cardi and more stuff about me
G'day all!
As you may remember, I am making a blue cardi. I was a bit crook on Friday and did not go into work cos I was sick of being a bit crook and took me to the doctor.
It is amazing how much of the front I knitted whilst waiting two hours to see a doctor. I did about 4 waist shaping increases, the stretch to the arm hole, the arm hole shaping, and all the way to the top! Then I did the first 40 rows of the next side of the front.
At least waiting that long had one good benefit - the dr prescribed a one-shot antibiotic that wipes out Giardia. I have been *much* better since then. Hooray! This problem has been plaguing me since I went to Western Australia way back in September! I was tested for it (look, you really don't want to have to be tested for it cos a) it is yucky and b) the tests aren't very good cos they have to be lucky to see the rotten little sodding parasite in the, ahem, samples you provide). I cna pinpoint where I got Giardiasis too - I remember very clearly thinking ooops after using the local water on the Nullarbor to brush my teeth and rinse my mouth out with.
Then we watched the extended version of Return of the King after borrowing the DVDs from nathan's parents. We watched half of it on Saturday night and the other half on Sunday. I knitted like a demon whilst watching the battle scenes - I hope it is even enough cos I was getting a bit tense and upset. LOL! And tearful on occasion: Faramir's troops going to to fight a battle they could not possibly win, the charges of the cavalry (ok Riders of Rohan and the Knights of Gondor, such as remain) against the huge numbers and the oliphaunts. Even things like Eowyn being one of the greatest warriors of Rohan. I've turned into a big girlie wuss!
I sat down and listed the things I am currently working on (read have worked on in the last week):
Dang it! Can't find a picture of Brasil/Brazil by Filatura di Crosa anywhere. That is the eyelash yarn I made the scarf from. Google can't find it! FdC does not seem to have a website. It is gobsmacking to me that I cannot find a pic of it. Guess I'll have to get a shot of the scarf itself, but hold your horses for that!
Do you think I am in a blue phase? Well I am not! It is just coincidence. i am dying to start the pink and creamy white cardi so that I have something semi-decent to wear with my new pink skirts and tops at work when the air-con gets over-excited (which happens a lot). I bought a pair of bright pink and white patent leather shoes for, get this, a WHOLE FIFTEEN DOLLARS, yes $15 today. Man do i like my new shoes!
Enough blathering. Do you want more of the things about me? You'd better!
More things about me
Last we listed anything, I had talked about some of my early life but glossed over most of it. After all, I didn't really start living until I was in second year at uni. OK. Let's do this first kiss thing. Hope M doesn't mind - haven't seen him for at least five years, don't know where he lives now or what he is up to.
8. My first kiss was on a bus by Syndal station. So what? Well, I was 19.5 years old. Most people have worked out the kissing game by then but not me. I did not talk to boys then. M turns to me and tries to land a kiss on me just as the bus jolts to a halt. LOL! It was YUCKY! Slobber everywhere. I think I giggled most of the way home.
9. I am a biologist. I always have been. I used to love watching bugs and rarely worried about picking them up (though I learned to stay away from some cos they release nasty smells). I would follow ant trails from one end of home to the other. Various of my pets have included cats, budgies, fish and terrapins. Plus a range of poor little skinks that would die ofstarvation cos I could not find enough of the foods they eat (mostly insects). I watched all the gardening shows and natural world documentaries on TV that I could. "Life on Earth" made David Attenborough an ongoing hero to me.
10. I would love to meet Sir David Attenborough and have him as my mentor.
11. I loved planting things and watching them grow. I still do. I can remember planting beans in the back yard with the old man when I was five or six and every day I'd go outside and encourage them to grow.
12. I learnt quite early that if you keep digging seeds up, they don't grow so well.
13. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I loved watching pretty much any TV show about space, whether or not it was true. Carl Sagan's Cosmos simply blew me away. I loved the original Star Trek, and tried to be Spock for a whole year when I was fifteen. (So what if I was blonde, female and not exactly a Vulcan?) . It seemed that to be an astronaut, one had to be a jet fighter pilot with perfect eyesight. I have really crap eyesight, so I could not be an astronaut via normal routes. So I decided I would cure cancer. Nothing like setting your sights high!
14. It is sad that Carl Sagan is dead for he is the other chap I would have loved to have met and had as a mentor. His vision and ability to explain complicated concepts was amazing.
15. When I got to uni, I discovered that I had to be good at chemistry to do immunology. I was not interested in chemistry and did not do well in it. Same with maths. I really enjoyed zoology, botany, physiology, genetics and geography (particularly the history of man and biogeography). This did not lead to a career in immunology and curing cancer.
16. By the time I finished my undergrad studies, I had no idea what I wanted to be. I did not get top marks in any subject because I still never really studied effectively or pulled out all the stops. I did enough to earn credits, but not distinctions. The thing I was best at doing was learning. So I decided to do honours.
17. Genetics honours was a disaster. The topic I chose was one that was normally run by someone who was said to be the BEST supervisor in the faculty. Only he went on sabbatical and I ended up with someone I did not get along with at all. She despised me from the moment we met. I hated doing any work to please her, and it didn't help that her star student was in the same lab as me and we had to share the one set of equipment (which meant that if she got in first, which was inevitable cos she was in by 7:30 every day, she got the equipment). I ended up going and getting a full time job with Social Security. They were delighted that I had come to work for them - someone must've gotten my scores in the test you had to sit. It was pure drudgery but it paid me some money. Maybe I should've held out for a better job in an area that was interesting to me!
18. I nearly went out with the brother of the girl I was sharing the lab with.
19. I went back the next year and did honours in Physiology (more anatomy). I could only attend two days per week as I had to work. My parents were on the old age pension and struggling to keep me. Mum always insisted that I should not have to work. She had had to leave school at 14, even though she was a very promising student, to help support her parents and younger sister. Honours was the first time I was truly challenged, and I had my supervisors on my back to keep me on track. There were other problems at home too.
20. Mum died of cancer when I was completing honours. She had first been diagnosed when I was with M. Part of her bowel was resected, she did some chemo and refused to go back for followup. Four years later she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. When they scanned her, they found tumours through her bowel and stomach. The bowel cancer was back with a vengeance. Lots of chemo followed but after 8 months we knew what the outcome would be. We had been watching Mum slowly get worse and worse. She had always seemed so healthy and able to do anything, but she could
not even go shopping any more. The cancer had spread to her lungs and she could no longer breathe without oxygen supplementation. Nearly 11 months after the second cancer diagnosis, after a long and agonising fight, Mum died. Her sister had died of breast cancer 6 months earlier. Margie had not had breast lumps checked out and the cancer had spread to her bones. It was a shockingly painful way to die - simply touching her or the weight of her own body was breaking bones.
21. Having seen two people I love die so slowly and painfully has made me an advocate for informed euthanasia. I would like people to have the choice of ending it when it gets too much to deal with any longer. Mum fought to the bitter end - her last words after days of delirium were "I hope you don't think I am going to die!" No Mum, we don't. We did not think she was going to die, we knew.
22. When Mum died in the hospital, I was at home washing the dishes. It was about 7:25pm. Most of the family was there except for my father and brother I think. I heard Mum call me from the loungeroom. I looked up at the clock, put down the washing sponge and started taking off my gloves, then realised she could not have called me. A couple of minutes later we got the phone call.
Hmm, what a cheery note to end on. Ah well, things get better I think from here on up!
Pictures next time - I am nearly done with the blue cardi! Plus the amazing eyelash scarf.
anon!
As you may remember, I am making a blue cardi. I was a bit crook on Friday and did not go into work cos I was sick of being a bit crook and took me to the doctor.
It is amazing how much of the front I knitted whilst waiting two hours to see a doctor. I did about 4 waist shaping increases, the stretch to the arm hole, the arm hole shaping, and all the way to the top! Then I did the first 40 rows of the next side of the front.
At least waiting that long had one good benefit - the dr prescribed a one-shot antibiotic that wipes out Giardia. I have been *much* better since then. Hooray! This problem has been plaguing me since I went to Western Australia way back in September! I was tested for it (look, you really don't want to have to be tested for it cos a) it is yucky and b) the tests aren't very good cos they have to be lucky to see the rotten little sodding parasite in the, ahem, samples you provide). I cna pinpoint where I got Giardiasis too - I remember very clearly thinking ooops after using the local water on the Nullarbor to brush my teeth and rinse my mouth out with.
Then we watched the extended version of Return of the King after borrowing the DVDs from nathan's parents. We watched half of it on Saturday night and the other half on Sunday. I knitted like a demon whilst watching the battle scenes - I hope it is even enough cos I was getting a bit tense and upset. LOL! And tearful on occasion: Faramir's troops going to to fight a battle they could not possibly win, the charges of the cavalry (ok Riders of Rohan and the Knights of Gondor, such as remain) against the huge numbers and the oliphaunts. Even things like Eowyn being one of the greatest warriors of Rohan. I've turned into a big girlie wuss!
I sat down and listed the things I am currently working on (read have worked on in the last week):
- the blue cardi
- Nathan's blue socks
- the blue, pink and mauve lacey wrap that I have not mentioned before
- a felted bag in black and beautiful sea colours (ie more blue!)
- the blue and white thrummed mittens that I started in November
- the purple diagonal scarf(NO BLUE! but close....)
- a jazzy lurid green eyelash scarf to replace the one I gave away at Christmas (it has little bits of blue in the underlying bobbly stuff)
Dang it! Can't find a picture of Brasil/Brazil by Filatura di Crosa anywhere. That is the eyelash yarn I made the scarf from. Google can't find it! FdC does not seem to have a website. It is gobsmacking to me that I cannot find a pic of it. Guess I'll have to get a shot of the scarf itself, but hold your horses for that!
Do you think I am in a blue phase? Well I am not! It is just coincidence. i am dying to start the pink and creamy white cardi so that I have something semi-decent to wear with my new pink skirts and tops at work when the air-con gets over-excited (which happens a lot). I bought a pair of bright pink and white patent leather shoes for, get this, a WHOLE FIFTEEN DOLLARS, yes $15 today. Man do i like my new shoes!
Enough blathering. Do you want more of the things about me? You'd better!
More things about me
Last we listed anything, I had talked about some of my early life but glossed over most of it. After all, I didn't really start living until I was in second year at uni. OK. Let's do this first kiss thing. Hope M doesn't mind - haven't seen him for at least five years, don't know where he lives now or what he is up to.
8. My first kiss was on a bus by Syndal station. So what? Well, I was 19.5 years old. Most people have worked out the kissing game by then but not me. I did not talk to boys then. M turns to me and tries to land a kiss on me just as the bus jolts to a halt. LOL! It was YUCKY! Slobber everywhere. I think I giggled most of the way home.
9. I am a biologist. I always have been. I used to love watching bugs and rarely worried about picking them up (though I learned to stay away from some cos they release nasty smells). I would follow ant trails from one end of home to the other. Various of my pets have included cats, budgies, fish and terrapins. Plus a range of poor little skinks that would die ofstarvation cos I could not find enough of the foods they eat (mostly insects). I watched all the gardening shows and natural world documentaries on TV that I could. "Life on Earth" made David Attenborough an ongoing hero to me.
10. I would love to meet Sir David Attenborough and have him as my mentor.
11. I loved planting things and watching them grow. I still do. I can remember planting beans in the back yard with the old man when I was five or six and every day I'd go outside and encourage them to grow.
12. I learnt quite early that if you keep digging seeds up, they don't grow so well.
13. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I loved watching pretty much any TV show about space, whether or not it was true. Carl Sagan's Cosmos simply blew me away. I loved the original Star Trek, and tried to be Spock for a whole year when I was fifteen. (So what if I was blonde, female and not exactly a Vulcan?) . It seemed that to be an astronaut, one had to be a jet fighter pilot with perfect eyesight. I have really crap eyesight, so I could not be an astronaut via normal routes. So I decided I would cure cancer. Nothing like setting your sights high!
14. It is sad that Carl Sagan is dead for he is the other chap I would have loved to have met and had as a mentor. His vision and ability to explain complicated concepts was amazing.
15. When I got to uni, I discovered that I had to be good at chemistry to do immunology. I was not interested in chemistry and did not do well in it. Same with maths. I really enjoyed zoology, botany, physiology, genetics and geography (particularly the history of man and biogeography). This did not lead to a career in immunology and curing cancer.
16. By the time I finished my undergrad studies, I had no idea what I wanted to be. I did not get top marks in any subject because I still never really studied effectively or pulled out all the stops. I did enough to earn credits, but not distinctions. The thing I was best at doing was learning. So I decided to do honours.
17. Genetics honours was a disaster. The topic I chose was one that was normally run by someone who was said to be the BEST supervisor in the faculty. Only he went on sabbatical and I ended up with someone I did not get along with at all. She despised me from the moment we met. I hated doing any work to please her, and it didn't help that her star student was in the same lab as me and we had to share the one set of equipment (which meant that if she got in first, which was inevitable cos she was in by 7:30 every day, she got the equipment). I ended up going and getting a full time job with Social Security. They were delighted that I had come to work for them - someone must've gotten my scores in the test you had to sit. It was pure drudgery but it paid me some money. Maybe I should've held out for a better job in an area that was interesting to me!
18. I nearly went out with the brother of the girl I was sharing the lab with.
19. I went back the next year and did honours in Physiology (more anatomy). I could only attend two days per week as I had to work. My parents were on the old age pension and struggling to keep me. Mum always insisted that I should not have to work. She had had to leave school at 14, even though she was a very promising student, to help support her parents and younger sister. Honours was the first time I was truly challenged, and I had my supervisors on my back to keep me on track. There were other problems at home too.
20. Mum died of cancer when I was completing honours. She had first been diagnosed when I was with M. Part of her bowel was resected, she did some chemo and refused to go back for followup. Four years later she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. When they scanned her, they found tumours through her bowel and stomach. The bowel cancer was back with a vengeance. Lots of chemo followed but after 8 months we knew what the outcome would be. We had been watching Mum slowly get worse and worse. She had always seemed so healthy and able to do anything, but she could
not even go shopping any more. The cancer had spread to her lungs and she could no longer breathe without oxygen supplementation. Nearly 11 months after the second cancer diagnosis, after a long and agonising fight, Mum died. Her sister had died of breast cancer 6 months earlier. Margie had not had breast lumps checked out and the cancer had spread to her bones. It was a shockingly painful way to die - simply touching her or the weight of her own body was breaking bones.
21. Having seen two people I love die so slowly and painfully has made me an advocate for informed euthanasia. I would like people to have the choice of ending it when it gets too much to deal with any longer. Mum fought to the bitter end - her last words after days of delirium were "I hope you don't think I am going to die!" No Mum, we don't. We did not think she was going to die, we knew.
22. When Mum died in the hospital, I was at home washing the dishes. It was about 7:25pm. Most of the family was there except for my father and brother I think. I heard Mum call me from the loungeroom. I looked up at the clock, put down the washing sponge and started taking off my gloves, then realised she could not have called me. A couple of minutes later we got the phone call.
Hmm, what a cheery note to end on. Ah well, things get better I think from here on up!
Pictures next time - I am nearly done with the blue cardi! Plus the amazing eyelash scarf.
anon!
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