Kris Crafts!

Thirty years ago today, this man was born.

Eight years ago, he kissed me for the first time (there might have been some birthday celebration liquid courage involved, on a night I pulled default designated driver with our group of friends because I was 20). We weren’t officially a “couple” until the 15th, but merely because I knew before we even started dating that this would be it, and I thought 20 was a little young. I was a wee bit resistant, but I’m glad I gave in (like I had a choice!)

I’ve had the great privilege of watching Brad grow from a young Navy boy to a remarkable man. He’s learned to balance his impressive ambition with his incredible capacity to care deeply about those important to him. He knows everything about me (including all of the things I’m not proud of), and loves me completely. He’s such a part of who I’ve become as an adult myself, and I feel very lucky that 30 years ago, the love of my life was born.

And hey, how can you not love a guy who is willing to pose with a fluffy dog for the purpose of internet smooshiness?

I’m totally late with these again - was preoccupied with the stinker. Leilani is doing well - we’ve spent the day working hard to keep her resting. I’ve actually had to leash her to my leg to keep her from jumping off the couch randomly.

April Goals:
1. Reblock Ms. Darcy and post finished pics. Not done, which is pretty sad
2. Make some progress on Salina. Done
3. Finish Stricken socks. Done
4. Blog at least 3 times a week. Done-ish - close enough

May Goals:
1. Take FO pics of Ms. Darcy.
2. Post FO pics of Sock With No Name.
3. Finish Salina.
4. Finish Gothic Spire socks.
5. Pick knitting for Europe!

We got a pleasant surprise - Lani was doing well enough yesterday that they decided not to keep her overnight. She was a wee bit stoned when we got her:

She refused to sleep, and spent the entire evening staring at random spots on the wall. We did get her to eat and drink a little, but she fought us on the sleeping arrangement (we tried to get her to sleep on the love seat in our bedroom, pulled up to the bed, but she was having none of it, and while we would have won while awake, she would have jumped up once we were asleep). Thank goodness we have a king sized bed. The result was Brad and I scrunched to one side so we didn’t accidentally hurt her, and me waking up every couple of hours to make sure she was still breathing (I would have done that regardless of where she was sleeping - I’m neurotic even when not awake). She seems almost normal today:

She’s not allowed to jump, run, or climb stairs for two weeks, so we’ve had our hands full. Her incisions (three of them) are tiny, and they don’t go through muscle for the laproscopic procedure (I don’t think we would have opted to perform a traditional surgical biopsy). It still was a lot for her little body, though, and one of us has to be in the room with her at all times, or she has to be carried to where we are (or she’ll follow us and break all of her post-op rules). Believe me, I’m super glad she’s feeling okay - I think she’s actually more comfortable than she was after the needle aspiration of her liver, and she hasn’t had any pain medication today at all. We’re just a little tired - luckily we have the cone already to keep her from her passing curiosity from her belly.

This is the first weekend that neither Brad or I have had school, so the timing of this ended up being pretty good. The low key time is kind of nice, and I’m getting some knitting done. It’s nice to have the procedure behind us, but now we still have to wait 5-7 days for the results of her biopsy. All we know now is that visually, the rest of her organs look good (so it’s unlikely that her gall bladder, for instance, is messing with her test results), and that her liver had no visible tumors or nodules, but was small and pale. I’m not sure entirely what that means, and I have banned myself from looking it up on the internet, but we’ll know more in a week or so. Fingers crossed for the best news we can get in this situation.

It’s been kind of a rough week. Leilani is having her laproscopic liver biopsy this morning. We’ve been going back and forth all week on if it’s the right thing to do, based on the risks of the procedure and the potential rewards (as well as the potential to do all of this and still not know the underlying cause). Our general internal medicine vet gets major points - I asked her every conceivable question over the course of the last three days. Since I’m sure she only ever sees a certain type of pet owner (not everyone would see anyone besides their regular vet, which is more of a general practitioner), so I know she is spared the exacerbating pet owner of the “well, I don’t care, lets just put the dog to sleep” variety. So I feel fairly certain that I’ve ranked on the difficult owner scale, from the perspective of my second-guessing and general neurosis, but she’s been amazing, patient, and thorough and thoughtful in explaining everything about Leilani’s condition, possible prognosis, and advising us on our various treatment options.

I’m still somewhat of a wreck, though. Lani will have her procedure around 8 am (she gets to go first because little dogs shouldn’t fast longer than they have to - I wish someone would tell her that). They’ll keep a close eye on her all day and all night, and we pick her up tomorrow morning. I think we’re going to see a movie or something tonight - something to get us out of the house.

Last greenie before the fast:

All ready to go this morning - Brad dropped her off without me. Both for the reasons of general logistics (the laproscopic surgeon is close to where he works), and practicality. Because seriously, between me and Brad, no one would pick me to be the one with the greater ability to drop her off and not freak her out.

Yesterday, Brad and I headed off to WEBS to see the Yarn Harlot. I thought I was being smart, taking advantage of the pre-signing at WEBS. Turns out that everyone else had the same idea:

It was insane. And sock yarn was 25% off. I’m just sayin’. Anyway, so Brad ended up standing in line for me in the book signing line while I browsed the yarn, and then he stood in the purchase line while I took over in the book line. It was the only way we got out of there in time (he made a few friends in the process - he does stand out a bit ). And the very nice person behind me in the book line took the yarn I had decided to put back (it was gorgeous, but yeah, spendy doggie).

I had just started the Gothic Spire socks (I finished the Sock With No Name), but I had to do the sock swap picture anyway (and of course, Stephanie knew what yarn I was using).

I have to wonder what the people of Northampton thought of this:

Calvin Theater was almost completely full. It was insane. What was more insane is that I actually asked a question, in front of all those people. It’s still making me anxious just thinking about it. I asked Stephanie about being harlotted, which I guess is a phrase that Ravelers made up, to describe the retail bomb that Stephanie mentioning an indie on her website creates. Turns out she’s just warned someone that she would mention them, but she wouldn’t tell us who. I’m insanely curious, though I have to say that I haven’t really been buying the recent stuff (though I do remember a particularly enthusiastic effort to duplicate this scarf quite a while ago, but I don’t think that counts).

When we got home, Lani got cuddly:

And of course, I couldn’t move until she was done. For the quickie update - Lani’s ophthalmologist had a death in the family, so her appointment was canceled today (unfortunately, Brad was already on the way over there with Lani when I found out). She’ll see her next week, which means she’s on the eye drops until then. Our consult with the laproscopic surgeon is Thursday morning (bright and early, since I have a customer meeting that day), with the actual procedure on Friday.

1. Part of the randomness is that I can do this any day I want, right?

2. Lani is at the vet for her pre-tests - her last liver panel wasn’t good, so next up is a liver biopsy next week Friday. This sucks as much as it sounds.

3. I just realized yesterday that I leave for Europe in a month. I have to wrap up the wool sweater here (Salina) and pick something cotton! I’m thinking Cherry (scroll down). I have some red Jo Sharp Summer Soho in the stash.

4. Speaking of the stash, I need to clean mine up and out. My craft room is a disaster, and people will be here on the 18th for a grad party (my classmates and professors only). I’ll probably have some destash stuff on Ravelry in a wee bit.

5. Brad got a grill for his birthday (it’s not until May 6th, but he couldn’t wait). I expect a few barbecues this summer.

6. Speaking of summer, I’m not too enthused about how one second it was 55 degrees in my house and now it’s 72. Both me and Lani are having issues adjusting.

7. The other night on American Idol, Andrew Lloyd Webber was asked what the title of a love song between Paula and Simon would be entitled. He replied, “How can I say I miss you if you won’t go away?” I want that on a t-shirt.

The last weekend of school was rough (three presentations!) but fun at the same time. Friday afternoon, we celebrated a little at PJRyans with a small group:

Saturday morning, I forgot something and had to come back for it before going to school, and Lani was watching and waiting:

Here’s most of the class of 2008 at TGI (I think there are one or two people missing), but I’ve been in the same room with these guys for two years (I’m in the front, and the guy right behind me is a professor, not a student):

Our program is a little lax with the rules, especially on the last day - classes in the past brought in a keg. We took the “classy” route and brought in champagne:

Which meant that right before my very last presentation ever, I was topping off my professor’s glass for him. Hopefully that helped!

We went from school to a massive party nearby, of which I have zero pictures of. Why, I don’t know. I had to leave early to go to my very first Red Sox game!

Very cool! I have to say, Padres games did not prepare me for the magic of Fenway, and the enthusiasm of the crowd.

After the game, I met up with what was left of the party (Brad was still with them, since I was with my boss’s boss for the game ). So much fun. One of my classmates is throwing a party in two weeks, and there’s a party at our house the day of graduation, so we’re not done celebrating yet. I still have a final project to finish (I technically graduate in August, though I’ll walk in May), but NO MORE HOMEWORK! Yay!

I celebrated on Sunday by finally knitting. I had balled up the Algae STR before Miyon and Marisa weighed in for the Raven series, and I was too lazy on Sunday to think about winding more. The Raven series will be next! In the meantime, I have most of a first sock (Sock With No Name):

1. I have two pages left to write for my very last assignment at school. These are the hardest and longest two pages ever.

2. I haven’t knit a stitch in a week due to school. Of course, I could have knit during the time that I procrastinated on assignments rather than reading train wreck threads on Ravelry. Oops.

3. I’m going to a Red Sox game on Saturday! Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave my last day of school party early to go to it, but my boss’s boss asked me to go with her, and how could I say no? (Both for the cool work/social opportunity and the fact that I’ve never been to Fenway. I’m trying to enjoy all of the New Englandy sort of things that I can.) I’m also reasonably sure that I can meet up with my classmates after the game - there’s a subset that are going to go into Boston after the first party (which I can go to for two hours).

4. I was looking for Leilani this morning while getting ready for work, and we found her patiently waiting by the door for a walk (door not pictured, but it’s about 2 feet behind her and to the right):

It was cute, and I’m always relieved these days when she does things that speak to a good energy level. Ignore the ugly linoleum - we were going to tile this summer, but I think that might be postponed due to the fact that animal health care is a wee bit spendy.

5. Speaking of, Leilani has another blood test tomorrow. This is more of a spot check than anything, since the steroids could affect the results, but we need to make sure that she’s not on a serious decline.

6. Two days left of school!

I thought work would get a little less insane after the customer meeting the first week of April, but really, it turns out that I had neglected so much on my other projects that there’s no real break. And with all three of the projects I’m on having customer meetings in the next month (one “surprise” meeting tomorrow, one on Brad’s birthday, 5/6, and one the week after), I give up on the whole “work will get better” thing - I have to just start going home when I’m supposed to.

Leilani’s eye condition requires her to get eyedrops four times a day, which means one of us has to come home during lunch to dose her (special thanks to my sister for doing dog duty on Friday so I could go skiing while Brad was at school giving a presentation). It’s been hard to escape from work on the days it’s my turn (like today), but it would be harder not helping to take care of her. Leilani is pretty light-sensitive right now (no camera flashes, for sure), so I took this afternoon’s visit to get some update photos while there was still natural light.

Less squinty, and no conehead! She’s much happier without it, believe me. She still looks kind of funky, though:

She went off the medication that is dialiating her eye yesterday (it was for her comfort while waiting for the steroids to make the eye better), so in a few days we’ll see if her eye looks a little less weird (it’s her right eye, pictured on the left side). I don’t know if you can tell at this resolution, but it’s blueish and cloudy.

As hard as it is to escape the clutches of the office, it’s that much harder to leave that cute face twice in one day.

In a rare move for me, I took the day off on Friday to go skiing with a couple of my friends from school:

I look like a blue marshmallow, but it turns out that if you go shopping for snow pants this late in the season, your choices are limited and I couldn’t get another color (I already owned the jacket).

There was some debate over trying to ski or snowboard, but given the fact that we were just there for a day, I took the advice of Kelly (on the far right) and my sister and opted to ski. I did have to promise John (the guy behind the camera) that I would give showboarding a shot next season. We were there a week after group lessons ended, unfortunately, so I got an hour private lesson. The very nice woman ringing me up felt sorry for my suddenly much more expensive day, and gave me good deals on my lift ticket and equipment rentals to help take the sting out. The lesson was great, and my friends were fabulous at helping me out afterward.

There was a moment after a particularly un-fun fall when I skidded down on my back that I thought I had hurt my right forearm - it was getting progressively more and more painful. Then I touched it, and realized that my jacket vent was open, and a bunch of ice had gotten in my sleeve, and the pain I was feeling was ice needles. Whew! Averted a knitting injury!

This was after I finally conquered the novice hill, fall-free. All in all, a very nice day, and something to look forward to next winter when I don’t have school! (Brad still will, but every other weekend.)

I spent the rest of the weekend hobbling around (my calve muscles feel horrible!) and either avoiding or working on a research paper that was due last night. I am inching towards my very last weekend of school ever this weekend! I’m going to be bummed about seeing some people in my class less (but not all ), but it will be nice to be able to make it to Knitsmiths again.

She still looks silly, but her eye is much less red, and she’s not trying so hard to circumvent the cone to get at her eye. She still will rub it given the chance, so conehead she stays, for now. She’s definitely not as agitated, so that’s good. We’re taking turns running home at lunch to give her eyedrops since she needs them four times a day.

I still haven’t picked my next sock - I think I need help. I have two choices - on the left, STR in Korppi that Marisa picked up for me at Stitches West, paired with Cookie A.’s Gothic Spire (from SW 2006, I think). On the right, we have STR in Algae (SW 2007) paired with Cookie A.’s The Sock With No Name that Marisa picked up for me. Thoughts?

And just for fun, the results of learning to type when I was 7-ish using MasterType on my Commodore 64:

94 words

Speed test

Just got back from the ophthalmologist (yes, they have ophthalmologists for dogs, I was surprised too), and I thought I’d take the five minutes wait between administering two different types of eyedrops to update the internets on Leilani’s medical escapades. She doesn’t have conjunctivitis, she has uveitis (warning, really disgusting eye picture in that wikipedia link). This is linked to the leptospirosis, so her left eye could develop problems too. She’s now on steroid eye drops, and mercifully, another medication to help her discomfort. Oh, and the uveitis has helped along some cataract formation (on top of the already present nuclear sclerosis). The ophthalmologist was quick to point out the bright side, which is at least we don’t have to go hunting for the cause of the uveitis, we already know it’s the lepto. *sigh*

Just because Leilani’s health isn’t complicated enough, the steroids will affect her liver enzyme readings, so that recheck that we’re supposed to do this week will be thrown off. Our general internist wasn’t at the hospital today, so I couldn’t ask her what we should do (I tried to get Lani in for a blood check at our regular vet today before I started her on the steroids, since the internist wants the bloodwork to happen at the same lab, but they had no time).

On the actual bright side, Leilani should start feeling better within 24 hours, which is a huge relief (for both of us) - she’s been in quite a bit of discomfort, and has had to wear the cone 24/7 because she’s just dying to scratch her eye.

I finished the trio of new Cookie A patterns:

Pattern: Stricken by Cookie A.
Yarn: Less than one skein of Lisa Souza Socks!
Needles: US 1 Knitpicks nickel plated
Modifications: none
Date Started: March 21, 2008
Date Completed: April 4, 2008
Time: 13 hours for the first sock, 14.75 for the second (I blame Dancing with the Stars) for a total of 27.75 hours

Now I’m three for three:

I finished the three patterns released at Stitches West (and are now all available online). Of course, Marisa also picked up Cookie A pattern from STR for me… hmm, it’s been a while since I’ve had me some STR.

We had a bit of a dog day at school on Friday, and Lani made a new friend, Gus (a long-haired Chihuahua, who I would totally take home in a heartbeat if his owner would let me).

And of course, by “made a new friend,” I mean “completely ignored the existence of, practically standing on his head to drive home the point that he did not exist.”

She had some issues with her right eye on Wed night - we flushed it out with saline (contact solution) like our doggie first aid book told us to, and she seemed perfectly fine until Friday afternoon. After flushing it out again and a nap, she looked worse, so we went off to the doggie ER.

It might just be conjunctivitis, but she has low pressure in her eyes, which means this could actually be another leptospirosis thing. We’ve got some antibiotic ointment, but if she’s not looking better tomorrow or the day after, she’ll have to see a doggie ophthalmologist. She’s supposed to be able to be without cone when we’re at home and can watch her, but she is super quick with the eye scratching, so cone-head it is. I just wish she were feeling better.

I’m totally late with these - it’s been that kind of week.

March Goals:
1. Cookie A. socks! Just knit them and have fun. Done
2. Reblock Ms. Darcy and post finished pics. Not done, which is pretty sad
3. Make some progress on Salina. Not done
4. Blog at least 3 times a week. Done

April Goals:
1. Reblock Ms. Darcy and post finished pics.
2. Make some progress on Salina.
3. Finish Stricken socks.
4. Blog at least 3 times a week.

I had asked Brad to go to the pet store to pick up some Nutrical (a calorie supplement that Lani loves) to smear on pills. After you guys gave me suggestions, I added pill pockets to his list (I’ve been working until late all week and Brad has been graciously picking up my slack).

Brad picked up the feline version since they were the right size (and the ingredients the same). Our first attempt at using these didn’t work (she ate the pocket, but not the pill). Then last night I thought maybe I should break the engineering code and actually read the directions, and it turns out that not only do you shove the pill in, you should seal the pocket around the pill. So when Lani woke me up this morning because she wanted to go outside and hunt bunny rabbits (seriously, Brad had already taken her on a walk to transact all of the business she needed to before he left for school, so she woke me up for purely recreational purposes), I sealed a pill into a packet to use as her “thanks for actually coming when I call you away from the scent of bunnies” treat. And, it worked!

They are a tad spendy (compared to peanut butter or other dog treats), but they’re a lot cheaper than the pills that we’re trying to get into her, and eliminating the 10 minutes of stubborn fake swallowing and pill spitting routine is priceless. The Nutrical smear on her pill worked too, so we do have a backup, and maybe some variety will help us avoid losing another pilling technique.

Lani’s internist called yesterday. She actually had a much more positive view of Lani’s improved (but still not good) liver enzyme levels than we got from the vet, and wants to wait another 2-3 weeks before we discuss more biopsy options. Apparently leptospirosis with antibiotic liver toxicity is back on the table, with the nodules being regenerative in nature in this scenario. I’m trying to remain guardedly optimistic, because I was so sure the lepto was the whole story before this last round of testing, and I don’t know if I can take another huge disappointment. So she’ll have daily pills again (an issue, since she lost her love of peanut butter), these focusing on healing her liver. We’ll do the bloodwork again in 2-3 weeks.

If she could only figure out how to channel some of this fur growing energy to liver regeneration…

This is a good representation of the color:

And in direct sunlight, to photograph the cables better:

Pattern: Trystero by Cookie A. (available online at the end of March)
Yarn: Less than one skein of Fleece Artist Merino Socks
Needles: US 1.5 Knitpicks nickel plated
Modifications: none
Date Started: March 15, 2008
Date Completed: March 21, 2008
Time: 10 hours for the first sock, 10.5 for the second for a total of 20.5 hours

My sister’s birthday was March 8th. Since prior to the knitting binge of Cookie A socks, all of the knitting I got done was in class, this was no different. I decided against the US 8 needles I had with me on the 7th, so I had my work cut out for me on the 8th. Luckily, my sister had requested a simple pattern - the funny part is that I had procured it in a yarn swap, in which I had taken a skein of yarn from her stash. I thought she’d like the colors, and it turns out that she actually had some in her stash (and had knit a scarf from it). I’d like to think I just knew her colors well, but I probably remembered the scarf.

Pattern: Fetching by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Less than one skein of Noro Silk Garden in 211
Needles: US 7 Addi Turbos
Modifications: accidentally only knit two cable repeats for the wrist rather than three
Date Started: March 8, 2008
Date Completed: March 8, 2008
Time: 1.75 hours for the first, 1.5 for the second for a total of 3.25 hours

I’m a few days later than I had hoped to be with the latest update - it’s been quite a week at work (we had two customer demos on Wednesday for the two projects that I spend the majority of my time on).

Brad took Leilani in for a revisit of her bloodwork on Tuesday. They again made her wait way too long (our specialist wanted the bloodwork done at the same lab for comparison), but no other adverse affects. Anyway, her levels are lower (which is good), which indicates that part of the rapid deterioration in her levels had antibiotic toxicity as a contributer. So, it relaxes our timeline a little bit - if they hadn’t gone down, we would have done a biopsy (either ultrasound guided big ass needle or surgical) this week with yet another doctor. Since we have a little more time, we’ll be talking to our specialist on Monday when she gets back from vacation to figure out which option for the biopsy is best, and when to do it. I also think I might not have been clear last update - cancer isn’t ruled out at this point (the fine needle aspiration only yields a few cells to analyze) but the chances of it are lower.

Anyway, here’s the furball with the product of my knitting binge last Saturday (best way to deal with all of this, really) - another Cookie A. pattern, Trystero. I’ve just finished the second one, so there will be an FO shot soon.