Sunday night

Been home for a week and it's been alternately pouring rain or sunny and windy. Yellow leaves are carpeting the lawn, and the crowns of the trees are looking more and more transparent. Tonight I think we may have our first frost. Tor changed the tires on my car before I embarked on this weekend's night shifts in order to be prepared for just such an eventuality.

I've been working non-stop since returning from Crete. There hasn't been a single day when I haven't had either an evening shift or been going on or coming off a night shift. Can't wait for payday in November. Finally I'll be able to make a decent dent in my debts. It is now clear that I will be going back to college in January. I have been accepted to the 2-year midwifery program this week. Am still waiting to hear about nurse anesthesiology and intensive care. It's exciting and a little scary. I'm hoping to continue working part time while I study so as to avvoid a huge student loan. Though I have applied for the study grant that our hospital is offering, I fear they will consider me too old.

The other day when I woke up after an day's sleep the sun was shining and I just had to get out into the garden and start some fall clean-up. I picked the last of the zuccini and made mousaka and zuccini souffle for the last time this season. Also ratatouille where I substituted thinly sliced carrots for eggplant (yuck!). I also picked the last beans, not really enough to freeze, I think I'll figure out a good dinner to make with them. The corn never did fill out enough to eat. I had to give up and pull up the stalks. Too bad. Corn is always marginal here, but usually I have managed to get 2-3 ripe ears. Dug up the carrots which are a dissapointment this year. A very few of decent size, most went to the chickens to be recycled into eggs. Also pulled up the sugar peas and threw them into the chicken run so that they can pick through them. So really, the garden is almost done. There are still lots of flowers: roses, calendula, lavatera, cornflowers, sweet peas and sunflowers blooming (that is there were sunflowers until last nights rain storm knocked them down. I'll cut off the heads for the chickens to pick through, also I still need to pull up the dill. Thought I'll give the chickens the heads of that too. Only thing left is arugula which is blooming and Kale which I will harvest and freeze tomorrow or this afternoon.

But most of my "free" time has still been involved in replacing lost cards: automobile association, insurance, library. Unfortunatly the pictures I had of the kids from when they were little and up through the years are gone forever. I went to the police station on monday and reported the theft. Cause it turns out that whoever stole the wallet went straight to the nearest ATM and withdrew kr 9900 (about $1500). I think VISA will cover it but I have had to fill out some paperwork etc. Now I'm having problems with the new VISA card: the pin only worked once and I have to call them and find out what's the matter. I can't believe how much work and bother it is to have your wallet stolen! The worst thing is how my feeling of safety is shattered. I mean, I always thought of Norway as a safe country. There are bands stealing peoples credit cards not only at the airport, but on the trains and train stations, in the supermarkets in our little town of Hamar (it was front page news in the local paper last week - that time they got caught thanks to the surveillance cameras at the cash register!) and even more disturbing, when relating my misadventure at the airport I hear stories of bag snatching and card stealing even in our little village of Stange. I cannot believe it! I felt safer in Ithaca!!!