just plodding along

waiting room

well today has been long with lots of waiting.

we got to the hospital a bit early - at 2pm - and commenced the admission process. we were then directed from front reception to day surgery admission. from there we were taken to day surgery pre op. we spent about two hours in that room alone. eventually howie was taken through to a bed and i sat with him as we waited maybe another 30-40mins. then he was taken away at 5:15pm. i went to the atrium and continued reading my book and drinking tea and eating my sandwich. i was there for over three hours. i decided at 8:30pm to move back up to the day surgery area. and after another 20 minutes waiting there. i snuck into recovery and sat with howie. we were there about another 40 minutes before leaving a bit after 9:30pm. a long day.

even longer i'm sure for howie who hadn't eaten or drunk anything since last night, and who is now quite out of it and uncomfortable. the poor boy. he doesn't look his best. but it was heartwarming that the first things he said to me were jokes. you know he's ok if he's joking around.

our experience of westmead private today is a LOT different to my experience of strathfield private hospital three and a half years ago. no private room. no bed while you wait. no visitors straight out of recovery. although i did have to wait four hours for my surgery.

that being said, the couches in the atrium were very comfortable, so my three hours passed pretty quickly. and i did read 563 pages of my book.

but i hope that howie gets better quickly. that the pain killers and ice help. and that he doesn't get too sick of the mushy food. although he does have a lot of dessert-type foods to enjoy!

my poor buddy.

dr kan

four of howie's teeth are coming out today. he's taking the hospital option for his wisdom teeth removal by raj, our dentist. which means being at Westmead Private at 2:30pm. it was meant to be 7am, which would have been more convenient in many ways but what can you do. he's not allowed to eat or drink all day which he isn't very excited about.

we have to go buy lots of soft foods - like icecream, yoghurt, jelly, pureed fruit. yuck. except for the icecream part.

i think secretly all this is just a ploy to get howie out of mowing the lawn this weekend. oh boy it needs it.

but hopefully all goes well, there aren't any complications, i get to GAP tonight, and he heals up quickly over the next few days.

another random mother moment

tonight as my mother prepared dinner for my father and my sister, i was in the lounge room conversing with said sister, when all of a sudden we are interrupted by my mother exclaiming from the kitchen... "oh, i peed on the floor!"

i am relieved to announce that she had spilled peas on the floor.

my sister and i were quite amused. as was my father.

cinema and cleaning

this morning howie and i took advantage of a 'kind of day off' and went to the movies. we saw death at a funeral

it was a rather strange movie. some parts made me laugh, some made me bored, some made me cover my eyes. howie enjoyed the parts about toilets and poo the most. surprise surprise.

but truth remains, a free movie is a free movie. i've seen over 20 movies this year. which completely a record for me. i'm usually one per month or less. hooray for gifts of movie money!!

after some lunch, howie went off to belrose for impact. the rest of today for me was spent cleaning - my aunt's place, and our place. i've done everything but vacuum our house and the boys tank (with their special vacuum, not our dyson). i think i'll wait for the weekend for that.

destination unknown

if you were picking somewhere to have a relatively inexpensive holiday in about may next year, where would you pick (out of these possible options):

~ fiji
~ new zealand
~ vanuatu
~ great barrier reef
~ lord howe island
~ KL

any takers? or other suggestions?

since it doesn't look like there's a family holiday to europe anymore, we're looking a little smaller scale.

the one...

i just watched 'the last one' - all 10 seasons of friends done and done in two and a half months.

good purchase.

such a tops show.

so, shall we start at season 1 again?! nah, not for a little while :)

loser

i'm not very popular these days.

my blog doesn't get many visitors.

sadness.

probably a reflection of my not very exciting life!

24th Nov

today has been pretty lazy. i got up at 9am coz i couldn't keep sleeping (stupid body) and watched a lot of 'friends'. I'm up to the last season! Howie slept til about 12. we voted at the primary school. didn't take too long.

we eventually got some lunch at 2pm - pies from brumbys. and soon enough headed over to cathy's to welcome grant back from south america. that was good fun catching up. glad grant is home safe and sound.

and despite two party invites for tonight, we're staying in. still pretty wrecked from the past week. i don't feel like driving to and from allambie or enmore. sorry guys.

kyah

while we were up on the gold coast we had half a day off on monday. howie and i took the opportunity to visit my cousin Jo, her husband Pat and their baby boy Kyah in Jimboomba.

we borrowed a car, got some directions (thanks Penny!) and headed off away from the coast on the motorways and highways of south east queensland. And we got their with almost the greatest of ease.

and so i introduce you to Kyah

isn't he a cutie!

it was really nice to spend some time with Jo and Pat, to visit their house, have some lunch, chill out and check out their reptiles. i was proud of us two standing in a cage with bearded dragons scampering around (especially when one ran across howie's foot!). they have all kinds of fun (and scary) things - bearded dragons, a water dragon, snakes, turtles (yay!), and mice (for the aforementioned to eat).

so yay for time off to visit family!

plus we got maccas on the way back - extra yay!

adios labradoodle

well we are soon to head to coolangatta and fly our way back to sydney.

it's been a week of many things. good things, challenging things, tiring things, frustrating things, everythings.

glad to be going home.

glad to get to spend some time with my husband.

and reconnect with my friends DVDs :)

from the fingers of howie

Last day of festivals tomorrow. I have painted a lot of faces. Things are pretty full on, but good things are happening.

Still excited about my bed on Friday night.

Missing my husband. And my boys. And the internet.

Enjoying the sunshine.

Had bad reaction to ant bites yesterday: Add ants to the allergy list.

Here endeth the catchup.

(thanks for typing this up howie)

tired is a word.

this week is likely to only get more full on. schoolies is crazy. why do people do this to themselves?

to be continued.

here we are in labrador.

it is warm.

that is all.

parteeee

today we head off to the gold coast for work for a week. we're involved in some outreach stuff with schoolies peoples and also with local kids too. i'm sure it'll be pretty full on. and hopefully not too hot.

so i'm not sure what kind of internet access i'll have. maybe a bit. maybe not.

hopefully i'll get to visit my cousin Jo and her new baby Kyah while i'm up there.

ripped off

integral energy is officially on my "grrrr" list.

i am not at all understanding the three bills we just got! and how it could possibly be that much. grrrrrr.

i don't have the energy to make a phonecall, sit on hold and then be told nothing helpful anyway.

what is with this house and getting incorrect bills?

strange world

i think i was the flowergirl at the wedding of the CDP candidate to his first wife.

how bizarre.

2008

you may have read on howie's blog that there are a bit of a change coming up for us next year. at this stage a few things are yet to be finalised, but howie's been offered a couple of days a week at TEAR from february. and i'll be exploring helping out with admin stuff. we'll still be involved for that time at our current work and then see where to from there.

so there's a bit to figure out but we'll get there.

eggplant

we had our own little farewell for jo today, sine we aren't in the state for the official one. we had lunch at brewhaha. it was a really yummy lunch - i had something with eggplant, feta, capsicum, olives, pesto, pine nuts, spinach and other tasty things. and it was good to catch up with jo before she leaves for a year or so!

thanks for lunch jo! and bon voyage.

today

we played with sammy today. we got some lunchies, watched hot fuzz and had fun with the birthday presents we got him. including using two potatoes to power a clock. we are party people.

and i picked more mulberries.

berry good

howie and i just went for a walk, as we occasionally do. and for the first time i noticed that there is a mulberry tree along my walking way. so i picked a few and ate them and got pink fingers! i love mulberry trees! takes me back to primary school when we used to get off the bus early to pick mulberries off some ladies tree, and then get home and get in trouble for stains on our hands and dresses.

i think i'll have to go for a few more walks in the next few days and take advantage.

washing

it's great that it's raining so much, and hopefully it's also raining in places that really need it.

but i have had clothes on the line (undercover) for almost a week and i don't know if they are ever going to dry. they just keep absorbing all the moisture in the air. i bet they're growing more and more mould as i type.

can we please have one day of warm dryness so they can dry, and then proceed with the rain!

chop

i got a haircut tonight. care of my mother. it's a bit shorter than i expected. but it will grow. having it so long means the ends are pretty ratty. but i haven't had hair this short for a long time (it's still down my back - not boy short or anything).

i like having my mum cut my hair. i think spending $60 for a hairdresser to do the same thing is a waste of money. the only time i've ever been to hairdressers is for formals/weddings, the one time i had it professionally coloured, and when i had boy hair coz that was too hard to trim myself. otherwise, i'm quite happy for my mother or my self to cut it.

but it feels short!

by the sea

we finally got to sculpture by the sea today. the weather was a bit iffy, but it didn't end up raining on us at all. and we even got a little sunburnt (dammit).

it wasn't quite as good, in my opinion, as other years. no giant scaffolding, no melted icecream truck, no giant traffic light, no pool in a skip. but there were still some good ones.

this is me happy to have got a sweet park at tamarama

a fun little flintstone-esq car

transparency and reflection

as i swung on the swing, the wings on the plane flapped. hours of entertainment

this ones symbolic of the sydney housing market

a cool giant spoon

scrunched up untied nations kyoto procotol papers

i liked the giant pick up sticks

lemons on a clothes line

sometimes i don't get art. but good on all those 90 something people getting at least $2000 for their efforts.

hopefully next year will have more cool stuff, and less abstract crap (totally a subjective comment).

final goodbyes

today was interesting, sad, hard, weird and many other adjectives as we farewelled nan.

some of howie's family relationships are very complicated, which made for a strange dynamic at the funeral. it was weird to come into that as a bit of an outsider. i haven't actually met a lot of howie's family because of the different rifts that exist. plus it was a catholic mass funeral which i've never been to before and in which i was very lost.

i don't much enjoy funerals - i'm sure that would be true for most people. i decided today that i don't think i want a funeral - it's just such a sad thing, despite the celebration of a life that has been. funerals don't invoke happy memories for me, because i am reminded of other people that have passed on, and some of the tragic circumstances surrounding that.

that being said, nan's funeral was very nice. the priest man was lovely - gentle and funny.

after the funeral, we went to macquarie park for the buriel. that was a sadder service, but short and sweet.

i am very glad i got to meet nan and share time with her. i love how she loved howie, and how she was cheeky and funny. i am glad she is no longer in pain or discomfort. and i am glad that she is with jesus.

out the window

i ended up feeling quite ill last night and for most of today, so we didn't see a movie or go to sculptures. the new plan is sculptures on saturday. but i am sad those plans didn't happen because of my stupid tummy.

we did go to rhodes and do some IKEA shopping, some lunching, and some coles shopping. and we came home via bunnings to buy some pots and fertiliser.

howie's parents are arriving some time soon. i'm not sure if they are staying one or two nights. this is the first time they've stayed with us since we've been married. last time they stayed was just before the wedding, and they were in the dungeon. this time they've been upgraded to the spare bedroom. lucky them.

a moment ago

howie in bedroom: (in high pitch, whiney voice) oh dear. where's my moisturiser?
jenny in bathroom: it's in here
howie moving to bathroom: why is it in there?
jenny: you must have left it in here
howie: oh dear

what have i married.

best laid plans

still quite tired from the weekend.

thinking we might see a movie tonight - hoorah for free movie money.

tomorrow is sculpture by the sea - i'm determined to go, rain, hail or shine. but hopefully it won't hail.

drained

i am feeling very drained - emotionally and physically. i'm looking forward to a few days off this week. although, one of them is for nan's funeral. which i think could be quite hard.

in more cheery news, my cousin Jo and her husband Pat had their first child on Friday (i forgot to blog about it before) - a little boy named Kyah John Sullivan. can't wait to see some pictures. yay for a boy in our family! that makes only two (by blood) out of 10.

looking forward to a long comfortable quiet sleep tonight. oh yehhhhhhh

i do NOT want to be awake right now.

my prediction

2008... the year of change

ps. i'm not pregnant

i'm tired

things are a little bit overwhelming at the moment. stuff with nan. work is a bit stupidly full on. other bits and pieces of life i have to be part of or deal with.

i'd much prefer to have a bit of time and space to myself and to just howie and me. but i don't know when next that will happen. which is a bit of a bummer.

i'm really looking forward to going to sculpture by the sea sometime soon. our yearly 'must do'.