Recently in Stuff that Happened Category

I can't quite believe I knit an entire shawl in just under two weeks. Admittedly I wasn't working in those two weeks, and the yarn certainly wasn't lace weight, but it wasn't a small shawl either (finished size 210cm x 70 cm).



The shawl is based on the Gaia pattern (Ravelry link), though I made many modifications, so who knows, it may actually resemble some other pattern unintentionally. I omitted the reverse stockinette; made the eyelet rows without bordering them with knit rows except on the bind-off edge; and I made a shallow, broad triangle by doing 4 st increases on RS rows AND 2 st increases on WS rows with the WS row increases knit through back of stitch on RS rows. The eyelet rows were positioned by whim, since the colour transitions in the yarn were too frequent.



I've been wearing this shawl most of the week, despite the fact I now have enough shawls to wear a different one for each day of the week! I wore it to WWKIP day in The Rocks yesterday too. I'm really happy with the yarn, particularly as I spun it myself, and the heavier weight of this shawl makes it a delight for really cold weather. It definitely proved to be the right choice on Friday when we had an evacuation at school.

Speaking of school, I returned last Monday and managed (just) through the whole week. I'm still on antibiotics and had another chest x-ray on Tuesday (which I assume was fine or I'd have been contacted). The long weekend is very welcome!

I have now started another cardigan, with raglan sleeves this time. I've decided that round yokes like on the Tea Leaves Cardigan (which I really should get a good photo of) and Tangled Yoke Pullover don't suit my shape and are not as comfortable as raglan shaping, like my worn-out, favourite black cardi or the modified Mr Greenjeans. So this cardigan will be somewhat like Mr Greenjeans, with more stocking stitch, a lace panel at the bottom and moss stitch bands. The yarn is Woolganic Organic Merino 8ply in "Kundalini".



Visitors to my blog (as opposed to reading through an aggregator) may have noticed that the work in progress bars have changed - they are now linked to Ravelry so are updated more readily. One of these days I will finally fix the title bar - I've always intended that the big white areas either side of the text would be filled in. One day.

I've been meaning to write a post all week. Enough stuff has happened in the "can't make this up" category. Really.

Last week I had two good days, straight after finishing 20 days of antibiotics. Then I started going backwards, badly. Obviously, I hadn't quite shifted all of the chest infection of doom. So on Thursday it was off to GP#4 (I don't like #1 or #2; #3 was booked out and my own GP doesn't work that day). I handed over my discharge letter from my hospital visit two weeks earlier, it was scanned for my files, and I took it back since otherwise it would have been binned. I ended up with prescriptions for a 14 day course of another antibiotic and a Bricanyl inhaler, another medical certificate giving me all of this week off, blood tests and an appointment with my own GP for Tuesday.

Now, Calli, my faithful companion, has been doing an awesome job of comforting me while I have been ill. She has been near constantly on my bed while I was bedridden and on my lap while I have couch-surfed.



So I got home from the GP, and she followed me into my study and sat down. I went to leave the study and she must have moved - and I tripped over her. Cue drama. A wailing Calli looked practically murderously at me. I managed to calm her down enough to examine her left front leg and establish that nothing was broken, but she couldn't put weight on it and was clearly in pain. So we had to go to the vet. The vet suspected it was a dislocated elbow and gave her a shot of anti-inflammatories and pain killers. I had to take her home and return on Friday after withholding food for her to be put under anaesthetic for x-rays.

Calli had an uncomfortable night, but still had enough spunk on Friday morning to jump up on the dining table to demand the breakfast she was not allowed. She did get hugs instead.



It was a simple dislocation of the elbow, which the vet fixed, and Friday afternoon I collected a very groggy Calli and brought her home again. She was so wobbly that I had to shadow her around the house to stop her doing stupid things. Saturday was better, and by Sunday she had bounced back to practically normal.

Meanwhile, I was neither getting better nor worse with my chest infection of doom. I had some of the Bricanyl puffer on Thursday, but wasn't convinced it actually gave me any of the medication (it was a twist dispenser of a fine powder that you then inhaled without seeing it). I took it regularly on Friday and felt awful, but I had been making trips back and forth to the vet that were more exertion than I needed. Saturday was spent on the couch going nowhere. On Saturday evening I took my first puffer dose in about 24 hours because I was a little wheezy. Within half an hour I was having the most awful crushing chest pain. I did not want to have to go back to hospital again, least of all on a Saturday night. But once it became clear that the pain was not going to let up, I called my sister, and my brother-in-law came and took me to hospital.

Surprisingly, the Emergency department was no where near as busy as it had been on my previous visit. I took the letter from my previous visit with me which helped them quickly bring up my records without my needing to fill out forms. I also took the box the puffer came in so they knew what I thought had caused my problems. Crushing chest pains get you in the door quite fast too. The vein blood was taken from on Thursday was completely trashed by another cannula, and they gave me a shot of antihistamine in my other arm that hurt like hell. After a few hours of observations, they let me go home again.

On Sunday and Monday I felt awful. Late on Monday I finally coughed up some horrid stuff and the tightness in my chest finally loosened. Since then, I have been better and better each day. I saw my GP on Tuesday, had the second hospital letter scanned for my files, and had my allergy list updated. I already have a problem with prednisone (I had to stop the hospital from giving me that on Saturday) and with sulfur food preservatives. The Bricanyl is a sulfate (terbutaline sulfate, for future reference), so it might have been a sulfur reaction, or might have been simply an adverse side-effect of the drug. So both that drug and all sulfur containing drugs are now off-limits. I'm sure that's going to create some fun in the future for prescribing anything to me. The blood tests confirmed I had Influenza A.

So bye-bye May. You sucked. June is a nicer month already.

Been through a bit of an ordeal over the last week. I've had sinus trouble since term started, which worsened at the start of May. Saw GP#1, who put me on antibiotics. I continued going to work, because I wasn't all that sick.

Then, last Monday, I developed a sore throat that went from non-existent to "swallowing razor blades" over about 2 hours. I left school early without attending a normal Monday meeting, calling in at a supermarket on the way home for Strepsils. On Tuesday I was no better (my nose started streaming) and I phoned in to work sick. I had to see GP#2 for a medical certificate, which I got, along with the opinion that it was hay fever (which I disagreed with). On Wednesday, the sore throat went and the coughing started. I was near the end of the antibiotics at this stage (yeah, yeah, not helpful as clearly viral). My neighbour, Mary, came and checked I was okay as she noticed my car hadn't moved and I hadn't brought in the newspaper.

Wednesday night was awful. I coughed more than slept until 4 am, and after that I could not sleep, and was too worn down even to cough much. I was having trouble breathing, but couldn't really acknowledge the seriousness of it (it was probably the point at which I should have called an ambulance...). I finally got up at 7am and realised I could barely move and things were very foggy. Breathing was hard (and still I had a shower - I am an idiot!). At 7.30 I rang my parents, 200km away. They worked the phone, contacting my brother and sister and found my sister could get me to the doctor, and they packed and drove to Sydney.

Unfortunately, the GP practice I go to is down near where I used to live. I've been going there my entire life except for the four years I lived in Armidale. I will find one closer to 'home' once 'home' is a little more static and definite. My sister is in a similar position, and also still goes to the same practice. So after a not-short car trip, I got to the doctor. GP#3 (I had wanted to see GP#2, just to point out it wasn't hay fever, but he wasn't available) managed to get some Ventolin into me, which improved my breathing (my hands went from white to pink), then sent me off to hospital with a referral letter of "pneumonia(?)".

So my sister drove me to the hospital-of-my-birth. I got into triage within about 20 minutes of arriving and then went nowhere for something like 2 hours. The emergency department beds were full since they had too many patients waiting for beds in wards and couldn't move anyone out. They couldn't get me out of triage because my blood oxygen saturation was "borderline" (I hate to think what it was before the Ventolin!). I was leapfrogged twice by sicker patients brought in by ambulance. My parents arrived shortly after I entered triage and my sister was able to go home. Mum and I listened while the poor nurse on the triage desk copped flak from some angry, selfish woman who couldn't understand that anyone was sicker than her.

Eventually the doctor had to come to triage and begin treating me. Then I finally got an emergency department bed. No pillow though - I heard one harried nurse complain that they go to the wards and don't come back. By the 1.30pm nurse hand over, I finally had a cannula in my arm, and was awaiting IV antibiotics, a drip, drugs and chest x-rays. The x-ray took the longest. Mum had actually gone back to my house to sort out things as by this point as it seemed clear I was going to have to be admitted. And then the x-rays came back clear - to the doctor's surprise. This meant they didn't have enough clinical reasons to admit me. I'm quite glad, in retrospect, since it would probably would have been a horrible night in the emergency ward. So Mum and Dad came back for me at 4.30-5 ish and I was released with Tamiflu, antibiotics and a medical certificate until 1st June. The "pneumonia" is probably debatable, but it is a faster communicated explanation than "influenza plus chest infection secondary to an upper respiratory tract infection".

Back home I managed a bit of soup for dinner (plus enough pills to make me rattle) despite nausea I had been suffering from all day. Dad headed back home to Port Stephens. He had been going to move my car to the bottom of my driveway so my Mum would be able to drive it, but it didn't happen. I tried to lie down and get some sleep, but the nausea made it too hard. I ended up throwing up everything, and then still feeling so nauseous and in pain that Mum nearly had to call an ambulance to take me back to hospital. Finally I managed to keep down a single Panadol and fell asleep. Two hours later I awoke in far less pain and then managed to sleep another five hours. Panadol is my new friend.

Friday was bed and barely getting up except for the bathroom. I moved to the couch in the evening and took delivery of a lovely white flowered cyclamen plant from my work colleagues in my department at school. I didn't sleep much better on Friday night because of coughing.

Saturday was half-spent in bed, the other half on the couch. One of my work colleagues delivered a white flowered cyclamen plant from the staff association. I didn't see it until she'd gone - then had a coughing fit from all my giggling about it (for the record, I love cyclamen and I didn't have any before this, so I'm very happy!). My coughing eased off and I got my first proper night of sleep.

Yesterday I had a shower and washed my hair - which wiped me out for the whole morning. I finally managed to sit at my computer for a bit. And I slept well again. Today, I'm at the computer more (hello blog!) and have arranged Coles Online to home deliver lots of groceries tomorrow.

Mum has been wonderful and will probably be here until Thursday, depending on how I am (although she has nearly run out of knitting - gasp!). Calli is in heaven since she now has two staff to service her needs, and my lap is near permanently hers to sit on - she's been my shadow. She didn't like it when I went on Thursday and did the biggest leap across my bed on Thursday evening when I returned home.

I'm not heading back to work before 1st June. The school has someone taking my lessons, which is a load off my mind. One friend has described it as being "wobbly as overcooked spaghetti" which is fairly accurate. I'm not taking visitors, due to the influenza and I've had the flu jab every year for the last nine years, including this one, so heaven knows what strain of flu I have. I don't want to give it to anyone. I'm not yet knitting all the time, but have stuff to photograph and put up here once I'm up to it.

It's a boring rant, but I need to vent, then I will move on.

I finally got the bond back on my previous place on Monday. I wasn't keen on posting about the whole ordeal until I had it.

A couple of issues simultaneously made living at my old place a nightmare. There is an issue with a tree (noxious weed species) in the back courtyard that drops berries for 6 months of the year, rendering the courtyard, and particularly the clothes line, unusable. I had been trying to get my former landlord's agent (let's call them FLA - no, I won't name the agency) to act on removing the tree for 18 months, but at the inspection I had in July, I was told to put it in writing. I pointed out that I had, *twice*. I got only a sarcastic comment in return. I would have thought a business dealing with written correspondence should provide a written response. Writing to the FLA results in a black hole. Oh, and don't bother ringing them, they tell you to put it in writing. The same day that this occurred, my immediate neighbour made a complaint about the tree (without knowing about the exchange I had just had) to the owner's corporation. Cue the FLA black hole...

The inspection also set off another chain of events - the FLA did not communicate anything to me at any time, but sent two tradesmen to make quotes on the carpet and replacing a vanity unit and the toilet cisterns. The complete lack of communication meant I had to come to the worst-case scenario of what would happen next - that the place would be put up for sale. This made me very uneasy, and it was at this point I found my new (current) place, but I had to wait a month before I could move. I ended up putting in writing to the FLA that no tradespeople could enter the property, since nothing had been communicated to me (to stall until I could put in my notice). That went into the black hole too - they didn't even communicate to at least one tradesperson what was going on, and I had to tell him.

Another issue that continued to grind away in the background was a particular 'problem' neighbour. She is legendary for her need to come over and 'chat' such that you cannot get rid of her for three hours. There's more to it than that, this is the short version. For much of the time I lived at my previous place, the blinds on the front window were permanently shut. Problem neighbour was causing more than average grief in the block near the end (and since I left).

There's all those little things that build over time - the place was impossible to heat or cool, received very little sunlight, I was knocked back on keeping a cat, the carpet was knackered, and on it goes. And the rent had risen steeply within the first 18 months I lived there. For the same money I was expecting the rent to rise to (now proven), I could have... exactly what I have now - a free-standing house closer to work.

The weekend before the removalists moved most of my belongings was very stressful. I discovered that the driveway was more of an issue than I had thought when I had inspected the place a month earlier. I could not get my car into the garage, and put a dent in the side of car to prove it, as well as putting myself and the car into a situation in which I was in fear of my life! My parents visited, and I had help from them in moving some of my belongings. My Father got their 4WD stuck half-way up the driveway at one point. It was not pleasant. Thankfully, when the removalists came in, it all ran relatively smoothly. The only damage was a dent in the microwave (which had been damaged moving to Armidale in 2003 anyway - Yay! I now own a dedicated dyeing microwave!).

I cleaned the old place out - leaving it cleaner than when I moved in, as usual. I had a professional carpet cleaner come in (despite suspecting the carpet would be ripped up) as I'm fairly certain FLA had the carpet cleaned a second time after the tenant before me. I did not have time to attend the final inspection as I was deep in exam marking that I was running late with. FLA sent a list of what they were not happy with. It ranged from items that were not clean when I moved in, to the petty (the toilet roll holder being dusty was my favourite!). They clearly went looking for issues (they picked up that I had cleaned the outside of the front window but not the inside - that was because of the 'problem' neighbour trying to 'catch up' with me!). I had no energy to either try cleaning what they wanted or to engage in argument, so I paid what they said a cleaner would cost to do it (especially as what was quoted was probably half what I thought it would really cost). Their final parting gift (or not, can't prove a thing of course) was to leave the last digit off my back account details so that the rental bond board was unable to return my bond (hence my only getting it this week). Charming. Pleased to be rid of you, FLA!

My former immediate neighbour rang me on Monday. The vanity unit or the toilet cisterns were only installed on Monday - the tradesman turned off the water to the wrong unit - while she was in the shower! The carpet was replaced, the tree is still there... And despite my arrangement for any addressed mail to be collected by her (only unimportant stuff as I have a PO Box), the 'problem' neighbour has got hold of it! I lodged a mail redirection with Australia Post yesterday to end that!

I actually have sympathy for the owner of my previous home - I suspect she is not aware of what has been going on, particularly with the tree (the owner's corporation are unable contact her to deal with her directly), and is presently out of pocket at least a month's rent (and the place has been advertised for the past fortnight for a new tenant without success!).

It is much better now it is over. I'm loving the easier trip to work, the neighbours being a bit further away than right on top of me, and the cat is now legal. (Cat? She gets a post of her own. Next time.)

It has been a bit quiet here on the blog, and it is likely to be that way for the next month or so. As those who follow me on Twitter would already know, I am moving house soon. This has been a very long time coming. It has been about a year, on and off, as you may be aware from my post back in January. Several 'issues' simultaneously came to a head towards the end of the school holidays and spurred me into find somewhere to move to NOW without continuing to try schedule moving around school terms.

It is really quite crappy timing as I have lots of marking in this school term. And marking is almost always the part of my work I can never squeeze into the working week. HSC trials are in progress now (those exam papers will hit my desk on Monday) and Year 11 sit their exam the day before I move and Year 10 the day after I move (in about four weeks' time). Throw in a Year 11 task that I will have to mark this weekend, and a Year 7 task somewhere in between the rest, and life is anything but a party! But I shall survive - especially as I have found somewhere very nice to move to. Surprisingly, unlike the many houses I looked at before, it's a very normal house. And there is plenty of room for my ever-growing fibre stash and collection of books.

The packers and removalists are booked, time off work arranged, and just some of the smaller details are left to be sorted. It's just a matter of knuckling down and getting on with it. Sadly, this means no time for my usual weekend knitting groups for a while, since my time is taken up either with school work, or sorting my stuff and packing it, or the necessary cleaning that comes with ending a tenancy.

It will be so good to get to the other side.