More breathing.

Picked up my new shelving units yesterday. "Picked up" in the relative sense, as the boxes weigh 50 pounds apiece. Skinny dude a little older than I wrangled them onto my cart. Skinny dude a lot younger than I wrangled them into the back of the Tardis. Where they remain for the moment. I have yet to nail the baseboards in the closet. Until that happens and the shelving units have a place to go, that's where they'll stay.

Meanwhile, I emptied out the second bookcase, moved it, and refilled it. I am that much closer to being able to repaint the hall and rip up the carpet. None of which is happening today.

Today I am going to make birthday cards and wrap presents. Nice quiet activities for the Sabbath.

I realized with some dismay when I awoke yesterday that I need to buy pajamas. I will be vacationing with friends this summer. We are renting a house. It is one thing to throw on Beloved's Packers sweatshirt when the weather is cold. Or to sleep in a worn T-shirt and 18 year old pajama bottoms during the summer. The one is insufficiently modest for company. The other is frugal and a little forlorn.

So we know what FHE will look like tomorrow night. While I don't mind shopping, I don't want to spend a lot of money on something I'll wear a few times and then be too small for.

Anyone who says that women dress for men, is deluded.

In knitting news, the sweater for Middlest's doll went out in yesterday's mail. Along with several years' worth of gifts from Fourthborn. And I have nearly the first round completed on a cowl from the sultry silk blend yarn. That will be my church knitting today.

You know the drill: be good, and remember who you are.

Yup. Still breathing.

Just in case you were wondering.

I woke a little ahead of the alarm this morning and finished the neck shaping on the doll sweater. It's blocking on the ironing board as we speak.

Tonight I'll stitch it together and figure out the neckband. This will be my first evening at home since Sunday night. I'm glad for the time with family and friends. I am also tired.

And I have no idea what to take for knitting today. Maybe it's time to fire up another cowl? I have some silk blend sock yarn in sultry jewel tones. And it's already wound. My size 4 Addi Natura circ was waving hello from next to the dark chocolate. I think I'll see if the yarn and the needles want to play together.

Be good. 

Tuesday is trash day.

The old baseboards have been divested of their nails and are waiting on the curb. My wonderful neighbor cut the new ones yesterday. I've nailed two in place and moved the armoire into the corner and unfurled the area rug.* The drop leaf table and lamps are back in place. I baked a pan of lasagna and took it across the street. One of the three bookcases in the hall has been emptied, moved into the space that the armoire vacated, and refilled.

*Which I love, but not necessarily for the dining room. I think it might be more suitable for the living room.

What I think needs to get done by Tuesday morning: empty and move the other two bookcases. Pull up the carpet in both halls and schlep it to the curb. Remove the old baseboards. Remove the nails from the old baseboards. Pull up the tack strips. Put the bag of small baseboard scraps, pulled nails, and short lengths of tack strips on the curb.

And today is the Sabbath. I love the Sabbath. I want to honor it. I need a day between today and Monday, preferably one that nobody else knows about. Because I don't see anything on my list that doesn't come under the heading of work.

The one thing I could do, is grab some paper bags and put them by the bookcases. There's a whole lot of non-book stuff that got put in there at one time or another.** I just looked at it. Made me tired. Dividing the keep from the donate from the trash would definitely come under the heading of work. But I can gather up bags and be prepared for a more appropriate time.

**What was the handle for my mandoline doing in there? Do I even still have my mandoline, or did I give it away in an earlier purge?

I am ravenous. I didn't eat breakfast until afternoon. And I was too tired to fix dinner for myself after making the lasagna for my neighbors, so I just drove out to recycle the water bottles and picked up Arby's on the way home. I ate breakfast an hour ago, and my stomach is yelling that my throat's been cut.

Fixing that is definitely a Sabbath appropriate activity. If the rest of it is done by trash pickup a week from Tuesday, it is still forward progress.

For those of you not following along on FB.

I spent most of Friday and a little bit of yesterday laying down the new flooring in the dining room. I think that I have never been so thankful for a Sabbath in my life!

I'm not quite as stiff today as I was yesterday. There is no way I could have done this before I started going to the gym. None. And I haven't gone since Thursday morning, but I have definitely been getting a workout.

I'll finish that corner tomorrow after work. That's the plan, anyway. Cutting the planks to fit around the moulding is fiddly business. I was able to flip and tweak my paper template from the bit on the right. Maybe it won't take me an hour and a childbirth word or two to do the one on the left, which comes just at the end of a plank. The hardest part of the inside of the closet is done. Once I get the moulding accounted for, the rest of the closet will be a snap.

And what I learned in doing the tough corner of the closet, which will barely show when the shelving units are in place, will stand me in good stead when doing a similar corner in the entry, where precision or the lack thereof will be far more noticeable.

I can't wait to rip up the carpet in the living room and get going in there.

But for now I am reveling in the fact that today is the Sabbath, and finish-itis can just go pout in the corner.

Smoke. Mirrors. Underwires.

It was a B2G2 sale. And I am more than a full cup size down. So I bought two the next band size and  cup size down, because the bras I like do not come in the new cup size in my current band size. (And I don't trust the engineering of the bras that do.) Perfecto, once I add the band extenders I bought at Hancock's after that. The other two bras are two band sizes and one cup size down. It seemed like a reasonable approximation of where I'll be in another six months.

I am hoping that when I have reached my target weight, I can resume buying nice boring full coverage bras from Wally World, without extenders. And not have to rein in the girls with industrial strength models from Lane Bryant.

I hope Beloved is not disappointed that the girls are waning. I know he is busy with important stuff for the Kingdom on his side of mortality. And he was more of a generalist than a boob man. And he's got FirstWife right there to keep him on the straight and narrow if he wanders too far down memory lane. (Or mammary lane, as the case might be.) I just don't want to hear, "You weren't kidding about the Tina Turner legs! But where did the girls go?"

Am I the only one who wonders what is going to support them when I have my resurrected body? Maybe they will become immune to gravity. Pretty sure there won't be underwires in Heaven.

In knitting news, I nearly finished the first back of the doll sweater last night. I will be working on the dining room today, with frequent breaks for knitting. I hope to make significant progress on the second back.

White jeans.

People who buy them should maybe ponder the advisability of washing the car before wearing the jeans. And I probably should have bought the talls. The average are on the cusp of being high water, and they haven't been laundered yet.

I rocked them anyway. Buying jeans in a smaller size is a treat. Buying bras in a smaller size is a little demoralizing. And something of a guessing game. Lane Bryant has a B2G2 sale going. Or maybe it's a buy 2 get 2 half off sale. I need to find that coupon.

I think the solution is to buy two in the current band size, one cup smaller. And the other two, another cup smaller. I think that might be a good approximation. I can finesse the fit by tightening the band.

Meanwhile, I am wearing the other new jeans to work today. And heading to Lane Bryant tonight.

It's raining cats and dogs and little fishes. I bagged the gym this morning. The lightning was impressive, and a bit intimidating. Wish I could just stay home and knit and putter today.

Tack strips are gone.

Floor is swept and vacuumed and partially mopped. I ran out of steam about a third of the way through. And I could see where I'd been when I glanced in there on my way out the door this morning. On the one hand, kinda gross. On the other, somewhat encouraging.

And what a morning it has been. Another staff meeting. A little over an hour and a half. Mail out the wazoo, nearly all of it for one case. A deposition with seventeen attachments, all of which needed to be saved first to the incoming mail folder, then to the docketing system, and finally sent to an expert for review. Oye to the veh.

Started my lunch half an hour late. I've finished yesterday's salad. And most of yesterday's entrée. But what I want to do is go home and take a nice long nap. The HP's are supposed to come tonight to dedicate my house. I thought they were coming last week, but there was a scheduling conflict. Maybe tonight I can finish mopping the floor and pull the rest of the baseboards and start putting down the vinyl planks. Even if I don't get it all done, it would be so nice to go to bed with a good size corner of it completed.

A girl can dream. I can picture that room with the flooring done, the area rug in place, and the table set for company.

I pulled the carpet.

But I did not pull the SUV. (No, I don't have an SUV. That was the first thing that came to mind, that fit the melody.) I pulled the carpet and left it in a pile on the floor and took my second nap of the day. When I woke up, I realized that it was too much for me to wrangle on my own. The neighbor across the street was working in his yard. He dragged. I steered. The padding was much lighter, and I managed it easily. Couldn't have weighed more than two gallons of milk. Just bigger. And floppier.

I've run a broom over the floor and pulled up most of the tack strips. All that's left are the ones in the closet. They will still be there tomorrow. I'll sweep again, and vacuum, and mop the floor at least once. The room echoes like crazy. By this time next week I hope to have the flooring down, the area rug in place, and the furniture arranged.

I have a little aching in my thighs from the bending, sitting, and stooping. But my back feels great. I have to keep moving, even when I'm taking it easy. Otherwise my ankles swell. So the work I did yesterday is not as foolhardy as it might appear. I moved slowly and carefully. I broke the work up into small bites. I rested in between. And I paid attention when I tugged gently on the corner of the carpet, and it was harder to budge as a whole than when I was freeing the corners and piling them in the center of the room. So I called in the cavalry.

Feeling good today. Looking forward to church and reading and all of the knitting I thought I would get done on Friday and Saturday before finish-itis kicked in. I tend to doze off at odd moments (twice during this paragraph), so I may only be good for sacrament meeting. Heading for the shower now.

Be good, and remember who you are.

Random thoughts post biopsy.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. The good snooze fairy visited my house last night.

No pain. The scratchiness in my throat is almost gone.

Being able to eat what I want, when I want, is a small miracle that happens almost every day.

"I'm your CPAP today." One of several great things my anesthesiologist said to me yesterday. Now if I could only get the CPAP at home to talk to me in that Marcus Welby voice.

The sewing table is folded up and put away. I am reasonably sure that I won't be pulling up the carpet today, but that side of the room is cleared for takeoff. I still have my old coffee table (the one made from the door) set up for the painting of baseboards. I could easily finish that without busting a gusset.

But first there is a nap that's calling my name.

Hysteroscopy D&C. Oye.

When I had the pre-op consultation on Tuesday, I learned that today might be more than a simple biopsy. If, while she's in there looking around, the situation warrants it, there will be a C to go with the D. The D was a given. I'm not crazy about the D, but relieved to know that it will be done with increasingly larger somethings rather than by pitocin. (Maybe some of those will be Deep Blue Somethings?)

Hey, I've never had one of these before. And there's so much I don't know about gynecology. My life heretofore has been blessedly uncomplicated in that department: PMS from menarche until menopause. Cramps added to the recipe when I hit 40. No hot flashes. A gradual unwinding from Hey We're Fertile, Myrtle. Five or six years of silence from my girl bits.

I will update after the procedure.

In other news, I have been finishing projects right and left. The fourth picture from last weekend is now properly seated in its frame. I sprung for a nice frame for my favorite skinny poster and put them together after work last night. I've finished the painting on another project and am in the process of sealing it with matte acrylic. Stinky business.

I've borrowed a laser level from a friend and have spent part of the morning moving more stuff out of the dining room so I may rip up the carpet. Which will obviously not be happening today.

*************

It's later. I'm comfortable. Especially since I am now able to eat and drink. We went to Black Eyed Pea. I inhaled a roll and butter, my red beans and rice, my glazed carrots, and a few bites of my ginger sesame salmon. I also ate the half dozen bites of broccoli that garnished the salmon. Testament to the wonder which is ginger sesame sauce.

Apparently I snored during  the procedure.  Can't have been anywhere near as impressive as Beloved's snoring. One of the few things about him that I do not miss. I always felt as if I were sleeping in the flight path for military transport.

They gave me two anti-nausea meds which must have done the trick. All I felt was bubbly pressure in my stomach, which is quietly and steadily mutating into what I suspect will be industrial strength toots in a couple of hours. The pressure, not my stomach. I kinda need my stomach. I'd like it to stick around awhile.

I might still be the teensiest bit loopy. No comments from the peanut gallery.

Oh, and I'm officially down 30 pounds, and they did a fresh EKG before the procedure because my heart rate was 40. It's nothing dangerous, just a level 1 something where the bundle of stuff that coordinates my heartbeat is not quite right, so something else is coordinating it, and that part is all que pasa? Again, nothing to be concerned about.

I'm going to put my wedding rings back on and drink a few bottles of water and watch some Psych and maybe take a nap. Although I'm starting to feel hungry again.

Weighed myself this morning.

Almost 30 pounds down. I ate more or less constantly all weekend, but it was relatively healthy food in small amounts at frequent intervals.

Sitting here at lunch with one of my killer salads: carrots, sliced almonds, green onions, hard boiled egg slices, corn, black beans, grapes, grape tomatoes, and red butter lettuce. I'm fresh out of diced ham, and I didn't have time to nuke and crumble any turkey bacon. Sometimes I throw in some sliced mushrooms.

I've taken to making three days' worth of salads at a time. Ranch on the bottom, layers above that, and lettuce on top the day my salad goes to work with me. It doesn't take more than a couple of extra minutes to do three when I could be doing only one, so over the course of a week I significantly declutter my calendar. More time for knitting.

I've given myself quite the honey-do list for FHE tonight. A whole raft of piddly things that I've been putting off just that much too long. If I get it all done before bedtime, you will probably be able to hear the yeehaws from halfway around the world.

Wish me luck. 

It was another good day.

Lots of small tasks accomplished. Minimal running about like the proverbial chicken. New glass in the print of a smiling Savior, which I inherited from Beloved. (I think it's a Del Parson.) New frame on the print of the public library in Fredericksburg, which is housed in an old stone mansion. Gold leaf on glass picture of the Salt Lake Temple that I made in Relief Society the year that Secondborn joined us, put back in its frame and reinforced so maybe it won't pop back out again.

Antique gold paint bought to spiff up the frame of a painting of trees, on wood, that I've had since shortly after the divorce. I might get to that sometime today. I want to sew the current quilt block and schlep all the sewing stuff back into my studio.

Wes and Sarah came over after their date on Friday night. He put my new box cutter back together after I took it apart rather more than intended. And he came up with a great idea for the placement of the vinyl plank flooring. We discovered that under the carpet is some really ugly linoleum.

I am going to lay down a grid with a Sharpie on said ugly linoleum so that I may place the planks on the diagonal, which neatly solves the problem of wanting them to run one way in the dining room and another way in the living room. There will be more wastage. I can buy more planks, and if knitting has taught me nothing else, it's how to manage different dye lots should that be an issue.

The second sleeve of the doll sweater is nearly done. I will probably finish that today and cast on for the back. I'll do that in two pieces and close it with ribbon reinforcements and snaps, as I did for Faith's tunic.

There is a small but still reasonable chance that the sweater will be done and delivered in time for Middlest's birthday.

First sleeve is done.

Second sleeve is cast on. Fourth season of Psych is in the can. One hour to go before bedtime and I'm not in the mood to paint anything. We should probably alert the Guinness people.

Couldn't get an exact match on the brown paint, not that I was expecting it to be that easy, and I'm aware I could have them do a custom match. I played with the color picker on the website and came up with some other possibilities. I have the chip for one of them. I have the numbers for two more and will scope out the chips tomorrow or over the weekend.

I keep finding stuff (that I already have) that will go nicely in the dining room. I'll be doing something, happily in the flow, and an image will float up in my mind, and then I have to either write it down or go looking for it. I'm getting a thin but impressive collection of notes, and an ever growing assortment of flotsam and jetsam. (Autocorrect wanted to give me Jetson.)

Maybe I will put on my painting clothes and grab my shiny new box cutter and go all Anthony Hopkins on the dining room carpet. (I've never actually seen Psycho. My technique might be a little off.)

Yeah. I just watched the Hitchcock episode of Psych. I need to do *something* before going to bed.

And the next little step.

The management office in our building was repainted a couple of months ago. Their accent wall is a gorgeous chocolate brown. I stopped in after work and got the information, then picked up a paint chip on my way to Knit Night. When I got home, I compared it with the chips I brought home a day or so after I got the darker yellow paint. Not even close. Those all skewed red. (You are not surprised.) This is a somewhat greener brown, and it tones beautifully with what I've done so far. Next step is to take the Sherwin Williams chip to Home Depot and see how close I can get in the Behr colorways.

In knitting news, I am making steady progress on the first sleeve of the doll sweater. I'm nearly to the armscye, where I will bind off everything but a narrow strip for the saddle shoulder. This will not be my usual, preferred raglan shoulder. I am following the Starmore shaping.

I'm doing asbestos I can.

Had a moment there. Went into Home Depot last night and picked up a box cutter to tackle the carpet. Also wanted to get one of those thingies that separates old linoleum from the mother ship. Clerks asked when mine had been installed. No idea. The house was built in 1971, I think. So I texted Squishy, who replied that if it matches the linoleum in the kitchen, it was in 1994, just before they moved in. I need to find out when manufacturers stopped putting asbestos in the adhesive. But I think we're out of the woods.

In other news, I put the trim on the lampshades last night while watching Psych. I had planned to blindstitch it on, but the needle and the wire frame were not playing nicely together. So I picked out three inches of stitches and grabbed the adhesive rectangles I used on the Scrabble tiles. By cutting them in half, I was able to hide them under the trim and get a nice even application. I did not turn the raw ends under, but those puppies are going nowhere. If and when I want a change, I'll have to replace the entire lampshade.

I had hoped to have the carpet stacked neatly on the curb this morning, but I was too comfortable sitting on the bed with the DVD player in my lap.

Lest you think I am becoming a slacker, SemperFi took me to lunch yesterday to celebrate my 15 years with the company. (He felt badly because he missed the party last week.) We walked several blocks each way. I didn't break a sweat, I didn't get short of breath, and nothing hurt. I got a huge salad and ate half of it for lunch and the rest of it for dinner. This morning I put in 35 minutes on the treadmill at a 5% slope at a leisurely but steady 2.4 mph.

Fist bumps all around.

Still painting, after all these years.

The inside of the closet is done. I put a second coat on the trim this morning. Second day of waking an hour or so before the alarm. Am hoping for lots of lovely, unbroken sleep tonight. I'm about to put a third coat on the trim, with possibly a fourth coat tomorrow morning before work.

At work today we had a party for people like me: milestone anniversaries. One year, five years, ten years, fifteen years (me), and twenty years. Not only do I have that lovely, ridiculously expensive bag, but there were also festivities. Little bundt cupcakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. And fruit trays, huzzah! And tiny sandwiches. It was a nice break from work.

I filed vacation letters all day. And fought sleep.

Did I mention that I officially lost Mellow last week? I told SemperFi not to get spoiled while we wait for me to get assigned half of somebody else's docket. It's wonderful to dash through my inbox and the day's mail, but once I'm done with the vacation letters I might be out of things to do until it's time to open a new case.

Stopped at Crate & Barrel after work. The chairs were pretty, but not as substantial as a true Windsor. And not quite the right shade of teal. Oh well. It was worth a look.

Heading out to the dining room. Starting now.

IKEA? Check. New paint? Check.

The IKEA bookcase was just the wrong shade of turquoise. Not enough to look intentional. Precisely enough to scream "what was she thinking?" But there are at least three furniture lines whose idea of white is a perfect match for the trim in the dining room. And there are candles in a cup that will look lovely on the dining room table when I'm done. I bought nothing, walked a lot, and came home happy.

Yesterday I emptied out the closet. There's enough space to hang my mom's mirror between two bookcases, with something narrow below that. Short bookcase. Cabinet. Plant stand. I took out the shelf and closet rod this morning. I need help getting the screws out of the wall so I may take down the brackets. The screw slots are painted over.

This will probably require a power screwdriver and some male upper body strength. Sounds like a job for my home teacher, or Wes. I would like to have the closet completely done by the end of the week. (People in Hades want ice water, too.) Finish-itis is kicking in, in a big way.

Meanwhile, I am going to make this month's birthday cards and a few more swatches. The 6-0 needle works beautifully for making cables.

More good news. Mostly.

My ovaries are healthy and fading into little nubbins, just as Heaven designed.

I will be getting a biopsy in a few weeks. My doctor and the anesthesiologist are covered 100%. The copay is more than I'd set aside for all of my medical expense reimbursements this year. I am so glad that I paid off my line of credit last year.

I have cancelled banjo camp for August and requested a refund of my deposit. I am also going to put the banjo lessons on hold for awhile, until my cash flow recovers.

If we are lucky, the biopsy will be followed by three months of progesterone and a humbled endometrium. I think this is the most likely scenario. If we are less lucky, my uterus will be making like Elvis and leaving the building.

I should know in a little less than a month and a half. I'm hoping that if I do need further surgery, it will be safe to schedule it after the Nauvoo trip.

In other news, I blocked the second swatch before breakfast yesterday. It is minuscule. I have cast on (and frogged) a third swatch with three different cable patterns and will be using a 6-0 needle to help with the cables.

I like the gynecologist. She is warm, witty, and I trust her.

I think I know what I want to do about the dining room closet. I got the idea on the drive into work this morning, to paint the interior a slightly darker value of yellow than the walls. And I will be making a dash to IKEA to see if the teal or turquoise bookshelf is a good match for the ceiling and the curtains. If it works, that would really pop! Two bookcases, something narrow between them, and my mother's mirror hung above that.

Good news.

Gynecologist office called. They had a cancellation. Would I like to come in 13 days sooner? I would.

Last night's massage was just for relaxation. No major owies. No energy work.

The first Aran swatch is blocking. I just took the second one off the needles.

I blew through all my to-do's at work. And wrangled all the mail. Only the fact that the e-filing system was intermittently wonky kept me from running out of stuff to do. But I was productively busy all day. And I have a good chunk of tomorrow laid out.

I found some ebony Rub N Buff at Hobby Lobby and am planning to refinish a picture frame. Pictures to follow if the end result remotely resembles what I have in my head.

May quilt block is done.

It's after midnight. I'm outta here.

Doorway is 99% done.

I need to touch up a couple of spots. I've begun to remove things from the closet so I may finish painting the trim and then repaint the inside.

I have the first bundle of baseboards. Went with the 3.5 inch ones instead of the 5.25 inch ones, because they were 12 feet long instead of 16. They fit easily into the back of the Tardis and are still a significant upgrade from what the builder used. (And they were far less expensive.  I got 120 feet for a little more than 32 feet would have cost me.) I've stacked them in the hallway, sticking out into the living room, and placed the rocking chair over that end so I won't trip over them and break either them, or me.

The black cashmere blend scarf is now grafted into an infinity cowl. I did that during one of the breakout sessions at the family history presentation at the stake center yesterday. I have the schematics drawn for the doll sweater that will be Middlest's birthday present next month. I'm about to wind the yarn and start swatching with Starmore. I think this will be fun. I love Aran knitting. And this is for a small doll, the size of my unicorn girl, Faith. So it will probably be done and mailed in time for Middlest's birthday.

Probably.

Great news on the diabetes front. My fasting glucose was down to 92 (should be less than 100 in a healthy individual), and my a1c was 6.2 (should be less than 6.5 for a healthy individual and 7.0 for a diabetic). I've officially lost 24 pounds already. So I am seven months ahead of my goal to lose 25 by the end of the year.

Yes, I am continuing to take my meds.
Yes, I am continuing to exercise.
Yes, I am continuing to improve my food choices.

I hope that after I see the gynecologist later this month, the news about my rogue uterus will be equally good.

This is the part where I go wind 880 yards of undyed lace weight yarn and consult La Starmore.