Life's hard

We are going back to the UK for a couple of weeks. I am not looking forward to it - the climate here is so much more agreeable. However, I am giving myself a slap around the head for such thoughts. I'm lucky I have the chance. And I will hopefully get to see some of my friends. Which brings me on to a little difficulty.

Lilith and I have a little arrangement - she tapes ER for me, I buy Swiss chocolate for her. I have been putting off sending the next chocolate installment beacause I thought it would survive the journey better in my suitcase, rather than going by Die Post and Royal Mail. So what's the problem? The heat. It's been knocking 30 degrees for days now. Not the best chocolate buying weather. Had to give in today and hope it has survived the trip.

As you can see, my life is full of difficulty. Too hot to buy chocolate. Life is hard ;0)

Buddhism

I have found a group in Zurich, thanks to some information given to me on a Ravelry forum.

I really feel the need to be involved with a sangha (community) right now. My practice has dwindled to almost nothing and I know I will benefit from being with some others trying to tread the same path.

The tooth is a gonner...

Latest in the 3rd root canal saga- ie The Front Tooth

So, M got a copy of the x-ray that was done in January at the dental hospital. I am really angry because the damage was evident then. Bear in mind that I had gone with a problem in that tooth so the dentist was looking for a problem with that tooth yet failed to see it. However,it hasn't affected the outcome, but I still think it is pretty poor...

M consulted with an eminent dentist that he knows. It seems that the tooth is not being resorbed from the inside out as he had originally thought, but from the outside in. This has been caused by trauma in hte past - possibly when I was beaten up when I was 17, or a number of other events. My accident insurance in Switzerland *might* cover the cost, or they might not.

Where does that leave me? Well, the root treatment has been completed as a (literal) stop-gap We have to keep an eye on some other teeth for the same problem.... this tooth will snap off, so I will have to have it removed. The plan is that I will have an implant. This will take about a year from start to finish. At no point will I have a gap in my smile - this is *so* important to me, as I am sure everyone will understand. The plan would be to remove the tooth, immediately screw(!) in the implant, cut the root of the tooth and glue it to the teeth either side. Part of what has been upsetting me has been the procedure itself, but also the idea of that gap. I think some gum may need to be transplanted, maybe a bit of bone as well. All in all, a long drawn out procedure.

I am going to allow myself to wallow for today. Tomorrow it has to stop - I haven't just been given a terminal diagnosis.

Edit - sorry if the post only makes sense to me - I'm not in the best state right now to be making sense.

There's a buzz about this house.

I have about 20 more rows and then I will 'bee' finished
The Bee Stole . I hope it blocks put enough, because I am having doubts at the moment...

As a 'reward' to myself I am currently handwinding this:

For this:

The yarn is the recommended
Blue Moon Fibre Arts Raven Clan. At the moment I am a bit disappointed with it. The yarn itself is beautiful. However, if you look at 'Valkyrie' you will see that it has dark purples in the black, with maybe a slight tinge of red. If you look at the skein, you will see that there are some very bright red bits. Some of the yarn is very pale. In my opinion, a poor dye job. I think I should have taken this up with the company- I have no doubt whatsoever that they would have dealt with my complaint to my full satisfaction. But at the time I had literally just moved to Zürich, so that was just too much for me to deal with. I will definitely buy from them again, and would recommend them to others, I just wish that I had acted.... still, as I wind the yarn (1 hour so far- I cannot find my ball winder and my swift has beein missing-in-action since we arrived) I can see that these lighter bits just might add a reasonable highlight. Time will tell

Edit to add: On further examination of their site, they do say that due to the skein size of the Laci yarn (1600m) 'the dye absorbs unevenly creating a lot of color texture within each skein.' Certainly the pink skein that is currently on the title page shows this - but even allowing for this, I don't think it's the skein that I have is an example of their best. But is still feels great :0) and I am going to knit it up.

Further edit: Now I am feeling bad, because of what they said on their site, so I took another picture of the skein:



What d'you think? I was expecting very dark shades. Am I being too picky?

Losing is winning

When it comes to weight loss,anyway.

As you will know if you hang about this blog, I have migraines. Terrible migraines ( why am I adding 'terrible', I wonder? Let's face it, if you have had a migraine, you know that they are all terrible. Suffice to say, some of them have been more terrible than usual).

I would like to shake by the hand the person (people?)who linked tryptan drugs with migraine prevention/treatment. I take Pizotifen on a daily basis and Zomig when I have an actual attack. As well as the actual migraine itself, I can get a lot of head/face/neck pain which the Pizotifen helps to keep at bay.

However, Pizotifen does have one significant drawback - weight gain. Here's a little something that I found on the net:

Investigating the obese patient
The causes of obesity include:

excessive calorie intake
myxoedema
Cushing's syndrome
polycystic ovary syndrome
medication (oral contraceptive pill, corticosteroid analogues, sulphonylureas, tricyclic antidepressants, pizotifen)
http://www.24dr.com/reference/library/eat/obesity/obesity.htm

I don't know if I have said this before, but one pharmacist rubbished my complaint that when I take 1.0mg I find it hard to stop eating, and when I have to take 1.5mg I literally cannot stop eating. When I went to the doctor here, she was astonished that I had been prescribed Pizotifen, since here they use it to treat anorexia . Need I say more?

Here they tend to use Magnesium therapy . I tried that but it didn't do much for me. However, with the recent upsurge in problems I have started to take it in conjunction with the Pizotifen.

So, what is all this rambling about? Put simply - when I am on high doses of P, I eat like ahorse and gain weight. When I am on lower doses I can fight back a bit and shed some pounds. I have lost 10lbs in the couple of months. If I lose another stone, I will be back at an acceptable weight. This is still the weight that I was when I was 9 months pregnant, so I don't think it will be unreasonable.

Weird

I am trying to listen to spoken German on the tv/radio each day. I am in a strange place where I can often understand enough to get the general idea of what is going on, but the finer points elude me.

For about an hour today, while I was making up 2 different batches of bread, I was listening to what I assume was a comedy.

The plot, as far as I understood it:

A man, a book stolen - from his bedroom, a night cleaning woman called 'Ivan'(!) and the search for the book. Which, by the way, was about cleaning tips for novice cleaners. Or was it...

There's a monster in my kitchen

Or maybe it's just bread....

I resisted buying
Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day for quite some time. I get easily hooked on the latest fad and thought this was just another. But having seen it reviewed on one or two blogs, I decided to give it a go. I found a copy of the master recipe on the net (and inside the book they encourage you to share this recipe, so my conscience is clear) and whipped some up. I love it. To be fair, my son isn't so keen but I notice he is eating it up ;0)

What you see above is a 4-loaf lot of the Challah bread. I am going to be adding some muesli to one loaf-worth to make the Swiss Muesli bread (seems like the obvious thing to do...). The rest will keep for up to 5 (or is it 9?) days. Then it must be used or frozen. The next batch I am going to try will involve an oat bread as the base. With about 100 recipes, I may be some time working through this book.

Health wise, things are a bit up and down. While I am loving the hot weather, my migraines aren't. About 10 days ago I had the worst one for over a year. At one point I realised I was actually moaning uncontrollably with pain - it felt like someone had poked something through my eye and was scraping the top of my skull with something sharp and spiky. Since then I've had to up the migraine meds plus take far too much Zomig. I am assuming it is dehydration so am drinking like a fish. Teeth - I think the second root canal has worked - yipee! I am getting occasional bits of pain but think it is settling down. The 3rd one? Well, it has been fine since the calcium hydroxide was replaced about 10 days ago - almost no pain. However, today it is a bit sore so OF COURSE I am worrying. I go back on Thursday for the next part of the treatment and am trying not to think about other things at the same time as keeping my fingers well crossed.

German- I have stopped for the summer. I am delighted that I am getting to the stage of being able to have more and more conversations with people. I am not saying I am producing cutting-edge theory or interesting discourse, but some progress is being made,

Scotland - will be back for the first week or so of August, hope to catch up with a few folk then.

And now I am going to sit on the balcony with a beer. Life's hard.

Edit to add: if you lie bread, go get this book! I made the Swiss Meusli bread and it is deelish! I am going to try the oat bread next. I want a 'basic' loaf that we all love.