our yard is starting to grow into the yard i am dreaming about. ryan put down our sod in july, and left 2 little plots for gardens - a rock garden in the front and a veggie garden in the back. but besides the weeds, they've been very bare all summer as i have lacked the energy to do anything about them.
until now.
last week, my mom and i went to a greenhouse that was having some amazing end-of-season sales. i bought 27 shrubs for about a hundred bucks! 20 little cotoneasters for a hedge in the back, to separate our yard from the ugly, weedy "yard" behind us, complete to 2 very low areas - when we water our grass, the 2 back corners of his lot flood a bit creating the perfect habitat for mosquito larvae. hey, it's not our fault he only put down like 2 inches of topsoil.
i also bought 6 raspberry bushes which i am SOOOO pumped about. and get this: i already ate 5 raspberries from them! last week! yummers! and they were still in their pots.
and i bought a red twig dogwood for my flower garden in the front yard. we planted them all yesterday. so now my weedy, pale-coloured veggie garden has one nice, organic-material-rich corner with 6 little raspberry bushes. haha... it looks quite funny actually. but i'll deal with the rest of the garden in the springtime. and today it's pouring outside and it's just what our new little shrubs need.
i'm excited because our yard is very slowly turning into something beautiful.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
mmmmm.... beef.....
i had the yummiest leftovers for supper today.
at the women's retreat last weekend, the topic of meal planning came up. a few of us youngins admitted that, even though we have slow cookers, we've never attempted to make a beef or ham roast. i have made one chicken in my slow cooker and a few in a roaster in the oven. my biggest thing was that i don't know what kind of beef to buy. do you need to buy a more expensive cut to make sure it turns out? we were convinced (coerced?) by the other ladies to go out this week and buy a blade roast and toss it in the slow cooker, with a cup of ketchup, a package of onion soup mix and a can of coke. so that's what i did yesterday. i bought a hunk of beef, put half in the freezer, mixed up half of that recipe and into the slow cooker it went. it hit 27 degrees outside again, so i put the slow cooker outside on the deck to keep my house cool.
and let me tell you. it was DEEELISH! and so easy! just as good the next day. i didn't feel like having the typical baked potatoes with it, so i made twice-baked potatoes (thanks to neysa's idea posted on supper starters).
and next time, i think i'll venture out and buy a ham.
at the women's retreat last weekend, the topic of meal planning came up. a few of us youngins admitted that, even though we have slow cookers, we've never attempted to make a beef or ham roast. i have made one chicken in my slow cooker and a few in a roaster in the oven. my biggest thing was that i don't know what kind of beef to buy. do you need to buy a more expensive cut to make sure it turns out? we were convinced (coerced?) by the other ladies to go out this week and buy a blade roast and toss it in the slow cooker, with a cup of ketchup, a package of onion soup mix and a can of coke. so that's what i did yesterday. i bought a hunk of beef, put half in the freezer, mixed up half of that recipe and into the slow cooker it went. it hit 27 degrees outside again, so i put the slow cooker outside on the deck to keep my house cool.
and let me tell you. it was DEEELISH! and so easy! just as good the next day. i didn't feel like having the typical baked potatoes with it, so i made twice-baked potatoes (thanks to neysa's idea posted on supper starters).
and next time, i think i'll venture out and buy a ham.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
belly shots
i promised my sister some belly shots on my blog once i had something worth posting. i have been getting REALLY bloated by the end of the day, ever since i was 8 or 9 weeks along. but by the morning, my tummy would look all flat again (it would look flat, but i could feel a difference in my body since 4 weeks - even before the positive test). anyways... maybe a week or so ago i realized that my bloaty-belly wasn't disappearing by morning. so this is it! a real baby belly!! here's a pic for you... not the best one ever, but it kinda shows our Little One. oh, and the blue walls behind me there - that's going to be the nursery!
we went shopping for new clothes last week - maternity clothes for me and new clothes for work for R. fun fun fun! i bought a total of 5 tops and 1 pair of comfy pants (see above). i love that flowy tops are in style right now, because 3 of my new tops are non-maternity (see above) that i found at the le chateau outlet for super cheap. i was disappointed with the selection of pants out there, but was intrigued by the maternity belly bands that you can buy to hold up your non-maternity pants.
i don't like to pay for things that i can make myself, so i sewed
myself one today. it was an old black, ribbed shirt that long-ago found its way into my fabric box. here it is on top of a pair of grey capris that i haven't worn all summer because i can't do up the zipper even a tiny bit. but you totally can't tell. now i can wear them again. and with a shirt over top, it just peaks out the bottom and looks like i have a black tank top on underneath. now i just want to make a brown one and then i should be set for awhile until i can find some good pants in the stores!
Monday, August 31, 2009
just another night shift?
i had a very ... interesting.... night at work the other night. it was super busy, and i was super exhausted. i was sure hoping that "they" were going to be right when they said that by my 2nd trimester i should be feeling better. feeling great, even. well, i'm feeling a bit better, but certainly not great. i can keep the nausea at bay with several snacks, small meals and an afternoon nap. but the physical exhaustion is still there, always trying to tag along with everything i'm doing like an annoying little sibling (okay, i don't know what that's like - i was the annoying little sibling always wanting to tag along).
so i was tired to start out my night shift despite the 2.5 hour nap just beforehand. between the 2 very confused patients who repeatedly crawled out of bed (setting off their bed alarms and sending us running down the halls to their rooms before they hit the floor), and being the only rn on the ward able to be the cardiac nurse and the nurse in charge (adding an extra amount of stress), and that excessively smelly bedpan that almost - almost! - made me vomit (with all the nausea in the past 3 months, i have not vomited once and i did not want to start now!), we had a patient die.
she hadn't been doing all that well lately, but we certainly didn't expect her to go so quickly. another nurse had been in her room and the patient had said something to her. the nurse asked me to come help in her room, but when we returned, she had suddenly become unresponsive. we unsuccessfully tried rousing her, while the patient took a few shallow breaths, with long stretches of apnea in between. my colleague checked her blood sugar level while i checked her vital signs. there were none. i listened with my stethoscope for a heartbeat..... for a long time.... nothing. i got the other nurse to listen too, because i wasn't going to tell the family that she was gone when she wasn't. (the patient had a "do not resuscitate" status, otherwise we would have called a code blue quite sometime before this).
i realized at some point that i had seen her take her last breath. i have watched people who are dying before, including my opa last summer. and i've seen a few deceased people, both in hospital beds and caskets. but i had never watched someone take their last breath and die. that is a different experience. i can't describe it any better than that, because i don't know what to think any more than that at this point.
i was so exhausted, but i knew that as the nurse in charge, i needed to call the family. i sat by the phone for a long time, praying for the right words, trying to figure out what to say. my mind was foggy by this time and i was so afraid that i would say something insensitive like "hi, sorry to wake you up at this hour, but your mom is dead." the other nurse that was with me in the patient's room offered to make the call and, even though i felt like i was chickening out, i gladly let her. the family ended up coming only at shift change in the morning and i never did talk to them (although the other nurse did). but sometime later i regretted that i didn't think to make an effort (it didn't even occur to me at the time) to seek them out and tell them that we were there and that their mom was not alone when she passed away. i'm hoping the other nurse told them.
of course the night carried on, our crazy patients kept jumping out of bed and people kept having to go to the bathroom. and so life goes on.
so i was tired to start out my night shift despite the 2.5 hour nap just beforehand. between the 2 very confused patients who repeatedly crawled out of bed (setting off their bed alarms and sending us running down the halls to their rooms before they hit the floor), and being the only rn on the ward able to be the cardiac nurse and the nurse in charge (adding an extra amount of stress), and that excessively smelly bedpan that almost - almost! - made me vomit (with all the nausea in the past 3 months, i have not vomited once and i did not want to start now!), we had a patient die.
she hadn't been doing all that well lately, but we certainly didn't expect her to go so quickly. another nurse had been in her room and the patient had said something to her. the nurse asked me to come help in her room, but when we returned, she had suddenly become unresponsive. we unsuccessfully tried rousing her, while the patient took a few shallow breaths, with long stretches of apnea in between. my colleague checked her blood sugar level while i checked her vital signs. there were none. i listened with my stethoscope for a heartbeat..... for a long time.... nothing. i got the other nurse to listen too, because i wasn't going to tell the family that she was gone when she wasn't. (the patient had a "do not resuscitate" status, otherwise we would have called a code blue quite sometime before this).
i realized at some point that i had seen her take her last breath. i have watched people who are dying before, including my opa last summer. and i've seen a few deceased people, both in hospital beds and caskets. but i had never watched someone take their last breath and die. that is a different experience. i can't describe it any better than that, because i don't know what to think any more than that at this point.
i was so exhausted, but i knew that as the nurse in charge, i needed to call the family. i sat by the phone for a long time, praying for the right words, trying to figure out what to say. my mind was foggy by this time and i was so afraid that i would say something insensitive like "hi, sorry to wake you up at this hour, but your mom is dead." the other nurse that was with me in the patient's room offered to make the call and, even though i felt like i was chickening out, i gladly let her. the family ended up coming only at shift change in the morning and i never did talk to them (although the other nurse did). but sometime later i regretted that i didn't think to make an effort (it didn't even occur to me at the time) to seek them out and tell them that we were there and that their mom was not alone when she passed away. i'm hoping the other nurse told them.
of course the night carried on, our crazy patients kept jumping out of bed and people kept having to go to the bathroom. and so life goes on.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
and now.... to rest....
we just had a very full week. R's parents drove out here and spent this last week at our place. i was a little nervous about hosting guests - even if they are family - just because i hadn't had the stomach or the energy to make a real meal in weeks. i hadn't cleaned the house in almost 2 months for lack of energy (my fantastic hubby has been taking good care of me during his summer holidays!). and i worked 72 hours in 8 days just before they arrived. but they were gracious and allowed me to rest.
we had a good time, despite the below-average temperatures. we checked out the mennonite heritage village, the farmer's market, the expanded mcc store, had dinner at my parent's house, etc. R and his parents headed down to grand forks, nd, for some shopping and visiting a cousin one day, while i stayed home and slept after a single night shift.
for years now, we've been wanting to bring them to grand beach and we finally got to - and on one of the nicest days of the summer too. it was sunny and hot - finally - and we had fun in the water and playing bocce ball in the sand dunes. my parents also came and then we all camped there for the night. the next morning we woke up to thundershowers and cooler weather yet again.
making pocket stews for supper. like my bloaty-baby-belly?
they headed back home this morning, and now R is at school getting ready for september. all in all we had a great time - but now i'm so exhausted. why does building a baby have to take so much energy??
we had a good time, despite the below-average temperatures. we checked out the mennonite heritage village, the farmer's market, the expanded mcc store, had dinner at my parent's house, etc. R and his parents headed down to grand forks, nd, for some shopping and visiting a cousin one day, while i stayed home and slept after a single night shift.
for years now, we've been wanting to bring them to grand beach and we finally got to - and on one of the nicest days of the summer too. it was sunny and hot - finally - and we had fun in the water and playing bocce ball in the sand dunes. my parents also came and then we all camped there for the night. the next morning we woke up to thundershowers and cooler weather yet again.
making pocket stews for supper. like my bloaty-baby-belly?they headed back home this morning, and now R is at school getting ready for september. all in all we had a great time - but now i'm so exhausted. why does building a baby have to take so much energy??
Monday, August 10, 2009
tiny miracle
we heard our little baby's heartbeat today. absolutely incredible.
what a beautiful thing pregnancy is.
it's pretty incredible for me to be saying that, as i've been feeling pretty terrible for, oh, over a month now. nausea, around the clock. but they tell me it's worth it. and i think i'm beginning to be on the upswing. hoping and praying that i am anyway.
i just want to PRAISE GOD for being such an amazing designer and creator. really.... to even come up with the idea of pregnancy....
what a beautiful thing pregnancy is.
it's pretty incredible for me to be saying that, as i've been feeling pretty terrible for, oh, over a month now. nausea, around the clock. but they tell me it's worth it. and i think i'm beginning to be on the upswing. hoping and praying that i am anyway.
i just want to PRAISE GOD for being such an amazing designer and creator. really.... to even come up with the idea of pregnancy....
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
