Knitting tidbits

Ahh, wonderful new yarn.  This gorgeous new addition to my stash is a kid merino blend, 28% kid mohair, 28% merino wool, and 44% micro nylon... All together, 100% lovely yarn in the colorway Sherbet.  I will be making a very luscious shawl for another special friend, who won't be named here.  I love her very much and she is a person who is full of love for everyone else all the time.  I aspire to love like she does.  Hopefully, she'll know how much love and care I will knit into her shawl. :)

I also will finish the wedding sweater tonight.  It still needs to be blocked and all but still, one to check off the very extended list of things that have to be made on a time line.  Now, on to finishing Andy's hat for the wedding in 2 weeks.  And then, a pair of Cookie A's socks.  I saw on Ravelry, that she was posting for sample knitters for a new sock pattern and had to painfully not respond, knowing how much needs to be done between now and June.  Oh well, maybe next time!

Happy Birthday, Laurie!

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to a very special person, my Laurie.  I honestly do not know what I would do without her in my life and wanted to wish her a very happy, lovely year ahead!  I love you tons :)! (BTW - Laurie's wearing the birthday shawl in this pic!)

Adventures in cooking...

For some reason, I have been on a rice pudding kick over the last few weeks.  Normally, I get addicted to really really sugary sweet things (mmmm... chocolate!) but the rice pudding we get from Trader Joe's isn't particularly sweet but it's very very yummy.  After eating all of the 4 servings in the container that we get from TJ's over the last week or so, I got the crazy idea that I could make myself rice pudding and not have to wait for my next fix from the grocery store.  Well, let's just say that it didn't taste quite like the yumminess that comes from the store but I did follow the directions from the recipe and didn't make that much of a mess.  Of course I did this on a friday evening whilst awaiting Laurie's arrival from work (she doesn't usually work on fridays) with dinner and was very hungry.  I ended up having to explain why I had attempted rice pudding and not, (comma placed after review by discerning and confused reader, Laurie) say, something we could have for dinner that night (she was very hungry too!).  The mess of rice pudding I made is still in the fridge, awaiting banishment down the disposal or in the trash.  Oh well, I tried and the good news is Laurie says she'll give it a shot :).

Much ado about Mayo

Well, this past Tuesday, we went to the much awaited, much proclaimed Mayo clinic appt.  To begin the wonderful adventure, we were unclear as to which campus the appt was at.  We drove all over Phoenix and Scottsdale to find the right building.  I guess luckily, they schedule your arrival time to be an hour before the appt time, which we figure is because EVERYONE drives back and forth between the two campuses with no idea where they are supposed to be.  Anyways, I have to say that I'm really not that impressed.  This is the second time that I've seen a Mayo clinic doctor and I think that they are highly overrated.  The endocrinologist that we saw knew the bare bones of MEN 1 - meanwhile my hematologist can list off the top of his head what the condition entails and also what conditions are found to be very common with it.  It was so apparent that this guy had no idea what he was talking about.  One thing we are concerned with is that I have a small thyroid nodule and aggressive thyroid cancer is found often with people with MEN 1.  When we attempted to discuss this with him, he promptly told us that the nodule was too small to be cancer.  WHAT?!?!  I think that cancer starts somewhere and in a small size...  Umm yeah.  So after being totally wowed about how much this doctor knows absolutely nothing and is highly overrated, we sat around for half and hour waiting for the magical Mayo schedulers to schedule the labs, CT and follow up appt that I need, only to be told that my insurance will take a couple of days to pre-auth the stuff.  What a fabulous waste of time.  I completely believe that Maricopa County doctors are so much better and hopefully, we'll find a good endocrinologist who will have the skills to deal with MEN 1 and all it's glory there instead.  I don't really feel like going back to the Mayo clinic, I guess it was too much to hope that we would be seeing answers and not ridiculously incompetent doctors.

Knitting tidbits

A two post day!  Wow!  Anyways these are pictures of new yarn that I received (finally!) on Saturday.  They are Shaefer Yarn Andrea in two different colorways, Althea Gibson and Indira Ghandi.  I'm going to make shawls out of both.  The are 100% cultivated silk and are quite amazing!  Some of my most prized yarn.  A big thanks to my mom who bought them for me.  I have this compulsion to keep touching them, so I've been carrying them around with me :).

Also on Saturday, I took a fair isle class and made my first "real" fair isle project.  (I say real because I attempted fair isle for my christmas stocking.)  It went really well.  I basically had to learn how to knit continental to use both hands holding the yarn and learning that was a little bumpy but it came out great.  I plan on giving the hat to my mom but I'm worried it will be too big.  The yarn I used was Malabrigo in mint and pigeon colorways.

Renaissance Festival

Laurie and I were joined with our friend, Mandy, yesterday to enjoy the Renaissance Festival on it's opening weekend.  The weather was most interesting.  It was cloudy and raining off and on as we drove to Apache Junction for the festival.  When we arrived, it was muddy but the all-terrain wheelchair did great in getting me around.  (It's quite funny to ride around in the cool hippocampe, the festival workers are outspoken by nature and we get a LOT of comments during the day.)  During the Joust, it started dumping on us and everyone ran for cover.  We made it into the entrance of a clothing booth after being nearly soaked in the rain running.  It finally died down a bit and we ventured out into the fair again in search of lunch.  For a few hours it managed to get bright and sunny again and warmed up a bit.  Mandy and I both had our hair braided (pictures of mine to follow) and watched a really cool glass blowing demonstration while we sipped hot chai, hot chocolate and a latte between the three of us (Laurie, me, and Mandy respectively).  We visited the apothecary and got some herbal and chai tea and I got some new hand salve to protect my hands whilst knitting.  Wandered around a bit and got some yummy candied apples.  As we were finishing up the last of the loop, and after a quick bathroom break, we emerged to find more rain.  Rearranging the ponchos for a second time, we made for the car.  As we were sitting in the car all warming up, Laurie noticed that the rain was actually frozen in clumps on the windshield.  Brrrr.  Of course, the ride home was not without excitement, as Laurie forgot to put the handle bar for the all-terrain wheelchair in the car from the roof and it fell off spectacularly in the middle of the freeway.  It got slightly damage but Laurie believes it is fixable.  It did take me forever to finally warm up when we got home - my feet were frozen through, but all around a good day!  Here are the pics of my hair:          

Calm and sadness

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.  What we need is to love without getting tired. - Mother Teresa

Yet again, my restorative yoga class has brought to me more than a good feeling in my body but also a feeling of calm in my heart.  Not quite even an hour before class, Laurie called me and told me that she had receive an email saying our friend Bob, from church had taken his own life on Tuesday.  We know Bob, and his wife Marguerite because we are in similar situations and have shared inspiration from God.  Marguerite has very bad MS.  She's been wheelchair bound for awhile now and in the last few months, she has deteriorated to need much more care.  A little less than a year ago, both Bob and I were asked to talk during Mass about respecting life and how precious life is to us. In an email conversation shortly after he says to me "Marguerite and I are honored and blessed that God brought you into our lives.  God does this sort of thing with reckless abandon (hope God laughs out loud), and our physical being at times doesn't recognize it happening.  Only when we start to understand our spiritual being is when we humans begin to grasp what God gives us every day of our lives."  Every time that I saw him, he would always find the time to come up to me and give me a huge Bob-hug and ask me truthfully how things where going.  I am so sad that he felt that he had no other option but to commit suicide.  Laurie and I can only think he had a moment of irrationality that Marguerite would receive better care by receiving Social Security Disability upon his death.  She wouldn't qualify by herself.  I hope he knew how much he was loved and I am so sad at our loss.  The quote by Mother Teresa, Mary read during our savasana pose this evening.  It made me think quite a bit about my relationship with Laurie.  It's the everyday little things that add up to genuine love and not so much the large overdone things.  It really calmed me down from the overwhelming sadness.  I feel so deeply for the loss that Marguerite is enduring and I hope she will remember the little things that showed love between the two of them.  Please pray for both Bob and Marguerite. 

Birthday Shawl finished!

Last night, while Laurie was busy typing away at her school work, I finished her birthday shawl!  We blocked in this morning before she went off to work and it's still drying otherwise I would definitely have a picture with her wearing it... Maybe I could blow dry it or something... Hmmm...  Patience.  Well, onto the next project!  I'm actually using the same yarn for this new project because I loved it so much and it matched my really special occasion dressy skirt.  It's a sweater/wrap knit in dk weight with size 11 needles so I'm hoping it will go quickly and be really airy and light but still warm with the alpaca.  :)  Now I could be evil and tell Laurie she can't wear the shawl until her birthday but that would be mean so I won't.