You know your getting old when

May13

you fall over in your own bedroom on the way to bed.

That’s right, I fell on my way to bed on Friday night and only today, Sunday, do I feel the effects of such a fall. My triceps on my right arm is more tender than the left and my lower back is not happy since I landed on the pointy bedside drawers. I knew I should have purchased an upholstered bed and bedside drawers to be able to make my landing softer :-(

What else has happened here? Not much except that every week I’m at the vet with one of our many fur babies. You know, when I was there just Friday gone, I thought to myself …. ‘this is why most people do not have 5 fur babies’, we are just lucky that we can afford vet bills for 5 animals, especially with 1 having ongoing issues that will continue for the rest of his life.

Fitness wise, again nothing much happening. I really do struggle to find much time in the day to do much working 7am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, then the home business on Fridays and of course I just saw on The Project like a lot of people about BARC, the Bali Animal Rescue Centre, which lead me to sponsor a dog or two, plus I have volunteered my time to do their Admin work from Australia.

So time is not my friend, since Saturday is filled with taking my mother out. Mum is getting more and more disabled as time goes on. Don’t let her know I said that, she would have a fit, but as she is finding it hard to walk most days due to pain in either her feet or legs, I feel that its safer for her to be in the wheel chair now when out shopping. This at least means that by the next morning she is not stuck in bed due to the exhaustion she would feel from trying to walk around the day before. Sunday is the day that I make sure that everything is ready for the week ahead.

I have grand plans on making sure that I lose weight before our next trip which will occur at the end of September and go until near end of November. I just can’t wait for the day to arrive that we fly out of Australia again.

So if you have any thought on how I can get to my goal of losing a shit load of weight by then, feel free to suggest anything, short of removal of a leg or arm please.

A difference 6 months can make

May7

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Can you believe that Miss Penny has grown allot in the last 6 months, she has gone into her first heat. So of course we are madly trying to make sure there is no love making going on.
So we have been to the vet to talk about conception for dogs and can you believe that there is actually a conception implant that is for males! Finally there’s is conception that the girls don’t have to deal with, the animal world is more advanced than the human world.

We do want to eventually breed our Mallies so, this is the best option to not have any unwanted pregnancies in Miss Penny’s young age. We have already had enquiries about puppies from friends of friends but not yet, hold up nelly, won’t be a go for another 2 years I would expect.

So everything is still going the same here, nothing different, just a different day with colder weather.

What’s new in your world?

Apr23

Well I think I spoke too soon on my last post. Boy has the heavens opened up for me in th last week or so.

So what’s happened?

Darren went away with a friend and while he was gone, I was left to look after the fort. Well that’s a pain to begin with cause I am not a good sleeper when he’s not here. So I had the 3 dogs in the house with me, locked away in our house, scared of every noise coming from anywhere. So what happens on the second night? Darren’s car gets stolen………… Out the front of our house through the night……… The dogs made no noise but they are Alaskan Malamutes, they don’t bark but howl but either way there was no noise from them through the night which is lucky since I probably would have had a heart attack. The sad part is, I didn’t even realize, well not right away. The next day I went out and came home at 1.30pm then realized! The police must have thought I was crazy lady. I know my neighbors thought so.

So that hurdle crossed, I had a call at 4am from my nephew, my mother had been taken to hospital cause she couldn’t breath, cue pheumonia and ICU for another week. meanwhile, Darren wasn’t feeling well by day 5 away, so while mum was in the hospital, I was trying to organize a return flight for Darren from Adelaide.

We also have had some issues with my Mr Legend puss and his eyes. So we had an expensive trip to the Animal Eye Clinic, which I was meant to visit on the day of the car stolen incident, but finally got there on the following Thursday. So $218 later, much to my surprise since I was expecting to be dearer, but he has high bloodpressure. High bloodpressure is treated in animals at 160 but ot Mr Legend, his reading was 250!!!!! Can you freaking believe it? So he had to go back to the ‘normal’ vet for a full blood test, cue another $260, results = normal? So Mr Legend is currently on medication which is human meds for bloodpressure. The sad thing for Mr Legend is that his retina’s have all but detached, however he may receive a small amount of sight back in one eye. I am just thankful that he doesn’t have a brain tumor which is the direction the vet thought we may have been headed.

All awhile my hypnotherapy has fallen over, I just have ran out of time in the day to deal with listening to the CD’s and exercising, working long hours, helping Darren with the business and helping mum with her doctors and medications.

The end result with the hypnotherapy was that I lost nearly 5 kilos in the 4 weeks, which was a good result.

My body has gone into haywire, which is wear any male reading my blog should switch off.

My monthlies have amended themselves to twice monthlies to sometimes 3 times if I’m unlucky. What the he’ll is happening there is anyone’s bloody guess. But at the moment my life is just too full to be thinking about going to the doctors when it will probably sort it’s self out soon enough.

So what has been happening in your life?

Long overdue

Apr6

I know and I am sorry but I just haven’t had the motivation to be doing, well anything lately.

It sometimes feels like we are on a treadmill which is just on the go slow, we are only walking at 1km instead of the 8km I want to be going.

The trip – well obviously that has been delayed. We were due to fly out of Australia on the 31/3/12 however we are still here ……….

We choose another date but again this changed since Darren wants to go to the drag racing at Pomona in November, so instead of flying out on the 24/8/12, it is now going to be 27/9/12, I think??? Then we have the whole hotel thing, moving between hotels each few weeks. I think that part is a pain in the backside but I’m sure that since we will be on holidays in a foreign country, I will learn to cope. Its funny since we will be there nearly 7 weeks, we don’t feel that we can fit everything in.

The furbabies - Well they are all going strong. Thought we might have had an issue with my puss Legend when his pupils started to be blown, one at a time and not the same eye. Turns out that he could have an eye infection or a brain tumor! Apparently only time will tell…..

The new Miss Penny has really grown into her features, so she is no longer ears and tail but a beautiful, I won’t say small, girl. Humphrey can’t seem to get enough of her, they are just so happy playing but they get kind of boisterous at times, like 2am on a weekend night, when you are trying to sleep! Miss Molly has adjusted to having Penny in the house, she is still the same old ‘mumma’s girl’. Miss Angel puss is also the same, Princess that should have been a Prince, she still loves rolling in the dirt with that long white fur. A mothers nightmare….

The Business – is going slow at the start of the year and I can say I was a little worried however it has taken off again like crazy. Darren has picked up a few more customers and now he has too much work, if that’s possible. But for a one man show out of our garage, he’s doing great. One of my nephews is helping him out a few days a week, which has been really good.

Mum – well she is fantastic. Thank goodness we haven’t had to go to hospital in a while, well emergency at least, of course she still has to go for check ups but at least I haven’t had the doctor’s give me the talk about the chances of survival. She refuses to allow us to get a cleaner in to assist her once a week or fortnight, she is so independent but I really think she needs to relax and smell the roses. Dad is normal, pig-headed, pain in the butt, but at least he is healthy.

Wedding – that’s right, wedding. My older sister Colleen is going to marry her long time live in partner. Colleen and I were once quiet close, she is 6 years older than I but in the last 20 odd years, we really are lucky to see each other once a year at Christmas, or at the hospital if mum is ill. She is also the mother of the nephew helping Darren with the business, bringing us all a little closer as a family. I don’t know when it was that we became distant but on reflecting it was probably when her 12-year-old daughter came to live with me. I’m sure it was really hard for her to let her go but it was either that or Mandy would have run away. Funny that, cause by the time she was 18, she had run away from all of us. (she’s back now, has been for the last 5 years or so). So, back to the sister, she had brought a dress online for the wedding, but as she is a big girl, Mandy suggested a dress which I initially thought ‘she ain’t gunna wear that!’. But Mandy insisted that her mum had changed and would. Well the dress arrived and out of the blue, I received a call from Colleen. Threw me for a moment …. what could Colleen be calling me for? Turns out she doesn’t like the dress. So I tell her I will come over to check it out, suggest a few more, even cheaper dresses online. A little different to the original one, different colour (changed to silver) complete with some sleeves (a big girls must have) and of course I measured her (she didn’t measure before ordering the original??) and low and behold, it fits, its comfortable, she likes it and feels more comfortable in her self when wearing it.

Health = Weight loss – well Darren underwent hypnosis to give up smoking on the 9th of March and to date, no smoking! Its great, he has been fighting it though but its been easier than he thought it would be. Best part of course his health but the fact he is not using $40 per day on the habit is much healthier for our bank balance. So what does Darren do the next day? He suggests, he also has the brochure for, Virtual Gastic Bypass, that I also do the hypnosis for the Virtual Gastic Bypass! I’m of course like WTF? But as he states, “everyday your on a diet, why not?” so you know what I did of course….. I’m always after the easy way ….. without the work ….. so I have done it, today will be my 3rd out of 4 sessions. First week was a loss of 2.7kilos. Great right? but of course it’s not real weight loss because I had put on that in the last couple of weeks when Darren and I hit the M&M’s hard. This week, well, I don’t think I have lost a great deal if anything. It’s my own fault since I don’t like doing the work. I haven’t completed my homework everyday. I haven’t listened to my hypnotherapy CD everyday as required, I have only exercised 1 day out of the week and I have eaten while watching TV although I have not snacked since doing the hypnotherapy so that’s a good thing.Time will tell if any of this will help me in the next coming months.

Work – I have finally changed my hours, how long for, who knows. Since my company went through a merger things have been rocky. I have a new team leader whom I do not get along with. We hardly speak weekly let alone daily. It’s a little uncomfortable but since I work from 7-5 Monday to Thursday, there are a few hours of the day I don’t see him anyway. He sits on the other side of the building so that too helps my comfort level. Pregnancy is running rampant at work at the moment. A good friend has fallen pregnant, it wasn’t planned but she is now really happy about the pregnancy and so is her partner. Another friend at work advised me yesterday that she was pregnant, she is due on the same day as our other colleague, however she is a little stressed as she has been trying for a while, she has PCOS but didn’t do anything about it, she was scared but thought she would try for a year before going back to the doctor. But here she is, knocked up but spotting a little. She recently had a ultrasound and all was good so I have tried to get her to relax, again, who know if this will happen.

So that’s all that is happening in my life in a blog post. If you stayed the whole way, then thanks and maybe I will be back before another 2 months have gone by.

Crazy time

Jan24

I have so much running around my head at the moment that I am losing sleep, badly. This morning I have woken on and off throughout the night and finally decided to get up at 3.30am. Lucky since Darren didn’t do the dishes last night before bed, I got a chance to get that all organised before I get myself ready for work.

So what’s going through my mind?

Everything from treatment coming up in over 2 months, that’s right over 2 months and I am already stressing over if we will be ready financially to take the trip, could end up postponing for another 2 months on top of that, going through the American summer.

My heart doesn’t want to postpone but my brain knows that I should. You see if we go at the intended time and we do get a positive, a singleton could be born around the birthday of my departed brother in-law, a nice omen I think if you believe in omens. Of course us  believe in anything that gives us a slight chance to hope, no matter how slim that hope may be. Although, postponing might be better for the hip pocket in that we can save more and not be struggling, I will accrue more annual leave, meaning less for ‘unpaid leave’ which makes it better when we are away to cover our household bills, but I have been dreaming of returning to the States since we left in September last year.

What else is keeping me awake you ask. Well Darren’s business has slowed a little. It might be deemed crazy but the company that pay us, we have a hand shake agreement that we will not make boxes for other caravan companies, came back to work on the 16th of January and although we delivered 55 boxes at the time, we haven’t received another order. That worries me. I know that we delivered a large number but still, I like to know that we have orders sitting here waiting impatiently for us to compete. Darren has other work to do which will fill the next week or so but I like to know that the core business is on track, but this little delay frightens me, especially with treatment around the corner.

And, I also asked to go part-time at my day job to help Darren with the business, I am still waiting for the confirmation and as we are going through a merger at the moment, I don’t know when this will be. Which is lucky with the current situation with the business. I was thinking I could cancel the request but then if the business picks back up, which I am sure that it will, I will have to ask again!

So tell me, do you have anything that keeps you up at night?

its been a while sorry

Jan19

I was going to blog on the New Year and had written a really good one I thought but my iPad thought better and lost it. Then I nearly lost it! So I haven’t done anything instead.

What’s been happening?

I think nothing but I am sure that there has been something. Lets see …….

I have asked to go part-time at work to help out with our home business, but since the merger with another company, there has been no time for the big wigs to sit down and discuss if it can happen, when it will happen, what job I will do, whether I can stay in the team that I’m in now since I am the only one doing my job with a few helps now and then, can they cope with me being part-time in this role? I am not holding my breath to know when this will all take place.

Our home business is still going great guns. We really didn’t take time off at Christmas, I only had the main days from my day job, Darren kept working as well except for the main days. The people that he does his tradesman toolboxes for closed for 3 weeks, in this time we were able to complete 55 toolboxes so it was at least a good payday when they got back.

America feels like it is fast approaching, yet I have not organised anything. No airfares, hotel, car hire, nothing. We have completed the transfer of ownership of the 7 embryos, they are now ours. I have the bills to prove it. I just received a storage bill $600, plus the transfer of ownership through the attorneys end cost was $1300. We have completed the consents and have told the clinic that we want to transfer at least 2 embryos.

We also have a new furbaby. Miss Penny has come home, she is now nearly 11 weeks. She is to be a wife for Humphrey when she is old enough. They all get along great which is good and she has been easily toilet trained which is great. We plan on breeding the Malamutes but I still have 2 years to decide, the thought of a couple of puppies is fine but the mother of Penny has had 2 litters in her life and each time its been 11 puppies. That idea freaks the hell of out me.

Mum’s been relatively well, or as well as she can be anyway. We have started shopping again on the weekends however I tend not to do my shopping with her anymore as she takes long enough to do her own that it’s just not fair on me or her to have to do too much.

I have started a new diet, one that I am committed to and is helping me to keep stuff under control. Sleep is something that is coming less and less for me at the moment. I have started to worry about our trip again. It’s like a switch, once I think of one thing, it snowballs where I end up only laying in bed with my eyes shut but no sleep. This morning it was 4.30am that I woke, but didn’t get my butt up to 5am trying to stay longer, my alarm was set for 6.45am, so at least it has given me time to write this blog ;)

Anyway, I think I have rambled enough now and promise to check in more soon.

time flies when

Dec27

Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how long its been since I blogged last.

So much has happened but nothing has changed if that makes sense. Christmas has now come and gone. We had all the family here this year again. Mum was out of hospital which was GREAT. First time in 3 years that we didn’t have to collect mum from the hospital for the day and drop her back although my father is being annoying. Dad refused to come to Christmas this year. Not because we were arguing. No just because he is stubborn. So whom was here this year, there was approximately 20 people here for lunch/dinner, my mother in-law didn’t leave until we took her back to my sister in-law whom had left a few hours before. We had a massive storm on Christmas day which resulted in a lot of families having storm damage. We were lucky. We recently had 2 trees taken down as some of the limbs started to fall without massive weather conditions changing so quickly but had those 2 trees been still upright, well that could have been disastrous.

We had hail stones as large as golf balls that smashed car windows, dented cars, smashed through perogla roofs. Imagine how crazy that is??? Here are some photos to help you understand.

In coming storm clouds Christmas Day 2011

Hail stone camparsion

Flash flooding on major freeway bringing the traffic to a complete stop

Its completely crazy the weather we went through 2 days ago.Now, I can say its hard to believe that it even happened but others are still mopping up the remains of the storm damage. So, we have also been going crazy, business wise that is. The business has really taken off and we can see that it will be bigger and even better this new year coming. So much so that I am considering going part time at work to help out more. I will have to discuss a bit more with my boss at this stage. We are thinking that I will ask to work 3 days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and we off for Thursday and Friday. We may have to reassess as time goes on, maybe change the days or completely leave all together. So far, treatment in LA is still on the cards for April 2012. We would fly out on 31/3/12 and have the transfer on the Monday the 2/4/12. The transfer of the 7 new embryos has been completed, so we have 3 fantastic AAA embryos and 4 fantastic BBB embryos, all at blastocyst stage.So we have planned to stay in LA until the 17/4/12 which will mean we will know before we leave LA if it has been successful or not. Darren would love to also stop at Hawaii but we have yet to make the decision about this yet.

Well don’t know if there is anything else new going on. Thanks for sticking around to my last picture of our new baby.