Graduation

This is me celebrating graduation with Chloe.

House-Sitting

I have a house!!! I have a lounge room and a couch and a kitchen and a bedroom that all belong to a house that isnt attached to the hospital!!! Ahh, privacy!! But only for another week until my boss comes back from her honeymoon. Sarah and I are housesitting while she is gone. So I mustn't forget to feed the cats and water the gardens and stay away from the 10'000 little grean frogs that inhabit this place. Last night I was watering the plants and the watering can was going well as it should and then its stopped giving me the nice rain shower effect and was just dribbling little bits of water no matter how high I lifted it up. I couldnt work out why it had stopped working. I tried pushing the spout on a bit better, which didnt work so I just took it off. And in the spout I found a little green frog staring at me.
The house is on a farm about 10 mins out of town and its so nice and peaceful. Plus I can only just see the nearest neighbours on the other side of the field. There is a beautiful veranda which I will eat breakfast on shortly with the view of the millet growing in the fields surrounding the house. Its so nice to have a house and it will be a shame when we have to leave. But I will enjoy having my 30 second walk to work instead of the 10 minutes drive I currently have. I have gotten very used to the closeness of things here. Everything is 5 minutes or less away and if anything is further than that it is considered a long way. It takes me about 2 minutes to drive to the main street and the supermarket and I am kinda on the outskirts of town at the hospital.
Anyway I should go. Work is busy although we discharged 6 patients in the last day so hopefully it should calm down a bit now. Ciao

Shift Work

Well I am well and truly a shift working nurse! This last weekend I started my 4 night shifts which was an experience that I am sure to repeat. The first two night I so desperately wanted to be in bed by the time 4am rolled around but the next two nights were much better. Once my body got into a sleep routine and I got used to being up at horrible hours of the day. Did you know that there is this quiz show on at 1am called the Up-Late Game show and they get people to call in and answer puzzles and quizzes and the host pretty much talks non-stop for the hour or two that the show goes for. And they have really old movies and occasionally a familiar sitcom. One of my favourite shows came on at 3:30am one night but just as it started a guy came in with a massive gash in his arm needing stitches and by the time that was finished so was the show. Ah well you cant win them all. But the good thing is that in my night shifting and subsequent 2 days off, I miss some really busy shifts that were hell-ish for all who worked them and I only caught the tail end of it today. Thankfully todays shift had a few extra people on or else I may not have been awake right now but sleeping in exhaustion. About 6 discharges and 3 admissions just on our shift which is not bad for a ward that is considered pretty full with 10 patients and started the day with 13. Keep in mind we have a maximum of 20 beds but usually only 2-3 staff to deal with the number of patients. And we also have the random accident and emergency stuff that comes in. But I got through the day without feeling too stressed and it seems I am getting a bit better at doing this whole nurse thing. I am getting there with a long way to go. OkI am gonna finish cuz my brain is empty now. Work does that to me. Does it do that to you too?

Recipe

For Ruth here is that recipe I cooked.

Penne with pumpkin, Baked ricotta and Prosciutto

500g Penne
460g Butternut Pumpkin (cut into 1cm cubes)
1/4 cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
100g semi dried tomatoes, chopped
4 slices prosciutto, chopped
250 g baked ricotta, cut into 1cm cubes
3 tablespoons shredded fresh basil

Cook penne in large saucepan of rapidly boiling salted water until al dente. Drain. meanwhile, cook pumpkin in saucepan of bioling water for 10-12 minutes or until just tender, then drain.

Heat the oil in large saucepan, add garlic and cook over medium heat for 30 seconds. Add the tomato, prosciutto, pumpkin and penne and toss gently over low heat for 1-2 minutes, or until heated through. Add the ricotta and the basil, season with salt and craked black pepper and serve immediately.

Serves 4


I find that there is too much pasta for the dish and the pumpkin always cooks faster than I expect but it's a yummy dish and I enjoyed it when I cooked it.