Op

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Saw the knee surgeon yesterday. He was of the opinion that the base of the screw, not the tip, is what’s causing the problem. It is poking out and sticking into the muscle that covers the front of the bone. Hence the pain when I kneel. So, yep it has to come out, and that is happening on Monday. Just Day Surgery, in and out, but likely to have some pain for about a week.

Mum and Dad are flying off to China this morning. 33 days until they come home!! Holly has it all written up on the calendar so we’ll have a daily update of the days till they return.

Jess has the vomit bug today. It’s going to be another long one by the looks of things.


Smell that..

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It is springtime in the air. Yippee.

Got to 20 degrees here today so the girls and I spent much of the day outside playing on the swings and I even did some weeding. Amy ate a lot of dirt, Meg had a few nosedives while learning how to do somersaults off the rings and Jess got stuck at the top of the climbing frame but it was sunny and warm so all was good.

We had a busy weekend as usual, but the best thing of all was dinner last night with my family. We have a lot to celebrate – Matt and Penny bought a new house, Lisa and Graham sold the house that Graham built and Mum and Dad are off to China on Wednesday. Jess is devastated that Mum is going away. She cries “Nanna is going on the plane and I’ll miss her”. I’ll miss her too. Hope you both have a great time away and come back safe and sound.

The girls saw their eye specialist today. Meg has had no changes to her prescription, but Holly has had a slight improvement in her astigmatism, so she needs new lenses. They both needed drops in their eyes and this is always a traumatic event for Holly. Even though Meg went first and didn’t even flinch, Holly was screaming and kicking and fighting the girl with all her might. It was so embarrassing.

Tomorrow I see the knee surgeon. Hoping for a date for the removal of the screw.

Gotta dash, dinner is burning on the stove!


11 months

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Amy is nearly one. In some ways it has gone fast and in others very slow, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. I wonder if she’ll start walking over the next 4 weeks to become the only child of mine to walk pre 12mths. We’ll see!

The other day I found a big box of my old stuff in the shed. I pulled it out, sat on the retaining wall and had the laugh of my life, while the kids played in the backyard and Amy crawled over the grass and into the dirt and through the damp leaves. I had letters in there from Rach while she was overseas the first year I was in uni and I giggled at each one and realised that she really hasn’t changed a bit over 20 years, but her taste in men certainly has! I read letters from my Nanna, from Helen (the first ever one you wrote to me as your new pen-friend, 1987 (?)) from uni friends and from Justin. It was so nice to reminisce about those times and realise how easy everything was but how much drama we created!

After I tore myself away from the dusty letters I saw that Amy was now so filthy that the outfit she had on would have to be destroyed, but also that Meg and Jess had discovered a box of my trophies and medals and were pretending to win them and accept them ceremoniously. It was hilarious. Meg took all of them and has them displayed up in her room as though she won them all herself. She is quite proud of her stash and lines them all up carefully before she goes to sleep. So precious!

I think we are over the worst of the illnesses here. It is just Jess coughing and Amy being clogged up in the nose now. I cancelled the QE2 session which was supposed to be tomorrow and all weekend, so I hope that Amy continues her good streak of sleeping and doesn’t make me regret that decision.

There are a few “old” shows on TV at the moment and Meg noticed that Andrew McF from The Flying Doctors is really Andrew from Playschool! And they all LOVE The Brady Bunch that is now on at 5.30pm. Holly always asks me if I remember the episode and I do! I think I’ve probably seen them all about 3 times each. When we were young and weren’t allowed to watch something on TV Dad would say “It’ll be on again before you’re 20” and he was right!

Here’s hoping that Lisa and Graham sell the house on Saturday for a million!


Blurgh

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The vomit bug has hit our place. Amy had it and now poor little Meg has it too. Doesn’t your heart just break when you see your child feeling so sick and you can’t do anything? Amy had one day of feeling good from the last thing she had, now she is snotty again, has a temp and is grizzly, but is still sleeping though (thanks goodness for that at least!). Jess has a cough that sounds like Emphysema and I was up with her a lot of the night. Ended up sleeping in Meg’s bed while she was down in our room with the blurgh bucket.

Remember that Telstra bill that the debt collectors chased us down for? Well, we couldn’t get any info about the payment from Telstra, they were useless, and in the end Justin just gave in and we paid it. This week we got a letter from those A**hole debt collectors which was a bill for $11 because we didn’t notify them of the date that we were going to pay the debt. Of all the petty things (insert multiple swear words in here!). So I paid that bill and in the identifier bit for internet banking I put the invoice number and then “UFKRS”. LOL 🙂 That’ll teach them!!

A few girls are up so snot and vomit duty begins again. I am SO over being sneezed, coughed, snotted and vomited upon. Bring on Spring.


Monday

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Another week is upon us and hopefully the kids will be in better health. Amy is still a little chesty and Jess had conjunctivitis on the weekend which we have nipped in the bud and cleared up.

Had a super weekend. The Umbilical Brothers were very funny. Justin loved it. The facial expressions of those two are just hilarious. It was very loud though. The ambient music before the show made it difficult to talk and some of the sound effects from the UB were ear piercing. Nonetheless, had a great time and even if I am an old fogey about the noise it was a fab night out.

Saturday night at the Casino and Auction night we had a ball. We started out with $500 funny money (equal to $5) and ended up with over $15 000. Justin had a string of luck whereby he placed a bet of $1000 with odds of 10:1 and walked away richer than ever. He now wants to go the real casino to see if it is the same there. So we had loads of cash to blow in the Auction and won an iron, wine, chocolates, Whiskey, a mystery box full of body wash, creams etc, and the kids won money boxes full of lollies. Jess bid $200 for hers and won! Justin’s computer went for $5000 (ie $50) so someone got a real bargain there.

Lisa had just informed me that we have tickets to Melbourne in January. Yippee. A weekend full of shopping, shows and dinner at Fifteen. I’m not sure if Sascha is coming, but Mum, Penny Lisa and I will be descending on Kate’s place for much fun with NO KIDS.

Well that is all for now. Have a great day.


before the weekend

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Friday afternoon – yippee! I’ve just made choc-chip mini muffins and the most delicious orange, almond and carrot cake. Mum and Dad are coming to mind the girls tonight so I needed to have some supplies in the pantry!

Yes indeed, Justin and I are going out! I booked tickets a few weeks ago to see the Umbilical Brothers. They are one of Justin’s favourites (and mine too I have to say, oh and Holly’s too, but she’s not coming!).

On Saturday night we are going to a Casino and Auction Night at the school. Besides that I am hoping for a rather quiet weekend. Jus ordered a new computer for Mum and Dad so we’ll be putting that together for them. They have been using a 14″ screen for years and I can say in all honesty that after seeing their new 22″ flat screen they’re going to be kicking themselves! And I am going to dispose of that teeny tiny 14″ on the spot.

It is a week until we are due to go to QE2 sleep centre, and Amy has been sleeping like a baby! I’m going to see how she goes over the weekend and cancel the booking on Monday. It only took nearly 11 months to get a good nights sleep! Anyway, I’m feeling fantastic and she is too so that is all that matters. She has 6 teeth now and grinds them together. Makes your spine tingle to hear it. She is all over the place, into everything and over the top of anything lying still. She empties the plastic container cupboard by throwing the stuff over her shoulder and then climbs in. She unrolls the toilet paper and tips over the bins. Ahh – it is such a joy to have a little baby! The two girls having babies last week both had boys. I guess that even things up somewhat 🙂

Hope you all have a great weekend and that the rain we had here last night continues.

Cheerio!


Gold

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Justin has tinkered with my iPod and put on it a heap of songs from his favourite albums – Frankie goes to Hollywood, O Brother Where Art Thou and this one from Spandau Ballet. When I was listening to “Gold” this morning on my walk I felt like I was in a musical and needed to wave my hands in the air strut my stuff. I did sing out loud at one point, and much to my embarrassment there was someone coming towards me. He laughed!

We had a great weekend. I hardly saw the kids. There were over the road playing, then they had a sleep over at Grandmas Sat night, then we went to the lake for lunch Sunday when they got home, and after that they were back over the road playing. We went to Mum and Dad’s for dinner last night and it was awesome. A great meal Mum. Holly told everyone at school this morning about the ‘ice cream cake”.

I’m reading the Da Vinci Code again. It still amazes me. After I’ve finished it I’m onto the second book in the Wilbur Smith Egyptian series because the 4th book has just been released in the shops and I am dying to get my hands on it but need to refresh my memory with the details first!

It is the most beautiful sunny day here today.. I can feel spring in the air. In a neighbours garden there is a Bower Bird with a magnificent voice and fancy nest all decorated with it’s blue things. We put some pen lids, milk tops and other blue oddbods close by to the nest to see if he would take them. We might go up there now and see if they are gone.

Have a great week.


Bazaar

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No not bizarre, but clearly something is strange that one very busy mum is organising a school fundraising event!

The Bazaar is something that Measa and I dreamed up, thinking it would be good to have something like a fete for the kids school without it being too feteish! So we thought lots of market stalls, entertainment and a car boot sale in the yard. Easy hey?

So I’m in charge of the Bazaar stalls. So far I’ve got 16 stalls including things like jewelery, cakes, books, lingerie, Tupperware, and craft. It is going to be great fun. Even Justin is having a stall, selling off a few old computers and promoting our business (especially Open Source Software and Linux). I just need Rach now to agree to do a Fiskars Demo stall and I’ll be happy!!

So come on down to the Bazaar on 22nd September and grab some bargains!!

In other stuff – is it possible that my knee is getting sorer, or is it just that now I know I have a screw loose I am imagining more pain? You’ll all be pleased to know that I am no longer running, but doing my route walking and it is SO SLOW. The regulars look at me with puzzled expressions 🙂

I’m taking Mum to the Craft Fair tomorrow (thanks Mrs P for the free tickets). Looking for lots of new ideas and good value purchases. I did another Mosaic yesterday, this time a mirror. Going to grout it this morning and then hang it up in the Pool Room this arvo.

2 friends are having babies this week. Emma today – good luck with that!! and Clare was due Monday, so anytime now. Breathe, Breathe!! I am not the least bit jealous of these two so that is an excellent sign that I am over the baby stage!

Have a great day and weekend ahead. I’m off to grout 🙂


Screws

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I have been having a spot of trouble with my knee lately. When I kneel down for too long, I can’t get up or walk with weight bearing on the left leg and to stretch it out feels like it is going to snap. It happened big time after Amy was born, and then a few time in the last 2 months or so. 15 years ago I had a knee reconstruction after a fateful game of netball where I tore my Anterior Cruciate Ligament. I’ve never played netball since, or really any sport and so taking up running this year was some exercise long overdue. But this niggly knee has had me a bit worried and I don’t want to give up my beloved running, so I popped along to my knee specialist last week for some preventative action.

He wasn’t sure what the problem was, so sent me for an x-ray. The Xray technician asked me if I had a lot of stairs in my house. I thought to myself “OMG is she telling me I have ‘Staircase Knee’ or something like that?”. Then she went on to say that she had a friend who lived in my street and their house had heaps of stairs, did mine as well???!

So I have the xray results and they have just been sitting there because I really wasn’t expecting anything to show up. Then I thought I’d take a look at them to see if the screws that I had inserted 15 years ago were visible. I was expecting to see some tiny little metallic screws there, but OMG there are HUGE. About an inch long each and over half a CM thick. One at the top and one at the bottom keeping my fake ligament in place. But the worst thing to see was that the bottom screw has its tip inside the knee cavity, not flush with the tibia, so maybe this is why it has been so sore when I kneel. It is poking into me!

I’m back at the specialist’s today and now am very worried that this is somewhat more serious than I first thought and that surgery is in order to sheer off the tip of the protruding screw. Yikes, I’m freaking out. But before I get too worked up I’m just going to see what he has to say and take it from there. I’ll let you know how it goes!!!

Edited to add:
Been to see specialist and I have to have the screw removed. He said not only has the screw moved up into the free space but it has migrated about a centimetre out from its original position. He said he’d never seen that before and could he show the xray to his colleagues! They all agreed that my pain was legitimate. From here, I see the surgeon in 2 weeks and most likely the operation will be the following week. There go my chances of doing the Canberra Times Fun Run – bummer. The doctor did say that I could keep running, but as a compromise I am not allowed to run down hills as that put too much pressure on the screw.

One good thing – this is forcing me to wean Amy. She can’t feed while I have anesthetic in my system and I’ve been wanting to wean her for ages now so this is the opportunity. Yay.