OT Contemplating becoming a hermit

Yeah the last few weeks have been like that.

I've definitely got an incisional hernia, plus I have tendonitis _again_ this time all up my left arm. So the medicals pretty much want me sitting around doing nothing. I really suck at that. Just as a cherry on top I got a sinus infection (I am prone because of that scar) which sank into my chest. So I am coughing a lot. No surgery planned at present, unless something bad happens they will probably just leave the hernia alone. I have been advised that investing in spanx or similar foundation garments would be a good idea.

I was supposed to make a wedding cake, which the chest cold put the brakes on. I had to delegate and I felt bad about having to do that. I would have felt worse about coughing and hacking all over somebody's wedding cake though.

Poison ivy crept into my garden beds while I was busy being sick these last couple of years. My garden slaves were struck down most fiercely. Especially DD3, she got a bit of sunburn on the first day and was religiously smearing herself down with sunscreen and aloe. Which was very effective in spreading the irritating resins from the poison ivy very evenly all over every inch of exposed skin. She was in such bad shape that we carried her to the doctor and the doctor made both horrified and sympathetic sounds before prescribing prednisone and soothing baths. The garden is hash, I just hope we got all the poison ivy pulled out. DH and I went out and identified and marked it, I just hope we didn't miss any. Yep, hoeing weeds is probably what did my arm in. All garden slaves have now been schooled in identifying irritating and dangerous plants. I even rang the extension to see if we should be on the watch for anything in particular this year. Apparently there have been more than usual reports about giant hogweed locally, so I made for darn sure that DD1 (DGS's mom) knows what that looks like and what it can do to a child.

On Monday I am going with DD1 to arrange for DGS's kindergarden placement. For some reason the lady at the school wants to place him in a class that is not quite right for him. We did the tour, and it would be a wonderful class for a different child. DGS needs a more restrictive and structured environment. Why on earth this woman is so keen on placing him there when another school is holding a place for him in a more appropriate class is a mystery. Everybody keeps telling us how confused they are by her behavior and saying that she isn't usually like this. His pre-K school has actually set up a pro-bono lawyer for us because they are so unhappy with how things are going, and the kindergarden placement being held for him is not even at that school. I am sharpening my claws and reviewing logic and rhetoric.

DD2 totaled another car. She was coming back from a gig with a bunch gear, a hoop dancer, a fire breather, and Potato in the car when an oncoming car made a left turn right in front of her. She had been driving carefully and below the speed limit because a deer had run in front of her, and there are always more deer somewhere behind the first one, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been. After making sure everybody was OK, she found Potato and just sat calming her until the police arrived. Just bruises and a broken nose in her car, nobody hurt in the other one. A member of the local constabulary took Potato in for the couple of days DD was in hospital being looked over to her insurance company's satisfaction. Apparently the local vet screamed like a girl when they carried Potato in to see him. The other driver was cited. Again, I told DD she should get a horse. Now she is looking at mustangs.

*roll eyes* About a week after she got home, somebody broke into her house and stole her new snake Peanut. She is very glad it wasn't Potato, who is a more experienced dancer among other things. I am still waiting for more info about this.

Just because I clearly have nothing else to worry about, I got a phone call the other day. It was from the American consulate in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. An online friend of ours who has given great cause for concern over the past year or so, had been assaulted there and had given our phone number as someone to contact. Seems our number was the only one she gave to the consul. She had walked and hitched to Mexico from Texas. Why I do not know, as I said over the last year or so she has given us much cause for concern. I am not even sure what she was doing in Texas in the first place. I contacted the lady's lawyers, got the appropriate permissions and emailed their phone number to the consulate. Hopefully by now she has gotten some money (of which she certainly has no lack when she is able to remember she needs to tell the lawyer where she is in order to get some), and some ID and whatever other papers she needs to get by. It can be very scary when a person full grown goes enough around the bend that you have to worry a lot. There is just nothing you can do but watch in horror, and hope.

Being as I can't do much else I have designed and done the math for some more quilts. I have designed some more knitting projects. I have designed some needle run laces, some combination kinds, and a couple of bobbin types. I have sketched out some clothes that I have to do math for, may as well plan out some flat patterns since I am not going to be sewing anything soon. I am allowed to spin for 20-30 minutes a day, treadling the wheel is some serious exercise for the abdominal muscles and they don't want me to overdo. I am painting some too, it is not a one handed thing, but I cannot sit about with my hands folded all the livelong. I am considering doing some batik, and then teaching one of the DDs to do the dyeing part. DD1 wants to learn tie dye, so she is likely.

So I have been shopping for a nice cave, away from noxious weeds, noxious people, and idiot drivers. On a quiet mountaintop that just happens to have an internet connection and is on a reliable postal route. That probably violates the rules of the hermit's union, but what the heck! My cave, my rules.

NightMist

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I'm raising a developmentally disabled child.  What's your superpower?
Reply to
NightMist
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Oh, I am so sorry to hear all this is going on. Just never a dull moment around your life, is there?

Is there anything we can do, other than sending good vibes your direction? Will you be designing a door for your hermit cave?

G> Yeah the last few weeks have been like that.

Reply to
Ginger in CA

Dear Night, what a mess you are in! I don't know the words to use to tell you how sorry I am! With all your sitting around, would you be able to do cross stitch embroidery to keep your mind busy? Once I had one arm in a cast, and the other in bandages and after a week or so I decided I surely could do cross stitch, if nothing else. I was bored silly, but cross stitch was better than nothing! And then I read a few books just to have a change in things to do. I couldn't bend my arms to feed myself. DH placed my pain pills on the kitchen counter so I could pick them up with my tongue, and put water in small paper cups so I could pick them up with my mouth to drink. I was also in a mess and it seemed to take weeks to be able to do anything except watch TV and limp around the house. You are in my thoughts and prayers! Barbara in SC

Reply to
Bobbie Sews More

Real hermits have gators to assure privacy. I don't know if any of ours would consider cave-dwelling but I could ask. Polly

Reply to
Polly Esther

Either my patron deity is playing with me, or at some point I made somebody fond of chinese curses mad at me.

I would be happy to have my recovered garden slaves build a moat for gators. DH wants to build a moat and fill it with komodo dragons. I think gators would be more...domesticatable...

Other than thinking good thoughts and making suggestions for cave decoration I cannot think of a blessed thing anyone can do. I just need to vent now and again or my head will explode.

I have a cross stitch project that I drag out and work on now and again. I have a hard time getting interested in them for some reason, but eventually I finish them. Curiously, combing fleeces is a very one handed process. So I am shopping around for fleeces, though usually one reserves from particular sheep well in advance of shearing. Just to give you an idea, I can get baby alpaca fleece for about the same price per pound as domestic sheep's wool roving (and adult alpaca for about half that), so combing is not a bad thing at all. Roving is wool or fiber that has already been prepared for spinning. I am by this point thinking is some interesting directions with this. Blending alpaca with silk and making myself something nice once I can knit again, getting some of the less expensive domestic fleece or some of the cheap adult alpaca and mohair and making a stab at proper woven tapestries, still looking to find a good source for the assorted bast fibers, flax, ramie, bamboo (yes you can get bast bamboo as opposed to rayon of bamboo) so I can play with those. I've this notion about blending a little carbonized bamboo with ramie and tencel (tencel is man made from cellulose, but different from rayon). These fibers are easy enough to find, it is finding a really good price that is the difficult bit. I am also looking for a nice big stick to use as a distaff for these long fibers. I may just get a dowel and see if one of the woodworkers in my life can build a stand to get it high enough off the floor for me. Maybe I will get lucky and find a warped pool cue at a yard sale, that would work a treat.

I am babbling again, a sure sign of madness. Like you needed a sign! lol!

NightMist

On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:20:53 -0700, Ginger in CA wrote:

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I'm raising a developmentally disabled child.  What's your superpower?
Reply to
NightMist

I've been thinking about the gators in FL that go through a large concrete pipe to get to other bodies of water. If Polly's gators won't come guard your cave, then I'll check with mine about spending some time with you! Will you also need owls & buzzards to be there? You will really need something to clean up any messy intruders. Barbara in SC, but will be visiting FL in a week or so to check on the above "pets."

Reply to
Bobbie Sews More

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