memorial service

Sam’s memorial service will be held at the Altona Memorial Park on the 30th of July 2007 at 1:30pm.  Notices and details are in the Herald Sun (25th).

All who knew her as a friend are welcome.

Glen.

my lovely Sams

From Sam’s husband…

Sam unfortunately passed the early morning of the 19th July 2007.  It was sudden and unexpected and she will be sorely missed by all.

She brightened up every room and made us see thing in ways we did not think possible…

my lovely sams, please rest in peace.

Glen.

Closed for business

back August.

Just need some time to rest and relax 🙂

Every breath you take…

every move I make.

That’s me right now. It was confirmed today by xray that I have pneumonia in my lower left lung. I am chugging two kinds of antibiotics, trying to eat and trying not to move. My whole left side feels like one giant stitch, which is odd to say, but I feel very tight and every breath kills me.

So, I’m ok, just trying to rest at home. I worked half a day on Monday, because seeing my city doctor resulted in me being sent home. I apparently had a virus. I was told to rest and take the next two days off work.

I rested and woke up Tuesday morning with this stitch thing. I thought I’d slept too long and maybe I’d twisted my back. Tuesday night came and I was having difficulty breathing and I had to sleep upright in the loungeroom’s recliner. I didn’t get much sleep last night because of it, kept waking up from the pain. A bit of self loathing and depression over it led to a bit of random crying of frustration which made it harder to breathe! haha. Listen to me carry on. I’m seriously ok

After speaking to my sister in law last night, she made me promise to see another doctor today. I was fortunate enough to catch the doctor I used to see when I lived in the suburb. She was fantastic, checking my kidneys, heart and pulse. She determined that I had pneumonia and sent me off to get xrays to make sure, as she put it, that I didnt need to be sent to hospital!

So picture this. Traumatic taxi ride from home to doctors – doesnt have a freakin’ clue where he’s going. Equally crap ride to the xray place resulting in the procurement of a Melways book older than me! And then the ride home with a driver who was both frustrating and nice.

We got the new car tonight. Glen had to go over and sign for it etc. It’s all good. We’ll start making it ours, putting the seat covers in and we’ll pick up the cargo barrier on Saturday and might get some rubber lining for the boot. It’s all good.

Anyway, I am tired and probably not making a great deal of sense. Yay for me! Rest assured, I am alive.

Chinese Notes

Chinese Notes

Originally uploaded by Sams76.

I wanted to post this on Friday, but I was too tired. Saturday, I was too tired, too busy and too disorganised. Sunday, I couldn’t find the cable and then when I took the photos, the batteries on my camera died!

I found other batteries. They died. I found others. They died. I eventually got the originals charged and managed to upload all 251 photos to my laptop. And after about an hour, the photos finally finished loading.

Anyway. What’s this photo about?

On Friday, I went out to lunch with Glen. I bought some jumpers. They were nice jumpers. They were cheap jumpers. They were $8 each! Bargain!

I walked back to work and decided to dump my purchased into the back of the bike. As I approached, something wasn’t quite right and as I got closer, I realised that there was something sitting on my dashboard.

They looked like fake notes. I guess everyone’s first reaction is to think that, I am told. Anyway, I took the notes upstairs to my floor and asked a colleague whether they were real.

Turns out they were!

I did the only thing a normal person would do.

I checked out the currency conversion from Chinese notes to Australian! haha. Yes, I confess. But the search was partly to check whether these notes were real. As you can see, they have names, like Wu Jiao.

Anyway, after we determined they were real, I took them to the police station behind our building. I waited patiently in line, only to be told that they could not help and I was basically wasting their time.

The police woman actually said to me that if it was a wad of Australian dollars, then they’d want to talk to me! Pathetic really. She thanked me for being so honest and actually said, “Merry Christmas”.

So, i took it back to the office and showed a few people. One sadly informed me that because of the laws in China, the notes could not be converted back to Australian because China typically does not allow their currency out of the country.

I would say that whoever dumped them on my bike had gone to the Ameri*can Ex*press currency exchange and was told they couldn’t exchange them.

The upshot of this story? If I was able to exchange this money, it would be worth about $10 Australian.

Merry Christmas, indeed!

Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

OMG.

OMG.

O.M.G!

I just bought tickets to the Lionel Richie concert in Melbourne for December! Woo!

I thought I had missed out, but by being a member of a certain ticket outlet, I was given the opportunity to buy presale tickets.

I’m stunned!

Woo!

Poor Glen. He has to come with me.

…yes, I am a dag.

We’re all okay

In light of this event, I kinda felt compelled to post something here to let everyone know in blogland that I am okay and everyone I know, including Glen is fine.

My building is a couple of blocks away, but still close enough to send shivers down your spine.

It’s a pretty scary situation and most of the buildings in the CBD are in lockdown. The man responsible for this crime would be well and truly out of the city, I would expect. Having said that, I am still in two minds about going outside to do some shopping.

Hopefully they catch him. One is already dead. May he rest in peace for trying to assist someone else who needed him. You don’t see that sort of selfless act often in a city.

Heaven sent freedom prescribed

I used to blog so frequently. I think I had a lot more to say. Or, I had more time to say it. Or maybe more motivation to write it. I don’t know. These days, I just lack the interest in this blog that I once had. I mostly blame external factors, but there’s a large part of me that I can’t change right now. The part of me that dictates my moods right now.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my neck and migraines recently. The last few weeks, maybe months, I’ve been on a rollercoaster of migraines and general pain. It got to the point where I lost any hope to live a day without one. When you have a migraine for more than a day or two, you start to lose the hope that yes, it will go away. No matter how many drugs and natural remedies like wheat pillows and essential oils you throw at it, it never goes away. It’s always there bubbling under the surface. It’s easy to understand why you lose hope, why you just exist from one day to the next. Existence is not really living and over time, you start to feel that sleep trumps existence any day.

So, I slept. I’d get up for work, with the migraine firmly ensconced in my head and neck, drag myself to work, with limited productivity until I dragged myself home, ate dinner, was crabby for a few hours before I put everyone out of my misery and went to bed. I was so miserable. I stop being interested in pretty much anything I cared about before.

It finally got to the point where I realised that I was suffering needlessly and I made an appointment with my doctor. With migraines, you sometimes act without sense and you become paranoid. It’s part of the condition which I just learned recently. I had put the doctor’s appointment off because in my head, I had made the argument that my doctor would give me a hard time and wouldn’t prescribe the things I needed to get rid of the migraines. But I had to give it a try and see what happened.

The doctor took one look at me and asked two simple questions: “Do you have a migraine right now?” Yes. “How long have you had it for?” Over 10 days, on and off.

I walked out of the surgery with some hope. I have been prescribed a migraine preventative called Sandomigran and given a script for mersyndol forte in the event that they return.

That was last Friday. I have been without a migraine for about 10 days. Ironically, my last migraine was the afternoon of the first tablet. It was a really bad migraine which forced me to bed with two mersyndol fortes at 8pm. It was my last hurrah, as I’ve not had a migraine since. I’ve had auras and all sorts of other symptoms, but no migraine pain, as such. It’s so foreign to me.

The downside to the medication that I can see so far is it increases yours appetite and for some reason, I am finding it hard to wake up properly in the mornings and when I do sleep in, I feel really groggy and achy. It’s all very much trial and error right now, so I’ve got some options still. But to go this long without a migraine feels very surreal to me.

The culmination of no migraines has also been the delivery of our new chiropractic bed which has been heaven sent. I dont think I’ve slept this well in about six years, maybe more. It’s just weird!

So, as I’ve sorted out this problem, other problems can be focussed on and I guess that’s where I am at right now.

The painting at our house continues to occur. The June long weekend really proved productive, but Glen and I nearly killed ourselves painting the master bedroom. Two windows and an unreachable (in parts) wardrobe have proven difficult. However, it’s basically done.

Painting left to do:

• Bathroom, toilet, dining room/kitchen and laundry – all one colour
• computer room, which scares me beyond belief due to the amount of shit Glen continues to hoard in there
• Lounge room repaint – the original paint we rushed to get done on the weekend of settlement has never agreed with me and we’ll be painting over the offending walls – except for the lovely feature wall which stays

Then we’re done. It’s something I can’t quite believe, but it’s almost over if you look at it like that.  At some point, I’ll try to post before and after shots, but I might wait another week because I just lack the motivation and interest. See, this is where I am at – general lack of interest.

Stay tuned.

Jen’s into the Pitts

Saw this story on an Australia newspaper site. At first I thought, “That’s great. Jennifer’s moved on and she’s found someone”, then I read the story and to my horror, saw the photograph.

Who else thinks he looks a lot like Brad Pitt?

Yo, keepin’ it real…

I’ve been with Glen for about six years. That’s a fairly long time. That’s long enough to really know that person and to have routine, to exist together. There’s really no surprises at this point of the relationship, so you feel comfortable and relaxed.

This should be the case for inlaws and inherited relatives. Alas, it is not. They don’t have a clue who I really am and they don’t know my tastes in things. This results in birthday and Christmases being very disappointing and demoralising.

I’m continually starring in a recuring role on Pleasantville. We all know the movie. It’s set in picture-perfect-nobody-has-any-real-problems land. We’re all pleasant and polite. No one has a mean thing to say about the other and we put on a persona when in the presence of such company.

This is hard for me. I consider myself to be a very real person. To say it like it is. I wasn’t blessed with the gene of subtly. I don’t know what that word means. I grew up in a very relaxed family which consisted of me and my mother. The lines of parent and child were blurred to become friends and accomplices in life. It was how it had to be. The tap needed fixing, we were both there fixing it. Dinner had to be made, we were both there peeling the potatoes and cleaning up. Ironing and washing had to be done, we both endured it.

More to the point, if there were issues, she told me off and I had my say (to a small point). We sorted it out. We kept it real.

Suddenly, I am thrust into another world where such relationships were never formed. Where affection towards each other wasn’t as paramount as it was in my family. That is not to say it wasn’t there, because I am sure it was. But the degree to which you say I love you etc is not as present. In this new world, people do not say what they think, they keep it to themselves. If you have an opinion that others do not concur with and the situation presses enough buttons, you are told to shut up – like a small child that you were 20 years ago.

I don’t want to disparage this family, because for all the things I whinge about, the produced the man I am spending the rest of my life with. The man who has so much love to give, there is never enough time to receive it. He is perfect, despite the issues that surround us today.

Having said that, it has been refreshing for my partner and his sister to get an ‘outsider’s’ take on the situation. To give an objective appraisal of the situation. To say that for others, this is not a normal family dynamic. People do talk back, they do express discontent and annoyance to each other and the lines of parent/child become blurred as the child becomes an adult and the parent just becomes another adult. Children at the age of almost 40 are not told to ‘do be quiet’ as they were when they were 10. They aren’t silenced because the parent has ordered it. The dynamics are supposed to changed. We are allowed to question our parents. It’s ok.

So, this family dynamic has become a bit of an issue for me and for my partner and his sister. It’s been a stressful week and I feel as if there is great expectations placed on me to sort it out, to bite the bullet.

Life is so much simpler when you pretend in your everyday life that no one but you and your partner exist. It is very selfish, but less complicated.