Tidbits...

I seem to have my groove back today and so after the kids left for school (at 7:35 AM!), I went off to the 'city' to tick one of the items off my to-do list!

Remember all those beautiful leaves that I have shown you? Well, after they have done their thing, they end up on the ground!!!!

This is the scene at my apartment building in between my building (left) and the neighbor's home (right).....

It is difficult to tell whose leaves are whose, so I just raked them all...
It gets pretty deep...

And at 7:45 AM, it is pretty cold (like 37 degrees), so I have mittens under my work gloves!!!
Here, my work is almost done, about 2 hours later (including the other side of the building)...
Looks pretty clear today but who knows what it will look like tomorrow!

Here are some of the bags from the side of the building...
and even more from the front of the building!!!
In the 'city' (population13,968) , they collect the leaves and brush regularly; whereas, in the 'town' (population27,802) where I live, they pick up only once, so you have the option of gradually collecting those leaves or doing one huge rake-a-thon. Now, if the snow comes before then, you are pretty much stuck with a lotta leaves!

Before we leave the 'city', I want to show you a plaque that is on the front of my neighbor's home. When we were first looking at our building to purchase, I saw this plaque but since I am a relatively new New Yorker, I hadn't the foggiest who Charles Evans Hughes was (well neither did Mr. U who has lived in NY almost his entire life!) ...

But now I know that he was a real scholar who became governor of New York and in the early 1900's, was Chief Justice of the United States!!! I don't think he lived in that house very long but it is pretty interesting.

Shortly after I read about Mr. Hughes, I was reading a book, Cheating Destiny (I had heard about it on an email list for parents of children with type 1 diabetes), which talked about Mr. Hughes' daughter, Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, who was one of the first humans to be injected with insulin to treat her type 1 diabetes!! Pretty interesting.

Now she received her treatment in Toronto (my father's hometown) by Dr. Frederick Banting who also worked with Dr. Charles Best at my dad's Alma mater, the University of Toronto. Dad has told me that his maternal uncle, who was studying medicine at U of T, I believe, did some work for those fine doctors (I am not sure what it was.. research? sweeping? making coffee?)

Eventually, my great-uncle went out on his own and did some research in the area of diabetes and I found that he had published a book with a colleague when he was in Chicago. I found the book online through a rare and out-of-print bookseller in Rhode Island...
I don't understand much in the book but it is cool that research that my great-uncle did long ago (1946) would help my own daughter!

And before we leave the neighborhood, this house is across the street from my apartment building...

It has seen better days but I bet it was quite a house in its day!

So, now you see....

I have several items checked off my list all ready!!!

And, I made it back into my sewing room, where I think my groove was hiding...

to work on the beginning of a quilt to be raffled off in January (on my list too!)

And now that Sarah has received her swap package from me, you can see the Halloween themed quiltie I made for her...

Of course, it is a house!!!Set in a log cabin block...

and the back has some dandy candy...
And those, my bloggy friends, are all the tidbits that I have for today! A little long winded today, eh?

Have a good night!!!!