End of First Week of November

Good News: Several cool things have happened this week.  I got a news report that the drug, VX-770 has moved ahead toward helping CF patients with the G551D mutation.  This is about 5% of the total number of people with CF, which does not include my kids.  My kids have the more common mutation, called ΔF508.  The Δ is "delta", which in science indicates "change".  In the other one, the D indicates a "deletion", as there is something missing from the directions of the DNA.  The new drug has shown some really promising results and we are anxiously awaiting the progress of the next drug, VX-809, which will target another 75% of the patients.  Here's a recent news story about the progress, although if you want more information, it's better to go to the CFF.org web site.

Annoying News:  As if it wasn't bad enough that the displays showed up in the beginning of October (so the zombies can go hang out with the Baby Jesus in the nativity), the Christmas ads started on Nov. 1st.  Four weeks apparently is not enough to hound people into spending too much over the holidays, so they have increased the annoying ads, filked Christmas songs (where they change the words to a well-known song), and excited women thrilled about finding a bargain and getting lots of gifts for her kids.  Please.  I love that I have my shows on a DVR so I can fast-forward it, or if it's live, I can hit the mute button. 

GS News:  We had a longer meeting yesterday--extending it from 90 minutes to 2 hours.  It gave the girls a couple of breaks to run around and get some of the wild squirrels out of their systems.  It worked out really well!  I'm only hoping that we'll be able to get the food stuff all done up for the next meeting where we're having a cooking day.  I have broken them up into three teams with 3 or 4 in each team, so I can work with smaller groups making the meals--stagger the oven usage.  They're all making pizzas, but I think we can have the second group making their pizzas while the first group's pizzas are cooking.  Kinda wish I had double ovens...

Cleaning & Remodeling News:  I cleaned out my closet the other day, gutting it to vacuum and reorganize.  In the process I found that some of my woolens have been eaten by carpet beetles and larvae--I found four hand-knit socks, a sweater and a hat with holes in them.  Clearly I haven't vacuumed enough, so it led to more cleaning and vacuuming throughout the bedroom, but I still didn't get it all done.  I still have to throw more stuff into bags to donate (six kitchen garbage bags have been donated already), get rid of more clutter, and I'm thinking we may have to get an exterminator to come in for the carpet beetles.  I'd LOVE to replace all the carpet, but that would be at least $1200 for our bedroom alone.  Then we might as well do the loft, hallways, and kids' bedrooms, too.  $5000, at least.  Then the stairs.  Might as well do the stairs.  And the living room and TV room.  Then it won't match the cheap plank wood floors that were installed in the kitchen, dining room and bathroom downstairs.  So now the square footage is doubled and then some.  And new trims will be needed since the old stuff was made of some kind of paper that wrinkles and warps when it gets wet, as it did in the bathrooms. 

I guess that is the bad news. 

I found a hat that I want to try to knit for Ben--this rooster or something similar.  This is the mom and younger brother of one of Cammie's soccer team mates.  This amazing mom is also one of my GS moms and will be running our First Aid badge--the 1972 version of the badge, not the new 911 Badge.

Her game last week happened to be on a sunny day.  They lost again, but only 2-1.  It'd be nice for them to win at least ONE game this season.  It's been a rough one.  Their defense has been stellar, but they need a better goalie.  Maybe next year they'll merge a couple teams and have more girls to choose from.

I should probably go clean the bedroom out some more.  Die, bugs, die!!