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Crazy as a Loom

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

I can see clearly now......

Sometimes when DH is watching a particularly annoying TV show, I turn the volume way down, since he is listening to it with his amazing best thing I ever bought headphones from Best Buy.
Occasionally I find some British show to watch on my laptop.  Or I read.

 Lately, I've been off knitting....who knows how long that will last.  I go in spurts...knit like crazy every single evening for months, then screech to a halt.....I'm done for a while. I've given up trying to understand that mechanism.

Once in a while, I go back and read my blog. What a great reminder of days gone by, things I've done and forgotten about.  Reasons to be happy, sad, grateful.   They are all there.  The pictures alone speak volumes.
I wish now that I had blogged years ago....wow, what a story that would have been.

I have struggled with plantar fasciitis now for months.  Yes, months.  Nothing seems to work, not injections, ultra sound, ice, exercise.  NOTHING.  I've bought splints, orthotics, stretchy bands that you wear around your instep.  I've googled and read and searched.
Nope.   Nada.
As a last ditch effort, I researched and finally ordered a very expensive pair of shoes that are touted for their amazing qualities for someone with this horrific ailment.  Please God.
I want to go walking.  I have never wanted to go walking this bad, now that I can't.
If someone could come up with a cure for this, they would surely be RICH very soon.

I think that slippers have been my downfall.......walking around this house, weaving, working, in slippers, and not supportive shoes.



Yesterday I went to get my hair cut, over near where we used to live.  While I was there, I popped into the grocery store that I used to shop in.  When my mother moved in with us, I took her there every week.  At first she walked, then as the years went by, it got harder, and she started using the electric carts.  Oh, my, how she loved that.  She whizzed around that store with a permanent grin.  As I was walking the aisles looking for things, I felt her there with me, and suddenly, I wanted to just cry.

Funny, isn't it, how the memory of someone you love, can  sneak up out of the blue and put you to your knees.


How I miss her.
She lost her own mother when she was 28 years old.  In her later life, she always told me that she wasn't afraid to die, and that more than anything, she just wanted to see her mother again.

I get that now.



So I decided to do some dyeing, the other kind.  This was my inspiration picture.


I  must say, I love the process.


Lots of cotton, wound into 1000 yd skeins.


This is my sequence......mix in jars, pour into squirt water bottles.


I screwed up a bit here though.   This cotton was combed, and I have never dyed that before......it didn't want to take the dye.  I soaked it in a soda ash solution, but I should have soaked it, or even boiled it, in a synthrapol (soap) solution, as well.


Consequently, my sewing work room looked like a CRIME SCENE, which was really unwise since I was trying to clean the house for Easter dinner and a house full of family.

What was I thinking???

Anyway, what should have been a short, easy job, turned into an whole afternoon job.

Still the results are satisfactory............



I love color......it makes my heart sing.  There's no other way to put it.


I will leave you with my just washed windows......a clear sign of spring.





12 comments:

Pam said...

Good morning, I always love reading your posts!! What kind of headphones...bluetooth?? I need that for my husband, or maybe it is a smart tv that has bluetooth capability.

Unknown said...

After my mom died I would tear up in the grocery store unexpectedly when I'd see her favorite foods. Whenever I see portuguese english muffins at Christmas tree shops I think of her. Food has such strong memories attached to it.

I love your dye results, pretty spring colors.

Nancy

A Brit in Tennessee said...

I've suffered with that same foot ailment several times, the shot seems to work for me, but yes....supportive arch shoes seem to do best.
I lost my mum just over a year ago, suddenly gone, no goodbyes. I feel her presence daily, I understand your loss.
Beautiful dye colors !
Sending healing wishes your way....
`Jo

MrsB said...

I love your blog. Please don't ever quit.

Susan said...

My Dad came to see me in my dream the other night.... and it was so real I could smell him and hear his voice clearly. It came as a total surprise to me that my brain has that all stored away so well and in such fine detail. I have been carrying a deep heartache since the dream and instead of crying, I have been (trying) to convince myself that the visit was a gift to enjoy.

I understand about foot pain.... I have been dealing with a right mid foot collapse (due to OA / Lupus) for sometime. I went shopping yesterday and my feet are telling me it was several steps too many. :(
I just don't want surgery again right now.....

karen said...

Brooks tennis shoes helped relieve my foot pain. I also dealt with it a long time.

Sojourner Design said...

Hillary, I've had full-blown plantar fasciitis twice with occasional tweaks in between if I haven't been good about wearing shoes with arch support (like slippers). I tried lots of stuff though not as much as you. What worked for me both times was a physical therapist. She used a particular method to tape up the effected foot very firmly with strong cloth-like tape. The tape stayed on for a month or so, even through showers. It worked. I was told that by firmly taping, the foot moves as one. This gives all those little connections (there are twenty some-odd bones in the foot) a rest so that the inflammation can heal. Unless you want to take a day trip here to Florence MA (five minutes from WEBS!) to see this PT, I would query local PT groups to see if anyone is well-versed in that technique.

sue said...

Those windows! You are an inspiration for me to get mine done.

Shiralynkay said...

I so relate to you missing your Mom. It's been 22 years without my Mom and I still miss her as much today. Then I tell myself how lucky I was to have such a great woman for my Mom.. thanks for sharing.

MarthaVA said...

LOVE the dyeing, and wish I could be with you just once, so I'd get the nerve up to do my cotton. I have the dyes and they soda ash, and I have the cotton. I have dyed wool, but that's heated. I don't know the entire process for the cotton, so if I could just see it once in person, I know I'd be ok with the process.

I've suffered with the plantar issue for about 28 years. Not fun. I ended up having the surgery on one foot. It helped but created it's own issues... I have found that good, supportive sneakers (Nike was recommended by my Podiatrist), helped. My problem now, is that if I wear shoes with really good arch support, it irritates the foot that I had the surgery on.

I miss my brother, who passed in 2015, and it sneaks up on me now and then. It sucks and there's no way around it. I just try to remember the good times, when he was around.

Take care and I hope the shoes work for you.
Martha

Tina J said...

I was suffering from PF when I had to go to a very formal dinner. I wore a pair of 2 inch heels for the evening, until we left the dinner when I walked to the car barefooted. It was very painful to wear the heels, but I was amazed by the fact that the PF was gone the next day, and it hasn't returned. I don't know for sure that it was the heels, but I still keep those shoes around incase it comes back, I hope it doesn't.

Brenda said...

Have you tried Birkenstocks? I have heel spurs, and the Birks with the firm footbed work for me. (They make a soft footbed, and it doesn't have the same arch support.) I also wear New Balance shoes when I walk. Right now I have style 1540, but you need one that has the rollbar in it.

My chiropractor recommended putting a golf ball on the floor and rolling it around with my foot so that it massaged the area with the spur---I don't know if it actually helped the heel spur, but it felt good and was something cheap to try. I worked in an office at the time, and after I had been doing it awhile, everyone had a golf ball on their desk, and when we had a problem to solve, we would sit in a circle and talk about it while we all rolled our golf balls around. It became kind of a bonding thing.

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