Oh, the temptation

I got to hear that Cross My Heart Inc. is closing down and having -50% sale...

You know where this leads to...

Yes, more stash on its way... because "it was SO cheap and I have to get all my favourites while I can!"

To dream, to sleep

First time in almost two months my dreams are rather logical (I have to say that sertraline has very entertaining effect on one's dreams), but I am not completely sure is it a good thing.
Because the dreams are so logical, you live them more and when you wake up you fall off of your cloud.

It makes me moody. To be dragged off from the place I was happy at.

Though, I believe that this was yet another sign of progress.

Basically the dream went like this:

I had just had a home warming party. (Silly thing was that I know it was my own apartment, even it looked different inside (the front door and the like were the same).)
One of my guests hadn't left yet. I didn't know the guy, but I didn't mind him being around because I felt comfortable with him. The previous residents had left the place dusty and some of their belongings in the kitchen: there were glasses in the cupboards and the fridge was filled with food, food I couldn't eat (marinated meat) - this we found out when we went to check is there any food for us (it was Saturday evening and all the stores were closed until Monday) and I recall myself explaining to him (his arm around my waist) that I can't eat any of the stuff in the fridge as they have MSG in them and it gives me migraine.

"Well, I can always eat you though..." was my last comment on the fridge issue.
You can deduce from this that even we didn't knew each other we had a thing growing between us, making us us.

I woke up when we were walking to somewhere and he hugged me...

Firstly: getting over one's past, obviously. Leaving the people who I can't find nutrition from any more in the cold fridge and concentrating on finer things of life.
Cleaning the apartment and enjoying the finer things of life with someone I feel comfortable with. Maybe there was also a realization that such a person can be found only accidentally.

Still, I am rather blue because I was taken away from that dream by alarm clock.

Well, at least I am not completely blunt emotionally like I have been last two months - I am adjusting to the medication, finally.

A happy dance!

Finally, after ages and ages and some shaking issues of few days (I upped the dosage and suffered few days of various symptoms, one of them being uncontrollable shaking in my limbs (hands mostly)) it's done!

The darker greens ARE of different shade, it just doesn't show too well on the stitched piece.

Butterflies everywhere!

I just heard that my Secret Postcard Pal exchange receiver has received her package and loved it.

The theme was chosen from her username, I bet you can't figure out what it is. *insane giggling*

Yes, her username is Butterfly. How obvious of me.
The parcel contained:

• A local postcard (as required)
• Stoney Creek's Butterflies & Blossoms booklet
• Butterfly Morning kit by Serendipity Designs
• Kelmscott Designs' Butterfly needle minder. (click the image on Ovi and you'll see the big image where you can see the needle minder better - it's really beautiful!)

As you have figured out by now the exchange rules required a local post card and some nice stash (at least $10, I think I went closer to $18 - 20... *whistles innocently*)

Few bits

Still alive, nothing much to tell, only few interesting tidbits:

1. I filled the follow-up forms for depression and anxiety day before yesterday. My BDI score has plummeted from 15 to 7 in about 1½ months.
2. I was visiting my mother yesterday and after taking bronchodilator (it was an extremely dry day, very bad for my lungs) I decided to use her meter and measure my peak flow. It was majestic 700 litres/ minute! Remember that I have an obstructive, chronic lung disease and the median for a woman of my age and height is 440.
   Therefore my lung capacity is 159%. (This probably means that my lung function is recovering.)
3. I have found an excellent combination for workout: goth metal and Stephen King's books.
   If I only watch DVDs or listen only music I can't train more than 20- 30 minutes because I begin to feel too exhausted... when I listen to goth metal and read I can do as much as 64 minutes.
4. My pulse rate bothers me: it seems to be almost impossible to keep it over 140, even less at 160 which should be the best pulse rate for excercise.
5. It seems that caffeine blocks the effect of sertraline: when I drink decaf I am much more energetic than when I drink regular coffee and the meds seem to work better.

The blue scheme? I noticed one day that eLJay's trademark colour scheme was quite nice and soothing so I figured out the colour codes and edited my template.

Floss p0rn!

While I was shopping at Sewadso for stuff for my Secret Postcard Pal I decided to justify the postages *ahem* and try some Painter's Threads flosses... I was in awe when I opened the envelope - and after seeing the floss you will know why!

Yummy, eh? And also rather inexpensive noticing that one skein of cotton is 10 or 20 metres of six stranded floss (the size seems to vary between the colours).
The separate smaller skeins are PT's silks.

The parcel contained also, of course, things for my SPP, but as she would be easily identifiable based on the things I bought I won't show them yet (I can say one thing though: she's going to love the goodies!), beading needles (as I have lost all my old ones) and two 50 cm x 70 cm cuts of 32 counts: Wild Raspberry linen and Ice Blue Murano.

On other happy news I finally got my sickness allowance and I celebrate getting rid of most of my hair: I have a hairdresser tomorrow! (And I found my favourite hair dye from store - that shade hasn't been available for over a year in there!)

*gasp* A happy dance

Noticing how small the piece is it's amazing how many days I stitched it, but it's finally stitched, now I only need to finish it, which will be rather quick (and remember to add the ribbon to it as one of the definitions of the piece was that it has to be "hangable").
As you know I am not huge fan of pink, but these dusky rose shades looked quite lovely together so I went with the colour scheme.

Teaser, of course, as you never know who reads your blog, right?

Sometimes you can be too tolerating

I think that my tolerance for sertraline has worsened and 150mg isn't enough... If I up the dosage to 200mg I have nothing left to rise if it's not enough and that means yet another month of side effects with new medication.

It may be said that it is not possible to grow tolerance for depression medication, but I have proved claims of non-tolerance-growing medication bollocks before so this wouldn't be anything new. (Around 2003 I was prescribed with sleeping medication to which it should have been impossible to grow tolerance: I got on the highest allowed dose in two weeks and after that it just didn't help anymore...)

It's just very annoying.

Naisten 10

I spent yesterday in Helsinki with my mother, sister and two of my three aunts. The whole bunch, excluding myself (I excluded myself because when the admissions were my asthma wasn't in good enough condition), participated a sporting even called Naisten 10 (i.e. Women's 10). Basically the event is open for every woman for "small" fee and the purpose is to either run, jog, walk or Nordic walk ten kilometres in predefined route in Helsinki.

And I had my camera with me, of course! Though I didn't took that many pictures as I was using my mother's video camera for the most of the time.
Anyway, few pictures from summery Helsinki.

(My mother is on the left, and the other ladies are my aunts (two out of three) - face blurred because I don't have their permission to publish their picture. *grin*)

 
 
 

Somehow it feels that cross stitch gods are against me at the moment. Every time I intend to stitch TSS' second part something comes to disturb me. Regardless, I am having fun with it and love how it looks.

The Great Outdoors

Yes, more kitty pictures! They just are enjoying the summer (in here summer is when average temperature is over 10° C...) and showing it.

 
(The latter one is great example of Her Highnesses ears before and after the blood ear last spring.)

And now I should be going to shower, I have to be out of the door ten past nine!

Waist/ hip ratio

I measured myself yesterday for statistical purposes and while I was at it I calculated my waist/hip ratio. It's better than it used to be and someone who's considered severely obese it's probably something most people wouldn't believe. My ratio 0,77... "appears to be within a healthy range." based on one calculator I used to double check the ratio.

While at it I found this from Wikipedia:

Women with a low waist-hip ratio have been shown in studies to be smarter and have smarter offspring. Using data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, William Lassek at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, found a child's performance in cognition tests was linked to their mother's waist-hip ratio, a proxy for how much fat she stores on her hips.

Back to peddling.

Exchanges and stuff

I had decided to have an exchange break, but, as usual, my big mouth got me into trouble and I went and suggested to my co-staff members at EMS that it would be nice to have a staff exchange - as there hasn't been any during the time I have been on the Dark Side (that's from September 27th, 2006).
Of course it was organized as we don't have anything better to do with our time.

I was thinking of the item I am going to stitch to my partner and changed my original idea and went with something completely different, which was actually inspired by Leena... I am not going to reveal any details, Leena may guess it though.

Talking of EMS forum... one of the factors that have limited my stitching etc. time lately has been the fact that I was having a quick course of vBulletin features and administration and during that month I actually did two jobs on the forum (the promotion was kept secret from everyone until my training period was over): Super Moderator's and Administrator's.

Sometimes I am not quite sure how sane I actually am, but apparently I am sucker for power... Ok, not really. That forum has given me quite much during the three years I have been hanging there and in its way this is being able to give it back.
And in a way I enjoy that tech support/ customer service role we admins have. It's also very likely that my work load hasn't increased in general as many of my former duties were transferred to others when my promotion became official - occasional board upgrades are another story altogether regarding work load, but they are not that frequent.

Elliptical

I have used it almost a week now and even though my weight hasn't decreased (that may be starvation, I haven't been eating much lately) my biceps have grown ridiculously (if they stay that big I can soon go and brag to bodybuilders ), my arms have lost some fat and I am losing my butt (the muscles are becoming rounder, but the fat is currently slowly flowing downwards, which is not a pretty sight *grin*)! O_o

Well, it has been only six days and I have only used it about 20 minutes per day in the easiest tension. Now that I am used to it, I will lengthen the sessions and start interval training. Let's see how that affects.

SAT epilogue

The goal is met!

The colours remind me of Mexico, for some odd reason.
At first I wasn't quite sure do I like the floss choice, but now that the first part is stitched I am very pleased with my choice. It's good in many ways, one of them being having two completely different colour schemes of the same design.

And... I managed to add some stitches to Loy Krathong after several months!
This is how it looked when I started, this is how it looks now:

Kitty pics and SAT prologue

 

That's their old scratching pole, but I redraped it one day as they had managed to mutilate the old carpet quite badly - and I had suitable carpet for the purpose (it was saved from trash a while ago, as I am into recycling and saving money).

SAT

My goal for this month is to finish the monochromatic version of the first part of the Spanish Sampler MSAL so I can be a good MSAL organiser and start the second part. :)
This is what I have now:

If I get this done before the weekend is over I will put some stitches to Loy Krathong.

SII, I love you!

I checked my info from SII's site (yes, they have online service too, works with online banking PINs): Chronic asthma bronchiale, the decision has been made yesterday and the document has been mailed to me today.

This means... I get special reimbursement for my asthma medication! (Note that SII knows about my cats, as my GP did mention it in the documentation.)

Yes, I am still alive

I haven't been stitching much as I have used my time by getting know the latest version of certain forum software, and then I have been rearranging my apartment etc. while trying not to exhaust myself completely, but I have finally started the monochromatic version of the Spanish Sampler - it's about time, the second part comes out tomorrow!

I am using Vikki Clayton's Grasses silk and 30 count black linen from Violarium.

Early birthday

My sister popped by yesterday and brought me my elliptical!
Yesterday's exercise made me very tired for some reason, but today I feel quite good even though I had longer session today and I even found some muscles I have never felt before.

Sugars

I saw my GP today and he decided to control my blood sugars, which means that I need to give blood sample weekly and as it is a test that requires fasting I will spend quite some time waiting my turn in the lab weekly basis as I have to go there in the morning and that is the busiest time in there...

Apparently my GP is worried about the inconsistency of my sugar levels.

Stress induced hypertension anyone?

I upped the sertraline to 150 mg/d and all the sudden my systolic pressure has decreased almost 40 units from what is was at its worst and diastolic has gone down 15 units.
My blood pressure is still slightly elevated, even though it seems to me that it's dropping fast: yesterday I measured 146/86, today it was 135/85.

On other health related good news I have been able to lower my daily cortisone dose without any problems in breathing front, so things are getting better - and my GP can think what he wants about my cats.

The biscornu has landed!

I heard that Barbara has received her monochromatic biscornu, and loved it, so yet another stitchy picture!

Info:

• Design: Yet another unnamed, unpublished design (I need to figure out how I want to publish it)
• Designer: Lady Periphaeria of Periphaeria Designs
• Fabric: 32 count hand-dyed Belfast linen by Silkweaver
• Floss: Dinky Dyes' 'Turquoise' silk
• Other: Iridescent blue bead in the middle

Bah, humbug! Part II

I heard that my partner in France received her humbugs today (and loved them!) so I can provide you, finally, some more stitchy pictures!

The idea of the exchange was to stitch same design on same colour(s) on light and dark fabric and use humbug finish.

Info:

• Design: Nameless at current
• Designer: Lady Periphaeria
• Fabrics: 32 count hand-dyed opalescent Jobelan. Sky blue from Silkweaver, graphite grey from my own dye pots.
• Floss: DMC 550

This is the "series starter" I talked of. I am not just sure will I work on this next or the another series-of-sorts I have in my to-do pile... decisions, decisions!

The Magical Mojo Rejuvenator™

My stitching mojo has also suffered from my neurotransmitter dysfunction, and I had been thinking few days that I should stitch something small from someone else to get my mojo going... I started this shortly before going to sleep yesterday and had a happy dance about half an hour ago and I can feel my mojo waking up!

Info:

• Design: Biscornu Chatelin
• Fabric: 32 count Mushroom Lugana
• Floss: Vixen Red by Needle Necessities

While finishing this little cutie I realised that I haven't done the goal check for last month yet! Well, it is not only thing I have forgot so...
I happened to claim when these were published that I don't have a stitched model of either one. Guess what I found from my hard drive today?

I model stitched it for Leena and took a picture of it before I sent it... and happily forgot the whole thing!