Walking back to happiness

We've been trying to get a daily walk in again. I know that it helps to reduce my blood pressure and helps me unwind. Needed to be well wrapped up this morning around Hartlepool Marina.

Inside looking out.

I've been looking at some personality tests. No, not the kind I used to cheat at in Cosmopolitan when I was in my 20s, but this kind of thing: Jung Typology Test

Your Type is
INTJ
Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging
Strength of the preferences %

44 25 1 67

This means I am:

• moderately expressed introvert
  
• moderately expressed intuitive personality
  
• slightly expressed thinking personality
  
• distinctively expressed judging personality

No real surprises there. Explains why I don't like parties and don't socialise much. Apparently I'm in the same sort of bracket as Hilary Clinton and Stephen Hawking. Who knew?

Introversion aside, I haven't been feeling too good lately. Just don't seem to have been able to shake the lurgy from before Christmas. I'm tired all the time and feel really run down. I'm anaemic and my blood pressure is elevated. I've been feeling quite feel stressed much of the time and feel easilly overwhelmed. My hormones are misbehaving too, so I'm having some gynae treatment and hopefully that will help.
It got so bad that I took three days off work last week, mostly because I was frightened by the scale of my blood pressure issues. I'm trying to tackle it all by resting when I need to, by eating well and getting some exercise. Hopefully, things will start to turn a corner soon.

Currently on the needles:

Unpattern top-down sweater for me. Making this in Marble, but not really enjoying it. Having got past the arm holes, I'm going to finish it.

Clapotis in Noro Kureyon Sock for me. I finally succumbed to the clapotis virus.





Currently on my bedside table:
Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett.


I love the Lancre witches.

Through the roof

Was at my GP's surgery for a minor gynae procedure this morning. Not very pleasant but not terribly traumatic. Had my BP checked afterwards:
230/170

Very traumatic.

Went home to lie down and think about it. I have to go back and get it checked regulary.

Knitting up the miles

As I mentioned, I'm trying to reduce my stash this year. Yesterday I dug some yarn out from one of the storeage boxes in the wardrobe. It was at the bottom, naturally. I'd almost forgotten about it, which means I need to look my stash in the eye rather more often.

Anyway, thanks to the technical features of Ravelry, I was able to work out, this morning over a cup of tea, how much yarn I got through in 2008.



13259.6m or 13.26km. For those of us who still speak in old money, that's 14500.87 yards or 8 and a quarter miles of yarn knitted up in 2008. I'm quietly impressed with myself.

If I can manage a similar yardage this year and avoid adding significantly to the stash (you will notice I don't say 'knit only from stash'...)it should chip away at it.

Welcome 2009

Happy New Year!



Like many people, we had a quiet night at home last night. Even j stayed in with us and then found most of his friends online just after midnight, so even the young were staying home.

If I could have been anywhere, I would have been at the Elton John Red Piano party at the O2. We watched bits of it on TV this morning and the £675 ticket experience, including being able to go onstage and gather around the piano, looked great. Lots of the party-goers were older than us and I saw some lovely sparkly cardis. Kate Thornton summed it up when she commented on how civilised it was that the ladies took their handbags with them when they 'invaded' the stage. 60 is definitely the new 40 and long may it remain.

It's freezing here - minus 2 degrees, according to the car sensor. J and I went for a walk round the marina this morning, but my nose started to freeze up so we came home for lattes. I cast on my third item for the Great Stash Down of 2009. I'm counting these two baby kimonos, finished off on New Year's Eve.





They are for the baby daughter of a colleague. The baby is due on January 15th, so I'm uncharacteristically ahead of myself. I will add some embellishment to the pink one and make some hats and booties to go with them.

My latest cast on is this cardigan. It will eat up all the bulky yarn in my stash and leave almost a whole storeage box empty.

You may have worked out, by now, that I have resolved to reduce my stash this year. It's part of a general thriftiness that I am trying to adopt. I am ashamed of the amount of food I throw away each week, uncooked. We eat too many processed and ready made things too. I am aiming to make some gradual changes to all of this waste. I will be very trendy too. Thrifty is the new black.

A little whinge, just ignore me.

I'm more than a little weary of this cough now. I'd like it to go away thanks. Don't have any energy for anything. I had planned lots of bracing walks by the sea during this holiday, but I just feel so tired and my chest and shoulders ache all the time. Neither J nor I sleep for more than two hours at a time at night because of it.
I'm not allowed to moan about it at home without someoneelse chiming in with a competetive set of symptoms, so I'm just getting rid of the whinging here. Ignore me, please.

Secret Santa

We had a Secret Santa on the Ravelry UKarma Swaps group. I was well and truly spoiled by Caroline.



That's a skein of Malabrigo in the background. I love it, but my favourite thing is the purple project bag.

Thank you Caroline!

Merry Boxing Day

Boxing Day and I'm setting aside a little time to catch up here.(I don't blog anything like as often as I should or would like to. I spend time on Ravelry organising my knitting and the rest of my online leisure time working on my family tree,making the most of the Ancestry subscription that came with Family Tree Maker.)

The boys are killing Nazi Zombies (you couldn't make it up) and I've just put some jacket potatoes, a favourite comfort food, in the oven.

It's been a quiet Christmas, excepting the sound of Call of Duty 5 gunfire and coughing. j and I have had lurgy and J has come close a couple of times only to have it subside at the last moment. I'm a bit peeved as I had a 'flu jab at Asda. J qualified for one from our GP. Mine must have been a second rate, 'value' jab.



Our Christmas goody shopping included stocks of paracetamol, Sudafed (day and night)and soft, mansize balm-impregnated tissues. The epidemic of lurgy has made the news quite regularly lately. It's made watching the last couple of episodes of Survivors a bit uncomfortable, I must admit.

We wrapped up and headed out to the beach this morning, but forgot about the Hartlepool Lions Club Boxing Day Dip. We couldn't get a parking spot and the roads were madness, so we turned around and headed back home for a warm spot on the sofa and a spectacular losing streak on the Boxing Day racing.

Christmas knitting

So far:

Russula beret and Fetching mits for my S-I-L.





Odessa hat and Fetching mits for my neice.





Red mohair kitty to put in another stocking.



Green seaweed scarf for my brother.

A bit chilly

Minus 2.5 degrees C this morning. A freezing fog rolled down off the hills and just hung around all day. A good day for knitwear.

A finished object and a work in progress

Continuing my Christmas knitting:
I made a pair of Fetching fingerless gloves for my older neice, L. The yarn, Knit Picks Ambrosia, has worked up beautifully in this pattern and they are soft and velvety and warm! Carrying out my threat to add picot edging to everything, I've added a picot edge to the cuff.



I still have 1.75 balls of this yarn left, so have cast on an Odessa hat to go with it.

A work in progress:

My brother rang last night, to tell me that I'm going to be an aunt again next summer! Yay! More baby knitting :)

Travelling scarf, the second

I signed up for another travelling scarf on Ravelry.
This one is for UK and European members of the Teachers Who Knit group.

I've asked for my scarf to be in aran weight and have expressed an interest in purples, greens and dark pinks.



This is my starting piece. I made it in Debbie Bliss Maya and Kureyon. I really rather like it.

Book Knit now for Christmas!

I've actually started my Christmas knitting. I know many people will have planned well ahead for this and have most things actually wrapped already, but this is unusual for me. I usually find myself on Christmas Eve, thinking "I could have made so and so a such and such..."

So, I give you, completed, a cardigan for my youngest neice, R.





It's based on Helena from Knitty, but has some modifications.



I love the picot edging. The yarn is Hacho, by Mirasol, and it's gorgeous to work with.

Flushed with my success, I cast on a felted bag for her mum.



I must admit, I'm not loving working with these huge, 8mm needles.

To another lighthouse or three.

Happy Halloween or a Joyous Samhein!



Having finally recovered from the cold of Tynemouth earlier this week, J and I were in Whitby this morning. It snowed. Not the crispy, autumnal weather that I normally associate with Halloween.

We were well wrapped up, as you can see.



But, there were plenty of shivering people around in black lace dreeses and pvc trousers. That's the risk of having a Goth Festival on the North East coast in October - the clothes are gorgeous, but look stupid with a Gortex anorak on top.

I seem to have a bit of a lighthouse thing going at the moment. Nothing Freudian, I assure you.

To the lighthouse

Drove up to Tynemouth yesterday and had a look at St Mary's Island Lighthouse.

Goodness, it was cold!



This is the view North, up the coast to the wind farm at Amble.

We had planned to have have a look at the priory and walk around the shops, but the beginnings of a flare started to set in. It began with a soreness in my wrists and ended with me curling up in bed, fully dressed at teatime. This sucks!

A break at last

This is always one of my favourite school breaks of the whole year. It's always very welcome as the start of any school year is always hectic. We've had a lot going on recently, and this last week has been an absolutely s*$%@y week for one reason and another.
Anyway - 10 days off!

I managed to get a hair appointment yesterday with a stylist I haven't used before and she was wonderful. It's not often I feel happy with my hair as I leave the salon. Even my last sylist (who I loved, but who moved away) used too many sticky products so I always washed it again when I got home. This still feels like my hair and I don't look 84 or like I'm trying to look 24. I just look like me, but with a nicer hair style, so I'm happy.

I received a package of stitch markers from the Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild swap this week.



If you've read any Discworld, you'll be able to work out their significance.


I've added my section to the latest travelling scarf to arrive. Lucybeth asked for her scarf to be in greys and blacks so I've added a basketweave stitch section in black James C Brett Merino. I love this yarn.

Real treats

I got a lovely package in the post this week. I had to practise patience for a while, though as our postpeople have decided that, when we are not at home, they will take mail back to the sorting office in the next town. It always used to get left at our local sub-post officeand I would walk round and collect it after work. The sorting office, however, only opens 7:30 until 12:30. I've already left for work by 7:30 and can't get back until evening, so it has to be weekends only. Anyway, moan over. I eventually got my lovely package from Pauline and it certainly was worth waiting for.







The yarn is gorgeous, as is the scarf she made for me. I realise that I have not included the book she sent me, as it's sitting on my bedside table! It's the Interweave Knits sock book. Lovely!

More treats at work. We're in our eighth week of school and it's nearly the half term holidays.

We made cinnamon cookies at school today - and hollowed out some pumpkins. We'll put faces (smiley, not satanic) on them tomorrow. My class have worked hard this half term and deserve a treat or two. I love seeing their faces when we take some time to do something just for fun.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been quite busy lately. Lots of finishing things off.

Inspired by Crazy Lanea, I made this sock project bag for a swap. I'm making a couple more at the moment. The fabric is from Kaffe Fassett.





I also finished my Monkey socks. These are really lovely, if I do say so myself...



Today I cast on a seafoam lace scarf in Jojoland Quartette. It's going to be part of a Christmas swap package organised by the UKarma Ravelry group.

Travelling Scarves

This is a new thing for me.
I've joined the Ravelry Travelling Scarves Group (Ravelry link). The idea is that 12-14 people sign up to work on a travelling scarf for each member of the circle. Everyone starts off their scarf and then sends it to the next person who knits a section and sends it on to the next person and so on, until it comes back to the original owner who completes it and casts off. It's a nice idea, I think. My circle is based in UK and Europe.

This is the scarf section I started:



It's in the post to my downstream knitter now.

And this is the scarf I received from the knitter upstream of me, with my addition. Next week I'll post it off to the next knitter to add her bit.



It's an interesting challenge to find yarn in my stash that will enable me to fulfill the brief in the notes from the original knitter and get guage so she doesn't have to compensate by extreme blocking when it comes back to her. I think my section works well.

Also in the post this week:





These are some Discworld themed stitch markers I have made for a swap on Ravelry. I also made a little bag to contain them. I do hope the recipient likes them. They inspired me to read Small Gods, which I hadn't read until now. Now I have to make a knitted Om, which I will base on Sheldon.

Family Pride

Last weekend was one of the biggest sporting events in our region - the Great North Run. Now, I don't run, but my brother took part and his wife daughter and I were the support team.



I've watched it on TV each year since it began, but have never been up to Newcastle for the event before. What an amazing atmosphere! I had no idea so many people would be there.
We drove up to Newcastle and I was very proud of the way I managed to navigate the closed roads and diversions and still find a free parking space on the edge of the Town Moor so we could walk down to the start.




P ran for Christian Aid (and we are very proud of the money he raised) and most of the runners seemed to be carrying sponsorship for good causes. We had an emotional moment before the start as the radio DJ was reading out some of the stories behind people's reasons for running and fundraising - and by the time they played Abide With Me I, was in tears.



We drove to South Shields for the finish and watched the Red Arrows display, before managing to find P in the crowds.



Well done, P! I'm very proud of you!