Fluff

Wednesday:

I did a lot of running around today. Well, not actually running. Driving from place to place. Tim's phone's charger hole regularly gets clogged up with fluff from his pockets so it won't charge any more, so I took it into the Apple Store so a 'genius' could dismantle it and get the fluff out. The genius asked if my husband was in the construction industry (to explain gunk in pockets) - no he's a lawyer! I have no idea why this keeps happening, I keep my phone in my pocket and have never had this problem. Anyway, it's good now for another six months at least.

I bought myself a new pair of jeans in a smaller size, my current ones are baggy. The new ones look nice from the waist down, but are a bit too snug which creates a bulgy muffin-top above. I'm counting on losing more weight, and I have to put the jeans in to be shortened so I won't be able to wear them for a week or so anyway. Maybe it was a silly purchase, we're heading into warmer weather when I wear (long) shorts instead, but summer isn't quite here yet. And my baggy pants don't show off my weight loss.

Then I drove to another shop to get a couple of sun lounges to put by the pool - to be told they wouldn't fit in the car. So I didn't buy them. Finally a visit to Aiden's school to buy him a new sport's uniform. They change to summer uniform after the holidays.

Not much study today. I have an assessment tomorrow in class and one on Friday at home, so I need to do a bit more work tonight.

Rest day

Tuesday:

I decided I needed a rest day today. No frantic cleaning or rushing around doing anything else, and no dwelling on the stressors in my life, just recovery from this flu. Reading and TV and naps.

I was supposed to go to an appointment with my doctor to follow up whether I am successfully absorbing B12 from the tablets, or whether I need injections. Last time I needed to contact my doctor, three weeks ago, they were having problems with their phones and I couldn't get through for a couple of days. When I finally asked them about it in person, they said they knew about the issue and were having it attended to. Today I tried to ring to postpone my appointment (rather ironic I suppose, cancelling a doctor appointment because I'm sick). And tried. And tried. Over and over for more than an hour. Either I got a "user busy" signal or else the phone rang out with no one answering. I guess they're still having issues. After three weeks! Nothing on their website, and no other way to contact them except snail mail.

The big frustrating irony was that the only two minutes I was away from my phone all morning I missed a call from them, saying I'd missed my appointment and to call them! Yeah, why don't I try that... They'd better not try to charge me, I will absolutely refuse to pay. (In Australia the government pays about 2/3 through Medicare and you pay about 1/3, depending what medical service you are using.) I will speak to them in person next time I am at my local shops. If I'd known about the continuing phone problem I would have dropped in yesterday when I was dragging myself through some essential shopping right next door.

It was a grey dreary day, with pea-size hail at lunchtime (I had the idea it only hails on warm sunny days when the weather changes suddenly. Definitely not the case today). Perfect day for just hanging out at home taking care of myself. It helped, I think. I'm starting to feel better, I even had the energy to tackle the laundry in the afternoon. It was really nice to have a day when I didn't feel a lot of pressure to be tackling my to-do list.

I've been doing a bit better with food. Still eating some convenience foods like frozen meals and home-delivery because I haven't felt up to cooking much and Tim is home too late during the week to cook for the kids, but I haven't been buying between-meal junk. Maybe I shouldn't take the credit for that, food isn't very appealing right now, but I'll pat myself on the back anyway!

My birthday!

Thursday:

My birthday started with presents. My main present was an iPhone 6 (I had been using a 4S) and my son chose this beautiful cover for it:

My daughter gave me body lotion, hand cream and lip balm.

My husband also gave me this stunning colouring book, with a set of 72 artist pencils.

I had bought my children colouring books for Christmas and loved them so much I bought one for myself, but this one is actually made for adults. Apparently grown-up colouring books is a thing now, as an anti-stress technique. I used to colour in a lot as a child before moving on to cross-stitch embroidery and then painting miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons. In all cases I am not required to be able to draw! The design work is done for me, I just get to choose the colours and soothingly fill them in.

It was a day of indulgence, and as such I am not going to give myself a report card today. But tomorrow is another day!

Damn drawer handles

Wednesday:

Bit of a busy day today. We had someone coming to quote for cleaning the house this morning - a proper deep clean or as much as they could do considering all our stuff was still all over the place. So of course I had to spend some time tidying first! The guy came wandered around and worked out how much it will cost and he is coming back next week to do the actual work, over two days. The plan is to get a cleaner house for now, but if we end up renting out the house we'll have another clean done once our stuff is packed away. I used to have a regular cleaner when Jasmine was a baby (and I had post natal depression) but then I decided I could do it myself. It's just housework, right? But I can always find something better/more fun to do, so I am going to start outsourcing again.

Then I went to the local hardware store to buy a new door handle for the bathroom and some new drawer handles for various items of furniture. Got my first phone-call-while-driving for the day (I waited until I pulled over then called back, of course), the handyman who will come tomorrow to look at my list of things to do and give me a quote. Went to physio, it hurt a bit more today maybe after the weekend of motel bed and long hours in the car. Came home for lunch, and found that the screws that came with the drawer handles were all much too long.

So back to Bunnings Warehouse where they cut down all the screws for me (I worked out beforehand how long each should be), got my second phone-call-while-driving, my brother who is worried about dad. He spoke to dad yesterday on the phone and was worried about the seeming vagueness and confusion. I had thought dad seemed better on the weekend so I'm not sure how much was just miscommunication. For instance I had told my brother that dad was in Goulburn Valley hospital in Shepparton, but Darren thought he was in the town of Goulburn and was worried by dad saying he was in Shepparton. One bad thing was that when I was there I noticed dad had a strange wristband on but he couldn't seem to tell me what it was (didn't know or maybe just didn't want to?). Darren says when he spoke to a nurse she mentioned that dad was wandering around the hospital getting lost so they put a tracker on him! I'm not sure if he was lost or had some idea of escape, he was "joking" about escaping and going home when I was there. I told him that if he couldn't get into bed without help, I didn't like his chances of getting to the exit.

After that sunny little chat I went to my doctor's appointment to follow up about the x-ray and ultrasound of my shoulder. The upshot of which is I am keeping up with physio to see if that will help enough, and also I have a med cert to give to the gym if I want to suspend my membership for a couple of months but I'm not sure I want to use it. Then if I want to go, I can't. But will I want to go in the next couple of months? It's going to expire in a few weeks anyway.

My third phone-call-while-driving (yet again waiting until I was safely pulled over, but I'm never sure these days if it will be something important to I always call back as soon as I can) was the curtain people, so I've got a home visit from them arranged as well. Gradually getting it all done.

When I got home I put all the drawer handles on, only to find the coffee table ones were still too long! I didn't allow for the shape of the thingy that I'm not going to bother to explain because I don't know the names. After two trips to the hardware store I still couldn't get it right. And then realised that it was Wednesday which is the day we get home late after dance class so I make a casserole but I forgot and there wasn't long enough now for it to cook properly. Feeling a bit exhausted, really, with all the running around today. We got Indian food on the way home. And another call from Wendy during dinner, she said she had some positive news but I'm not sure what exactly because nothing she said seemed particularly positive to me. I suppose "He promises he will take his pills now" could be taken as positive but I didn't know he wasn't! And the fact dad had his MRI today and we'll get the results on Friday, well not really fabulous news. Oh well, I guess she is trying to see the bright side. Better than the alternative! I'd hate if she called me every day and moaned and wailed and predicted the worst! So I should be grateful.

Have a good night everyone.

Mind Control and Car Accident

later Wednesday:

A couple of days ago a friend brought over a Christmas present she'd received - a mind control device for your phone. You put it on like a headset, touching your skull in three places plus a clip on one earlobe, and then use your brainwaves to control your smartphone. So cool! At the moment there aren't many good apps for it, but she showed me one and I had a go. You have to use your active brainwaves to blow up a barrel of fireworks - I had it fizzing but couldn't get it to blow up. Then you use your calm brainwaves, like meditating, to make a ball float into the air. I did better at that one, even though I suck at meditation and calming my brain! I did exactly what I do if a doctor is about to stick a needle into my arm (I am not at all scared of needles, but I know how to make it hurt less), I looked away and made my body go limp. And the ball on the screen floated up. I thought it was interesting that relaxing my body immediately calmed my brain (deliberately unclenching my jaw works too if I'm angry). But as soon as I looked at the screen, the ball started to sink again. It was really fun but you'd need more games than that to keep the interest going.

In other news, my father-in-law and his new girlfriend, who we met at Christmas a week ago, were supposed to visit a couple of days ago but postponed at the last minute so they could do something more fun on New Year's Eve. They were on their way here this afternoon when they had a car accident about an hour away. They are both fine, thank goodness, but apparently the car lost a wheel so it sounds pretty serious. Father-in-law says it was the other guy's fault, but I don't have any other details yet. They are getting the car towed to the nearest town and Tim has headed off to pick them up.

They were going to stay for two nights, no idea now. Might depend on the car getting repaired. Or maybe it's totalled.

This is the second car accident Des has been in in the past couple of years, which worries me. The other time he left the road in the dark and went down a short embankment. I had been starting to get concerned about my mum doing the long drive here at her age - she won't be doing it any more, we'll always visit her - so now I have to start worrying about Des instead! And my own father has a six hour drive here in a couple of weeks, on his own. Why do people have to get old?

My mum is feeling much the same. Her leg hurts if she puts weight on it but otherwise no pain, but she is tired all the time and mostly sleeps. She has her appointment with the radiotherapy doctor on Monday.

Spinning wheels

Wednesday:

Had one of those days when you feel like you are just spinning your wheels.

I started well with a nice walk to the fruit markets. I filled up my backpack with strawberries and mangoes and grapes and nectarines and even a few cherries. Yay for summer fruit! Then back home I had a long list of little admin things to do that wouldn't take long, I thought.

It took four calls to one place, throughout the day, before I finally got through at about 7pm. Another place had no bookings free before Christmas but wouldn't book any further in advance than that and told me to call back in January. A third place put me on hold a long time before sending me through to someone else, who eventually gave me a number to call that turned out to be just back to the first person... Another place had an automated phone system that didn't have any options I wanted and wouldn't put me through to a real person. I tried to download an interactive iPhone app for the uni course I want to do but apparently my phone is too old (it's a 4s, I've had it about 18 months I think). By the time it was school-pick up I had achieved exactly nothing! Hours of sitting on the phone or trying to navigate online sites.

I persisted over the afternoon and early evening, and did eventually manage to tick off quite a few things. But I got no writing done, when I thought I would have hours and hours today! Silly me. Oh well, it's not like anything terrible happened today, just a bit frustrating. At least I got my walk in!