2010 Year in Review

January-started new position at work-I like it still! Interesting, can be frustrating at times-but isn't everything? i am quite sure that lots of the staff are continuing to think how on earth can someone who has been nursing for (at time of this writing) 3, almost 4 years, be an educator, but that doesn't bug me. This is why aging is good-you have a better sense of who you are, who you are not, a stronger idea of what is important to you and the rest seems to matter less. Richard joins our neighbourhood Association and shortly thereafter their board.
Our nephew Josh came to visit-went to salsa dancing and cougars were on the prowl. Mom's 80th birthday-Jim and Sandi were here to visit-we had a lovely time.
February-Not much. Tenants in our old place cannot figure out how to use thermostat-resulting in $350 gas bill. We are amazed at their lack of commonsense
March-to Edmonton for weekend. Thank you Lingnan. We have nothing to compare to this here. It was a fun weekend sewing. Bus #5 was awesome as always
April-birthday, anniversary. We eat out a lot this month. I started yoga again-good for me. I am happier when doing yoga.
May-Weather improving, replanted tulips as our yard does not have enough flower interest. mom buys house across the street from Stan and Olive who moved into assisted living. We begin working on getting Mom's house ready to list and the new place ready to move into. Lots of painting, renovating etc. All worth it in the end. Richard and I go to Vancouver-sadly missing Will who goes to Sri Lanka. I have a conference on Addictions and Mental Health.
June-get permanent educators job. Continuing to work on Mom's new place. Theresa, Long's, Allison here to help with same.
July-Mom moves in across the street. We all collapse in exhaustion. except Clem who settles in nicely.
August-Houseboating-with storm and cousins and salmon and bears. Fun and exciting! Folkfest-enjoyable-and got to see Jude right after her surgery. thankfully she recuperates well.
September-We paint our outside deck-listening to Earth, Wind and Fire singing September. decide to do my master's of nursing.
October-To Ontario for a week. Weather and visiting all good. See Niagara Falls as usual, also go to Guelph for a visit with Anne and Kafka. Join BC Schizophrenia Society board in Kelowna. Downstairs tenant moves out. Dirty is an understatement. Richard does bathroom. I will forever be in his debt.
November-Jude and Ferrey's come for visit. Snow. Mom's lights are installed!
December-To Rocky for Christmas. Christmas prep-but not stressed-even with mailing gifts. Strange but true.

Christmas In Rocky

I wouldn't want Scott and our other silent followers to get bored...

Alfie's house (with photobomber):



Towering stack of gifts:




Gingerbread houses and tree:



Gingerbread Dad (beard and all):


Tim's new style:




Holding up Lisa and Allison at the Oval:



Partial group photo (the rest are on someone else's camera):

Christmas Lists (the other kind)

I am proposing a new addition to the holidays. Sometime before Christmas, could everyone please write a list of things they would like and post it to the blog? Then we have a central reference from which to buy (or make) people awesome gifts.

It's been another excellent Christmas in Rocky. Couldn't have been much better, in fact. All the Kelowna folk are here, and a full house makes for the best kind of Christmas. We had a nearly symmetrical tree and a giant stack of presents and lots of baking and several choruses of Good King Wenceslas. I love Christmas in Rocky.

Christmas List!

Beth has Jude
Geoff has Richard
Theresa has Sandi
Anne has Grace
Will has Anne
Grace has Jim
Laura has Theresa
Jim has Geoff
Sandi has Will
Lisa has Laura
Richard has Beth
Al has Lisa
Judith has Allison

Yay, another happy Christmas, and time to draw names. Everyone remember who you got this year!

But it won't let me, so will update later

Trying to post on iPad

Christmas

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone got to Rocky ok. Just going to start cabbage rolls, and I am making a triffle for tomorrow. Boys are both out doing stuff. Looking forward to some time off, just relaxing.

Wrapping

I am wrapping gifts.
We leave tomorrow-planning for 700, the hopefully will be on the road by 730. Richard has updated 1st aide kit and bought snacks. A lot of them.
I would like to see several movies-new Narnia, The Speech, and Black Swan.

Xmas in the oilsands

Nice little comic about spending xmas in Fort McMurray. This is as xmasy as I get.

Baby's named a bad, bad thing

This website is amazing.
It sums up all the problems with names nicely.
Kerrigan Callahan Attica Maxigan Calaya Fainne Salom
are a few examples.
I may nap today.
I did all my Christmas shopping without setting foot in a mall or big box store. Except Winners, which doesn't count. My rules.
We watched Love Actually a little while ago. One of the best Christmas movies.
I got Room by Emma Donaghue out of the library. So far, it is great.

A Very Good Week for Me

It started on Sunday, Kirsten invited me over for 3rd Advent, there was singing, snacks and Gluhwein. The group this year were very much into singing, so we went through quite a bit of the Wurman family songbook. I borrowed Grace's car to drive to Kirsten's, picked up Allison and Todd. After 3rd advent, I picked up Grace and we drove over to my house and decorated my tree, ate pizza and watched the last Amazing Race of the year.

Monday night Grace and I drove out to Namao and picked up Henry for supper. Luckily we were early because we got an unintentional tour of the base. Took a wrong turn, and had a little trouble finding the Shack where Henry lives. After we picked up Henry back to town, and picked up Sam and went out for supper. It was really nice to see the three cousins together again, but hard to believe that they are all grown up. We had a good visit, and then drove Henry back, this time had an intentional tour of the base. Henry showed us where he works, and point out all the highlights of the base.

Tuesday another dinner out, with a bunch of people from work, and some people that I used to work with. great to catch up. Wednesday night I stayed home and enjoyed some quiet. Thursday night Geoff came into town to stay over, and pick up Will from the airport this morning. We went out to Rigolettos for supper and I had my favourite baked Rigatoni, yummmm. Thursday at noon we had our Christmas lunch at work. It was a potluck and our group was on the main course and we decided to pool our money and got it catered, with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy. Lots of other good food was there it was lots of fun.

Today Anne, Grace and I had breakfast at Zuppa's, then off to Whyte Avenue for shopping. It was not so cold today and the stores were not too busy. Only another week until Christmas, I cannot wait.

News from GP

Last week my boss called me in and let me know my job is redundent. So they gave me a package for 6 months and my last day is January 3, 2011. In fact I am not going in after December 23 except to hand in my cell phone and keys, what are they going to do about it, fire me? Already done. We are doing ok with the change. I wanted to tell Henry about it before I told anyone else so he came home today. I am not unhappy but not sure what we want to do now, feels like I am 18 again and have to decide what I want to be when I grow up. Luckily the big W is giving me some time to make up my mind what I want. Other than that not much new here, things are good but cold. I am going in to work this afternoon and then there is the Christmas party tonight with the HR group. Everyone traveling over Christmas please be careful on the roads.

Done!

I've been pretty busy for the past few weeks with my clinical, but I wrote the final exam today, so I'm done! Unfortunately I have to meet with my instructor for my final evaluation on Dec 20 in the afternoon, so I won't be back in Rocky until Dec 21, which is pretty annoying. But now I have lots of free time in the city for Christmas shopping, some of which I did right after my exam.

The rotation I just did was community/obstetrics. The community portion, which was the main bit, was focused on small children and new mothers. I got to go on Healthy Beginnings visits with a nurse, which is where a nurse does a home visit with all newborns and their mothers within 24 hours of being discharged from the hospital. I also got to observe the Well Child Clinic, where they do the childhood immunizations. There was a lot of screaming. On one day I got to shadow a midwife at her clinic, so there was a lot of assessments of pregnant ladies there. I found it pretty interesting, especially after she showed me a video of some home water births. After going through this course and learning about all the things that can go wrong during birth, I don't think I would ever want to deliver at home. But the midwife said that we learn too much propaganda in nursing school, and they want to medicalize everything so that's what we are taught. I'm still not convinced.

The obstetrics portion was the best part of the last 6 weeks. We only get 6 days in the hospital- 3 on labour and delivery and 3 on post partum. So I showed up for my first labour and delivery day at 6:45 at the Grey Nuns, only to discover that my instructor was sick and I was to go home. She ended up being sick for all 3 of my labour and delivery days, so I had the whole week off because of Remembrance Day. The next week I went to post partum, but the unit I was on was mostly antepartum moms, so I didn't get to see many babies. I did get to put monitors on for fetal heart rates, though. We had to make up our labour and delivery days on a weekend, which was lame, especially since it was chocolates weekend. I got to see one vaginal birth and one c-section, as well as an epidural. We were lucky to see a c-section, since it was a weekend and none were scheduled, but there was an emergency type one, and they let all 5 of the students watch, which is pretty unheard of. Then there was no one else giving birth that day, so I got to go home early.

So I'm glad community is over, since it was pretty boring since there was not a whole bunch for us to do, and there was a lot of assignments, but I'm sorry OB had to be so short. I don't think I would actually want to work there for good, but it was fun to see all the new things.

Award Winning House

We had a Gingerbread House decorating at work, and the team I was on won!!

Christmas

Hey good news! Looks like I'll be able to get some time off work after all so Rocky Mtn. House here we come! Still working out the exact dates we'll be there...but we will be there! Break out the Butterball!!!

RW

Me too!

I bought some art!

Here is Geoff at Schmoozy.

The Tradition Continues - Chocolates and Schmoozy

It was a very good weekend. Theresa and Geoff came for the weekend, arrived on Friday night. We went out for supper, Thai Food at the Boun Thai, it was so yummy. Then on Saturday, after sleeping in a bit, the Ferrey's went out to do a little shopping, and I made my centers for chocolates. I got started dipping before Theresa got back, but it is pretty slow going when you alone. I was only dipping for about half an hour and then Theresa returned and we really made some progress. It took about 2.5 hours to get all done, bagging and dishes included. I made supper, and Allison and Kirsten came over for that. We had a really good time visiting. After supper, we all got ready and headed off to Schmoozy, to support Latitude 53. It was crowded with people, lots of good art (I got a painting of Buffalo Lake). Geoff was quite a hit, with his cowboy hat and beard, he had his picture taken by Avenue Magazine, so we hope that it will be published.

Today I had a brunch, Allison, Sam and Henry came over and we had a very nice time visiting and getting caught up with Henry and Sam. It is always such a pleasure to have them come over and visit and of course lovely to have Theresa and Geoff to stay, such easy guests. Grace could not come over this weekend because she was working at the Grey Nuns, in the Maternity ward. Weekend flew by and I can't believe it is back to work tomorrow.