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[lolliepopcrusader]

Hi everyone! A very late update, but I am no longer selling the crochet ergonomic hook physical item on my Kofi because New Zealand postage prices are through the roof and its not fair on you guys to have to pay over $100NZD to have the item sent to you :( However the digital files are still available for purchase, and can be printed on a 3d resin printer at your local library or craft space and then sanded with a file to fine tune the opening to fit your hooks. I am so sorry for the disappointing news as we've had so many people requesting the physical item. I will discuss with my husband about selling the physical item again if people are willing to spend the large amount of money on shipping costs.

However! My husband is wanting to add additional sizes of hooks to the ergonomic crochet hook set, as I realized last week that I don't have a 5mm hook and need one for the project I want to work on. Once he's designed that we will add it to the Kofi listing

[lolliepopcrusader]

Calling all chronic creatives - here's how to up your crochet game!

I'm an avid crocheter, but holding the hook for long periods of time became exhausting and painful. Being chronically ill, losing the ability to enjoy my hobbies was tough for me accept.

My husband took me to the craft store and we purchased a ergonomic crochet handle. This handle needed to fit my criteria;

able to hold a variety of hook sizes

hold up to high tension crochet projects (I do a lot of amigurumi crochet, which you need to complete with tight tension)

reduce my wrist/hand pain

reduce the amount of grip strength needed to hold the hook to avoid fatigue

This ergonomic crochet handle *seemed* to tick all these boxes. It was quite an expensive purchase and to be honest, I was disappointed in it in all aspects.

The purchased handle uses small rubber stoppers to hold the crochet hook in place, but as you are crocheting the hook works loose and spins around inside it. The handle itself was too small, making it painful to hold. I had to use a lot of grip strength to keep it in my hand, which is what I was trying to avoid by purchasing the darn thing. The little knobbly bit at the end really dug into my hand and hurt. It was so annoying to use and I gave up on it altogether after three days of using it (not to mention one of the rubber pieces broke apart within hours).

I expressed my disappointment to my husband, and he decided to come to my rescue! Over the course of a week, he designed me his own ergonomic crochet handle in a computer program called CAD. He then printed it out using his 3D printer. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this new handle - its a game changer!

During the design process, he took into consideration all of my complaints about the disappointing handle and my criteria that I had listed. The handle he designed is bigger, so it uses less grip strength to hold it in place which also reduces my pain.

Instead of using rubber stoppers like the other handle, he designed a 'lock and key' system for keeping the crochet hooks in place and it works fabulously! The hook never moves and I'm really rough with my crochet hooks. It holds up to my high tension crochet projects and I have completed many amigurumi with it, even small, intricate items. Since it is designed with the lock and key system, my husband was easily able to print different keys to be able to hold multiple sizes. I've got keys ranging from 1.25mm all the way up to 6mm!

I can now crochet for hours on end and I swear my crochet skills have gotten so much better.

After expressing my delight at the crochet handle my husband designed for me, both him and I want others to be able to experience the freedom that I now have when crocheting. With chronic illnesses, its important for you to be able to continue with your passions as much as possible, so we have decided to make this crochet handle a sellable physical item for others to enjoy.

Here's the link to purchase one if you would like to give it a go!

Each crochet handle will come with the hook sizes;

1.25mm

2mm

3mm

4mm

4.25mm

5mm

6mm

If you want other hook sizes, send us a message and we can design one.

The cost of the handle and keys covers the cost of the 3D printing material, we are not making a profit off of this because we want as many people suffering from chronic illness to be able to enjoy crocheting again. We are happy to post internationally as we are based in New Zealand, send us a message before purchasing so that I can get you the cost of shipping.

I hope you will love this crochet handle and hook set as much as I have!

[lolliepopcrusader]

The laundry trolley - the improved way to do your washing with CFS!

Muscle weakness is one of the sucky things about CFS, and quite frankly one of the most annoying things (for me at least)! We have to put triple, or even quadruple the amount of effort into doing the simplest tasks compared to able-bodied people, and doing the laundry is no exception. The lifting, the hanging, it can do a number on you.

I'll be honest, I didn't know laundry trolleys existed until I got desperate enough to do some googling. After my shower stool, it was the next purchase I made to improve my life and man, I could never live without it now! I use it everyday.

I bought mine from the local hardware store for around $20 NZD. Its simple and plain in design but it does the job wonderfully! An added benefit is that it can fold up partially, as well as flat for storage when not in use. There are fancier, bigger and more expensive laundry trolleys out there, but this one suits me and my compact house better.

I wheel it into our laundry room when a wash load is finished, fill it up with our clothes, and wheel it outside to the line. Its the perfect height that there's no bending to get laundry out of the basket.

Its also made washing our bedsheets a whole lot easier too! We all know how much damp bedsheets can weigh, and its exhausting to hold them up while we hang them on the line. When I hang out our bedsheets, I can spread the weight by leaving a majority of the sheet in the basket while picking up one part at a time to hang. I then wheel the trolley along while picking up more of the bedsheet until its all hung up.

The trolley has the added benefit that I can use it to move other things around the house and in the garden - just plop the items in the basket and wheel it away!

Its really worth it to invest in a laundry trolley, there's no need to exhaust yourself lifting the washing again!

[lolliepopcrusader]

Get yourself a shower stool - it doesn't have to be fancy!

TFDR: Too Fatigued Didn't Read (at the bottom of the post)

The title of this post says it all. I didn't realise how much getting myself a stool for the shower would change my quality of life. Most days, but especially on my bad days, standing in the shower and moving my arms was too much exertion for me to handle. It became part of the daily routine that I despised, so much in fact that I was skipping showers, or only washing the essential body parts to conserve energy. And you bet doing that did a number on my mental health.

A shower stool was the first 'home aid' purchase that I did for myself and honestly I wish I had done it sooner. At the time of buying my first shower stool, my husband was living and working in another city for 3 months. I was all on my lonesome at home, so I decided what would be a better time to start looking at improving my life and getting some independence back.

As I said, it doesn't have to be fancy! I purchased this one from the $2 store down the road from my home, and it served me perfectly until my upgrade just this week. To make it safer to use in the shower, I glued rubber grips to the bottom of the feet to prevent any sliding.

Suddenly after getting my stool, I was able to shower properly again! I could wash my entire body and my hair sitting down, and I could take breaks while doing so, which was especially important to me. I'm even able to shave my legs again! While leg shaving is unnecessary, it does boost my self confidence.

The stool was small and light enough that I could move it when my husband wanted to shower, or if I wanted to use the stool in another part of the house.

My shower stool upgrade this week came from a lucky find at a second hand shop!

We scored it for $5 NZD!!

Its got a very sturdy design with its rubber feet, adjustable leg height, is lightweight and can support weights over 100kg, meaning that my husband can use it as well! I've walked into the bathroom a few times and seen my husband sitting on it while taking a shower. This new stool folds flat so can be stored when not in use, I didn't think about how handy this is until I had one that could do that - definitely a huge benefit when living in a small home like mine.

Honestly, I can't think of anything but positives to having a shower stool, especially when it comes to CFS. Do yourself a huge favour and treat yourself to one - you won't regret it!

TFDR:

Get a shower stool - it doesn't need to be a expensive one! As long as it is weighted to your weight and you can add some kind of rubber to the feet to prevent slipping, it'll work!

It helps prevent fatigue, you can take breaks mid-shower!

Honestly one of the best things that I did for myself, would highly recommend.

[lolliepopcrusader]

Sea monkeys – a great pet for the CFS person!

Having CFS is exhausting (pun intended), and it takes a lot away from you in life. I really noticed it in the pet department. I couldn’t play as long with my cats, and their general upkeep became more of a challenge to me. Thankfully I have my husband who has stepped in and can assist me in keeping the cats happy and healthy. Having a dog is unfortunately out of the question, there’s no way I’d be able to keep up with one and give it a good quality of life.  

For years, even before CFS made itself properly at home, I had begged my husband to let me have Sea Monkeys as pets, but he’d always said no, or “not right now”. And being the good wife that I am (lol) I would leave the topic alone until I would find a way to slip it into conversation the following year. 

I’m now housebound with CFS and having mysterious joint pains, preventing me from moving as freely as CFS allows us to. Keeping myself entertained when I couldn’t do anything became the bane of my existence. To sum it up in three words; I. Was. Bored. And you know what annual topic finally rolled around? You guessed it, “can I have Sea Monkeys as pets?” 

To my absolute surprise, my husband said yes; but with a few conditions; 

We had to get them a proper little tank, not those gimmicky ones they’re typically sold in. 

We had to have the tank completely set up before putting the Sea Monkeys into it. 

My husband would buy me the tank and the tank accessories, but I needed to buy things like the gravel, decorations, food, the Sea Monkeys etc. 

I needed to research how to properly care for them before starting the hatching process, since it was my first-time having Sea Monkeys. 

Obviously, I agreed to all the conditions (while my husband doesn’t like Sea Monkeys, he does care for their wellbeing, as with every animal), so down the research rabbit hole I went. I clicked on every website with the mention of Sea Monkeys, learnt the water pH they like, what they eat, their lifecycle, everything – you name it, I did my darndest to research it. I even came across a subreddit dedicated to Sea Monkeys and instantly hit that subscribe button. 

We ended up buying a cute little 500ml fish tank on Aliexpress, which is plenty of space for the little guys. The water circulator that came with the tank is too strong for the Sea Monkeys, so we don’t use it, but the tank itself is perfect. 

Other accessories that we purchased were; 

A tiny bit of driftwood for decoration. 

An air pump. 

Java moss and a Java fern plants from the local aquarium store. 

Some very fine gravel substrate. 

And finally, the Sea Monkey (brine shrimp) eggs themselves. 

All up we spent around 100 NZD. My husband helped me set up the tank the way I wanted it to look and helped me mix the correct ratio of salt into the water for the Sea Monkeys. I’ll gloss over the nitty gritty of setting up the tank for now, but if you’re interested, I’ll put all the details at the bottom of this post! 

For days after adding the eggs, I found myself staring into the tank, eagerly awaiting some confirmation that they’d hatched. It wasn’t until about 1-2 weeks later that I managed to properly glimpse my first Sea Monkey! I ended up buying a magnifying glass to see the little dudes because as babies they’re so dang tiny! 

The pros of having Sea Monkeys as pets is they’re hardy little guys and can tolerate a lot. They’re cruisy when it comes to their tank so that’s a bonus! On average, they should be fed at least once every 10 days, but I just feed them when their water becomes clear as then I know they’ve eaten their food. 

I love sitting at my desk and watching them swim around their tank living their little lives. I probably spend a couple of hours a day doing this. It's been a real boredom buster for me! I never thought they would have their own personalities, but early in the Sea Monkey journey I discovered that they formed two cliques. There were two well defined groups, the bigger ones occupied the left-hand side of the tank, whereas the smaller ones made the right side their homebase. As they grew bigger, they joined the lefties, and eventually they merged into one big group once they were all a decent size – how high schoolish of them! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I messaged a close friend of mine who is raising Sea Monkeys of his own and he confirmed that they do indeed form cliques. 

I’ve noticed that my mental health has gotten a bit better since having the Sea Monkeys to look at. I believe it's because I find them so relaxing to watch and I can focus my attention on them rather than wallowing in my own self-pity at my CFS circumstances (yay, pity party!) My husband doesn’t enjoy Sea Monkeys like I do (too many legs apparently) but when he comes home from university, he’ll happily listen to me talk about what my Sea Monkeys got up to during the day because he knows how happy they make me feel and how they’ve filled a void in my life. I love my little dudes so much; Sea Monkeys make great pets for a CFS person like me! 

The nitty gritty of setting up the tank; 

Sea Monkeys (a hybrid of brine shrimp) love a high salinity environment so a pH of 7.5-8 is needed for them to hatch. We mixed pure sea salt with distilled water to get the right ratio, however if you can get your hands on aquarium salt, that’s a better option. Aquarium salt has minerals in it that your environment would benefit from, especially if you are having plants in your tank.   

The plants we used are called Java moss and Java fern. These are the only aquatic plants (in New Zealand) that I could purchase that would be able to survive such a high salinity environment.   

The Sea Monkey subreddit recommends using fine gravel as your substrate instead of the usual tank pebbles because Sea Monkeys are stupid and will get themselves trapped in the pebbles and die.   

They need highly oxygenated tank water so getting an air pump with an air stone is a must! HOWEVER. You need to make sure that the pump isn’t too strong that it blows the Sea Monkeys away, it just needs to be a light trickle of air bubbles.   

In the wild, Sea Monkeys eat algae and yeast. I feed my Sea Monkeys spirulina powder mixed with distilled water to make a tincture. I use a 1ml syringe to drop it into their tank.   

Those simple little dudes are attracted to light. Need to clean an area of their tank? Shine a light on the opposite side and within 5 minutes they’re over there trying to get to the light.   

DONT stick their tank in direct sunlight! The heat of the sunlight will change their water temp and kill them. In the mornings, I slide their tank into the indirect light on my desk and they love it! But I only do it when I’m around them so that I can keep an eye on them. I give them about 30 minutes of time in the light daily.   

Over time their water will evaporate. Top it up in small increments with distilled water. Do not add additional salt to the water as even though the water evaporates, the salt is still in the tank! As the water evaporates, the salt concentration increases. Adding more distilled water reduces the salt concentration of the water back to the original salinity that you started with. If a lot of water has evaporated, don’t add lots of water to bring the tank to full right away because the sudden change in salinity can shock the Sea Monkeys and kill them. 

[lolliepopcrusader]

Finding that 1 percent

A short story about finding marginal gains to make life with CFS just that bit better.

One of the biggest drawbacks to my CFS is that I experience significant joint pain. It's not one of the most well-known symptoms, but a lot of us experience it in some form or another. Yesterday I had to make a big financial decision regarding my health – purchasing a different car that will reduce my joint pain while driving, allowing me some form of independence again. 

On the way home from the dealership with my husband, I had a bit of a cry. The situation has been bittersweet. I loved my manual car, but it was no longer suitable for me and was having a negative impact on my health. The new car is automatic and causes no pain to drive. Finally purchasing a new car helped me to realise what I had been trying to deny to myself, that my health isn’t getting better and it's time to start making big adjustments to how I live my life.  

I expressed this to my husband during my little cry, and he responded by telling me about “finding that 1 percent”. My husband Blitz (obviously fake name) studies engineering at university and one of his lecturers relayed a true story about the British cycling team. 

Since 1908, they were the worst cycling team in the world. And over those years, no improvements were made so they remained the worst in the world. Until in 2003 a new coach was assigned to the British cycling team named Dave Brailsford. This is where the “finding that 1 percent” comes in. 

This new coach implemented a “marginal gains” strategy, or “the 1 percent”. To break it down into simple terms, the coach broke down everything that could be put into cycling and searched for a margin of improvement to make everything just that little bit better. He got everyone in the cycling team their own custom pillows and mattresses so that they got the best night's sleep, he hired a surgeon to teach the team the best way to wash their hands to avoid catching colds, redesigned the team’s bicycle seats along with many other minute changes. 

These small changes made an astounding difference to the British cycling team’s game, and they ended up winning 60 percent of the gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. All thanks to finding that 1 percent to make things better. 

When my husband told me this story, he said “well, we’ve just found another 1 percent and made it better for you. And we’ll keeping finding those 1 percents until we’ve done everything we can to make your life easier and you happier” 

Over the past months I have been implementing small changes around the household. Things such as a shower stool, a mini dishwasher, a laundry trolley and a kitchen stool. Without realising, I had been chasing these 1 percents by myself to slowly improve my quality of life. The 1 percent strategy is working, and I will continue to search my life for more things that I could improve by 1 percent. 

For instance, I want to get one of those ‘grabbers’, the "claw on a pole" for reaching things. This would make picking things up from the floor when I drop them significantly easier with little to no pain accompanying it. This would definitely be a 1 percent gain in my life. Another 1 percent would be little Roomba type vacuum cleaner, as I use up all my energy in one go on days that I need to vacuum. 

I will be sitting down and writing as many 1 percenters as I can think of into a notebook. This will give me something to work towards to make my life better. Cheers to the 1 percents I have found and to all the ones I will find in the future! 

[lolliepopcrusader]

I liken having CFS to being a cat

Why? For many reasons. 

Cats can sleep up to 18 hours a day. Crazy right? But it does sound like us doesn’t it? Many CFS sufferers need much more sleep than the average Joe. Our feline friends sleep lengthy periods to conserve/replenish their energy in order to make the most out of their time awake and being physically active. They take naps throughout the day and hey, so do I! 

During my times of having bad mental health, I would visit a counsellor to assist in getting back on top of things. And every single time I did, one of the guidelines they always gave me was to reserve naps for the bedroom and the bedroom only. The reason behind this was to get the brain to associate the bedroom and bed with sleep, as this would make it easier to sleep when it was time to sleep. While I understood the intention behind this, I never really enjoyed this, and I have really begun to embrace the opposite in the past year. 

Just like my cat Milly, I have multiple “nap spots” throughout the house, with the main three being the couch, a bean bag, and a xl sized dog bed (yes really. I will explain more later!) I have found that in my own personal experience, I tend to get more out of my naps if I have different “scenery” than the plain old bedroom walls. For me, its much like an adventure to nap somewhere different. It reminds me of camping, a pastime that I enjoyed thoroughly before the days of CFS. Laying on the couch reminds me of the small mattresses used while camping and instantly put me to sleep. 

On sunny days, I love my dog bed combined with my bean bag for naps! Both items conform to the shape of my body and make for an amazingly comfortable casual nap. I can position myself to be half sitting up, and quite often will do work on my laptop there. On days where the sun makes an appearance, my makeshift napping spot really soaks up the heat and I can get much-needed vitamin D without being active. If you are like me and really suffer with bright lights, I do wear an eye mask while napping in the sun. I also find it helpful to practice mindfulness as it helps me to focus on the feeling of the warmth on my skin. 

If you have ever owned a cat, they have random outbursts of energy which we sometimes call “crazy time” or “zoomies,” to which afterwards they either rest, or go into a deep sleep. I can further break this down into two distinct types; kittens (CFS sufferers that have yet to learn pacing) and adult cats (CFS sufferers who have learnt to pace themselves) 

Adult cats tend to have zoomies just long enough to the point that they can rest and regain lost energy appropriately, whereas kittens go nuts and expend all their energy, then will fall into a sleep coma from exhaustion. Learning to pace is part of the growing experience, but sometimes we all fall back into kittenhood and then need to rest excessively. Its okay to be a kitten, but we just need to learn how to be a kitten without spending all of our limited energy! 

Cats live sedentary lives a majority of the time, only spending enough of their energy to complete the necessary tasks. I feel like this is really relatable to us and our limited energy capacity. 90% of the time, adult cats will not push themselves past their energy threshold unless they really need to, for instance in times of stress or danger. I know in times of stress I have definitely pushed myself past my energy threshold in the attempt to rectify the stress inducing factor (e.g., chores that need to be completed by a certain day, to submit an essay that is due, prolonged social interaction etc), and this has come back to bite me in the ass. While it seems like the complete opposite thing to do, I need to be as zen as a cat in the sun when it comes to stressful life events – take things at my own pace and know when a good rest in the sun is needed! 

Adult cats have learnt the art of pacing and I should really take a note out of their book, even if I do let my kitten side show every now and then. Thank you to our feline friends for showing us the way, and we have much more to learn from you!