a quilty post

As some of you remember from this post I revealed the quilt tops. Well, I'm having particular difficult with the boys top:



Well, not exactly the top but the backing. I'm having a REAL hard time finding yardage for the backing, I'm not opposed to piecing it at all, in fact that was my plan all along. I've decided to use some solids and here's my question, I want to use Moda Bella Solids, does anyone know which solids match the Arcadia line? I'm particularly interested in the browns and oranges.

Thanks!

hitting home

In my time away I've been real busy with school and clinicals. This weekend I put in 24 hrs of ride time, got 8 calls which isn't bad at all considering 20 hours of 104 of ride time so far were spent holding down the recliners at the station.

This weekend was just weird. Lots of weird calls, lots of weird outcomes, just weird. There is no other way to describe it. Today we had a call that really hit home with me. I had been in her shoes a couple times before and it's like a switch was flipped. Normally I kinda keep low key with the patients and their families as the medics I ride with take over that part, I just basically start the assessments and get histories from them. I talk to them during the transport, I try to calm them down, and sometimes just lend a hand to hold. The medic in the back takes the jump seat (which is behind the patients head for the non EMS folk) and I'm usually on the bench or the CPR seat which are on the sides of the ambulance. I'm fairly inexperienced as an EMT having gone straight from EMT school to paramedic school without working in the field but today with this one patient I felt like I'd been doing this for years.

I talked to her, I told her my experiences, what to expect, how things work, how to stay safe, how to get a fresh start, and most of all how to escape. She was terrified and her vitals showed it. I sat by her side the entire way to the hospital, totally forgot there was a medic in back with us, just talked to her, hopefully helped to ease her fears of the whirlwind that is about to come in the next few days. I didn't do much for her medically other than take her vitals and give her some ice but by the time we got to the hospital her vitals fell into the normal range and she was more at ease about what's to come. Got her transferred to the ED staff and I wished her good luck and gave her a hug, I hope she follows through on everything and gets a fresh start. We're only with our patients for a short time, hardly enough to make a difference, I can only wish that my story gave her some hope. I really do wish her all the best.

waste of my time

I volunteered to be a victim for the T/Th paramedic classes PHTLS class tonite. We were to be all moulaged and made up to look like real victims. That didn't happen. There were 5 of us from my class that participated because it counted for some ER time that we were going to have to do. Plus it's a preview of what we can expect at the PHTLS when we take it.

For starters, it was fairly unorganized. No one knew where we were going or what we were doing. Only some people had assignments prior to the class but of course nothing was concrete. Secondly, I let them use my car for rapid extrication and the students ripped the shit outta my seat when they jammed a back board too far under the 'patient'. It already had a small rip (it's a 1991, the leather is dry) but they made it about 5 times larger. I knew it was a possibility of some damage to arise but that just frosts my cake that they made it significantly worse than what it was. The cars actually belong to people who drive them on a daily basis, they're not junk yard cars. Lastly, one of the proctors brought along about 10-12 of his HIGH SCHOOL EMT-B students. Some of them were fine but there were a few that were obnoxious. I happened to be in this guys group during the trauma scenarios teaching station and he said he was going to give me a scenario to play victim but never did, even after I reminded him several times. He had 3 of his students play victims and 1 person from my class.

If his excuse was that they needed cars there were plenty of people willing to have their cars used for the rapid extrication part. I find it really rude that he brought along so many students who won't take PHTLS for a good length of time to come if ever and that he gave priority of playing victims and scenarios to his students. They didn't really get in the way but it's a school nite and they lived at least 45mins to an hour away, things were just wrapping up about. They acted very clique-ish at times and a few of them thought they were tough shit because of where they were.

In the end, I wound up with a severely damaged front seat and got to do absolutely nothing that I signed up for, I would've much rather stayed home and did homework.

why I think Chicago should NOT host the Olympics

I have been against Chicago getting the games since they first tossed out the idea of putting in a bid. Why you ask? Read on.

Size, Chicago is a large city, but not large enough to host the games. I know all Olympic games have some facilities and events that are not in the immediate vicinity of the games however there is talk about staging these events as much as 90 mins away, add traffic into that and it could easily double, throw an accident on those roads into the mix, it could triple or quadruple. That brings me to my next point, traffic.

Chicago cannot handle it's rush hour traffic very well, people are still going to need to get to work during the games so mix regular traffic with event traffic and you're going nowhere fast. Let's not forget that an accident on ANY major roadway here will snarl traffic something fierce. I'll throw parking into this too, our city garages are either over priced or jam packed. I try to go downtown with the kids on a weekend and we either leave at 8am to get to the cheap garages and wait til everything opens or we're stuck going at the time we need to and paying ridiculous amounts for parking. Street parking is at a minimum as well, a lot of residents in the city rely on street parking when they're home, I predict a lot of pissed off people if their spots are taken by game goers. Plus our roads suck, they're some of the worst in the country.

Politics. Chicago and Cook County are perhaps the most crooked political places in the country. Do your research or watch the news, I don't need to go into detail here.

Lack of planning. Mayor Daley would like you to believe that he has everything all planned out and everything is sunshine and roses. He shut down a hospital that served the low income residents of our city to make way for an Olympic Village. He'll tell you otherwise but the timing of its closing is really suspect and especially how quickly it closed.

Public transit. Cabbies in this city have NO respect for pedestrians or other traffic, I can only imagine it getting worse. The CTA and Metra services are great but can barely handle the daily ridership on heavy volume days where people leave cars at home for whatever reason. Chicago doesn't have enough time to fix this if they started last year.

Finances. Tax payers will get stuck with a bill, mark.my.word. Anytime Mayor Daley or Todd Stroger promises the tax payers won't be burdened, we always are.

Does it have a potential to be profitable for the city? Possibly. Does it have an even greater potential to be a complete cluster fuck? I'm willing to put money on it.

Chicago is a great city, I love leaving my house and seeing the Sears Tower (NO, it will never be the Willis Tower, ever.) as I'm driving down the road. Our city offers so much, I think it could offer so much more if we didn't get the games.

caramel in a can

So I've heard things about turning sweetened condensed milk into caramel, while it's still in the can. I googled my little heart out and found times ranging from 2-4 hours so I did a little experiment on the rainy afternoon we had here in the Chicago area. First I went to Jewel, they were all out of their store brand and I refused to pay $2.59 a can for something that may or may not work so I headed off to Aldi and the $1.39 price tag for an experiment was easier to deal with. Yes, I'm cheap, get over it!

The basic instructions are that you boil the can in a water bath for a specified amount of time then allow to cool and when you open it radiates sunshine and does that little, "oahhhhh" sound like you've struck gold.

I first came across the link on 2 peas and decided my ass couldn't be left out of the widening party which is what sparked my little experiment.

The results? OMGWTFBBQ?! This is like the holy grail of all that is right with the world!

The 2 hour was the best one for pouring, this one is the perfect consistency for drizzling over ice cream, dipping, or even to pour in some coffee. Lighter in color.

The 3 hour is what I call the "all-purpose" version. It's still got a nice drizzle to it but it's a little thicker so you can decorate a plate with it, drizzle it on top of a dessert, use as a filling for chocolate candies, or dipping. Typical caramel color.

The 4 hour one is the one I'm on the fence about. I didn't care for it, it tasted a little burned however after adding some vanilla it was better, needs a little more vanilla than the other two to get rid of the burned taste. This one is a lot thicker than the 2 hour one and would be great for pies or cake fillings. Not for drizzling. Color is darker.

I tried each one with and without vanilla. I preferred them all with the vanilla added however the 2 hour one had the best 'naked' taste to it.

So, from L-R we have the 2 hour, 3 hour, and 4 hour.



**PLEASE TAKE NOTE** When you are boiling these you MUST keep a watchful eye on the water level, take a peek every 30-45 mins, it evaporates quicker than you think. If the water drops below the level of the top of the can it could explode. And no, I'm not responsible if you blow up cans caramel in your kitchen. Mines messy enough without having to clean yours! :p


Wanna freebie? Here are download links to the instructions and some labels:

Instructions
Labels

comparative anatomy of brains

Click to enlarge :)


*chuckle*

forever in our hearts

I remember 9/11/01 like it was yesterday. I was a senior in high school and was in my 3rd period class which ironically enough was Current Events. My high school had something called the musical minute which is where a minute of music from the radio plays during the last minute of passing period telling you to haul ass to class. My 2nd period class was gym so there was no hurry to get to the locker room and as I was listening to the musical minute the DJ on the radio said very casually there have been reports of a plane hitting one of the WTC towers in NYC. My thoughts were wow, that sucks, thinking it was a small plane with engine trouble.

Our classes were 45 minutes long, by the time I made it to my 3rd period class it was just in time to see the 2nd plane strike the other tower. The rest of the day all the TVs in the school were on and regular lesson plans were put aside. Classmates that had family members who were pilots were hysterical, those with family living and working in NYC were panicked, but everyone remained in a state of shock. The juniors and seniors were allowed to leave for lunch each day but not many did, myself included.

Later that day I had to work. I was a waitress at Steak n Shake. I was the only waitress, of the 4 that were scheduled to work, that came in. It turned out to be a good money day, nice and steady, the mood was very somber and for a full restaurant it was eerily quiet. My manager that nite gave all the employees a free meal and when it was quiet the 5 of us that were working that nite all sat down and ate dinner.

When I got home I fell straight to sleep and waking up the next day was very odd. It seemed so surreal, like waking up from a dream but in reality it was anything but. We had no clue what this meant for our country, we were still reeling from the events the day before. After school and tennis the day after 9/11 me a few friends all went out found a spot in the grass to lay and we talked about how we felt. There were no planes in the sky and that's when it really started sinking in the magnitude of the prior days events. We were close to 2 large airports and 2 smaller airports as well as a little municipal airport, so eerily quiet without the hum of a planes engine.

I will never forget. Thank you is simply not enough to all the men and women who have died for our freedom. I have nothing but respect for the military men and women who serve and protect our country. My sisters boyfriend is in Iraq now and we all want him to come home safe.




I'd like to dedicate this post to Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins. He was a year younger than me in high school and was always the life of the party. I didn't know him too well but other friends did, he gave his life in the fight for our country. Photo from this article.