Monday, March 25, 2013

Love My Blog

I do love my blog, well I may not be showing it at present as I am AWOL more than I am present but hey who is counting or checking?

Anyway, why I love my blog?
I am currently going through my picture storage programme on the computer. This programme allows me to store my pictures in date order, I can tag the picture with when it was taken and also who is in the picture.
This means when I have a folder for 'Ben May 2006', I can click on this folder and it will show me all pictures that have Ben in it taken in May 2006.
Ok this means some of the pictures have multiple tags if all of us are in the picture but it makes scrap booking much easier when looking for pictures of people around the same time frame.

However, when we changed programmes we had some pictures that had the wrong date on them, we remember having a period of time when the camera was saying the wrong date and we couldn't get it to change to the correct one, I think this might have been just before we replaced it.
This means that we have pictures of Alex that say they were taken on Jan 6, 2005.
No worries there you may say....apart from the fact Alex was not born until June 2005! So looks really weird when viewing in date order to suddenly have Jan 2005 come up with Alex walking along the street in a picture and him as a newborn in the next one!

This is where the "I love my blog" part comes in....I noticed that some of the pictures I was trying to redate had had the name altered, thus meaning I must have labelled them to upload to the blog, so I skipped back through the archives and there are the pictures in a blog post at the correct date.
So my life has just been made easier, as it is easy to relabel pictures when the proof is right in front of you on the computer screen.

Man I love my blog sometimes!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Finally...

After 6 weeks of nothing, and most of New Zealand declaring 'drought' status we have

RAIN

and I don't think there is anyone in New Zealand who is currently complaining or getting annoyed at this change in weather!
We have been very lucky to have had some gorgeous days these last 6 weeks and some lovely temperatures, we have just sadly been missing some wet stuff to help everything stay green and well supplied.
We may not get much, and we definitely do not want it too quickly but the little that we are getting is having a small effect and filling water tanks a little and giving some of the ground a welcoming splash.

Now where did I put that umbrella??

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Everyday......

Life goes on.....
everyday and on each and every one of those days I think about blogging and what I can write and then the day slips on by and I have sadly got nowhere near the computer!
Ok I lie a little, I have got real close to the computer but there has been so much else to achieve that blogging has not been on the agenda! Even my Face Book posts have dwindled done to bare essentials.

Work takes over
my life at present, even though 1 of my days during the week has now become a volunteer day, suddenly I am now out of the house 5 days a week.
Last year it was 4 and man do I miss that 1 day! Please come back day, all is forgiven, I will use you wisely....well to an extent I am using you wisely now so maybe I shouldn't complain so!

My 2 jobs
are calling me daily and I am finally, after 3 weeks (reason why I have not been around!) I have managed to get into some sort of pattern working at 2 different jobs, however as they are both based at the hopsital I am finding that there is a little cross over in the roles, mainly from one direction rather than both.

2 days a week I am a nurse in a fixed department. I have to be there at a set time, I finish at a set time and people rely on me to be there. We work as a team and I am scheduled to be in a certain place on the days I am rostered, I have 3 days that I am available to them and they get to choose which 2 days of the 3 they want me to work.

My 2nd role is as a tutor to the student nurses on clinical placement at the hospital. I have 5 wards that I cover and when I have a student on placement on one of my wards then it is my responsibility to meet with these students weekly to ensure they are getting everything out of their time in the clinical setting.
They do work shifts so getting to meet with them can sometimes be a small problem. I have 1 set day a week when I am free to go and find them and I have 1 other day a week that changes depending on which day my other role has chosen to give me off.

This is where the challenge can enter life as at present I have 7 students to see each week and even though I have Mondays, they are not always rostered to work on a Monday so then I have to fit all 7 1 hour meetings into 1 day!

Believe me
this does not work sometimes, (due to their rosters) and so there are times when I will finish my nurse role at 5pm and then switch hats to my tutor role and go and find a student who is working a late shift and meet with them then.
All meetings are pre planned with the student weekly according to their roster but sometimes it takes a little juggling on my part, especially if they are on night shift!!

So the first rotation of students is just coming to an end next week, I will have been through the complete cycle once and I will have a greater understanding of what is required from each meeting and how they can be fine tuned. Which given the fact that at some stage for a 2 week period when there is a cross over of rotations of students going out on placement I will end up with 12 to see in 1 week.

But despite everything
I am loving my life so far this year. It is keeping me on my toes, it is offering challenges daily and I am excited to be going to work, which given the last 5 months of last year is something I am grateful for.