One Pound Lighter

I lost a pound yesterday in under 30 minutes! Did you know you can too?  It's very easy, all you need to do is contact your local blood bank.

This was prompted by the friend I mentioned earlier--the Trombone Player. His mom has been a regular donor for decades and is now on the receiving end of blood transfusions. He thought it would be nice if he could get people she's met to donate.  So that's what I did today. The hospital across the street from my building has a walk in donation center and, as I didn't have any really important 4 p.m. meetings, I went over. One of the advantages to adding a couple extra pounds over the last year is that when I went in they believed me when I said I'm over the required 110 lbs.  I should, however, always have some spinach and red meat shortly before donating, as I'm on the low end for hemoglobin.

I had a number of tests done for various reasons in my past so getting blood drawn holds no particular fears for me, though I'll admit finding it a little creepy to watch that much blood go into the bag.  My phlebotomist and I discussed Hunger Games.  And then I headed back to my cube.

Now I'm drinking buckets of tea, trying to correct the hypovolemia.







I picked up machine washable Cascade 128 for a City Shawl for Trombone's Mom. She'll be in the hospital another month, so I went with the Chianti colorway. She actually prefers whiskey but I couldn't find any yarn that seemed to be in that colorway, so I went for wine instead. I'm over 2 skeins into the project. I say I'm using the City Shawl because that's the general idea I'm working with, but I changed how many you cast on, changed when do x number of rows and when y, messed around with the lace so it hangs a little better. It's close though, really. :-p

The shawl is going nicely. A small project on large needles does work up pretty quickly.  I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend so I can get back to the other projects that are gathering dust around the livingroom.