Day 181

A pale green small square was added today. No photo for the usual reason. I will try to remember to take a photo of the whole thing tomorrow at knitting.

I had a visit from friends today which left me nervous from last night until they arrived. I’m still not back into what passe as a normal cleaning routine and it both irritates and frustrates me. Add into the normal cleaning things the fact that the dogs are caking the floor in muddy paw prints and just thinking about the cleaning leave me exhausted.

My torso is still sensitive – in the muscles around the stomach and the pancreas where the pseudocysts were, and eating still stretches my stomach leaving me in some pain – so twisting and bending for cleaning is unpleasant at best.

The length of time of my recovery has been a surprise. Most of the last 3 months, or rather, since October, has been a surprise. Sometimes it’s been more of a shock. But I’m adjusting. It’s just taking longer than I thought.

I talked about this video clip yesterday and feel the need to share it with you today. A-ha’s ‘Take On Me’.

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Day 163

Blanket catch up. Pink square for yesterday, orange for today.

My husband and I have anime hair again. His is purple with a dash of red. Mine is still dark brown on my left but the turquoise has been bleached out and replaced with a pink that is more accurately deacribed as magenta. No photos yet. It’s still wet and it’s too late to be fuasing with the hair dryer (hubby is already asleep).

You may have noticed that my moods are a little unstable…. they seem to be cycling fairly radically between doing ok and sobbing into my knitting. It’s a day to day thing, thamk goodness. It has happened several times in a day in the past. The medication seems to be keeping it under some control. I nees to speak to a GP to review my prescriptions this week anyway so I guess it’s time to discuss an increase in my mood stabiliser dosage.

We’ve heard Emeli Sande before in a duet with Labrinth but this is her on her own, voicing the Joy I feel in music. This was the first time I heard her and I aimply cannot help but feel uplifted by this song. The music alone makes me happy.

Naughty Boy ft. Emeli Sandé – Wonder

Day 161

Ta-daaaaah!

It’s so big that finding enough floor space for this picture meant clearing extra floor space in my sons room (very badly. Sorry.). It’s at least 2m across the top so it’s kinda huge.

I’m really pleased with it and the colours have come out beautifully in the mitred square shapes.

And here is the last 3 days of blanket knitting. Today is the blue rectangle, yesterday’s is the almost white square, the day before is the red square.

The gap in the corner will remain empty for the moment. Tomorrow I move to the far side of the top of  the blanket to work back to this point. That will then take us into stage 4….

Sometimes the first time you hear a song, it’s a live recording. You buy the live album and love it so you buy the studio albums that have your favourite songs on them but it’s not at all the same.

I often feel the opposite of this. Sometimes, the artist makes changes to the track and it becomes almost unrecognisable…

Anyway, Sarah McLachlan released a live album called ‘Mirrorball’ and for me, this album is one of the first situations. There is something beautiful about unpolished music, and about hearing an artist truly enjoying their music.

I am not at all a fan of the studio version of today’s song. This is the live recording that I love… but I’m not sure anything is better than ice cream 😉

Sarah McLachlan – Ice Cream

Day 156

Had to redo the corner of the shawl twice more before I was finally happy with it. And I wrote it down so I’ll be able to do it when I’m done with the other side.

The stitches need some redistributing to make them look nicer. Either that or I’ll run do it with a better short row technique.

I worked on the blanket too today. Had to redo day 154 because I knit a rectangle but should have done a trapezoid, so that’s fixed now. I did yesterdays small square in grey and have started and restarted today’s trapezoid because I can’t remember how I picked up the stitches neatly the last 3 times I did it. And I’m starting to panic about it. I’ve tried several different ways and none of them are right. I think that it’s time to put it down and try again tomorrow. Not sure I want to though. I hate being defeated by something I’ve conquered before.

Here’s where I’m at right now…

Am trying to remember that this is a project to find my calm. It’s not working yet.

So we’re listening to Cecilia Bartoli because she was once my inspiration. Her voice is exquisite, capable of lyrical heights and full-bodied depths. And of course, she makes it look and sound effortless. One of my favourite things about her performances, and the reason I prefer to watch her on stage to listening to a recording, is her expressive face. Every song is a performance regardless of the setting. I confess to not always knowing quite what expression she is trying to convey but her pleasure in her talent and that she is able to share it is obvious.

Though she is well known for her ability to interpret Rossini’s more complicated direction, this piece of music is by Mozart and you will likely recognise it. It is from ‘Le nozze di Figaro’, and while the character who sings this is male, he is always played by a mezzo-soprano woman. No idea why this is. For whatever reason, ‘Voi che sapete’ is a beautiful piece.

Cecilia Bartoli – ‘Voi che sapete’, Mozart

Day 130

How am I at 130 days already?! A red-grey small square to celebrate.

(Bonus Bear paw)

I was delayed in finishing my spinning yet again today. I’m helping a friend finish a blanket she’s knitting by crocheting some pieces for it. I had forgotten that I had meant to finish the set this week. Each one only takes about 15 minutes to make (I timed it) but my hand keeps aching so I can only do one an hour or I’m going to complaining about RSI.

I’m very tempted to start plying this yarn from the end I started spinning at because I’m getting reeeeeally impatient with trying to finish spinning the single first and being interrupted.

Just realised I hadn’t shared a photo of just how thinly I’m spinning this yarn…

Today’s music choice was a toss up between this song – ‘Iris’ by the Goo Goo Dolls – and something by Depeche Mode. ‘Iris’ won because I couldn’t choose which Depeche Mode song to share…

Goo Goo Dolls – ‘Iris’

Day 62

Blasted interwebs are down again at home so this will be short, and editted tomorrow with better links.
Today you get Doris Day. There was a program on tv about her tonight. ‘Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps’ is the theme of our internet connection. ..

I rejiggered yesterdays trapezoid because it was unsatisfactory.  There will be a new pattern for it once I’m more vertain of it. But today was a purple square….