Brr - thank heavens for an afghan

G'day all!

I have been a very naughty and remiss blogger.

Ages ago, way back in July, I received the most wonderful gift.

I haven't blogged it cos I was trying to get "nice" shots of it.

I've given up on getting "nice" shots. Here's a couple of less nice shots that don't show enough of it (and btw, be careful when typing shots - i sits right next to o on the keyboard....).



Do I look happy or what? And it came with a cap, which I crammed on my head over the striped hat I was wearing when I opened the box.



A big thank you to all my friends at Green Planet Yarn in Campbell, California. I miss hanging out with you guys! I've been much too slow in acknowledging the wonderfulness that you sent me. But I am appreciative! Hardly a day has gone by when I don't warm myself under its woolly goodness. And all of the blocks came with swing tags saying who knitted them. I have to finish getting pics of all the blocks - the weather here has been atrocious for WEEKS! So windy that anything not tied down blows away. It is like we've been stuck with a vicious northwesterly for about a month. (We did have one quite calm afternoon, which I used to spray the nectarine/peach and the almond trees for leaf curl rather than getting pics of lovely things.)



I got out into the garden today. I did quite a bit of weeding. Apart from the wind, it was quite nice - a bit of sun, not too cold. Two hours of weeding and I was done for (note that I have quite some more weeding to do!). I came inside to have lunch and suddenly it clouded over and the wind picked up to gale force and well, I guess the weeds have blown halfway down the road now cos I had not cleaned up after myself - I thought I'd do it after lunch. Then it started raining but I hadn't noticed as I was playing with my new iron.



Yes, I am officially old. I was playing with an iron. It is shiny and new. It has a larger sole plate than the one I was using (an ex-housemate's cast-off complete with busted water reservoir that leaked). I ironed ALL of the material that I washed yesterday. (Strong NW wind is great for drying when it is not bringing rain!) (All except the 10m of bleached calico that I'm going to use for dyeing. Couldn't come at ironing 10m of 280cm wide calico....) I washed a lot of material, like enough to keep me ironing it for about 3 hours. (Then I was good and ironed my shirts too! A miracle!)

Would you like to see the washing line in action yesterday? Of course you would! It is more interesting than you might think 8-) It certainly shows off the sorts of material that I like. Lurid fits the bill - surprised? :-)



Something that is quite bizarre that I've noticed over the last couple of days is my armpit/shoulder/pec area is getting chills. I don't know any other way to describe it. It is like I have a chill just in one area - the peach fuzz stands up on end or does its best and feels shivery but I'm not running a fever. I am wondering if it is either the bruised/pinched nerve waking up or the slicy dicied nerve repairing itself. The surgery damaged and/or cut nerves in my armpit. I still have no skin over my tricep, or so I would think if I couldn't see it. It just is numb, except for when it is incredibly tender (neuropathic pain?). I'm not too fussed about not being able to feel much in my armpit given it keeps puffing up with this seroma. The weird feeling might be related to movement too, which backs up the idea of something reinnervating or recovering function. Or it might just be the way things will stay due to nerve damage. However given it has changed over the last few days, I hope it means things are getting better.



Another thing that I thought is interesting is I've had a lot of problems with my muscles after taxotere. I know a little bit about muscle, as should any student of physiology, and thought it might be a problem with the way the nerves talk to the muscle. Taxotere is known to cause peripheral neuropathy (numb/tingling sensations in fingers and toes) due to damage to the neurons (nerve cells), so why wouldn't a similar thing happen with the nerves innervating muscle? After doing a bit of digging around, I discovered that yes, taxotere does also attack the nerves where they tell the muscle what to do (neuromuscular junction). The nerves need to regenerate. I've noticed that if I keep doing a certain thing, I start getting better at doing it- today it was really hard to get down to the ground the first time but after that it got easier (ie not a muscle fatigue thing cos fatigue would get worse as I repeated the effort). I guess I am retraining my body. The muscles are not used to doing various of these things. The foot drop that I was developing along with the knock kneed shuffle is getting better (also part of the attack on my muscles). I've also noticed that on occasion, if muscles get really fatigued, I need to sit down and stop for 30 seconds to a minute. That's all. It seems to reset something and I can keep on going. I'm not sure how I retrain my voice though - I still can't speak without sounding like a crow or worse, a frog in my throat. I can sing better than I can speak, though I have very little range.



Flower pics are of native plants in our yard. It is gearing up for spring :-) Oh if only the weather would moderate some. It is lovely that our dams have gotten to 40.1% full for the first time in some years but please, less wind, thanks! I don't mind rain but this danged wind is driving me batty.

Remember to enter my blogiversary contest! If you become a follower, you get a second entry and if you advertise my competition on your blog, you get a third entry! You just have to let me know that you've done so.

anon!