A reality check

Hi there. It has been a while since I have last blogged. I really don't know where the time is going. Since early Feb I have been fighting off my "on-clock work" head/chest cold. You do have to remember that in Calgary you can have change of seasons within ONE day. I had a lot on my plate with my 2 jobs (full time at the Foothills and about 12 hours a week at Tom Baker Cancer Centre) plus my church duties so I got myself run down. Aside from this viral cold I got, the other two that has been hitting Calgary is mono and strept throat. Well, beginning of March on top of my head/chest cold I got my first case of Strept throat - definitely not fun. But hey - drugs are great!! Just finished my penicillin this morning. This is the best I have felt since Feb so you can say I am happy.

I just completed my month of training 3 co-workers on Day Procedure/Day Surgery coding. They are now cross-trained in 2 disciplines (Emergency and DP charts). It was a definite learning experience for me. Just as they were learning something new, I was able to learn a few new things too. That is one of the perks of training someone, your own skills get dusted off as your own thought process has to change. For some reason I can remember codes, so once I know the codes that don't change, I just manually enter them. With training you have to teach them the pathway of how you start looking for the appropriate code - you are essentially re-training your own brain as you put yourself into their shoes. Having notes to share with them help as well and they seemed to appreciate them too. With now everyone in our outpatient coding area trained in those two disciplines the question that came up was is their a rotation schedule so you can maintain both skills learned. With the assistance of my Coding tech - we worked on the schedule Friday - she presented to them - and they all like it. Needlesstosay, I was very happy with that. At the hospital we have work on concurrent (present day) charts and since we work on an Apr 1 to Mar 31 fiscal year, we will not be able to code our April 1 data until we can add the changes to the computer. So working again with the Coding tech, I suggested something we used to do in Thunder Bay when we were overlapping fiscal years. Well, my director and coding manager liked the idea as well - photocopy and write the diagnoses and procedures on the face sheet so it will be so much easier to enter into the computer once everything is updated and you are not spending alot of time photocopying. So Friday was a good day showing me that if you can make a suggestion contributing to your office that it might be warmly received and not always shot down.

My other reality check came in renovations to the house. Hard to believe that it will be almost a year that I have moved into my house. I have been doing phone calling to get estimates, to get an idea of what the costs are to build a deck (which I am hoping can sub as a storage area as my backyard is quite small compared to my Thunder Bay home) and to finish my basement. The first guy gave me a rough total estimate of $40,000-$50,000 for both projects. Okay, ALL blinders were off the eyes now. WOW! I gave him my house plans and more of an idea of what I was looking at and my priorities (like my deck) and he will be getting back to me to give me a better idea cost wise. The second guy I found on handycanadian.com and as I was explaining that the bathroom I would like to have a shower instead of a bath like I had in TB - his reply - hey I am from Current River. Another shocker! I laughed and replied I am from Northwood - so here in Calgary I find another person from Thunder Bay. Seems like it is not uncommon to find more and more people coming from Northwestern Ontario now living in Calgary. Anyway, his estimate was much lower ($25,000 to $30,000) and more what I had originally thought. I just returned a call for someone to come Wednesday after work to get an estimate. I realize I am known to some to be impulsive in my purchases (my car) or actions (my move to Calgary), I am taking this purchase slower and looking at all options and don't take the first estimate and that's all. I am hoping I am learning from my past a bit.

Tonight, my dad arrives with his girlfriend (this will be the first time I will be meeting her), so as you can imagine I am a bit nervous (maybe keep me in your thoughts that things go well for us). They are here until Thursday morning when they head back to TB. Monday night, myself along with the ladies of my church will be presenting my dad with the t-shirt quilts we have been working on since the beginning of January (don't worry I will add the photos of the finish projects on the blog). It has been a great experience for me and felt that I have made special friendships with these ladies as we chatted and shared while doing the quilts. While I am at work during the day, my dad will be working through the boxes and belongings that are in my basement. If anyone has been the TV show - Clean Sweep - he will have his Keep, Sale and Toss piles. He will be taking as much of his Keep stuff into his car back to TB, so my basement might be emptying out a bit come Thursday morning.

Hope my family and friends who read this blog, are having a good day. Thank you for your love and friendships too.

First quilt almost done!!!

Here is Agnes and I holding up the smaller quilt (7 panels wide).
Definitely wide enough to fit a queen size bed. One of the more popular
t-shirts the ladies like was the Mickey Mouse one (a Florida marathon).
It has been neat seeing it all develop from a pile of shirts to a quilt.

The Quilting Bees

With the size of the t-shirt quilts, you now need a team of two when sewing. Here are
Sheryl sewing with Elsie helping her guide the material through the sewing machine.

Sheryl and Elsie giving me a pose.

Linda and Evelyn (foreground) are busy setting up our next project - banners for the Sanctuary.
They got the letters cut out for our Easter banners. They are going to look great. In the back is Brenda
working on the other quilt. I helped her guide it through her sewing machine.

My Little Sierra

Sierra came up to the sanctuary of the church where we were doing our quilting.
Here she is wearing her dad's sunglasses.
She is just so precious and knows how to play it for the camera.
Love ya Sierra!!!

Update

Hi everyone. Hope everyone is having a good week so far. It's the weekend, need I say more!!

Even though I have put some entries on the blog, I just thought I would update you on what's been going on here. I guess the big change so far this year, is that I am now working two jobs. I am still working at the Foothills during the day full time. I am enjoying the family like feeling of all the coders and this week I started a new position of Day Surgery trainer. This month will be busy as each training time is in 2-week blocks and I am training 3 coders plus have a student for 2 days so there will be some overlapping- the first week showing all the different clinics at FMC and the second week is to see how well I did the training and how much they understand (I check all their charts that week). Annie has been great - she is my genie pig - glad I only have the one coder for my first time out. I am looking forward to this time of sharing and learning - for me the training provides learning for myself too. Coding and abstracting charts - with new procedures especially, we are constantly learning. Thankfully I now work for a hospital that is proactive in providing opportunities to attend educational sessions.

My second job is in the evenings 2-3 weekday shifts for 4-5 hours. As we move forward in technology so does the move towards a paperless record. I am working at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre as a scanner. I am scanning records that are not already linked to their computer system, so doctors and nurses are able to access the patient's information without having to call our department for the chart. It is provide continuing care for the patient in a timely matter too. Some of the gals I am working with also work with me during the day so it is like "old home week" at times. I am enjoying the change and looking ahead, this is providing me "a foot in the door" if any opportunities come up.

By summer ends, I will probably be able to tell you the different routes I can take to Three Hills, Alberta. The reason I say this my friends Amanda, Amy and Sara and their families will have moved up there by then. I have been spoiled having them so close in Chestermere - selfishly I did not want to move, but I am happy for them though. And really - Three Hills is only a hour and change drive away - people in Southern Ontario do that daily to just get to work. On the topic of travels, I do have some mini travels planned - April at Easter weekend I am going to Montreal to see all the relatives (both sides of the family) and to see Il Divo (it was my Christmas gift for my mom, her brother and his wife and myself) which I can't wait to see and hear. They are also easy on the eyes too (HAHA)!! In May, my girlfriend from TB is coming for a week and we are driving from Calgary to Jasper and back. Looking forward to the time together and to see all the beauty of the Rockies (Columbia Icefield Glaciers too). In July I will be heading to TB for a week to celebrate my mom's 65th birthday. My brother Bruce will be flying up so we can celebrate as a family. Of course, I will be able to visit with some of my friends too.

This week, though I have received some sad news. On Tuesday, I found out that my friend's sister inlaw passed away suddenly. My friend, Annette lives in Germany so on Thursday I met her at the airport for coffee during her layover. A side note on this - Annette's husband, Al and I have known each other back in the day of my Dorion summers. This coffee meeting was the first time I have actually met Annette even though we have been writing/emailing each other for almost 15 years! When I got home that night, I received an email saying that a lady from my hometown church passed away. Joan has known me since I was a young teenager - their son Mark and I were not only classmates but we were swimming teammates from our Thunderbolts years. I also worked with her husband Murray as his financial assistance at First Presbyterian. So during those "quick meetings" before they left for holidays actually turned into a couple of hour visits over tea. She was a wonderful, giving lady and we will be sadly missed by all who knew her.

Well, I have to close as I am meeting with the Youth pastor and his wife for breakfast to discuss Sunday school and all that goes with that. I was actually up until after 1am (early this morning) preparing things for the meeting - hoping to have a nap this afternoon as the ladies of my church are hosting a Chocolate, Karoke and PJ Night at the church. Sounds like a sugar rush of a night! Take care family and friends. Miss and love you all!

I'm Exhausted!!!

After all the pinning and sewing, we found Sheryl taking a breather on the quilt. She got her 40-winks and then we put her back to work again. The work never ends!

We have been doing these quilts since the beginning of January. As a newcomer to the Ladies Quilting group, really didn't know what to expect and with my little knowledge of sewing let alone quilting I didn't know how well it would go. Well, let me tell you this. There are so many little things that help the sewers - cutting out the material, ironing out the materials, ripping out stitches, pinning, and cutting the loose thread after the sewing has been completed. On top of the actual work - you also gain friendships. The one thing we have noticed since January - since many people are working on this one project - a bond has been created, there isn't an hour that goes by that laughter isn't a part of it. And like I said before friendships - it has been a cool experience for me to be a part of. So I guess I should thank my dad in providing this quilting project for us as that is how I became to be involved at the CCF Quilting Night - how much fun it has been for me. Thank you ladies - it has been great getting to know you all!!

It's coming together

Here I am asking Sheryl how to pin everything together properly. Though a picture was not taken of me doing it, I ended up lying on my stomach pinning the materials together as sitting on my knees after awhile hurts. Hey - we got the job done - despite our different methods.

This is what the quilt is coming to look like. This quilt is my dad's personal quilt. One tshirt had shown all the cities he had ran in for his first 50 marathons. A photo of his great nieces and great nephew. Also there is a photo of my sister from her track and field trials for the ParaOlympic Games in 1992 (she ended up representing Canada at those games in the backstroke and freestyle races in the pool)

Here Sheryl is looking for any loose pins as Evelyn and Linda look on.

Sheryl and Evelyn

Sheryl

Evelyn

Here are two more ladies working on the quilt. We have sewn all the panels together into one huge quilt. The next stage of the game is pinning the t-shirts to the batting and back of the quilt to make sewing easier. The bottom picture shows Sheryl and Evelyn getting right in there on their hands and knees pinning away.

Brenda hard at work

It was another Monday night at church with the quilting ladies. We are just all feeling great on how well this t-shirt quilts are coming together. Some of the leaders of the Pioneer club that are at the church at the same time have enjoyed seeing them being made as well. Here is Brenda sewing the panels altogether to the batting and backing of the quilt. It can be a tad tricky as not all the tshirts squares at not the same size so stitching them is creative I am sure. Thank goodness for sewing machines with a great needle foot thingabobble (sorry forgot the technicial term but I know Brenda loves having it attached to her sewing machine). A little trivia for you - see that blue stool, well that is actually Brenda's old highchair! How cool is that!