Let's start with the fun thing which is the search for Formal dress. Now many of you will remember the drama last year as the BA approached her first ever Formal. There was demand for a dress, questions of alcohol consumption and sundry other dilemmas.
And here we are again! This time though it is her final year Formal and Mummy is prepared to go all the way. Well, within reason. Take for example the stunning dress on the right here. Now the Baby Angel looked A-mazing in this! She is decidedly more svelte than the lovely lady in this picture and we had visions of red accessories etc. It was DIVINE!!! The material was brocade and the centres of the flowers were textured. *shakes head*...... unbeLIEVable....
But then we saw the price tag. Not sure why I hadn't looked beforehand. Perhaps I was in some la-la-land which had me believing that if it was the right dress I would just find the money....
Yes, well, not THIS much money. Suffice to say that you could have sponsored 10 orphans for a year on the cost of THIS dress.
But oh my how we both wanted it.....
Onward and upward however. Today we went shopping again and came across this (see left). It is a Pippa Middleton inspired dress in satin with a chiffon overlay. The one the BA tried on was in a midnight blue and fit a whole lot better than this one does. She was very taken with it. I had my doubts. It seemed kind of uninspiring to me. We looked at a fabric swatch in a ruby red and agreed that would be a better choice, but in the end we came away empty handed and waiting to see what else we could find.
The next one that really grabbed her attention was a kind of flesh coloured number, very simple lines with black appliqued flowers. This one was top of the allowable price range so I am telling her that for this price she must really LOVE it!! It is fuller than Pip's with a satin underskirt and chiffon overlay, split up the middle so the satin is visible as you walk ( a little like a fairy tale dress ....ok...nothing like a fairytale dress actually). The neckline is square with decent width straps (appliqued flowers down the straps) and the whole thing is finished off with a black satin sash. It is kind of forties and classic, elegant but different; reminiscent of this whilst being entirely unlike it.
So, that is the fun part.
The 'not so fun' thing is my ongoing shoulder issue. This website describes it perfectly. Having suffered from bursitis in the past, I have avoided any gym work which involves weights and shoulders until just before Christmas when I was feeling energetic. Gingerly, I used my little 1kg hand weights to do a few bicep curls and shoulder presses whilst running on the treadmill. Well, I knew when I got home that I had overdone it; I was sore and achy and not in a good way! The real damage occurred when, a few days later, I came rushing in to check something on the computer.
Sitting down hurriedly, I didn't notice that the cushion was hanging partially off my wheeled office seat. I sat on the cushion; commenced a downward path; stuck out my right arm behind to grab the chair and 'save' myself and felt the chair roll away at high speed on the hardwood floor with my arm still attached whilst my backside continued its rapid descent floor-ward. Result: my shoulder joint was pulled in two different directions at 90 degrees and I sustained a full thickness tear to the supraspinatus tendon.
I wasn't to discover this until last week however.
I had thought a couple of cortisone injections to the joint would solve the proble, as it has for my bursitis and tendonitis in the past. Wrong. This one is going to need surgery.
I hate surgery.
I also have no health insurance.
In Australia that means I have to go onto a waiting list and as I have not even begun that process yet (all my previous treatment has been through a physio) who knows when my number will come up.
Meanwhile I am sleeping badly (see the website for reason) and severely restricted in movement. Most things at waist height are ok but even creaming some butter and sugar at the kitchen bench the other day proved difficult. I ended up holding the bowl off the bench, down at waist height.
On the plus side my family have been helpful but I suspect this will wear off. Sympathy has an expiry date I have found.
But I don't want to be sorry for myself. At least I have a working left arm and I can still run at the gym. And type!
Adios for now amigos!!
