More doilies...

Today, we woke up to a brand new winter wonderland.  And the birds were excited by it all day.

~~~~~

Putting away blanket-weight yarn for a bit, I pulled out some crochet cotton for two new doilies - from the book, 99 Little Doilies...

Somehow, it escaped me that I had made #44 before, but interestingly, made in this peach ivory color, a new name emerged:

Crinoline

And because (I think) I'm working on a collection of little doilies made in the above Ivory Peach color, and a dark brown/gray color called Hawk, I quickly produced #54 below.

Photographed on a lighter background, I might have come up with a different name, but on this gray cloth, this doily is giving me garden/soil vibes.  

Meet Cherozem

Cherozem (the doily) reminds me of the dark prairie soils in north west Indiana where Greg and I first lived (and planted our first garden).  Greg was a soil scientist (who mapped the soils in that part of the state in the early '80's), and he tells me the name used for the soils there is Mollisols. It's rich and dark, and great for growing things.  Cherozem is a word used for this soil in Russia and Ukraine, and maybe Canada?  I think Cherozem is a prettier name than Mollisols, so Cherozem it is.  The emphasis is on the first syllable in case you want to try to pronounce it.  

And that's it for today's YOP post.  If you're at all interested in YOPping, or just being part of a world-wide network of fiber crafters, you can check out the group on Ravelry by clicking the Year Of Projects graphic below.  If you're not already a member of Ravelry, you'll have to create a free account to get any further than the home page.

Look at all those cardinals!  I counted 14 males.  There are probably that many females in the trees and on the feeders.

Dahlia #2...

 I have finally finished my flowery-colored Dahlia Blanket!

I think I remember expressing intentions of finishing this by the end of 2024, then January of 2025.  For some reason, though, l temporarily lost interest. But in the last week, my crojo returned as mysteriously as it had disappeared, and I have finally finished this blanket of many (supposed) Dahlia colors.

Even though my interest waned for a little while, overall it was a pleasure to crochet.  And I am also very glad to be moving on.  

Using a variety of worsted weight yarns, mostly from my stash, I approximated a lot of the colors the designer (Lucy at Attic 24) used.  Lucy tends to make her colorful creations in Stylecraft DK weight yarn that comes in a huge range of colors.  Where I didn't have similar colors in my stash, I worked in colors I thought would play with what I did have.

I finished the border according to the pattern, but finished the last round with a crab (or reverse single crochet) stitch.

I really like this neatly rolled edge as a fun border on a blanket of playful colors.

And that, dear reader, is all I've got for this YOP update.  

It looks like we've got several storm systems crossing the U.S. this week and next weekend - with snow and ice for a lot of people, and maybe tornadoes for some.  I knew it was too much to hope that our recent warm weather last week meant winter was wrapping up.  I hope you all stay warm and dry!

Early February thoughts...

It's February, and I already feel the year slipping away.   

Okay...  maybe it's a little early to start lamenting the year going by too fast, but I do often feel a sense of desperation for how time seems to disappear faster each year.  Does anyone else out there reading this relate?

Something I've been doing for a few years now is recording life in journals/planners of a sort - something I create as I go. I tend to peter out by summer (which is a great disappointment when I look back at my journals), but each year I stick with it a little longer.  Fortunately, I record stuff on my phone's calendar, so at least I can look back for the dates that important-to-me things happened.  Being more of an optimist than not, every January I start a journal like this, and hope it will have staying power.  One of these years, maybe...

Before starting to fill my February calendar, I thought I'd take a moment to enjoy a clean calendar page.  Clean slates, fresh starts, opportunities are what I see above.  I tend to have little set in stone when turning over a new calendar page, but it doesn't take long before the days fill up and all those opportunities either start being realized, or they fade into the airy cloud of good intentions.

While we've turned chilly again, and snow is in the forecast, it was unseasonably warm the first three days of February.  Sunday was in the 50's and Monday was 68°F!  In the sunroom on Groundhog Day, I enjoyed how glorious were the colors I was crocheting with, as I sat like a cat bathed in sunlight, basking in its warmth. 

While true spring is a month and a half away on the calendar, and probably longer than that in temperatures, it was spring in my heart for a few days.  All stresses melted away, as thoughts of what I might plant in the garden tickled my imagination.

While the month started out very nicely here, and in spite of crooning over how great the warmth felt, I am not ready for the busyness of spring.  I have more cocooning to do.  More cooking of hearty meals.  More getting things in order, and house cleaning before we start traipsing in dirt and dust from outside all over again.

And breaking into all these pleasant things is the knowledge that there are many still suffering from hurricane damage in the southeast, and fire damage in California, and all kinds of pestilence and harms around the globe.  I sometimes struggle when life is going well for me, knowing it is hard for others.  Do you this too?  It seems a form of survivor's guilt.  Not productive except that it prompts me to pray and help when and how I can.  

How is it in your corner of the world?  Are you filled with the hope of coming spring, or struggling through the dreary cold of winter?  Or somewhere in between?  Every February I seem to find myself somewhere in between - this year glad for merely chilly temps instead of the bitter cold we had a few weeks ago; not wanting spring to come too early, but also eager to see things growing again.

As long as the earth endures, 

seedtime and harvest, 

cold and heat, 

summer and winter, 

day and night will never cease.

Genesis 8:22 (NASB)

Fresh starts and progress...

Permission given by April Soetarman to use her photo

I gave up New Year's resolutions many years ago, but like most people, I enjoy fresh starts.  New years, new months, Monday mornings...  the start of anything new comes with hope and a promise of opportunity.  A clean slate.  Or so we like to imagine.

This January is no different.  While some unexplained recent bouts of random racing heartbeats have gotten me an appointment for an echo stress test, and being set up with a heart monitor I'll wear for a couple of weeks (starting late next week), and blood tests and the doctor's scale this week providing the undeniable evidence of little discipline over the holidays, I'm not letting those things discourage me too much.  Rather, I'm choosing to embrace the hope that a new year brings. 

Another truth, though, is, while you can't see the evidence on the outside, it is undeniable that I have gained back most of my strength from all that 2023 held for me.  So, in that light, I count 2024 as an overall success - even if the random racing pulse is a puzzle at the moment. 

Also, I feel pretty good about my Dexa scan last month.  It showed I'm holding steady, with a .1 increase in bone density in the spine.  

I, and others, consider holding steady as progress, since the natural progression of bone density is always to diminish if left untreated - either with medicines and/or lifestyle.  Mainly, the lifestyle changes I made to date are specific vitamin and mineral supplementation, and to change my anti-cancer drug from one that is known to diminish bone density to one that might actually benefit my bones.  

Of course, I couldn't just switch my medicine on my own.  After doing research and approaching my oncologist about this a year ago, he was agreeable to making the switch.  The new-to-me (though older) medicine doesn't come without risks, but life has become a series of weighing one risk against another and making choices I'm comfortable with.  And at this point, it's oddly helpful to recognize and accept that cancer is a bit of a crapshoot.

The internet makes research easy - which can be a good and bad thing, I realize. I suspect my doctors would prefer me to not do as much research as I do, but when I express my concerns about potential long-term side effects of certain medicines, they don't discount my worries.  Sometimes, they reword the risks, thinking they can make it more palatable, I suspect, when all they've really done is confirm what I just said I was concerned about.  I like to think they know that I'm not outright eschewing their advice or their medicines (necessarily), but I'm trying my best to actually make informed decisions, and decisions I can live at peace with.  Or, quite frankly (and possibly too morbidly for most people's tastes) decisions I can die at peace with.  When that thought settles in, it's game changing and kind of empowering.

Not that that headspace is where I live my daily life.  But there is great peace over making informed choices that take into consideration what is important to me.  It actually frees me from some fears.  I wrote briefly a couple of posts ago how knowledge about osteoporosis and what I might be able to do about it, turned fear into hope.

  

I remain open with my doctors about what I'm doing, and, in turn, they seem to respect me.  When I visited my GP last summer, after reviewing my annual blood work, I told her I didn't want to go on a medicine that has potential nasty side effects, when simple lifestyle changes might fix a perceived problem - "perceived" being key here).  This was not about OP, and I'm being intentionally vague here, so just go with it.  I also said, "I trust you'll tell me, nicely, if you think I'm being an idiot."  To which she chuckled softly and said, "You're not."

In a little over a week I will see my endocrinologist again.  Encouraged that my bone density has held steady for a year, and I am physically stronger than when I last saw her, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass for now on the OP drug I know she wants me to take.  What I hope is that by making that choice, I don't lose a doctor I like.  She seems to listen, and not discount my concerns. But I'm not sure she had room in her files to keep a patient who isn't interested in the only treatment she can actually provide.  I mean, she'd go out of business if all of her patients wanted to try lifestyle changes first, or simply take the risk that a fracture might not happen, right?  If I do end up with a fracture at some point, I'd like to know I could see her again.  Risk/benefit scales aren't static.  They are constantly changing, depending on what's going on in one's life, and I suppose the scales might even be recalibrated when new treatments, or diagnostic tests are available.

This January I've already started working on some habits that may continue to improve things.  To be clear, I didn't start the year with great gusto and impressive resolutions only to burn out by now already.  But rather, I'm continuing to approach the building of habits in the way James Clear writes about in Atomic Habits.  Small changes accumulated regularly over time result in big improvements, or as Clear puts it:

"Habits are like the atoms of our lives.  Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement.  At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment.  They are both small and mighty. This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits - a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth."

And spiritually, which ultimately is far more important that the physical, I'm working on private habits to take in and meditate more on scripture.  I've also signed up for a Bible study starting soon where adult women and older teen girls will study and share insights together.  And overall, I'm seeking what God wants me to do in this season of life.  What ministry opportunities I should be involved in.  Do I keep doing or increase doing what I've done in this regard in recent years, or should I do new things?  I have a feeling it will unfold slowly, and perhaps not obviously, and hopefully I'll look back and marvel again at what God has done in me, and for me - as He always has.

This is where I am in January of 2025.  A little bit all over the map, but feeling thankful and hopeful, recognizing and accepting that I have been a work in progress all my life.  And trusting that my Creator and Savior will continue to mold me and shape me as Paul writes to the believers in Philippi:

"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus."  - Philippians 1:6  NASB

Osteoporosis online summit...

I want to jump in today with a last-minute post to let  anyone who might be interested in learning about Osteoporosis and natural approaches to dealing with it, know about a free online Osteoporosis Summit this week.

I've written more below, but here is a link if you want to just go check it out now:

Osteoporosis and Bone Health 

Online Summit

Why am I sharing this?

In November of 2023, after I had mostly recovered from chemotherapy for breast cancer, my oncologist ordered a DEXA scan for me.  I'd never heard the term DEXA before that, and I had no understanding of why one was being ordered for me.  It is not normal for me to not question a test - especially something I'd not heard of before, but at that point I'd gone through so much medical surveillance, diagnostic tests, and treatment (most of which I've never written about here) I just nodded in acceptance that this was the next thing on the "cancer conveyor belt". 

I may write in more detail someday my processing getting an osteoporosis diagnosis, but I'll just say now, I was shocked to find out I had osteoporosis in my spine.  When I started doing research on it, I was dismayed (actually angry - I'm still angry) that this topic is not adequately discussed in our culture, or even in the medical community.  My endocrinologist, who I'm presently seeing for surveillance of and maybe (in the future) treatment for OP, was the first person to say to me that the medical community does not do a good job educating people about osteoporosis.  She seemed surprised at our first meeting how much I already knew about osteoporosis and the medications she could offer me. 

My continuing research and conversations with people my age and older only confirms that most of us (including general medical persons) are woefully undereducated about a condition that can affect as many as 30-50% of us - men and women.  

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Having watched many of the video presentations in the Osteoporosis Summit last year, I highly recommend it to anyone - especially, if you have a new OP diagnosis, and don't know where to start learning about it.  Or maybe you've had OP for years, but you want to understand it better.

Things I gleaned last year:

A understanding about bone metabolism, and what osteoporosis is.

The many things that can cause osteoporosis. Not to scare anyone, but being lean is actually one risk factor.

Information on what tests one should ask for when considering treatment.  Some of these tests will show whether or not there is a secondary cause of OP, and may point to potential treatments that are not drugs.

The importance of improving and/or maintaining balance and muscle strength as we age.

Exercises for balance as well as for possibly improving bone density.

The significant relationship between muscle strength and exercise and bone metabolism.

And, perhaps most of all, I came away with hope and an idea of how to proceed - whether I chose medical intervention, or decided to try natural approaches.  My fear of fracture was replaced with a bit of optimism, and a determination that fear would not keep me from doing things.  

That said, I take things like ice and tripping hazards very seriously now.  I don't walk through dark rooms now if I can help it.  I'm also continuing to try to improve my posture in everyday activities.  I never really thought of myself as a slouch before, but I've come to realize how much I do slouch, and how easy it is to slump into poor posture when doing just about anything - especially when sitting.  Learning that simple slouching can lead to spinal fractures in someone with spinal OP has created hyper posture awareness in me. And still, I catch myself slouching. 

My caveats about the summit...

By signing up for the summit, one is giving permission for their email address to be shared with all the presenters, and agreeing to receiving promotional emails.  To be honest,  I received a few promotional emails from some of the presenters last year, but it was easy to unsubscribe from those I wasn't interested in.  That said, I do suggest using a "junk" email account.  I think everyone should have a junk email account anyway, just to protect a main account from becoming burdensome with inevitable unwanted email.

You will also receive some emails encouraging you to purchase ongoing access to the summit.  Each day's presentations are only available for free for 24 hours, and when the whole week is passed, it's over, and there is no more access to anything.  

And lastly, not every presentation is going to be everyone's cup of tea.  There were a couple of presenters that I thought were a bit "woo-woo", but for the most part, presenters were professionals in various fields who speak from their experience and education with helping people with osteoporosis, and some dealing with it themselves.

Am I benefitting?

No. I am in no way benefitting from promoting this summit.  

My advice is to not make any purchases at all in regards to this summit.  My guess is, if you're interested later, the offers will still be available. I believe they were offered for at least a week post summit last year.  I have not purchased anything to date.  That said, I did recently purchase Keith McCormick's book, Great Bones, off of Amazon.  MY introduction to Keith McCormick was this summit. 

I will not benefit in any way if someone reading this post, participates in the summit, or even just checks it out.  I am simply passing along information and my experience with this summit last year.

And that's all.  Now I'm off to listen to my first presentation today.