On night shift and life

Night shift is kind of hard to describe. Unless you've worked in an industry that does night shifts of some flavour, you don't really know what it's like. So let me explain:

On Monday, I took the day pretty easy. I had Sally in childcare that afternoon and had an hour-long nap. When she got home, I had another hour-long nap with her. Then dinner late (7pm instead of the usual 6pm), changed and dressed with a coffee by 8:30pm for a 9pm start.

I have to take another meal to eat overnight. I tend to get a break around midnight, and express at that point as well, then another break around 3am. I eat an extra meal at midnight (what do you call that? It's not supper to me, but it's between dinner and breakfast so I don't know?) with a coffee as well. Then another snack at 3am, with a tea or something sweet. By this stage I've been awake going on 24 hours with only 2 hours of naps in there, and I'm using anything I can to stay focused and alert.

It's a strange time, those hours past about 11pm til about 6am. I don't usually feel tired per se, but am obviously fatigued. I have to focus on drinking water and not focusing on the clock too much. Time goes strangely without reminders of what time it is.

So 6am ish comes around and I'm sent home as there's not much else going on. I get home and eat breakfast. Then feed Sally and TheHusband takes her to a friend's house who then drops her to childcare for me to pick her up in the afternoon.

Have I mentioned how much I love my friends?

Then I wash my face and brush my teeth and go to bed by about 6:30am. Today I slept til 1pm with only a brief up/loo/drink moment. So only 4.5 hours of sleep. But as today is my "day off", which I use very loosely as it's really a sleep day after a night shift, not a day that I can do much in, I don't want to be anything other than tired because otherwise I won't sleep tonight and will be messed up for the next few days.

So that gives a small thumb sketch of how a night shift goes. If it's more than one in a row obviously, I would be napping and preparing mentally for another night. Night shifts are fine in short bursts and the HUGE fabulous point of this is that this is the LAST ONE that I have to do until October.

And no, I don't know what I'm doing next year and whether I'll have to do more of these. So many options, so many variables, so much but so little time as well.

Do you carry stamps in your wallet?

Ages ago, I was watching Dr Phil while writing an assignment and there was an article on it about stamps in your wallet. I found a summary elsewhere of it:

While describing conscientiousness he used an example of people who carry stamps with them in their wallet.  Dr. Phil then asked his audience how many people had stamps with them in their purse, approximately 10 people raised their hands and then reached into their purse to pull out their trusty sheet of stamps.  Dr. Phil was shocked that anybody would carry stamps with them, actually stating that he didn't understand why anybody would do such a thing. 

The Professor went on to explain that people who score very high in conscientiousness are the type of people that carry around stamps with them and almost always buy extra of things long before they run out of anything!  GUILTY!  I am totally guilty of both!  I proudly carry stamps around with me AND buy multiples of things long before they run out.  I can't for the life of me understand why people wouldn't carry a sheet of stamps in their wallet, its such a small item to have with you, besides what the heck do you do when you spontaneously need to mail something and don't have a stamp with you?!!!  I also can't understand why people actually allow themselves to run out of stuff without having a replacement. 

Isn't it so annoying to run out of something and have to wait to finish whatever you were doing until after you run to the store...heaven forbid it should be toilet paper!  Of course this could explain why I will have 4 extra shampoos, 15 bars of soap and 25 cans of rotel acquired before I leave Germany!  Admittedly, the lack of closets and pantry is definitely helping curb my desire to have too many extras of anything, because if its one thing that bothers me more than running out of something, its not having a place for that something to live!

So, do you have stamps in your wallet? TheHusband teases me because I do. I have stamps on hand and stamps in my wallet. They are old enough now that I've had to buy 5c stamps to keep using them, and then 10c stamps as well, as the price of postage went up.

I'm surprised that it says anything about me. I do a lot of those things and I didn't realise it was a personality test.

Not the royal wedding

I am sitting at home in silence because I cannot stomach watching the royal wedding. I am impressed that a wedding of that size was brought together so quickly - a friend of mine has just announced a save the date for 5.5 years' time! so they can save and get organised - but apart from that, I don't care. I also dislike the amount of attention for what should be a family affair, and am astounded at the hype around it for two people who are already in love, living together occassionally, and so forth, formalising their arrangement. I also don't give two hoots about whether she'll be queen, queen mother, king's wife or whatever.

Why yes, repulican here how did you pick?

So to celebrate something far more interesting and important, here is my favourite photo from my wedding day. Self-portrait, at the end of our photo shoot, freezing our legs off by that stage and keen for a spa, some cake and champagne, and our holiday to begin!

We eloped. We had a lovely holiday. It was cold. My dress was orange, not red as the picture implies.

Our rings are titanium but TheHusband damaged his between pallets at work, so I want to replace that with a simpler one sometime soon.

Our wedding was just one day of our lives together. We're coming up to having had 6 lovely years together, 2 married, 5 homes, 1 child and lots of laughs.

I get a bit teary when I hear of Christchurch and the damage to it, as it's a special magical place in my memory. We are really wanting to go back there sometime soon!

So happy wedding day to all who've had one, all who plan one, and all who love them. I hope that any couple marrying today is as happy as we are.

Orange bread! Or how to hide another vegetable in dinner

Our oven door exploded 3 weeks ago. AUGH it is the bane of my life at the moment.

I think I'll bake some... nope.
I want to make a slow cooked... nope.
I have leftover fruit so could whip up some... nope.

And so on.

I also got a fabulous pumpkin from a friend's yard on the weekend, and in true Samhain style to celebrate the harvest, I made damper with said pumpkin to share for lunch tomorrow.

Ah hah! No, I didn't bake it. Or make a fire. I used the Bessemer my lovely sister gave us for a wedding gift.

First time ever using it to "bake" in and it worked a treat. It is sheer tiredness that is keeping me from eating the whole thing RIGHTNOW with butter and a hot cup of tea.

Pumpkin damper
Not too sweet, not too savoury. Sadly it is a bit "a pinch of this" recipe but I hope you can follow along.

Ingredients
1/4 of a pumpkin - about 600g
2 and a bit cups of plain flour, converted into self raising flour
A big pinch of cinnamon
About half that of ginger
1/4C of cream
1/2C milk
Pinch of salt
A small palmful of sugar

Ugh when it's written out like that it looks really weird. But I cook by feel and sound so that's how it's written.

Anyways - cut the pumpkin skin off and then cut it up, steam it til it's soft, cool and then squish down with a fork. You don't want a puree but squished bits of pumpkin. Well, I don't anyway - I like a bit of texture. Add the rest of the ingredients and mash together with a fork. The "bit" of flour is because you need to work it with your hands a little, and it should be a fairly damp dough. Sometimes you'll need a bit more flour than other times. It depends on the pumpkin and the flour and the cream/milk and the phase of the moon. But the dough shouldn't be overworked, or too dry. Damp.

Heh that's the "damp" part of damper perhaps?

Ahem.

Form it up into a cob and put it on a floured baking tray in a 200C oven. Or in the Bessemer if you have one, on a low heat for about 1/2 an hour. It kind of steams rather than bakes, in the Bessemer, so it won't sound hollow when it's done but it'll taste just as good.

*****

So this is an awesome way to get more pumpkin into someone, and it goes well with tomato soup or based meals, any soup especially pumpkin, sweet things as well as it's a bit sweet. I put a bit of paprika in it sometimes too, or chilli. It goes well with Mexican food too.

Contemplating my navel

Where do you escape to? Where do you escape from? I do so into my shower. Or cup of tea. Depending on the day and whether Sally is around, I can sometimes have a shower alone or a hot cup of tea.

Rarely both in one day though.

Oh - someone asked me what to do with a Sally-sized childerbeast when in the shower? If her being in the shower isn't an option, such as when shaving or if she has already bathed, I stick her in the bath with a LOT of toys. The shower abutts the bath so she can see me and I can see her and it's a deep bath so she can't get out.

For now, because she's worked out how to stand up and sit down. And with cruising that means that climbing is not far off.

Anyways, so the shower. I escape from the world into a warm, white-noise dominated, pleasant and reassuring. I think we all need a place to go, for silence and comfort, for consolation or a little private jig when something goes right. In the out-of-focus latte-coloured tiled and glass box, I can stand and be whatever I am that day. In my shower, I only have to deal with what's within arm's reach. Soap, shampoo, tiles, water - all have a place, and a purpose, and an honesty. Running water does not lie to me. My navel is open for gazing in.

In recent years, perhaps the last 5 (4 in particular) the shower has been my epiphany, my muse. In the bathroom my focus on life changes from a ways over there, to just a few feet, when I take off my glasses and my clothes and wait for the hot water to run through. In the daylight hours, or the bright lights of the ceiling extractor fan, I am forced to stand, literally and figuratively, naked, and contemplate myself. Truly see myself for that moment. To look myself in the eye and assess how I'm doing. In the shower, feeling spray on my shoulder and neck, I realise things that I otherwise would not or could not face. Often just a small thing, like why I have hoarding tendancies (That was this morning's epiphany. It's so that I have something to look forward to. I'll unpack that one in a later post too I think).

I have made some amazing realisations and decisions in the shower. Some not so exciting or profound, of course, but the daily ritual of revealing my 31 year old body and seeing how things change or how I'm feeling, is a distancing but at the same time connecting ritual. I see myself for who and what I am, in the warm light of the heat lamps or the cool sunlight on an Autumnal morning. In that moment, before I shower and dry and put on moisturiser and choose a face from the jar and gird my loins for the day, I look at myself - confident, genuine, concerned, upset, lost, found. I can lie to the world for the rest of the day but to myself, in the mirror, in the slightly-steamy moments I cannot lie to myself. I can dress up or down, choose funky shoes or sexy underwear, interesting socks or a different scarg but I can't hide, in my eyes and face, that which a careful observer might see. My skin my fluctuate, my hair misbehave, my physical form improve or decline, my bright points and dark nooks blend into the greynes of normality and reality, but in the end I cannot hide my soul nor my light under a bushel.