Surprise! No Dental News! (Well, Okay. A Little.)

I thought I'd do an update-y type post and lump together some recent happenings that aren't awesome enough to get their own blog post.

First off, remember that whole crunched by a semi thing from January? Well, last month we finally got everything settled with the insurance company. The car had already been fixed (that happened pretty rapidly) but it took a while before all the medical visits were done. Now, though, everything is all signed off on and we got a check covering the medial-related things and a little bit extra. And that little bit extra leads to the next bit of news.

We got a new mattress! We've needed a new one for a bit now - our old one was about eight years old and did no favors to my back (or Dan's neck). But with us being on budgetary lockdown this year to save a nice chunk of change, we weren't quite sure how we'd swing a new mattress anytime soon. So yay for semi-trucks, I suppose? Anyway, we got a Stearns & Foster mattress, which are supposed to be quite the thing (though I had never heard of them, but then, I don't follow mattress fashion) and, naturally, we got it at Costco. It's so fantastic. It's soft and comfy but has fantastic support. My back is so much happier now! (It's this one if you happen to be shopping for a new mattress.)

In other news (warning: here's the dental news), Gidget seems to be doing well. She's on pain meds and is camped out in our guest bathroom where she has constant access to canned food. (We'd let her leave if she wanted, but I think the rest of the house pales in comparison to the food access.) We have a check up in a month so hopefully nothing pops up that we need to make an earlier appointment.

Speaking of kitties, Sam is still doing awesome on his anti-depressant. He's now acting like a real kitty - even purring when pet sometimes! That's pretty big news from him because he could get skittish easily when getting attention. Now we just need to work on getting him below sixteen pounds. (The weight loss challenge has hit a bit of a snag as no one is losing weight anymore!)

A bit of a knitting update: I almost missed it but I realized last week that September was my one year knitting anniversary! Yep, as of a few days ago, I've been knitting for a year now! And coinciding with that anniversary, I made probably my most challenging item to date: slippers!

They are done with a technique called twined or two-ended knitting, which is a traditional Scandanavian knitting technique. But the technique wasn't really that challenging (though it was time consuming, mostly because you have to keep untwisting the yarn). The complex part was understanding the pattern!

The pattern is from a book called Knitting Scandinavian Slippers and Socks and it's nice in that it has lots of pretty pictures that show how to do twined knitting, step-by-step. That's awesome and helpful. But the way the book is laid out meant I had to flip back and forth from the pattern I was working on to the basic slipper pattern, back to my pattern, over to the stitch explanations, back to my pattern... and in all that flipping (particularly when going to the basic slipper pattern that is spread over pages and pages because of the step-by-step pictures), I missed some details here and there. Which meant picking up the stitches and making the cuff on these puppies? A lot harder than they should be. Ah well, I'll just count it as a learning experience - learning the right way to do it and learning how to fudge things enough that the wrong way doesn't look wrong!

Anyway, they are a bit loose (though I knew that when I decided to make them since they are for a women's 9/10 and I'm not) but they are super toasty and fit remarkably like a pair of bootie slippers Dan has that I always steal from him. And it seems that the fact that they are 100% wool help my feet not get sweaty. (I know you wanted to know that last bit.)

Of course, finishing off that project meant it was time to start a new one. So what's next? I'm making a sweater! Squee! It's a cardigan actually. I just cast on for it the day before yesterday and currently have something not at all resembling a sweater. It's more like a small belt or something. But that's okay because I knew it will become sweater-like the more I work on it. YAY!

Sadly, I have no picture of it yet (as there's not really much to photograph), but here, have a picture of the yarn I'm using and my gauge swatch.

  

Hopefully there will soon be enough of it to photograph!

And I think that's about all the news that is news (and probably some that really isn't.)

Oh wait, I take that back - there is one more dash of news! Apparently my whole shoulder issue is contagious because my mom's having problems now. Only she decided to one up my bursitis and actually break her collarbone! What a showoff! (Just kidding! I mean, she did crack her collarbone, but I'm positive that she didn't do it to show me or up for any other reason because OUCH! She's having a non-fun time of it ('cause, hello! Broken bone!) so send her happy wishes and thoughts, k?)

Okay, that's really it this time!