It's been three months since my last post. I've been posting a little on Ravelry, mostly in the usual places, BID and LSG but even my BID posting has declined. I owe several PMs/emails to people too. I have been posting a bit on Plurk too but very sporadically. Some of this is because much of my PC time is when I've also got Eluned on the boob and it gets hard to type anything of any length. Some of it is also due to my terrible memory. I will read something and think 'I must reply to that later when my hands are free' and then I promptly forget about it. I think the memory issues are due to both maternal amnesia and the depression.
Ah, the depression. It's not any better. I've changed treatments but the new one doesn't seem to help much. It also gave me awful insomnia for the first few weeks of taking it until I switched to taking it in the evening. No more insomnia but I still struggle to wake up before 11.30 ish. I don't think things are going to improve much until I stop breastfeeding and start taking Effexor again. The current plan is for Eluned to be weaned at around 12-13 months. She's 8 months now so not too much longer although it will take a while to get up to the right dosage.
Eluned is progressing well. She's finally doubled her birth weight and has moved up to a new curve again on the weight chart. She now has two teeth, the first came through last week and the second over the last couple of days. It looks like she's going to crawl soon, she wriggles well on her tummy. The other two didn't really crawl but went straight to standing about now and then walking by 11 months so this will be a new experience for us.
We are due to complete the house purchase on the 21st and there's been a lot to do to get the mortgage sorted and renovation quotes arranged. We'll do a lot ourselves but there's also a lot that we won't be able to do. One of the things will be having a new septic tank, pump and sand filter installed. The loft will also be converted into a studio space for me. The first job though will be the worst. Rob will be using the few days before Christmas to apply a woodworm treatment as there is an active infestation of both vrillettes and capricornes. We have to give our landlord three months notice but can't do that until next weeks so we hope to do as much as possible before we move in at the start of March.
Recently, I have found that my head has been overflowing with ideas but I have been unable to actually do anything about those ideas. That's where the title for this post comes in. The more ideas I've had in the backlog, the tighter the bottleneck has become and the less I've been able to achieve. I realised that I hadn't done any dyeing in over a year. I hadn't used my drumcarder in over a year either. I recently bought a Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle loom but have only done one small project on it (a scarf for Rhianwen). So yesterday, I took some handpainted Wensleydale top that hadn't come out right and carded it into three fluffy batts that look great. I also did some spinning, creating a thicker single than usual so that I was able to finish the singles and ply them. It just needs a good soak to finish it now. While I haven't opened the floodgates yet - with so much going on with the renovation and move, I daren't - but it's had the effect of venting a pressure valve and my head feels a little calmer. I need to keep this up if I'm going to make it through the next few months.
I don't know when I'll post next so I'll finish off by saying:
Nadolig Llawen! Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas!
(or other winter festival as appropriate, of course)
