Knitting as my rehabilitation

Fortunately I have only slight pain with RA these days.  I finished punch needle chair pad. What’s next?  I found a nice knitted shawl on a magazine.  That design is very popular but I couldn’t find its design drawing anywhere on the net. So bought the magazine and got the drawing at last.  It didn’t seem hard to make the shawl looking the drawing.  It is made by two knitting sticks.  I love knitting.  But I was afraid if knitting would harm my wrists.  All the same, I felt dull aching on my left pinky finger after I kept knitting for an hour.  Left pinky is the very important finger that sends along yarn.  So it might had some load while knitting.  I have made the shawl one fifteenth of whole work yesterday.   It would take time. And taking time is the pleasure for knitters.  I will present it to my mother when she would visit me next month.  It would be a great surprise for her.

GEOMETRIC CHAIR PAD

I finished a new chair pad today.  Shown as photo, it has geometric pattern in black, gray and turquoise blue.  I made it with the technique of punch needle that I post on Dec. 20th last year.  This technique has been spread by Ms Amy Oxford.  Her punching landed on the latest RUG HOOKING MAGAZINE that I subscribe its service.

http://www.amyoxford.com/

She mailed me and said she is very happy to receive recognition her punching as one of rug hooking.  Yes, her needle punching is great. Needle punching can be used in variation in many styles.  My new project is a kind of variation.  The height of row is 1 inch.  I hold every row with my left hand under the backing when I hooked. So the pad is thick and very soft.  I used jute bag of coffee bean that I got at a coffee shop. It is a bag of Costa Rica coffee.  It is fantastic to imagine how Costa Rica is.  

 I will cut off periphery of the pad by locking machine and finish it.

GET THE SNOW OFF!

It is the coldest season in Japan and we have much snow.  Especially it has snowed all over Japan.  My house has got too much snow on its roof.  I feel slight difficulty when I open sliding door due to heavy snow on the roof.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-iaLWF9XUY   (My first YouTube)

We hired 8 young men to rid of snow on the roof.  We have Big house and office. So it took 2 days to finish it !!  I post movie of their work.  Guys drop down the snow from roof.  Then bulldozer picked it up and put it on the truck’s bed.  They repeated it again and again, over 20 times.  I’m glad to have this bulldozer that we bought 6 months ago.

For me,t is fearful to get the bill of their work.  It costs expensive to get muscular labor such as snow digging in Japan. Snow would be melt in Spring.  Come on Spring and melt our snow !

My 21st ACTEMRA

I had my 21st ACTEMRA today. The chemotherapy room was so busy and I could finally find my bed to lay myself. There are many beds and reclining chairs separated with curtain in chemo-room. I heard a conversation between a patient and a nurse. She was also having ACTEMRA. She said it was her 9th injection. Mine was 21st. I won!!! She said (I heard) she got up at 6:30 today and often snored during her madication. I know patients get relaxed and get sleepy on getting injection. I dozed of a little too today. Getting chemo therapy every 4 weeks is like dating every month with sweetheart. I can feel ACTEMRA delivered all over my body during having drop infusion of the medicine. I can feel ACTEMRA gurgles into my peripheral joint. It is true.

I have written it is terribly cold these days in my district. Fortunately my arthritis is getting better and better despite of this cold whether. My physical therapist measured cm around my fingers. Almost all numbers of circumference of my finger joints got smaller than last month. GREAT !! There is NO SWELLING! I only feel stiffness on my fingers everyday. I hope this would be disappear in near future.

KEEP WARM and SLEEP ENOUGH!   That’s the point to live good with RA.

MUCH SNOW !

Two weeks has passed since 2011 started.  We recently have very cold weather in our district.  It was 17F (－8C) this morning.  This is a record this year.  Water line was frozen in many places.  We also had much snow this year even it is beginning of January.  It would come coldest season in late this month.  I’m afraid it would be colder than today.  We need a bulldozer to shovel the snow in our parking lot.

TOOTHACHE!!

I recently have toothace when I eat somthing hot, such as hot noodle, hot cooked food and Japanese nabe .  People say pain by hot food is worse than by cold food.   So I visited my dentist.  He is always very kind  to his patients and asks “Does it hurt over here?”.   He coated my teeth with medicene.  I have to go to his clinic every three weejs. The pain has been reduced 30% as much as before.  

Today, I had terrible pain on my teeth when I was relaxing in bathtub.  Ouch!  Pain by taking bath ?? Is warming my body in bathtub bad for my toothache??? Oh, no way !!!   My winter enjoyment shall disapear. Pain, pain, pain.

A Happy New Year to everyone

We got great New Year’s Day today. We had great wether in spite of terrible weather  forcast.  I want adequate amount of snow. Snow is important for us, trees and other creatures to live on. 

I want to say my new year’s resolution.  I will keep this blog, even it would be my diary not for information to other members.  Keeping up would be something great.  I hope my Rheumatoid Arthritis would be better and better this year too.  I will take care of my self.

 I post photo of my decoration of our entrance.  It contains straws of rice(goodness of fertilty), leaves of pine tree(longevity), golden grand drape(tresure), fans(good luck), red nuts(fertilty), and round shape(good balance, relationship).

I hope we wouldn’t have any war,accident,crisi nor bad news this year.