Down for the count

Imagine being held in a death grip, wicked hands wrapped around your throat, squeezing the life out of you. The monster that holds your life in its hands is undead, gruesomely disfigured by the trials of life after death. You claw at the hands, gasping for air, taking that comic book wheezing last breath, just before you snap awake and realize that watching shows about the zombie apocalypse might not be conducive to recuperation, and, oh darn, now I'm going to have to rewind the show to find where I fell asleep.

This is how the past week has been for me. After a wonderfully successful trip up to Interlochen, MI (standing ovation!) on Monday, enjoying the beautiful fall colors all the way there, the rest of this week has been a downward spiral of coughing, sneezing and general misery.

To cap off the joys of a head cold, I fell while packing the car for the trip up north. My feet just slipped out from under me while moving stuff from the studio to the van. No biggie, I thought. First, and most importantly, no one saw me fall, which gave me time to assess the situation before trying to regain my dignity. No real harm done, just a bit of a sore knee, and the need to change my jeans, I couldn't give a lecture with lime green moss staining my pants, now could I? (I'm ashamed to admit this took more thought that it should have. I mean, who's going to be looking at my knees anyway. I planned to distract them with quilts, after all.)

It wasn't until the middle of the night when I realized that everything from the knees up ached in new and marvelous ways. So, while falling didn't leave a mark, apparently I twisted myself up enough to remind myself that I'm not a kid anymore. Already dealing with a dicey neck, it's always interesting to see how many new ways I can find to hurt myself.

So, I've been on a television binge. First there was a zombie apocalypse to catch up on, now I'm ready for the new season of The Walking Dead. And then Homeland, a spy show trying to avert a terrorist apocalypse, also caught up to the new season. And now my binge of choice is 24, a show I'd never watched when it originally aired, which is yet another spy/apocalypse show. As I'm being to feel better, I'm thinking it's time to find a comedy or two to lighten the mood.

The good news is while I've been turning my brain to mush, I've been finishing things. The socks are done, and the pair I knew was hiding in a basket are well on the way to being done as well. The toy rabbit is done, although I'm sorely tempted to give the poor thing bloomers. She's pretty nekkid under that dress. I sewed the buttons on the sweater.

In the process of finishing up I found another sweater with only the sleeves left to knit. Now it's done and blocked. I also found a lovely silk lace shawl I had knitted years ago. It's also blocked and ready to wear.

Probably most importantly, Of a Summer's Day, the flower basket quilt, is now all stitched to the background and hooped up for embroidery. I've pulled a bunch of embroidery floss but from there I'm a little stuck. I know I want to embellish it a bit more, but I'm not sure what or how much. Perhaps it will come to me in my next snooze. It sure would be better than dreaming of zombies.