Blogger

I am having All Sorts Of Strife with Blogger. I don't know if it is cos of this little notebook not having enough sense to do stuff, or whether Blogger is playing up.
Maybe it is Blogger. A lot of people emailed or Facebooked me to say they had tried to leave a comment here on my recent posts and weren't able to.

I have been trying to make this page a bit less fussy. And having all sorts of bothers. It even yelled at me that I didn't have cookie settings in the right place. BUT I HAVE! Well, I have now...

So, if one day, you should come to read my blog and all you find are bare rooms with the furniture piled in the garage, drop cloths over all the floors and empty coke bottles and lolly wrappers lying on the floor you will know that I have got the painters and decorators in. And not done a runner with the rent money tucked down my bra.

What do you reckon about the font I have managed to change - the title, description and the labels here? The font is called Kransky. I like it cos the boys used to LOVE eating cheese kranskies. Except they called them cheese krankies...

Blog etiquette

There is a blog I have been reading a lot lately - mostly cos her clever ideas kept cropping up on Pinterest - The Art of Doing Stuff.

Karen makes me laugh with her writings - and her funny photos. She never gets boring with them - there are only so many ways a blogger can show you how clever she is at making something.

Or there is Karen's way...

Take, for example, her blog on How To Fix  A Slamming Screen Door.

Three and a half hours - AND THIRTY SECONDS - to get a screw driver and turn a screw.  That 30 seconds at the end is the "Fix" part of the "How To"!
Made me laugh heaps.

She has a fabulous post on How To Properly Re-Post Something for the rest of us bloggers out there (out here) in blogland.
If you have a blog you MUST go and read it. Useful information.

http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/how-to-properly-re-post-something

I just wish I could drag a photo off her page so that you will get hooked like she says I have to but I can't figure out how to do that with this funny little bit of computer that is the size of an A4 page but more useful. And my brain ditto size of A4 but currently less useful...

And when you have read that and taken it in, and bookmarked it so you can add it to your own blog (CREDITING KAREN OF COURSE) then - only then - can you look at this posting of hers.
Though not before you also make a cuppa tea and get some bikkies and settle somewhere cosy cos you will be gone a while.

http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/best-of-the-blogs

P.S. I hope the person who lifted one of my photos from my website that has "Copyright" all over the site, used it in a money making exercise and then emailed me afterwards to tell me they had used it and 'hope you don't mind' will read it. Grrrr. YES, I DO MIND - I make money from my photos. If I so choose.

And also the people who just take other people's pictures, mostly from Pinterest it seems, and repost them as "Lovely kitchen/bedroom/bathroom/frock/whatever" and nothing else on their blogs... Well, lovey, that aint bloggin' - that be borin'!

Ailing....

I have been back to see my GP a couple of times since I last wrote, made an appointment to see a cardiographer, and had a bucketsworth of blood tests.

So, the heart thing is ongoing, BP still a bit elevated (but nowhere near the 190/100 that it was when I first went to see her!!!) and there was a bit of a worry that I may have some heart damage, even perhaps a little stroke. I don't think so in light of blood test results.
I have CMV - CytoMegaloVirus.
Which is a nasty little virus in the same family as Epstein Barr Virus (EBV is more commonly known as Glandular Fever), chicken pox (and all the other Herpes cousins). HERE is a link to some government official type info about the whole box and dice of CMV.

Although maybe up to 80% of people in 1st World would test positive to CMV I haven't ever had it. I tested negative in a blood test a couple of years ago when we were trying to work out why I was so tired and feeling crappy. Compared to what I was feeling then now I feel triple crappy. Maybe quadruple crappy.
Because of my previous health record - all the Chronic Fatigue/Fibromyalgia stuff as well as the cousin of that bleeding syndrome I also have (seems memory loss is also part of CMV...sigh) I have been well and truly felled by this bout of bugness.

All I do is *sleep, make a cup of tea, sleep, drink cold cup of tea (urk), sleep, check Facebook, sleep, 'nother cup of tea, sleep, Pin something on Pinterest, sleep, knit a little bit, sleep, more sleep, toast* repeat from * to * . Sometimes I cry cos I want my Mum.

And this might go on for weeks more.
I am not sick of being in bed.
Yet...
It is really quite cosy. I have a feather down mattress topper, and lovely sheets and then a feather doona with a pretty floral cover.
Lots of feather pillows to fluff up behind me and a couple of little ones on which to prop the notebook I am using to keep me connected to the world.
Enough room on the bed to have a basket of tapestry wools to use for the Sock Yarn Rug I am knitting (mentioned in the last entry). I am managing about a square a day. (Actually, not that many but I am trying to cheer me up).
And TWO bags of library books on the floor beside me. At least the joy of going to see my GP every week means I stagger in to the library and replace the books I have used up in the previous week. My attention span is about that of a toddler. I borrowed Kevin McCloud's new book a few weeks ago - "43 Principles of Home" through an inter-library loan. It is FABULOUS, such a useful book for anyone contemplating building, extending, even just livign in a house! My only complaint is that it is way too heavy a book for in-bed readings. Makes my tummy hurt.
I have got books on knitting, garden design including building a dry stone wall and water features, crafty things, 800 years of the written word, travel - all from the non-fictions ection. I don't have the attention spam to be able to cope with fiction. Even gorgeous lovely Kevin has to be taken in small doses and re-read to be able to comprehend what he is telling me. Not my usual way of digesting books.
I creep downstairs and load another lot of wood on Ned Kelly, my aging but trusty slowish combustion stove, which keeps my draughty old home quite warm. Especially upstairs. Sometimes I sleep so long that it goes out. I have discovered that spraying kindling with WD40 makes it burn much better (I ran out of fire lighters so this was a stroke of brilliant necessity).
And make a cup of tea while I am down there.
Sometimes I have a shower. But not very often cos I have to fire up the Rayburn to heat the hot water service now that winter is upon us and the sun is below my trees and the solar panels are in shade (insert sad face here and yearning for brave men with chain saws to return my house to winter sunshine).
I am so tired already that the effort of actually having a shower totally exhausts me. Anyway, I figure I haven't done anything to get filthy dirty. I have a cat wash every so often - there is a big pot of water sitting on top of Ned keeping water heated for dishes and a slosh of a face washer when I imagine I can't bear my stench.
I am not smelly at all. Can't be. There hasn't been a delegation of neighbours or a visit from the Health Officer from the council...
And in between I sleep. I nod off with my glasses on my nose and the laptop on my belly and wake hours later, still the same. Or crash at night, waking 18 hours later. With the fire out.
Last night I drifted off in the afternoon and didn't wake till 8 a.m. Didn't take my drugs last night, so was feeling yucky. And woke totally confused, and disoriented still involved in the dream I was having being a photographer on location in Tasmania taking pics of a politician. My camera wouldn't work and I was having all sorts of problems with the settings. What a weird dream. And what a weird location!!!
Time to either put more wood on the fire, make a cup or tea and/or have a snooze. Catch you soon. XXXX

Bed rest + COLD Snap = Knitting

My GP told me the other evening to stay quiet in bed and look after myself until I get to see her tomorrow (Thursday). Combine with this with the coldest snap we have had for many many years (snow down the road, cars falling off roads everywhere cos of black ice, fingersand noses nippy drippy cold. And I am in bed...

I have been knitting scarves for weeks. Don't have a pic atm - but they are clever bits of knitting half and quarter rows before doing full rows so they turn out spirally and looking like Sharks' Eggs. I was hoping to sell them but I have given so many away - my very successful market research!

Anyway, this evening I was faffing around in bed with the notebook keeping my belly warm and puddling away through Pinterest and following links and I found a blog posting on knitting Sock Yarn Blankets. And a tutorial... Here is the original blankie posting I discovered and she has a link at the bottom there to a lot of other pretty knitted blankets.

So I have pulled out some 4 ply wool and have almost finished my first square. She says that you only need 'a walnut sized lump of wool' for each square. I think I could use skeins of tapestry wool to knit them with - I have a little collection of them. I don't know if they are 4 ply but the look close enough and I think that is all that matters.

By the way - yesterday top temperature here was 6*, today is soared to 7*. Might have to break out the sunnies and bathers tomorrow...

PS I just noticed there is a (new?) location button down the bottom RH corner so I set it. You can go and have a look at where I live, there is even streetstalk which went up the road almost to my place before the driver wandered off into the bush and drove bewildered and lost through every little track in the State Forest before discovering Maldon 45 kms further on (Maldon is only about 8 kms in a straight crow-flyin' line), hehehe!!!!

But if...

I reckon if I had THIS CHAIR I would be just sitting in another chair and looking at it!!!! How pretty is that! I wish I was on a computer where I knewhow to easily grab a photo but you can go to the link and have a drool.
ANd while you are there just IGNORE the price. I am sure they left out the dot before the cents...

AAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been sick.
I am still sick.
Furthermore, I am sick of being sick.

My GP discovered 4 weeks ago that I have enormously HIGH blood pressure. (190/100 if that means anything to you). On to a couple of cardio drugs, but two weeks later my BP was still up there in the clouds.
So she added a beta blocker.
As a consequence my BP plummeted, as did my pulse rate and I started to fall over whenever I stood up too quickly. Or even slowly. Cold white fingers, pins and needles, absolute lethargy, etc...
Had to get The Sweetheart to take me in to A&E on Saturday (cos I drove off the road the last time I drove the Iced Volvo...).

So now I am off the beta blockers, and am on bed rest until I go to see her again in a couple of days. Then an ultrasound on my heart and a brain scan cos I may have had one of those cute little strokes. And to see an industrial strength cardiologist.
Bugger.
My heart has been foolish since the last couple of bee stings where I arrested, before that my BP used to be a lovely 90/60. Thank goodness for my Epipens - now I carry TWO to keep me going until the ambulance gets to me.

So, I am not sewing.
I have a hexagonal stars all cut out and a bit sewn together to make for a young friend who has scary melanoma, and a bag for my sister for her birthday (which was only a couple of weeks ago, and she isn't expecting a pressie so that is OK).
The quilt is a lovely Sarah Fielke pattern from her new "Quilting from little things..." - Stars in Your Eyes.
This was featured in last month's Better Homes and Gardens mag - Sarah writes about it here but I also bought her fabulous book in April. For each of the patterns she has an achievable mini quilt as well as the larger one.
The bag I am making for my next sister is from Julia Davis and Anne Muxworthy's "Easy Japanese Quilt Style". This is a link to the book, however not the book I have but one which has the bag I am making as the cover pic (how lucky was that - now I don't have to explain it!!!).

BUT the enforced bed rest has had an up-side.
I did discover Pinterest which is such good fun. It is a website that acts like a pin board where you can 'pin' your favourite photos. Each 'board' can have a different title so you can group your faves. I have one Board that is my home as it is, followed by another Board for the dreamings and desires!
There are LOTS of lovely links to all sorts of craft stuff, quilts, architecture, pets, fashion, pretties, some GREAT photo-journo links to some of the war zones I either went to or dodged...
I don't have to worry about making things at all. I can just explore other people's creations and then Pin them!!!
Here is my link to Pinterest. There are some of my own pics in my quilts and sewing Board as well as my home.

I am cuddled up in bed, lovely and warm cos of the little notebook whirring away on my lap, and lovely cosy flannel sheets, and snugly jarmies. Outside today it is 4* (at noon) and sleeting and hailing instead of snowing. It is good to be so warm on such a day (and it is apparently going to get colder over the next few days...).
I will keep you posted.