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Well, it only took me two years but I have finished recording Anne of Green Gables!  It’s a bit embarrassing that it took me so long but I’ve had a busy two years with meeting Stephen, finishing my master’s degree, battling Meniere’s Disease, getting engaged and married, and buying a house.  I feel somehow like I became an adult in the last two years if that makes sense.

Anyhow, I’ve podcasted chapters 36 and 37 and 38 will be up tomorrow.  I thought about spacing them out a bit more but figured I’ve made folks wait long enough!  Cataloging at LibriVox is in the works and a complete Zip file of all chapters will be available soon.

So as for what is next with the podcast, I’d like to get a good chunk more recording done before I start releasing more chapters.  Once I’m confident I can release on a regular basis, the podcast will start up again.  I’ll continue with the next Anne book by L. M. Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea.  I’ve also begun recording a duet with Kara of Emma by Jane Austen.  We will trade off chapters and I will likely podcast that at some point as well.

Life in general has settled in which is really nice.  My health is the best it has been in years.  I found out that I had a bad Vitamin D deficiency which was likely causing a lot of my fatigue and weak immune system and once I had supplements for that I started to bounce back.  Our new house is beautiful and I’m really enjoying the yard and learning how to do some gardening.  One of my favorite things about the house is this beauty who came with it:

Her name is Tasha and she is a Keeshond - a lovely arctic breed that I hadn’t heard of before.  We bought the house from a nice gentleman named Bill and it turned out he can’t have dogs in his new apartment.  We had been planning on getting a dog as soon as we had a house and fell in love with Tasha when we first saw the house.  We wrote in the contract that if Bill couldn’t keep Tasha that we’d love to take care of her.  We were half joking but when it turned out that he couldn’t keep her, everything fell into place.  She is the sweetest, most loving dog I’ve ever known and I think we are good for each other.  We get out and walk every morning and she is constant company and entertainment.

I haven’t been knitting a whole lot lately with the wedding, move, and summer heat but I think I’ll have more time now to devote to knitting and knit-blogging both.  So stay tuned and thanks for your patience to my podcast listeners!

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Well, I was better, and then I was sick again and now I’m doing a bit better again. It is the most frustrating thing. After calling in sick to work every day last week, my boss decided to put me on a sick leave of absence. It is for the best for everyone, he can hire someone to cover my hours and not worry about being short-staffed if I call in sick, and I can focus on my health without feeling guilty calling in sick all the time and return when I’m healthy. Still, it feels like a setback somehow but I’m trying not to think of it that way.

I see the doctor this afternoon. I don’t think I want another Gentamicin treatment at this point. I had vertigo last week but now I’ve had a few decent days in a row so I want to wait and see if maybe I just need some more time to recover and get my balance back. Today I had lunch at my favorite small, local restaurant with my mom. We’ve been going there forever and we go often so we know the owners rather well. I was talking to John, one of the owners today and he asked how work was so I explained things to him and it turns out that his wife Nancy, the other owner, has had spells of vertigo and some other symptoms. Doctors apparently mentioned Meniere’s but she’s been fine for a while now. He said that the next time we’re in he wants to get my doctor’s name and number. Also recently, my sister’s good friend’s boyfriend found out he may have Meniere’s. I met him briefly at our graduation party and Julia (my sister) mentioned to me recently that she wants my doctor’s info to pass on to him. I also referred a woman who is a friend of someone my dad works with to my doctor. When all these things happen, it makes me think that Meniere’s is either more common than people realize, or maybe it’s just a small world. It makes me so sad to hear of others suffering from it but it is also nice in a way when people already know what it is and I don’t have to explain it to them.

In other news, I officially moved out of my parents’ basement this past weekend and into the apartment with my fella. It was a tiring weekend but it’s such a relief to have all of my things in one place. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now and it is great to get all of my things organized and really make this place feel homey.

If anyone wants to see the final project I did for my Flash class, you can see it here. I’m quite happy with it and plan on making it available for LV folks to use. Speaking of LibriVox, I’m easing myself back into it and into my podcast, now that I find myself with a bit more time, less stress, and able to read more. I just recorded a chapter of Anne of Green Gables, the first one in two months, and will edit and release it probably later today. As soon as I started recording I realized just how much I have missed it. For LibriVox I’m going to stick to recording for now, I really think all of the coordination burnt me out. I may jump back in eventually but for now I want to make sure it stays fun.

I’ve been doing a lot of knitting but I can’t post it because it’s a surprise gift for someone. I may post a picture just of the fabric at some point, we’ll see. I still need to finish up my Camo sweater and I’ve got some socks on the needles too.

I want to start posting book reviews again, I’ve been listening to a lot lately. But right now I’ve got to head out to the doctor.

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Good news: the vertigo appears to be under control although I’m still druggy and dragging and just not myself. I made it to work every day this week and made it through the whole day each day which feels so good. However, I also napped a couple hours after work pretty much every day to recover. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else and the stress in my life hit an intolerable level.

I’ve realized that stress is almost certainly making the Meniere’s worse and with some help from a wise soul I took a hard look at all of the things in my life that take up my time and energy. This wise soul pointed out that I need to cut back to the point where I can accomplish every thing that is on my plate even when I’m not feeling well. Then when I am feeling well, any extra stuff I can get done is bonus. I also need to not feel guilty about taking time to read and knit because those are my calming things. Knitting is almost meditation to me.

So, the things in my life that entail some sort of obligation and which cause me to feel guilty if I neglect them are: work, class on flash animation, approaching comprehensive exams, my podcast, my blog, a website I run for my family, and LibriVox. And here’s the plan…

Work is my priority. I enjoy my job and I’m blessed to work with people who are understanding about my illness. Even if I didn’t need the money, I’d want to work because several years of not being able to work made me realize how essential it is for me mentally to feel useful and appreciated.

After work, the next priority is finishing my Master’s degree in Library Science. This is the last semester and the last class. I’m doing well in my class. In fact, that mini project I posted about a while back got named “best overall” out of 30 something odd students in the class. Which is nice but also drove home just how much of a perfectionist I am. I don’t have to become a flash genius, I just need to pass the class, and I need to keep my standards I set for myself reasonable. The other component of finishing the Master’s is comps. A week of writing four papers each 4-6 pages in length. I could be preparing more than I am but that’s not my style. I’m a last minute writer. That week will come and I’ll get the papers done and it will be fine. I can’t let it hang over my head until then.

So then there are my various online projects. My blog is more something for myself that I enjoy than an obligation, as is my podcast. My family’s website is really minimal maintenance although I do need to upgrade the phpBB software. I’d like to devote more time to my blog eventually and my podcast has been terribly neglected recently. I never record because whenever I have time to do that, I realize how much LibriVox stuff I need to catch up on and my own project gets put on the back burner, sometimes for a month at a time.

As much as I love LV, it has become an obligation instead of a fun thing. I want it to be fun again. I want to record my chapters without feeling guilty. I want to go a week without logging in. So the biggest thing I’m doing to adjust my life is I’m taking a break from coordinating projects on LV. This is hard. I love LV and I hate feeling like I’m putting more pressure on others. But at the same time, as soon as I made this decision and spoke up to the other coordinators, I knew I’d done the right thing. Everyone jumped in with help and support and I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I want to come back to coordinating, especially poetry, when my life is more normal. But for now, LV is going on the back burner.

I know this may be dull to anyone who has read this far but I’m writing this as much to clarify my own thoughts and plan as anything else. And I feel better about things. I feel like life is manageable again.

Tomorrow I will record a chapter and post a knitting update and not feel a bit of guilt for doing so.

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I started some socks with my Mountain Colors yarn and was well past the heel when I realized it was way too big so I ripped the whole thing out and started over, this time with a fun little mock cable rib pattern. Now I’m about to where I was when I ripped out:

Fits perfectly and there is something so satisfying about working with thin yarn and tiny needles!

Then the Malabrigo. This will be a raglan sweater, pattern derived from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd, which I highly recommend. It’s like a recipe book crossed with a choose your own adventure book. Recipe in that you choose your style of sweater and gauge and then follow the instructions. Choose your own adventure in that you can choose the edgings, neckline, collar, waist shaping, etc. As far as I can tell, it’s turning out pretty well so far but the colorway of green and yellow has an interesting effect, take a look:

Does it remind you of anything? Yup, camouflage. But that’s okay, it will be my gorgeous, elegant camouflage sweater. Do you like the pretty Picot edging?

I do. I practiced it first on my Ocean Hat.

My Ocean Hat was really a tool to teach myself some new tricks like a picot edging, fair isle knitting, and a fun corkscrew hat topper. I used the Rowan All Seasons cotton yarn plus some leftover from the Sara Hat and some yellow cotton I got from the bargain bin at my yarn store. I used a pattern of interlocking swirls I got from The Knitting Stitch Bible by Maria Parry-Jones, another book I love so far. The pattern and the pastels made me think of waves, hence the Ocean Hat:

It’s a bit overwhelming to look at I think but it’s fun and I learned some new tricks making it so that’s what counts!

So I’m still working on the Yellowstone socks and the Camo Sweater. I also just got some truly lucious Alpaca yarn to make some gloves that I plan to start soon. Here’s a closer look at the Ocean Hat:

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So, the past week I’ve been driving myself nuts working on a “Mini Project” for my Flash class. We were given a JPG file of the school mascot and instructed to include a variety of animation elements we have learned so far in the class. I submitted my project at 11:30 pm last night, 15 minutes before the deadline. Check it out and admire at your leisure.

In other news my Meniere’s had continued to be problematic and then last week my ear started to feel funny. As in I could tell something was wrong with the opening in my ear drum. The reason why I have an opening in my ear drum is related to a device called the Meniett which I’ll let you investigate on your own if you choose. In any case, I’ve had tubes, I’ve had problems with tubes, they’ve been in and out and the last time my doctor (who is wonderful by the way) ended up having to take the tube out, he was sure that the opening would stay open. But last week on Wednesday night my ear felt funny and Thursday I woke up and was pretty much sure it was closed. Yesterday I saw the doctor and sure enough, it sealed itself back up again. Rather than have outpatient surgery to put in a fancy T-shaped tube as we’ve done the last two times, we opted for a “temporary” tube done right then and there in the office as we did with the first tube. My doctor’s theory was that since the T-tubes haven’t lasted any longer than the temporary ones, might as well git ‘er done so to speak. Well, it wasn’t fun but at least it is done and I can use my Meniett again starting tonight.

Of course I then had one heck of an earache and didn’t sleep well last night so I had to miss work today. It was nice though to sleep in and get caught up on some miscellaneous stuff. The most recent poetry collection at LibriVox filled up and just as I was about to start cataloging, I read a post from Chris, one of our brilliant programmers, that he had implemented a feature I requested that allows people cataloging collections to input a variety of fields at one time. For instance, in a collection of 20 poems, I previously had to enter manually the title, author, and source for each one into a special area called the compilation table. This makes the title and author of individual poems searchable by the catalog. And the source is important to document Public Domain status. I keep track of all this stuff on a spreadsheet and then, by my calculations, would copy and paste from Excel to Firefox 60 times. Yup, 60. And that’s just for the compilation data, similar stuff has to be copied and pasted other places for regular cataloging. Well, Chris made us a brilliant feature that allows us to copy and paste from excel and enter every single bit of compilation data in one go. It made my day. It makes cataloging poetry so much more pleasant! So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a collection to finish cataloging.

Knitting pictures coming later…

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