thereyougothen | Entries tagged with city knitty

Barbara insisted I go to the borders knitting group tonight, even though it's her last night here. i didn't argue for very long, i just went and had a nice time.

ooh. i had a very nice time at knitting this afternoon, but after we left, and even before we got in the car, i noticed that my upper lip was swollen. it stayed that way for hours. my bottom lip swelled up too a couple of hours later. they have both gone down somewhat now, but are both still noticeably swollen. catherine and barbara both reminded me that people pay good money to plastic surgeons for the "bee stung" look, but really, i'd rather not.

so, this started not long after I drank a glass of coke. i doubt i've developed an allergy to coca cola, so was there something on the glass?

don't know, but it's been a bit unpleasant.

it's been like the aftermath of a trip to the dentist. i've been able to eat and drink ok, except that drinking straight from a water bottle was a bit dodgy...

i wonder what it was?

i made a crochet wire thing earlier this month, and it didn't work, it was supposed to be a beaded necklace, but wasn't heavy enough. so i thought i might make it into something else. so i think i might use it to embellish a bag. so i needed to buy some white fabric. i went to remnant kings and got almost a metre of sparkly organza for 91p, some bog standard curtain lining, which will be excellent for lining bags for £1. and some white fake linen for less than £2. and a big piece of white lycra for £4. it was priced at £7 something, which was half price, but it was a bit dirty, so I asked, and got it for £4. it will make fantastic knickers, or swimsuit lining, not quite sure what to use it for, it will stay in the stash for a while, I guess.

i want the house to myself to do the sewing though, i can't really work unless i'm on my own. don't want an audience.

never mind, i'm going spinning tomorrow.

i've uploaded a few pictures to flickr today, took ages, the wireless connection we have is so much crap. must try and lean how to fixc it.

and over the course of today, i have eaten 8 chocolates from a thorntons box. ooops.

i've done the first leg on my elijah, he needs to be done by about a week on wednesday.

speaking of a week on Wednesday, the parent council thing i was going to has been cancelled, so i will be able to go to knitting, two weeks in a row, hooray!

i have much more to say, but i have had 3 glasses of wine, and as a result, i need my bed more than i need to update LJ!

but i have remembered today that i really do enjoy my children. no more no less, i just enjoy them.

last time i wrote that i was going to knitting on a sunday i ended up in my bed sick for 3 days. i'm *hoping* to go today. if that's not temptimg fate too much.

My friend Anne is running in the london marathon today. if she can do that, I would think i can get to double dutch.

went to the new stitch & bitch at Borders bookstore tonight, it was nice, most of the people there already knew each other, but they were very welcoming. but Rosemary came too, and that was nice. she also noticed that the new vogue knitting was on the shelf, so i have some home with that, armed with the shaping in lace tutorial in it, i hope to feel ready for the henley perfected in last autumn's interweave knits.

came home and had a nice tea with Bill, just the two of us, which was really nice.

i've updated the city knitty website, with lots of knitting meetup type details. if anyone knows anything i've missed, let me know

I've had a great day. a long day, and I've been out for most of it, but really, a great day. i am the bouncy girl today. i think that i will crash and burn tomorrow as a result, but it doesn't matter.

i started out meeting A, a very good friend and housemate from years ago, we have never lost touch, but I don't think we have seen each other in 15 years, and we both had other lives then. i think we both have good lives now, and it was fantastic to see her. she called me the other day and if i was well enough we were going to meet at Jenners for a coffee this morning, I was certainly well enough. we lost track of time, so i was very late for meeting

hfnuala and A for lunch.

we went to the elephant house (city knitty's new evening venue). A seemed to have a good time, and luckily didn't get bored until we'd finished eating. from the elephant house we went to the new k1yarns shop - going on the opening day wasn't really a plan, it just happened, honest!

not sure how long we spent in the shop, but it was great to meet Katharine, who is good fun and is obviously really happy to have finally got her shop open. I don't think we were the first first City Knitty people in the door, either! i just bought a copy of vogue knitting (to be able to leaf through it before buying rather than just having to buy it it blind over the internet is great) and a couple of balls of Debbie Bliss Soho for a hat. a crocheted hat, i need a fast hat. really, I do, the everyday hat has *no* elasticity left, and today, i kept thinking it was going to blow off. there are two hats in the pipeline, but i think they are both more than the weekend away from being finished - a crochet one can be done by Saturday, if i put some effort into it. the fact that i have finished 5 other hats recently is neither here nor there. one of them itches and the rest just don't float my boat. ok? oh and, there was no way i was wearing the pretend hair today, in the wind! i really don't trust it that much!

i was in no hurry becasue TT was being taken round from school to singing club, so i had time to go to sainsbury's and buy orange juice and milk. then drive round the block 3 times hoping to get a space close to the church hall. i did't. it was so damn windy that i sat in the car for a good ten minutes trying to brace myself for the 150 metre walk round the corner.

i managed to knit a couple rounds of sock while waiting for TT to finish up, then we went to get Bill, went home, ate pizza, and I went out *again*!

to HK Handknit - since Jeanette had asked us very nicely to come and take the last of the stock off her hands. i did my best. some Louisa Harding Castello spoke to me, it really just said "buy me, put me in your stash and take me out and look at me, and stroke me from time to time", but still, it *was* telling me to buy it. Some Lana Grossa Gala asked me to take it home too - it's a red/green colourway, and i needed the 11 balls of it that were there. it's the same yarn i bought to make my very beautiful shawl for David & Alina's wedding. just in a rather more insistent colour.

oh and a couple balls of sock yarn. and some happy face buttons. there might have been about 30 of them. i think that the nursery school will be getting most of them...

i got home in time for bedtime though,. which was nice, becasue i seem to have seen very little of my boys since they went back to school on tuesday.

i've started my new hat. had a couple of glasses of wine, and now i think it's time for bed.

dentist tomorrow. i don't want to talk about it though. i'm happy to talk about my day today though.

i'm going to take it easy tomorrow. honest.

i'd been concentrating all along on the "epirubicin is the most toxic" so somehow had assumed that it would be all hunky dory now that i'm off that and on the CMF. well, the C of CMF ain't gonna be my friend either. it looks like it will make me more tired than the epi did, coupled with the backlog of tiredness that i can't shake already.

the epi stopped my periods, but the C (can't be arsed looking up the spelling, it's linked here*) will shut down my ovaries even more. i may not get them back. i think the quacks don't want me to get them back anyway.

so, things different so far - i am far more tired already. but on the plus side i haven't lost my sense of taste to the same degree. it is dulled, but i can drink coffee first thing in the morning. this is a VERY GOOD THING. the heartburn tablets aren't working as well. not a good thing.

in other news i have just used the LJ inbox feature to go back over the last week and see whose comments i really needed to reply to. really rather useful, that inbox feature.

in other other news, i will be at double dutch on sunday and at HK on thursday evening if I have to be dragged from my bed and taken there. city knitty on Wednesday evening isn't quite so definite, but i will make the attempt.

but now i will go take my thingyma-pam and get some sleep.

* while you were there did you notice that some of my counts have gone up? this must be a good thing.

sheesh. i can't keep a thought in my head for more than a millisecond these days. try having a conversation with me, go on, try it. see? i zone out halfway through.

and i think i'm going to go back to work in a month... aaargh.

there's loads of thing i keep thinking i'm going to post about - oh the angst.

but never mind, by the time i get round to it i've forgotten what it was.

i'm going knitting this afternoon. i hope some others are going too. it'll be lonely otherwise.

i'm also planning on raiding the bank account for a trip to Duo. i want another pair of boots. flats, brown. but not the same as

hfnuala's....

i also need things to do on weekday mornings. any suggestions?

anyone else planning on knitting at double dutch tomorrow?

hfnuala, are you still on? hope so!

it was knitting tonight, I'm sure i have things to report, but they are all gone now. i came home and ate popcorn. popcorn must empty the brain.

it was lucky i left when i did, the number 2 bus was there within 30 seconds of me arriving at the stop. tonight it was 4 minutes early, last week it had been 3. shouldn't be cutting it so fine.

next week it won't be my problem, i'll be in hospital.

aaaaaargh.

the boss seems to appreciate me, so i've decided that i will go into work next monday. all i have to do otherwise is buy a sports bra, so i guess i can spare a few hours at work. i am writing user notes for how to do things i think are essential. today i finished checking that you have the right identity (everyone is City of Edinburgh Council) , and how to track revisions. i still have to do using headers and footers in word, and emailing links instead of documents. and i have 3 days or about 8 hours to do it in.

thomas asked about my surgery today, i had to explain that the doctors were gong to cut me. he is horrified, and doesn't want to see. nor do i. Bill says that Nicholas was talking about it tonight and doesn't want me to go into hospital because i am going to be hurt. i had tried to explain to them that the doctors are going to give me medicine to make sure that it doesn't hurt, but obviously they don't believe me. the thing is, they will see me in pain, and in more pain than they are used to seeing me, and they will have been proved right.

this time next week i will be in hospital. that's a pile of crap, really it is.

So, I went back to work last thursday. did I mention that? it was good. i was glad to be there. even though I didn't accomplish all that much. last wednesday was my last hospital or otherwise appt until going into hospital, so it seemed a good thing to go back to work.

well, i have made a database, and started an electronic filing system. and that's what i was hired to do, so i guess i *did* accomplish stuff.

today i blinded the head teacher a bit more with my brilliance by showing her how to put the location of a document in its footer. and she then rushed off to teach the school secretary to do the same. and failed. and had to ask me to do it.

so i have done some grovelling to the secretary for coming in and having all these bright ideas that the HT immediately seizes upon and decides to "make it so". aargh. but that is why they hired me.

come janaury when I go back ("you will come back, won't you?") I will actually start to make changes that everyone will have to adhere to, like making the filing system ahem, well, compulsory. most people save stuff to their home directories, and well, that's not much use.

i can't make head or tail of who is in which group on the network, and i don't think that is something that can be changed at the school level, i believe we have to put in a change request to the maintainer (BT) and get them to do it. so I will have to make sure I have all the info ready so that I can say who goes in what group and who should have what permission all in one go. i believe we are charged for each and every change request...

as for other stuff... I'm coping, keep finding ways to laugh about it. my latest is that it gives us one more point on our "get Nicholas into Preston Street" effort.

The breast clinic gave me a supply of special band-aids to use, well, i was near to running out, so i managed to find some - they are very new and made of polyurethane i believe. £12 for a pack of 5. at that price I guess I was lucky to get as many as I did from the hospital. I had tried some of the other ones i had been given but they were awful. non-stick plasters are the way to go.

more and more people know now, but it's still hard to tell people. it's so much easier once people know. as long as they don't ignore it, or try and pretend it's not happening. i know that asking how i am is a loaded question right now, but go ahead and ask.

did i mention that i have finally been brave enough to look around the interwebs and see what it says? well, i have looked around to see what cancer research Uk and cancer bacup say. i'm very lucky that this isn't worse than it is. a mastectomy isn't the end of the world, and i don't have to have radiotherapy or chemo. so, i feel lucky. ish.

there has been much to cheer me today - walking TT to school and having a chat about playing tig in the playground, my sheer brilliance at work, coming home to discover the ball of yarn needed for TT's pullover had arrived courtesy of Liz (with a lovely little pincushion too, thanks, Liz!), being asked to do another story sack based on this and some of the other stained glass at cameron house, and a comment from

natalie_tyy telling me that positive is right.

my good mood was somewhat damped by having to hang around the not very inspiring crags sports centre while TT played club golf and trying to keep Nico from running down to speak to the persons loitering with bottles in brown paper bags. oh and avoiding all the dogshit at the same time. Next week we may just drop Thomas off and go somewhere else. TT had a great time though. even though it turns out it did actually start last week. the dates were wrong on the sheet i got, but i obviously should have known that. ho hum. we had fun last wednesday afternoon so i'm not exactly bothered that we missed it.

how did it get to be wednesday again already? i go into hospital 2 weeks today. but tonight i will be knitting and drinking wine at Oz bar.

yesterday was great. i mean, where else could i sit around for an afternoon, drink wine (and eventually coffee) and be with people who understand perfectly, without me having to elaborate, just how exciting it is to watch this:

turn into this:

then eventually this:

Back out to St Johns today. The blood tests that didn't happen on friday. today they called in the phlebotomist to do them. still took her three goes and ended up taking it out of my wrist (which for those of you who don't know is really quite painful}. my major worry about this whole operation is that the vein graft won't take - this is the case in 5% of operations.... if they can't even get blood out of my too narrow veins, what chance have they got of sewing two together? even under a microscope.

And, photographs. i have never had topless photos taken. before today. i suspect there will be another set to be done after the surgery. i did not enjoy the experience at all. it was the most exposed i have felt through all of this, even though it was a female photographer. it was worse than the medical students peering at me. still. necessary evil.

and an ECG and that was it. I was out of there in an hour and a quarter, which beat the hell out of friday's 2 hours plus. and i don't have to go back until the 10th, at 7pm. when Bill will have to leave me there.

i was feeling really down yesterday, probably just the lead up to being out there again today. today has been much better - spending the afternoon with friends has undoubtedly helped.

and tonight is knitting. must go pack my bag.

i am having a major wibble about the new job and am planning on going to knitting tomorrow afternoon where i am hoping some of y local friends might come along and tell me that i am absolutely normal, and to have another glass of wine.