Raggedy Ann aka Jenna

As you can see, Jen will be Raggedy Ann this year for Halloween. She looks so cute and I asked her, "What, no red wig"? She said no, that she was doing her own hair. I hope this doesn't mean that she's cracking open a bottle of "Red Penny" by L'Oreal.

Baby Pictures

I was looking at some of Sunny & Beauty Baby's kitten pix and just had to put this one up. They'll be 7 in November and still are beautiful AND adorable but just look at them when they were babies......

BOOOOO !

Happy Halloween!

Claudia came over last night to bring my SAFF yarn and also brought these adorable CAT Halloween Socks. I happen to LOVE socks and also LOVE cats (as if anyone ever noticed that) so I'll be wearing these all day today. I could wait and bring them to the hospital tomorrow and wear them there but I can't wait to get them on my feet.
NOW.....about the SAFF yarn she selected for me while shopping at SAFF over the weekend. I did post a picture of it previously but ya'll just can't really "get" how beautiful these are. The FEEL is such that you just can't take your hands off of it. Really. The gold/brown/ hank of Caravan is 65% wool & 35% camel down and it feels like something you'd like to cuddle up with when you go to sleep at night, as is the Riata which is 48% wool, 36% kid mohair & 16% silk. The hand painted Knitting Notions Classic Merino Supersock yarn is just beautiful as is the Brooks Farm Primero, 100% mohair, which will probably become a soft, yummy scarf. Claudia, you are a gem of a shopper (as well as knitter, spinner, dyer, etc.) And yes, a very loyal and true friend who always seems to go out of her way for people., but forget about all THAT. I only wish I could KNIT like her!.

SAFF LOOT

THIS is a picture of the goodies I got at SAFF. No, I wasn't able to go. These are MINE with the help of my personal shopper, Claudia. She just emailed me this picture of what she thought I'd like and I'm grinning from ear to ear. Here are her descriptions listed from left to right:
1x Knitting Notions Classic Merino Supersock (100 gr - 420yds) of 100% superwash merino wool. It is hand-dyed and very pretty - the color is called "very berry".
2x Brooks Farm Yarn Riata - each 8oz (365yds) of 48% Wool / 36% Kid Mohair / 16% Silk.Enough to make the Clapotis Shawl (they had a sample there and it looked gorgeous)
1x Brooks Farm Yarn Primero 8oz (500 yds) of 100% Kid Mohair. Enough to make this - Circular Scarf in Old Shale Pattern Stitch (I attached the pattern for you)
1x Caravan (300yds) of 65% wool, 35% camel down. I thought this is a very interesting yarn, haven't seen it anywhere before.

Now I have to get busy and finish the few UFO's I have so I'll be able to dive into this beautiful stuff. Now I ask you.....could she have picked out a better selection? Ah.......NOPE!

I'll Be In Stitches

This Thursday I'm going in for some outpatient surgery! You may wonder why on earth I would be OH so excited for something like that but what's going to happen is that my surgeon is going to stitch up the remainder of my surgical wound. I'll get the stitches out 7 - 10 days later and I should be all healed up. Wonder of wonders. The best part of this is that my wound-vac will be OFF. Permanently. I am grateful for such a device for the healing it produced but I am SO very tired of having this thing attached all the time, not to mention the extreme pain on the surrounding skin due to the on/off of the dressing & tape 3 x a week. I'll go in Thurs. am and come home in the afternoon. Happy, Happy!

Now for knitting stuff!

One baby blanket finished
Another one finished. This one is a car seat or stroller size.
This is also going to be a car seat / stroller blanket. I love how the pattern is coming out.
The socks that I knitted for Barbara fit her so well. She has this tiny foot, size 5 1/2 or 6 and I was hoping they would fit.. She LOVES socks and couldn't believe that I actually made these. ( I actually couldn't believe they came out as well as they did.)Barbara, the sock recipient, and I.

Yummy Yummy Yarn

My order from Knitch just arrived and I could hardly open the box fast enough. This is Suri Merino yarn from Blue Sky Alpacas, a blend of silky suri alpaca and soft merino wool. The Suri alpaca breed makes up only about 10% of the population of alpacas in the world making it extremely luxurious and rare, and amazingly it can be hand washed.

This is going to be a cabled scarf for one of my Docs and I can't wait to start it. The ball of yarn feels SO soft and I'm sure as it knits up it will feel even better. The color is "Dusk", a beautiful medium gray even though it looks brownish in the photo.

On The Needles, FINALLY

I've finally started knitting again, on a regular basis. Claudia's visit, it seems, blew the cobwebs out of my head where knitting was concerned.


I'm about half way thru on this baby blanket I'm making for Eileen's soon to be born 1st grandbaby, so exciting! Granted, it's a very simple pattern but one that I can knit thru taking my Darvocet. I'm using Plymouth Encore, a machine washable 75% acrylic 25% wool blend, 2 strands held together knitted on size 13 KnitPicks circular needles. I'm happy with the way it's turning out.

THEN the scarf that I've started, ripped, started, & ripped more times than I care to mention. I finallly "got" the way to do a proper yarnover and although this picture isn't stretched out enough to really see the pattern, it looks beautious. The yarn is baby alpaca that I got at Knitch.These are the dish cloths I made for Cathy, my wonderful nurse who comes here every other day to do the wound care. Boy did I luck out in getting HER, believe me. She has such a gentle touch, knows what she's doing (not all do) and is such a pleasure.

My Home Health Medical Team

For those of you who are interested this is a picture of my wound vac. Please keep in mind that the following may be a bit more information that some of you may want, so please have the children leave the room. The way it works is that this piece of rather ugly looking gray sponge is inserted into the wound. The nurse cuts it to the proper shape and to fit just inside, leaving a bit of room between the sponge and the wound itself. Then she puts on this large piece of "drape", a clear plastic film that looks like clear shelf paper with the adhesive on the back - the kind that you pull the edge of the adhesive off as you apply the film. This goes all around the wound covering most of my abdomen to form a complete seal. She then cuts a hole in the center and puts in this round disk with plastic tubing attached which is then connected to the machine. There is a canister attached to the rear of the machine which collects the drainage coming out of the wound. The machine is then turned on with the amount of suction selected on the readout, it starts sucking and then continues all day long (and all night), 24 hours a day.The cats love it, as it makes this burping noise everytime it sucks up stuff, providing hours of continous entertainment for them as they watch the little dabs of "stuff" pass thru the tubing.
The whole concept is very cool and makes sense and whoever invented this deserves to be the millionare they probably are. I was told that this machine usually cuts healing time in HALF. AMAZING, to say the least.
So I continue to carry around my little device until I'm all healed up. At first this was a REAL challange because I would spring a leak in the suction and the machine would sound this loud alarm to indicate that something was wrong. Then my canister filled up and I had to change it out, which is really very simple except that the 1st nurse who came to hook me up neglected to show me how to do this. Anyway, it's fine. We get along well but I can't wait until I'm done with it and can kick it to the curb.

MEOW-ZER!

HAPPY NEWS TO REPORT! Oh, by the way, I'm Sunny (for those who haven't met me) and I'm taking the liberty of blogging this entry since my Mom hasn't been in the mood. She went to the Doc last Friday for her 2 week check-up and he said that everything looked OUTSTANDING! What a relief. I gotta tell ya, it's really been a BIG adjustment for my sister & I since all of this started. First of all, she was gone for almost the entire month of August and then had that surgery. It takes all of my wakeful energy to tend to her. For whatever reason she definately feels the need to pat me much more often and needs me sleeping as close as possible to her all night long. Her hands are always on me, patting, brushing, pinching my cheeks (facial & hind end). At least I have my own pillow on the bed. She has one along side of her and that's mine. These things are all fine and dandy except that a cat need some private time too, ya know? Anyway, Beauty Baby & I have split the nursing detail, myself usually doing the night work and my sister taking the day shift. For some reason she has much more patience than I do during the day. Perhaps that's because I've been up most of the night on my watch. Here is a picture of Beauty Baby after her shift is over. See what I mean?
At least she can still get around to fix our breakfast and dinner, give us fresh water daily and clean our litter. I don't know what we'd do if she couldn't do THOSE things. I might have had to resort to sniffing around on the kitchen counter top to see if there might be any tasty left overs. I usually check anyway but the good stuff, ie chicken, ham, sliced turkey, cheese are all kept in that giant white lock box.
Our exterminator was here last week and informed us that we had Mice or Rats up in the attic! I'm OH SO GLAD he put bait up there or else I might have been expected to go up and do the extermination. That's where I draw the line. A hunter I'm not. I wasn't brought up to be a hunter. That's why we have strange men who go up into the attic and get rid of all those pesky rodents.
Anway, that's it. Time for a nap.

Knit Therapy

Claudia came over on Saturday, brought a feast of a lunch from Atlanta Bread Factory and we sat and ate & talked for hours. She also got me into picking up my knitting again. I don't know what it was but I had all these projects whizzing around in my head and when I went to pick up the needles my concentration and ambition went out the window. She also brought the above, 2 skeins of yummy sock yarn and some gorgous yarn she actually spun herself! She suggested that I try a pair of fingerless gloves with her yarn and told me about a pretty pattern on Knitty.com.
Her knitting is SO beautiful it's almost sinful. Beautiful even stitches, patterns without flubs, etc, etc. Also, she solved the mystery of why my yarn-overs never looked right, reason being I wasn't doing them correctly. Good reason, yes?? I've knitted several dishcloths to give to the nurse that comes here 3x a week and the 2nd cloth was a pattern with yarn-overs. It looks SO good and I'm so happy that I finally "got it". I was winding the y/o in the wrong direction. Small detail ....NOT.

Presents

Boy ya really get good stuff when you're sick. Eileen sent me a very large box of cat gifts! This beautiful cat plate with 2 matching mugs, cat salt & pepper shakers, cat spreaders and this great pitcher.
Marty sent some beautiful roses and Winnie and Beverly also sent flowers. Kim, Gerry & Rich sent a beautiful hydrangea plant. There's something about flowers that can make a crappy day turn into sunshine. THANK YOU everyone for all the cards & goodies! When something like this happens to you I can't tell you what it means when you get a funny card in the mail or when a friend picks up the phone and calls. It makes such a difference. THANK YOU to everyone to has sent and/or thought good wishes for me!

Ok, Here I Am

Ok, although I'm not looking all that great I decided to take a picture & put it up, pale complexion and sunken eyes and all. I'm feeling better slowly but surely. I even went out to DINNER earlier. Susan, Jane & John picked me up and we had a great steak dinner. It felt OH SO GOOD to get out of this house! I've even looked over my knitting and am trying to decide what to work on. I have so many UFO but I need something that takes no concentrating ability. I"m sure I"ll find something.

Feeling Better

Well, to update my situation here, my wound-vac was installed last Saturday, The first machine that was delivered was the wrong one and it took several more days for the correct one to be delivered. Go figure. Anyway, it's amazing. I hate it because it's attached 24 hrs. a day and I have to carry this devise around in a little carrying case. It probably weighs about 6 lbs. or so. I LOVE it because my wound has healed up INCHES in less than a week. Many inches.
Oh, I forgot. I had a follow up with my surgeon last Fri and he said that it looked OH, SO GOOD. Boy did that make my day!
Anyway I'm getting used to this thing. Twice the alarm on it went off, indicating either a leak in the suction or something needs attention. Last night it went off at 1am, and all it needed was it's cannister to be changed because it was full. Now I know how to change it in case that happens again. AND, of course, both times the alarm sounded had to be in the middle of the night. That's ok....I sleep during the day.
Sunny and Beauty Baby have been taking turns attending to me. As my friend Eileen said, " The day nurse & the night nurse!" One shows up and stays next to me for a few hours and then the other jumps up as if to say, oh, you can go now. I'll be here.
I spoke with Claudia the other day and will call her to take her up on her offer of her knitting/non-knitting visit. I really miss seeing her along with all the other knitters every week. Hopefully in a couple of more weeks I'll be able to drive and get myself OUT of this house on my own power. What a pleasure that will be. Really!
Anyway, THANK YOU for all your phone calls, shopping help, cat assistance, and good thoughts. It really does make a difference.