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I'm not sure how long I've blogged at HSB but it's been a while.  I've so enjoyed the people I've met here and I've appreciated the opportunity to have free blog space.  All this is to say that I won't be updating my blog here anymore.  I have way too much trouble accessing the site and I just don't have the time to wait for the site to load (yesterday it took upwards of 30 minutes before I just closed it down).  I have two other blogs that I update regularly (with roughly the same content):  http://lorislightextemporanea.blogspot.com and http://www.xanga.com/immax3 .  The Blogspot blog has an rss feed (for those of you who like that feature) but the Xanga does not.  By the way, thank you to those of you who have published an rss feed on your blog.  When HSB did the last browser change and it cut off easy access to figuring out who'd updated their blogs, that rss feed (and Bloglines) was a godsend.  Please consider publishing an rss feed if you don't already so I can keep up with you.

Blessings to you and yours as you do what the Lord commands!

Lori aka SlackerMom

Well.

It's been quite a whirlwind couple of days.  Last night Friend Gina and I had our little knitting confab.  I've made the executive decision to call it Our Own Knitting Group (OOKG).  I'll let y'all know when Friend Gina comes up with a spiffier name.  It was too fun.  We met at a local Starbucks (first time I'd set a toe inside one), stayed there almost until closing, knitting, talking, and cackling.  Well, I cackled.  Gina, being a lady of fine distinction, even if she does hail from Michigan, does not cackle.  She did, however, laugh when she saw The Bag.

Well, she wasn't laughing at The Bag.  I don't remember what she was laughing at but it made a good picture nonetheless.

She also showed me the second sock, of the two she is currently knitting.

She also showed me the utter cuteness of the swatch she's doing with her adorable sock yarn but I did not photograph it.

So, last night, amongst the cackling and imbibing of caffeine which I truly needed, I finished The Bag.  This morning, I tucked in the ends and began the felting process.

Now, the last time I felted a bag, I committed a Cardinal Sin.  I allowed the bag to go through the entire cycle.  Twice.  I was disabused of this idea through several discussions with Friend Gina this week and resigned myself to much sogginess of wool and other irritations.  As Friend Husband was leaving (late) for work this morning, I had a brainstorm!  If I put The Bag under the wheel of the car as he was pulling out, surely it would squeeze out more water than I was capable of doing manually, and would therefore dry The Bag more quickly!  I ran outside as he was about to pull out and said, "Wait!  Would you run over this bag for me?"

I wish I'd brought the camera to record the look on his face.

Being Friend Husband and accustomed as he is to my hairbrained schemes, he recovered quickly.  "Sure!" he said as I wrapped The Bag in a towel and placed it behind the back wheel of the car.  He ran over it, said, "I helped!" and scooted off to work.

Sadly, Abby was not happy with the amount of shrinkage that had taken place in The Bag, so she asked me to felt it again.  Back into the hot wash, but this time, I figured a way to just turn the agitator on instead of the whole shebang and it took much less time.  Then I rewrapped it and ran over it with my car a few times.  Yes, I did take a bizarre delight in doing so.

Oh, I have to relate this:  When I brought The Bag in for Abby to inspect, she held it up in delight, then said softly, "Oh.  This is sort of foul."  I had to roll on the floor with that one.  She comes up with the funniest things to say.

Anyhoo, The Bag is now happily sitting out on the front porch swing, sunning itself in preparation for being Abby's penpal's birthday present.  Of course, me being me, I didn't finish it until the very last minute (we'll see them this afternoon) but at least it's finished.

And for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow of the birth of The Bag.  Happy Weekend!

Currently Listening Bob Seger - Greatest Hits By Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band see related

Thursday Thirteen may have to wait until tomorrow.  It's been a skanky day, probably because I started to crack down on the girls and they hate that.

Anyway, look what came in the mail today!

WordlessWednesday

Although we did not get the storms that they did in the northeast yesterday, we had the wind.  Naturally, the children wanted to play outside.  So we bundled up and played out in the "fresh" wind.  I tried to knit but the turquoise thread was just determined to snarl up.  I spent hours untangling thread and speed knitting to try to knit in the thread that wasn't tangled.

For those of you interested in felting, here is a link sort of describing it.  I'm sort of running out of time so I couldn't find a better one.

And here is the bag last night:

I'm sorry.  It's just the whole shooting thing again.  What's up with our society anyway?  Of course, you never know when it's going to be your time to go but when I kiss my husband goodbye in the morning, I don't expect him to be killed at his university.

Does anyone else look for escape routes and plan for emergencies like the one that happened at VA Tech yesterday?  I do.  I think it's sick that I have to prepare to do something to help my children in such a situation.  Such a sad, selfish waste of life.

Bleah.

Well, now that I'm recovering from the hives (thank you, God!), let the race begin.  Not only the race to try to get my house back in order after 4 days of utter neglect but a race to get one of those cute little felted bags done for Abby by the end of the week.  She asked me to make her one but she needs it when she needs it.  I'm thinking it's doable, or I wouldn't have agreed.  I'll post a picture later on of what I did last night.  I've got to run now...y'all have an excellent Monday, if such a thing is possible.

Edit:  here's the picture of what I finished last night.

Spring in Siberia, with Steroids

This is April, isn't it?   

Since it's too cold to garden and I've been so stinking hyper on these steroids, I power-knitted the Buttonhole Bag, and felted it yesterday.  Here are the pictures.  I'm just so proud!!!!

David got his stitches out Friday.  Happily, my doctor called in a scrip for steroids that day too...I feel like writing her a formal thank-you note.  I was so so miserable and today is the first day that I've felt half-way human.  Better living through modern chemistry!

David was being goofy tonight and I thought I'd take a picture, looking toward future extortion opportunities.

My daughter is a member of Ad Deum II, the trainee division of a Christian contemporary dance company. She will be participating in Project Dance in New York next weekend. (http://www.projectdance.com) We covet your prayers for good weather, effective ministry and encouragement for the dancers.

How do you feel about using dance as worship and ministry?

We have come across many Christians, including those in our own church, who equate dance with sin. I don't believe that this is a Biblical view of dance. The times that dance is mentioned in the Bible it describes times of praise for things that God has done. God says in Ecclesiastes "there is a time to dance." Many Christians today do not believe that there is ever a time to dance. My daughter finds it very discouraging in trying to use her gifts and talents as God has equipped her and be condemned by her fellow Christians. I have encouraged her to use her talents for the Lord, as I do with my pottery.

It seems to be such a difficult road to be different from those around us, both believers and unbelievers!

Why didn't you people tell me that hives knock you out?  I depend on this information from you, you know.

Man.  Ok, so I broke out in hives Tuesday (or sometime Monday night).  Went to the doctor.  She said, "Oh yeah, those are hives," and prescribed some antihistimine, followed by the ominous words, "If it's not better by Friday, call me."

Yeah, ok.

It wasn't better by Friday.  I tell you that I have not spent so much of the night awake since I was in graduate school and I sure wasn't scratching myself raw then.  This stuff is worse than poison ivy.  At least with poison ivy, you can use the blow dryer trick and make the itch stop for a time.  No heat treatment for hives, it makes them spread.  The pharmacist recommended a 1% lidocaine spray.  I asked him, "Does this really work or is this what you're recommending so I'll go away?"  He said that, no, it really works.

Not.

Neither did calamine lotion.  Nor did mad scratching.  ARGH!  I did, however, try varying combinations of calamine and lidocaine and benedryl (at night).  Nothing worked.  At last, Friday arrived and I called the doctor bright and early, even before taking the girls to play practice and David to the pediatrician to get his stitches out.  Did they call me back?  Of course not.  About 3 ½ hours later I got a call from the nurse saying that the doctor was going to call in something that I didn't catch.  Yeah, ok, whatever.  By that point, I was too sick to care what happened.

Somehow I managed to get all the children home and fed.  Then I put the twins down for a nap and tried to sleep, to no avail.  I did finish one book that I was reading and get halfway through another.  Once I realized that the twins weren't going to go to sleep, I cast about for something to do until Friend Husband got home.  Something that wouldn't trash the house or make me work too hard, because I wasn't up for that at all.  I decided to take them outside and let them (all) run around in the warmth and sunlight.  Inspired choice.  I huddled in the shade and attempted to stay conscious.  Friend Husband, who was driving all around Cincinnati trying to find us a van to buy, called in on occasion and asked for more time to do so and I just said, "Yeah, whatever."  Sounds like my approach to most of the day.  At one point he asked me when I'd feel well enough to go to the pharmacy and get my prescription.  Um, let's see...packing up 5 children, including 2 hyperactive toddlers and driving to a grocery store to unload them and go inside to get medication.  How about in my next lifetime?  He got the picture and told me he'd pick up my meds and bring them by when his travels brought him near the house.  Yeah, whatever.

The night proceeded:  dinner and a bath for the twins, attempting to stay conscious for me.  Friend Husband brought home my goodies, which turned out to be almost the exact steroids that David is on.  Fine and dandy.  He urged me to partake of the marvelous Chinese food he brought home and to take my pills.  By this point, I didn't even want to eat (and you know I have to be very very sick to not want to eat) but I ate something and took my pills like a good girl, feeling all the while that they wouldn't help anyway.  He went back out on the van search and I put the twins to bed, where they proceeded to dump stuff all over their floor and get to Abby's treasures on the top bunk.  If you're guessing I didn't care, you're right.  Because the plague was spreading.

My saving grace before was that the hives didn't reach the bottoms of my feet or inside my mouth.  I had them on the tops of my feet and a few on my face.  Now they hit the bottom of my feet (and you know how lovely that was...to have something intensely itchy on the most ticklish part of your foot) and my lips.  The lips thing really scared me.  The doctor had said that if my tongue started swelling, I needed to call immediately and I wondered if it was the next thing to go.  I took the precaution of reminding Sarah what to do in an emergency (like Mom passing out, for instance), and attempted to breathe through the pain.

Now I've said many times here that Lamaze breathing is no good for labor.  I had 3 9+ pounders and the last two I had without any drugs.  I've got amazing pain tolerance but to "breathe through the pain", pffft!  I have found it very useful for dealing with the children after they come out or dealing with other stressful situations.  But for labor pain relief, pffft.  It did help with the pain from the hives, though.  It was weird, the pain would come in waves (sort of like labor, actually) and I could stand there and breathe through it and it would go away for a while.  That was nasty.  I thought about it for a while and realized that I had not had enough compassion for people who have chronic pain.  I don't know how they do it and I understand now why it cripples your whole life.  I took the rest of my steroids for the day and went to bed.

Glorious glorious sleep!  But first, amazing hyperness!  Steroids do that to some people, including me.  I couldn't go to sleep for the life of me, so I went into the living room and knitted a few hundred rounds on my buttonhole bag (not really, but it seemed like it).  I was finally able to go to sleep around 1 AM...but it was so very worth it.  I slept through the night.  No scratching, no mad rush to throw on more lidocaine for the 30 seconds of relief it provided.  Ahhhh...This morning I woke up in a much better frame of mind, and was much less itchy.  I'm very very tired and very very loopy but at least I'm not doing St. Vitus' dance.

I still have Sean Astin's lips though.  If you find him, could you tell him to come get them.  I don't want them anymore.