Happy Birthday, Bob, and Pennsic Is Over for Another Year

Happy Birthday, Bob!

It's my granddaughter, Kyle's boyfriend, Bob's birthday today! I wish you a birthday as happy as the one that Kyle just had! I'm sure you can figure out which one is Bob.

Speaking of Kyle's party, here's my favorite photo from it:

That's Holly with Kyle.

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Pennsic is over for another year. At this point, some are already home, and some are probably still traveling, but it's all over.

It always makes me feel a little sad when it's done.

But then again, there's always next year's war to look forward to missing.

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Yesterday, Holly came over and we went out together and she got to show off her new HumVee!

If I had to choose a single color name to describe the color, it would have to be grey. But it looks very blue sometimes, too, probably from reflections from the sky. Once in a while, you can see some green in the color, too.

We went to AC Moore, WalMart, and then to Ruby Tuesday. She said that she'd take me to Olive Garden for my birthday, but some other time because neither of us was really hungry, and you need to be when you go there.

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Check out this neat article about yarnstorming (with lots of photos)!

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Well, it's been a wonderful weekend for me! I'm all ready for my birthday tomorrow. Lynn said I should expect my birthday present from her to arrive on Saturday, but since the apartment place I live in doesn't let the post office deliver packages on the weekend, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get it.

I hope you've had as good a weekend as I have, and a fabulous week coming up!

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Elizabeth Zimmerman!

There really are a lot of birthdays in August, and I forgot most of them!

I'm chagrinned to have missed Rob Rekley's birthday, which was on the second! Happy birthday, Rob! I hope it was fun!

The big news for knitters is that yesterday was the anniversary of Elizabeth Zimmerman's birthday. For those of you who don't know, EZ has gone to the big sheep and wool festival in the sky, and left us poor mortals to struggle through without her help. One of my favorite bloggers wrote a post about it here. You have to read this--it's funny!

Of course, I mentioned that the sixth, last Friday was Kyle's birthday, and I'm going to hear more about it on Saturday when I see Holly. They did celebrate by taking her to a bar on Thursday night at midnight so that she could show her ID to the bartender the instant she was 21! She got either free or $1 drinks all night, and everyone seemed to conspire to get her the worst-tasting drinks possible.

And yesterday was Tim Davis' birthday! Happy birthday, Tim! I hope you had the most fun, ever!

The next one coming up is Bob, Kyle's boyfriend! It's on the fifteenth, the day before mine. He got to accompany Kyle for her birthday, so I'm sure that they'll celebrate his birthday on Sunday.

Then, of course, there's me! Don't miss my birthday wish list on Amazon! Used books or DVDs are OK! There are some expensive presents, but there are some that are under $5 including shipping! I got a call from Lynn yesterday to check my address so that she could send me a present. I'm all excited about that!

My cousin, Barbara, is also having a birthday on the 18th!

And Facebook surprised me and let me know that later on this month (the 18th, too) Rick Foucheux will be having a birthday! I know Rick from working with him when he was in Invader.

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This is going to be a bad week for me to get posts up due to the fact that I have to turn in all my financial evidence for some benefits, and I've been running all over getting it together. Yesterday I spent all afternoon making a trip to get some info I need, and I have more stuff I need to do today and Thursday, and Friday I have to turn it all in. So, don't expect a lot of posts.

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Holly called me earlier today to confirm my address during the process of buying her new car. She said it really is green, and not the blue it appears to be in the photos, but that it's a "funny shade," whatever that means. She took the day off of work to go get it since it arrived late last week, and she'll have the evening to actually go somewhere if she wants to. I tried to encourage her to come here and show it off, but she said she didn't want to be on the highway during rush hour, so she's not going to bring it down here until Saturday.

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I found this on the internet today and just had to share it with you! A young woman who seems to prefer to remain nameless, quit her job by sending an email to everyone in the company (and I hope she sent this to the owner, too) with this series of photos. This is priceless. I should warn you that my computer gave me several warnings about a slow script on the page, but it's really worth wading through and waiting to see it all! I love it! And I wish her all the best!

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I just got a call from Holly, and the financing on the car was ridiculous, so she's checking with her company credit union to see if they'll finance it on much better terms instead of the finance company that works with the dealer.

So, she hasn't actually got the car yet, but should have it either tomorrow or Thursday. I'm a little disappointed, but they'll get the car this week no matter how it turns out.

She said the car is a dark green, but that the green has a lot of grey in it. She looked at all the colors available on that model and year of Hummer while I was talking to her on the phone, and she said that none of them are called green, so she's not sure about it.

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I need to get going and get something done today, Hope you're having a wonderful week!

Christmas Eve Is Two Weeks from Today!

I just wrote it and I still can't believe that two weeks from today, it will be Christmas eve!

I still have so much knitting to do!

Just before I sat down to write all this, there was a knock at the door, and when I went to answer it, there was a box full of shiny yarn! Some of it is Lion Brand Festive Fur, and some is Paton's Brilliant, but it's all shiny, and it's all intended to make Christmas stockings with.

About two weeks 'till Christmas, and I still haven't made all the Christmas stockings! Well, I made some shiny Christmas stockings for Malaia and John a couple of years ago, so I don't have to do those. But I'd like to get some made for Kyle, Bob, Holly and Robin, at least. I'd like to make stockings for several other people, too, but I think that's unrealistic at this point.

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I have hypothyroidism (low thyroid function), and I got a phone call from the pharmacy yesterday. I ordered a refill on my prescription three days ago, and they called me two days ago to say that they'd run out and would have to order more, so it wouldn't be ready on time. I thought it was odd at the time. I mean I had filled a prescription with them and they knew I would be coming back for more, so why not keep it in stock?

Then yesterday they called to say that the Armor Thyroid that had been prescribed wasn't available AT ALL! The woman I spoke to said that they'd keep trying to get some more, but she didn't hold out much hope.

There are two different types of drugs for an under-active thyroid: natural hormones and synthetic (patentable) drugs.

The thyroid hormone that human bodies make includes chemicals called T1, T2, T3, and T4 as well as calcitonin and possibly others. The most popular synthetic drug (Synthroid) contains T4. The argument for the synthetic drug is that T4 is kind of a "holding" substance, and can be converted to T3 (which is the active ingredient that your body actually uses) in a body with a healthy endocrine system. Since it's only given to people who are already proven to have endocrine systems that are malfunctioning, as you might expect, some people just can't convert T4 to T3 well or at all, and Synthroid is about as useful to those people in solving their thyroid problems as drinking a glass of water. The further argument for synthetic drugs is that researchers haven't been able to discover a use in the body for T1 and T2, so they have come to the illogical conclusion that they don't do anything, and therefore, don't need to be in the drug given to people. Of course, if they put all those things into the drug, it wouldn't be patentable, and they wouldn't be able to charge the big bucks.

Calcitonin, by the way is also marketed as a drug to deal with osteoporosis and Pagets disease. I have Pagets, by the way (in my skull0, and I'm working on osteporosis, so this is important to me. A large amount of Calcitonin gives me horrible headaches, so I don't really want to take the very expensive drug form of it, but I suspect that the bit that's in the natural hormone helps. And, of course, that's not in the synthetic.

The problem here seems to be Big Brother. In all it's wisdom, the FDA is jealous of the small amount of money that the manufacturers of Armor Thyroid and the two other natural thyroid drugs are making and they want those profits for the manufacturer of Synthroid (and more, since Synthroid costs a lot more), so they're coming up with the idea that the natural hormones that have been safely in use since the 1930s (closing in on 100 years) are "new drugs" and have to go through the whole certification process from scratch! They're overlooking the fact that almost all doctors who actually have hypothyroidism have tried Synthroid, and switched to a natural thyroid medicine because they found out how BAD Synthroid makes them feel!

They're also proving once again, that they couldn't care less what they do to US citizens' health, as long as they get their bribes and help the drug companies harm us. At least I can't think of any other good reason why they'd do such a thing!

So, the plan is to find out if any other natural hormone is available, and if so, get a revised prescription from my doctor so that I can get that. Failing that, I need to get a new prescription and send it to a pharmacy in Canada or Europe, where these drugs are still available because doctors there are out to cure or help people rather than make lots of money for big drug companies!

As a matter of fact, if I lived in Europe, all I'd have to do is go to a doctor and he'd prescribe an antibiotic for my ulcerative colitis, and I'd be cured. But, unfortunately for me, I live in the US, and doctors here would rather tell me it's incurable and prescribe a drug that costs $400 per month (well it did nine years ago, it's probably more now) and doesn't do much of anything.

Lucky for me, I talked to someone who grew up in England, and he told me what doctors prescribe there: multi-minerals in a sublingual form. I can't find them in sublingual form, so it took longer for it to help, but multi-mineral tablets (at just under $10 per month) do a much better job than the expensive drug (Asacol)! In fact, they make the UC act like it's not there, which Asacol never did.

I HATE the FDA!

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I have so many things that I'd like to get done today that there's no way that I can possibly do them all. The day just isn't that long.

I need to do something about getting some more natural thyroid medicine, pick up the books I ordered at the library, go try to get the shoes I want, get to WalMart and get some new jeans as well as the vitamins, minerals and OTC stuff I've replace all my prescription medication with, and a trip to the grocery store would be helpful. Since I have to do any traveling on the bus, that's way more than I can do in one day.

And I have to knit those presents!

So have a great evening and enjoy all the reruns on TV tonight!

Even More Big News!

Wow! I'm just full of it lately!

The current big news is that my other granddaughter has gotten engaged!

Kyle was asked by her boyfriend, Bob, to marry him and she accepted.

I don't have a lot of details yet, but will keep you updated.

Friday is shaping up to be a great day on Scifi.

They'll be showing Firefly during their daytime rotation, with their usual segue into evening stuff.

Firefly will start with Jaynestown (set your VCRs and DVRs), and will go through a number of episodes. If you've seen Our Mrs. Reynolds, you'll want to see Trash. And they'll be showing The Message, which is the one where Jayne gets a hat from his mom. The hat is the worst thing I've ever seen anybody knit. It has to be seen to be flummoxed.

Check your local listings.

There will be the usual brand new Doctor Who episode, but Sarah Jane will not be joining us on Friday.

Instead, there will be the first episode of Charlie Jade, a show that (if my information is correct) hasn't been shown in the US before. I have read some rave reviews by people who have seen it. Not having seen it myself, I can't say.

Have a great week!