WIP and lots of pics!

Let's start with pics. Two of them. This first pic is how far I've gotten since 1/6 when my yarn arrived. The pattern is from Dale of Norway and it's OL-92 Albertville. I imagine that's DoN shorthand for the Olympic design they created for the Winter Olympics in Albertville.

I bought this pattern at a closeout sale about 15 years ago when a local store was moving. (It was located in an arts center that decided one day to close up shop and simply told everyone they had to go. Nice, huh?) Anyway, everything on sale and I saw this pattern and instantly drooled.

It's kind of hard to see the progression of colors, but the main is white and the main contrast is a dark blue without being navy. I thought navy would look too much like black and I didn't want the contrast to be too stark. Anyway, within this pattern, the progression begins with yellow, to red to purple and finally the center band is a light heathered blue. The funny part is that I have another pic that's high contrast because of the flash on the camera, but then the white and dark blue look really weird.

See what I mean? Wouldn't even know it's the same sweater unless I told you... LOL!

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This one, though, does show the progression of colors nicely. But the other pics are more accurate to the actual look.

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Anyway, so that's new. Lord knows, it's only one third done.I'm actually ready to begin the matching pattern band to this that will cross the chest before I start the neck decreases, etc.

Then I have both sleeves to knit. Those should go quickly, which is why I began with the body of the sweater. I know it's fun to see the pattern come together much quicker on the sleeves, but I figure those should fly on the needles and the longest work is the body, so do that first.

Okay, on another front, I'm also trying to catalogue some of the spinning. I have a pic of what I've been doing with that. Way back in Oct or so, I'd bought a whole bunch of fiber from Crown Mountain Farms. Some of it became Christmas presents. But I had this one left over:

This one is called Born To Be Wild. Kind of everything and anything. No real rhyme or reason. Just a whole bunch of colors and very pretty. So I've been spinning up the singles and this is one of the bobbins. I took this pic right before I began to ply my first bobbin of it. I finished the bobbin this morning and skeined it on my niddy noddy just before I came into the office for this upload.

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IOW, more pics to come for my next update.

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I went back to work this week, so I have tons of time to knit. Well... once the kiddies get settled back into their apartments and classes begin, I should have tons of time to knit. The nice thing is that I got my living room back at home. While oldest daughter was home on the semester break, she kind of took over my living room and used that more as her bedroom, so I didn't have a lot of time to spin. I'm hoping to knit at work and spin after dinner at home.

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Also, youngest daughter got her acceptance letter from Quinnipiac. She's WAY excited over that. So I'm already trying to think ahead towards next fall when both girls are living on campus and I have to add back all those chores I've been able to palm off on the girls... LOL! I'll have all summer to work out some kind of schedule, but I think if I come home, cook dinner and take maybe a half hour to dust one night, vacuum another, etc, then nothing should become overwhelmingly full of yuck and I can still have time to knit and spin. Course, I have MONTHS to work out the small details.

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I might have to buy another copy of Don Aslett's Is There Life After Housework? I think that's the book I'd used years ago when the girls were small. He literally gives you a plan on how to stay ahead of your house so you never even need stuff like spring and fall housecleaning. I'd created charts so I had about 5 or 6 things every day that took about 5-10 mins and my house was always "company ready". It was things like pick up and put away, wash dishes, go through the mail so it doesn't stack and do the 2-min swish 'n' swipe on the sink and toilet. Those were daily items. Then there were weekly things like Tues and Fri were vacuuming days. Mon and Thur were laundry. Wed was wash the floor day. A quick mop every week and it never gets grimy, you know? Then there were monthly chores. Say the 3rd of every month, you'd sweep the front and back steps. Some chores took longer, maybe 15-30 mins and others were 2 mins tops. There were also some quarterly things like hose down the sidewalk or hose down your screens.

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Seriously, it was great. And because the monthly were never more than 15-20 chores, you had the end of the month without anything extra. I did this routine for several years and my house always looked great.

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Then I went to work... Yikes! And the girls became teens... Bigger Yikes!!!! But now they'll be leaving us during the school year, so it's time to get back to my schedule.

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Anyway... this is all my meandering and blathering.

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See Maggie? Pics and the sweater is coming along beautifully. I'm really pleased with this. My next one will be another Dale of Norway... er, maybe. There is someone on Ravelry who's made it. It's called Barcelona and there's a picture of it. I'm either going to knit that, also in KnitPicks Telemark yarn. Or I'd like to knit the Windows pattern from the Philosopher's Wool book, Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified. I bought the book when I bought their kit last year. I'd love to buy more of their yarn, but I can knit the sweater in Knitpick's Wool of the Andes for about half the price. And with so many bills hanging over our heads this year (gee... can everyone sympathize with that one? /g/), I need to save where I can. They don't give exact totals in terms of how many yardages of yarn you'll need, but I think I can make a good guesstimate on it since I've already knit two of their sweaters.

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Besides, I always buy extra. I have at least one extra skein of each color for my DoN. If I have enough left over, think a pair of mittens to match. Or a scarf. Or a hat. Or maybe all of the above... LOL! It's not like yarn will ever go to waste in my house... /wry g/
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Yes, I'm adding those weird characters in between my paragraphs again. The pics will break up the text, but without a pic to do so, the paragraphs just run on and on. One big long sentence. So without that little squiggly, it's like the programming doesn't recognize that I'd really like a blank line between my paragraphs.

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Let's see... any other news? The Xanax is a wonderful thing. There were a couple days that I needed to take half a pill in the morning and then again at night, but mostly I find one a day keeps the panic at bay. The funny part is that I also recognized that this has been happening since last summer. I think a culmination of lots and lots of things, from losing my Dad two years ago and never really getting over it right up to the accident and the hysterectomy being two short weeks apart. Course, it didn't help that I got the quarterly statement for my 401k and I lost almost $2,000, let alone everything I'd added to it this past quarter. If that won't scare the heck out of you... /wry g/ So, like I said, 2008 was a real pisser.

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2009 might not be any better, but I'm doing everything I can to make it so. Every day when I wake up, I make up my mind that it's up to me to choose my attitude. I can smile and look forward to what today will bring or I can frown and wait for doom and gloom to drop all over me. This year, my goal is to choose a bright and happy face every morning. Smile at both the people I know and those I don't because they might surprise me and smile back.

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The news is always so depressing (though, c'mon, folks, the flight crew on that plane that landed in the Hudson River was great!!!!), so my goal is to fight that kind of negative attitude. People who bring cheer to others receive cheer in return. How about we all make a vow to be a little more cheery? Smile more. Laugh more. If I can bring happiness to those around me, I betcha what little I have left in my 401k that some of that happiness will rub back on me.

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Let's get organized. Let's choose to be happy instead of sad and depressed. Let's bring some of that happiness to those who really need it because, no matter how bad things might look from where I'm standing, I still realize that there are others who are far worse off than me. Let me try to bring some happiness to them. And, most of all, let's get knitting and spinning!

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I'm certainly happy to see 2008 leave. But I definitely look forward to what 2009 will bring!

New Year, New Dreams, New Goals!

Thank you, LDVenus, for both the warning and the words of encouragement. And I really appreciate the warning. My second job is working for a private practice psychiatrist. I do all of her computer work--insurance and patient billings, letters, appeals, all that sort of stuff. She's away on vacation right now and I plan to ask her when she comes back if the Xanax is a bad thing. Part of her practice deals with addiction to drugs, so this is not foreign to her at all. Trust me, I would never go that route.

The good news for me is that I visited a friend. She's probably my best friend in the world and we discussed my situation. She's also like the two of us in that she also had a hysterectomy, but she got through the next six months without any hormone help. She, like you, assured me that my anxiety is simply "life in general" right now.

All my life I've been a strong, independent woman. Everyone around me looks to me for strength and assurance when they feel overwhelmed. I'm a doer. I make things happen. I don't wait for solutions to crop up. I make them happen. Well, for the first time, I'm a bit overwhelmed myself. I'm not sure what to do next. Never been a problem before. I could always devise a solution and then, like I said, make it happen. Right now, I'm not sure which direction to take.

As she said to me, that's not a failing on my part. It's simply that I'm vulnerable right now. And that's okay. It's okay to admit it. And it's okay to feel it also.

No, the medication can never be used as a replacement or a crutch. I don't "do" crutches. It's not in my nature. But, for a short time period, if it helps me deal with my vulnerability, then that's okay also. Yes, I'll talk to the doctor. As a patient or an employee, it doesn't matter, but I'll talk with her next week and we'll work out the best course for me.

Actually, I admitted to her already that it was her notes on a patient that made me cut the medication in half. She has a number of patients that she sees for (I think the technical DSM reference) is "generalized anxiety", so she often prescribes Xanax. She'll prescribe the dosage that I cut mine down to rather than a full mg. And I was worried that taking what the dentist had prescribed would be too much and put me to sleep. I didn't want that. I just wanted enough to "take the edge off", as stated in my last post. It worked. Course, the patients at the office take this dosage sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. (I admit that I did forget how often their dosing regimen was, but I do know it was 3 or 4.) I just wanted once a day. So I was comfortable with that.

Thank you again for your kind words. Trust me, addiction is not an option. There have been drug problems in my family history as well as a long line of alcoholics, which is the reason I don't drink. I might tipple once or twice a year, such as my homecooked egg nog (the cooked kind, not the raw mix) which had 1/2 cup of amaretto added to the 6 cups of egg nog. Yum, Yum! From The Joy of Cooking. I made their cooked egg nog and added about 3 drops of vanilla and 1/2 cup of amaretto and I've been sipping over the days. This recipe is definitely going to be added to my Christmas menu on a permanent basis! LOL!

But the point is, I know my family history and I won't go there. In fact, I was going to delete that post entirely except a response did show up and I wanted to address it. Leave my "bumps and bruises" out on the internet for anyone to read. I can admit that I'm having a hard time right now. But I also wanted to assure anyone reading that I know the dangers of addiction and that's not an option.

I'm ready for my annual winter hibernation. Leave the rest of the world at the door. Watch everyone else endure the -10 wind chill temps we have today. Admit to my girls that I need a bit of help right now. Lean on the hubby a bit more and stop trying to solve everyone's problems single-handedly.

And in the meantime? I'm going to go order that yarn. I've been itching to start another colorwork sweater since I finished my brother's sweater last February and I haven't done it yet. Yup, I need a sweater to give my attention to and that will definitely help. In fact, I might break down and order yarn for two sweaters. Spending money is never a way to solve a problem, but the promise of two beautiful colorwork sweaters that I've been drooling over for almost two years will help. I may not be able to solve all the issues on my plate right now, but knitting those two sweaters will give me a tremendous boost of confidence and a sense of accomplishment that's sorely needed right now.

Happy New Year to everyone!