Gratitude for frozen pipes.

This has been a brutal winter here in Pennsylvania.  After several years of relatively mild weather during the dark months of the year, nature is reminding us that she is unpredictable and wild still. 

Given that Hubbybunch and I heat our home exclusively with one hard-working Woodstock soapstone woodstove, trying to keep the house from freezing is a full-time job on days like today.  Unfortunately, our efforts to keep our pipes from freezing last night (turning the water off entirely and draining the pipes) backfired, and the damn supply pipe coming up from the well through the ground in the basement froze instead.  We had no running water whatsoever.  Not good. 

So, we rigged a space heater under a sleeping bag tent over that section of pipe, brought our coffee to the freezing cold basement, and watched it like a hawk so we wouldn't burn our house down.  It worked!  The pipe thawed, and flow was restored... mostly.  We have every faucet in the house dripping, and I'm home today and have been feeding the stove hourly to try to warm things up in here.  It may freeze again tonight when the temperature plummets to zero again.  But we'll deal with it as it comes.  The hot water pipe in our kitchen wall is still frozen, as it the cold water to the toilet in the adjacent powder room.

This sort of thing makes me want to hunt down the Johnny-homeowner who built that section of the house and smash his face in.  I suppose they decided that insulating the exterior walls wasn't that important.  They're completely hollow.  This spring/summer, we're going to have to rip open that entire side of the house, install insulation, and replace the siding.  We'd LOVE to get another small woodstove set up in there as well.  Where we'll find the cash for that kind of project I don't know.  But it has to happen before next winter, somehow. 

Regardless of the cold, the anxiety, and the interruption of our normally scheduled programming due to plumbing emergencies, we're surviving... and I don't regret this path we've chosen. This shitty little old broken house might be costing us a fortune in repairs and lost sleep, but it's OURS.  I'd rather be blow-drying my frozen pipes than dreaming up ways to murder a noisy, inconsiderate neighbor... or wishing with all my heart that I had just a little spot somewhere to plant some carrots.

Still alive!

It's been nearly 7 months since I've posted on this blog... a very, very busy 7 months.

I'm not even sure where to begin with the catching up, so I think I'm just going to skip it and summarize in one big long sentence: tons of festivals and burns, camping and circus arts, parties and journeys and friends and love and more circus and house projects and nesting and working my ass off and failing at gardening and hardly having time to think and injuring my back and still recovering from said injury and helping my mom move and drinking tea.

Now we're up to date!

Christmas is fast approaching.  Each year I make Christmas tree ornaments to gift to family and friends.  In years past I made little yarn balls and knitting needles in walnut shell baskets, amanita mushrooms, etc.  This year I discovered these wonderful free patterns from Downeast Thunder Farm http://www.downeastthunderfarm.com/tag/felt-bird-ornaments/.  They are adorable, and super easy to make.  Everyone is getting a snowy owl, plus one that is unique to them (one friend studied sandpipers as a wildlife biologist, another identifies the red-tailed hawk as their spirit animal, etc).  They look super cute tucked into the gift baskets I'm making of tea, incense, candles, and natural body products. 

Hubbybunch and I are going to be hosting dinner on Christmas Eve this year, and I find myself having to cook a well rounded vegetarian and gluten free meal that maintains the festive and heart holiday meal traditions. Thus far, my menu plan includes:

Creamy tomato soup
Sundried tomato and feta frittata
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Green beans with almonds
Quinoa salad
Green salad
Cranberry mold

My sister is going to bake some mystery gluten free dessert while is bound to be delicious, and I'm going to whip up just a few of our favorite cookies, including lavender shortbread, gingerbread and biscotti.

May, in two sweaters.

It is the end of May, soon to be June, and I am STILL wearing two sweaters to keep the chill away on this rainy morning!  The weather has been extremely bipolar, alternating between chilly rains and 90-degree scorchers.  I put the A/C unit in our bedroom window last week, and the following day piled two comforters on the bed.  It makes no sense at all.

I've been busy lately, with work and projects, including my role as vendor coordinator and first aid leader at a fire and flow arts festival that is approaching in two weeks time.  In addition, we managed to break our IKEA bed, and my latest project this past weekend was building us a new one!!

Browsing on the internet, I was inspired by photos of hanging beds that people have made.  We have exposed beams in our bedroom ceiling, and I thought to myself that we could certainly make such an idea a reality in our room. 

I started by searching through the piles of old lumber, windows and hay in the barn, left there for god knows how many years.  I found some beams that were likely original to the barn, and therefore 200 years old.  They were filthy, but solid, and just the right length for our queen size mattress.

 

 

I also found, by happy accident, an old case, in which I found a 1920s typewriter.  With a little cleaning and TLC, I learned it works!

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I sanded the beams, ground down or hammered in the exposed nails, and shined them up really nicely with tung oil.  They turned out beautifully.

 

 

 

 

We screwed a 2x3 to the inner lower edge of each, to act as a rail for the support planks that would form the platform our mattress would be resting on. 

 





 



 

The most difficult part of the process was carrying it into the house.  That ish was heavy as hell.  We are now simply waiting for the 1 1/4" manila rope to arrive in the mail.  We will drill a hold through the ends of the header and footer beams, attach the rope, and hang it from heavy duty ring plates attached to the ceiling beams.  If we angle the ropes out away from the center of the bed, it will have a minimal amount of swing, but still be a nifty floating bed!

 



In the meantime, it's really nice to be sleeping on a bed that isn't caving in at its center!

I'd also like to introduce a new member of the clan, the Lady Marquis de Carabas. 

 

The Lady Marquis came to us as a surprise.  On my morning drive to work, I noticed a strange sight: a little black and white domestic rabbit running wild in a corn field with the native brown bunnies.

 



It was obvious that she was a pet that someone had abandoned.  For two weeks, I would pull my car over and try to catch the little dear.  She would let me get close, but never close enough to grab her.  One evening, the folks across the road saw me chasing her.  They told me that each afternoon, she would cross the street to lay in the shade under the boat in the driveway.  They said that they were trying to earn her trust to catch her and find her a home as well.  Together, we concocted a plan that involved a net.  The next afternoon, they called me to say they had her trapped in a net, and could I come get her??

 

 

I went over right away, and within a few minutes we were back home and I was giving her a bath in our tub.  She had a few fleas, and a tick on her ear, and as I bathed her I felt hard nodules in the fold of her neck.  Concerned, I called our vet and took her in for a checkup.  Upon inspection, the vet said that it was bird shot.  Some horrible person had been shooting at this beautiful little critter, and she was lucky to have survived. The wounds had healed over, however, and there was no sign of infection.  We went home with a clean bill of health.



So now our lovely little friend lives in what used to be the chicken tractor, moving about on the lawn twice each day to get the tastiest of the clover, dandelion and grass.  She is fat, healthy, and lets me pet her, though being held still makes her panic and kick.  I'm hoping she'll warm up to us a bit with some time.

Beltane rising...

We're still a couple of weeks away from our frost date, but spring feels like it is in full swing around our little homestead.  The nights remain chilly, and a sweater and thick socks are definitely required this morning, but our plant friends are pushing through and turning their faces to the lengthening sunlight.  And it actually feels as though we are making some progress on our projects!

We noticed that the section of wall between our laundry alcove and kitchen was thick, and sounded hollow.  We did some exploratory demolition, and found a whole lot of empty space, as well as old disconnected pipes, newspapers from the 1920s, and really ugly linoleum. 

 

We turned that ish into a pantry!

 

 

Daffodils in our woods.

Frost in the greenhouse.

 



 

Grumpy gargoyle in predawn fog.

 

A springtime altar.

 

The hillside, which faces the street in front of our house, has been a wreck of walnut saplings, poison ivy, wild strawberry and catnip.  I am SLOWLY winning the battle, with lots of elbow grease and mulch, bulbs and butterfly bushes, stonecrop and sage, hostas and phlox!

 

This hillside is/was another wreck of pricker bushes, sumac, and trash discarded by previous owners... and is full of groundhog holes and snakes.  We are clearing it and building the longest stone wall we've ever built... and eventually, it will be terraced and planted with wild blueberries, and maybe some grapes!

 

This table was an antique gifted to us by a friend.  It was beat up, but an interesting pieces of solid wood and cast iron.  Hubbybunch refinished it, and it is now our new dining room table.

 

Our roses survived the winter, and have now been mulches with cocoa shells... we're calling this our Valentine garden... roses and chocolate, yum!

Having cleaned up the trellis for the hops, I used last year's dead vines to make wreaths.  Much easier to work with than grape vines.

 



 

We've been spending some time cleaning and organizing the barn, and have finally made room for this to become a real dance and circus studio space. 

 

 

Our homemade benches have passed the weight test of our Aries party earlier this month, and the cats seem to approve.

The gardener in me was dismayed to find a nest of these little guys well within the borders of my fenced vegetable garden... but the girl in me shrieked with joy, gently cradled them in my hands, snapped photos, and tucked them back in safely.  We'll deal with relocating them after they are grown up a bit, the little dears!!!

 



 

While on an unsuccessful morel mushroom hunt, I came across this shy gentleman trying to blend in with the forest floor!

 

 

The Spring Equinox

Yesterday marked the very first day of Spring.  I can't say I was too impressed, as a dusting of snow moved in and I spent most of the day stuck in bed with a migraine.  Today, the temperature is hovering around 40 degrees and the cats have the right of it, sleeping by the hearth in a pile. 

Despite these obvious signs that winter still has its fingernails dug into the surface of the earth, it WAS light enough when Hubbybunch got home from work last night to go for a quick run.  And the daffodils are starting to lift their sleepy eyelids and show some sunny yellow, too!  The warmth and light IS coming... it's just coming in fits and starts, that's all.

I worked an extra little four-hour shift this morning, and spent all of it in the front of triage.  I haven't written much about it, but every fiber of my being LOATHES being in triage.  It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't so busy, but when there are more than 150 people in your department, and 80 of them are in triage waiting for beds, and at least 30 of them are sick enough to really, really need one, with no end in sight and more people pouring the door, and no cardiac monitors and no staff and the hallway is so jam-packed with people on litters and in wheelchairs and asking when they're getting to a room and... and...!  Every minute I am out there I feel like I am just WAITING to be sued.  There is absolutely no way to keep an eye on all of those people at once, especially not when you have the constant influx of more and more and more of them needing triage. 

It is absolutely chaotic. 

However, I did have a truly pleasureable experience out there today.

I call a patient to my booth to get her basic triage information.  I recognize her immediately as one of our frequent flyer "migraine" patients who just happens to be allergic to tylenol, ibuprofen, aspirin, naproxen, toradol, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and metoclopramide (aka, everything on the planet except The Big D: Dilaudid). 

Now, it's not my place to say whether or not she has pain.  I reserve judgement as best I can, even when if comes to the every-other-day-regulars who have such a predictable pattern of behavior.

However, anyone who suffers from migraines would agree that it seems HIGHLY unlikely that someone who is stuffing McDonald's down their throat, talking loudly and playing games on their cell phone is truly suffering from "10/10 migraine pain".  It's not impossible, mind you, but unlikely.

So I ask about her symptoms, her medical history, medications, ALLERGIES, etc.  I ask how she got to the ER today.  She says someone dropped her off.

I also ask if the little girl at her side is her child.  She says yes. 

I say to her, with an absolutely straight face and matter-of-fact tone of voice, "just so you know, they will not give you any kind of sedating or narcotic medications for your pain until someone else arrives who can take responsibility for your child". 

She gives me a blank stare for a second or two, then says, "....uh, what?"

I repeat my statement, explaining that there has to be an unimpaired, responsible adult present to care for the child and provide safe transportation home before any of our providers will administer those kinds of medications to the child's parent. 

She becomes visibly angry, and stands up, stomping her foot, and says, "Well then I'm leaving!"

"Ok.  Hope you feel better," is my only response, as I turn back to my computer screen, click the "left without treatment" button and dismiss her name from the patient tracking board. 

SATISFACTION.

Spring Fasting

So today is the third and final day of a raw-fruit-veggies-and-legumes fast of sorts that Hubbybunch and I undertook as part of an experiment.  I decided to try this for several reasons.  First and foremost, my relationship with food has become  very unhealthy.  Largely, meals were no longer joyful celebrations of life, times to connect with loved ones, to enjoy the sensations associated with food.  Meals became either 1) fuel, consumed as quickly as possible in between or during other activities or 2) reactions to emotions.  Eating had become a thoughtless act. I felt like I needed to hit the "reset" button. 

I have also put on some weight recently.  Not a lot, but enough to distort my self image and make me feel very hateful towards my body and self.  This is the first time in my life that I have had any issues with my weight (not counting the silly early teenage years of constant yucky feelings towards my body that I think most young girls suffer through).  It is an unfamiliar and awful experience.

So, for 72 hours, I refrained from eating any grains, fish, dairy (with the exception of a splash of milk in my tea), added sugar, or alcohol.  My meals mainly consisted of the following: strawberries, blueberries, black berries, mangoes, orange juice, pomegranate juice, carrot juice, carrots, peppers, asparagus, salad greens, hummus, and edemamae.  My goal was to eat as much as any of these as I needed to feel full, as often as my body told me it needed food.  That worked out to about 1.5 cups of raw foods every 3-4 hours, when possible. 

I have concluded several things: 

#1 Fasting is not compatible with my current work situation.  In the future, fasting/cleansing MUST be timed to happen during periods that I have off from work.  Yesterday I finished my breakfast fruit smoothie right before I started my shift at 0700, and was unable to escape to eat anything until 1600, with the exception of about 8 grapes shoved hastily into my mouth around 1500.  By that time, I was soaked in a cold sweat, dizzy and feeling like I was going to die.  I immediately felt better, and satisfied, after eating my raw lunch... but that was a dangerously close call with syncope that I don't want to repeat. 

#2 I have an addictive personality, and I am full-on addicted to bread and cheese.  The first 24 hours of my fast were riddled with anxiety regarding those two foods.  They were the biggest temptation... not ice cream, not popcorn, not baked goods.... but bread and cheese.  But this addiction is not born purely from my love of these two foods (though I really truly do love them!).  It also stems from a lifestyle that has made "fast and filling" the top two qualities I instinctively look for in the foods I eat, rather than "nourishing and delicious".  Few foods are faster and more filling that these two.  They are also basic comfort food, and they release those wonderful chemicals in my brain when I'm feeling tired or sorry for myself that make me feel like my grilled cheese sandwich is hugging me.  I also have absolutely no reference range for how much is too much when it comes to bread and cheese.  All of this makes a dangerous combination.

#3 In order to make a healthy change, I need to approach the question of "what should I eat?" with greater self-love and consciousness.  No, scratch that.  I need to approach everything I do with greater self-love and consciousness.  Allowing my inner dialogue to berate and punish me for what I am, how I look, and how I feel is self-defeating.  I need to remember that this body is on loan to me for just one lifetime, and as far as I know, that's all I get.  What I put into it, what I make it do, how I talk to it and treat it and feel towards it makes it was it is... and makes the life that I live while I'm inside of it what it is.  This strange, flawed machine is how I manifest who I am on this planet.  What kind of insane person would fuel it with negativity, with junk, or worse... with whatever was on hand, without any thought as to consequences??

#4 Raw diets that are so low in sodium make you pee... A LOT... and water and electrolyte replacement are essential to avoiding getting too dry. 

#5 I have decided to make this a weekly ritual... one day out of each week, I will follow this limited raw diet... as a reminder to myself that I can, in fact, SURVIVE without binging on carbs and fats.... and that my body deserves to be treated with thought, care, and respect. 

Imbolc to Ostara....

Well, Imbolc is now in our past, and right on time the daffodils have started poking their heads up out of the soil.  Two days ago I cleaned out the chicken coop and did some cleanup in the perrenial garden, and ended the work stripped down to a tank top and jeans.  The days are getting longer, that is for certain, and everyone seems grateful, including our hens!  They have finally started to lay eggs again... though they can't seem to pick one spot in which to do so... so every day is like an Easter egg hunt around here.  The end is in sight for this winter, and to be honest I don't think it could come soon enough.  I'm tired of being cold, we're running out of firewood, and I'm ready to dig in the dirt!

I've been keeping busy, both with work and with projects around the house.  We finished the flooring on the second level of the house, and built these lovely benches that have transformed our dining room (formerly a room that we simply walked through on our way to somewhere else) into a cozy, beautiful space in which to eat meals, lounge, and entertain guests.

 

Work has been the usual insanity, amplified by the fact that we just implemented a brand new computerized charting system for the entire hospital.  That's THOUSANDS of users, in every department, every outpatient office, etc.  It's been something of a nightmare.  We just have to hope that once "optimization" is complete, it will have been tweaked sufficiently to make it useful for us.  Also, I got the equivilent of a promotion, and am now an "RN III".  Which means a thumbs up from management, as well as a modest pay raise.  So yay me.

Today is Valentine's Day, which doesn't mean a whole lot to me or the Hubbybunch.  But if you celebrate, I certainly hope that today is a nice one for you all, and that you show each other love in the way you feel best!

Catharsis

It's been a while since I've written.  Part of me still feels strange doing so, even after the rest of my daily life has gone back to "normal".  The loss of my mother-in-law in December was hard on the whole family, and I'm glad to have taken this time to adjust and process things.  She was a big part of what inspired the life that my husband and I live, and what inspired me to write about it on this blog.  After some consideration, I feel okay about writing about her on here.  I don't think she would mind, though she might have blushed a bit and said "oh, garsh..." and hidden her laugh behind her hand.

I was so lucky to have known her, and I am so grateful to her for the love and support she gave us.  I'm so glad that she was well enough on our wedding day to be there, to adjust Hubbybunch's arsaid and take her lovely photographs.  In the few years that I knew her, I found a true friend in her.  She was so kind to me, despite the fact that I'm a little strange... but then again I don't think there was a person who walked this earth who she wasn't kind to.  She was a great mother, and helped to raise my Hubbybunch to be a great man.  I don't think I could ever express how thankful I am for that.

Grief is a strange thing... it has its peaks and valleys, and one minute you're laughing and the next you're in tears.  The other day, I was singing to myself while washing the dishes, in a very cheerful mood... and I saw a little piece of paper sticking up out of one of her cookbooks, a flag for a recipe that she enjoyed, or wanted to try.  And then all of a sudden the grief just hits you, like being punched in the stomach.  The reality that the person you love is gone and not coming back rushes in and drowns out any other thought.  I deal with it by consciously shaking it off, by keeping busy... but that only works for so long.  Eventually, I have to sit down, and remember, and cry, and remember that we were lucky to have her in our lives for as long as we did. 

This is the first real loss I've experienced in my adult life.  My grandparents all passed away when I was quite young... before mortality really meant anything to me.  All I knew back then was that I was sad, and my whole family was sad, and that crying made me sleepy.  As adults, the fact that death is inevitable, for everyone and everything, becomes much more real.  The uncertainty and regret sets in.  And our helplessness as we watch our loved ones suffer is almost unbearable.  But as adults, we also come to understand that our sadness, our tears and pain at the loss of someone we care about, is part of how we pay homage to them.  To wish that suffering away, either for ourselves or for our families, would be to take away one of the most important ways that we honor our dead.

Loss

Our family recently suffered a terrible loss.  My mother-in-law passed away on the morning of December 9th.  She was at home and surrounded by people who loved her.  I have been hesitant to write a blog post since she passed.  I only started keeping a blog after reading hers, at http://insidemysecretgarden.blogspot.com/.  She inspired me in so many ways, and I feel so blessed to have had the priviledge of calling her "family".  There is so much more I could say about her, but it feels far too personal.  All I can do is hope that peace and acceptance find us during this difficult time.

November is indecisive.

The weather can't make up its mind this month.  A week ago it was near 70 degrees, and I ate lunch outside at work.  Yesterday it was 42 degrees and raining.  Tonight they're wanting snow.  I'm so confused!

I get the feeling that a rough winter is on its way... partly because the squirrels look particularly fat and furry this year... and partly because I feel like we're due for one since last winter was so mild.  We ordered extra firewood this season in preparation, and I've heavily mulched the strawberries and garlic.  We fixed the propane heater in the greenhouse (which we never needed to turn on last year!) just in case it gets REALLY cold in there. 

I worked on Thanksgiving, and the whole weekend after.  It was insanity in that ED.  I can say without exaggeration that Thursday was one of the weirdest days I've ever had at work.  In my area alone, we saved two human lives within one hour... and that was just me. People were circling the drain throughout the whole department. 

I rushed a stroke patient over for his CT scan.  He went into cardiac arrest while on the table for the scan, and I immediately began chest compressions.  By the time the physician arrived, 3 minutes after he lost his pulse, his heart was beating again.  We kept him going long enough to transfer him by helicopter to a hospital with more advanced neurosurgery capabilities for his brain hemmorhage.  Half an hour later, I transported ANOTHER critical patient to CT scan, who proceeded to have a grand mal seizure and lose her airway... and we ended up intubating her right there on the CT table.  For the rest of the night, the radiology techs cringed when they saw me.  Strokes, heart attacks, GI bleeds, respiratory distress... they just kept coming in.

Madness, I tell you.

The weekend wasn't as dramatic, but still very busy, and I am exhausted.

It didn't help that I've been on my feet 12 hours/day for the past four days on an injured knee.  This morning I had an MRI done.  Months ago, I injured it while running... and my own attempts at rest, isometric exercises and stretching have not resolved the pain.  In the past few weeks it has gotten worse.  My doctor suspects a torn meniscus.  I am hoping that I'm just a big wuss and that there isn't anything wrong... knee surgery does not sound like my idea of a good time. 

That's what's going on in my life, in addition to the daily routine of working, eating, sleeping, schoolwork, and tending the critters!

In the clear

I am happy to report that our little homestead, and our friends and family, came through the hurricane just fine.  No property damage, just some downed tree limbs and crazy ducks who rode out the 60mph winds on the overflowing pond, and looked like they were having a grand time doing it. 

The weather remains cold and overcast, and I have been hard-pressed to do much except cook, eat, and feed the woodstove.  With the passing of Samhain winter is now well on its way... the year has ended, and it's time to hunker down with my books and cats and daydream about next year's garden.  I expect our weekend tradition of eating breakfast while seated on the brick floor of the greenhouse will resume soon, when we are starved for sunlight and a bit of green.

Sandy

The storm is moving in, and the pond is just about to overflow its banks and join with the surging stream that runs alongside our property.  So far we still have power (obviously!), but I don't expect that to last through the night with the way the wind is howling out there.  I am due in to work at 0700, and am nervous about the possibility of driving at pretty much the exact time the storm will be right on top of our area.  I got a voicemail from my work stating that the hospital has "declared an emergency" and no staff are permitted to leave until their relief arrives until further notice... which means that come hell or high water, I'd better make it in tomorrow. 

So here's hoping that the gutters stay attached to the barn, the trees remain rooted and upright, and the roads stay clear of debris and flood waters!

Anniversary

Today is our first wedding anniversary.  It's amazing how quickly the time goes by when you're having fun!  Since Hubbybunch works today, we took our time celebrating this past weekend.  Friday night I set a pretty candlelit table, and ordered takeout from the Indian restaurant that catered our wedding dinner.  We ate the same meal we did a year ago, and even had a bottle of the same mead.  It was lovely.  Saturday we spent all day working in the garden and greenhouse, and upon discovering a few fleas on Sammy, we gave all four cats and the skunk fleabaths.  I am covered in scratches.  In the evening we drove into the city and met up with friends for a rare night out on the town.  Yesterday, Hubbybunch pasteurized popcorn and jars for mushroom-growing medium and I tore out all of the carpet from the upstairs hallway :D  We have our own unique ways of celebrating, I suppose!

As I type, I'm sitting in front of the woodstove and sipping a mug of coffee.  The past several days have been cold, damp and dreary, and today is the first day of the season that I rekindled the fire from the coals upon waking in the morning.  It's not easy to tear myself away from the coziest seat in the house, but today is Columbus Day, which in my part of the world means it's time to plant the garlic.  I am a BIG fan of garlic, as is Hubbybunch (thank goodness for that!).  This will be the first time I'm attempting to grow our own.  I bought five seed cloves of an Italian softneck variety that smells fantastic... here's hoping for garlic braids hanging in the kitchen come next Spring!

October is here!

My most favorite month of the year has arrived.  I love October, everything about it... the crisp cool nights, the trees changing color, Halloween! 

Winter is coming...

...and I stacked a full cord of firewood all by myself today.  I feel like a superhero.

The end of a very long week.

This past week wore me out.  I worked my usual three 12-hour shifts, and each one of them was a living nightmare.  I don't know what is going on around here lately, but not even a Saturday morning is quiet in that ED anymore!  Lots of really sick, really injured people coming through those ambulance bay doors.  Which I don't mind, when we have the staff to handle it... but we're running with a skeleton crew and it shows. 

In addition, I attended an all-day Advanced Burn Life Support course and got my certification, and went to our ED's Emergency Care Conference (a full day of continuing education lectures on anything from strokes to vicarious trauma). Tuck in a little schoolwork and the bare minimum of housework, and I'm cooked. 

However, I had today off!  It was glorious!  Autumn has arrived in all her glory, and today was as close to perfect as it gets... sunny, breezy, and cool enough to need a sweater and cozy socks.  We lit our first fire of the season in the woodstove tonight to ward off the chill (we might be rushing it a little, but it's just so cozy). 

I baked two loaves of extra tangy sourdough bread, the dough for which had been in the works for nearly three days by the time it got into the oven this afternoon.  I fed the starter Friday night, mixed in the rest of the ingredients Saturday morning before work, let it rise in the fridge until Saturday night, punched it down and let it rise again until this morning, then formed the loaves and completed the final three-hour rising. 
It was worth the wait, oh yes it was.

One of those days

I worked a 12-hour shift one day last week that turned out to be one of those days.  It's always busy in our ED, and we are chronically understaffed, but this was a particularly crazy day even for us.  There were only two nurses in our pod, which meant that each of us had four patients to care for. 

That is never a good thing in the acute care areas of our ED. 

I found myself caring for critically ill and injured patients that ran the spectrum... from a 8-day old, 4 lb. infant with sepsis, to a 39-week pregnant trauma patient whose baby's heart rate started to drop, to a 40-something man with chest pain and a history of "7 or 8, I forget..." heart attacks, and everything in between.  As soon as I would I get one stabilized, another one would be ushered into one of my rooms needing my urgent attention. 

I was overwhelmed, sweating, with a full bladder and an aching back and my hair in a disarray. 

And I was happier than a pig in poo.

I came home, and I was THRILLED to be home... and thrilled that it was my last day of work for the week.  I rambled on to my husband about my day, about the horrendous mess of it all, about how hungry and tired I was... and I found myself saying, "Honey, there is something so very wrong with me... why do I love this so much?!  Why am I at my best when things are at their worst?!"

Days like that exhaust me and leave me physically, emotionally, and mentally drained.  But as it is all happening, something clicks inside of me and starts running like a well-oiled machine.  My thoughts clear.  My hands become miraculously steady... steady enough to get an IV line into a 4 lb. infant who hasn't eaten in two days.  The more my patients need from me, the more I have to give.  I get this euphoric feeling that I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I was made to do.  Eventually after I go home, the fatigue, hunger, and body pain hit me... and I hit the wall. But even so, I sleep better than I ever do otherwise.

When I was younger, I never would have guessed that immersing myself in a world of stress, chaos, pain, and death would be the key to my self-actualization.  Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who discovered that they were ultimately engineered to be a yoga instructor, or something like that.  But I wasn't.  I was made to be in the middle of the storm.  Part of me knows that someday, I won't be able to do this anymore.  The stress and physical wear and tear of my job will eventually become a hazard to my health, and I'll need to adjust.  It's only been a bit over a year since I started this job, and I've already found my first gray hair (I'm only 25!). 

But I know this... I'm going to keep on doing this as long as I'm able to.  It feeds me, and I'm good at it. 

Saved her life...

...like a boss.

Expertly intervened and turned a cardiac arrest into a MICU admission today.  I felt a little swagger in my step, with this song running through my head for the rest of the shift.

Warning: not safe for work, offensive, lewd and profane... proceed at your own risk.  But enjoy, if you're into that kinda thing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c

Kitchen work

I spent most of my morning yesterday laid up in bed with a killer migraine headache... but when it finally let go of me, I tried really hard to make up for my lost time. 

The garden has devolved into an unruly mess, typical of what happens here around September.  The tomato plants were pretty much done producing... a few little green fruits left on them, but nothing that would be ready to pluck before frost comes.  Plus, stinkbugs were enjoying them a bit too much for my comfort.  So, I pulled 'em all out and into the compost they went.  The sudden absence of all of that disheveled greenery revealed the five gigantic basil plants that I've been neglecting over the past two weeks.  I pulled two of them, and plucked their lovely fragrant leaves. 

 

I always make a lot of pesto with our basil harvests, frozen in small portions for pasta, pizza, and other endeavors.  But I really wanted to make something that showcased the amazing flavor of the basil when it is this fresh.  So I improvised a tomato-basil soup that turned out pretty damn delicious.

 

I typically don't make my own pasta sauce or soup because of that labor intensive prep.  Every recipe calls for skinning and removing the seeds from the tomatoes, then putting them through a food mill (which I don't have).  However, yesterday I decided I was just gonna try my own thing. 

 

So I chopped up some onions and garlic and sauteed them in olive oil, then tossed in handfuls of the basil and sauteed them as well.  I cored and quartered enough tomatoes to fill the pot (seeds, skins and all), tossed in some veggie soup base, thyme, black and white pepper, and a little can of tomato paste.  I cooked it all down until soft, removed it from the heat, pureed and tasted it.  I thought it needed a bit more zip, so I added a splash of lemon juice and some garlic salt, a splash of milk, more black pepper, a teaspoon of sugar.  Then another few handfuls of fresh basil added in and pureed with the stick blender.  Served with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. 

 

It was incredible.  The addition of the skin and seeds of the tomatoes give it a hearty, chunkier texture than the super-smooth tomato soups found in the store... but I like it better that way!  It turns out that sometimes taking a shortcut works out nicely!  There is still a big bowl of basil and two more plants out there, so I think this afternoon will be spent making lots more pesto.

 

I also made a new sourdough starter.  Mine died ages ago after we moved, and I never got around to replacing it.  I forgot how delicious, and beautiful, homemade sourdough bread can be.  This first batch has just a hint of sour, being made from such a young culture... but I can't wait to see how it evolves and deepens as the culture grows in complexity.

Up until this point, I have not put up any sweet corn in the freezer.  We love adding corn to our favorite Mexican dishes, my sweet corn bread, soups and stews... and the crap you can get in the frozen section of the supermarket doesn't taste like anything.  So having a good supply of fresh, delicious, local sweet corn to carry us through winter is a big deal.  When I went to a local farm market yesterday, the fella behind the counter made me an offer I couldn't refuse for 100 ears of their beautiful corn.  As a result, I doomed myself to an evening of husking, blanching, and cutting!  By the time I was finished it was near midnight.  This morning was dedicated to bagging up 18 quarts of kernels with my Foodsaver for the freezer, plus a quart or two more for fresh eating over the next day or two.

Happy Labor Day!

 

I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed being able to sleep in until 0900 this morning!