Wow! It has been a while!

I can't believe that is has been over a year since my last post! Well I guess I can, considering what a year it has been, but onwards and upwards. It was a very difficult and chaotic year, but in May my transfer finally came through to move to another town and away from my stalking ex husband. As anyone with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia can attest to, the move took everything out of me and I am just starting to get on my feet again.  This will hopefully be the last move for a long time to come.

So here I am in Belleville again, enjoying having city transit, a big library, a YMCA and sports centre, my doctor and so much more. The last time I was in Belleville I was bedridden and in a wheelchair so, although I remember a bit about the town, I have been learning the town all over again. I finally got a library card and have been listening to audio books while I machine knit in the evenings and I hope to take swimming lessons in the fall. Yes, I am definitely happy to be back here.

But as with all things, with the good comes the bad. I have finally been tackling the mess that used to be my yarn collection or STASH we crafters fondly refer to it as. I have had it boxed up since I left my abusive son in 2006, knowing that going through it was going to dredge up painful memories and a lot of hurt. I have finally been going through that chore in my unpacking and it has been hard. Sweater lots of yarn have been diminished to a few balls here and there or yarn has been rendered unusable and has to be thrown out. I literally am left with bits and pieces and have been going through trying to find some way to use up these odds and ends so I can clear out the space and move on. Much of my knitting has been for Mittens for Akkol, a charity that I have been involved with since its inception. We make warm items that are taken over to Kazhastan twice a year, socks in the late fall and sweater sets for the graduates of the orphanages in the spring. This is my pet project that I love knitting for and this year, owing to the wrath of my son, they will become the recipients of many pairs of mittens made out of lonely balls of Lopi yarn. Although I am reaching the limits of my mitten making attention span, it has been nice to see these single balls of yarn be turned into something that is both wanted and usable. And my son thought he had the best of me! NOT!

I am being stalked!

I thought kicking my ex out of the house would solve things, but no. In fact, things have become worse. He has been stalking me, keeping up on my every move, spying through my balcony window and watching me at night. He has threatened to get a gun and just start shooting everyone in the building. We have had the police involved but for some reason they don't want to press charges, and I can't get a peace bond because the justice of the peace thinks he should be charged! In the meantime, I live in my apartment with sheets over the windows, hiding from him.



The good news is twofold. I am moving into a subsidized apartment in the middle of August, which will give me some financial security. Also the building is a secure building, with buzzers to get in and cameras in the hallways. I will breathe a huge sigh of relief once I have moved, because even if he tries something, he will be videotaped and I will have proof for the police. Here he can walk right up to my apartment door and no one in the building will call the police because the landlord has told everyone that having the police here is grounds for an eviction. I have since learned that this is illegal, but it still has everyone scared. I am counting down the days to the move. I still plan on moving to Belleville, but for now I will still be living in Napanee. It isn't the best solution, but I really need to be in subsidized housing as I can't afford market rents on my own.


I have managed to pack quite easily. I started early and have been working on it about 2 - 3 hours a night. My fibromyalgia and kicked up but it has been manageable and I haven't crashed, so that is good. I don't have that much left to pack, so I am doing well in that department. I will leave most of the stuff packed after the move and just wait for my transfer to Belleville. I will be so happy to live in a city where I don't have to constantly be looking around to see if the ex is following me!

Never say "Forever"

I never thought I would say this, but a short 4 months into the marriage I have to say that it is over. I just sit here shaking my head, amazed at how one person can change with the utterance of a few words at a wedding ceremony. And change he did and not for the better either. Controlling, domineering and downright miserable. He betrayed my trust in him and he is out the door. After having lived through a 10 year abusive first marriage, I am definitely in no mind to go through an emotionally abusive second marriage. Life is far too short for that.

So I am on my own again and enjoying my freedom. I have been machine knitting with a vengeance, enjoying my newfound freedom from a repressed creativity. It is amazing how one person can be so oppressive of another. I feel like I have been let loose from prison, enjoying all aspects of life anew and it is wonderful.The only thing lacking right now is my piece of mind, because he has been coming by and harassing me. I do have papers filed for a move out of town and am hoping that that will come into being really soon. Then I will be able to rest easy and really start my life over again.

Here is a top I just finished on the knitting machine.

This sweater was made for a charity that I knit for - Mittens for Akkol.

CFS rears its ugly head

Just over 3 weeks until the wedding and I finally realized that I have been going through a relapse of chronic fatigue syndrome, the worst I have had in a few years. This was probably triggered by the chaotic move in May and I just can't seem to shake it. It is bad this time and I am just hoping I can manage the wedding okay.


For those of you who don't have chronic fatigue syndrome, it isn't treatable and is just a miserable state of being. I sleep 15 hours a day and am still so exhausted that I am pretty much on bedrest the rest of the time. I do manage to spend the time in an easy chair instead of a bed, but you get the idea. Just the thought of doing anything is exhausting and actually doing it can knock the wind out of you making it difficult to get through the rest of the day. Showering is more of a luxury than anything else and I depend on my partner for meal preparation most of the time. Exercise makes things worse, so it really comes down to trying to balance how much energy you have to expend so you don't overdo it and make things worse.


I do try to knit a bit some nights, and I cross stitch when I can. This typical type A personality just can't seem to sit and vegitate in front of the t.v. all the time :) I have had episodes that go on typically for months and then I start feeling better. That is, as long as I remember to rest during the episode and let my body get its energy resources back.


Thankfully, I have a very good friend planning the wedding for me, so that stress isn't an issue. The only thing I need to do is get my dress hemmed and pick up some shoes. I can't believe that it seemed like yesterday that November 5th felt so far away, and now it is just around the corner. Yikes!

New beginnings

It has been a busy few months along with a fibro flare up because of the humidity we have been getting. I have finally found a moment of sanity to sit and write.

I am please to announce that I am getting married again, after living 21 years on my own with just the kids. This is going to be the last time I get married, so hopefully all will be well :)

On a not so positive note I am still recovering from the move from h*ll. Never again will I allow my fiance to pack! I never realized how organized I was until this move where he did most of the packing. We moved mid-May and I am still digging out from under, although the end is finally in sight now. In a way, the disorganized move was good because I have had to confront a lot of things and issues to do with my abusive son, who I left three years ago. He was emotionally abusive and put me into a situation where I had to give up my knitting machines, he locked me out of the house after I left (which was illegal), and he destroyed most of my stash. I was so heartbroken at the time that I just shoved things aside until a later time when I felt I was more able to deal with things.

So now the time has come and I have been putting the past to rest. I have had to come to terms with not only the fact that half of my stash is missing, but also that I have gained quite a bit of weight on the new medication and that isn't likely to go away in a hurry. I used to buy a sweater's worth of yarn at a time, but when I got my yarn from the house I found that instead of two bags, I would only have one, and this went on for most of my yarns. I think touching my stash was the biggest heartbreak I could have suffered.

So I have been going through and looking for smaller projects to use up the smaller quantities of yarn. And I am in the process of replacing my two favourite machines - a Passap E6000 and a Brother 970. And I am starting out on a new leg of my life journey with a new partner. For the first time in a long time I feel at peace. I am happy with who I am and what I have accomplished. It has taken me three years to come to this point but that is the last of my baggage, unpacked and organized.

Talk to the Hand!

This post has been a while coming. I started it a month or so ago and wanted to let it sit before actually posting. I had to see if I was just overreacting or if this truly bothered me. And it bothers me so here is the post.


I am not sure why it is that people feel they have the right to give medical advice or that I even want it from a layperson. I mean, I am the one that has been suffering from the fibromyalgia and sleep disorder for a long time. I am university educated and have done an enormous amount of research on my own, trying to come up with new and more effective ways to deal with this. It is complicated and although I know people are well meaning, I have no interest in hearing their opinions on the various types of health care professionals that I should seek out. Firstly, I am on a pension and don't have the funds for alternative treatments. And secondly, there is no scientific evidence that these treatments work. I do take a number of supplements that have been shown to help sleep quality, but after all this time, just leave me be. As well meaning as the intention might be, it isn't helpful nor worth my precious energy.

I don't do mornings

I saw this saying on a tee shirt and realized that it is such an expression of my life now. I have written a lot about the positive aspects of Remeron, but failed to talk about some of the not so good things. I have gained a lot of weight and now have borderline hypertension. I am hoping that a change in diet and exercise will help these, but time will tell.


And now, I just don't do mornings! I sleep almost 12 hours straight. I go to bed by 11:30 and get up between 11 and 11:30 the next morning. Straight through except for a pee break or two. In fact, from the time I go to bed until my first pee break, I don't even move! Now this is unheard of for me, who used to have the bed torn apart within a few hours. Now my bed stays nicely made, with one or two turnings getting towards wake up time and that is all.


So of course, I don't do mornings. I can't change the sleep schedule. It won't shift ahead and well, it is unthinkable that I should try and shorten it. After 15 years my drug induced naps have cut out and sleeping this long at night is the price I pay for that. Is it worth it? Definitely. My quality of life, although still limited, is 100% better than it was 2 years ago. I just start my days later and work at home on my machines at night.


I guess the one thing that I have figured out through all of this is that everything comes at a price. I lose my mornings to get some quality of sleep and that is something I have to live with. I think the saddest part is the ridicule from the people who haven't walked in my shoes. If I hear one more time that "it must be nice ...." I think I might choke someone:) Long gone are the days where I was up at four and dropping into bed at ten. Also long gone is any sense that I have control over my body. It controls me now, dictating what I can and cannot do, when I sleep and for how long. It was so hard for me to accept this lack of control, but I have to say, it has been a lot better emotionally for me now that I have.