But not miserable September 22, 2005
Just an addendum to the last entry:
This is not to say that I’m mortally unhappy or anything.
Just restless and ready to blow this joint without the capacity to do so. I think it’s a spring thing.
No Detour
There are times when you need alternatives and seem to have none. There seems to be no way other than the one you’re following.
This is, of course, an illusion. There are always alternatives. They may be ones you don’t like, but they do exist. The trick lies in remembering this.
I’m having trouble with the trick today. Today there’s nowhere to go but here. I don’t want to be here, but somewhere else just isn’t presenting itself.
(sigh) This too will pass.
Tired & Grumpy September 20, 2005
I got off to a bad start this morning due to an 11.30pm phone call from a colleague last night, looking for information that he should have organised before he started doing production verification testing.
I always expect that stuffups will occur in the best planned of activities. That’s just the way life is. But when a person who’s been doing the job longer than I have fails to do even the most basic planning and then expects assistance when he gets stuck, it really shits me.
Being a copy cat
I was inspired by the photos on Jelly’s blog to venture out into the garden to take some of my own. They’re all here together, but I’ve put my favourites into this post.
First, there’s the new growth on one of my roses. The colours are fantastic. And I love how quickly they come back to life after pruning.
Then there’s the geranium in the cat run. It’s the only thing (apart from the weeds) that has survived in there. This is not a great photo of the plant, but it shows it’s amazing red.
And speaking of survivors, there’s the Bottlebrush in the wilderness behind the bathroom. This area is completely feral and in desperate need of attention. The plant has never been watered, pruned or in any way loved, but it’s huge and about to be covered in flowers.
My favourite things in the front yard are my Grevilleas.
And my old faithful cactuses. I’ve had this one for about 12 years. It doesn’t grow much, but it flowers every year without fail.
The one I love the best is ‘Phallic’ (yes, he has a name). I’ve had him now for, I think, about 17 years. I bought him in Coles in Balaclava and he was only about 10 centimeters long. Now he’s just tall enough to spike people in the bum, which is why he’s on the front verandah.
The view from the top shows just how long those spines are
This is getting me all inspired to get out there, but not today. Today is fortnightly grandma visiting day.
Mr Industrious
I’ve been sitting here phaffing on the computer for a while now, thinking that I should grab the wet washing and take it out and hang it. Just as I thought ‘five more minutes…’ for the umpteenth time, Mark went past on his way out the door with the basket. He really is amazing.
Last night Finn apparently started chatting, so Mark got up to settle him and hopped into the spare bed to avoid startling me coming back to our room. I knew nothing about this until Cosmo woke me at 6.30.
Since I got up up Mark has taken Finn to the shops to get the newspaper for me (we don’t get it delivered any more), given Finn breakfast, taken Finn to the park, put Finn down for a sleep, started preparations for tonight’s dinner, done some washing and gone out to hang it. All while I’ve been wandering around the house looking befuddled.
I think they need to add ‘Mr Industrious’ to the Mr Men series. He could be kinda cute looking with glasses and he’d have to have 8 arms like an Indian deity, each of them holding a different household implement.
Angus & Clapotisesque September 17, 2005
I finished Angus last night.
He’s a bit short so I think he can be for Foozley. I’m thinking of making some tassles from the leftover yarn and putting them on the points of each end.
And here’s the Clapotis scarf I’m knitting for The Mavis’ birthday.
I think it’s probably a smidge over half done. I want it to be long enough to hang to just below the hips when draped around the neck. The Mavis, being The Mavis, will probably want fringing on it, but I’m not going to do that so I’ll give her a ball of yarn so she can add them herself if she wishes.
This post is taking ages to do. Uploading the photos to Flickr is moving glacially. I’m not sure if it’s our connection or Flickr that’s to blame since anything I’ve tried to do since I started on the photos has taken ages. (sigh) I am sooo spoiled by the high speed LAN connection at work…
Angus September 16, 2005
While I was home yesterday I wanted to knit, but didn’t feel like knitting The Mavis’ clapotis-esque scarf. I wanted to work on something small and relatively quick.
I got out the Angus pattern which I found while printing up patterns last week. It’s by the person who designed Edgar in the latest Knitty and it’s quite cute. I’m knitting it up in some hand dyed wool I bought on eBay a while ago and it’s looking great so far. You’ll have to take my word for that, since I haven’t bothered to photograph it yet.
Sitting in the freezing aircon today has me thinking about knitting some wrist warmers or fingerless gloves. Might be a good christmas present idea…
Pumping Iron
I learned a valuable lesson last night: One should take an iron tablet completely seperately from food. I took my first iron tablet last night during dinner and felt absolutely awful afterwards. So now I will take my iron tablet just before I go to bed. I’ll take a vitamin C tablet with it to maximise the iron absorption - a tip I picked up while googling to check if queasiness is a side effect of iron tablets.
I’m becoming a big fan of using the internet to gather medical information. When my specialist rang to tell me about my acoustic neuroma I was typing the words into Google while he was still on the phone and the resources I found gave me a much better understanding of what I was in for than anything surgeon had to say. My GP didn’t mention any of the possible side effects of the iron tablets when I saw him yesterday. I found out everything I wanted to know this morning via Google (should have done it yesterday).
Search engines are your friend.
Doctor, Doctor… September 15, 2005
I didn’t feel up to fronting up for work again today, so I’ve toddled off back to the doctor and asked for some iron tablets. He tried to talk me into the tests, but I really don’t believe I’m bleeding internally, and I need to get a handle on this sooner, rather than later. So iron tablets I have.
While I can understand his need to cover the bases and so on, I think it’s a bit extreme to assume that a woman of child-bearing age who has low iron levels has an ulcer or a tumour or something else bleeding in her guts. Iron deficiency affects a huge number of people - women, men and, apparently, a lot of toddlers (because their needs are greater for growth) and it’s pretty much always related to diet. This means that if I’m iron deficient due to poor diet, there’s a reasonable chance that Mark & Finn are too, so we still have work to do.
I haven’t been back to the gym since last Tuesday. I’ve just been too tired and it’s felt like too much rushing about by the time I’ve got home from work, had dinner, spent time with the Foozle and see him off to bed to then turn around and dash off to the gym. They close at 8pm, so I need to get out of the house by about 7.15 to get there and do my circuit. Still, I will persevere. I figure I will give it until the start of Mark’s next teaching round (about 8 weeks) and, if I haven’t developed a habit of going regularly by then, I’ll cancel the membership.
Now I’m off to grab a cuppa and do some knitting.
