On Thumbs and Spinning

7:20 am

                Not sure if I should write first or run first. Usually I start to write while drinking my delicious psillium and taking my vitamins, but with L here, I did all that sitting with her and icing my thumb (though she is reading something on line, so that was kind of silly). I’m not sure icing my thumb does any good, I did it last night and it really hurt when I woke up this morning. Yesterday I used some cream supposed to help muscle pain (it has the ingredient in aspirin in it that soaks directly into the tissue) and I took ibuprophin to help with any swelling. That all seemed to help. I looked on line about sore thumb joints (this one is the interphalangial joint) and one thing they said is important to help if it is due to some sort of stress or overuse then I should rest it. But that would potentially mean no spinning. Not good. I did a bunch of spinning yesterday using the other wheel, which I think is less strain on my thumb. I need to ply that stuff today, so we’ll see how that feels. I also think that biking put stress on it, because of having to grip the handlebars, so maybe I should get some sort of padding to put on them that would help with biking. Or just not bike. Meaning I am back to running. Not the most exciting, but I can deal with that. And the question of which to do first this morning was just answered (besides that fact that I am apparently writing first de facto) because L just asked if I would drive her to where the van is for her to get to work. At 8, which does not leave me time to run first. So I will give my full attention to writing, and then I will probably feed the buns.

                Last night was a great thing. I had dinner with G and a group of two of her friends and their Mons. It was really nice, the old “gang of three.” And I feel quite proud because I was the one with the idea and I organized it (such organizing as it involved which was not a lot, just calling everyone and finding an evening that worked). And I’m sure glad I looked at the calendar yesterday morning because the reality is that I had completely forgotten! And when I saw it on the calendar I was not all that thrilled about it. I was for some reason really reluctant to call everyone to make sure it was still on, but by 2, after doing a lot of spinning, I was ok with it, and did call them all, and everyone was on board. And it was really fun. The Moms sat together at one end, and the three girls at the other end (per G’s decision) and so mostly the Moms talked together and that was fine. I hardly see one Mom any more, and haven’t seen the other at all for years. Both are super nice and we had a great visit. And every now and then the two groups would interact… and we took some photos (to the chagrin of the younger set) and got GoBerry yogurt at the end. All in all a very nice evening.

                The other “big” call I made yesterday was to find an exterminator to deal with the carpenter ant nest that we found. I kind of hate to 1) spend the money and 2) have somebody spraying poison all over, but on the other hand, I really don’t think that carpenter ants are anything to mess with. And there have been a lot in the sun room again. They are scheduled for next Monday, and it means moving a bunch of stuff away from outside walls (even in the sun room - that will be a job). Other than that I pretty much spun white angora all day. I decided to use the upright Lendrum for my thumb’s sake and finish the stuff I started spinning at the fair. I’ll ply it today, and perhaps spin up a bit more. Then I think I’ll start the fawn brushed stuff that I carded the other day. I also finished washing the dark brown fine fleece (the one I had decided to get rid of, but then changed my mind). 

I briefly considered the idea of sending it off to get processed, but decided to just do it myself. There is tons of second cuts and lots of vegetable matter (which is why I had considered sending it off) so I think I will either flick card it, or use the combs. Either way will be tedious, but I will say that once done (I tried a sample) it is lovely – very dark brown, very fine, very springy. I may spin it up and then ply it with angora. I don’t think it makes sense to do all that combing and then card it to blend, though I could give that a try for fun.

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