Dental Update...

After three days of being in pain, I think I have an infection where the remaining teeth were extracted and I will be off to the dentist and maybe doctor this morning. I have also had a headache to go along with it. I rarely get headaches and it is quite frustrating.

I have taken to wearing my sunglasses for the moment; it seems to help with the headache. Being on the computer doesn't really seem to help ;-)

I am looking forward to finishing off a couple of projects this weekend. I also think I will get out my Kobo, re introduce myself to it and load it up with some e-books - of course, depending on how the headache progresses after I have seen the dentist/doctor.

Boys

With tomorrow being Christmas the boys are really excited. So because they are excited, it means arguments, squabbling and yelling at each other. I have had to threaten both of them that I will cancel Christmas. The daughter was called into work early and most likely will not finish till late as they want to set her shop up for the after Christmas sales next week.

My patience is wearing thin, and they could be banished outside if they are going to keep it up.

Wishing all my followers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Lets hope it is a good one.

Sleeping ...

All my adult life, until I moved to Sydney, I was never sick. Never spent a moment in hospital unless it was to give birth, and once when I had some stomach pains. Then I moved to Sydney and after about five years, I started getting this and that wrong with me. Often to the words "There doesn't seem to be anyting wrong" after great, torturous visits to the Radiologists. So now that I am pretty much over the worst of my depression, something else comes along. Turns out I have a swollen transverse colon. A CT scan couldn't detect what was wrong so I have been recommended for a colonoscopy.

But to add to that discomfort, I have been coughing, because I have not been keeping warm enough. I layer up, but still feel cold. So this keeps me awake at night. During the day, warm drinks or food seem to relieve it.

So this morning I slept till 11.00 am just before my daughter left for work. I had been awake most of the night - again. Tonight I am going to take in a thermos full of hot tea and see if that doesn't help. Oh, and a hot water bottle.

It's okay, I will get through this, just like everything else, and probably be told much the same thing. I have loads of crafting to do, and any day now, they will ring about the servicing of my machine and I will be off sewing again. I have plenty to do, so I am not dwelling on this.

Really annoyed ....

The government, in its wisdom (and if you can't trust the government, who can you trust?) decided single mothers should go out and work for a living for themselves and their children. So with no work experience per se and a great deal of trepidation, the daughter got herself a job with an IGA supermarket. Well it seems like any dipshit can walk in off the streets and buy and IGA francise. Because the dipshits that ran the one my daughter worked for cut her hours without warning, abused and intimidated her. She left. Then they told her if she wanted her final pay to submit a pay form, which she did, and now the bastards think they can get away with not paying her.

Nigh unto death's door ...

I hear ya knockin' but you can't come in ...

So I am a bit of a drama queen. What else is new. I have been sick. I have been feeling like the bottom of a dog's stomach and then some. It has been the dreaded lurgy, bitten me three times in seven weeks. It has left me feeling weak and tired. So I haven't been blogging or anything. Not even my sewing, cross stitch or horse have cheered me up. Although I have cheered my horse up, lol.

I also had a very nasty scare from my Doctor during this time and have had to sit down and rethink much of what I am doing and still want to do. I have been taking medication for the depression, and about the third day of taking it, my stomach, chest and throat felt funny. I went to the doctor's and he did an ECG test on me. He said that I had a small blockage in my heart.

Do you know what freaked out feels like?

He referred me to a cardiologist at the new Campbelltown Private Hospital. Swanky place. Not impressive when you could die there. Anyhow, the cardiologist had a newer machine and buttoned me up to it (yes, buttoned up. He put little disposable press buttons onto my vital points and hooked the machine up to them). After a few moments of reading on his computer, he assured me that I did not have a blockage, but that because of my weight and general health (I have high bloodpressure), I should do more tests. I have had to put these off because I got the dreaded lurgy again.

I am going to loose 40kg and get fitter than what I am. Nasty scare and not happy, Jan.

There is much more news, but let me get back into the swing of things again, and I shall catch you up.

adieu

My week so far ...

The old person will be home tomorrow as 1. he has run out of money and 2. It is a stand alone Saturday for Hawkesbury Racetrack. This came about when the Olympic Games were on in the year 2000 and the racing fraternity decided not to hold a city meeting for the Games Week. So Newcastle was given a stand alone day. There were dire predictions that it would be a doomed meeting and no one would turn up (because they would all be at the Games, right?). Ha. It was one of the best race days ever. All the city folk who normally went to city races went up to Newcastle and had a rip snorter of a day and declared it a success. So the city group grudgingly said they could have one day a year for a provincial stand alone Saturday.

Hawkesbury Race Course has its own train station. It is directly across the railway and road from Richmond Airforce Base and it probably one of the most beautiful racetracks in the Country. If it wasn't for the fact that it takes an hour and a half to drive there I would probably go more often. I guess the real sentimental value of it is that it is where I first got to meet Bell and pat her and see her actually run, even though she didn't race. They had only just bought her for the Derby Club and it was the first time we saw all the horses together. They had only just got Russian Romance as well. RR looked like a doll, and being chestnut was just a shiny red horse. Bell looked, and still does look, very utility. She never had the exotic looks of Night Whisper or the bread and butter guts of Measure of Luck. She never had the gumption that Wave a Wand had for busting up a field to win. Gumption is not her style.

But I was concerned in those days of the fact she was by Citidancer. Citidancer had sired a horse that had been a bleeder. That was in the days when they thought bleeders were a genetic thing, and I didn't know any better. Bell never bled, neither did Goldie when she raced. Bleeding is not a genetic thing but a condition caused by the horse not being fully fit for racing. It comes about in a similar way to shin soreness, running a horse not really ready for that level of work. Why they have to ban a bleeder for life isn't something I fully understand. They don't do it in the US. At least a bleeder mare doesn't have to be excluded from breeding.

Well, yesterday at work was another time the Boss decided I and another woman needed a bit of "reminding" about our work. I just thought it was that perhaps I didn't have the right attitude to my work and was nothing major so I just agreed, listened to the new work load I was to be given and let it go.

But the other woman, who is a really hard worker and good at organising was appalled and very upset by it. She came in distressed this morning and when the Boss was out of the office began telling us why it upset her. The others joined in and it turns out that another woman who only works part time at the opposite end of the week to me had complained. It was unfair on the first lady. Anyhow, I suggested that she needed to give herself a "get out clause".

She had mentioned previously she was interested in doing MYOB so that she could help her son in his business. The classes are at night and it is a good step to another job. I told her, " I wont beat around the bush, night classes are a bitch. But in the end you have the stepping stones to go on to a better job and work with better people." I told her about having to repeat this semester, but that I was learning more and will be in a good position to become a Web Designer with the stuff I was learning.

Besides, I told her, your son wants you to keep his books because he can trust you. If he has to send them outside, he risks the outsiders cheating him, but if you do the books for him he doesn't have that worry. So because I know she would do anything for her son, I think she will seriously consider it. So in the end, the "talk" may have turned into a good thing for her.

I seriously thought about finishing up there and then as well. If I was really as bad as they say I am, they wouldn't still give me work to do, they would complain more frequently and the Boss, now that I know him better, would be alot shittier towards me than he is.

Later when another, third woman, took his secretary aside and told her what had gone on, she said that if the Boss was really serious about telling us off he would have taken us into his office alone not with each other and certainly not with the supervisor as he had. She claimed it was only an appeasement to the other woman. She seemed to think he had only said anything to me at all because he didn't really want to say anything to the first woman so had generalised for us both.

I just said if there is a problem, perhaps the Supervisor should just say it to our faces.

I also noticed discrepancies over what was said and what is the actual true position of things and I am wondering why there are lies going on? If another person had not been involved, I would just think, they are picking on me and leaving others alone. But both of us?

Next time I will involve the union. It has got to the stage of being ridiculous.

Well, that is my moan and groan for the day.

The sister is coming tomorrow and we will have a good chat. The old person will go hide in his room and listen to the races. It will be good, because the boys are going to watch the Youtube episode of Dr Who from the BBC on the daughter's computer. That will keep them all out of mischief. It is pretty decent of the daughter as she does't particularly like her cousin Sunnyboy.

so till next I gripe ...

Third time lucky ...

Here it is something like about three days in a row. Even three days in a week has been good lately. Nothing like having my precious laptop up and running.

The shoulder has been giving me gip again, and I might take some paracetamol before going to bed. I find complaining doesn't help.

There are going to be some changes at work next week. One lady has been off on maternity leave, she had a sweet little boy. So one of the temps has been terminated and will be leaving at the end of next week. I will give her a handmade card. She liked the one I gave her at Christmas so it will be worth giving her another one for leaving. She is a very nice young lady, well raised to the most extent, the youngest of about 6 and the others are apparently much older than she is. Her mother seems to be a very nice lady, very charitable. I gave her some money at Christmas to help a family she was helping. She was sick with gall stones and had to wait an age to get them removed. All the time she was doing a Work Opportunities for Women course. So her courage is pretty remarkable. I think she is in her seventies.

So I will miss this young lady.

I will be the switchboard operator. At my proper computer as well. This will suit me no end as I find I can operate the switchboard more effectively from my proper computer. It will be interesting to see how it pans out because there will be three of us doing three days per week, all of us in on Wednesday. The current temp and one of the long term temps will be doing the clerical support around the departments. That was not what I applied for and found it very annoying when they sent me out to do it. If I had spent much longer doing it I would have complained to the union. I am a bit annoyed I will be loosing my higher duties allowance but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

The sister was given some tickets to the circus on Sunday, so I will take the two boys and we will have a fun day out. It is at Darling Harbour. I will take the camera, but I don't know what sort of pictures I will end up with. We will have to walk from Central Station to DH so that will take a while, but I think I will pack lunch rather than buy stuff. It is too expensive in the city. I will duly report on the day.

The old person is watching the cricket and is pretty disgusted with the Australian side. It seems they are pretty pathetic at the moment. I mean how hard is one day cricket? lol.

I will work hard to get the last of my stuff done tomorrow so that I can have Sunday off. I know my feet will be killing me by the end of the day; so I have to wear lace up shoes. I had fluid retention this past Summer which I have not had since I left Whyalla in 1994. (Gosh was it that long ago? Gasp.)

I return to study next week, so my blogging may wane a little. Not because I don't care ..

Achey breaky neck ...

I think I have arthritis in my neck - I had treatment on it back in the 80's (yeah last millennium). Now it is back. At first I thought it was just a crick but even with the heat bag it is still aching. It affects my shoulder and arm as well.

I fell on my head off a horse in the late 1960's and I think this is a result of that. Wrecked my riding helmut and my mother was ropable. The next day we visited Jenolan caves and freaked out as I am with caves normally (I hate low ceilings and narrow spaces) having the stiff neck as well did not make it an enjoyable day for me. It was one of those excursions there was not way to get out of since the whole "family" was going. And I am sure it made the stiff neck/pulled muscles even worse. So now in my middle fifties after haunting me in my thirties has come back to give me annoyance. I think all this rain we have been having has been a contributing factor. I don't know how I am going to get through Winter if this is true.

The cure offered by the old person is to rub it with rubbing alcohol. It might be an idea. I know the heat creams cause burning on the surface of my skin and I just want to scream. I refuse to use them anymore. I use a beanie heat bag (wheat) but as I said, it didn't help much.

I am not a great one to complain about aches and pains, but this can affect my ability to work and my ability to continue writing.

Yes, I know that I can take celery pills and I will give it serious thought. See what the budget thinks.

Will update again on the weekend as I have to post on my craft site. Being the end of the month and all.

so...