Hurry Up and Wait

Well, here we sit. I guess with the military it is always hurry up and wait. I got a call from Joseph and he is still at Ft. Benning. There was some paperwork snafu and he may be here tomorrow but it could be Friday. So the chicken and dumplings were done and the apple pie in the oven (more on that later). Allison and the girls were already here and Matthew and Courteney were already on the way. So though we were disappointed we ate the dumplings anyway. There is nothing you can do if you do not have your info in order. So now to the pie. Allison made the apple pie, put it in the oven, and nothing happened. By that I mean my oven died, literally with the pie in it. So she took the pie out and is going to bake it at home tonight and I am headed to Lowe's to get a new oven. We were disappointed because once you get it in the oven you are supposed to be able to eat it. But the dumplings were yummy and I have enough left over to feed an army, ha ha. I gave Scout her two hats. The first one in the multi-stripe fit great. The second, the black and pink, was as I thought too short. The first picture of it the brim is not turned up and the second it is only up a little. I won't use that pattern again but will remake it in the other pattern. Jo ordered a hat in the multi-stripe too so I will whip those up tonight. Hopefully we will be seeing Joseph tomorrow. Sigh.

Knitting, Knitting, Knitting

I have been knitting like crazy lately. Mostly to keep my mind off the fact that Joseph will be arriving soon and due to the fact that all the grandkids seem to need hats. We have had a lot of rain lately and I have been fortunate that the RA has not been affected by that and all the knitting. The top two hats are for Scout who has outgrown all her "baby" hats and at 7 months old needed a larger size. Both are out of I Love This Yarn. The first is called Jazz Stripe (my favorite) and the second is called Surprise Stripe. The blue and red hats are for the twins. They apparently like hats right now. I made them the same not because they are twins but so there would be no arguement over who's is who's. Apparently they are real boys, always playing rough and tumble. Their hats are a little different than Scout's. Her's has a brim that can be turned up and their hat can be pulled straight down. The last picture is of my Tofutsies that I finished, finally. All the other knitting I have done caused these socks to get put in the bottom of the basket. They are Tofutsies #921.

Well, tomorrow is the day. Joseph will be back home in Texas after four years active duty with the Army. I am expecting to hear the truck roll in the driveway sometime between noon and one. The chicken and dumplings should be ready and waiting.

Five Days

This is a picture of Joseph while he was home on R&R from Iraq. In five days he will be back in Texas. He will no longer be on active duty with the Army and is planning on going back to college. Five days.

Fun Lunch

Today was a fun lunch at Steak and Shake. Scout looks so serious but she was having a good time watching all the people coming and going. Jo always loves lunch there. She is counting down the days until Uncle Joseph is back in Texas. 12.

The Hats Arrived

Ok, humor me. I have the YoYo hat on this morning. Oh, I am so funny. The grandboys received their hats yesterday, story of mailing those in the last post, and I received pictures this morning. I tried to decide which ones to use and in a grandma fit of "they are soooooo cute" I just said they all have to be chosen. These are the matching hats I made for them when I made the baby hat and afghan for their new brother due in December. One of the reasons these are good pictures is not just that they are cute kids but also the pictures show how the hats fit. I mean we even have a back view. These are just the standard K2P2 up until the decrease which means they are nice and stretchy. I love the expression in the last picture. what is that kid planning?

How Much?

Yesterday I decided to mail two packages. One is the hats pictured that go to the Knit A Cap group. I have written about this group in a previous blog. Each year they are mailed to Washington DC and then are put together with other knitters hats and shipped throughout the country to children on Reservations. My sister JE knitted 350 hats for this year alone. I was a little distracted with all the baby knitting and only had 37. I decided that I would put myself on a schedule of a certain number of hats each week for next year. I am not writing it here because I would be mad not to reach my goal. The other package was the baby knitting for Drew that I wrote about in a post last week. I had a flat rate box from the post office I was going to use to mail to Drew. The hats are usually shipped by Fed Ex because they ship for the best price in the large quantities of boxes we usually have. First I went to the post office. Flat rate has always been $8.50 which was a pretty good price for the fact that it can be as heavy as you want for that price. I did include a tracking just because I like to know when stuff arrives. My total, $11.05. Huh? I thought it was $8.50. No $10.35 plus the .70 for tracking. This was for a 2.90lb package. The worker said, well I guess it went up when postage did. You want it back? Now on a day when I was in more of a fighting/arguing mood I would have said heck yeah give it back. But it was already in the pile and I was in a state of shock. So I left complaining to myself. A man in the parking lot looked at me kind of funny and I told him what happened. He just shook his head. I headed to FedEx waiting to see what the big computer paper box was going to cost me to mail. My 4.70 lb box cost $11.56 and that included the tracking. So for 51 cents more I was able to ship 1.80 lb more. Not only that but the worker who took my package was courteous, friendly and I did not have to stand in a line out the door with one worker taking all the packages. Now I am not telling anyone how to ship their packages but it just seems that when we are spending our money to shop/mail things not only are we going to go where the prices are the best but where the employees at least act like they don't mind helping us with our shipping.

Creaky

It is interesting how sometimes things happen at the same time. I love cloudy rainy days but after finally just now getting over my cold, that yes did last the two full weeks, it seems it has been raining for almost that long. It would not bother me so much but even with the wonderful meds that my rheumatologist has me on, I still get creaky. Yesterday was one of those days. Monday was beautiful, sunny and warm at 94 degrees. This morning I woke up and yes that cold front did come through, it was 61 and cloudy. So I ache and am stiff and am wondering if it is going to rain again. Fall is actually my favorite time of year. I think it is because of the break in the 100+ degree summers. But it also brings wild and weird weather that can play havok with not just my joints but with my whole system. I told my doctor I feel like I have the flu all the time. He agreed that was a good assessment of what it feels like to have RA. That constant tired ache that makes everything an effort. So I thought, well today I will blog about living with RA and how it shapes everything that I do and my mental outlook. Then I got a notice that Lene Andersen had a new post on http://www.RACentral.com/ This is a great site for people to get info and/or talk to others about RA. When I read Lene's post today I thought, yes, this is exactly it. So there are three things that I wish for people to do today, well four. And if it is too much for today then please do it this week. I have links on my blog for Lene, http://www.theseatedview.com/ ,RACentral, the site for http://www.bucklemeupmovement.com , and www.butyoudontlooksick.com/the_spoon_theory . If you have never before read any of these sites please do today. There is not just a lot of information about RA but also autoimmune disease in general. For those of us to describe how we are "feeling" it sometimes is hard and feels like it falls on deaf ears. We don't want sympathy, just understanding of how we have to work around this disease so we can live our lives in what has become our new normal.