No countdown this year

I'm just not up to it.  Maybe next year I'll do a deer widow countdown again but I'm tired and cranky and still not feeling up to par.

I may have actually reached the pinnacle of this danged flu or whatever.  It's developed into a sinus infection at this stage so I'm still coughing and have a headache on one side (where the infection is) but I'm taking whatever is necessary to get rid of it. 

I managed to get some plastic up on the bathroom window amidst some very bad language due to the tape not sticking after I attached the plastic to it and then getting all tangled up in plastic and tape.  I finally took a scrubbie from the kitchen and "sanded" down the paint a bit and the next time it stuck.  I've gotten the worst windows covered now and will try to tackle one window a day until I've got them all.

Beyond that I haven't managed to get much done in the way of cleaning.  I got my room a bit straightened up and moved the bed away from the wall and window so I can set out a humane mouse trap sometime after this week.  I'm not focusing too well just yet so I don't want to forget the poor thing and leave him to starve in the trap.  They've got them at StuffMart for under $5, which surprised me.  (To avoid getting hits from people who are looking to put the hate on a certain superstore, I've changed the name to protect my blood pressure.)

I managed to trash my flannel sheets over the summer.  They fell off the chair I had them stacked on and got wet and the mildew ate through them so I ended up buying some knit sheets for $20 today.  I can use these year-round, but it gets mighty cold at night here and those cool, crisp cotton sheets won't do.  I got bright red because it was better than black or white...the only other colors available for a full sized bed.

Zach has been working steadily today doing his chores, which let me off the hook for a day or two.  Tomorrow I need to get busy on the kitchen and living room though.  I don't rest easily if the house is cluttered.  The kitchen floor badly needs mopping and since Tom isn't here to spill kool aid on it as soon as I'm done, I think I'll be able to enjoy it beyond one day.

I'm making progress on my mom's new mittens/flaps.  I'm going to frog the hat I made myself because it doesn't fit well and looks terrible on me.  I'll dig through my patterns to find something that doesn't have ribbing.  Any hat that has ribbing just rides up my head and slides off.  Apparently my head is shaped wrong for hats or something.  I'm also working on a ripple afghan and am more than halfway done on it.  I got more yarn today that should be enough to finish it up.  I hope so anyway.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it but I'll probably just put it up in a plastic bag and save it in case I need a gift.

I also started my mom's scarf...just a 2X2 ribbed scarf of 32 stitches.  I've got one and love it because it's double the weight and reversible and tends to stay in place better than a wider one.

I've been watching documentaries and Doctor Who all weekend, getting lots of knitting done.  I also managed to dry a load on the clothesline yesterday.  I brought it in as the sun was setting because I didn't figure it would dry anymore during the night and rain was predicted for later today.  It was a good thing I did as it rained before I got up and has been misty all day.  Only a few things were a bit damp and I hung them on hangars under the heating vent in the kitchen and they dried quite soon.

I just got back from the store stocking up on munchies and quick meals to fix while Tom is gone.  It's as close as I get to a vacation so I'm taking advantage of it.  But this year we won't eat out as much.  Zach wants pizza from Pizza Hut so we'll grab one to take home, saving on the sodas that cost at least $2 or so apiece.

Well, I'm coughing again and starting to feel crummy so I'm off to bed for more crocheting or knitting and maybe an early night.  Okay, probably not an early night.  I tried that last night and woke up coughing after about 20 minutes and was up until the wee hours after that.  I'll just stay awake until I fall asleep from sheer fatigue.

TTFN

So glad I got that flu shot

I may survive this yet.  I'm still waking up to cough a lot but I'm feeling a bit more aware and awake.  Tom just left for deer hunting but since the season doesn't start until tomorrow morning, the deer widow posts won't start until then either.  Today I'm just going to lie around and knit.  I have hot dogs for supper but I'm still not back to normal (what's that???) so I don't feel like doing a lot of cooking.  I have great plans to do a lot of cleaning while he's gone but that may be a case of overestimating my stamina.  We'll see.

Off to nap for a while and then watch a ton of stuff on the dvr before it gets filled up and get some knitting done.  I ended up giving Tom my mother's mittens/flaps and scarf to give to his brother's wife for letting them have deer camp at their cabin this year.  I couldn't find anything at the store that didn't look last minute or obviously from StuffMart.  So now I have more mittens and a scarf to knit for my mom.  In deep red this time.

I'm also crocheting a ripple afghan because I had a craving for one.  I used to crochet afghans all the time.  In fact, I've got some here that have survived intact for over 22 years.  And they still look in pretty good shape in spite of frequent usage.  Red Heart supersaver.  Which is what I'm using now.  I'm using up the yarn I bought to make hats and scarves.  I'll need more, for sure, but getting a couple of skeins a week won't break me.

Although we are close to being in dire straits from the hunting trip and a few unexpected expenses.  We're going to have to hunker down into tightwad extreme in order to pay the first installment on the property taxes.

On the bright side, Matt Smith (Doctor Who #11) is growing on me.  I'm enjoying him as the eleventh Doctor.

TTFN

Cough, hack, sneeze

Yes, it is the flu after all.  I'm so glad I paid good money for a flu vaccine so I wouldn't have to endure this.  I know part of the problem is having a compromised immune system that I fully intend to work on as soon as I get some sleep and start hacking all over the place.  Which I hope is very soon.

I got some knitting and crocheting done yesterday in addition to some sleeping.  Not much sleeping last night due to the above coughing, hacking and sneezing and only one tiny nap today.  I'm sure by tomorrow my ribs will be sore from all this coughing but tonight I'm still using those chest muscles quite often.

I'll try to be more interesting tomorrow but if you don't hear from me, I'm still in bed coughing, hacking and sneezing.

TTFN

And it wasn't the flu

It's just a cold and I'm on the upswing now, feeling much better in spite of my stopped up head and some coughing.  I felt like crap this morning so I went back to bed and slept until noon and felt much better for the extra sleep.  Tom is feeling better, too.

I managed to get a load of clothes washed but it started raining so I didn't put the clothes out overnight.  I'll hang them out tomorrow morning.  I also worked in the kitchen but I'll mop the floor tomorrow.  I'm trying not to overdo it today.  I also did some more winterizing...plastic on windows and some better curtains hung over the entrance to the foyer.  But after supper, I'm crashing because I don't want a relapse.

I'm working on the rasta hat from Knitty Gritty and will work on my poncho/tabard as well tonight.  And maybe the sweater.  I should spin but I think I'll do that tomorrow.  It involves me sitting up and as I'm still feeling a bit puny, I'd rather recline while knitting.

Supper is almost done so I'm off to eat and then crawl into bed.  Hopefully I'll get an early night tonight and some refreshing sleep as well.  My plans are to finish up the plastic on the windows and get some laundry done.  I might have to make a trip to the library as I've got a dvd in.  I'm nearly out of wet cat food but I'm not sure if I trust myself to stop off at the store.  I'll see how I feel tomorrow.

TTFN

So it wasn't the little blue pill after all

Apparently it wasn't the little blue sleeping pill that made me feel so cruddy yesterday.  It was the flu!  So much for the flu shot I got a couple of weeks ago.  I had felt "flu-ish" but because I had had the shot I didn't think it was the flu but just a reaction to the OTC sleeping pill I took.  I ended up dozing off and on last night until about 5 a.m. when I finally got into a deep sleep that lasted for an hour and a half before Professor tried to wake me up.  I ignored him and he crept back into bed under the covers where he lasted until 8 a.m.  Tom tried to take him out but he wouldn't go.  He waited until I got up at 10 a.m.  Then I went back to bed for another couple of hours.

I spent a lot of time last night clearing my throat due to a tickle that finally became a cough about 3 a.m. and I've been coughing ever since.

So I ended up going to the store after all because Tom has been sick for a few days but hasn't mentioned it to me, trying to tough it out.  He didn't have anything for a cold so I just went ahead and did the shopping, including the stuff he's going to take with him hunting, because I hadn't realized that he leaves this coming Friday for that.  I shouldn't have to go back at all until next Sunday now.  I made sure to get a lot of staples for cooking.  I can bake my own bread though as I didn't have enough room in the freezer for more bread.

I didn't do a lot of knitting yesterday because I felt so crummy.  Any naps I took made me feel worse but the sleep I got between 5 and 12 seemed to do the trick and I've managed to stay awake the rest of the day.

I finished up Zach's hat a few minutes ago while watching one of the 20 episodes of Doctor Who I've got dvr'd.  I managed to watch The Lovely Bones last night, without knitting or anything.  I really liked it but I want to read the book, too, which is always out at the library.  I should put a hold on it so I can finally read it.  Or get the audio version.  It's in.  I'm going to start the afghan again.  I didn't like the red background with the green Green Man so I'm going with a green background and a red Silvanus instead.  But my size 8 needles were too big for the yarn and I just found my size 6 circulars so I can start it.  I should finish up my mittens tonight as well.  Then I've got to plan a hat to go along with them.  Or a scarf.  I only have enough yarn for one choice.  I'm thinking a rasta hat.  There's a pattern on the Knitty Gritty site for one.

I have plenty of yarn to make some scarves but they won't match my mittens but that's okay.  I wear scarves around the house a lot while I'm puttering around cleaning.  If my neck is warm and I'm layered, I'm in good shape and can keep the thermostat down.  I've got it on today because of Tom and me feeling puny.  So far Zach is okay, thankfully.

I'm making chili tonight for supper.  It's wet and cold and rainy and windy out and I can't think of a better day for it.

Off to finish reading the paper online so I can go back to bed.  I'm really enjoying not spending time online.  Getting tons of reading and other stuff done.

TTFN

Swearing off the little blue pill

No more OTC sleeping pills for me.  I couldn't wake up today and slept away most of the day.  And I don't feel refreshed at all.  More like I'm coming off a flu or something.  And my fibromyalgia pain is bad today. 

I did manage to clean up the back hallway and wash the rugs, which are drying on racks in the basement as it's raining outside.  I also got plastic on the back door but that was about all I could handle today.  I'll be surprised if I sleep at all tonight because I'm just now waking up.

Tom, of course, had to work again today.  He's been working 6 days a week for months now at the same cutback salary.  He's so tired on Sundays he sleeps most of the day but he is going to try to change the oil in the vehicles tomorrow.

I forgot to get a bunch of stuff at the store that would work to make up some inexpensive meals this week but I'm not going back until next Thursday because the insurance is due the end of this month and Tom will be taking some cash up with him for deer hunting so the only thing I have that I can cut is the food budget.  We won't starve or anything like that.  I do have a lot of food stocked up but I just don't have spaghetti or tomato sauce.  I thought I had some already so I didn't get more.  There are other meals I can fix in the meantime.

I finally finished up the LOTR watching for the year so now I'm going to watch Farscape with all its behind-the-scenes stuff and commentaries.  I'm making progress on Zach's hat after some trial and error and am on the homestretch with the last mitten.  I should pull up some of the other projects and get back on them as well, especially the sweater and poncho/tabard.  Those I could be wearing sometime soon because the weather is cooling off again.  Still don't need the heat but in a short time, I'm sure we will.

I managed to watch an Inspector Morse I hadn't seen before.  I knew there were some at the beginning I'd missed and the library didn't have them, so it was great to see a new one.  I still miss John Thaw but I'm glad we have his work to still watch.

I also have a ton of Doctor Who episodes on dvr that I should start on this weekend.  I need to get back to spinning so that would be a good match.  Spinning and Doctor Who.

I didn't get up with Professor at all last night and I heard Tom trying to get him to go out this morning but he wouldn't go out until I got up to let him out.  But I didn't get up until I was ready to.  I've no idea why he does that but frequently he'll bark at me to let him out (in his indoor bark) but won't let Tom or Zach let him out.  Instead he hops up on the bed and sits on top of me as if he's expecting me to protect him.

I'm finishing up The Shining, too.  I haven't read it in a while and I think it's one of Stephen King's best so I grabbed it off my bookcase when I didn't have any library books to read.  After this, it will be a Hamish Macbeth season.  I love the books, in fact, more than the television show.  But I do like the tv show as well.  Who wouldn't like Robert Carlyle?

Well, supper is ready.  My old standby of fast food:  homemade macaroni and cheese.  I just cook up some macaroni to al dente, layer in macaroni and cheese (with butter) in a 9 X 9 inch pan with a hefty layer of cheese on top, add milk and cook it in the oven until the top is crusty.  We love it.

Hope tonight is better than the past few nights but it will take a while to re-train Professor that I'm not his personal assistant and at his beck and call.

TTFN

Enough is enough

Drat!  Another all-nighter which left me dragging all day.  I think I will pop one of the over the counter sleeping pills tonight to see if I can get back on track with sleeping.  I have a lot of work to do and it's not getting done, not to mention there is much I could be doing in the way of frugality that unfortunately takes energy I don't have.

Something has to change because I just can't keep doing this.  I love my dog but he's not letting me sleep again.  Aside from locking him in the bathroom, which isn't an option, I don't know how to change this.  He's been waking me up two to three times a night to go stand on the porch and just look around.  He's not wee-ing out there.  Just observing.  If I don't get up he barks at me.  I think I'll just put the pillow over my head and ignore him tonight.  I have to change his habits once and for all.

I did get some knitting done in between naps today. Mostly on the remaining mitten.  I'll probably work on Zach's hat tonight as a change.  And maybe the poncho/tabard thing.  I'm going to finish it. 

Very soon I need to wash the rugs from the back hallway and get back to winterizing the house.  It's not too bad so if I don't get the plastic up the next day or so we'll still be fine.  I don't anticipate using the furnace for a while.  We did need it for a couple of days but the weather is still warm enough we don't need it now.  Maybe I'll make it to Thanksgiving before we need it again.

Off to find my little blue pills and read for a bit before watching some dvr stuff and then an early night if the pills work soon enough.

TTFN

After the sleepathon

I'm feeling a bit more rested which should be the case since I've slept so much the past couple of days.  I just couldn't stay awake much.  I went to bed at about 6:30 last night, slept for a couple of hours, was up for a couple and then back to sleep for most of the night.  With the exceptions of getting up to let Professor out for a wee.  Three times.

There is so much I need to do here but I really thought it was just best to stop feeling guilty over it and obey my body's requests and just rest.  I'm starting to feel a bit better so I hope to get much done in the next few days.

I've decided to go ahead and put the plastic on the windows because it will bother me all winter that I haven't done all I can.  But in light of the spring weather we've been having it's just as well I haven't done that yet as we've had to open up some of the windows.  So starting tomorrow...plastic.

Also I need desperately to dust and vacuum.  We have dust elephants here.  And they're not months' old.  They're just in the past week.  I have no idea why we get so much dust here.  Unless it's the prairie wind we get all the time.

I'm also nearly done with the mittens.  I've started a hat for Zach.  Just one for indoors so I'm trying to figure out a decorative, but manly, design.  We've both got really good hats for outdoors.  Not flattering, but warm.  We also need new shoes or we're going to be falling on our behinds first snow.  Neither of us has any tread on our athletic shoes anymore. 

And my dvd player quit reading dvds the night before last.  I tried a dozen different dvds (considering it had worked just fine the night before) and finally put them in the dvd player in the living room where they worked just fine.  So I trudged upstairs to get Tom's dvd player, which he never uses, and lo! and behold, it wouldn't read either.  And it's under a year old.  Both of them Magnovox.  Zach googled and saw that Magnovox has a lousy rating and bad reviews because of the same problems.  So I got a Sony dvd player last night.  Not an expensive one though.  I hated spending the money on it but I have dvds at the library that I had to pick up and wouldn't be able to watch.  I did try to put the Emerson dvd player from the living room in my room but we no longer have the original remote for it and for some reason it wouldn't load up without me using the menu.  And the universal remote didn't have all the correct buttons to disengage the menu.

So I'm considering this my Christmas/Yule present for the year.

I saw a show on loom knitting today that made me want to buy one but I couldn't justify it.  What I did consider, though, was making one of my own, especially as I could use pegs the size I wanted.  The looms at StuffMart were for bulky knitting and I don't have any bulky yarn.  Well, not much anyway.  I have one skein I've hung onto for about 5 years.  I might use it to knit a pair of slippers for someone. 

I dug through my wips and decided I like the poncho anyway.  Especially as I'm nearly done with the back. I saw a poncho/wrap on Knitting Daily that I liked and thought I could make modifications to my poncho that were similar and make it more a tunic rather than a poncho.  Which I do like the idea of very much.

My houndstooth sweater seemed to look at me pleadingly when I got it out so I might need to start working on my old projects as well as the new ones.  I can rotate them so I don't get bored with them.  There are just too many patterns out there.

Supper is on the stove so I'm off to finish it up.  Then I'm crawling into bed to finish up my commentary on LOTR and watch the stuff on dvr.  Tom sat down with me yesterday morning and watched Mysteries of the Museum from the Travel Channel.  He liked it.  Tonight I'm dvr-ing a hunting show for him on PBS that is about the new rules and herd activity in Wisconsin.  I seriously thought about getting a dvd-r instead of just a dvd player but they still cost a bit too much so that will have to wait until we are better off financially.  Ha!  Like that's ever going to happen.

One must remain positive though.  I must believe we won't always be in dire straits like this for the rest of our lives.

Off to finish cooking and then dig into the pile of Hamish Macbeth books I got from the library today.  I'm really enjoying not being online much.  Except I do miss the social interaction.  I do still have friends I'm in contact with but I don't spend any significant time on message boards anymore.  I'm hoping my blood pressure will go down as a result. 

TTFN

She keeps knitting even if she gets nothing else done.

I did remember to go online yesterday but I couldn't think of a thing to say beyond, "I'm tired,"  and "I hurt."  I'm getting tired of writing it so I can guess you get tired of reading it.

I've finished up 4 sets of mittens and have finally started mine.  I also started a blanket in spite of saying I didn't need another one because need has nothing to do with it.  I just want to knit one.  I'm using a graph of the Green Man as the center and plan on using Yggdrasil Afghan for the rest of it.  I'm using red background with green (duh!) for the Green Man.  It doesn't show up as well as it would if I had the colors reversed but I think in the long run, this is what I want.  I could be wrong.

I haven't done any spinning lately.  The kick spindle sits on the piano and tries to snag me as I walk past it to walk into my bedroom.  So far I've avoided its grasp but tonight I need to pay attention to it.  I'm making good progress.  I should be done with my pound of Welsh Top by January.  Then I'll learn dyeing.  I plan on dyeing before plying because I think it will make a more interesting yarn.  I'm also going with kool-aid dyeing as I don't want to start with any harsh chemicals just yet.  In time I'll get there, but not yet.

I also need to get back to my other projects before I forget them and have to frog the whole thing.  I've totally lost interest in the poncho though.  I doubt I would ever wear is so I might go ahead and frog it.  I have enough to turn it into a long sweater, which I would wear.  Or a cape.  We'll see.  For now I'm focusing on what I already have going.

I have some clothes on the line and more in the basement.  I should get out and swap them as the ones on the line are dry now.  Still dealing with the debilitating fatigue though.  I am not getting much of anything done at all.  Zach is going to fix supper tonight.

I have to run to the library Thursday.  I tried to renew A Touch of Frost but someone has it on hold so I must do a marathon to finish it up  After that I've only got one episode of Doctor Who on the list.  It's the second part to The End of Time where the Doctor regenerates to Matt Smith.  Then I can start watching the new season.  Which they rerun on BBCA.

I have tons of documentaries on dvr because I'm trying to restart my brain.  I'm also studying some spiritual things and some things about nature.  I think my brain is starting to retain a bit of what I'm reading and my concentration is getting better.  My mind didn't bounce back from chemo very quickly.

Off to finish up the laundry and then on to bed.  I love it that it's getting dark by 4:30 p.m. these days.

TTFN

How did I do that?

I can't believe I didn't go online yesterday.  In fact, I didn't even think of it until the wee hours of this morning.  I had a spectacular day of laundry, winterizing and knitting and crocheting.  I made another snake for the windows but I'm thinking of putting plastic on anyway.  I keep thinking of the daylight hours with the windows leaking heat like a sieve.  Even with the snakes.

Professor went awol yesterday.  I swear he put his cloak of invisibility on when I went to let him out the back door because I never saw him.  Next thing I knew he was panting his "kill chipmunk" pant in the neighbor's garage.  Fortunately he came when I called him.  Normally he will just stand at the door waiting for the click of the leash on his collar.  Who knows what called him out and made him go against his training?

Now that it's winter we are having a battle of will over shutting the front inside door when the dog is out front.  Someone maintains it's just for a couple of minutes while I maintain in those couple of minutes we're losing a lot of heat which, like, costs money.  I suspect we will have this battle all winter.  We always do.  I have been known to go down to the basement in the middle of winter and find someone has opened up the basement windows because it's stuffy down there.  For someone who complains about not having enough money, someone is sure cavalier about making sure we're not throwing money in the trash.  'Nuff said.

I put suet out yesterday.  I think it's cold enough the birds need it now.  I found it in a case of ten at much cheaper than by the brick.  I haven't seen them use it yet but some of it is missing.

I hung out two loads of clothes yesterday that dried beautifully in the brisk wind.  But I'm not going to hang out the white clothes anymore because of the time it consumes and the number of little items and the need to have underwear that doesn't feel like cardboard.  It does help to heat up the house so I'm not feeling too frivolous.  At least not today.  The colored clothes will definitely go out on the line or the racks though.  Every little bit, you know.

I got some sleep two nights in a row but this morning I woke up (due to the front door not being shut when Professor went out) early and couldn't get back to sleep.  Fuming doesn't help one relax enough to sleep, you know.  I'm not feeling energetic today like I did yesterday so I'm convinced sleep is the key to getting control of my fatigue.  Now how to manage to get sleep.  That's the biggest problem.

As much as I hate to go to the store again today, I'm going anyway.  Mostly because I need to be alone for a while.  But also because I have run out of gel pens, which I use to write in my journals and such.  I've always been a bit picky about the pens I use to write with.  They must be dark black, medium point and thick to hold.  When gel pens came out I thought I was in heaven because they are perfect for my needs.  I used to be so bad about writing that I would tear a paper out of my notebook if I made a single mistake on it.  And do it over until I had it perfect.  Now I scratch mistakes out and just go on.  Frugality has a lot to do with that.

I also want to look around for something to hold my mother's Christmas scarf closed.  I didn't make it long enough to wrap around her neck because they really don't warm you up much that way.  Just something around the neck under the coat.  But I'd like something like a shawl pin only smaller to close it so it doesn't flop open.  I might look in the hair accessory section.  Or the craft section.

And of course, more plastic for the windows.  I hate the process but I'll rest better knowing I've done all I can to keep the heat in and the cold out.

Off to eat some breakfast before I go.

TTFN