Five Days and Counting

Bad, bad week. The sunburn that I complained about last post is still very very red and very very painful. I finally had to go to the doctor and get something a little stronger then extra strength Tylenol just in order to get some sleep. Finally it seems to be taking a turn towards getting better. My legs are fine and were fine two days after the bur, but my back is what hurts. It not only hurts, but I found myself shivering 24/7 for the first two days and wanting to puke. Sleep was impossible and finding any position that was semi comfortable was also impossible. Last night it looked as though it was starting to blister. Thanks to the pain meds I was able to actually put on a shirt and go out in public. As I was standing in line at the NEX it felt like my neck was sweating and I ran my hand around the perimeter of my neck and then up to just under my ear when I felt fluid running down my neck and chest. What the heck was my first reaction and I pulled my hand away to find it covered in what looked like water. I gave my hubby a purplexed look and he checked me over and informed me that I had burst thousands of tiny blisters all around my neck. Sweet. I shrugged. After all it looked like water. We went to lunch and I started getting tiny shooting pains....... like someone was sticking my back with tiny needles...... and then started feeling something running down my back. That didn't look like water and so far I have messed up four shirts today. Gross. But the pain seems to have ebbed since so the blisters forming seem to have been the extension of my pain. Bad news is I have to go out tomorrow and I'm hoping I will have stopped oozing by then, but I don't think it's going to happen. Ah well. My own fault for not using sunscreen on my back. May you all learn from my mistake. I have never had a sunburn this bad and never will again unless I throw myself into a fire. I have learned my lesson thank you very much. I hope you have learned my lesson too........ because it was not only gross, but extremely painful as well.
In other news, I have started the Architect Scarf from Welcome to the Knit Cafe (one of my favorite books!). My mom mailed some yarn that I bought before leaving the states and had left at her house. Five different colors, one skien each.......... what am I going to do with them? Then I realized they were the same colors as those used in the Architect Scarf. They are bolder colors, but same color palette. Perfect! I love working a scarf on size 11 needles. Scarves are just satisfying in the fact that they work up fast and you really only need one to last you the rest of your life (so if I make you a scarf it should be the only scarf that you ever use again for the rest of your life.......... woooohahahahahahhha). I'm also using the rest of the linen/ cotton tape that I have left after making the blouson and am making a short sleeved shrug. It's just like the blouson except open in the front and worked back and forth. I'm supposed to be making a diaper bag for Amanda, but fear has halted my progress. I realized I have just enough to make the bag and not enough for a swatch to felt to see how much it shrinks. I think I'll just have to get over it and make sure that it's 3-5 inches bigger then what I think will work and hope for the best. If it doesn't shrink down that much then she'll just have a little bigger bag, but if it does then it'll be just right. I hope.

Where the Heart Is

As part of my 50th blog I thought I might impart some wisdom. I know that on the 100th you write 100 things about yourself so for my 50th I'll share a few lessons that I've learned all in the past few days.
The first that I learned is that sitting in your house for a week straight will make you feel isolated and in a blah (hince the last post). You need to get out and get some sun daily so that you get your daily ration of vitamin D which will help you not feel so much like Gollum. That having been said the second lesson is this........ limit your time in the sun when you are inches away from the equator. Especially if you come from somewhere considerably above or below the equator. Five hours in the sun without sunscreen will leave you feeling stupid and in serious pain. I put sunscreen on my face and arms, but neglected the white parts of myself...... why, I will never really understand. My back and my legs are the same shade as a lobster and my skin is so swollen and painful that I'm afraid moving too fast in the wrong direction will cause it to split open which is both a painful and extremely disturbing thought.
My third lesson is this: I have come to understand why families have a tendency to lose touch when they move away. Being so far from family I find it hard to call everyone and keep in touch. Part of the reason is the time difference...... I am, after all, half a world away. The other reason is that it is painful. Daily I am reminded of what I miss about "home" and daily I am reminded that I miss my family. That is hard enough on it's own. Even harder is hearing their voices and being able to see their faces in my mind as I hear them talk and their surroundings........ the places that I miss..... the "home" that I miss. I find myself wanting to break down and cry after getting off the phone because I know that I won't see them any time soon and that I couldn't even if I wanted to. That may not be the reason for everyone, but I know that's the reason for me. More then anything I want my family to know that daily I wish I could see them and daily I miss them and think about how much I love them. The only thing that keeps me going is hearing my mom in my mind saying "Think of this as an adventure. You've always wanted to travel and now you are. Enjoy this time and embrace it." So I will enjoy it and try to see everything that I can so that I always have these memories, but "home" is where my heart is.

In A Blah

I've spent the last few weeks in a blah. I don't know how else to describe it. Serious trouble sleeping. I'm writing this at five in the morning after staying up the night before and all day. I'm tired, but can't sleep to save my life. And I'm mad. Yeah I said it! I'm freakin' mad!!!! I don't really know why or who, but I'm mad!
Hubby keeps staying at work late which isn't his fault but I feel it should be. It's one thing to have him gone because then I don't rely on him to be there at all. When he's here I expect him home at a reasonable time so that I can go do something for myself (so I don't crack while he is gone from lack of me time). When he doesn't come home until after 8:30 pm and everything closes at 9pm that puts a dent in my plans. He had duty on my birthday. Again not his fault, but it ticked me off. I feel like when he is home he spends hours and hours on the computer..... in a seperate room....... it's like he's not even home. I would just prefer not to have to rely on someone else so maybe I will just stop relying on him for anything and then I can't get mad. Too bad it doesn't work that way and if it did it would probably kill my marriage.
I've also been sick again. Tired and unable to sleep. All my muscles hurt like I've been spending my days in an all day boot camp. And I've lost my appetite. I'm hungry. My stomach hurts, but I just don't want to eat. I feel like I drank way too much water. At the same time I would swear that I've gained weight around my midsection. It's swollen or something. I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday and hopefully I'll get some answers. I've been testing my thyroid every year since I was 18 because I was tired all the time so this has been ongoing and getting progressively worse. Watch it just be stress. Maybe I just need a vacation or three. Decompress. They say to exercise, but I'm not getting enough to eat or sleep for that. There's no way. I don't have a scale but I would swear I've gained more weight. It's getting ridiculous. I think that's part of my blah. I'm kind of scared to go and get checked out. What if they do find something? What if they don't find anything and they just tell me that I'm crazy stressed? Which is worse because I can't decide? I haven't even been knitting. GASP!!!!!!!! The end is nigh!!!!

Miracles

Everytime I start to really question my beliefs as far as God is concerned, something happens that makes me believe even stronger then I did the day before. Today something like that happened. Growing up I went to church and was filled with faith and belief that God existed. I often times had dreams where someone (either an angel or Jesus) would sit and talk with me and would tell me that something was going to happen. After those dreams I would wake and remember in vivid detail everything and those dreams always felt so real. Then the thing that they had said would happen happened. When I became a legal adult I left the church partially because I couldn't stand the hypocrisy and bigotry that Christians showed towards people. Christ's message had always been about love and acceptance, but my fellow churchgoers talked about others behind their backs or didn't accept them because they had a blemish on their record. My other reasons were anger at a difficult situation (I still don't know if I was angry at the people involved, myself, or God on that one) and like most Christian teens found the world to be different then the little Christian bubble that I had been living in until then. Everything had been black and white and now suddenly everything turned grey. Every once and a while I still get a dream telling me about what's to come...... just not as often as before which I can understand because I don't converse with God daily and had begun to wonder if He existed or if we just believe so that we feel we're part of something bigger. I remember one time when I was deep in the trenches of trying to figure out the existence of God he sent me a quirky miracle that made me believe. My hubby and I took the kids to Barnes and Nobles in Hilton Head (which was about 30 minutes from our house at the time). We got there and got the kids out of the car and locked all the doors....... only to realize that the car was still running. I had left the keys in the ignition and locked the whole thing up. At the time I laughed because we had at least gotten the kids out. I knew it would take about thirty minutes to get someone to come out and pop the lock and we didn't have the money to pay for the service so we were in kind of a bind. For once I didn't panic and thought we could go into Barnes and Nobles and call around and maybe see if the police still jimmied cars. There was a guy on a ladder working on the doors at the entrance of the bookstore so I decided to ask him "Hey do you know if cops will still come out to jimmy a car because we locked our keys in the car and it's still running?" He replied "No they don't........ but I'm a locksmith." He jumped down off of his ladder and had our car open within five minutes and even made us a spare key for no charge. How crazy is that?
Nowadays if I pray to God it's regarding someone else. My sister-in-law found out she was pregnant. She already has a 13 year old son, was getting ready to start her career and was recently diagnosed with diabetes. If she were to go through with the pregnancy it could really hurt her health because she couldn't get her blood sugar under control and she was wrestling with the decision of whether or not to get an abortion. She didn't want to but she was afraid for her health as well. Last night I just said to God "I don't even know what the right answer here is. If you can find a way to make it work........" Today He made it work. She went in for a few day stint in the hospital to try and get her blood sugar under control and when they did the ultrasound the baby's heart was no longer beating. She had miscarried. Now that may not seem like a miracle to most people, but God took back a baby to heaven and eased the mind and body of my sister-in-law who doesn't have that gut wrenching decision to have to make anymore. He made it work.