January 2, 2009

Today has been a great day to stay home!  I just finished mac and cheese prep to go with a nice Mackenzie ham for dinner.  (2 mac and cheeses, one with gluten free buckwheat flour and gluten free pasta for me and the other regular.  The gluten free actually tastes really good.  I'm getting pretty good at adapting to this diet.  

The neighbor Nick bottomed out his blood sugar again last night.  Got a call at 2:30 am from Sue asking me to come over.  He was disoriented, Short of breath and his blood sugar was only 36.  We got him to sit up, gave him juice with about 4 tablespoons of sugar in it which he managed to get down.  Within a few minutes he was back to his old self mentally...saying that he "got the whole neighborhood up"  We waited for the ambulance and helped get him on the stretcher.  He ended up in ICU with CHF and hopefully they'll have the diabetes doc consult.  His hand looks really good, I think they just fluid overloaded him.

It's still snowing...supposed to get 8-10 inches today and tonight.  The Wii is awesome!  We all enjoy it.  Had dinner at Sue's last night, filet, beans, potatoes and dessert...so much for the no desserts after Jan. 1st!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2010 arrived uneventfully.  I had the pleasure of working yesterday and the ER was packed.  I'm sure this 3 day weekend will be crazy too but I'm off!  We had a great Christmas.  We celebrated the day  before as I had to work on Christmas day.  We opened gifts in the morning and cooked a nice rib roast for dinner with twice baked potatoes.  Martha, Sue Gilmore, and our neighbor Robin Wilson joined us.
One of our best gifts was a Wii.  We got John a game "Call to Duty" and Molly and I got the Wii fit plus and sports resort games.  They are awesome.

My neighbor Nick has been in the hospital for several days after his cat bit him on the hand.  The cat had an infected ear from a ?cat fight and he accidentally touched it.  He never told his wife and 3 days later his hand was bright red and swollen and hot and 3 times the size of normal.  He was admitted and on IV antibiotics for several days and came home last night.  Molly and I have been checking on his wife...she was worried about the cat too so we volunteered to drive him to our vets for a checkup.  The weather was pretty awful but we figured we would drive slow and be fine.  We went to pick him up and she was dressed in her jacket carrying her portable oxygen tank "ready to go"  I told her I would rather she didn't come as the roads were bad...she was  disappointed but agreed.  (I just figured better to not have her fall and break a hip)  There were cars off the road on the way and a tractor trailer jackknifed in West Rutland.  The cat yowled all the way there and all the way back.  Molly looked at me once and said "why are we doing this again?"  Anyway both are home and both seem to be doing better.

Molly also cut her hair before Christmas and donated 9 inches to Locks of Love.  She looks great and loves the new haircut.

The big snowstorm doesn't seem to be amounting to much so far.  We've been invited to the neighbors tonight for dinner.  Molly gave Austin a bath this morning and he smells so much better.  He's doing well.  He will turn 13 this March.

Take care and Happy New Year!

New York City 2009

We left Wed. am at 9:30 on the train from Albany-Rensselaer and arrived at Penn station around 12:30. Took an interesting subway ride up to 7th ave. to get to our hotel...rooms not available until 4pm. We left our bags (for a $3.75/bag fee) at the hotel and headed out on the streets to site see. The Christmas Tree lighting at Rockefeller Center was that night and everything was very crowded (125,000 people came to see that alone)

We walked alot, saw lots of great sights. Had lunch at TGIF Fridays, headed up to Time Square to see the night life and all the lights. We didn't want to go to the tree lighting (good thing as it poured). We walked to Central Park and took the horsedrawn buggy ride. It was great! All the horses come from the Amish in Pennsylvania. We did more siteseeing then we went back to our room, got some great fresh pastries from the deli next door and laughed and visited til we were exhausted. (Molly and I roomed with Leanne and Carol at the Park Central hotel) It was really a great room...Brenda got it earlier in the summer thru Price line for next to nothing (after we split it by 4)

The next day we got up early, got coffee at Star buck's next door and had a great quick breakfast at a little restaurant across the road. We then decided to take a cab to the empire state building (instead of the subway or walking) It was definitely worth it. I think with a tip it was $10 or so. We arrived before any crowds and got right in. 2 elevators rides later we were at the top. Gorgeous day 60 degrees and sunny! Great views, definitely worth it. When we headed back down the lines and the crowds were outrageous. From there we headed to Madison square Garden to see the Cirque de Solei show. Also very good, we really enjoyed it. Lots of gymnastics and aerobatics to music. We left the show and Molly decided the taxi was the way to go to our next stop "The Body Museum" and offered to pay. We jumped in a cab and Carol visited with the driver and wanted to go to Chinatown first.....well he ended up letting us off at a very shady part of town...lots of big scary looking Black guys just mulling around and the driver told us to "hold onto our purses and don't talk to anyone" He then pulled away...Molly and I were very uncomfortable...Carol wanted us to "not look too much like tourists!" We scrambled into a bank (sort of safe) looked at the map and Carol felt we were only a few blocks from China town. She wanted to head out and walk. I was so proud of Molly! She said "no way! **** Chinatown" and saw a cab with it's light on approaching and popped out in the street and flagged it down. (Mind you there weren't many cabs around) She hopped in and I hopped in after her...Carol and Leanne wanted to keep walking) We gave the driver the address for the museum and were there in about 10 min's. The area was much nicer, cobblestone streets, down by the seaport. We had a great lunch at a little deli and met up with the other members of our group and headed into the museum. (Very interesting all real bodies with various parts dissected out, arteries, veins, nerves, skeletal system, fetal developement, various body parts with different diseases, cancer, strokes....

Carol and Leanne arrived while we were in the museum. From here we walked to Ground Zero, saw the planned memorial, then hopped on the subway to head back to the hotel. Mind you, it's now rush hour about 5:15. The subways were mobbed, our group got separated, and a couple of NYPD cops told us we weren't on the right line, we had to get off at Time Square and transfer. Meanwhile our friend were in the car ahead of us and of course cell phones don't work below ground. Luckily one of them turned around and caught Brenda's eye and she motioned to get off at 42nd street. We transferred, headed to the hotel, grabbed our luggage and hopped back on another subway to go back to Penn Station to catch our train home. (A cab would have been sooooo much easier) Anyway, we made it and were pretty exhausted by the time we got to Albany then another 2 hours home and in our beds by midnight! It was a great trip!

Late entry of thanksgiving pic's

Here's the pictures from our day...we had a great meal with lot's of leftovers.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great day..got up early and put the bird in the oven at 9 am. Molly and I made desserts yesterday. (Brownies and pumpkin bread, regular and gluten free!) We also made squash, sweet potato casserole, stuffing (aunt Judy's recipe), deviled eggs, shrimp, cheese and crackers for snacks and Mom's carrot casserole. The food was delicious. We ended up eating at 1:30. The bird always finishes cooking before the allotted time. Martha came over. We had a nice visit and now everyone is full and sleepy. Tom was on call so wasn't able to come up. I'll post some pictures. Hope everyone had a great day, Happy Thanksgiving!!

The new nail trimmers

The other day when I was shopping on Amazon I discovered this neat tool that grinds dogs nails. Austin has been clicking around our floors for a long time. I trim his nails but have sometimes gone too short and then they bleed. I ended up buying the trimmer and some stiptic powder to use "just in case". I'll post the results!

Deer Hunting

Well John has been gearing up for deer season for a long time...saving his time for vacation days, sighting in the gun etc. Day 1 was a miserable rainy, raw day. He was sitting in his hunting blind most of the morning down the road in Robin and Jerry's meadow watching several doe. While eating his lunch he looked out and a nice 8 pointer stood up. Apparently he had been bedded down with the girls the whole time. We saw him in my pasture the day before deer season too. Very nice deer and now he is in the freezer. (That's another story, we had to buy another freezer as we didn't have enough room! Our old freezer was a small chest, not frost free so we ended up getting an upright frost free from Sears that will be arriving on Monday. (I say arriving, but we have to pick it up!)

Here are some pictures...I wish someone had put the poor deer's tongue back in his mouth!