Chickenlips Knitting

Over the weekend, I developed yet another one of those miserable skin infections which plagued me last winter. It's fungal, yech. (Normally I laugh at "there's a fungus among us", but this is a little too up close and personal.) I don't even like the sound of the word "fungal." So Monday morning, where was I but at the doctor's getting a month's worth of fluconazole, and a prescription for hydroxyzine, which turns me instantly into Dawn of the Dead. I was so seriously afraid to drive today that I stayed home. Without the usual guilts, which is nice, and also significant.

There have been several doctors treating me for this recurring problem, and one suspected diabetes, but the primary care doc assured me there was nothing in my annual labs over the past few years to indicate that. And okay, when I had the fungal (ech) thing last winter, it was right around the holidays when I was eating gobs of sugar. I've toned that down quite a bit--oh sure, I'll have the occasional goodie, not running for canonization or anything like that--but I'm nowhere near the sweets intake I was before. So why is this happening to me? Anyone?




If you said "stress," I'll give you a cigar. Ew, what would you want with one of those? They stink. But yeah, I guess I've been under more stress than I realize. A few of you thought I should be doing something that feeds the inner fiber goddess, and I couldn't agree with you more. Today, I not only housecleaned (not nearly as much as it needs, but I took care of what was bugging me the most) but got started on the Argosy Wrap. What a fun knit! I'm already on Row 56, heyyy! Should be able to bang that out in no time. I'm using Fisherman's Wool, which is way cheaper than the Kureyon the pattern uses, and it's from stash. Other than the yarn for the Tomten jacket, and the undyed yarn, I haven't been buying yarn, I promise. I'm saving my yarn money for Oregon Flock & Fiber, which comes up in less than a month.




Oh, I'm rambling. I hate it when I do that. I haven't resigned from my current job, but I'm at the visualization stage--where I walk into my supervisor's office and tell her I'm giving notice. So many emotions tied up in that! For the first time in my life, the issue is not people, or feeling like I'm doing work that's beneath me, or that I'm being paid peanuts or treated like crap, because none of that is true. It's just that what I'm doing now, is not my real calling. And it seems like even though J. wants me to be happy, I can tell he thinks I'm nuts. Well, here's the meter I use that tells me every time that I'm not nuts:



I think about knitting all day while I'm at work. I can barely put down my project and head out the door. I buzz through each day's tasks and chores, trying my damndest to just get everything done so I can sit down and knit. And when I finally do, more often than not, I'm exhausted and start falling asleep.



Knitting is the last thing I get to do, but the first thing I think about.




So...you know I should be knitting. I know I should be knitting. It's those closest to me--in this case, my husband, mom and brother (even though I'm not emotionally close with the last two) --who think my logic is severely flawed.

And I realize, that it's just more Muggle-think, in another nefarious form.




I will be strong, and soldier on. At the advice of a blog friend, I went to a LYS this afternoon to inquire if they needed shop samples knit. What did I see on the door but a "Help Wanted" sign!! Now I ask you, is that the universe saying to me "hey dummy" or what? I didn't get to meet the owner, but the store employee seemed glad I was interested in the part-time job, and encouraged me to email a resume. I did, and I also left them my completed Monkey sock as a knitting sample. Here's hoping I get a nibble!



Now it's time for cute pet pictures with funny captions.




You can probably tell that the hydroxyzine is kicking my ass. I keep pressing the wrong keys,.naf[pgh. (Dammit!) Let me share these with you, and then I will collapse in an overmedicated heap upon my bed.

I call this one "Clash of the Wieners." And that's all I have to say about that.

Podkitty is being summoned back to his home planet.

I should make him into a lolcat, but right now I'm on drugs...and can't figure out how it all works...

*sigh* Photographic evidence of the incredibly gullible 14-year-old I once was. And Robin, if you're reading this, look what you made me do.

Not funny.

The Silver Lining, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel and so forth

I deeply appreciate your supportive words and suggestions regarding my plight. My husband came home last night, and we talked things over. He agreed that no, things as they are aren't working for me, and I got his buy-in to research decreasing my hours/days, or a possible job share. His travel schedule will be somewhat lighter now that school has started or is about to start, and that will also make things easier for me. I guess the most important thing is that I'm feeling about a thousand percent better about my life today than I was last time I posted.

I'm doing some mad dyeing this weekend, and casting on for the second Monkey. And tonight, Jason and I are celebrating our eighteenth wedding anniversary. It's actually tomorrow--but he goes back on the road again very early Monday. It's a family tradition. My mother married a traveling salesman, and so did I.

Here are some more stitch markers which I managed to bang out tonight--it's my obligatory happy crafty pretty picture, which assuages my irrational fear that if I don't post at least one such photo each time I blog, you'll all leave and never come back. Ok, I'm only half kidding. But only half.

This is a bleary-eyed, late night rant, with no knitting content, so feel free to skip. But if you're still reading, the reason there's no knitting content is because (silent scream) I have no time to knit. Or dye yarn. Or do anything else which really matters to me. Or clean my house, because as much as I hate to clean, it does matter to me. It hasn't been really cleaned the way I would like since I went to work for my current employer. And it isn't so much a matter of cleaning, as it is dealing with the piles and piles of clutter, which takes time, planning, and mental and physical energy. To be honest, I'm not doing so good with any of that right now.

I work full time. I have a husband who travels two weeks out of every month, and when he's gone, I've got to do everything I normally do, plus everything he does, which is a lot, to keep this household running at a bare-bones minimum. We love our animals, but it is a lot of work to care for them, and they also need time and attention. When I try to tell Jason how much stress I feel about his road schedule, he doesn't really get it. He doesn't want me to quit my job. But here's the way I see it: he earns nearly four times as much as I do. Yet I invest a goodly chunk of time in working and commuting. (I'll blog about gender inequality in the workplace some other time.)

Now I know I sound like I'm on the pity pot, and yes I'll have some cheese with my whine, thank you very much. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the world's population doesn't have it as good as I do, and I'm well aware of that. But you know what? I still feel a deep sense of burnout, of having come to the end of something. And I can't seem to shake it.

I just got the biggest cash bonus of my life, and I don't care about my job anymore. Three years ago, I was dying to have this job. Yet this morning, I was so recalcitrant, all right, pissed off about having to go to work when all I wanted to do was stay home and craft, that I engaged in minor road rage. (driving too fast, impatient, that sort of thing. I was the type of person on the roads this morning that I normally think are the biggest a-holes... dear me.) I don't have enough patience with my teen. These are things I need to address, behaviors I need to change, and fast.

I have no answers. All I know is that I wake up each morning wanting to finish this sock, work on that sweater, start that shawl, dye up a storm, and write the book I know is in me somewhere... but I'm living a life of endless details which put me farther and farther away from what I can't stop thinking about. I'm aware that I've done more than my part to set up the necessity of working outside the home, and tending to all those details...but I can't muster the enthusiasm I once had for my work. And for the love of all that is holy, I must find an alternative to the daily, timesucking, soul-killing, resource-wasting freeway commute. I've been doing it nearly all my working life, and that's about 30 years. I'm... done.

Good thing, too, because it's really late, and I've got to turn in. Task force meeting tomorrow morning, dontcha know.

Sorry, everybody. I won't post again until I feel more like Sharon Chickenlips.

Now I must knit.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. James Bond movie titles are a motherlode for the knitblogging novice dyer!





Uploaded to my Etsy shop this morning:

I named this colorway "Arashiyama" for the area of Kyoto near the river and mountains at which fall maple viewing ("momiji") is most spectacular. Jason and I went there in November 2002, and it was gorgeous (but hella cold!) and when I get around to digging out the pictures, this being before we went digital, I'll scan and share with you.

I kind of got carried away with the yellow in this yarn. I've still got a long way to go in getting the hang of color mixing, but in the meantime I'm having fun with it.

Because I'm so taken with the dyeing thing, not much knitting has been going on the past couple of days! Hopefully next post I will have a FO.

No Lips In This Recipe

This being "Chickenlips," I've been wanting to post this yummy chicken recipe for some time and kept getting sidetracked. It's easy, too, which means more time to play with yarn. Here ya go--enjoy!

"Red-Cooked" Chicken

• 1 whole chicken, about 3 1/2-4 lbs.
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup dry sherry or white wine (or water)
• 1 cup water
• 3 or 4 slices fresh ginger root
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and cut lengthwise in half
• 2 green onions, cut in 1" pieces
• 1 tsp. sugar

Rinse chicken and pat dry. Heat oil in Dutch oven. Brown chicken on all sides. Pour off fat. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. Cover and simmer 1 hour, turning chicken once during cooking. Strain sauce if desired. Serve with steamed rice. 4 to 6 servings. Oh yeah, and "red-cooked" just refers to the mahogany color the dish takes on because of the soy sauce. This bit of knowledge gleaned from the days in which Michelle was a baby, we never went out, so I taught myself Chinese cooking. This is about the only dish I still make!

Joke Time

Since at least one person liked my rock musician joke, here's another one:

Q: How do you get a drummer off your front porch?

A: Pay him for the pizza.

Since you gave me such great feedback on it, I've decided to list it at my Etsy shop. It will be offered as the first in a series of handpainted yarns called "Kansai Colors." I even made up my own yarn labels--in Japanese and English. Stay tuned.

Gotta go, as Jason just got home and informed me that we are celebrating! This just in: No prostate cancer!

Thank you all for your kind comments about our Attila. I'm very sad to tell you that he passed away during the night. I was away all evening, taking Michelle and her friend to a rock concert. Jason noticed that Attila's breathing was labored, but he didn't seem to be all that sick. J. is the first one up at our house, and when he went to let the animals out, he found Attila. I'm at work right now so I must keep this short, I'm just in shock because I didn't expect the kitty to leave us so quickly. Right after I introduced him on the blog. I guess he must have been ready to go. We're all going to miss him, and I especially feel for Jason, because they had a special bond. Of all of us, Jason was the only one whom Attila would climb on and bestow "kitty kisses".

Enough of that business. There is one more member of our family I haven't introduced, and I'd like to do so now.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

Meet Attila. He was named for a cat in the Mother Goose & Grimm comic strip. Attila is 14 years old. When he was about nine or ten weeks old, Michelle (age 3) managed to catch his foreleg under a door. It didn't break his leg, but stressed the ligaments enough to where he needed a cast. So for a time, we had a tiny kitten hobbling around, who also had persistent diarrhea...oh yes, those were the days.

Last fall, Attila was diagnosed with tumors, and he's become somewhat frail although he is still eating, drinking and getting around ok. We're making sure he has good quality of life, and doesn't seem to be in any pain. The chair at the family computer has become his favorite perch, and when he looks all comfortabuhls like this, I don't have the heart to move him!

The Kool-Aid Scarf

10 rows garter, 10 rows stockinette. The more I worked with this yarn, the more it grew on me. So now I have 2 scarves and 2 hats to put in the collection bin at the church for the homeless shelter.

And One Last Thing

I've decided that August shall be "Rock Musician Joke Month" here at Chickenlips. (It's easier if you just go with it.)

Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Four. One to change the bulb, and three to watch and go, "I can do that."

• Plenty of water for the initial soak, using kitchen sink instead of plastic basin.



• Way, way, WAY less vinegar in the dye solution! No kidding, the kitchen smelled like there was a major spill at the Summer's Eve factory. Yeah, I know, "eww", but I'm really struggling here.

A shout out to trek for bringing me into the 21st century by passing on instructions on how to do the crossing out words thingy. HTML--Hell Yeah!

Knitting: something I know how to do.

Yarn is from stash, honest! It's Lorna's Laces "Shepherd Worsted". The first person for whom I made lace-up fingerless mitts has a birthday coming up, and she has expressed a wish to have "garter" socks. And indeed, Knitty has a pattern for just such an item. Worsted on size 2 needles?! Yes. Not quite instant gratification, but almost.



And finally, here's some Monkey business just getting under way.





Only one pattern repeat into it, and I am already convinced that it is the coolest sock pattern ever.

Must go now--I think the poor tortured skein has soaked long enough. Let's see how else I can screw up exercise my creativity today!