Updates January 2009

1. Day Three (well really 2 because not much happened yesterday) of landscaping. The slab for our new mega-10,000L water tank has been finished. I love that 2 seconds after concrete was laid it poured down for exactly five minutes and then fined up. Joel insists that he brings the rain with him... I suggested he should not be doing the concreting jobs and he totally agreed :)


Before dirt for garden


After some dirt has been added for garden





Before slab laid for water tank



After slab laid for water tank


2. My new toys.......





the bike is part of my new fitness craze - trying to get some physical activity into my life and find some calm 'me' time to ensure 2009 and is not a repeat performance of 2008. The bike is in conjunction with Yoga (starting today) and yes, the aforementioned pole dancing.... which for all of you who are wondering is NOT to spice up my sex life. I can barely move for 2 days after training, I have bruises on my shins which are not pretty and I look anything but sexy doing the dance... more like "how the fuck am I meant to get my leg up there?" sort of look on my face. But it's clearly a workout as I've lost weight already and can feel that slow burn in muscles that I didn't even know I had!!! And no, none of you are invited to the end of semester concert... that means you Geoffrey ;)

The pool table? Okay so not really an exercise strategy - more one of 'learning to wind down at the end of the day'.

ciao
xo

Okay I'm going to fess up....

I have pole burn... figure it out, send heaps of shocked comments my way and then I'll elaborate :)

Day 1 Landscaping....The Tree is Felled (don't worry more will be planted in it's place!!)

A good laugh to start the new year

The world in 7 minutes by Charlotte Rose

In Libby's Kitchen

Merry Christmas from Queensland Transport!!!

How can this not make you feel festive? And my Go card needed topping up - he wouldn't take my cash - wished me a Merry Christmas and said "I know you'll top it up"... Trust, festive wishes and a good heart. The spirit of Christmas lives on with Brisbane Buses - who would have thought??

At last.....the floppy hat

Nearing 2

Her first sentence...

"I did a wee Daddy" ........ and she did too. On the toilet and all :) she's growing up

yaaaaaaaaay!

Building and pest fine.

Finance unconditionally approved.

Settlement set for 12th December.

Bring on the stressful move 2 weeks before xmas!!! :)

Crazy Hair Day at School (or Check out the 'tude on my daughter)

A Life Update

Well hello dear readers. 'tis been awhile. Again, not due to lack of content but rather lack of motivation to get to the computer and write it all down. I think I've mentioned before that if they could hurry up and invent a mind to computer recorder I would blog a lot more often. Then at 3am while I was narrating a blog entry in my head (yes I do actually do that...how sad is that) - it would be automatically blogging to my site. How cool would that be!!??

And so begins a life update:

My Health

Is doing quite well thank you. I can't wait to see the specialist in a few weeks to get my meds reviewed though - there've been a few blackouts of late when I've stood up too suddenly and I've fainted momentarily because my blood pressure must just drop... of course, they may not change my medication at all....after all, keeping my BP low is the point I think. Anyway, I'm braving work one day a week as of the first of December (always good to return to work during the silly season don't you think??) so we'll see how that goes.

My Princesses

I never feel like I can do justice to this section of my blog. So much happens during the day with them both that it's hard to capture their hilarity, their drama, their ability to stun me with their personalities..... so some snippets.

******

(note well: we've been quite aware of charli's fascination with death and dying lately - a stage I'm told - but all the more because of my cardiac arrest.... )

So Dave and I are sitting in her room playing trains. She lays two of the wooden people on the floor and says "they died". Dave and I look at each other in horror. Maybe they are just sleeping charli? "No they died-ed". Then she looks sad, hangs her head and pouts her lips. "What's up Charli?"
"I'm just so sad that they died"
"Charli, it's okay - they didn't really die, let's not play this game ok?"
Charli looks up with a big grin on her face:
"It's okay mummy, I'm not sad, I'm just pretending - they're not really dead you know, they're just toys".
Blimey.....I can't keep up with her.

******

Me: Zie, don't bite Charli - it's very naughty!
Zie: No
Me: Zie, that's it, you need to move away from Charli please, you're being very naughty
Zie: Runs across the room, slaps me in the face or sometimes bites me if she's in the mood and then runs from the room into her room and sits in time out before I can even put her there. (sigh) - love how she gets one last naughty moment in before punishing herself.

*******

Charli on one of our many house-hunting trips of late. Walks in the door at a house - walks up to the agent and says "My name is Charlotte, I hope you're having a good day, we're going to buy this house ok?"..... every real estate agents' dream sale.

*******

I promise I'm going to do more of these snippet blogs. there's a 1000 more tales on a daily basis. I'll be more diligent I promise...

The House Hunting

Let's see if I can condense this.

• We've been househunting a lot
• It hasn't been easy because even though I have all this time on my hands, I can't drive so I can't be doing any of it during the week - which means every Saturday we get to cart the kids around and listen to them whinge and whine the whole time. It's lots of fun
• We found a house they were listing as Gigantor!! It's ugly but it's huge. Here's a couple of pics:

It's on nearly 1200 square metres of sloping to flat land, there's odd structural issues like a pole in the centre of the lounge room (because it used to be the garage), there's shag pile carpets which HAVE to go and it's tiled floors instead of my preferred wood. There's no flow effect out to the entertaining areas and all in all it's a brick piece of lego that desperately needs to be prettied up. But having looked at a few houses now (to say the least), we've discovered if you buy a pretty house, then you're paying for someone else's hard work and the chances are it's either a) too expensive, b) too small or c) on a small lot which we've decided we don't want. *sigh*

• We offered 34K less than their asking price - a rude offer yes but one that sat well with us given what we wanted to do with the place. And the Brisbane market is falling so.....
• they said 'no' and didn't counter-offer
• we offered 9K more and said that was our limit (and meant it)
• They came back with an offer 12K more than that. I said no our offer was X and that's all we can offer. Goodbye
• Felt emotionally drained as yet another house passed us by but refused to wallow. This house hunting thing is a big game and there's no point getting stressed about it (or giving yourself a cardiac arrest ;)
• Yesterday (after a tiresome Hi-5 concert!!), we went to see another house at the same price as we were offering on the above house - prettier, all renovated, pool, same size block, good high fences to contain the children BUT we just didn't like it. Might have been prettier but it was smaller and still had lots of little structural things that you knew were going to cost money to re-do. AND there was moisture in the garage wall..... and above the garage on the lawn sat the pool..... we were suspicious!!
• Driving home we decided that for the extra 12K we may as well bow to the wishes of the vendors who own the home above and just buy it. It always helps to see comparably priced houses on the market so we planned to call on the way home and bow to their new asking price.
• The phone was in the back of the car and i couldn't reach it so planned to call when we got home.
• The phone rang and went thorugh to message bank.
• Turns out that it was the estate agent :)
• We called back (not mentioning that we were about to call him!!)
• He asked if there was any way that we could increase our offer (now if we hadn't just decided to call him, him calling would have PISSED ME OFF because I thought I'd made it quite clear we weren't going to offer more)
• But of course we offered 5K more because hell, we'd just been about to pick up the phone and offer 12K more but he didn't know that!!
• And as of 3 minutes ago (while I was blogging!!) our offer was accepted!!
  

WE ARE NOW THE PROUD OWNERS (subject to building and pest and finance!) of GIGANTOR!!! (and don't think I won't be getting a sign for that house that says that!! LOL

It only seems fair ...

to blog what Zie is saying since I did the same for Charli when she was about 18 months old.

Hellooooo (said in the most prim and proper way!!)

Mummy

Shoes

Dora (or D D Dora) as in repeating the D like the theme song - sheesh

Woof woof (dog)

wack wack (duck) - usually made with hand motion for quacking

Ta

Sharli (Charli)

Ba (Bath)

Nanna

(Notice no daddy... well tonight she actually addressed Dave by Da-da for the bloody first time)

She doesn't have many words yet, but boy does she make it well known EXACTLY what she wants each and every second of every day. Thankfully she comprehends well so if you can at least ask the right questions you'll usually figure it out with the Da (Yes) and No pretty easily!!

Love you baby girl.
xoxox

Appallin' Palin

Make no mistake, I don't follow American politics religiously, however, I do like to know what's going on over there at least superficially.... they may not be the only super power in the world but they do still hold some pull unfortunately. Now I make no secret of the fact that if I were American I would be a democrat - I've met enough Republicans to have been put off for life - however this video (the first one thoug feel free to watch both) of the Republican's candidate for vice president (Sarah Palin for those of you not in the know) terrifies me, and makes me thankful one more time that I do not live in that country. I mean my God - Alaska is surrounded by foreign countries (Russia and Canada) - and you lived in that state Sarah? You're right that does make you a prime candidate for VP of the US - holy shit people.

You have to sit through 2 advertisements before it starts... please be patient - and I apologise for the couple of minutes you will never get back of your life.... but well..... watch it.

And now watch the Tina Fey take off on Saturday Night Live

On Meegan's suggestion.....

go to www.todayihadtimetoread.blogspot.com

:)

Musings September 08

Our Anniversary Continued

Our anniversary dinner at the Marco Polo restaurant at the Treasury Casino was fantastic. It was like a real date - a sophisticated type date that Dave and I hadn't made time for in years. We got a taxi into town and went straight to the restaurant. We were encouraged to have a predinner drink in their lounge area (a nice touch) and ordered a mojito (lime, mint, bacardi concoction) for Dave and a strawberry daquiri for me as I wasn't feeling too adventurous plus the casino does one of the best daquiris around. We chatted and talked about work and life and then moved into the restaurant for one of the best meals I'd had for a while. It was standard silver service - you know, pay $30 for an entree that you had to squint to see on the plate BUT the taste sensations were divine. And there is something to be said for small portion sizes - allows you to actually get through a three course meal without feeling like you are going to burst. We had scallops (Dave) and Prawns (me) for entree, beef fillet (Dave) and Ocean trout (Me) for mains and a banana crepe thing and a macadamia baklava (shared) for dessert - and THEN because Dave must have mentioned it was our anniversary we also got a plate of petit fours with Congratulations piped in chocolate on the plate. I would have photo-ed it for the blog but it really didn't seem like that kind of restaurant where I wanted to whip out my mobile phone and take photos ;) Even I have some class.... sometimes.

Readings

I must say that since completing my PhD I've really enjoyed reading again - and not just pop-psycho-thriller trash that doesn't make me think too hard, but stuff where the authors actually hang together sentences with subject and predicate. I've been through all of the girly trash that's funny but after 5 books leaves you wanting more - and leaves you able to complete the book in your head because they're all the same after awhile. So in Borders the other day I picked up 2 books that I thought were a bit more ..... sophisticated? Oh I don't know if that's the word... I'm not going to start reading War and Peace or anything (tried it once, lasted 6 pages..), but I feel like I want to have to stop and think about what the author is saying. So I started with The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (her first novel by the way) and it is absolutely magnificent. It is time travel science fiction meets love story. I've always been a fan of time travel books to be honest. I love the brain strain it takes to figure out what's going on. Interestingly enough I've always believed in the much believed notion that you cannot set up a time paradox by appearing in the past in a place where you currently are - i.e. you can't meet yourself in the past. This novel rejects that assumption and has no problems with Henry (the main character) of 43 sitting and having ice creams with his 8 year old self. I loved it. It was inspiring - it told of a love that was there before they even met and a love that existed long after they were gone. It's a must read.

I'm off to begin now a book that was first recommended to me in January of this year but I didn't think that I had the oomph to stay with it..... The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Review to follow.

Happy Anniversary - oh and now I don't feel guilty about the hair......

So today is our sixth wedding anniversary and this morning we discussed...albeit briefly.... how we feel like we are very very different people to those that met each other for the first time 17 years ago - I have now known Dave for 50% of my life.... whoa. Happy Anniversary honey. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I no longer feel guilty about my hair dresser bill of last week.... today we went to see a gold class movie as part of our annual child-free anniversary day... and afterwards we went to buy Dave some more work/business/going out shirts - because apparently having 10 work shirts for a 5 day week is not enough ;) (and they say women are bad with clothes)..... as part of my new 'life is short' philosophy I was picking out a) shirts that Dave would like as opposed to shirts that I would like him to wear (aka gay shirts appparently) and b) shirts for which I have not looked at the price tag..... and for this new little lease on life rule I got to be part of a $450 dollar bill for 3 (yes that's right THREE) new shirts..... OMG. anyway - I think we're even now :)

Love you sweetheart.

xoxo

Even my days relaxing are a bit Type A

So yesterday I head for Chermbleside (as my 3 year old calls it) and treat myself to a haircut and colour at a fancy schmancy hairdresser that I've never been to before. I already knew that they cut was going to cost me in the vicinity of $80 but I sucked it up and decided not to worry about it - after all, it has been 6 weeks since my 'incident' (that is how we refer to it now) and I've done nothing but watched movies and cleaned the house - hardly a cent has been spent on recuperating in style. So I get my hair cut by the 'stylist' and then I am introduced to the 'colorist' (Oh lord, this is starting to sound expensive. We gab for awhile (not surprisingly he's gay) and then we discuss my colour options and he goes away and gets me a quote and comes back with the magic number of 275...... dollars people!! not yen!!! Now a sensible person not wishing to give themselves another cardiac arrest would have left uncoloured at that point but I still have a lot of work to do on my assertiveness skills and quite frankly I was struck dumb by the figure. I nodded and work began on the hair masterpiece. I settled in for the ride and started on my new Maeve Binchy book. After 2 hours of them fussing over foils and toners etc etc I was starting to get antsy - I had places to be!! But then I realised "where did I have to be really?".... my type-A personality was just going nuts at the thought of taking an entire day out to do nothing ........nothing..... don't you see. That's just wasting time. I could have been cleaning, or cooking, or buying new clothes for the kids, or paying bills or filing all the crap on my desk!! but here I was taking time for myself..... deep breaths.... I talked myself down into a more Type-B/Zen state and sat back and enjoyed the neck massage they were currently giving me. All in all the colour was ok, the cut was ok. It wasn't bad - I haven't had better but I've certainly had comparable hair experiences and most of them a quarter of the price....... by the time I got to the counter to pay, I took the hair care products they were offering me because hell, how much more expensive could this outing get........ let me tell you..... the final price for a fucking hairdresser appointment was $400!!!!!! Of course, that included the lovely shampoo and conditioner that cost $80 - I mean who freaking pays $80 bucks for shampoo? I zen-ned myself out to lunch (complete with a wine to calm my nerves) and sat thinking how glad I was that my husband never pays any attention to our credit card bills, never reads my blog (hi honey :) ) and trusting that his best friend who does read this blog will take pity on me and not breath a word of this to hubby. (thanks geoff)....

Just goes to show - even when I'm meant to be relaxing I can get myself into situations that would invoke a cardiac arrest in even the most mild-mannered person. What hope is there for me when I return to work???

Type-A personality gets to review her life

Hello dear readers.
Well where to begin. Most of you will be aware by now of my life-changing (or so they say) experience on the 7th August. Much time has passed since then so let me walk you through it day to day.....

Thursday 7th August

On this particular Thursday I had been at work as usual and was picking the girls up from school. People keep asking me if I remember what I did that day, but you know how it is, one work day melts into another and who can say what you did on any particular day. Work has been stressful in the lead up to running our assessment clinics (which began on the 11th August) and I was lost in a see of database queries, mailouts and telephone reminders. It was hectic.....and let's be honest, I was loving it.

And that's the last thing I remember... well not even remember really, but that's the last thing that I did that was normal that week. After that it all went a bit pear-shaped apparently.

After picking the girls up, with Charli having climbed into her seat but not yet strapped in, with Zie still in my arms (so Charli tells me now), I had a cardiac arrest. I collapsed in the car park with Zie still in my arms - thankfully the childcare staff were having a staff meeting, so they were all still onsite - alerted by one of the many mums who were coming and going at that time of the day. Even more fortunately, an ambulance was only about 2 minutes up the road on its return to Prince Charles Hospital. The child care staff, and then the ambos were able to revivie me, although it took almost 20 minutes apparently and took me to Prince Charles Hospital (for those of you not in the know, that's Brisbane's Cardiac Hospital anyway so kind of fortuitous that it was just down the road.

I came through the ER (or in Australia we like to call it the DEM - Department of Emergency Medicine but I don't think that has the same ring to it - do you?) unresponsive but with a pulse and BP so I was chilled down to about 33.5 degrees and moved to the ICU. I was warmed about 12 hours later and by Sunday was able to hold a conversation that lasted for longer than 30 seconds at a time without repeating (think 50 First Dates except with the repeat button on 1/2 minute, not 24 hours!!)

I remember nothing of Thursday - Sunday. I don't remember trying to flee the hospital (ladies, unless you want the worst UTI of your lives I strongly recommend not tearing a catheter out in an attempt to leave a hospital rather quickly!!). I ripped canulas out of my arm and took off. Dave who had been taking a break out in the lounge returned to the ICU with staff saying they had lost me - he was rather nonplussed to say the least. Thereafter I had 24 hour guards on my door whenever family weren't visiting and apparently at one stage I was convinced that I was in the Winston Noble Unit (the psych ward at Prince Charles) - talk about paranoid. Clearly someone was slipping me some rather cool drugs that were having the unfortunate side effect of making me rather suspicious!! :) I like to think that I made a rather long-lasting impression on the ICU staff. After they'd had enough, they shipped me off to CCU (coronary care unit) - which is where I was when my memory returned.


Sunday 10th August

So by Sunday when Dave was visiting I was able to retain some information and learnt that an angiogram had revealed no signs of coronary heart disease (but did however give me a great bruise that covered my entire upper leg/crotch area - and I thought waxing was bad!!!). They had two theories at this point - my prolapsed mitral valve, which I had with no problems since I was about 7, started leaking quite badly, causing an arrhythmia which sent me into arrest OR Takotsubo syndrome, complicated by the leaky valve. As Dave pointed out in his email to friends, those o fyou who watch House may remember an episode with this syndrom in it.... Here is a link to a journal article which describes a case with a number of similarities to mine...and there's a Wiki (of course!!)

http://www.cardiothoracicsurgery.org/content/2/1/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_cardiomyopathy

Monday 11th August onwards

I'm not going to outline individual days at this point. I was in hospital. My days consisted of bad meals with insanely small portion sizes (I lost 3.4 kilos during my stay in hospital though I would not recommend cardiac arrest and extended hospital stays as a form of weight loss, however effective), having blood drawn, having drugs handed to me, having canulas put in and taken out and more veins poked and prodded. Thankfully amongst all of this I also had a veritable stream of visitors who kept me sane (and brought entire florist shops with them!!) - thank you to all the people who kept me sane. Thank you for your company, the flowers, the scones with jam and cream (I thought I would go insane on that cardiac diet!!), the chocolate ice-cream and the friendship. It got me through a bad week. It will not be forgotten.

They started talking about a defibrillator - the valve having corrected itself meant that valve replacement was back on the shelf thank goodness - the longer I can put that off the better. However, this defibrillator thingy didn't turn out to be such a hoot either. But I was told I wasn't leaving hospital without it, so it became something that I longed for, just so that I could go home. An entire week later....... and D-Day arrived.

Monday 18th August

While my sis in law was visiting a nurse marched in with a surgisponge, asked it I'd yet showered today and upon receiving my negative response marched me to the shower, handed me the surgisponge with clear instructions and said they would be up to prep me for surgery within half an hour. Wow, for days I had been sitting there wondering if I'd have to go private in order to get this surgery done and the next thing, I've got no preparation at all and it's all systems go. Bekk called Dave to let him know and said not to bother coming up as I probably would have already gone and ..... off I went. ...... only to sit in pre-op/recovery for an hour. Glad I rushed that shower ;)

Apparently the surgery was to be conducted under 'light sedation'. the very term made me nervous. I clarified just what that meant and was assured I would not feel a thing. Whew....... well it must have just been a bad dream then that for the entire second half of the procedure I could feel them inserting the device, getting it into place, sewing me up, could hear them discussing that I was awake, what meds I'd had, and coming to the conclusion that I could have no more and that I would have to be fine. I'm glad that they had not prepared me for the possibility that I might feel something. Because you know, then I could have been prepared. Then I may have realised that what I could feel in fact was only pressure - instead, thinking that I wasn't meant to be feeling anything I panicked...and all of that converted into the sensation of pain, and the terrified thoughts that I could feel them in my chest cavity. Panic is a wonderful thing. I spent an hour in recovery trying not to cry - I was still so stunned. The nurse who had been in the op came to see me, I was so angry that I wouldn't even answer him when he asked me how I was. Yes... much better to treat patients as morons rather than tell them exactly what is going to happen.... much better. Anyway, I'd best get over it. Apparently the appalling shortage of anethetists in Brisbane mean that only serious operations get anethetists.... as a friend just pointed out - she got to have her wisdom teeth out under a general but apparently fitting a device into my heart...... pfft, just a local will do. Go figure.

Tuesday 19th August

As I knew would happen, anxious to have the bed for someone who needed it, I was turfed out on Tuesday (don't get me wrong, I was itching to get out of hospital, I just find it funny that I sat there all week waiting for the procedure and then I get turfed out within 24 hours of it happening). Dave decided that the girls should stay at his mum and dad's for one more night to allow me to settle in to home and then we'd get them the next day. I was torn. I was missing them heaps but also really nervous about suddenly having to look after them again. It was great to see them the next day, and especially great when Mackenzie started vomiting with the bug that Charli had had the previous week. My first week home has been spent being vomited on (Zie), coughed on (Charli), clung to (both of them) and generally not resting as much as I should have. But you know what? Life goes on, and with two little children under three, I laughed at the person who said I wasn't to use my left arm for 6 weeks.... oh okay.

Today

So where does all of this leave me? Well I don't know really. I don't remember it happening. I was essentially dead for a few minutes there but don't remember a white light, a euphoric moment, no epiphanies. I've been told this wasn't stress induced or due to my lifestyle (caffeine, exercise or diet) - so no reason to re-evaluate my life with respect to lifestyle choices. I've been told I can't drive for 6 months, so that's going to be fun. We've not yet figured out how I'm supposed to get the girls to daycare and then (post-October) get myself to work given that childcare is about 1km away and pushing a pram that far is beyond me... but maybe by October it will be ok.

So this just happened really. I had a really bad hair day. they don't know why. They stuck a device in my heart that will essentially kick-start it if it stops again. In the meantime I've lost a heap of independence. To be honest I'm still waiting for it all to hit me. To suddenly remember something and to break down crying and realising how close I came to dying. But so far that moment hasn't happened and maybe it won't. It feels odd though that something like this could happen and I could remember so little of it. Meanwhile Charli tells me every night how scared she was when I fell down and about how I had Zie in my arms when I fell. It will be something she remembers for a while I think and that saddens me more than anything.