Yarnivorous

G'day all! I have news! But I am not going to say what it is until it is confirmed. It is good news though. Any guesses? We are still throttled on our internet connection so I still do not have pics for you. Also it has been FREEZING (not literally, at least not where we live though it feels like it has been!) and I don't have any pics of anything modelled or even sitting on the crappy old couch outside. Yesterday it blew a gale, even though it was sunny, and temps didn't even reach 10C, today has been windy and rainy (wind still coming from the northwest though, sorta unusual for a rainy day) and again it hasn't even reached 10C. 9C and it feels like 5C - almost as cold as a fridge. BRRRRR! Plus it is still raining on and off after raining for something like 8 hours earlier in the day. The couch that I often use as a background for various items of clothing, etc, is soaked as the rain is coming from the north. Plus yesterday's wind was so ferocious anything...

G'day all! Another weekend is done. Stick a fork in it! Umm, what did we do? Umm... well yesterday we annoyed the PiLs a bit, Nathan did some organ practice, FiL helped DH with some household stuff, had home made burgers with the PiLs, then today went to the "local" farmers' market, Nathan played organ (and presumably piano but not at the same time!) at the church, DH helped PiLs clear a spot for a concrete slab to be poured for the new water tank, lunched and dined at the PiL's, I knitted five handwarmers of assorted colours, but best of all? We went on a steam train! (But since I had forgotten today was train day I didn't take the camera, boo hoo! No pics until FiL downloads his pics.) It was fun! I got to stick my head out the window and get covered in cinders! My sunglasses protected my eyes from cinders and from the wind. Lots of choofing. Lots of steam. An engine at either end of the carriages. It went mighty slow up some of the hills though - i...

G'day all! It is 10 years since Nathan and I started going out, as we term it in Australia. My goodness, what a lot has changed since then, and what a lot hasn't. Oh my. How young we both are - this pic is almost 10 years old, taken somewhere around the Otways (southwest of Melbourne, about 2 hours drive from the city). (Excuse the size of the pics - flickr has changed the way it does stuff and I have to work out how to resize them nicely, ie proportionately? Is that the word? I'll blame chemobrain for this little bout of aphasia. I guess I could always just use the calculator...) I know Nathan is half out of the shot but this is still one of my favourite pictures of us. It was taken on a totally brilliant day in the Rocky Mountain National Park up on the Trail Ridge Road. We had lots of awesome drives around the Rockies (and one drive memorable for the sheer terror it inspired in me - you would not believe where I punted a very small car. (It probably only made it...

G'day all! Three years ago today we were winging our way to the USA. The start of a new job for DH. The start of a new life. We only had five months in Colorado, and there were some really hard times during that period, homesick, lonely times, but we also had some great times. We saw beautiful places, met some really nice people... I had one of the best summers of my life (minus the stress DH was suffering). (More pics from Colorado here and some of Fort Collins too.) But that job came to a close somewhat more quickly than anyone anticipated. The company restructured and I realised why the locals looked at me as they did when I said who Nathan was working for. Pretty much everyone in Fort Collins seems to have been laid off by this particular mob, or their partner has or a brother or sister or good buddy. I still wish that we had had more time there - we had started settling in and were ready to face a cold winter. We had a great place to live right by a creek. We had good...

G'day all! Today was one of those grand winter days, the sort of day that makes you glad to be alive. The sun shone all day long, the sky was blue, the breeze was light.... Perfect weather for a photo shoot for Annis (rav link with details), now known as Rufus, before he departs for his new home. You get lots of shots cos I was quite pleased with how they came out (thanks, DH, for the photshoot!). See my hair? Yes there is really hair there - you will probably need to click through to a bigger pic to see it. That is regrowth. Honest. I hope once it gets a little longer and/or I get off the taxotere, it will thicken up some cos umm well, baldie babes rule! Between the weather and lovely messages in my inbox, today was quite a good day :-) It is winter solstice today, though there's less than a second difference between the 21st and 22nd, so tomorrow is sorta solstice too! I always try to get a pic of sunset and sunrise at solstice, though it isn't always possible - b...

G'day all! I've been having a little play with things. I hope you noticed the new header! (Plus my travel blog has a new header too but given I haven't updated that in ages...) Things are s l o w here. I am still recovering from the events earlier in the week - I just don't have the bounce I used to. Everything takes more effort than it did. My fingertips (and toe tips) are becoming quite numb and I have a tingle in my lower lip. Plus my snoz has dried out and cracked. Je suis tres fatigue. Doing stuff online is fairly pointless cos it takes a while to do anything - I uploaded some pics to flickr last night instead of doing them whenever as I normally would. It's funny how I've gotten so used to having entertainment on demand and now? I have to think about do I really want to open that webpage, do I really want to watch that youtube, can things wait for another 11 days until we have normal speed again? We will most likely change providers to someone w...

gG'day all! Things are going to be rather dull around here for a while. We have been enjoying watching programs on abc.net.au/iview. Y'see we don't have digital telly and don't get to see much of the tv as a result. We usually watch DVDs. Anyway, iView has been fantastic. So fantastic that we used up our whole month's broadband limit in 14 days. Ahem! We are now looking to change providers. Optus are not allowing iView as a "free" download. Other providers are. We'll change our home phone and possibly the mobile at the same time. It might mean our phone numbers change but well we'll just have to cope with that! Optus were good at first - heck, they only had Telstra as their competition so it wasn't hard. but they've become progressively scabbier over the years. Any locals with suggestions of who is good (nb they must allow iView as an unmetered download)? Also they must have good customer service. No automated customer service that...

G'day all! Well what a fun week it has been! I experienced the Australian emergency health system. More on that later. Nathan has a full time job offer - it was part time but something changed in the funding (I think someone left). One of our chooks flew over the fence and we haven't seen her for a day and nor have the neighbours. She is probably fox food now. We are sorta peeved but well given that their ex-owner highly disapproves of wing-clipping yet still gave us a chook that can fly about 5 metres high and well we are not sure how far but more than 15m in the air (ie an aerial acrobat in the chicken world)... We probably should've just clipped all their wings. We've run out of bandwidth on our cable plan so I've got no new photos to share - we are throttled to dial up speeds. So more on our health care system. As I whinged in my last post, chemo and/or the anti-nausea drugs can cause the other C, the one whose name is whispered about in jokes about prunes. ...

G'day all! I had a lovely day on Sunday, saw much beautiful greenness (which freaked all of us out - we aren't used to our countryside being emerald green!) and did not get one pic of anything, cos someone was running late and forgot to take her camera.... My goodness, this chemo ride is an interesting thing. I am feeling quite well currently *except* for the other C. The C that hides its name. The C that we do not talk about in polite company, or even impolite company, depending on the circumstances.... So one of my anti-nausea meds is well known for clagging one up. Despite prunes, lots of vegies, senna, lots of water, I am clagged up to billy-o. My body knows what it wants to do about it - the waves of cramping tell me that! - but nothing is budging. It hurts and I'm exhausted. My appetite has disappeared. When I eat things, my gut rebels and says that was silly now deal with some more cramps. My poor gut has kept me awake for a good half the night for the last ...

G'day all! Well I'm still here! Still waving! With the new chemo I'm on, well it is old chemo now - three are done - I thought we'd be in and out of the hospital in no time. There's only one infusion and it takes a bit over an hour to do. Ahem. Best laid plans and all that. 10am appointment. 11am rocks around and they've only just got my blood test results - they had to ring. All ok, off we go! 12pm. Still waiting for my chemo. Only one pharmacist makes it up and mine was delayed because they didn't have the bloods so I lost my spot in the queue. 12:30. Here it is, off we go! (2pm finish - still four hours at the place! A nice time to catch up with an old friend - hehehe, she is after all nearly 3 months older than me!) In the meantime, my chemo nurse for the day, Linda, is looking at me. "Are you normally this jittery?" "Not this jittery - a bit, I can be, especially at a hospital... I'm totally wired on dexamethasone." (an...

G'day all! It's been a busy week! The week before chemo always is busy. Family dinner on Sunday night. We got chooks! No, no, those chooks will never lay cackleberries! How about these ladies? (There's four and they were free. Two wouldn't pose for pics at all. AFAIK these are pretty useless chooks for the sort of thing we want them for - two look very much like Old English Game and two, the ones in the singleton and twosome pics, are crosses. ie they are not egglaying chooks. Given we can't afford to feed things that just scratch the dirt up, eat our plants and slugs and snails, and provide chook poo... You might say the cats are even more useless but at least the cats like to talk to us and sit on our laps and snuggle a bit - we might be their slaves but there is a relationship between us. Of course the chooks may end up feeding us...) Cheshire sez, wistfully: Very large birds! How do I get into their pen? Tuesday, hmm, Tuesday I think I did a lot of sewing...

G'day all! Thanks for commiserations. Yep, it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to (you would whine too if it happened to you!). (1. Longer blonde. Not really that close to my usual lack of hair style but the closest of all the wigs) Mr Laptop is up and running again. I have my Best Friend back. I kid you not, I've spent more time with this computer over the last couple of years than I have with any person, including DH. Without it, I feel sorta naked, just like someone who wears their watch all the time and then takes it off to do some messy job or something. I don't know what I'll do when it dies. Cry and give it a decent burial at a recycle shop. This little box is my Way Outta Here. Without it, things get very dull very quickly, even though I have plenty to do. I have lots of hobby stuff, there's always something that needs cleaning or scrubbing around the place, there's cats to entertain me. And y'know what? (2. Auburn) Some days I ...

G'day all! I'm feeling a bit lost and lonely at the moment. It is weeks since I saw any friends - they were sick, this week I have a low immune system and shouldn't go out much. It's been months since I did much - a couple of weeks ago a lovely Raveller from California took me up to the Dandenongs with her Aussie friend (so nice to get out of the house and me not driving was even better!). The last time I went anywhere before that was in March. I'm not used to having to hang around home so much. Even on my good week(s) I still either don't have an immune system to speak of or I don't have the stamina to drive very far (and DH can't drive the car easily cos it is small and he is large and looks like a grasshopper behind the wheel). Gibbering is taking me out on Wednesday (cross fingers) so that will be good. Plus today I knocked a glass of water over on my laptop. I am pretty sure it survived the dousing as I frantically wiped water off it and hit ...

G'day all! Today is the second of June. (Second looks wrong but it is correct. I think. *blush* I'll blame chemo brain.) All going well, that means in 30 days I will be having my last chemo infusion. Oh please hurry oh days! I am over this! So I'd best pull my finger out and finish my chemo queen bedjacket, shouldn't I? Otherwise it won't be a chemo queen bedjacket. At the moment it looks like this: The sleeves are done, but the body has quite a number of rows to go. I've managed about another 8 rows in the last few days but I've been horribly distracted by a baby outfit for a friend who is about to pop. Only silly me is making the outfit in 4ply (fingering weight) cotton and it is taking FOREVER to do. Rather like the chemo queen bedjacket. Plus I have startitis and want to get the next shawl on the needles, but I really need to finish either the baby outfit or the bedjacket first. Only they are not for entry into a show. And then there is the ...