Friday, January 13, 2012

Resolutions

Some of the things that I hope to get done this year:

1. Finish up my degree in fine arts
2. lose about 30 lbs. This should be doable in a year's time right....?.......Right?
3. Be more active and healthy (this includes what I eat and both of these should help me with #2).
4. Blog more. I've been neglectful.
5. take up photography again. I was always good at it, might as well add it back to my list of things that I do well.
6. stay more organized....... I realize this may be a pipe dream
7. Knit a little everyday


That's it. Any more and my head might explode.

School started for me on Tuesday and I'm looking forward to this semester. It may all get cut short if the hubs gets that job in Boone and that would be okay too. A job is key in these times. Things don't look like they're getting any better any time soon and we're running out of resources.
Tuesday I found out that I most likely made it into the Raleigh art show. They pick four pieces from each school to showcase in their gallery. I'll know more next week. I would have known more today, but an infection has me crawling to the doctor. Same skin infection that I had a few weeks ago has come back and it hurts like a motha'! I'm hoping it's just a general staph infection and not MRSA. I'm on this medicine that lowers my immune system and I'm starting to seriously think about coming off of it. Problem is that all the meds that control my disease lower the immune system so it might not be an option, but I don't want to get something that could kill me either. So far it's been limited to my skin which is fairly harmless and hopefully it'll just be another round of antibiotics and I won't hear from this stupid thing again (cause it REALLY hurts).

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Rough Times, but there's ALWAYS a light to be seen

With a new year comes hope that this year may be better than the last. Hubby's job in Mississippi got recended. I didn't even know that they could do something like that. At least they told us before we packed up and moved everything out or we would have been really in a bind. So we finished out the year in the same place. Not so bad except now the unemployment has run out and it doesn't look as if the job market is getting any better. I've been looking, he's been looking and nothing. I've been looking locally for the past 6 months and he's been looking everywhere for the past 3 years. Nada. This is crap. How are people supposed to make it? I have a dream about a plot of land, a cob house, chickens and a garden so that we could be more self sufficient and not so needful of the crappy green paper with dead men on it. It seems so absurd that we put so much value on colored paper, but we do and for most necessities you have to, that's the saddest thing of all. There was a time when people didn't need it at all and they got along on their ability to grow crops, raise animals and trading with their community. I'm hoping that my family can get back to a more basic living, but I need to have everyone onboard cause I can't run a homestead on my own. Regardless we need jobs before we can even begin to think in that direction anyways. I hope everyone that can would start trying their hand at growing their own crops a little at a time. There is satisfaction in doing for yourself.
My health seems to also be on a downswing. My resolution is to drop some weight to help with my arthritis. There's not much that I can do to stop the psoriasis that is slowly taking over my skin again especially when my doctors keep telling me everything is okay. I'm pretty sure the resurgence of my arthritis (more painful than it was before) and my skin breaking out is signaling that my medicine is no longer effective, but I can't get my doctor to see it. Maybe I need to be more forceful. I saw a rheumatologist who told me that I don't have arthritis and possibly that I didn't have psoriasis (until he saw my scalp). The first time I broke out I was told that it was a fungal infection or a reaction to something until it wouldn't go away so this is nothing new to me. Sometimes doctor's take some convincing. The rheumatologist couldn't explain what it was that I have that's causing my joints to hurt, but he was sure it wasn't arthritis. I have to disagree because the pain is the same that I had before I was put on the Humira and once I started taking it I stopped having the joint pain. It's been slowly coming back along with the breakouts and here lately it's becoming difficult to do things with my hands. He said that because I didn't have pitting in my nails and swollen fingers that it couldn't be psoratic arthritis. I have searched all over the internet and I can find no where that says that you have to have the pitting of the nails (which seems to actually be more of a symptom of the psoriasis, but only if you break out on your hands) and my fingers may not have been swollen right then, but that doesn't mean that they never are. There is a list of symptoms that all the sites give and it says that you have to have at least two of them to be considered for psoratic arthritis. I have five. I have another appointment in February and if I get the same from him then I'll get a second opinion. Hopefully we'll just move and I can see a new rheumatologist.
I'm keeping my swollen fingers together (can't cross them cause they hurt) that my hubby will get this job in the mountains. This is the third time he's gone there for an interview and they like him. There are only two other people in the running for it this time so it's looking like the odds are in our favor, but we're not really getting up hope until we find out for sure. We'll know before the end of the month so that's good. In the meantime I'm going back to school for another semester and I'm one more step towards getting my degree. I only have one more semester after this and I'll have it. I'm feeling a great sense of accomplishment as I get closer and closer.
All this school has left little time for knitting, but I tried to make up for it over the break. I finished a pair of socks for my Grandma (an urgent project cause I never know how much time is left in life). I don't have a picture of them, but I'm working on a red pair now for myself (that I'm very happy with and can't wait to have on my feet) for your viewing pleasure.

They're the Dead Simple Lace Socks from Wendy D. Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up
I love this book and I'm hoping to do a pair from each pattern in it. My Grandma's socks were the On Hold Socks and I'm hoping to start another pair in the Lacy Ribs Socks pattern out of some variegated Malabrigo that I have.
One really good thing that happened for me this year was this........

and this.......

Know what those are????? My art pieces in a GALLERY!!!!!!!!!! It was a student show, but I was still excited to have my work shown. My kids were mighty proud too and my daughter kept telling everyone that came in that her momma made those. I think she was more excited to tell people than I was.