Tan lines

Wednesday:

Tim is very stiff and sore today. He moved around slowly watering the garden, then we went to Jasmine's assembly where she got an award for music/band and technology (she also got her report card and did very well) then Tim went to work. I came home and had lunch then a nap. Actually I had a nap in the morning too after getting the kids off to school.

I continue to feel pretty awful in the mornings. Achy body, like I’m sick or hungover, sometimes sore throat, upset tummy with some unpleasant bathroom experiences. This morning my arms and hands feel swollen and poisoned. But from a couple of hours after getting up I’m mostly ok for the rest of the day. Tired early in the evening. I suppose I have a virus.

When Aiden got home from school we had a swim, then picked up Jasmine from her after-school activity and had another swim. The pool is certainly getting a lot of use! I am so happy with it, it's beautiful. Just have to be very careful about sunburn, outside so much.

How do other people get lovely even tans? I have relatively brown arms and a circle high on my chest, exposed by T-shirts. Now I have lighter tanned areas on my shoulders and cleavage, from wearing two different swimming costumes. Like concentric circles in shades of brown. White strap lines. I'm about four different colours just on my chest.

Excellence

Thursday:

Today Aiden's school had a special end-of-year assembly (only two weeks of school left) and we were warned beforehand that he would be getting an award. Tim took the morning off work so we could both go. Aiden got an award for Excellence in Mathematics. So proud! He's finishing year 5, one more year in Primary School before he moves on to High School.

Then I had an appointment to see an Apple Genius about Jasmine's iPad which wouldn't charge. I thought it probably just needed a clean inside the port, but the Genius couldn't get it to work either. So he gave me a new one! Free! That was unexpected. Apparently because there was no obvious damage (it hadn't been dropped or drenched with water, for instance) under consumer law we get a replacement, even though it was nearly two years old. Nice. 

I also got a replacement for my sneakers. You may remember nearly a month ago I bought three pairs of shoes: black almost-sneakers which are very comfortable and I still have, black "dress" shoes with a bow on which I hated as soon as I got them home and returned and bought black boots instead which are lovely but I haven't actually worn them except to try on as I've had no occasion to, and new sneakers (gym shoes) as I wear them nearly every day and mine were starting to fall apart. But the new ones just weren't as comfortable as sneakers should be and I didn't like the grey/bright fuchsia colour scheme either, so today I took them back. It was within the 30 day return policy so I got new (light blue, very comfortable) sneakers instead! Even though I'd worn the others quite often. One out of three is not a good average for me with shoe choices! But today was a good day for customer service. 

On the other hand, remember that Christmas present that was going on sale today? Yeah, sold out by the time I got there after Aiden's assembly. After a bit of a search I got it somewhere else on sale for a bit more than that place, but still a lot less than full price. Not too bad I guess. 

This morning I got an email from the gravestone (memorial stone, they call it) people about dad's memorial stone, it is finished and installed and they sent me a photo. So that is done. It looks nice. 

Last day

Wednesday:

Today was completely exhausting. I woke at around 2am with my arms really sore, I assume from all the lifting and carrying heavy things up to the skip bin yesterday. I did get some more sleep before dawn, but also did a lot of tossing and turning in that time. My right forearm in particular was quite painful. I got up as soon as it was light.

It was a long day of packing and packing. Every time I thought we were nearly done, we found there was some more things. I think we've got about 140 boxes now. The only break we took was to walk up to the school to our children's last school assembly here in Canberra. Jasmine was playing the trumpet in the school band and Aiden's class was hosting the assembly and he got to speak several times to introduce the next segment. So it was a great ending to their schooling here. And I got to sit down for an hour!

We are mostly done now but there will still be a bit of running around while the removalists are here in the morning. My arms feel ok right now but my legs and feet are so tired and aching. I'm going to have a hot bath before bed to try to ward off some of the pain. I don't know if I'll be able to walk tomorrow, and I need to! Packing doesn't seem like hard work, but I must have done the equivalent of several hundred squats today as I put things into boxes.

See you in Sydney.