Saturday, February 18, 2006
Being an object under study is distracting
There has been knitting this week, but not as much as usual. The funk of last weekend seems to have dissapated, which is good.
This week I got to be the second person at the Harvard Kenmore endocrinology department to take advantage of their new purchase of this. While it's not what I really want, I'll be grateful for what's made available to me. But having this thing recording for 3 days and remembering to tell it if you're doing anything special (like eating something, being active, feeling wonky or taking a bolus) and making notes of what and when you're doing (how many carbs in a Reese's peanut butter cup?) can be a distraction.
I'd done it once before, but the timing of the study was such it recorded me being away from home visiting friends and really only showed that it's hard to be a well-managed diabetic when you have no idea what's going to happen, how active are you really going to be, and when and what food will be served. This recorded 3 fairly standard days (though my highs and lows were flatter than usual) and we had a good meeting yesterday, seeing what goes on between the fingersticks, how astoundingly quickly my stomach absorbs breakfast, and making a whole bunch of changes to basal rates, carb/ins
ulin ratio and my standard breakfast.
We'll see what results.
In knitting news, I'm been working on this in the subway this week:
The sock on the right was finished last week. This was what I was working on waiting for my eyes to dialate last weekend. Hmmmm. I've had problems lately with the needles coming out of the work in progress when I pull it out of my bag. Imagine my disappointment yesterday when I went to work on the heel flap, to discover I had left a stitch behind at the top when recovering one of those pull outs. This morning I dropped 3 stitches down to the lost one and pulled 4 stitches back up each row to make it whole. There's a slight tightness, but I'm hoping wear and washing will make it even out eventually.
I've also made progress on the Knitting Olympics Tam:
So far there's the ribbing and the first border. I'm going to do a second border and then the top wheel. This will pick up speed, since I now have a framework to work within and have picked out what I'm doing next, as opposed to last weekend when I was staring at yarn cakes and wondering how to start.
It was a suprize to realize that 7 multiples x 26 stitches comes out to 182 stitches per round -- not that far off from a me size sweater if it were a larger gauge. The top wheel will be an accelerating downhill, though, as double decreases happen at 7 points every other round.
Good thing it's a holiday weekend.
I also got a number of errands done today. Seventeen pairs of socks were mailed to the man with Stupid Sock Creatures on the theory that if I'm not wearing them (not liking so much, worn toes, tragic laundry encounters with bra hooks), someone else might as well use them. I stopped by PCs for Everyone and found out that a very basic laptop will quite adequately suit my needs, so I now have a budget in mind to start saving towards. That makes me feel much better.
This week I got to be the second person at the Harvard Kenmore endocrinology department to take advantage of their new purchase of this. While it's not what I really want, I'll be grateful for what's made available to me. But having this thing recording for 3 days and remembering to tell it if you're doing anything special (like eating something, being active, feeling wonky or taking a bolus) and making notes of what and when you're doing (how many carbs in a Reese's peanut butter cup?) can be a distraction.
I'd done it once before, but the timing of the study was such it recorded me being away from home visiting friends and really only showed that it's hard to be a well-managed diabetic when you have no idea what's going to happen, how active are you really going to be, and when and what food will be served. This recorded 3 fairly standard days (though my highs and lows were flatter than usual) and we had a good meeting yesterday, seeing what goes on between the fingersticks, how astoundingly quickly my stomach absorbs breakfast, and making a whole bunch of changes to basal rates, carb/ins
ulin ratio and my standard breakfast.We'll see what results.
In knitting news, I'm been working on this in the subway this week:
The sock on the right was finished last week. This was what I was working on waiting for my eyes to dialate last weekend. Hmmmm. I've had problems lately with the needles coming out of the work in progress when I pull it out of my bag. Imagine my disappointment yesterday when I went to work on the heel flap, to discover I had left a stitch behind at the top when recovering one of those pull outs. This morning I dropped 3 stitches down to the lost one and pulled 4 stitches back up each row to make it whole. There's a slight tightness, but I'm hoping wear and washing will make it even out eventually.
I've also made progress on the Knitting Olympics Tam:
So far there's the ribbing and the first border. I'm going to do a second border and then the top wheel. This will pick up speed, since I now have a framework to work within and have picked out what I'm doing next, as opposed to last weekend when I was staring at yarn cakes and wondering how to start.
It was a suprize to realize that 7 multiples x 26 stitches comes out to 182 stitches per round -- not that far off from a me size sweater if it were a larger gauge. The top wheel will be an accelerating downhill, though, as double decreases happen at 7 points every other round.
Good thing it's a holiday weekend.
I also got a number of errands done today. Seventeen pairs of socks were mailed to the man with Stupid Sock Creatures on the theory that if I'm not wearing them (not liking so much, worn toes, tragic laundry encounters with bra hooks), someone else might as well use them. I stopped by PCs for Everyone and found out that a very basic laptop will quite adequately suit my needs, so I now have a budget in mind to start saving towards. That makes me feel much better.
