Working nights has really screwed up my sleeping schedule. I went to bed at 0130, and woke up once more at 0345 this morning. I type this in the faint hope that I might eventually be able to get some rest once I clear my mind.
For some reason, when I can't sleep, I get these bizarre urges to do something domestic. (If you've ever been to our house on an evening when I'm working, you know how I feel about housework and cooking and other womanly skills.) I dye fiber, spin fiber, knit things (if I can concentrate enough to count) or feel led to cook something. Anything. Must turn on stove and make something!
So this morning, I got out the candy making supplies and was mid-way through making a batch of Cheater Fondant (Mix powdered sugar and sweetened condensed milk until it's a stiff paste. Roll into balls. Add flavoring, dip in melted chocolate.) for peppermint patties when I realized that I was out of peppermint oil. Thwarted again!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Generosity
We finally did locate the missing part for the battery charger. Unfortunately, we found it the day after we'd ordered a new one from Amazon and thus we now have two battery chargers for the camera.
However, friends of ours have been re-modeling their house for a couple of months now. And (I guess for insurance purposes, although I suppose a visual reminder that they are making progress would also be nice) Lindsay and Jon have been using disposable cameras to take pictures of the various stages of raising and vaulting their living room ceiling. After they filled the last one, Brian loaned them our camera to help document the process.
There's one small catch to this: I joined Anni's Sockamania Knitalong, which requires that you post pictures of the socks on your blog every month. While I only got one sock done (cursed short attention span!) I still would like to post a picture of it. Ah, we'll see if Jon and Lindsay can do without the camera for a few days.
However, friends of ours have been re-modeling their house for a couple of months now. And (I guess for insurance purposes, although I suppose a visual reminder that they are making progress would also be nice) Lindsay and Jon have been using disposable cameras to take pictures of the various stages of raising and vaulting their living room ceiling. After they filled the last one, Brian loaned them our camera to help document the process.
There's one small catch to this: I joined Anni's Sockamania Knitalong, which requires that you post pictures of the socks on your blog every month. While I only got one sock done (cursed short attention span!) I still would like to post a picture of it. Ah, we'll see if Jon and Lindsay can do without the camera for a few days.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Words of Wisdom
Fred, one of the nurses from the telemetry floor (for patients who aren't sick enough for the intensive care unit, but still need a continuous heart monitor) is a bit of a legend at my workplace--he can get an IV in anybody.
Now I'm a fairly new nurse, but I've started enough intravenous lines in people to know that some people have good veins, and some people do not. (One's risk for having bad veins goes up in direct proportion to one's age. Every time I have to start an IV on anyone over 65, I wince, because I know I've got a less than 25% chance of getting it in myself.) And some people--especially fair skinned women with red hair--have complete and utter crap for veins. (For some reason known only to God, red headed men have veins that make nurses and plebotomists drool.) I've learned that there's really no point in torturing these poor souls by trying (and failing) to start an IV on them when I can ask a more experienced nurse to do it.
On the last night I worked, between Tammy (the other nurse) and I, we had at least five IVs that went bad and needed to be restarted. And as Cindy's Law (If anything can go wrong, it will, and when you're short staffed and the patients and families are cranky to boot) would have it, they all had lousy veins.
So we wound up calling and asking Fred to come down a lot. He was very gracious, and had much better luck with the process than we did. When we pressed him, he was even kind enough to share some of his tips for starting IVs with us.
"I don't get frustrated when it doesn't work the first time. I keep trying until I get it right."
Now this is a wonderful tip for the rest of life as well. But I bet the fact that the majority of Fred's patients are too sick to care if he has to try four or five times before he gets an IV line started probably helps.
Now I'm a fairly new nurse, but I've started enough intravenous lines in people to know that some people have good veins, and some people do not. (One's risk for having bad veins goes up in direct proportion to one's age. Every time I have to start an IV on anyone over 65, I wince, because I know I've got a less than 25% chance of getting it in myself.) And some people--especially fair skinned women with red hair--have complete and utter crap for veins. (For some reason known only to God, red headed men have veins that make nurses and plebotomists drool.) I've learned that there's really no point in torturing these poor souls by trying (and failing) to start an IV on them when I can ask a more experienced nurse to do it.
On the last night I worked, between Tammy (the other nurse) and I, we had at least five IVs that went bad and needed to be restarted. And as Cindy's Law (If anything can go wrong, it will, and when you're short staffed and the patients and families are cranky to boot) would have it, they all had lousy veins.
So we wound up calling and asking Fred to come down a lot. He was very gracious, and had much better luck with the process than we did. When we pressed him, he was even kind enough to share some of his tips for starting IVs with us.
"I don't get frustrated when it doesn't work the first time. I keep trying until I get it right."
Now this is a wonderful tip for the rest of life as well. But I bet the fact that the majority of Fred's patients are too sick to care if he has to try four or five times before he gets an IV line started probably helps.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Don't these people knit?
For my mother's birthday, I made her socks. (Wow, bet you had a hard time guessing that one!) And as the local Stockshow (live stock sale, rodeo and fair) was coming up last weekend, she delayed wearing them in order to enter them in the fair for me.
Today, I got an e-mail from her saying that they'd taken Best of Show. Now it's been several years since I entered anything in the St. John Fair, but I seem to recall that that only occurs when it's better than a blue ribbon--when it's the best thing in the division.
I hand dyed the yarn to be self-striping, but the socks were just ankle footies with a 2X2 ribbing cuff and stockinette feet. I enjoyed making them (how can you not like knitting?) but compared to other projects I have knitted over the years (the lace weight raglan sweater with lace hearts all over I designed comes quickly to mind) or even other socks that I have knitted recently, this was truly child's play. Just hours and hours of "plain knitting," as the old patterns call it.
Instant ego gratification is always nice, but this seems a bit excessive.
Today, I got an e-mail from her saying that they'd taken Best of Show. Now it's been several years since I entered anything in the St. John Fair, but I seem to recall that that only occurs when it's better than a blue ribbon--when it's the best thing in the division.
I hand dyed the yarn to be self-striping, but the socks were just ankle footies with a 2X2 ribbing cuff and stockinette feet. I enjoyed making them (how can you not like knitting?) but compared to other projects I have knitted over the years (the lace weight raglan sweater with lace hearts all over I designed comes quickly to mind) or even other socks that I have knitted recently, this was truly child's play. Just hours and hours of "plain knitting," as the old patterns call it.
Instant ego gratification is always nice, but this seems a bit excessive.
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