T-3 days

I did not get any cooking done today. I did not make anything today. To be completely honest, it was a refreshing change of pace. I have been so busy crafting and worrying about getting stuff done in time, this break is pretty nice.

I will be making more white roses next week. I am going to learn a few more patterns for making them. Right now, what I have looks roughly like a dog rose. They're charming, but I want to do something else that looks closer to a tea rose. It may take some experimentation.

I have two things left to wrap. It is a curious feeling to be so close to done ahead of christmas eve.

Cookies in a Jar Pages.

So, I opened up the cupboard to start getting things out to put together into these jars. I'm sure you can imagine my dismay when I opened up a new bag of flour and found bugs in it. Now, this is partly my fault because I had left it just sitting in the cupboard for months unattended to. I may be asking Beloved to pick up another bag this evening on his way home from work. I'm not decided.

I am, however, going to post links to the cookie recipes that I was going to use. In case anyone else is in a last minute rush to get something semi-homemade out the door to people as a present.

Sugar Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Brownie Mix

Present for Present Present

So, over the last few days, I have been working my proverbial tail feathers off. I have finished making several things that were relatively labor intensive. I am now at the point where I am packaging gifts. I have a few cookies in a jar recipes to whip together. The chocolate chip one actually looked kinda good. I have a few reasons for the cookies in a jar thing.

One, pretty much everyone I know bakes at some point. Cookies are super quick to make and great for the instant gratification angle. I mean, seriously, even the people who are heavy on the paleo diet thing have cookie recipes that they love.

Two, this cleans out some of my stock pile of glass jars. I have enough now that it is getting a little problematic to keep them. So, I am going to send them off to infest other houses and be useful there.

I will post links to recipes tomorrow. Right now, I need to go get myself some shut eye and try to not wake up in the middle of the night thinking that Loki is threatening to piss on me if I didn't get out of bed (to use the bathroom to piss, no less).

Nope it from Orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

I feel horrible. My abdomen feels like someone has been taking a baseball bat to me. I have been taking Tramadol for a little while. It doesn't take care of it all. I have been taking it with Aleve. This has me where I am merely grimacing in pain and swearing under my breath rather than sobbing and whimpering.

I am terrified that someone is going to decide that I am doing this all for some pills. This is a fear that is deep seated and distressing. I'll probably try to write something cathartic later. Right now, I just feel sick, anxious, and pained. I don't know what to do about it. So, tomorrow, I will be calling my doctor and attempting to figure out what the hell the next step is. In the meantime, I'm going to wish I had access to the orbital NOPE cannon.

Snood Pattern

Chain 5. Slip stitch together first and last stitch. Chain 3, Double crochet into ring, chain one. Repeat DC+chain 11x. Slip stitch together first and last stitch. Chain 5. double crochet into chain space, chain 2. repeat around. slip stitch together first and last st. Chain 5, slip st into chain space, chain 5, sl st into chain space. repeat around. slip st to center of first ch 5 loop. repeat previous round. slip st to center of first ch 5 loop. chain 7, slip st into center of next loop. repeat around, slip st first and last st together. repeat previous round until size desired.

I don't know if my notes are correct. I need to test this out. This post is a place holder of sorts for when I come back to this and attempt to rework the pattern.

Allergy Punchcard

So, I have been having a decidedly unpleasant time of things. In the course of the last few weeks, I have discovered that I have an allergy to pretty much everything tied to morphine and related opium derived medications. Two weeks ago, approximately, I got to spend an afternoon in the hospital after I had an allergic reaction to percocet and then to dilauted. (I honestly have no idea if I typed those names correctly. Let's just say they are two of the most common pain relieving narcotics used.)

It was a stroke of pure luck that I am not having a reaction to the tramodol. It acts in a similar fashion to the opium derived medications but is not derived from opium (as far as I know). I was struggling along for a few days on a combination of aleve and tylenol but the pain hit a point where it was pretty much pointless to continue on with that. The obgyn threw a proverbial hail mary pass with the tramodol and so far it seems to be working. But by itself, it is not entirely sufficient. So I am taking thereputic doses of aleve with it. My pain is still creeping up and making itself known even with these two medications.

I went in for a CT scan yesterday. The doctor has not gone over the results of it yet. I have called a few times, but they haven't gotten the results. They think that tomorrow it will have been addressed. Walking into the CT scan, I was a bit apprehensive. They asked me if I was allergic to the stuff that was in the dye. I said no, because I was pretty sure I wasn't. I mean, I have had an x-ray in the past where they injected me with dye and it wasn't a problem. Cue about a minute after the injection and I start having an allergic reaction. It wasn't hives or feeling itchy.

Nope, my throat started to burn like I drank something hot. At first I thought it was just the weird feeling of heat that went with the dye. Then my throat started to itch. I mentioned this to the nurse who became concerned. She informed me that an allergic response was going to show up within 10 minutes after the test. My itchy throat then started to feel swollen as my chest started getting tight and I began to wheeze. They dosed me with benadryl and directed me over to the ER.

I started to panic. Beloved was with me. He talked to me and held my shaking hands. My hands started tingling and the nurse assured me that it was likely due to anxiety. I sat in the ER being observed as the benadryl was working on me. I guess I was there for about two hours. Beloved told stupid jokes and talked to me to help me stay calm. After a while, the allergic response symptoms went away for the most part and I was released to go home.

This all seems like a fit of perverse humor. I have within the last six months developed an unknown seafood allergy. I am working with an allergist to figure out what exactly it is I'm allergic to. I have developed these medication allergies. Yesterday, Beloved made a crack about how I need some kind of allergy punchcard and with the tenth one I get a free dinner. I said that it would likely be sushi. Beloved laughed. I laughed at the business too, even though it hurt.

I am sick of this nonsense. I just want to be healthy. I can't even walk around my home with out being in pain. Just sitting and doing nothing hurts. I am apprehensive about what they found on the CT scan. I am trying not to worry, but I am troubled by it all.

Random aside.

How I feel when I get a new crochet hook:

Knitting stuff.

I'm still feeling awful and can barely hobble around the apartment. So, what am I doing, screwing around with yarn.

What I think I look like when I'm knitting:

What I really look like when I'm knitting:

Sophia's Headband.

I started out experimenting with yarn. Then it turned into this. Fortunately, however, it proves a super simple pattern and easy to write up.

I used lime green for the headband itself. The flower is in some random shade of purple that I got in a grab bag of yarn. The leaf is a forest green. The button was from a pack of random shaped buttons. In case you can't tell, it is a five petaled flower shape.

My yarn is all acrylic. It is worsted, sport weight. (Size 4 if you're keeping score.) I used as size I tunisian crochet hook (5.5 mm) for the headband and a size H crochet hook (5 mm( to make the leaf and the blossom. You can't see it, but at the back I have a elastic headband stitched to it.

Headband

With the green yarn and the tunisian crochet hook, chain four. Forward pass for tunisian simple stitch into each of the three chains. Return pass for the tunisian simple stitch. Row 1 done. Row 2 is the same. Row three pick up an additional stitch after the first stitch and second stitch. You should have six loops on your hook. Return pass. Row four is tunisian simple stitch into each stitch. Row five tunisian simple stitch into the first two stitches. Pick up an additional stitch between stitch four and three. Do stitch four as per usual, place marker. Pick up another stitch between stitch four and five. Finish forward pass as per usual. Row six, repeat row five, but pick up stitches along either side of center stitch. Move marker up with row completed. Continue until total stitches in row is twelve.

Work 29 rows of tunisian simple stitch, move marker up with each row. First decrease row, pick up to two stitches from marker. Stitch together two stitches before and after marker. Work next row plain. Continue alternating between decrease row and plain until four stitches remain. Work two rows of four stitches. Bind off. Single crochet around the edge of the headband.

Attach one end of elastic headband to the end with four stitches (I used a circular band and put the metal end where things are stuck together on one side. I then folded the band in half and stitched the part where the fold was to the other 4 stitch end of the headband.

Embellishment

With purple and size H hook, make a blossom and leaf as per White Rose of Resistance pattern.

Sew blossom down and add button of your choice to center. This keeps the blossom open. You can stitch down the petals as well.

Stitch down the leaf to the side of the blossom. I used a running stitch down the center in a contrasting color. This presented the image of a vein down the center of the leaf as well as holding it securely to the headband.

Obviously, weave all ends in when finished with each component and stitch things securely. I don't think this will be washing machine safe because of the embellishments. I would advise washing this by hand and allowing to air dry.