Wednesday Night Rant

It's that time of the fortnight again and I'm at work on my allnighter, my second last shift before going on holiday. I came on to find a very stressed and flustered casual who had a rant about the day she'd had and then as she was leaving told me that one of the ladies had not had anything to eat and had gone to bed without putting pj's on because she had been aggressive earlier in the afternoon and the casuals didn't want to risk going near her incase it set her off. I am extreamly ticked off about this as apart from anything else it is a breach of Duty of Care. Its fair enough not to ask someone to the dinner table when they aren't safe to be around but at the very least she should have been taken something to eat in her room. She wasn't even displaying behaviour by dinner time! I had to send the incident report to my supervisor and manager as the staff that were here didn't know how to use the email, so I included a note about the client having been left in her room all evening with nothing to eat. They can do with the information as they see fit. Meanwhile I have a plate of food ready incase she wakes up during the night, but she usually sleeps through.

I can't wait to finish my shift on Saturday, I swapped from my regular 8 - 3.30 shift on Friday, which I find really hard to get up for as my sleep cycle is still out of wack from tonight, to a 12 - 8pm shift on Saturday, which gives me a sleep-in, an extra 30mins work and Saturday rates. Also fits in with the boys schedule better than my Friday shift. So a winner on all counts, and after that I'm off work until the 4th of July! On Sunday I'll be heading up to mum's to leave the cats with her, coming back Monday afternoon and then Tuesday flying to Townsville via Brisneyland. Can't wait!

This week is an exersize in using up the perishables before going away. I mentioned in my last post that I got some lovely fresh meat and seafood from the Vic Market. On Sunday night I looked through my recipe books and picked out a few I wanted to make, then on tuesday bought everything I needed. Sunday night we had salmon cutlets grilled with soysauce and served with a rice pilau. Absolutely beautiful! Today I made Trinidadian lamb curry, which is lamb marinated in lime juice, fresh coriander, chilli, garlic, cumin and curry powder, then slow cooked with tomatoes and onion until really tender, served with basmati rice and sambal (sliced banana tossed in lemon juice and dessicated coconut). Tomorrow night Chris will be taking over the kitchen with a rice meatball bake and veges. Friday lunch will be chilli calamari (half made with lime juice, half with lemon to use up the halves left over from today. Fresh coriander in that recipe too so should use that up without any trouble), and Monday night good ol' steaks and roast veges. The nights we haven't planned to cook either we won't both be home, or in Saturday's case will be finishing work too late to cook. We should have plenty of leftovers to go through on those nights, we already have some of tonights curry in the fridge, which I think will be one of those things that improves with time.

Since we have all this beautiful fresh food, I've been making an effort to eat well in general this week. There is fruit and unpopped popcorn there for snacking, and I made pumpkin scones today because the hunk of pumpkin I got from the market was way too big to use up in main meals. I haven't bought any processed junk this week, and I'm not getting any take-away if I can help it. I prefer fresh food anyway when I have the time to cook, so its not like its a hardship. Chris was tempted by Maccas on the way to the station after work tonight just for the sake of getting out of the cold, but resisted. I want to see how big a difference cutting out the processed stuff makes to how we feel, I suspect it plays a big part. I imagine we'll be eating out alot while on holiday so just as well to start fresh. Unfortunetly It's much harder to eat well on the other week of my set roster because I have four 3-10pm shifts in a row, so I don't have any illusions about keeping up the healthy eating.


Anyway, I'm going to go do stuff, I'll read over this tomorrow some time to make sure it makes a kind of sense other than crazed early morning sense.