Christmas is coming so renovations must begin...

Why is it that when the thought of Christmas rolls around we start to think of renovations.

Hubby and I for some time now have been talking about doing some much needed renos to the bathroom. We have never liked much about the bathroom, but when the tile around the tub started to give way...we decided that now would be the time to make the much needed changes. Little did we realize what we were in for.

A few weeks back we went out and bought the tile for the tub and flooring, but just hadn't found the time to get the project started. But on Sunday, my first day post night shift I decided was the time to get the project started. Like any renovation the only thing you can be assured of is something going wrong. I was in charge of hammering and removing the tile from around the tub. The first tiles came off relatively easily. It was when I got to the side wall that I realized that the tile wasn't coming off as freely. It turns out that the wall hadn't been prepared properly and and as a result, the gyproc was coming off with the tile...and not just a little, but in chunks. Oh well hubby says...he wanted to replace that anyhow he says. Next thing you know we are down to the plastic and insulation. We decided that seeing as the facets had been leaking that now would be a good time to change them....so we went and bought new facets.....but then...well the tub was scratched and tarnished because of the leaking facet so we decided we should replace the tub as well. Now this is where the fun begins. Out comes the tub...only to find the plumbing needs to be replaced. This 2 day job is really taking on a mind of it's own. Currently we have no tub or shower....the old tub is out in the back of hubbies truck and the new tub is in the middle of the hallway getting fitted with it's new plumbing. Hubby spent most of the day working on the plumbing...only to find that he needed some extra parts. So at 5 mins to closing time hubby needs to go to the hardware store. Thank goodness he made it. He was hopeful that the tub would get installed tonight...but no such luck. Again, one task has lead to another..so we will go without the tub for another day.......hmmmmm

I am optimistic that the bathroom renos will be done for Christmas....that would mean the flooring being done...new granite counter tops...new light fixtures....sink and toilet...and then painting....hmmmm.....have we taken on to much?....but we can't stop now...it's onward and upwards.

So what about you....do you have a reno nightmare story you would like to share? And do any of you out there have the answer to the question ...."why do we start renos just before Christmas?"

Heads or Tails Tuesday

Yup it's that time of the week again.....this week it's "something scary".....hmmmm Well this pumpkin my son carved could be considered scary....

Howling at a full moon can be scary......

A Haunted house can be scary for some....

Scary monster......

Or what about a witch......yup there are a lot of things that people can consider scary......Hope you all have a Happy and safe Halloween....

If you would like to join in on the fun....check out Skittle's Place to get all of the instructions.

American Public Relations comes home....... to Canada

This morning I awoke....latte in hand made by my loving husband, I make my way to my office and sit myself down in front of my computer to check on my emails...and the new in the world around me.

My computer opens to Internet Explorer home page. On this page are quick news topics....one of the topics that caught my eye this morning was a news report about how The U.S. Department of State and Homeland Security had commissioned a tourism video produced by Disney entitled "Welcome: Portraits of America".

This video has been sent to consulates through out the world to promote tourism to the US. The controversy arises when you are about 4 mins into the video where they are showing some of America's greatest landmarks....guess what they do....they show the Canadian side of Niagara Falls...and to make matters worse in order to view the falls from this angle they had to be in Canada to get the shot they chose. Now I have never seen Niagara falls, but my hubby is from the east coast and has seen them many times......and he assures me that the video does indeed show the Canadian falls and was shot on the Canadian side of the border.

The video was viewed by many and here is what one American historian had to say....

......Making matters worse, a visitor to the U.S. would not even be able to get the same view of the falls in the video because the scene was shot from a vantage point in Canada, according to Paul Gromosiak, a Niagara Falls, N.Y., historian and author.
Also, he said the video leaves out the two cascades that actually are on U.S. territory, the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.
This is not the United States, this is 100 per cent Canada, shot from the Canadian side. This is an insult," Gromosiak said after reviewing the video at the request of The Associated Press.

Now when I read on into the news report I was expecting an....ooops we made a mistake.....oops an oversight....but no....no such thing....instead what we get is some guy from the state department giving some standard stupid government response....

....State Department spokesman Sean McCormack could not speak to the scenery in the short film. But he stressed that Niagara Falls "is a shared natural wonder, a gateway for both our countries and anyone looking at the video will understand how proud America is to share it with Canada."

He misses the point totally. Those shots of the falls are not on American soil...it's Canadian ....This was suppose to be an American tourism video.....not Canadian....I am glad you think we are such great neighbours...but hey...if you don't know your borders how can you protect them.....

Other than that the video is lovely, but as I said if it hadn't been for some of the major landmarks that we know to be American...i.e. The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Coney Island, Fisherman's wharf, The Rocky mountains shot from the American vantage point from Montana and Colorado......yes I know American landmarks...and of course the video ends with a shot of the infamous statue of Liberty. The faces though could be of anyone anywhere on this planet...and I wonder if that is what they wanted to portray.

As I said, it's a nice video...but I think the state department should be asking for their money back........somebody forgot to tell that rodent Mickey that he wasn't in the US anymore.....

If you are interested in checking this out.....here is the news clip which then connects you to the video....

Us annexes Canada landmark in video and just in case you can't connect to this news report you can find the video here www.travel.state.gov

Pumpkin Carving.......

Well this weekend just flew by....my girls have come and gone. My eldest and middle daughters had to be at work for the afternoon shift so they had to catch an early ferry home...I wasn't counting on them having to leave so early...but at least I was blessed with being able to see them.

We never made it to the Halloween party at the community center....nope we opted to stay home and carve our pumpkins...play some games...and then do Birthday cake for youngest daughter. I have some photos...but I don't know if my hands were shaking..which I don't recall or that my stabilizer in my camera is acting up...anyhow....here are a couple of photos of the pumpkin carving.....

I have just learnt how to upload my pictures so you can click on them to enlarge them....gosh....just when you think you know it all....like as if....NOT! Thanks hubby and eldest son for showing me how.....

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!!!

On another note.....want to win yourself a very nice candle....Heather is giving away a free candle...apparently she does this regularly...this months scent I think is Cinnamon Pumpkin sounds yummy! So if you are interested...all you have to do is go over there and leave a comment...hurry now the last entry is tomorrow!!!

Birthday Central.....

Yes our home today is Birthday central......I have been keeping a little quite for this past week.....reason...I have been trying to keep a secret...but today I can say it because the secret is out...today my hubbies boys arrived!!!!!

Yup it is my hubbies Birthday on Monday and I secretly planned to fly his boys out for his birthday....yup almost 5000 km to come and spend the week with their daddy!!! Yahoo!!! I am so excited and I can't tell you....I was up early as the boys left home at 0730 their time and it was only 0430 our time....they arrived here at 1130 my time......I had to make up a story as to where I was going and why......I have my girls here celebrating my youngest daughters birthday...I told hubby I was going out to buy a birthday cake and some gifts...and bringing eldest daughter with me so she can practise her driving...all was good.

We finally make our way home...I thought for sure he knew about the surprise....I dropped the boys off next door at their grandparents.....we had arranged that grandpa would call hubby to and ask him to come over telling him he needed help......well once I arrived home and I knew the boys were at there grandparents the call came......I passed the phone to hubby...told him it was his dad....he wasn't on the phone for but a moment and off to his parents place he went...I have never seen him move so fast...for sure I thought he knew what was up and was just anxious to see his boys....as it turns out....his father told him he needed him urgently....so as a dutiful son off he went.....only upon his arrival to find his sons waiting for him.....I wasn't there to see the expression on his face as it would have spoilt the surprise....but grandma says he truly looked like he was surprised. I am so glad...it has been so difficult arranging this with the distance and time differences...but it came off and he says he was surprised....I am so glad.....

Now this evening, we will be celebrating my youngest daughters birthday...she turned 15 on Thursday....so we will be doing cake this evening.....and then birthday for hubby on the 29th which is his actual birthday.....

We are also going to our Community Halloween function this evening...youngest son thought it would be fun....after checking with the Birthday girl...she agreed it would be ok...fireworks and bonfire...to much fun....

So until next time...here's wishing you all good health and a wonderful weekend.....

Another day in the life of......

Wow, I can't believe it has been a week since I posted anything. Time just flies by. It's been a busy week. I have worked all week. I should be sleeping right now as I have my last night shift this evening. But those of you who know what it is like can understand how messed up your sleep patterns get when working shifts. Before my head hit the pillow this morning at 0800 I had been up for over 24 hrs. I got up at my regular time yesterday morning, did my house chores, went for a run, then went out with hubby to do some errands, which I thought was only going to take a couple of hours, ends up we didn't get home till after 3:00, I start my night shift at 7:00 pm. I have to leave my house at 6:00 pm, which leaves me a couple of hours to put away the groceries, do some school work eat dinner and get out the door. I arrive at work, I have a ventilated patient, which keeps me very busy. Between my hourly monitor and ventilator checks, the medications which have to be given, blood sugars to be monitored hourly, physical assessments, dressing changes, bed baths, mouth care and turns every 2 hours. Before you know it is 0530 in the morning and I am starting to calculate the patent's fluid balance for the past shift and 24hrs....how much in ....how much out....what have their vital signs been like....draw the blood work for the day shift....get the patient ready for their chest xray, as the doctor is going to want to see that as so as he comes in .....and then at 0700 the next shift arrives and I give them report.... I get outside ....only to find that we had the first frost of the season...so I spend 20 mins warming my car and scrapping the windows....drive my 50 mins home.....check my emails when I arrive home.....shower and climb into bed. I've now had 4 hours sleep....the sun is shining and the world is going on without me....So I am up..... dusted and vacuumed and put on a load of laundry.....thinking I might grab a bite to eat and then crawl back into bed....hopefully until at least 3:00 pm and then get up and get ready for another night shift. Yup any of you who have worked shifts knows exactly what I am talking about. It's a very strange life we lead. Your body never knows whether it should be sleeping or working. You force yourself to be awake when you don't want to....and sleep when you really don't want to.....they say that the average shift worker cuts 5- 7 years off of their life expectancy by working shifts. That's a hefty price to pay.

I have been taking courses as well, and in one of my courses we have been looking at the history of nursing and where we are today. In some areas we have made some major gains, i.e. wages and benefits have improved considerably. But in many areas we have stepped backwards. I am reading this book right now, that although very interesting I am finding it discouraging. It talks about where nursing started, how it came to North America, Canada in particular as this books is talking about Canadian nursing. How nurses use to be the primary care givers especially in the communities, hence the VON's (Victoria Order of Nurses). The doctor's revolted, they felt nurses had to much power...they went to the government and had many restrictions put on nursing...they insisted that nursing have formal university/college training. Now that wasn't a bad thing, but what happened from that is nursing became the underpaid hand maidens to the doctors. I went into nursing in 1988, this book was written about that time. One of the nurses they interview graduated in 1985, still at that time nurses were expected to stand and give up the chairs to doctors when they entered the room, yes doctor no doctor, good morning doctor...this was not reciprocal.

Don't get me wrong there are many things I absolutely love about nursing and wouldn't trade it for the world. But gosh, it is the RN's who are at the bedsides 24/7 watching for the subtle changes in a patients conditions...reporting and documenting these changes....calling the doctors and making them aware...and in some cases waiting far to long for doctor's to respond. For those nurses who have worked along side resident doctors you know exactly what I mean when I talk about nurses, often it is the RN who is the ones making the suggestions for treatment for the patient.

You know when you thought you have heard it all, well last night as I was working the nursing supervisor came around...she was doing her rounds...we started talking.....she told me a story ..... apparently, when there use to be a cardiac arrest and as the code nurse you would go and take the crash cart...she told me that before the time when we had suction canisters on the crash carts....the nurse.....had to wear this canister, tied to a string around her neck...there would be a compressed canister that attached to the bottom that she would have to attach....you know what that canister was used for....you'll never guess.....suction....yes the nurse would have the suction canister around her neck during a code ...suctioning out bodily fluids from the patients into this canister which was attached around her neck....all the while still either giving drugs or doing CPR.....I said to her...you've got to be kidding me....nope that was how it was....this nurse has only be nursing 4 years longer than myself....I just couldn't imagine that....what total disregard for the health and well being of the nurse. It was just a given that is what the nurse had to do...and of course they did it.

It just all amazes me...to see the progress nursing has had in so many areas and yet we still have such a long ways to go, before we are truly recognized as well educated, informed and strong advocates for health care, and should be treated with the respect our profession deserves by both administration and Doctors.

Nursing shortage is at a crisis level. In the next 3-5 years there is going to be a mass exodus from nursing. Nurses are getting ready to retire and they can't seem to get enough nurses educated to replace them. Last night I worked with two such nurses....27 & 30 years of nursing....I can't even imagine. What I found astounding was that the nurse who has worked 30 years was saying she didn't know if she could afford to retire. I said you've got to be kidding me...30 years and you can't afford not to retire? Did you quit to have children....no she said....just took a year off to travel. You see it's only been in the past 5 -6 years that nursing has been making a decent salary that one could actually think about retiring on. In the early years when nurses went off to have their children there were no maternity leave benefits, so you lost everything. Nurses didn't have pensions, and they certainly didn't have very good health care coverage. Things have finally started to change for nursing in that regards...hence the older nurses are hanging in their to improve their retirement packages. But I don't want to stay in nursing for my retirement package. I want to stay in nursing because I love what I do, I love meeting new people, helping them through crisis, helping them find their own path to health and recovery. There are so many things I love about nursing...but it is physically and mentally demanding and it is the physical part that I am not sure I can do until I am 60 years old, and I certainly don't want to leave nursing as a cripple. As it is I have a very bad shoulder from the many patient transfers and lifts I have done over the years. I am fit, I run and exercise regularly but when you are turning one patient every 2 hours and then compound that with helping out your colleagues with their patient transfers and lifts...it eventually takes it tolls....and now I am back to where I started this post in the first place. The combination of the shift work and the physical demands of the job...puts a natural life expectancy on the nurse. So I must leave this post and put my weary head on my pillow, so I can get right back at it tonight.

Good health to you all!

A Pictoral View of where I live......

Gene Bach from Turning the Pages of Life is hosting this "getting to know you" event on Saturday. He has asked that we post 10 pictures of where we live(surrounding area) to help other bloggers get to know us better.....I thought that was a great idea. But I am finding it hard to stick to just 10, I went over by two plus a little video....ooops....sorry......

Most of my regular visitors have a pretty good idea of where I live. I tend to post lots of pictures. I live on Vancouver Island. It is 35 nautical miles from the mainland and Vancouver British Columbia, the only way to get to the island is by boat or plane. You can catch a harbour float plane and be here in 20 mins, or take the ferry which is a 1.5 hour ferry ride. I have done both. But I usually take the ferry.

I moved to the Island almost 3 years ago and married the love of my life. I have been in awe of the beauty that surrounds me everyday. It is so very different from where I came from(growing up in the city). The wildlife is amazing, the shorelines and sea life are active and bountiful. The herring fishery happens almost on my door step. If I am lucky I might see an Orca or grey making it's way south. Eagles are abundant. So here is my home from my cameras point of view......

Most of the people around us have horses...this horse lives across the street from us...the people next to us train horses and do equestrain shows with them.......

This is our view as we go down our driveway....in the foreground is Lesquiti Island, behind that is Texada, and in the back is the coastal mountain range....they are part of the mainland

This is taken just down the road from me at a place we call Sunny beach. That brown building in the back is the local native Indian Long House where they hold their potlatch and gatherings.

This is Chrome Island...it is the last human managed lighthouse on the Westcoast, it was established in 1891. This Lighthouse can been seen from many vantage points from where I live. The area in which I live is also known as the Lighthouse District...hence Chrome Island Lighthouse.

Just off of Chrome island is this rock where the seals like to hang out ...the fishing is fantastic around here.....

See what I mean...this is hubbies catch of the day...just off of that island....not far from home at all.....

To the west of where I live is Mount Arrowsmith....when I drive up the road to the highway this is what I see....you can 4x4 up there and bring your quad or snowmobile and have a really good time.....this mountain is also backdrop for a golf course just up the road from me....guess what it is called.....you got it....Arrowsmith Golf Course......

This is down the road from a place called Rosewall Creek(which is one of my favorite swimming holes) you are looking at Denman Island. This is about 15 mins. from my house.

This is Rosewall Creek....the water here is mountain fed...very cold but refreshing....love to get on our tubes in the summer and travel down the creek to the open waters....

Eagles are bountiful where I live...this particular day we say 16 of them in this tree...it was amazing.....

Along with the eagles many birds frequent our property....here is a woodpecker, we often have our provincial bird the Stellar jay, a family of quail, hummingbirds when the season is right, spotted thatchers, Japanese starlings....all kinds of birds...it's just wonderful.....last but certainly not least...in the spring there is what a they call the herring run....it lasts for about a week...it's really a site to behold.....
The herring fisheries in action

Halloween Humor......

I just couldn't resist posting this....my brother in law has been sending me some funny cartoons and poster stuff as of late....but this being Halloween season I just had to post what he sent me yesterday.....I hope you get a giggle out of it, it certainly made me smile .....

You know you are too old to Trick or Treat when:

10. You get winded from knocking on the door.

9. You have to have a kid chew the candy for you.

8. You ask for high fiber candy only.

7. When someone drops a candy bar in your bag, you lose your balance and fall over.

6. People say: "Great Boris Karloff Mask," And you're not wearing a mask.

5. When the door opens you yell, "Tric k or ."
And can't remember the rest.

4. By the end of the night, you have a bag full of restraining orders.

3. You have to carefully choose a costume that won't dislodge your hairpiece.

2. You're the only Power Ranger in the neighborhood with a walker.

And the number one reason Seniors should not go Trick Or Treating...

1. You keep having to go home to pee.

Halloween Swap.....

A little while ago my blog friend Pea organized another Halloween swap. This is my second year participating. Last year I was matched with my dear friend Grandmocha since we were matched by Pea last year we have become great blogging friends. I think the same will apply with this years match. This year I received my parcel from MomaBear. The parcel arrived on Monday, but it wasn't until today that I was able to get to the post office to pick it up...well what a treat....look at all the goodies I got.....I think this is great...I love the idea of the magazine with all the Halloween treats and suggestions. Momabear sent the makings for some Halloween cupcakes or whatever I decide to make with the baking ingredients...I thought that was a wonderful suggestion......and what about this lovely card....looks to me like she made it....

and then the country patchwork pumpkin along with the pumpkin candle and of course inside there is a wonderfully scented (pumpkin scent I thing)candle inside! Thank you so much Momabear for your thoughtfulness......