Another bullet point post, because that’s how I roll.

• Having a new car to drive is wonderful. It is so comfortable and easy to drive that sometimes I feel kinda guilty for not missing the old car. We went past the dealer last week and saw they had the Golf in their used car lot for $8999! That’s more than double the trade in price they gave us. Ouch!
• Speaking of the new car; I’ve had my heart in my throat several times when random and unexpected objects have come dangerously close to hitting the car. The first item was a full beer keg. I had just dropped the husband off at the train station one morning when a beer keg that was being rolled along the footpath from the delivery truck to a pub’s cellar door got away from the toothless gimp delivery guy and bounced off the kerb then rolled merrily within half a foot of the driver’s door before the delivery guy stopped it. Gah! Then the next morning I was most of the way to work when a delivery truck fully laden with empty blue wheelie bins rounded the corner some three or four cars ahead of me. Foolishly some idiot had elected to ride in the back of the uncovered truck so as to attempt to hold the tall stacks of bins steady. Inevitably as the truck rounded the corner two stacks of bins fell off and bounced along the road. Myself and the other drivers had to take evasive action to avoid hitting them. The last item to nearly hit the car was a moron attached to a leaf blower. Again I was on my way to work and there had been a car accident earlier on that had just been cleared. For whatever reason, the Road and Traffic Authority Guy was walking along the median strip with a leaf blower in his hand. I was just a few car lengths from him when he changed the angle of his grip and the length of the leaf blower stuck out well into my lane. I braked and just as I was about to pass him (and go *clunk*), he suddenly changed the angle of his grip again so the leaf blower was pointed in front of him. Emergency diverted!
• I’ve been really stressed these last few weeks with work and uni but the final exams were this week and now that it’s all over (at least the study part is, the work part hasn’t changed) I feel like a new person. The biggest weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The exam itself wasn’t particularly hard, there was just one question that I wasn’t sure about but when I went back to it after answering the rest of the paper, I had an answer for it.
• Speaking of work, we’re gearing up to do another round of interviews. There were 41 applicants that I’ve culled down to seven. Two look really worthwhile, one looks interesting and four aren’t suitable but met the criteria so therefore we’re obliged to interview them. I really can’t wait until we’re fully staffed again. I’ve got mountains of paperwork piling up and while my assistant does try very hard, she just doesn’t have an eye for detail. The sooner we can get someone else on, the sooner I can get my assistant onto tasks that better match her skill set and the happier I will be! The husband and I are even toying with the idea of taking a holiday. It’s not far off first wedding anniversary and with losing the baby shortly there after, it really feels as though it’s been many years since our last break. I guess ultimately it will depend on how long it takes to appoint and train up the new recruit as well as any developments with the swine flu hamdemic. Good times.
• Babies. The (in)fertility treatment doesn’t appear to be doing much. Meh.
• My sister inlaw is pregnant and due to give birth in August so to help prepare my little niece for the arrival of her little brother, the husband and I gave her a newborn Cabbage Patch Doll. She instantly fell in love with it and delighted everyone by giving it cuddles, drinks from its little plastic bottle and naps in its little plastic capsule. Adorable! She even had a mini-tantrum when my girlfriend’s ten month old daughter picked up the CPK’s bottle to play with. Hilarious! I was so happy that I could give my niece her first CPK. I have found memories of my own and while she’s far too little to remember receiving it, it’s still kinda special. :)
• I celebrated another birthday a few weeks ago and can honestly say it was one of the best. The husband asked me what I would like for my birthday dinner and I decided to have my favourite meal — Christmas dinner. Turkey, baked vegetables, cranberry sauce. Lovely! The girls at work had a morning tea for me and gave me a variey of birthday cards (and a gift voucher for the local department store). The husband, bless him, turned the event into an extended celebration by giving me a little gift each day for a few days either side of my birthday. One of the gifts he gave me was House of the Dead 2&3 for the Wii — it was my favourite game on the Dreamcast (remember that thing??) and I loved reliving the zombie blasting fun so much that I couldn’t grip a pen properly for a day or so afterwards. Stupid trigger finger. Heh. He also gave me Call of Duty 4 which I’ve been loving. For a day or so I tried to convince the husband that I really was Soap MacTavish, SAS and awesome. He wasn’t buying it.  I finished the single player campaign very quickly; in what seemed to be just five or six hours.  It ended just as I was really getting into it which was very disappointing.  I guess I’m just use to massive roleplaying games like Oblivion that take 200+ hours to complete.  Speaking of Oblivion, I still have the Shivering Isles expansion to finish.  I love this time between uni semesters!  Game on!
• What with it being Winter and all, I’ve made a scientific discovery. It would appear that the degree of sluttiness of the skirt plus knee length boots combo can be directly correlated to the percentage  of body fat of the wearer. It appears that the sluttier the skirt/boot combo; the greater the volume of body fat, particularly in the thigh/arse regions. I wonder if this is a local phenomenon or if it’s global? Clearly I should apply for a research grant.
• The first prize in Ozlotto is $90M this week. Lemme just spell that out for you: A$90,000,000.00 Jesus wept!

Something happened to the memory card in my digital camera, in that it wasn’t recognising the card. Unfortunately I had a little brain fart when I bought a replacement. I somehow came home with an SD card instead of an XD card. So the husband scored a new 4GB SD card for his camera. When I explained what I was trying to achieve, he asked to see my camera and within mere minutes he had it fixed and working again. Thank you Mr Fixit. And so, in honour of having a working digital camera again, I’ve snapped off a bunch of photos to properly document my day.

This morning I had another sleep in, then we met the inlaws for lunch. Then we came home again and I put on an Austen DVD and did a little studying.

I finished the chapter on Bills of Exchange, boring, then baked a double layer sponge cake for the husband.

While the cakes were cooling, I got comfy on the couch with a cup of tea and my latest knitting project.

Don’t you just love these stitch markers? I found them on etsy a while back. Love them!

Having reached a good spot in the pattern to take a break, I played through my scales a bunch of times.

Then it was time to fill the cake with jam and cream, and call the husband in for a break.

The end :)

It’s been another emotional rollercoaster week. I’m going to cut parts out and skim over others but essentially, this is how it played out…

My husband drove down the coast on Monday night to bring his mother back to Sydney for her scheduled surgery on Tuesday. While he was there, she had a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke). At one point she stopped breathing and had no pulse. It was only his quick action and medical training that saved her life. Given the all-clear by a swag of doctors, she had her surgery and is due home again today.

We visited her in hospital on Thursday night and due to the girlie-nature of her surgery, her room was in the middle of the maternity section. I don’t do too well when confronted by that sort of thing so I specifically asked if anyone else would be there, and was told no, but when we arrived the brother-in-law was there as well. Anyway, my relationship with the brother-in-law has been strained over the last few years (ever since the day he stood in my kitchen and had the audacity to tell ME to “get a life”; this coming from the man who wasn’t working and has few friends and no interests beyond drinking wine and watching tv) and more so since the birth of our sons. Anyway, the mother-in-law went on a tangent about not being able to pick up her grandson post-surgery healing stage. I didn’t need to hear this. Why not just say “I’ve been told not to lift stuff” rather than “I’ve been told that I can’t lift my grand children, they’ll just have to climb up onto my lap, I could get a little rope and they could pull themselves up like this etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc”.

The husband seems to think that the reason his parents don’t really acknowledge Max or our feelings about him is because they didn’t see him and therefore don’t register the reality of our son. Today when he collects his mother from the hospital and takes her home, he is taking Max with him. Or at least, he’s taking Max’s ashes, his photos and the book containing his feet and hand prints.

I’m not expecting much to come from this but it would be nice if they could understand that while we lost our son five months ago, it feels like it happened yesterday. I just want a little empathy from them. I want them to understand that it hurts me a lot when they prattle on about babies and that they don’t ask me how I’m coping since losing Max (they ask my husband, but never me).

Ok, enough – it’s time to change the record.  Besides, I need a tissue.

Work… I work a major teaching hospital in Sydney. The powers above are blocking our recruitment efforts to save money. We advertised one part-time position in December and interviewed in January.  We found two fantastic applicants. Although our request to recruit was approved, those jerks have stalled the criminal record check stage of the recruitment process so they can “save money”.  We have explained that our need is great, that they approved this position back when we had 2 FTE staff on board.  Now we are down 1 FTE, both of our 0.8 FTE nurses are on leave (guess who is giving patients their blood results; got demarcation issues??) and have two new specialists on staff, and five additional clinics to run. Do the math. They did assign a temp to me and while she is GREAT, she is still very new to the role and everything she does must be checked. She also has a couple of medical issues and often needs to leave early, start late, etc. It’s going to take a couple of weeks to get her up to speed. So those government jerks don’t recognise that while they are “saving money” by delaying recruitment, they are forcing one person to do the work of 2.5 FTE staff without taking into account the increase of clinical staff and activity. To get through the workload, I’m starting early, working through lunch, leaving late (I did 9hrs of unpaid overtime this week alone), getting run down, am unable to take sick leave, and subsequently providing a half-arsed service to our patients.  I’d just like to take this moment to say “Fuck you Labor government”.

I’ve got a lot to do this weekend: a few hours of coding a shop cart modification for a web client, a couple of chapters to read for uni on contract law re franchising and licensing, and four songs to practice before my next piano lesson on Tuesday night. Not bad for someone who doesn’t have a life.

• Piano lessons are going very well so I bought myself a little treat:
• I have had a very productive week as far as knitting goes. I’ve finished the lacy pink and black scarf and a pair of uber cute black Converse Chuck Taylor booties. I’m keen to cast on again but I have no idea what to make next. I’m seriously considering knitting baby items to sell since learning that one of the knitted soakers I made for a friend’s baby fetched over $30 on ebay. And that was as a second-hand item! Not bad for $4 worth of wool and a couple of hours in front of the tv. My thought is that I’m going to knit anyway, I might as well make a little money doing it. And it could provide a nice little income when (if) I’m (ever) at home with a baby.
• Uni starts up again on Monday and I’m quite excited about it. I’ll be taking Commercial Law first up, which looks pretty interesting. Best of all, unlike previous law texts, the textbook isn’t massive; it will actually fit into my regular handbag so I won’t have to carry a separate bag around with me.
• Work was better this week. I have another assistant and she is awesome. The first assistant they gave me came from the temporary staffing pool was relieved from her position after being one hour late on five consecutive days, calling in sick on her sixth day, late again on day seven, then failing to show up or call in on the day eight. Assistant V2.0 is enthusiastic, intelligent, proactive and professional. She’s also wickedly funny and makes an excellent cup of tea.
• Gossip from the ‘hood: A couple of days ago my Korean neighbour side-swiped my other neighbour’s late model green car with their little white shitbox. They exchanged a good amount of paint and did a substantial amount of damage then DROVE OFF! Today they parked their shitbox on the street again but didn’t even attempt to hide the green paint on their own car. She confronted the neighbours but they pulled the “sorry no english” thing, just as they did when I confronted them about flicking cigarette butts onto our lawn. Needless to say, she has taken plenty of photos and involved the police. Ahh, it’s all good in the hood.
• Today my sister and I bought a fabulous variety of birthday presents for our very spoilt and completely gorgeous niece. She turns one tomorrow. Where does the time go?
• While exerting an incredible amount of self-control, I was able to walk straight past the huge Easter egg display at Big W today without pushing my thumb through any of the eggs. I did, however, attempt to hurt a Terry’s Chocolate Orange as part of my personal protest against the combining of hated fake ORANGE flavouring with much loved CHOCOLATE, only to be informed by my sister that said Terry’s Chocolate Orange is actually solid not hollow, and therefore impervious to my thumb. The force is strong with this one.
• I really don’t like my new Remington electric razor. My old one was great but this one is so rough on my skin. Damn you Remington *shakes fist*
• Max’s due date was last Friday. I had really hoped to be pregnant again by now but it obviously wasn’t meant to be. I’m getting really tired of all the deliberate glances towards my belly. Fortunately I’ve managed to lose all the baby weight plus one kilo so there’s nothing to see.

I’ve been very bored with my uni studies, mainly because I’ve completely lost interest in accounting which was my specialisation.  As a result, I’ve been dodging the accounting subjects and have completed the law specialisation (double-major).  The husband suggested that I speak to the course coordinator, which I did this morning.  After a quick chat he’s going to swap my accounting specialisation over to business management. I’ve already completed two of the business management subjects but I’d done them as free electives. This means I have two more free electives to complete and eight new specialisation subjects.  Sometimes, like right now, it feels as though I will be studying forever… but at least I’ll be doing subjects that are interesting to me!

Having over-estimated the peak hour traffic this morning, I arrived to the exam centre almost forty-five minutes earlier than I had intended. I used the time to do a quick flick through my notes being going in. The exam itself was much better than I anticipated – having done virtually no study over the weekend (read: week), I was expecting to well and truly flounder! Being an open book exam, I had carefully flagged the various sections of my text books and I was able to located the relevant legislation and case law without any problems. I answered all of the questions, checked my answers, expanded where possible, checked my answers again then left the exam hall with forty-five minutes to spare! I use to wait until the time was over but realisedthat there’s only so much I can write, so now I up and go when I feel I’ve finished the paper. The grades will be released on 11 July.

I stopped in on my sister-inlaw after the exam and we spent a few hours talking and playing with the baby. My niece is such a chunky monkey – I can’t believe how fast she is growing! I left them at 4.30pm to collect the Boy from the train station, then we were off to take my little grey kitty to the vet. She’d had a little accident at the weekend – she peed in her bed! This is something that is very out of character – not only for her but for a cat! I was concerned that she might have some terrible old-lady-cat incontinence or possibly a UTI but our vet suspects that she may have diabetes, or possibly but less likely, a thyroid problem. Kitty will stay in the hospital tonight so the vet can collect a urine sample and test for glucose. Poor little girl :(

Things I did today:

• Watched ‘Down to You’ on DVD
• Changed over the bed linen, flipped the mattress.
• Caught up on the laundry
• Did an hour of step aerobics and yoga on the Wii Fit
• Soaked in a hot bubble bath
• Painted my toe nails
• Played PackRat on Facebook long enough to finish the Vegas themed set
• Folded all of the clean clothes that I’ve had in baskets in the bedroom, and put them away in the new chest of drawers I got for my birthday last week
• Played with the cats
• Made a flower out of glow sticks and connectors
• Wrote this blog entry

  Things I didn’t do today:

• Study for the final exam I have on Monday morning