Living With RA or What I Call The You're Body's Kicking Your Ass Daily

I hate having Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). I try not to whine about it but there are days when all I want to do is whine because it's not fair. I didn't always have this so I remember what things were like for me before RA became part of my life. I sure as hell didn't ask for this and I wouldn't wish this on even my worst enemy. Not that I have any or anything. 

It's a miserable damn disease that causes your body to kick it's own ass. Imagine waking up every morning feeling like someone smashed all your joints while you slept. If you're really lucky in an hour of being up and moving the pain lessens and you can go about your day. If you're unlucky you're joints feel like they're on fire and it hurts so bad to move that you curl up in bed and sleep because you're so exhausted from the flare and in so much pain it's the only thing you can do to keep from crying like a baby. Most of us look fine from the outside. Unless the damage is long term and severe you don't see a lot of outward effects of this disease. I'm luckier then some because mine was caught early and doesn't seem to be as aggressive. 

Life was going great for me until a little over a year ago when my meds stopped working. Sadly I learned the hard way that people with RA have to change their meds every few years because their body gets use to the meds and they stop working. For two wonderful years Enbrel was my miracle drug. It worked so well I forgot about life and pain before it. It had very few bad days and mostly they were do to signification changes in pressure normally like when thunderstorms rolled in. I'm now on medication number 3. Enbrel worked great for 2 years and I tried 6 months of Humira to make my insurance company happy. Lets just say that was a miserable 6 months filled with Prednisone, a lot of weight gain, and pain. Lots of pain and signification weight gain do not go well with each other.  I can't begin to relate just how much I hate low dose Prednisone twice a day. It doesn't hurt my stomach but it it causes weight gain and drowsiness for me.

During this last year I've had a lot of ups and downs. Living with me had to be a nightmare for Shawn and the girls at times. There were days it took everything I had to just to get out of my PJs. I haven't done a lot of knitting either. I blew off friends because I just couldn't muster up enough care to even tell people what was going on with me. When I had good days it was awesome but it just made it even harder to deal with the bad days specially when the bad outweighed the good. Depression and anxiety took over my life for over a year. I was able to push it off for days at a time.

I'm doing better now. I'm still not 100% but I'm trying Cimzia now and hoping this one works for me.  The doctor wants to see me in another 12 weeks to give the meds the chance to do it's thing. If not I'm going to be moved to a different type of biologic med since this is my 3rd anti-TNF. I want to knit more again. I really miss being able to knit every day. I had to finally admit defeat a few months back and slow down because the long knitting sessions were causing my problems.

I'll probably be blogging more about my RA and sewing. I'm getting back into sewing since it hurts my hands and other joints a lot less. 

So if you were one of those friends that I ignore I would love to offer you a heartfelt apology. I should have made more of an effort to stay in contact. If you have RA or have someone you love that RA and want to talk let me know.

Sick Kid, Rainy Weather, and A Little Bit of Knitting

Kaity has some kind of flu bug so I've been up since 2:30am sitting here with her. Here's hoping she doesn't pass it on to anyone else in the house. At least Shawn was able to sit up with her for part of the night so I could get some sleep. I got about 5 hours of sleep so I may be able to make it through the day. At least I don't have to cook dinner tonight.

I finished my moms fingerless mitts.



The pattern is Beth's Fingerless Gloves. I'm definitely going to have to make a pair for myself. I still haven't tired of knitting stuff with beads. It's definitely one of my favorite things to do.

I'm making decent progress on my Rainbow Hue Shift Afghan.




The first picture is Section 1 completed and the second picture is the start of Section 3. I'd definitely make another one of these. Kaity's actually requested one of her own.

I started a pair of socks for my mom.



The pattern is WonderWings and the yarn is JulieSpins MCN355. I love love love working with this yarn. I really like this designers patterns. This isn't the first pattern I've used from this designer and it definitely won't be the last.

My cardi is moving along slowly.



I haven't gotten very far on my Porch Swing Cardi. I'm sure I'll pick it back up soon. I just had to put it aside after ripping out over 15 inches of work. It would have drove me nuts to keep looking at the color difference so the only real option I had was to rip and start over.

Dishcloth.



I'm doing the dishcloth KAL again to give me a small project to knit on. This is Aprils mid moth KAL.

Right now we're under a cold snap. We woke up to frozen water in the dogs water dish outside which made me doubly happy to have not planted tomatoes. I almost picked up a few tomatoes the other day. Next week we're suppose to warm back up into the 70s so I'm thinking the garden will be planted next weekend.

Till next time....Happy Crafting!

Being Busy Is a Great Excuse

Well I'm going with it being a good excuse. That's my story and I'm sticking too it. There are days when I feel like things are never going to slow down here. It seems like it's just one thing after another. I had every intention of blogging more frequently. Believe it or not I really miss it. One of my biggest problems besides being busy was because my computer was buried in an office with a lot of boxes that I just couldn't find the willpower to force myself to clean them out and being back there made me feel guilty because the boxes were still sitting there. It's so much easier to avoid things then to deal with them. The office has been cleaned up and I have a shiny new MacBook Air so I no longer have to sit in the office. The office still has issues with being messy. It's seems to be the catch all for the junk in the house that isn't setting on my kitchen bar.

The girls and I spent almost 2 months down in California with my parents last summer. It felt really good to be home. We took the girls camping in the Sierra National Forest for almost 2 weeks. I learned that Bree is the biggest dirt magnet in the world.

 I swear the kid found every speck of dirt in the forest. It's definitely a face only a mother can love. She looked like this pretty much the whole time. We'd no sooner clean her up then she'd find more dirt with her cousin and partner in crime.

Both girls caught their first fish and we found out that Kaity is a friggin fish whisperer. The kid caught almost as many fish as her Papa did.



Between my dad and Kaity we had rainbow trout while camping and managed to take some home too.

The girls also got to see the beach for the first time and boy did they have fun.



The girls helped their Papa dig a big whole while my mom and I went looking for shells. I can't tell you how great it felt to dig my toes in the sand and feel the water wash over my feet.



I've really really missed walking on the beach. I spent a good amount of time with my eyes closed listening to the waves crash in on the beach. Crazy me I actually took a recording with my phone to get the ocean wave sounds. It was a great day.

I was able to get a deal on 3 day park hopper tickets to Disneyland through the military base. They had a special going on for military members and their dependants.



It's expensive but my parents shared the costs with us and we spend 3 days and 2 nights down in Anaheim running around Disneyland.

On our way home we stopped off at my Granny and aunts house to visit for a few days and the girls got to ride on my aunts horse.





My aunt walked them around on it. You'd swear they won the lottery they were so happy. They had a blast.

The only thing that would have made this past summer better is if Shawn was there with us. We're hoping to make a trip down to Cali and another trip to Disneyland summer 2015.

Since Woolgirl closed her doors I've found myself with more time to knit stuff for myself. Right now I'm working on some requests from my mom.

Fingerless mitts for mom.



The yarn is Zen Yarn Garden Bling and the color way is Ruby Slippers. I'm using some white beads I picked up from Hobby Lobby.

I started a sweater for myself by I've had to frog it because of the yarn pooling. I'm now rotating through 3 different skeins and things are looking much better. Hopefully my next post I'll have some more progress.

Bree is counting down the days till football season.....132 days till Boise State plays their first game.





So to get in the spirt of things I made her a Boise State colored bracelet and scarf. I hate fun fur but she loves them so it was worth the hassle. She's ready for the season to start and has been promised her very first game this year so I have to get tickets ordered for one of the home games. We're probably gonna hit the one in Oct when they play Fresno State. Would love to see them stomp Fresno this year. Plus it's one of the few home games they have that ESPN isn't forcing a late kickoff. 8:30pm kickoff is way too late for the poor kid.

So hopefully I'll be blogging a little more now. We'll see. Till next time.

Happy Crafting!

Poor Neglected Blog

I've been neglecting the blog for quite some time now and I haven't really tried to get back into the habit of blogging.

Things have been busy here for all of us. The kids are almost out of school and my mom is coming up next week to help us get our household goods unpacked. We're taking off the beginning of June for a 5-6 week trip down to my parents house in So Cal. Shawn unfortunately has to stay behind and work but at least he loves the new job and the people he works for and with are great.

We're buying my sisters house so at least we won't have to change our mail address again. It's hard to believe that we'll be seeing our stuff in a little over a week....woohoo!!

I have been knitting. I've managed to keep myself busy even with my stash in storage and my spinning wheel in pieces packed in a box.

Knit myself another sweater using Miss Babs Yummy sport weight yarn.

The pattern is Gnarled Oak Cardi and the color is Vlad's. I found the buttons at JoAnn's. The one here in Boise has a much better selection of buttons then the one in Montana. Of course it's like twice the size of the one in Montana.

I used the left over yarn from my cardi to make a shawl.



The pattern is Crescent. It was a quick easy knit and used up the last skein of Miss Babs Yummy sport I had left.

I made a pair of socks for myself.



The pattern is Nancy's Sock and the yarn is Socks That Rock medium weight and the colorway is Peridot and Periwinkle.

A pair of socks for Kaity using some yarn I picked up from Michaels.



The yarn is Loops and Thread Luxury sock. It's a merino/cashmere/nylon blend. It's pretty affordable. I've never used it before so we'll see how well it wears for the kids socks.

My Simple Skyp socks.



Knit using Socks That Rock lightweight in the County Clare colorway. I really loved the way they were pooling so I worked and afterthought heel.

I knit a Trousseau shawl using yarn I frogged from a pair of knee highs that weren't coming out the way I wanted them too.



I think the shawl looks better then the socks were looking anyway. This one may be rehomed to my mom. I'm not a shawl wearer but I do love them.

This isn't everything I've knit but it's a good recap of all the big things. I've also done a handful of test knits for Woolgirl too.

Thanks to my sis I'm now hooked on several new shows, The Glades, Castle, Warehouse 13, and Supernatural. As if I really needed new shows to watch. Since I haven't upgraded to a dvr that can record more then 2 shows at once I have to rely on XBMC on my android Xios keeps me from missing shows. Gotta love what my sis deems lovingly as Hacker TV.

Till next time.

Happy Crafting!

Here's To A New and Hopefully Better Year

We're well on our way into a new year and things are going well. I have a trip planned for the girls and I to stay at my parents house for a month this summer and if all goes well Shawn and I will be looking to purchase a home when I get back from my trip. I can't wait to get all my things out of storage. :-)

The girls had their very first ever snow day. They were so excited. Great Falls school district refused to call snow days no matter how crappy the weather was.



This was taken less then an hour after Shawn shoveled and you can barely see where he had shoveled.

I've been knitting a bit. Some of it I can't show right now because they are test knits. I made the girls a lace shawl for their American Girl dolls.



The yarn is a sparkly sock yarn from Red Heart that I found at Fred Meyer. The girls each got a pair of socks for Christmas with this yarn.

My favorite fuzzy, orange foot warmer.



Meet Mouth my sisters lovely, orange, fat kitty. He is the ultimate lovely kitty.



The little black kitty is Spaz and he has to be the most unique kitty I've ever seen. He's not a lap kitty but he does love curling up under the blankets. His favorite place is on the top bunk which is Kaitys bed.

I finally finished my Love Bug socks.



Found some orange and blue sock yarn for my little Boise State Broncos fan.



Bree is a little diehard Broncos fan. I've never seen a 6 year old girl that will ditch her toys for a football game. I'm going to probably make her some knee socks.

I'll end this post with a pick of my sisters kitty boys curled up in my lap.



Happy Crafting!!

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog. I'll be back in a few days with some knitting related posts. My stash is currently in storage here. I can't wait to get my own home so I can have easy access to all my stuff again.  :~)

Ack Arg Blah Tired of it all

I've started unfriending people on Facebook who have turned their walls and therefore mine into and never ending stream of political garbage. For the most part I believe that politics and religion are no no topics for me. I'm sick of seeing it and most of all I'm sick of watching it end friendships. I have enough stress in my life with out feeling like my "friends" are adding to it. Some of them have gone as far as send private messages with their political garbage. Um I hate to break it to everyone but both parties are lying to you. They don't give a flying rats ass about you and they most definitely don't have this country's best interests in mind. They have their own agenda and I can guaran-damn-tee it's not what they're telling everyone.

I'll be just fine no matter who takes control of the country. It does scare me a little when people want to tromp on my rights and some of these "new" republicans are scary as hell because if they had their way we would lose our freedom of religion, our freedom of choice, and a few other freedoms many soldiers, sailors and airmen have died protecting. I believe everyone has the right to practice/not practice religion, I believe everyone has the right to love, marry, and live anyway they want. My marriage is not threatened by two men or two women who obviously love each other getting married. I think this is the biggest reason why I refuse to go to church. I just can't believe that a God who is suppose to be so lIoving would say that being gay is wrong. I hate to admit it but I have a few people in my family who are so hateful but yet call themselves good Christians. Thankfully I was lucky enough to not grow up anywhere near these bigots and i proud to say that my kids are being raised right and if one of them turns out to be gay I will love them, support them and hope they find someone they can love and spend their life with.

I don't believe that Muslims are dangerous. I think some very bad people have used their religion as jumping point for some very bad things just like other religions have been wrongly used. Religious zealots are a scary lot no matter which religion they use. Um anyone heard of the Westboro baptist nuts? They use Christianity to sling their mud. They aren't causing bodily harm but what they do is dangerous and sick.

I don't find it hilarious to watch the republican party blame the democrats for all of the country's debt. Um sorry but there are a lovely list of republican presidents who helped contribute a sizable chunk to our national debt. Our current president just happens to hold the title for the most debt ever. I'm not saying I agree with him because I don't and I think hes made some really bad mistakes along the way. But I'm also not foolish enough to believe the drivel that Romney is spewing either and his running mate Ryan has some really scary ideas. It's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. You cant win either way but a choice of which side do you think is going to screw you a little less.

 

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