After my last stressed, sad-sack post this is a happier one.
A very wise midwife elder posted this today.
It says it all. Words to live by.
I'm surprised to note that RLS only lived to age 44. That means that by the time he reached my age he'd been dead for more than 3 years.
Not a bad life's work to leave behind. We should all be so lucky.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Lookin' through old stuff
I am here. Not hiding, just thinking.
Starting some things and not finishing them. So many competing demands.
Completing some long-unfinished tasks.
Finished the advanced fetal assessment course and passed. Yay!
Struggling a bit with fragile hope. About many things.
Listening, loving, waiting. Feeling.
Uncovering old stuff. Wishing I hadn't. Damned core beliefs (again).
Reframing painful things. Forgiving myself. Naming guilty parties.
Headaches. Just tension. Tears near the surface.
Doing for others. Should I be?
Learning to do for me. First, for a change.
Letting others help me. Its been a long time.
Hearing old voices and emotions. Do they belong here, now? Fighting and reframing their influence.
Feeling judged. Need I anymore?
What can I let go of? Do I need all this clutter? This baggage. Literally. Its weighing me down.
Freedom in the moonlight. A new way forward?
Much to think about...
Starting some things and not finishing them. So many competing demands.
Completing some long-unfinished tasks.
Finished the advanced fetal assessment course and passed. Yay!
Struggling a bit with fragile hope. About many things.
Listening, loving, waiting. Feeling.
Uncovering old stuff. Wishing I hadn't. Damned core beliefs (again).
Reframing painful things. Forgiving myself. Naming guilty parties.
Headaches. Just tension. Tears near the surface.
Doing for others. Should I be?
Learning to do for me. First, for a change.
Letting others help me. Its been a long time.
Hearing old voices and emotions. Do they belong here, now? Fighting and reframing their influence.
Feeling judged. Need I anymore?
What can I let go of? Do I need all this clutter? This baggage. Literally. Its weighing me down.
Freedom in the moonlight. A new way forward?
Much to think about...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bring it on
OK, I think I've finished whining now.
Clearly privacy is at a premium everywhere - many comments mentioned toddlers and toilets. Been there, done that. I understand. I do. And at least I have an unburnt house.
So, moving right along...
I'm back at work this week, after a very busy weekend featuring a rare Perth appearance of my London Aunts. Such darlings. They were so kind and hospitable to us when we were in London in 2007, so I was more than happy to be their (loosely bound, achieved by email, license to boss/draw together long-lost folks) social director for a 5 day visit. We went to a wildlife park where a wombat was scratched, along with a koala. We picnicked riverside, we looked up train timetables. We told tales, we ate scones and homemade jam, prawns, sticky date pudding, ice-cream cake and a large roast lamb dinner (we are very full).
I also managed to squeeze in a 20-hour retreat to a hotel for some time alone with my squeeze, although it was a close run thing. While wandering in the wildlife park I had a call from the booking agency telling me that the hotel was full and would not be able to honour our online booking. They were going into to bat for us, but they were unable to make them build a hotel room overnight, so did we have any other options? Clearly not. 6 hours later she rang me back to confirm that a room under repair now WAS available (phew).
We went, we gymed, we swam, we schmoozed, we ate room service for Valentine's dinner, we slept soundly. Mission accomplished. It was just lovely. We are very, very lucky people.
So I am working in clinics now, where there are antenatal sessions, and gynaecology sessions, some with midwives and some with doctors. Its a busy place, with lots of staff to-ing and fro-ing, and fighting over rooms, but it is generally a comfy place and the staff are all nice, so once I learn the routine I should be right. I worked in the outpatient clinics 4 years ago so I have some idea, I just have to adapt it to all these new clinics. Clinics also means no night shift or Sundays for a while. Yippee!
Today and tomorrow I have study days. I'm doing a 2 day Advanced Fetal Assessment course which will allow me to sign off on all the CTG traces I encounter in LBS. Its a useful skill to have, and as I hope to spend a long period on LBS this year I'm keen to achieve this competency. There's an exam involved, but I should be OK.
Steff went to work again today, no dramas that I heard about, so I hope she settles in better this week.
I do feel refreshed after a 2 week break and going away, even with a stressful last week or so.
I have also been enjoying So You Think You Can Dance on TV, and try not to miss it, or tape it religiously, or catch it up on the website. Another show I enjoyed was Cranford on ABC, which I taped the first week (cos it clashed with SYTYCD) - but I now discover to my delight that it is on ABC I-View - the online digital channel, which luckily our ISP subscribes to, so we can catch past episodes within the next week, in their entirety, without using up our download quota. Yay!
Its all go in my house, I tell ya!
And the very best bit of news is that as I type this, Lesley will be in the air, en-route to us here in Perth. I will feel most un-abandoned by her return, in contrast to when she left for the USA at a similar time to another best friend going to live in Scotland, and following the sudden death of another close friend. I am so looking forward to having her home. Just what I need...less abandon.
Lesley and I have a few projects planned, including making a quilt for a teenage boy that Frogdancer knows, who has lost his home and possessions in the fires. Frogdancer very kindly and generously passed on a quilt to his Mum that she made last year, that I got to see last September. She has posted about her visit to them here. Its a great post, I was moved to tears.
I'm also looking forward to the return of my prodigal son, who has been gallivanting in Melbourne, arriving on the morning of the fires. He goes back to uni on Monday, hopefully for his last year.
Well, I'm off to make dinner now.
Thanks for dropping by, I'd love you to leave a note and say hi!
Clearly privacy is at a premium everywhere - many comments mentioned toddlers and toilets. Been there, done that. I understand. I do. And at least I have an unburnt house.
So, moving right along...
I'm back at work this week, after a very busy weekend featuring a rare Perth appearance of my London Aunts. Such darlings. They were so kind and hospitable to us when we were in London in 2007, so I was more than happy to be their (loosely bound, achieved by email, license to boss/draw together long-lost folks) social director for a 5 day visit. We went to a wildlife park where a wombat was scratched, along with a koala. We picnicked riverside, we looked up train timetables. We told tales, we ate scones and homemade jam, prawns, sticky date pudding, ice-cream cake and a large roast lamb dinner (we are very full).
I also managed to squeeze in a 20-hour retreat to a hotel for some time alone with my squeeze, although it was a close run thing. While wandering in the wildlife park I had a call from the booking agency telling me that the hotel was full and would not be able to honour our online booking. They were going into to bat for us, but they were unable to make them build a hotel room overnight, so did we have any other options? Clearly not. 6 hours later she rang me back to confirm that a room under repair now WAS available (phew).
We went, we gymed, we swam, we schmoozed, we ate room service for Valentine's dinner, we slept soundly. Mission accomplished. It was just lovely. We are very, very lucky people.
So I am working in clinics now, where there are antenatal sessions, and gynaecology sessions, some with midwives and some with doctors. Its a busy place, with lots of staff to-ing and fro-ing, and fighting over rooms, but it is generally a comfy place and the staff are all nice, so once I learn the routine I should be right. I worked in the outpatient clinics 4 years ago so I have some idea, I just have to adapt it to all these new clinics. Clinics also means no night shift or Sundays for a while. Yippee!
Today and tomorrow I have study days. I'm doing a 2 day Advanced Fetal Assessment course which will allow me to sign off on all the CTG traces I encounter in LBS. Its a useful skill to have, and as I hope to spend a long period on LBS this year I'm keen to achieve this competency. There's an exam involved, but I should be OK.
Steff went to work again today, no dramas that I heard about, so I hope she settles in better this week.
I do feel refreshed after a 2 week break and going away, even with a stressful last week or so.
I have also been enjoying So You Think You Can Dance on TV, and try not to miss it, or tape it religiously, or catch it up on the website. Another show I enjoyed was Cranford on ABC, which I taped the first week (cos it clashed with SYTYCD) - but I now discover to my delight that it is on ABC I-View - the online digital channel, which luckily our ISP subscribes to, so we can catch past episodes within the next week, in their entirety, without using up our download quota. Yay!
Its all go in my house, I tell ya!
And the very best bit of news is that as I type this, Lesley will be in the air, en-route to us here in Perth. I will feel most un-abandoned by her return, in contrast to when she left for the USA at a similar time to another best friend going to live in Scotland, and following the sudden death of another close friend. I am so looking forward to having her home. Just what I need...less abandon.
Lesley and I have a few projects planned, including making a quilt for a teenage boy that Frogdancer knows, who has lost his home and possessions in the fires. Frogdancer very kindly and generously passed on a quilt to his Mum that she made last year, that I got to see last September. She has posted about her visit to them here. Its a great post, I was moved to tears.
I'm also looking forward to the return of my prodigal son, who has been gallivanting in Melbourne, arriving on the morning of the fires. He goes back to uni on Monday, hopefully for his last year.
Well, I'm off to make dinner now.
Thanks for dropping by, I'd love you to leave a note and say hi!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Don't you hate it when...(warning contains whining)
Second warning - contains no midwifery content either! Just whining. And a snapshot of my day.
Don't you hate it when you wake up early to see the kid off to work. After a late night baking sticky date cake for her work, waiting for it to cool and packing it carefully. In bed after midnight. A hot night, not good for sleeping.
When you head out to the dentist, arrive after arranging the appointment weeks ago for while you were on holiday and being told your appt has been shifted and no-one told you?
And that your notes had NOT arrived from the previous dentist after sending a fax weeks ago requesting that very thing.
And when she keeps offering you an new appointment at a very inconvenient time because I'm a shift worker and that's why these things are arranged weeks in advance honey! No, I have paid A LOT of money to attend on conference on THAT day. (Oh, beam me up.)
And you get home to spend the last day home alone with your sweetie, but he's gone into work to kill some time because you were at the dentist.
And its your first day home alone together for literally months, and you know what that means.....
And when he gets home you go to hang out the just finished washing before leaping into the sack for some well-deserved adult time...and he has put a new tea-towel in the wash - a RED one- with your three favourite (previously) white tops, fave nightie, knickers, socks, and assorted other things that you really wanted to be WHITE (and now they're not).
So you grind your teeth and reach for the bleach while the washing is still wet, and you run out.
And while you are trying to remain cheerful and maintain the idea of libido the phone rings and its the workplace and someone has to come home because her back hurts from standing.
And she works a 40 minute drive away. And they can't possibly let her come home on the train (literally doorstop to doorstop) because she is distressed.
And don't you hate trying not to punch a wall with frustration (of all kinds) that the day's plans have gone awry? On the ONLY day alone together on our holidays.
And then you have a meltdown where you pour out your heart to explain why this is so fucking shitty. On so many levels.
And you both drive clenching and sniffing through snot to the workplace (thereby dripping shiny snot onto your fave clean pants) to pick up the also sniffing and red-faced worker, and deliver her floor workmat for standing (so there is no further excuse for repeat performances). She then catches the train home with her Dad because there would just be way too much emotion in one car. The workplace support workers support me as I blub.
There's no way to ever get this day back again. Life's like that. It could be worse.
Casual lunch out with hubby was quite nice in a 'desperate escape from the house with zero privacy' kinda way. But not what we had planned.
Then, with back miraculously repaired, and offers of pain relief declined she sat at her computer and read Fan Fiction with a smile on her face. He had a nap in our room, I fell asleep with a book in the lounge room.
Then he went out. Then I went out, walking, in the 36C heat to a long meeting where I scribbled very hard for two hours.
When I got home we looked up the only remaining hotel room in Perth for Saturday night, Valentine's Day, in a 5-star hotel for a luckily very good price.
We're going.
What do you do when you need privacy?
Don't you hate it when you wake up early to see the kid off to work. After a late night baking sticky date cake for her work, waiting for it to cool and packing it carefully. In bed after midnight. A hot night, not good for sleeping.
When you head out to the dentist, arrive after arranging the appointment weeks ago for while you were on holiday and being told your appt has been shifted and no-one told you?
And that your notes had NOT arrived from the previous dentist after sending a fax weeks ago requesting that very thing.
And when she keeps offering you an new appointment at a very inconvenient time because I'm a shift worker and that's why these things are arranged weeks in advance honey! No, I have paid A LOT of money to attend on conference on THAT day. (Oh, beam me up.)
And you get home to spend the last day home alone with your sweetie, but he's gone into work to kill some time because you were at the dentist.
And its your first day home alone together for literally months, and you know what that means.....
And when he gets home you go to hang out the just finished washing before leaping into the sack for some well-deserved adult time...and he has put a new tea-towel in the wash - a RED one- with your three favourite (previously) white tops, fave nightie, knickers, socks, and assorted other things that you really wanted to be WHITE (and now they're not).
So you grind your teeth and reach for the bleach while the washing is still wet, and you run out.
And while you are trying to remain cheerful and maintain the idea of libido the phone rings and its the workplace and someone has to come home because her back hurts from standing.
And she works a 40 minute drive away. And they can't possibly let her come home on the train (literally doorstop to doorstop) because she is distressed.
And don't you hate trying not to punch a wall with frustration (of all kinds) that the day's plans have gone awry? On the ONLY day alone together on our holidays.
And then you have a meltdown where you pour out your heart to explain why this is so fucking shitty. On so many levels.
And you both drive clenching and sniffing through snot to the workplace (thereby dripping shiny snot onto your fave clean pants) to pick up the also sniffing and red-faced worker, and deliver her floor workmat for standing (so there is no further excuse for repeat performances). She then catches the train home with her Dad because there would just be way too much emotion in one car. The workplace support workers support me as I blub.
There's no way to ever get this day back again. Life's like that. It could be worse.
Casual lunch out with hubby was quite nice in a 'desperate escape from the house with zero privacy' kinda way. But not what we had planned.
Then, with back miraculously repaired, and offers of pain relief declined she sat at her computer and read Fan Fiction with a smile on her face. He had a nap in our room, I fell asleep with a book in the lounge room.
Then he went out. Then I went out, walking, in the 36C heat to a long meeting where I scribbled very hard for two hours.
When I got home we looked up the only remaining hotel room in Perth for Saturday night, Valentine's Day, in a 5-star hotel for a luckily very good price.
We're going.
What do you do when you need privacy?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
R is for...
An easy meme (I think it will be easy, I could be wrong).
You list 10 things you love that all begin with a given letter, and post the list on your blog. Anyone interested can leave a comment, you assign them a new letter, and on it rolls.
I got my letter from Lesley of Chapter III. My letter is 'R'.
My answers - in no particular order.
1. Roses
2. Rubies - both the colour and the jewels
3. Reunions - this is NOT my family depicted below. I'm sooo looking forward to seeing Lesley again.
4. Rabbits
5. Reading
6. Rummaging
7. Risotto
8. Romance
9. Rome
10. Rottnest Island. Look it up.
Just for fun, I made a Flickr mosaic out of them.
You list 10 things you love that all begin with a given letter, and post the list on your blog. Anyone interested can leave a comment, you assign them a new letter, and on it rolls.
I got my letter from Lesley of Chapter III. My letter is 'R'.
My answers - in no particular order.
1. Roses
2. Rubies - both the colour and the jewels
3. Reunions - this is NOT my family depicted below. I'm sooo looking forward to seeing Lesley again.
4. Rabbits
5. Reading
6. Rummaging
7. Risotto
8. Romance
9. Rome
10. Rottnest Island. Look it up.
Just for fun, I made a Flickr mosaic out of them.
1. Red Roses, 2. Ruby Red, 3. Henderson Reunion 2004, 4. andouille sausage and chicken risotto, 5. Rubies.., 6. Johnny the Rabbit, 7. found at the rummage sale on friday, 8. summer reading, 9. ..{ R is For ‘‘ Romance ’’ ..♥.., 10. the romance of candlelight, 11. In LOVE with Rome, 12. Australia - Perth - Rottnest Island
R is also for reduce, reuse, recycle, rejuvenate, recharge, relax, real and recovery. I like those words too.
Be good.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A fortunate life
It seems irrelevant to tell of my gallivanting last week in the face of such tragedy afflicting our country at the moment.
The house was ideal. Simple floors, huge rooms, fully equipped...heavenly. 
So comfortable. We kicked back and unwound. A lot. There were just the three of us, we could have had rent-a crowd with us.
I made his day on the first afternoon by joining him on the beach (I tolerate beaches, but I'm really more of a pool girl). And not just joining him, but swimming with him, topless, as I have forgotten my bathers (D'Oh). 
We wandered up and down the beach, slowly making our way in through the shallows, just us, well - apart from that solitary man in the distance, who walked past eventually, my back to him as he approached. As I was unable to find any full bathers to fit all of my gorgeousness, I ended up buying a tankini bottom and a new black bra and wearing it as a two-piece for the rest of the stay. Its been years since my tummy saw any sun! I kinda liked it.
We went to the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste - a whole post for another day. I love lighthouses, yet somehow this was the first I have ever been inside. It won't be the last.
I was terrorised in the shower by a very large spider on my last day. A Large, LARGE spider. Large amounts of screaming were involved. All lived to tell the tale (including the spider, maybe on his spider-weblog).
A quick drop in to Busselton for a coffee on the way home and we headed back to Perth. An early birthday dinner that night with our son before he headed off to Melbourne.
It is all so shocking, a staggering level of destruction in the firestorms, an enormous and incomprehensible loss of life. We were in that region last year for our niece's wedding at Healesville, and can well imagine the leafy communities and winding rugged roads that have become death traps in the thick smoke and terrible conditions.
We have made immediate donations of money where requested, and I plan to make a quilt to send to the comfort efforts. It seems such a small thing ... We watch with tears in our eyes, and pray it doesn't get worse.
My husband's family lost a home to the Hobart fires of 1967. It is still discussed how Uncle Bob drove into the little cul-de-sac to fetch Mother and Auntie Marj, and drove away as the firestorm raced up the valley to claim the house behind him. He saw it in his rear-view mirror as he floored it uphill to take them both to safety with the clothes on their backs.
My heart is with all those affected.
We were very lucky last week to spend a four night break in the bush and beach setting of Eagle Bay, near Dunsborough on the South West coast. Thanks so much to the Zeds for the loan of a fabbo house, metres from the water through a tiny fringe of scrub. See the turquoise bit?
The house was ideal. Simple floors, huge rooms, fully equipped...heavenly. So comfortable. We kicked back and unwound. A lot. There were just the three of us, we could have had rent-a crowd with us.Don was beside himself with delight. Give the man a beach close-by and he is there morning, noon and night. Give him a fishing pole and he is even happier. I know people have always felt this way about this house. I remember, now bittersweet, the happiness Lesley describes of sharing time with other friends there over the years. I was thinking of K, Les. And his family. 
Savouring the joy and simplicity of watching my husband fishing. 
This one got thrown back, but I was tickled to have been there to see it briefly. (edited to add - he caught another fish, a whiting, that became Steff's breakfast the next day)
Savouring the joy and simplicity of watching my husband fishing. This one got thrown back, but I was tickled to have been there to see it briefly. (edited to add - he caught another fish, a whiting, that became Steff's breakfast the next day)I made his day on the first afternoon by joining him on the beach (I tolerate beaches, but I'm really more of a pool girl). And not just joining him, but swimming with him, topless, as I have forgotten my bathers (D'Oh). We wandered up and down the beach, slowly making our way in through the shallows, just us, well - apart from that solitary man in the distance, who walked past eventually, my back to him as he approached. As I was unable to find any full bathers to fit all of my gorgeousness, I ended up buying a tankini bottom and a new black bra and wearing it as a two-piece for the rest of the stay. Its been years since my tummy saw any sun! I kinda liked it.The bush was lovely, we visited Meelup Beach - scene of the first of the wedding frenzies last year (ooh, my hair was really short).
We went to the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste - a whole post for another day. I love lighthouses, yet somehow this was the first I have ever been inside. It won't be the last. I was terrorised in the shower by a very large spider on my last day. A Large, LARGE spider. Large amounts of screaming were involved. All lived to tell the tale (including the spider, maybe on his spider-weblog). A quick drop in to Busselton for a coffee on the way home and we headed back to Perth. An early birthday dinner that night with our son before he headed off to Melbourne. Steffie started work today. It seemed to go well. She is taking sticky-date pudding to work on Thursday! I hope she won't get lost and phone me in tears again on Thursday. My heart was in my mouth, from 15 miles away, talking her through the backtracking to the station and taking the right way through to the place 200m away. Little steps. 
I'm so glad she came home cheerful.
I'm so glad she came home cheerful.Friday, February 6, 2009
The return of Laura
You know what I'm going to say don't you?
I'm back. From Eagle Bay. It was great. No really great.
Sorry to have skipped out on you like that. Husband watching all computer activity like a hawk. You know what I mean. So I didn't get to post a 'bye for now' note.
Post (with photos, thank goodness) very soon.
The house was even clean when I got back (amazing).
Later...
I'm back. From Eagle Bay. It was great. No really great.
Sorry to have skipped out on you like that. Husband watching all computer activity like a hawk. You know what I mean. So I didn't get to post a 'bye for now' note.
Post (with photos, thank goodness) very soon.
The house was even clean when I got back (amazing).
Later...
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