could not get past, she moved forward. Slowly. She never did pull over. So I waited.
Then there was the employee who had some staging cart that she'd pulled over to the side in an aisle with a post. She'd pushed it in far enough that the cart could not go around it. She too looked right at me, as I came toward her in the aisle. She then LEFT HER TROLLEY blocking the aisle to go do something. I approached it slowly, and gently pushed it back with my ChairCart. Only after I had manoevered it around to a position that would let me get past did she return, and look at me as I started jockeying the ChairCart to go around her obstacle. Then, she apologized in an odd tone that sounded more like she resented me for moving the thing.
That was only the beginning.
I'm not going to spend the day whining about it though. I'm just going to vow to watch more carefully for folks in the ChairCarts.
I'm humbled... because I know I havent' been as observant of the needs of those who are less able than I. And I'm royally irritated that so many people behave so badly so often.
But now that the party is over... I'm gonna spend a lot of time sitting, resting that hip, and knitting. There are gifts to finish!
Feeling a bit overwhelmed, as one does around now if one participates in the frenzy of Holiday Gift Giving, I began to wonder who started this plan. Whence came this tradition of giving gifts to everyone?? Note the plural there. Who came up with the idea that ONE gift given per person wasn't enough? Why am I buying MULTIPLES for each kid?
It's old, this tradition. It seems to transcend religion. Sure, the Magi gave gifts to the Baby Jesus (and that would imply that the gifts be given on Twelfth Night, not on Christmas Day, but whatever). But gifts aren't exclusive to Christian traditions. There are traditions for gift giving at Hannukah , Kwanzaa (when Zawadi, which are “meaningful gifts to encourage growth, self-determination, achievement, and success.” are given**). But where did it come from?
The best I can find is that it came from Saturnalia, a week long (or up to twelve days, depending on what you read) celebration during which merry making and the giving of small gifts were the order of the day. We seem to have lost the idea of giving small gifts (just the car manufacturers who seem to think now is the time to give a car!).
We've lost track of small. We've lost track of meaningful. Unless, of course, the ornaments I give each year count.
I'd actually enjoy this giving frenzy if it weren't so darned costly. Once I get into it, I have fun finding things that others would like. But seriously, just how many pairs of very fuzzy slippers does my daughter need?
While poking around, I also learned that the tree decorating tradition comes from either the Celts (who put things on the tree that they wanted to bring forth in the new year), the Scandianavians, or the Saxons. I find it intriguing that our Tree Decorating tradition includes ornaments that look back over the past year. Were our tree not so loaded, I'd happily consider looking for symbols of what I want the new year to bring! (what? would a tree covered with money be that unattractive?)
The Holidays are times filled with traditions. Every family has their own, I suppose. Some are quirky, some are nice, some are .... annoying enough that many wonder which ancestor started the foolishness, and how many generations have to put up with it.
We have a few traditions that are ... ancestral. We seem to have quite a few that started with our household. Since we moved here in 2001, we've almost always gone out to cut down our own tree at the local tree farm. It's now our tradition. At least four of us (five if we can get the College Girl to come) head out to the farm, roam around passing judgment on tree after tree until we find just the right one. Golf Pro and I work together to cut it down, and lay it on the little cart. Then we haul it back to the guys who shake the needles off, and put it in that netting stuff that makes it fit on the car and through the doors.
Part of this tradition is that we wait forever to do this. We get the tree as close to the 21st as we can pull off. Once... I actually went out ON the 21st to get the tree! But we always have it in place for our Solstice Party (traditionally held on the 21st itself). This year, Golf Pro had a hankering to get the tree early. Nope, I don't know why, but he did. So we went a whole week early.
Of course, Golf Pro was in New York winning a negotiation on tree-buying day (Saturday). We couldn't wait for him because Sunday it was supposed to rain, and Sunday night was the last group decorating night we'd have before Christmas Day. This will be explained in a minute.
Luckily, Kitty has a beau. And The Beau was delighted to join us in the quest for the tree. While I know that the three gals in the house could have handled the job without manly help, certainly the selection, cutting, and hauling part -- the beau is tall. Tall helps. I am not tall. When I was young, I enjoyed pretending that the song "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was really about me.
I am the tallest in the house when Golf Pro is gone. We were glad to have The Beau along with us. Without him, we might not have gotten that tree up on top of the car!
The next step in our little tree -related tradition is the part where I put all the lights on -- by myself -- and then I put all the faux cranberry strands on -- again by myself -- and then the tree rests in almost natural glory, posing proudly in its lit state during our annual Solstice Party, after which -- along around the 23rd or 24th, my step-daughter (College Girl), joins us from her home in Oak Park, and with her help we all enjoy the Tree Decorating Ritual.
Another change in the Tradition ... or two or three.
This year, I started the lighting process as usual. But not as usual, Bookworm really wanted to be part of the lighting process. She joined in and spread a few strands, and then... before I knew what was happening, Kitty and the Beau got involved too. My OCD comes out with the tree lights, and I had to sneak back in to adjust them here and there before they were sufficiently balanced for me to let them be.
I'm still a bit concerned about the lack of lights at the bottom, but really... there aren't enough branches to hang them from. We left room to stack gifts!
Once I'd relaxed about the lights, I started in on the strands of red "berries". Okay, they're shiny red balls. Sue me. Once again, I have this OCD minute which requires that the strands be balanced just so. Thus, I tend to do this part all by myself too. It keeps me from telling the kids they're doing it "wrong." This year... I was trumped. Bookworm "needed" to string the "berries" onto the tree.
Ordinarily, this would be it for our little tree for the next week. Well.... we might put on some of the bird ornaments, but even then, it would be a mostly undecorated, though lit and swagged tree.
This year, College Girl is only a few miles away... now.. but she'll head home to Oak Park before the Annual Solstice Party, and won't be back until Christmas Day. I don't know about you, but waiting until Christmas Day to decorate the tree seems a bit... off. So this year, the tree will not stand in it's simply glory for the Solstice Party. Instead, this year the Decorating Ritual got squeezed in between two days of finals for the College Girl, and the tree will be fully adorned.
The Decorating Ritual is part of another tradition. Every year, I give each child a new Ornament. The ornament is (well, tries to be) related to some significant event in the child's year. Some years are easier than others. Some years -- well, we just find an ornament that the child likes. Each year, we put all of the ornaments on the tree ... in order... and try to slow down enough to remember the years gone by. This means that the first group of ornaments is put on by children, and the non-significant ones get used to fill in the holes. (The first few years were hard for me. OCD kicked in hard, and I chewed the inside of my lip raw not telling the little ones that they had to spread the ornaments out, and not offering to put one or two up higher than they could reach).
Luckily, as the kids get older, and accumulate more ornaments, they also get taller. They tend not to put them all in one place anymore.
Here is the College Girl's collection.
.
There, we see the year I met her, the year she decided that blue was the only valid color in the world, the year of her first ski trip, the year that she loved Tweety most of all the year she learned to play took violin, the year she made the varsity and club volley ball teams, the year she first flew in an airplane without adult accompaniment, the year she learned to drive, the year she had her heart broken for the first time, and a grown-up sort of ornament for the year she turned 18.
These are Kitty's Ornaments.
Here, we see her first ski trip, the year she played soccer,the year she learned to ride a bicycle, the year she was in the local Children's Choir, the year she learned to knit, the year she first flew in an airplane without adult accompaniment, the year she took up clarinet...
Here's the ornament from the year she learned to read (it's buried by hands in the picture above)
And these are Bookworms ornaments.
Here, we see her first ski trip, the year she played soccer, the year she learned to
read, the year she learned to bake cookies, the year she first
flew in an airplane without adult accompaniment, the year she played violin, the year she took up trombone ...
Ordinarily, we don't put any ornaments on until I have the curren't year's new ornaments in hand. This year, those will have to wait until College Girl gets back to town -- one is still in the hands of the postal service.
So... what are your traditions about ornaments and trees (if you have any)?
I have a lovely post cooking. The TypePad borg will not currently let me upload pictures. I'm holding the blog post until the relevant pictures can come with it.
Meanwhile... I lost the second ball of yarn for Dad's hat...
I cast on in ORANGE yarn (those of you who know me know that I must truly love someone to buy, much less knit, with orange yarn).
I finally got the go ahead to have my MRI -- tomorrow I learn the results.
I've been slaving away on Bookworm's stocking. This is the needlepoint project that will not die. I swear it's undoing stitches at night.
I finished the body of Kitty's sweater -- and picked up stitches for the sleeves.
I came within inches of ordering more yarn for Dad's hat.
I found the missing yarn.... phew!
I bound off the orange based project, sewed on it's button, and it is now blocking as we speak. One Holiday Gift FINISHED!
I bought yarn to make another gift. Luckily, it's got no due date.
I got lots of knitting done yesterday. I hadn't intended to spend the day at home watching Tru Calling with my girls. But the day started with Kitty being sick... and then Bookworm got sick at school, and the next thing I knew the three of us were sitting here watching old TV shows.
I did get one hat almost finished. All it needs now is ears.
What? why yes, that does look like a Koolhaas hat, except for the bottom edge, which is slightly different since I started with a completely different edge. I do like this yarn... soooo soft. It's Plymouth 'Paca Tweed.
I also knit... forever.. on my dad's hat.
It started looking rather like this
And even after hours of knitting, it still looks like this:
Okay... so it actually looks like this...
because as you can see, there's a fold... and that hides a lot of knitting. Alas, there's more to go.
And then, I spent a lot time knitting on the hat in the waiting room today -- 'cause Kitty blacked out yesterday, so we had to get tests done. And then, there was time at the optometrists... where there was very worthwhile waiting.
We found what must be a discontinued line or something. Lenses alone cost $120.00. (Well, unless you go to Lenscrafters, where the same lenses are $190). But with these frames, the whole shebang cost $125.00. I'm pretty happy with that discovery.
And now... I have to go get all dressed up. I'm going to my husband's firm dinner party -- without him. Stupid job -- has him in New York.
but this is so amazing to me that I can't not pass it on. Here is an accordion player (far too young to be this good, but that's a different issue). It's what he's playing -- Bach -- stunningly well. If you close your eyes, you'd swear this Bach piece was being played on a pipe organ!.
I can't even really blame Janna, who stopped by yesterday afternoon for a little knitting together time. Even though I totally would have been able to avoid the LYS with the 15% off everything in the store sale had she not been here coveting Lorna's Laces. And had I avoided the LYS, two projects would not be in the WIP basket right now...
Let's review the bidding, shall we?
Monday, I cast on for a pair of socks for the Golf Pro. I've changed my mind a dozen times already about what's going to happen when I finish the ribbing.
It will not be manly lace -- It might just be... plain ribbed socks! (okay, you're right...I'll wind up doing something to it before the first cuff is done).
Then I cast on for the cowl whose design turns out to be top down even though I thought I was knitting it bottom up.
I'm about half way finished, but have hit a charting issue... (And isn't it lovely now that it's shed all those unsightly stitch markers?)
Tuesday, I finished sewing up the iPhone mitts.
Wednesday and Thursday, I actually worked on things I already had on the needles.
Yesterday, I cast on for a hat for my Dad. It's inspired by two hats I found browsing Ravelry: Susan' Pandorf's Gotham Hat, and Jennifer L. Appleby's M'gonigle Hat.
Being me, of course, I've had to add some additional twist -- this time in the form of short row shaping to keep the ears warm without interfering with the top edge of glasses. I know, you can't see it here yet, but I'm only a couple of rows into the short-row stuff.
Today, I cast on for a hat for Bookworm -- she found the yarn at the LYS yesterday. She wants something that will be, essentially, a worsted weight version of Jared Flood's Koolhaas Hat, but with kitty ears. It's a lovely soft tweedy black that is turning it's non-existent kitty nose up at the camera.
And I'm pretty sure that by day's end, I'll have cast on for some sideways wrist warmers for Mom, again, with yarn gleaned at the LYS sale.
This is not going to help me catch up with Irtfa'a.
And it's full of laughter. And some of the delicious strange views of our knitting output that most folks don't get to see (certainly not the recipients thereof).
It also included many rounds of the Geico Pothole ad
Oh noooo, your stitches are all dropped and junk. Did I do that?
For me, however, it's not quite as full of knitting progress as I might like. I only got two rows of Irtfa'a finished over the course of the two plus hours we gathered in my living room knitting together.
I did, however, receive the benefit of the Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth's husband's (Network God) assistance: now when Bookworm or Kitty log on to their computers, mine is no longer booted off the internet. I consider this to be a supreme bonus.
I also resolved a bit of lace confusion for the DTB Elizabeth after she discovered that the center panel of her shawl was not going to end up one the correct row if she did the prescribed number of repeats. I found the problem (an inadvertent repeat of about 8 rows on the center chart), and helped her locate the right row in that center section so she could fix it via surgery instead of frogging back that far. There were no photos of the surgery. But we did put one of my 000 needles to use.
While I was on a roll, I figured out what was warping Banshee's lace, which required several attempts because both of us were blind to the obvious. That pattern is kicking her butt, and it tried to kick mine. But in the end, we got it figured out.
What I didn't do was catch up to the DTB Elizabeth. I'm hoping that this next week will let me progress while she works up that center section again. Maybe I'll be where I belong by next Wednesday. Maybe
I've also slipped in a little work on my new cowl (for which I had to do the first three rows about five times.
It's a sad state of affairs when a pattern of my own design kicks my butt, but I discovered that the error lay in my inability to distinguish between counting to three and counting to four. That's why that picture up there is so full of markers. I'm usually stingy with my marker use. The DTB Elizabeth will use as many as ten markers to my one. But not on this pattern.... at least not for the firt few rows. I had to use many markers to keep it straight. Practically a marker every ten stitches. But they've allowed me to get the pattern set to where I can see it. More progress is likely tonight ... Kitty has a choir concert, and I have to go early to get her there. I'll be sitting for awhile.
So... did you know that you might have to have your eye sockets x-rayed before you get an MRI?
I didn't know that either, until this morning when I got my eye sockets x-rayed.
I guess some back story is in order here, what with the MRI comment and all. I've had this problem with my hip or is it my back? or perhaps it's the S-I joint? We don't know. But we do know that one thing this problem does is cause the gluteus medeus muscle to abdicate it's duties and put all the work on the surrounding muscles. That hurts.
So... a few years ago, we tried physical therapy. It helped for awhile with the symptoms, but it didn't address the cause. So now that it's flared up again, we're hunting for the cause. We tried using Physical Therapy tricks to isolate the problem... but we're having no luck. So the doc is pulling out the big guns .. and has called for an MRI.
To get an MRI, you have to be free of metal in your body. So they asked me whether I've had an eye injury involving metal. Turns out that I have. Years ago... like when I was 8 or 9, I got a sliver of steel in my eye -- it was floating along on a breeze and landed on/in my eye. I had to go to the eye doctor to get it out, but it never penetrated my eye at all. None-the-less, if I'm going into that giant magnet, they have to be SURE that 40 years later, no tiny bits of steel remain in my eye. So... we had to x-ray my eye sockets. Wasn't that fun.
Well, maybe not.
Best part was that I didn't have to wait even long enough to knit one round on a sock.
Well, for the x-ray anyway. But we do have to wait -- hours at least -- to find out whether the Health Insurance company will approve the MRI. Evidently, one has to ask before doing an MRI on a lumbar spine.
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