Today was day three of my new job, and I have to say that I am absolutely loving it. My patients are absolute joys to be around.  They've been married for 65 years, which just blows my mind, and are the sweetest, nicest people you'd ever want to meet.  They both have a progressive neurological disease and whilst he manages to get around the house ok, she needs a lot of help.  He mostly needs supervision; someone around to make sure he takes his meds when he's supposed to and do...

I wish that you could hold my heart in your hands.  I wish that you could see the love contained within it, that you could see the color of that love and feel it's warmth and know that all of it is for you. I wish that I could make you feel the way I feel.  I wish that I could make you feel the way my heart leaps in my chest when you look at me, how it races when you speak my name. I wish that I could have you know how it feels to love you......and to be loved by you.

I've made a pair of sock monkies.  I've called the boy one Spanky - and if you need an explanation for that name then I don't think you should participate - but I can't think of a name for the girl one.  You can see my kind of humor coming through with the boy monkey's name, and I'd like to continue that with the girl one. Help me name my monkey, JU, and I'll see if I can't come up with a little knitted something as a prize!

I've been saying for ages that I love the hospice work I'm doing, but that I wished I could find a way to make it a paying gig. Well, I've found a way.  Sort of, anyway. I've got a job.  It's with an extended care agency, and I'll be doing much the same thing as I do with my hospice patients (my assigned patients, not my vigilance patients).  I've been assigned to a married couple in a little town near here, and I'll be at their home from 8am to noon, Monday to Friday. They ...

I got called out Friday night to sit vigilance with a patient in their home.  Whenever I sit vigilance I ask myself (when it's all over) if I made a difference, and whilst the answer is always "yes", sometimes the difference is small or minor. This time, though, the difference was clear.  It wasn't minor and it wasn't small, it was huge.  Had I not been there Friday night and all day Saturday, things would have gone in a totally different direction.  This time the answer w...

Well, last night wasn't as bad as I anticipated.  I slept pretty well, and didn't wake up once because my ear hurt.  This morning it was a bit swollen, but some ibuprofen helped that out.  I soaked it in a sea salt solution, then cleaned it with a q-tip and some anti-bacterial soap.  Washing my hair in the shower was an experience; it got caught up around the bar and I had to use Dave's shaving mirror to untangle it properly. It's throbbing slightly now; I think that's...

I'm pierced (again): That's the best shot I could get; I had to take it myself.  Once Dave comes home I'll get him to take a better shot, but this one will do for now.

I've been thinking about getting another piercing done.   Over the years I've had various parts of my body pierced, including my tongue, navel, nose and eyebrow (and that's all I'm telling you about!). For various reasons, I've had to remove all of them.  My navel one was removed because of surgery and wasn't replaced because of the location of the incision.  My nose never really healed properly and was prone to infection (there are staph germs that live naturally in your ...

Do you have a flatulence problem?  Have your friends and family nicknamed you 'Thunder Pants' or 'Gassy McFartalot'?  Do you own stock in Beano or Phazyme? If you answered 'yes' to any of those questions, I have good news for you!  Under-Tec Corp has created 'Under-Ez', underwear with a built-in filter designed to neutralize those embarrasing odiferous emanations.  They come in many sizes, from small to XXXL, and are available in a boxer short design for men and a granny-k...

As many of you already know, JustJohn and his wife becames parents to triplets recently - two girls, Tabitha and Chloe, and a boy, Parrish.  They came a little early, but that's normal for triplets. I knitted them some preemie sized beanies and marvelled at how small they were - they fit on some apples I had in the fruit dish - and I sent them off, worrying that they'd be too small. I got an email from JJ yesterday, and attached to it was this photo: Aren't those the most darlin...

We recieved a letter the other day telling us that we are within 90 days of being moved to another house.  I called the housing office for clarification, and was told that we may not get a brand new house after all, that we may end up in the existing homes on the other side of the base.  I asked if we could be moved into an existing home earlier - mum is going to be here in April and I would prefer to be settled into our new home by then - and the answer was 'yes, of course!'.  Th...

I finished knitting JustJohn's baby beanies today.  I had a couple already made but I decided that I didn't like them, so I made three new ones in the space of 12 hours.  They are tiny.  Incredibly small.  I had some good sized apples in the fruit basket on the kitchen table, and I tried a beanie on a Golden Delicious for size - and it fit.  I wish I had the battery power to take a photo, but the kids have (as usual) run down the batteries in the camera and have used...

My mum rang this afternoon to let me know that she was booking her flights to come visit us tomorrow morning.  She's leaving Heathrow on April 18th (or 25th, depending on how booked the flights are) and will fly into Chicago, where she'll have a 4 hour layover before she gets a connecting flight to St Louis.  She'll be with us for three weeks, and I wish I could begin to tell you just how excited I am that she's booking her flights and will be with us for that long.  It's goin...