Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wedding Bells

Last Sunday saw my friend Kristie marry her beau Lee at a little church in Guildford called St Matthews. Unfortunately they didn't get married on Saturday, which was a glorious sunny winter's day, unlike Sunday which was cold, wet and windy.
Luckily however the rain let up after a while and so we only got wet when arriving at the church.

I know Kristie through work and quite a few of us were invited. Due to numbers though she could only invite us and not our respective partners and so my friend Jo was to be my date for the day. A group were meeting at my house beforehand and so we went from here to the wedding.

I've got a few pics to post and I know that most of you will be rather bored since you don't know anyone here but I promised Mouse I would post photos of me in my corset and I'm not just posting them. So you'll all have to sit through some other photos before then!

Even with my red eye reductor function on, I still managed to make Kristie look like an evil bride...

Some of us from work who went. I'm the one second from the left for those of you who don't know and for whom the corset didn't give it away.

The wedding table. I love this shot because I successfully managed to get the whole table and the chandelier in the shot.

The reception was held at Caversham House and their gardens are spectacular.

All terraced and hedged with perfectly manicured lawns and statutory.

It's set right on the river and is a very popular venue due to the gardens and surrounds.

Then there's next door!

I manage to steal the bride away for a few moments to get a photo.

The extremely gorgeous and equally as expensive wedding cake. 100 small cakes all up, half fruit, half chocolate with one larger keepsake cake. It cost over a grand. Personally I wouldn't waste so much money on a cake but it was important to Kristie. Tasted nice though!

The couple hit the dance floor for the traditional wedding dance.

Jo, my 'date' wanted to get a snap of us together and out of the several we got, this is the best one.
And that's about it for now. I'll get more photos in my corset for Mouse and all you others who I'm sure want them next weekend. I'm having a party and plan on wearing the corset and my red and black netting skirt I bought when in Edinburgh. Hopefully that will suffice!

Take care guys, love ya.
xxx

Thursday, July 24, 2008

The Appointment

I mentioned a while ago that I had been referred to a Clinical Psychologist as part of our fertility treatment. I had put off making the appointment but a few weeks ago I finally decided that enough was enough and something needed to be done. I was a little surprised at how quickly I was able to get an appointment and it was only due to me working extra hours that the appointment was made for today and not several weeks ago.

Being the initial appointment they suggest that you bring your partner along so any queries or concerns can be raised but I wanted Christian there so I wouldn't feel so bloody scared. I hate doing things for the first time and a psychologist appointment is one of the more scary things in life.

The lady we saw was extremely nice and put me at ease about being there. She explained that she would make an initial assessment and then next week she takes her notes to a board meeting that consists of psychologists, psychiatrists and clinical nurses and my case is discussed there and a decision is made about the best course of treatment.
After that we started talking and she asked me a billion and one questions and explored almost every avenue of my life. We obviously covered the fertility treatment and my feelings about being unable to so far fall pregnant and what the next step in that involved. That of course led to my battle with weight loss and the binge eating that is sabotaging my attempts.

We discussed at length my childhood, the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of a family friend, growing up in a remote community, my schooling and the melt down I had in year eleven that saw me drop my TEE. My final year of high school was one disaster after another and she lingered on that painful time for quite a while. Although that year saw me meet Christian and would lead to the happiest times of my life it also marked the deaths of my grandfather and a friend I grew up with who committed suicide, my anorexia, the separation of my parents and the final blow, the hit and run death of Christian's best friend Rob as they walked home from basketball one night.

My family history was also discussed and she was a little surprised to find that most of my extended relatives are all nutters. With family like them, really there was little hope for me.
The stress I feel from work also rated a mention and the panic attack I suffered there was dissected. Most of my panic attacks stem from my obsession about being on time and the doctor came to the conclusion that time is a huge factor in my life. I have to always be doing something, I can never just relax and chill out, I must be moving from one thing to the next or I feel as if I'm wasting time. Sleep ins are almost non-existent for me and I'm incapable of being late for anything.

At the end she discussed the questionnaires I had completed before starting the session and from there she concluded that I have moderate depression and moderate-to-high anxiety. She warned me that the psychiatrists she confers with will most likely suggest anti-depressants since my issues are causing a physiological problem as well as psychological ones, mainly Middle Insomnia and binge eating. Apparently if you're just suffering from feeling sad and anxious etc they are quite happy to just use therapy but when it's causing physical symptoms they get much more concerned.
Christian and I are both of the opinion that we would prefer to try just therapy to begin with and if that doesn't help then move on to a tandem approach and the doctor was quite happy with that. She said that in therapy the issues we would deal with first would be giving me tools to help deal with my anxiety and also ways to help stop my binge eating. She also suggested that if I feel the need I should contact SARC (Sexual assault resource centre) to help deal with any unresolved issues from my childhood.

All in all I was really happy with the way the appointment went. I was in tears for half of it but Christian was there for me and that made all the difference. I feel much better knowing that I'm going to get some help and it's so much of a relief to know that I don't have to do this alone.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

xxx

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Happy Birthday Christian

That time of the year has come again and this year Christian decided to have a party at our place to celebrate. The original plan was to head down to the river and have a barbie before heading back here but storms with hail and gale force winds were forecast and so we made the decision early to can the park idea.
Our patio has recently been finished and so we brought down the bbq from Margaret's place and went out and bought some patio blinds and a gas heater to make the night as comfortable as possible. Of course, as I'm sure you could have guessed, the storm didn't happen and although it was cold with a little bit of rain, we probably could have gotten away with going to the park anyway.

Ah well, such is life.

Christian had plans to have a few drinks and although I normally would have joined him in this I had plans the next day with Barb. Christian and Barb actually have the same birthday and each year we always have problems scheduling their celebrations. Barb wasn't doing anything big this year though so I offered to take her out to lunch for her birthday instead. I went one step further though and planned to do lunch on Rottnest Island. The idea of being hungover and on a ferry in what would probably be rough seas was not what I call a good time and so I made sure I stayed away from the booze.

For Christian however it was another matter. The last time he had a couple was on his birthday last year and that was the first time most people had seen him drunk. Everyone however agreed that he is just delightful when he's drunk and were going out of their way to get him into that condition. One thing you must understand about Christian is that he's very closed mouthed, he rarely talks but is very sarcastic. When he's had a few he gets very chatty and is absolutely hilarious.

There were quite a few people who couldn't make it as they were away or had other plans and a few people couldn't stay for long and so it was just a small group of us although unfortunately for my neighbours we weren't a quiet group. Lots of photos were taken and also a goodly amount of video and so I'll share some with you next. I'll only upload one video as it's quite long and they take forever to load.

Quite early on in the day we realised it was going to be a 'crazy hat' night. Kat and I were wearing hats to begin with, not because they were crazy but because we just like hats. As the course of the evening progressed more and more hats (the majority of which actually belong to me) were paraded about.



Lance works with Christian and is such a super nice guy. His hat unfortunately wasn't crazy enough to be part of 'crazy hats' but I just didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.



Mike D made use of the clear skies and little remaining sober time to work on the headlights on Kat's beamer. A beanie and a hoodie aren't exactly crazy but come in useful when it's cold.


The kids nagged for cake and so we made Christian come inside and much to his disgust we all sang Happy Birthday to him. It was absolutely atrocious - we were out of time and out of tune. Snoopy was quickly cut up and eaten in a surprisingly short amount of time. Apparently dogs are quite delicious!


Christian pulled out his Kangol beanie shortly afterwards to ward off the chill and those who were not familiar with it made fun of it's bunny-like ears. It keeps his warm though so he has grown quite adept at ignoring the fun made of it.

I found this photo to be rather amusing as it appears that someone has pulled the plug on Christian. He resembles one of those blow up men that decorate the roofs of shops at sale time.
Perhaps I should start feeding my husband more?

I own two 'train conductor' hats and soon they were both being modelled by various people. The Mikes seemed to like them rather a lot.


The party started in the early afternoon and so even though it seemed late, the night was still young. It was half seven when this photo was taken.


Christian's hatred of the camera tends to evaporate when he starts drinking and so I actually managed to get quite a few pics of him over the evening. This is one of my faves.

Isn't he just adorable!


We set up our Dart Board and had fun playing Burma Road for most of the evening. Dart and drink don't seem to mix that well though and by the end of the night we'd completely lost one dart and had only the flight of another left.


Mikey tries to look like a nasty Russian in my pink beanie. Perhaps it was the sheer amount of vodka he'd consumed?


His Swiss Milkmaid look was pulled off slightly better.


Although Christian had had a few drinks by now, he still wasn't properly drunk. The Mikes in particular weren't happy about this and so they proposed another bottle shop run. When they came back a drink that Christian called 'The Nectar of the Gods' was made which consisted of Vodka, Gin, pineapple juice and lemonade.
It didn't take long for it to have an effect.


I managed to sneak up on Christian and have a photo taken with him.


Barb hates having photos taken and she will be so mad at me when she finds I've posted these next two photos. I think they're really nice though so I'll take the tantrum she throws with a grain of salt.
I'm a bit annoyed that I didn't get a photo of Jo and Barb when Jo was still there. Everyone seems to think that they're twins but I can never see it. Then again, I don't think I really resemble either of them so perhaps my judgement is lacking. Everyone else seems to think I look like them.


Kat is very much like a sister to me and so it was nice to have a photo taken of me Barb and Kat.
I really like this photo :)


Mike accuses me of being more cuddly than normal when I'm drunk but I'd just like to ask who has who in a headlock in this photo? I'd like to point out that I was sober when this was taken. I'm just a cuddly person anyway.


Chiaki was also sober throughout the evening and so the poor thing had to put up with a lot. I took a heap of photos of these two though because they're just the cutest couple.


I wouldn't even ask...


Right, now the video that I'm about to show you is a documentary style movie taken by Mike. It's wobbly, definitely second rate and will most likely be not at all amusing to anyone not actually present that evening. And I will just point out now that it was Barb who decided it would be a good idea to do a load of washing while my laundry sink acted as an eski.

I am fully aware of the fact that no Oscar nomination will be forthcoming.




We actually had a really early night which was more than fine by me. The Mikes were a shockingly bad influence on Christian and had him sculling beers at one point. He got that drunk that he couldn't walk and couldn't even stand up. After people started vomiting all over my floor and bottles were getting dropped, I made the decision to poor my hubby into bed about half eleven.

Even though Christian was horribly sick the next morning, he asserts that he had a fantastic time and I'm really happy that he did. I'm also really happy that I got so many videos since a lot of the night seemed to be a blur for my beloved and it was good to show him just exactly what he got up to.

I'm an evil woman ;-)

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Feeling better

Ok, first of all I'd like to apologise for that last post. Really quite pointless and extremely self absorbed. Can't promise it won't happen again but I can try.
Secondly, a big big thank you to MC and Shawna. Your comments made me feel a lot better and more importantly not so alone. *bighugs*

So I've made the psychologist appointment, it's in a couple of weeks and I've asked Christian to come with me. Hopefully he'll be able to get a few hours off work since I'll feel less anxious if I know he's coming with me. Fingers crossed that the whole process with help me deal with these issues I seem to have.

Something else that seems to have helped me pull myself out of the gutter is the fact that I've worked really hard this week and have lost a kilo. I'm aiming to lose four and a half kilos by my birthday and hopefully I'll stick to such a short term goal. I just want to break through that 80kg mark since it seems to be a wall I'm hitting.

And finally, just to prove that Barb is not the only one in the family with a little bit of talent, here's a photo of the Snoopy cake I've made for Christian for his birthday.

I just finished it about half an hour ago and I am so happy with the way it turned out. I found a picture on the net and using baking paper I traced the outline from the screen and then free hand drew a bigger one to use as a template. I'm really useless at piping too so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that piping with butter cream is much easier than normal icing.
The only down side is that the white plastic spoon I used to mix the black icing with has now been dyed a horrible pink colour. The washing up water turned bright blue when I was cleaning up so in hindsight I'm having second thoughts about eating any of the black icing.
That many garish colours cannot be good for you...

We're having a party for Christian on Saturday and I'll try and get lots of photos and maybe even a video for you.

Till then, take care.
xxx