Saturday, May 31, 2008

Weekend!

Lots to get done. Work has been so busy that it would be nice to have 2 days to just be, but I will have to save all that up for the houseboat.
We had Barb here for a couple of days. She has been making the rounds of Alberta and Jackie drove her here on Tuesday from Red Deer. A good visit as usual. She has had a bad winter healthwise but says things are much better. She took the car while here and did some visiting with the cousins out at Prairie Creek. One of them, the oldest (94), is not doing very well, hasn't even been getting out of bed for the past couple of weeks, so Barb was glad to see her.
Barb was hoping to catch a ride to Calgary with some Bromley relatives but that didn't work out, so she decided to take the bus. But I couldn't stand the thought of putting on the bus so Geoff and I drove her to Calgary on Thursday after work. We had time to say hi to Max Larsen but didn't stay.
Grace is getting confirmed on Sunday.
The yard is looking great. I want to get out there, but have to finish my chores first before I get to play.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Sitting in the railway station

got a ticket for my destination, HMMHmm. Well Actually it is the airport, another 20 minutes and we can board. This is week 3 in Toronto, and I am starting to feel as though things are getting more familiar, I like the area around the office, lots and lots of big old houses made out of brick. A surprising aomut of green, even down town, but I cannot get over the number of banks there are around. one on every corner where the office is, and since the hotel is near bay street, a ton of them n that street. I thought I was onthe road to recovery, but had a relapse, and lost my voice again, so a good thing I have an appt to see the dr tomorrow.

better shut down and get ready to board.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

stress ball, stress ball, I'm a stress ball

Graphjam rocks. Thanks for the link!

I think I must be stressed too.... or something. I have a mysterious rash (or hives or something) bilaterally on my back and legs. It was on my arms as well but has receded. Someone needs to go to med school so I can use this as a forum for discussing my mysterious symptoms. Steph sometimes gets hives when she's stressed, and this is itchy, so that is my best guess.

One more final to go. It should be hellish. And then have to present my thesis research on June 6. Only trouble is still haven't managed to meet with my supervisor to discuss what to say. ARGH.

Just got back from London, which was fun. Probably a bad idea, but fun. Spent Monday night drinking with some people who own a "small boutique press agency" - basically they troll the internet for weird stories and commission paparazzi. It was really interesting. They said they've done all the stuff on August Kelly that appeared in the Brit press, and their latest piece is in Reveal magazine, about Toronto's professional pillow fighters.

Congrats on seminary, Will! (Haven't been checking the blog much lately).

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Adrift

My conference in Vancouver went well -- I had a very effective meeting for a human resources summit I'm helping plan, a good session on new librarians that I moderated, and I go to stay here.

I also bought some swanky clothes and ate some good sushi.

I feel a little adrift right now; all my big work stuff is basically done, and I'm just waiting on the job decision. I feel okay but think I have a bit of stress because I'm having some trouble sleeping. I feel a bit low energy, and like I actually just want to drift. Maybe I need to go on the houseboat a month early?

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Sunday, May 25, 2008

Plan A it is

Well, guests just left and it was all good. I went with the three new recipes and they ate it all so either liked it or are very very polite. I knew the dessert was going to be good.
The guests were Tony and Ruth Ferrey (Peter who we visited in England is Tony's brother), their son and daughter-in-law (who they are visiting in Drayton Valley), and Ron and Gwen from Sylvan Lake. They are all so nice, it was a great visit. Every time Tony and Ruth visit we get together and all the cousins vow to get together again soon, but so far it never happens.
The happiest month of all is almost over. But we have the houseboat to live for. And then Folkfest.
Got to go finish the dishes, just wanted you all to stop worrying.

Plan A

10 people will be here for supper and I am trying three new recipes. Eek. I must be nuts. Maybe I should think of a plan B.

Houseboating

OK, so here is the schedule for cooking etc.
we have the Early Board on Sun June 29th, so can check in at the boat between 8-10 PM. I thought that evening, it would make sense to eat out! I am not sure when you all are thinking of getting there, but I figure if we met at Dutchman Dairy at 5 pm or so? Would that be a good time? Then we could have an ice cream while waiting.
Schedule for cooking is:
Monday breakfast: Theresa & Geoff
Monday Supper: Lisa & Richard
Tuesday breakfast: Judith and Grace
Tuesday Supper: Laura and Allison
Wednesday Breakfast: Jim and Mom
Wednesday Supper: Anne and Will
Thursday Breakfast: Sam & Tim
Thursday Supper: Theresa & Geoff
Friday Breakfast: Lisa & Richard
Friday Supper: Jim & Mom
Saturday Breakfast: Laura & Allison
Saturday Supper: Judith & Grace
Sunday Breakfast: Anne & Will

You will note that Tim & Sam have only 1 breakfast and no supper, they got off lucky. We can think of suitable penance for them.

We will need some basic supplies, oh hey, since Tim and Sam only have 1 meal they can bring these:
salt and pepper (lemon pepper too please)
Tinfoil
saranwrap
sugar
cooking oil
butter/margerine
cream for coffee
milk-don't think we will have room in fridge for whole week's worth, but if you bring enough for at least a few days.

If we each do 2 sets of dishes, then we have that covered too.
Could everyone provide enough coffee for the breakfast they are doing? Then we won't have a coffee crisis, seriously, I cannot live without it. This means quite a lot of coffee.

We each need to bring sunscreen, bug spray, flashlights, towels, soap, tea towels, CD's, bedding & pillows, water (or we can use the bottles provided at whatever they cost), games, deck chairs, DVD's. Richard and I will take our truck, so we can bring some firewood & axe and extra deck chairs, if someone wants us to.

Of course, we also need beverages and snacks...whatever you like.

Bedwise...Mom will need a bottom floor bed.

Jim is arranging karaoke and Mom says she wants to pay for it.

I think since we will have the truck, we should be able to bring back recycling this time. So we'll bring blue bags for this. I hate throwing stuff in garbage. I think we'll also bring along a big pail for compost too.
Questions, comments?
please respond and let me know what you think... And if I have forgotten anything.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Look at this

I think that Anne will love this site
I have one more shift then am off for 5 days! I have worked too much in the last few weeks. Can. not. work. any. more.
Though today's shift went fine. I worked with low key guy in PICU, who compensated for not low key patient in there.
Need to gather energy to make lunch. Seriously, making a lunch for the entire days worth of eating is a lot of food.
I'm going to see if I can get time off for folkfest. I would've asked the manager today but think he was tired from working part of the night shift as we were shortstaffed.
That is why I am not a manager and instead am a happy worker bee.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Theological College

I just got a letter from VST (the Vancouver School of Theology - they've accepted me for a Masters of Divinity (ordination track) starting in September! I've been waiting for quite a while to hear, so I was pretty glad to get the letter today. It's a three year course, so a bit daunting from this end, but I'm sure it will go fast....

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Friday, May 16, 2008

30+

It is going to be hot this weekend. I have to work on Saturday but it means I'll take next Wednesday off. I go to Vancouver for the library conference. Staying in the SHERATON.

Happy birthday Theresa! You are also 30+.

My biggest news is that I have had 2 job interviews -- 1 for MacEwan and 1 for UA. Didn't get the MacEwan job, though they told me I did a super interview & that they thought I could walk in & do the job easily. Still waiting for UA. I should know within the month. I thought it went really well, but it's always about who you are competing against. I did realize that if I'm on EI, I can still make my mortgage payments. It is somewhat appealing...

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

First Week done

I have finished my first week in TO, sitting at the airport, ready to go home. I always find the first week on a project stressful, because everything is new, it takes time to get all your access, and learn who everyone is and ehat they do. On this project it is a bit better because, I know lots of people from other projects, and the connectiong stuff, with the network and computer went really well.

Still feeling kind of poorly, had Al make an appointment with the DR. for tomorrow, cause I lot my voice earlier in the week, however, it seems to be back now, kind of, but think I will go anyway. My sides are still pretty sore from coughing and it would be good to make sure everything is coming along.

Mom I am sorry I missed calling you on Sunday, I was so frazzled by travelling again, that I totally forgot. Maybe you should look for a replacement daughter, one who is more with it.

Looking forward to the weekend, I think I will hit the market, and pickup some flowers for the balcony, so it does not look so dreary.

Hoping that I will have more energy next week, and might get out a bit more. Did you know they have a shoe museum here? I can't wait to see it.

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Rex Kwon Do

I did Code White training this week for work. (called in the hospital when there is a violent person) It is a 3 day course, involving learning how to defend yourself etc. Taught by a ex-cop who travels around BC doing this. He taught at the Vancouver police academy etc. And is like Rex from Napoleon Dynamite, in fact he said to one security guy taking the course, 'your shoe's untied'. And hit him in the head. I actually really liked him and the training.
Sarah and I spent a lot of time laughing in it, though I actually think I have some sort of post traumatic stress from it as I woke up last night in the middle of the night and thought about it. we did these scenarios and I think my skill is not in jumping into codes, rather, it is to intervene before they start. we'd be in the middle of something and I'd feel like i was freezing. I would make a poor cop. During one practical he grabbed my arm and i just looked at him blankly, he said 'what's wring with this?' I am like,'Huh, I don't know" Answer= I shouldn't be so close someone can grab me. Duh.
Plus, during one of the restraints, one of the security guys was holding me and my arm hurt and he didn't adjust! I told him like 3 times, now my arm, neck and shoulder hurts. And i have had an earache, (from before it started), so it is all uncomfortably making the left side of my body hurt. Bugger. I made a massage therapy appt for this afternoon. But have to plant all the lovely annuals we bought 1st!
There was this one security guy, Fran who is so dense. Mom thinks I'm being cruel, but seriously, this guy is supposed to be helping us when someone is being violent to nursing staff? We'd be doing stretches to warm up, Rex would say, 'Put your hand right by your face', Fran would have his hand above his head, Rex says 'By your face' Fran puts hand higher up, Rex says, 'by your face' Fran puts hand on top of head. We all say, 'by your face', Fran puts hand about 2 feet in front of face. Most of the time, I'd have to leave and get a glass of water, or look down at the floor or else I'd burst out laughing. And though I have an evil streak, the rest of the world doesn't need to know about it. Poor Fran. Sarah and i were like, 'what is wrong with this guy? Is he disabled in some way? Low IQ? WTF?'

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Monday, May 12, 2008

May, the sweetest month

Ah May, the month of my birthday, Mother's Day and my anniversary. Sadly, one great day is down, but Mother's Day was good. Breakfast in bed, flowers, the kids made lunch and Geoff made supper and Tim came over. We picked some daffodils from Tim's yard and walked out to the graveyard to put them on Daphne and Aubrey's grave in the afternoon (after my nap).
Very very little new here. We have had more snow in the last two weeks than we had for most of the winter. The only good part was that Geoff fertilized the lawn before the first snow so it is emerging nice and green as it melts.
Sam has started his job, wasn't too keen on it the first bit, but said he did some actual work today, so that's good. Geoff keeps saying that's life in a gas plant, not really all that busy.
Just got back from Grace's rugby game. They finally got a try (a goal), the first one all year. The weather has been playing havoc with the rugby schedule.
A lot of people are leaving work for different reasons, and it is busy, so the days go by fast. And things take longer when new people are learning them. Must be patient.

Ha hahahaha

I love this website

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Anne's post in a place where you cam comment with out paying ramsom.

Sunday = time to ramble on (2008-05-11 - 2:26 p.m.)

So the weather is incredible this week in North Wales! Just thought I should make note of this fact. Blistering sunshine every day except yesterday. Unlike the Scots, however, the Welsh don't seem to be taking the opportunity to strip off and expose their white underbellies. In Edinburgh, the first sunny day would bring the sight of acres of white flesh as far as the eye could see. By the second sunny day, it would all have turned bright red. Here, however, everyone just seems to be keeping on with the same short skirts and hotpants they wore all winter - but minus the 3/4-length leggings.

Lectures have now officially ended and exams start soon. I have two, Advanced Statistics and Cognition and Brain. These will be my first finals in six years. Yuck. On the plus side, however, I've finished pilot-testing for my thesis and have started running subjects in earnest. I'm doing nothing but testing next week and if my luck holds, may have enough subjects by the end of the month to start analysis. (They are technically never called "subjects" any more - they are "participants" - but nobody ever remembers to go with the PC terminology). The pilot data was pretty noisy and inconclusive, so it's hard to tell yet if there will be an effect. Either way I get my Masters, but it will sadly only be publishable if there is in fact an effect.

Starting to get really sad about leaving Bangor. There's a pretty good chance (it would seem) that I could scrounge funding here, but the department has messed me around so many times that it seems foolish to set myself up for them to try it again. I can just see getting halfway through a PhD and then getting a letter saying, "Our policies on funding have changed...." I just don't want to risk it. But I REALLY don't want to leave. The fencers are making plans for a Women's BUSA (British Universities Sports Association) team next year, and I'm pretty sure I could get on it (if only because of lack of any other female fencers!)

Speaking of fencing, I'm half-dead today due to Reid's little torture session yesterday. (He's the club captain). I almost didn't turn up, but dragged myself over. He had us "jog gently" around the gym as a warm-up, and I joked, "Yeah, I WILL jog gently - if he thinks I'm sprinting he has another think coming!"

And then he set up for the bleep test. I'm not sure if I have described this, but it is a gym teacher-designed torture like nothing ever seen in Canada. It's a CD that beeps twice for each level, and you have to run across the gym each time. So Level 1, runs 1 through 10, you have quite a while to get from one side to the other, but by Level 8 you're sprinting because the beeps are really close together. I made it to Level 9.6, which is way better than I did last time. But my chest was burning by the end.

So everyone collapsed in exhaustion after that, at which point Reid hauled us up for a footwork session (slowly for 3min, medium for 3min, fast for 3min, repeat). THEN we had a lesson, and when I couldn't hold my arm up any more we had an hour of fencing. And I did foil, which has the benefit of being nice and light to hold, yet is a massive pain because there are complicated rules about who has right-of-way that I can never work out. Sigh.

On the plus side, it's Sunday, it's sunny and I have nothing much to do all day but putter around the house, marking essays and doing laundry in my Hockey Night in Canada t-shirt.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Dinner

I just got back from supper with Betty Anne, Greg and Kate. They are in town for a Ceiliac conference, and we got together tonight. For those lucky enough to have been there, we went to Ferris'. They had a special on steak, so the three Albertans had fish, and I had a steak. They are staying at the Chateau Victoria, which has a nice lounge with an amazing view of the city on the 18th floor, so we went there for a drink after supper. It was very nice, and nice to see them and catch up. I guess it's been a while since I saw them, and I even longer since I saw Kate.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Health Update and Travel news

I went back to work this week, but did not last too long, worked half a day on Monday and Tuesday, and then had to rest all of Wednesday. Today I am feeling better again, but have today and tomorrow off because of working some stats.

I am going to be working on a project in Toronto, starting on Monday. It will be working with some people I have worked with before on other projects, so that is nice. I will travel on Sundays to TO, and then back to Edmonton on Thursday nights. I might stay over a couple of weekends, once things get going. Have not spent any time in TO since we went to Expo, so I am sure things have changed since then. The best part about this is, that it is a direct flight no more missing connections, yahoo!!

Nothing else new here, I may attempt some house cleaning today, nothing has been done here in about two months, what with being away, and then getting sick.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Yarding/Houseboat

Richard and I spent all day yesterday doing yardwork. And I got a sunburn as though I put on sunscreen, there was a gap between my shorts and shirt-hussy. It was lovely out though. Plus the yard looks better. Still there is much weeding to be done.
I was worn out after my last set of shifts. Trained in psychiatric ICU, then had a, how shall I put it, challenging night on the floor, with 2 difficult to manage people, and we were short staffed, which meant no breaks. PSICU at this point does not seem to be where i want to work. I'll try it some more, but really think that I'll prefer the main unit. It's not the patients, but rather the environment...just isn't where I want to work I think.
How tactful is that?
Yardwork was therapeutic in dealing with my stress from the last set of shifts though. Hurrah for living things and nature!
I hope that you are still on the mend Jude, how did work go? Were you OK there?
I paid the rest of the houseboat. I thought I'd pay for all of it then get reimbursed by the rest of you, but upon further reflection...could ya'll send a cheque in the next month or so?
Total was $5287.73. Divided by 13 (I'm presuming that all the Ferrey's are coming? If not sure...is fine, we can sort out later) = $406.75 per person.
I am excluding Mom...as she paid for our trip last time and thought we could pay for hers this time?
Perhaps this is not the best forum to discuss this, but is the best way of reaching all of you. As I know that Jim and Laura read this, even if they cannot figure how to post.
What do you think?
Cost includes our night on the boat before we actually leave..Sunday June 29th, then returning Sunday July 6. It's only 2 months away!! Should I arrange for meals etc and post again? It would be 2 meals we have to prepare and clean up after, so 1 breakfast, 1 supper? Gas will be extra of course..plus insurance I think from last time if I am remembering correctly. This time we will have a truck, so can bring extra chairs, firewood, as i know last time everyone was pretty cramped in their vehicles. Just let us know what you need. other than a million dollars.
I am arranging for beautiful weather, but cannot be held accountable if it does not arrive as ordered. There is a hot tub if cold and rainy...which it won't be....plus we have karaoke to amuse ourselves with!

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Saturday, May 03, 2008

Getting Better all the Time

I am so happy to be feeling better. Woke up this morning and while I am still coughing, my ribs don't hurt nearly so much (thank goodness for codeine). My voice is sounding better (I talked to myself, so I could tell). No more passing out when I cough, and I have gotten some sleep that lasts more than 2 hours at a time (again thanks to codeine). Talked to my bosses on Friday, and told them I would be back at work on Monday, we have agreed that if I find myself too tired, I will not work the whole day. I am thinking that I will go into the office, I am kind of sick of my place and a little change of scenery will be good.

Thanks everyone for checking on me, and for all your support I feel so blessed to have such a caring family I think I will keep you. Please keep your dark side to yourselves for now, at least until I am 100% better.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

our sick girl

Just talked to Jude. She has pneumonia which the doctor finally diagnosed at 2 a.m. He said he didn't care what the x-ray showed, he could hear it. So she has some medication and says she is on the mend (which she told me last week). Tried to talk her into letting me go get her and bring her to Rocky to recover but no luck. She still sound terrible.