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Showing posts from February, 2013

Past lives with a wooden spoon.

It's easy to forget other lives.  Even my own.  I can rationally recall life in Auckland when I had no kids.  But I can't really understand how I was so busy.  I only had myself to look after, for goodness sake! It's not that long ago that I did less paid work and spent far more time at home.  I can't really remember it properly, though I remember I was busy and tired a lot.  But this week some of it is coming back to me.  Fionn has asthma and I found myself making a steam bath at 4.15am on Monday morning, just so he could breath well enough to sleep.  I rang work at 7.30, drove in to make arrangements for the work someone else would have to take over and then came home and was more tired and had less energy than Mr Asthma Man.  Out.  Of.  Practice.  Today he was actually worse, but I was better.  He came to work with me for a chunk of this morning, and then went to our lovely childminder after school so I could do a work meeting.  In between, I hung out in the kitche

Behind the Sun

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 Gimli and the water girl. Cosmos. There were to be more pictures of this weekend, but there seems to be an upload problem at my end. I did make chocolate brownie and added whizzed up almonds and some frozen blueberries. I did make basil and rocket pesto.  I used the first red onion from the garden in tonight's pasta sauce.  It's not going to win any prizes for size, but after several years of attempting to grow red onions, these ones have gotten to edible size. I did some more sewing and wondered at my choice of the brightest fabric in the land. I fitted in paid work on Saturday and Sunday.  I always wanted to contain work within the children's school hours, but this year is looking different already.  Saturday I took Brighid with me and she played on her scooter, read for a while and then helped me with data entry.  Sunday I commandeered the dining room table and everyone else played or worked out in the sun, leaving me to concentrate and make some good progr

New Look 6735

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New Look 6735 with elbow length sleeves.  I finished it in the weekend.  I bought the fabric at Morelands Fabric in Nelson and I really like it.  Actually, I wish I'd bought enough to make a tiramisu dress with it.  Today I wore it for the first time and I'm pleased with it.  Obviously, if I'd been to the hairdresser at all this year, I wouldn't look exactly like this.  But this look is pretty typical and I'm not about to wait until I have the perfect look and location and photographer (I took tonight's photos by holding the camera in front of me) just to put a record of my sewing on my blog. I wore it with a long black skirt and a belt today.  Without the belt, the length focused the eye on my hips, which I didn't find visually pleasing. It's paying off, this sewing lark.  This is the third version of the New Look 6735 top which I've made, and it's the first one which I've made with fabric I really like and to a standard which

Tiramisu # 2

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Tiramisu number 2! I cut and sewed it all in one day - I love how much easier/faster it is the second time round with a pattern.  The fabric is a cotton knit of wider black and yellow stripes, with a narrow white stripe in between each black and yellow stripe.  I was unsure whether to make a full dress as I thought the knit may cling.  This picture is with a slip underneath, which will be a constant, I think.  I made it as a wearable muslin before I cut into my Nelson holiday special fabric, but I think it is good enough for work (despite the fact that the centre seam of the skirt is not quite on the centre of my body which is absolutely my error not the pattern's).  The only thing I will change is that next time I will narrow the sleeves a little.  I made this one longer than version one.  Although I won't hem it for a few wears, I like the swish of the longer length.  It may even be a candidate for a no-hem hem. I also finished the top which I started last weekend.  Pictu

long drive, short pictures

So I drive almost 250 kilometres and I have some blood tests and get injected with some iodine-like substance and they take some nuclear scan pictures of my thyroid and I have a multi-nodular goiter which is what they suspected already and I ask about when I see the endocrinologist. I see the endocrinologist in July . Then I drive almost 250 kilometres home again. So just as well I'm not entirely dependent on the state health system for strategies to deal with heart problems, anxiety, wild irritability, shortness of breath and insomnia.  The calcium and magnesium (I switched to both rather than just magnesium last week) is helping a lot on the sleep quality front.  I've been taking a copper supplement for five days now.  This is in response to a very recent discovery, where it turns out that high iron supresses copper and that persons with haemochromatosis need more copper.  I also learnt that vitamin C and copper are antagonists, so I've stopped all vitamin C supplem

Copper

It's definitely tricky to be back at work while experiencing hyperthyroid symptoms.  Racing heart, anxiousness, irritability and a difficulty dealing with many things happening at once are all things I would like to farewell at the first available opportunity. Cue more googling, thinking, and monitoring how I react to different supplements and situations.  What is the relationship between haemochromatosis and thyroid health?  Welll. Well well well. I thought this story of a nutritional approach to hyperthyroidism was interesting. What supresses copper?  High levels of iron. Well well well.  I've ordered some copper supplements as so much of what I've read tonight (I've not linked to all of it as it is bedtime) resonates with my own symptom profile.  I cannot perceive of any harm in trying out some copper supplementation. On Monday I go over the hill for a nuclear imaging scan, and I hope (it's not explicit in the letter) that I get to see an endocrinolog