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Christmas 2009
Thank you for all your kind comments and messages regarding my recent surgery. I am recovering very well, and will soon be back to "normal". Merry Christmas to all of you. I hope all of you had at least as good a Christmas as I did. On Christmas eve we had dinner with my in-laws. This is the first time my parents are in Sydney for Christmas and so they were invited too. As usual, I made roast pork with crackling.  The recipe is actually very simple. This year I ordered 2kg of boneless pork belly with the skin left on. I left it out in the open to "dry" from about 9 in the morning. Every couple of hours or so, I sprinkled some salt on the skin and wiped off the moisture with a clean paper towel. At about midday, I used a knife to puncture the meat side of the pork belly and rubbed liberally with light soy sauce and Chinese 5-spice powder, and left it to dry further with the skin side up. By about 2 in the afternoon, the skin looked nice and dry. I baked it in the oven for about 2 hours, with the skin side up on a rack in a tray with about 1cm of water. Oh, and the oven (fan-forced) was set to about 180 degrees. I checked on it about 1 hour and 30 minutes into the baking time to see what parts had crackled and what had not. teh parts that did not crackle were gently dried with a clean paper towel and brushed lightly with some lemon juice (you can also use vinegar). The pork was then popped back into the oven for further baking and pulled out just before two hours. if you are not sure whether it is cooked, use a meat thermometer to check. Cutting it to check for pinkness and then re-baking will cause it to dry out. There you have it.. my very simple roast pork with crackling. I also made potato bake, but this year it was a failure. As I am still recovering and did not want to have to do everything in one stretch, I peeled the potatoes early and soaked them in water, ready to be assembled into a tray in the afternoon. Unfortunately they must have absorbed water and released said water during the cooking. My potato bake turned out more watery than usual and definitely not as rich and delicious as it normally is. Very unfortunate! Chris's mother made her very popular coconut prawns dish. Don't ask me for the recipe as I have never made it. I know it has prawns, pumpkin, chokoes, ginger and coconut milk in it and it is very delicious. Unfortunately, I was unable to indulge as prawns in large quantities make me itch. I did eat a little, and it was definitely delicious and rich.  During dinner, Chris's parents pulled out a headband with antlers for Alex. I made the bad bad mistake of calling them ears. Oops. Now he calls them "Rudolph's ears".  As usual, Alex scored the largest number of presents, including a new bike. It came with a helmet and although the bicycle is not yet assembled, Alex has been wearing the helmet daily. He just won't leave it alone! He wears it in the car, falls asleep and then my dad who sits next to him in the car has to try to take it off without waking him!  The other big present he received was from my parents - a bed! Alex now sleeps in a toddler bed. I am very surprised how good he has been. i was expecting to be woken at all hours of the night by a little boy wanting to climb into our bed, but he only comes round in the morning, usually at about six, but soemtiems at seven. When he does come in he is very good and climbs into our bed and snuggles. Sometimes he even goes back to sleep! I think I did better than Alex this year, though. Amongst my many presents, i got a Food safari cookbook and a handmade shawl! I participated in the Christmas exchange on Ravelry and Helen, the person who sent to me, made me a shawl. It is a pattern that she saw was both on her queue and mine. How lovely is that?!  You have probably noticed how shaggy Alex was looking in those Christmas photos. He was long overdue for a haircut. I had grown used to seeing him shaggy and quite liked the look. Today we decided to give him a haircut.  Haircuts are a family affair here.. Alex to sit still, me to hold the scissors and cut, and Chris to take photos!  I much prefer him with long hair. Luckily, it will grow long again before too long. Labels: Alex, Christmas
One tube down...
It was my intention to post after Christmas with photos of knitting and spinning done over Christmas, and news of an impending bundle of joy. However, that was not meant to be. On the Friday that just passed, I had to join the queue in the emergency department of my local hospital with what I thought were terrible gas pains. I am now so relieved I got it checked out, eventhough I did think at the time that I'd really look the fool if they did turn out to be "just gas", as they found that the pregnancy was ectopic and it had ruptured my right fallopian tube. It all went very quickly after they found the ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the ultrasounds. What I did not know when I was at home was that the aches and gas pains I was experiencing was from internal bleeding caused by the rupture. According to the obstetrics registrar on duty that day, if left too long, I could have died! I have never "nearly died" before. I had never, up till that time, had surgery before. I had never been under any sort of general anaesthetic before. It was all quite an experience, and not a very pleasant one. I wanted my "regular" obstetrician to do the surgery and for that I would have had to transfer to the local private hospital which was about 10 minutes away. That would have been doable, but the private hospital did not have room for me. My "regular" was very good about it, though, and recommended an obstetrician in the hospital where I was and assured me I was in good hands. I was indeed. He turned out to be very nice, and in some ways reminded me of my "regular". The surgery was successful and took less than an hour. It was minimally invasive (and that is not to say it was NOT invasive) as it was done via laparoscopy. I am now left with three tiny holes (stitched up, of course) in my belly and just some residual pain. I was lucky they caught it in time and managed to find the ruptured tube easily and removed it and the ectopic pregnancy and cleaned out what they could. Who knows what the outcome could have been had I waited. I was going to wait for Chris to finish work on Friday, and I am now glad I did not. He missed his office Christmas party. Had I waited, I would have been much more sick from the bleeding. In the 3 hours when we waited in the emergency department's waiting room, my blood pressure dove down to about 97/68 (or thereabouts). I started feeling a bit light-headed and a lot more pain. The pain that had started in my tummy had started to spread up my backto my shoulders. By the time they wheeled me into the theatre for the operation, the pain in my shoulder was quite unbearable. This is not the most desirable outcome from a pregnancy. Far from it, in fact, but I am grateful to be alive. The staff at the hospital took great care of me and they were all very gentle and sympathetic. Even the nurse removing my catheter tried to distract me while she was doing it when she found out I had never had one before. It was a scary time for all of us. Something I hope to not have to go through again. I think not enough is said to pregnant women to encourage them to seek medical attention when they have aches and pains during the pregnancy. I have heard others tell me that they have been told, "You're pregnant, what do you expect?" Well, I thought that too. I was pregnant. gas is part of being pregnant, what did I expect? I was lucky, I think, because I have a GP who is vigilant. I had been spotting very lightly for about 2 weeks prior to the ectopic pregnancy being discovered. He was monitoring my HCG levels very closely, and they were going up satisfactorily. In fact, the last test, taken the day before, showed the HCG level to be at about 3700, an acceptable level for someone who was 6 weeks pregnant. I was meant to have another test this week and then a scan, but of course that is probably all unnecessary now. My GP emphsised to me every time he saw me or spoke to me that if I had any pain I needed to go to the emergency department and tell them that I was pregnant, spotting and had pain. It was because of him that I decided not to wait. Better safe than sorry, and this time, it was certainly much better safe as sorry would have been too late. Aside from the recuperation that needs to happen physically, there's probably going to be a lot of emotional baggage that will come along. This pregnancy was never going to be a baby as such since it was ectopic, but for a few weeks, it was the promise of a baby. We were all excited. Alex had placed an order for a sister. In fact he was absolutely convinced it was a sister. When I told him I did not know whether it would be a boy or a girl, he retorted, "YOU don't know, but I know! It is a sister!" None of us have said anything to him about there being no more sister, but he has not mentioned her once since the operation. He knows that I am not feeling very well and I have "owies" on my tummy where he should not press on me, but we have not said anything about the sister being gone. He just seems to know. I wonder how. He has not asked to say goodnight to his sister since I came home from the hospital, but he used to say goodnight to my ytummy every night before that. From now on, if we were to get pregnant again, we'll have to be ever so vigilant. I am sure my GP will be. He always is. I will have to be too. I am sure we will all be very nervous about a repeat of this happening and will probably not be able to rest till we get a scan showing the baby to be in the uterus. Oh, what a lot of stress! On the bright side of things, I am glad it is Christmas and I am able to take the next couple of weeks off from work to rest and to enjoy my family. Merry Christmas everyone! I will be back after Christmas (if not before!) with photos of more completed projects. Labels: Alex, Christmas, ectopic
The long overdue post
A lot has happened in the last couple of months. Where do I start? Chris left his old job, and started a new one. There was a bit of uncertainty while he looked for a new job but he found a new one quickly. He wasn't dismissed. He left, in case you're wondering, because things just weren't so pleasant anymore. I am pleased that he seems much happier to go to work now and comes home a happier man. Happy husband/Daddy makes for happy wife/child. I have been busy. The project I am working on didn't go so well once it was in production and I have been working hard, osmetimes late at night supporting users, testing patches, etc. Pretty much doing the things I normally do, and more. That has now calmed down too. Thank goodness. I was not sure I could handle much more stress. In that time I found a white hair. Oh my! I hope it was just stress and not old age. I am not that old yet, am I? I haven't found another, but to be honest, I am not looking that hard either. If you see one (or two or three), please don't tell me. I don't want to know! As for Alex.. well, as you would probably have guessed from the previous post, he is growing up quickly. He likes painting and drawing, and gluing and folding, but not cutting, apparently. There is something about cutting that frustrates him. He hates it and won't do any craft that requires cutting, or so I am told. He is also slightly obsessed with cutting straight lines and gets frustrated when his little fingers can't manage it. That said, he does have a "thing" for straight lines and orderliness. Hmm.. I am nto so sure that this child is related to me after all. Orderliness is what I am not! Aside from work, I have also been very busy knitting and sewing. I found a kit to make this at my local Salvos shop:  It only cost me $9 and the only thing I had to supply aside from thread was the cotton batting inside. Alex loves it and calls it his duck blanket. It really is Mother Goose, but he thinks it's a duck and who am I to argue with toddler wisdom? It was completed in one day and easier than I expected. Don't look too closely, though. The applique work is really dodgy, despite it all having been cut out for me and all I had to do was sew. It's also not bound at the sides like a "real quilt" normally is. I sewed it all together (inside out) leaving a gap and turned it right side out and then top-stitched it. The layers were then tied together with bits of thread. A bit of a cheat but an effective one! My binding skills are crap, despite having watched dozens of tutorials on youtube. I am now working on a shawl (which can be used as a lap blanket).  I am using some handspun Blue-faced leicester (hand-dyed by me, of course) which I had plied with two strands of commercially produced cashmere/silk. Then.. horror of horrors, I ran out and it was still too small for a shawl. So I had to find another yarn to go with it and finally settled on this:  I am way past that point now, having completed about 10 repeats of the pattern. I am basing it on the Kiri Shawl buy Polly Outhwaite, but making it a square instead of a triangle. It's actually working out quite well. I have a gazillion stitches on the needles now though and each round is taking me longer. I think I will give up soon, maybe when I reach twelve repeats of the pattern. I still need to make sure I have enough yarn to finish the edging. I'd hate to run out again and have this look like a scrappy shawl, which it should not be. More recently I have also been dreaming up another simple pattern for a hat. this time it's a girly hat.  It's pretty simple and can be knitted up in a day or two. I took longer because of many interruptions and also feeling the need to concentrate on the shawl, which must be finished and blocked by the end of November as it is a gift for someone very special to Chris and I. I'll have to fine-tune the pattern and get it test-knitted. The yarn I used for this hat is actually a "seconds" lot from my store. the brown part has spots that are darker than the rest, and so it is a "seconds". I actually don't mind that and I think it's not very noticeable, and it goes well with the white/cream spots. I have been spinning too, but don't have that much to show for it. This one I call "Pure Dark Chocolate"  Spun from Bond fleece purchased from Shiloh Wool. It’s deliciously soft, which is, to me, so unusual for Corriedale, but I guess Bond is very special Corriedale. It is bred to have finer fleece than your run-of-the-mill Corriedale. It is approximately 24 to 25 microns and I didn’t think it would spin up so nicely, but it did. It’s going to be a scarf for Alex as he wants a scarf to be “just like you, Mummy”. Then there is this one which I spun for a customer, who is also a friend.  The hand-dyed superfine merino top is from Selah. It's not one of mine. It was a joy to spin as it really is quite soft. I navajo-plied it to keepthe colours together. I would imagine that it would stripe madly across whatever Anna decided to knit with it. I love how bright the colours are. they're not "my colours" but I did enjoy spinning them and just looking at the colours make me happy. The yellow is such a cheerful yellow and the reds and blues are so bright. That's all I have energy for today.. but I do have more to post later. Labels: Alex, Christmas, knitting, life, sewing, spinning
Alex's masterpiece
 Names written by his teacher at daycare, drawing by Alex.
Has it been nearly a whole month?
I think it has..the last time I posted was on 13th August. I have noticed how many blogger start posting less and less and then start apologising for not posting and before you know it, the blog is dead. I am determined not to let that happen, although the apologising has become more frequent and the posting less so. Every time I think of posting, the sheer number of updates feel so overwhelming taht I jsut give up and then days and weeks pass before I get around to posting again. I shall keep this one short, and with hope shorter more frequent posts will make it all feel less daunting and you'll hear from me more often.  This is Alex's Joe Jumper. Why Joe? Joe is the name of the sheep from whom I got the fleece. The yarn is hand washed and handspun. I love teh natural variation in colour from the brown/gray fleece. At first I thought I'd rip back the sleeve because of that very obvious stripe, but then I thought about it again and decided the stripe isn't ugly and it makes this jumper truly unique. So I left it. I finally got the pattern for Alex's Emergency 1 Day hat tested and uploaded to Ravelry. It is a free pattern so if you are looking for a quick satisfying knit, this is it!  We have some videos of Alex signing that we filmed this morning. I'll have to go sort them out, upload them for the next blog post. Stay tuned!
Emergency 1 day hat
So.. I knitted up a hat for a swap. Alex decided to claim it. No go! So, I knitted another for him to claim.  The pattern is going to be a free Ravelry download. I'll link to it when it's up. It is still being test-knitted at this stage. It's easy peasy, and really quick to make. I think I will make another few! Oh, and a reminder tha Celia's Basket is still having a 25% off everything sale till this Sunday. Go now before the one you've been eyeing goes!
Clear the Decks Sale - 25% off everything
That's right, folks. I want to clear the decks of as much stock as possible. There is a 25% off everything discount at Celia's Basket till 16th August. Some things have already started selling out so go grab your bargain quickly. I have in stock a lot of spinning fibre and yarn. The children's clothes MUST go! It's taking up room. So, why am I so keen to have it all gone? I will be having a new line of yarn come in. It's 100% 19micron Australian merino in 8ply weight. If that works out, I will also be stocking it in about 10 or 12ply weight. It's a lovely soft yarn, light and airy. I have tested it, washed it and rubbed it and it is still very soft. It will felt well too! I can't bring that in till I have cleared some room, hence, the sale. During the sale, I will still be happy to take orders for custom dyeing and spinning, but all custom jobs will not be discounted. Labels: store
Celia's Basket at the Glebe Market
I just spoke to Ness and she has a stall. Yay! She will be near the front entrance - go in and turn left. See you there!
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