Psych ward next...

I'm due at the psych ward in just 3 hours - as part of my training as a nurse, of course, what were you thinking! It is quite interesting to see, it is not like any other hospital ward I've seen. For one, all the patients use their own personal clothes. I understand why, it's just so unusual and quite striking when you first walk through the doors. Second, everything is locked - but then again, I expected that. Can't have suicidal patients with full access to shower hoses, belts or bath towels! Third - the staff wear long sleeves, rings, watches and fancy nails; a big no-no in the somatic care wards, here not so much. Do psych patients have better immune systems than other patients as a general? I think the rules should be the same no matter what part of a hospital you work in!

In other news, I've now aquired a summer job as a nurse assistant at an old folk's home back in Norway - it's a lot better paid than here in Sweden, so I'll just have to suck it up and miss little H and big S for a month this summer. H will then be joining me for a couple of weeks and spend time with her grandparents while I'm at work, and then we go home again. I have plans to ride my bike to work as well, so I might even get a little fitter as a bonus. I've got a mix between good and bad feelings about this - I know I'll miss them both a lot when I'm there on my own, but at the same time I can forget about the constant bad conscience for leaving H at school for such long hours - I'll actually be having more "free" time than I've had in a long time! And of course, it also means that I'll be having a proper summer vacation before school starts again, to do whatever we want :)

I took H with me to Norway this past weekend when I had my job interview, and we had the best spring weather ever - the sun was shining, there was no wind, the birds were singing and the barbecue got fired up. I've even got a teeny bit of a tint on my cheeks! It felt good - relaxed, sunny, warm in our hearts... And then we drove home, and we both got flat and numb butts from sitting in the car seats for so long - and we did stop for a break. If anyone knows how to avoid that, please let me know. I fear my butt will otherwise be completely flattened out this summer, and a flat but wide butt isn't exactly what I had in mind.

Alas, I've let my blog slide

It's been too long this time - but as always, I have a great excuse. Being out in the real world, meeting real patients, really did get the best of me. But now I'm back again for a quick visit, before heading out to a psych ward for 3 weeks!

The huge amounts of snow around the house have disappeared - there is a little left, but not enough to cover the complete mess the builders left behind them. We've already spent several hours picking up nails and screws - about 6 litres so far - and there's still the snuff boxes, the bits of board everywhere, pieces of scaffolding, left over roofing tiles, plastic covers and the occasional tool knife to pick up and dispose of. Granted, there were several days of blizzards when the builders were here, so lots of this stuff was very quickly buried in snow if they didn't pick it up immediately. I'm thinking of making a warning sign: "Do not walk on the dirt - it might contain pointy stuff!"

Inside - we're almost done. Big S and his dad will be hammering all of Easter week to create a floor on the attic, and then there's a shelving thing to put shoes at the back entrance to be built. My office is complete - floss, shelves and all - and I've even managed to clutter it up a bit already. It looks great! :D

I loved almost every second of working at the hospital these 7 weeks - the only thing I wasn't too fond of, were the calici virus. It's a feisty stomach bug, once one patient had it, it took just a few hours before everyone had it. Thank G we didn't have any patients who needed critical care! Most of our patients were on top of it, even if the calici left them a lot weaker than before. Apparently, this was some new strain, because I usually don't get affected, but this time I was down and out for 5 whole days. I was so weak I could only drink blueberry soup and watch daytime tv in between my naps, but on the 5th day I woke up hungry and fit as a fiddle again. Weird...

Today is waffle day here in Sweden, and tomorrow's my birthday, so I'm having two friends over for lunch and cake before picking up H from school. I have to get her by car even now when we live so close to school, because ALL of her clothes are usually wet in the afternoon - I can't carry it all... How I long for all the snow to be gone and to have dry weather!

All my love,

We got it!

They took our offer on the house! So now we have to get the official OK-stamp on it, and then we sign the papers. Sooooo many thoughts running through my head right now, cleaning out our current home to make the move easier, and not to mention make the sales pictures look better! Home styling, anyone?

On a less happy note they have now officially warned us that there will be layoffs at work this summer. 10 people will be forced to leave, from an already slim staff. They've gone through this for several years in a row now, mainly because the managers are unwilling to get more customers - they rely solely on our biggest customer, and when the big customer lose sales big time in the US that affects our sales directly... I'm on a short term contract, so I'm not affected more than that my contract won't be prolonged - which is according to plan, as I intend to start studying this fall. But the really scary thing is that they will probably cut where the cuts are really noticeable - sales/marketing and customer support + production. How do they plan on selling more to other customers if they don't have customer support and a sales department who can answer calls????? I give up, I go home in stead.

(And yes, when we planned for buying a new house, we made our budget based on me studying, so losing my job doesn't change any of that. At least there is some light in the tunnel for me personally!)

Home again

So, what did all the snow look like? Well, something like this might give you an idea:


After a few days with sunny weather it still was not the least bit spring-like... But we had a great day out with the sled in the slope behind our house :)

The funeral went well; hubby's niece said it was the worst she had ever done, so she never ever wants to go to another funeral... She was crying the whole ceremony, but her mum was the same, so her handbag contained nothing but tissues... Some good stories were told about nana, and there were both laughs and tears - as it should be. It was very nice as funerals go, beautiful music and good psalms. The priest wasn't too longwinded either, which is always a good thing.

Now on to celebrate easter! Happy easter everyone!

So this is Spring...

It's March again! How time flies... The crocuses are blooming in our garden, and the earliest tulips have started to show their colors as well. The late ones have just started to show the tips of their leaves, but all in all spring is a lot earlier than usual around these parts. I'm not sure if we actually had a winter this year, according to the governmental weather analysts we had autumn until 23rd of February, and for a day we had no season, and the 25th it was spring. At some point they decided that you can't have autumn after the 23rd of february...

Strange, as life awakens in the earth, another life has left us - hubby's grandmother passed away yesterday morning. She was 92 years old and needed to rest after breakfast - she never woke up again. I think it was a good death, all things considered. She needed the rest... I'm not that sad, I know she ends up in a better place, but of course it's hard on hubby and his family - like he said, she's always been around... Sleep tight, gammelmormor!