06.28.07
Posted in Anything goes, Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Uncategorized at 9:43 am by Administrator
After writing my post yesterday on the book When Medicine Went Mad, I remembered a website I stumbled upon months ago called Guinea Pig Zero. Actually, that’s also the name of a book edited by Robert Helms, the full title being Guinea Pig Zero: An Anthology of the Journal for Medical Research Subjects. Included in that book is the story of Jessie Gelsinger written by his father, Paul Gelsinger. The story caught my eye because I remember hearing briefly on the news years ago of some “genetic” experiment gone wrong. This was actually just before or shortly after my AA diagnosis. It appeared that Gelsinger was the boy of whom that story was about. Apparently, he had some problems which they felt could be corrected with gene therapy. All seemed in order, that is, Jessie was of legal age and gave his informed consent based on the information he was provided. However, what was later found was that the information he was given was not only misleading, but false. Below is an excerpt of what was told to Jessie prior to his submitting to the clinical trial.
“He then explained that the most recent patient had shown a 50% increase in her ability to excrete ammonia following gene therapy. My reaction was to say, “Wow Mark! This really works. . .”
Then after Jessie’s death, the following was discovered:
“. . . It wasn’t until that three-day meeting that I discovered that there was never any efficacy in humans. I had believed this was working based on my conversations with Mark Batshaw and that is why I defended Penn for so long. These men could not go in front of their peers at the RAC meeting in Bethesda and say this was working. After Penn and the FDA made their presentations on Dec. 9, I asked for a lunch meeting with the FDA, NIH and the Penn doctors.
The full article can be read here.
I’m not one of those who likes to use my self as a guinea pig, so it always amazes me when I read of people signing up for clinical trials. Lots of people who do sign up have some sort of incurable disease, so they figure they might as well help in the struggle to find a cure. Okay, I can “kinda” understand that, but I still didn’t think it was a good idea for a “sick” person to be testing out all these weird drugs and procedures. Then I found that some of the early tests are actually done on “healthy” individuals, ack! I wondered, “Why would a healthy person take any of these drugs?” Turns out some people are paid to test out these drugs and willingly submit themselves to them. That’s a really weird concept to me, but apparently lots of people do it. And that reminds me of a Jim Carrey movie, Fun with Dick and Jane. In that movie Jane needed some extra cash, so she goes to one of those facilities that use volunteers to test out some cosmetic implant substances. She ends up with a reaction where her lip got swollen like it had been stung by an army of mosquitoes, ha ha! It’s funny to watch in a movie, but must be horrifying in real life. There was an article months back, maybe a year ago or more now where these healthy guys submitted themselves to some new drug. Shortly after being injected these guys were screaming in pain. I forget the details, but a couple of them ended up in critical condition. I recall one patient’s head swelled up so big that he was screaming in pain, ack! Unfortunately, I never did see a followup article on that. What happened to those guys? I wonder how many people submit themselves to new drug tests each day? What are the results? Weird stuff going on in this world. . .
Marlakins
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06.27.07
Posted in Anything goes, History, Uncategorized at 4:52 pm by Administrator
While at the library the other day, I stumbled upon a book called, When Medicine Went Mad, Bioethics and the Holocaust, edited by Arthur L. Caplan. The book compiles writings from more than a dozen people, including Holocaust survivors, expressing their viewpoints on the medical involvement during and before the Holocaust. One major question was whether the information gathered should be used today or disgarded. Those who expressed their views wrote of either their research or personal experience. I found it enlightening. Although I know the history of the Holocaust is not a pleasant one to revisit, I do feel that history is very important. History should not be forgotten because all too often, history repeats itself. Even Luke in the Bible tells us, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be again.”
When Medicine Went Mad exposes a lot of very eye-opening details for me. About a year ago, I wrote a post on a video I watched dealing with Nazi medicine. It was from that video I first learned of the idea that “eugenics” was embraced in America “before” it was so widely implimented in Germany. That bit of information surprised me because I had not known that. I don’t recall ever learning that in school. Why have I rarely heard anyone discuss this? Are we too busy entertaining ourselves to not notice the plight of others, or is it as the book says, a “taboo” subject which ought not be discussed? There are other similar horrific events happening in our modern world. Do these things continue to happen as a result of us not discussing them or exposing them?
The first three accounts in When Medicine Went Mad are testimonies from Holocaust survivors. Eva Mozes Kor, Sara Seiler Vigorito, and Gisela Konopka bring to light inhumane experiments conducted during the Holocaust. These were done without consent (and often without the “subjects’” knowledge), without anesthesia, in total disregard for the subjects’ mental and physical needs, etc. Therefore, the argument goes, results of their experiments should be destroyed and not used as part of research materials for medical purposes (or any other purpose for that matter). I had only very fleetingly grappled with this idea. I am at a bit at a toss up since that information is now available. Shouldn’t we use it?
The following is what Gisela Konopka wrote regarding that question:
“In the concentration camp I saw a man hunted to death by making him run, fall down, get up, and run again until the blood spurted out of his mouth. Perhaps someone could develop “scientific” data on how long it takes for a lung to burst!
“By the way, all those immense discoveries in the hypothermia data do not seem so great to me. I knew already as a teenager (before the Nazis) that to drink alcohol and fall asleep in the snow may bring death.
“I consider it inexcusable to dignify those murderers with the word ’scientist’ or dignify what they did with the word ‘research.’”
I still have yet to read the articles on the hypothermia experiments, so will reserve comment on that at this time. But I did feel that Gisela made a good point. How valuable is the information that was gathered from the Nazi medical experiments? Could that information have been learned humanely? How has any of it benefitted us today, if at all? It brings to mind the animal experiments that have continued on today, and particularly recently, the experiments done on primates to study brain trauma. Granted, I do feel that animals and humans are not exactly equal, but according to the Bible, A righteous man regards the life of his animal, But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The article which followed Gisela’s was written by Robert N. Proctor, entitled Nazi Biomedical Policies. Among the many interesting details he shared, one that I found noteworthy in regards to the use of Nazi medical experiments was the number of journals housed in American medical libraries, which published their findings. Proctor wrote:
“. . . In the case of medicine, it is interesting that there is no massive exodus from the editorial boards of medical journals in the period 1932-1935. Medical journals did not close their doors. If you go to the New York Academy of Medicine, Stanford’s Lane Library, or any other major medical library, you can find more than 150 German medical journals published continuously through the Nazi period–more than 100 meters of shelf space of journals! Few medical journals ceased publication in the early years of the regime; most of those that did cease publication did not close until the mid-war years. In fact, some 30 odd new medical journals begin publishing during the Nazi period. Several of these are still published today.”
Any medical doctor or student or any persons with access to those journals could see what was being done in Germany during those years in regards to their medical experiments and practices. Germany not only obtained some of their ideas from America, but their subsequent activities were not hidden, either, but actually accepted. In Eva Mozes Kor’s testimony she describes how it was common for twins to be injected with substances which they did not know what they were. Years later, they were developing mysterious incurable diseases. If they could find their files from Auschwitz, it might help the doctors find a cure. Do these files still exist? With what were they being injected? Perhaps some clues could be found in the volumes of literature housed in our American medical libraries?
As mentioned earlier, America was actually a role model for Germany. Proctor wrote:
“I should also mention that it was the U.S. hat provided the most important model for German sterilization laws. By the late 1920’s, 15,000 individuals had been sterilized in the U.S. –most while incarcerated in prisons or homes for the mentally ill. Nearly half of these took place in California–most of the others in northern states (not, as one might have expected , in the South). German racial hygenists throughout the Weimar period expressed their envy of American achievements in this area, warning that unless the Germans made progress in this field, America would become the world’s racial leader.”
And another example:
“In subsequent years, racial hygienists looked to other aspects of American racial policy for instruction. Nazi physicians on more than one occasion argued that German racial policies were relatively liberal compared with the way blacks were treated in the U.S. Evidence for this was usually taken from the fact that in several southern states, a person with 1/32 black ancestry was legally black, whereas if someone was 1/8 Jewish in Germany (and for many purposes, 1/4 Jewish), that person was legally Aryan. Nazi physicians spent a great deal of time discussing American miscegenation legislation; German medical journals reproduced charts showing the states in which blacks could or could not marry whites could or could not vote, and so forth.
“In 1939, Germany’s leading racial hygiene journal reported that the University of Missouri had refused to admit black students. The same year, the journal reported the recent refusal of the American Medical Association to admit black physicians to its membership. German physicians had only recently (in 1938) barred Jews from practicing medicine (except on other Jews); racial theorists were thereby able to argue that Germany was not alone it is efforts to preserve racial purity.”
Wow, not even 100 years have passed, and I have an inkling that most people aren’t aware of that part of our history. How much more of history has been lost? There is much more information like this in When Medicine Went Mad. And although I’m not trying to make excuses for what happened in Germany in the early 1900s, I see that we American’s have a shameful past as well. Granted we did not gass thousands of people to death, but with the prevailing ideologies of the time, it sure looks like we were heading into a collision course. We allowed it and even aplauded it. And as Gisela wrote, even using the excuse that American’s did it, too, is not a good excuse for what happened in Germany during those years which culminated into the murder of millions of people. Those Nazi doctors were not mad men, but normal citizens who went to work (experimenting on human beings), then went home at night to their wives and kids. All in a day’s work.
Have we become desensitized to this all as well, since we allow government funded abortions to be performed by the thousands in the name of “freedom of choice?” We push for our pharmaceutical companies to churn out more and more drugs and procedures for our ailments, which are first tested on citizens of third-world countries, while we turn our heads? We are only too happy to receive our drugs without a thought as to what was the process by which those drugs and procedures were procured/developed and tested. We rationalize that fetal stem cells are not “really” human, “yet.” The end justifies the means? What has happened to us, or has humanity always been this way? Is that why God inspired a book (the Bible) for us to teach us a simple concept of loving one another? More and more I feel that God inspired the Bible to tell us things that we would not know apart from it. And yet, some even twist the lessons in the Bible to blame God for all our evil ways and thoughts. It appears that we don’t even realize much of the time when we are being evil and unloving towards our brothers.
There’s so much more information in the first few articles I read that I did not know. Perhaps I’ll share more of it in another post after I’ve finished reading the book. How much of history should we know, and should any of it be forgotten? Is the advancement of science truly more important than humanity, or is science supposed to “serve” humanity?
Marlakins
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06.24.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized at 6:07 pm by Administrator
I just realized that I’ve let almost two weeks pass by without blogging, ack! Where has the time gone? Where have I been? Oh well, just thought I would make a quick entry just to pop in and say that I’m still around and things seem to be going okay.
We spent Father’s Day at my parents’ house. Lucky for me, Brian likes to cook, so he handled most of all the Father’s Day meal! Along with the usual veggies, we had three ducks and New York steaks. I think I continued to have left overs for the next two days.
My mom had her scopes done last Tuesday, and thank God, they didn’t find anything majorly wrong with her. They did find H.pylori, tho, so have her on antibiotics for a couple of weeks. Will check back in a couple weeks to see if there are any changes to her CBC since they didn’t find anything suspicious to explain her low iron and low hgb. Dad also continues to hang on pretty well. His IgGs went down 310 points at this last check up! Woo hoo! If only they’d go down another 2000 points! But we’re happy to see the 310 reduction. . . So at this point, they can play for another month until which time they check in to see what’s up for that month.
Other than that, I’ve just been doing the usual around here. My friend and I visited the Santa Monica Gem Show last weekend. Oh boy, oh boy do we love that show! We didn’t go hog wild like she did last time we went in December, but we did pick up a few little items like stirling silver and amber. We have matching pendants now. I also found some Chinese knotting cord there. I had been wondering where to get that stuff. I also finally got around to visiting Suss’s Outlet Store and found that she has some nice yarns there! Woo hoo! So I’ve got some fun stuff to keep me busy and out of trouble. Which reminds me. I did visit my knitting friend who broke her hip a couple weeks ago. What a coincidence that we would meet up being that we both have had blood problems and we both love knitting! Unfortunately, she fell and broke her hip, but her docs were still able to perform a successful total hip replacement with her only having 50K platelets! I find that encouraging and a reminder how God has given us so much abundance. To think that we can undergo hip replacement surgery with only 1/3 of our normal platelet levels and do just fine. We can actually function quite well at 30K plts, but God has provided us with 150-450K. That’s only one example of God’s grace to us and how He doesn’t just give us what’s enough, He gives us abundance. Unfortunately, I tend to forget that and take things for granted until something goes wrong. . . Hmmm.
One of my internet friends from Australia has written to me about how bitterly cold it has been there during this past couple weeks. That’s another thing I haven’t considered much–what the living conditions are like in the other parts of the world. It’s funny to think that during our cold weather here, it’s warm in the southern hemisphere, and vice versa. While she freezes, I sweat in this sweltering heat. Actually, the weather is fairly mild here in Los Angeles all year round, but the past few days have been a bit muggy, I think. I’m spoiled in that regard. But I do find it interesting how the internet has given me a little more awareness of the other side of the globe. It’s not like I’ve never travelled to the southern hemisphere, either. I have been to Brazil, but that was a very long time ago. I never used to think about the daylight times either until I had a friend who at 10PM his time I could see daylight from his webcam. That surprised me because here in L.A. the longest daylight would be at around 8:30PM max, I think. Never is it still daylight here at 10PM. How different! Ha! To think that some countries celebrate Christmas in summer weather. . .
Yeah I know, goofy things that amuse me. . . Oh, which reminds me. We checked out a DVD on a TV series from England. It’s called Jamie’s Kitchen. This DVD has 8 episodes wherein it shows how Jamie, apparently a prominent cooking personality on British TV, takes 15 unemployed people and gives them the opportunity to train and work as a gourmet chef. They go over a course of one year. Wow, chefs are something else I’ve never thought much of before, but sure gives me a better appreciation for professional chefs! Ha! One thing that struck me was the part when the student chefs were taken to a farm to see how animals were raised. The purpose is to have a more intimate understanding of where our meat comes from and what affects the quality of our meat. That particularly interested me because I have been interested in the quality of our meats and have gleaned bits and pieces of information regarding animal husbandry because of it. I would love to have an inside look at animal husbandry. So I was reminded when watching the series that lots of people don’t know the first thing about the meat they eat and where it comes from. Even these student chefs, after having gone first hand to visit farms with guided tours, “still” didn’t grasp the importance of what makes good quality meat. This was later evident when they were given an assignment to shop for meats at the butchers market. Bottom line for me was that I really appreciated that Jamie understood the importance of knowing “where” the meat came from and the animals living conditions prior to processing. This gives me respect for gourmet chefs.
Oh, speaking of DVDs. We also rented a movie about a little terrier dog. Shame on me that I didn’t even pay attention to the title of the movie! But what struck me about this movie was that it was based on a true story, and the faithfulness of this dog was absolutely amazing. To make a long story short, his master died, and this little dog went to his master’s grave and would sleep there night after night for “11 years!” until his own death. Do we have humans that faithful? I sure would like to know.
Anyway, I was originally just gonna pop in to “wave”. . . ha!, but ended up rattling on and on about, well, not much! Ha! So better go make myself useful. I hope everyone is having a nice summer!
Marlakins 
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06.12.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, knitting and crocheting at 6:28 pm by Administrator
At this stage of my knitting, I’m finding that there is so much to learn and so many things I want to try. So I was delighted when I received a new knitting pattern from a friend. This pattern is of a “gansey” sweater. When I looked through the instructions, I was immediately struck with how clever the design was. The sweater is knitted in the round so that there are no seams. The great majority of patterns I’ve seen here in the states are knit in pieces then sewn together. Not so with ganseys. From subsequent searches for more information on ganseys, I have come to just love these sweaters. Apparently, Ganseys, aka Guernseys, are traditional fishermen sweaters from around the British Isles. Since these sweaters were originally handknit by family members, each fisherman had his own unique patterned gansey. Some say that one of the advantages of each sweater being unique was that if a fisherman were to be washed on shore, he could be identified by the pattern on his gansey, and thus his body could be properly returned to his family or at least his village. Some families had more than one male working as a fisherman, and so their initials were also commonly knitted into the sweater. And since these sweaters were for hardworking fishermen exposed to the elements and harsh work conditions, these sweaters had to be warm as well as rugged and utilitarian. And hence the unique construction of these ganseys.
Ganseys are commonly worked from the bottom up, and knitted in the round. When the work approaches the underarm portion, increases are made under the arms to form a gusset. What this gusset does is allow more room for the wearer to move his arms freely without causing the sweater to ride up. Since the elbows are common areas for wear and tear, the ganseys are made so that the fronts and backs are the same, and the sweater can be turned around to help avoid the elbows from wearing down. And since the sleeves are also knitted in the round from the armpits down to the wrists, if the elbows were to wear out and need repair, all that was needed was to unravel from the wrist to the area in need of repair and then just knit right back up. Clever! And so practical, I love it! Not only are these sweaters cleverly designed, some were also adorned with intricate designs.
I definitely want to work up the gansey pattern I received. The pattern cover pictured above is designed in the spirit of the Manx designs, which are believed to be much plainer or simpler in decorative design than that of other fisherman from other regions. So I looked up what other ganseys looked like and found a book at the library called, Knitting Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in knitting sweaters. And I just found that Beth has a blog! Not only does Brown-Reinsel explain how to construct ganseys, but she has clear instructions on how to make a “sampler” gansey so that one can learn and go through all the steps to make a gansey before actually having to work on a full-sized sweater. Below is a picture of the sampler I was working on after I got one sleeve worked up.
And coincidentally, it fit Nine Lives perfectly! Here is Nine Lives wearing his first completed gansey!
He is sitting on one of those “modern” artwork benches at the library.
Pictured on the right is a closeup of the shoulder area of the gansey. I love the shoulder strap attachment technique, which allows for a pattern to run down the top of the shoulder down to the sleeve. Notice how there is no visible seam and the pattern looks continuous. It may be hard to see in this picture due to the shadowing and if you don’t know what to look for, but at the bottom left portion of the sampler gansey is the initial “B” knitted in reverse stockinette stitch. This is a common area for the wearer’s initial to be placed as well as under the arm on the gusset. The yarn I used was some old left over stuff, so not the quality one would want to use for a real gansey. Traditionally they are worked up in 5-ply wool. Solid colors help to make the knit designs more visible. I read in a couple articles that it was common for the Scots to have black ganseys and the English to have dark blue ganseys. They are also more tightly knit with smaller needles. (Plus I did not block this one, so it doesn’t drape very softly). For instance the pattern I received calls for a size 2 US. Which incidentally for any new knitters, I found a website that has a nice chart for the conversion gauges from Japanese, U.S., and English knitting needles. Basically, U.S. needles are opposite British needle sizes. The larger the number for a U.S. needle, the smaller the British needle. So a size 2 US would be a size 12 (according to the link chart) British. (Although the pattern I received says a size 11 British or 2.75mm, which would be the 12 British according to the link). The Japanese needles are somewhat closer to U.S. numbers, but still a lot different as the link chart shows. I just happened to stumble on that site when looking up Japanese patterns. I have found that they have some excellent knitting, too!
Anyway, I have another gansey book on reserve at the library and am really looking forward to getting my hands on that one. In the meantime, I really have to thank my friend for introducing me to ganseys. It has really opened up my view on sweaters and has already taught me so much regarding designs and techniques and I have not even made a full-sized one, yet!
Before Nine Lives and I headed home, I let him recline out on the grass for a while. He looked so comfortable and like such a good model, that I couldn’t resist taking another shot of him. Doesn’t he look comfy, heheheh?
Marlakins
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06.10.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized at 10:38 pm by Administrator
The other day I watched a DVD rental called, “Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?” Being that I’m interested in art and that Jackson Pollock was a very prominent artist in the U.S., I knew who Jackson Pollock was, as do many others. I also knew that his artwork sold for LOTS of money, but for some odd reason, it wasn’t until I saw this movie that I saw the craziness of the art world.
Actually, it’s not only the art world, but also the fashion industry, the sports industry, etc. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the money involved. The movie “Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?” features a woman who bought a painting for $5 from a thrift store. This painting looked like an original Pollock. She spent about 10 years of her life trying to prove this painting was authentic. What she found was that trying to get the art world to recognize her find proved very difficult.
Basically, an original Pollock could be worth “$50 million” or more. One painting! And some are worth even more! One artist! How many other prominent art works are out there of which each piece was purchased by the millions of dollars? That’s a lot of money floating around and being spent by “individuals.” What kind of person can buy a painting for $50 million? Certainly that’s not the only possession that person would have. They likely have more very expensive items in their possession, I imagine. And honestly, I have no problem that some people have lots of money and can afford those luxuries. BUT, it’s when I think of all the poverty in the world, then I wonder how much money would it take to feed all the world’s starving people? At that point I start to realize that such extravagance is actually appalling. Food and clothing is such a basic need. There are people starving and naked by the thousands, yet we have individuals who amass so much money as to be able to spend millions on one painting. Somehow there seems to be an evil in that. Somehow, looking at it in that light makes me feel that poverty (at least to the extent of those who are literally starving to death) is avoidable if only the ultra rich would combine forces and drop a few crumbs of their massive wealth to the poor. I have read of the suspected causes for some of this starvation and poverty, and it’s not nice. There’s an imbalance here. And it makes me wonder why that is. Perhaps the cause is lack of love and excess greed.
Thinking of this great imbalance also makes me think of our media and how so much is reported regarding the lives of the rich and famous. Why is it reported? Is it because their lives are more important and newsworthy then the average guy? Or maybe it’s because they are what we aspire for ourselves? There is a natural tendency for people to admire the rich, and at the same time look down upon the poor. James tells us:
“But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?”
Even thousands of years ago when James was alive on earth, it was known that the rich oppress the poor. Why do we admire them so?
Now I’m not a communist or anything like that, and I certainly have nothing against artists and artwork. I enjoy it myself! I have no problem with people working hard and earning a good living and even enjoying the fruits of one’s labor. “A worker is worthy of his wages.” I would even love to be rich myself! I also realize that there are those who do try to help and have given monetarily and in physical labor and time to help the poor such as Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Princess Diana, etc. However, I think what gets to me is the “ultra rich.” When people have so much money they can buy a single “painting” for millions of dollars or when “one” man can earn $200 million in one year for playing a sport. It just seems so excessive and even a bit evil that so much money is in the hands of “one” person while others starve by the thousands. How can there be starving people when there’s that much money? It makes me wonder if there are some other forces at work keeping the poor poor and continuing to allow hundreds to starve to death. So much produce is spoiled and disgarded every day. It would seem that with proper organization and funding, food would be sent to the right places rather than just allowed to spoil and be disgarded. It’s not like there is not enough food production, but rather lack of proper allocation of it. Too much in one place, too little in another. It’s a sad concept for me. But this is nothing new in life, is it? This is the world in which we live. James was so right when he asked, Why do we admire the rich, when they oppress the poor?
Marlakins
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06.05.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, knitting and crocheting at 7:09 pm by Administrator
I don’t know why yarn is so captivating to me, but it is. . . It has really distracted me from my reading, but I know I have to set aside some time to get some reading in again. In the meantime, I finished my first amigurumi cat! Ack! And I really like it! The pattern came from this blog. The instructions are in Japanese, but the illustrations are so good, not much Japanese is needed to understand it. I couldn’t resist but to take more pictures of my completed projects and take them along with me today while I ran my errands. My kids and I decided to name the teddy bear Sugar Bear, and my new crocheted cat we named Nine Lives. So here’s a picture of Nine-Live’s “parts.”
I stuffed him with stuffing and beans for weights in the arms and legs and bottom portion of the body. This is what he looked like after he was assembled.
And this is what Nine Lives looked like when he met Sugar Bear.
Hee, hee! Well since they hit it off so well, I couldn’t just leave them at home. I took them out with me while I ran my errands. But they were very obedient and waited very patiently while we picked up Andrew at his school. He had his history final today. . .
And since Nine Lives and Sugar Bear were so well-behaved, I took them to the library with me. And boy does he like books! How about that? Smart cat. The book he’s looking at is called Reclaiming History, the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi. This monster of a book is his attempted at debunking all those JFK conspiracy theorists. I checked the book out to see what he has to say.
Nine Lives even got Sugar Bear interested in reading as well. . .
I think I’ve found a couple traveling companions! I will have to introduce them to our family mascot, Jack (our stuffed ape). If I get a chance to snap a pic of Jack, I’ll include him on my blog. Jack has traveled to several places with our family, and we even have pictures of him on our trips, ha! (My kids started that tradition, not me!) When the librarian saw me taking pictures of Nine Lives and Sugar bear she commented that my kids must be grown now since I’m playing with these stuffed animals, ha ha! Funny how her observation had some truth in it! Actually, subconsciously I think I’m practicing to be a grandma. Wishful thinking, I guess. . . I’m really missing little babies these days. But for the meantime, I practice learning how to make them toys and clothing.
Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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06.03.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, knitting and crocheting at 10:47 am by Administrator
This week I worked on another knit project. I’m trying to learn different knitting skills, so this time I choose a pattern from a book called, Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, by Erica Knight. This pattern gave me the opportunity to try making a knit teddy bear. I have never done this before, and I just used the supplies I already had on hand, so I really think this project would have come out nicer had I had nicer materials to work with. But the experience was good, and I am encouraged to try more stuffed knits. Here’s a picture of the pieces I knitted before I sewed them up.
And here’s the completed teddy bear next to another ball of yarn for size comparison.
I’m really happy that spring is here so little teddy and I could hang out comfortably in the backyard for a little while. I haven’t given her a name yet, but her presence has encouraged me to make her more companions, ha! So I did a web search and found this “CUTE” blog. Unfortunately for me, it’s in Japanese, but that little cutie before the plate of fish is an “amigurumi.” However, if you scroll down to the bottom of that page and click onto the arrow pointing to the right, there are more cute amigurumis. Apparently, there are a bunch of different patterns for them out there, but they are crochet, not knit. Maybe I can adapt it to a knit pattern, but in the meantime, I may just try my hand at one or some of these! For anyone interested, there is a flicker group which displays hundreds of these amigurumi. So cute! It’s fun to look at all the creativity that’s out there. They’re like the crochet version of beanie babies.
Okay, I’m off to see what I can get my hands on!
Marlakins
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06.02.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, cooking at 12:52 pm by Administrator
It appears that my 13-year-old enjoys cooking. Lucky me! Well, kinda. Although the things he’s whipping up in the kitchen are tasty, I don’t know how much longer I can keep “tasting” before my butt and thighs start making thunder, ha! I’m hoping he’ll start getting into cooking main dishes more than just pastries.
His second cooking endeavor were cinnamon rolls. . . ummm. And yes, they tasted “uummm.” Even his brothers are now asking him when he’s going to make more cinnamon rolls. We have already demolished them, but I snapped a picture of Aaron’s first batch before we dove in. This time he found a recipe on the internet from Videojug. That link lists all the ingredients and has a step-by-step video as well for the cinnamon rolls. Aaron just used organic ingredients and used rapadura instead of regular sugar. It tasted very good! The next recipe he seems to be eyeballing are Chinese dumplings. Hmmm. I don’t know of any place that sells organic wraps, so he’s testing out making his own from scratch, oye! Anyway, that’s for next time, maybe. . . In the meantime, “Bon appetit!”
Marlakins 
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