Sorry for not posting, still recovering
Long time, no update... so here's catch-up information:
November 20th, I had surgery on my right primary metatarsal bone, which the doc sliced diagonally and repositioned with a screw and a pin. I was out for the count for a good 3 weeks, living on the couch with foot elevated and taking anti-inflammatories and antibiotics.
For the winter holidays, I was stuck in the position of being a chef that couldn't stand up to cook.... so friends banded together and I had a lovely Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with minimal stress. I still wanted to make *something*, so I brought out a favorite medieval recipe for Chestnut Soup, which is very rich and was in the slow cooker so long it became more like spackle than soup but was still incredibly rich and tasty, just needed to get thinned out before service, oh well. While Christmas presents were thin this year because of everyone's tight finances, I received an actual all-metal serger machine for which boggled me. Now to learn to use it!
I did manage to attend Further Confusion, although I was pretty much parked in the Marriott lobby's "business center" under the escalators for the majority of the con. I managed to sell something in the Art Show... "Gentoyato" or moon bunny (faintly jade green fur on a rabbit 24" tall!) to someone from Australia (which makes me very happy) so I think I'll try to get more bunnies made for future cons, possibly a wolpertinger or jackalope... we'll see how that goes. I also have been building a pattern to make a moonkin that didn't get made in time for the con, perhaps he'll also show up later.
February saw me having to get an Exogen ultrasonic bone stimulator to use twice a day on my foot, which pretty much put me back on the couch for part of the day. In order to prevent me going completely stir crazy, I took up crochet. And, in typical fashion, I found a project that inspired me to learn crochet that is itself a massive undertaking: I'm currently working on a 9-skein circular shawl that will have a star map of the northern constellations sewn onto it, using colored (and sized) beads for the brightest stars, seed beads for the rest of the constellations' notable stars, and purple glitter-woven yarn to drawn the connecting lines. As the body of the shawl is deep blue with strands of metallic blue woven into the yarn, the whole thing will faintly sparkle. I haven't figured out yet how I want to portray the Milky Way, considering it is difficult to see in suburban skies.
I'll put pictures up as I hit milestones -- 1) crochet main body and block, 2) crochet border edging (still looking for a pattern I like), 3) create and transfer star map to body, 4) sew stars onto shawl, 5) sew constellation lines onto shawl. Currently I'm on the 5th shein of step 1 and working out how many beads of size and color to get for the bright stars. I'm going to be weird -- usually on star maps, size of dot indicates brightness in the sky, but I'm going for size to indicate Spectral Class (I,II,III,IV,V), color to denote Spectral Type (O,B,A,F,G,K,M) and (if I can find them) replace the usual color of F types from "white-yellow" to "white-greenish-yellow" to better differentiate them.
March has seen me get a disappointing update from the foot doc: while the Exogen therapy is doing something, there's a spot where the two edges of bone are just not fusing at an acceptable rate. So now I get to wait for the authorization to get a CAT scan and Bone Scan of my foot to better see what is going on. On the best end of prognosis I'll just keep doing the Exogen therapy and slowly start putting weight on the foot if there's nothing wrong other than sluggish progress. On the worst end of prognosis, there's scar tissue or something else preventing the bone from knitting (as the docs say it, a non-union) and I'll have to get another surgery for them to clean the area out and apply a cloture completely around the bone and I get to start the healing clock all over again (12-14 weeks). I sincerely hope for the former and not the later, but I am aware that with my history there's a chance I'll go under the knife again.
On the "bright" side, asthma is known to slow down the body's healing process, so probability is high I just need to wait it out -- not that I've ever been good about patience.
November 20th, I had surgery on my right primary metatarsal bone, which the doc sliced diagonally and repositioned with a screw and a pin. I was out for the count for a good 3 weeks, living on the couch with foot elevated and taking anti-inflammatories and antibiotics.
For the winter holidays, I was stuck in the position of being a chef that couldn't stand up to cook.... so friends banded together and I had a lovely Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with minimal stress. I still wanted to make *something*, so I brought out a favorite medieval recipe for Chestnut Soup, which is very rich and was in the slow cooker so long it became more like spackle than soup but was still incredibly rich and tasty, just needed to get thinned out before service, oh well. While Christmas presents were thin this year because of everyone's tight finances, I received an actual all-metal serger machine for which boggled me. Now to learn to use it!
I did manage to attend Further Confusion, although I was pretty much parked in the Marriott lobby's "business center" under the escalators for the majority of the con. I managed to sell something in the Art Show... "Gentoyato" or moon bunny (faintly jade green fur on a rabbit 24" tall!) to someone from Australia (which makes me very happy) so I think I'll try to get more bunnies made for future cons, possibly a wolpertinger or jackalope... we'll see how that goes. I also have been building a pattern to make a moonkin that didn't get made in time for the con, perhaps he'll also show up later.
February saw me having to get an Exogen ultrasonic bone stimulator to use twice a day on my foot, which pretty much put me back on the couch for part of the day. In order to prevent me going completely stir crazy, I took up crochet. And, in typical fashion, I found a project that inspired me to learn crochet that is itself a massive undertaking: I'm currently working on a 9-skein circular shawl that will have a star map of the northern constellations sewn onto it, using colored (and sized) beads for the brightest stars, seed beads for the rest of the constellations' notable stars, and purple glitter-woven yarn to drawn the connecting lines. As the body of the shawl is deep blue with strands of metallic blue woven into the yarn, the whole thing will faintly sparkle. I haven't figured out yet how I want to portray the Milky Way, considering it is difficult to see in suburban skies.
I'll put pictures up as I hit milestones -- 1) crochet main body and block, 2) crochet border edging (still looking for a pattern I like), 3) create and transfer star map to body, 4) sew stars onto shawl, 5) sew constellation lines onto shawl. Currently I'm on the 5th shein of step 1 and working out how many beads of size and color to get for the bright stars. I'm going to be weird -- usually on star maps, size of dot indicates brightness in the sky, but I'm going for size to indicate Spectral Class (I,II,III,IV,V), color to denote Spectral Type (O,B,A,F,G,K,M) and (if I can find them) replace the usual color of F types from "white-yellow" to "white-greenish-yellow" to better differentiate them.
March has seen me get a disappointing update from the foot doc: while the Exogen therapy is doing something, there's a spot where the two edges of bone are just not fusing at an acceptable rate. So now I get to wait for the authorization to get a CAT scan and Bone Scan of my foot to better see what is going on. On the best end of prognosis I'll just keep doing the Exogen therapy and slowly start putting weight on the foot if there's nothing wrong other than sluggish progress. On the worst end of prognosis, there's scar tissue or something else preventing the bone from knitting (as the docs say it, a non-union) and I'll have to get another surgery for them to clean the area out and apply a cloture completely around the bone and I get to start the healing clock all over again (12-14 weeks). I sincerely hope for the former and not the later, but I am aware that with my history there's a chance I'll go under the knife again.
On the "bright" side, asthma is known to slow down the body's healing process, so probability is high I just need to wait it out -- not that I've ever been good about patience.