2/25/2015

I woke up very tired this morning. Luckily I have an hour long train ride to get to work so I slept on the train. I was still a bit tired when I got in but with all the cafés to choose from I grabbed a coffee and an eclair and everything was better. 

The schedule was very back loaded today. I didn't have any patients between 9am and 3pm but then only had half an hour off between 3 and 8pm. 

By the time I got the train at 8:30 I was very hungry. Damien met me in the city and we went to the night market for dinner. Greek, Mexican, Donut balls and a potato on a stick was all I needed to cure my problems. 

I have a guest coming this Sunday so tonight's project was cleaning the bathroom. It's amazing what 30 minutes of effort will do for you.  

2/24/2015

In Altona today. I was by myself but there wasn't too much work so I got almost all of it done. It was a pretty paperwork heavy day which is always exciting when the paperwork doesn't go as I want it to. I was pretty tired when I finished at 4:30. I was going to go home and take a nap but instead I grilled dinner and vacuumed. 

2/23/2015

I had a full day at the office. 9 patients which is the most I've seen in heathmont in one day so far. When I am seeing more than 11 in a day I get a higher rate so I'm getting close to that. When I finished at 7:45 I scurried out the door and home for wine, cheese, and freshly picked apples. 

2/22/2015

White night counts as Sunday since I started at about 4am. The past 2 years I have done white night by myself and met up with various friends at different points in the evening. This year I did the whole thing with Damien. We did most of it on bikes which is by far the best way to get around. In all we ended up seeing 35 of the 75 exhibits between 4am when we arrived at 7am when it finished. We were a bit disappointed that a few things closed up before we got there but were happy that we avoided all the long lines. We were moving a bit slowly at first so we really needed to race at the end to see the last few on our list. 

The highlights were:

Dancing light up skeletons.

The real life Audii advertisement

A cirque de soleil turtle operated by 3 people. 

Glowing lilies on the Yarra

Dragons that spurted fire.

Jazz at the forum.

St. Paul's organ

Glowing wings in the aboriginal exhibit.

Once we were kicked out of the last exhibit at 7am we went for a coffee on Lygon street. We were struggling to find anything that was open and stumbled into Brunetti's-a coffee and pastry heaven. Whilst I got the drinks and food Damien got the pastries. He went a bit crazy and we had to take a couple home. 

During the day Sunday Damien and I went to the Moonee ponds festival. It doesn't sound very interesting but they had a food swap, crafts, ice cream, Hungarian snacks, and Turkish breads. It was way too much food. We took half of that home too. Other than that just chores and shopping. 

2/21/2015

I woke up early but very rested. I packed quickly and got on the road. I had plans to go to breakfast at lakes entrance before getting the car back by 10am. The  drive back was beautiful. I don't know that you can really see from the picture but there was a cloud neatly sitting on the road. Not generalised fog but a distinct cloud that I drove through. It was light and fluffy and not hard to see through.

  I also wanted to go on a quick walk in that area. I accidentally missed the turn off so I skipped the walk, which was probably smart because I was a tad tight on time. I had been looking forward to breakfast at the coffee lab since my last trip. 

The wet chai was amazing, 

the raspberry white chocolate muffin was good, but the actual breakfast was quite disappointing.

 It looked nice but didn't taste very good. I left half of it. 

I got back to bairnsdale just in the nick of time. Only to find that the employee for budget didn't come in today so I could have been there at any time really. Once I dropped off the car I walked just over 3km to an orchard. I was hoping for raspberries and instead got plums, apples, and quinces. 

Then I walked the 4km to the station. On my way there I poked my head into a nursery expecting flowers, when I saw rocking chairs and baby cribs I quickly turned around. 

The ride back was pretty good. I was hoping for a bit of a nap but had chatty neighbors for most of the ride which kept me from sleeping. 

I got home, did a bit of housework and took a nap....until 3:30am when I got up to go to white night. Which I will tell you all about tomorrow!!!

2/20/2015

PThe commute to work was amazing. With 15 seconds to get from bed to work I was even able to go home for lunch. I had a full schedule of 14 patients and 8hours. I think that it is going really well, and the management are really pleased. When I finished working I went out to honeymoon bay and the point hicks lighthouse. It was a very bumpy 40km drive. Then I parked at the gate and ran the 2.2km up to the lighthouse. That was when I realised that I had brought 2 right running shoes and no left ones. So I jogged up to the lighthouse in flip flops. 

Honeymoon bay was pretty but as I have become an isolated beach expert, I would have to say that it isn't my favourite. It was kinda smelly. Although the neighbouring inlet where I had parked was misty, smelled lovely and was absolutely beautiful. 

I missed the sign when I go to the light house and went up to the lighthouse keeper's residence and was a bit disappointed. When I was about to leave, I found the path that I should have taken and got the beautiful view I had come for. Now point hick's lighthouse is a completely self sufficient facility. The grow their own food and make their own energy. 

I drove back and made it to the bursh nursing centre just before dark. I made pasta, listened to a bit of night vale and went to bed early.

 

2/19/2015

I'm working up in Cann River this weekend. So I got up early and packed my bag before work. Which was probably not a good idea because as I found out mid trip I forgot my toothbrush and packed 2 right shoes and no left :/

The work day itself was pretty good. We had extra staff in order to attend all the meetings. Despite our efforts the facility manager isn't very good at her job and gets her way by avoiding situations where there might be disagreement. It is much easier to refuse our ideas via email than it is to sit down and talk about it at the prearranged meeting. I left work just in time to run to the station and meet Damo for dinner before getting zucchini fries and catching the train to bairnsdale. I had a nice nap on the train and then I was good to go when I got to Bairnsdale and picked up the car. It worked like charm. Someone picked up the car for me and dropped the keys off with the conductor. My car organiser was wonderful, she organised an upgrade for me because the car I was supposed to get was very dirty. Easy as can be. I drove the 2 hours up to the bush nursing center and was happily in bed by 12:45. 

2/18/2015

My days in Heathmont are getting busier. I had several old patients and a few new ones today. On my lunch break I did quite a bit of work on getting my US license. Dealing with the FCCPT has made me realise just how nice it is to do Australian governmental paperwork. I am currently at the road block that the FCCPT wants paper copies of all my documents, however all of the universities I have attended are trying to go paperless so you are no longer able to request forms via post. Robert Morris is even refusing to print paper transcripts and is insisting on electronic delivery which the FCCPT refuses to accept. If only they would talk to each other instead of me. I had my first late night this evening with a patient in my last treatment slot. I got to Newmarket at 9:30 where Damien took me out for laksa...mmmm...so pretty much a great day. 

2/17/2015

I was at the nursing home in Altona today. It was a strange day. All of the usuals were not in the mood for physiotherapy but the ones that aren't normally hard to convince were. Tuesday was climbing day this week. I was really hungry after work so I grabbed first dinner on my way to climbing. We had a big group last night, the 5 regulars, plus 2 newbies, and 2 that sometimes join. It was a good time except that some people got hungry faster than others so my last climb was a bit rushed. The 9 of us went to dinner at OPPA a fast food Korean place that we had found about a month ago. It was pretty delicious. Maybe next time I will be brave and get a food bucket. So far I have been conservative and gotten smaller things. 

2/16/2015

Monday is a long day but it went relatively quickly. I treated 6 patients and discussed treatment with my mentor. I was so busy that I didn't even have time to finish my notes before running off to dinner. We had dinner at my friend Cat's now in case you're wondering that is different from Kat. These are friends that I know through Damien and they live right next to where I work :) so I finished work and went over to their place for a bit of food and a game of ticket to ride. We played the board game once and the card game twice. We left with what we thought was just enough time to make the last train home. We were wrong. The train from Heathmont was running very slow so we missed our connection by 10 minutes. We were able to get a train to the bottom of the hill and bike home just before midnight. After making lunch and pulling out stuff for tomorrow it was 1am before I made it to bed. Coffee in the morning I think.

2/13/2015-2/16/2015

Friday was an exciting day at work. I worked at the nursing home in Melton South. It is quite far away. I have to take a regional train to get there but there are not many stops so I am able to get there relatively quickly. I was the only physiotherapist there and I wasn't familiar with many of the residents so it took me a bit of time to do everything but generally it was a productive day. After work on Friday I went into the city and bought jewelry to go with my work clothes. I feel like I have been looking a bit plain. I also got a new bucket from Daiso for more composting. 

Saturday I work early I need to get the 6:34 train in order to make it to work by 8. I accidentally got my train times wrong so that when the train flew past me whilst I was walking to the station I was stuck with a $70 cab ride to work. Luckily being a physiotherapist pays better than being a sports trainer so it was worth the cost. After work I went out for lunch with physiotherapy friends. We were going to go shopping but lunch ran late and I was out of time. 2 stores in Damien met us and we went to the cricket game. It is the first round of the cricket World Cup and Australia smashed England 341 to 231. I still don't like cricket but the game was better than expected. For dinner we went to meatball. It is so tasty! Everything I imagined and more. Meatballs of every variety including quinoa and accompaniments such as buns, salad, pasta, and mashed potato. We got brisket sliders, pasta with chicken meatballs, and prime rib on quinoa salad. It was delicious. There were ice cream balls with cookies but I was much to full. On the way home I saw a very cool lite show dance performance. I don't think I fully understood it but there were 6 girls that walked through hanging balls which lit up and played music when they touched them. Cool! 

Sunday I got up early, went for a run picked up groceries and the Internet. Came home and set up the Internet, went to the market, got more food and breakfast. There is a guy who uses market supplies to make fabulous breakfasts unfortunately he is really good at adding secret ingredients that I'm allergic to so my poached egg on polenta brioche came with lentils. That was fine I just took a bit or two of the polenta and then traded it to Damien for a his market fresh burger. In the afternoon we went to the Greek festival where we had liquid nitrogen ice cream which is really really good but seems to melt faster than standard ice cream especially in the heat. Damo's friend Ying had a birthday party at escape hut at 4. We were split into groups of 3 and got 1 hour to solve a mystery to get out of the room. It was pretty cool but I was expecting a bit more. Our group got stuck on the last clue because of poor handwriting and took 1hour and 1 minute to finish. Not too bad though. 

Damien and I had double dinner plans. With Ying and also with a friend of Damo's from Adelaide. Somehow we got out of both events and ended up having tea for dinner whilst doing chores since we were so full from lunch. 

2/12/2015

I almost made my train this morning but I forgot the laptop and had to go back for it so had to get the later one. I was 5mimutes late but the other physiotherapist was later than me so it wasn't a problem. 

After work I tried to do some errands before climbing but it was a complete failure. One store was closed and the other wasn't where I thought it was. Oops! So I'll have to go shopping after work tomorrow. 

I climbed pretty well considering I did an ultra marathon last weekend. We did dinner at grill'd and got zucchini fries! Perfect! 

2/11/2015

Work is starting to pick up at the private practice in heathmont. I had patients for 3 of my 10 hour shift. That may not seem like much, and it isn't but by the time I do notes and treatment plans and clinical reasoning forms, I don't have that much extra time in the day. I also spent about an hour making follow up calls so that took some time too. With no 7:30 patient I was home by 9pm. Damien made me dinner but he was having a late work night too, so I helped him finish it which gave us time to play a couple games of ticket to ride. I won both of them. 

Other up dates: plants are doing well, I used both basil and lemongrass from the garden in the salad. The seeds aren't flourishing quite as much but they are a bit harder. 

I started a compost bin a few weeks ago. It is just a basic microbio one. No worms or anything. It is much cleaner and easier than I had imagined. The first one is full so it needs to sit and stew for a week. I need to pick up a new container tonight to start another. 

2/10/2015

To make up for my long day yesterday I had a short day today. I found a short cut to work. If I bike 5km to a nearby station, I can leave at 7:15 instead of 6:30 to make it to work by 8am. Win! Unfortunately, the trains were being unreliable and the one I needed was canceled and the one after was delayed. In the morning we had 3 physios which made it quite efficient plus I ran an exercise class so we saw a large number of residents early on. I had made it through all the work for the day and a bit extra by 3:30 so I took my independent learning home to finish. I actually made it home by 5pm which is crazy and did a bunch of house work. Now 1 room upstairs and 1 room downstairs no longer look like a bomb went off! 

2/9/2015

I had a really long day of work today. I worked 9am to 9:30pm add in my train rides and I'm out of the house 7:30-11:15. Ugh! So I treated 2 patients and did a bit of paperwork. Then we had a staff meeting. Excitingly I found another Therapist who likes Lymphoedema! Yay!!!

Anyway straight home and to sleep! 

2/6/2015-2/8/2015

First of all Happy Birthday to my beautiful little sisters! You guys are the best. 

This weekend I did the Cradle Mountain Run. It is an encompassing 3 day weekend event. On Friday morning Damien and I flew to Launceston,Tasmania. We were picked up at the airport by one of the other runners. He took us into town and we went shopping for our last minute race supplies(food). At noon the race bus pick us as well as about 40 other runners up to go to Cradle mountain. After a bathroom and fudge stop, we got in at about 5pm. We quickly threw our bags in our room before the race briefing at the lodge where we had a bag check and dinner. A little bit of race packing and then early to bed. 

The 80km race across the overland track started at 6am so we were up at 5 to get our bags to the bus and back to the start by 5:50. The first 10km is the hardest but then it doesn't really get easier. By the second hut  we realised that we needed to speed up. We pushed the next 23km into the first check point. We needed to make it by noon and we made it by 11:30 since my Garmin was a bit off. After than we slowed down a bit. All of the adrenalin of getting to the check point started to wear off and I was starting to feel all the bumps and scrapes I had picked up in the morning. We slowed down considerable and by the time we made it to Kia ora we realised that we were not going to make the second cut-off. We started out taking our time but soon the sweepers started prodding us to go faster. We had missed the cut off but we still had a time schedule to keep. I tried my hardest but it was rough under foot and I was still feeling exhausted. We made it to Bert Nicoles hut about 40 minutes slower than intended but after that I picked it up. One of the support staff took my pack on the last leg and we made the last 11km in less than an hour and a half. We were so happy to see the ferry at Narcissis that we didn't care that we were pulling out 17km early. There were a few support staff that we needed to wait for so we had about 40 minutes at Narcissis. When I went to get up I was so stiff that I needed a strong hand up and about 10 minutes to make it to the peir. When we got back ate a pizza then slowly made my way the 200m to the cabin. After a shower I feel right asleep at about 8:30.

Sunday we were at the bus at 6:50 to get to the awards ceremony. No awards for people who don't finish :( We took a group photo which I'm sure that I will see soon. Then grabbed the bus back to the airport and were home at 5pm. We played a bit of ticket to ride interspersed with house work.

63km cradle mountain run. Not a bad weekend. 

2/3/2015

Werribee day. I was very productive out at the old person's home. We saw every patient, I went to a meeting, I completed all my paperwork and I did an evaluation. Not too bad. After work it grabbed a snack from the snag stand then headed off to climbing. I had another good week of climbing. I think that the stress of working is making me a better climber. For dinner we tried a new Korean place. This one specialises in snack bowls and cute things. It was pretty good. Less impressive than Darac (the normal Korean place) but cool to try. 

2/3/2015

Werribee day. I was very productive out at the old person's home. We saw every patient, I went to a meeting, I completed all my paperwork and I did an evaluation. Not too bad. After work it grabbed a snack from the snag stand then headed off to climbing. I had another good week of climbing. I think that the stress of working is making me a better climber. For dinner we tried a new Korean place. This one specialises in snack bowls and cute things. It was pretty good. Less impressive than Darac (the normal Korean place) but cool to try. 

2/1/2015

Over the weekend my schedule was all messed up. 

I worked Saturday morning so I needed to be up and on the train at 6:58.

I had a walk in patient with a headache who I was able to help. She responded really well to treatment and seemed to like me. In the afternoon I napped. The. I woke up and cooked dinner whilst watching the Asian World Cup Soccer. Then I took another nap. Then....

Damien and I met Dan and did "ride the night" an 80km community bike ride around Melbourne that went from midnight to 6am. It was rainy and cold and the rest stops were extremely disappointing but the company was fantastic. We finished and got our free bagel at 6am. Then went home to go to sleep.

Sunday Damien and I went out to breakfast and then went shopping for house supplies. 

In the evening I used all of the purchases to organise the house somewhat. 

I also found instructions for making an indoor, odor free compost bin so I'm trying that out. 

Monday I didn't blog because I have made a habit of blogging on the train and I drove to work instead so that I would be able to go to a Super Bowl party at Ange's house after work. 

The Super Bowl party was lovely and everyone enjoyed my buffalo chicken dip.