Oh wait, that’s just me, I’m the zombie. So we left off with me feeling better from my COPD exacerbation, and starting a new med for my sciatica pain. Well, it does seem to be helping as I have only had sciatica pain once in the past few days and it wasn’t too severe; however, this stuff makes me sooooo sleepy! I started out with one a day, after 5 days, you take two, and as of today I’m supposed to take 3 if it doesn’t seem like 2 are helping. I know it will take time to adjust, my mom has been on the same medication for years for the same thing only hers is in the cervical spine and mostly arthritic where mine is DDD, arthritis and Modic 1 changes in the lumbar spine. Anywho, for now I’ve mostly just been knitting and crocheting as I’d hate to nod out with watercolors on my tray or a pencil in my hand. The knitting needles are a bit of a hazard but so far I seem to be knitting as I’m nodding out, just making more mistakes lol. This medicine also seems to make me a bit shaky shortly after taking it so drawing has been more like a child did it than what I normally do so I’m hoping that will subside as well but it’s always the, do the benefits outweigh the side effects kind of thing.

I haven’t done much reading as that usually makes me sleepy anyway but I did read a bit yesterday morning and that’s when I realized the first two to three hours after waking up are when I’m most alert so that’s the best time to read.

I decided in my ultimate wisdom to try a more difficult knitting pattern to try to keep myself focused. When you’re in an easy rhythmic pattern it seems to only help with the wanting to fall asleep mid stitch. It has helped slightly but not as much as I had hoped. I went with a Stephen West wrap pattern called Briochevron. I’ve made a few of his shawls before and love his designs. I learned brioche knitting when making his Exploration Station shawl so I figured it would be too difficult. I also know how to do double decreases very well, I’ve been knitting for more than forty years (ouch, that made me feel old). Put two color brioche and double decreases together and suddenly it’s like quantum physics! I had to rip that sucker out THREE times and it still has mistakes but they’re staying. If anyone notices they are entirely too close to my personal space.

I hope you didn’t come to my blog expecting to see beautiful photos because most of the time, that’s not happening lol. It is very overcast and extremely windy here today. (Where’s my Chicago peeps at?)

If you’ve never done two color brioche, the rows are worked twice, once for each color, that’s why it takes so long to do, at least for me and I’m not really a slow knitter. Maybe I’ll blame the meds! But it makes such a warm and squishy fabric that it will be worth it when I finish it in 2029.

Purples are hard to get right in photos in the first place, but add bad lighting and a bedside studio and this is the best you get. Three are hand dyed yarn I got from the Renn Fair (one of the things I miss the most), one is a Malibrigo, the main color is Cascade Heritage and one is from an indie dyer called Conjure yarns.

I’ve also been working on my daughter’s shlanket but decided to do a different style. I’m doing a half circle and loving how the colors are looking so far. I typically prefer lighter weight yarn but it’s not as easy to buy in big box stores and I happened to have those colors in my stash. Hopefully she’ll like it as much as I do and I’m more of a warm colors person.

I’m going to go for now before the meds really kick in and I start typing even more gibberish. Hope you all have a good weekend or at least a tolerable one.

Deanna