Daughter At Large

I love my daughter.

She is the best.

But she is 13.

As a matter of course recently, her room looks like an explosion in a laundromat. Her school diary is suspiciously empty. There is never any ice cream in the house, although there is frequently an empty ice cream container in the fridge.

The other day as we reached that existentially tenous moment that exists as you are dropping a child off for a bus that is sitting on the other side of the road waiting for you, I asked her (sounds so measured............it was nothing of the sort)
"Wait! What about train fare? Have you got your train fare?"
After a brief, frenzied scrabbling around we determined that neither of us had the $2.00 for her train fare.
"Don't worry Mum, I don't need any money. Lots of people catch the train without any money!"
'YOU WILL NOT BE CATCHING THE TRAIN WITHOUT ANY MONEY!!!!! I'll pick you up; just stay put."
She gave me the kind of smile that says you are such an old, rigid, box Mum but I love you.

When did my child begin to think it was ok to catch public transport without a fare? I mean, I did it all the time but THAT IS NOT THE POINT!

Actually, that is not strictly true. I had the money. My mother gave it to me in the same trusting fashion that I hand over $2.00 and expect that it will be spent on the fare. In those days, there were conductors on trams and the trams were often busy at 3.30pm when school came out. It was not difficult, especially at 5' 2'' and dressed in the same uniform as 30 other girls, to manoeuvre yourself up and down the body of the crowded vehicle in order to avoid the conductor. Upon arriving at your destination, there was the deli right near the tram stop. It sold ice blocks and donuts and redskin chews and all manner of things that just happened to have exactly the same purchase price as a tram ticket. (20c)

But that is NOT THE POINT.

I am afraid my daughter is a teenager. And she is at large.

I give you Exhibit A.

This is a school sock. Look carefully now. Do you notice anything? That is not a shadow. That is muck. And not on the place you normally get wear and tear on the average sock. How, you may ask, do you get muck to that extent on the side of a sock. I will tell you my friends. You fold the sock down under your heel so that it resembles the popular, and obviously 'non-uniform', trainer sock.
(sports sock? you know the type I mean....)

Never mind that your mother ensured that you were wearing uniform socks when you left the house. These are after all, the uniform socks! No one can say that she wasn't wearing them.........

Here is another example.

This is my sink.

After dinner, my dutiful daughter clears the table and washes the pots and pans. She sets them to dry and roughly wipes down the benches. Sometimes I assist her and sometimes I do not. This was one of the latter times. I returned to the kitchen to find everything 'pristinely' dealt with and the sink like this.

I swear you could feed an Ethiopian family of five on what was left in that sink.

But our most recent escapade involves my computer.

I have an elderly (in techno terms) but perfectly adequate 80GB hard drive provided for me by my ever lovin' and dearly loved, dad. It has been chugging away happily since 2004. Recently, I acquired a sticky trojan and had to do a system restore which seemed to solve the problem.
This was fine except that I had downloaded a program to supposedly deal with the trojan. Even though it had failed to do so, from that time on, my computer operated as if it were running in treacle.

I blamed the new software program. I blamed some residual from the trojan. I blamed a need for defrag. Upon checking, none of these were the culprit.
"You need a new computer." announced Himself unhelpfully as I waited for 3 minutes for Firefox to load. "You need a ...,"
"Yes, yes I know. I need a Mac...."

I checked a few things on the 'old faithful'. One thing I checked was memory. It seems that out of 80GB, I am using 70!!! Where has this 'useage' come from all of a sudden? I will admit that my slightly defensive self wondered if blogging was the culprit. I decided to check all the major files.

As is to be expected, half the capacity of my computer is directed towards photos. 40GB to be precise. However, I have only been collecting digi photos since 2000, a further investigation revealed that my daughter's one single folder of photos contained 16GB of information!!!!! And she only got her camera last Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I copied her file to a slightly dodgy external hard drive last night. It took 6 hours.

Is it the computer or is there some nasty external virusy thing affecting us? Who knows. I just know that when you look quickly through her photo file there are 135 pictures of the BA and her friends making 'model poses' for the camera.......

* sheesh. teenagers*

Maths or Cake?

Subject: Year 11 German fairytale performance

Hi there,

You all teach year 9s next Thursday lesson 3 (week 7). Albert's year 11 German class will be presenting fairytale role-plays in German to all year 9s in lesson 3.

Would you all like to come along??? (I know there's been a lot happening, so I suppose if you really can't make it you don't have to come, but it would be great if you could all come).

It will only be lesson 3. 2 fairytales will be presented, then students will be given a piece of German cake, and go back to their classrooms for lesson 4.

Thanks,

Calliope

Dear Calliope

and THEN I will be expected to teach them MATHS????????????????????????

Perhaps we could work on the differential cooling times of the bears' porridge?

Maybe calculate and compare the weight ratios of the wolf after he's eaten the Grandmother and then Little Red Riding Hood?

How about a totalling of the calorific value of the gingerbread house??????????hahahahahahahahahahahaha (maniacal laughter)

As you can tell I am starting to lose the plot. (pun intended)Of course we will come.

Heck, I'm not teaching them much anyway!!!

Yours

Arizaphale

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Best Shot Monday: Wildlife Again

Saturday afternoon there was high drama across the road as this koala was attacked by a couple of large crows. We watched in awe as he put his little arms and claws across his face to ward off his attackers and after we had come running across the road doing our impression of analogue scarecrows he peered down at us as if to say "what are you making such a fuss about?"

The really interesting thing was watching a couple of Rosella parrots 'escort' the crow away!

Of course the koala sighting was not the ONLY good thing to happen this weekend!
YES!!!!
The Baby Angel is indeed a star and helped her team to achieve a very convincing lead in the first quarter. Remind me to get her a different colored hair band! :-D

Next week is the Grand Final. Wish us luck!!!!

Dash over to Best Shot Monday to see what Tracy and the gang are up to.

Water Watches through Windows

The topic for today is diving.

...to plunge headfirst with arms outstretched.....

When I was young I was very uncomfortable in the water. To be specific, I was uncomfortable with water on my face. The one thing I did quite well however, was diving- (only off the edge of the pool of course). I guess this was because my face was only momentarily under the water; my swim teacher said I had a good, shallow, racing dive. In and out. That's the way to do it.

In my early teens I completely failed to jump off the jetty at Horseshoe Bay, even with a crowd of friends behind me egging me on, and threatening to push me in. Come to think of it, that's probably why I completely failed to jump in. I'm not sure whether it was the sheer height of the thing or the thought of the rushing, fizzing descent through the metal cold water to the pause as you change direction and begin to rise up, up with lungs bursting and aching and the sunlight surface sooooo far away.
I have never jumped off anything higher than a racing block.

So I'm diving in on the back of the amazing win by Matthew Mitcham in the 10m platform diving event the other night.

Now, we really breed some characters over here. There was Sally McLellan (OMG, did ya see me?) , overly emotional Tamsin Lewis and last night, we uncovered (oo-er) another.


In deference to headbang's post about stereotypes, I blush to admit that I pegged this guy immediately. Was it the way he emerged from the water and coyly covered his face with his hands as he saw his scores? Or was it the practised way he accepted his bouquet on the podium? Who knows, but this morning when I googled him I found this:


Matthew Mitcham Openly Gay

and this

Out, Proud and Ready for Gold

and even

this

I'm sure it won't be long before googling 'Matthew Mitcham naked' will take you to some interesting sites as well!!



To watch Matthew's stunning 'dive and diva' performance, go to the cumbersome site below and find his video, either down at the bottom left or on the right hand side if you just want the interview.
watch here

Oh, by the way, that's not him at the top, that's his competition but as I wanted to talk a little more about diving I thought a beautiful, generic shot may suffice.

I suppose because the Olympic diving has been on our screens, the Small Boy started to talk about the pool at his Mum's place. "We've got a really deep deep end'" he piped up.

"I know," Himself confirmed,"I designed it."

It seems that the pool is nestled in a sloping backyard with a steep rock wall behind it.
"We knew we couldn't stop the kids from jumping in off the rock wall, so we deliberately made it deep enough so that they wouldn't hurt themselves."

My Flaming Sword began to smoulder in the corner.

"Yes," Small Boy agreed,"Mum's made a new lower platform too so that anyone under twelve can dive from that."

So, let me get this straight. We can't possibly prevent the kids from jumping in so we'll make it deeper, but we CAN prevent the younger ones from jumping in until they're over 12....
Are we saying that anyone over the age of 12 has no commonsense and a death wish? Yea, probably. But let's face it....who would be more likely to survive a dive from a great height into a not so deep pool? The lightweight under twelve or the full sized over twelves? Regardless, the over twelves should be just as capable of following a safety rule as the under twelves, if not more so!! So my question is, should the pool have been built deeper??

Maybe it's a boy thing? I mean as far as I am concerned, you explain to the children the very real dangers of jumping into a too shallow pool from a great height and that is the end of it. They should NOT jump in! Methinks it was Dad who actually wanted to jump in and therefore built the pool deep enough. I dunno. Am I being too simplistic here? Is it too much to expect kids to do as they're told when it comes to health and safety?

Tell me what you think! Come on, dive right in!



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Just An Excitable Girl*

Now I know the Aussie's aren't exactly 'cleaning up' in the medal tally over in Beijing but the silver medal win by Sally McLellan was one of the most exciting for us in sometime. None of us had ever really heard of her!

But over and above the race was her ecstatic jumping for joy afterwards and her classic track side interview. Click this link and have a look. She is hilarious!!!!

A good home-grown Aussie girl hahahahaha.

Did ya see me? Huh? Did ya??


* with apologies to Warren Zevon

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How Is The Road Trip Going?

Hello
This is me.
I am lying in the middle of the road and Year 10 are systematically driving over me.
And reversing.

In Flight

The Baby Angel's netball team won their Semi Final on Saturday due, in no small part, to her great game in Goal Defence. The Goal Defence must intercept the pass and prevent it getting to the attacker, in this case the Goal Attack player. I'm not sure if she actually made the intercept here, she may be a bit too far away from her player, as I was frantically taking random shots with the PAS which, as most of you know, are rubbish for action shots due to the shutter delay.


In this one however I remember that she was succesful. You can see the Wing Attack on the far right waiting to receive the pass from the Goal Attack (being defended by the BA). The neat thing here was the BA went for a tap down which put the ball into the hands of the Centre player on the far left of the shot. She may have been a tad too close to her opposition but maybe that's just the foreshortening of the shot?

Anyway, she did a brilliant job and kept the opposition to a rather sad 4 goals in the face of her team's 34!

Next weekend it's the Quarter Finals which will be a much tougher match but still do-able. The girls are just hitting their stride as a team after a fairly unsettled start to the season. They had been put together from two different teams and did not initially 'gel' with friends tending to pass to friends rather than the best available player etc.


As you can see it was yet another grey, wet, chilly Winter's day here in Adelaide. I have resisted complaining about the Winter so far as I complained so much about the Summer, but really, it is getting beyond a joke. Here we are on the downward side of August and the rain and cold continue unabated!!

Usually, by now, we are feeling the delightful tickle of spring. Instead, five day forecasts are a repetitive litany of 'showers, more showers, maximum 13C, further showers.......'
Apparently this is the coldest winter for 30 years but I'll have to confirm that. So much for Global Warming the kids at school say and I don't have an immediate answer that doesn't involve complicated explanations of 'long term trends', 'averages' and 'extremes'. Cold comfort at the moment if you'll pardon the pun.





Nevertheless, the sun did come out long enough for us to have a pleasant birthday lunch for Himself on Sunday afternoon. That sad landscape to the right is my version of the sun coming out. We enjoyed the company of several couples including A Free Man and his delightful family and the BA 'oo'ed and 'ah'ed over Baby Z and set herself up for some babysitting work in the future. Later we visited the developing shell of a 150 year old ex bank in the little township of Aldinga where some friends with vision are renovating and creating a fantastic cafe/lounge bar/wood fired pizza restaurant/cook-your-own BBQ/local produce market, all in the one spot! Can't wait for the opening.

Waving My Flaming Sword at the Football: Or How To Make Friends and Influence People

"So what sport is this I'm watching?" I asked my neighbour as we nursed our finely chilled sav blancs, nibbled on a parmesan risotto ball and peered through the expanse of glass to the floodlit field below. "There's no water so I know it can't be swimming."

Can I be forgiven for my complete lack of interest in Friday night's football? I mean, there's been such a lot of sport on this week the last thing I felt like doing was missing my beloved scrapbooking night for a corporate thingy in the President's Box watching The Power play Collingwood. This is the only way I will go to AAMI Stadium though. I'm happy to sit on the Terraces for the local matches and get on the ground for a kick between quarters but I find the plastic seats and distance from the ground at AAMI too remote and sterile. If I'm going there I want to be in a Box with refreshments on tap.

It was a star studded night: The Minster for Education came across and chatted to us. Himself had worked with her some years ago when she was Lord Mayor and he had been involved in organising the Adelaide Millennium Event; The President of Collingwood FC Eddie Maguire was swanning in and out in between recording game stats and chuckling to himself like a schoolboy; there were ex footballers, lawyers, Advisors to the Minister and even The Attorney General.

I told him how to bring up his kids.

Well, he did ask.

I don't think I asked him if he was a Man or a Mouse though, that was the North Adelaide Board Member and retired investment banker. His 17 year old son won't go to school and he is planning on taking him out of the expensive private school he's (not) attending.......at the end of the year.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Himself hopefully as I swung my flaming sword from side to side with gay abandon.
"What, already?" I queried....."who's winning?"
"Errrr the game has been over for some time dear. Hadn't you noticed that most people have left?"

I guess that's the problem with the whole drinking and double vision thing. You don't notice the room is emptying. Perhaps Himself will be less keen for me to accompany him next time and I can go to scrap booking instead?

In my defence I will say that the Attorney General wanted the address of this blog site to show his wife and mother-in-law. Fortunately I wasn't that inebriated.

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Update:

After dreaming this afternoon that No2 Son had come home, all smiles and apologising and making out it was nothing, I was awoken to the news that he is paying board to his ex-stepmother, does his own laundry and is helping around the house. Or maybe that's what he's meant to be doing. Either way I feel vaguely, nay definitely, irritated by this. Perhaps it's time to start creating a guest room after all.

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So Long Ipod

Thank you for your commiserations all. All joking aside I am devastated and I suspect there is no returning to be had. Unless some of the worship music I had on there actually makes an impression on the thief....? There was that business on Calvary after all. Perhaps there is a higher purpose to all this?

Chris: I know, I know I should have picked it up but I was sooooo close to the end of the workout and I keep trying to break my own records and I didn't want to have to start all over and there is only a very small space between the treadmill and the wall and I forgot people get OFF treadmills and walk behind you to get out....and I CANNOT BELIVE SOME BASTARD WAS SO LOW AS TO NICK IT WHEN I WAS RIGHT THERE!!!!!!IT WAS ONLY 4 MINUTES FOR F*CKS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!I cannot tell you how gutted I am. I tear up like a baby every time I think of it.

Post Script: Now I think of it, why is that woman in mourning looking so goddamned cheerful down there??

In Mourning

Did you know there is a certain speed at which an ipod exits a treadmill which causes it to, through a strange mix of physics and ethics, reach a critical velocity and angle of trajectory that opens up a small tear in the time space fabric and swallows the ipod completely. This renders it untraceable, regardless of the number of times you get on your hands and knees, raise the incline on the treadmill and peer underneath.

Of course, some bastard may just have stolen it as they passed behind me in the last 4 minutes of my workout. If only I had stopped the machine and picked it up immediately.

The BA was optimistic. "Don't worry mum, no-one will have stolen it. It's a ladies gym." I reluctantly informed her that most thieves look like everyone else and are not confined to the male persuasion. I half heartedly checked my phone this morning to see if they had tried phoning me after finding that the torn time space continuum had miraculously reopened, dropping my beloved ipod into some hidden corner of the treadmill. But no.

What will I do at the gym now? I can't imagine running without my ipod *stifled sob*

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

Life goes on.Yes, it is true. They are in the same room, they are both eating from their own bowls and at this point....no one is hissing at anyone else. Unlike the human members of our family.

And lest you think this is a 'fluke'

Mind you Pippin has a slightly nervous, watchful look going on there..

Family melodrama aside, this weekend the BA played her last netball match before the finals. The last time we played at this venue, Morialta Falls, the liquid factor was in full flight. Here's the photo from before the match, 2006. Check out the excitement at playing 60 minutes + in the pouring rain!!

Now, same location, two years later. Exactly the same weather.This cracks me up so much! Look how much she's grown. Not just in size but in ability to deal with the everyday crud of life. She is so awesome.

For the record, unlike 2006, the rain held off until after the game at which point it let fly in spectacular manner, followed minutes later by equally spectacular hail. We all managed to shelter under the ubiquitous Australian bull nosed verandah until the worst had passed and I am not ashamed to say that I am getting too old for all this extreme weather crap. Still, they are into the first round of finals next week.

No word from No2 Son. Not that I thought there would be yet.

Just a post script to all this mess. No 2 Son had thought he might go and stay with his mother who has moved to Canberra in the lat few years. I suggested that this was a great plan. Time to catch up with Mum, get away from the small town mentality of Adelaide and se a bit of the country. Unfortunately when he rang Mum to confirm this idea she told him that she didn't want him. Not in so many words perhaps but the message was clear. She actually rang Himself and said how she couldn't take No2 Son in more than short bursts as he was 'too intense'. Hello, welcome to my world!

No wonder the poor kid is fith (f***ed in the head)! Mean ole stepmother who won't let him get away with squat and a mother who can't cope with him!!

I am being very objective about this. My sharp tongue the other night was a trigger rather than a cause. He was ready to fly. I was just his excuse. I can live with that.

At the end of the day in situations like this my first port of call is prayer. There is certainly bugger all I can achieve here under my own recognisances.

Onward and upward mateys! Here's to our Aussie swim girls!!!!

"Here's The Story....."

I had a lovely picture for Best Shot Monday but we have been suffering more of the 'Brady Bunch Meltdown' here at The Sword so it will have to wait. Currently we are minus one 19 year old. He has apparently moved out because we hate him. This is (also apparently) because I suggested that if he were going to give me a hard time about dinner being 'late' he could always cook it himself. Or words to that effect. It's a long story and of course there's more to it than that. That was just the trigger.

He has done this before and the longest he stayed away was a little over a month before he ran out of money.

I know he is going through some tough times at the moment, trying to decide what to do with his life, get his driver's licence etc. Maybe a bit of time away will be a good thing for us all. I'm trying to believe that anyway.

Aren't families messy?

Cake Wrecks

Thank you Amy Jo for this.

Cake Wrecks

The BA and I have been crying with laughter for the past 20 min. Himself thinks we are mad. Find the cake with November and December birthdays!

Mind you, given my own predilection for extremely amateur cake decoration, perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to mock?

Playing About With Paint

"But I'm no good at painting." (spoken with a whine)

"It doesn't matter, just have a go."

"But it'll be rubbish. I know it will."

"Who said you had to be good at it? Do you think at 10 that you should be able to produce a masterpiece? Why would you be able to do that? Nobody else can. Well very few anyway. What you have to understand Small Boy is that most people are pretty rubbish at this sort of thing and it doesn't matter one bit. As long as you get a bit of pleasure out of playing about with paint."

"But I don't know what to paint."

"That's not important either. Just put a bit of paint on the canvas and see what happens. "

"What's canvas?"

"Good grief. What are they teaching kids nowadays? Canvas is the the cloth you use to paint on. Instead of paper. Anyway, just play with the colours and do one of your 'designs'."

So we did.

Why are kids afraid to try something lest they 'not be good at it'? Perhaps in our zeal to encourage our children we overuse a kind of praise which engenders unrealistic expectations. For example:
'What a beautiful picture!" (smiles, fuss, show it to grandma etc)
The child receives the message that approval comes with succeeding at something, with being 'good at it'. But wait! The anxiety! What if next time, their picture/race/performance isn't up to scratch?

What the child really wants when he shows you his painting is interaction; this interaction in itself is sufficient to reinforce for the child that he is loved and valued . Therefore, rather than making a value judgment such as 'wow! that is fantastic!' or 'aren't you clever!', we could simply comment on the painting in a very factual and non-judgmental way. 'You've painted a blue sky and a red flower', 'Look, there's a house on top of the hill'. If you feel the need to express an opinion make sure it is just that eg 'I love the blue sky you've painted here.' In this way, the child's self worth becomes internalised; they are important for themselves, simply for being, not because of their 'works' and the opinions of others.

A friend of mine had a very bright daughter who was doing amazing things with letters and sounds at about 3. My inexperienced reaction was to exclaim at how clever she was whilst her father looked at her 'game' for just the right amount of time and pronounced that it was 'interesting' and that she was 'having fun'. He reminded me of the scene from 'Babe' after the pig has nailed the sheep herding competition and the crowd is giving him a standing ovation. The farmer looks down and says quietly to his beaming partner, "That'll do pig."

Our children do not need frequent production numbers made out of their every effort in life.
"Isn't she clever/gifted/a natural etc." Congratulate, share their joy in achievements but focus on the aspects of that achievement which demonstrate good character: perseverance, good sportsmanship, creativity, not on the achievement itself.

Regular, observant and personal interactions over the little things in life assure children that they are loved and valued without creating a need for them to continually 'top' their last effort in order to get the attention which should simply be their birthright.

PS: That is the Small Boy's effort up at the back there. I particularly like the way it creates movement for the eye. :-)

Why? Why? Why?

Why is it that some people will love something they see on the internet...love it so much that they phone 12 000 miles away to tell someone how much they loved it.....but they WILL NOT LEAVE A COMMENT??????????????????
Mum.

Battle Of The Choirs

The Bestie and I have been watching this with great excitement and emotion over the past weeks and tonight we saw the Grand Final!

As part of the final challenge, three choirs were asked to perform together 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with just a few hours to learn the arrangements and the choreography.

We were stunned by the result.

Bohemian Rhapsody

A Gift Of Love

We had a bit of a rough weekend. My bad shoulder aside there was some 'ye olde blended family' style nonsense. You know, the old "Brady Bunch was a crock of ****" type stuff.

I was pretty upset and the BA knew it so when she was out on Sunday afternoon she bought me these from our local confectionary paradise Darrell Lea. Although she personally loathes licorice, she knows I am a sucker for the licorice allsort.

Looking up now from the bottom of the packet I can say I feel very much better.
And very loved.

Best Shot Monday: Through The Rain

I actually got a photo taken last week! This was off the balcony when I was off school in acute pain. It was taken at some personal expense too as I had to lift my arm painfully to take it!

There was actually a double rainbow and from our balcony you could see the whole thing although it was too big to get into one shot. Pretty speccy though. You can just see the second 'bow' in this shot. Oh and these are SOOC in true amateur arizaphale style. Any of you gurus out there suggest what I could do to improve them? Seriously.

Meanwhile, for some more fab photos, pop over to Tracey's for BSM.

Ultra Sounds and X Rays

I used to work in a path lab many years ago and to this day aspects of the medical world enthrall me. Perhaps I should have applied for Medicine as my father so dearly wished? Seriously though, who can make career decisions at 17? At the time I thought I didn't like blood so I didn't want to be a doctor. Little did I know that a short 6 years later I would be up to my elbows in blood, faeces, urine, pieces of flesh and the dreaded sputum (I never have got over my revulsion when it comes to phlegm).

Anyway, the point is I am fascinated by the workings of the body and the ease with which technology can take a peek inside nowadays. In fact, I was slightly horrified to learn recently that part of the middle class pregnancy experience nowadays involves having 3D ultra sound portraits of your unborn child taken by a company which specialises in this sort of thing. I found the idea slightly offensive, don't know why. However, I digress. My interest in me ensures that I always ask to see my X rays once they're taken; in fact, I remember diagnosing my own injury or at least being involved in the diagnosis way back in Booligal days.

The radiographer only came to town (Hay) once a month and there was no real provision made for those of us who re-broke our kneecaps on a Thursday morning. After being driven down to Hay by the local district nurse, who just happened to be going 'on shift' when the break occurred, I was seen by the local GP who read the instruction manual on the X Ray machine in the hospital and then shuffled off to look at his handiwork.

"Did you see your X rays in Sydney?" he asked after a few moments.
"Sure," I replied, ever interested in the medical minutiae, especially if it related to me.
"Well, you'd better come and take a look at these then."

And so I was able to tell him that the floating piece of wire in my knee had once been a whole loop and that the break he could see was not the original break (I could point that bit out) after which we determined I had broken the kneecap in yet another spot. Fascinating.

So what has all this to do with today's ultra sound and X rays? Nothing much except that I asked to see them as usual and chatted to the pathologist when he came in to look at my shoulder at the radiologist's request. There is a little bit of something floating around there in the joint. And I have inflamed tendons. But no tear I am happy to report.

Sooooooo...........no excuse for slacking off now.

But first I'm off to a funeral. *sigh*. That's another story.

Getting Back To Normal

It is with great relief that I can report the cortisone injection worked a treat and I am no longer in pain. There are still tender bits but I am able to use the arm now and, most importantly, I can type quite comfortably. :-)

Also a thank you for the heads up from my much more sophisticated readers who spotted the risk I took in assigning the URL for my webquest. I have rectified this situation and asked the network man to change it over for me. Sheesh. Call me naive! The one slightly comforting thought is that most of my students are unaware of the existence of the address bar and rely totally on typing things into Google.

And now I must away and catch up on some undone schoolwork. I have tomorrow off for good measure so I can get some x-rays and ultra-sounds done but I'm hopeful that there will be no further problems and I can get back to normal by Tuesday.

Thanks again for all your well wishes and feedback on the webquest.

Update On Pain

Firstly, thank you for all your well wishes. I am overwhelmed!

I took Friday off. That always sounds like it was a bit gratuitous like, 'oh, I don't think I'll go in today' whereas I could no more have gone to work than flown. Lying on the sofa was an effort. Everything was an effort. There was nowhere to lie that didn't cause pain.

I have meds in the house so I took anti-inflammatories and pandeine forte, which enabled me to lie still with a dull ache rather than the blinding pain, and I phoned the doctor.

Driving to the docs was fun. NOT. Actually, before that, getting dressed was fun! This is a new doctor so I wasn't quite sure how I should feel about him helping me UNdress but it was relatively amusing between the tears.

He gave me a shot in the shoulder which has helped immensely (see how I type now?) but feels there is more to it than bursitis as the pain down the arm is atypical. The top of my bicep is extremely tender to touch and a lot of the discomfort now involves bending the elbow. I'm ok when the arm is straight and relatively ok when its bent at 90 degrees but the process of getting it to either of these positions is painful and leaves me with a nasty ache in my forearm or bicep, or both. I find lifting the right arm with the left is the best method.

Possible prognosis include a partially torn bicep ligament or some neck involvement which is pinching a nerve down the arm. Although some of the excruciating pain I felt before reminded me of nerve pain, this dull ache is more like someone has kicked me in the arm so I suspect there's some muscle or ligament damage. I have to go for X rays and ultra sound on Monday at 8.30am. Meanwhile I'm popping pills and it does seem relatively 'easier'. The arm I mean, not the pills.

So what has caused this untimely 'lay-off' is the $1,000 question. Well, I did go to the gym on Tuesday and do a light weights class which involved a lot of pumping and rowing movements. I wasn't sore on Weds though, which I thought I would be. I remember having a slight twinge in the biceps on Weds night but it was Thursday morning when I woke up and thought, Miss Clavell style, 'something is not right'.

The most frustrating thing is having enforced leisure time and insufficient limbs to do much with it. There is so much to be done around the house and any amount of school work to be prepared but I am coming to the end of my typing tolerance now.

I have started a webquest sort of thing for year 10 as we kept running into problems with the school's firewall blocking sites. I also needed to steer them towards user friendly sites as they get overwhelmed by the amount of text on some sites. It's a work in progress but I'd be interested in feedback and ideas.

http://year10roadtrip.wordpress.com
(yes, I've gone over to the opposition as they have 'pages' with top tabs. Maybe blogger has pages but I haven't worked out how to add them)
Please bear in mind that I was just getting going on this when my arm started playing up so it is nowhere near finished. Also I imported the word docs so the formatting is not right and there are colours where I didn't mean for there to be colours etc...

Anyway, you get the general idea.

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