Natural Decorations

Before I started this set of shifts, I wrapped all the gifts. All the gifts. I like to use brown paper because it makes me sad after Christmas when the big pile of coloured paper has to be thrown out. Plus I'm a ribbon fanatic. If I look carefully, I can find it on crazy sale all through the year. Then I can cover the gifts with abandon. It's a typical frugal extravagance.

The snow has come. All the trees are decorated with white. Plus it's great snowman snow.

I had to drive to the hospital in the snow and guess at the number of my parking spot. She snowed and blowed all day. We have computers on the unit now and the nurses were checking Environment Canada and the local highway cams. Some of the nurses live in Abbotsford, about 20 minutes west through the most treacherous Sumas Prairie flats. The highway is often closed in snow. The trip beyond that is usually not too bad.

At noon I had done my basic care and charting on 2 (of my very own) patients when we got a call for a transfer to St. Paul's hospital in Vancouver. Normally that would be a 60 to 90 minute drive, 100km (70 miles) on the #1 Trans Canada Highway. But with the snow and treacherous conditions and blizzard warning, it was no small deal. The patient needed the care of this special cardiac unit. My preceptor nurse was chosen to go because she is highly qualified. So I was going to go with her. Why? I didn't think it would be such a good learning experience. The ambulance was to come in between 20 minutes and 3 hours. What if the ambulance wasn't coming back? What if we got stuck in the city? Get a hotel room? What if we got stuck on the highway? Not so good. What if our patient coded on the way. We would be OK if we could just get there.

At 4 o'clock, she said I was off the hook. The highway was closed anyway. At 5 o'clock they arrive in a hurry and she was whisked away. I had to leave the hospital because she is the only one who can buddy me. I still don't know if she made it back. I'll find out tonight when we go for a night shift. I was disappointed that we didn't get to go at noon and then back before too late. I have done quite a few low risk transfers. Plus I started in the Reserve Forces Medical Corps when I was right out of highschool.

In the mean time, I have missed appointments and deadlines as I try to merge reality with fulltime work/study.

The last aran afghan square is prepared. I will try to make extra notes on my Ravelry site, but really it's just tweleve 12 inch squares of different cable. This one is inspired by Lucy Neatby's Cables after Whiskey and adapted from knitty's Chaos little boy sweater. I love exploring the random. It's pretty challenging for me. This square is just plain silly, but it's one of Scott's favourites. He's always creating games with dice and little cards, so he really got it. I have taken statistics, but I am so not prepared to go into the probabilities of this game.

The Philospher's Wool Windows sweater has been resurected. I even had to rip it out and restart the little bit of sleeve I had finished. I think perhaps it was the hunt that was so exciting about this one. I'll feel closer to it as the colours start to speak. I'm using 2 circulars and having no trouble now. I was raised on dpns and fell in love with the magic loop. This is not travel knitting because of all the different balls of colours that need to be brought. I'll do it with TV viewing. We just finished watching the first season of Arrested Development. What a hoot. Also, this year, D is joining us as we watch all our Christmas videos. I love The Snowman!

Tonight I will bring the silk shawl. I may even finish it in these next two night shifts. It is an incidental knit for me and so has little insistence. Still, it would be nice to have and wear.

I have 2 sweaters for myself in the stash and 2 nephew sweaters which are now not due until next November and December. Did I even try to have #5's done this November? Probably not. If I can do another 3 or four this year, I'll be happy.

Emily is knitting for her friends. I know.