In which I am knitting, reading, and not cursing.

What I'm eating today:
Kim made pizza using some gluten free dough I bought at the grocery store in tubs, like cottage cheese. She couldn't find any pizza sauce in our cupboard (because I don't really like red sauce, and I never make pizza, so why would we have any?) so she bravely looked up a recipe on the internet and made her own sauce! From scratch! She's amazing.

What I'm reading today:
Faking It by Jennifer Crusie. I'm re-reading it because it's one of my favorite books by her, and the last couple of books I started that were free for the Kindle were pretty bad, so I went back to something I know I like.

What I'm knitting today:
I just started yet another sweater for myself. I've been trying to make myself a sweater since the weather got colder in the Fall, but have stopped after a few inches on every one of them. I start worrying about the sizing, or whether it will be too hot, or will it be long enough and will I run out of yarn. As a result, I don't have a sweater that I can just grab to put on. Very annoying.

I'm using a pattern I found on Ravelry, called Campanula. It is a top-down, v-neck, that will require no seaming when it's done. I have plenty of the yarn I'm using, which is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in black. The pattern is one where you apply your measurements to some math-y computations (ugh), and come up with a sweater that is the right size. I am going to work on this sweater until it is done! I'm just going to finish it! That's right, I will have a finished sweater, darnit!

Why I am not swearing today:
Apparently Maddy used a bad word in preschool last week, and the teacher spoke to Ash about it after school. Rachel called and scolded me for teaching the baby bad language, and I am not even going just going to mention here the time the baby calmly said 'Dammit' when she saw me drop a cupcake on the floor, frosting side down, a word that she learned from her father, thank you.

So we decided on some acceptable expressions of anger and/or frustration. The permitted words are 'Darnit', 'Bummer', and 'Papercuts'. I know, they are not as satisfying or funny as some of the other sentence enhancers, but that's all we get.

I'm going to go knit on my sweater now. Until it is done, darnit!

In which there are pigeons.

Ow sweetie, ow dahling! My hips are killing me! Yoga class tonight was a good one, and thankfully there were some new people, so we didn't get an ass-kicking like we sometimes do, but oh my goodness, we did the longest pigeon pose ever!

In pigeon pose, you swing one leg up in front of your body and bend the knee so that your shin is parallel to the front of your mat and the other leg is straight out behind you on the mat. You are sitting on the front sideways-turned thigh, and the back thigh, which is lengthened out on the mat behind you. Keep your hips level, do not lean toward one side or the other for support.

Now, keeping your back straight with your shoulders level and facing front, drop your shoulder blades down your back - don't hunch them up around your ears no matter how much it feels like your hip is going to come out of the socket, or how much your right knee - the one that you fell on a few years ago when the dog was trying to kill you and tripped you on the ice in the driveway, yeah, that one, no matter how much it 'sings' (screams!) at you.

Take five deep, slow breaths and enjoy the good stretch. Keep breathing while your yoga teacher gets up and changes the CD because the music is getting too exciting.

Now, still maintaining the pigeon pose, twist your torso in the direction of the bent leg. Hold that twist for three deep breaths.

Still holding the pose, now bend forward over the bent leg, and stretch your arms out ahead of you on the floor. If that is too hard for you, lean on your forearms, like I do!

Finally, you come out of the pose! What a relief! Back to downward dog, then three-legged downward dog with the left leg in the air behind you, and then...that's right, swing that left leg forward into pigeon pose and start taking those five deep breaths. Do it all again on that side, but this time the teacher doesn't have to get up and change the CD. Whew!

So after class, my hips were feeling very, very stretched. When I staggered in the door after class, Kim said she was going to W@lmart to pick up a couple of things, so I put my coat back on and went with her. I don't like to send her out at night alone!

We picked up Rachel, who said she needed a couple of things, and also I wanted to drop off the bottle of essential oil blend that I made for Ash's tinnitus. I hope it helps! I made a bottle of it for Bill at work, too, so they are my test subjects.

So we did our shopping, but let me tell you, I was moving pretty slow, because the more I walked, the more my hips were killing me! I usually have some ibuprophen in my purse, but my bottle has disappeared, and yes, I know I was in a store where they sell ibuprophen, but I have a couple or three big bottles of it at home, so I didn't want to buy another one!

Rachel was moving slowly, too, because of injuring her knee when she was ice skating last week, so we were just plodding along through the store like a couple of turtles while Kim was bounding around us like a jack rabbit, grabbing this and running down another aisle for that...

Finally we were done, and as we left the store, I clicked the remote on my key fob to unlock the doors of the car and turn the lights on, so we could find where we parked the car.

The lights came on and the car was closer than we thought! Yay! We went to where the (filthy) white minivan was parked, and Kim reached out to open the tailgate, but it hadn't unlocked, so I clicked the remote at it again. She must have fumbled it, so I clicked it again. And again! What the heck? Then we noticed a woman was sitting in the van, and had rolled down the window to tell us, in a pissy way, that we had the wrong car. Oh, I'm sorry, your lights came on at the same time I clicked for mine, and also? One filthy white minivan looks pretty much like another.

Of course we were falling all over each other, laughing at what idiots we are, but she didn't seem to get the joke. Did she think we were trying to rob her filthy car? No thanks, I've got one of my own.

And then I went home and took some Advil, but I think it's time for another dose. Ow.

In which I have a new BFF. But I don't know her name.

Last week when Maddy was at my house, she told me, "Put on some earrings, Nan!", and you know I try to do what Maddy wants, so I stood right up and pulled a pair of earrings out of my jewelry box. But when I tried to put them on...well, the right one went in just fine, but the left one would not go all the way through my ear!

You know how, when you haven't worn earrings for a long time and they just heal over a tiny layer of skin at the back, and sometime you can just push the earring through? I could not get that earring through! I kept trying, and finally gave up so my sore ear lobe could have a rest. Later, after Maddy had gone home (and she had forgotten about the earrings long ago, what with the fun of jumping on Kim's bed, and eating pudding in a pouch from the fridge), I tried again, but the earring would not go through my ear!

I googled it, of course, because that is what I do, and one website suggested using something to lubricate the earring. Hmm, good idea, so I used some Tea Tree oil, because it's an antiseptic, but oh man, it would just not go through!

So I let my ear rest overnight. You have no idea how hard that was for me! I am so impatient! And the next day I tried again! Nope. It just wasn't happening.

If it had been a friend who couldn't get an earring through, I could have helped her easily. You just push the post through and look at the back of the lobe to see where it should be coming out, and aim for that spot, but here's the thing - I do yoga, but I cannot see the backs of my own earlobes!

I only wish I had a friend who could do that for me, but I don't. I live with Rich, and I would not even trust him to put an earring through a perfectly open hole, not if he was dressing me for my own funeral. I also live with Kim, and I am not saying this as an insult, but Kim is just not the kind of girl who could do a thing like that. Actually, she is not squeamish, so now that I think about it, she maybe could have done it, because I can picture her doing it to help say, Ana, if she needed that kind of help, but no, I don't think I could ask her to perform that kind of delicate operation on me.

There are only two people in my life that I could trust my ears to, and that is Diana, and Sheila, and neither of them lives near me! I only have RA, and she doesn't even have pierced ears!

So today I was sitting at the yarn shop, knitting and listening to the knitters talking, and I had an idea! I left the shop and walked up the block to the tattoo shop! Where people have many piercings! Where a boy with giant spacers in his ears informed me that they no longer do piercings! OMG.

But, as I left the tattoo shop I passed the next store between the tattoo parlor and the yarn shop, and it was a little jewelry store full of very shiny, gaudy, jewelry. It is a store full of bling. The blingiest bling in the whole world!

I went into the store and the (I assume) owner of the store listened to me as I told her about my sealed-up earhole, and she helped me find the least huge pair of blingy earrings with a nice straight post, and then, she kindly just poked it through that hole and it popped! out the back, and what!?! Now I have earrings. Wait until Maddy sees me!

I am going to take that woman some cookies tomorrow. And ask her what her name is, because she is my new best friend. My two other BFFs live too far away.

In which Maddy comes over and plays in her underwear.

It's too cold for Maddy to play outside, so while Rachel was at work, Ash dropped her off at my house to play while he took the car in to get something checked.

We had a nice time, just rambling around the house. Maddy jumped on Kim's bed, looked at the lizard, ate some cheese popcorn, drank some koolaid, spilled some on her shirt. Took off the shirt because it had koolaid on it. Took off her pants because she took off her shirt. Watched part of a movie, while eating more popcorn. Then her daddy picked her up and she went home.

I heard from Rachel that they took Maddy swimming at the Y tonight and made a new Maddy movie, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

Kim is taking all her medicine and I hope she starts feeling better soon! She is still sleeping sitting up in the recliner so she doesn't cough as much. She'll have to sleep in the recliner or on the couch tonight, because Maddy and I took the sheets off of her bed and put them in the washer, and then I forgot about them, so they aren't dry yet!

I've been mixing essential oils for Kim's comfort! Today she said the steroid she's taking for the inflammation in her lungs and throat was making her feel jittery and weird! I mixed 3 drops of Balance with 5 drops of coconut oil and applied it to her feet in the afternoon and again tonight when she mentioned that she was feeling weird again.

The other potion - the one I mixed up for the psoriasis rash - I've been applying to the spot on her back and the spot behind my ears, and I think the spot on her back might be looking a little better. I know the spots behind my ears feel better. I'll see how her back looks tomorrow.

Rich and the dog have been walking outside and it was fine all day, although very cold, of course, but Rich said tonight it was really windy and cold on their last walk. We'll see how tomorrow goes. We are supposed to have very low temperatures because of the wind chill.

Alchemists; making potions since 1600.

So last summer there was a class at the yoga studio on using essential oils. I went to it with a couple of friends, Shelley and Paula, and it turns out that Shelley knew all about using essential oils because her daughter uses some to manage her son's asthma.

I had no knowledge of oils at all, but it was very fascinating, and I started buying bottles of oil for my own use as I learned more about their uses.

One of the first ones I used was called Calming the Child, and it's still one of our family favorites. It smells fantastic and we use it to help keep Hurricane Maddy down to a dull roar.

Then a couple of months ago, I found out that my niece, Jenna, is a dealer for Doterra essential oils, and wow, I have been having so much fun since then! She knows how to use oils to treat minor medical problems, and she's been a great resource! She has a blog here, if you want to see some of the things she is talking about. She's the one I call when I need to know how to treat something!

So I've stepped up my use of essential oils for health and well-being, and you know what the funnest part is? Mixing up blends of oils to treat things like colds and rashes. I got so excited last night when I was looking for a bottle to mix up a blend to treat the eczema spots that I have behind both ears!

I needed a bottle to put my 'potion' in, and I found a plastic squeeze bottle in the kitchen cabinet where I stash medicines like Advil and Neosporin, you know, the stuff you need sometimes and you just keep it in a cupboard so you can get to it.

The bottle originally contained calamine lotion, and it had an expiration date of May, 1996! So I didn't feel bad about pouring it down the drain and rinsing the bottle. I washed it out thoroughly, and then I mixed up my potion and labeled the bottle. (It was a recipe that I found on someone else's blog, but sometimes I find them on Pinterest, too!)

I took a picture of the eczema spot that Kim has on her back before I started treating it last night with my potion, and if it starts showing improvement, I'll post pictures!

In which I was (gasp!) wrong!

So it looks like last week was just the preparatory week for the 30 Days of Curvy Yoga, and the actual doing of the practice started today. Well, here's the thing - I went to my regular Monday yoga class and then I went home, had some dinner and went to bed.

I think that I might just do the 30 day practice on the days that I don't have a class. Unless I have some need to feel morally superior to everyone around me, then I will totally do a class and then the home practice!

In which I am zen as hell.

Today is the first day of 30 days of Curvy Yoga, and I am writing about it so I can remember when I started. Actually it started on Monday, but this is the first day of actually doing the yoga practice. The first few days were about committing, and setting an intention.

I know it seems like I am doing more than enough yoga - I have gone to three classes a week since June, and four classes a week for the last two weeks - but I want to do this 30 day program to develop the habit of a home practice.

So I'll be doing this home practice daily as well as my regular classes, but it won't kill me, this home practice is very gentle.