crikey!

I feel very weird about Discovery Channel's tribute to Steve Irwin today. They show him "juggling" crocs while telling the audience over and over about how close to being killed he is again and again. It gets very... uncomfortable to watch. Yet, I am human and pretty much tasteless right now. I can't stop watching!

And I'm giving myself all sorts of excuses not to clean my house, but all I can come up with is knitting away at my first pair of socks ever - the beautiful Baudelaire I started Friday.

yuk.

Warning: If you want to hold on to your lunch: Do not read more than the last three phrases.

A lot circles around my bandaged foot and treating it well. It's still swollen around the wound and I wear a support sock kind of bandage - all the time. It's three layers of Tight Sock. My leg has the striped pattern of the textile texture and my foot ITCHES. Bad. I take it off at night and I sleep with my foot on a pillow, but there is still the yukky factor to be considered... Having been bandaged tight for a long time, my foot sheds its skin. It looks like a flesh toned fish's back under my sole. I feel disgusting.

Apart from limping and grossing myself out I started my First pair of socks yesterday. I'm making a beige version of the Baudelaire and it's turning out beautiful! Photos to follow eventually (of socks. Not of gross foot).

a quick bolero

It was fast and fun. But it did have the same problem I encounter with all short shrugs - It was too wide in the back (due to some feminine curves of mine). But hey, I'm a knitter now! I solved it. A little i-cord and a waist later, I look fab in my new shrug. Even though the light in this blurry photo is very weird, and my stomach looks as if I'm pregnant... But the shrug looks guuuud.

swollen

Sorry I haven't been writing. I think I try to deal with stuff in the real world without pouring it out online, simply because I don't want to phrase it all. I knit, I work and at the moment, I also hurt.

I hade surgery done on my right foot last week. Yes, I finally had my surgery done. They opened me up to clean up around the nerves in my foot, because I've strained my feet so bad, my blood vessels were the same size as they would've been on a limping 75 year old. It'll be better soon. But I'm swollen. More so than they had expected. I had my bandages around the two wounds redone yesterday, and it turns out they put the stitches really far apart to give the foot space to be swollen before it mended itself. It was still very (very) swollen.
Imagine a shirt that is simply too small, but you have forced all the buttons together anyway. Now imagine that same image, but with blue stitches and skin, with a bleeding foot being shut in behind it. Yes, that's me. Or rather my foot.
They promise it'll be better in another week, but I'm already tired of the crutches, of limping and of saying excuse me and asking for help all the time.

This year has been f-ing (yes, the f-word) unbelievable. I don't like it, but I'm getting through it. And of that - I'm actually proud.

balcony

My balcony is a lovely place.
My eight-year-old cousin is asleep on the couch and at first I felt... obligated to come and sit here to give him some peace and quiet. But now, I realise that this is where I should spend the end of each summer day. It's been warmed up all day, so I can sit all night in just a t-shirt. I light some candles (hardly needed. Swedish summer nights are bright.) and I brought my laptop and my knitting. It's this perfect little place! I'll spend half an hour here before I join my little cousin and go to sleep. We've been at a pool all day and we're tanned (read: burned up) and exhausted.
A few breaths of night air and a couple of stitches later I hopefully will have turned "exhausted" into "at peace".

ehum... hello.

I'm back. Sorry I've been... away.

Ehm... How do I start? I mean I haven’t blogged in a while. I could start with... no, if I tell you that I must first tell you about the... or when I... But that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t... No wait... Let’s try this again:

I’m back.
There. I’m blogging again.

I have tried to write some in Swedish, but it was hard. Rewriting it in English felt... even more difficult. But here I am again! Yay! But now, where to start?

It’s been tough. I’m learning a lot about myself and my behaviour patterns. How and why I shut down about some things while others have to come out. How the walls I build to protect myself aren’t at all as strong as I thought. And I’ve learned that I have some really wonderful friends. They’re there for me no matter how weak I need to be sometimes. My pride refused me to see that before.

Now some knitting: I’m making this.

It’s a Shetland Triangle Shawl made from some really cheap cotton yarn. I think the pattern looks great in this tougher material! But the purl rounds are boooooring...
So in the meantime I made these for a friend:

And they were so much fun that I made a pair for me too. Those are the hands of my friend T trying a few stitches on my pair in the photo. We were at a medieval festival and boy did we look picturesque when we settled down for the evenings' concert... Me knitting and him fiddling with some chain mail art stuff... Just look at us:

So, I’m hanging out with friends. Drinking an occasional beer and laughing with dear people in my life trying to live in the moment as much as I can. Also, the snail mail system has brought me real treats as of late. First, there was a care package from Spencer... Filled with love and care, and Longview Jerky, and Dentyne gum and Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea... and a new mic for the computer. Spencer cares. And knows what I miss from Canada. Thank youuuuuuu! (Howling)

Second, there was an amazing surprise. Jodi. No, I don’t mean Jodi was pushed through the slot in my door, but she sent me a present. Jodi is amazing and we’ve been reading each other’s blogs for ... a while... long while now. (Hello Jodi!) She sent me an email, just caring for me when I’ve been so ”quiet as of late” (as was the subject to her email). Then – She sends me this:

Can you believe it? It’s the book from A Softer World and some buttons she made. I never met Jodi. Jodi cares. And Jodi is wonderful and sends me a perfect gift. Thank you Jodi! SO much.
She also wrote that she missed my blogging. So has a few more of you. Thank you. It has been a most warming thought, that my words mean something to someones. Thank you guys! I’ll try and be back as a blogger now.

This week my little cousin is visiting. I’ll give a report from my week as substitute mum when we’ve had our amusement park adventures...

This has been a very rambling and a very... uhm... kind of... uhm-kind of blog entry. I'll get the hang of this again soon...
Until then: tata!

gone

My little grandmother is never waking up again.

She slept for a week before she, or something, or someone, decided it was time to leave.

cute pain

I can't believe I never thought to use this little darling as an illustration when my eye was hurting... Oh, well.

The eye is much better at least and I'm working up to the day I have enough inspiration to write something inspired again.

sven göran eriksson

Now all I need is someone catching him on tape saying: "Eeeeeeexcellent..."

weather

Picture borrowed from Jay Leno's "Headlines"

no.

My beloved grandma is unconscious. They say she might not wake up.
I'm numb. Tears don't help.

All I feel yet is that it has to be enough soon. No more bad news for a while. Please.

Now, I'm going to feel nothing for a while until I explode in a fountain of useless tears again.

Tears sometimes help, but after the exsessive use of tears the last month I find them completely useless now.

Fuck this. (Yes, I actually said fuck this. Pardon my English, so to speak.)

not-so-good

So I went back to the hospital to show them how my eye is so much better. It is. I need to continue with the cortisone for ever and ever it seems (at least two months), but it looked really good.
The blood work was back too. You see, inflammation to the iris can be connected to a number of chronic diseases. The very kind and very nice doctor showed me paper after paper that said negative. That's good news. But she saved the best for last.

HLA-B27 positive. It has to do with what kind of anti genes I have. It's like knowing my blood type. But being HLA-B27 positive combined with having problems with an aching lower back, and having had the problems since I was about 20 years old, and having had that pain climb up towards my chest from time to time... Yes, all the symptoms matched.

I still need a back scan but the diagnosis is:
I have Bechterews disease.

Logically I actually do look at it this way:
I've had problems with back aches for quite some time, and now, with the right diagnosis I will get the right help. Finally. I will get physical therapy and I will finally start exercising again. I mean, I have to. I can actually get better and have less pain than I do now for many decades, so by many means, this is a good thing.

But emotionally I have to deal with being a person with a chronic disease. Once again a number in the statistics. And I do appreciate (logically) that people care, ask me questions, give me advice, tilt their heads and say stuff like "poor thing". I know it's loving. But it drives me nuts. Since I'm trying to deal with this, understanding what it means to me, I hate everything that forces me to react to it, deal with it, in any other way than my own.

So I am sorry for not being the most communicative person in the world right now. I'm being a jerk for a while until I make logic and emotion merge about all this.

i-cord trim

I had an anonymous comment on my i-cord trim. Since I don't know where to reply I have to do it here. I-cord is not sewn on, it's all knitting. And you can learn how to do it HERE. Though I think I did it a little bit differently.

You make a trim with it by knitting the last stitch of every row together (and twisted) with a stitch along the trim. For my purple and lime sweater I did this:

I picked up a full row in lime along the neckline, then cast on an extra three stitches to make the i-cord from.

Knit two stitches
Knit next two together through backloop.
Put three stitches back onto left needle.
Repeat.

colorful

I've had almost complaints that I knit too monochromatically, and mostly in dark and earth tones. So last time I was in the yarn store I think those complaints echoed in my head when I chose my yarn for my next top down free style sweater. I'm going nuts with this one, both in color and pattern, you'll see. For now, there's only a peek at the beautiful i-cord I made around the neckline. Plum and lime ladies and gentlemen! And don't you ever call me boring again! *laughs loudly*

overload

I was ill for two weeks. Then I had to catch up a lot after having been almost blind. Lots to do last week, even if the doctor told me to try and take it easy. Sunny weather and me stuck indoors. My beloved bookshelf crashed and I built a new one. Then I had dad here for a visit and then I organized a knitting event. Then came planning this autumn with different projects at two different jobs. Tax papers to clear and sign. Finally there is making my balcony into the cosy summer hang out that I want it to be. And pondering my future economy situation. Medicating with eye drops every hour still...

Suddenly I had one of those "It's just too much"-moments and I just dried my tears off my cheek. I've been crying almost hysterically for fifteen minutes. I think I needed it. Badly.

I think I just let some of it go. It sure felt nice.

I'll be puffy eyed tomorrow.

hit by a rainbow

Sometimes beauty just hits me.
These pictures of rainbows just did that to me.

WWKIPD

The World Wide Knit In Public Day Knit-nic was a great success! Enthusiastic knitters gathered on a lawn today, knitting in the sun, smiling at people passing by who nosily wondered what all this yarn was doing in their park... Everything was sunny and wonderful, except the fact that I had to wear a baseball cap. I hate baseball caps. I look ridiculous in baseball caps. But it's even more ridiculous to not wear a cap because you look silly even if you're crying your left eye out because of the light, so I chose to be a grown-up about it and wore the stupid hat. Except for when I posed for this photo:

Yes! I got to show off my finished Top Down Free Style Raglan! Isn't it GREAT? I totally love it and I actually think it is the best sweater ever. At least knitted and on me. Best ever. I promise! It's because of my evil eye that I squint like that and wear glasses, but with this sweater on, I still manage to look totally cute! (Thanks Mia for taking the picture for me.)

Yes, my left eye is still very sensitive to light, but I am doing much better. I can knit, which is a huge improvement from my audiobooks-as-only-hobby-state of illness.

After todays' knit-nic in the park, two wonderful knitters followed me home to watch Sweden's first game in the soccer world championships. Trinidad & Tobago fought well, but damn the Swedes were... lazy almost. Nothing to nothing is a very disappointing opening to these championships. But hey, I brought out my Tubey for it! It's been a while since I even touched it because I'm not sure it's becoming what I wanted it to be... But I'll give it another chance.

And, I have a new bookshelf. I'm trying to write something poetic about bookshelves and my love of books, so I won't say too much about it yet, but it turned out great. I love my wall of me. Come to my house and browse through my bookshelf and you'll get to know a lot about me. That is for sure...

light of life

Yesterday I had a wonderful evening on my balcony with my lovely friend S, with coffee, my waterpipe and conversation. Truthfully I did most of the talking. As usual, I guess, but in my defense I have been craving human contact for some time now.

Today my eye is watering, but hey, I opened my blinds! First time in over two weeks. Daylight and my life is coming back into my livingroom. Two knitting friends are coming over today and I can't wait to feel like I'm in the loop again.

Knitting, talking to friends, reading (I haven't picked up a book in two weeks!) and living! In your face (actually in my face) stupid watering eye!

timber!

My home designed boók shelf finally collapsed. Only the bottom shelf, but still, it's where I kept all my very heavy art and architecture coffee-table-book-meet-phone-catalogues-and-the-village-bible type of books.

I knew I had miscalculated the shelf construction, but I really like it all the same. And it did hold up for almost four years. However, it needs to be replaced, redesigned or rebuilt. Preferably yesterday, unless I wish to die a booklovers' death being buried under my book collection.

Why do everything happen at once? I was going to redecorate my kitchen when I had the money, and now I have to rethink this whole thing. If only my life was less shaped like a sine wave and more... mellowed out... Or not. Did I just make a wish for boredom? Slap me.

I'm back

I'm getting better. It's still one eye drop an hour, but I get to do it to myself, by myself at home.

I spent three nights in a hospital bed. Every hour, around the clock, shuffling feet came sneaking into my room, then somebody turned a light on and put a drop of Isopto Maxidex in my left eye.

I had an aggressive version of irit, which is an inflammation of the iris. My kind made me blind on my left eye, but I saw white instead of darkness. There was a milky white membrane of illness in between the different lenses and layers that constitutes the eye. And the pupil got stuck in the inflammation, and that is painful if you didn’t know.

However, there are qualities about a stay at the hospital that needs to be recognized. I got to lay down and relax without feeling even a shred of guilt about not doing something else. My stressed out self really valued this time out in my life.
People showed up and told me they care. I know I havce some fantastic friends, but having them come to the hospital still was a very sentimental treat.

warning:
On a completely other note there is a warning to be issued:

On June 9, the soccer world championships will commence. I will then turn into soccer freak Lisa, a Lisa not many of you know. I already have all the game dates written down. A .pdf of the schedule is saved on my desktop. I have translated it into an excel document to tally scores and calculate and do prognoseses (Plural how?) on how Sweden would get through with the best possible line up of opposing teams...
I warn you now, because I will not be accountable for the rambling sports fool I will become during these glorious soccer summer weeks of 2006...