An experiment with video

I've had my digital camera for awhile but have never tried using the video recording option until now. Yesterday, I shot some videos of Roxy and Jordan playing smack down on each other and wanted to upload one to the blog.

I downloaded three videos to my computer and then tried to view them on both my Real player and Windows media player with no success. I finally used a VLC player I had downloaded some months ago and that worked like a charm.

Now to embed in the blog. I followed the Blogger help instructions which were very easy and then waited. And waited. And waited some more. Now according to the instructions, uploading a video to a blog can take awhile, depending on how big the file is. My video was about two and a half minutes long, a file size of just over seventeenMB and well under the one hundredMB limit. I started the upload at 6:00pm and it was still going at 10:00pm. I left my computer on all night and when I came in to work at about 8:30am, it was still uploading. I ended up canceling the procedure in frustration.

So, I'm going to try again with a different, shorter video showing Roxy playing with a new toy. We'll see if this one loads any faster. Started at 10:13am.



Yippee, it worked! At least for this video. That's Roxy playing with a new toy, a Kong snake.

This is the snake before she got her paws on it:



It's about two and a half feet long and has squeakers in both ends. She loves it and so does Jordan.

A Dose of Cute on a Rainy, Blustery Day

Today it is so crappy out I didn't even bother getting out of my PJs. Rainy and blustery, although the temps are up near the fifties so at least it's not cold.

The one bright spot is that I am babysitting my niece's BF's dog, a one and a half year old puggle. His name is Jordan and he is cute and feisty as the dickens! He came to spend the weekend and I'm watching him because Niece had to go out for a few hours.

Jordan, still for a second

In order to try and keep him occupied, I put some peanut butter in a small Kong toy and he had a ball trying to get it all out. When he finished, we played fetch with it for awhile.  In between games of fetch, he has destroyed a stuffed fish of Roxy's. I've been following him around, picking up the stuffing all morning.

Roxy loves him - finally, she has someone to play with who plays as hard as she does.  Petey, poor thing just wants him to get lost, especially when Jordan insists on humping him (Jordan has not been "fixed").  Petey puts up with it for as long as he can (wearing an expression of long suffering the whole time) but then he snaps and goes after Jordan.

Well, don't worry Petey, he'll be going home soon!

    How can you not love a face like that?









Working on the Kong.

Discharged One Year Ago - First Anniversary!

I can't believe I've been out of Avalon for a year. The time went by so fast and I haven't really accomplished much. I still don't have any furniture to speak of. My only major furniture purchase has been a dining table for the kitchen. No chairs, just the table. It took until October to save up enough to buy it. I'm saving for the chairs (well, two of them anyway) in April barring any unforeseen expenses.

On the other hand, I've slowly gotten back into baking and have started to do some cooking. Of course, my cooking is limited to whatever I can make in a crockpot but I have gotten inspiration from several sources including a blog called A Year of Slow Cooking.

One strange thing though is that when I first starting baking breads, I always had terrific results with yeast breads but no luck at all with soda breads. No matter what I did, the crust would come out nicely but the inside was always a wet, doughy mess. Now the reverse is true. My quick breads come out fantastic (no matter what I do to them) and my yeast breads are meh. I guess I need to keep practicing...

Happy New Year's Eve!

Comments and Graphics - New Year Layouts - Photobucket

My first New Year's Eve in my own home - very quiet.  Basically, just another day.  We had some snow earlier in the day but nothing like the blizzard of last week, thank goodness.  I'll be thinking about packing away my trees and decorations over the weekend.  I think my future tradition will be to put the trees up on Dec. 1st and take them down on New Year's, drinking a toast with wine or beer as I work. 



I'm wondering what my Avalon friends are doing for New Years this year?  In past years, on my side of the building, the rec department hired a husband and wife duo to come in and play music and sing to entertain the residents on New Year's Eve.  They would start playing around 7:00pm, continuing until just after midnight, and the Friendship lounge would be filled with mostly members of the bariatric group and those few regular residents that managed to evade the aides who were trying to get them into bed by that time.


Rec was also responsible for making sure the kitchen sent up refreshments, like sparkling cider or soda and some kind of light snack such as fruit trays or cheese and crackers and ice cream.  They would also supply hats and noisemakers for the party but no one from the department would be on hand to distribute the refreshments or the party goods so it was usually left to us chunkies to take care of making sure the party went off without a hitch.


One year, our group decided to orchestrate our own celebration and we got together and ordered dinner from one of the local restaurants instead of eating from the regular Avalon menu.  We didn't really think this through enough though.  Our meal was delivered a little before seven and we were in the middle of eating when the regular residents began coming into the lounge for the New Year's party.  Naturally, they thought the kitchen had provided a meal for the party and there were some hurt feelings when they found out otherwise. 


In retrospect, we should have had our meal in the Emerald dayroom and then come into the Friendship lounge after we had finished to join the party.  Or, even better, we could have voted in Resident's Council to take some of the Council's funds and put them towards a nice spread for all the residents.


I don't know how much partying there was on the other side of the building - most of the residents on that side were very elderly and were normally put to bed by seven or eight at the latest.  Their party, if they had one, probably didn't last more than an hour.


May you all have a very happy and healthy New Year!

Final thoughts on the holidays

I did the round-robin thing with one of my Avalon friends, Sheila. I called her but didn't get through and then she called me.  We wished each other a happy belated holiday and then I asked her what Avalon did for the residents this Xmas.  Apparently not as much as in previous years.

For starters, there was no tree lighting ceremony, although there was music and some partying in the lounges.  I forgot to ask if they had the string quartet this year - that was always my favorite part of the celebration.  

The holiday dinner consisted of cornish game hens, asparagus, stuffing, baked potato and for dessert, a choice of angel food cake or eclairs.  Pretty much what I expected.  

There was also no shopping trip for the chunkies this month.  As you can imagine, this didn't go over too well with many of them since they had been planning and saving their bucks for this trip to do their Xmas shopping.  One woman, Marni, had just recently become a grandmother for the first time and of course, she wanted to go out and get some nice gifts for her new grandson.  To add insult to injury, there was no curtailing of the other residents outings, only the bariatrics.

Sheila told me a lot of other changes had been instituted.  Those bariatric program members who refused to sign the contract were moved from their rooms on Emerald and relocated.  She said she was contemplating dropping out of the program, even though it meant she might be moved to the other side of the building, because physically, she couldn't deal with the requirements anymore.

The monthly cooking class has gone downhill.  The new dietitian assigned to the bariatric program has been doing most of the cooking in the class instead of having the students do it as in the past.  According to Sheila, the woman doesn't seem to know much about cooking because everything she has made so far has been practically inedible (well, that's one way to diet - make the food so bad that no one will eat it).

Murray, the dog, is still there but his days are numbered.  The administrator has already gotten rid of all the other animals like Robin's birds and the animals that lived in the children's wing.  Murray is only safe until the admin gets back from his business trip.

I wonder if Santa Avalon gave the residents a present this year?  I forgot to ask Sheila but my guess is no.  I am so glad I'm not there anymore...

Final, final thought: I was going to save up during the next year so that I could get a nice six foot tree for the living room but now I think I'll just stick with the two little ones I bought. Physically, I'm not up to the challenge of doing a lot of decorating of a big tree anymore. And after all, it's not like I need a tree big enough to stick presents under, since I couldn't afford to buy any this year and most likely won't be able to afford it next year. Yeah, the little trees will be just fine. Downsizing and minimizing the clutter, that's what it's all about.

Edited to add pictures of the trees:

This is the three-footer.  That's a picture of my mom when she was in her twenties.

         This is my two foot kitchen tree.  Believe me, it's much prettier in    person!

Christmas Past

It was nice having Xmas in my own home after spending what seems like forever in the nursing home.  I didn't get or give any presents but my family was around, popping in throughout the day to visit, and we had a dessert exchange which was nice.

Avalon dresses up for the holidays and Xmas is no exception.  In my years there, sometime after Thanksgiving, the housekeeping staff would bring all the decorations out of storage and would set up the artificial Xmas trees in the two lounges and in the dayrooms.  The halls would literally be decked with holly, in the form of large wreaths.

Us chunkies, along with some of the Recreation staff, would take on the task of decorating the trees in the Friendship lounge and the Emerald dayroom.  One year, during our rec class, we made picture frame ornaments with small ID sized pictures of all of the residents (all the ones that didn't mind getting their pictures taken that is) that went on the trees in the resident's respective lounge.  Since the Stardust lounge was the bigger of the two lounges, and it was also the main lounge, an large sleigh, with Santa and a bag of gifts would be set up next to the tree. 

The official tree lightings would usually be held the first Sunday in December and an open house was planned at which residents and their guests could attend the parties thrown in both lounges.  There would be live music at the parties and on my side of the building, at least two of the years I was there, we had a string quartet playing classical Xmas pieces in the hallway near the Emerald nurses' station.  Fancy cookies and eggnog would be served in both lounges and would also be taken to those residents who couldn't get out to the lounges for the parties.  Even us chunkies could have some. 

On Xmas day, every resident would find a gift from Santa Avalon either hanging on their room door handle or brought in to their room by an aide while they were sleeping.  My first year there, we each received a soft, fleece throw blanket.  In the following years, there would be nice tote bags, with the Avalon logo and colors, a small green cosmetic/shaving kit bag, again with the Avalon logo and pull-over, snap side terrycloth robes. 

All the gifts were very nice quality, not junk, and I still have all of them but the robe.  About that robe; the robe was floor length (at least on me, I'm a little short) and had a hood.  Both sides had snaps, which I didn't like so I asked the volunteer Sewing Lady to sew up the sides just leaving enough open area for my arms to go through.

Now I know that that trying to find an article of clothing that had sizes to fit us large bodied people might have been a problem for the administration but I think they went overboard with us chunkies, at least judging from my robe.  I mean, I know I was fat but come on, you could have fit two of me into that robe!  So I ended up not wearing it much since because it was so big, it was too drafty to keep me warm, too long so I was always tripping on the hem and too heavy.  I left it hanging on my bathroom door when I moved out of Avalon - hopefully, some other chunkie moving in will get some use out of it.  It really was a nice robe...

Happy whatever you celebrate!

12/21
The snow finally stopped just before noon yesterday and my sister dug out my steps for me.  However, I still can't open the door because now there is a layer of ice in the way. 


The only good thing about this morning so far is that the sun is out and the snow looks blindingly beautiful.

12/25
Did a lot of baking this week, what with being mostly snowbound and all.  Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (which are now gone), molasses drops (sent upstairs to the family so I don't end up eating them all) and finally Kourabiedes, Greek Wedding Cakes, which I like to make for the Xmas holidays.  I always plan to take pictures of what I've made but never seem to have my camera at hand.  Oh well, maybe next time.


The temps are supposed to be in the lower forties for the next few days and rain is expected too so maybe the ice left on my stairs will have melted or been washed away by Monday.  It sucks to be stuck in the house!


My Xmas dinner will be mac and cheese - made from scratch of course, not the stuff from a box.  Sis plans Chicken Francese (sp?) and we'll maybe do a food exchange.  She told me my oldest niece wants to move in with me because she likes everything I bake.  Unfortunately, the poor kid inherited my sweet tooth.  Fortunately, she also inherited the skinny gene from her father's side of the family, so unlike me, she can eat as many of the goodies I bake as she wants.  I, on the other hand must practice self control.


Hope you all have a lovely holiday, whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate it!