2017 Turdnado

Hello from this last day of 2017. My brain is doing the fun thing of reflecting on all the disappointments of the past year. There were some positive moments, for sure, but generally it was a downhill slog. The thing I feared happened: most of the gains I'd worked for evaporated as my health deteriorated. Plus our collective psyche has been damaged by the toxic political climate, hitting all of us in very personal ways.

I try not to focus on the strength that allowed me to persevere. It's a mixed blessing, and one that makes me appear more independent and less alone than I am. The losses of this year hit me hard--lost health, lost friendships, lost long-term relationship--and adding them to my life-long grief list doesn't feel good at all. I'm not sorry to be alive and sane, don't get me wrong, but life is still tremendously difficult.

Practicing good self care helped, though. I finished and wore the Water breakup shawl last week: it's very soft and cozy. I'm unabashedly my own weird self. And friends online and in person are the joy in my life.

Water posed on my Christmas tree

Top left: April's Peepicide; Top right: brownies for Sweetie

Bottom left: Xmas tree; Bottom right: my new hat!

Instead of looking back I'm focusing on Jan 5th's Awesome Rheumy appt. The thought of her examining my hands makes me want to cry, but at least my symptoms are visible? I have no idea what the next step will be. Brain in a jar is sounding pretty good right now but she probably has a couple ideas before we take that step ;) Being able to walk, think, sleep soundly, and socialize are my giant unspoken goals.

If this post sounds conflicted...well that's because I am! Teetering between optimism and realism, trying to hope for the best while bracing for the worst, living in the moment unless that moment is miserable in which case distract-distract-distract, and questioning the meaning of it all: that's me summed up in one terrible run-on sentence.

May we all have a better 2018. May love win.

December catch-up

Ok. It's been a busy couple months for all my usual reasons. In November I caught a nasty cold. After two weeks that morphed into a persistent cough and a sinus infection lasting another week plus. But I'm recovered! finally Now it's just my own immune system kicking my butt, which I'm actively not thinking about until Jan.

I returned to the pain clinic in Nov as well, the one that cold turkeyed me off morphine in 2013 thus trashing my hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This time I got two new meds that didn't help and made me miserable. I won't be going back there! Hopefully the resulting night sweats decrease enough that I can stop changing pjs nightly and leave the towel in the bathroom.

In early December I visited a friend in Centralia for a long weekend. We had a lot of fun and it was a perfect break :) I was able to drive down, too, which was fantastic!

This year I put up my first-ever Christmas tree and it's very cheery. We all need a sign of hope this year so I knit a pussyhat for top. And since I'm an internet dork, a glittery teal dear decorates the base. Ella, remarkably, has shown zero interest in all of this.

In knitting news, I knit this winter's #resist hat. It worked up fast in worsted wt yarn.

Knit hat with "feminist killjoy" in rainbow letters.

And more ornaments, taking advantage of the 8 days each year that I'm motivated to knit such things ;)

It's been a hard year but it was filled with love. May you all feel cherished this winter.