Random Events from a Couple of Difficult but Exciting Weeks

I've started spinning some laceweight singles from that green/blue Romney on the new top whorl laceweight spindle, both from Spinerosity, to make a 4ply cable sock yarn. It's going nicely.

I've been spinning some lovely white Falkland top on my smallest spindle that I bought from the guy at the Shawnee Mission Fall Fest about ten years ago. It's spinning between fingering and sport weight. I can't remember where I bought the top, but I have about 8 oz. of it. Don't know what I'll make.

I'm knitting a multicolored, designed-on-the-needles lace vest like the lace shawls I've done on commission and for gifts.

Sunday, I set up my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel in double drive to finish spinning all that white Dorset that I had been spinning before all the catastrophes hit. The spinning went extremely well. I could have gone twice as long as I did, but I didn't want to push myself my first day back to it. I could tell from the aches and pains in my muscles that support the shoulder that the spinning was exercising parts of me that I have not been able to get to with the PT exercises, the knitting, or the spindle spinning.

Last week, UPS delivered all kinds of goodies here to the house, including 4 oz of beautiful Polwarth top, 4 oz of Black Welsh Mountain top, and 4 oz of recycled sari silk roving. I also received the shuttle, heddle blocks, and threading hook that I ordered from Beka, as well as the warping pegs that I ordered from Etsy. I'm giving one of the pegs to Joseph when he comes up Labor Day weekend, so he can warp his rigid heddle loom. I also received a beautiful skein of multi-colored Rowan sock yarn and a set of 6 tiny, birch, size 1, Brittany double-pointed needles to make myself a pair of socks.

Unfortunately, I did not remember until after the order had shipped that my umbrella swift and ball winder are both packed away somewhere in the office, where I can't get them. I will have to put the skein over a chair back, and wind it into a ball by hand, which with sock yarn can get tricky, trying to avoid tangles. My best compromise was to take an already wound cake of alpaca/silk lace yarn in a multi-copper/gold, and double it to knit a pair of socks. It's been going well, until suddenly the center pull delivered a bunch of yarn barf, and in the straightening out, I developed a tangle. I have untangled most of it, and I'm trying to knit up all that yarn into the sock, so that it will be out of my way, as I try to straighten out the very last bit of the tangle.

I have also ordered from Knit Picks three already-wound-into cakes skeins of multi-colored sock yarn, Stroll Gradient in Lionfire, Endless Sky, and Lifeguard. It should be here later this week. I feel terribly extravagant, because I have been trying for several years not to buy any new fiber or yarn, until I can bring down the size of my stash. I justified it to myself, because I cannot access 99% of my stash right now, nor am I likely to be able to anytime in the near future. I need wool socks for the winter, because these floors are so cold, and I have Reynaud’s Syndrome in my feet. We're having an early fall, so I'm expecting an early and probably harsh winter. I am really under the gun on getting socks made.

I am really surprised how much more consistent my spinning on the wheel is after being away from it for so long. Not only is it more consistent, but it's better yarn. It's just smoother. It's finer. I'm also finding it much easier to handle the Dorset with all of its neps. (I got it a long time ago for practically nothing from an online friend from her first fleece that she'd ever processed from her father's meat-sheep flock. It's actually lovely, bouncy, soft fiber with too many neps and a little VM.) It's still making a textured yarn, but it's not nearly as nubby and bumpy as it was before. I did some more spinning this morning, and in those two very brief sessions of Sunday evening and this morning, I have fully half a bobbin of quite lovely yarn.

I am, however, having real problems trying to draft with my left hand and treadle with my left foot, causing overtwisting. It's like being a beginner again. I think I will have to wait until I finish this bobbin and then just treadle without fiber with the left foot until I learn how to control the treadle with it, too. Then, I will put on fiber and treadle with the right foot while working on the left hand drafting until I get better at that. Finally, I can put the two together and work until I am good at it that way, as well.

We got a new car, a 2016 white Kia Optima, and a new cat, Natalie, a black and white tuxedo who has been in the shelter for over 2 years. I love the car. It is so comfortable. I love Natalie. She has the best personality of any cat I've seen. She was settling right in, as soon as she came, but the crazy lady who runs the shelter couldn't seem to stand the fact that she was taking to us and our house so well, so she batted at her and finally yelled at her, enough to frighten Natalie so that she ran and hid behind some boxes in a corner. I have left her there, because I want her to calm down and come out on her own, if possible. We have taken Dyson to the kennel, in spite of the fact that he was behaving beautifully, and Natalie seemed to be adjusting well to him. The crazy lady from the shelter frightened her and drove her into the corner, so I want to make the house as quiet and calm as possible, so she'll feel free to come out and move around, settling in. We will bring Dyson back from the kennel at the end of the week, and give them their full complete introduction.

Saturday, the day we did both, was an incredibly difficult day for me. Friday night, I gave a reading at The Writers Place. I was pretty exhausted and in a good deal of pain afterward. Then, early the next morning, we had to start shopping for litter box, cat carrier, and all the other paraphernalia. Then, we went shopping for the cat, and then, unexpectedly, we went shopping for the car.

I would never have chosen to schedule both events on the same day. I had to be there to select both the cat and the car, especially to make sure that I could get in and out of the car in my current condition. This meant that I was out of the house and moving around, standing, walking, from 9:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., when we finally arrived home. To make it worse, we had forgotten to refill the pain pills in my purse. When my pain got really bad at the car dealership, I tried to take pain meds, only to find that I had none. Ben felt awful about that. By the time I arrived home, I was in so much pain and completely exhausted. I took a full Tylenol 4, because the pain was so bad, even though I usually split it in half and take the equivalent of a Tylenol 3.

After my reading at The Writers Place Friday night (the first reading or event of any kind that I've done since right after shattering this shoulder), which went extremely well but left me exhausted and in pain, I was not in great shape to start out early in the morning shopping for things for the cat. We expected that to be all we would do on Saturday, and we expected to be finished by noon or shortly thereafter. Saturday morning, while we were on our way to the cat shelter, Niles called to say he had found us a car and wanted us to go to the dealership with him and Denise that afternoon. So we had to just keep going.

Almost a week later, due to computer problems—

The sound went out on my laptop again, but I finally managed to get the speech recognition software working again. Ever since that last major update from Windows 10, I have had problems with the audio service on my laptop. This means that, every few days, I can't use speech recognition software or hear any audio or video.

I have been researching speech recognition software and the use of it to write novels. I've come up with some good tips from people who have successfully achieved this. I hope these will help me, as I try to develop some proficiency with this kind of software. It's a steep learning curve. Everyone says that it takes several months to grow used to the effort of dictating fiction. So I need to give myself time to learn this and adjust.

I am also studying Scrivener. I have had it for some time, but have never taken the time to really dive into it and learn how to use it well. I know it can be tremendously useful, because I have so many successful novelist friends who use it all the time. So while I'm trying to learn the speech recognition software, I am also going to try to learn Scrivener, and combine the two programs to make my writing easier and more effective.

All of this makes me feel as if I am taking a little control in this situation, where so much is completely out of my control. I don't do well in these kinds of situations, when I feel that I have no control over what is happening to me. This sense of taking control is valuable to me under these circumstances. It keeps me from despair and helps me to remain hopeful.

It took me a long time to completely recover from the weekend of car and cat. My pain levels were much higher than usual. I wasn't sleeping well at night. I was exhausted, weak, and tired during the day. On the plus side, while I was up with pain one night, I wrote a new poem, “Medicine Song,” the first new poem I'd written in months. The poem pleased me, that and the fact that I have written creatively again. I think this is a hopeful development.

Another hopeful development is that Natalie, the cat, has settled in well and seems to be slowly adjusting to Dyson, the dog, who's home from the kennel and on his very best behavior, so pleased that he's got a big sister again. He's really missed our Minnie, who died at 18 right before we moved. Like Minnie, Natalie is a tuxedo and about 1/10^th or 1/12^th Dyson's size, but she's big sister, nonetheless.

I realized that one of the reasons I'm having difficulty recovering from all of the exertions and problems of the cat/car weekend is that I am not taking enough pain meds. Kelly, my physical therapist, told me not to worry about taking too many pain meds, since overuse was not likely to happen in my case, but instead to use the pain meds to help me to push myself in activity and exercise to help regain the strength and use of my legs, my back, and my shoulder. I had let myself get into the habit of trying to keep my pain medication usage low, when I should have been trying to keep my activity and exercise level high, even if that meant using more pain medication. So I'm changing that.

I hadn't done any knitting or spinning or treadling since my reading on Friday night. So at the end of last week, I decided to stop that foolishness, since it meant I was not making nearly as much progress in increasing the strength in my back and legs, increasing the range of motion in my shoulder, and increasing the strength in my upper arm muscles. I'd been doing my PT exercises faithfully, even though I hurt, but they don't hit all the muscle groups that the fiber stuff does. Therefore, I've been taking more pain medication, as I increased my levels of activity and various exercises, including and especially spinning, knitting, and treadling.

After talking with my friend Kate Carson, I decided that I needed to invest in Dragon Naturally Speaking software, the top-of-the-line voice recognition software package. I am going to try to train myself to use Dragon, along with Scrivener, so that I can get back to writing novels. Unfortunately, ever since Microsoft pushed that last huge update for Windows 10 onto my laptop, I have had problems intermittently with the audio service on my laptop. This has created difficulties with even the simplest voice recognition software. I am going to ask my IT consultant son, Niles, if he can figure out how to solve that problem permanently for me.

I have learned, from talking with Kait and studying other writers who have used voice dictation to write novels, that one of the best ways to start out getting used to speech recognition software for creative writing is to use the voice recognition software to take notes and plan out your novel, so that is what I intend to do. I thought I might begin by planning the rewrite of On the Run in September, while I work on the first draft of another novel. What I really hope to use it on, eventually, is thinking about and planning the literary novel that my agent wants me to write.

I have almost finished one complete bobbin of the white Dorset singles yarn on the Ashford Traditional. I think it's a good yarn. I am so pleased to be able to be spinning on this wheel again. I've loved it ever since Ben gave it to me for Christmas back in the 1990s. I need to wind this bobbin off once it's full, and then practice just treadling with the left foot, until I gain control, and then practice drafting with the left hand while treadling with the right foot. Learning to do it all over with the opposite feet and hands is rather like becoming a beginner again. I’ll get there, though.

I want to make a wrist distaff and a plying stick, maybe more than one of each. Wrist distaff=ready-made or crocheted bracelet to fit my wrist with a descending strip from handspun (or rags possibly) 6”-8” long, doubled around the bracelet and crocheted, ending in a big beaded knot (large enough to keep fiber from slipping off). Plying stick=very thick (1”-2”) dowel 4”-6” long with slits cut 2”-3” apart around the middle and the area between sanded down below the original surface slightly, then the whole thing sanded and finished. I might be able to make the distaff now, but I'd have to get someone else to do the plying stick for me, I'm afraid. I hate not being able to do things for myself!

I finished spinning the last of the bag of Dorset fleece I had out last night, so I asked Ben to use my grabber/reacher tool to get down the big grocery bag of Dorset that has been sitting up on top of boxes on top of the white bookcase in the living room. As I pulled out all the bumps of rolled roving—so many, still, even though I've now spun half of it—I found ziploc bags at the bottom with spindle-spun cops of yarn, two of a white generic wool and the last spindle I did of the lovely blue Romney-mohair that I bought from the sweet ladies at A Twist in Time when I was so frustrated trying to teach myself to spin on a spindle with dyed merino top. They told me it wasn't me but the fiber and let me try this blend. I bought 4 oz. from them, among other things, and spun up several spindles, teaching myself how to spin finally. Then, I ran off to the merino and other fibers. This was in 1990 or 1991. Years later, at the time I started spinning the Dorset (2006 or 2007), I found the last of the blue Romney-mohair and decided to finish it off, so I could do something with that yarn. Last night, I looked at this big cop of beautiful, even, fine, blue laceweight yarn and thought that, at least with a spindle, I have finally become a good spinner. I don't think I thought that at the time.

It's like so many things. We recognize our failings immediately and exaggerate them, but we don't truly recognize our successes until long after the fact. At least, that's how it seems to work with me. What about you?