Have I been a total blog "fail" or what?! Let's give this another shot
About four years ago, maybe four? I had a big problem with getting systemic hives... Hoooboy! Covered my entire body, swelled my eyes nearly shut, and made my heart race.. Definite allergic reaction.. But..to what? I went to a really fantastic allergist and found out that I have a whole laundry list of allergies (ie: Cats (duh!), Trees (birch, maple, oak, pine - you know, all the ones in my back yard), cockroaches (I've never even seen a roach in real life, so I wasn't too concerned about that), DUST MITES (this one is freaky as hell, since you canNOT get rid of dust mites, no matter how clean one's house is.. and my house is clean as heck, thanks to my husband's diligent efforts), and mold. Yeah, I know... everyone seems to be allergic to mold...but I could end up in the hospital from any of these allergies. Yep..anaphylaxis.. happy, huh?
After a full year of the immunological shots to try and build a resistance to these allergens...my allergist (he really is one of the best in the area, from everything I could dig up about him) told me that I wasn't building resistances...that I was/am a "Severely Allergic" person and he could really do nothing more for me.... Well, hell...
So I stopped going. Why pay for the shots and go to their office every week if there wasn't anything more he/they could do for me?
Now, three years later... I'm going through all of it again. Not the shots, but the hives and incessant allergic reactions. The only thing keeping me sane is that it's not closing my airways.. I dont really know what I'd do if it were closing off my breathing...you kinda have to be able to breathe, ya know? I had, back during the first time, five different prescriptions to keep the allergies down... My GP, now, doesn't want to hear that... Nor does he want to hear that the Zyrtec, one of the best meds for hives, only works for 8-10 hours, not the 24 hours that it does for 'regular' people. The allergist had me taking a prescription allergy med twice a day by mouth, plus the eyedrops, nasal sprays, etc...so I figure taking Zyrtec twice a day probably wont kill me (picture me crossing my fingers here).
I've had extremely high hopes (really got it stuck in my head) that I could honestly be "chemical free" (medication wise, at the least) by this spring. I got off of all the other stuff.. especially the SSRI that I'd been on for NINE years...(they now say that the one I was taking, you're only supposed to be on it for six months at a time - oh YAY!) with the help of a really fantastic psychiatrist who doesn't believe that I ever needed it (I have anxiety, not depression, though the ssri did help alot with the anxiety, if only masking it so I just didnt feel it - I'll go into this another time, when I'm more fired up about it.. you know the whole "outrage" thing). I WAS down to just taking a synthroid for my hypothyroidism (man, it sounds like I'm just a mess all over the place, doesn't it? I'm really not LOL) and the occassional Advil for a headache....then the hives hit. Now I've added the Zyrtec and Zantac (did you know Zantac actually has antihistine properties to it?!) to my regimen...twice a day...every day... ugh.
Over the last month, I've really had to try to get it into my head that I'm not going to be 'chemical free' in the next few months. It's surprisingly difficult to do so... I guess when I get something in my head, it just kinda sticks...like flypaper...
*****
In other news, I'm knitting like a MACHINE!!!!!!! LOL Not my words, either..a friend on FB has called me that, and the other ladies in my knitting group have a good chuckle at how fast I get things done... All but one of those ladies, though, have real life jobs...working the 9-5, so to speak, except one..and SHE has a baby who's about to turn a year old.. That, unto itself, is a full time job, as I well remember. I have some 12hours or more to knit each day...so yeah! I get alot of knitting done. I should be covered completely in handknits, shouldn't I?! .. yeah, not so much. Things seem to "happen" to my knitting... the Husbeast, God(s) Bless his heart, tosses laundry in, if he's down there and happens to see I have a few things for the wash... It's amazing, how quick wool turns into felt... DD2 wont wear handknits anymore ("Oh, how gauche!"), so the shrinkage isn't going to help her wardrobe..and DD1 has pretty particular tastes, too :) Neither of these things is necessarily a bad thing... its just frustrating.. So GoodWill gets alot of felted items LOL
I've been on a HUGE sock kick this month... Four pairs so far! Amazing, huh? I've been digging through Rav (Http://www.ravelry.com) for Harry Potter inspired patterns.. Look up "Monkey Toes" under the "People" tab.. awesome designs!!! I did "Fawkes" while we were on vacation last year, recently finished "Bellatrix" and hope to start "Nagini" sometime this week :) I even bought a ball of Opal in this lizard-green color to work on "Nagini" when I was able to get to the Cornwall Yarn Shop (http://www.cornwallyarnshop.com) about a week ago :D CYS makes me a happy woman... Best dang yarn shop I've been in.. probably ever! Gail, the proprietress is just the sweetest, most kind shop owner I've ever known. She's been a tremendous help to me, with my allergies, in helping me find yarns that are minimally processed... Plymouth Yarn Co., one of the larger yarn companies, is discontinuing my favourite of their yarns. It's called "Homestead".. a heavy-worsted/aran weight wool that hardly made me react at all!!! ...discontinued. I posted on the Plymouth FB page of my disappointment and got pretty much a shrug and a "Sorry, Charlie". Dont get me wrong.. I wont stop shopping Plymouth's yarns. Galway, a worsted wool, is a lovely yarn and I'll continue using it...and Encore cannot be beat, really, when it comes to wool/acrylic blends for baby/kids items. I just realllllllly liked the "Homestead" and "EcoCashmere" that they'd offered for a while, and I'm *realllllly* disappointed to see them go. Since Gail had found out about the dicontinuation, and knowing my intense favor for this yarn...ANNNND knowing she'd end up discounting it to replace it with a new offering.. she gave me the lot of what she had...for half price!!!! OH MAMA!!!!!!!!! So I got seventeen (SEVENTEEEEEEEN!!!!) skeins of Homestead for just under 60.00 :D I hadn't meant to purchase that much yarn, that day.. but jeeze.. how the heck could I resist!? The yardage is pure win, so I'll get probably two basic sweaters out of it, plus a cowl and a pair of boot socks LOL
Gail - I LOVE YOU!!!!!!
OTN (On the Needles) right now - "Chandail Cardigan" by Triona Murphy. Working it up in LionBrand's Cotton-Ease (trying to not aggravate my allergies, so I'm playing with the cotton/acrylic blend) on US 7s
The needles I'm using are "Knitter's Pride- Cubics" in the US 7/ 4.5mm size. (http://www.knitterspride.com) I'm not usually a fan of wooden needles..they slow me down... but these needles are preeeetty awesome. I'm having a tiny issue with keeping the joins screwed in as I work, but the general work around (I have a full set of KnitPicks in each of the Nickel, Harmony, and Acrylic) is to add the tiniest drop of clear nail polish to the cable end before screwing it into the needle tip. I got this tip from...somewhere...it's been so long that I dont remember who said it worked for them, but it seems to hold them together a little longer then just using the screw key, which is what I've been doing this time around.
I like these needles. They're smooth and look lovely. The tips are good and sharp, and they dont slow me down as much as regular bamboo needle does..but they aren't as fast as the nickel plated (no matter the brand). It's pretty awesome that these tips fit the KnitPicks cables... Definitely a fan of THAT. I'll continue using these needle tips for this cardigan and get full use of them... For someone who likes a good wooden needle.. these, you will like :D Makes me wonder how they'd do when working with lace or cobweb weight... ooooh, something else to try! YAY!
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