Growing

 It's been a nearly a year since my hubby set up my garden.

 The growth that I have seen has been incredible,

 and  has made me see 

 how much my garden has mirrored my journey in nursing.

Things start out slow.

Small things are both exciting 

and 

intimidating.

Then things start to take shape.

You begin to see amazing things in places you never imagined.

Things begin to blossom.

You find beauty in the everyday

and 

appreciate what you took for granted before.

The smallest, mundane things 

become the most satisfying rewards.

Enjoy the journey,

find wonder in the small things,

and

reap all the rewards no matter how small.

Grow your garden.

Practical Nurse

Whats wrong with this picture?

  I know what you're thinking, what the heck is a roll of Coban doing in the garden? It doesn't belong there. Well how many times has this happened to you, you get home and begin unloading your scrub pockets only to find you have a brought home something from work, a roll of tape, a couple alcohol swabs, or a roll of coban. We all do it, and nine time out of ten those sundry items end up hanging around in a drawer or even worse being tossed out.  We don't mean to do it, but it happens.

  I hate wasting anything, so I have a collection of odd things that happen to ride home with me. Don't get me wrong I will keep things like rolls of tape and alcohol in my nursing bag and take them back with me, but this roll of coban was almost done and there wasn't even enough to wrap an arm with. So instead of throwing it out I decided to give it a new purpose.

Did you know Coban is awesome in the garden?

  Yep, I use it to stake my peas instead of string or those expensive twist ties. I like the coban because it is wider and you have less chance of it accidentally snapping the tender shoots you are trying to train.  It's also WAY easier to use, stretch, wrap and leave it. I happen to cut it in half because I didn't need all that much width, as you can see it does an awesome job.

Anyone have any great tips on what to do with odd nursing 

items that they would like to share?

  

Garden Time

  I had rather hoped to be called off on Saturday, no such luck there. While the ICU has had a low census the rest of the hospital is doing just fine, meaning they floated the extras upstairs. I got to stay on the unit and was given a new admit who had come just before shift change. 


  She had presented with flank pain and was a totally sweet little firecracker of a lady, who was more than happy to chat with all the nurses and her family were just dolls. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd have a quiet night, no such luck. My little firecracker went into some funky cardiac rhythms and her blood pressure began to sink. Lucky for all of us our favorite Doc was on that night and came right down. My little fire cracker ended up having septic shock and landed herself on a couple of drips with a central line. So much for a quiet night.


  After I said my good byes and the family sweetly thanked me for my help through the night I decided it was time to do something about MY blood pressure.  So over the last couple of days Mr. has been driving me around to nursery's and hauling dirt around for me.

  It might not look like much but this is what I have nicknamed my Zen Garden.  Mr. dug this out for me, laid down the stones and added a couple bags of dirt so that I could have a semi raised garden last year. Unfortunately we made some big errors in the crops we planted. This year I did a little more research and settled on some more shade friendly plants. 

 So far I have lettuce which was transplanted from a neighbors garden, beans, peas, spinach and mesculan mix planted. All apparently need less than 5 hours sunlight, which is great because this plot is a touch shady.

My mesculan mix is already coming in nicely

And the peas are working their way up too!

  I think the birds ate all my spinach seeds though, so I re-sowed those and am waiting for my beans to make an appearance. I also learned that if you just plant the little white ends of your green onions, you get more green onions! Who knew?

  I also decided that I would like the humming birds in the area to hang out more in my backyard. But in order for that to happen some flowers might be necessary.

  I potted up a bunch of flowers and settled them into a big bare patch that I haven't been able to get anything to grow in. Nice upside is that it hides all that bare dirt now!

Just for a little fun I added this sign.

Does this constitute talking to your plants?