Because I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it, you know...

I should replace my avatar because I look nothing like that now. I'm back at the heaviest I ever got to - 85.5kg. Yes, there's some baby in there but I have 9 weeks to go. 9 weeks of sitting around because I can't do much else. Back to square one in 6 short months. I knew that giving up my exercise would do that. I want to cry too now.

Hopefully some of it is fluid retention. I've got a lovely case of oedema (fluid retention causing swelling) in my feet. My feet feel like they're going to explode.

Doctors

I was a good girl today and this morning when the emotional plain was too much I rang the medical centre and made an appointment. As usual the after Christmas rush for healing meant there was no appointments available till 5:10pm, I spent the day mostly sleeping and crying.

I hate having to explain myself to the doctor. I sat there crying and telling him that I was in a mess, this wasn't and isn't like me. I am a rock normally. He said I was his second Graves Disease patient today and sent me for a blood test and told me to come back after I had had it. On my return he did something I hate but have had to put up with several times before. He said something that made me doubt myself. He said "are you sure it's not just Christmasitis?".

When I was about 19 I went to bed on a Tuesday, woke up on a Thursday and had to crawl to the phone to call in sick to work. I then took myself to the local hospital. They told me I was a malingerer.

At 27, just after I had my second child I went to my local GP for something trivial and mentioned that I had a numb patch on my face. He mentioned MS and sent me off to get some scans and to go to my usual doctor for the results (he was just on at the weekends). When I went to see her for the results she told me that she knew all about MS and although my brain was as shrunken as an old person's she believed there was nothing more wrong with me than stress.

So the "Chrismasitis" comment threw me for a second or two while I compiled my symptoms

* Uncontrollable crying
* angry mood swings
* Pounding heart
* Blurred Vision
* Painful eyeballs
* Hair falling out
* Hot sweaty hands
* Twitchiness

and I said " No I really think something is wrong" when I should have really said "WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM HERE? FOR SYMPATHY?"

Geeze I hope the bloodtest comes back with something wrong or I am going to look like some kind of hypochondriac.

Descent

My hair has started falling out again. I have some (well a lot) of trouble not crying. Time to go to get a blood test and talk to a doctor.

Happy Xmas

It's that time of year - The time of travel.

I'll be journeying for four hours today to go home and then an hour before dawn tomorrow to catch the little fellow before he wakes up, then an hour back for xmas lunch. Three quarters of an hour to the traditional boxing day brunch, an hour and a quarter to get him back home and another hour to get me and the car back. Oh, and another four hours when I return here - which may be anywhere from boxing day to sometime after New Years day.

I hate traveling :(



HAPPY XMAS ATOMICAN BLOG!

Eye Of The Tiger

Today was a crunch day for me as I could not put up with it any more. The old peepers are getting on in years and I am finding it harder and harder to focus on things up close, and more recently far away too. So it was trip to the Optometrist time.

I do try to get my eyes checked yearly anyway so it's not so much of a shock. Ever since I was about 6-ish I have had a lazy right eye that turns in a little. Some people find that sexy, some people don't even notice it. I wore a patch over my "good" eye for a long time (well whatever a long time is in kiddy time frame) and was pretty mortified to be looking like a freak. It did however put me in good stead for the freaky uncontrollable hair and braces that turned up during my teenage years.

But a lazy eye is not the issue here. I am now officially long sighted...in one eye. The other eye seems to be pretty OK (I think).

I had the happy chore of picking out a nice pair of frames for the glasses I will be wearing for working on the PC and reading. I have never EVER owned a pair of sunnies that made me look half decent so I was a little reticent about what to get. Did I want stern school ma'am-ish or hippy or what? I finally settled on a pair of half frames in funky red.

They looks something like this...but nothing like it at the same time. Ill get a photo when they come in later in the week

Too Much Work

I think I just emailed my goodbyes to a previously close friend and you know, I don't feel sad. I feel relieved. I've seen her lose all her friends in the same way as she just lost me. She's one of those people that you go visit and it turns into a session where you bitch about the people you're closest to. I'm not like that normally but she hasn't had a single friend that she doesn't have a problem with. She's always pissed off with someone for something. Her biggest gripes always being when her friends find new partners and suddenly stop having so many days out together or not inviting her to tag along wherever they go. She suddenly thinks she's being treated like scum or something. She doesn't understand that this is normal for new couples and that she will naturally see less of them anyway because they have to share their time around a little more. Anyway, I could go into the whole he said, she said but I'm not like that and there's no point anyway. It all seems like too much trouble.

Meh. Worked another 10 hour day (plus 3 hours driving). It's getting hard now. My feet doth protest. Not much Homecare work left to do though. I'm finishing this month for a while at least. Bending over at 150 front doors in one day is getting to be too much. Pity though. I think I'm going to vegetablise without it :(

Hucky Puck!

Have I ever told you I am considered to be a lucky person? I don't consider it "luck" because things happen way too frequently to make it a chance occurrence but I have this habit of more often than not winning things. Weird?

Just in the last two weeks I have attended two functions that have have lucky door prizes or raffles. Now I don't usually win things in raffles, after years of buying tickets in them I had resigned myself to the fact that if I had to pay to enter a draw then my karma driven rewards just didn't come to me.

Anyway a week or so ago was Atomic Live05. Apart from having a lucky door prize for those people that stayed right to the end there was also a booth that had an entry box for filling out a small form. You could enter as many times as you liked and many people did. I entered once.

Come the awards ceremony (which was hosted by one of my heroes Dr Karl ) _Haunt_ says the magic words to me "so what are you going to win today?" He's said this many times to me and I always seem to reply "it's not like that!" But he has the ultimate confidence that yes I will win something, I on the other hand feel that winning is some spiritual thing that occurs because I have my senses totally opened to possibilities, or maybe it is because ...look I don't really know. It just happens, and too often for it to be chance (though _Haunt_ will argue that!).

So yeah the names start being called for the prizes and I win a new graphics card(which I will now need to build a whole PC around as I didn't have a PCI Express compatible motherboard yay!). One entry in 100's and I snag a prize. I got to kiss my hero!

Then they draw the lucky door prizes and I win a double pass to the after party (free booze and food) and as I was already going I was able to make 2 people happier by giving them the tickets.

Fast forward to last night and the NSW Astronomical Society's Christmas dinner. I have a bit of a history of winning things from the astronomical society. _HaunT_ and I's first 'date' was to go to their long weekend star party. I won second prize in the lucky door draw, a telescope mount. The next year I won first prize, $3000+ of telescope (mind you last year I won nothing :)

As the function was in a small country club and there wasn't much to do and I haven't played the poker machines in many years, I dragged _HaunT_ ( a bit of a pokie hater) in for a go. We walked out to dinner $125 richer. Sitting at our table we bumped into people we were sitting with the year before and got chatting. _HaunT_ had already asked me what I was going to win, and I had explained again that as the raffle tickets for the night were bought then I wouldn't win anything. I had bought 6 tickets (@3 for $20) because we had won on the pokies and could afford to buy 3 more than I was going to originally.

First prize was a telescope and no I did not win that (nor did I expect to because of my prior track record). Second prize was a pair of German binoculars and bingo! Up came one of our ticket numbers. Yay! Then third prize was drawn which was the choice of one of two beautifully framed star pictures and yep, you guessed it, me again. I chose the picture of the trifid galaxy (see below!) but the picture is much nice than what you see here.

I don't know why it happens, this winning thing, it just does. I have been buying Boystown Art Union tickets for over 6 years now and not won a cracker. I saw that as one of my charitable donations because I never won anything where you had to buy into it. But maybe now things have changed...!

Dirty Old Women

My sister and I and my two kids went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight. I really enjoyed the movie and as I don't read the books, didn't notice or know that large chunks were not included in the movie.

I miss though the lush opulent feel that the first movie had. The second one was as stark as a cell and I found it hard to get the inner child excited about going to school in such a cold drab looking place. No matter if I was learning magic or not. This one had so much action that taking note of the interior decoration was difficult. Action and semi naked teenage boys.

I couldn't help but wonder who on earth this movie was aimed at. It certainly titillated our interest seeing Ron Weasley filling out nicely into an attractive young man. Are teenage girls supposed to flock to the movies because they have crushes on Harry or Ron?

And why don't they let Neville Longbottom get his freaking teeth fixed?

Anyway as some people know I am a mad fan of dragons and the dragon in this movie is quite spectacular. Loved it!

I give Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 8 chocolate frogs out of 10.

Right Place Right Time

Sometimes you just have to be there. Like this morning when I went to my homepage (which happens to be the Sydney Morning Herald and there was an article about nude calendars to get people back into the church. I click on the link and was SHOCKED and HORRIFIED to see this!




I bet they were enthusiastic about the project those filthy filthy religious types. We all KNOW the Bible is filled with anal,solo,animal sex and other means of fornication. But to post pictures of it in our pristine clean media outlets is UNFORGIVABLE!

Party Time

I'm about to leave for my mum's. The Catholic Club across the road from her are holding a children's Christmas show. The tickets are free so she got some. Last year was The Rugrats and this year it's The Simpsons. Oh joy, oh joy. lol

I think mum and I should just slip out and drink tea and coffee :D

Next weekend it's the Atomic BBQ on the 10th...and my best friend's university graduation BBQ on the 10th. I really want to go to both. I'm thinking I will go to Atomic at Bronte, then to my friends on the North Shore for her BBQ at lunch time, then go back to Bronte. It's a bt of a pain though. My daughter was also invited to a birthday party down here on the 10th. I wish I could ask the girl's mum (who I've been acquainted with for about 7 years) if Caitlin could sleep over the night before but somehow that seems a big ask when they're planning a party. I'm in two minds. Caitlin is currently very sad about it.

Oh well...

Parachute

My family, like all other families, is unique. We are not the type of family that depends on weekly visits or constant communication. We will get in contact if there is a crisis or at special times of the year. I rang my mum when I was in hospital with MS, my sister rang me when he son was hit by a car, my other sister rang me when she went into labour when her car was being repaired. If it is less of a crisis we may hear about it a bit later or by sms or email. My sister told me a week or so later when she had pinned her daughter to the garage wall with her car (only broke her arm).

Special times of the year are Birthdays and Christmas but I will also send out hellos at Easter, mother and father's days.

We act like everyone's parachute. Not much happens when its not needed, it sits there quietly. But when needed we are there ready to be used.


We have an interesting communication dynamic of who will speak to who (sometimes only if they have to).



The above does work on scales of tolerance. I am child 1 and will speak to anyone if they speak to me. But I don't include child 4 on my birthday wishes as I don't have their contact details and they have deigned to keep them to themselves. So when I see them at Christmas I will say Hi.

But as child 1 you can see I speak to everyone in the family. So it was surprising when on my birthday the only greeting I got was from my sister who stays here 3 times a week. Mind you it was her birthday the day before mine and I had messaged her so she could hardly not contact me.

But I have no idea what I have done to put myself in the "does not speak to" column. Especially after they had RSVP'd (in the negative of course but that was to be expected) to my birthday party invitation that _HaunT_ sent out.

Buggered if I know.

w00ties!!!

Happy Birthday Grams!!!


Sorry...Australia Post must have lost your present!