Light conversion

As well as silly comments about my light box at work, several people have approached me to confirm that it is indeed a light box. Some of them, or someone they know, suffer from mild SAD too, and want to know whether it helps, and how it works, so they can look into it.
I doubt I will start a light box trend at work (I don't want to be trendy), but I like that people are willing to accept it, and do something about it!

T is for therapy

Belatedly, T is for therapy

A bit of light therapy

A bit of mental therapy

A bit of relaxation therapy

Autumn makes for difficult pictures

I have spent at least the last 3 or 4 days trying to get a good picture of my woodland shawl, to show off. It's been a failure.
Part of the problem is that, by the time I get home from work, it is already relatively dark. Not night yet, thankfully, but dark enough that I don't get good natural light.
Turning on lights hasn't done a lot of good either. The shawl goes towards darkish, and the light disappears on first contact with the shawl. If I try to play with the camera settings, the yarn, which has a little bit of a natural shine to it, appears to be made exclusively of shiny, and it doesn't quite show how it really looks.

I finally manage to take a decent picture today, by finding a nice rock on my way home from work. Because nothing says knitting obsessed like finishing a row by the side of a road so you can take pictures while the light is right.

Yesterday my chair ate some of the yarn that was attached to my shawl (you can sort-of see the two strands on the left). So well eaten I had to snip it. I was not happy. Then the evening kept piling on crap on my, so I broke out the big weapons: SpindleImp's hand spun silk. It's now wound onto a ball, ready to start Branching Out. I just need to decide whether I want to use 4.5 or 5 mm needles. Also bought some more Rowan Pure Life Organic Cotton so I can make some Veylas. No, I don't have too many projects on the needles, why you ask? :)

On a light-related topic, I have started to take my light box to work. First would be to mention that I have, indeed, bought a proper (although travel) light box, instead of just a craft lamp. I have been taking my box to work this week, after checking on Monday with my co-workers that the light doesn't bother them. I've been getting of the expected silly questions (are you going to get a tan? isn't sunlight enough? -after using it for a morning: so, now you don't have SAD any more?), but overall people have not been bothering me.
Technically, I'm not sure I have SAD or not, but my vitamin D levels go a bit low during the winter, and I have found that the light helps me be less sleepy all the freaking time, so I'm trying to fight everything off with the Power of Electricity!

Look, a shawl detail! I have pictures to show!

I like meat!

The knit

My Green Tea is nearly done. I knitted a lot on my trip to my parents' (door to door it's about 9 hours, plus the 3 hour round trip to visit my grandparents). I have finished the 5th ball of Luxury Cotton, and it does feel luxurious. On a side note, the word luxury is very similar to the Spanish word for lust (lujuria), which amuses my father no end.
I did the increases at the hips today while waiting for the doctor but, when I got home and tried it on, it was way too baggy at the back. I looks like I started the increases too early, so I have to undo a good chuck of it!


The geek
I'm going to the cinema on Saturday, to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I can't wait! Teh boyfriend has already seen it, and liked it enough to be willing to come with me again to the cinema. He actually said it was good, better than Temple of Doom. To top it all up, Lego Indiana Jones is being released on the 6^th of June, next Friday. Guess what I'm going to do on the weekend of the 7th and 8th :)

And the therapy
I went to my doctor today. He says that I might not see it because I'm in the middle of it, but I look like a completely different person from when he met me; like Spiderman and Peter Parker (his actual words). I have to say, I don't really feel much better, but I don't have the luxury (giggles) of perspective. When I presented my list of problems to him today, he turned them around and showed how they were still there a while ago, but are only now becoming worse problems because I want more. My next steps are decreasing further my propanoLOL, in the hopes that it'll let me sleep better and therefore make everything better, and work on my "I can't", "I'm too tired", "I don't have the energy" barriers. While some of the barriers make sense and are there to protect me, sometimes they overprotect me, and don't let me push the edge towards getting better. I really like me doctor, he is so nice and helpful!

... ... ...

Wait, it's not over! The random!
My boyfriend remarked the other day that my blog title actually said "knit meat herapy". He is not sure what herapy means, but he is fairly amused by knit meat. Mmmm, meat. I was the Queen Carnivore (Chair) of the Meat Appreciation Society (MeatSoc) at uni. It was a lot of fun, and very tasty. The Chair the year after me was a vegetarian. It used to confuse people no end.

Therapy

Two things in which my guilt was wrong, to remember:

• Elena was not upset for not having reached her in a while. I have to start the contacting process all over again with Alex, but she has still been trying to contact me, so she can't be too upset.
  
• The librarian wasn't upset that the books were a month late. She said that it was ok when I apologised, but that sadly I had to pay a fine (£12.60, but I'll gladly pay that in exchange for not being scolded). She was really nice about it, and she said that next time (I had told her that I had been ill and unable to get them back) I can just ring them, and they'll renew them for me without a problem. She was so nice!

Therapy was a bit difficult and cry-y this morning, but I feel better now. We talked about guilt, which is one of the key factors in my depression. However, I haven't been able to deal with it properly yet. Because it's so at the root, there are always other urgent things to deal with, and only now I am well enough not to have anything too urgent in the way.

You see, for normal people guilt is a mechanism to help them do things they should, and they only have it in moderate amounts, so it's a healthy guilt. My guilt, however, has gotten out of control. It paired up with an unrealistic expectation-acquiring monster, and both of them are having a blast in my brain. Me, I'm enjoying it a bit less than they are.
I cried, and was irrational, and talked childishly, which is what I do when I go down, and he didn't get upset, or hurt, or anything (actually, I think nothing short of holocaust can quench this man's cheerfulness and energy). He was indeed very proud of me because I haven't been doing the exercises he set me perfectly.

For next session, he wants to know all about how I started knitting. With details, diagrams, pictures, everything. I'm not entirely sure why he wants such a detailed plan, but maybe it's because he knows that it will keep me entertained for a while, doing things I seem to enjoy. I wonder what he will extract from it. I shall make a pretty diagram, with my colour pens, and possibly report here.

I'm only now starting to reach some normality after crying, I've been a bit dazed, but I think it's normal.


My jacket is going rather well, I've nearly reached the armpit. I'll buy today some more yarn to finish my Draconic mittens, and I will look into some cheap wool for felting for Alex's bag, as alpaca appears to be magic and can turn water into hair. And the some more hair again. And, after felting, it turns the air it touches into even more hair. And you can't even wash it to get rid of the hair, because it will turn it into more hair :)

Oh noes, the pictures are clogging the tubes

Picocon. Picocon was awesome, and here are some pictures of the DoDM (destruction of dodgy merchandise).
Here is Alex about to golf a frozen snitch, and then me with the golden snitch wings in my Jayne hat (which everybody loved).

Some more general DoDM: the enjoying audience, Owain destroying a Darth Vader mecha-TIE fighter, the abomination that is Highlander 2 (sorry for the profane language), and Peter making sure that the abomination doesn't survive.

And Miranda!



Draconic mittens!


And, as said, I finished the tummy piece, and redid the neckline of the Blue Tomato. Now it's 4 rounds rather than 8, and I think it looks better, and doesn't buldge so much at the shoulder pieces.




Jonathan was here this weekend. Alex has just left to drive him home, and then he is off to a course on rockets (lucky him). I was a bit sad yesterday, and I realised it was jealousy-based, because Alex had spent a lot of the day with JJ, while I just was on the side. But he paid a bit more attention to me today, and I was a lot better. On the other hand, I think that he passed me his cold. While he won't be here this week to take care of me, it is nice to be alone sometimes, and I can just lounge around being ill. And knitting!

This time you will have to imagine the pictures

The knit.

• Dragony glove is awesome. You see, it was going to be a spring mitten, but the green turned into dragon-green, and the lacy diamond turned into scales, so they mittens turned out to be dragons. The lace has been moderately easy, for being my first lace project (yes, it doesn't have much lace, I know), although I still had to undo a couple of rows when I lost yarn overs. But I'm very happy with how they are turning out. I finished the body of one, but I need to undo the cast off edge and redo it with bigger needles, as otherwise is too tight and it barely lets me move my fingers. There are pictures but, as the post says, you'll just have to imagine them.
  
• Yesterday I finished the tummy piece of my Healing Cardigan. It's been fairly dull, because there wasn't much to it, but now I have almost half the cardi done! I picked up the body stitches and took some pictures. But you have to imagine those too.
  
• I bought some yarn yesterday to finally knit the teddy balaclava for Jonathan (who, incidentally, will be coming home this weekend). I measured his teddy last weekend and noted his requests, so I can start any time soon. I also bought some Anchor cotton in variegated red, to knit some dragony or snakey bracelets.
  

The geek

• It was Picocon, and it was awesome. There was a new finished Dalek, there was DoDM, in which Alex destroyed a snitch, and then put the wings on my hat (there are pictures of these, but...). Paul Cornell was full of random and awesome, and the silly games were fun. The turkey reading was horrible, as it should be, and the quiz was difficult, even for the beardies. And we bought books!
  Shockingly and surprisingly, a fish duel happened. Again. I mean, people... ;) And to that I can provide a link!
  There were two other girls knitting during Picocon, and we all knitted during the talks. I chatted to one of them, and we geeked about patterns and yarn for a while.
  Alex got rather drunk and was a bit unwieldy, but still manageable. We had dinner with Oli and some of his friends, until Alex fell asleep during Space Munchkin and we went back to the hotel.
  

The therapy

• Alex and I had some arguments on Thursday and Friday about my inability to contact people, etc. So, on Friday, before leaving for London, I sent an email to Elena, whose emails and phone calls for my birthday I had been ignoring. He helped me write it, and then I translated it to Spanish. Alex spent Saturday still upset, but he was fine on Sunday, and we were cute again.
  
• Elena answered and was very happy to have received my email. She was very impressed with my knitting, which she had never seen, and might just let me knit something for her :) Anything for my "sister".
  I then talked to her on Wednesday, which was incredibly difficult and made me panic. She had been the last person to phone me, so my phone decided to ring her. Twelve times. While I was coming back from the shop with clinking bottles. So she got worried and tried to phone me. And my handbag kept picking up the phone. I finally heard some voices coming from my handbag, so I had to pick it up. It was sooooo scary! I wasn't ready, but I managed, but I spend a couple of hours shaken after that. It was very nice to talk to her, and it was only a little chat, but it felt nice. I confirmed that I was well, but ill, and that I loved her, and she wasn't upset at me at all for not answering. Yey!
  
• I keep forgetting to do my breathing exercises, which is not good. And I should do some sport, at least some sit-ups, because my tummy is getting fat :(
  
• One of my friends is not feeling very well at all lately. If you have nothing better to do, go give morganmagic some love, she is in need in some hugs and she deserves them.
  

The random

• Someome has brought fries to the office. They smell nice and they are not sharing :(

In which I honour the full title of my blog

The Knit...
I finished Clapotis yesterday. Will take some pictures when I feel better and teh boyfriend is home. It looks really pretty. I will post more details when I have the pics, because I doubt I'll make it justice now.
After the big scarf and the on-going healing jacket, I'm going to do a couple of littleler projects: a stuffed mouse (for the kitten of one of teh boyfriend's co-workers, because I can), the katamari (I learned to crochet yesterday) and an iPod cosy (see bellow).


...the Geek...
I have an iPod! Partly because I wanted something to carry all my music at all times, but partly also because it's cool and shiney and I wanted one! I have managed to fill 4 of the 80 gigs with the music I had lying around, and I'm on a downloading binge (suggestions welcome!). And this is why I need to knit an iPod cosy! I also put into it all my kitten pictures, so I can have a look at them anywhere when I'm feeling down.


...and the Therapy.
So, I had a doctor's appointment today. It might not have been the best day ever to have it, as I had a really crap day yesterday, so any possible progress was not looking bright. My doctor is really hopeful for me, and he appears to truly believe that I will get better, mainly, he said, because I have hope that I won't always stay like this.
I am now taking about 3/4 of the medication I was talking a while ago (*1 1/2* repeat), but he doesn't' think that I should decrease it any further, at least for now. I am starting therapy on Thursday, so hopefully that would help.
Sadly, he didn't have anything for my physical ailments (not sleeping well, back popping, cold and sleepy), as he thinks that they are a side effect of my depression. So maybe if/when I get better, they will get better to. I am also getting a full blood test just to check that there isn't anything noticeably physical (mainly my thyroid) that is making me depressed.
I don't think I have gotten any better for the last year or so, since I re-reached basic functionality. Sure, I can function, but I'm not well, nor stable, nor can do complicated things. Yesterday I wanted to phone my landlord to renew my contract, and I just couldn't, panic horribly when I tried to do it.
However, I forgot to mention to him that my jaw (the bit that connect the jaw to the rest of my brain) really hurts when I open my mouth. It's not my wisdom teeth, because I can poke at them and they don't hurt, and it just feels in a slightly different area, more inside, but it's rather uncomfortable.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are my only hope

I sense a disturbance in the force. I fear I am going to have another relapse soon. Like one of those migraine auras (that I’ve never had, but that is not the issue). I want to do something about it, but I am too tired. I haven’t slept well for about a week now, and I am exhausted.

However, I have done some things to help me. Not on the short run, but on the medium and long run. I have agreed to go out with some of my coworkers to the cinema in a couple of weeks. Sometimes I feel ignored and left out, and then withdraw even further, so hopefully if I socialise with them a bit more I will feel better and they might ignore me a bit less.

I have also decided that it is time to try to decrease even further my medication. I will have ½ my dose tomorrow as normal, and then on Monday again, so every 2 days instead of every 3. I hope it goes ok, and this time the change has been slow enough to not knock me out. I really don’t need to feel more sleepy than I do, if that is possible.
I have then a doctor’s appointment for a week after that, so I can tell him how I’m feeling, and any side effects I might have picked up in that week. And I have finally got the deposit for my therapy through, and will be seeing my new therapist on the 31st. I really hope that goes well. I’ve had mixed experience with therapists (one lovely woman and two other horrible people), but I really hope this one is good. I really hope so.

Patterns completed/planned update

One of the outcomes of working with software is that code takes forever to compile and run. What should I be doing while my program runs? This version will take 10 minutes¹, but the next round is due to take about 3 hours, in which I probably should be doing something². But, for now, that something is to flap on the keyboard about knitting and depression, two of my favourite topics.

Depression. I have had two minor breakdowns the two previous days (one about friends and one about sex). I am trying not to worry excessively about the breakdowns, and accept that sometimes they happen and this doesn't need to be the start of a downward slope.
I have been reading plenty of books (some of them even by prescription! I have never got books on prescription before!) about how to get better, and maybe that is the reason I'm not doing as well now, because I've only been focusing in what I've not been doing rather than doing something.
I am going to take up yoga.
Yesterday I got a letter from the Doctor because I can start therapy! I need to send them a deposit, and then they'll ring me to organise a session. It is not free as it was in London, but it's only £10/hour, which is not too bad. If it gets me well, they will be some of the best spent pounds ever.

Ok, so now the knitting.
I finally finished weaving in the ends for my mother's purple socks, mainly because I had decided to give them to her for Christmas. They were Thujas in purple, because they were meant to be full of healing magicks to help her after her surgery. I didn't make them on time for that, or for her visit here, so I decided to wait until Christmas and forgo the story. She really liked them, and still cannot believe that I taught myself to knit over the internet (although at least she has stopped asking who taught me). I managed to get the colouring nicely in the socks, like in Angela's thankyou socks, and I was very happy with that.

I tried to knit a star as Christmas decorations, because the boyfriend likes Christmas and we didn't have any, but it didn't work.

I obviously finished my Fetchings. The soy worked surprisingly nice, and it does keep my hands warm. I should have done the finger a bit longer, and I think I should have knitted it with smaller needles, it has stretched a bit too much. My C4B are a million times better than my C4F, but I don't know why. At some point I think I would like to reknit them better (I bought extra yarn just for these purpose), but maybe for next winter: my queue is already long as it is.

I also finished my peasant cap (pdf). After some modifications and stitches added here and there, I managed to get it right so it would hid all my hair when in a pony tail, so I wear it when I have damp hair (they entire purpose behind it, I have enough hair to keep my head warm when it's dry). Because it was knitted doubled, I used blue and black together, giving it a very nice effect. Will get pictures up at some point.

I also knitted some mini Christmas stockings (from here, which I bought with depression books in the middle of a slight panic). I knitted one for me, one for Alex and one for little Jonathan. They looked very cute, and they made people happy. I experimented with the cuff and the toes until I got them right, so each stocking is a bit different. The last stocking, Jonathan's, is, in my opinion, the best of all. And he really liked it!

Knitting a Clapotis now. I'll also have to knit a jacket. I get cold very very often, but my warm jumpers are rather shapeless, and they make me feel really ugly, which is not good at all when you are depressed. I have a couple of patterns in mind already: Candy (not in those colours) and the Sunrise Circle (pdf).

Will also make a Katamari for Alex, although first I need to learn how to crochet!

Also, my ear has just turn into a sea shell with the noise and I can't make it go normal *grumbles*

¹ Nah, scrap that. Including processing time, it's more like 13, which will also increase the duration of the next run. Nope, a lot more than that. 20 per run? 6 hrs total, just to get some data I can actually use. Maybe. If I'm lucky. How many goats you reckon?

² Yes, I know. But I like it.



Oh, all patterns and projects can be found on Ravelry.

New year's even for now

Sad. Maybe even depressed.
I only do social drinking and I've only had two pints, but maybe I should stop drinking altogether.

And today something kicks.

Well, I think it is more panic than depression. Lately I have been very scared of things. I have been dealing with the depression side of my problems, and that had gotten better, but I have left the anxiety unchecked and I think that is now coming back to bite me. It has sharp teeth.
I have finally booked a doctor's appointment for next week, Tuesday, to check how my decreasing of meds is going, so I can talk to him/her about it.
I think I'd like to go steady on the decrease for a bit, because I'm feeling more fragile (even if the sleepy part has subsided), but I don't want to start decreasing the propanolol. And I want some therapy again.
I stopped therapy when I moved to the Netherlands for my final year project. Not because I moved: I still tried to go to therapy there. But the only person I had access to that didn't require me to sell a kidney was not very nice at all. He made me cry, but not the good, relieving, I'm-getting-things-out kind of cry, but the hurtful kind of cry, so I stopped seeing him. I did stabilise and improved on my own, which I now realise was probably very lucky, and I got better.
But I don't think I have got better for a while, just been stuck in 'well', without being normal. Last week I had to give a presentation at work about said final year project. Now this is a topic I had been working with for 4 years, can talk about it a great length, and it was a presentation I had already done and passed very successfully. But I panic and froze ahead. I refused to think about it, try to cancel it the working day before, didn't look at whether I still had the presentation until the day before, and only looked at the actual presentation a couple hours before. Spend the day before (Sunday) knitting franticaly just to control the fear that came every time I sat on the computer.
I think that is is. Fear. For some reason, my panic has evolved into fear, and I'm not terribly sure why or how.
So I really should get on with things, open my therapy book (Mind over mood), and get some actual therapy. But it is difficult.

I'll try this Sunday. I'll go to the pool and paddle about for a bit, and then I'll come back home and sit with a nice non-alcoholic drink and some food and have a look at it. I'll get Dragon and Monkey with me, and they'll protect me.
It's going to be ok, I promise.

Oh, but I have finished Fetchings!

I are teh strong

Not only knitting happens in my life, although sometimes "the knit, the geek and the therapy" sums it up pretty well. Today, for now, there is geek and therapy.

I can program in Python. I have made a Hello World, and that for me means that I can program on it. Increasing up to 5 the languages I can program in.

I overcame my depression this morning and, rather than phone in sick, I got up and got to work (albeit really late), and managed to cheer myself up on the way. I saw the picture of the cutest duckling on the way in, and the weather, sunny but frosty, made everything look beautiful. Today, I won.

And so the knitting begins

I have been, for a while, thinking about knitting online. The grand scheme of things is to one day be able to post my own designs here, but that is probably quite a bit away. I can barely follow patterns as it is sometimes...

So, Cristina and knitting. I think I was taught the basics of knitting when I was little, but it never stuck. But my actual knitting has two origins. The thought origin goes back to maybe 2005, when my boyfriend wanted a Ravenclaw scarf but couldn't find any, and I offered to make him one. However, life and possibly a degree got in the way, and I didn't think about it for a while.
Then, I fell really ill with depression during the summer of 2006. I took up knitting related to that, I think I had heard it was good for it, althought I can't remember at the moment the exact reasoning. It all was very confusing. So I bought in the street market some really crap yarn and some needles, and the internet taught me to knit. I knitted his Ravenclaw scarf (with much nicer yarn), and felt a lot better while doing so. Knitting takes up your attention without being draining, and most other things don't really matter when you are trying not to lose stitches. And, after his scarf, I continued knitting.

I might talk one day on the benefits of knitting. Knitting has helped me overcome depression, althougth I hold no illusions about being completely well yet (I should have been meeting my knitting group at the moment, but I felt to sad and cold to go out).

So, for now, I will ramble about knitting here (so as not to inflict it in the readers of my normal blog), and one day I shall post those patterns.