Midnight Knitter

April Updates: Sjogren’s Syndrome and ANOTHER Fade

Hi. If you’ve been following my blog for very long you already know that I am an out-of-control knitter owned by a self-absorbed and bossy cat named MacKenzie. You have probably detected that I am a science-oriented geek, an obsessive reader, and a casual gardener who loves her roses. You may have also realized that I have some serious and chronic health problems that I am trying to keep from taking over my life. I’ve been pretty up-front about the more serious of my autoimmune duo, systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), but I hardly ever mention the lesser of the two, Sjogren’s Syndrome. After all, since the diagnosis came in, all of my doctors (I have a six-pack of docs…) tend to focus on the scleroderma, so I almost forget that I also have Sjogren’s.

Except for this: of the two autoimmune conditions, it is the Sjogren’s that has pretty much taken over my life in spite of my efforts to keep control. Since April is Sjogren’s Awareness Month, I decided that I would share with all of you some information about this disease and how it has impacted me.

But first, the Fade!! I’m cranking out another Find Your Fade shawl that I hope to get done before the end of the month. Look at these colors! Look at how great this shawl is going to be! Color me happy! My Ravelry project notes are here.

Yarns for a shawl — See what I’m talking about? The color sequence for the shawl moves from right to left in the picture, and the next color will be that Hedgehog Fibres yarn. Then there will be that electric violet. Woohoo!

The weather has been nice this week so the cats have moved outside to bug hunt and I have moved into major knitting and house cleaning mode. OK, there has been more knitting. It’s important to have priorities…

Back to the Sjogren’s Syndrome. I know that you are just dying to know more about this little know and hard to spell disease. Sjogren’s isn’t as rare a disease as my bad-boy scleroderma (about 4 million Americans have it), and it isn’t usually life-threatening, but it is still serious and exceptionally life altering. Check out this symptom chart. This is one crazy-ass autoimmune disease; basically my immune system is attacking all of my moisture producing cells. That doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? As it turns out, the impact of this damage affects an awful lot of my body’s ability to function properly, and for this reason Sjogren’s is considered to be a systemic condition. Its most obvious feature is extreme dryness. Let’s take a little walk around my house as I explain this to you.

Lotions — Even I was shocked to realize how many types of lotion I have on my bedside table. There are 11 types of lotion here, and another couple of lotion bars in the drawer. I also have lubricant eye drops that I put in at least twice a day. I absolutely have to stay up on the eye drops every day or I develop cloudy vision. See, dryness. Dry skin, dry eyes.

Bathroom — Dry mouth too. I never knew this before, but your saliva is necessary to fight bacteria in the mouth; without it things get out of control quickly. I was producing no saliva when first diagnosed and I did have lots of dental issues. Things are better now, but I have to be very careful to keep my teeth as clean as possible, and I use the rinse nightly to help protect my teeth.

Sunglasses — The struggle to protect my eyes and skin continues every time I leave the house. I need lip balm and sunscreen before I go out, and sunglasses are a must since my eyes are really sensitive to sunlight. Because my mouth is so dry I don’t move anywhere without some type of fluid to drink. It’s such an issue for me I usually keep a case of ice tea in the car so I won’t ever run out. See the cute fingerless mitts? Sjogren’s causes Raynaud’s (which I have) so I need to keep my hands and fingers warm at all times. If you think I’m crazy about managing fluids you should see how many pairs of fingerless mitts and gloves are riding around with me in the car with that case of ice tea…

Steamer with hot pack — Combating dryness makes sense, but there are lots of other annoying symptoms that I’m dealing with too. My joints and muscles hurt all of the time. I start every morning with chemical hot packs on my knees and leg muscles. I recharge them in this steamer each evening so that I’ll be ready to use them as soon as I wake up. This is my routine: make a morning latte, and then go back to bed with the hot packs and coffee. Usually there is a cat added. Cats love hot packs!

Inhaler — My Sjogren’s antibodies also cause small airway disease (asthma). I notice blue lips quite often these days, and I have to monitor my blood oxygen levels and use the inhaler if my levels get too low; I’m trying hard to stay off oxygen. Darn. Just another couple of items I need to fit into my knitting bag.

Blender — and then there are my gastrointestinal issues. I developed gastroparesis this fall and now I am rocking a low fiber diet of easily digested foods. Check out my lunch.

Now for the things that I couldn’t take picture of: fatigue, neuropathy, and concentration/memory problems. The fatigue that comes with Sjogren’s is not the usual “feeling tired” stuff. This is true crushing fatigue that makes me feel buzzy, numb and like I’m walking through concrete. The neuropathy means that I have feet/hands that are always falling asleep; more trouble walking. Then there is the memory stuff. When I’m in a flare all kind of crazy things can happen. I got lost on the freeway once; now I always use the GPS to give me driving directions. I have gone out to run an errand and then couldn’t remember where I was going. I have big problems with vocabulary recall, and I forget things like my phone number at the most embarrassing moments. I lose my ability to read because I can’t concentrate…

Good grief, I pretty much have my life arranged around my Sjogren’s needs. I thought that MacKenzie was running the show around here, but it looks like he needs to take a back seat to Sjogren’s.

Cat — MacKenzie: Not happening. I am the man!!

Which brings me to the good things for which I am grateful. Most people with scleroderma/Sjogren’s struggle with anxiety and/or depression. I do not. I think that I am so very lucky in my wonderful, supportive friends and my son. I am lucky to have good neighbors, health insurance, and a pension that meets all my needs. I am lucky to have cats that pile on and purr through all the sad times. I am lucky to have the immensely meditative and calming art of knitting to carry me through each and every flare of my disease.

Knit on, my friends. Knit on.

…and another baby Fade enters the world.

It has been just crazy for the last two weeks. We have had really warm weather, blizzard warnings, a broken water heater, more medical testing, and another trip to the hospital. March has been a bad, bad boy. Tomorrow March will be going out like a lion as there is a rather major snow storm on the way that promises to gift us with either 2 inches or a whole foot of snow. As usual for this time of year, we won’t really know for sure until the snow stops falling. One thing is for sure, the roses are going to come out of this looking a little worse for the wear…

I have been dealing with all the stress and commotion in my usual manner; lots of knitting. My latest “Find Your Fade” shawl has been growing at an impressive rate.

Cat helping knit shawl — The shawl became so large while I was working on it that I just spread it over my legs to make a nice bed for MacKenzie (ever helpful as always) to lie on while I knitted.

Finished Shawl — Tonight I got it done while watching the evening news. The light is a little dim as I took the shot indoors, but you can still get a good idea of how the colors play together.

Tomorrow I will be (surprise) casting on the start of a third Fade shawl just in time for the snow storm. This is addictive. I just need to see how the colors will go together.

MacKenzie, how do you feel about purple, magenta and turquoise yarn?

Immigrant Story

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. It’s kind of a fun day here where I live. People wear green, there are parades, bodies of water (and beer) get dyed green, and there is some serious partying that can occur.

I’m Swedish-American, so I don’t really get wrapped up in the whole wearing of the green thing. In fact, when I was in grade school kids would pinch me black and blue on St. Paddy’s Day because I wasn’t wearing green; the teacher would give me a little green shamrock to pin on my dress so I would be safe. People acted like this was normal, but it made me a little cranky, to be honest. Why was it OK for me to be pinched because I wasn’t like the other kids? Why did I have to pretend to be Irish when I wasn’t even a little bit?

I knew I was Swedish. We had stinky lutfisk at Christmas and really great cookies. I didn’t foist lutfisk on anyone else (if you’ve ever been exposed to this stuff, you will understand that only the worst of the worst should be bullied with lutfisk…), or even share my cookies, so why should I have to wear green? I was Lutheran and the Irish kids were Catholic. The Jewish kids had candles, dreidels and chocolates instead of Christmas. It was all good in my eyes; everyone was an immigrant as far as I was concerned.

Years later I gave my grandmother a blank journal and asked her to record our family’s story. Wow. As it tuns out, it is a pretty good one, so I want to share it with you.

Anderson Family Portrait — The Anderson Family in America. From left to right: my grandmother Irene, her father John Alfred, her sister Alphild, and her mother Selma. My grandmother Irene was the first person in her family to be born in America.

My great-grandmother’s story is one that is not all that unusual; she came to the USA as a young women, worked in service, met a young man at her church, married, raised a family, and had a good life. My great-grandfather’s story is the one that I want to share.

John Alfred Anderson (known as Little Al) was brought to the USA by his parents when he was 4 years old. I’m not completely sure of the date, but it would have been 1862 or 1863. His mother died soon after they arrived, and his father returned to Sweden leaving the children behind. Little Al was left with an older, married sister and his brother was adopted by another family. When he was 11 years old his sister could no longer support him and he became a child on the streets of Chicago. He was on his own during the Great Chicago Fire and lost his most precious possession, his bag of marbles, when he buried it for safekeeping on an island in the Chicago river. To make things worse, Little Al was a Swedish child, and there was prejudice against Swedish immigrants; chances are he did not speak English. The odds were not in his favor.

Believe it or not, it all worked out. He became active in a Lutheran Church and was supported by that community. He somehow came to the notice of Julius Rosenwald, the great Jewish philanthropist, who “helped him acquire his engineer’s license and then hired him to provide the steam-power for the sewing machines in one of Mr. Rosenwald’s garment factories”, as my grandmother related. My grandmother remembered getting a new coat twice a year from Mr. Rosenwald; he would have her mother come to the factory to pick out the fabric and he would personally select the lining and buttons. Later in life Little Al became a citizen, started his own business, the girls grew up, they both married, and they all lived good American lives. There were amazing adventures later on in the family, but those are other posts.

When I said that I was Swedish-American, that was the literal truth. I’m half Swedish (on my mother’s side), and on my father’s side my ancestors have been here in America for over 300 years. They settled in the original colonies along the Atlantic coast, fought the American Revolution, and lived during the time when our constitution was written and the USA was born. They eventually left the coast, crossed the mountains, and settled in a western wilderness known as Tennessee; their story is truly an American one. But each branch of my father’s family all started as immigrants, every single one of them.

Today immigrants are under attack here in America, and there have been numerous bomb threats and instances of disrespect directed towards members of the Jewish community. People are confronted for speaking a foreign (non-English) language or for dressing in clothing that reflects a different culture or religion, and they are told that they should go back to “their country”.

We are a nation of immigrants. My mother’s family here in America was saved by the kindly intervention of others and by a man of a different heritage and religion who reached out to help him. Just as it was not OK for me to be bullied as a child for not being Irish, or for others to insist that I needed to pretend I was Irish, it is not OK to marginalize or discriminate against others who are different from us or who are just now arriving on our shores.

My father’s family fought so that this would be true.

This is our story.

This is America.

MacKenzie Speaks: Still Fading After All These Weeks…

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

The Mother of Cats is still going off and leaving us for a few days at a time, and when she comes home again she spends her days lying around with a heating pad on her knees knitting away on another huge shawl.

Cat and Knitting — Do I look happy here? No, I do not!!!

See what I’m talking about? I can barely squish myself onto her lap with all of that yarn in the way. I mean, I ABSOLUTELY need to be on the heating pad, and I also expect to knead my paws on the balls of yarn, and you know that knitting without chomping hardly counts at all. Right? You’d think that if I purred loud enough the Mother of Cats would understand and she’d make allowances to ensure I had enough room, but she just keeps whapping me with the shawl. On my head!! Sure, she always says that she is sorry, but really, don’t you think that she should concentrate on my needs and put the knitting well off to the side? Is that too much to ask?

While we were outside taking pictures we checked out the garden.

Cat and garden ornament — The garden squirrel come through the winter in good shape, but the flowers are still all dead looking.

I think that the Mother of Cats kind of misses the flowers because she planted some outside in the big planters this week. She says that these flowers can survive a snow storm. Snow? NO!! Cats do not like snow!

I think that these are her favorite colors because she put together the yarns for ANOTHER one of those Fade shawls and it looks a lot like the flowers!

The Mother of Cats has clearly lost her mind. Doesn’t she understand that all things should be done in moderation? (That doesn’t apply, of course, to cat cookies…) When is she going to make my cat hoodie? How about some socks? I never have any trouble sitting in her lap when she is knitting socks. She has these UFOs sitting around the house, but she is just ignoring them too. Maybe she could just read books for awhile with the heating pad on her knees so I could just hang out with her for a couple hours at a time. The heating pad works better when I’m purring on top of it…

I’m such a good boy!

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I continue to spend a couple of days a week with my sons helping out, who are dealing with ongoing health issues. It’s hard on the kitties, but such is life.

The shawl pattern is “Find Your Fade” by Andrea Mowrey. My project notes for the second shawl in the series are here. Each of the shawls lets me explore a different way to approach the colors and how I let them fade across the shawl. I’m having fun and busting my stash at the same time. Sorry MacKenzie!

March and April are the snowiest months of the year here in Colorado. Just because it is nice and warm today doesn’t mean it won’t snow next week… Sad news for cats.

MacKenzie Speaks: Fade, Fade, Fade!!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Cat

The Mother of Cats has been knitting for DAYS AND DAYS on her new shawl. The same shawl. It is boring and endless, and since it is so large it has been really hard for me to get on her lap to ~~yarn chomp~~ help her. She’s been ignoring me and Yellow Boy, to be blunt.

It is with great relief that I can report that she finished the darn thing today and took it outside to take pictures of it.

Cat with Shawl — What do you think of these colors? I think that reds and grays look better with my fur, but the purple is OK I guess…

She acted really, really silly with this shawl. I mean, she completely ignored me as she wrapped herself in the shawl, ran around the yard and draped it on the fence and the tree trying to get nice pictures. Did I mention that the shawl is extremely large? (How do you like my word choice there? I’m a very smart cat!) She kept flipping parts of it around and when I ~~swatted at~~ tried to touch it she just persisted in jerking it away from me. I was trying to help her and she actually CHASED me off. I wasn’t even allowed to go into the front yard to take those pictures with her. I tried to pull on one corner of the shawl to help arrange it on the fence, and she completely over-reacted. If she hadn’t tried to pull back on the shawl it wouldn’t have gotten stuck on my claws. Hey, it was all her fault! I’m a good boy!

Shawl on Fence — Here’s the finished shawl hung on the back fence so you can see all the colors.

Shawl in Tree — and here it is hung in the tree out front so you can see the lace sections. Can you see me crying to be let out the front door? No, you can’t. She didn’t even include me in this photo.

Whew. Thank heavens she is finally done with this shawl. She should now start knitting things that I like. Maybe a catnip mouse? My little hoodie? Something small that will not interfere with lap sitting (yarn chomping) time?

Yarns for shawl — This is the yarn for another of the shawls. She started knitting with the dark gray yarn yesterday.

No!! She cast on another one of these giant shawls with lots and lots of colors. NOOOO!!!! Why doesn’t she pay more attention to my needs? Doesn’t she know that I am a unique cat with high maintenance needs? I need lots of petting, toys, catnip and play time.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

The shawl is a Find Your Fade by Andrea Mowrey. You can find the project notes here. I was struggling to make the colors “fade” across the shawl, so I used two skeins of the same September 2015 colorway (from the Dream in Color Club) to make connected “fades” on each side of the shawl. When I wear the shawl all the colors will come together (I hope). I am really, really happy with the final product; also want to point out that I got the purple yarn in and it looks great!! MacKenzie doesn’t know this, but I also have started a collection of yarns for a third fade shawl to follow the one that I started last night. So many yarns and colors, so many ideas on how to combine them. What a great stash buster this is, too.

Sorry, MacKenzie.

Rare Disease Day

Today was Rare Disease Day. Rather than write a new post I decided to repost this one from last year. Please read on if you would like to know more about this day created to raise awareness about rare diseases and what it is like to live with them.

2/28/16: I woke up with notes in my email box reminding me that this was the big day. Oh, yeah. I guess I should say something about it on the blog, but what? I mean, I do have a…

Source: Rare Disease Day

FO: the drijfhout sweater is done!

Today it turned just darn cold after days and days of spring like weather. I know I’m being a whining baby; it is February after all. The weather people warned us that change was coming so I pulled myself together, sewed the buttons onto the drijfhout sweater and wove in the ends. Ta-da! Here it is!

MacKenzie really likes the finished knit. He’s been particularity insistent on cuddles all day.

I took this picture outside this morning while it was snowing so the light isn’t the best, but it really did turn out nice. The fit is just perfect! You can’t really see the details well in the shot, but the sweater is knit from the top down (no sewing!!) with perfect set-in sleeves. I am just delighted with how nice it looks on me (and I eventually hope to have one of my knitting friends take a picture of me wearing it… you’ll just have to take my word for the fit. 🙂 Here are the project notes on Ravelry.

I’ve also been working like crazy on the Find Your Fade shawl. I’m now in the 5th color and am picking up speed as I slide through the second half of the shawl.

I did make some changes to the colors (but you know that I am keeping the purple!). I decided that I wanted a beautiful fall like shawl more than I wanted the type of fade that transforms from one color to another, and I wanted to stick with the rosy colorways. The idea that I’m working with is more like the selection of fabrics for a quilt – each color goes with all of the others and the colors call to each other across the shawl just the way they do in quilts. What do you think of my efforts so far? It’s not a “fade” but it will look good and it makes me happy. Here are the project notes on Ravelry.

I made this stitch marker from a hand blown glass bead that I bought at the Interweave Yarn Fest last year. I really like the way it looks on the shawl – I may need to get a chain so I can wear the stitch marker like a necklace with the shawl. There are little circles of gold in the glass in the main body of the bead that really shine in the sun; perfect to go with the shawl!

It’s going to be a good weekend. Cold weather, knitting, and I even have yummy meals planned and a new book to read. Life is good.

Have a good weekend everyone!

MacKenzie Speaks: The Mother of Cats Came Home!

Hi. I’m MacKenzie.

Cat neglect is an ugly thing. Look at how weak I appear…

I have had the worst week ever. I was abandoned alone in the house ALL WEEK with only Yellow Boy for company. Yellow Boy is boring; he doesn’t really count as company. His idea of a good time is digging tunnels in the laundry basket and sleeping on the shoes in the closet. <sigh>

So, alone. Inside. Stale food and old boring toys. Without even the minimum level of stimulation that a cat of my intellect requires… The worst part of being abandoned… no COOKIES!!!

That darn squirrel in the back yard has been laughing at me through the window for days.

stuff — Finally, late last night, she returned. I helped myself to cookies while she unpacked the car.

That’s right, the Mother of Cats has returned home. We slept on top of her all night so she couldn’t get away again. She brought us new toys, groomed our fur until it was glossy, and let us out to play in the yard again this morning. That squirrel and I had a little chat; he won’t be teasing me through the window for awhile!

Cat — Yellow Boy was so glad to get back outside. Hmm… I wonder why he felt an urgent need to sharpen his claws? I only chased him a little bit while we were left alone. Hey, I was bored!!

Today she did the laundry, took a nap, caught up on mail and let me help her knit in the afternoon. Look what she found on the doorstep this morning when she got the mail!

Yarn and Candy — Someone sent her a package of yarn and candy!

She really got a little teary when she found the package. The Mother of Cats can get a little emotional sometimes. Me, I was fighting back tears myself when I saw there wasn’t a catnip mouse for me in the package… Humans! Maybe she’ll let me play with the yarn. It really is a lovely color and will go so nicely with my fur.

How good it is to have things return to normal again.

I’m such a good boy.

Can I have some cookies now?

>^..^<

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

My family has transitioned from acute health emergencies to a routine of long term cancer treatment for my older son, and chronic condition management for everyone else. There is still a long road ahead of us, but we are dealing.

The wonderful package of yarn and candy came from fellow blogger Sharon of Creativity and Family. The yarn is Sharon’s own hand dyed yarn (Inspirational Yarns) and is so wonderful that I really did get tears in my eyes. Thank you so much, Sharon. What a burst of sunshine in what has been a very dark time. If you would like a burst of sunshine for yourself you can find Sharon’s fabulous yarn in her shop on Etsy.

No, I did not let MacKenzie eat all of those kitty cookies!!

Update from Hell: Still Knitting

A couple of weeks ago the bottom fell out from under the Midnight Knitter family: health emergencies, rushes to the emergency room, surgery, a life altering diagnosis of colon cancer for my older son, and the death of a beloved dog. A terrible 10 days.

A week after returning home from the hospital my older son developed complications and once again ended up in the emergency room. Blood clots! Holy smokes, this is not something that I would wish on anyone! Once again we took turns at the hospital and knitted through the wee hours of the morning. It was days before he could go home again.

Buttons on sweater — I finished knitting the drijfhout sweater before I got sick. What do you think of these buttons? I still haven’t attached them or done the finishing work. Soon. Very soon. Then there will be a picture for sure. Project notes are here.

Then the next shoe dropped: even before my older son was out of the hospital again I came down with the plague. Seriously, it had to be plague. It couldn’t have been flu, since I had that shot earlier this year. <snark> Whatever, I got sick. Really sick. Too sick to knit. Ugh. It was bound to happen since I was burning the candle at both ends for days on end and taking chances walking into hospitals with a seriously drugged up immune system, but still … I think that we are due a break here!! After a week in bed I dragged myself up to my younger son’s place and have been recovering with him since then. Now it’s a whole week later and I’m still struggling to get around with a dizzy head and shaky legs, but I am definitely starting to feel more like myself, and I am back to knitting every evening.

Tomorrow I will head on home again. Poor MacKenzie! He and Yellow Boy were pretty much abandoned this whole week with only a couple of checks to make sure they had food and water. I know I will be getting an earful from them once I’m back.

Annoyed cat — MacKenzie: What? An earful you say? Just because you ABANDONED us for an ENTIRE week?

Tomorrow my oldest son starts chemo.

I think of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s quote from Knitting Without Tears a lot in times like these. “Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crisis.”

Knit on indeed.

If you’re going through hell, keep knitting.

OK, this is going to be a serious post eventually, but before I talk about the sad and painful stuff that has been going on in the Midnight Knitter family I thought that I should get all the fun stuff out of the way. Therefore I present to you for your admiration my WIPs for the week, a terrific score at the bead store, and the results of ~~way too much~~ creative agonizing.

Sleeve — I made some great progress on the drijfhout sweater over the last two days. I’m almost done with the first sleeve. Like the red stripe?

Cat wearing Hoodie — Photo credit: kristinroach

I found the perfect pattern to make MacKenzie a cat hoodie with the left over yarn. Won’t this look nice on the big guy? I think that the body of the sweater should be grey stripes and the hood, sleeves and contrast details will be in red. The pattern, by Kristin Roach, is free on Ravelry.

Sheep beads — …and look what was waiting for me at the bead store: sheep!! These will make the cutest stitch markers ever. I scored 10 of the little cuties.

Now for the creative burn. For reasons that will become obvious later on in the post I have been driving around a lot this week, up at all hours of the night, and longing for comfort knitting. What could be better to fit the bill than to put together a Find Your Fade shawl? I’ve torn apart the stash a couple of times trying to put together a fade shawl. This is one of those deals where as soon as I started to drift off to sleep I would think of another potential skein to put into the mix. I agonized over it; should the shawl be a gradient or something more like a quilt? I finally dragged a crate of yarn into the LYS to have my friends help me with these decisions and to locate a couple of additional skeins to finish up the fade. Here’s what I ended up with:

I started the rose gold fade this evening and plan to alternate between the shawls and sweater. Why start with the fade that I’m a little worried about? I need to knit in that purple before my friends and fellow knitting addicts find out what I’ve done. It’s crazy I know. I think it’s actually because I’m the most invested in this shawl.

Now on to the trauma and chaos. Exactly two weeks ago a text arrived late in the evening. “Call me,” it said. “I think I need to go to hospital. I’m in trouble.” I was on the phone and in the car driving within minutes. It was from a member of my family with diabetes, and he was in diabetic keto acidosis. Off to the hospital we went!

Whew. Scary, but handled. We got him home from the hospital a couple of days later and I settled in to stay with him while he recovered. Then there was a phone call…

Another member of the family had been rushed to the hospital with serious bleeding. Tests, more testing, surgery, and then lab reports: colon cancer. The chemo starts in two weeks.

Then the horrible just kept on coming. His dog had a seizure and died the last night he was in the hospital.

Maybe you’re guessed already. I have two sons, and both of them were struck with serious and life threatening health emergencies within the last two weeks; in truth, the end is not yet in sight. Without any warning the family motto became “our brand is crisis…” There’s nothing for it but to keep on focusing on the one thing before you as everything comes unglued. Food to prepare, prescriptions to fill, my grandson to hug, trips across town, prayers, and endless phone calls.

and knitting.

When you find yourself in hell, keep knitting.