Peace and quiet

We are nearly at the end of 5 days of holidays here in South Australia. *skip* has from Friday to Tuesday off, which has been wonderful. We are also in the middle of the school holidays, thank GOODNESS for that, as 11 week terms are just NOT fun by about week 8. We were all of us totally burnt out, but a little bit of gardening, (not as much as I was hoping but it all just HAD to be sprayed because of rampant Kikuyu), a bit of knitting, a lot of napping and we are restoring our selves.

Actually, it’s a lot of knitting. Thanks to the joys of Acupuncture, my herniated disc in my neck is finally making progress. I have reduced my pain-killers to only occasionally, and if I LISTEN to my body and rest when I need to, I can cope so much better. I’ve never had serious acupuncture before, and the difference it made, in even the first week, was remarkable. Highly worth a shot. Don’t leave it until it’s the last resort like I did, and suffer for a month longer than you need to.

Anyway, thanks to the Acupuncture, and lots of enforced rest, I am preparing for winter by knitting up a storm. First the Tea Leaves Cardigan, which was completed in 1 Month! Yes, that’s got to be some kind of record for me at least.

I ABSOLUTELY should have (and will next time) knit the next size down. It does look a little large on me, but oh well, I still love it. It’s warm and cosy, extremely comfortable and wearable. Better still, it’s a whole lot of wool out of my stash. Bought in March last year for this project, and sitting in a drawer ever since.

Currently I’m working on converting about 600 grams of my Mother’s Vintage wool into a Shalom cardigan. Yet another top-down, with no seaming at all. My kind of knitting as I hate seams with a passion. I also suck at them, which helps with the hating kind of thing. Sadly the pattern is only written in one size, so I’m having to tweak the tension, stitch size etc to make it work. And the wool is old and frayed, so I’m constantly having to cut out damaged bits and rejoin. AND I’m knitting it double, so I’m just hanging to get it finished so that I can not have to deal with it anymore. It’s looking absolutely gorgeous though, and at 1 week in to the project, I’m about 3/4 done, so can’t say it’s not been a quick knit. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve had a lot of time to spare 😉

But it’s interesting at the moment….. surfacing so to speak. I mean, my poor body has taken a battering over the last few years, both physically and emotionally. It has left me with some changes that I don’t like – a little bit of weight, and a whole lot of tiredness, lack of stamina. Sore muscles if I do anything resembling work. But there has been such a long time where I wasn’t able/allowed to do anything. Between the Pneumonia, which I didn’t take seriously for 2 weeks and kinda then regretted, the Whooping Cough, the car accident that I’m still feeling the repercussions of 9 months later.

My Acupuncturist, who is my new hero, is encouraging me to be kinder to my body. Sleep more. Eat better. And you know, she’s probably right. It might be a little to do with why I went from feeling 25  only 3 short years ago to about 55 now. I feel OLD all of a sudden. And this corporeal vessel, well I had better take care of it, or it will probably just feel worse over the next few years.

I’m also taking care of my inner self. Nourishing it. At *skips* encouragement, I have joined Christy Tomlinson’s She Art Workshop. Before the school holidays, I got my first canvas started, but I feel very self-conscious still about creating and much prefer to do it without my interested audience, so I’ve had to put her on hold for a few more days. She now lays on the kitchen table. She has become so much a part of the family already we have dinner around her, read the paper over her, and just generally ignore her existence. Which is exactly what I want. I hate a fuss, I’d rather she got ignored than ooh’d and aaah’d over for days.

So that’s a short version of what I’ve been up to ooooh for the last 5 or 6 weeks. I’m sure there’s more. Have you had a look at my Project 365 lately? We’re nearly at the end of April, over 100 images have been captured.

So what have you been up to lately? I’d love to know 🙂

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