The project list grows...

I should be heading to bed, but I'm enjoying the fact that I don't have to work tomorrow and taking advantage of it.  =)

Unfortunately, I don't think we're doing anything Thanksgiving-y tomorrow.  Zoe is sick, I'm still a bit under the weather myself, just a cold, but we can't expose my parents to it.  It sucks, but what can you do? 

I will be spending the day cleaning and crocheting.  My project list is spinning out of control.  I have to put a stop to it.  I think I've taken on all I can now.  Here's what I have going on, in addition to my hat-a-week until my half marathon...

I just finished my Week 4 hat, which I'll show off Friday.  It's not all that exciting.  I mean, I think it's cute, but I had more exciting ideas.  I just needed one more blue hat, though and it was all I could make work for that.


A girl at work wants a Gonzo.  I don't have a real specific time frame.... but I spent the weekend making up the basic beanie part of some of my projects, so it's started.  Another girl at work has commissioned me to make a zombie hat for a friend of hers.  This is what I'm aiming for:




I have another hat I'm working on just because it's an idea that really excited me.  It probably won't make much sense to anyone who doesn't live in Arkansas, though.  But I think if - when - I start to sell hats, that it would be a good seller to locals.  I'll show it off when I finish it.

I'm working on a hat for my brother-in-law's Christmas present.  I hope it turns out OK... it's a combination of a few things he loves and pretty funky.... a Chicago Bears themed gecko mohawk hat.  You'll have to see it when it's done.  It's actually from a pattern.

Christmas presents for the girls.  Zoe is getting a topsy turvy Cinderella doll.  The kind where you flip the skirt and it looks different.  One side is the princess, one side is the maid.  I am to the skirt part of it, so it shouldn't be long before it's finished.  I'm using a pattern for this.

Isabelle wants a baby for Mr. and Mrs. Hobbes.  If you don't know, two years ago, I made her a Hobbes... from Calvin and Hobbes.  She loves Hobbes, even though she really doesn't know who he is.  Last Christmas, she asked for a friend for Hobbes.  I wanted to make Calvin, naturally, but she informed me it needed to be a GIRL Hobbes.  So Mrs. Hobbes came to be.  Now they're going to have a baby.  I haven't figured out exactly how I'll do this, but I will.

I had found a doll pattern for Olivia.... just a run-of-the-mill doll.  Then I put the movie Arthur and the Invisibles on the other day and she's been obsessed with it ever since.  She told me what she wanted for Christmas was a Selenia doll.  If you've never seen the movie, this is Selenia....



I've only improvised one human amigurimi type doll before, so this should be an experience.   However, this isn't the only improvised human doll I have on tap.... and not the strangest.

I need to make President Grover Cleveland.  This is for a school project for Olivia.  She has a research project and one of the things she needs, for some bizarre reason, is a doll of her chosen President.  So, I thought, why not just crochet it?  Believe it or not, I actually know someone who has a little boy who would love a stuffed President doll, so when the project is graded, I'll send her the doll for her son.

I think that's it.  I think.  I hope.  =)  I have yarn all over the place.... in-progress projects in bags here and there.  It's nuts.  I go from barely crocheting all year to trying to squeeze in a year's worth of work into a few weeks.  I'm a glutton. 

Half Marathon Hats, Week 3

I so love my newest hat.  I love it so much I don't even mind the obvious jokes about it (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you have a very sparkly, clean mind!)  So without further ado.... I present to you....



The Great Gonzo!

I was really worried about the nose... making sure it curved and all, but it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  I also was concerned about the eyelids, but I think they turned out pretty well, too.



I left it on the lamp like that and Bill was startled by him when he walked in there in the dark.  That just makes the hat all the more awesome!  He wouldn't look at me this morning when I had it on.  =)

I took it to work and even had someone request that I make them one!  Woo hoo!

The girls aren't crazy about it. Zoe said, "I like it a little bit, but not a lot."

I have one more blue-themed hat before November ends.  I also have to finish up my three turkey hats before Thursday.  Make another Gonzo.  And I got the stuff to get started on my brother-in-law's Christmas present (a blue and orange mohawk hat with a twist...).  I've had two really fun ideas for hats the past two days.  I need to write this stuff down so I don't forget.  I love it when the creativity is flowing!

I have been feeling a little under the weather this week, and the cold finally hit full-force last night.  Blah.  I hate being sick.  I need to get it to run its course quickly so I can be well by Thanksgiving.

If I don't make it back here before then, I hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Day!  I am oh, so grateful for each and every one of  you that read this, whether or not you comment! 

Hooked again...

I totally forgot to come show you last week's hat. 



It's not the best picture, but it's all I have.  It's just a mohawk hat.  It's not the hat I had planned, but the yarn I got for it wasn't working out right.  This is actually one I started - goodness - a year or so ago?  The fuzzy yarn was a pain to work with and I gave up on it, but it worked with my blue color scheme, so I tried again.  It's a little too small for my head.  I think I was making it for the girls.  I didn't actually run in it.  It was raining Sunday and I'm a total lazy bum lately.  Really need to stop that.

My turkey hats for the Go!bbler Run on Thanksgiving with my sister and her friend are coming along.



Those legs kill me, I have to say.  So funny. 

I won't tell you what this week's hat is going to be, but I will tell you that it's probably my most favorite creation to date.  Seriously.  I've wanted to make this hat for a long time and it's turning out better than I had hoped.  I can't wait to show you.  I'll show you the yarn.  Maybe you can guess...



It is a character hat and it has a 3D element to it.  That's all I'm giving you right now.

I have a goal of not using any patterns for any of these hats.  I have a few that will be tricky to make them look just like I want since there is an actual pattern that exists that I like, but we will see how I do.  Today I was browsing Pinterest and Etsy for some ideas for some of my future hats and realized that I really do love this and the old desire to actually do something with this hobby is creeping back up.  Pattern making, custom hats... I'm not exactly sure where I would go with it, but improvising these hats is just too much fun - especially this week's.   We'll see what happens...

Diabetes Awareness Month and Grover

Did you know that October is Diabetes Awareness Month?  Well, now you do.

And it's only fitting that this month I start to become very aware that my diabetes is out of control.  Fun stuff.  I knew my A1C was up last month when I went to the doctor, but I really didn't feel like things were bad.  And, if you never caught this before, I'm a horrible patient and never check my blood sugar.  So how would I know anyway?  Let me tell you how...

I started connecting some dots.  I've been so tired lately.  I have to take a nap every afternoon before the girls get home and still want to go to bed around 8pm... I usually have trouble winding down to get to bed by 10pm, so that's just very unusual.  I got a boil (gross, I know) and discovered in my research on how to get rid of it (it was right before the half marathon and in a very inconvenient place for walking) that it's not uncommon for diabetics to get boils when their blood sugar is too high.  I haven't been sleeping well (I attributed my fatigue to that) and was having night sweats (I attributed that to the new comforter being too heavy).  And this week I just felt ill.  Slightly nauseous off and on.  Yesterday something just clicked in my head.  I feel like crap because my blood sugar must be out of control.  I remember a few  years ago my blood sugar being over 300 and I felt HORRIBLE.... insanely nauseous, couldn't sleep because of the night sweats.  I wasn't feeling quite that bad - yet, but I knew it was coming.

So I went to the drug store and tapped out my health savings account buying test strips.  Damn, those things are expensive!  $75 for 50 strips.  Crazy.  That was a huge factor in why I never checked my blood sugar in the first place.  Anyway... I got home and about an hour after dinner I checked.  266.  Not good.

This morning's fasting... 237... REALLY not good. 

So, yes, it is time to really get myself back on track.  I told my doctor I could control it without medication and my intention is to do just that.  Otherwise, I'm back on Metformin in January and I really don't like the side effects.  But it's better than how I feel right now by a long shot.  I'll be checking my blood sugar like a good girl, my morning fasting and then I'll pick a meal to check each day.  Hopefully those numbers will get better.

I need to watch my carb intake, obviously.  And I'm going to get back into the routine of taking the girls to childcare at the rec center on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  In addition to that, and my long walk/run on Sundays, I will go straight to the rec center on Wednesdays after work.  I won't get to see Bill those days, but I talked it over with him and he's OK with it.  Hopefully that will do the trick.

Oh, and I read a very interesting article today when I was checking to make sure there wasn't a connection between Zoloft and increased blood sugar, and there isn't, but there is a connection between high blood sugar and depression.  So my sudden onset of depression makes sense in that light.  Gives me a little hope that I won't have to be popping pills my whole life.

Bill has a cousin that has LADA (Latent autoimmune diabetes of adults), which is basically adult-onset Type I.  (Usually Type I diabetes is diagnosed early in life, not as an adult)  She's very active in the online diabetes communities and has been posting a lot of stuff about Diabetes Awareness this month on Facebook.  Fridays in October, you are supposed to wear blue to show support of diabetics and diabetes research.  She is compiling a collection of pictures of people wearing blue on Blue Fridays for a blog post.

I knew my first "half-marathon training" hat was going to be Grover, and therefore blue, so I made sure to finish him in time for a Blue Friday picture. 



He's a little bit big... my gauge was off because I can't crochet with just eyelash yarn and have to use it with another yarn so I can find my stitches.  And he's HOT.  I have a feeling he'll be making me sweat tomorrow when I take him out for my run/walk. 

Bill's cousin loved the picture and asked to use it for her Blue Friday post as I was typing a comment to her that she could.  LOL  And I decided that all my half-marathon hats this month will be blue.  I already have my yarn for next week's hat and hope to get it started tomorrow.  I have to sew tonight.  And work on my turkey hats.  And I have an order for two Hello Kitty hats.  Lots to keep me busy!

Running

It's been a pretty stressful week for me, and it's only partially due to work this time.  I am seriously, like 3 weeks, behind at work and the new girl is kind of not catching on all that quickly.  But I honestly have been trying to focus on leaving work at work.  I can't do anything about it from home, so why fret over it?

My Dad's health is my biggest worry right now.  Last week, my Mom took him to the hospital with chest pains.  They discovered that one of his bypass grafts is 100% blocked and they can't do anything about it.  I'm assuming he's not a good candidate for surgery to repair it, and they can't put a stent in there.  So all they can do is treat it with medication.  They sent him home on Thursday, and he had a heart attack that night.  He was OK enough to be the one to call me about it Friday.  He was still having pain, bad enough to need morphine, as late as Monday night.  My sister went to go see him Tuesday and texted me that they were talking about releasing him.  All of us were just shocked that they would even consider it.  And they did.  About 7pm last night, my Mom went to go ask the nurses if a doctor was going to come see him, and was told he had already left.  So they called the doctor and were told to release him.  He hadn't seen my Dad since Sunday and just released him.  I'm really unhappy about that.  I think it's careless and unprofessional, to say the least.  Dangerous, really.  But he's home now, regardless of what I think.

I went to go see him today.  He's very weak and seems pretty nervous about his condition.  He said his blood pressure has been erratic all day... high earlier today, then too low, and when I was there and he had it checked, it was normal. 

My parents live in a retirement village - they're two of the youngest people there - and they eat most of their meals in the dining room.  I went and sat with them while they had lunch today.  I really love that place.  Several people came by to tell my Dad they had missed him while he was in the hospital.  He had two "get well" cards sitting on the table.  Everyone there is just so sweet and you can tell my parents are very well liked.  My Mom had driven them over to the dining hall because it was raining and my Dad is so weak, and as we waited on her to pull the car around, my Dad was talking to this 90-something year old gentleman named Charles.  Charles was going out to run some errands with his daughter.  My Dad told her that Charles is his hero.  He helped Charles get his jacket on.  It just melted my heart.  Charles is a few years older than my Pawpaw would have been if he hadn't passed away 18 years ago, and I just felt like my Dad sees his own Dad in Charles.

Anyway, probably best of all is that they're very close to the nurse there.  When my Grandpa was getting pretty bad towards the end of his life, she and her other nurses were just amazing and they bonded a lot with my parents.  So, she's keeping a very close eye on my Dad.  She's getting his medical records from the hospital (since he hadn't seen the doctor, they had a lot of unanswered questions) and I know she'll do everything she can to help him out.

I've been trying to really focus this week on being better with my food and exercise.  Last night, I took the girls to the rec center for the first time in months.  I got on the treadmill and did 1/4 mile intervals of walking and running.  Running my heart out.  It felt so good, and I was impressed that I could run as fast and long as I did considering it's been months since I last ran.  I definitely have to get back into the routine of going to the rec center twice a week.  Especially with everything going on.  Having that kind of release, along with the runner's high, is just what I need.