Knitting Cybrarian

Spring sunrise

  nature 008 
  Originally uploaded by lauragayle.

This morning a mist floated off of the field.  I had fun snapping some photos while the sun rose. 

Nesting

I've not been in my office much today, but when I have, I've noticed a mourning dove flying by the window more often than usual.  I finally noticed some motion on a branch and I see a dove has started nesting.  I've been watching for about ten minutes and this dove is quite industrious.  It comes with a few twigs, spends a few moments rearranging, no doubt (hard to tell with the tailfeathers stuck up in the air), then flies off again to get another bit of building material. 

I don't know that I've seen a nest this far out on a limb before.  The next is in some kind of conifer, and the nest is built at the juncture of two small branches off of the main branch.  While I'm sure there is some branch overhang, I wonder if predicted rains will make nest soup out of the entire production?

Impatient

Am sick of being sick, although I'm feeling much better today.  Since Tuesday, I've been on prednisone and high-octane antibiotics plus Mucinex DM and ramped up on my asthma meds.  I wasn't much better by Friday, so the doc put me back to day one on the prednisone routine.  Thankfully they had given me a chart, so I could cross out Tue as Day 1 and change that to Fri. 

Cough, cough.  Ugh.

Prednisone and high-octane antibiotics can do wonders when you are susceptible to lingering sinus infections and recurring bronchitis.  They can also make one dizzy, jittery, hungry, hyper, nervous, irritable, manic, and deprive one of sleep (especially fun if you've not been able to sleep because of coughing).   I've been more self-aware this time around and am trying to consciously STAY CALM.  STAY CALM.

I've tried to sit and read and have been pretty successful.  I've alternated that with cleaning, but tried to pick reasonable projects.  Why reasonable?  Well, while the meds can charge me up with energy, I can also get exhausted pretty easily.  So while running all of the silverware and utensils through the dishwasher is manageable, tearing apart my closet and bedroom is not.  I'm sure the hubster would love to sleep in a clothes-covered bed.  Not.

Washing all of the various blankets and little quilts Portia likes to sleep on is acceptable.  Tearing apart all the bookcases for dusting is not.  Cleaning the sliding door on the deck is acceptable.  Tearing apart the sewing room for massive reorganization is not.

You get the idea.  A few other larger scale projects have flitted through my brain this week like knitting a sweater, writing an article, and reading five serious scholarly tomes, all in one three day weekend, and I almost brought those books home came to my senses.  How much sleep have I had over the past two weeks?   Do I need yet another unfinished knitting project in my bag?

We're having a new storm door installed tomorrow morning, and I'm glad I scheduled tomorrow as a vacation day.  Calm.  Calm.  Do some cleaning.  Stay calm.  The new storm door should be pretty cool, though.  Our current one won't stay shut and it's a royal pain to change out the full door screen with glass and vice versa.  The new door is better quality, heavier construction, and best yet, it has one of those cool windows that unlocks and pulls down with the screen in place.

It'll be wonderful, considering how Joel would get frustrated changing out the glass and screen in the old door.   And Portia won't be able to scratch at the screen towards the bottom.  Whoo hoo!

Wonder if I should cast on for that black cardigan I've been meaning to make for a while?

Update

Went to doc.  Have meds.  Hope to sleep soon.

What a week

Well, last week I was at home more than at work, thanks to this rotten cold.  I went in a few hours several days, but was pretty foggy.  Saturday I worked at the yarn store-- one of the usual Saturday folks is taking her chiropractic board exams, and I was one of the subs she lined up.  I wasn't in fine form, but I was a body there.  Unfortunately by the end of the day I was totally exhausted. 

Yesterday I stayed home from church and would have stayed home all day, but we need a new storm door and the hubster REALLY wanted to purchase it on Sunday.  So off we toodle to Lowe's.  I'm clutching onto the shopping cart for support as we go and then find myself going in circles, looking for Joel.  But I did find what I needed to rewire a lamp (after asking for help-- it was tucked away between lighting aisles).  We picked out the door after about five minutes (thank you, online shopping and comparison) and I sat down and answered questions while the salesperson wrote up the order.

After the salesperson was finished and we had what we needed, we trolled a couple more aisles and then went to the register.  Surprise!  Even though it looked as if the salesperson had entered the information (I saw it, I thought!), something hadn't been entered.  We couldn't check out.  We wound up waiting around 20 minutes at the checkout.  Apparently everyone else north of the river was buying storm doors yesterday too.  I wasn't impatient.  I just clung onto the shopping cart for support and Joel wandered the aisles near the checkout. 

Oh, and we were at the self-service checkout area-- and the staffed checkout lane there was all we were blocking.  Everyone else was able to use the 4 self-checkout stations.  No checkouts were interrupted except for our own.

I came home and was pretty exhausted.

Then last night after getting in bed, I couldn't stop coughing.  Poor Joel.  I went to the living room and attempted to sleep in a chair.  Around 3am I went back to bed hoping for a few hours of real sleep.  Portia got on the bed a little bit after that and started to vomit.  Poor baby.  I helped Joel clean that up and then went back to the living room.  Those hard contacts are going to feel soooo good in my eyes today.  Not.

Oh well.  I've still got this crazy cold, although it is better.  Really.  Mostly.  Stay well!

Achoo! Cough! Cough!

Yup.  Still sick.  Came home from work early on Monday.  Stayed home Tuesday.  Today's Wednesday and I have a 9am class.  I'm going to teach class (teach is probably not the right word for what will happen, but it'll do) and probably come home.  I'm taking Mucinex (thanks to Suzanne for the reminder -- a big DUH! on my part! and I had it in my med cabinet!) and it's helping a little.   So my nose output is closer to the kitchen faucet than the firehose on full blast that it was.

You'd think with all of this time at home I'd get a lot done.  I'm sick, silly.  No writing of reports, evaluations, etc.  With the lack of sleep and all of the mucus seeming to slow the gray cell synapses, I can't keep a consistent train of thought going.  Knitting?  After having gone through 1.5 boxes of tissues since the weekend?  EEEEWWW!  Gross.  I can wash my hands a zillion times (and am) and wash the knitting, but there won't be much knitting done between sneezes.

I'm really looking forward to the drive in to work today.  NOT.  I'm praying that I don't sneeze too much.

The crud that's going around

I've caught the crud that's going around.  I probably caught it from:

• flying to a conference (two planes, crowded airport, zillions of germs in the air)
• attending conference (800+ people in one hotel, zillions more germs in the air)
• getting up too early (7:30am meetings--with the time difference more like 6:30am for my body clock)
• talking to too many people (gotta network and visit!)
• staying up too late (big band rehearsal and catching up with friends and colleagues)
• flying back home (see bullet one above)
• coming back to the ever busy, crammed schedule

The sore throat and coughing started on Friday.  Really kicked in on Saturday.  I went to church yesterday morning -- mostly because our organist's flight was delayed and he wasn't sure he'd make it for the first part of service.  Got up early Sunday and practiced.  Cough, cough, cough. The choir anthem really needed my soprano, so miracle of miracles I was able to sing that with no coughing (in tune high Gs while sick?  Amazing.  Little miracle right there at Grace, folks). 

Came home from church and crashed.  Tried to sleep.  Last night when I tried to sleep I was coughing so much, I just got up.  After all, Joel needs to sleep too.  I curled up in my knitting chair with a pillow and a family quilt.  I did sleep some.  Still coughed, but at least I wasn't in the same room as Joel.  He got some sleep.

Hate being sick.  Hate it.  Yuck. 

Help a student--do you read comics?

Eve is a knitter and also a student in cognitive sciences at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.  She's doing a study about how people read comics.  She's looking for folks to participate in her study.  If you're interested, please go to her blog post and fill out the form.  Tell her Laura Gayle sent you.

Spring and the birdies

The birds know spring is at our doorstep.  I was in our bedroom struggling with an earring when I heard something like a miniature piledriver attacking the house.  Then I heard it again.  I pounded on the wall.  It stopped.  Then moved and started.  I pounded again and then opened up the window blinds in time to see a woodpecker dart away. 

While we feed the woodpeckers, we don't want them moving in.

Now I'm sitting in the living room and I hear birds tapping at the chimney cover.  Great.  I don't want another bird getting through the mesh and scraping the chimney walls for a couple of days.  We need to have the mesh and the chimney cap checked this year anyway (and the flue cleaned), but I'd rather not have Portia stalking the fireplace again.

Then there's the sparrows that moved in over the winter.  Did I mention those earlier?  Apparently the screening must have gotten loose (or been pried loose) over one of the house vents.  One day last fall I noticed a couple of sparrows sitting on the vent louvers and then hopping in and out of the vent.  We don't store anything in our attic, but still.

We'll probably have the young man who cleaned out our gutters go up in the attic in a few weeks and replace the screening on the vent.  Hopefully the birds will have flown out by then and not started a family in the attic!

Daylight savings time starts early this year -- this weekend.  Maybe the evening light will perk me up!

Re-entry

Went to the joint meeting of the Music Library Association and the Society for American Music in Pittsburgh PA.  Wonderful meeting.  Not enough time to get caught up with colleagues and discuss all the great ideas.  The MLA Big Band was so much fun and we sounded so hot this year.

Re-entry today.  Sigh.