How do you...

G'day all!

Not such a good day today. I'm fine but well, I want to know:

How do you get someone to get professional mental help? Even when they admit and recognise a problem, they say it can't be fixed and there's no point? Especially when you are nowhere near them in a geographical sense? They are extremely pig headed about the whole thing. It is a problem that can be fixed if the person wants it to be fixed, if they want to feel well and capable and able to do stuff that they really can do! How do you get them receptive to the idea of being better? You would think people want to be better but when they are like this, often they aren't.

sigh. Things are a little pear shaped. It is driving ME bonkers. I have to look after me and not let myself get too overwrought with it all. I have to stay in the moment and not anticipate things. This cancer bizzo has been very good for that. (But it hasn't stopped me buying yarn has it?)

Anyway, if you have any ideas, let me know.

I've been working on some ideas for a little swap that I'm in. We are swapping mug rugs - like overgrown coasters made like little quilts for our mugs of coffee or tea or hot chocolate, etc. I'm a little behind because I've taken a couple of weeks to drag out the sewing machine (it needs to run on 110V not the 240V we have here, so I've made the hard choice of unplugging the amplifier which is running on the 110V transformer... so no music unless I play it on the laptop = cruddy quality).

I am pleased to say that my mug rug swappee likes the various things I've sewn so far:


My very own hand dyed fabric - lurid, isn't it? I was just playing around with which fabric works best and so far my answer out of four different types is all of them are pretty good, pity that I didn't write down which fabric is which. Doh!


Pinwheels. I had forgotten what a pita these are if your blocks are just a little off.


and some cats for a backing, since my swappee likes cats too.

I am starting to think I should make another cats backing and send her both of the mug rugs, when I am done with them!

I'm also ploughing through my shalom cardi. Of course I have no pics yet. I've finally finished the collar and am halfway through the cast on row for the body. Have no idea what I'm talking about? Have a look at the ravelry page (you are on ravelry, yes?, if you are a knitter or crocheter or even weaver!). Oh, I'm making mine a little bigger (added 8 stitches at the start) cos I do not have a 32" bust, not even after a lump got taken out! It's been a bit tedious so far, even though it is on chunky 7mm needles, as I had a little row counting accident and managed to get the frontside and backside reversed on the second lot of pattern. All those twisted stitches for the whole second part of the collar had to be pulled out....

I am anticipating the rest of it will not take so long to knit as it is knitting back and forth with a couple of decreases and increases along the way. That is much easier than twisted stitches, which I have to watch like a hawk to make sure I twist them! Plus it is luscious and purple (colour 0011). Mmm, purple. (I also have 18 balls or so of 0012, peacock, mmm, peacock... now I have to find a suitable pattern for it! yay for Ravelry's pattern search!)

anon!

trapped in sydney

Playing with new mobile.
Plane delayed 1.5 hours or more.
HALP!!!!!

Underinspired

G'day all!

Today I thought I would take it easy. Well maybe.

I woke up and got up early so that I'd be showered before the plumber arrived.

Argh. Hang on a moment - I'm going back to Firefox for my blogger stuff. I've started using Chrome. It is made by Google. It does not support keyboard commands in Blogger! How stupid is that? And I want to italicise stuff properly not use the old commands with greater and lesser than symbols and an i and a forward slash... oh and I'm lazy too.

Ah here we are in Firefox. Hooray for keyboard commands! I'm finding Chrome limiting in some ways - I hate the lack of history (on some websites I use the history list a LOT). But I thought since I use gmail and I use blogger and DH said it is good, I should use Chrome.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

The plumber didn't show up. Didn't answer his mobile either. I had to leave at 8:15am to get to my sister's place to snaffle her washing machine (and it is a beauty too! A big front loader). I had an amazing run - after stopping at hmm, North Road, I didn't stop until Warrigal Road *and* we did the speed limit for most of it! In peak hour traffic that is totally amazing - that is four sets of lights in about six km. Anyway, apparently I was not there at 9am - I have no idea where the removalists were looking for me cos I was there at 8:45am and was sitting by the front door with it open.... I think they were looking at the front unit. DUH!

Turns out the plumber said "next Friday" last Thursday, meaning not the next day, not the Friday after that but three Fridays away. I've heard of people saying "next Friday" as being not the next week but two weeks away, but this is the first time I've fallen over it. I should've gotten the date but he had said to Nathan it would be THIS week, not two weeks away. He might be coming on Tuesday but that is a bit inconvenient for me, being a work day and all.

So I am stuck with the pink dunny for a while yet.

I crabbed at the radiotherapy technician about being booked in for RT next Saturday at lunchtime. I ended up ringing the booking person, who told me that they knock off at 1pm, so there is NO WAY I could have an appt at 2:15pm. (Well if that is the case, why was it on my list, oh goddess of bookings?) It is changed to 8:30am, which is sucky but means that I'll get a good headstart on the day. I've told them that I really am not available the Saturday after that for RT (Nathan should be down in Melbourne and I'm not missing out for a minute!).

I did not crab at the doctor. My bloods are not all in the normal range yet - white cell count is still a bit lower than we'd like and my haematocrit is low too - both because of chemo most likely. It suppresses the bone marrow. It has climbed quite a bit but I am almost anaemic. Me. Anaemic. I've never been anaemic in my life, usually I'm almost the opposite. Plus my vitamin D levels are low. I now have to take calcium and vit D, though I think I need somewhat greater amounts of vit D than are in the supplement he suggested.

Then I started wrangling with websites. OMG, what is wrong with either me or the websites? A craft website looked like someone had shoved everything to one side - tested only in IE? Or was it just me using Firefox and Chrome to look at it? I sent very crabby feedback to them and they reckon they have fixed it now. Haven't checked yet. Still crabby.

I tried to log in for online check in for my flight to Sydney tomorrow arvo and the link IN THE EMAIL THEY SENT ME is busted! Like honest to god, wouldn't they code the right thing into the email? Surely I'm not the only person who thinks it sucks to click on a link and be told it is old or has expired or does not exist! I'm talking about you, Virgin Blue! You've got feedback about it too. (I did manage to do online check in eventually but it took some wrangling - first when I found the right place, I stupidly put in my location instead of just my frequent flier number so it wanted my booking reference (it says provide this and this OR FF number and I put this and FF, WRONG!), then the seat I chose was not available even though they said it was at first, then because I had to go back and change it, other things were broken and of course some silly git said she is a frequent flier with them, which she is, so they wanted the number, even though I had just given it to them to log in, etc etc....)

Then I looked at very pretty blogs, which weren't busted, but they made ME feel busted because they are so bright and sunny and happy and their places look perfect. After that I felt underinspired.

On the bright side, if all goes well, tomorrow I'll see Nathan. It is only a quick dash of a trip but better than nothing. We are both getting into the chronic missing each other stage now. It seems we really do like each other. On occasion I had wondered about us earlier this year but now I at least am somewhat more sure of my feelings for him :-)



Mmmm, cauliflower. I didn't pick this one as early as I should've but it still tastes just fine. As do the eggs we're getting out of our manky chickens - two a day at present! Nom nom! I've been eating the bought ones though as they are of unknown age and should be eaten first. Fresh eggs are amazing - the white is almost as round as the yolk! It doesn't spread far at all. And our chooks are getting enough calcium too cos after cracking their eggs, I've had two accidents with the bought ones - I've smashed them to bits and half missed the pan!

Doh! It's late. Verra late. I'm trying to get to bed before 11pm in hope I'll go to sleep before midnight. I've been doing a bit of reading in bed - I like reading in bed. I also need to rest more but I just keep on going. I know I need to take better care of myself but I guess it is just the fear of not knowing how much time I have. A lifetime of time, but is that a short lifetime or a long one? Only time will tell, and I can't hear what it is saying.

anon!

Warm and fuzzy

G'day all!

I've been taking part in a shawl exchange on Ravelry. My partner didn't want a light and lacy little shawl - she doesn't use them much. Being in Scotland, she wanted something with a little more heft. Possibly in grey.

I went through my fleeces and found a lovely polwarth. Alas, my lovely grey polwarth had suffered from being in storage - it was pretty tacky and quite hard to prep for spinning, even after I washed it again.

So at Bendigo, I bought a new lovely grey polwarth. A lamb fleece as it turned out - it was rather tippy but very soft. And it had brown streaks through it - the lamb must be two colours. I snipped the brown/apricot tips off and pulled out the browner locks and left them for another project and got to spinning.

I was aiming for a semi-woollen spun yarn. Not sure I got it consistently but I certainly got a warm fuzzy yarn. It knitted up into a warm fuzzy faroese inspired shawl with a little hint of lace - cat's paw lace down the spine and along the lower edge. It is certainly warm - I reckon I need one for myself, maybe white or dyed from the white fleece I bought.



Pattern - my own
Needle size: 5.5mm I think
Yarn - handspun from a Wendy and David Dennis fleece, approx 520m.



It took me from the end of July through to a week ago to get the thing finished. It is quite large because it is going to a tall and bonny Scot. I just had really bad timing and expected a bit too much of myself after finishing chemo and having an operation, etc.

OK, OK, I still am expecting too much of myself. 8-) I want to do so much and make so much! Also I have a lot more house duties now than I did - this is the problem of being on your own. There's noone else to do things like deal with the dishes, sweep the floor or scrub the dunny.

Speaking of which, tomorrow morning Nathan's plumber mate is coming around to plumb in our new loo. It is white and clean and shiny. The old dunny is being decommissioned. It is pink and dirty and over 50 years old. It has given good service but oh boy, so glad the old stinker is going! At the same time as that, I have to go get my sister's washing machine to bring back here (two men are bringing it across for me in a truck), then I have to go to RT and then to the dr! Egads, I just want a day with no commitments! No hurrying from one thing to the next, just a slow meander and pottering around doing as I please. But I only have maybe one of those a fortnight now. Ah well. Only five more weeks of RT to go!

anon!

Alas my dinner

G'day all!

Still busy, trying to slow down. I'm getting some knitting done, hooray!

Tonight I defrosted a bit of chicken to throw into tea. (I'm Victorian, we call dinner tea. Of course we also drink tea. This can make things confusing. We also call hot and cold chips chips, not fries and crisps. Again confuzzlement ensues.)

So, back to the topic at hand.

I defrosted some chicken. I opened the freezer bag and went to drop it into the pot of boiling water, in which I intended to poach said chicken.

Said chicken had other ideas.



Splat with double pike and twist on the floor. (Isn't your floor grotty cos half of it is unsanded floor boards and the other half is still waiting to be ripped up? Don't you have the lid off a big bucket for the compost sitting on the floor waiting for the compost bucket to return indoors?)

Well I grabbed it and washed it frantically, got rid of the grotty bits and chucked it in the pot. I put the kettle on to boil and wandered off to tidy some more.

Sniff, sniff... what is that smell? Oh crappers!



I don't think that chicken wanted to be eaten. And that is the second time I've reallllly burned that pot. It is bin night tonight. It is going in the bin...

In good news, I have finished a largeish shawl and sent it off to its new owner. I even have pics! I shall share them shortly. Also, good news for me is that we are now just past equinox and the days will continue to get longer and longer. I am a long day person.

But at the moment? I need to go to bed early! I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow - work, radiotherapy, clinic, and crafties. On Friday I need to be at my sister's place nice and early to get her washing machine (ours must be 30 years old, I remember Mum getting it), then off to radiotherapy, then to the doc's to get blood test results... I have radiotherapy on Saturday too, beasts, means I only get to see DH for a day after I fly up to Sydney on Saturday arvo - I have to be back early Monday morning for, you guessed it...

anon!

running running running

G'day all!

Just a quick one to say I'm still alive! Though tonight I am feeling fairly average - I think I've been doing Too Much for Too Many Days. Or maybe I've caught the stomach bug that is going around. Anyway, it will be an early night for me!

I have so much to tell you and show you and tonight? Not happening!

On Saturday I went to an open studio for a small hand-printed fabric place. It was very interesting and I bought some material. Then I dropped in on one sister and we went to visit our other sister.

Sunday I went to the farmers' market, then to Spotlight. Oh dear. They had eggplant coloured yarn that was 80 CENTS a ball. Nice yarn too. 100% wool. Plus some of my favourite baby yarn for $1.60 a ball. Note that both these yarns usually retail for between $4-7.

Sigh. So much for my yarn diet.

Then I hopped off to the Knitting in the Botanic Gardens group (more accurately known as knitting in the observatory cafe group) and caught up with some folks and met other folks. And there were more than those ladies there but tonight I am a little slow.

Then I stopped at a different Spotlight on the way home. Dark peacock blue yarn.

Double sigh.

Today? Off to the dr at 9:10am. Only he arrived at 9:15 and took 20 minutes to review his daily work and my 9:10am appointment turned into a 9:45 appointment. Then I was silly enough to decide to get my bloods done at the pathology lab there, except I was number 9 and number 3 had been called at 9:30 and number 4 was called at 9:55... so I drove back home, grabbed my stuff for radiotherapy and shot off to that. Except I didn't my washing out. That was ok, it was drizzling. For another two minutes. Then it cleared up and didn't rain for the rest of the day.

Sigh.

I had plenty of time to get a few jigsaw pieces in - waited 45 minutes for my appt. Radiotherapy was its usual uncomfortable self - I put my neck out of whack today. Ouch. My arms don't like it much either. Then I had hours to kill because I had to be back at the hospital at 4pm for my physio appointment. I went exploring and found the pathology lab that I could get the bloods done at, but alas she had gone to lunch at 12 midday and I had arrived at 12:02. "It will be half an hour." Sigh.

So I drove off to Spotlight AGAIN. Bought some fabric for DH, bought MORE 80c yarn. My bad. And a set of white sheets with the idea of tie dyeing them for DH's bed in Sydney. It is only a double bed ("full" in US-speak). My queen size sheets tend to swim on it, plus we have the inflatable double bed up there but only one set of sheets.

And I realised that I don't have the right size needles for my lovely new 80c yarn that I simply dying to make this out of. So then I had to go to Wondoflex. There I discovered they have KnitPro needles and just so happened to have a set of tips in exactly the size I need (7mm). Hooray! I have plenty of cables and decided that $10.50 for the tips was better than paying $15 for a set of 7mm bamboo circular needles. (Two balls of yarn on special fell into my clutches too - I will be wearing hats for a while to come and want a couple in different colours for summer. Red and a very pretty green. Not that I have any green hats already at all *cough cough* but this is a very pretty green!).

I still had a couple of hours to kill (despite the traffic being abominable - it turns out that there had been a fatality in a pile up on the main tollway into town, aka the City, aka Melbourne itself, so traffic was going whichever way it could). I dropped into Patchwork on Central Park and gawped at their pretty material. Didn't buy anything though - I tend to find quilting places a bit overwhelming. Then I navigated my way down to Amitie, as it is on the same street as the hospital. I did buy some material on special and some fave material there. It takes almost 20 minutes to get from there to the hospital even though they can't be more than 5km apart. However there are dingdongs (train line level crossing), multiple pedestrian crossing lights, shops lining the street and a helluva lot of really DUMB drivers in the way.

Finally I got back to the hospital, parallel parked for the fourth? time that day (I'm pretty good at parallel parking, though I am not as good as French women are - they have it down to an art!), toddled off to get my bloods done (I want to know if I have ok vitamin D levels - helpful in the fight against cancer and also a number of auto-immune diseases, dr decided may as well test everything), and then went to the physio department.

It turns out that I am quite even. I have very little difference in my measurements between my left and right arms all the way from the knuckles to the upper arm. That is a good thing. My bio-impedance is also quite good - it can range form -10 to +10 and mine was +0.8, almost equal. It is usually used to calculate body fat but in this instance is looking at the difference in composition of my arms. If, for example, I was developing lymphodema, there would be a difference in the composition of my arms and it would become quite marked as the fluid built up. The reader would pick that up.

So it is all good :-)

I shall share pics of my goodies soon, when I am home, it is light and have taken pics of them! So busy currently, hope I am not coming down with anything cos I do feel rather odd!

anon!

First radiotherapy

G'day all!

Today I had my first roast chicken episode.

OK, I'm not really crispy fried. Not yet anyway!

I drove to the hospital. I hadn't been there for a whole TWO WEEKS! I found a car park a fair way away from the hospital (I'm too cheap to pay the parking fee, especially since I have to go every weekday for six weeks) and wandered in. I was called in rather quicker than I expected. The radiologist went through everything with me, mostly chit chat. My brain tends to fall out of my head when I'm experiencing something new.

Anyway, after changing into a gown (I wear that same gown for the next six weeks), I was led into the radiotherapy room.

The machine looks very like the one on this page (though it isn't that very machine because that one is in England). It was all very Star Trek. I hopped on the bed, slipped the gown down and lay down. The two technicians pushed and pulled and marked and measured - they were very pleased that I still lined up with the measurements and the green laser beams that help ensure I'm in the right spot. They carefully lined me up and told me the machine would move and buzz and when it was buzzing, it was zapping me. Oh and to stay still. They left the room, ding donging the doorbell (which was a very sad sounding door bell - it sounded sorta droopy) and shutting the gate behind them.

So I lay with my arms over my head, rather uncomfortably really, and the machine moved around me and made a noise like a coffee grinder in one of those big commercial espresso machines (I think that is the lens type mechanism moving) and buzzed/whined, then moved again, etc. They are irradiating my boob and my neck. For my neck, I had to hold my chin up high to keep it out of the way of the beam. That feels rather like when you are at the hairdressers' getting your hair washed or stuff rinsed out of it - gives one a crick in the neck!

I didn't feel anything bar the supports on the bed annoying my shoulders or the neck cricker.

It all took rather longer than I expected, but it turns out that the computer was being uncooperative (yikes!) and had to be told what to do much more often than it normally would.

Afterwards, I talked to a nurse about skin care, and all sort of other issues, some related to my treatment, some not. Apparently bras may be verboten - not a big issue for me because I am not generously endowed. I may end up only tolerating cotton against my skin. That is fine because most of my tops are made out of cotton as I don't like wearing synthetics against my armpits. (I have two lovely synthetic singlets but they are singlets/tanks, not sleeved things). Oh and I can't use anything containing metals on the skin around the irradiated area, including sunscreens and deoderant, plus bio oil and emu oil are not good to use as they help crispy fry the skin. Lovely!

One down, only 29 to go!

Speaking of things medical, I have to say I am getting over being called "Sir."

a) we are Australians, we don't say sir.
b) I am not a sir, I am a madam. (Not *that* sort of madam!)

Apparently having very short hair and/or wearing a cap (mauve? pink and mauve? Pale green?) and/or wearing tie dye automatically makes me a man. Yep, I had a sex change when I underwent chemo, not that I noticed. I still have 1.8 boobs. I have hips and a waist. I don't have a beard but I fear I am working on that and the moustache (my eyebrows and eyelashes are growing back! Alas that means all the hairs that ever were are growing back too... and the chemical menopause I'm in adds to the hairy burden. Goodness it was wonderful being quite bald!).

I guess I'll just have to wear low cut tops so that I completely confuse the poor shop assistants. It must be a man, the hair is too short! But BOOBS! Woman! Wo-man! A transgender! OMG, do I call it sir or madam! OMG, I offend them either way!

I am ploughing through the 1.8gig of pictures I took in Sydney and Katoomba. Ai-ai-ai, too many pics, mostly of the same sort of things that will bore others witless but I like :-)

Whoops, didn't post this yesterday! Now I've had my second radiotherapy and am feeling a little crispy fried - the irradiated area feels warmish, like it is in the sun or something. Interesting. We shall see what happens!

anon!

Blue Mountains

G'day all!

Had a lovely trip to Sydney. We went off to the Blue Mountains for our anniversary.

We walked and we walked and we walked, apart from sitting on trains and buses.

One little thing about Google Maps is it doesn't show you the terrain. It can (Google earth is better) but y'know you just look at the map. lalalala. It's all good!

Then when you get there, you realise that that kilometre walk from the station to your accommodation, a quite short walk, involves going down and up some significant hills. That is before you've even gotten to the bushwalking parts!

Anyway, we did quite a bit of walking, lots of hills and stairs. I have 1.8 gig of pictures from the place, not that I am going to share all of them with you!

Here's the most famous part of the Blue Mountains:



The Three Sisters feature on almost as many pics of Sydney as the harbour bridge and opera house.

And just to show we were there, no crappy photoshopping required,



:-)

Still very busy at the moment - started work two days a week, starting radiotherapy today, got lots to do and just as well cos I miss DH lots. But that is for another time!

anon!

Running away

G'day all!

I'm off for a long weekend with DH. I'm taking the bus and train to Siddeny tomorrow - 12 hour trip! Plus a bit extra on the bus cos the tracks are stuffed between Melbourne and Albury. (I'm taking the plane back though.)

To keep you entertained in my absence, please enjoy:



I know I did!

(There is one notable gent lacking from this video montage - how on earth did they leave him out?)

anon!

I outsmarted a chook

G'day all!

I am very pleased with myself.

Goldie and Boldie reappeared in the back yard. Boldie was locked in the coop last night but I could not get Goldie in there by hook or by crook.

But today?

I outsmarted a chook! Yes indeedy, I have a PhD and am not usually considered a mental slouch but I am as pleased as punch with myself for outsmarting Goldie. A chook. A creature with very little brain.

LOL

Tonight there are two chickens in the coop.

I won't go into details cos they are dull and tedious but we'll just say it involved carefully placed grain and me standing in a very carefully selected spot (out of chook eye view).

My day started a little earlier than usual - I had to be at my sister's place by 8am in case the removalists showed up on time. They did show up at 8:35 or so - not too bad since it was booked for between 8 and 9. The cat was distraught - bad noises were happening outside the bathroom (the only room I could reliably lock her in. She is allowed outside but is old and a bit frail and demented and the furniture truck, the man breaking up the concrete and the gardeners would probably have been too much for her). Thank heavens she is suffering dementia and hopefully will soon forget the furniture ever was.

I arrive punctually (for once and in spite of the guys clearing a drain at a busy intersection - over 15 minutes to go 500m! Why did I just not turn round and go the other way?). A man is standing in the driveway, waiting for the jackhammer to show up. Why? So they can break up the worn and/or lifted concrete in the driveway and replace it.

Had anyone told the tenants? Why on earth would you tell them that their driveway would be inaccessible for the next four or five days?

Then he wanted to access my sister's power. Nope, not happening. I am not the tenant and I was not going to be there all day and anyway, find a power point that someone else is paying for! Plus he smoked and it stank. Last time I was exposed to so much cigarette smoke was in Strasbourg.

The removalists did their job quickly and neatly. An hour later, my sister's flat was quite bare of all bar a few selected items and the cat was totally confused. Where is the lounge suite? Where is the bed I usually curl up on? I vacuumed and put the foam mattress down for her.

A win win situation - my sister gets rid of furniture that she can't keep in her new place, we get the nicest furniture we've ever had. Honest. It is well looked after and really nice stuff. The lounge suit even has sprung cushions! Oo la la! Nathan's Sydney pad will look quite nice.

Anyway, after lugging stuff in and out of the car and getting up before dawn, I'm a bit tired. I did some bits and bobs in the garden - planted a cherry tree and some herbs. I'm continuing to knit a Secret Project. I have to spun up Even. More. Yarn. for it - it is just eating yarn like there's no tomorrow. I have to have it all done and blocked and sent off next week.

Worst thing of the day? Going out into the see through shed (local council says we can't have a greenhouse but we can have a shed made out of whatever we like and put whatever we like in it, or at least legal stuff in it) this evening and discovering the bok choi and coriander were riddled with slugs. Oh yuck! I had to pick them off with my bare fingies! YUCK YUCK YUCK! Slimy horrid critters! The slime takes several washings to get it off too....

anon!

And then there were none

G'day all!

Today was a day of toil I tell you toil - doing the farmers' market, more tidying, taking six boxes of Stuff to the Salvos, shredding material that I am going to dye, folding material and putting it away, knitting madly on the shawl that I have to send off by next week (egads, I will need more yarn so I have to prep more fleece and spin it up), looking at the fruit trees that need to be planted (and actually digging a hole, and yes it started to fill with water!, and planting one apple tree), etc, etc. Fed the chooks their grain, which they gobbled madly. They love their grain, though there's nearly always some left over for vigorous scratchings in the pen - keeps them entertained in the morning, though Boldie screeches a LOT - she thinks she is a rooster sometimes. Wakes me up even! How to win friends amongst the neighbours, having a chook that screeches. Not very suburb friendly...

At last the end of the day was nigh, so I went out to lock the chooks in their pen for the night. I haven't seen fox activity here yet but with chooks it is just a matter of time.

No chooks.

Gap in fence with suspicious scratchings around it.

Suspect chooks are roosting in next door's shed, aka gazebo over their spa.

Hope they get eaten by foxes (not really. I'd prefer to eat them myself!). Rotten chooks. OK, they have started laying sporadically - 10 eggs to date in about three weeks.

Ah well, I've been whining about having to look after them - now mebbe I won't have to worry! I can just feel guilty instead.

anon!

It isn't often

That the weather scares the hell out of me.

Yikes!

The wind is incredible. A low pressure system has developed to the west of us and is galloping south eastward. Winds are hitting close to 100kmh. The whole house is flexing and bending - that is a good thing cos not flexing would be verra bad indeed. But I can't sleep from the noise and the feeling of the wind hitting the house. Also since the place is nowhere near weathertight, there's a lot of drafts and noises from the temporary "ceiling."

I've never experienced a cyclone or typhoon or hurricane. I hope this is as close as I get!

Here comes another blast - you can hear it coming. Yargh. Time to plug the old clock radio in and play the radio, see if that helps block some of the sound... Hope DH didn't really want the beer bottles he left out the front cos they just blew over.

anon!

PS we are still here, 8 hours after I posted the above. The house is still here, the wonky fence is still "upright" and nothing blew away! A miracle. 8-)

Tats

G'day all!

I am having A Week.

My internet is very slow. My chat session keeps dying = very hard to talk to DH online.

DH is busy and not very contactable.

Uploading photos takes a number of tries.

I am very surprised that I can blog at all.

Helmet (the car) decided the old battery was not good enough any longer and killed it Wednesday. Getting that fixed just ate all my budget for the month.

Nathan doesn't answer his phone very often.

Things are not very organised. I am doing 10 minutes of tidying/cleaning per room per day.

I am in a house full of crap (ok, there is some really nice stuff too IMO). The garden needs a lot of work. The house needs a lot of work. There's no plaster on the walls or ceiling in the laundry. Before the walls can be plastered, we need to get a plumber in to plumb the new toilet in its new location. Then we can remove the old toilet. Then we can put new windows in. But before we put new windows in, we need to get the new windows. Nathan has the quote but I can't access it and we need to change the wood type and get a quote from another place. Until I get that email, I can't do anything about the windows. Then we have to reclad the external walls because the windows are slightly different and the cladding is old vinyl fake weatherboards that break rather than let themselves be cut. Then we can plaster the internal walls (note to self, may need door on new toilet once it is done...and plaster on the walls so that it is blocked from the kitchen. The floors have to be sanded and covered whilst we do the plastering and then start on the kitchen cabinets. A new stove and rangehood have to be bought and installed. New benchtops. Yikes! I am going to be busy and I'm not sure where the money will come from.

I just ran out of money :-( Nathan has a shiny new job but we are a little stretched currently because he has to pay bond and rent on his new flat in Sydney. We've not had a lot of income this year and our savings were pretty much done for.

In good news, I will shortly be able to show off my most recent FO. I am blocking it now.


(Wonder if anyone would like to buy a nice shawl. Blocked it is about 150cm by 80cm, probably will shrink down a little when off the wires and pins...)

The weather has not been good for blocking shawls recently. Yesterday turned out to be quite pleasant - a little cool but it wasn't raining and/or windy all the time and there was actually a little sun! The walk from the bus to the mechanics was quite pleasant, first time in ages I've liked being outside (except in Siddeny). And today was quite fine too! Again some sun, quite pleasant, a light breeze, enough to get the first load of washing dry but not the lot that I put out at 3pm... oops.

In more good news, my seroma seems to be resolving itself. I still have some swelling in my armpit but it isn't very big any more, just a bit annoying. I can do most of my exercises without any particular worries.

I did my set up for radiotherapy today. The position I have to lie in is not quite as the physios said it would be and I found it a little uncomfortable on my arm/axilla! I shall have to practise it quite a bit to make sure I can stay in position - I don't want the wrong bits getting zapped!

Other good news is that Nathan does have a place to live up in Sydney. Even better? One of my sisters is getting rid of all her old furniture (from the house she shared with her ex) and guess who needs furniture? And guess who has almost exactly everything we need for the flat? 8-) She was going to ring the Salvos the morning I emailed and asked about it.

I even did some weeding and planting today! I've been very productive - I tidied and vacuumed this morning, I did a load of washing from the various things I found around the place that needed washing, I dealt with some moving stuff for Nathan, I made a little bag for the new camera,


(That little bit of quilting took FOREVER! I didn't realise the machine was set on slow so the stitches were massive, then I stuffed up, then the machine partway unthreaded itself = lots of loops on the back side. I unpicked the quilting THREE TIMES. But it is done now and the camera has a bag to protect it. Of course the bag is lurid! I chose black for the outside as it shouldn't look too grotty too quickly.)

I went to set up and endured that (I nearly was late cos I was blocking the shawl, oops!). I have pen marks all over my upper torso and six new tattoes! OK, they are only pinpricks (and gosh aren't the ones on my lower ribcage electric! Like OUCH!) but I don't have any tats, well didn't... Then I did another load of washing for me, hung it out, dealt further with Nathan's moving stuff, did 90 minutes of weeding and 20 minutes of planting (why does the fun stuff take so much less time?) and now am ready to collapse! Alas I have to cook myself tea. I have no idea what I'll make, or whether I'll get out some frozen leftoevers and eat them, even though there are two servings in them (cos someone doesn't have containers for one serving cos they are usually two of us!).

So things are happening, if a little slowly. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow - this is the wettest winter and early spring in quite some years - at least 10. Our dams are at their highest levels for a few years (though y'know almost 42% full is still less than half full, just sayin'). The garden is getting into the full swing of spring. The roses are pushing out leaves as fast as they can and some are already blooming or about to bloom, silly things. We may not be done with frosts yet! Though our frosts are pretty wimpy and only last about an hour.

I might go see Aussiecon/Worldcon this weekend. Yep, the grand home of geekery is in Melbourne this year. I could go hang out with my fellow nerds and geeks. :-)

anon!