For months now, I’ve been battling a sore throat off and on, with jaw pain to go along.  I saw an ENT in late October and she gave me an anti-viral, but it didn’t work for long.  When the throat flared up again two days ago, I decided to go to the doc.  This morning, I was tested and sure enough…..

I.  Have. Mono.

Mono.  At 26-almost-27.  This explains why I’ve been so tired since the wedding.  I thought it was just adjusting to working at home and not having a set schedule.  And then I blamed it on not eating well or what ever else made sense at the time.  Now, I have to plan out my time and get plenty of rest.  But at least I know what’s going on and can deal with it.  It’s all going to take some getting used to.

On another note, since I napped all day yesterday, I got quite a bit of dyeing done last night.  I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been causing such pale results and have been slowly eliminating variables.  I used only distilled water, I rinsed some small pieces to eliminate anything with the washer (unlikely, but a concern).  No chlorine touched these tests at all and yet still the first strips were weak…

So I read blogs and books and instruction websites…  and I wondered if maybe the fabrics weren’t getting warm enough during batching.  I never think of this as being a cold place, but I guess if the a/c is on, it’s around 70, which is just slightly too cold.  So, I went out and bought a heating pad that doesn’t shut off after 2 hours and gave it a whirl…

Here they’re wet, but rinsed.  The dry colors turned out just a tiny bit lighter than wet, which is amazing to me right now.  I’ve gone for over a year without predictable results and now I finally have control over my dyeing again!  I’m in gear to get a BUNCH of testing of colors done and build my sample book.  This set was 8 six-step gradations.  I’m in love with them and have been fondling them quite frequently