Out with the old...

In with the new...Happy New Year to all!

Yes, I've taken my good old time on this blog the last couple of months. A few things have come up to keep me busy.

First, I was lucky enough to be sent to Seattle in fall weather to attend a conference. I had a blast in the land of Starbucks. I've only been to the Pacific Northwest once before and that was north of the border, so this was my first junket to that neck of the woods in 10 years. I learned a bit and had a good time. I wish I would have had more time to be a tourist!

Earlier in December, I got not one, but two birthday celebrations and a memorial service in one day. After all that, I had a surprise party...much to my surprise! I hadn't even a clue. I guess that's what I deserve for a speed limit birthday. It was fun.

When the holidays rolled around, I got the pleasure of working, as I will for years to come, since I am lucky enough to have no seniority. So until everyone quits or retires or I win the lottery, yours truly will get to work on Christmas and most of the other holidays, unless they fall on my day off. Ahh, the fun of work...but I ain't complainin'! I really enjoy my commute (could only get longer if I decide to walk) and the pay and benefits are nice. It's also nice to work in a specialty, since we're respected for knowing what we're doing, which, as Martha would say, is a very, very good thing.

My most memorable holidays gifts: a "MOM" coffee mug, some DVDs (foreign films and Sabrina--yeah!) and a nasty, nasty virus. Try as I might, I couldn't send the virus back. At least, as a good nurse, I kept the virus at bay until the holidays were over (I'm sure my boss enjoyed that!)

2009 is interesting so far. I'm studying and cleaning and plotting and planning. It should be fun!
Stay tuned...

Fall baking season again

I love this time of year. My favorite way to heat up the house is to start baking, and since I meet up with the St. Boniface folks on Fridays for coffee whenever I can, I like to bring something along.

Today I made bread pudding with the sauce to go with it, since good ol' Padre Giacomo set me up with some wonderful bread from Breadsmith the other day. Their bread is so good your dog will even like it. (Mine has a terrible weakness for bread period and he ate 1/4 of a loaf when I went out for a few minutes and left a half loaf too close to the edge of the counter).

Surprisingly, this recipe is actually low fat (except for the sauce), so you can read the nutrition information below.

Bread pudding

Nutrition facts:
194 calories, 4 g total fat, (2 g saturated fat) 112 mg cholesterol, 180 mg sodium, 30g carbohydrate, 0 g fiber (varies with type of bread) 7 g protein. 11% Vitamin A, 1% Vitamin C, 9% calcium, 5% iron.

Whiskey Sauce

Nutrition facts:
88 calories, 5 g total fat (3 g saturated fat) 34mg cholesterol, 47mg sodium, 10g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein

Whole lotta shaking going on...

At 0436AM today, there was at our house, due to a small earthquake. Since I tend to wake up early on my day off, I figured it was nothing unusual, although I was dreaming that I heard a strange noise. I suppose it wasn't strange or a dream, after all.

While I was surfing around today, I did find some good earthquake links:
LAFD Earthquake Safety Guide (pdf)
Office of Emergency Services homepage (also in CA)
Red Cross Earthquake information

Hubby and I visited the folks at Giacomo's today. They were bringing up the rear at IC, since he told them by sitting near the front they were scaring off the regulars. (He's always giving them trouble.) We always go over and engage him in some debate, but this time, we didn't make him late. I brought along a cheesecake, so with Toots' jelly roll, we had a fun time eating, drinking and being merry after Mass.

Hubby's car had a nasty shake and rattle thing going on, so we took it into the shop. Said rattle is now history, since he just needed a new tie rod, brakes and rotors. So hopefully, it'll be smooth sailing ahead for his blue Swedish battlewagon.

Bubba got his official full day kindergarten acceptance letter today. He will go to our assigned school, so this also means he'll get to ride on the school bus, too. He is very excited about kindergarten. Let's just hope it stays that way!

Gotta run to pick up the car and take Bubba out to the "train station" (his term for the mall--don't know where he got that from) as is our usual weekly custom.

Murphy's Law

It doesn't surprise me that with the help of a nap, a double shot of espresso, a thermos of coffee and my lunch, I survived my first night shift.

It was, however, a bit annoying, that three ambulances and a fire truck drove by my house, along with a helicopter that flew in a circle four times directly over my house while I was trying to get to sleep at 0900 today.

Thankfully, Zyrtec really is a sedating antihistamine.

This week, a new job

Yep, I've done it again. In fifteen years since I got my first full-time job, I started my eighth one. I just couldn't resist...a job within a long's walk came up, and with the potential for $4 per gallon gas prices this year, this old economics student opted to change. It wasn't hasty, mind you. I'd been contemplating it for a while. Inflation of costs and deflation of my savings account made me look long and hard. A three percent raise just doesn't go as far as it used to go.

Right now, it's been interesting working in the service of the Government. The outfit is so big that there's all those corporate perks I'd been missing since my time at a big financial services company on Jefferson, with two offices in town to boot. We've got the shuttles, we've got the bus passes, and we've got the good vacation package. Hooray! Maybe one day I will get Bubba to Disney World!

Do I miss what I was doing? Sure. Slowing down into a new, different rhythm of life makes you look back at what happened before. I remember moving from a job where I had not one, but two phones on my desk and calls all day from all over the world. I left that for a job to sit in a really small office with a bunch of computer equipment and silence, because everyone sent e-mail. This was really hard to get used to at first. I missed my salesmen and customers calling me and everyone ordering stuff. I missed talking to folks all over the US and Canada.

Right now, what do I miss? People. My people. I always miss the people more than the lights, the sounds, the smells from my jobs. My patients, my coworkers from the floor, other people in the hospital who appeared on our unit--the consulting docs, the IV therapists, the respiratory therapists, the dieticians, and all the other assorted therapists. The right people appearing in your day will make any job tolerable.

Okay, I do miss certain smells, though. The smell of coffee wafting down the hall from Cairdeas coffee stand in the lobby and onto our unit woke me up many a day...and also sent me out for my very own cup o'Joe. I especially like Kaldi's Supersonica, which normally appears there on Thursdays.

There's no coffee shop here, but occasionally, I hear a hawk in the trees near the bluffs. In some buildings, I can look out and see the river meandering by, as muddy as ever. It's a panorama that reminds me of my childhood in the far reaches of St. Louis city, and being at high school, just down the road from here, where I could stand and look a certain way down river by one of the buildings at the north end of campus and see the Arch downtown.

The long, circuitous route has taken me places I'd never imagined being, and now, it just may have led me back home.

I love coffee, but...

I think I'd rather have the $20,000 and shipping costs that go with it.

My little soon to be eight years old espresso maker works just fine, thank you very much. So the crema's not haute-de-gamme, but if I get crazy for crema, I'll go to the coffee shop and get a couple shots from the expensive machine.

Want to see more goodies to cook up your espresso and coffee? Check out the links below:

www.espressozone.com
Capresso
Gaggia