Yarnification

I just finished catching up on the posts in Anne’s Brain Blog to see how her surgery went. I’m so glad to hear that she’s doing well and coping well. My thoughts and prayers are with her for a speedy and complete recovery!

At the same time I was poking through photos in the temp folder I use to download from the camera and saw that I’d taken a photo of the squares I sent for Anne’s comfortghan before mailing them off. (I couldn’t find the thread at Crochetville with the photo, but I found this post at Donna’s blog which has a photo.) Tandy at Crochetville did the hard part, organizing the whole thing and joining all the squares.

The color isn’t very true in the photo because I messed with the brightness/contrast settings to get them to show up at all; this was taken before I caught on to that thing about photographing dark objects against a light background and vice versa. (They’re Caron Simply Soft in sage and dark sage, if that gives a better idea what color they really are.) Clickable for full-size version:

The solid square is pretty basic; there’s a pattern at the bottom of this page at Priscilla Hewitt’s site. I like that pattern a lot, basic but pretty; it’s the same square I made my Wine & Roses afghan with. The third square is also one of Priscilla’s patterns: Amber Waves square.

I haven’t gotten much crocheting done, or much of anything done really, for a few days. Lots to do at work, evil back/neck pain, blah blah blah.

The shawl is coming along, though, even though I haven’t worked at it much for a couple of days. I’m figuring I’ll probably get a little time tonight to spend on it. Part of why I haven’t worked on it is that usually during the time I spend minding the register, if things are slow I crochet, but lately I’ve been succumbing to the lure of Text Twist, which is disturbingly addictive.

Anyway I don’t have any photos today, just thought I’d post a quick post and then get back to work. I did the desktop thing that’s been going around, though:

Yes, that is in fact a stapler. A nifty antique stapler. I have an Office Supply Fetish. I got the wallpaper at virtualstapler.com, whose main page has a stapler simulation that I had great fun with. There, now you all know.

I still have a lot going on, haven’t even worked on any of my projects in…actually I’m not sure how long. A week? More?

But I had to come here and ask a question. I don’t know where I first saw the link to this site, so you all may have seen it or not. But. Have you seen the Stuff On My Cat site? It’s hilarious.

My question, though: Do any of you really have cats who are that tolerant? I truly cannot picture Kit-Kat or Lena putting up with that sort of hijinks. Kittycat would flee. Lena would probably smack me around first (she’s skittish, and if someone touches her in an Unapproved Manner she’ll smack you—no claws, unless you ignore the Warning Smack and keep doing whatever it was she didn’t like). And then flee. I’m having trouble picturing how these photos get taken without sedation.

Oh, and a photo on that site that I can relate to: Remington the cat loves to knit.

Haven’t posted for days and days. I’ve been in one of those moods where I want to write but can’t think of much to say.

I finished the shawl and am almost halfway done fringing it. Muttergrumbledamnfringe. I’m not very good at fringe. I tested out doing the twisty fringe, but it just didn’t look right that way (or without fringe), so I’m making normal fringe. I’m sure once it’s finished (and evened out) I’ll be glad I did it because in the picture on the pattern it looks great. But right now I’m going insane with the fringing.

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.

Mmm…apple cider. I think the only things I really like about fall are apples and the leaves turning. And being able to crochet with yarn again after it being too hot to touch it much all summer. The rest is a little depressing because it means that winter is on the way. (And yes, I am downright nasty when I’m cold! Though I like cold cider. Not sure what the quiz writer’s problem is there. Maybe it’s the same quiz writer who thinks my inner child is sad because I’m not a social butterfly?)

But it is nice being able to bake again. I made an apple crisp last week. I really need to make another one soon—I still have half a sack of apples in the fridge. Mmm…apples…

Getting a bit better here, doing some crocheting but not for long periods of time just yet. I don’t want to push it and have things get worse instead of better—and I will not go through the extreme wrist pain game again if I can possibly help it.

I would ordinarily think it was too soon for the B vitamins to be helping, but I’m having a lot less nerve pain in my left wrist/hand. Even the Numb Finger is about 99% non-numb. The right wrist is actually a lot more painful than the left, even though I’m left-handed, and I think it’s also computer use that’s doing it on that count because I use the mouse right-handed.

So I’ve broken out the Fashion Statement of the Year, which has been stowed away for several years. Lovely, no?

It’s doing a lot of good; I feel a lot better since I started wearing it a few days ago. I pretty much wear it as much as I can stand to, then take it off for a while. Somehow I can even type and use the touchpad with it on, though it turns out that it’s entirely impossible to crochet while wearing it.

But it is, if such a thing is even possible, even more unattractive than the standard bent-wrist brace (those irritate my wrist a lot). Also those straps are a nuisance (and backed with neoprene—mmmm, sweaty!) and have to be readjusted all the time.

But whatever works, right? And it doubles as a weapon since it has a metal bar running through it!

I just looked at the weather forecast at Bloglines (did you know you can get the forecast there? you just go here and type in your location or ZIP code) and every day for the next five days the high is supposed to be in the mid-seventies. I know that’s not really fall weather per se, but not a single 80° day really drives home the season change. Where did the summer go, anyway?

And how come I never find myself saying, “Hey, that winter just flew by! Can you believe it’s spring already?” Wouldn’t that be nice?

Hey, I remember reading someone’s blog months ago who was having a really hard time with Bloglines and was looking for something different. It was long enough ago that I can’t remember where I read it. And I found this recently and thought I’d share. It turns out that NewsGator has pretty much the same service. And you can export your subscription list at Bloglines, then import it at NewsGator, so you don’t have to add all your subscriptions all over again. (To do that you click “Edit” on your blog list, scroll waaaay down to the bottom, and pick “Export subscriptions”. A window will open that’s all full of gibberish code. Go to “File”, “Save as”, and make sure the file extension is .xml which is the format NewsGator can import.)

When I registered at NewsGator, it was a little strange at first because it makes it sound like it’s a pay service only—but it isn’t. There’s a free version that does everything Bloglines does as far as I’ve seen, and while you’re registering there’s a page that lets you pick which version you want, free or pay.

I set up an account with them and I’m using both them and Bloglines right now to decide which I like better. So far I’m liking NewsGator a lot and it seems to pick up new posts in my feeds quicker than Bloglines does. But some things about them are weird, like when you go to add a feed and it tells you you can search or browse, then after staring at the page a while you see this link above all that that says “URL & Import”, which is where you add feeds the way you would at Bloglines. Also I think you have to click something to mark a feed read, but that might just be something I set wrong in my preferences. (I just checked on that, and there was a box I could check on the settings page to mark them read automatically after I look at them like what happens at Bloglines.)

So we’ll see who I like better in the end, I guess. I suppose it’s mostly a matter of getting used to the changes in interface from Bloglines. I don’t have a really compelling reason to switch apart from Bloglines seeming to take a long time to register that a blog has new posts, but I figure it’s worth checking out and keeping my subscriptions listed there in case Bloglines has problems.

I’m doing a test here, going to check after I post this to try to see how long it take each of them to pick up the new post.

[Update: After posting this, I hit reload on my Bloglines and Newsgator pages about every fifteen minutes or so. Results:
Posted at: 3:30 (I know it says 3:10 or so but that's when I started writing it, not when I posted.
Bloglines: picked up the post sometime between 5:15 and 5:30 (so upwards of two hours)
Newsgator: picked up the post sometime between 4:00 and 4:15 (somewhere between a half hour and 45 minutes)
Very interesting...]

I haven’t crocheted in a few days. Aside from the Numb Finger (and I am taking B-vitamins more regularly now, including an extra B-6, thanks to Deneen’s tip that it doesn’t seem to be the one of the B vitamins that invites Captain Heartburn to the party), remember how I mentioned a few days or so ago that I had this twingy thing that I’ve come to associate with early signs of carpal tunnel? I had almost no sooner posted that than both my wrists went south on me. One of them I have a brace for from back when I had problems with it, and I’m wearing while I use the computer (which is difficult, but not impossible since it’s a straight brace, not the bent kind, which my doctor said was inflaming the tendons in my wrist), but the other one, my left wrist, and I’m left-handed, is feeling pretty bad.

So I guess I need to not stress my wrists out while I let the B vitamins do their magic trick. And that means all my thready projects definitely need to be put off for a while. After another day or two of no crochet, hopefully I’ll be feeling enough better to be able to tell whether crocheting with bigger hooks is aggravating the problem.

In any case, I’m hoping it gets better soon…

The other day Don and I went to wander around the antique stores out on Route 40, mostly just to get out of the house. I found a stack of old Workbaskets, would’ve bought all of them if they’d been cheaper than $2 apiece but since they cost that much I just bought one that had some really cool doily patterns. I also found more old tatting thread, $5 for a big bag of it. I didn’t go out intending to spend quite that much money, but that thread…In terms of the price of tatting thread at Joann’s, there’s a good $40 or so worth of thread in that bag.

I’ve been practicing the tatting here and there. I seem to have gotten the hang of the slip join, which was really messing me up for a while. I’m still practicing in #10 thread so it’ll be easier to tell when I make mistakes and so I don’t waste my tatting thread.

I’ve also started one of the doilies in that Workbasket, but I’m only working on it about fifteen minutes at a time because of the ongoing Numb Finger From Hell problem (current status: only a little numb unless I try to do much thread crochet, which temporarily makes it a lot number). Fifteen minutes doesn’t seem to cause a problem, but anything more does.

I’ve got to start taking my B vitamins regularly again. I keep starting and stopping them, mostly because I try to take them with food so they don’t upset my stomach, so it’s easy to forget to take them. Anyway, between the Numb Finger and the fact that I’ve been noticing the twingy first signs of carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist (I’ve only had it in the right in the past from doing jobs that involved tons of data entry, but the Numb Finger is also on my left hand), there’s obviously an issue going on.

First reference I could find offhand—it’s at mothernature.com but the text is taken from one of Prevention’s books on vitamins (whole article is here, bolding added by me):

Shortages of the B vitamins can also lead to nerve damage in the hands and feet. Some studies indicate that people with diabetes experience less of the numbness and tingling of diabetes-caused nerve damage if they get supplemental amounts of B vitamins such as B6 and B12.

As for carpal tunnel syndrome, “you couldn’t say enough about carpal tunnel and vitamin B6,” says Dr. Ellis. “The evidence is that positive.” He contends that swelling and inelasticity of the sheath surrounding a nerve in the wrist may be caused by a lack of B6. “B6 helps you get rid of the extra water gain that causes carpal tunnel,” he says. Another theory, backed up by two European studies, suggests that B6 somehow short-circuits an angry nerve’s ability to transmit pain signals.

(Is it just me, or is the color of the little bar next to blockquoted stuff like those paragraphs up there a truly painful shade of green? Maybe I should fix that.)

Gotta run…

I normally don’t discuss politics and all that here, but since this happened so quietly that I never knew about it until now, I thought I’d pass it on.

Americans’ health privacy violated

SUE BLEVINS

State governments nationwide soon plan to electronically track Americans’ use of commonly prescribed medications for pain, anxiety, attention-deficit disorder and sleep disorders.

On Aug. 11, President Bush signed into law the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005. It authorizes 60 million taxpayer dollars over five years to establish electronic prescription drug surveillance programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It requires those dispensing controlled substances (such as pharmacists and physicians) to submit information to state governments within one week of filling prescriptions, including patients’ names, addresses and telephone numbers. Data also will be collected on animal owners whose pets are prescribed controlled substances by veterinarians.

The whole things is at: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/12558821.htm Please go read it. I am appalled by this. I don’t feel the government has a right to collect and hand out information about what medications I’m taking. I really feel alarmed these days at the erosion of personal privacy by the government. My fear is that this will lead to bureaucrats attempting to practice medicine by engaging in witch hunts against doctors who are simply treating their patients.

Without having read the legislation (I’ve only read this one article, and I’m about to go do more research after I post this), it sounds like it applies to controlled substances that are scheduled by the DEA, not all prescriptions. Now, if you go to that link, scroll past the schedule I crack/PCP/weed-fest—I don’t think there are any prescription drugs on schedule I— and take a look at what’s on schedules II-V.

Do you think that government agencies have a right to keep records of the fact that your doctor prescribed Tussionex for the horrible cough you had during that bout of bronchitis? Anyone out there who takes Lomotil for IBS? Vicodin for flareups of chronic pain? Ritalin for attention deficit disorder? (My family doctor already feels unable to prescribe anything but Strattera for ADD because the state medical board has been breathing down the necks of non-psychiatric doctors who treat ADD, even though he knows me and my issues far better than a stranger I’d be seeing for ten minutes once a month and even though I can’t afford to see a psychiatrist.)

And now that this has passed so quietly and with no discernible protest from anyone, what’s to stop it from expanding it to include all prescriptions? Or from being turned into a marketing database, for that matter?

Like John Prine once said, “I love America. I just don’t know how to get there anymore.”

Ugh. I’m printing out application forms for patient assistance programs to see if we can cut down on some of the some $250 to $300 a month we spend on prescriptions (no insurance). Filling out these forms makes me wildy anxious. I don’t know why, whether it’s the complicated process and the fact that I have to come up with different proofs of our income for five different applications, the fact that I’m being confronted with how little money we make, or what. I had to take a break from it because I was getting panicky. Like break-out-the-xanax panicky. In the interest of not freaking out completely, I’m posting here to try to distract myself.

So. Photo. I still don’t have all the sensation back in my finger, though it’s been a little better every day, so I’ve been scrounging around the stash and my patterns for things I can make with a J hook or bigger. (Even for a J hook, which is what I did this with, I’m having to put a pencil cushion around it to keep it off that finger.) And I found most of a ball of Lion Brand Incredible (color is autumn leaves) and made this scarf/belt pattern with it.

(Clickable. I’ve trying to remember to post thumbnails instead of full-size photos, with mixed results.)

I am so completely in doily withdrawal, but I figure don’t dare do anything with thread until I have all the feeling back in that finger or it’ll likely just go all numb again.

Note: Yesterday I changed the code that inserts the project progress bars over there on the side of the page so as to make it XHTML-compliant and to add alternate text so that anyone who doesn’t have Flash installed will see a text version of the percentage instead of a broken thing. I checked it in Mozilla and Internet Explorer on my system and in Lynx (text-based browser, so as to make sure the alternate text version would show up) through my shell account, but if the progress bars seem to be broken in your browser, please drop me a line or leave a comment, okay? ( yarnification@daisywreath.net ) And if you’re using these same bars and want a copy of the compliant code, I’d be happy to pass it along.

I’ve got one snowflake done so far for the Snowflake Crochet-Along:

(clickable for full-size version and pattern info, but the full size one is super blurry)

The Kittycat Progress Report: Cat seems to be almost entirely better. He has more energy, he’s running around and playing, and he’s fighting back about taking his pill twice a day (at first he just lay there and took it, all dispirited-like), all of which is really nice to see. Though not so easy to give him the pill now. And this morning he finally realized that he could pretend to swallow the pill, then go spit it out in the corner, so we’re having to watch him like a hawk to make sure he actually swallowed it.

He’s not constantly straining to pee now, and he’s not peeing in inappropriate places. (Hooray!) He’s still peeing more often than usual, but we were told to expect that for a while, and that as long as he’s peeing and not straining he should be fine. He has another week of antibiotics to go, too.

We’re giving him (and Lena, since there’d surely be hell to pay if we tried to give it to just Kittycat) a half a can of wet food in the morning and a half a can at night, too. They are all in favor of this. We’re planning to cut back to a quarter can each in the morning and at night, so they’d each be getting a half can a day, because they have shown no sign of slowing down with the crunchies and we don’t really want them to turn into Kittyzillas. We’ll see how it goes. Loco thinks it’s patently unfair that we’re giving the cats something so yummy-smelling and not giving any to him. I tried explaining to him that the cats didn’t get to eat the equivalent of half a hamburger last night in combined bits from the three of us, but he does not buy this excuse and feels that I should run out to Walmart and pick him up some Alpo.