Three Days

'I have known you only three days..."

PUSH, DAMN YOU, PUSH!!!

Whitney had her puppies yesterday morning after a very long first stage of labour. She actually started scratching up on Friday so I had to stay close to her from then on, sleeping on the armchair. Her temperature did not drop until Sunday afternoon and I knew then that the puppies would be born that evening. However that did not happen and she did not have her first visible contraction until 5:10 AM Monday morning. I have never had a bitch take that long in the first stage of labour. During this stage contractions are happening but they are not visible.  

The first puppy born was a full breach birth and he was very difficult to get out of her. This puppy is not going to make it. I thought that maybe he would but I now know that he isn't. Because of the trauma of his birth he was born without his placenta and umbilical cord.  Unfortunately, his bowel fell out of the hole  that this left.  although I put it all back in easily enough I really did not expect that this puppy would survive. Amazingly, the hole has healed over.  I mean skin has grown over the hole not that there is a scab.  Despite this,  he does not look or feel right and I am as certain  as I can be that he will die. 

 We have the decorators in and they are working on the two bedrooms upstairs. They have stripped all the wallpaper will be laying lining paper and then painting.

New shelving and wardrobes will be put into these two bedrooms. The two built in wardrobes in the main bedroom will be used for clothing and John will put shelving up all around the walls for my Dr Martens. I have two knitting machine setup, complete with motors because I cannot knit without them now,  and they will stay there.

 And the smaller bedroom will have wardrobes put in and this room will be used as my dressing room which will make life much easier as there will be room for a chair which I need to sit on in order to get dressed and there will be more space generally.

Having a dressing room will make such a difference to me. Dressing is one of the major challenges of my day. So much so that as much as I do not like to admit it I now do not get dressed unless I know I am going out. Not only is it dangerous for me in that I am much more likely to fall it takes a long time and is tiring! So I hang about in my "leisure outfits". These are pull on or pull over, hence they are much easier to put on. I would prefer not to be in my pyjamas all day but I would rather use the energy required to get dressed on something else.

I have learned a lot more about myself recently and about how the effects of abuse upon the psych are subtle or perhaps one could say they hide in plain sight. It has come to my attention recently how my illness and my treatment is greatly affected by the negative things that the abuse taught me.  I have only recently become aware of this. I intend to write a separate post about this. I will be listing all of the effects of my disease as best I can and also relating how the negative programming of the abuse has affected my reporting of my disease to the doctor and therefore my treatment.

ALL'S WELL

Just to say that al is well here, just very busy. Whitney's had her puppies. The decorators are in. I will be writing more as soon as I can. 

SEX REVIVAL?

The new bed is amazing. I sleep very well on it. The remote control is very responsive and the bed goes up and down very easily. It has got me thinking that I might have a sex life again since the bed moves up and down on its own… 

 My legs are very painful from yesterday at the pool but don't care because I feel pleased with myself because I did it. The pain is weird it is not the usual muscle aching that one gets if you've been weightlifting or running (not that I have done either of those things for many years). No it comes from my pelvic region down both thighs and is more like a burning electric type pain. Very hard to describe. I imagine it is neurological or nerve pain.

 I may go for a swim later or I may bathe dogs. Or I may do far call. (My voice to type still refuses to swear. I do think it is quite clever in what it actually writes. If you say the words out loud it is obvious what I actually said.)

 I've actually been up for hours but I got waylaid by music on the Internet. I was sent a link to a radio concert that Iris deMent did and that sent me off listening to Neil Young and he sent me off to listen to John Prine. I bought to John Prine CDs. You can get CDs incredibly cheaply. I often buy them second hand for £1.50! After all I only record them onto my MacBook Pro and file the CD away. My MacBook Pro is plugged into my hi-fi system and is only used for music. All of the tracks are recorded in AIFF as this is what the CD files are and therefore this is the best quality. Yes it does take up more space. The only other file I will use is Apple lossless but at the moment most is in AIFF. 

 One of my boasts because I'm very pleased with myself that I was able to do it, is that I changed the hard disk inside my MacBook Pro to a solid-state 1 from Crucial. I am sure my heart stopped when I pressed the button to start the MacBook Pro after I had changed the hard disc. The relief I felt when it started up properly!

Whitney is now about 10 days away from giving birth. She has already claimed her whelping quarters which she has had available  for a couple of weeks. She got in it immediately it was put up. Even when she had her first litter she knew what the whelping box and pen were for. The whelping box is in the sunroom because of the underfloor heating which is going to be much better for both the puppies and her. If the sun is shining then the sun room gets warm but not too warm.

I had wondered with the sunroom how it was going to be in the winter. I assumed that if the sum was shining and then the room would still get warm. The temperatures have been in the high 50s and the sun room reaches about 25°C during the day. It remains to be seen what it is like when the outside temperature is near zero even with the sun shining.

And we are already feeling the effects of the new insulation.  Normally by now we would have the house central heating on at night because the outside temperature is falling well below 10°C. We have had no reason to turn it on and I am sleeping without my duvet covering me. I find that I am perfectly warm enough in my so-called lounge outfits. (This consists of silk longjohns and silk longsleeved vest, lounge trousers, longsleeved T-shirt, and then a T-shirt. In winter, the longjohns and the longsleeved vest become silk and cotton or wool and cotton.)   I imagine that our fuel bill is going to be lower now that we have the insulation. I really am surprised at the difference it has already made.

BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 The appointment with my doctor went really well. I had properly prepared for it so I remembered to tell her not just what I knew I was going to tell her about, but what John wanted me to tell her as well.

I did tell John that I thought that my doctor probably realised that I minimised everything to do with my disease and my mood. I do not do this deliberately. It is what I learned to do and in fact what I was taught to do. In common with very many other survivors of childhood abuse I learned a very clever trick; I learned to disassociate. The best way I can think of to describe this is that one is able to go elsewhere in one's mind when bad things are happening. This ability of course has been very good in enabling me to cope with my disease. I am able to put my awareness elsewhere.  Unfortunately, this also means that I do not really recognise the truth and so I do not of course tell it when I am asked. However, my doctor did tell me that she knew just from the way that I moved or the way that I looked that my answers to the questions were not truthful! It was made clear to me today that I do need to tell her everything that I experience. I am not sure how well I am going to be able to do this because the ability to disassociate is not exactly deliberate and so I am not aware that I am not aware! Minimising is so ingrained, and the teaching to not 'be a sissy' and to 'not make a fuss' is ingrained also and all of this combined with the trauma of abuse and seeing my best friend killed when I was 7, just makes it difficult for me to always be present. the ability to not be present does have it's up side-it helps me live a good life despite my fcked up body. If I turned my awareness on 24/7 I'd not be happy.  I have just realised that my awareness suddenly being turned on is possibly what causes those episodes I get occasionally aware I become extremely uncomfortable and I have to remove all of my clothing because having the clothing touching me is too much to bear. I certainly could not live with that 24/7!

It has only been a combination of recent happenings that made me realise that I had to speak with my doctor frankly about my day-to-day living. The first thing was that the weekend before the one just past, Paul, the man who works in the clothes shop where we sometimes by clothes,  mentioned that he could tell that it was painful for me to try on clothes.  I was really surprised that he should say that and I asked him what made him think it and he said that it was obvious from my face and the way that I moved. When I questioned John about it later he too said that he was able to tell how I was by the look on my face and by how I moved and held my body. I asked the people at the pool today and their answer was exactly the same.

Due to the above I realised that I needed to tell my doctor what was going on with my body. Oh, the other thing that happened that really brought it home to me was earlier today I realised I had left the bathroom light on and I made myself go back upstairs to switch it off. For some reason, when I got to the top of the stairs I became conscious of the fact that I've felt exhausted and that I hurt all over and that I needed to sit down. I did no such thing of course and I just went back downstairs and carried on with what I  was doing which was getting ready to go to the pool. I think that moment of conscious awareness  enabled me to realise what it is that I need to speak to the doctor about.

 As I realised because of the wonderful effect it has had on me, the baclofen was not prescribed to me as a temporary fix but as a hopefully permanent one. It has worked far better than the doctor was hoping and of course I had no idea what it would do because the only muscle relaxant I knew  of was Valium and that only really worked when taken in a dose large enough to make me fall asleep! In other words it isn't that much good. I did not hold out much hope that the baclofen was going to enable my neck to move again. Not only did it make my neck move again but it has made my whole body feels so much better. I have only been aware of muscle pain when I have had extreme spasms either in my legs  all my rib cage. I did not realise just how taut my whole body was the whole time.  As you can imagine it has made a remarkable difference to the way that I feel in a positive way. I will be continuing to take the 40 mg a day but will have a diuretic added as it does indeed seem that I have retaining water.  I would much rather deal with the side-effect of this drug by taking the diuretic than by stopping the drug.

To all those who wrote to me I want to tell you how much I appreciate your support and let you know that I did feel supported.  All of you pointed out how stressful the house renovations and the wedding in the last six months have been. Not something I really took into account, especially the wedding. My doctor is in full agreement with all of you! 

I feel much more positive now about tomorrow and onwards and I feel that I am more likely to be able to return to my normal routine as it was prior to the house renovation starting. Yes, I do know that it will take time and that I must not expect I shall be back to normal by tomorrow. It does seem  though that it is possible now and that is what is most important: that I feel that it is possible.

HARD TO BE HONEST

TUBE SOCKS BEFORE AND AFTER WEAR

THE SOCKS ABOVE ARE TUBE SOCKS, NO SHAPING FOR HEEL, JUST FINISHED.

THE PAIR BELOW ARE THE SAME PAIR AFTER NORMAL 24 HOUR WEAR, IN SHOES AND IN HOUSE SANDALS.

THEY ARE KNITTED ON 2MM NEEDLES OVER 80STS FOR MY UK8 FOOT. I BELIEVE THAT IS A US 10 MENS. WHATEVER, MY FOOT IS 9.5" AROUND THE BASE OF TOES.

DOING DRUGS

Chase

ESCAPING THE NUT HOUSE

OUT TO GLORY

MAKING PATTERNED/STRIPED SOCK YARN

MG Fussing

DISCOGS - VINYL NASTIES

On September 8th and 9th  I ordered some records off of buyers who were listed on this site called DISCOGS.  I ordered around about 25 albums from various sellers. All but one of these vinyl records was advertised as in mint condition. I bought only one that was advertised as near mint and I did so because I really wanted that particular album. this album was near perfect and no trouble playing. 

Out of the first seven albums to arrive, I found three or maybe four  to certainly not be in mint condition.  As the bad records were mounting up I became very displeased. In the forums of this selling place I wrote a post that was headed MINT? Are you kidding!

 I stated exactly what had happened. I named nobody.  I was soon responded to by a really vile gentleman named Andy Wax  or something like who immediately attacked me personally and called me a liar. He stated that there was absolutely no way I would be unlucky enough to get so many untruthful sellers. I was roundly attacked for having left negative feedback. Quite what else one is supposed to do I do not know. There is no way that these sales can be rectified. Even if I had my money refunded it would not alter the fact that the sale was a bad one and negative feedback is fully justified. They seem to think that sellers should be able to pay their way out of a situation of bad faith.


Unfortunately the public bashing by Andy Wax  did not stop there. I then started to get private messages haranguing me and using pretty much the same language. I began to suspect that the public postings and these private emails were all from the same person. 

Ridiculously I was accused of naming and shaming in public when the proof that I did not was there for all to see! 

As the insults and attacks on my character just became worse I withdrew from that site and blocked all emails from it. 

As I had three records still left to receive I did not feel that I could just ignore it and felt it would be unfair to not leave feedback to those who had fulfilled their part  and sent me mint records.  

Today, I received another one of my orders and now I am truly pissed off.  I am pretty pissed off with myself  for allowing this  obnoxious bully to make me feel bad,  even to the extent that I left one person positive feedback when the record did not deserve it. You can see photographs of just three of the records that I have received.  I include only one album sleeve which has food stains on it because I was told that that was a downright lie and that this seller was known to the one that was slagging me off. I can only assume that that is not true but even if it is the photograph clearly shows dried food on the cover. I'd do not care about the covers despite them being described as mint or near mint and not being.  I just show it as an example of the sort of lying I have been subjected to.

 Needless to say I will never do this again. Not from DISCOGS or from any other site.  This has been a very expensive lesson. The fail rate is far too high. Not only have I been ripped off financially but I had my character trawled through the mud on top of it  by some nasty piece of work who I suspect has rather more to do with the shit records  that I received. Otherwise I just cannot understand his  vicious attacks on me.  Of course he could just be  the type of person who does not need an excuse to treat somebody in such an appalling manner. Whatever the situation I cannot prove it either way. I am not interested in doing so either. I certainly cannot have my say on the site so I am having it here on my blog and I am publishing photographs of  three  of the records.  It  is beyond my understanding that anyone could describe these records as mint.

Hope Less

HOPE -LESS, FOR MORE LIFE

One of the explanations I have read for people venting their anger and hatred to award another group of people-such as those of a different colour or a different sexuality-no matter how illogical it is-is that their anger and hurt stems from their family of origin and they cannot bring themselves to admit that.  They cannot let go of the fantasy of having had good and loving parents. Their rage has to go somewhere and so it goes outwards towards groups such as this. I know from my own experience that even when people have heard certain details of my upbringing their response has been “but you must still love them"! There is no must about it! I do know people who say that they love their abusive parents about all that I see is that they are still desperately trying to prove to their abusive parents that they are good children and worthy of their love. They would rather do this than let go of the hope that one day they will be good enough for their parents. Letting go of that hope is indeed a very painful thing to do but it is a vital thing to do if one is to have any chance at a good life.

HOPE IN THE AIR

Usually upon rising each morning and letting the dogs out the conservatory is always warm. This morning was the first time that in fact it was chilly. I opened the roof blinds ,just three in an alternate pattern. This has brought the temperature up. 

 Although I feel better than I did yesterday I'm still not up to doing much although I have to go and get my trolley motorised today. This is my 4 berth show trolley for the dogs. I have already tried out the motorised version and I am very pleased with it and it is certainly going to make a huge deal of difference to me. 

 Our house is still pretty much a mess though it is a much more organised mess. We are waiting upon the 2 final rooms being decorated and carpeted and this will not happen until October. Once that is done we can then buy the wardrobes and shelving that we need.

 I also have at least half a dozen machines to find homes for. That is probably a vast understatement of how many I will need to part with. The knitting machines are used the most I am obviously keeping and I will keep those that are the same versions so that I have spares if anything goes wrong. Even as I write this I am still thinking more in terms of what I can keep rather than what I can get rid of! Oh dear me! This is such a silly one as there is absolutely no way that I can justify keeping so many machines now that I am physically incapable of using them to any great extent. Yes keeping the 2 motorised ones and those that are the same or near models makes sense because I can still knit for myself and for John. I can also knit cashmere sweaters and sell them via my sock shop. I have already tried this and it worked. If I have a goal of one sweater a month I don't think I am being unreasonable. 

 As I laid back in my electric armchair last evening listening to music, I felt so happy and so grateful to have my dream audio setup. This has always been a dream of mine. Although if you had asked me I probably would not have mentioned this particular dream because I would have thought of it as a very selfish one. Old training dies hard! This audio system though is for both John and I. I use it the most at the moment because John is more taken up by his writing. 

Whitney is definitely pregnant and she is due on the 23rd of October. I have never yet had one of my girls go right to the full date so as the 23rd is a Tuesday I will expect these puppies on the Saturday or Sunday before. Now watch Whitney make a fool out of me by giving birth on the 23rd! 

 By the time this litter is born it will have been almost 2 years since I last had one. I have never lost the thrill that having a litter of puppies brings. It is not just whether or not this will bring a really good show dog into the world but I wonder at all the little personalities that they develop because they are always different no matter what. I find it fascinating and I am looking forward to meeting these new little personalities.

Kirk Cameron Blames Liberal Press For Twisting His Antigay Comments | Advocate.com

Kirk Cameron Blames Liberal Press For Twisting His Antigay Comments | Advocate.com

the worst kind of religious nit wit. Dangerous.

TUBE SOCK ON FOOT

As requested by several people, here is the tube sock on the foot. yes, that is a st st roll at the very top. A feature I was asked for by the person these are for.

TUBE SOCKS

This is the first pair of Tube socks I have knitted. Knitted this way as this is what the recipient wanted. Surprisingly, and rather annoyingly, they fit really well despite no heel shaping. the yarn is one of the SuperSocke 100 ones. Knitted using Chiao Goo 2mm circulars. Knitted simultaneously so that each sock is finished almost at the same time.