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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

What's your weirdest reason for insomnia?

I went out with the girls last night (and had a wonderful time - love you guys! you're fabulous!!!) and put Oscar outside while I was away. When I came back, I was getting some intense wiggy vibes from him. I couldn't have explained, and anyone who didn't have a connection with him likely wouldn't have noticed, but he was scared about something.

We went inside and I started my decompression routine, and Oscar wandered off to bed.

When I turned the lights out to sleep myself (earlier than I'd been able to make it to sleep any other night this week) I was dozing off to dreamland when I heard crying. Doggy crying.

Oscar was having a very bad dream.

I stumbled to his room, woke him up and gave him some cuddles until he was awake and wagging again, though I was still getting that vibe from him. But he was calmer, and I was tired, so I kissed him goodnight and went back on my way.

To have it happen again a few minutes later. And again still later.

How many of you have a boss that would take "I didn't get any sleep because my pitbull kept having nightmares" as an excuse for grogginess? Yeah, my students this morning didn't buy it either.

But he's gotten tons of cuddles today, and I didn't make him go outside alone, though he doesn't seem frightened to be there, so he seems to be doing much better today. We'll see how much sleep we get tonight.

As for me, I've been busy, I swear.

How busy?

I made this, which is far closer to done than it appears (and has since been moved to an indefinite holding pattern, as I was developing wrist problems)
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I made this, a baby blanket for your very favorite baby on acid. (It's actually a store sample for AC Moore, and will remain in its unfinished state for the display)
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There's this is exactly one skein of yarn, which is unimpressive when you see it pre-blocking, but the colors are very accurate in this shot:
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an after blocking - or faux-blocking, hanging on a wall of cabinet doors - is a bit bigger. (the red broomstick sized things are the horrible needles that I used, and never will again, and that's actually a screwdriver set used as weight to block it downwards)
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This will get finished a little more, I think to about square, but it's another store sample
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Another sample is this baby sweater, which will also remain unfinished (I swear, this isn't me being lazy, they want it to add "dimension" to the displays) and is one of the new colors of Paton's Merino.
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There's also this little hat/mitten set (stays in this state, yada yada yada)
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As I mentioned, my wrist was giving me a little trouble. And I'm the brilliant person that said "hmmm... sore wrist - let me make samples on stupid large needles!" So here's another of those:
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It was not carpal tunnel, and not just because I stamped my foot and threatened to hold my breath until it gave in to my stunning will. It didn't have the symptoms of CT. But it hurt like heck, and was really starting to worry me until I put two and two together. The way I knit, my left hand and wrist barely move at all. So in marathon sessions, my hand would be so stiff, it would be extremely painful to move after. I've been trying to remind myself to do wrist rolls at the end of ever row (or round) and that's been extremely helpful. Both for the wrist and my sanity - oh, the fear that I was going to be told I couldn't knit again!

And time off to spin didn't help - once it hurt, it hurt like the dickens! Even spindling this special little project caused a horrible throbbing burning pain.
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But I did try to rest it a little more, and did very little of my own knitting while working on the store samples. While I was taking time off, Aslan and I made a few wishes to this book we found:
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One of our wishes was for a little sanity, since I've been nearly running ragged trying to keep track of everything going on right now. I looked in my purse the other day, and it looked like this (notice the receipt from Cloverhill? I swear, I only bought one button)
pre-pda


After lots of research (ie: many e-mails to my brother saying "what the heck is bluetooth" and other highly technical questions) purchase and a little work on my part, my purse looks like this;
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Now down to wallet, checkbook, wet naps, and a naked little PDA. So many people say they love them, but admittedly, I thought it was going to be a hard habit for me to get into. Not so. I'm hooked, my life is on that thing, and I love it more that I thought possible.

And as I said, it's naked.

What kind of knitter could leave a beloved device naked?
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Not this one.

9 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

A new Palm convert! Hooray! KnitAble, baby, get KnitAble.

And all that knitting? My wrist hurts just looking at the pictures! Good stuff, though.

6:18 AM  
Blogger Jen Hagan said...

I'm stymied. Too much news...I can't comment on all. One thing, no two things. I just saw those new Patons Wool colors yesterday at Michael's and I was intrigued. Thanks for showing it worked up! Have you tried their SWS yet? Feels divine!

10:56 AM  
Blogger Jody said...

I love the palm cover! I made one for my iPod out of Koigu - I love it. I always get compliments.

The samples look great!
-Jody

11:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am seriously coveting that spindle. Seriously.

9:27 PM  
Blogger KT said...

Hey, you are alive! Sorry to hear about your wrist. I hope you can get some rest for it soon. The samples look great, though! And please give poor Oscar some cuddles from me!

9:59 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Good lord, your fingers must be little bloody stumps at this point! But what amazing productivity. I hope you get some sleep and Oscar recovers from the spooks. Poor guy.

12:31 AM  
Blogger Amanda said...

Finished or not...I am glad I was able to see the new Patons Wool knit. I saw it on the skein, and wished I could see how it would turn out! Thanks for that!

I hope your wrist feels better. There are some stretching exercises you can do to help: http://www.sportsmed.buffalo.edu/info/wrist2.html

2:01 PM  
Blogger Rachel said...

Hey, I miss you! I haven't even seen you on KR much. Though I haven't been there as much lately either.

Watch out for those wrists. With RSIs it's usually the tendons that move least that hurt the most, so the wrist rolls are smart. Do gentle resistance stretches too. And take some asprin or ibuprofen to keep the tendons from swelling. With my new found allergy to such things, I'm using an herbal arnica ointment that helps a lot, too. Oh, and pay attention to how you sleep. Many of us tend to curl our hands and wrists up into little balls when we sleep. This is very bad. If you do this, get wrist braces to wear when you sleep. They're annoying and take getting used to (yes, one more thing to get insomnia over) but it's very helpful.

2:11 PM  
Blogger April said...

Strangest reason for insomnia? I can match you. I have a dog that is losing his eyesight. Whenever the power goes out at night, he cannot sleep and is terrified.....much heartbreaking crying from his bed. (We have a battery powered night light for him now.) Thanks for posting about your wrist pain. I knitted for 5 hrs last sunday without taking proper breaks and thought I'd never be able to spin or knit ever again. I was sure my joints were going to need to be surgically removed! It was so painful. Thanks for sharing your experience...I don't feel like the only one anymore.

12:39 AM  

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