Done.

I'm done.  That's it.  Night shift over.  Homeward bound.

There is a slight sense of euphoria after finishing a long night shift.  You know you heading home to a warm bed and a good sleep.  After this one especially, when I knew I was heading home for two weeks of holidays!

Combined with a beautiful dawn, I was practically floating.

I was really glad I had taken my wheat pack to work, heated it up before I left and had it ready in the car to warm my hands after being out and taking these photos, brrrr!

Now I have a to-do list as long as my arm before Symposium.  It includes ambitious things like defrost the freezer (I'll be embarrassed to let the babysitter open it).  We'll see how far I get through it.  Hopefully I'll have some time to update here, but if not - you know where I'll be and how much fun I'll be having!

Quiet Moments

I'm off to night duty tonight.  People often comment on how hard doing night shifts must be.  And they are right - it sucks to lever my body out of bed at 10.30 pm after an hour or so of snoozing and head off to work.  And yes, you are pretty tired the next day.  But I also privately savour night duty.  It's quiet, there is often not much to do and my children aren't with me.

That last one sounds a bit mean, but anyone who's been a parent knows how precious some quiet, kid-free time can be!  Mental rest and recuperation.

And I figure I deserve a little mental R and R.  We took six little kids down to Whangarei (an hours drive) yesterday to play LaserTag for my son's eighth birthday.  (I have to let you know that I bet the pants off my husband - just saying!).  After we had played LaserTag and had a snack, we found the best playground near the Marina, next to Reyburn House.  If you are ever in the area, take a look.  There is a huge rope climbing frame and lots of whirling, twirling equipment that made me a bit motion sick just looking at them, but the kids loved it.

If it's busy at work, it's quite satisfying.  Time goes fast and I know that the work I do as a midwife is important and meaningful.  If it's quiet, then I can get my list of jobs done uninterrupted and then settle down to some serious quilting.  Occasionally I'll read a book - sometimes I can almost finish a book in a night, but usually I go 'blurry' at about 4 am.

I've been stitching a few artist trading cards in my recent quiet moments.  I put together a couple of little bags with some scraps, threads, bits and pieces and needles and it's interesting to see what comes together.  Then when I get home to my machine, I can back them and edge stitch them to finish.

So now I'm off to bed for my precious couple of hours.  Think of me when you go to bed tonight - I'll just be getting up!

Morning Mist

This was my view this morning as I drove home from night duty.  Our valley, shrouded in mist.  It's one of the things I enjoy about night duty.  I get to see a fair few dawns and I think they are the most beautiful time of day.

Last night I used the wee small hours to finish my Midwifery Standards Review report and today I posted it off.  It's one of the reasons I've been a little quiet over the last week.  And Hubby made it home safe and sound - he's been towing a barge up from Picton.  Being a single parent is a busy life.

Midwifery Standards Review is process every midwife in New Zealand goes through bi-annually.  This is the description from the New Zealand College of Midwives website:


Midwifery Standards Review has been developed to provide a systematic process that enables the midwife, whatever her practice setting, to reflect on her midwifery practice with two reviewers - one midwife colleague and one consumer of midwifery services, each of whom has been specifically educated to do this work for the NZCOM.


The process assists each midwife to reflect on her annual practice by giving her the opportunity to consider statistical data. Depending on how she works, this can be her own midwifery outcomes or those from the maternity services in which she works.


Feedback from women for whom she provides midwifery care is considered, and feedback from midwifery colleagues can also be sought.


The process is educative, robust, supportive and challenging. It enables midwives to consider their professional development goals by integrating learning from their own midwifery experience as well as the contribution and challenges provided by the reviewers.


By participating in Midwifery Standards Review, a midwife demonstrates her commitment to her own ongoing professional development.


So I've been busily writing, reflecting, and reviewing myself.  Now I've sent my reports away to the reviewers to examine so they can get a handle on what questions they would like to ask me and in two weeks time I'll sit down with them for the official review.

I also sewed the last two seams on my Old Maid's Puzzle quilt.  But I'm pretty sure it needs a border so I can't declare it finished yet.  No photos yet sorry as by the time I slept, then picked up kidlets etc the light wasn't so great.

And this weekend, Hubby is working back all the brownie points he used up by gadding off for a week and is giving me two days to do as I like ;)  I'll see if I can't produce something blogworthy by the the end of it!  Hope you have a great weekend too.

How many projects do you have on the go?

Sorry, my photography isn't the greatest, but I wasn't really up to running around finding the perfect shot yesterday.  Feeling better today though.

So here's what I got up to on the weekend.  My big blue and white quilt made an appearance - I finished putting the borders together (not attached yet) and started the applique on one of them.  I'm using machine buttonhole stitch on raw edge fused fabric so it doesn't take too long once you have everything in place.  The trickiest bit is laying out and stitching the bias strip so that it's smooth and even.

I finished the background of a quilt I'm making for a friend's little girl.  This started off with the one pink Dove in the Window block I made for a block game we had for our guild.  My husband kindly pointed out that 'there are lots of big blank spots'.  Don't worry, darling, I'll be filling them in with pretty appliques of birds, butterflies and flowers!

And I appliqued all the signature blocks onto the back of the 21st quilt and it's now pin basted and ready for quilting.  Next decision - how to quilt it.  I'm thinking a simple diagonal grid as that's fairly 'masculine' and if I start to free-motion I'm inclined to flowers, spirals and 'girly' patterns.

Last but not least, I used my new pink rotary cutter (how opportune that my old one gave up the ghost after six years of hard labour just as Olfa brought out their pink cutter to support breast cancer research) and cut a whole quilts worth of Old Maid's Puzzle blocks.  I'm calling this my night duty quilt as I wanted something simple that I could just sit and chain piece on night duty.  I'll keep you updated as I go.

And Julia - I stayed in a little kitchen cabin which was $60 a night winter rates.

In The Still of the Night....

....I quilt!! As an employed midwife, I work night-shift sometimes. That means 11pm till 7am I am at the maternity ward, whether there are women here or not. And I am on by myself (being a small, rural unit, we haven't much call for loads of staff). So it can get kinda lonely and just a tad BORING! Once the menial checklist tasks are done, and I've cleaned out a drawer or done something equally as industrious, I break out my sewing machine and get to it.

I used to feel a little odd. I mean, shouldn't I be working or something? What if the phone rang? But then I figured nobody would look at me funny if I was reading my book and I can jump up from my sewing machine just as fast as I can put a book down. So now I have no qualms about it.

And I get sooooo much done. Having two littles at home (sir aged 4 and madam aged 1), my quilting happens all too infrequently for my liking. Here at the hospital (I'm on night duty right now, yawn!!) I can solidly quilt for as long as I like and not get interrupted by food, toilet duties, fights..............and I get PAID!

Ok, so sometimes this place is a madhouse. Postnatal rooms full, one labour room in full swing and another lady coming in!! And then I work my little (little? who am I kidding!) butt off. But sure as eggs, if I DON'T bring in some sewing, it will be a very, very quiet night.