under pressure

Yesterday was the day of a thousand doctors' appointments. or maybe it just seemed like that. Actually I had three -- 1) primary care doc to monitor my blood pressure; 2) psychiatrist to monitor my antidepressants; and 3) psychologist to keep from going crazy (and talking Richards ear off). Good news first, blood pressure is doing so well that my doc is cutting my meds dosage in half, with the ultimate goal of getting me off them entirely. Iffy (not bad) news next, antidepressants are being upped since I'm still not sleeping well. Eh. I haven't had any bad side effects yet, so I'm not too worried about the increase. We'll see.

Financial issues have been worrying, of late, adding to my anxiety levels. It just seemed like, all of a sudden, things were really tight, and I thought we were just being stupid, wasting money. And then I thought about all the doctor appointments Rich & I have had, and all the medications we're now on. We realized that we are spending about $500 a month just on office visit co-pays. Add in another $100 in medications, and it suddenly became clear why we're leaning a bit more on the credit cards lately. Well, I'd rather be well, physically and emotionally, than flush with cash, so it's worth it. But the realization did make us feel better that we aren't just being stupid with money -- there is a legitimate reason. So things are a bit tight, but we're hanging in there and taking care of ourselves.

Just because there is less available cash around, doesn't mean that I have let up on the knitting at all. I still have quite a stash going, and I'm doing my best to decrease it. So here is my latest creation, a sweater of my own design (although the lace pattern is from the table runners in Handknit Holidays). I used La Lana Wools (from our last trip to New Mexico), Forever Random Fines for the top and Dos Mujeres for the ribbed bottom.

Doyle is particularly interested in this sweater -- he wants to make it smell more like him.