Prepare to be Assimilated

Had to do the total BORG routine last night. My new dentist thinks that some of my jaw problems may be caused or aggravated by sleep apnea or other sleep disturbances so she ordered a sleep study. I had to suit up with a plethora of wires, probes and other paraphernalia to test how I sleep. I don't think I have a sleep problem that wouldn't be solved by sleeping in an isolation tank with no snoring husbands, snuggling dogs, or purring cats. We'll see what the results tell me.

Now that I frightened away the last 4 readers with that scary ass picture of my bedtime mug (trust me, there was an even scarier picture that if I get cranky enough I will pull out to scare away the rest of you intrepid readers!) I will leave you with some pretty to cleanse your eyeballs.

Still not pretty enough? How about this?

Fresh start

Spring here in the midwest is such a welcome relief. I've lived here all my life and still this first week when everything turns green and the weather is consistently warmer that freezing gives me hope for the future. We get into this feeling about mid-March that it just will never get nice again and stay that way. We cry and curse that we never get a real spring and why the hell is it snowing AGAIN? and on and on. But every year the daffodils and magnolia bloom and before we know it we are cursing the mosquitoes and dandelions.

This is the time of year when things that have been in hibernation for months and months make a reappearance. In some cases what goes into the cave at the beginning of the winter makes a transformation into another form once the warm air of spring arrive. Take for instance the lime green cardigan knit with Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece a year ago.

It was yarn and a pattern purchased on a whim about a year ago at a Friday knitting group when the project I brought to knit either ran out of yarn or something and I needed something new to work on. I've always admired this yarn and the color just screams SPRING! to me. The problem was the pattern. The photo in the pattern book appealed to me, totally something I would buy for myself, I love cardigans. But it is constructed all in pieces with a lot of seaming. I hate seaming. Also the store only had 4 skeins of the Cotton Fleece in that color. I figured it would be enough and being cotton it would stretch. But once all the parts were knit I could just tell it wouldn't fit in the loose unconstructed way it appeared in the photos. So I put it all in a bag and stuck it in a closet.
Then the other day I finished my Ripple Afghan (oh my, I just realized that I never posted the finished pictures. I'll get to that, it is gorgeous!) and was going to cast on a new project. I had picked up a huge amount of Paton's Classic Wool at Joann's last month on sale with a Central Park Hoodie in mind. But then Turtlegirl posted that she was starting a Mama Escuelita sweater and I really wanted to make that. But then I realized that Rosi hasn't made the pattern live yet so I was out of instant gratification luck. Plus it was nearing 80 degrees that particular day and knitting a wool sweater was getting less and less appealing as the temperature rose, especially one in a dark neutral color like the yarn I had on hand.

This of course led to a few hours of browsing on Ravelry (second only to Facebook for sucking any and all spare minutes of my life right out of me.) Through no logical progression I found myself admiring Ysolda's Liesl. A light went on in my little knitter brain and I remembered the unfinished lime cardigan hibernating away up in the guest room closet. Let the downloading begin! While the pattern printed I started frogging.

I am now a few repeats past the armholes. Another day or two and I'll probably be knitting sleeves. I debated making the sleeveless version but with this pattern I have more than enough yarn so I'm going for the 3/4 length sleeve.

I did order a new usb cord for my camera so getting photos to my blog isn't as time consuming and annoying as it had been for a few months there. I will do my best to get some updated pics and finished project photos up here in a more timely manner.

By the way, I changed my blog template the other day but when I hit the "preview" button I still get the original template. If you read this in a regular browser window (not a feed reader) could you take a second to leave a comment and tell me what the template looks like? Thank you.

Open Wide

I wish I could.

I had an appointment with a new dentist yesterday. I've never been so happy when I got home from a medical appointment in my entire life except for maybe after my LASIK surgery.

For the past 20+ years there have/had been three things about my physical self that have given me grief. Number one was my years of endometriosis. From practically my first period on I suffered terribly from pain and all kinds of other nasty things. The only times I had any relief were when I was pregnant and nursing. A hysterectomy about 4 years ago changed my life. The second was my extreme near-sightedness. I got my first pair of glasses at 7 years old. When I finally got LASIK surgery and could wake up and go to the bathroom with out fumbling around my bedside table for my glasses it was like my life started all over again. The third has been the pain and immobility I have had with my TMJ since college. I don't remember specifically when my jaw problems started but I think it was sometime between when my braces came off at age 13 and getting my wisdom teeth out my freshman year of college.

I've sought treatment for this problem from every dentist I've seen for the past 20 years. I even went back to my original orthodontist (who probably caused it in the first place). I've had numerous bite guards and other dental appliances fitted. But they never got to the root of the problem. They also always fell short because most of them were made to be worn at night while I slept and while I do grind my teeth in my sleep I also clench my teeth all day, every day. I needed something I could wear while talking, eating, and just generally going about my daily activities. I also needed someone to look to the cause of my problem and not just treat the symptoms.

I think I may have just found those people. Yesterday's appointment was initially for a general cleaning and TMJ consultation. One of the things they did was measure just how far I could open my mouth. 23 millimeters. That's right, I can only open my mouth about 2 and a half centimeters. SMALL grapes are about the only whole food I can fit in my mouth, every thing else has to be cut up.

Also the hygienist that cleaned my teeth is also a TMJ sufferer and for once I didn't have a hygienist that just didn't get it that I had to take a break every 3-4 teeth to rest my jaw muscles. She didn't continually berate me to "open wider" and "don't bite down on that!" or "I'll be done in a minute." There have been dentist visits in my past where I was literally crying in pain, in my face and jaw not my teeth, by the end of my visit. The best part was that at the end of the visit they used a cold laser on my jaw muscles and joints to relieve that pain and inflammation that was inevitable from holding my mouth open for over an hour.

Even with all that special care and consideration I'm still in pain today. But I do have hope that maybe sometime in my future I may have relief from the last bane to my existence.