Yes, spring is really here

A quiet Monday afternoon of a ‘day off’ when I’ve decided that three hours of domestic chores are my limit so I’ll update you with the assistance of a 21 lb cat (yes Gary did lose a pound while we were away) on my lap.

It’s been a beautiful long weekend off for me and I’ve managed to be quite productive. Although spring officially arrived on Saturday afternoon the province set high record temperatures on Friday with numbers that we sometimes don’t see in the summer. This encouraged me to hang five loads of laundry on the clothesline which were a result of working the previous three LDs. The shifts flew by as they do you run. The pinnacle of the experience came at the end of the last shift when two of us ‘mature RNs’ held down a resistive four year old for a maxi mist treatment while his Dad held him in a bear hug and attempted to keep the mask on his face while he screamed loudly for mercy. Finally he yelled “just stop it you two stupid guys” to the embarrassment of his father and our hysteria as we were by then ‘over the top’ and could not refrain from commenting on the Two Stupid Dogs program etc. The treatment was soon completed and the two generations exited with Dad requesting an apology which the son hastily granted as he trotted towards the door.
I took my turn working at the community bingo on Saturday night and was relieved that the games were played out quickly and I was home before 10 p.m. Every six weeks comes around faster than you’d think.

Yesterday we welcomed the purchaser of our former house as he was home for a few weeks from BC dealing with some health issues for his father. Since he’s been ‘away’ for the past 35 years, he was attempting to sort our contractors to build a garage etc. in the next year or so. His plans of selling his west coast home and retiring have been delayed somewhat with the real estate and investment markets.

Had friends over for supper last evening and enjoyed a feed of lobsters, warm herb bread out of the breadmaker and a Greek salad, followed by chocolate cake and blueberry buckle for dessert. A chance to visit and catch up on the news – one couple’s son has snagged a position with the Atlantic School of Theology doing library/computer work and the other were just welcoming their son back from a vacation in Bimini (off Bahamas) with friends. Good times good times. The night was rather short for the shore captain as the phone rang at 0145 from the boat arriving in the a.m. announcing an ETA and catch details.

I was reading an article in the paper over the weekend which chronicled the travels of Nicholas Rapp and his friend Nadia who were driving from New York to Argentina and all the adventures along the way. Here’s the website to follow along. http://transworldexpedition.com
Aside from the obvious security issues of travel through Ecuador, Columbia and Peru when I read of their swimming in lakes, buying food from local markets and staying with locals and was reminded of all the tropical diseases they could contract - I thought to myself that I must be getting old.

There was a good article by Silver Donald Cameron in Sunday’s paper about an organization called Barefoot College http://www.barefootcollege.org
which was used to ‘educate the grandmothers’ stating that when men are trained they are impatient, competitive and want a certificate so they can move to the city and get another job. And yes, you can donate to such a worthy grassroots organization, hint, hint.

An interesting website called Life as a Human to check out – www.lifeasahuman.com. Very eclectic titles such as Ode to Bacon, King of Meat – how could it not be interesting? Since I’m female the stats tell me that if I make it to age 65 I have a 50% chance of living to 85 and a 25% chance of making it to 92. Those odds seem pretty good to me as someone has to be in that in 25%.

Memo to self to check this evening with daughter # 2 to see if she’s recovered from her western vacation. Sounds like it was an intense but fun schedule and she was back to being a student teacher again this morning – she’ll need a vacation after her vacation. And speaking of vacations (in case I haven’t posted this previously as my memory fails me on this point) for all you travelers, here is a map of wi-fi available in airports globally.
http://www.jaunted.com/maps/Airport-WiFi-Map

I’m off to read my Jimmy Buffett novel – did you know he wrote novels? Apparently is one of six authors to be on both the fiction and nonfiction list of the New York Times bestsellers lists. Who knew? And yes, I’m not ashamed to say that a Jimmy Buffett concert in Key West is still on my bucket list! Back to work in the morning, but only one LD and two LNs this time – paying down my debt one shift at a time as I dream of ‘semi-retirement’