small things

Back to the SaltMinesLimited today after a month in absentia! Nooooooooooo!

There was all manner of flurry this morning when we realised that I had not reset the alarm clock from the blackout yesterday afternoon, so we were about 50 minutes behind the actual time. Oops. And then we had to make a mad dash to buy Joe/Frank a Travel 10 (bus ticket) - because we're all pre-paid and he wanted to go to the beach.

After an uneventful bus journey and a small walk, which caused not inconsiderable pain, I arrived at SaltMinesLimited all ouchy to discover that DishyBoss was having a day off (darn - wanted to put my case for flexible hours!), my mobile drawers (containing ALL my rather personal stuff - glasses, speakers, stationery, tea, tampons!) had not been moved and were MIA (thanks Heather for eventually tracking them down because everyone else was utterly useless), my chair (multi-stickered with my name from various moves) was not my chair (who knows where that ended up!), I did not have a bin, my desk had a 5 degree tilt (amused ourselves by rolling items down it - I had to prop it up with a pair of thongs) and many other annoyances which now escape me.

But I settled in nicely and got to work on all the analysis my team was too stupid to do (yes, this should take 30 minutes, not 3 weeks - here you go).

And while the view might not be quite as stellar, at least I have a window.



And I am next to my Very Best Werk Pal (Heather) again.

Must find some sort of Zen in all this.

Somewhere.

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motherly

The one very good thing about having this month off has been that I'm here when Joe/Frank arrives home from school. I really do think he benefits from having someone here to direct him (no matter how many lists we leave with Things To Do, he starts off enthusiastically then becomes lost in the Information SuperHighway time sink) and just having someone to talk to/interact with.

Last week saw the trial School Certificate (eye-rolling waste of time, now that everyone goes to Year 12) exams and Joe/Frank had an exam-free day on Thursday (but three exams on Friday, the last day of term! The humanity!), so I decided to make the most of it.

First, there were snacks to be considered.

Our shopping budget has increased to ridiculous levels since Joe/Frank came to live with us (and I think you all have some idea of how ridiculously induglent the food budget was to begin with!). Mostly the extra dosh goes toward pre-prepared snacks which Don and I are then also FORCED to consume (because we have no willpower at all).

So, given that we had the time, we baked! Joe/Frank was all about this project - he loves his cakes and bikkies.

Joe/Frank "studies" food tech at school, but works with an aide (lest he hack himself to bits with sharp objects or set himself afire), so it is definitely beneficial to gradually practice cooking techniques with him. This is the method I used with Bessie - who is now the most spectacular cook.


Orange cake


Sultana, cornflake and Craisin^TM cookies.

I'll put the requisite birds-eye view shot and both recipes on the toast blog at some point - probably before I return to work. Hmmmmmmmm ... probably.

Then it was time to force him to participate in exercise with me! This was my most ambitious walking project since the surgery - walking the loop over ANZAC Bridge.




iphone does take rather good snaps!

I really cannot convey how much I adore this bridge! I have a frame on my desk at the SaltMinesLimited of photos of the bridge before it became ANZAC bridge (probably 1997?). I am so very, very, very fortunate that I can look over it EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! But I digress ...

We walked, we talked (name the five people you admire, name the five things you would like to be able to do given the time and resources), we became very tired (me slightly more so than J/F). It was fun.

All this togetherness has made me determined to Do Something about werk. J/F would very much benefit from someone being here in the afternoons, so thus, upon my return to the SaltMinesLimited I will ask Dishy Boss if I might either:

1. start work at some ungodly hour (before I am normally awake) and leave at 3.30pm, or;
   
2. start at normal time and work from home from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (internets & phoneage at my expense).

There is a policy in place for flexibility in terms of parent of Children Under Five (Pubes, for eg, works one day from home), but I think there is surely a case to be made for flexibility for parent of Disabled Child of any age. And I am definitely willing to be that Test Case.

But, we will see.

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bounty (first wave)

Spring has definitely sprung and like everyone in the inner west, today we visited Bunnings to get our vegie/herb planting on.

This year, rather than keeping everything in individual pots, we decided to turn rancho farmo into a mobile raised bed of sorts.


I think we now have enough sugar cane mulch to last us for the next six or seven years.

This year we have:

• basil
  
• thai basil
  
• italian parsley
  
• coriander
  
• baby spinach
  
• rocket
  
• oregano
  
• thyme

We've a couple of different varieties of cherry tomato, but these are located in their own pots (they are magnets for caterpillars, so we've discovered isolation is key). The mint plants from last year are still doing well and have their very own, very large container, as is/does the chili (which we thought dead, but which has bounced back with a vengeance).


Our search for pickling cucumbers was spectacularly unsuccessful, so Don has gone with standard cucumbers in the hope that we can harvest and pickle them while still small (if we can't, well, we'll just have them in salad).

We've abandoned the companion planting idea, as this did precisely nothing to alleviate the caterpillar invasion last year (even though marigolds are very pretty).

Interestingly, when I tried to find the original rancho farmo post, we were surprised to learn that we did not start planting until January 1 this year! Hopefully we will have a more extended growing/harvesting season because the difference in taste to stuff from the market is amazing.

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ouch

Our poor darling Joan had her wisdom teeth removed on Monday, and as one might expect (being Joan and all), things have not gone terribly well - she's in mucho pain and her face resembles that of an adorable (but agonised) chipmunk.

We'd ferried my leftover painkillers (codeine is my enemy) to her on Thursday evening and I delivered mashed potato and drove her to her appointment with the surgeon on Friday afternoon. He packed the holes with dressings, gave her a pat on the head and told her to come back on Tuesday.

While she was at her appointment, I drove around and around and around and around the CBD and East Sydney for 45 minutes in a futile attempt to obtain a parking space - first challenging drive since my operation - to my delight, I remained zen throughout (although it required a good deal of talking to myself).


Map of my journey. Yes non-Syndey residents, it did indeed take 45 minutes - bring on the congestion tax!

Afterward, I forced Joan to let me do her washing up and other sundry motherly fussing in her lovely bachelorette apartment. So we were all happy.

Poor wee poppet - hopefully things will be on the improve soon.

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perhaps not such a fixerer

I'm really hoping this rather small lump of solder I found under my half of the desk was tracked in on my shoe and was not some vital piece of Joe/Frank's motherboard.



It does seem to be working, so that is some consolation!

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fixerer

On Monday the hinges I'd order to repair Joe/Frank's laptop arrived by courier in an absolutely Enormous Box (28x15x23), but I felt far too ill to even attempt repair (strangely I feel much less well than I did at the end of last week).


Enormous Box (hinges in wee bubble-wrap packets)

So Tuesday morning became devoted to repairing, and goodness, I'd forgotten how much I really enjoy dismantling electronics (always a little thrill at breaking the void your warranty sticker) and just fixing things! There were a few challenging moments such as removing a couple of horrible torx security screws from the case (cunningly solved with a cup of green tea and a very tiny flat jeweller's screw-driver).

I had to strip the poor thing down quite a way:



But now the new hinge is in place, I'm hoping it will last another 6 months at least. The best part of course is that I've put off having to drop several hundred on a replacement machine.

Now all I need is a somewhat indestructible replacement case. I'm trying not to beat myself up too much about not replacing the case much earlier - the whole repair process could have been avoided, but then where would be the fun in that?

I'm thinking a good test of suitability would be to put an egg inside the case and hurl it repeatedly at a wall and then jumping on it a few times, if the egg survives, so might the laptop.

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four

Much to our surprise - because we are completely and utterly slack about such things, we realised that yesterday was four years since our first date.

That four years has gone so amazingly fast!



We only did realise because I was searching through old blog posts for a photo on Sunday and came across last year's anniversary post.

Such romantics!

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either musical instrument

Listening to the amazingly wonderful Ed Kuepper album: Honey Steel's Gold and I realised (as I said on twitter) that it is one of the albums that makes me wish I had learned a musical instrument (guitar or piano).

Other albums are:

• Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Californication (bass, of course!)
  
• Matt Costa: Songs we sing (acoustic guitar)
  
• Absolutely Anything feat. Johnny Marr (swoon): Smiths/Electronic/The The/Modest Mouse &etc (do you even need to ask?)
  
• LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver (cowbell!)
  
• Japandroids: Post Nothing (guitar again! + drums)
  
• The National: all albums (voice)
  
• Moar to be added as I think of them

I suppose it is not too late to learn both, I mean, realistically (given the longevity in the fam.), I've still got more than half my life left (gosh! is rather daunting innit!).

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2010: day 262 (su) burritos

Gah! Pretend that didn't happen.

I wondered how long it would be before I mixed up blog posts.

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rewarded

Don's been a bit of a tyrant about ensuring I go for a walk every day, which is good because my natural state is sloth (and we all know that the health won't improve that way).

It was a gorgeous day today, so I reluctantly set out to the park (previous walks have been to the shops and I was a little bored with Glebe Point Road). Once I arrived, however, I did enjoy it very much - sunny, gentle breeze, not too many people about. I spent a nice time watching a school of fish and a few jellyfish swim about and took some happy snaps with the iphone.


Happy snap. There are some rather large fish down there.

It was very lovely and very, very pleasant.

But then, something happened.

I discovered the most brilliantly amazing thing ever!

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of urban decay, I love nothing more than a giant, rusting abandoned building. One of my biggest wishes is to get myself inside White Bay Power Station.

There are enormous abandoned tram sheds next to the park. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of the vast, cavernous space inside if you take the overgrown path alongside (which we all think is way cool). Unfortunately the path has been closed off the last couple of times we've passed by, but today I took the long way around just in case the path had been re-opened. It had not, but the gate to the tram sheds was open!

So naturally I totally tresspassed!







Even better was that one of the massive doors was slightly ajar. So I totally tresspassed even more!











It was all so wonderfully fabulous, I find it hard to contain my glee. It was unfortunate that I only had the iphone with me, because these in no way do it justice (although this wasn't about taking photos, it was more about the joy of experiencing the building). A couple of other people (armed with much better cameras than I had) obviously had the same idea because they were similarly exploring with expressions suggesting that they couldn't believe their luck either.

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progress

I have told myself that under no circumstances am I returning to the SaltMinesLimited until I have completed Don's jumper - yes, that jumper, the one that has been sitting idle since January, because the v-neck scared me and because someone sat on my knitting and broke a needle! and also because I had to make some hats in the interim and because the pill made me so uninterested in anything and everything.

But at last, thanks to Jessica Fletcher, I am onto the sleeves!


It really will need a good blocking.

This is the first time I have knit both sleeves together and I think it is vastly superior (even if they do look a little like legwarmers).

I've also found that if I take the time to make a little (or rather, large) chart of the increasing/decreasing that things go infinitely more smoothly and fewer mistakes are made.



Of course, once it is complete, I will be forcing Don to wear it at all times (I'm sure it won't be too hot for summer!).

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gentrification

It may or may not come as a surprise that I sometimes venture into the realms of local history nerd-dom.

And so I was quite delighted when Joe/Frank received a geography assignment about urban decay/renewal requiring him to research something local. After a wee bit of workshopping, he chose the foreshore area near our flat.

We all know that I'm one of those mothers, so I was excited to help out with the research. Primarily I was excited because it is an excellent opportunity to once again show that one needs to delve a little deeper than the first page of google search results or wikipedia (this sort of thinking is apparently rife amongst the sprogs these days - one of J/F's teachers and Bessie's entire school has banned wikipedia entirely).

I knew this area was quite industrial at one point, but until I delved into the wonderful photographic archives of Sydney City and Leichhardt Councils, I had no idea how industrial it actually was!


from the 60s - our haus isn't even quite built yet!


1976 (part of an awesome series of foreshore photos in the Leichhardt Council archives - given more time and infinite resources, I'd totally have found a boat and tried to reproduce these!)


The crane above in its current state.


1949 - all manner of things in the water


Rather less industrial now


But still can't eat the fish, although this does not appear to deter the numerous fishermen regularly dotted about the bay.

I imagine that the property prices would have been staggeringly low in the 60s and 70s (in contrast to now, when they are precisely the opposite). Don has suggested that The Lady of the Crazy Notes from downstairs (who has lived here forever) cleverly bought in when the flats were first constructed and has been driven slowly mad over time by exposure to all the industrial waste in the area.

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review

This morning saw me back in Serge's office for a review.

Recovery is on track and I'm doing well, though it will be a good couple of weeks though until I am fully recovered.

I am now in possession of a shiny doctor's certificate which says I can return to work on October 6. I was planning to go back on September 27, but may just take the extra time, because the prospect of facing the SaltMinesLimited is far too awful to be entertained.

That something was an adenomyoma. While it is smallish at the moment, it will eventually spread to the rest of the ute (we're hoping slowly). Unfortunately this means that when that happens, the symptoms could be similar to those of the fibroids, and the only way to treat will be with a hysterectomy.

Hmmmmmmm ... still, I'm comfortable with the surgery decision I made, I just wasn't ready to have the ute out.

Interestingly, since Saturday I've been trying to take a walk every day, and I've noticed that I don't experience anywhere near the same levels of exhaustion after climbing the stairs that I did before the surgery - I'm tired of course, but I can breathe! Also, coming off the pill has made me much less disengaged, so things are looking much brighter.

Best of all, I now have amazing photos! Of my operation! From the laparoscopic camera!

Now, who wants to see them?

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toast

Because I'll have (recovery) time on my hands, am starting a new (side) blog.

Is about what we're eating.

Because yes, I might not have been putting them on this blog, but I have been religiously taking photos all year (except for that hospital stay!) and those meals that I did blog about have been an astonishingly useful resource to both of us.

All links to our marvellous cook books will be book depository ones, because I will not be held hostage by the Australian Publishing Industry and their disgusting prices and neither should you!

Ultimately, this is probably more for us than for you, but you might also enjoy it if you like such things!

Oh, the blog name?

Everything's better with toast

Because it entertains Don no end that I will eat any and all leftovers with toast for breakfast.

Be kind - it is very, very embryonic at this point (and will give me a good deal to do during my recovery period - apart from Don's jumper).

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number 8 fencing wire

Those in Oz will be familiar with the rollout of laptops to Year 9 students last year - as promised by Kevin Rudd.

Joe/Frank received his about 12 months ago - it's a quite cute lenovo ideapad and might I just say that it is an absolute flimsy heap of crap that absolutely cannot stand up to an average clumsy teenage boy carting it about.

Long time readers will be familiar with my fanatical devotion to the IBM T-series laptops and their stellar quality. Unfortunately Lenovo taking over has seen the quality dive markedly.

We've been through two hard carrying cases, which virtually crack the minute you look at them the wrong way and now the left hinge has broken (the Information SuperHighway tells me this is a known issue) so the screen is hanging on precariously by the right hinge.


Bad computer

In contrast, the eeepc lasted over a year of the same use with barely a scratch!

Because I am reluctant to drop a couple of hundred on replacement, I spent the afternoon attempting to temporarily bodgy the damn thing up with superglue and sundry items from my large stash of screws, bolts and other bits. And then there was much duct tape. Unfortunately my efforts were full of FAIL. Theoretically it is supposed to last until the end of Year 12!


Stash (I have showed remarkable restraint in adding to it over the past several years)

I'm hoping I can acquire a replacement part from IBM, but I may have to just suck it up and pay for a whole new computer (which Joe/Frank will be financing with mucho, mucho chores). And, yes, there have been VERY stern words spoken about caring for your possessions!

Sadly, I'm not a Kiwi, for they are well known for their ingenious repairing (hence the title).

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recovery two

Dear Information Superhighway¹

Today I:

• Organised all the video from the various computers and random CDs about the place on the external hard-drive which plugs into new TV! (truly, the future is here) - including consistently naming everything.
  
• cast two large spindles' worth of DVDs/CDs onto the footpath for others to enjoy (I really do enjoy the occasional book/magazine/DVD sharing that goes on in the neighbourhood)
  
• Woke up from sleeping on my side for the third night in a row! The JOY! The BLISS!
  
• walked! outside! to the shops! which was not a little exhausting.
  
• Drank Wine!
  
• Felt somewhat human!
  
• Taught Joe/Frank to do the washing and will now be paying him to do it!
  

I feel so productive. And human.

¹henceforth will replace INTERNET in use on the blog

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recovery

I'm alive!

And might I just say, owwwwwwwwwwwww. Holy Goodness I am sore.

In the end I chose not to go for the hysterectomy. The operation went reasonably well, they chopped me up a bit more than they had anticipated (so could not do the mirena insertion) and they did find something which was not a fibroid - bits of which have been sent off for testing. They also had to throw everything in their pain relief arsenal at me in recovery because they couldn't stabilise me (my pain apparently laughs at morphia!).

And so much for the planned overnight stay, my haemoglobin levels (and blood pressure and pulse) were dangerously low and I needed a blood transfusion - in addition to the transfusion I needed in surgery (a hearty thanks to all of those A+ blood donors out there!!), so had to stay two nights - the staff were eyeing me for another night (haemoglobin still very low), but Serge recommended that I go home.

I'm very glad I went for St Luke's, rather than RPA where I would not have been guaranteed a private room - despite the same out of pocket cost. Am certain I would have been a total basket-case having to share. And while Serge's fees would send one to the poor-haus, I was terribly well looked after - he was in regular contact with me and the hospital at all sorts of ungodly hours.


I'm still not quite sure under what circumstances I'd want wine with my hospital dinner.

Sadly, the weather has not been anywhere near good enough to laze about on the outside couch so I've been ensconced on the inside couch, gazing upon the rather nice floral display on the desk, in a fair bit of pain, but fortunately with Don around to do my bidding.


Pretty tulips from SaltMinesLimited

I'd finished all of my library books by yesterday afternoon (oops), so will have to move on to Murder, She Wrote Season 5. And, delightfully, the lovely Joan presented me with Season 6 - along with some other wonderful goodies - so I should be set for a good while.

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but i want both!

Not only did I have to cram about 3 days work into 1 today, I also had to pack up my desk at the SaltMinesInc because we'll be moving Downstairs - which is displeasing to all of us. Downstairs is a noisy, smelly, seething mass of humanity.

Worst of all, I will be losing the best seat in the office and this view to have a desk facing onto a wall.



Pollyanna-wise, at least I'll be next to Heather (we are squee-ing like nobody's business about that).

At least I have this to console me from my shiny new home desk:



Not really anything to be sneezed at!

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