Administrative details

Today I am off from work and I had decided to do nothing today. However, I have spent the morning dealing with administrative details.
Do you ever find that simple tasks end up being complicated? Like today for instance, I called the billing company for our doctor to verify that our account, Ryan and our, accounts were paid in full. So, in my first call this was verified for both accounts. Then I spoke with Ryan and he said that we were actually charged 10 dollars more. So I call back and suddenly they can not give me information about Ryan's account. Interesting that I can pay for his account but they can't give me information. Needless to say, they told me they didn't know why I was charged the extra amount and would have to call the doctor's office directly. So, this company really was useless. Things that should be simple never seem to be.
When my parents were here we did some home projects. My mom gave me an African violet about a year and half ago and it was busting out of the pot. So we divided the plant into three different plants and replanted them. I am hoping that it will survive. I bought 2 Orchids about 3 weeks ago and they are doing quite nicely. I am enjoying my indoor gardening but I am getting excited about gardening outside. In the fall we took out an overgrown tree in preparation for a vegetable garden. When my parents visited we went to my local garden center and I am looking forward to the spring time plantings. My rose garden is sleeping right now, but I am anticipating the sunny days of summer.
My mom and I also made a wreath for our doors. They turned out pretty good. It is so easy to make your own wreaths, and it is so much more cheaper. We just used a grapevine wreath and attached ivy. I put an Easter bow on mine.
I can hardly believe Easter is almost here. I am working on Easter, as I have done for the last 4 years since I started nursing. I am having a Easter dinner on the Saturday before Easter with my sister's family and my parents. My sister and her family came last year and we did the whole Easter egg hunt with the kids. This year I invited my cousins from Ann Arbor. They just adopted a 1 year old girl from China. We are all looking forward to this weekend.
Hope everyone is having a great day.

Happy Birthday to my Sister

Tomorrow, February 24th, is my sister Pam's birthday. Since I am working tomorrow I am going to post my blog in Ode of my sister tonight, so she will get it tomorrow. My sister has become my best friend since we have grown older. I appreciate her friendship more than anything. I enjoy our daily talks, our shared laughter and fond memories that we are continuing to build. Thank you for being the best sister I could ask for. Happy Birthday! And I hope that you are feeling better (she has had the flu this week). Here are a couple of quotes that I found for you, and what you mean to me. Happy Birthday from Ryan and I.

"Chance made us Sisters, hearts made us friends." Unknown

"The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend."Cali Rae Turner

Sisters
This is for my sister, best friend and other half.
She is the one who sparked the flame of creativity in me.
So close, yet so far.
Together, yet apart.
We are sisters, body and soul,
Yet we are separate and alone.
Our bodies separated by land,
But nothing separates our hearts.
Even if our eyes cannot meet
We know each other's thoughts.
Forever sisters we shall be
Connected by something stronger than blood.
Never alone will we be As long as we have each other.
by Kristi Weisgerber

Sunshine on Snow

This morning the sun is shining on the snow and it looks quite pretty outside. A lot of my snow has melted, so hopefully spring is around the corner.
My parents hae been with us for the last couple of days which has been nice. We have gone shopping and got some great deals at Kohls. They have the best clearance racks -highly recommend it.
Anyways, just a quick update. Hope all is well.

Weight loss and Paczkis! ! !

Well, yesterday was Fat Tuesday and you would think that all of our patient's family's wanted to make us fat because in came boxes of Paczkis.

Now, I had never heard of these before I moved to Michigan but holy smokes these things are the thing to get and eat on Fat Tuesday. I mean where I grew up it was Pancake Tuesday but here it is Paczki Tuesday.

Paczki (pronounced Pounch-Key) are a polish pastry that is deep fried. I understand that the Polish Immigrants brought this to the Detroit area years ago. Due to the beginning of the Lenten season, all of the goods in one's pantry is basically thrown into this pastry. They have a filling that can be many different flavors, including apple, Bavarian cream, raspberry, prune, lemon.

The amount of calories you ask? Well, seeing that Ryan and I have been eating 1500 Calories a day, this is about one third of our allotted calories per day. Unbelievable, and some people eat more than one. They say it is about the same as a Quarter pounder with Cheese. I read yesterday that it was about 580 calories.

So, you are all wondering if I had the ability to not eat a Paczki yesterday. Well here is the story. Yesterday I was looking after this sweet lady who has been in the ICU for almost 3 weeks. So was very depressed because she had been there so long and her husband had brought in two boxes of these treats. I had told them that I had my husband on this strict diet, and therefore, I myself was on a diet. Well, they insisted that I had to try one of their Paczki's. They gave me the stat's like it was a Thoroughbred Paczki, the cream of the crop, the best of the best. And then they told me that I was the best nurse that had looked after her in her entire stay. So, how could I not have a taste of these treats. So, I cut it in half and boy it was good. I must admit that I probably ate an entire Paczki by the end of the day. They were calling me from the break room. So, I ate 580 calories of sweets yesterday. But, I made up for it in our healthy whole wheat pancakes with organic maple syrup. Only 250 Calories for dinner.

Now, did Ryan turn up the opportunity to enjoy a Paczki. YES he did. He has the best determination. Since starting this diet almost 2 weeks ago, he has not strayed at all. He has stayed under 1500 Calories per day, and he has lost about 10 pounds already! Isn't that great! I am so proud of him.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great Fat Tuesday and good luck with your Lenten journey for those who took it. I figure we have taken it because we aren't eating any sweets any more.

Words to live by. . .

Anyway
Martina McBride

You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach
and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

Chorus:
God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

This world’s gone crazy and it’s hard to believe that tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart,
for all the right reasons, and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love ‘em anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in
that tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway

I sing, I dream, I love, anyway

We went and saw Martina McBride at Christmas for her Christmas concert and this was her encore. I thought it was a great song and wanted to share it with you all. Hope that everyone is enjoying their Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining so beautiful here, it looks pretty on the snow.

The week in review

I didn't get a chance to write this week so here is a breakdown of a week in our home.

On Sunday, Ryan and I put together the table that we got from IKEA. You have to wonder why they can't just have the tables put together for you. It always seems like those "easy home construction projects" take a lot more time than expected. For the two of us, degree acquired people it took almost two hours! We had to take it apart a couple of times. Pretty embarrassing actually. And what is with the instructions? Some strange looking bubble man with just pictures, no words! I guess it is universal directions. Anyways, below is a picture of the table. I am really happy with how it did turn out. I am planning on going to change the decorations under the glass seasonally. Here is what I did right now, seeing that it was Valentine's Day and all.



Oh and here is a pic of our wonderful fire that roared all weekend. So nice, maybe it will come again this weekend.

We had quite a large snow fall this week. We got about 4-6 inches of snow starting Tuesday. The snow is so pretty - we are finally having a winter.

As you all know, Valentine's Day was Wednesday. This was in the middle of a 3 day stretch of work for me. Ryan and I had decided to celebrate Valentine's Day tonight. I am sooo excited, because we are going to my most favourite restaurant - the Melting Pot http://www.meltingpot.com/ This is a fondue restaurant and it has the best atmosphere ever! We will be there for about 2.5 hours as it takes about that long to have the food. We get three courses - Cheese, Oil, and Chocolate. It is pretty romantic with intimate tables, I just love it! There is something exciting about going out on a date. Even though Ryan and I don't have any children it is still exciting when you have a planned date night. This morning I went out to Kohl's and got myself a new outfit from the clearance racks. 15 dollars for a corduroy skirt and a wool sweater. I love Kohl's clearance Racks. I picked up a gift for Ryan and I still have to wrap it. To top it all off, Ryan is getting out of work today early, so he will be home at 3. The sun is shining it is so pretty today - it is a good day! Below are the flowers that Ryan gave me on Wednesday. They were up in our bedroom when I got home from work. Isn't he great.?

I hope that everyone else had a great Valentine's Day and a great week!

Ahhh Weekends

What a great weekend Ryan and I had. We really did nothing exciting. Ryan had to do some work from home this weekend, but all in all we had a relaxing and quiet weekend. We enjoyed our fire last night and today once we got home from church Ryan started the fire again and we have been enjoying it all day. Something about having a fire on which really warms your heart.
We are doing great on our low calorie, no cholesterol diet. We are working hard on trying new and healthy recipes. Today we had a homemade vegetable soup and tonight I made Stuffed chicken breasts with goat cheese and ricotta cheese. It sounds bad but it was only 235 calories per serving. I went to the library on Friday and picked up some low fat, low cholesterol cook books. They have been my lifesaver this weekend. Ryan has much more self control them me because I keep heading to my hidden sweet stash and he doesn't want any of it. I am so proud of him.
I am already looking forward to next weekend, hopefully it will be much of the same as this weekend.

Happy Saturday Night

Tonight is a good night. I am sitting here blogging in frount of the lovely orange flames of a fire inspired by my husband. You know that you are loved when you say that you are cold and your hubby jumps up to put on the tea kettle and then decides to build a fire. This is the first fire of the season for us. Our history of fire building is not, shall we say, successful. So tonight is wonderful, because our fire is roaring so lovely and orange with crackles and pops which make me so warm.
Hockey is on tonight. I feel cozy and happy in our lovely home. I am going to read my book tonight while Ryan relaxes with his hockey. Oh what a happy saturday night!

Healthy Lifestyles

Yesterday I went out to Meijer and blew my monthly budget for groceries. This was not my plan or my goal. Rather, I wanted to buy healthy food, and it seems that healthy food is expensive and does not achieve sale price status. We found out that Ryan's cholesterol is marginally elevated, enough to make some lifestyle changes. So for the next 6 months, we are going to suck it up and eat all those things that don't really appeal to us. That would include fish. I bought Salmon steaks - ugh, and I am not looking forward to that night. But I will smile and eat it. Last night I made Eggplant Parmigiana and it was pretty good. 0 Cholesterol, 2 grams of fat per serving and 150 calories per serving. Very healthy. I made it with tofu and it tasted pretty good.
I was wondering as I was reading all the labels in the grocery store yesterday why it is that all the fast, throw in the oven, fattening foods were on sale? Why wouldn't the companies that produce goods accredited with the American Heart Association for a healthy heart market their goods as a sale item? Is it that it is cheaper to buy unhealthy foods, easier to promote these quick meal- boxed goods to the general public? The spin off is that people may not realize is that you may have medical expenses in the future due to your choices made in the grocery store isle.
The other thing that is annoying is that healthy food choices are much harder to find in an American grocery store as compared to a Canadian grocery store. We found this out as soon as we moved here. We really miss Loblaws and their "Blue Label" line of foods. There is no such line here, rather you have to dig your way through the shelves reading all the labels before you buy. That is one thing I truly miss about Canada.
Anyways, if anyone has any good low fat, low cholesterol recipes send them my way as we would greatly appreciate it. As well as anything good to do with these Salmon steaks to hide the fishy taste??

The end of the journey

Yesterday I had one of those days that as a nurse you wish you didn't have to go through. Yesterday one of my patient's journey came to an abrupt end. Very unexpectedly one of my patient's passed away. It was very surreal because I was literally in his room joking with him one moment and the next moment he was in cardiac arrest. These are the events that as a nurse will leave an impact on your life.
A friend of mine just called me to tell me that her grandfather, who has been very sick, is in palliative/ hospice care. She doesn't expect him to make it through the night. Again, another end of the journey.
I know that at the end of life comes death. I probably see this more often than most because of my job. I see how people react differently to the end of life and I try to grow spiritually in reflection to these events. Yesterday's family was so strong and his wife said to me when we told her we had lost him "Its okay, because he is in heaven with his parents. He was ready to die". So courageous! I could only imagine her shock, but rather she was so strong in her faith that she was happy for the reunion her husband was having in Heaven. I had tears in my eyes many times yesterday with this family and I shared in their grief, but more than that they inspired me to strengthen my own faith.

Quiet

Ahhh. Today I am off from work after working the last three days. I have one day off and then back for more. I have been finding myself enjoying quietness more and more since we got back from Hawaii. Usually when I am home by myself I have the TV on, I guess as company, because I am usually doing something while it is on and not really paying attention. However, today I am just having a quiet day. I am looking forward to reading some magazines, calling my sister and mom, and maybe starting a new craft project. Ryan always wants me to take one day that I am off and just relax and spend some time doing non-housework stuff. I always find something to do, be it laundry, clean or cook, or even a make work project. So today is MY day, I am going to do nothing for the house and just have a nice quiet day.

Stories of Kauai

We were on the island of Kauai from January 17th to January 21st. We stayed at the Marriott Beach Club in Lihue.

We got up on the 17th, our anniversary, around 7am and drove back to the airport. We boarded a twin propeller plane for our "island hop" to Kauai. Being on such a small plane we were worried it would be rough, it was probably one of the smoothest flights we had all week. The flight was about 50 minutes and we got to see some of the different island landscapes from the sky, which was really cool.

When we got into Lihue in Kauai, we had decided that we were going to drive up to Waimea Canyon. This is the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". This was a very breath taking sight. The canyon measures 10 miles long, 1 mile wide, and more than 3,500-feet deep. It was carved thousands of years ago by rivers and floods that flowed from Mount Waialeale's summit.

We then drove back to Lihue to check into our hotel. Ryan had arranged for there to be a fruit and cheese platter and wine waiting for us since it was our anniversary. After some confusion, the tray did come and we sat on our balcony and enjoyed this treat. Ryan really surprised me as he had planned this weeks ago and he himself had forgotten about it. He then gave me a card and a t-shirt from Maui. We never give gifts to each other because we always go away on our anniversary so I was very surprised!

We then went out for a quick swim in the pool and for a hot tub. Here we managed to loose our hotel room key. We think it got lost in either the pool or the hot tub. So we had to get security to let us back into our room.

We then had a romantic dinner at a restaurant called Portifinos. Ryan had called and made reservations for a table that overlooked the water, as this restaurant was on the beach. And we had the best table in the house. The food was great, very delicious.

The next day we stayed at the hotel all day. We camped out on the beach and spent the day soaking up the sunshine. We went boogie boarding, read, swam and just enjoyed being together in paradise.

On Friday, we decided to go on another roadie. This time our destination was the Wailua falls and Poipu beach. We hit the falls first and it was really cool to see.

Then we headed off to Poipu beach as we had heard that there was good snorkeling at this beach. Either everyone was lying or we were in the wrong spot because the snorkeling was not good at all.

So, we headed back to our resort where we spent the afternoon doing much of the same, reading, boogie boarding, swimming and tanning. We had lunch on the beach and enjoyed watching the cruise ship leave.

That night we watched the sun set over the horizon. We were so completely relaxed by this time, as you can tell in the photos. Can we go back?!?!?

On Saturday, we decided that we were going to spend the day at the beach. Since all the beaches in Hawaii are public there were a lot more people out today. We ate breakfast on the beach and went for a early morning boogie board. We then "roasted like a turkey", as Ryan said for the morning. We went and had lunch and when we came back it was cloudy, and it looked like it was going to be cloudy for a while. The good thing about being on an island that you can go to the sunshine if the sunshine isn't where you are. So that is what we did, we jumped into the Mustang convertible and headed to the North shore, in search of sun and new sights.

Along the drive we saw some waterfalls, and a beach that had tunnelled into the mountain. We went as far as the highway would let us go. It only took like 1 hour and 1/2. It was a great drive and we did get back to the sunshine.

We then came back to our hotel and went out for our last dinner in Kauai. We went to Duke's upstairs and had a great dinner. We had a couple sing us a song called "Love and Honesty" which was so pretty. Ryan thought I was going to cry.

On Sunday, we had the entire day before our flight left at 6:30. So again, we spent the day on the beach. We really loved this resort. The beach was great, the pools were great. It was a great place to relax.

After much discussion, both Ryan and I think that our Hawaii trip was probably the best tropical trip that we have been on. The scenery was spectacular. We were able to just relax and spend time together. There is lots to see and do. We would recommend both Maui and Kauai for anyone looking for an all round fabulous trip.

Two more days on Maui

I am going to try to finish the stories of Maui in today's blog. We had such a wonderful time there that there seems to be so much to tell you about.

On our third day we spent the day at our resort, the Renaissance Resort on the beach. We got up early and headed down to the beach for the day. Once the sun rose over the mountains and shined on the beach we went snorkeling. Ryan had bought our own snorkel equipment before we had left so we could go snorkeling where ever we wanted without having to pay for rented equipment. Luckily there was snorkeling right on the beach of our resort. On that day though, we ended up having to cut our snorkeling short because there was the Pan-Am games going one. I guess these are games for which you go to for the next Olympic games. They were having a swimming race in the ocean and we had to get out of the way of the racers.

We then spent the rest of our day lounging on the beach, reading, swimming and Ryan went boogie boarding. Ryan loves to boogie board and he does so every time that we go south. It is so fun to watch him, he can spend hours catching waves.

We went up to our room at the end of our day and watched the sunset from our Lanai, which was really gorgeous.


I then had the craving for meat and potatoes for dinner. Where we were staying there was a row of resorts and they were all attached by a board walk. We walked down the board walk and headed towards another hotel that had a steak house. When we got there, the steak house was closed for renovations. So, we kept on going to a shopping district that had a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It sure was Yum-o!

The next day we got up and decided to take a "roadie". We had reservations for a Luau that night at the "Old Lahania Luau" in Lahania. This place was 45 minutes from our resort so we decided to spend a day at a beach by Lahania. The beach was called Kanapali beach and it was by far the best beach that we went to in Maui. The water was gorgeous, not too rough and they had the BEST snorkeling. This beach had a spot called the "black rock". At this black rock, which went out into the water there was a coral wall underneath the water which is where we snorkeled. You can see it in the picture below.

After we snorkeled for about an hour or so, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun. We saw whales in the horizon jumping as well as a pack of dolphins swimming just beyond the edge of the black rock. I bought some artwork at a kiosk on the beach, and talked to a man who was actually born and raised in Michigan, small world. We then had to get ready for our Luau, which meant getting changed at the beach. Both of us wanted to shower and get cleaned up some since we had spent the day in the salt water and laying in the sand. So we showered at one of those showers on the beach and got changed in a bathroom. Really classy but what can you do. We then hopped into our car and headed over to the town of Lahania. We had the top down, I was doing my hair and makeup and this is what we see...

This gecko was nuts! I was maybe more nuts than the gecko, but come on when this little guy is rockin' and rolling all over your windshield without a roof, you would freak out too. I had envisions of this gecko landing on my head, on my face, and so did Ryan. We had to pull over to make sure he was gone. Let just say that little guy can hold on when you are going 40 miles an hour!!!

We then went and had some cocktails at this restaurant that was right on the ocean which was so beautiful.

The Luau was really great. They cook a pig in a Imu, which is a oven in the ground. They unearth it and have a large buffet dinner. After dinner there are hula dancers that tell stories of the Hawaiian history. It was a really fun night, which made you really feel like you were in Hawaii.

After the Luau was over we headed back to our hotel and got our bags packed for our flight the next day. We were flying to our last destination Kauai the next morning.