Blogging bliss

My favourite husband has an old laptop. He spent hours last night configuring it so I could use it instead of the limping desktop. Internet, printer, email - you name it. Sigh. He is my favourite (and only) husband. I still keep automatically reaching for the mouse, but I'll get used to it.

The bathroom is proceeding fabulously. Ooh, hang on, I'll see if I can get some photos off the camera.....talk amongst yourselves.......Done.

For the first few days after demolition I felt like I was seeing a maiden aunt naked. It just didn't seem quite right, too exposed, like I was looking up her dress. We can even see into the roof space throught the exposed cornices.

Before -the old timber cabinet and window. This frame was incredibly solid.

View from outside as the window is enlarged.

After - 3rd row down, second from the right. Laid by yours truly.

The bath in position. It was bricked in today.

Now don't show Mum...but here's the bag I've made for her for Mother's Day. I hope she likes it, it looks a little more sombre than I expected. The lining fabric is really lush. When I photographed the bag at night there seems to be an angry person hiding among the big pattern central to the bag. Can you see it when you squint? Tell me NOW if you think it is a bad omen and I shouldn't give it to her....I'm not kidding. I'm on days off now. I'll still have time to make a different one.

The kids indulged me and allowed me to take some photos on Tuesday. I'm quite pleased with them. The snootiest cat in the world was even restrained briefly to pretend to be a real cat.

Today Stephanie has had some minor surgery. It is her first operation in about 5 years (and her 18th one) and she was not looking forward to it, but was really brave. The anaesthetist was very kind and understanding (and well briefed) and it went well. She slipped off to sleep briefly, and all the scary stuff was done while she was asleep. She was back with me within an hour, with a bandage on her arm where the stitches are. Hopefully that pesky mole will be benign, but its best to be safe!

Our anniversary dinner was lovely. We went to a French place in Nedlands, old and family owned. Wonderful food and terrific service. Only one small glitch, a freebie appetiser of seafood bisque cappucino! Served in a little espresso cup with foam on top! It looked cute, but unfortunately tasted vile. We both love seafood bisque normally, but the balance was really off. I mean really off. All the stuff from the prawn and lobster heads that one normally ...washes out... was obviously left in there and had flavoured the bisque much too heavily, so basically it tasted like....well...the stuff you would normally wash out. We had one sip, nearly gagged, and pushed it aside. We sent it back. The rest of the meal was superb. Utterly superb. Highly recommended.

I've also made another Wild Woman (in yellows and orange) for someone special. No, you can't peek.

Lesley and I are nearly finished Jarryd's quilt. If I'm not remaking a bag this weekend (cough, but seriously, tell me if I need to) I'll be stitching on the binding. Then it will be off!

The outdoor showers are going well, the coldest morning has only been 9C, so not too bad so far. Everyone is still enjoying it.

Woo-hoo! Days off and a quilt to finish, craft to do and a bathroom to enthuse about! See ya!

Happy..everything

Its International Midwives' Day.

And our 24th wedding anniversary.

We're going out for dinner tonight.

I took some great photos of the kids just now....I'll have to load them and show you later...still borrowing other people's computers (sigh).

We've got a bath in today. And a spout. And pipes from all the walls in the right spots. And drainage pipes. And a glass block window. I even put one of the glass blocks in myself.

Photos to come. If I can be patient about it, so can you.

Many stories to tell from a very eventful first few days on visiting midwife duty. Cute babies. Lovely Mums, Dads and families. Did I mention cute babies?

My back is not good. Not at all. Very dodgy for the last week or so. Just what you need when driving all over and hauling bags and scales everywhere. Not aided by having a solid fall from a tiny wall yesterday. Don't ask. I'm just glad no-one had a camera on me. Thank God for woodchips, and no roses. Legs in the air, shoes, hair and bag everywhere. Half-in, half-out of the garden bed. What a dork. Luckily no real damage done.

I hope to have the computer dramas sorted in the next week. Who needs a bank balance?

My Make it in May is progressing quite well. I have done a bit of clay sculpting, made a bag, cut out some other stuff for another. Can we count thinking about things? Planning stuff? I've had a great idea for a Masters thesis! Today my blog posting may count as my creation. Its writing innit?

Ciao for now

Alfresco living

Well, the bathroom renovation has begun.

Here's some 'before' shots.

Yesterday while I was at work the bathroom was gutted.

I called Stephanie at lunchtime to get a progress report and her exact words were "Oh. My Freakin. God - Mum, its amazing". LOL. She had been charged with taking photos of the progress, so some of these were taken by her.

It turns out that this was not the original bathroom as I had thought. There was green wet-area plaster uncovered under the tiles, so it must have been re-done in the early 1960s, when it was around 15 years old.

There were two burly young men, smashing and crashing, belting apart a very solid cast iron bath and wheelbarrowing it out to the skip.

By the time I got home they were removing rubble by the barrow load. The floors are covered and holding up ok so far.

The builder/plumber had plumbed us a new outdoor hot/cold shower on the external wall outside the laundry, so its alfresco freshening up for us for the next 2-3 weeks! Of course we also have the laundry and loo indoors.

This is where I had my shower this morning at 7am. It was light outside and 14 degrees. It was fun. Don talked to me through the laundry window.

It may get a bit old by the end, but we'll survive. (edited to add, in fact we are all enjoying it. Our son who is quite bohemian is very enthusiastic about standing naked in the backyard under the moonlight, and the cat was very curious last night to see Steph in the shower after swimming. She - the cat- walks on the wall and is most intrigued. I saw a plane fly over this morning!)Its quite private, but we've hung a few curtains anyway, just in case.

The skip is nearly full of rubble, but before we began it was half-full of black bags full of leaves!!!!!! Some scumbag neighbour had decided it would be appropriate to dump 11 bags of leaves in our waiting skip over the long weekend. Grrr. WHAT A NERVE!!!!! As I was standing next to it today with the plumber, discussing this crime someone set off down the lane on a bike (in all their wanky lycra) and grinned and waved. It was either a). The culprit rubbing it in, or b). someone I did know and would be happy to wave to....in which case I hope their bike didn't actually develop a flat tyre, or their lycra shorts split down the ass seam while they were in heavy traffic (as that was what I was wishing them in the event that it was the culprit). Ahem. The young guys had to remove it all, because they are not allowed to have mixed rubble and green waste in the style of skip we have. Like they needed the extra work involved in that!

In other news...Look at what was safely delivered to my house yesterday! It is an original art piece in paint and paper made for me by Kel of Taurus Rising. It was her blogaversary about 6 weeks ago and I won my choice of prize. The choices included an art piece, so she custom made it for me. She framed it and everything! It has a cut up egg/oval shape with an eye/uterus/hidden chamber with an embryonic woman in it. It is most intriguing. (ooh, Kel has added a helpful comment explaining it better). It fits into a little niche for now - I promise I'll find somewhere better to hang it when I re-organize/curate the artwork soon. Where it is currently is a bit hard to photograph, but I wanted it up immediately and safely out of the way of the workmen, but somewhere I can look at it and absorb it. I keep finding new layers in it already. Thanks so much Kel!

And for my final trick...I've decided to have some creative fun next month (in my spare time) and attempt to take part in 'Every day in May'. Its some Flickr group...Oh...here ya go http://www.flickr.com/groups/everydayinmay/ . The concept's apparently been going for a few years...I may fail...but what the hey! Its a good excuse to get crafting more solidly again. I have a few projects planned and I'm sure the rest will evolve as the month unfolds.

But don't hold me to it....

Ramblin' on

I have managed to find my way back to the 'New Post' button. Phew!



I have made an actual list of things to excuse my absence, well...more like things that happened when I was away from the keyboard and I feel I might tell you about.



I have been op-shopping (clearly I desperately need more stuff in this house). Buttons galore, some cast glass pieces (imitating cut glass) that I seem to be collecting. Do they have a name as a style? Please let me know.I wonder why I like them? They remind me of my Nanna's sugar bowl which I have and use daily. I'm sure that the sugar bowl is absolutely nothing special in terms of value, probably a fancier looking piece from a department or chain store, but it has always been in use with the Sydney Harbour Bridge spoon from my earliest memories (at least the mid-60s). It has the lovely quality of looking beautiful (esp when freshly washed) but as solid as a rock...let me take a picture (oh bugger, now I'll have to wash it....might as well photograph the rest of the haul....semi-prepared blogging...grumble...grumble). They were all as cheap as chips to buy, but I do like them.Here ya go. I use this one as a pin dish (it may very well be exactly that).



More Wild Women have been crafted, including some brown ones. I am not a brown person. It looks hideous on me. Its not 'my colour'. So I used to naturally shy away from it as a craft choice....but lately I have realised that it was cutting out a whole range of palette for me to play with, and it does combine well as a neutral with all sorts of colours. I don't have to wear it to use it. I'm pleased with these women. I haven't named them yet...But they please me inordinately.

I went to an Enjo party last week (sigh, don't get me started on party plan selling). To be sociable, and because I love the party holder dearly. I knew her late mother, and now the daughter, M and I have ended up doing nursing together (sort of, she was the semester ahead) and midwifery in the same class. When her mum died in 1997 some friends were asked to make quilt squares for a memory quilt for the family. I hadn't started quilting then and I am embarassed to recall my efforts, but I made two blocks for the quilt and sent them off, but never saw the finished quilt. M showed me the quilt at the party. Its huge! And I was relieved that my squares weren't as badly finished off as I recalled.



I was at my daughter's swimming competition last weekend and for some reason (anticipated boredom?) as I ran out of the door I grabbed something to do while sitting for hours. It was knitting. KNITTING!!!! Good Lord! What possessed me? Anyhoo....Using op-shop chunky wool and 9mm needles an elf hat emerged. Quite randomly. For a creamy-beige elf. No pattern, no clue, made it up as I went along. The daughter came third in her race too. I continued the illusion of knitting the next day and attempted to make a headband for the wild-haired son - either his head is gonna have to shrink or a cold, smaller child will find herself with an ear warmer. I suspect the latter. See I can actually knit, just randomly. I even knitted the headband in the round on DPNs!! Double Pointed Needles. Are you impressed? It was a complete pain in the ass, but I'm stubborn. I thought about unpicking it, but instead I got it off the needles ASAP. It's not completely finished, but meh, what's a few buttons. I even crocheted the flower thingy, with the last of the wool. Oy veh. I am NOT dedicated to knitting. Can you tell?



I caught up with a long-lost sister on Sunday (well, not quite lost, but you know...). She is doing well at this end of a very stressful and difficult year, and is enthralled with her new puppy, a pedigree Shi-tszu with a very long name, Poppy for short. Very cute. Sooooooooo cute. Did I mention that she is cute? No photo, sorry, but she is cream, gold and sable saddled with symmetrical markings. She matches the long-haired Burmese cat. And the furnishings. Deliberately. She is just what my sister needed, and I am so pleased to see her looking content.




We saw a movie 'Burn After Reading' on the weekend too. It was really good, hilarious and wicked. Are people really as completely and relentlessly unfaithful to their spouses as depicted in the movies? Or just in Washington? I know, I know, its just a movie, but it did strike me as weird. There was only one sympathetic character in the film. Brad Pitt was so funny as a bonehead gym worker. Frances McDormand was brave and wonderful in her role. George Clooney was as adorable, but despicable as the sex-obsessed public servant. John Malkovich played the uptight, pernickety husband to perfection and Tilda Swinton was revoltingly good and believable as the cold wife of Malkovich's character. Recommended if you like quirky, off the wall plots.



Work has been good too, absorbing and challenging. My baby drought has continued, I haven't caught a baby myself for about 5-6 weeks. I cared for 2 families with stillborns last weekend, they were so sweet and tiny, their parents were devastated to see the end of their hopes for those children. The memories we make for them to keep are so important, and I'm always delighted to work with midwives with great photography skills, or presentation skills who will help create worthy records and mementos of that short precious time with the baby. Parents are always so touched to receive the gifts of quilts, clothes, teddies etc that are provided for their little ones, often by families who experienced such a loss themselves and in memory of their own baby. Grandparents who provided teeny little teddy bears 4" high can keep a photo of their grandchild's perfect little hand on teddy's tummy, just the right size for a tiny 23 weeker. Its a privilege to care for them.





I'm starting to make plans for next year at work. I'm talking to my manager about rotations to a birth centre on-site, that provides care across the continuum for low-risk women in a team or group practice model. They work shifts and regular on-call, do their own education sessions, and provide short-term postnatal care on-site (<24hrs) and do their own visiting home postnatal care. I am looking forward to seeing more spontaneously labouring women. Fingers crossed for my rotations!


Last thing! I went to craft today with all my old friends. They are all besotted with my Wild Women (what's not to like?) and want me to lead a class in making them, so I will find a date in early December for that. We made some silk 'paper' with silk 'topping' and added threads. I'm quite pleased with it. It should be a cover for a new small journal, or maybe something else. As I said at craft this morning - I may use it straight away, or I may find it again when I am 72 and I hope I remember the day when I made it and the company of such dear friends. And the friends I shared it with online.

Right! Consider yourselves caught up!

And the winner is...

Wow- 14 comments!

I don't think I've ever cracked 10 comments before so I'm delighted to hear from you all and accept your good wishes as I enter my second year as a blogger. Technically there are 14 people subscribed to my feed through bloglines, but one of those is me, so I suppose a giveaway enticed a few people to de-lurk from random blog-visit world too. Welcome!

The winner is Suzy of the blog Identity Crisis, which I find very moving. She is one brave woman. I'm so pleased she has a gift coming her way. Suzy - Please reply to the email when you're up to it.

So, what have I been up to? Not much washing I can assure you as our only 7 year old washing machine has spat the dummy and stopped spinning. Its little electrics had it convinced it had an open lid, and nothing on God's earth would persuade it otherwise. I'm a busy woman with limited time in which to wash clothes, and I need the machine to be reliable and do its job. Not wuss around saying, wait, I'll finish it soon, really, even though it isn't rinsed, or spun, or even washed thoroughly. I've got teenagers for that.

So it was off to the big electrical retailer to buy an energy efficient, watersmart, rebate attracting new washer. Which of course they didn't have in stock. And wouldn't be getting until November (my clothes are dirty, like, NOW). No, sorry, the next model up isn't in stock either, same delivery date, and besides it may not fit through the space we need it to. Yes, maybe you can buy the one from the showroom floor for immediate delivery. Lets do that. All signed up, we'll follow you home - oh wait! The warehouse man has said he can give you one set aside for someone else who doesn't expect delivery until November, so we can allocate/substitute theirs in November and you can have that one NOW.

So here I am awaiting the delivery and installation of my new washing machine. Ooh! There's the doorbell, BRB.

Woo-hoo! Its here, all installed and they took the old one away too. Phew. I have read the instruction manual and crossed out all the pages that don't refer to OUR model to save swearing and frustration (See Widget, I'm systematic about some things). Said intruction manual will be displayed in a waterproof sleeve near the enw machine while all and sundry try it out. Then I will secretly set it to the usual settings I like and simplify it. It is a very clever machine, if such things can be asigned an IQ. But I can't use it until I go buy some special detergent for high-efficiency Nobel Prize candidate machines. Sigh. I'll let you know how it goes.

SO much to tell you. New wall photos? Here ya go. Nice huh? Long view. Here's the metally-y thingy I had to have on the end wall. As you can see its a 'room divider'. This is the view from the back door.It should look OK soon - where's the home improvement makeover teams who achieve wonders in 48 hours? Not in my back yard, sad to say.

Work? Very interesting too. Had a vague day on return to work on Monday, went for a booked CS with a woman, helped out a bit on return to LBS, flitted about, completely forgot what I was meant to be doing for an hour or so and kept myself busy doing something entirely different. Then remembered with a gasp (new woman in Room 3!) and reappeared in the room to the bemusement of the woman (how embarassing). Was thrown a bit by being invited in for a chat with a clinical midwife consultant about JJ, for a debrief and to clarify why JJ's Mum was so upset after my visit when she read the card with my honest words about having a different journey ahead of them. What do you mean I have a special needs child? was her question. Hmm, I thought I had been really clear with them, we had discussed it specifically in relation to his walking and talking and how it may be different for him and they would deal with it when they got to it. They have apparently not liked being at the new hospital, and don't like to see social workers or a particular senior doctor because he 'tells them bad news'. So I guess my card falls into that category too. I just feel sad for them. I can see where they are at. Its not a good place. Maybe in time to come they will look back and realise that I was the first to address the truth with them. Even before he was born I was talking about the reality of 'what if he's not healthy?'. Then again in time I, too, may be blanked out or shot as the messenger of a truth they didn't want to hear. It doesn't change the truth. I'm still really sad for them, but I won't approach them again. Poor family.

The next two shifts were better, with labouring women. Baby Rhys was born at 2043 on Tuesday night after a fraught last hour or so (looking at the trace, which was crappy because he had had morphine, but flap was raised nonetheless) where mum pushed him out in 8 pushes with the threat of fetal scalp sampling hanging over her head! Luckily she had achieved full dilation at shortly before, after some slow-ish progress and the docs backed off and let the resident doctor and I get the birth. Which turned out to be quite nice really if a bit beetle-y (lying on her back and pushing like mad, sigh). She was delighted not to need stitches after her first birth, and he was a quite, quite yummy baby.

Little baby Teresa entered the world early(34+ weeks) yesterday at 1406 to her young Mum, 16, after a steady labour that would not be denied. After opting for an epidural it didn't work very well so the woman was really struggling with no sleep and continuing pain with each contraction. Finally the anaesthetist adjusted it and gave some super-duper extra drugs that were really effective so she was really comfy but limited with mobility. I kept the lights down low, the mood light and the membranes intact despite pressure from outside. We all thought she would push this pipsqueak baby out easily, membranes were intact and everything, but the trace looked dodgy (gee do you think the machines could be fallible, or maybe we don't know everything about the normal range!) so the waters were broken an hour after full dilation to aid descent of the head into the pelvis. The head was still at spines, facing upwards with head tilted back, I could feel the anterior fontanelle. Deflexed OP. No pushing or anything, just awaiting rotataion and descent with contractions. Except it didn't. I positioned her to maximise descent, as she couldn't move well for herself. She wanted to sleep now that she was free from pain. So I left her to have a nap. After 2 hours we started her pushing and then the trace looked really crap and I called in the docs. Bugger.

Suddenly we were upstairs with a trial of intrumental birth. Which didn't work after a heroic effort and three pulls where she didn't budge, even with episiotomy. So they converted to CS. DAMN! We were all really disappointed, including the doctors. They were really upset. If there was anyone who needed a cut fanny AND a CS wound like a hole in the head it was a 16 year old girl!

I staggered back downstairs after taking Teresa to the SCN (she was fine, quite serene really and very pretty, but had a sore head, was breathing up a bit and needed some time to finish cooking) and wandered off home, after having a bitter laugh with the coordinator about my 'ability' to keep a birth normal and get a 34 weeker out without a drama. You win some, you lose some. The young woman herself was pretty unfazed by it all really, just delighted to see her little girl who she kissed and nuzzled on the table with joy. Her Mum was with her (she had had 3xCS) and she too was unfazed, and glad to have made the birth after flying down from 1200km away and arriving as we started pushing!

Its makes me wonder about the expectations of child-bearing women, that she could accept all that intervention and still be smiling and just be keen to have a sleep! Maybe if you don't overthink it you can just take it in your stride. It's when one agonises over the meaning in all such things that the potential for disappointment and bad experiences peak. I wonder how she'll feel when approaching her next birth.

And finally, because I do so love making them, another two Wild Women . These are for my best friend and one of my sisters who requested a blue one for her birthday (woo-hoo - pressies ready in advance!). This is Nancy. Fancy Nancy. With cute shoes and a handbag. And a heart on wings. Seems like a good concept to uphold.

And this is Sister. I adore her face. She catches fish. And leaves. And houses. And has wild hair.

So, enough of me, tell me about you...