I do recognize that Medical Laboratory Scientists are a very superstitious lot especially funny since our degree and certification include Scientist. Don't say it's slow or quiet because it's getting to get stupid busy (and everyone will blame you). Don't run quality control more than required because you are tempting failure and will have to do a look back of all the testing to make sure it was accurate. We jokingly put an elf on the shelf out that had FDA written on the hat and the FDA showed up for an unannounced inspection a week later. I'm a Lead and every time I bring my Lead work to the bench with me, we get so busy with patient samples and orders that I can't touch it. All are definitely confirmation bias situations.
Full moons do not have an impact on people with mental illness, make weird things happen, increase work load, or increase the chance of going into labor. I have worked in three separate hospitals in three separate states and the consensus is: full moons bring out the crazies and the babies.
My freshman year of college (mumble mumble 21 years ago), one of my friends was knitting during finals week. I asked her what she was doing and why? Knitting and because it relieved stress. I asked her to teach me; studying paused. We got a skein of yarn and the needles it said to use. She taught me stockinette and cut me loose to make a scarf (which I still have).
Everything else, I've learned from YouTube and various websites. Knitty and Studio Knit were my main tutorial resources in the early years. Knit Picks and Purl Soho are sites I've added to my resource list over the years. My sister has started knitting since I started but no one else in my family knits so I don't have that resource. Many of my friends knit and we bounce ideas and patterns off each other. Ravelry helped me go DEEP down the rabbit hole on patterns and yarn.
They are all about the same. Most I have seen are from the 60s but they were manufactured 1961-1975. From my excursion down the rabbit hole, pink and blue are easily found but the champagne color was difficult to find.
I love my safety razor. Go with one that has a longer handle. I have a vintage Lady Gillette Starburst razor that I picked up on eBay. It's a super close shave. I stay smoother a couple of days longer than I did with cartridge razors. It completely got rid of shave bumps and my skin irritation that was driving me crazy. West Coast shaving sells blade sample packs so you can try a bunch and pick the one you like most.
Fwiw safety razor shaving is a deep deep rabbit hole. You will drop a bunch of money up front but the benefits are great. Some people get into it to save money (it is cheaper than cartridge shaving) but then they turn into collectors with bunches of razors and a huge array of shaving soaps, creams, and after shaves. You don't HAVE to go that deep.
I generally don't knit Christmas gifts 🫣. I don't start early enough and I don't have the bandwidth. End of year is stressful enough at work herding grown ass adults to complete their annual competency assessments before 12/31 because everyone puts it off instead of working on them throughout year.
I typically give out apple butter or jam and handmade soap.
Halloween Doodle double knit scarf is officially hibernating. I started working on a Holiday Doodle single sided cowl for myself. I'm also pulling charts from the Arctic expansion, holiday expansion, and possibly winter skies. I'm hoping the change of pace brings motivation (was so unmotivated to work on more double knitting).
I don't know where they are getting that price for blood. My perfectly legal, screened, and tested Red Blood Cell units are about $455/pint, plasma $118/pint, and platelets are $1,577/pint. I don't know if they are undervaluing because whole blood is a pain to work with.
Frozen bone for transplant that I've seen (I work in Blood Bank) are small pieces, not entire bone. That price quote doesn't specify per gram, per bone, or per "unit" so who knows.
I'm a Medical Laboratory Scientist (bachelor's degree, nationally certified, and current on my certificate maintenance continuing education requirements) and it has taken 16 years for me to crack 100k/year. I started at 38k. There are not enough MLS out there to staff all the labs in the US. Labs are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing patient care in the face of crippling staffing shortages and yet pay is still shit.
I work in a hospital. I continued to commute to work and do my job through all of the shortages and all of the uncertainty. I died a little each day I had to stop my then 3.5yo twins from rushing to hug me at the door so I could change, drop my clothes in the wash, and wash my hands before they touched me. Then they stopped trying. It was a year before I was greeted at the door with a hug. I knelt there crying the first time they did it again.
I saw all my friends doing all the lock down things and knew that society and employers would never make it up to those of us who worked through it all. We didn't even get pizza parties because my hospital had a no shared food policy for infection prevention.
I walked past maskless protestors outside my hospital accusing of us every ludicrous talking point there was. For the first time in my career I questioned why I did it. Why was I risking my family's health and my own to take care of THEM.
I love the tradition of trick or treating in the neighborhood. I hate that it is dying in some communities (instead going to malls, trunk or treat etc). I happily give candy to anyone who knocks on the door and I don't care how old they are or if it's "late". It's a fun time for everyone.
I have witnessed this exchange >.<