Eleven red-back spiders

Saturday:

At TAFE this week we did a practice exercise where we had to brain-storm and then mind-map a random topic. My group got the topic 'diabetes'. In case this is the first time you've read my blog, I had gestational diabetes with my second pregnancy and now have pre-diabetes, I've been to government-run classes and am active on forums and have read just about every book out there on diabetes and know a lot about the history of treatment and recent scientific breakthroughs. Anyway, it was funny because it was supposed to be a team exercise so I had to button my lip and let other people contribute! That was kinda hard for me!

I was cranky (quietly) at the teacher of my online 'integrated' subjects (three subjects related to the work placement I'll be doing next term) - she only gave us access to the material at the end of last week - two weeks after the term started - then sent around an email this week to remind us to get going with it and not get behind! Arg! I mean, yes, but she could have acknowledged it was her fault we're behind in the first place!

Yesterday I came around the corner of the house and startled Draco the water dragon (and he startled me!) and he ran along the path a bit but then stopped and posed for photos. He's an imposing fellow, longer than my arm and very fast when he runs. I haven't seen the blue-tongue lizards for a while, I know they spend some of their time next door.

The big frangipani that we moved from a pot and put in the ground has finally flowered, months after everyone else's, and to our surprise ours is pink! White with a yellow heart is the usual colour combination, this one was left behind by the previous owners - probably because the roots had snaked through the pot holes and delved deep into the ground, we had to saw them off - and I don't remember ever seeing it flower before. Hopefully it is happy now in the ground with lots of sun. I don't know if it flowered so late because of the cultivar, or because of being moved. It only has the one flower cluster so far.

We have a lot of spiders around, I let most of them get on with eating bugs and only swipe down their webs if they are right in the way, but we had quite a few red-back spiders which seem to prefer living under our garden furniture or in cracks between bricks rather than in the garden. Very venomous and nasty, though small by Aussie standards. Today I emptied a whole can of surface spray in the various danger zones, gave the spiders half an hour to die them swept them all up. I counted eleven red-backs! And that's just the ones I saw, some probably didn't come out of their cracks to die. Quite a few egg sacks too. Shudder. I'm glad I didn't know how many there were, before. Scary.

We're into the start of autumn now and have had some cooler weather, so less swimming. Today was quite hot so we put the pool heater on in the morning and had a swim in the afternoon. Lovely. I hope we get a few more swims in before the weather gets too cold. Even with a heated pool, I don't think it's pleasant to swim in winter.

Jasmine had a band concert tonight, with a sausage sizzle and cake stall to raise money for the school band program. I stole an idea I'd seen in Canberra to contribute to the cake stall, fun-size Milky Way 'cars' with smartie wheels and a Tiny Teddy driver. I think they are so cute!

The concert was great, it was two school bands combined plus the local Fire & Rescue service band(adults) because one of them is the music teacher plus they have a precision marching team. Most of the extended family came along and it was all very entertaining, even the little kids seemed to enjoy it. The only bad thing was that the audience was in a flat hall but the stage was very high, so we could only see the front row of musicians plus the top of Jasmine's head in the second row. Everyone else was hidden. Jasmine's own school has a much better venue with the band on the floor and audience raised in ranks so you can see everyone, but the room is much too small for a combined event (not enough seats even for just Jasmine's own school concerts). Oh well, we still got to listen. It was a good evening out.

Adele

Sunday:

Tim and I went to see Adele last night. She has an amazing voice, sounds just as good live as on CD. I didn't know her newer stuff as well, I asked for (and was given) the CD for Christmas but it's still somewhere unopened, I can't find it. I was able to sing along with the "21" songs.

We were about 2/3 of the way back, very steep huge stadium (95,000 people), I felt like I was sitting on the edge of a cliff which was not great for my fear of heights! There was a great moment when Adele asked everyone to turn on their phone flashlight, it went from dark to a stadium of stars! I can't seem to download my photos today, which is annoying. But she is just a tiny speck in the distance anyway.

They run special buses to events at the stadium and one runs practically past our front door. Took about an hour to get in, but two hours to get home. Long long queues to get on the bus because obviously everyone is leaving at the same time. A lot of people catch the train or drive, but even if less than a quarter catch the bus that is still 20,000 people! Then shortly after our bus left the stadium we got stuck in one spot in traffic for literally about half an hour. We'd roll forward a few metres, stop for another 5-10 minutes, roll forward another two metres. Maybe an accident ahead? We got home around midnight and let grandad (babysitter) go home. Apparently he and the kids were up watching movies until after 11pm!

I had one really bad moment that stained my whole evening. Since talking to the doctor about arthritis I've been eating better and had already re-lost that kilogram I keep losing and regaining, I was dressed nicely and had makeup on and thought I looked ok. We were sitting waiting for Adele to come on and Tim took a photo of us with the reverse camera on the screen so I could see myself. Is that really what I look like? I often get that shock when I see photos after an event, but I don't usually have to see them at the moment they are taken. I looked so awful. My mirror at home is so much kinder. Fat shiny red face, deep grooves from nose to mouth so my saggy cheeks make me look like a bloodhound, no lips. I felt so incredibly ugly and fat. I went from enjoying singing along to the warm-up music they were playing to miserable and quiet. I tried to focus on the music when Adele came on but that image kept coming back to me. It's not even the "fat" that bothers me, you can be overweight and still attractive, it's the "ugly". I don't know if I've ever felt less attractive in my whole life.

On the positive side it stopped me eating any of the unhealthy snacks we'd brought along.

Dance concert

Saturday:

The real estate agent got back to us this morning, the seller wants to go to auction which is only a week away now. Which is fine, at least we can be reasonably sure they're not going to sell to someone else in the meantime. So we've got two auctions to go to next Saturday; if we don't win our first choice luckily our second choice is auctioned later in the same day. I want to see that one again before I decide. And we'll also view any suitable new houses.

Most of the day was spent driving Jasmine back and forth for her two concerts today, and of course seeing the evening performance. When I dropped her off for the matinee I had to park a long way away because there was a lot of road works around the theatre blocking access to the main car park (we were warned there would be - I think weekend road work makes sense in most places but not in front of a theatre!!) so I spent some time walking around the area scouting out places to park later in the day. I found a "secret" spot that I think not many parents knew about so it was worth my trouble - we easily found a spot there for the evening performance. It was the most walking I've done in several weeks! And that walking was done during the pleasant daytime rather than late at night in the freezing it's-still-winter-here.

And in the evening we got to see the dance show. It was very good, the older groups were very slick and professional, the younger groups involved my daughter which made them entertaining, and there was one dance (ballet) when tiny little kids came out in the same white tutus as the big girls and danced with them. You should have heard the "awwww" when they came out! We didn't see any other dances with the tiny tots this year because they were only in the daytime show. When everyone came out for bows at the end I did a rough count and my best guess was about 250 students! And I think six of them were boys. No older boys at all.

Jasmine did really well, she was one of the better ones in her classes we (unbiasedly! lol) think. I was especially proud of how well she posed frozen before the music started, some of her classmates couldn't keep still. And she danced well.

There have been complaints this year (which I totally agree with) that the share of stage time was very unfair this year. The older girls studying dance fulltime had many very long routines (too long, if you weren't a parent, even though they were good) whereas for the first time the younger kids didn't even get a full routine. They would dance a bit then run off and another class would run on to continue it. One song might be shared between up to four classes! In the ballet they had a long routine but with every ballet class in the school - Jasmine was on stage for 22 bars of music! That sucked a bit. In past years at least each class had a whole routine. But I suppose the show went on a bit longer then. As it was, we were there until 10:30 which is very late for young children. Aiden drooped all through Act Two.

Complaints aside, it was a good night out and Jasmine loved it and seemed to have no qualms about how much dancing she actually did. And now she can get some much-needed rest.

Making an offer

Friday:

I was ashamed of the contents of my shopping trolley today. Some days I look down into the trolley with pride: all fresh foods. Today it contained way too much junk. I know you shouldn't shop when you're hungry and I wasn't - but I was really really thirsty. Can that have an effect? Or was it stress/frustration because the bank loan officer emailed me but said he has to check something so we still can't make an offer. For whatever reason, I just kept tossing tasty unhealthy semi-food treats into the trolley. I started with getting a snack for my daughter to have backstage at her three performances starting from tonight, then I needed something for the rest of us to have while watching the concert, then I just build from there. A snack for the weekend! A snack for this afternoon!

Apart from shopping, my day was again packing and de-cluttering and cleaning each drawer as I empty it. By the afternoon I was tired and cranky.

Jasmine is very excited about her first performance tonight (this is her third year of being involved). It's quite a big deal, at Canberra Theatre, with elaborate (expensive!) costumes. She is in two dances. We aren't seeing tonight, we are going to the final performance tomorrow night. Two very late nights for my girl, and after rehearsals all week. I hope it all goes smoothly.

Just as we were walking out the door to take Jasmine to her dance concert, the bank guy rang and approved the house that we loved. I didn't have time right then, so as soon as Aiden and I got home, after 6pm, I called the real estate agent and made the offer for him to pass on to the owner. Very exciting! The real estate agent seems to be of the opinion that the owner will wait for the auction, which is only a week away, which is fine, but he will pass on the offer. At least we've expressed our intentions and know that they are not going to sell it to someone else without knowing we want it. And you never know, a lot of houses do sell before the auction date.

We saw seven or eight houses last weekend and at every one they took my contact details, so all this week the agents have been calling me to ask if I'm interested in that house, why or why not, maybe some other house they have on their books? I don't mind. Today one sent me details of a nice house that has just come on the market - nice by the internet pictures anyway. Good to have more to look at in case we don't get this one. I am not pinning all my hopes on getting one particular house. We did love this particular one though.

I finished my last antibiotic tablet tonight and I am feeling mostly better. Shopping did not exhaust me today. I no longer hobble along like I've been punched in the ovaries. I don't wake in pain during the night. So hopefully whatever-that-was is pretty much over. I should probably start some gentle exercise again!

More whining about my ankle

Thursday:

I went to bed really early last night and woke late this morning; I ended up being in bed for 10 hours, mostly asleep. That really helped with the tiredness of the past couple of days but still a bit sleepy today. Tim says that there is a virus going around that causes tiredness and he has it too. I have had other possible symptoms like the headache and itchiness deep in one ear. I'll go to bed early again tonight.

Unfortunately when I got out of bed this morning my ankle was sore again. It's been a whole week since I last hurt it and I'd only had a few twinges since then, but today it was aching all day. Walking the kids to school was a trial and so was grocery shopping in the afternoon, so I chose not to exercise other than the half hour walking. I felt pretty depressed and guilty all day about not exercising even though I truly believe it was the best thing. Maybe I should have gone to the gym anyway and used the weights machines but I just wanted to rest my ankle. Well, I didn't go. I can't second-guess myself now and beat myself up over it. And anyway, I still think it was probably the right decision.

I am sick of wearing this ankle support too. Ironically I don't really notice I'm wearing it when I'm moving around, but it gets really irritating when I am sitting still for a while.

The evening performance of the school concert was tonight so Tim got to come as well. The hall was packed with proud parents and everything went well.

Only one more school day until the holidays.

Night all.