Dreamy Times

Just under 4 hours now until the taxi (which I must remember to book) turns up to collect myself, Himself and smallestchild. Then its off to the station to catch a train to take us to the airport to catch a plane to take us on our first trip back to the UK in almost 4 years!

Because they’re both in Uni, Eldest and middle children aren’t allowed to come (and plus its handy being able to leave someone sort of responsible at home to look after the animals)

I have posted endlessly about this on Facebook but my intentions were to leave the house immaculate so that I could expect the same standard on our return. As I’ve had a bad cold, a sprained ankle and a horrific dose of general apathy this hasn’t happened.. but I’m past caring now

So, we land at Heathrow on Thursday morning, UK time, pick up the hired car and head to Himself’s mum’s house in Folkestone. We’re having a week there, so Himself will get to spend his birthday with his mum, and then we’re off upto York to see the people we left behind when we moved out to Australia. In the meantime we’ll hopefully catch up with Rory and some others, which will be great.

A long weekend in York is followed by another trip up the A1 to my mum’s in Newcastle. I’m hoping to see some old school friends before we head across the Pennines to Blackpool, for our obligatory trip to the Pleasure Beach and (if its open) several rides on Valhalla  Down the M6 for a week in Warrington to see Neil’s family and then down to Heathrow for a couple of days incorporating a day in Thorpe Park and a quick visit with Sknowsy.

Awww… I’m starting to get excited now, even though its a lot of travelling. It’ll be lovely to see my dad, who couldn’t come when my mam came out to visit us, although I’ve decided that Middlechild is too much like his Grandad Colin.. and also to see my sister in law Dawn who I miss a lot Not to mention (although I just did) all the other friends and family.

Naturally, I’m hoping the weather will be like it is here – 25-30C.. but I’m not holding my breath, lol! I shall report from the Other Side.

It was, as ever, an interesting time in the Dreamy household on Friday night.

I’ve been suffering really bad cramps and diarrhea (yes, yes, I know, TMI) with a bit of nausea chucked in for good measure, but I had a bit of a craving for a baked potato. We’ve got one of those microwaves that has a ‘one touch’ button for baked potatoes – you bung it in, press the button and it stops cooking once its done. Fabby!

Now.. the microwave has a bit of a history. About a year or so ago, Ben was cooking steaks. Unable to judge for himself, and unable to work the oven timer (god help the engineering world once he’s working in it) he decided he’d use the microwave for the timings. Not the timer on the microwave, but the actual microwave. He was also, apparently unable to cook more than one steak at a time, so he did all 4 individually (I was upstairs with a migraine at the time so he was only making dinner for everyone else… I hasten to add that Himself was also in attendance!!)… naturally, by the time he’d done all four, the microwave had thrown a hissy fit and fused the leccy. :sigh: It’s never really been the same since.

Anyway, back to Friday night (I put the above in so that I am completely absolved of any blame). So, I’m sat reading, sort of half watching the telly too, feeling sorry for myself, when all of a sudden the smoke alarm in the hallway goes off. I sat up and was horrified to see that the kitchen was full of smoke. Now, we have an open plan kitchen/dining/living room.. so its a little disconcerting that I didn’t realise at some point before the alarm went off that there could have been a problem. (And no, Kevin Arnold, I wasn’t drunk!!)

I jumped up, trying to work out where the smoke was coming from. As well as the microwave, the oven was also on for the kids’ dinner.. had a look in there – no burning. By the time, the kids had come in from the study and were frantically waving teatowels at the smoke alarm (but hey, at least it works!!), wafting doors and trying to help me work out where on earth the smoke had come from. Finally, I remembered that I’d put a baked potato in the microwave. Which was now a blank, powerless machine. I couldn’t see anything inside it, so pulled the plug out of the wall and carefully opened the door. Yep.. that’s where the smoke was. My baked potato was now a cremated mess in the middle of the turntable and the inside of the door had partially melted. OMG! Obviously, the sensor had failed somehow and the potato had just continued cooking.

Now that we’d worked out the danger was over, we carried on trying to get rid of the smoke. Through the kitchen door, a small white cat appeared proudly bearing a gift for us all. Yes, Obi had somehow managed to catch a mouse. How he did it, we’re still not quite sure, but I’m betting that Leia was the architect behind it’s downfall. We shouted at Matthew to get hold of his cat. So he picked Obi up – the dogs, already hugely excited by the smoke alarm, were jumping up and down, trying to get the mouse out of his mouth. Matt is just vaguely waving Obi around, I don’t know if he was using him as a smoke disperser or what, so I shouted at him to put the cat down and get the mouse (which we assumed was dead) out of the cat’s mouth.

So Matt did as he was told and put the cat back down. And let go of him! Fortunately Obi was still so surprised to have caught something that he just stood there in shock. Then the back leg of the mouse wiggled and we realised it was still alive. We all shouted at Matt to get the mouse out of the cat’s mouth and he stood shrugging his shoulders like we’d asked him to come up with a viable theory to explain time travel. James shoved his fingers in the sides of Obi’s mouth and he dropped the mouse. Of course, now the mouse decided it would have a scamper around the kitchen bench… Ben threw a teatowel at Matt and told him to catch the mouse. Eventually, it was captured in the teatowel and I told Matt to go put it in the garden. He went out on the deck and flicked the teatowel over the edge of the railing. Coming back inside, he realised that the mouse was still clinging on to the towel for dear life. He ran back out and flicked the towel again.. this time a bit too energetically because the mouse AND the towel went over the side.

:sighs more:

It is all quite amusing looking back on it.

I am thankful that it happened before we disappear off to the UK for a week.. and Ben has promised that he won’t use the new microwave as a timer at any time..

I called into Coles for a few bits and pieces on the way back from taking James to school.

This is quite a normal occurrence and not usually something which causes me terror (well, apart from having to dodge all the Curtis Stone gurning cut outs).

Heading back to the car, I bent over to lift the hatch.. and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of the hugest, fattest, hairiest, hugest, juiciest, hugest, enormous, hugest Huntsman spider, pinned to the back of the car by the boot door. Did I mention it was huge? It was also, fortunately, extremely dead. I was too traumatised to take a photo so, with the power of Paint (why has no one bought me Photoshop yet??) I have recreated the incident (James Cameron has nothing on me), to scale.

The moment the spider was revealed

I’ve only just realised that I’d lost my blogroll in the last server move.. d’oh! So if people could email me their blog links again I’d be endlessly appreciative.

The reason I realised the above was when I was adding a new blog link – Diary of a Stay at Home Dad - which I can thoroughly recommend to everyone as a damn funny read. The bloke who writes it is a member of an ex-pats forum I write on (except he’s in the US rather than Aus) and his posts are always funny, usually disgusting, sometimes thought provoking and did I mention they were funny… I haven’t checked all the way back through his blog but I really, really, really hope he’s uploaded his ‘first week in a low paid job’ story – I still have nightmares about TheHorseInseminator.

That concludes today’s offering… I’ll be back soon with a proper entry. Honest.

Before I start, this blog has just changed servers, which wiped my subscribers list. I’ve added everyone who mailed me but I’ve also taken the liberty of adding anyone who has commented in the last couple of years or so. If you don’t want to be on the subscription mail list then please either email me or leave a comment on this post

Now – the mysteries of S-Time.

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed a peculiar phenomenon. When the alarm goes off on a morning, I, like probably everyone else in the known universe, hit the snooze button. I don’t know why we don’t just set the alarm for the time we ACTUALLY want to get up, but I think its because a) you feel like you’re coming awake more gradually and b) its like you’re cheating the Gods out of 20minutes (my snooze zone is 10minutes but it always get hit at least twice).

However, I’ve discovered that I can fall asleep really well in those ten minute intervals and, contrary to all the science about alpha, beta and theta waves, feel much more rested than if I just slept an extra ten minutes. I have the most bizarre dreams, which I know is because I’m technically no where near deep sleep, but I can always manipulate them to go the way I want, so it’s brilliant! Start the day with a fulfilling fantasy and it gives you a smile that lasts all day long. No, not THOSE sort of fantasies (well not always, anyway) but just more mundane things.

But is this particular to S-Time, or does it apply to general lying about in bed when you should be getting up? The answer is no. If I’ve accidentally hit ‘stop’ instead of ‘snooze’ but believe I can just lie there for an extra ten minutes anyway, it’s always going to end in tears. Every 37.5 seconds you jerk awake, convinced that you’ve been asleep for an hour. You check the time, realise you still don’t have to get up, fall asleep and do the exact same thing again. You then finally get up feeling like you’ve had no sleep at all and you’re grumpy and miserable and take it all out on the dog/cat/kids/other half (shut up at the back, I am not usually like that anyway)

Also, on that rare Saturday morning when you CAN lie in til 9am but you still woke up at 5.20am so you try to go back to sleep to make the most of it, you just wake back up at 6.45am feeling shit.

S-Time is magical time, we should all make the most of it.

Shhh…

It’s 9.08am.. and they’re all gone!!!

YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

I’m off for a sleep

I’ve been dreaming of this day.

For the first time since we moved to NSW,  I’d have the house completely to myself for a prolonged period of time. No kids, Himself at work, just me, I’d be able to watch what I wanted on the telly. I’d be able to play my crappy computer games with out derision. Sleep on the settee without sarcastic comments about needing a nannynap. Play Abba at full volume. Play Singstar without care. Dance around the house naked if I chose to! (Well, perhaps not that one. Not without putting all the blinds down first, anyway)

Yes, finally, Eldest and Middlechild were back in Uni.

However, it was not to be. Himself was waved off at the train station at 6am. Middlechild was waved off at the train station at 7am. I managed to stave off Youngest’s complaints of toothache (mostly by zoning him out) so that he wasn’t getting a day off school and dropped him off at school at 8am. Stopped at the supermarket on the way back from school, thus killing two birds with one stone and be back at home by 8.40am. Just one more child to go, and I was free!! Free I tell you!

‘What time are you at Uni?’… 
‘Er.. not til 2pm.. ’
‘But you need to sort out your travel authority?’
‘I was meaning to talk to you about that!’

Yes, he was only on a different campus today and could he please have a lift so he could sort out his travel authority at his home campus (so he can travel as a student on the train) and then could I please take him to the neighbouring campus where his lecture was. Via the train station so he could pick up a weekly ticket.

I’ve only just got back. 2.15pm. Is the rest of the day mine? No.. because Youngest is due in at 3pm.

What can I do with 45mins? Decisions, decisions.

Well, okay, so it’s sort of 11th January already, and yes, one of my resolutions was to write more regular updates, but I’ve been really, really, really busy. Not sure exactly WHAT I’ve been busy doing, but you can rest assured that it was vitally important and probably essential to the organised running of the world.

Anyway, enough of the excuses and on to the blah blah I may have to split this into several updates, but you know me, if I do that, I’ll do this one and think ‘I’ll do another tomorrow’ and then tomorrow will stretch away into endless procrastinations, so I’ll shove everything into the one update and if people lose the will to live before I get to the end of it.. well, that’s their lookout not mine.

Recent Events:

We had a fairly quiet Christmas and New Year. Again, for the second year running, the weather was fairly shocking! Lots of rain and when it wasn’t raining it was sticky and vile, so not a lot of incentive for venturing too far from the telly, air con, fridge and an esky (that’s a giant posh coolbox) full of beer and wine. Middlechild turned 18 on Christmas Eve and has made the most of his now legal status when it comes to alcohol. I can’t believe how much beer the little bugger has gone through! Worse than that, he’s decided to acquire a taste for white wine, so as eldest drinks all my red wine and he drinks all my white, I’m running out of options. I’ve gone all lightweight and can’t drink much vodka, so it’s probably a good job that I’ve cut my drinking right down with the diabetes. Don’t panic, I’m not completely tee-total, but its more a case of an occasional glass rather than an entire bottle these days

Himself went back to work on Monday – he gave up smoking again before Christmas so hopefully he’s got enough of a buffer now to cope with the smoking culture that goes on there. I’m really proud of him trying again, he gave up for about a year when we were in the UK, but after we were burgled and all the stress of the visa application it kind of knocked him backwards but he knows he can do it and I’m glad he’s trying again.

We’ve also booked our trip back to the UK – heading off there in September for just short of a month. I can’t believe we’ve passed our third anniversary in Australia! Literally just too, we arrived in Brisbane on the 10th Jan 2008. Looking at the weather they have there at the moment, I’m sincerely glad we don’t have an empty house there anymore! Fingers crossed all the people we know are safe and dry, and not suffering too much with the terrible floods. We watched the footage of the flash flooding in Toowoomba and were horrified at the intensity of the water.  It kind of puts our moaning about the rain into perspective.

Cats and Dogs:

The animals are all well adjusted to each other now. Bob and Solo are still struggling with the concept that, even when it’s chucking it down, they’re required to go outside for poos and wees. Soooo much more convenient to do it in the rumpus room where they won’t get wet. Rahhhhh!! Solo is also not happy having a tail. This is the only explanation I can find for his constant gnawing at it. Bob, on the other hand, loves his so much, he has endless fun knocking everything off the coffee table, especially when it then means he can legitimately steal whatever it was and run round the house with it The cats have got used to them – Obi rules the roost, Luke keeps trying to get cuddles and loving off Solo and Leia just looks at them with general disdain. She’s the only one who is really a cat, I think the other two are dogs in disguise.

Its amazing how many of Alfie and Ellie’s trait the puppies have. Bob is terminally stupid and thinks he is top dog. He also likes to lie in corners or under the recliner with a blanket over him – just like Alf. Solo has a fat arse and is the real top dog – he just lets Bob think he is, just like Ellie was with Alfie. Its almost as if their spirits were hovering around and slipped into the puppies when we weren’t looking. Yes, I know I’m strange, you don’t have to tell me. Anyway, we wouldn’t have them any other way (well, I suppose I’d like it if they stopped crapping in the house)

Diabetes and other health type stuff:

Apart from Christmas, where I kind of just ignored the fact I have diabetes, I’ve been a very good girl. So good that the Diabetes Clinic don’t need to see me again unless I have any issues. The nurse at the doctor’s is also very happy with my blood results – my quarterly average was 5.9 (something like that) which is fantastic. I have had a couple of set backs with my exercise, thanks to developing plantar fasciitis, but I’m working around it. Speaking of exercise, we got the boys a kinect for Christmas and I’ve been nearly wetting myself watching them do the various games. Absolutely hilarious and a must for any social gathering.

Uni:

Finally got to the end of the interminable law and accountancy units for my business studies degree. I knew I’d done well in the Accountancy exam and got a high distinction. Wasn’t quite so confident with the law exam – I’d got a distinction and a credit for my two assignments but the exam was horrible.. just getting a pass overall was the best I was hoping for, so I was ecstatic to get a credit – hurrah! Especially as it means I don’t have to resit the bloody thing. Middlechild wasn’t quite so happy – he got a high distinction for his programming unit but somehow managed to fail his exam for the intro to IT unit (an incredibly easy unit, methinks he coasted a little too much because it wasn’t challenging) so now has to decide if he’s going to go to TAFE to do a Cert IV and then Uni, or if he’ll resit.. he’s been told he needs to make a decision today so we’ll see.. Biggest did really well with his 1st semester exams and is looking forward to getting into some more indepth engineering. I’m just looking forward to him being out from under my feet all day Youngest graduated from school and was 1st in his class for Science! He’s going back for Year 11 and 12, so hopefully he’ll keep at it, especially as he wants to do engineering too.

General:

We went mad with dvds before Christmas and I also bought Himself the complete set of Battlestar Galacticas for one of his presents. He then insisted on watching it all continuously for about 10 days.. you can safely say that if I never see it again it’ll be too soon. It doesn’t help that they keep advertising whichever season they’re upto on Sci-Fi, but I’ll get over it. We also watched the entire run of Shameless – what a fantastic series that is. Even though we’d obviously seen it already, we still enjoyed every single moment of it. On UKTV they’ve been trailing a show called Being Human. I think they’re just showing the third season in the UK. It looked good, so when I saw Seasons 1 and 2 in JB HiFi (a bit like HMV/Virgin) I picked them both up – omg, it was excellent! We were so disappointed when we got to the end of the second series and can’t wait for series 3. We’ve also got all the Heroes and Supernaturals so far to watch again, The IT Crowd 4.0 and series 4 of Skins to watch and quite possibly loads of other stuff (now can you see why I haven’t done an update in so long? lol) – and interspersed with all that, we need to get our daily doses of NCIS, Law & Order (both SVU and Criminal Intent) and Eastenders and Corrie. Its a wonder I ever leave the house..

I am pleased to announce the arrival of two new additions to the Dreamy Household – behold, (Han) Solo and Bob(a Fett). As you can tell, we’ve carried on the Star Wars theme although calling a dog Bob doesn’t make it quite so obvious.

Yes, we now have two chocolate brown labrador boys, picked up on Saturday morning (and I was ready to take them back saturday afternoon!! I’m knackered, lol) Haven’t got any particularly wonderful photos of them yet as they’ve very inconsiderate and won’t lie/sit still long enough for me to photograph them, so this is the best you’re going to get for the time being:

Its amazing how you forget how much work puppies are until you have them again! All I can say is – Thank God for wooden floors – and that’s just because they like tipping over their water bowl and then swimming in the resultant puddle. Marvellous

I’m sure we’ll all soon settle down into a routine and I’ll put some better pics on when I get them.

The cats are doing quite well with them – the first day Luke disappeared up into the roof space and didn’t appear again until the dogs were put to bed, Leia spent all her time doing an impression of a toilet brush whilst hissing and spitting, and Obi just did this tortured face. The puppies have been used to cats, and they’re fine if the cats stand still… but as soon as they run it becomes a massively fun game! Oh well, things are getting better every day and Obi and Bob have been seen kissing each other. Obi only objected when Bob wanted to introduce tongues into the relationship.

Diabetes wise, I’m doing not bad. I was at the doctors a couple of weeks ago and he was happy with it all. My blood pressure had started to come down so he’s left me on the same dosage tablets, and my blood sugar readings haven’t been too bad. I’m at the hospital diabetes clinic on Friday, so hopefully they’ll be happy with me too. I’m still doing my treadmilling – about 2.5km of walking, takes about 30mins, so now I’m working on increasing the intensity with some intervals too. I’ve been a very good girl (I know, it makes a change)

Since being diagnosed with diabetes, its been amazing to discover how many of the people I know also have it.

As most of them are in the UK, it’ll be interesting to compare the treatments of the two countries.

So, I had my first session at the Diabetes Clinic last Friday. We have 2 x 3 hour group sessions and then individual appointments after that with a Diabetes Educationist, podiatrist and dietician. The first session pretty much covered all the basics – what diabetes was, how we could help control it, what sort of things we should and shouldn’t be eating, the importance of exercise and so on. I’ve got my 2nd session in about a month’s time.

Basically, we should be testing our blood 4 times a day – on rising and then 2 hours after breakfast, dinner and tea. The first test should be between 4-6mmol/L (no, I have no idea what the unit is either ) and the remaining 3 should be between 4-8mmol/L. I need to have carbohydrate at every meal – one serving of carbohydrate is about 15g and I should be aiming for 2-4 serves per meal. I also need to have a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack and depending on when I eat evening meal and go to bed, a supper too – these should be 1-2 serves of carbohydrate.

As well as that, we should have 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of veg a day, try to have a serve of nuts and limit saturated fats. I honestly feel that I never stop eating!! But despite all this food, I’ve lost a kilo in the last week. That could have something to do with the treadmill Yes, we have a treadmill (I can’t remember if I’ve posted about it before) I try to do at least 10 mins, 3 times a day, and so far so good. I just walk – 4-6km/h which (because I’m incredibly unfit) gets me out of breath, and is apparently the level I should be aiming for.

Blood testing is a pain, although I am getting better at it. The first time I had to prick my finger it took me ages to summon the courage, lol. The kids all thought I was a wuss and offered to do it for me. Now I’ve got the depth of the lancet (the spike) sorted it just feels like sharp pressure on my finger. Speaking of which, the alarm’s just gone off to remind me to do another one! Bloody thing