I recently joined the FiberRAOK group and sent out my first RAOK’s last week. Kimberli received hers and was so cute to post about it and take a picture. I’m amazed how people you’ve never met can be so nice! Between the RAOK group and the Knitting Help forum, I have grown to really appreciate many of these people even though I’ve never met any of them.

My brother in law’s melanoma didn’t spread, thank goodness. They took out a few of his lymph nodes and everything was fine. Now if we can only get him out of the sun (NOT likely)!

Jim’s new device is scheduled to go in on Friday. Please think good thoughts for him. Amazingly enough, he should be home Friday evening. This is the post where I describe the whole ordeal in more detail.

No, this is not some king of weird Angelina Joile thing. I just got back from giving blood.:heart: I tried to do it in the past, but I had restrictions that prevented me from donating. Once it was a little cut on my hand that the nurse thought might be infected (it wasn’t). Another time, it was that I had gotten a tattoo within the last 12 months. You can see a picture of the lovely donation center HERE. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring in my phone so I could document my experience with some pictures. Maybe next time (if there is one:think:)

“So,” you wonder, “how did it go?” I’d love to say flawlessly but that would be a lie. The needle part doesn’t bother me…much. I just have to look away when they put it in. I was going a long fine until I realized I see to be a very fast blood giver. The girl next to me had already been at it for a while when they put my needle in. I was finished well before she was. Maybe that has something to do with the after effects! First, I was extremely nauseous. Waited a few minutes to see if it abated. I must’ve also looked pretty bad because the smelling salts came out. Then, they put a cold compress on my head and around my neck. Sat for about 10 more minutes. When I finally thought I was ok, I began to walk over to the snack area. Luckily the volunteer (I’ll call her snack lady…she was in charge of making the popcorn. Popcorn machine. Pretty cool for a blood donation center) was right there and I said, “oh is it ok if I sit in this (her chair) chair just for a minute?” I had barely gotten that out when she was calling for a nurse and a cot. Then two of them ended up carrying me over to the donation bed. More smelling salts ensued. How embarrassing! They were all super nice though and after about 20 more minutes I felt well enough to leave. So much for golf tonight. I definitely have to put that off until tomorrow.

This weekend finally felt much more “normal” to me. We kicked off the weekend by playing golf on Friday…my first 18 since the surgery. Pain free, YAY me!!! :cheer::cheer::cheer: Saturday, another round of golf with our friends H & L (names have been changed to protect the innocent). It was probably a bit ambitious to play two days in a row (I could feel it the second day!) but the weather was way too beautiful to pass it up. I gave L her birthday wrap/scarf . It is made from OnLine Linie 42, Plush, color “Partie”. It is easy to work with and very soft and the pattern it made was a real suprise. It has diamond shapes throughout the piece. I think she really liked it…we have one of those relationships where she *probably* would have told me if she didn’t.

After making ourselves presentable, we met at H & L’s house for pre dinner cocktail. We toasted to L’s birthday with a bottle of 1998 Le R�ve Blanc de Blancs Sparkling Wine. This is a great special occasion wine, but pricey. We are generally more into the “great value” category but you gotta splurge for a birthday, right? The Domaine Carneros winery is one of our favorite places to go in the Napa Valley area…super view, great patio, awesome tasting room and very nice people.

To top off L’s birthday, we went to dinner at Prima Vista. The food there is fabulous and always reliable. However, I had my worst meal there ever. I’m not sure why, but everything tasted way too rich. Maybe I was too filled up on wine and bread to really enjoy it. Birthdays always bring that out in me We had David Bruce Petite Syrah wine which was extremely tasty.

Sunday was spent recovering and playing with Loki and Bodhi. I also knitted a little test for a felted project idea I had. It didn’t really turn out after washing, but the Patons Classic Wool Merino I used did felt well…good to know for future reference. I’m glad I didn’t just “go for it” with the larger version. That would’ve been a real bummer.