I'll try to condense things ( Read more... )

On December 11th I had proper surgery to place a new peritoneal dialysis line. I woke up in recovery to hear the PD nurse telling the recovery nurse "the last one wasn't even in her peritoneal cavity". ARGH!!! The new line works just fine. Had to wait at least 6 weeks for it to heal before starting to train to use the machine at home. In the ( Read more... )

So the reason I didn't post at Christmas last year is simply that life kind of blew up. Mark held my 40th birthday party Jauary 3rd, 2014. One of my nephews coughed in my face, twice, and I developed one of the worst flu's I've ever had. The doctor sent me for blood work and noticed that my kidney function had dropped from 96 to 42%. I started ( Read more... )

Greetings from Montreal, Quebec, where we've been docked for 3 days. There have been major delays due to ice and extreme cold. We were originally supposed to be back to Hamilton on the 18th, and haven't made it there yet! We might get to go into the locks tomorrow, and it takes about 4 days to get to Hamilton from here (normally it's 36 hrs). Once ( Read more... )

traveling_storm asked a few questions about what it takes to feed a shipful of people. I love my job. It's a captive audience who usually appreciate my efforts. I have my "days" where things don't go well. This is the start of my 4th season. On the tankers I was cooking by myself, but on the bulk ships I also had a 2nd cook as we had a crew of about 23 ( ( Read more... )

Time for the Christmassy post. Well, it will get more Christmassy in a bit ( Read more... )

We had an open house for New Year's Eve - 19 people showed up overall. It was nice to see our neighbours from the next house over - we really don't socialize with anyone in town. We were happy to see our friends who could make it. Watched the ball drop online on our TV (still no digital antenna). I only had a sip of champagne and a can of Swedish ( Read more... )

Early in the day, because we're headed for my parents' this afternoon. This was supposed to be Mark's "turn" for family Christmas but things didn't pan out with his Dad and Stepmom, and we're having Christmas dinner with the rest of his family on Boxing Day at his Mom's. My Mom is, of course, estatic. She was really pushing for us to be there this ( Read more... )

Hmm...I guess I didn't want to jinx things...long story short, I'm still working on the Algosea, and loving it. It was a bit rocky to start with (what do you mean there aren't any vegetables on board???) but things have improved. It's a great crew, and I really, really love my job. It's 12 hour days, and I'm the only cook, but that's ok. I've got ( Read more... )

I'm leaving for Sydney, Nova Scotia, tomorrow morning. I'll be working as the chief cook on the Algosea, a tanker ship. Tankers have smaller crews (16-18 people) so I'm the only cook. Kind of similar to what I did for my first job last year, in dry dock ( Read more... )