Tuesday Tens: Ten Things My Readers Should Know About the Last Ten Months (more or less)

It's been a while, and I'm not quite sure what to say. So I decided to say it in a list. A Tuesday Tens list.

1. I haven't gone anywhere, I just haven't been myself for a while. Last summer was tough. I was starting to get back in the blogging habit in October, then I got the the Swine Flu and everything came to a grinding halt. (Yes, this right before the vaccines became available to the general public.) Between that and all the other things I'm about to talk about, I just fell out of circulation. It's not just the blogging. It's the knitting, crochet, spinning, yarn sales, knitting groups, local yarn shops, Ravelry and everything else that goes with it. Some of my knitting friends probably think I fell off the face of the earth. I feel so embarrassed. I didn't know that Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe closed, and I'm only vaguely aware that The Knitting Nest moved. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe I'll be back even bigger and better than before.

So if you've messaged me on Ravelry, left a comment, e-mailed me, etc and I haven't responded, I'm sorry. But now I'm back. Feel free to contact me again. You'll probably get an answer.

2. Jules and I are no longer together. We haven't been since last October. I'm not going in to details except to say we didn't get along while we were living together. He moved into his own place in October, and then back to California in January. We still talk on the phone every now and then.

3. I'm unemployed again. Not many people can say they've been laid off by the same employer twice. But this time there was no rehire. It happened February 12, and it was the exact opposite of the other lay off. I didn't see it coming, and I was the only one (on that particular morning) that was let go.

I was having a good Friday morning when it happened. Mid-morning my pen ran out of ink and I needed a new notepad. I was finishing up entering stuff into the computer, and I was going to find the office manager to get more supplies when they called me in. They cleaned out my desk for me, and I tried to get to my car as quickly as possible before I saw anyone I know.

But don't feel sorry for me. Between collecting unemployment and a little help from The Bank of Mom and Dad, I'm doing fine and looking forward to a fresh start.


4. I'm cleaning my apartment. Seriously. After lots of false starts over the past few years, I'm really, honestly, truly making progress. The picture above is my "Wall O' Yarn." (It's all cataloged on Ravelry, except for a couple of specific categories.) You can see more pictures of my apartment on Flickr. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to post the "before" pictures.

5. I have contacts now, but the headaches are back. Last summer I talked about my new glasses hurting. It was awful. The pain around my nose traveled to the back of my head and down my neck. It went on for months, until I finally gave in and got contacts for my birthday in December. For a while, all the pain went away. But then in March I developed a headache in the left side of my forehead (the same side as the pain from the glasses.) The pain also started traveling down my neck, so I know they must be related to the pain I had with the glasses. It's been a problem since March. I'll probably blog more about it later, but there are medications, doctors and a chiropractor involved now.

(The good news is that my contacts are awesome!)

6. I may blog about non-yarn things more often. I've had the urge to write more about other topics than what will fit in a Facebook status update. So you'll probably see more non-knitting stuff here.

7. I have all sorts of unfinished business to blog about. There's an FO that's never been seen on this blog, a follow up to the Potholder Swap and all kinds of pictures to post.


8. This is my most recent WIP. I'm calling it the "Back in the Saddle Scarf," for obvious reasons. It's the Easy Drop Stitch Scarf, only wider. I'm planning to add some fringe as well. I'm using Noro Lily from Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe.

9. I feel incredibly guilty about crapping out on the Gauge Scarf Circle. I really owe a big apology to Gauge and all it's customers, especially those in my scarf circle. I never finished the scarves, and a couple have been lingering in my house. I was late, then I was ashamed, so I avoided going, and that made me later and more ashamed and guilty, and then I really avoided dropping them off, and it went on and on like that for months. I'm probably the reason the scarves in my circle weren't finished. And now that I've blogged it, I'm think I'm brave enough to return the scarves in my possession.

10. Guilt has been a huge factor in my absence. It's irrational, but every time something knitting, blogging or fiber related came up in the past few months, I couldn't enjoy it because I felt guilty. Guilty for not keeping up, for being out of the loop, for having big plans and not following up and, in a few areas, guilty for not following through on my promises. So I avoided it. I know this doesn't make sense, so I'm going to push myself back into it until it feels right again.

Back to Business

Apologizing for not posting enough is the ultimate blogging cliche. So I'm going to skip the part where I say I'm sorry, but the whole illness, fire and rehire thing pushed the blog to the back burner.

I haven't felt quite like myself because I haven't been knitting, crocheting, spinning or blogging. When I'm not at work, I've been watching TV, messing around on Facebook and taking naps.

So I've decided to start with the blogging, and the rest will follow. Although I feel unmotivated now, I know I'll start to feel better once I get back to things I love.

I think my elbow is better now. I went the morning they announced the layoffs, so I forgot about it for a while.

I didn't see my usual doctor, I saw someone else in the practice. I brought in my top secret project to demonstrate the motions I'd been making with my arms. It turns out she was a knitter. She was working on something from the new Mason Dixon book. She could even identify the yarn I was using for this top secret project. Awesomeness!

Meanwhile, I finally got some glasses, but none of these. I'll post a picture later.

The first two weeks with glasses were fine. I had no idea how bad my vision was until it was corrected.

Then the glasses started to hurt.

After several visits to EyeMasters, I realized that the nose pads were upside down. Apparently, this makes a difference. However, my glasses still hurt after turning them around, and then trying smaller nose pads. The skin on the bridge of my nose is raw. I've been choosing between the headache from eyestrain and the headache from glasses that don't fit.

I e-mailed EyeMasters customer service. I got reply asking for the location where I purchased them. I replied back. Hopefully I'll find a way to get around the 30 day limit on the money back guarantee.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Friday Bits and Pieces - Catching Up

Here are some bits and pieces that didn't quite fit anywhere else.



Tuesday was Mom's birthday, and we celebrated on Wednesday. I already posted the tawashi I made for her. Jules made a pineapple upside down cake. Katie gave Mom brownies, a special double-walled cup and Aqua Globes.


Last Saturday Before Jules arrived, I had Katie trim my hair. This is the after picture. The before picture is here. (Obviously, she didn't cut very much.)


I'm leaning towards these glasses. Everyone except Jules likes them. I'm thinking about going to Lenscrafters this weekend to see my other options. I'm probably going to get something similar if I don't get these.

I'm starting to adjust to my CPAP. I can sleep for most of the night with it, although I seem to drool some while I'm wearing it.

Hill Country Weavers is having its Second Annual Warehouse Blowout. I didn't go to the first one, but I plan to drop by tomorrow. Even if I don't find anything, it blows my mind that Suzanne has enough stock to fill an entire house, and hold a sale in a warehouse.

Gauge is having a sale too. I'll see you there.

Boys don't make passes at knitters with glasses

Jules says these glasses make me look like a liberal arts major. I told him I was a liberal arts major. (Journalism counts as liberal arts, right? That would explain why I'm shopping for glasses at Walmart.)

Jules and I differed on which glasses looked the best. I'm fond of the Lisa Loeb/Tina Fey/Janeane Garofalo glasses above. Jules kept choosing glasses that were from the Sophia Loren collection. (Literally.)

At least he was willing to take pictures of me in seven different pairs of glasses in the middle of the Walmart optometry center.

I'm considering these glasses and the six pairs below. You can get a closer look at the individual glasses here. I haven't decided whether to go with one of these, or shop around more.

I didn't make a decision tonight because I want to get some opinions. Let me know what you think. I want your (constructive) feedback.

Transitions

I've had my CPAP for a week now, and I have yet to actually fall asleep with it.

The doctor warned me about the transition period. I think I had a false sense of security after the CPAP titration. I figured it was because they gave me Ambien.

I took Ambien on a regular basis for a couple of years when I was in college. Taking Ambien is like being hit in the head with a mallet. Once you swallow that pill, the clock starts ticking, and you have 20-30 minutes to get to bed before you fall over.

And I didn't sleep right away during the sleep study. And last night I was awake for nearly two hours with the CPAP on before I took it off and actually fell asleep.

I'm a stomach sleeper, and that's a big part of the problem. I'm considering buying a great big body pillow to help me sleep on my side.

So I need some encouragement right now. I know I've gotten a couple o comments from people with CPAPs. If you had trouble with yours, but you got used to it, let me know.

As for my glasses, I've decided to wait until Jules arrives here this weekend to pick out frames. My insurance will get me a discount on glasses by anyone covered by Davis Vision. My HR director said I could try Goggles 4 U. And the same day I went to the optometrist, Amy Singer wrote about Glassy Eyes on the Knitty Blog. Would I be a total stalker if I ordered the exact same glasses she ordered in the exact same color (black and turquoise)?

I think I'm going to at least try on some frames in person before making a decision.

I need some awesome glasses that are just like Lisa Loeb and Tina Fey's glasses, but are also uniquely mine. Oh, and they also have to be light, durable, comfortable and not too expensive.

That's going to be a tough order to fill.

You wouldn't hit a knitter with glasses, would you?

Today I found out that I need glasses. And I'm kind of excited.

I actually went to see the family optometrist check on a condition I have called Pseudotumor Cerebri (aka Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension.) I was diagnosed back in 2000. The very same optometrist saw that my optic nerve was swollen, and got me in to see a specialist the same day. I'm very thankful that they caught it early. Some people go blind. Fortunately, I had only lost a very small amount of my vision field, and it came back once my pressure was under control.

I had a spinal tap and took medication for a while. Eventually I tapered off and stopped the medication, and haven't had any symptoms since.

Except in the last few months, when in the midst of all my other medical crap, I started having headaches. They were mild, but they were almost everyday.

So I added the optometrist to my list of doctor appointments. I've seen other specialists, but today was my first visit with the optometrist since that scary day in 2000.

It turns out my optic nerve is just fine. They took a digital retinal photo and did a visual field test to prove it.

But my vision is somewhere between 20/40 and 20/50, enough to require a corrective lens restriction when I get my driver's license renewed. Apparently my astigmatism went from 0.75 in 2000, mild enough that we forgot about glasses after I was rushed to the specialist, to 2.0 today, bad enough to cause the headaches I keep having.

I'm just excited that there is a solution to the headaches that doesn't involve medication.

Granted, I am experiencing a little bit of medical device fatigue. I just got the CPAP last week, and I'm having trouble adjusting to it. Now all I need are orthopedic shoes and a back brace. Then all the kids at school will beat me up.

(No disrespect to anyone who actually wears orthopedic shoes and/or back braces.)

Seriously, I don't think there's much stigma connected with glasses these days. But there's another adjustment period I have to go through. Apparently with an astigmatism like mine, things are going to look kind of weird and "swimmy" for the first few days.

It'll probably be a few days before I pick the frames and order the glasses. I think I want Lisa Loeb glasses.