New beginnings

Well, I am officially back to blogging after taking a little bit of a summer break. There's lots to blog about, and I finally feel more rejuvenated so I thought I would post a picture of my latest endeavor - no, not fiber related (well, maybe indirectly), but I just planted some dill seeds last week and over the weekend, an egg carton full of dirt and seeds became my little nursery. I've been wanting to plan herbs for the bunnies (yes, that's plural! more of the big news in a bit...) and Ella so loved the fresh dill that we get in our CSA veggies, I thought I would plant some dill in memory of her. I know Bennett sort of likes it (Ella ate it, so he did), Laurie doesn't like dill and commented that she didn't want it smelling up the house or the bunnies, so I might be giving some away or something as I think I've planted a rather large crop. I do love dill but fresh dill is very potent, so I'm not sure how much of it I'll be eating. We'll see.

And, with out ado, may I introduce the newest member of our family, Maisie Marie:

Maisie is a hybrid angora who came to live with us at the end of July, when we returned from our 2011 summer trip. Her official color is "blue", but as you can see from the picture, she is a steel gray color. She is a sweetie of a rabbit and also a baby (although in the last week she has matured a little bit and is very ready for her spay!). We got her when she was almost 8 weeks old and now she is just over 12 weeks. She's more than doubled in size and I looked at her today and it seems like she grew again last night! Her fiber is absolutely gorgeous! Shortly after she came to live with us, she shed her baby coat and I spun it up in to some very yummy yarn that will be with some commercial yarn to make a lovely shawl. I can't wait to knit with it, but Laurie says I better make some headway on the other three shawls that are on the needles right now before I cast on. I keep touching it and it's so awesome. To get maximum yardage, I plied it with silk and it is beautiful and so soft to touch. Spinning Maisie got me wanting to spin Bennett, so that is my current spinning project - 4oz pure bunny :).

And here is my new spinning wheel I've been spinning the angora on! We found this Ashford Traditional wheel on Craigslist a few weeks ago for $100 (it's a $600 wheel) and took her home with us. The traddy was in Tucson, and we had a bit of an adventure getting down there, but made it safely there and back on a school night and now she's all cleaned and oiled and spinning like new! She's very different from my Ladybug, so I love them both for what they each do best!

And a sneak peek at the photos from our 2011 summer trip! Yes, that's a mule! I took a four hour ride while we were camping in Yosemite and had a fabulous time! More about that soon!

And of course, a catch up post has to include a pic of Bennett being cute! I took this picture while I was spinning for Le Tour de Fleece!

I promise more about all sorts of topics later. This is just a little teaser and a "look! now I'm back" post! :)

Fiber fun

It's well overdue for a fiber post! First up are the photos of the towels and washcloths that I wove for Camelot's Hooves and Heroes fundraiser. As you may remember, Laurie actually won them but then gifted them to my riding instructor, Michelle, who wanted them really badly. They turned out really nicely, but I would never use this yarn again for weaving, I had to vacuum the loom to get rid of all the puffs that fell off the yarn going through the heddles and the reed.

Next picture is the yarn that I'm going to weave kitchen towels for my Mom with. I've got the warp wound, just need to get it on the loom, but alas that won't happen before we leave on vacation. I really like the color combo, the fiber is cotton/linen.

I have been working really hard on a spinning and weaving project for Laurie's dad, Dave. He gave me some black baby alpaca for Christmas two years ago with a request to knit a scarf for him after I spin the fiber. Well, knitting has turned into weaving the scarf and I needed more fiber than the original 4 oz. I just finished spinning the warp for the weaving - black 100% merino wool, and I've just started carding up the baby alpaca with some silver alpaca/silk for the weft.

Le Tour de Fleece (along with Le Tour de France) is starting off July 2nd and I'm gearing up for lots and lots of spinning! I'm hoping to finish spinning this 6 or so ounces to be able to go home and weave up a scarf when we get home!

The carded rolags of baby alpaca and alpaca/silk

I've joined up with a few groups to spin along with for Le Tour, one of them is called "The Spinner's Study" and the challenge for Le Tour is to spin a fiber that you've never spun before. I've never spun alpaca/silk and the other fiber that I'm going to be spinning for fun is some silk hankies. I've never spun hankies before, either, so it should be a lot of fun, even though I'm not going to spend any of Le Tour time in AZ, so I can spin with friends at TYF. Oh well, I'll be with everyone via Ravelry!

Silk hankies I dyed.

Silk hankies that I bought at Estes Park last year.

Hankies Barbara dyed.

Alpaca/silk that matches the hankies.

We leave for vacation on Thursday, for some well deserved rest and relaxation - I can't wait to be spinning on the deck of Laurie's parent's cabin!

I'm Famous!

I was asked to help my riding instructor, Michelle, promote Camelot on 12 News yesterday. Tram Mai interviewed me about my experience. Here's the video:

In loving memory

I mentioned briefly in my last post that Ella had been ill. In the past two weeks, her health declined acutely and she was neither feeling well or eating very well. After a hopeful vet's visit, we were pulling for her to make it through this bout with further illness, just as she has fought off very serious illness twice before, but sadly it became clear to us that she wasn't going to make it this time. On Saturday, we took Ella in for a final vet visit and on the vet's recommendation put her down. She peacefully fell asleep in my arms and then passed away, all the while, I was stroking her ears - her very favorite place to be petted. We knew that she was on borrowed time, between the E. Cuniculi, the respiratory infections and the fur mites. The past few weeks she was in pain and not well and rather than let her go through an unknown time of suffering and declining, we sent her off to peace. I'm still missing her, it's not the same without my usual routine of feeding the bunnies and then having cuddle time with Miss Ella. I think it will be a long time yet for the hole in my heart to be filled, and it may never be fully healed in her absence. She looked relieved when the sedative took it's effect, and I know we did the right thing. I'm so glad that she had that final mite free molt and that I have some of her fur to make something special with. We had Ella only a bit over a year and she was loved very much. Following are some pictures of her time with us, so you can remember her lovingly, too. I hope that the dill grows abundantly in bunny heaven!

At last - a post!

Wow, I haven't posted for a very long time... First, I was sick with bronchitis and strep throat for a week, and then it was Holy week, and I was extremely busy with RCIA and the beautiful church liturgies for that time of the liturgical year. Then, after Easter, Laurie's sister, Christy and her husband and three boys came to stay with us for the second week of Laurie's spring break, which was lots of fun :). And after that, I've been busy fretting over Ella, who is very sick right now and being head over heels in fiber projects, especially the woven towel and washcloths that I made for Camelot's Hooves and Heroes fundraiser. Just no time to post and then it began to seem like there was so much to post about that I could never catch up...

Being sick was no fun, but luckily I had a Dr.'s appt about a week after I began to feel sick, I was surprised that the doctor (one of Dr. Skinner's residents) wanted to do a strep test. Lo and behold, it came back positive though and as soon as I started taking the antibiotics, I began to feel much better. Unfortunately, I was still contagious when Laurie and Marc were planning on going to the chrism mass at the cathedral in Phoenix, so I wasn't able to attend that mass. I did attend liturgies Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and of course Holy Saturday, the vigil mass. It was very wonderful to be a sponsor and to watch my catechumen be baptized and then enter into full communion to the church. The director of RCIA was very sweet and sat me and my catechumen very close to Laurie and Marc, which was awesome, because I was also there supporting Marc as he was confirmed and received first Eucharist. Easter vigil is so lovely, and it was a joy to be so involved in it this year. I would like to be a sponsor in the future, but it is a big time commitment - we still aren't done meeting for RCIA for this year yet. Something to keep in mind.

We celebrated Easter sunday dinner at Marc's house. There was roasted lamb and twice baked potatoes and salad and deviled eggs and two yummy cakes and the list goes on... It was all very good and we ate out on Marc's back patio, the weather was beautiful and the noise from the church next door was only slightly annoying. I was bummed, neither my mom or my grandparents made it to the party, but most of our church friends did come and it was absolutely lovely.

Our visit with Laurie's sister, brother-in-law and her nephews was also very nice. We live very close to a park, and every morning, Laurie walked the boys over there to play while the rest of us got a little bit more sleep. Laurie is a super Auntie and it was a lot of fun to have her family here, and not us traveling out to CA for a whirlwind trip to see them all. Our guests had not seen our new house, we ended up giving them the master bedroom to spread out in and Bennett was extremely excited to have Mama and Auntie Laurie in his bedroom all night. After the first night, Laurie decided she'd get more sleep sleeping on the couch because Bennett took to licking us from head to foot all night. Silly bunny. I had to keep ejecting him from the bed so I could get any sleep! He just wants to play, play, play. William was really good with the bunnies this visit, he petted Bennett and had no problem going into the bunny room. JP, however, wasn't to happy to be in the bunny room with the rabbits, which is a change from the way it used to be - William afraid and JP ok. It was William's birthday and Laurie made him a very yummy brownie cake, instead of frosting, she used marshmallow cream and melted chocolate into it. It was very rich and very good! I wouldn't have thought to use marshmallow to top brownies, but it ended up being delicious! Laurie, Christy, Marc and I also went to a graduate school production of "Into the Woods" at ASU during the week. Laurie's whole family can sing the songs from the play and the students to put it on did a really good job. It was a lot of fun and the wheelchair seats were really good, or at least I was comfortable, after the intermission, everyone else went to go sit in the row of seats in front of the wheelchair section, as the chairs were not very comfortable.

After the Laurie's family headed home, we spent a couple of days recuperating. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this yet on the blog, but Laurie does not have a job for next year and she's working hard to find one. Her school is closing and we are hoping she might be able to get an administrative job in the Catholic schools for next year. We are hoping and praying that a job comes, which is making our vacation plans really up in the air, we do not know if she will be working in July or what's going to happen. Originally, we were going to be on vacation for 6 weeks, the whole month of June and part of July, but that's not really looking feasible right now with the job situation. We'll see...

I worked frantically on the towels for Hooves and Heroes, and finished them in the nick of time! The whole event was a lot of fun - live music, good food and lots of nice people. I volunteer by helping man the table raising money for hay and the retirement village that Camelot is building to comfortably house the retiring horses from the program. Once a horse is chosen for the program and gives his or her life to helping students, they spend the rest of their lives at Camelot, retired. Camelot is building a pasture for retired horses, so I helped out with that. When the time came for the raffle of the student baskets, Michelle, my instructor, who had been lusting after my hand towels and washcloths, came over to see who would win my basket. Funnily enough, it ended up that Laurie won my basket! With the one ticket she put in, she won! Graciously, Laurie gave Michelle the towels and all was well. (I hear that the towels match Michelle's bathroom perfectly and are lovely - although I will never weave with that yarn again!) I won a raffle basket as well, one with horse things in it - some magnets, a puzzle, some jewelry, and horse treats! The only little cloud over the day was a bit of a mix up with the raffle baskets, someone else thought they won my basket and her husband was rather nasty to me, Marc and Laurie when we tried to collect my basket to go home. He didn't want to work it out and was rude, which was unfortunate. It ended up that I was correct and the basket was mine. We even managed to make it to church that night, albeit dressing in Renaissance clothes :).

We had a nice Mother's day with my mom, we had brunch with her and my grandparent - french toast made of Challah bread and fruit salad and a blueberry cheese. It was simple but really good and my mom and grandmother enjoyed themselves.

I think I've pretty much caught up... Looking forward to a fibery post!

An answer

I have talked previously about the lumps that started appearing all over my body over the past year or more. They have always been a mystery to both me and my many specialists. As a refresher, they have appeared everywhere from my collar bone to my calf to the really bad one on my back. All, with the exception of the one on my back, feel like a bruise if you touch it but don't particularly bother me otherwise. However, the one on my back is a different story. It hurts all the time. Extremely sensitive to the touch and I have trouble leaning on things or sleeping on my back. The other difference between the 6 or so others and the one on my back is that the others have stayed pretty much the same size since they appeared - the back lump has been getting bigger and bigger and more painful with each increase in size.

The increase in size of the mystery lump on my back just recently got bigger and not surprisingly became too much for my pain meds to handle. Off we went to Dr. Skinner for a reassessment and the decision that something must be done about it. We weren't entirely sure what that something was going to be, you see I had already seen general surgery, ENT surgery, and one dermatologist about them. All these specialist doctors agreed something was going on but declined to do anything about it. We fixed on derm this time - to see if persuasion might get us somewhere. We held out a small beacon of hope that a new dermatologist might do what we had asked others to do - a biopsy.

I have at this point had a CT scan and a ultrasound of these lumps, both showed nothing but localized swelling. Dr. Skinner, taking the EDS diagnosis into consideration had put forth the theory that what was happening was my connective tissue in certain spots around my body was breaking down and leaving pockets of fluid to fill their place. There were a few flaws to this theory - fluid had never shown up on any test and we weren't sure it would show up on a biopsy either. Then there was the "if this is happening - what is there to be done about it?" thing. The answer to that question is nothing. My connective tissue would probably continue to deteriorate and only God knows what might happen as that progressed. The other problem was that in all the reading we did about patients with EDS, there was absolutely no literature about this sort of thing happening. Was I really just having an extremely rare issue going on? It certainly wouldn't have been the first time but the lack of literature was disturbing.

About 3 - 4 weeks ago, I saw the new dermatologist. Well, first I saw the PA, who gave me antibiotics that I had a severe drug reaction to. Even though I was clear with him that I had a reaction to an other antibiotic in it's family, he still prescribed me it and I ended up in bed for 5 days recovering. I really hate it when docs don't listen - believe me I wanted to rip the guy's head off after I went online and found they were the same family of drugs. Anyway, since the PA had no clue what was going on, they sent me along to the doctor the next week.

The day before the appt, Laurie and I had a discussion about what I really wanted to have happen at the appt and she voiced her concerns about following through with a biopsy in that very sensitive area if we really weren't going to receive any helpful information about what's going on. I disagreed and went into the appt the next day determined to get to the bottom of this, but with the addition of making sure this doctor thought we might get some real information about the lump.

At the appt the next day, I had a punch biopsy. They took about a 1/4 of an inch of tissue and stitched me back up. A few days later, we found out that the lumps are lipomas. Lipomas are benign tumors of the fat tissue. The way that they are presenting in me is totally off the textbook lipoma symptoms. (Big surprise, huh?) Laurie and I took a very nice sigh of relief - they are treatable. Unless the others become a problem for one reason or another, I will only have the lipoma on my back removed. This also gets us into murky waters...

You see, two years ago, before the lipomas started, we had been pursuing a blood disorder that I have. We had done two rounds of testing and didn't yet have an answer, so my hematologist told me that we would leave it be for awhile, but if I needed surgery or to be put on birth control, that we needed to get to the bottom of it, as my blood doesn't clot the way it's supposed to and I bleed lots and lots. So, we are slowly working towards and end. I got my heme blood work done yesterday - trying to figure out if I am missing a clotting factor or have an antibody to one and will see the doc next week.

Meanwhile, we are trying to decide who to take the lipoma out. Because of the EDS, my skin doesn't heal properly with stitches and either the stitches pull apart and/or I get a horrible scar. The only surgery I've had that has left me with a normal looking scar was my plastic surgeon, who removed my basal cell cancer from my left cheek. We are setting up an appt to plead with him to do the surgery. It's such a large portion of my back and he's done the best with my EDS. So we are keeping our fingers crossed, hoping and praying that he will do it, as he normally wouldn't do a surgery like this since it's not really reconstructive or in the typical "plastic surgery" treatment area. We'll see.

Just as a side note, having all of these lipomas pretty much seals the deal on the MEN 1 diagnosis. Lipomas are frequent in patients with MEN 1 as well as a bunch of other tumors, both benign and not. I'm really praying that as the disease progresses, I do not end up with the carcinogenic ones. Time and God will tell. Anyways, an answer and hopefully a solution (lipomas tend to grow back) are a good thing. I'm glad I risked the biopsy because life without the pain that the lipoma on my back is causing would be wonderful.

Well, I'm sick today - coughing, fever, sore throat, etc. - so I should probably be headed back to bed. I'm sad to be missing horsemanship today but needed the rest today to get better as fast as possible.

Hint

Baldy

Last Saturday, we finally plucked Bennett. He had been needing it for awhile and we just didn't have time. We did it all in one session, at it went pretty quickly. He seems to be calming down more and more when we have to pluck him. Of course, now he's very bald and pink. He has one streak down his spine that is grown in a bit (about 1/2 and inch) and a very small tuft on one flank. After we pluck him, he has a tendency to lick himself all over and chap his skin, so we put him in a little bunny coat - a sweatshirt sleeve with cut outs for paws and a flap for the rump, but it didn't last very long. I took it off before he ripped it to shreds and he was getting mats in his tummy hair from the friction of the coat being wet from him grooming it and him trying to rip it off. He also has terrible behavior with the coat on - he acts out when it's on, so I just took it off and he'll have to deal with the dry skin. I'm actually kind of wondering if I could put some organic shea butter lotion that I have for my own use on him. I just don't know if shea butter is safe to consume for bunnies, because he will lick it off. We'll see. So, I took some bald bunny pictures and they are pretty cute. There is one that I absolutely adore - he was in the middle of licking his lips!

Bald boy playing with the empty Yesterday's News bag, a very favorite toy.

Wanting to know what mama's up to.

Sad dry skin.

Trying to whisker mom.

Posing for the camera.

And last but certainly not least, my favorite of the whole bunch, licking lips!

Spotlight on Miss Ella

Ella's been a real cuddle-bug lately. She's really loving getting out of the cage for loves and petting. Laurie took a few picture of her having fun climbing on me a few days ago. She really loves to "dominate" me, letting me know she's the boss in our warren. She'll stand on my chest and back her butt up against my chin and just sit there. It's pretty cute. Here's some of those pictures (Laurie was taking them from below me, so it looks like I have about 5 chins - not very flattering!):

Knitting - finished socks!!!

Yay! My malabrigo socks are done! I love the "archangel" colorway, and they fit fantastically. I wore them and showed them off at horsemanship, yesterday. It's getting a bit warm to wear 100% wool socks right now, but I'm still awfully proud of them! I'm thinking of starting some new socks for myself, with the "Harry Potter" yarn that I got a long time ago. They didn't do a Hermione colorway, so I chose Tonks. The yarn is pretty wild, so I think they would be just plain stockinette stitch socks. I also have quite a few socks in progress that need working on. I really should get a working on Dr. Skinner's socks! I just can't figure out where I am in the pattern, so I need to get another pair of eyes to help me. Here are the beauties: