I'm still here

It's been a while since I've posted and a lot has been going on. I joined a knitting group at my church to do charity knitting. My first project was a vest for my friend Lou who just had surgery for a kidney stone yesterday. I haven't heard yet on the outcome. I'm hoping everything went well and he won't need to have additional surgery. The vest I made for him is the Entrelac Tuxedo Vest from Oat Couture. This is the photo from the pattern.


I haven't taken a picture yet of the one I made. I thought I'd wait and take of picture of it on Lou. I used Shepherd's Wool in a dark lavender as the main color with a Noro Yuzen in fall colors.

I've also made a couple more of the Log Cabin Socks that I made for my dad last year. I like to wear them in the house as slippers to keep my feet warm. It also means there will be some wicked static electricity, which doesn't thrill the kitties. I made all three pairs with Cascade Pastaza. The second pair is turqouise blue and the third is a heather grey. They knit up very fast. One sock was about two evenings of work. I also changed up the cables a little in the third pair. No pictures of those either but I do have a picture of the pair I made for my dad.



I got the new sock book by Cookie A entitled Sock Innovation last week. It has inspired me to knit socks again lately. I plan to do some stash diving through the sock yarn this weekend to start a pair. Lots of great patterns in this book.

I will soon be in the land of bifocals. I ordered them this past Tuesday and had to leave a limb behind to pay for them. I really would like to know what the markup is on frames. The lenses I can understand being a little pricey, but the money they want for a pair of RIMLESS frames just seems to be a little much. This is not fine jewelry guys, although you seem to think they are!



I ordered them with a saddle bridge which doesn't have the nose pads. I got the progressive no line lenses. Wish me luck in getting use to them. At least they were having a so called sale when I got them. They were advertising buy one, get the next pair free. What they were really offering was buy one, get the next pair free (up to a $200 value). I think this was a bait and switch deal. What glasses do you know of that are $200 or less!?! Unless you want to look like you bought your glasses off the back of a truck in an alley. Anyway, since I couldn't afford another complete pair of glasses, I talked them into giving me the sunglass clips that go with my glasses for free. Those weren't cheap either by themselves. I still think they made a nice profit in the deal.

I'm now dealing with my third abdominal hernia in the last ten years. This one isn't as bad as the last two, but does hurt on occasion (especially when I overeat). At least it's good incentive to not eat too much. I've been loosing some weight by eating a better diet and that has helped curtail the pain a lot. I talked to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and had originally planned to have the surgery in mid April. The last time I had this surgery they put in a mesh to cover the hernia and the new one is now popping out just above the mesh. This means bigger mesh and bigger scar. bleh.. Since I needed to get my glasses, I couldn't do both right now. I'm going to save a little money before having the surgey done so I can pay a good chunk of my part outright. Even with my insurance it's going to be pricey.

The pollen at our house has been so bad lately it looks like I have a yellow car in the morning when I leave for work. I'll be glad when it's over and so will my sinuses and eyes. Check out this picture and it will show you how bad it's been.