Archives for category: Family

I went up to Vermont with David last weekend for the ski race.  We got up way too early, but way too late for the race on Saturday.  The sky was still dark and I slept through the whole driving portion of the trip.

I sat in the lodge on Saturday since we we straight to the mountain (see above on late-ness) and worked on my Jezabel.  It is almost done, except a few rows on the neck.   The team did decent and we went and have pizza for dinner.

The next day, when the team got up for the race, I stayed behind lounging/sleeping in my pj and in the motel, with the beautiful snow outside, falling fast and furious.  I waited till time to check out, and slowly cleaned out my car and went to White River Yarn and waited for them to open.  I discovered the shop last year around this time and was eager to see Lois again.  I stayed for three hours and then after saying my goodbyes, I drove over to Woodstock for some shopping and also check out Wippletree.  

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I actually got there in time for them to close, so I didn’t really get to see it properly.  I did buy couple skeins of yarn, but I’ll show that at a later date, as the lighting has been bad during the time I’m home and I couldn’t take any decent pictures. 

I also went to Thistle Bath and Body to check out their handmade soap.

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I couldn’t help but come home with some soap!!!!

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I have super sensitive skin, so I’m always afraid to try soap, unless it is doctor recommended, or I’ve already tried before and that it doesn’t dry out my skin or make me itch for no reason.  So when I saw the soap stack, it was perfect for me to try.  I already started using Green Tea and so far, I love it.  It has a nice scent, mild and subtle but lingers around enough to relaxes you, and my skin feels moisturized after using it.

I only get to really visit the two shops before David showed up.  You know what that means – I’ll have to go again!!! :)

Were you on the nice or naughty list???

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We’ve gotten lots of cards from friends and family.  I love getting Christmas cards.  I think they mean more than any material things.  It’s the thoughts and time people put into that really counts in my book.

So besides the cards, I purchased the three VK Stitchionary books for myself when VK had a 60% off on selected books!  SIXTY PERCENT OFF!  So each book was only about 12 dollars.  THEN!  If you are a VK mag subscriber, there is a tiny code on the bottom of the magazine, and it gives you another 30% off!!!!!  With shipping, I ended up paying 30 bucks for them!

I also purchased a new lunch bag for myself:

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I know, buying myself a lunch bag for Christmas does sound lame.  But it has become apparent that I needed one badly at my new job.  I got it from buildny.com under a friend’s recommendation.  Absolutely LOVE it!  It’s made with neoprene and it has lots of room.  I think it’s rather stylish for a lunch bag, don’t you think?

The same day the lunch bag came, we also gotten this in the mail:

img_0084Harry and David’s gift box from Dad and Sher!  I always heard awesome things about them but have never tried it or gotten one before.  The pears were SO GOOD!  David has been munching on the cheese.  YUM.  They also had send us a card along with some Hanukka gelt and a Visa gift card, which we plan on spending on new year’s eve.  (More on that later!)

David’s mom came down before the big snow storm and stayed with us.  She gave us a Simpson Beach Towel (David loves the Simpsons) and this for our new house:

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A finch feeder!  We have a big yard now, but the new yard will be big as well, and I think it would be a nice addition.  (I also wants a green house, but I’ll work on that later)

Our realtor Mel, who is more like a friend than just a realtor to us, gave me this:

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I’ve been admiring her similar necklace for quite awhile now and she got me one!  It was very sweet of her and I love it!

And I also gotten this from my best friend Itchy:

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I think she made it!  And it’s in my favorite color! :)  I also gotten another package from her via Keys.  I’ve been looking for chemical free face and body care for awhile now and she’s been using Keys and loves them.  She sent me some trial size items to try out.  I started using them last night and can’t say I know much yet since I’m so new at it.  But it smells natural and nice though! :)  And there is no added scents, all scents are from the ingredients that made up the lotion or wash.

One last thing we’ve gotten, which isn’t exactly for Christmas, but it’s good:

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RUM CAKE!!!!  In this case, SIX rum cakes! :)  It has 6 different flavors – golden original, chocolate, pineapple, coconut, banana, and keylime.  I already chowed down the chocolate one…  SO GOOD!  See, they went on a cruise to celebrate their 2 year wedding anniversary and we dog sit their dog, who is Mick’s best friend.  When they returned, they brought back rum cakes for us!  Well, more like for me :P

So I guess we were on the nice list.  I hope you all are on the nice list as well.

Merry Christmas.

To all your family and friends.

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That is our lovely honey brined smoked turkey.  We’ve made this turkey ever since my brother moved here in 2004.  We saw it on Good Eats from foodnetwork and just couldn’t resist to light smoking flavor of the hickory.  Plus!  It frees up our oven!  How sweet is that!?

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CostumeChick and Evad came to our shingdig since they couldn’t go home for the holidays this year due to work.

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David’s mom came too :)  And our friend K & M showed up around dessert time to hang out, but I forgot to take a picture of them while they are there.

And from the picture, you can see our lovely dinner.  Here is the menu and links of recipes:

 

  • Sausage and Herb Stuffing (I made gluten free corn bread and used that instead of regular bread.  Also, I skipped the dried cranberries since David doesn’t like it.  But I bet it’s good if you put it in!)
  • Holiday Spiced Sweet Potatoes (This is such a yummy twist of the regular sweet potatoes!!  I used Trader Joe’s Organic sugar instead of brown sugar since that’s all I have on hand.  But I bet you can use Demerara sugar and it’s just as good.)
  • Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes (I made this up – I used buttermilk instead of regular milk and it turned out awesome.)
  • Cranberry Sauce (I made this for the past two years and I can’t say anything bad about it.  The only thing is that I don’t know what to do with the leftovers!  I’ll have to look up that this year!)
  • Green Beans with Pancetta and Shallots (This is a good quick sautee.  Although I think with all the confusions, I forgot to put the shallots.  Opps :P )
  • Roasted Broccoli: Barefoot Contessa Style (I don’t actually have the cookbook.  I saw this on Amature Gourmet’s blog and couldn’t resist but make it for the Thanksgiving dinner.  It is SO GOOD.  I made the Amature Gourmet’s version though.)
  • Chinese Sweet Rice Stuffing (I can’t begin to tell you how to make this since my brother whipped it up.  My grandmother always made this for Thanksgiving at home and we both love it so much we have to have it.  Good thing my brother knows how!)
  • Mulled Apple Cider (I was going to make this.  But I found mulled cider spice bags in the supermarket that included everything in the recipe and all I had to do is drop the spice bags in with the gallon of cider and put them in the slow cooker…  yeah… it was easy AND good!)

 

And CostumeChick made a killer gluten free pumpkin pie that was sweetened with honey.  SO YUMMY.  And yes, we got a ton of leftovers!!!  What have we done with the leftovers?  Hmmm…  Let’s see…

 

  • Holiday Spiced Sweet Potatoes –> Sweet Potato Pancakes (1 egg, 1 cup of rice flour, 1/2 cup of sweet rice flour, mix well and form pancake shape on your griddle or big flat pan with butter!  Oh, you can use all purpose flour isntead of the above gluten free options)
  • Sausage and Herb Stuffing –> We reheated this in the oven and heat up the Trader Joe’s Creamy Corn and Roasted Pepper soup and eat them together for lunch.
  • Turkey –> Part of the meat will probably go into a Turkey Shepards Pie with the leftover potatoes.  The bones will make Turkey Stocks.  Turkey Stocks will probably turn into Wild Rice Soup, which usually use chopped ham, but I think we’ll use leftover turkey this time to try it out.
  • Green Beans and Broccoli –>  They will probably stay as side for another meal, maybe steak or pork chops!

 

So if you have ANY ideas what to do with leftoever cranberry sauce, let me know!  Maybe a dessert of some sort?

Oh, and see what I found in the supermarket?

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That is damn good.  I still need to try the Sugar Cookie Eggnog!  The pumpkin one is great (I tried it last year!)

Now that we are done talking about food, which seem to be happening a lot lately, we should talk about the highly anticipated SHOPPING.

Everyone knows black friday supposedly has the best deal EVER for the whole year.  It marks the beginning of the Holiday Season and the start of holiday shopping.  I go every year, although I don’t stay up all night and go to the midnight sale.  This year, I needed some winter skirts and pants for the new job (which I found and got) and of course, Coach.

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Meet my new Coach purse.  Isn’t it pretty? :)

So yeah…  That’s all I got so far.  Oh!  And I finished the market bags for Schaefer, but I forgot to take a picture before I mailed it out.  I finished it this morning at 11am and I wanted to make sure it gets mailed with the mail wagon today instead of Monday so I rushed it into my mailbox with Clip-n-Ship, which by the way, is the best service EVER invented!  I’m still in my PJs and I mailed the box to Schaefer!

So now I’m off to ponder which project to start next…  Hmm…  Central Park Hoodies? Rogue? Olive Branch Hoodie? Celtic Icon? Sage Cardigan?  Oh the agony of choosing…  Only if we have more time in a day!

Well, I haven’t gotten a chance to blog lately (yes I know I sound like a broken record) partly because of the wedding stuff, but partly it’s because my external hard drive has been very hard to use. I think there is something wrong with the connection and it won’t stay connected. I just received a new one, which is super small, and I love it. I’m hoping the camera download situation will be better from now on.

So back up to August 3rd. My MIL throw me a bridal shower on that day, and my family actually came all the way from California. There were lots of food, lots of laughters, and lots of gifts.

My family

The hosteses

My two bridesmaids

The knitters :)

All of them had made my day, each and every day.

And to my “bitches”, I just wanted to say, Thank You. To quote the Yale Daily, I didn’t have many friends when I moved here, and frankly, I wasn’t too fond of this state. But now I can’t imagine not having you all in my life. You are always there when I needed to vent, and when I needed “encouragement” to buy more yarn, and more importantly, to share the happiest moments of my life. And to use a Ravelry term on how I feel about you guys -

love (∞)

I guess it has been awhile.  Wedding preparations have been taking over most of my life, so I guess I will give you a list of what’s been happening around here:

  • I switched blog – as you can already tell.  I’m still trying to figure out how to make it pretty.  So bare with me on all the changes that’s going to happen around here.
  • We have two more “new” vehicles.  I gave my old car to David’s mom who doesn’t have any transportation, and bought a ’03 Passat GLS Wagon in Red with black interior and heat seats!  The other one is a Kawasaki touring bike.  David uses as his commuting bike and we ride to go places once in awhile.
  • We went to the Red Sox vs. Yankee Game last weekend.  Yankee killed the Red Sox, but we had a good time, even though it was completely way too hot to do ANYTHING.
  • David made me a raise bed outside the gate, and I replanted all the cantaloupes and only one died, and the rest are thriving!  And my herbs are going crazy!!!  I cut a bunch and gave it to Archiknist and another bunch to another friend at work.
  • I finished Woodland Shawl, but haven’t block it yet.  Maybe this weekend.
  • I started a Schaefer sample and am hoping that I can finish it this weekend.  We’ll see.
  • David is away for his Bachelor Party – White Water Rafting in Maine.  Yes, the man has weird taste for his party, but hey, at least he is having fun.
  • David’s mom and step mom and my female families are in town for my shower.  So excited to see everyone!
  • I had my second fitting for the gown, and this time, I took pictures!  However, can’t post it here since you never know when that sneaky groom is going to read this.  Maybe I will password protect it on my next post.
  • Wedding invitations were done and mailed last week.  I know quite a few family members and friends had gotten them, which is a good sign, since I mailed the whole box of invitation up to the Wellesley Island Post Office so they can hand cancel the stamps.  As far as I know, they were perfect as perfect can be in my standard. :)
  • When we went to the Sox game, we took a detour to WEBS, and WEBS Bead Store.  It just happened it was the Northampton Side Walk sale and I bought a bunch of Classic Elite Inca Print for $2/skein!  Seriously!
  • I joined Ravelympics, which is knitting one or multiple items that is challenging for me during the Olympics.  I chose a lace shawl in 17 days.  Am I nuts?  Maybe.
  • Engagement pictures are coming in the mail.  Suppose to be getting them tomorrow :) .  Can’t wait.

That’s all I can think of right now.  My camera battery had died and I can’t find the charger.  I have been using a back up camera, which is okay, but not as good as my regular one.  I better get going to find myself a charger on ebay or something before I’m completely pissed at myself for losing it.

Enjoy your weekend!

We left at 7:45am and arrived Michigan at… you ready?

3:30AM

Yes, you read that right! And here is why…

We started off from CT and got to Utica to see David’s grandma around 11:30ish. From there, we were greeted with assorted cookies made by grandma Nancy. There were butter cookies, ginger cut outs, ginger snaps, peanut butter chocolate fudge, chocolate chips cookies, and much much more!

By then, I already finished three more ornaments, one for Mom, which is gold and hanging in the van already, one is for Terry, Page and Colin, and one for a friend.

Inspired by Costumechick, my next project was Vine. I bought a Jaeger Alpaca when I went to Farmhouse Yarn the last time and they had it for ONE DOLLAR! It is an older ball with old label, but it’s 100% alpaca none the less. And while we are driving to Michigan, I made some progress… A lot of progress actually:

I should be able to finish this today between wrapping presents, putting up the tree and cooking.

If you are observant, you can see that I’m wearing my new wedding bands – no we didn’t get married yet, but it didn’t come with a box or anything, and knowing me, I’ll probably lose it, so the safest thing to do is to wear it until we get home.

We picked up the rings after seeing grandma. So far, I’m really happy with the way it turns out. :) We continued with Rt. 90 and hit Buffalo, and we detour up to Niagara Falls – why not? We were practically there! Plus I’ve never been!!!

It is absolutely breath taking!

The dogs think so too:

We left Mick and Vanilla home since they are too active for Colin right now.

Well, off me go to get things going…

They are here and they are well.

I will probably post minimum post this week. Don’t be alarmed.

Oh, and my dad likes the vests I made him.

Night.

I couldn’t resist the title, because I’m sure in the next day or so, there will be many blog posts title Rhinebeck, aka NYS Sheep and Wool Festival, as many of my fellow knitters had gone to.

Instead, I went to leadership training on Saturday AM, and then right after, David and I drove to my cousin Tracy’s in NJ for a Haunted Luau:


When the racer meets the pirate
The hosts – Tracy and Jason


Me, Tracy, and Paul – this one is for the fam

Of course, what else would I be doing while I’m sitting down in a party:


Knitting! Secret of the Stole!! And watching the Red Sox kicking the crap out of Indians!

And here is the progress of Secret of the Stole:

This stole has two points to start and the direction had asked to start them simultaneously using the same ball of yarn, however, I can just see the disaster. So inspired by Costumchick, I also cast on only the left point, and will be breaking the yarn and make the right side soon. Maybe during tonight’s ALCS Game 7. GO RED SOX!!! Oh yeah… Check out the new addition of the house!!

Like I said, I couldn’t leave the TV home when it was only $1099.99 for this 42″ LG TV!!!

We left Tracy’s after game 6 was over (which was about midnight) and got home around 2am. I took a nap, woke up at 6am, and picked up Karen at 7am and set out to Farmhouse Yarn Sale. If you’ve read my previous posts, you’ve known that I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the yarn I bought from Farmhouse awhile ago. And you would’ve also known that Carol had very promptly emailed me back and give me $50 credit towards new purchases of yarn. So there we were, walking into the front yard at 8:01 am (they open at 8am!!). We were the first one there and none of the bins were opened yet!!!

It was cold to start the day, but it warmed up with the beautiful sunshine:


Casey and Erica, the two very helpful ladies – Carol wasn’t there today

Supposedly this is the last sale Carol is going to have, and everything else goes to the new yarn store, Connecticut Yarn and Wool, about 10 mins away from her house. So she has this deal about fill 1 bag for $159 and fill 2 bags for $189. Now, who in their right mind would just fill 1 bag when you can fill 2 bags for almost half of the price? (not me) We were there so early and didn’t have to fight with others to look at the bins, I was done in record of 90 mins!!! (Karen was way done and waiting for me! I’m a slow shopper) And here is the loot:

The loot!!! And Mick trying to get into the picture on the right!!! :)


The loot: Andy’s Merino (L to R, T to B) in Wine Rose (2 skeins), Turkey Red (3 skeins), Watermelon (2 skeins), Lavender (7 skeins), Cranberry 3-ply (9 skeins) and Sunflower (10 skeins). The top right is Silk Blend in Spiced Pumpkin (5 skeins), on the top step are 9 free doily patterns and 1 ball of cotton crochet thread for my future blocking use.

Yes, I filled the two bags with 38 skeins of yarn. I also had some leftover credits from testing knitting for Carol awhile ago, so the two bags really didn’t cost me anything! AND they didn’t take the giant sweater skein of yarn back, so I might just finish the HRB:

HRB in its the current stage

And I ordered some Denise long cords for this project as well and it came Saturday:

I’m thinking of keeping the pretty giant sweater skein for future center piece, maybe have some needles stick into it to make it a focal point in my future craft room.

I came home from Farmhouse and crashed on the couch, after all the photographs, of course! I have to say that was a lot of activity/traveling in very short amount of time! Well, now that I am re-energized, I’ll be up knitting and cheering for the Red Sox.

GO RED SOX!!!

My labor weekend was lazy and busy at the same time. How? you asked. Well, I guess I felt like I was lazy and didn’t do anything, but when in fact, we did a lot.

David and I went to the mall Friday after work. We haven’t gone for so long and a lot had changed. I actually picked up this book while I was there. Yup! I want to at least learn what’s in my garden and how I can plant some of my favorite flowers.

Saturday morning I went to Primerica training and when I got home, David and I drove to Mom’s to have a BBQ, and met up with our friend Tanya. I of course, forgot my camera and didn’t take any pictures while we were there! We got home around 10pm and I stayed up and finished reading “The Sisterhood of Dropped Stitches” (I got the book via PaperBackSwap, see sidebar). It was a very easy read and it was only slightly knitting related, and there were no patterns of any kind in the book, but it reminds me the Stitch n Bitch group I go to. I remember the first Wednesday meeting – I was a newbe at knitting and I didn’t understand anything people were talking about! Slowly, people clued me in on the yarn, the pattern, the names, the techniques… I think without my “sisters”, I wouldn’t have grown so fond of knitting, and be able plunged into any pattern I want, and of course, have my large yarn stash. I can feel free to express what was in my thoughts when I go there and I can always count on a good laugh. Recently, one of the ladies that attend had some personal trouble, so we moved the meeting to her house. Even though I wasn’t as close to her as the others were (we have a big group), I can feel that she appreciated us being there, and that it was good that we were there. Although I can’t ease her pain, but I know I will be there when she needs me.

Sunday was a late start at 10am. David and I went to the Mark Twain Library book sale first. I went last year on a Saturday, and this year, I went to the half price day. On the way there, we stopped at a nursery that had mums for “5 for $12.95″. I picked up these:

Aren’t they beautiful? They are not full bloom yet and from my handy dandy new book, it says that I shouldn’t plant them now until the Spring, so now they are just sitting in the front lawn waiting for the good weather to be gone and be moved inside.

We headed to the sale after the brief stop and we must spent over 3 hours there. Here is the haul:

All that for grand total of… you ready?… $22.25!!!!!!! You can’t beat the price! Among the books, I came home with these:

Needless to say, we left happy. A lot of the books are replacing my paperbacks and the paperback will be listed on the swap for other books that I want and didn’t find at the book sale.

After the book sale, we stopped at Costco and Trader Joe’s to get some much needed shopping done, and got home with a car full of flowers, books, and food.

And while we were doing all these driving, I had finished Petrol -

Pattern – Petrol by Carol Sulcoski on Knitty.com
Yarn Called For – 5 Skeins Manos del Uruguay in #27 and 1 Skein Manos del Uruguay in #64
Yarn Used – 6 Balls Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK in #26011
Needles – Denise size 7 and 8
Gauge – 4.5 sts per inch
Knit – August 18, 2007 to September 02, 2007
Modifications – added 2×2 ribs for two inches at the waist, use only single color

This was a very quick knit – instead of the purling rib, it has garter rib. It was different enough to keep me awake but not too complicated so I can knit it during a movie. This is one of the vests I am making for my dad. So now, one down, one more to go. The next one will probably be in a regular plain vest since the yarn is heather and dark and wouldn’t show too much of stitch definition.

After we got home, we sat around and be bums for a few hours, until the heat has gone down a little, and we went to our old house and cleaned out the garage, so we can put one of rare car that David is collecting into the garage. So now, we actually have ONE car in one of our garages!!! Well, the race car is also in the garage too. I think I’m just too happy to actually cleaned out the garage from our move – we ONLY moved about 6 months ago… yeah…

When we got home, we grabbed some quick dinner, and I was going through my blog subscription via Google reader (I love that thing! I don’t have to sign up separate account at bloglines or anything! And it integrates into my google homepage, which I can read the posts via google homepage) and saw Brooklyntweed‘s post about his Hemlock Ring Blanket and that there is a KAL started for it. Okay, yes, I joined it. Go ahead, say I am crazy, nuts, or whatever have you. But to my defense, I already had the yarn in mind and printed out the pattern when he first post about it! I would have started the KAL if I didn’t already host the Autumn Rose!

Monday morning I got up early (well, 8am IS early when I don’t have to go to work!) and went to meet up with the Team Lead of CLCC (Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee) for SWE business. I am part of the team and we had to get the budget set up and figure out what we are doing for the fiscal year. It was a lot of fun meeting up with her, especially we haven’t seen each other for 6 months.

When I got home, I decided that I should continue to be a bum for the rest of the weekend – lots of people relaxed and did nothing during 3 day weekends! So that’s what I did – I watched CSI marathon on SPIKE and knitted MS3 – yes, I am finally going back to it. But with the whole afternoon and evening, besides the one and a half hours of making pizza, I only knitted 36 rows!!!! Well, I think I spent about half an hour just trying to figure what went wrong – missing stitches! Luckily I figured it out after only tinking back one full row (missed a YO and also dropped a stitch – good thing I use merino so it didn’t ladder down). So I am almost finished with chart E – maybe by Wednesday I will have chart E completed.

So now, it is time for this bum to go to bed – even though work has tomorrow off (floating holiday), I decided to work tomorrow so I can take another day off when we go up to 1000 Islands in a few weeks.

What did YOU do for your holiday weekend?

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Cabled Pullover

Pattern – Cabled Pullover by Kathy Zimmerman in Luxe of Classic Elite Yarns
Yarn Called For – 13 Balls Classic Elite Wool Bam Boo in #1681 Celery
Yarn Used – 14 1/2 Balls Elsebeth Lavold Classic AL in #004 Desert Night
Needles – Addi Turbo size 3 circular
Gauge – 20 sts and 32 rows = 4″ in St st
Knit – January 07, 2007 to May 08, 2007

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The Back

I took today off since I was going to drop off my parents at the airport in the middle of the day, so there would be no sense of going to work. I still got up early because David still had to go to work, so I used the early morning quiet time and finished sewing the pieces together! I am SO HAPPY it is done! This is the first time I sewed anything with sleeves and I am not sure if I am very happy with the results, but I suppose you really can’t tell what was wrong with it. I’ll need a lot more practice, that’s for sure.

So the parents are gone, back to Cali, then to Taiwan. I’ll be seeing them in 6 months though. And don’t worry, they left me plenty of knitting projects to keep me busy!

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