Busy days

Amanda & I went to visit with my younger sister Tina. Her real name is Katrina. Everyone else calls her that except family and she will never be anything but Tina to me! Tina took us to a Vietnamese restaurant where she made excellent recommendations. Tina has been a part of the Vietnamese community for the last 12 years. When it was made know in our congregations (Jehovah's Witnesses) that there was a need for Vietnamese-speaking ministers, Tina jumped right in with a passion. She is amazing - speaks, reads & writes the language like a native. It's freaky to see my sister move her nouth and have no clue what she is saying!! Most Vietnamese don't hear the first few sentences that she speaks because they are unaccustomed to hearing their language come from the mouth of a Canadian. We were given Jasmine tea to start with. Amanda & I thought it just tasted like (nice) hot water, but Tina assured us that it was a wonderful yet subtle jasmine flavour. Amanda had rice noodles & chicken, I had broken rice (apparently it used to be only for commoners - the busted-up leftover rice bits - but has become very popular. Who knew?) with beef and Tina had rice noodles & pork. These all had a Vietnamese flavour that we enjoyed with chopsticks!!! I mean, if I can manipulate 2 knitting needles to create unique fabric I should easily be adept at using 2 sticks to put food to my mouth. Yeah. It's a great diet. I expended much more energy trying to get small bits of food to my mouth - and they got smaller the further away my mouth was! Amanda did quite well. Tina was a pro, but reassured us that it took some practice.
We then went to Georgetown for a tour of the Watchtower facilities. I have been there on various occasions & have taken the tours before, but they recently installed the new Hantscho press. This baby puts out 40,000, 32 page full-colour magazines per hour - definitely worth the drive to see.

Peter Kim was our guide and Amanda was the happiest person in our group of 9. And talk about a small world - I met Jocelyn's (great friend from Milton - hi Jocelyn!!) Aunt Marilyn who came for the tour with friends from England!! The tour started with this gorgeous copy of a 15th century sheepskin scroll. I didn't take very good notes, but it is a Biblical passage.
Then we worked our way to the printing facilites. The layouts get sent directly from the MEPS (Multilanguage Electronic Phototypsetting System) program to the aluminum sheet printer. This happens 4 times to print the plates in yellow, cyan, magenta & black. That sheet is then sent through a "washer" that cleans off all of the unnecessary colour bits. Here Jeff is showing us the yellow sheet that is going to go to print.
Please be advised that Peter gave us all of the proper names & terminologies but that I did not memorize them. I am using lay-people words.

We had a great time! Then we took Tina home & drove back up to Angus.

Then there is this - a 28lb turkey!! My dad gave it to us and it was so big that it didn't even totally fit in my Super Plus High Dome Paderno Roaster!! It turned out beautifully and we managed to eat most of one half in 2 days. I put the other half in the freezer to be enjoyed at a later date and am making soup today with some of the carcass.

I have finished knitting the Tumbling blocks cushion cover and will block it out tomorrow (probably). Today I am swatching for the FLAK. I am doing a sampler swatch and then I can decide on the "filler stitch" after washing it. I started with seed stich, am on stockinette stitch, then will try moss stitch and/or rice stitch.