As The Yarn Turns

Stress Test

Not much knitting going on here lately because I've been stressed over my Stress Test (I got Technetium instead of Thallium). I had plenty of stress going into the test. It was hard to imagine getting much more stressed. I researched the subject well before I went in because I hate surprises when it comes to medical procedures. That wasn't the problem though. The problem was due to my own imagination. The more I thought about it, the more I imagined being hauled into the hospital for quintuple bypass surgery, David Letterman style, after the test. No matter that I don't have a cholesterol problem and I have a very different medical history and different family medical history from Letterman. In my mind I should have been spending the time before the test getting my affairs in order and packing a bag to take with me to the hospital.

Obviously nothing of the sort happened. It was an interesting experience though. First it takes about half a day. Plus you can't have any caffeinated or decaffeinated beverages 24 hours before the test. I'm not even close to coherent without a cup of coffee in the morning. I felt lucky to find the place. Most of that time is spent sitting and waiting while the injected drugs do their thing. Now I took some knitting with me in anticipation of a lot of waiting but I found I wasn't able to do much and ended up talking to other people going through the test instead. The coolest part of the test was the echocardiogram. There is nothing like seeing and hearing your heart in action. I wasn't too fond of having my chest smeared with jelly but that was minor compared with the coolness factor of seeing your heart in action. The worst part was having that darned IV taped to my arm most of the day. Imagine a very large syringe sticking into and taped to the crook of your arm. We were instructed to wear a shirt that buttons down the front since you will be having electrodes attached to your chest all morning long. I'll also add that if you are a woman, either don't wear a bra or wear one that's easy to get on. Trying to get my bra back on with the IV sticking in my arm had to be one of the most difficult things I had to do all day. The IV also made knitting a not very pleasant experience. Overall though the experience wasn't as bad as I had imagined, of course. I need to increase my exercise, but I knew that anyway. I think Stress Tests should be like SATs so you can take them over if you've had a bad day. I probably could, but the insurance company and my pocketbook would probably revolt.

On the knitting front, I've been playing with some mohair yarn and looking at stitch patterns to make a lacy scarf or wrap.

Since it's a very fuzzy mohair yarn, I'm looking for something simple, stretchy, and very open. I think I found it but I will have to play around with it a little more.

by Sydney  |

Warning, Yard Sale Alert

What happens when your cul-de-sac has a yard sale? Chaos! This is our street at 6 AM yesterday morning. It only got worse as the morning wore on.

A few of our neighbors had trouble getting out of their driveway to go to work. One neighbor was painting his garage and not even participating in the yard sale but managed to sell something anyway. Someone tried to buy Socks, the neighborhood cat. Now I'm not usually a morning person and I seldom have a yard sale. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, though. We pulled out a few things that we didn't need, talked to a lot of nice people, and saw some people we hadn't seen in a while. Now we are a very nerdy couple so a lot of our stuff didn't attract the typical yard sale attendees but we managed to get rid of a lot of stuff and make a few bucks, nonetheless. Then we carted off the things that didn't sell to the local thrift store. It's always interesting to see what people do and don't buy at yard sales.

Other than the yard sale, I didn't get much done. We did manage to go to the Arts Alive festival downtown. I even got in some quality spinning time on my Jacob wool. That was about it for the day though. Today is our anniversary, though, so it will be a relaxing day following by a night out on the town.

by Sydney  |