Hot And Cold

Lately Monday has been run, run, run - my schedule is subject to change - and it does constantly! But work hasn't been too bad overall despite a few little blips here and there. The weather as you can see warmed up on Monday to the low 50's, what a magnificent day to be out driving! The windows were down, Pacebel on the CD player playing Canon D, what more could you ask? Today, rain rain rain - gloomy and dank, windows up. Tomorrow it's supposed to be cold and snowy, but like my schedule that's  also  subject to change especially since we have to depend on the Crack Weather Team that changes the forecast constantly. In knitting news, I've taken a break from the sock and have been knitting a baby hat which might even fit the recipient, I am terrible at sizing and most of my projects don't have owners til they're done. After I'm finished I hold it up and squint at it, trying to figure out who I know that will fit into it - then Voila! - someone gets a present. That system has worked for years, so if it ain't broke I ain't fixin it.

It's Still Cold. Thank You For Asking.

I had one admission today and another possibly for tomorrow. I am Super Crabby as I'm coming down with something so anyone calling the house is grilled to pieces about what EXACTLY do they want. I am in no mood. In order to lift my spirits I am ordering a few tiny things from Knitpicks that I really really really need and cannot do without. As you can see from the pictures I was out and about tripping in the graveyard and have to say January in WV is not the ideal time to go skipping through the tombstones - although I was the only one complaining about the weather. It was 19 today, a regular heatwave given the past week. It's supposed to go up into the 40's so we'll keep our fingers crossed. I'm invited to a baby shower next week - I'm actually a little excited about it. The thing you do miss when you move away from everyone is you don't get invited to things like birthdays or showers - as we've lived here longer we get invited to more things but as you know when you become an adult and you're out of high school, it's really a lot harder to make friends or even acquaintances. I know a lot of it is me, between work and home it's hard to find time and let's face it, I'm not overly social anyhow. I'm happiest on the end of the couch with a cup of coffee and my knitting needles watching tv. Jackson was grousing because I was watching "13 Ghosts" AGAIN - I told him rather sweetly it was either 13 Ghosts or 16 Candles, you pick - he decided he preferred 13 shrieking bloody ghosts to a host of shrieking nonbloody and angsty teenagers. Little does he know what he'll be watching later......

Snow or No Snow

It's been staying down in the single digits again, this morning we are at eight degrees and holding, school has a two hour delay as the kids in the outlying areas can't stand out at the bus in this weather. Jackson will be going to school nine-ish which actually annoys him because in order to make up the time the don't have the fun subjects and just do the boring stuff. Jackson opened his own bank account last week with just his name on it, now that he's 18 he can be the captain of his own ship. I cashed in his CD which was fairly impressive - I've been skimming his christmas and birthday money for the past few years as he gets way too much to be blowing on videogames. When we moved back here I put it into a CD and just let it roll - so he had a thousand dollars - just from leftover birthday and christmas money, not bad! I gave him the cashier's check and David took him to the bank to open an account - he told David he had some more money in his room to deposit - the little weasel actually had an additional $600 squirreled away, we don't call him "Squeak Jr" for nothing! David sat in on the transaction and vetoed the checks since Jackson doesn't have any bills but Jackson did get a debit card which will take a couple of weeks to get here. He was actually looking through the mail the next day for it but has realized it will take awhile ("the elves are working as fast as they can Jackson!"). David cooked up some more of thier pheasant last night - we have over a dozen still, I found a recipe for Smothered Pheasant tht wasn't too hard and we had all the ingredients so they enjoyed that. They're predicting warmer temps this weekend, I think these intermittent warm days are making it worse - this winter for some reason just seems to be dragging on and on, I guess because we have so much hanging in the air.

The Good Old Days

I've gotten a population of older patients lately - that's way the home care is, you'll have a wave of children, then teens, etc - that will end and you'll end up with another group. The older people mostly come from generations that have lived here since the turn of the century or even before. When I wander the graveyards I've been here long enough I've started recognizing families, some dating from the late 1700's. I was sitting with a patient and she asked how many children I had - I replied two and she told me she'd had nine. I was impressed I told her, I couldn't imagine having more than two. She patted my knee and sat foward and said "I didn't have any choice, they wouldn't give you anything in those days to keep you from having babies, you just had to have them". I've had patients tell me of horrific injuries that were treated in the kitchen because there either was no doctor or if there was, there was no money. The Company Store we sang about in chorus is the real deal here - I've had patients or patients whose parents were born in mining camps and they would rather die than sing about that. Ever. They have documentaries on the local PBS about the mining and did you know when the miners rose up against the bosses they were turned out - remember the company provided everything including the houses. They lived in tents over the winter and a large number died - and it really wasn't that long ago. The mining houses still stand over in Cassville, they're mean little cracker boxes that lean out over the road in some places. It's funny how you always think of 'years ago"as so romantic and happy and it really wasn't all that. It wasn't all bad of course, very few things are, but it was much harder than you think it was. That patient really made me start looking at things from another point of view, she wasn't complaining and she certainly loved all of her children, but I guess I never thought that people had large families just because they had no choice, not because they intended to.

Broken Needles

I emailed Lantern Moon yesterday (they're the ones that make the sock needles that broke on me in under a week) looking to see if I could just buy a couple to complete the set. I figure I can keep them as a back up in case something happens to Harmony wood set I got from Knitpicks. I have backup sets of all my knitting needles, I even have backups to the backups. In the event of Nuclear Winter believe me - I'm well covered. Anyhoo, they got back to me right away and have promised me to send a new set free of charge. We'll see - one of the things I've noticed lately is for a company to promise to replace, etc and then simply not follow up on it. I'm not overly concerned in any case as I have plenty of sock needles in a size 0 to keep me covered until I finish. In other news at work  - the other nurse might possibly have a blood clot in her shoulder and was going for a doppler scan yesterday. I'm waiting to see how things fall out, it could get ugly staffing wise. But I like to wait until something actually happens before I go getting all bent out of shape about it - it saves you alot of time not getting upset about things that haven't happened. The weather continues to be cold, but I was thinking about it the other day and it's already the 22nd - that's about what, only 5 or 6 weeks until March? Pearl is enjoying all this cold stuff, it seems to agree with her and she'd stay out all day if she could.

The Artic Zone

We're being reminded that it's still winter - the temp dipped to the single digits last night and have stubbornly refused to budge all day. As you can see from the pictures that doesn't stop Pearl The Eskimo from harassing all avian lifeforms. She actually tries to get up in the tree and when she does that you can see them flying like mad out the other side. This morning was fun, we met Roger and Susan at Crackerbarrel for breakfast at 8:30 - I think due to cold not too many people seemed to be interested in having breakfast out. We took Jackson with us and everyone had a good time - I'm glad they built this one near us so we don't have to drive to Fairmont anymore.  After breakfast we went to the bookstore for a bit and then did the week's shopping. I've been playing with my diet as I'm bored and have been gaining weight - not a lot but enough to be annoying. As I've mentioned previously I'm completely addicted   to You Are What You Eat  -

 http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/Y/yawye/  

 so I've been (loosely!) following along with Gillian's diet. It's a ton of chopping as she's big on vegetables and fruit but I've found there's a lot of things I like but never would have tried  such as kiwi, mangos and parsnips. I re-lost 3 pounds and having to hunt down the ingredients (quinoa anyone?) and make up the recipes has kept me occupied. I don't do the salmon - I did take a gander at it at Sam's Club today but for some reason the phrases "fresh fish" and "West Virginia" just don't seem compatible - not to mention unless it's tuna with mayo or heavily breaded, fried and slathered with tartar sauce the idea of eating fish makes me a bit pukey.(is that a word - pukey? puky? pukie? - doesn't the one with the "ie' one the end look sort of like something you would name a bunny? Pukie the bunny - hmm, maybe not. Am I digressing??) David has a fire going at the moment as we might as well use up some of that deadwood we have lying about. The sock is going well, I'm getting to the foot part of the program - I'm using my new needles from Knitpicks entirely - they work much better and I don't think they'll break as easily as the ones from Lantern Moon - they didn't even last two weeks!

Eek! Who Turned Off The Heat?

The temp plummeted last night and the high for tomorrow is 4. That's right, 4. They're talking snow showers which is better on the weekend as I dont' have to leave early for work. Speaking of which I managed to commit a rather intriguing faux pas. I went to admit a patient and the family wanted to know where the monitor was - we're starting them next month - turns out someone in the office assured the family I would hook it up. I didn't know what to say so I told them I had to call my director from the car as her number was on my phone. I went out to my car and called the director's cell phone, she answered and then the call got dropped. I hit redial - and said her name and she said yes? I then told her I hadn't wanted to call from in the patients house because I had no idea what to do, that someone in the office had promised them a monitor and we didn't have them yet and the patient's family said the doctor wanted the patient hooked up today and then the director said "hold on honey". Hmm. She never calls me honey. Turned out my phone glitched when I hit redial AND I HAD CALLED THE PATIENT'S HOUSE BY ACCIDENT. The reason the family had said yes when I said the director's name is because that is the family member's real given name. The family thank goodness understood and I called the agency from inside the house during which I maintained an excellent Cherry Red Complexion. Some days I don't love my job as much as others. I guess I'd better get Pearl-ine outside for her morning Hysterical Romping and Jumping About session that she enjoys so much. I swear, she's a reincarnated Husky sometimes as much as she loves the cold.