Friday, May 28, 2010

A world of pain

The last couple of weeks I've found my back giving me quite a bit of trouble. I had been at the point where I was only going to the chiro every two months for maintenance adjustments but two weeks ago, almost a month short of my next scheduled visit, I was in enough pain to justify an early appointment.
After the appointment my back was still a little niggly but I assumed it would settle down and I would make it through the seven weeks until my final appointment before flying overseas. I would end up being very wrong with that assumption...

This week, as I mentioned in my last post has been very quiet on the gardening front and I only worked the one day, a six hour job at a complex we do in swanky Claremont. This job is done on a weekly basis and every week is much the same - we put down the wheelie bins and then clean them when they're emptied, we sweep both driveways and carports and then depending on how much time we have and what needs doing we rake the lawns, sweep all the footpaths, deadhead roses, clear garden beds and do any trimming that needs to be done. Lately I've been waging a war on several deciduous trees that have gotten the urge to shed their leaves and show the world just what their undergarments are made of. That means that this week I had a lot of sweeping and raking to do and anyone who has ever spent several hours at these kind of tasks know that it's not as easy as it sounds. It's actually rather hard work, you work up a nasty sweat and you also spend the majority of the time twisting to one side.

It was this twisting I think that lead to my current problems. Yesterday I was sitting in bed reading, moved to get more comfy and felt the air rush from my lungs as a sharp pain ripped through the middle of my back. Those of you poor sods who have back problems will be familiar with that nasty feeling of a pinched nerve and I apologise for the wince that I know crossed your faces as you remembered your own pain. As soon as I could hobble to the phone I made an appointment for today and then spent the rest of the night in that agonizing state of immobility - your muscles ache from tensing them as you try to avoid making any sudden movements that will lead to that excruciating moment when you realise that lifting your arm just so causes all the pain centres in your brain to turn on the red flashing lights and sirens.

My chiro appointment today went well, or so my chiro and I believed. It was painful in it's own way but he was confident that he had ironed out most of the wrinkles and that he wouldn't need to see me until my original next appointment. I was feeling rather spritely as I left and headed round to the house of one of my best friends whom I was spending the day with. Unfortunately one of the first things he did was give me one of those rib cracking hugs that I generally adore. Today it just made me shriek, followed by several whimpers that a milk deprived pup would be proud of.

And so I rang my chiro back and made an appointment for tomorrow morning. I'm just hoping that the inflammation has gone down enough for another adjustment :(
My friend was kind enough to call my night fill job and inform them I wouldn't be in tonight which I was a little worried about. Being part time means I have very little sick pay and with it being so quiet at my other job I really didn't want to have to have a day off but I wouldn't have been any use anyway. Night fill is such a physical job and I can't see me dragging around heavy pallets of drinks with a pinched nerve, especially since tonight I was vomiting from the pain.

Finger's crossed and if anyone runs across a spare back on the black market, let me know!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Why hello there!

Aloha cousins! How goes it with you all?

All is good on this end, life seems to ramble along at it's own pace and lets us try and catch up with it when we can. With the weather getting a lot cooler over here the gardening work has slowed a little. This week is really quiet, I only had a job on Tuesday but the next few weeks look to be busy with some new jobs and so I'm just going to relax this week and enjoy being indoors while it's wet and cold outside.

It's only 51 days to go until I'm getting on a plane and heading to Scotland to visit my adopted sisters, Boo and Mouse. Yay! :D I am so so excited, I just can't wait. Christian changed our VOIP plan last week and so now I get free international calls and I've been making the most of it by ringing the girls whenever I can. Obviously it's easier to call Mouse as she's at home with the Mousling during the week but as often as I can on the weekend I call Boo. With daylight savings over there now it really makes it hard, that extra hour is a pain! I used to be able to get up at 7am on a Saturday here and call Boo since it was only 11pm over there but now it means midnight and it's just too late. I work till 11pm on Friday nights and it's just not viable getting up at 6am. But we manage to work out suitable times and I've really enjoyed the regular chats I've been having with the girls. The frenzy of excitement we're building ourselves up to is rather scary at times lol.

I've been busy in the kitchen a little bit lately. Every now and then I just get the urge to cook or bake and surprisingly I don't even watch Masterchef! I think it's just a genetic thing.
The other day I decided I was going to make soup. This was a big decision. Why? Because I don't like soup generally. I think there have been two times in my life when I've enjoyed soup - once was on a school camp when one of the teachers made a vegetable soup and the other was the Mediterranean vegetable soup we had at our wedding. And so I decided to make a veggie soup. I looked at a couple of recipes online and hobbled together my own from them. It was really just experimentation and apart from a little too much chili powder, it was actually really nice. I shall definitely be trying it again!
Today I decided to make some biscuits and wanted to make some with peanuts in them. My Dad used to make the yummiest peanut bikkies! So I stopped at the shops and got some peanuts and also picked up some macadamias and white choc chips. Then I just used a very basic biscuit mix (literally an egg, some butter, sugar and flour) and to one I added the macadamias and chocolate and the other some peanuts and peanut butter and threw them in the oven. They ended up turning out to be quite good although slightly crumbly but that's not always a bad thing.

I ended up ordering a new Kindle USB cord from Amazon UK and having it sent to Mouse who has posted it on to me. I'm hoping it will arrive in the next couple of days and then I can try it out and hopefully get some of the books on my puter across to it. I will be so mad if it doesn't work! So keep your fingers crossed!

That;s about it for now guys, take care, I'll catch you all up soon xxx

Thursday, May 20, 2010

What gives you the right???

Every now and then something will happen to me and I'll just sit back and think 'Did that really just happen'.

This occurred yesterday when I went to check my Facebook page and found I had a message waiting for me from a lady I worked with when I first started at the bank. As happens with probably the majority of people's FB friends, I had very little contact with this lady, saw the odd one or two of her updates but never commented or posted on her wall. She was just there, a virtual acquaintance. I hadn't worked with her in a number of years and apart from FB, I didn't have any contact with her whatsoever in the real world.

When I checked the message all it had was a frowny face. I was a little confused and thought I would check her wall to see if it would shed any light on the matter. I found a status update from last week saying (and I'm doing this from memory, I didn't save it) 'Just found out that a lady I used to work with had an affair with a co-workers hubby. And you think you know people! Well, Karma is a bitch, especially to sluts who do stuff like that'.
A few people had commented, begging for a name and the lady had said 'No names ladies but I'm sure that when the slut in question reads this she'll know exactly who she is.'

Ahhhh! thought I, I never saw that status and apparently after getting no reaction she thought she'd send me a enigmatic message so I would find it.

Now on principle, I haven't replied to any of the nasty messages I received during all of this but I felt like I had to respond to this one. Why? Well this lady wasn't at the branch I was at when all of this happened. She was on maternity leave I think. Apparently she had only transferred to that branch a couple of weeks ago. And I couldn't help but ask myself 'What gives her the right to judge me on something that a) happened a year ago and b) didn't involve her at all, in any capacity since she wasn't even a co-worker of the people involved.
I was rather pissed to be honest. I had thought that after a year it would be safe to turn on my computer without getting harassed every second.

So I replied. At length. I'll just summarise it here since it really is too long to do in full.
I asked her if she had ever made a mistake before because apparently I am the only person in the history of the world to have done so judging by the reactions I have had. I then went on to dispel all the false rumours I knew had been spread about me. No, I haven't broken up any other marriages, no I hadn't tried to sleep with every man who had worked at the bank and considering I've only slept with two men in my entire life I'm hardly a slut. I told her that I didn't do what I did out of spite or viciousness, it just happened and I am truly sorry for the hurt I caused but at the end of the day it is no one else's business and people need to keep their noses out from where they don't belong. I will not tolerate any more abuse or threats towards me or my family and then I said I had deleted her from my account and I hoped she had a happy life.

I got back this.
'Well I didn't expect such a full on response but just for the record no one has been gossiping about you, I only found out last week I think in error & all I can say I was shocked, I truly was stunned & I've struggled with it over the past few days, I hope that you & your husband deal with it, I hope it's something you have learnt from & I do truly believe that you AREN'T a spiteful person. If you have been threatened I am sorry that your family has been, I haven't heard anything like that or do I know who would so such a thing, I don't believe that is the right way to deal with anything, I haven't mentioned your name on facebook, I don't believe that is the action anyone should take or do, I would never try to upset you on purpose either, the whole situation saddened me. I do wish you well though, so take from that what you will & I guess in closing have a happy life too.....'

I know this is turning into a bit of a rant but honestly! She didn't expect such a full on response??? Did she just expect to be able to say whatever she damn well pleases and not expect a reaction? I felt like replying back and addressing some if the things she mentioned (like the fact that this all happened a YEAR ago - Christian and I have already dealt with it!) but in the end I didn't think it was worth the hassle.
I've blocked her entirely now like I have done with all the people at the bank, but I honestly hadn't even thought of blocking her before since I didn't know she would take it upon herself to get involved. I toyed with the idea of having as a status update 'I had an affair a year ago. For those of you who didn't know and would like to send a nasty message, please do so now and just get it over with. Thankyou' but I'm sure that's not the best idea lol.

Gah, I'm just so miffed by this whole thing, it just seems some days that I would have been better off committing genocide or something. I'm sure people wouldn't have kicked up anywhere near as much fuss then...probably because they'd be either dead or too scared of me but that's beside the point! At least I'd have some sort of a chance of getting my life back on track. I guess what most people don't realise is that no matter how hard they are on me, I've been hardest on myself. I know I did an awful, unforgivable thing but what's done is done, I can't go back and change things and no amount of abuse will change that.

So just give it a damn rest.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year was very busy for us. First of all we went to my older sister's house for morning tea for my Mum. Mum works every weekend from 12-9 and so the only chance we get to see her is during the morning. The morning tea was great, it was so nice to catch up with my mum and sisters. I've seen so little of them lately and I do miss them. Mum had asked for door mats for her present (I know! Only my mother would ask for something so practical and boring!!!) and so as a surprise I also put together a goodie bag for her. It included some of her favourite lollies, the soap she loves to use, some bed socks and some garlic infused olive oil and she loved it.
We had taken Molly with us for the visit as we knew she'd be home alone for most of the day and she had a blast playing with Shiver and generally bossing her around. It's very funny to see a small dog boss around another who i at least five times bigger than her! At one point the kids had started playing with a ball, and those of you who know her will know that Molly is ball mad. As soon as Shiver showed any interest in the ball Molly got quite aggressive and started really bullying Shiver, so much so that she got a telling off from her Dad.

After we left Jo's place we dashed back home to drop off the hobbit and make some sangas and then we legged it to the Perth Zoo to meet up with Christian's family. All the triplets were going as well as most of the kids and so it was going to be a huge family gathering. It turned out to be a great day although by the time we left we were buggered from walking so much!

This is Sue, Christian's Aunty with her grandson Owen.


There seems to be no shortage of cute babies around at the moment!

My Mother in law Margaret with Christian and his Aunty Liz.


There were a heap of fake snakes laying here and there in the bushes.


The crocodile is never very active when we're there and this time was not really an exception although he did slowly float to the top of his tank.


I have no idea what type of bird this is but he was very pretty.


The triplets, Christian's cousin Lisa and Margaret's partner Gary.


Otters are so cute!

I've never really liked the Orangutans before but they were rather interesting today. I named this one Mr Grumpy :)


A baby playing with his surprise box


Blink and you'll miss it! My action shot of this big boy!

I refuse to believe that this sequence was caused by my crappy photography skills and still insist that the tortoise was dashing away on a very important errand!

I love Meer cats, they are some of my fave animals at the zoo and just so darned cute!




This one was standing right up against the glass and I managed to get a shot from right above him.

Another animal in the African Savannah who was right up against the edge of his enclosure was the Rhino.


Zebra butt!



I didn't get the name of this tree but I thought the...nuts...were a very interesting shape lol



Christian is never cooperative when it comes to getting photos of me, he hates having pics taken of him and I'm sure he thinks that anyone who requests to have their photo taken is a bit up themselves. And so I didn't even bother asking him to take a pic of my outfit. But just to give you a run down, at the beginning of the day I was dressed in my blue snoopy tshirt, a black skirt, my new leggings with stars, my silver Doc Martens, huge hoop earrings and the blue newsboy knitted hat Shawna sent me. I did take the hat off for the zoo because it was rather warm but I did manage to get a photo of my leggings and shoes for you!


Nothing else much has been going on. I have been having heaps of trouble getting a replacement usb charger for my Kindle because Amazon will only post it to America, not Australia and so I can't use my Kindle. I tried contacting them but because I received it as a gift and there's no record of me buying one through my Amazon account, they won't help me *sigh*.
If any of my American friends could get one and send it to me, I would love you forever! I have a paypal account and am more than happy to send you the money for the cord plus the extra postage. It would mean so much to me especially since I'm about to give up and throw my damn Kindle away! lol

Okie, that's about it now, take care, chat later xxx