Sweet as candy

My sugar, for the most part, is under control now, without insulin. This weekend I had a bit of a spike, mostly I think because I couldn't seem to stop grazing. And while the stuff I was grazing on was mostly good stuff, it was all pure sugar in the end. Whole grain bread, grapes, and raisins and at one point I broke and ate a packet of fruit snacks (the one not so healthy thing, haha.). So when I got up yesterday, my BS was at it's highest point in weeks but still not alarming. My dietitian and the diabetes educator both said normal range is 70-130, and when I was using insulin, I only took it at 150 or above. And 150 was the trigger for only 3 units of insulin, so still not terrible. Yesterday my fasting insulin, which has been at 120 or below since I maxed my Metformin dosage mid-June, was 156. Today, it's back down to 96, thanks to less grazing and probably, no bread. I stuck with fat free, sugar free yogurt yesterday for breakfast and lunch. Greek yogurt is good because it also has protein in it, and protein apparently helps my body absorb the insulin I make. So when I snack, I try to eat a protein and a carb together, to kind of balance things out. A piece of turkey and a cheese stick, or a few crackers. Or some peanut butter and a banana.

My diet has drastically changed. Starting with my beloved coffee. There are no more quad shot lattes in my life, just a brewed cup of regular coffee with sugar free creamer and a packet of sweetener. It's what I miss most. But it was all sugar and carbs, so it had to go. My cardiologist actually told me that caffeine can prevent a second heart attack, so I can still have the coffee. (Don't get me wrong, come pumpkin spice season, there is a PSL with my name on it, but only ONE.).

Egg yolks are mostly out, though I still occasionally have a whole egg, the yolk is where most of the nutrition is, after all. Taters, white bread, pasta, rice, all the "white" things are pretty much out as well. I have turkey sausage, a wee bit of potatoes and egg whites with low fat cheese and a few tablespoons of green chili without pork, for breakfast occasionally. Whole wheat pasta isn't bad (but we actually found a pasta made from peas, lentils and chickpeas, with protein, and it's really good! Barilla, in case you want to try it.) But oh gods, ground turkey is the worst thing I have tried so far. Veggies are my new bestest friends. And I drink at least one can of low sodium V-8 juice a day, just to make sure I get enough veggies for the day.

Chh chhh changes

Over the last two weeks, I've had to drastically change my diet. Everything "white" is out, since if I am going to eat carbs, they need to be higher value. Whole grain breads, whole wheat pasta, brown rice. The brown rice by the way, is a major learning curve, and we're still learning.

Even my coffee habit has changed. I've gone from at least two quad shot flavored lattes a day to one cup of regular coffee with sweetener and sugar free creamer first thing and a second half regular half decaf cup later in the day.

And I actually eat lunch when I come home for lunch, instead of just drinking coffee. It's only a container of fat free, sugar free Greek yogurt (protein, fiber and minimal carbs all in one go, without having to mess with chia seeds or oats at night).

Obviously, the biggest adjustment has been the sugar-free thing. I like my sweets. Despite the fact that sweeteners are better now, there's still an obvious taste difference. And at the moment because my sugars are up and down like a fiddler's elbow, I can't even eat fruit to get my sweet fix. Life is spent balancing good carbs versus bad carbs, and protein. And eating salad. Lots of salad. Some day, I may be able to indulge every once in a while, but that's not going to be today.

So, I will get my steps in at work, and once my treadmill gets here Friday, walk on it every evening after dinner (when my blood sugar tends to spike the worst), and hopefully wrestle my cholesterol and sugars down to acceptable. The good news is my blood pressure is already down to acceptable, thanks to meds.

Life can change in an instant

Life is already upside down, thanks to the Coronavirus, but now it's even weirder.

On Wednesday, April 29, I started having a tightness in my chest. I was getting a bit freaked out, thinking I might have Corona. I went in the bath, thinking the steam might help. Instead it made things even more uncomfortable with an odd pain in my jaw. I quickly got out, one leg shaved, one not.

I got some sleep and next morning I felt fine, until I got in the shower. Then the pain came back. I got the second leg shaved and got the heck out. After sitting a bit, things were better, so I went to work. After being at work for a while I knew something was wrong. The tightness wasn't going away, and now my head hurt too. So I told my boss I had a killer headache and went home.

At home, the pain continued and I was having horrid cold sweats and feeling so rotten I couldn't even type in my info to make a virtual urgent care appointment and had to drag my daughter out of bed to do it for me.

Long story short (too late!), the PA told me to go to the ER immediately.

Turns out, I was having a heart attack. I also had a blood sugar reading in the 400s! So, two stents later and a bunch of new meds, I am home. I'm officially diabetic, taking blood sugar readings before every meal and injecting insulin. And because I have heart disease, I'm also taking meds to lower my cholesterol and blood pressure, along with baby aspirin and another med to keep the stents open. The aspirin will be something I will take for the rest of my life.

The ultimate goal is to control everything else with diet eventually, along with Metformin to get me off injected insulin eventually. I started that last night and this morning I was soooo close to having a "normal" sugar reading! So hopefully, that's the start of something good.

I've met with multiple cardiologists, have a new primary care doc and a pharmacist working with her to keep my meds straight. I go in for blood work May 12, "meet" with my cardiologist on the 13th for a follow up, and then my PCP on the 28th. Somewhere in there, they'll hopefully let me go back to work.

So this blog is pretty much going to be health related instead of craft related, if only to let me get my thoughts down and out.

Time keeps on slippin'....

As you can see from the previous blog date, I have pretty much retired this blog. I went back to work 4 months ago, and what I call part time and they call part time, differs a bit. So I am pretty much working a 5 day a week gig without the benefits of a full time position. And it is eating a lot of my time.

Between keeping up with my books for review, just plain reading for fun, work and WoW, I haven't even looked at a set of knitting needles for months.

I try to post a lot more regularly to my book blog, but even that is somewhat sporadic and only book reviews.

So I leave you here with a picture of my last completed knitting project, a joint effort with my teen daughter. We knit it for one of her teacher's new little kiddo. (Teacher says child liked it and the monster we knit, too, haha.)

Beans the Cat

I will probably be around, occasionally. Maybe more so as winter hits and I start knitting a bit, haha.

Just realized

I never posted the finished monster!  Ta da!

The adorable monster

Really?

So as soon as I called for Phil's retirement, winter came roaring back.  Well, not really.  It's more like, "Oh yeah, it's Spring in the Rockies in which we always have a little snow."  But it did get chilly.

And now March has roared in like the lion it is, with crazy, crazy wind.  The DH was driving to Wyoming yesterday and saw at least 3 semi-trucks blown over. But at least it was warm and windy today, and hey, it was National Pancake Day, with free pancakes at IHOP, so it was all good.

In response to the wind, I am reading a new cozy mystery called Blown Away, by Clover Tate.  At least until tomorrow when I will hopefully, finally, get my hands on Anne Bishop's last Others book, Etched in Bone.  I need it to show up early, because I just gotta read it RIGHT NOW!!  I just re-read all the previous books, so I am READY.

The Teen starts Spring Break Friday, so we are going to start knitting Beans.  The Teen has decided that it must be knit in fluorescent yarn, so the small child it is meant for is in for a treat, haha. Small child is a very small child indeed, as he is the brand new baby brother to the previous small child that the monster was knit for.  I am thinking Beans will sit on a shelf for a few years, or perhaps be adopted by not so Big Sister.

I think it's time to retire Punxsutawney Phil

Or at least stop letting him predict winter's end for the entire country.  His "Six more weeks of winter," was a lie, at least here in Colorado.  Here, winter was very short.  A lot of January was quite mild, and the only winter weather we have seen in February was a nasty (and thankfully rare,) ice storm on, haha, Groundhog Day.  The last several weeks have been absolutely beautiful, if windy.  And the wind is quite typical for this time of year.

What isn't typical is all the brush fires around the state right now.  If we're this dry now, I am afraid of July and August.  We are very much still in a drought, despite the mountains getting exceptional snow falls this year.  It might rain today and Thursday.

In other news, I read an article last year that said jalapenos were difficult to overwinter.  So I didn't.  This fall, it was still producing late in the season, so I brought it inside. 

This is what it looks like now.  It has at least 4 peppers on it, plus additional blooms.  I believe it thinks that the writer of the article I read really doesn't know what they're talking about, haha.

I am going to need a larger freezer bag for peppers at this rate.  Which is good and maybe I will actually start using them again.  Last winter I put them in just about everything. 

But with my oral surgery this fall, I am really just now getting back to eating "normally," so things cooked low and slow in the crockpot and heavy on the sauce have been pretty much the usual.

We grilled Cowboy burgers the other night (diced jalapeno, onion, bacon and shredded cheese mixed in to the ground beef, with a bit of cayenne in there to up the heat!) and I did just fine, so I am good to go for pretty much anything now, I think ;) 

Next up, Honey Jalapeno Grilled Pork Chops!

The teen daughter decided that she needed to knit a toy for her favorite teacher's daughter.  We settled on a cute little monster from Rebecca Danger's repertoire, the Round Christmas Monster. We tagged-teamed it, since a few of the stitches were confusing (KFB had her eyes crossing, haha).  It was a nice Mother/daughter project and we had a good time with it.

It actually has both arms now and is just awaiting eyes. Which maybe we will put on it soon...  And I am thinking of adding ears.  The pattern calls for ears, but I don't use magic loop and the ears as written were a big, fat, pain in the arse.  Next she wants to knit Beans, the Cat for the little girl's brand new baby brother.  I see this as being a joint project as well.

Catching up

Winter is truly here now, we got over 8 inches of snow yesterday and it's cold and bright today.  My Acadia hat is getting much use this winter.  The double band keeps my ears lovely and warm.  We needed the snow, as it's been a quite dry, mild winter for the most part.  We seem to get several days of bitter cold, then blam!  Right back up into the 40s. 

Last Friday we hit 55°F and had a lovely Pokemon Go run in the park.  Now we are pretty much snowed in, since Hubby took the truck to work this morning and I just can't make myself go anywhere in the car, even though it's all wheel drive, and the main roads are probably ok again.

I am quite thankful 2016 is over, the last several months SUCKED.  Unfortunately, I am not feeling overly optimistic that the next 4 years are going to be any better. 

My goal for 2017 is to find a part time job that I enjoy, rather than something I endure.  Although, that may happen, as I have dental work out of the ying to pay for. 

After a good start with the new expac for WoW, Legion, I am now bored again.  We went from having many guildies on at a time, to maybe having two or three now, so I think a lot of people are on the same page.  We can't get enough people to raid, and LFR rewards just aren't enough to spend time doing that.  As usual, the casual gamer is pretty well ignored in favor of the hard core raider.

Even World Quests, which were once a great way to get geared up, have lost their charm, as they rarely give anything good even for my alts now and Emissary loot boxes seem to be stuck on 835 gear, and absolutely worthless.  Hoping that the next patch opens new content and the final steps for flying.  Until then, I go in briefly each day to do my daily pet battle and on Tuesday to kill the weekly World Boss.  I did get a legendary item drop on an alt this week, so that was great :)

Well...

I have spent more time on my book blog than here, obviously. We mostly skipped Fall here, Summer was officially over Nov. 17 when the temp went from nearly 80°F on the 16th to freezing and snowy the next day, haha. Until then, the weather had been unusually mild.

And with the cold comes the knitting! I am much more motivated to knit when it's cold out, haha. I finished my Blackrose socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks That Rock, Morticia colorway. I love them in all of their purple and black glory! Now I am knitting a blanket square with the left over yarn.

It's weird not having a sock on the go though. Must be time to look through Ravelry again, see if I can find something fun to start. I am getting quite a bit more confident in the knitting now, changing patterns to suit me (I kind of winged it on the heel length, gussets and even the toe shaping of my Blackrose socks, haha. I got about 2/3 done with the 1st sock before I decided I didn't like the heel as written and tinked back.).

Next up is to umm, finish the thumb on the 1st White Witch Mitten and then cast on for #2. Maybe have a full pair before winter's end?? Maybe?

I'm stash knitting now, since I still haven't gotten a job and I have dental bills from hell to pay and therefore no yarn budget at all. Most of what I have is bits and bobs of sock yarn. I see multiple blanket squares in my future.

I have a ton of red cotton that I bought to make a Cherry Bomb, but it's been hibernating for so long I think it probably needs to hit the frog pond, since gods only know where I stopped, haha. And frankly, who wants to knit a tank top in winter, haha.

I even walked in to the teen's room the other day and found her knitting again, so apparently she's also decided the change in weather means knits!

Finally, some rain.

Like I said in my previous post, it's been super dry and hot here.  Yesterday we got lucky and things cooled off early.  Yay, for being able to open the windows before midnight!  We also got rain off and on all night.  It's now starting to rain again, which is brilliant.  First because, you know, cooler weather.  Second, because I don't have to water.  My container garden needs watering every day.  The tomatoes get a gallon of water each, most days.  The jalapeno, not so much, but it still needs watering.

Then there is the little yard out front that while there's no grass, still needs watering for the lilies and the bushes and the two sad trees.  One was dead on top, so last week I sawed the top half off.  The other one is an evergreen, that is mostly red.  If it were my tree (we rent), I'd have cut it down by now.

Of course, as I watch it hail and absolutely pour down on my plants, I am a wee bit worried for them.  I would normally pull them inside but I opened the door and got a face full of water, so hey, you're outdoor plants, deal with the rain.... And 2 of the tomato plants are over 5 feet tall, so not easy to move.  Strangely, the two tall plants are not the same type of tomato.  The one to the left is an Early Girl, which has multiple fruit on the vine, the other two are Big Beef plants.  The jalapeno is finally about to flower!

And I do like the rain, now that the hail has stopped. Plus, it's Colorado, so I give it a few more minutes and the storm  will move on.  And then the humidity will come back, haha.  We're not supposed to be humid, we're in a high desert climate.  But today the Midwest was way less humid than we were.  What's up with that??

And on that note, I'm going to go open all the windows again, watch some ghosty shows on YouTube and knit on my newest sock, Black Roses for Morticia.

Summer

Summer is officially here. It's even damned hot here in the foothills. Unlike a lot of the west though, we've been lucky *knock wood* We've had two small wildfires started by lightening, but both were contained the same night. Which was good, because we're tinder dry right now, after having a nice wet spring.

The good news is, my tomato plants are loving it and are flowering madly, with a few baby tomatoes on one already. The jalapeno, well, it's not as happy this year. I think we went right from too cool to too hot for it. It comes inside in the afternoon, as soon as the temp hits close to 90°.

As for me, as a result of the warm weather, the knitting has slowed down. Who wants to knit wooly things in 95° F weather? (Although I did just ball up a skein of yarn for a new pair of socks, and I also just finished another blanket square) So I've been spending a lot of my time reading. I am pretty well hooked on Cozy (though I hate the term) mysteries, as can be seen on my book blog, Give Me a Book. I have had a great time with NetGalley, getting books and reviewing them.

Sadly, this genre is being hit by major cuts. The genre is glutted. I mean, you name a subject, there's a cozy mystery based around it. Like popcorn? Yep, there's a popcorn shop mystery series. Cheese? Yeah, there was one of those too. Knitting, soap and candle making, crochet, paper making, scrapbooking, tea shops, gluten free bakeries, spice shops, the list goes on. Ever looked in the mystery section at your local bookstore? You're spoilt for choice! And even I can't read everything, haha. I certainly can afford to buy everything.

And a lot of those books are "Write for Hire," meaning that the publisher comes up with the basic idea, and the writer just fleshes it out in to a full-fledged book. So when the publisher says, "no thank you, we don't want any more" there's nothing the author can do. The author in fact, usually doesn't even write the books under their own name, think Carolyn Keene and Kathryn Kenny, of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fame.

No matter what, it means that some of our favorite mystery series have to go. Many contracts weren't renewed, with little to no notice, so we'll never see closure for some of these series. That makes me sad.

So I am doing my little part, asking my library to purchase the books I can't get, posting reviews on my book blog and Goodreads. Meanwhile, I've read some great books lately. And a few not so great as well, but those are few and far between.

Another star gone too soon

As I was sitting at the computer this morning, I noticed a headline about a body at Prince's Paisley Park residence, but didn't think much of it.  Then Isabel walked over to the other computer a few minutes later and the headline had changed.  "Prince found dead at Paisley Park, age 57" and I wanted to cry.  Another loss so soon in 2016.  It's been a tough year.  First Lemmy, then Bowie and shortly after, Alan Rickman.  Now Prince.  My childhood is dying, and it makes me so very sad.

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life

Electric word life 

It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you
There's something else
The after world 

A world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night

Spring, in the Rockies

It's April, the table garden is growing so my plants will have a jump start when it's time to put them out around the end of May.  We have a relatively short growing season here, so they start early indoors.  I just have to harden them off again before I start leaving them out all day.  I went for 3 tomato plants and a jalapeno.  All full size, indeterminate tomatoes this year, so I'm not entirely sure how well they will do in containers.

I think this year I need to dig out some old sheets to cover them with, because they're going to quickly get too tall to bring indoors when the weather gets bad. The good news is, I think the pots should be heavy enough this year that even once they are at full height, the wind won't knock them over so easily as it did with the small pots last year.

And see, this weekend's weather report is exactly why they don't go outside yet, even though Mother Nature has been giving us solid 70°F temps during the day for several weeks.  Yep, Mother Nature is having one last (we hope) tryst with Jack Frost this weekend, giving us rain, snow, ice and pure yuck.  We're being told to expect 10"-16" by Sunday morning.  It will also be a heavy, wet snow, which means it'll be a pain in the rear to shovel, so if you have an older neighbor, be kind and shovel for them!

The Teen and I will be running to the library and grocery store after school today, stocking up so we don't have to go out.  We'll just settle in and enjoy a quiet weekend (and hubby and I are on weekend #2 of crappy colds, so we don't really want to do anything anyway.  Today's the first day I've actually had the energy to even think about going anywhere, haha).

And maybe, I will finish the thumb on my first mitten this weekend.  That's the plan, anyway.  That and some Hulu and lots of reading.

Sewing, for knitting needles

The front

I made my daughter a bag for all of her knitting stuff.  It doesn't fit in her locker very well, so she won't use it :(  So since I had a bit of material left and quite a bit of interfacing, I decided to make her a needle roll for her DPNs and her little circular needle.  I bought another yard of the polka dot fabric and measured out 29", then folded the material.  I lined half of the material (what would be the inside of the roll) with iron on fleece interfacing.  Then I took a piece of coordinating pink fabric and cut it to 15"x 7" and lined it as well.  I pinned that to the bottom of the inside piece, and marking lines every 1.5" or so, I sewed little pockets for needles, leaving the edges open for now and the middle unstitched, as well.

Then I cut another piece of the polka dot fabric 15" x 5.5" , lined it and lined it up on the front of the pink pocket.  I then flipped the right sides together and sewed around the entire thing with a 1/4" seam, leaving a three inch gap at the top right so I could pull everything right-side out again, poking out the corners as I went.  I then top-stitched from the top edge down to the top of the pocket to close up the hole.

The backside

Then I sewed down the middle of both pockets, finishing the taller pockets and making two larger pockets for her circs, scissors, etc.

I sewed a piece of ribbon to the right side of the back of the roll, about an inch from the top of the taller pocket, and then sewed a decorative button to hide the stitching and add some fun.   The top portion folds down over the needles, roll it up, tie up the ribbon and viola!  Home for all her DPNs.

The inside

This picture shows the colors off much better, way more true than the pictures of the outside, in case y'all were wondering.  ;)

So very sad

I didn't know them, but that doesn't mean they didn't enhance my life somehow.  When Lemmy died, I was sad, I love Motorhead, and I loved the straight talking Lemmy.

When David Bowie died, a piece of my childhood died as well.  I grew up with the 80s Bowie, suit and tie, pop music.  As I got older I discovered older Bowie, in his Ziggy Stardust years.  He was brilliant.

But I have to say, it's the death of Alan Rickman that nearly has me in tears.  I adored him as the evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard, the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood and as the delightfully dead pan Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest.  I even loved him in Dogma as Metatron and the tempted, fallen Harry in Love, Actually.  And from the moment I saw him on screen as Snape, that was it.  Snape was my favorite character in Harry Potter (and darn you WB, for cutting so much of Snape out of The Prisoner of Azkaban!).

His voice, his smile, even his glare, made me smile and shiver.  He was the one man left on my "list," he just got better looking as he got older.  The world will be a much duller place with out Alan Rickman.

Knitting makes things a little better

This is my daughter and her high school Knitting Club.  They knitted hats and donated them to cancer patients at McKee Cancer Center.  They're pretty awesome kids!

Ready to say good bye to 2015

The last 4 days have been rough.  G's dad's brother died Christmas Eve, and one of his mum's sisters died today.  It's hard for G, being so far away.  He can't just hop a plane and be there in a few hours, for funerals and then back to work the next day.  We won't go into the fact that none of us has a current passport at the moment....

The work situation is still up in the air.  G's boss has been stringing him along since last March.  And I am still unemployed.  Time to step up my job hunt.

GTFO, 2015.  May 2016 treat us all better!

Bear likes it

Same sheet of music

Still knitting Acadia. It's kind of kicking my ass. I think it's under control now. *Knock wood*  We'll see.  At least Coast Guard Alaska keeps me entertained while I am fighting, haha.  I need new episodes!  I am already on season 4 again.   I'm pretty sure I have seen all of season 1-3 at least 3 times, but they never get old.

I only had one crafty item to make as a present for Christmas. I sewed the kiddo a new bag so she can drag her knitting around. It's a messenger style bag. She picked out the material awhile ago, but it has just been sitting there while I was more interested in knitting her last pair of socks. I finally decided to get it done so she could have it for Christmas. I buckled down and got it done the last few days. Today was her last day of school before the holiday, so I was running out of time.  In fact, she called asking me to come pick her up just 20 minutes after I completed the last seam, haha.

I think it turned out pretty well, considering I cobbled together two patterns and kind of flew by the seat of my pants, haha.  At least I know myself well enough to know not to plan on making too many things for the holidays, so there wasn't too much stress ;)  Obviously, I can't post pictures until after Christmas Day.

A little bit of knitting going on

I finished Isabel's green sparkle socks and started a blanket square out of the same yarn.  But then knitting ADD hit, and I started knitting myself a new hat.  But I don't like the way it's going.  I was going to knit an Acadia Cap in the lovely red yarn my daughter gave me for Christmas last year and cable the band in black.  I hate it.  Not just because I seem to be one stitch short all of a sudden.  The black is just too dark (Plus the join looks funky.  Bleh.).  No point in taking the time to cable the band if you can't even see the details, right?   So I am tinking back to the red and going to knit the band in a cream instead.  Sheesh.

Now I am off to pick up the kiddo from her Knitting Club.  Yeah, she's knitting hats too.  Haha.