Catching Up

Haven't posted in awhile, thought I'd play catch-up.

I haven't practiced poi since last Saturday when I learned the 3-beat weave. I developed a pretty bad pain in my left shoulderblade area. It just feels like just a sore muscle, so I thought it was from whacking myself too many times, too hard, with the poi in that area, or maybe from the new and unusual movement of my arm. I decided to take a break. But the pain hasn't gotten any better in almost 5 days, so I'm not sure that's what it was. If it was that, I would have thought it would have started showing some improvement by now. It's hard to tell - I'm plagued by random aches and pains anymore. I tried a heating pad for awhile last night, and it helped, but only as long as the heating pad was on it. As soon as I moved it came back. I'll have to try some other stuff here over the next few days and see if I can't clear it up, because I miss my poi!

I have done no knitting in weeks! I must be in another knitting slump. That's okay, though - that sometimes happens in the summer. I'm sure I'll get back to it soon, although I'd like to get that sweater done before too much longer. And make some more socks! I'm also going to have Christmas knitting to start thinking about, if I plan to do any. Haven't decided about that yet.

Oi, Christmas - that's something I'd like to start on any time now. Not because I really think that Christmas should be such an extended, commercialized monster that goes on for months. But because waiting till the last minute is always a pain in the butt. I'd really rather start early and have nice relaxing time of it. Of course, I stopped going out shopping for Christmas years ago, and do all of my shopping online now - which alleviates the stress, except when I wait too late to order stuff and have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for 2-day shipping to get the stuff in time!

Part of my problem is that I never know what to get anyone. I guess I'm just not that creative in the gift-giving department. Greg can buy me a whole slew of Christmas gifts without ever once asking me what I want, and it's always cool stuff. Me, I can't seem to think of anything to get anyone without them telling me specifically what they want - and most people never will tell me anything they want. Well ... one of my goals for the year was to simplify things more, so I suspect I can start with this whole Christmas thing. Simple, thoughtful gifts, instead of the commercialized feeding frenzy it often deteriorates into when waiting too long.

Which brings me back to knitting - knitted gifts are always nice, because I get the bonus of enjoying the act of knitting them, and the recipient gets a hand-made gift. But that only works if I leave myself enough time to do the knitting.

In other news ... we planned a porch party for this weekend. Used to have these all the time, then kind of stopped, and haven't really had one all year. I decided it was time for one, before summer was over. Potentially there will be Midnight Drunken (R) shenanigans, with pictures to follow. I'm considering a game that's a combination of croquet, horsehoes, and cornhole. We'll see.

Not much else going on ... I've been exhausted for the past two weeks, and doing little to nothing in the evenings after work. I couldn't figure out what was causing this till Greg pointed out something - Tyler's got this itchy allergic reaction thing going on again, and is waking me up throughout the night with his scratching and chewing. When I started paying attention, I noticed that usually by 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. he's waking me up, and once it starts, it goes on every little bit the rest of the night. That means that I haven't gotten a good, full night's restful sleep in about 3 week (because I never sleep entirely well when camping). No wonder I'm tired! I never know what to do about Tyler, though - this has been an ongoing problem for years and years, and even after a very expensive trip to an allergy specialist vet an hour away, there was no solution. Making him sleep on the floor isn't an option - he'd never stay unless I put him in a crate, and the he'd probably whine and howl all night, because he'd be pissed about that. This dog's never had to sleep in a crate, or anywhere without me (except when I'm away and he's being dog-sat) since he was a puppy. Even when he was recovering from surgery and couldn't get on the bed, we slept on the living room floor with him, instead. Spoiled? Yeah, I don't want to hear about it.

So anyway, I guess it's time to get off my duff and get ready for work. Party pictures Sunday!