The Cause of my KADD…

Lots of great ideas of causes for KADD (Knitter’s ADD) were mentioned in the comments yesterday. Only Cindy and Terby hit the nail on the head for what I suspect is my cause of this bout of KADD. Stress! Lots of things I cannot control; lots of waiting for news or answers; in general, lots of uncertainty. My mind is running 100 miles an hour and as soon as something gets slightly dull or requires too much attention (like frogging or tinking) I want to toss it aside and start something new.

There are concerns taking place here in my own home, well, really here in my own body but there is also a waiting game going on in Minnesota as well. A little over two weeks ago I developed some rather severe (though not acute enough to warrant going to the ER) abdominal pain. So I have been poked and prodded multiple times and had many tests and procedures done in the past two weeks. This has of course meant lots of waiting for results. After the results of yesterday’s tests come back if there is no answer the doctor is chalking it up to stress for a couple months and then we will re-evaluate. There definitely has been a lot of it recently. My hard drive crash happened only three days before the pain started and on my way home from the first appointment about my abdominal pain I got stressful news from Minnesota.

Grandma Schueler whom I flew out to Minnesota to visit in early February took a drastic turn for the worse last week. Fluid is pooling on her lungs once again and they are thinking she may be developing pneumonia, but at this point there is no sign of her body fighting an infection – no fever, no elevated white blood cell count, etc. But, they cautioned everyone that at her age and with all the compromises to her body already her body may not even fight it. A week ago I called and said goodbye and that I would always love her and would always miss her and that if it was her time and she was ready to go it was okay to let go of this world and continue on to the next and be reunited with grandpa. I have to say that is the hardest phone call I’ve ever had to make. Now I guess she has kind of rallied. On Thursday morning instead of saying that she was sad she work up here and not in heaven she said she wasn’t sad and would get dressed. That said, mom has told me there is little chance of a real rally for her. So, it is only a matter of time. I’m on pins and needles and jump every time the phone rings and I’m not turning my cell off at night. Though I have to say I am not missing the before bed phone calls each night where mom or Amber tells me that everyone has a feeling it will be tonight. In fact, I actually got a decent night’s sleep last night for the first time in two weeks.

Last Thursday was a wonderful respite. All the road trip energy and activities mostly kept my mind off of both of the worries and it was a wonderful gift. Thankfully I’ll be having a similar distraction this weekend as Liz is coming to visit. She arrives this evening and is staying with Snow, but there is a weekend full of activity planned, including another tea at my house on Sunday. Though this time I’m accepting help from others in filling the table. We’re doing a celebration of Colorado and featuring Colorado-made food and fiber. DH is contributing a lot via his skills of cheese and liqueur making but he will also be making the scones. It’ll be a great time. We’ll even have the pleasure of her company at SnB on Monday night! Woot!

I do think the many suggestions in yesterday’s comments stating the time of the year as a cause is probably also a contributing factor to my case of KADD as well. The change in seasons makes me want to switch the focus of my knitting to things that aren’t quite so seasonal in nature or wrap up things that are seasonal. I never wear socks in the summer as I’m a sandal gal so I’d like to decide what I want to do with the Siren Socks and get those wrapped up. Wear Everywhere would be a good evening sweater well into June most years as we can get quite chilly at night due to the dry climate and I’ve just got the sleeves and yoke to finish on it if I could finish it soon. Skyway Scoop is a tank, but then again I’m pretty sure with my bust being down 2 inches and my waist down 2.5 inches and my hips down 3.5 inches since I cast-on for it last year that it won’t fit when it is done. But, then again my mom will be here the middle of next month and if it is done and it fits her she could take it home with her and I’d save myself a trip to the post office. And Seraphim I would like to have done at such time as I have to return to Minnesota for grandma’s funeral. It has been a prayer shawl of sorts, filled with prayers for grandma and memories of her with each stitch and I hope when I wear it it will be like a hug from grandma. So, that has been getting the majority of my actual knitting attention since I cast on for it, but those other projects are pulling at me and I’m a little afraid that once I get to the real lace knitting on Seraphim it will end up aging in the knitting bag like Leaf Lace (though Leaf Lace need some serious attention and deciphering of what row I’m on which is why I haven’t picked up in so long).

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I know I intend to despite everything.

Project ADD

I currently have two projects active and on the needles – Seraphim and a baby hat to go with Nautical Blankie (BTW, go see Snow’s color scheme in progress) and the Flower of Life scarf. I have several others in non-active status – Wear Everywhere Pullover, Leaf Lace Shawl, Siren Socks, and Skyway Scoop, plus I still have Mitten from Holland #2 to knit. Yet I’m itching to cast-on a new sock??? I’m also sort of itching to pull out Wear Everywhere and to finish up Skyway Scoop if I can even remember what the problem was (other than the fact that I’ll probably be drowning in it now – but it should fit my mom if it isn’t scooped too far for someone without a chest). I also want to cast-on for Wobbly Circles and I want to dye some yarn. I have a few books I’d like to get bound here before the weekend too. Oh and there is the site redesign floating around in my head along with setting up a non-yahoogroup-based site for our Monday night knitting gang.

I have project ADD right now. Me and project ADD don’t often get along real well because I also have a problem of liking instant gratification and as those who finished the Knitting Olympics can attest to – project monogamy leads to fast finished projects. Now, I’ll never be completely faithful to one project, that just doesn’t work for me as I always have to have a relatively non-thinking project on the needles for knitting gatherings. Nevertheless my current urgings are totally ridiculous!

Do you get spurts of knitting (or just general project) ADD? What do you think causes yours? Does if come after the completion of a lengthy project so you are just wanting to get going on all those other projects that queued up in you wish list while working on that big one? Does stash expansion contribute to it? Does it come when you are under stress and are just having a hard focusing on anything? I’m curious…

I’ll share my suspicions as to the cause of my current project ADD tomorrow so as to not skew your thoughts on the subject.

BTW, we are getting ever closer to the 1000th comment. If comments continue apace the magic day will likely be somewhere around April 10th and as I’ve mentioned before there will be a special prize package for that special person to leave the 1000th comment…

All Aboard!

I’m setting sail for sleeve island… No ETA for my return from sleeve island, but hopefully it won’t be too long of a cruise.

Seeing as this is my first ever trip to sleeve island I’m not sure if I’ll develop sea legs or sea sickness. Anyone have any tips to ensure that I return from sleeve island?

I Survived!

Well, I survived the whirlwind road trip to Iowa. Other than the 25 hours spent on the road between Thursday and Sunday, it was an enjoyable trip. I didn’t think I was going to have much progress to show for my hours on the road as I ended up doing a lot of the driving and a couple of the times when DH had taken the wheel I slept. But, I do have about 8 inches or so of Wear-Everywhere (it needs a shorter name) to show now, which is about 6 inches more than when I left. Yeah! On Friday I had lots of little short bits of down time when I could sit down and knit a row or two and that was when it really flew. It wasn’t enough to get my hands sore, but added up over the course of the day it ended up being about 4 inches when all was said and done.

All of the family thought it will be a great sweater. I’m also really impressed with the back side of this fabric and may consider using this rib or a similar variation of it in a scarf…

We did a lot more than knitting while we were there. We were only there two full days, but we packed in a lot. Friday morning I went to the YMCA pool and swam with my MIL to help work out the kinks from the long car ride. Then we drove around Charles City to see where the rest of the family who is in the area lives and we went to Wildwood Park where you drive through the river and then we went to a nearly century old swinging bridge and also drove past a Frank Lloyd Wright house that is on the Cedar River. We had pizza (complete with sauerkraut) and then all the family in the area and some family friends whom I had never met came over to the house that evening. On Saturday we headed into Mason City where we finally got to tour the Stockman House (another FLW house), and then we poked around in that area of Mason City looking at all the other prairie school homes. We had missed one last time that we had read about in American Bungelow a long time ago. Then we walked across the Meridith Wilson Bridge to see if we could get a different view of the house, but there were too many leaves. Then we drove to Forest City to visit DH’s step grandfather, Wendell who seems to be doing pretty well in his new assisted living digs, though he doesn’t appear to be socializing and feels some guilt about grandma Catherine’s death.

So, we were there only a short while, but it was crammed packed. It was kind of sad saying goodbye, but as we were pulling out of the driveway early on Sunday morning it was like a new sort of American Gothic - two new retirees with salt and pepper hair wearing light colored terry robes standing in the doorway of thier 1960′s white ranch in small town America and waving goodbye…

It’s good to be home again though. Having Emma back home (with a brand new bed now that we have the accidents under control) and sleeping in our own bed with our own pillows is nice. Also, it seems we both got terrible allergies while in Iowa or we caught a bug as we are both rather miserable right now.

Now, everyone go give Snow some birthday wishes!

Wheels are Working…

Miraculously my car is working again. Don’t ask me what the trouble was. It hadn’t been driven since Saturday morning so it couldn’t have been vapor lock, plus if it had been that I think it would have tried to turn over. But, whatever it is, my car started for DH last night. It’s still going into the shop for a once over and the oil change and all that fun maintenence stuff. I’m glad it’s working again, though there are more than a few things that could use doing other than sitting at the garage for 1.5-2 hours this afternoon. We leave so soon and DH just sent me an alarmingly long list of “to dos” that he wants done before we leave (thankfully most are on his plate but then I usually feel I’m in the way if I’m not helping with something). This is another of those annoying things that bugs me. He suddenly gets a bug to have everything completely spic and span - including mopping kitchen floors and doing all possible laundry (even down to the unmatched socks) right before a trip. Nine times out of ten it means us leaving 2-4 hours later than he has told me we were going to leave.

EDIT: Can we tell I’m PMS-ing? Not exactly prime time to be prepping for a long road trip with little time at the destination. *sigh*

I see much knitting to reduce stress in the next 1.5 days….

Here is where I’m at on the Wear-Everywhere Pullover. I’m working the pattern on the smaller needles and am roughly 1 inch from switching to the larger needles. Once I switch to the larger needle I’ll be moving Leaf Lace onto this circ, even though it is a ridiculous 47″ long. I’ll get into why tomorrow (and hopefully I will have it moved by then if I’m lucky). If only I had a circular knitting needle fairy *swoon* . . .

Oh, and I just remembered that one of my favorite bead stores is within walking distance of the garage so perhaps I’ll browse their selection for the beads to put on my leaf lace shawl . . .