Another Week Goes By....

 

 

 

Well it's been a pretty hectic week or so for me...in fact I seem to have lost track of time with doctors appointments and tests, work stuff, spring cleaning my house, helping mum clean through hers and other social necessities.

My week pretty much started with my doctors appointment. She sent me off for blood tests and I think I told you that there were several areas of risk. She then sent me off to have a liver ultrasound done which I did on Wednesday followed by blood tests to test for thyroid and Hep B & C which was Thursday. I have yet to receive those results but they should come any day now.

Wednesday was also the day of the horrible dust storms in Brisbane. The photo above was taken of the end of my street. It was pretty horrendous and even though we shut the house up as tight as a drum, I could still taste and smell it...never want to experience that again in a hurry let me tell you!

Thursday I had my blood tests done then I went to keep my niece company as she is on school holidays and home all alone for almost the whole 2 weeks as everyone else is working and all her friends are off on holidays. Poor kid has been relegated to dog sitting but she is cool with that...as a typical teenager she has been sleeping till noon then on the computer or watching the Disney Channel all day! Life is good when you are a teen!

The said puppies are pictured up above. They look like perfect little angels there but trust me they are devils in disguise lol...actually they really are adorable but already have everything and everyone figured out and their little personalities are really cute. Extremely friendly at home...anyone who comes to house is greeted with happy little smiles and they tumble over themselves to get to you first...they really are typical sisters...very competitive and get quite jealous if you don't show them the exact amount of attention.

The white coloured pup is Sasha. She is the lady...very demure and not as rambunctious as her older sister but she loves to eat and will eat anything not nailed down! She is also the bigger of the two and is growing quite rapidly and is already getting frustrated that she can no longer fit into her hidey holes even though her sister can. They usually love to hide under the lounge but now poor Sasha can't fit under there and her sister can so when they fight her sister dives straight under and Sasha will sit on the outside and growl at her lol.

The little brown pup is Coco...she is the tomboy of the pair...she already has learnt to jump up on the lounges and jump from lounge to lounge. Quite the little acrobat she is...she is not likely to grow any bigger than she is now. She is already a very fast learner...has learnt to sit already and is very patient at meal times. Sasha is normally fed first as she gulps her food down but Coco will sit patiently by her bowl until Sasha gets hers and then will eat her meal very sedately and with more manners than Sasha. Coco is also the more intelligent of the two I think...we watched her the other day when Sasha had a bone that she wanted. Coco sat and watched her eat it for a bit then went and got a toy and sat the toy in front of Sasha and started to play with it...as soon as Sasha got distracted with the toy and dropped the bone, Coco had her paw out pulling the bone towards herself then picked it upo and walked off with it! Was hilarious to watch! She has a lot of cunning. Coco also hides her favourite toy or bones from Sasha then when Sasha has finished off all her bones, Coco will go and find her bone and sit in front of Sasha to eat it and gives Sasha a look that says "Keep away you greedy pig" lol...

They are lots of hard work but so entertaining to watch!

My Hot Date with Patrick a Few Years Back

 

*Sigh* sadly he preferred his beautiful wife Lisa...but I could still dream =)

Here we go again.....

...back to the grind of doctors appointments, tests, needles, medication and all manner of other horrible things that come as you get older and take less care of yourself than you used to... *sigh*

Got my test results back from the blood tests I had done last week and went back yesterday to the Doctor so she could give me my results. Let's just say if I was a dog I'd be put down! Well ok...maybe a slight over-exaggeration but needless to say it's going to mean a whole lifestyle change for me and well, I really HATE change...

My doctor showed me my test results on her screen and all the numbers were in RED...not a good sign apparently. I have: low blood pressure, high cholestorol, high iron content, underactive thyroid, high haemoglobans (not sure what that means but caused by high iron content apparently!) and liver disfunction. Great!! This doctor is nice...she is female and Indian so I do have a little trouble understanding her but I ask her to repeat and she is very patient and tries to explain everything to me. She is now sending me to have a liver ultrasound done and I need more blood tests done (yikes). She wants me tested for Hep B & C (Say what?) I tell her I don't do drugs, have only had sex with one man for the past 12 years so how could I possibly have either Hep B or C. She tells me it is highly unlikely but because of the high iron content she needs to rule everything out. Also she told me one of her patients actually got it from public transport...all it takes is to touch a spot of someone's blood with a paper cut on your finger and you can get it. Oh great...as if I don't hate catching the train already! So now I have to tell my boss I need more time off work to do all these tests. This is just the start...after the ultrasound I may need a liver biopsy and then a visit to a haematologist plus all kinds of assorted tests down the track. I told MM we needed private health cover! Anyway I really need to follow it all through this time. I have promised MM and myself that when this is all done we will go to Fiji in June/July next year...he seems keen on the idea and I think we will need it.

Oh and the good news is on top of that my doctor weighed me and I have lost 15 kilos since February...I was 85kg and now just under 70kg. No wonder my clothes are falling off me!

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner...RIP Patrick!

Just heard that Patrick Swayze has died...Oh my goodness how sad...one of the better actors of our generation and seemed to be a real gentleman...

People should not be allowed to hoard....

...Well ok...I know I am one of those people but no-one can be worse than my mum. Clutter must be her middle name because I swear she has never thrown out anything in her life...I have found stuff that she and dad had long before I was born...that's how old the stuff is. Why am I grumbling about clutter and hoarding? Well mum wants to move house. She wants to sell up and move to a smaller (hah!) house...one that is low set and doesn't have so many steps because her knees and hips can no longer tolerate all the steps. And I agree she does need to downsize. My parents house is massive - six bedrooms, double storey, upstairs/downstairs bathrooms, inground pool, quarter acre back yard etc...way too big for just her, my brother and Miss 16. So it really does make sense to move. She would love to stay but apart from the size issue she also can no longer afford the mortgage so she would need to sell the house for enough to pay it off outright and still have enough to move into another home and pay it outright as well. BUT in order to sell and make it look half way decent we need to de-clutter it. Every room has stuff in it and mum just can't bring herself to do it so she is allowing me to go in and be brutal and just clean from top to bottom! Yay...my favourite thing to do and I say that without sarcasm because I really do love to clean other people's places...can't stand to do mine but mum's house is a gold mine and I bet there's all kinds of groovy stuff for me to pick through!

Saturday was a non-starting day because I had promised to get Miss 16's hair done so mum, Miss 16 and I went to her favourite stylist so she could have her hair done before Riverfire that night. She was going out with friends and wanted her new hair. Three hours, many coffees for mum and I and $170 dollars later she was done. I nearly died when I was told $170...I have never spent that much on my hair in one year let alone one sitting! But it does look really good...it's died black with gold and silver tints through the fringe with the fringe cut on an angle...looks very trendy. The first time I saw her while she had foils on it looked so blonde and Miss 16 was really worried...it looked so white! But it really isn't very blonde at all so she is very pleased with the look. I grocery shopped afterwards as mum had to take Miss 16 to her friends house so they could catch the train to Southbank and meet up with friends. Mum and I decided to tackle her house the next day (Sunday).

I took my groceries home and after MM and I unpacked the car and put everything away we veged out the rest of the afternoon watching "True Blood" which MM downloaded for me. It's a TV show that is apparently big in the US and if you are into vampires like me, you will love it :) Very gothic and they must have had a small budget as some of the main characters stay naked a lot of the time and there's lots of boinking in it so really not suitable for anyone under 18! But it's kind of sucked us in and we are now up to Season 2 of the series.

Sunday was the day to head to mum's so I went over and we decided to start with the storeroom under the stairs because we reasoned that we can get rid of any junk in there and then we can re-pack what she wants to keep and pack anything else she is is not using right now that she wants to take with her. The storeroom was a huge task! I filled my car boot with stuff for the Salvos or Lifeline, there is another huge pile of junk that will go into the industrial bin I will order for the weekend and all the other boxes belong to my sister who was storing her stuff with mum so I rang her and told she had to either come get her stuff or dump or whatever but it had to go. She wasn't happy with that as her place is very small with little room but that's not my problem...Mum isn't going to be taking that stuff with her.

We've also decided we will have a garage sale as there is lots of really good stuff that can be sold to make extra pocket money for mum. There's all the baby cots/prams/high chairs etc that belonged to Miss 16 and mum was saving for me when I had kids (no chance of that happening now!). Plus there is a whole pile of gym equipment - exercise bikes, walking machines, bench press etc that also might make a few dollars - anything to get rid of it.

Just before I went home I dropped off the stuff to the Salvation Army holding yard and now we start on another couple of rooms next weekend. By Monday morning my muscles were killing me but I think mum will start feeling better once we get rid of all her junk. Once the place looks nice and tidy then we can put it on the market and when time comes to move she hopefully won't have so much.

Now my MM is starting to talk about us moving as well but after this I think I might leave it a while!

Oh my goodness I feel so bad...

...about forgetting Miss 16's birthday yesterday! Sweet 16 is such an important birthday and I had really wanted it to be special for her considering it's her first without her grandad. Even mum and my brother had forgotten until her best friend, who lives across the road and walks with Miss 16 to school every day, came over with a birthday present. Mum felt so awful and my brother actually rang me last night to subtley remind me it was her birthday. We all felt awful poor kid. But she said she didn't mind as she had received dozens of text messages from her friends all day but its kinda sad her friends remembered while her entire family forgot!

But I will make it up to her on Saturday as she really wants her hair coloured again but mum told she couldn't afford it so I have offered to pay for it for her birthday so she is absolutely thrilled as that was all she wanted for her birthday anyway.

Mum took her shopping after school yesterday and bought her a beautiful ring from her grandad because that is what he would have wanted to buy her and mum bought her some other jewellery as well to go with it which Miss 16 chose herself. My brother will take her shopping on Saturday after she gets her hair done and then she is heading off to Southbank with friends for the Brisbane Riverfire so I think she had a great birthday anyway.

I actually had yesterday off as well as I had my blood tests done as well as getting my eyes/sight looked at as per the doctors instructions. The good news is my eyesight is great...not perfect but not bad either so no glasses still for me...YAY!!! The blood test results should get to the doctor by Friday so I will call them up on Monday to make another doctors appointment and find out what might be wrong. Hopefully nothing too drastic! I have had no more dizzy spells so touch wood it may have been just a virus or something.

All in all though it's been a quiet week now that work has settled down again. Now we start planning for the next big 3 day conference in March next year...Bring it on!

Sunday...

...Father's day and our first without our dad. I woke expecting to feel all melancholy but surprisingly enough I got up feeling good about the day, wished dad a silent Happy Father's Day then went about my day. MM was a little grumpy but might have something to do with the fact that son left the house for the day without even wishing his dad a happy fathers day (he forgot). I decided to go out for the morning and went for coffee at mum's to see how she and the kids were coping with the day. They were doing okay and we just chatted about dad and Miss Nearly-16 asked us lots of questions about her grandad and we reminisced a little about what we kids used to get up to and all the trouble we got into with dad and mum lol...For some reason she loves these stories and she finds it hard to beleive some days that her Uncle and Aunty and mother were such horrible kids to each other at times lol. Dad never did the disciplining...it was always left to mum...she did all the spanking and yelling although I have had the sharp end of dad's tongue probably three times in my whole life and only 2 beltings from him when I did something particularly awful and I deserved it (one of those awful things was mowing down my sister on my bike...ran straight over the top of her I did! Boy did she howl!)

Miss Nearly 16 and I then went downstairs to run with the puppies and raided dad's strawberry patch and mulberry tree...man those things still taste good! The two of us were a sight with red fingers, teeth and lips and laughing at ourselves because we looked like Vampires...even the puppies were eating the ones that hit the ground so Sasha's white paws had these big purple blotches on them but they both had a real treat as well!

I got home from mum's to find Miss 21 and her boyfriend T visiting her dad for Father's Day which I am so happy about...it made his day to think at least one of his children remembered him! Many hugs from daughter later she and I sat and talked about stuff...She and T still haven't found a place to move into together and she is feeling a bit down about...MM and T were chatting about man stuff...it's good to see MM gets on with atleast one of his kids boyfriends. T is a nice guy...a bit quirky but because Miss 21 is so stubborn he knows how to deal with her so he is good for her. I like him anyway...

All in all was a nice day but I'm glad its over...

My Thought Processes....

...of late have been in a state of confusion. So much to do, so much to think about and there are days I just want to jump off the Gateway Bridge! Well I'm just kidding about the last part. For one I am a little afraid of heights and secondly diving has never been my forte and knowing my luck I would just do a massive belly flop which would really really hurt and it might not kill me anyway!

Friday 28 August, which I mentioned before would have been my dad's birthday, was really nice. I took the day off and mum also decided she would take the afternoon off work. She rang me early that morning to see if I would like to go with her on a couple of her appointments then we could do lunch. Sounded great so I took my book to read while she popped in to see a couple of War Widows who luck would have it lived along the waterfront at Redcliffe so I sat in the park to read while mum visited and she was done by 11:30am. So we decided to head to Scarborough and go to Morgans which sells the nicest seafood. They have a fish and chip restaurant there as well which is always crowded no matter what time of the day or week it is. It wasn't too bad when we got there so we grabbed fish and chips and drove down to the waterfront at Redcliffe and sat near the beach and ate our lunch. I had a photo of dad as well so we popped him up on the table with us just like he was eating with us and wished him a happy birthday then talked about the fun times we have had as a family...a few tears but it really was nice and I think for both of us it lifted a weight off our shoulders. We went for a short walk along the beach as well and it was just the perfect day.



Monday 31 August 2009

Today I was off work as I had another dizzy spell and decided I had better get myself to the doctors. So I now have a heap of blood tests to get which I will do this week as there was too much to do at work this week to get there. I also have a referral to the eye doctor just in case the dizziness is due to bad eyesight. My doctor tells me I also have low blood pressure which can be caused by stress but I will have everything checked out and I'll let you know what happens when I get the test results back.

Mum rang me that night to tell me she went and picked up dad's ashes. She has decided she wants him at home and she wanted to see if any of us kids want some. Apparently they will do pendants and such with ashes if family want them. I politely refused...She also got a letter from Veterans Affairs apologising for their earlier mistake and they are organising another plaque which will go up on the War Memorial Wall at Pinaroo. She also received a letter from the War Graves Commission who advised that dad is entitled to have his niche paid for in full as well which was nice to know. But I think mum is hell bent on keeping dad at home and it makes her happy so we will go with whatever makes her happy. She told me how just having dad's ashes in the car lifted a huge weight off her shoulders. She couldn't describe the feeling but she said she felt amazingly calm and no longer sad about him being gone. I like to think it was dad's way of saying thank you for letting him come home.

As for the other family, we are not going to worry about them at this point in time. We didn't know about them for 45 odd years so I think we will let sleeping dogs lie. If they decide they want to get in touch and know more about dad they are welcome to but I know I won't be searching them out. We don't love dad or mum any less for knowing...such is life...these things happen and playing the "what if..." game will get us nowhere. We were a family for 43 years, mum, dad, my sister, brother and I and that will never change.

Weekend of 5 September 2009

Well after weeks of planning our early childhood conference was held on Saturday. Myself and my colleagues all arrived early to set up and greet all the delegates and I must say it was a huge success. We got them all to complete evaluation forms and the response was extremely positive. It was a great job done by us if I do say so myself :) Because we all worked on Saturday we will get a day off this week and I will use mine to get my tests all done. I am so glad its all over. So much work goes into just one day!