Rare Visit

I don't think I mentioned meeting some of the other people involved in the KNITATHON for St Vincent's NICU and the Little Missionary school in the East Village. It was nice meeting people. We met in the Little Missionaries school which gave us an opportunity to tour it and hear some of it's history. Very nice place and we all got a kick out of the children's sinks at just the right height for them to use. Everyone was very nice and we even met the organizer's two children who were a blast. The plan is to have another gathering in December where we can turn on our completed items for the NICU and funds collected for the Little Missionaries school. I have completed 7 hats so far and hope to get up to ten by the time I have to hand them in.

Thanksgiving was this past Thursday and I made a smoked ham (free for spending the required amount over a month or so at my neighborhood supermarket) in the Rival electric roasting oven I had bought at Target a few weeks ago. It came out nice and juicy but since I had both glazed it with brown sugar AND pineapple juice earlier, there was burnt hardened sugar in the bottom of the pan. What a challenge to get out! I did finally get the pan back to almost the same condition as it started in. Whew!

We had it for two dinners and the rest had to be eaten for lunch or whatever. Mom will not eat it more than twice so that left it up to me and Mom's health aide. The aide did help by eating some for lunch on Friday but that was hardly a dent. It was a 9 1/2 pound ham. At this point I have a little left but I don't think I can face anymore of it. I can imagine what it was doing to my cholesterol!

I have been having some adventures since I last updated this blog. I winterized the air conditioner in the living room just before a big windy storm hit. It turns out that the storm managed to rip the external cover off the unit sometime since it is gone. So I need to get another cover and install it tightly before the next period of rain and drop of temperatures. I also had "key/lock" adventures with the storage room in my complex where I have a storage unit. The key I had no longer turned in the door and I had to get security to let me in the night I was retrieving the now lost ac cover. Then in the morning I tried to get a key from the management that worked and since I had to try three keys I got my exercise. At least the door was on the same block. The last key was definitely the correct one for the door but it did not work for me and a work order was created for maint to work on the lock. In the meantime there is always getting security to let me in until it is resolved. *sigh*
The other adventure was lending my Sony camcorder to the office to tape the power off and power on procedures of all of the servers and the mainframe when the electricians had to add and correct some of the service. Since it is a Digital 8 Format tape I needed to copy it to VHS so we could play it at the office in the conference room. I would have liked to copy it right there but there were no available component jacks on that VCR and I did not want to risk messing up the connections. So I had it copying in my bedroom at home while I did a laundry. After the laundry was started I realized I had left some of what I had wanted to wash in the apartment. Nevermind, my cat threw up on my bed a day later so I had to do another batch of laundry anyway.

One of my co-workers who also joined the knitting/crochet group at our company had wanted to catch a movie over this weekend that no one she knew was interested in so she asked if I would be interested. The Fountain which just opened on Friday and looked beautiful. Has two wonderful leads who I have enjoyed watching in the past so I was game. We went on Saturday to the Astoria Kaufman studios on the other side of Queens from where I am. She picked me up and drove there. We got a bit confused with parking and settled on using a meter spot. Nice movie theater, very big, well maintained. The movie was beautiful but confusing as it jumped back and forth between different segments and timelines. http://thefountainmovie.warnerbros.com/
The music was very nice and I believed was performed by the Kronos group.
Since I have not seen a movie in a theater in ages it was a nice and rare visit.

About Time... About Space...

Well I finally have recovered from that horrendous cold. I had to resort to getting a prescription for an antibiotic from my doctor since I had a lingering sinus infection. It worked and knocked it out of my system.

At the tail end of my first week sick I had gotten some energy back so I decided to use the crochet pattern for a hooded baby blanket that I knitted before. Since I am not an experienced crochet person I managed to reduce the width of the blanket as I worked on it. It had started out at 28 inches and when I noticed what I had done it was at 25 inches. I drove myself crazy since I did not want to "waste" the time that I had already spent on it. I finally wisely decided to put that one aside and start a new one with a new skein of that yarn. I have done about 12 inches and so far I have not made the same mistakes.

The Knit-Out for St Vincent's NICU and the Little Missionaries Day Care Center started on November 1st. I am not participating as designed with sponsors. I am knitting things to donate as part of the drive. So far I managed to make a couple of hats using double pointed needles and a mock cable pattern that the organizer had mentioned from the Preemie Project. Here is one in dark pink about 5 inches tall.


And another one in blue:


They are having a working session at the Day Care Center next Tuesday night that I hope I can attend for at least part of. Would be nice to meet more people.

Hope to have the time, never enough time. Have to take cat to vet for a midyear check since she is a senior. I have to see my doctor and take Mom to her doctor for end of the year check and new prescriptions, should also be taking her for a mammogram and bone density test, need to bring her to ear doctor for another cleaning since her hearing is getting worse again, need to research replacement stoves, need to get my bedroom window leak fixed... just not enough time,

I have things to put into storage. I have a little room in the small unit I have in my complex but I need to also go through the big storage room I have at one of the storage places to make room for some of the things I have in the partment. A big job.
Never enough space.