sara skates

I had big plans for a newsy and picture-full post tonight – but no way.

Terry had shoulder surgery today for a long-standing injury that finally got too painful to live with.  There was more rotator cuff damage than thought from the MRI, but aside from that, everything went as expected – her bicep connection got moved, the acromion process got smoothed off, some shredded tendons got de-shredded, and the aforementioned rotator cuff got repaired.  No, I don’t know what most of that means, but Terry does, and apparently it’s good news.  She’ll be able to lift her arm above her shoulder as she heals – it has been years since that has happened!

But the very best outcome is that the anesthesiologist and surgeon put their heads together and she got a prescription for zofran – a disolvable anti-nausea med. which means that for the first time ever, she is tolerating heavy-duty pain killers.  (And both a surgeon and an anesthesiologist with excellent patient-talk skills – jackpot!)  She had geared up for mega-doses of ibuprofin and a "tens" unit to deal with the pain (the tens unit somehow disrupts the pain messages going to the brain – seeing as it needs direct skin contact and she has wound-dressing for three days, it wouldn’t have worked until the bandages come off).  But this plan is SO much better.  Anti-nausea meds every 12 hours, vicodan every 4 hours or so, she has started eating again, and while she’s not active, she is rather chipper.  She’s doing a good job of holding down our comfy recliner chair, and one of the cats is supremely pleased at this – Sweetie Pie has taken up residence on Terry’s lap.

I’m working short days from home this week and being Top-Mama for the kids – yes, I worry about work not getting done (I start teaching a course on Monday – hmm, I really should get that syllabus under control), but you know – it’ll happen.

I do have excellent techni-color knees these days from a series of toe-pick falls on ice.  For two weeks in a row on Sunday, I have caught both toe-picks in quick succession, and whacked both knees (in quick succession…).  Admittedly, much less dramatic than shoulders and pain meds – but even Terry was impressed with the colors this morning.

*The wheel is here

*It is *beauteous*

*It’ll teach me a lot during it’s vacation here – it spins way differently than Louet wheels. 

*Thanksgiving was a thank-ful occasion – for many reasons – hopefully I’ll sort through a post in the next few days

*Along with Steph, I have started knitting Poppy.  News flash, we both have urges towards putting way to much academic thought into seemingly simple decisions. 

*Terry’s heading into shoulder surgery on Tues.  One of those things one just has to get through – not only the surgery, but also the long rehab and recovery period

*Kids are good, skating is good, the new boots are a total trip but I really like them.

*etc.

*Goodnight!

I’m pretty sure I don’t have a complete list of folks whom Cate has enabled in the new-wheel department – but Leanne and Jo are among them (links when bloglines is back up…).  Last night, I get not one but TWO emails from Cate to me and blog-less Marcy – one for a Norm Hall wheel she found in search of a new home, and one for an Aldon Amos banjo charka.  The pretext of the email was that jeeze, ONE of us three should get each of these wheels.  Marcy is going for the charka.  (I have recently acquired a Bosworth Attache charka…that’s enough for now.)  I am intriqued with the Norm Hall – drooling is more like it, but Terry was not so thrilled with the cash-outlay part of the picture.  Cate also is lusting after the Norm Hall – and after all, it’s her birthday tomorrow, so why not. 

As luck would have it – the Norm Hall lives 1/2 hour from me.  So the plan hatched up is that Cate is buying it, I’m picking it up, and whenever she comes here or we go there it’ll change hands.  She may or may not keep it in the long run…depends on (a) a reality check re this wheel vs. her already lovely Alden Amos wheel, and (b) oh I dunno…maybe how beholden I am to it after some time next to my couch

Whaddya think the liklihood is of us visiting them anytime soon now eh??? 

Anyway – I get to play with this for a while – and Terry LOVES this permutation of the plan.

Go wish Cate a happy birthday on Monday!

Props to Risa for this quiz –

And aside from the fact that I have never lived in any of the states mentioned, it’s probably pretty accurate.  I have lived in New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Alabama, California, Oregon, Massachussets, Connecticut, and overseas too – so my vocal patterns are a bit of a hodge-podge.

I do speak quickly though – which is a distinctly "Northern" thing as near as I can tell.  I also sign really quickly when conversing in ASL – it’s a Sara thing, not a language-specific thing. 

I started with this:

If you embiggen you may be able to see a line of sewing-maching thread – the plan with those scary scissors is to cut along the line, pick up stitches, and knit a U-shaped placket.

See the problem is that the V-neck is not centered.  While there are 6 columns of stitches between the raglan decreases and the V-neck on one side, there are 9 columns on the other side.  Ooops.

In an uncharacteristic moment of NOT being anally attentive to detail, note that I did NOT worry about the fact that the lower sewing line (the horizontal part) slants upwards. I figured that once I had cut, if I picked up following a row of knitted stitches, not the sewing line, I’d be fine – and the fabric would be malleable enough to fold back evenly with none the wiser.

That part worked.  See:

It’s a little hard to see since the heathery yarn diffuses most detail, but the former V-neck is now a U-neck, with a perfectly reasonable placket.

I was THRILLED with the decreases at each bottom angle of the U.  While I was too lazy to get up and google or check a reference book, I guessed that knitting two together every other row at the corners would do it – and it did.  Perfectly.  I also like the placket garter stitch pattern.  I knit every row and it’s purty.

That same laziness however bit me in the proverbial (non-anal) ass since I guessed wrong at the ratio of stitches to pick up.  There are too many – making the placket stretch up on the sides of the U.  It bothers me, so I’ll rip tonight and re-do.  I picked up one stitch for every row – and my later checking of references suggest that picking up 3 for every 4 is a better bet.

Now that all the thinking and sewing and cutting is done, it should be a breeze.  I’ll pick up a bit of gross-grain ribbon to cover the cut-edge inside and call it a finished-object.

Good thing, because Toby’s last day of his intensive PT session this time around is Friday – it’ll be a really nice thank-you/happy holidays gift for his wunder-PT Stephanie.

Stay tuned for a picture post on slashing, cutting and fixing the neckline on a sweater for Toby’s PT….the troubles of which were first blogged about here.

More later.  FX that all goes well.  Why does it seem so WRONG to cut what one has knit with one long (single) piece of string.

Right – that’s why.  SINGLE piece of string.  Cut.  Severally.  Down I dunno – 40 rows?  Turning it instantly into about 40 pieces of string.

Ack.

But the silver lining:  The goal of making it wearable

Well the good news is that I have been knitting in the evenings, rather than trolling bloglines and contemplating my own blog posts

The bad news is that I have been more or less ignoring my blog lately…

I have much to share on the knitting front (and pictures to take of socks, hats, mittens) – hopefully I’ll get organized about that this weekend.

I also have a lot to share about skating – the new boots are a total trip!  I’m starting to feel like I own my feet again on ice – rather than having had a bilateral foot transplant or something.  I like the boots.  After about 6 or 8 hours in them, I got over most of the weirdness (they are WAY different than typical skate boots), and could start "working" on skills again.  I’m coming up on three weeks in them, and am more or less back to where I was before I got them.  Spins are still a little wonky, but that has more to do with the new blades than the boots – they’re quite different from the blades I have used for years.

I’m coming up on my first year annivarsary at my job – well, this is my 6th year at NTID, but my first year as the Sr. Institutional Researcher.  By and large, I’m really happy in this job.  The work itself has it’s moments of drudgery, but all in all, it’s a good fit for me.

So – this is just a preview of what I’m hoping to blog about soon…it’s perhaps rather irritating to simply read about what I will blog about at some point in the future, but really – this is my way of spurring myself into making it happen…!

Oh yeah – the funniest thing – cat antics.  We have one of those spinny office chairs.  One of the cats leaps into it such that he purposefully lands and makes it spin…then he sits there going round and round and round.  He’s nutty!

Cate’s doing it right this second – blogging the top ten reasons she hearts her institutional research job.  Since I’m in Philly sharing a hotel room with her, I thought I’d duo-blog.  Same topic, different blogger…no, I haven’t read hers yet (or had the oral preview as she writes…).  So – Top Ten Reasons Institutional Research is Where It’s At:

10.  Institutional Research conferences:  Rooms full of applied data analyst geeks who work in higher ed.

9.  Many of whom are women.  Working at a tech university, I’m way out of practice at being amongst other girl geeks.  Note to self:  It’s kind of cool being amongst others who get it.

8.  And many of whom share my irritation at our current administration.

7.  Like:  Unit-record efforts stink — at least as currently framed by our Secretary of Education.

6.  Institutional Research conference food:  Sushi, to-die-for crab cakes, really ripe pineapple and strawberries (in November!) and apple tartlets.

5.  Expense accounts which bring one in the vicinity of good friends, and sharing a hotel room with another.  Cate and I have been knitting our way through socks during conference talks. 

4.  And in the vicinity of this. The oldest figure skating club in the US.  Where – Oh. My. – they still have patch sessions on the schedule. 

3.  Real ones.  Where you get your own patch of ice, upon which you work on compulsory school figures.  Without dance patterns whizzing through you, or moves patterns, or a double lutz every now and then.

2.  Sleep.  Without interruption of kidlets oh sometime between 2 and 6 am, crawling in for a cuddle.  They’re fabulous to cuddle with.  Once one is ready to be awake.

1. The promise of yarn.  Here and here I think.  Tomorrow.

But really, the best thing will be arriving home tomorrow night, and seeing Terry and the kids again.  Phone calls home have been mostly like this:
Toby:  "Mom can we go back to the Dollar General because I want X and Y and Z and I don’t want what we got there yesterday anymore I changed my mind so can you bring me X and Y and Z?"
Hannah:  "Hmm.  Yeah.  Fun.  Um-hmm."  (TV was on, and apparently way more engaging than me.)
Terry:  "Yeah, we’re surviving.  I’m tired."

I miss ‘em