September wha???

I cannot believe it's September already. I absolutely LOVE fall, it's my favourite time of the year :) It has been awhile  since I've written a post so I thought I'd share my weekend. This past weekend, my friend Tammy, her girls, and I, went on a little drive to Okotoks, High River, and Black Diamond, all in Alberta and not too far from Calgary. We started out in High River. We went to a restaurant called Evelyn's Memory Lane Cafe. This restaurant was featured on The Food Network's, You Gotta Eat Here! 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6xy4_XKtac&feature=youtu.be

It was neat, sitting there in the old style seating

And there was a jukebox:

I ordered the roast chicken sandwich and carrot ginger soup:

The soup was too salty but the sandwich was delicious!

Then we did some driving, here are some pictures I took:

This was a mural on the side of the cafe

This motorcycle is completely made of wicker

These chair were really cool and really expensive

A storm rolled in, it rained and hailed but we drove through it.

A barn, a field, and the big huge sky

This mirror was in a bathroom at a store in Black Diamond, I thought it was funny :)

My week in review:

Last Saturday I went to a festival called "The Taste of Calgary". It was fun. There were lots of little booths/ tents that were serving all kinds of different food. You bought tickets and then each food item was a different amount of tickets. I tried pad thai and ate it before I thought to get a picture, but it was delicious! Then I tried perogies

They were so good!

Then there was the Tandoori Chicken Tikka....ummm not so much a fan :( Then there was:

the shortbread crusted keylime tart. Nom Nom Nom Nom! This was the most delicious thing!

The festival was held at Eau Claire Market which was right downtown Calgary. It's a really pretty spot right by the river.

I worked Monday and Tuesday night. Then on Wednesday night, I went to a Mexican restaurant with my friend Tammy and ladies from her church. It was nice to meet new people and the food was pretty good too.

View across the street from the Mexican restaurant

I have to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights this weekend.
Here is a picture that made me laugh when I saw the vehicle:

Seriously, there is a company that picks up poo? Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be thinking of my cousin Crystal and her fiancee Kurt as they get married on Saturday, wish I could be there!

Well, I'm a little behind on posts, so this one may be extra long. I had a week off of work, then I worked 2 days and am now off until Monday night. Hmmm...where to begin... Always with a butter pecan latte!

Nom Nom Nom Nom

I found a great Farmer's Market here, it's open 4 days of the week and it may even be a bit nicer than the market in Fredericton...I say that hesitantly of course!

My loot :)

Last Sunday, I went to the Calgary Corn Maze with my friend Tammy and her family. I had a blast, got a little nervous in the maze cause I thought we were lost, but it was fun and I'd go back again.

After the corn maze, I tried to go home, but the community next to mine was having a street festival. The community is called Marda Loop and the were having Marda Gras. The streets were blocked off, so I thought I'd check it out, it was near supper, so I naturally gravitated to the food trucks, haha.

Fries and Dolls was DELICIOUS! They sell gourmet french fries and are featured in one of the episodes of Eat Street, the tv show about food trucks. These fries were the best I've ever had. I thought it was cute how you ordered them, the small size was a B-cup and the larger size was a D-cup, haha.

Again Nom Nom Nom Nom! This is called The Fergie, it has cracked black pepper and vinegar, and I think pink sea salt.

I decided that I'd try my hand at making pickles, I didn't have enough onions so I had to go to the Farmer's market again, and came out with way more stuff than I went in for.

Mmmm, baby carrots, baby cucumbers, grape tomatoes, onions, cherries, apricots, kettle corn and a mini lemon cheesecake (don't judge!). I wonder if the kettle corn will be as good as Magzy's from the market? So, I tried to make pickles and here is the outcome:

Hopefully, they'll taste good :)

I went to Wal-Mart the other and day and saw this:

This is a nail spa by the checkouts at Wal-Mart. I mean seriously, would anyone think that this is a relaxing thing to do, go get your nails done at Wal-Mart, especially right in front of the checkouts, I couldn't think of a more un-relaxing environment.
I started doing the couch 2 5K program last week. I had started before I moved and finished week 3 but then I moved and got out of the habit of going and it took me a while to find a spot that wasn't so hilly to run. Anyway, I was doing week 2, day 1 today and came across this:

I thought it was pretty neat, it's a metal rope bridge with a wood floor. It wasn't so bad going across it with only one person on the bridge, but on the way back across there was me and 2 other people and the thing was bouncing and swaying so much that it kind of freaked me out!

Well, that's all I have for today, I may go to a festival tomorrow called The Taste of Calgary. Have a great weekend!

My Job

Well, since I'm sure some of you have been wondering, this is where I work:

Foothills Medical Centre, Main Building

      There are several buildings but I work in the main one. I float between the 10th and 11th floors. On the 10th floor, I work on the Stroke Unit, the Calgary Stroke Program in #2 in North America! On the 11th floor, I work in Clinical Neurosciences, so I work with neurology patients, and neurosurgical patients, it's very interesting and I'm practicing a lot of skills that I haven't had to use because I have been working rehabilitation and have now moved on to acute care.

     They have several parking lots and parking garages where staff can park. Unfortunately, there is a wait list of about 600, people so I'm taking the bus cause I'm not about to pay $13.00 per day to park in visitor parking. To get a parking pass here is $80-$100 depending on which parking lot/ garage you get put in to, so no one working in Fredericton at the hospital should complain about paying the $3.75 a pay or whatever it is!

     It's interesting here because LPN's and RN's each have their own patients, they also have Undergraduate Nurses working here and they too have their own patients. I just finished my buddy shifts and will start working on my own next Wednesday. Each person working is responsible for 2-4 patients, and overnight 5-7 patients. So this, in a nutshell, is where I work and what I'm doing.

My week in retrospect

Hmm...let's see, I worked 12 hour days last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I worked on the stroke unit these days. I had Monday and Tuesday off and just ran errands and cleaned my apartment. Tuesday night, I stayed at my friend Tammy's house because she had to get up and drive her husband to work early in the morning and they didn't want to wake their 2 little girls, so I stayed there so that the girls could sleep.

I worked 12 hour night shifts on Wednesday and Thursday. I worked on the neurosciences unit for these 2 shifts. It's very interesting and I'm learning a lot. The neurosciences unit is medical/ surgical, so I have been looking after patients who have brain injuries, tumor resections, hydrocephalus, subdural hematomas, etc. I had my first lumbar drain patient which was interesting. This unit also has a small subunit called the SMU which is a seizure monitoring unit.  I haven't been trained for there yet, they usually wait for 8 months to a year before they train new staff there. What they do is take the patients off of their medications and try to induce them to have a seizure so that they can see what area of the brain in affected.

Yesterday, I got off the night shift in the morning and slept til about 1pm. I met up with a friend from Bible school, Tina and we went out for an early supper. It was really nice to see her and the food was delicious too! I then came home and watched the Olympics for a bit trying to stay awake past 9pm (I am usually pretty much useless the day that I get off of the night shift).  This morning, I'm being lazy. I need to clean my apartment again and then I think I'm going to go to one of the Farmer's Markets. I love the farmer's market in Fredericton, we'll see how this one compares. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Tornado Warnings

Well, I really haven't had anything to write about until yesterday, I was faithfully watching the Olympics and all of a sudden the Alberta government interrupted the Olympics to issue a tornado warning for certain counties (I'm not sure what county I live in). It kind of made me a little nervous, something I have definitely never experienced before is a tornado. I was thinking that a tornado would never come through Calgary, which is didn't. But, the sky got dark, the wind started blowing, and there was a huge thunder and lightening storm. It poured and hailed.

View from my balcony

It's hard to tell from the picture, but the white is hail obviously.

It's Here, It's Here!!

It's here! My bed is FINALLY here!! She's just getting a bed now you ask yourself? I bought the bed 3 weeks ago, it was on back order and then I had to wait a week for delivery, but it's finally here...YAY! What have I been sleeping on, you may wonder? Well, I've been sleeping on none other than a deluxe twin air mattress, yes folks that's right, air mattress.

Excuse the messy bed, but it's difficult to make an air mattress

I thought the delivery guys would put the the bed frame together for me but...

This is how they left me :(

 

 Good thing I have my own wrenches, I put it together all by myself.

The finished product.

I can't wait until bedtime, fresh jammies, new sheet and new bed night! Woot! I was very excited as you can tell, 24 nights of sleeping on an air mattress has been long enough.
       Today is a day off for me, I didn't do a whole lot because I was waiting for the delivery guys. I did get a skinny butter pecan latte from Second Cup (nom nom nom nom) and spent the afternoon/ evening with my friend Tammy and her girls, I had a blast. We went to McDonald's and the girls played on the playground inside. I was reading the rules and it said parents could go in too. So, I went int to see what it was like and between me and the 2 little girls, I was the one who ended up with the bruises...SERIOUSLY! I bruise so easily.

Well, I'm going to try to stay on a roll with this blogging thing...we'll see. It's been absolutely beautiful here in Calgary but there are so many people and sooo much traffic. About 3 weeks ago, I went to the mountains and  it was absolutely beautiful there. I went to Canmore and had lunch and then drove back to the city, it was nice to get 'out of the crowd' so to speak :)

Main Street Canmore

Another picture of Main Street

My view while I had my lunch, it was quite nice

I couldn't believe that there was still some snow on the mountains, it was about 23 degree when I was there and the snow didn't seem too far away!

    Well, I really thought that I'd be a bit more faithful to blogging but life gets in the way sometimes I guess. I've been busy though! I left New Brunswick on Sunday, June 17.

Beautiful Magaguadavic Lake

My little Fiesta was packed to the gills:

     I drove to Kanata, Ontario and stayed there. From Kanata, I drove to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario where it poured and poured and poured. I also had a minor incident where I got locked out of my room in my ugly blue old man pjs and then had to walk down 3 flights and make the 5 minute trek to the front desk to get a new key, it was quite embarrassing!!!
     After Sault Ste. Marie, I drove to Thunder Bay, Ontario where it lived up to its name, the thunder and lightening was quite intense. I also stayed at a dive of a hotel, by far the worst on my trip out. From Thunder Bay, I drove to Virden, Manitoba, where I stayed at the nicest hotel, it was brand new.

From Virden, I drove to Calgary. I stopped in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to have lunch with Carolyn, a former co-worker from Stan Cassidy.

 When I first got to Calgary, I stayed at a hotel for a week and a bit while trying to find a place to live, I looked at a couple of dumps, I was going to get one of them, I told the guy that I really liked the place and that I wanted it but that I wanted to make the drive to my work first so I knew how far away I was, in the 15 minutes that I was gone he had not only rented it out but I was now number 2 on the waiting list. So I continued my search and found a better place. I have a cute little bachelor apartment with a huge balcony, it's quite nice...now I just need to finish furnishing it :)

Getting Ready

Well I started packing today. I didn't realize how much stuff I actually have! Only 19 days to go...and SO much to do. I`m excited to be going but I`m also really nervous about the move...getting settled, meeting people, new job, new co-workers, new place to live. Please pray for me as I start this new journey.