No knitting, but....

I went to the Same Day Clinic today and had my rash looked at, and the NP's diagnosis? "Um, I'm not exactly sure at this point what it is, but it looks to be a reaction to a medication". Thanks. I can see why they're paying you the big bucks. He told me it was good I went off the BC pills, and to watch the rash for another week or so and if it doesn't go away by then to come back in. Eh.
But the nurse that took my info beforehand was so!nice! I was explaining to her that the rash may be stress-related, and said how I was diagnosed with Grave's at the end of last year, blahblahblah. When she went to take my blood pressure, she saw my tattoo and said, "How pretty! Who is it in tribute to?" And I told her it was my Mom, who died a few months ago. She finished my BP reading, wrote some more stuff down, and asked me, "Do you swear?"
?????? I said, "Excuse me??"
"Do you swear?" Yes, I replied. "You've had one hell of a year, haven't you?" she asked. I had a good laugh. I said yeah, I have. When she got up to leave, she said she hoped the rest of my year went better for me. What an awesome caregiver.

Better late than never

I promised a photo, and here it is:



I got my first tattoo! This was taken immediately after it was finished, so the redness you see here is gone now. The dates are my Mom's--I've always wanted a tattoo, but could never decide what of until she passed away. Then I knew the perfect first (and hopefully only, if my hubby has his way) tattoo would be a "tribute" to her. My sis drove out to be with me, and took lots more pictures, which I'll probably post when I get my copies from her. I drove down to my Dad's this evening to show him, and he was really impressed with the design, which made me feel good. I'm just so proud of myself to go through with it...I am such a baby when it comes to pain, but this was tolerable, and I could see myself getting another one (shhhh, don't tell hubby, but it would be my cat Taffy with a string running down to a ball of yarn with knitting needles sticking out of it). As you can probably tell, Sir B is not a fan of tattoos, at all. But he's just keeping his mouth shut, because he knows he can't tell me what to do or not do, plus he knows how much this means to me.

Liz asked about a thyroid update: nothing new, really. I should be getting back my test results this week to see what my levels are, but my hand tremors are going away, and my anxiety is lessening, which is great. Doc keeps asking me if I want to do the radioactive iodine treatment, and I keep saying no.

My (crap) vacation weekend

I got to go away this weekend! Sir B and I went to Chicago for some R&R.....er, kind of. I don't think you could buy R&R anywhere near Chicago. The traffic--sucks. The parking--sucks. The construction--sucks.

The food's good, though.

We had tickets for Blue Man Group Friday at 4:00. We got to our hotel (in Lincolnshire) at 3:00 (because Sir B said he wanted to check in first & we had "plenty" of time), left the hotel at about 3:20, got into Chicago at 4:45, and couldn't find a parking spot anywhere. Yep. We missed the show! Crap. We drove around a bit, got more frustrated, and headed back to our hotel....when I proceeded to scream out "THERE'S BOB CHINN'S! Let's go there for dinner!!" And hubby, bless his heart, quickly turned us around and took me there. Awesome awesome food. Expensive, but wonderful. I hadn't been there in years, and he's never been, so it was a real treat. I had lamb chops and king crab legs...mmmmmmmmmmm. He had steak and lobster. And we brought home a gallon of their famous Mai Tais. Yep, we splurged, and we deserved it!

Saturday we went to the Field Museum, wandered around lost most of the time (that museum is not laid out well at all), and in keeping with our theme for the weekend, closed early. Crap. So we didn't even get to see everything. The last section we toured was the Indian Exhibit, and to cheer Sir B up I noticed most of the Cree Indian clothing mannequins in the displays were missing, so I joked they were all on break, or left early. We cracked each other up going on and on about the "lazy Cree Indians" as we walked out. Gotta look on the bright side, right? We went to Medieval Times for dinner, which was OK....the service was lousy, though. Crap.

Sunday we had no plans, so we ended up going to Woodfield mall for the afternoon....and got stuck in horrendous traffic on the way there because of an accident. Crap. But we didn't leave the mall empty-handed. There's an Apple store in Woodfield--we got an AV cable so we can play downloaded shows on our TV, and each got cases for our IPods. Then we headed to RAM for dinner, which is a steakhouse and brewery. Yum. Sir B wanted to see The DaVici Code, which was really good. Now I have to read the book!!

And here we are at home now. Sir B's asleep on the couch, and I'm blogging in between doing laundry. Sigh. Taffy stayed at "Grandpa's", and she and Taz had to learn to get along for four days. They did fine, after a bit of hissing and swatting on Taffy's part, they started ignoring each other. Since Stitch-In on Tuesday, I've been working on a moebius cat bed (the Red Rose pattern) for Taffy with my Cascade Quatro. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure! I'm double-stranding the Quatro, using green and purple for the moebius at the top, then I'm going to use green and blue below that, then blue and purple for the bottom. I'm hoping, when it's felted, for a kind of tie-dye effect. Pictures to come, even if it's horrid looking.

And lastly, I had a great dream about my Mom the other night. I showed up at a family party and she was there, but everyone was acting like it was no big deal....only she and I knew she was dead. I went up to her and gave her a big, long hug, then held her hand. And I could actually feel her hand! I was contented when I woke up, but when I told Sir B about it, I started to cry.

I noticed last week I had some weird red bumps on my inner elbow, and by Thursday I saw they had appeared from my right elbow to armpit, down both sides of my torso, and on my upper thighs. WTF?? It doesn't itch at all, but looks nasty as hell. I think it's starting to go away, but it needs a few more days before I can be sure. I'm thinking it's an allergic reaction to the new birth control pills I'm on (and am now OFF of, thankyouverymuch), but I'm not positive. Dr. gave me "Yaz" to try...I don't know if anyone else has heard of problems with this pill?

I'll have pictures to post tomorrow, but not knitting pictures! ;) And even though I dragged my digital camera with this weekend, I didn't take one photo. Eh.

*sniff* I have Knitter's Block

I cannot get going on a project now for the life of me! I swatched for the Lady Eleanor in Cascade Quatro, and unless I doubled the yarn, it wasn't going to work. It just looked....wrong. So, that yarn will get turned into something else (I'm thinking a kitty bed or sweater(s) for little Jakob). I'll find out tonight at Stitch-In if it's just that the Lady and I don't get along, or if I'm having a problem with starting a new project in general. And no, I still haven't felted my bag yet.
I'm hoping to get my Amazon.com order soon...I'm getting Big Girl Knits and Pursenality Plus, and something for Sir B. What is with Amazon taking soooo long to ship anymore? I remember when I used to order stuff and get the super saver shipping and have it within a week! Now it's taking at least three weeks. Ugh.
I know I won't be around Friday to blog, so...happy one year blog-iversary to me! I cannot believe it's been a year already. And what a year, too.
Have a great week and weekend, all. I'll have lots to tell next week!!!

Now....how do I get down from here?!

Booga booga

Here is the 2x Booga Bag I'm working on. I got the rest of the yarn to finish it yesterday, hopefully I'll be done with it tomorrow! I like the way the colors look with the bag (they came out a bit brighter in the photo)...I just wasn't in love with it as the entrelac stole. Speaking of which...


These are the colors I'm going to use for my new! improved! Lady Eleanor stole.


...and I'm thinking socks will be started soon from this yarn. I got it from my last secret pal, and it's a really pretty variegated brown.

Lots has been going on here--blah blah doctor's appointments blah blah counseling blah blah.. nothing terribly exciting. Hopefully it won't take me so long to post again!