Well good lord, look at us at the start of our 3rd year of All the makes! Darling, we may get the hang of this blog thing after all. January was quite a pinnacle month, holy crap. It was the month at the very highest point of the emotional rollercoaster that has been the last seven months of my life. We haven’t begun the descent yet, but the anticipation is edged with the tiniest bit of hope. Another thing that has made a very slow climb back up the rails is knitting. There there are no Finished Objects or New Cast Ons for this month, but there is a desire to knit coming back and that is one thousand times better.
Works in Progress:
Shatar Vest
Knit House Cardigan
Vinca Hat
Highlights Tunic dress
Thelma Top
Kaylen Mesh Scarf
Barebones Fingerless Mitts
Gingerbraid
Reknit socks for Feebs
Goals for next month:
Identify dead projects
Post a new Dream Knitting
Cast on something amazing
So, no finishing got done, but there was finally a happy amount of knitting. It wasn’t glamorous knitting, but it was knitting and that is all that matters. Years ago, I think it was shortly after I began to knit socks for real and had discovered the world of hand-dyed sock yarn, I purchased Lolodidit Everyday Sock in the color Sweet Tooth. I was nowhere near working out the formula for my vanilla socks, and knit myself a pair of socks that were too loose in the foot and too short in the cuff. Since I knit them as part of the Grocery Girls monthly Sock Talk challenge, I was so proud of them and wore them anyway. Fast-forward eight years and they are in the extra cubby in my closet, where all problematic socks go to be forgotten about. Feebs found them and told me how much she loved the yarn and wished they fit her. This is a long drawn out way of telling you that I am unravelling my old socks and knitting new socks for Feebs out of them. I got a new cutout of her foot, and got to work. I am knitting them toe up and got mostly to the heel by the end of the month. So not fancy knitting, by any means, but hey, something is happening! I have also been hardcore creeping patterns in my library and then musing what would work with my stash. There may be some matches made in heaven for knitwear in February. Through this whole seven-month debacle, no other crafts have hit my fancy, and that still hasn’t changed. We will see if anything changes going forward.
I will get to talking about what happened in the full month shortly, but before I do, allow me to spin you a tale about when Mrs. Collins done lost her whole mind and went on a two-month long stress-clean. Darling, it is well known in my circle that about once a year I get a bee in my bonnet and get going on a declutter or stress clean. During these times, that generally last a little over a week or two depending on flexibility of scheduling, I will get an urge to tear into some clutter and give my soul a nice sigh of relief since I live with people who don’t understand anything about the word tidy. Early-ish December I got annoyed at the state of Feebs’s closet. My initial response was to start a mental redesign of our house to convert wasted space into more useable storage options. Then I was in our bonus room looking up at the high-level storage shelf and all of the disheveled clutter that was up there and thinking how much better that space could be utilized and organized, and just like that, I was off like a shot. Over the next two months: Everything was pulled out of Feebs’s closet and gone through, the clothing sizes were switched out and bagged or boxed up, the overhead storage was all pulled down and reorganized, things were moved to the attic in a organized fashion, along with the Christmas stuff that was finally taken down and boxed up, the semi-annual toy rodeo and donate effort was completed, the books were gone through and Friends of Library continues to love us, and everything not kept has gone to the appropriate cousin or has gone to the appropriate donate. Feebs’s closet, bedroom, and her part of the bonus room is now cleared out and decluttered. I also cleared out her linen closet and the cabinet under her sink (ohmygod I have been meaning to do that for a year!). The bonus room was still a wreck, and it had nothing to do with her stuff. I dug in deep and brutally. I de-stashed and decluttered. I got rid of fabric, threw out the hoard of damaged man clothes that I will never actually do anything with, and donated all of the completely useable bedding that I was keeping for sewing purposes that I also wouldn’t ever use. It stung, but still felt necessary. All of the baskets of yarn around the room, specifically littered around my chair, were redistributed and reorganized. I pulled out the bags, needle case, notions, and other detritus. I then took my happy ass to Ikea and bought a couple tall narrow bookcases and bins and solved my storage solution. In addition, I have completely moved out of the Husband’s office, including the desk, so that all was gone through and has a home as well. I went through the junk drawer, the porch cubbies, and all of the other clutter catching areas in the house. Your girl was on fire. I pulled out everything and purged everything that made no sense. I then put away everything that was left over. By the time I put all my stash away, and had completely reorganized the bonus room I was faced with the cold harsh fact that I have absolutely no more room to buy anything else. I am writing this with absolutely no sarcasm. All existing yarn storage is at capacity and there is no more room at the inn. This goes for the fabric storage as well. There is absolutely no more room. I can always buy more bins and throw more things into the attic, but within in what I consider to be reasonable space (which, let’s be honest, is a very decent amount of space) I am at full capacity. This was very harsh indeed. So this is what has triggered the great stash pairing of 2025, the great match up. I’m still working on it, so definitely expect a Dream knitting to be coming shortly.
Gosh, that was fun. I honestly don’t think that I have ever been on that long or intensive of a stress-clean before. As I write this now, I am still in that process, so who knows when it will actually end. Anyhoo… The first week of January was the new year, and obviously we were with the O’s the first day, which was lovely. After leaving there, Feebs and I went to spend a few days with the Father. We had dinner with his lady and Wanda & Lenard. It was really great to see that couple. I haven’t spent any time with them, and they got a kick out of Feebs. We did the traditional festive night golf with the Father and had a great time. We then headed home and I did more cleaning and organizing. We saw the Husband’s side of the family for lunch. I must say, his oldest nephews are pretty cool kids. The following week was doctor’s appointments, labs, and the usual medical things. The appointments were all building up to the final appointment at the end of the month. It turned out that I am not a candidate for physical therapy for my neck issues, so I was waiting for a consult with a spine surgeon, also at the end of the month. That weekend was all about getting Feebs ready for 5th grade camp. This was her first stay-away experience, and I wasn’t quite ready for it. We had her packed within an inch of her life and ready to take on any necessary survival measure that came her way. Naturally, none of this was needed, and she had an amazing time. It felt very weird having her gone for a week, knowing she wasn’t with family. The husband and I felt a little lost, to be perfectly honest. The week went very fast though, and before we knew it, she was home. I will say, that having her away for that week did get my mind on a tiny rabbit hole about what our lives will look like after she leaves home. What our routine and adventures will look like. I am sure I will muse more on that at a much later date, when it is closer to relevant. That weekend was fairly busy getting the girl all settled in and back in a routine. Then the Sunday was packed with breakfast with the Mother and the Aunt in Law. I have really enjoyed those, but I fear I am the minority. They don’t seem to click, at an awkward level. I don’t want to force it, but am not sure if I am reading it correctly. After that I had lunch with Sister #2. We had a lovely meet up and walked around and chatted about our lives. I love having those lunches. The following day was MLK day, so that was a very nice 3-day weekend. It was also inauguration day and LouHou’s birthday, so it was a very mixed bag of emotions. The following day was my lumbar puncture, and holy crap did that end up spinning out into three weeks worth of What the Actual F*#k!? Lets summarize it to say that I will be much more cautious and humble the next time I need another tap. That was an experience that I would like to not re-live. The ripple affect of it messed with just about every aspect of my life, and still isn’t cleared up as I write this. That literally sums up the last 2 weeks of January, until I got to the 31st. The last day of the month was a complete and utter shitstorm. We were booked back to back with appointments, starting with the neuro appointment that I had been waiting and working up to for two months. The Cliff’s notes: My diagnosis from the past eight years is incorrect, and I have the other suspected disease. There are no changes to my scans, so her initial thought is to continue on with the doubled dose of my infusion meds, but she will be seeking an opinion from other doctors at a symposium in February. There is a difference between a treatment plan and medications for symptom management. She explained this to me when I broke down crying that my symptoms are getting worse, and how frustrated that made me because we aren’t making any changes to my treatment. She explained to me that symptoms and flares with my disease are incredibly common and she will use medications to manage them. If the meds that I am on currently aren’t working, then we will switch them until we find the right fit for managing the symptoms and flare ups. The overall treatment plan is the medication that I am taking to attach the overall disease itself, and she sees no reason to change that, as yet. I can’t tell you how helpful it was to hear this explained. I felt completely powerless and like the only thing that was going to make any difference to my daily life and function was to change treatment plans, but now I know that there are two completely different paths. We have switched my meds (spoiler alert) and I get to start tapering off of the horrid meds that I was on. I am counting down the days until those have completely vacated my body. I have to wait till mid-February for the outcome of the treatment plan, but at least now I feel like there may be light at the end of the tunnel and I that I am not just tied to the tracks waiting for the train. As for the spine surgeon, he was a trip. He was my age, and made reference the fact by comparing me to his sister. He was also all over the place with options. The first one being surgery, and the last being home physical therapy. I opted for the physical therapy first, then escalate as needed. Call me crazy, but I prefer to stretch first, cut later.
Being that January, first month of the new year, started out so rocky I am going into the rest of the year with incredible caution. I feel that there is some hope for resolution on a few things, improvement on others. I will hopefully start to feel like I have a little more control of my life and my brain as I come off of the meds. I am very hopeful that my new migraine med will just work on the migraines and not mess with anything else in there. I want to want to do things again, and feel excited about something. I want to knit and make things that make me happy again. I want to feel like Mrs. Collins again. Let’s go quietly and not draw attention to ourselves, and maybe the universe will be too distracted to pay us much mind.
Loves,
M
Mrs. Collins Makes Stuff 