Sleep, knit, return to life

It's amazing what sleep can do for you. Seriously...what a concept that is...sleep can actually make your life worth living.

I used the barking collar on Professor Friday night. Well, I didn't put it on him until the wee hours of the morning when he started his hysterics. He didn't like it at all. It's big and bulky and I'm sure it felt uncomfortable so I felt bad about it except it was about 6 a.m. and I really wanted to get some sleep. A few minutes later I heard a short bark, a pshhhh of the lemon mist and nothing more. He never tried to get back into bed and I found him on his blanket when I woke up at 9 a.m.

Last night I decided to wait again until he barked and...nothing. Not a peep out of him all night except his "indoor" voice when he whispered his bark to me asking to get into bed. I don't think this is the end of it but I've had almost normal sleep all week long and am finally beginning to feel human again.

I even took him walkies today. In the rain. It's been ages since I've had the energy to do that. And the first time I took him walking since his leg problems. Which, by the way, are a complete thing of the past. He uses that leg all the time (except for jumping up on the ottoman to get into bed on his own) and did great walking. Except he's a wee dog and with his little legs a long block is a lot for him right now. I need to get him built up to it. And it wouldn't hurt him to take off a couple of pounds either.

I finished up the Horatio Hornblower marathon tonight. I had only seen about half the episodes. I would love to see more but I guess they're pretty expensive to make so there won't be anymore. Amazing though.

I have Inkheart to watch as well, but maybe not tonight. I might watch The Secret Life of Bees again. I loved it so much I'm going to get the book tomorrow. And I ordered The Dance of the Dissident Daughter again. I would like to review it now that I've had a chance to digest a lot of things in my spiritual world. Queen Latifah is great in it. Mary, my priest, said she would pay money just to watch her walk across the room, she's that talented. I agree. And Dakota Fanning is growing into a marvelous actress as well.

I'm still working on the sweater but I made some adjustments. Oblique is mostly open lace and I don't really want a sweater that is all open lace because they stretch out so badly and aren't exactly as warm as I need for winter wear so I made the middle lace panel solid stockinette stitch. I really prefer it, especially in black. I thought about using the moss stitch for the center but the stockinette just looks better.

I haven't been working on anything else but I do want to get back to drawing again so I'm going to take my pencils up with me tomorrow instead of my knitting. Zach can leave his laptop at home so I won't be tempted to watch hulu.com instead. I am also needing to cut myself off from the internet a bit. Especially now that my energy levels are returning. I've deleted several blogs that rarely update and keeping those I consider friends even if they don't know I exist. Okay some of them do. A few are informative and I'll keep those. And several are just fun so those are keepers, too.

My biggest time waster is Ravelry though. I can live without checking it every hour or so. At least I hope I can. I don't want to give it up but I don't need to be there most of the time.

I've simply got to reclaim my life. Especially after the news my husband got today. A friend of his sister's, who was like a sister to him herself, died last week of inflammatory breast cancer. He's pretty down right now and it's hard to know exactly what to say. While there is a certain element of survivor's guilt, there is also that feeling that no one is safe and mine could come back. I've always known it, worried about it from time to time, but mostly took it for granted that it was behind me. I guess her chemo stopped working and it just slowly and painfully took her away.

I didn't know her. I had met her a time or two, even sent my favorite chemo hat to her, but our paths didn't cross much at all. Still, I'm very sorry for her family and for Gail and Tom to have lost someone they cared so much about.

It's time that I stop just muddling through my life though. I have given in to self-pity too much and have let my fears stop me from really living. I don't know how to do this, but I'm going to try. Baby steps at first, but I am going to make it this time.

TTFN