FO Number eight!  Sealing the year up by completing my set.  Hat and mittens preceded it.

I made it extra long - the pattern called for 9 repeats. I did 15. I really enjoyed this knit. The cable could be a pain in the ass sometimes (to pull 10 on the cable needle was a bit much) but overall, I loved watching the braid happen. It's super thick yarn and can be looped multiples...and so it should be warm. I'm excited to break this out. Just need a day that isn't so damn cold that I'm wearing so many layers. My nice coat looks sausagy with too many layers.

Also, I'm running out of projects. So if you have something you want to own, of a hand-knit nature, shoot me a note. I even have a lot of yarn that has no purpose...

Yay, it's TMI IUD time!

But first, I spoke to my doctor today and the MRA was normal.  So.  I either had pneumonia and the antibiotics did the job, or the xray was wrong, or my lung spontaneously healed itself.  Or i just have an anomaly in my lung.  Either way I'm not currently dying, as far as I know.  So: phew.

In IUD news, I had my check-up appointment.  Basically my doc just checks to make sure it's still in there, in the right place.  And to make sure I'm not having terrible side effects, which I'm currently not.  I'm about to go way tooooo TMI here.  But my period was really long.  I spotted for a long time before it actually came and then I had it forever.  However, the last pill I was on made me have terrible cramps and so far, not a single one with the IUD.  I'm super excited about that - cramps are supposedly one of the worst side effects of this little piece of copper.  So I'm hopeful that I'm getting off easy.  Except for the part where I have to check that it's still in there once in a while.  I'll let you know how that goes....

So I made it about halfway through December without feeling like I need to pull topics like taffy.  What shall I say today?


I've started ten different entries, but I'm postponing at least three of them for more appropriate dates.  The rest are abandoned to the trash heap.  So it's not that I don't have anything to say...it's just not right today.  So I think I'll leave it.  It's not right today.

I have a very serious sweet tooth.  I have been known to eat cookies for any meal of the day.  And even though he has a video on his phone of me eating cinnamon rolls for dinner that he tortures me with, loml buys me my favorite cookies all the time.  He supports my bad habits.  Santa's favorites are prevalent in this house during the winter.  And it is delightful to be surprised with something you love.

Loml and I have been at this, officially, for a year and a half.  But even before we were together, I got boxes of Santa's Favorites from him for Christmas.  

Part of me wants to stop this post at that - loml brings me cookies when I'm not expecting them.  But I promised you all a sappy post.  There's obviously more to this than cookies.  I mean, the laughs...the laughs from the pushed buttons (mine mostly, but others as well) - I laugh every day.  The stories, he tells stories in a really solid way and I've always preferred listening to talking.  And of course, there's the conversations.  I need to digress here because there is no really good word for chat that doesn't sound trivial or completely cheesy.  Gab?  Heart-to-heart?  Yap?  The only one I'm drawn to is tete-a-tete and that sounds uppity.  Snobbish.  So.  We chat and it is good.

He pushes my buttons, I get mad, we laugh and jabber(?) and eat cookies and sit on our asses.  It's pretty good.

Apologies for the missed day.  I had planned on posting some time in the afternoon yesterday and then I got all kinds of distracted making sure the house looked well enough for the housewarming party.  Thank you to all who came, it was a really lovely evening.

After the party, I told loml we should really get out more - all of our friends are pretty fantastic and I'd like to know some of them better.  And he said, "eh, I think they know why we're shut-ins now.  Our house is awesome."  And so apparently you're all going to have to start coming to us - our doorbell is always working.

But, really, if the party did anything (besides prove that the upstairs will get super warm from body heat while the downstairs remains icy), it inspired me to be really grateful for my family and friends. You all are the best.

And now I will go eat cupcakes, cake, cookies, delicious spicy pretzels, salsa, cucumbers, and pistachios until I feel sick. And then I'll lay down like a big lump and enjoy my Sunday of nothing.

This picture is really tragically bad. But I'm happy and proud to present FO number seven for the year:

My sister's nuptial blanket. It is possibly the softest thing I've ever created (and machine washable/dry-able). And I did an i-cord border which was new. I tried to take a picture of that and failed. 


Congrats sort-of-newlyweds!

Today I had an MRA not an MRI.  Honestly, I'm pretty confused and I have no idea what they're trying to diagnose here.  Blood vessel anomaly in my chest x-ray.  MRA of my chest area.  That's what I know.  I don't get results for 2-3 business days, so check back later.


The MRA itself was an MRI but I think they take images differently.  I got an IV, though they didn't end up shooting anything into it.  So I went through that pain in the ass for nothing.  I did find myself wondering if I'm becoming a swooner: when I got my IUD I got really hot and shaky and dizzy afterwards.  That happened while she was doing the IV (and moving that needle back and forth and wiggling it while it was in my arm which felt terrible and makes my skin crawl even thinking about it).  And now I'm wondering if that hot/shaky thing isn't just the phase right before a faint; maybe I'm only avoiding fainting by sheer force of will.


IV in, I go to the MRI room with my tech, Chris, who was a weird dude.  He was a 20 year old in a 40 year olds body.  Or else he was aging really badly.  He strapped me on to the machine (with 3 stickers/sensors around my heart and a cage above my chest) and in I went.  It honestly wasn't bad.  The machine had a constant noise beat (like a dance beat) and then all of the tests added to the beat to make a new beat.  It was like an MRI song.  I found it intriguing.  Also, the machine gets hot during some of the tests, which was odd.  All in all, fascinating.  At times, it was kind of relaxing.  Sort of like sensory deprivation except I could still hear.  I think it's possible, that if you subtract the IV experience, I kind of enjoyed it.

There are times when I really, really wish I had an iPhone.  Most of the time, I do not care and don't really want you to contact me - I hate phones and cell phones especially.  Also, is it just me or does cell phone somehow seem like an antiquated term?  Should we be calling everything smart phone or mobile device or...something else?  

But when you see the CTA holiday train....honestly, you want to take a picture.  Or a video.  And that's what everyone does while they smile.  Everyone including loml:

Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect from the train, but I was excited.  Very excited.  And seeing everyone's face while riding the train made it the most joy-filled 50 minutes I can remember.  Christmas music + Christmas smell + low lighting + decorations....it just works.  I think, if you rode for a few stops, the full experience may be lost a bit.  But it will hopefully convince you to take a longer ride next time.

I highly recommend this Chicago holiday experience, though I wouldn't travel in for it.  Just try to catch one near you if you're a Chicagoan.  Loml thought it was just as great as I did.  Tomorrow's commute is going to be really depressing. 

More info on the holiday train...

Loml is currently yelling at the cat while in the bathroom.  Mona views the bathroom as her territory (the bathroom, the purple room and our bedroom) and so wants in whenever anyone is in there.  She paws incessantly at the door and moans.  She's a whiner and it can be annoying. She also has a bad habit of drinking from the toilet.

Apparently loml gives in to her crying because he just coughed and it sounded like he was in the next room.  Which means he was letting Mona lay on the floor in the bathroom while he did his thing with the door open.  When I told him I was going to blog about it, he asked why, said she wouldn't leave and then agreed I can blog about it if it's about what a terrible cat she is.  Mona and loml enjoy private time in the bathroom together.  She's a terrible cat.

***

This is what I saw on Saturday while I was doing laundry.  It was quite lovely.  Windows are awesome.  How did I live in that dark apartment for six years?

Loml and I have completely opposite schedules.  I have the schedule of an old lady (in bed by 10, lights off almost always by 11).  He has the schedule of a crazy college student or of a sickly old lady.  Sometimes he sleeps 6 hours and then naps during the day, sometimes he sleeps 12 hours straight.  He really is a marvel.  Anyway, I digress.  I always knew it was going to be hard to combine our lives.  How do we deal with:

• My need for white noise because of his sleeping noises....vs. his need for quiet because the fan is too loud.
• My getting in bed early and therefore needing his activity levels in other rooms to be quieter.
• His getting in bed later and sometimes jarring me awake.
• My burning, boiling late night temperatures make me want to keep the room at a cool -3 degrees vs his need, as a normal human being, to stay warm at night.

Clearly, we're still working on it.  When I was sick the other night, he slept in a different bed.  And said he got the best night's sleep he's had so far in this house (cue sad face).  But, it's probably true.  I saw a couple on Oprah (these are things that shouldn't be admitted/put in writing, right?) who have slept in separate beds for the entirety of their marriage.  I'm not about to go there with loml, but it's intriguing to me.  Why is it we sleep in the same bed these days, especially if it's causing us to sleep badly?  Besides the obvious bonuses of being in the same bed, I personally refuse to give up the spontaneous chats.

Comcast DNS is down - this meant that for 10 minutes just now I thought I was going to write a mea culpa tomorrow for not even making it 5 days.  But I had good luck (or a good boyfriend) and am now using google dns in my router and all is right with the world.

Tonight loml and I went out to the burbs and had a mini holiday celebration with his parents.  They do it every year - attending some kind of wintery/christmasy event.  In the past they've seen the Nutcracker, been to a live nativity, seen the Snow Queen, etc.  We attended "Bending Toward the Light: A Jazz Nativity".  Clearly this is something I never would have considered attending on my own (in a church!).  But I'm really glad I did.  What a weird performance.  Mary did modern dance.  The choral singers "scatted".  But the best, by far, were the three kings.  I don't even know how to lead into this so...The Trumpet King, The Latin Percussion King and the Tap Dancing King.  Each with their own performance during the song.  It was fantastically weird and awesome. 

Still stuffy and sneezy.  Off to take a bit more nyquil and cough in bed all night.  Night kids.

I had a post planned for today.  It was about loml and i.  Because today is an anniversary - we've been together a year and a half now.  It honestly seems like we've been together much longer than that most of the time.  Though I occasionally do find myself thinking - wait, we are together AND live together?  Whoa.


I can't write that sappy post because I can't stop sneezing.  Loml commented, while we were trying to put the laundry away, that he doesn't think he's sneezed as much in his entire life.  And currently, i'm managing to hold the sneezes in - and oh my god it hurts.  This may be the worst cold I've had in years.  Cold symptoms unrelated to lungs.  Though I did hypothesize that when I went to the doctor to get better, it's possible I picked this up.  Sister and brother-in-law who stopped by the house - take some emergen-C now.


SNEEZE.  I'll write a sappy belated anniversary loml post as soon as i stop with the snot.  Nyquil take me away...

My coworker (and katie + blog = fun? devotee...hahahaha) says this blog has been all doom and gloom lately.  Hopefully some of that will be dispelled with blogging every day.  I'll have to blog when crap is going wrong AND when I'm happy.  I really do love this house and loml is great and I have a fun filled December ahead.  It's just way more entertaining to you all (and therapeutic for me) if I tell you of all the wild times.  And lately those have been bad luck related.  I mean, who wants to hear about the mostly fun/best so far holiday work party?  Where I bowled an 81?  And ate pizza and talked to the people I like at work?  Meh, I'm bored even writing it.


And so continues the sometimes gloomy posting.  


I got my test results back from the belabored breathing doctor's appointment and I need more tests.  Exact phrase: "blood vessel anomaly".  Continue with your regularly scheduled program while I wonder what the hell that means and hope for pneumonia and not lymphoma.  These were the only two possibilities my doctor mentioned during the quick chat we had.  She prescribed antibiotics and started the process to get an MRI appointment.  I'm pretty sure I don't have cancer, but I guess you'll all have to wait and see with me.

I present to you, without further explanation, an emotional storm.


This is the gear room.

That door ahead of you opens into the electric meter closet.
This is the meter on the floor while the gas company was working on it (from the very first trip); picture credit: loml instagr.am.

Please note the ledge and it's height off of the floor.  Notice all those pipes on the right blocking easy access.  The meter hangs in the large empty space on the left - pretty much right in front of the ledge.  How and where does a fat cat hurl her body up there and squeeze in?  We will never know.
This is what it looks like when you are sure the cat is in the wall and loml suggests we take a flash picture.

Click on that one to enlarge.  The dark lump in the back is Boku.
I immediately try zoom, then take a picture.

Click on that one to enlarge.  This is the moment (5:05pm from the timestamp) that I started to completely break down.  Because in that image in kind of looks like Boku is stuck on her back legs.  I can't stop seeing it like that.  Like she was trying to climb to the right and got stuck in a slightly ramped position.  That white bit at the bottom left is her paw.  Does anyone else see that?
From this point until around 5:25 I was inconsolable.  We couldn't get Boku to move or make any noise.  I have almost 20 pictures trying to document some kind of change.  Anything.  Nothing.  Because Boku was dead, remember?

The first glance into the hole.  Still didn't have the best angle/ability to see her.

The second glance.  It was NOT a back paw.  It was white ass hair + insulation = visual trickery.
And then we had this. picture credit: loml instagr.am

Now we have a handy dad fixing up that hole.  It will be mended before any of you will ever get a chance to see it with your own two eyes.  And I am so happy for that.

I really should have done Nablopomo. I know I should have. And last month would have been a banner month to do it. So much random crap happened. And by "random crap happened" I mostly mean "shit went wrong". There are about a dozen stories I should have told you. And now I will distill it all into one post of bullet points.

I'm thinking about writing every day this month. Don't hold me to it, but I need to kickstart my impulse to blog. And what better way than to force it? I should probably "save" up these stories if I truly mean to do this...but I have a hunch a ton of random crap is going to happen again.

• My basement was finished. Stuff was moved in. It's becoming a two floor home.
• Since we've been down there more, we realized it smelled like gas in the gear room *the bedroom will henceforth be the gear room*. Gas company was called. They replaced some apparatus that held the meter in place.
• Next day, couldn't find the cat. The feral mama cat. Boku. Boku, seeing the open door to the meter closet, jumped up to a ledge (2-3 feet off teh ground) and climbed inside the wall. Probably about 7 feet inside the wall. And we only found her because I'm a crazy cat lady and just knew she was in there. She didn't make any noise. We poked her with a tape measure (it was the only thing long enough). No noise. We tapped on the wall. No noise. In our eyes, she had climbed into a dark, quiet spot to die. Boku died. So we had to get her out. Loml was the calm eye stuck in the middle of my emotional storm. He got a saw and proceeded to cut a hole in the wall. And opened it up to Boku staring at him. THAT BITCH WASN'T DEAD. Sorry, just needed to rage there for second. She is alive, well and coaxed out of the hole with some tuna. Ever since the sawing episode, though, she is deathly afraid of Loml. Tides turned? No longer the favorite?
• And then it still smelled like gas. We called again a week later. SURPRISE, the gas is at blow up levels. And since the leak is "on our side" of the piping, they turned off the gas and left. At 2pm on Black Friday. So I called a plumbing company and had to pay emergency rates to get some dudes out to fix it. The gas company comes back (2 hours later. No gas, I was told, is not an emergency). This gas-man (cue taxman by beatles) picked my basement apart; there is a lot wrong in the boiler room. Anyway, he kindly fixed one of the leaks (by tightening a cap) himself and turned our gas on. So far, we haven't smelled gas again.
• My contractor dinged me with an assortment of extra costs. That made me ill for a few days. I bitched it up to him though and cut those extra costs in half. Though I still have extra costs. Sigh.
• Of course, as you know, I got the IUD. And my body is reacting to it in all kinds of ways including, but not limited to, teenage pimple face, crazy mood swings and weird junk I don't want to share. I know my body is getting used to not being on the pill but I'd really like it to cut me a break. Though, bigger picture, I think (as long as it's in the right place still) my reaction has been mild. I'm not in pain or anything (some people have cramps for months). I will say (TMI ahead) that I cannot reach or feel any strings that I'm supposed to be checking. Hopefully my next check up will show that everything is in the right place and I'm set to not have babies.
• I woke up a few nights ago having chest pain. Not sure why I woke up, but it was hurting with every breath. I got a litany of tests today that will hopefully show that I am super healthy and had a random asthma-y thing. No results yet though. As an aside, my general doc asked if i was still on birth control, I explained about the IUD and she just sort of briskly said, oh even better. All doctors love this thing, eh?

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.  For another day...