Great Week

 This has been a great week for me personally and crafting wise.  

I would like to thank all of you for the prayers and good thoughts for me and my DH during this past week.  DH was released from the hospital on Tuesday morning and is doing well.  He has a long road of recovery yet but all the pathology reports came back negative for cancer.  We are blessed and every so thankful for that.  Now he just needs to get some strength back and gain the 20 pounds he lost over the past two months.

As for crafting..........................................

The My Honey is completed as of midnight last night.  I decided to make it short sleeved since our weather here seldom calls for a really heavy outer garment of any kind.  This will be nice for her to wear over her cammies when she goes to church or out to dinner.  

I think she will love it.  I know I loved the yarn that was self striping.  It was a dream to work with and I still have plenty left to make her American girl dolls a matching sweater.

I love the buttons I found at my LYS to go on it.  IT was not easy finding something that went with both the pink and the orange.

While at the LYS I found this yummy Fortissimo Sock yarn and immediately thought of DH and how much he loves home made socks.  So the next thing on my needles today will be a pair of socks for him.  I have all my sock pattern books out and am searching for just the right one for him.  I want to make them interesting enough that I don't go bonkers knitting them.  The last pair I made for him was strictly stockinette stitch and it drove me crazy.  So this time there will be some sort of a pattern involved in them.

I knew hubby was getting better because..........................yesterday I told him I needed to go to my LYS to pick up a pair of size 4US DPNs to complete the sleeves of the sweater.  He looks at me and asks "may I go with you?"  Yup, he was getting cabin fever.  So off we went and he actually was the one to find the buttons for me.  He has been to my LYS several times as I have several gift cards from them that he as gotten me for special occasions.  Gotta love a man that enables my addiction.

I'm off to finish up the laundry (Hubby is on lifting restrictions for 2 months) and find a pattern that I love for a lovely pair of socks.

Happy Crafting!

Update

This is just a quick YOP update.  I am writing this on my tablet from my hubby's hospital room.             

As for the sweater for the grand daughter........it has been worked on quite a bit over the past 4 days.  I have added about 7-8 inches on the body.  I did have a bit of a scare on Friday, when I found three dropped stitches in the lace yoke.  I took a crochet hook and wove them into what looked like the rest of the lace pattern and then tied a knot in the stitches.  When I finish the body of the sweater I will do s teeny bit of sewing to insure those stitches never come loose again.

Hubby had his surgery on Thursday.  Unfortunately they had to cut him open to do it.  We had hoped for laprascopic surgery, but there was too much involved for that to happen.  They removed 14 inches of his colon and it was adhereing to his kidney.  Surgery lasted almost 3 hours and then another 2 hours in recovery.  Everything looks good so far and we are waiting for the final pathology report. All indications so far still point to diverticulitis.

We were hoping to have him home by today but looks like it will be Tuesday at the earliest.  I want to thank all of you for your prayers and good wishes.

Next week I will have pictures for you.........of the sweater!!!!!!

Happy crafting!

Some progress

Week two or is it three?  Does it matter.  HEEHEE

I have a bit of progress on the My Honey sweater that I am working on.  In fact it is the ONLY thing I am working on at the moment.

I am at the point where it is mindless knitting.  I will be doing that part for a bit longer as I need it to be 14 inches from the underarm.  I am only at about 8 inches.  I am loving the yarn and the way the self striping is working out with it.

I will have LOTS of time to work on this starting on Thursday of this week.

Hubby is scheduled for surgery on that day and the plan is for him to be in the hospital for 3-5 days after that and then there is a 3-6 weeks recovery period at home.  Surgery will last about 2 hours and that is all knitting time for me.  So I will be on and off work for the next couple of weeks depending on his Doctor appointments and any needs he has once he is home.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.  He is going to have one foot of his colon removed during the surgery.  No...............................there is not going to be a bag attached to him.  They are going to reattach the two ends of the colon and then we go from there.  No signs of cancer so that is a great thing.  They think it is just scarring from diverticulitis at this point.  He is still on antibiotics and will end those tomorrow.  Please keep your prayers coming.  This man has been the picture of health since we have been married and this is the first time he has really been sick for any reason.  

Yesterday, I didn't get much knitting done as I was disinfecting the house.  I scrubbed floors on my hands and knees, scoured cabinets and counter tops, scoured 2 of three bathrooms (the other one gets done today), and even gave the dogs baths to make sure they were all nice and clean.  I don't want any possibility of him getting any kind of a secondary infection after surgery.  Nope, not on my watch.  I will say, my house smells lovely (all lemony) and it shines too.  The only draw back is..........................I am really really sore today from all that work.  I started at 8:30 yesterday morning and finally sat down about 3:30 in the afternoon.  I also did the ironing and hemmed up two pairs of dockers for the man.  

Today, our daughter is coming over to help with the rest of the deep cleaning so it will be all done and I can enjoy the next few days with the hubby at home.

Gotta go and look over all the other blogs with progress!

Happy Crafting!

Week one YOP and other stuff

First week and I am posting on Sunday because we went to Mass last night so I have today pretty much free.

I will do my crafting info in the first part of this post and then update everyone on my personal stuff in the second part.  So if you don't care about my personal life....................you can skip that part.

First WIP up is my Green Bay Packers afghan.  This is being made for my BFF for Christmas.  You will not be seeing pictures of it again for a while.  It has been put into time out in my craft room until the temperatures drop below 100.

Just so you have an idea of how hot it is right now.......I took these pictures this morning around 8 AM and it was already almost 100 and the humidity is really up for us.  We are in the Monsoon season and this is the WORST time of year.  Dust, rain, wind, humidity, night time temps in the 90's.  Yup, but it only lasts for about 2-3 months.  LOL

This is my second Radian Yoke Sweater that I am making.  I am not so sure I want to continue with it.  The yarn is a linen and cotton blend and I do like the coolness of it.  But for some reason, it is not speaking to me.  I loved my first one that I made and maybe that is the problem.  Since I have already made one of them I don't want another.  But the first one does not fit me well and now I know how to adjust the pattern to make it fit superbly.  I will think about it for a while and then decide what to do with it.

Next up is the project I am currently working on.  My Honey cardigan for my grand daughter.  I won this pattern off of a facebook post and I am loving it.  Once I got past the lace top it is pretty much a mindless knit and that is what I am needing right now in my life. (Explanation to follow in personal section)

Here is a close up of the lace portion.

I love the yarn that I am using.  It is self striping so that makes the project so much more fun for me.  The yarn is from JoAnn's and called Sensations Breeze.  It has kind of a nubby texture and is suppose to be a DK weight but I found it to knit up more like a fingering weight.  I had to go up 2 needles sizes from the pattern called for and I am a loose knitter.  I am hoping to have the sweater done in the next few weeks and then I want to make her American Girl Doll a matching one.  I have plenty of yarn so I think a nice slouchy beanie for both of them is called for too.

Ok, so that is it for my crafting life.  If you have things to do, you can go now as I am now going to go on to my personal stuff.

This past month has not been kind to my household.  Health issues are abundant around here and this time it is my DH.  We have been married for almost 38 years and in that time I think I can count on one hand the times he has been really sick.

About a month ago he started having lower abdominal pain and cramping.  After 2 weeks of watching the poor man grabbing his side I decided it was time for the Doctor to come into the picture.  He was sent for a CT scan of his innards and they found a narrowing of his intestines.  We were referred to a specialist and the next week we were there finding out what to do.

(This might get a bit graphic for some of you so if you want to stop now do so.  If you have a weak stomach you might want to just skip to the end.  I am in the medical field so I have no problem explaining and using medical terminology for the rest of this post)

DH was scheduled for a Colonoscopy the following week.  The prep for that was HORRIBLE!  He had chills and started running a fever around 10 that night.  This bothered me as I know if he had a fever the next day the procedure would be cancelled.  Thank goodness the fever broke about 30 minutes after he was done with the torture of the prep.

Last Tuesday he went in for the procedure and I was kind enough to him to request anesthesia for him.  I didn't want him to remember any part of the procedure.  One of my Doctors I work for did the anesthesia so I was quite happy about that.

After all was over the Doctor came in and talked to us and said that he could not complete the procedure because the narrowing was so narrow he could not pass the scope through it.  So he wants us to go for another test and he is going to schedule it for that same day so we don't have to go through the prep again.  The second test basically boiled down to a lower GI exam under radiography.  I will say that it was not a pleasant experience for DH and he has sworn never to let them do that to him again unless he is under anesthesia.  They normally give a person some type of sedative to relax them but since he had been given Propofal (yes, that is the Michael Jackson drug) they could not give him anything else that day.

We got home after a loooooong 6 hours of testing and were just beginning to relax when the Doctor called.  Seems my DH has a 10cm (5 inches) of narrowed innards.  Surgery is to be scheduled for sure.  The doctor does not believe it is Cancer as the area that he was able to visualize with the scope was perfectly normal looking.  He thinks it is caused by Diverticulosis since my DH had just finished the antibiotics for the flare up he had a couple of weeks earlier.  (that is why we got sent to the specialist)  The Doc said that he should be able to do it all through a laprascope so that will make the recovery time much less for DH.

NOW we are relaxing when DH says "I think I might have a small fever".  I run and get the thermometer and take his temp.,  105!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Are you kidding me!!!!!!!!  Then DH in his wisdom says (I am already dialing the Dr by now) "is that high"?  I look at him (as I am waiting for the answering service to pick up the phone and say) "Oh, no, honey. But your brain is going to melt"  Finally get a call back from the Doctor (Actually it was only about 5 minutes) and was instructed to go to the emergency room.  (Kind of figured that out on my own)

Off we go to the ER and after 4 hours there he is admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and fluid and to monitor his temp for the next 48 hours.  DH asked the Doctor if he could just do the surgery now since he was already in the hospital and all prepped.  LOL  That guy is always thinking.  Doctor tells him no!  If they did the surgery now with the infection ripping through his innard, he would be a really really really sick puppy and he won't take that chance.

Hubby is home now (came home on Independence Day) and has rested up and is feeling much better.  He is on a very restricted diet for the next few days to let his innard rest.  We see the Doctor again this coming Tuesday and hopefully will get his Surgery schedule ASAP.  This does look like we will be cancelling our trip to Texas to see our Grand kids.  We only get to see them once a year so that is kind of a bummer for us.  Hopefully we can go later on in the year to see them.

Ok, well that is all for now.  I am going to go and do some more mindless knitting.  My mom is coming over this afternoon and we will be grilling up some burgers for dinner with Mac n Cheese as a side (told you the diet is weird)

Happy Crafting