I assure you, it’s not all cancer scare all the time around these parts.  We are resilient creatures, and even living in the shadow of great fear, there is much joy.

Joy such as my drum carder arriving.

Isn’t it lovely?  It’s a Pat Green Deb’s Delicate Deluxe, and it is both exhilarating and terrifying.  Exhilarating because…well, look at it!  I have a drum carder, and it’s spectacular!  Terrifying because I’m afraid that I’m going to 1) break it, or 2) ruin my fleece.  Fret, fret, worry, worry.

Speaking of my fleece, I’ve begun the washing process.

Yet another nerve-wracking thing.  I’m afraid I’m going to felt it just by looking at it, let alone trying to get it clean.  This is, obviously, only a small portion of it - I’m guessing that it’s going to take me five to eight rounds of washing to get it all clean.

And when I say clean, really I mean getting the lanolin out.  Because this is the cleanest damn fleece I’ve ever seen.  Almost no VM, no dirt, just beautiful clean, sheepy goodness.

I love it more than words can say.  I love the color variation, the clean sheep smell, and how indescribably beautiful it is.  And this is how clean it was when I took it out of the bag.  Stunning.

The only part I’m worried about is this.

There’s a section of it - about the size of a dinner plate - where the wool seems to be a bit matted.  I can only guess it’s at the neck, but it’s hard to tell.  I’m not sure if it’s salvageable or not - I’ve separated it out, and plan to wash it and tease it and see if there’s anything I can do with it.  Otherwise - it’s perfection.

While I’m washing the fleece, I’m also working on this.

This is (or, will be) a hat knit from my own handspun.  I’ve been meaning to make this for quite a while now, and the urge finally got too strong to ignore.  The fiber is a Crosspatch Creations Totally Tubular Spinning Kit, given to me by taelixev when I first mentioned an interest in spinning.  The ball of yarn on the right includes my very first efforts at spinning, as done on a homemade, weirdly balanced drop spindle.  I spun it, then set it aside, and a few years later finished up the rest of the fiber on my wheel.  I then plied the original, lumpy spindle-spun stuff with the thin wheel-spun single to make a crazy, bumpy, beautiful yarn.  The leftover wheel-spun single was Navajo-plied to make the stripping yarn you see there being knit up.  It is beautiful in the way that only handspun yarn can be beautiful, and I am looking forward to having a warm, wonderful hat.

Of course, this is my second third attempt at this hat.  The first attempt ended with me losing my damn mind and decreasing way too fast, resulting in a weird, puckered abomination.  The second attempt had me almost run out of yarn, and resulted in a hat that was way, way too big.  Third time’s a charm, right?

And finally, a beautiful stormy July sky.

Goodness abounds.

(A warning: this post is a bit TMI concerning medical stuff of a girly nature - not terribly squicky, but pretty personal.  If that makes you uncomfortable, you might want to wander off.)

A little less than a year ago, I went off birth control pills to see if they were causing my endless headaches.  It didn’t seem to affect the headaches, but I decided to stay off of them for a variety of reasons.  I’d been on them for almost fifteen years, so I was expecting the transition to be a little tough.  It wasn’t actually all that bad, except…well…I started getting my period every fourteen days.

Yeah.  It sucked.

I knew that my cycle could be screwy for up a to a year while my body adjusted to the sudden lack of artifical hormones, so I wasn’t terribly concerned - just inconvenienced.  When I went in for my yearly checkup three weeks ago, I mentioned it in passing to the midwife who performed my exam, and she too was mostly unconcerned.  She said it could be due to coming off birth control, or my weight, or something else equally benign, but just to be sure she sent me to get an ultrasound.

I still wasn’t terribly worried.  I got the ultrasound (surprisingly uncomfortable) on Tuesday the 23rd and went about my business as per normal.  I’m anxious by nature, so there was a tiny bit of worry, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The next day, the doctor’s office called with my results.  The ultrasound had found multiple masses in my uterus, and an “abnormality” in my right ovary.

Those who have been there know…hearing a test result like that is one of the most terrifying things in the world.

The gynecologist wanted me to go in for a pelvic MRI, to see if they could tell exactly what was going on without actually going in and mucking around with my organs.  I set up the appointment and went in on Friday for the MRI.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m claustrophobic.  I’ve had an MRI before, in the process of trying to figure out why I get headaches, so I knew what I was in for.  When I had it done for my head, my doctor gave me some anti-anxiety pills to get me through the claustrophobia, but I figured that for my pelvis I’d be okay.

Heh…yeah.  Not so much.

Anyway, I somehow survived the experience and went home to live through the longest week of my life.

I couldn’t help it - I thought about it all the time.  What’s wrong with me?  Do I have cancer?  Am I going to be able to have kids?  Am I going to have to get a hysterectomy at thirty?  Will I have to have chemotherapy?  Will I have to have surgery?  Are they going to tell me that I have six months to live?  That there’s nothing they can do for me?  What will Bradon do without me?  How will my parents survive burying their only child?

This has been the longest, scariest, most horrible week ever.

Today - finally - my gynecologist got the results of my MRI.  And they’re still not sure what’s wrong with me.

The mass in my right ovary is probably a benign cyst - the doctor isn’t terribly worried about it in the short term.  I’m going to get another ultrasound in about a month to make sure that it isn’t growing or doing anything else unusual, and there’s a good chance that I’ll have to have it removed sooner or later, but for now it doens’t look like it’s doing any harm and - more importantly - it’s not what’s causing me to have my period every fourteen days.

The situation in my uterus (now, there’s a phrase I never thought I’d use) is a little more concerning.  They found a small mass - probably a cyst or a fibroid - but that’s not what’s causing the problems either.  What has them worried is that my endometrium (the inner lining of the uterus) is abnormally thick.  They’re not sure exactly why - it could be a hormone imbalance, it could be uterine cancer, it could be something else entirely.

The plan at this point is to have an endometrial biopsy done in August.  The doctor assures me that whatever the problem is, it can wait that long.  Once we get the results of the biopsy, we can figure out how we’ll go forward.

Of course, that’s easy for her to say.  I’m now unemployed, and though my boss was incredibly awesome and made sure that I had health insurance through July, come August I’m on my own.  I’m certainly hoping that I’ll have another job by then, but I’m not going to hold my breath.  Right now the plan is to go the COBRA route (which allows you to continue your health insurance after you lose your job for some pretty stiff premiums,) but it’s still a scary situation.

I wasn’t going to say anything about this to anyone until I got a clear diagnosis, but with that diagnosis now over a month away I couldn’t keep it to myself any more.  It’s too much, too big, too scary, too much a part of my life now to pretend that it’s not happening.  I’m not as overwhelmingly preoccupied with the whole thing as I was - the human psyche is not designed to maintain a state of panic - but it’s still there.

So that’s why I haven’t written this week…or eaten much, or slept well, or been able to concentrate on anything.  Please think healthy, happy, normal uterus thoughts for me, would ya?

Perhaps a weeknight is not the best time to tackle the yearly Airing of the Stash.

Also, perhaps I should stop buying yarn.  Either that, or start knitting faster.

Goodnight, folks.

Dear Internet, I’d like to introduce you to…

Danae (pronounced Da-NAY,) born June 23, 2009 at 11:37am, 4lbs. 7oz., 15 1/4″

and…

Aria, born June 23, 2009 at 11:38am, 3lbs. 13oz., 16 3/4″

(Don’t let the incubator and the feeding tube fool you…Aria’s doing great.  They’ve just got her in there to make sure that she keeps her weight up.)

The whole family is doing well, and may get to go home as early as Friday.  We spent a couple hours with them this afternoon, chatting and visiting and totally losing our minds over teeny-tiny little fingers and teeny-tiny little ears.  Danae is a little squeaker, and happily squeaked her way through the afternoon.  Aria was a little too busy concentrating on putting on weight to be held and cuddled, but she’s just as adorable as she can be.

I suspect the blankets were only the tip of the knitting iceberg for these two.

When I woke up yesterday morning and went to wash my face, we had no hot water.

I tried the sink in the master bath, then the sink in the guest bath, then the sink in the kitchen.  No hot water anywhere.

I thanked my lucky stars that I shower at night, performed my morning ablutions in cold water, left a note for Bradon to check on the hot water situation, and left for work.

When I came home yesterday evening, this is what I found:

It would appear that sometime Sunday night/Monday morning our water heater exploded.  Okay, maybe not exploded, but definitely started leaking, all over our back porch and - as a fun surprise - through the wall and into our living room.

Why us?

So maintenance came over, pulled up the (new!) carpet, tore out the (new!) padding, and set this lovely doohickey to run for 24 hours to try to dry out the carpet.  And, as an extra bonus, they didn’t have a spare water heater on site, so we had to go without.

Now, I’m certainly no fan of cold showers.  I’m much more a run-the-water-so-hot-I-can-barely-stand-it-and-all-my-skin-turns-red sort of girl.  Nonetheless, I was willing to take a cold shower.  Not excited, but willing.

Yeah…it appears that our shower is ONLY hooked up to the water heater.  All the sinks and toilets still worked, but turning on the shower resulted in only a small trickle of water.

Damn.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much - the replacement water heater was put in this afternoon, and I managed to make it through the day feeling only a little funky.  My shower this evening will be a welcome and blessed event.

But, you know, I’m starting to think that the Universe is trying to tell Bradon and I to move the hell away from our apartment complex.

(Also, an update on Olena - at 11:37 and 11:38 this morning her two daughters were born via c-section.  A little premature, a little on the small side, but wonderful and healthy and perfect.  Both girls and their parents are doing well and resting comfortably.  I should have more info (and pictures!) tomorrow after I go to visit.)

My dear friends Chris and Olena told me in (I believe it was) October of last year that they were expecting - the same day they themselves found out.  Since they are among my very best friends on earth, it was immediately evident to me that there was much knitting to be done.

I knew I wanted to make something big - if not necessarily big in size, then big in scope.  They’d been talking about having children for many years, and Olena especially was ecstatic at the prospect of having a baby.  I knew that I wanted to create something on the scope of an heirloom - something beautiful that would be passed down through the generations, so that Chris and Olena’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would know that they once had a friend who loved them very, very, very much.

I decided to knit the Hemlock Ring Blanket.

I printed the pattern, ordered some longer cords to go with my Knitpicks Options needles, and on a Saturday in January I headed down to Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins to pick up several skeins of Cascade 220 in a lovely, natural heathery grey.

Two days later, I got a chat message from Olena - she had just gotten home from her first ultrasound.

She was having twins.

I’m not ashamed to say that my first thought was “Oh, God.  I have to knit two.”

The no-problem definitely-get-it-done-before-the-baby-arrives knitting project had suddenly gone from significant to epic.

I rule.

I actually could have had them done ahead of schedule, had I not been put into a uniquely stressful (if entirely superstitious) position with the knitting of these blankets.  See, because Olena’s having twins, there have been some complications with the pregnancy.  Things are looking awesome now, but Olena’s been on supervised bed rest for over a month, and there were some scary times in there.  As her time in the hospital has worn on, she’s been torn between the desire to get the hell out of there, and to allow the twins to gestate as long as possible to ensure that they are as healthy as they can be.

With the common belief (perpetrated by someone) that babies are never born until their knitting is done, I wasn’t sure if I should hurry up the finishing, or dawdle as much as I possibly could.

So I timed it the best I could.  The twins are now at over 35 weeks, and Olena is more than ready to get back into the real world where they have things like fresh air and real food, and where she can be on her feet for more than 30 seconds at a time.

I’ve done my part to contribute to that - the rest is up to her.

(Edited to Add:  I just got word that at about 11:00am local time today (Tuesday, June 23) Olena will be getting her C-section.  My timing is made of Awesome!)

(I swear, I started this on Wednesday, before the server crapped out.  Le sigh.)

1.  June is always a stormy time around these parts, but this year has been particularly tempestuous.  Buckets of rain, tornado watches and hour-long hailstorms seem to be commonplace these days.

2.  In addition to experiencing our frenetic weather patterns, living in Colorado also allows you the opportunity to see wildlife grazing in your parking lot from time to time.

It was nice to see her.  I currently live out in the flats (local term for the prairie side of Denver, as opposed to the foothill side of Denver,) and our local fauna is generally confined to a few foxes and, once in a very great while, coyotes.  The occasional deer is a benefit to working at the base of the foothills.  When I was living up in the mountains, we frequently had entire herds of elk wander through our property - very cool, if a little scary during calving season (a momma elk is an angry elk.)

3.  Offered up without comment.

(Okay, one small comment - didn’t someone, at some point in this banner’s production, say “yanno, I’m not sure this is the phrase we want to use here,” or at least bust out laughing?  Proof that all PR/marketing firms should employ at least one 12-year-old boy to make sure that shit like this doesn’t make it to print.)

4.  I’m resisting the urge to bore you all to death with Sims talk, but I will point you to Alice and Kev.  I especially recommend it if you’ve been enjoying Erika’s Sim Sundays, but I think everyone - even people who hate video games (how did you end up here?) - should read it.  This is the story of a father and daughter who are homeless in the Sims universe - they live in a lot occupied only by overgrown weeds and two park benches, and have no money to their names.  There is a bit of silliness - as is inherent in the game - but it is really a touching and thought-provoking story (this entry in particular just about killed me.)  On a more meta level, it also shows how very attached we can get to simple bits of dumb code, especially when they show a semblance of sentience.

5.  Hmm…I wonder what might be happening here….

Chris asked, “Did you pick up anything else at Estes?”

Now, really.  If I answered no, is there a single one of you out there who would believe me?

Once the fleece situation was resolved and I stopped vibrating and my voice re-entered its normal registers, I could focus on other wooly pursuits.  Honestly, I did pretty good, considering my normal haul - though I might have made up in quantity what I sacrificed in variety.

The biggest purchase (other than the fleece, of course) was 2000 yards of this delicious Brooks Farm Mas Acero.

My original intention for this was Decimal, but I grow increasingly concerned about gague issues - Decimal is supposed to be knit in sport weight, and the Mas Acero is putatively worsted.  I’m working up gague swatches to see how it goes - if Decimal doesn’t work out, I’m thinking Coraline might be just the thing for this gorgeousness.  In any case, with 2000 yards, I should be able to find some sweater I can turn it into.

At Bradon’s urging, I picked up quite a bit (800 yards maybe?) of this lovely yarn from Bonkers.  I think (I’m writing this from work, so I can’t double check) that it’s the Hand-dyed Sport Wool in Plum.  In any case, Bradon has requested a scarf of some sort…which I’ll get to work on as soon as he picks a pattern.  Expect progress on this front in 8-9 years.

Also, despite the purchase of the fleece, I couldn’t resist buying yet more spinning fiber.  This is some BFL from Cloud City Fibers:

And this is (bunny) angora from Woodlake Woolies.  I’ve never spun angora before, and while I know that it may drive me up the wall, I’m looking forward to giving it a shot.  I wish you could feel how soft and light this is.

And…that’s it!  Pretty restrained, all told.  (Ask me again when the credit card bill arrives.)

I love it beyond all reckoning.

Vital Stats

Sheep: Mindy

Breed: Romeldale/CVM

Weight: 5.75 lbs

From: Black Pines Sheep

Purchased at: Estes Park Wool Market

I had settled on it while they were still doing the judging for the colored fleeces, and left Taelixev and another (non-knitting) friend to guard it while Bradon and I tried to hunt down someone to whom I could give money.  I may have been a little more frantic than was absolutely necessary, but I was so very twitterpated….

Anyway, it’s mine now, and I love it.  I even pulled off a bit to carry around with me in my pocket to pet and sniff every once in a while.  (And no, it hasn’t felted yet, amazingly enough.)

Can’t blog; Simming.