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a reason to wear shoes inside

I had my exam last Friday and it went about as I expected. There were a few things I knew I should have done more study on but all in all I’m reasonably happy with how it went. Now I just have to wait till the 29th for results to be released.

I had almost the best weekend after my exam. I got the CityCat home, did all those jobs round the place that I had put off for the last two weeks, went to the markets, purged stuff from my room, made a really nice turkey and pork bolognese for dinner with N on Saturday night, went to Finders Keepers with G on Sunday arvo (we think it should have been called the Brooch Market as I think the majority of stalls had broooches for sale). Then since Mum was leaving for Patagonia and Antarctica on Monday morning for the next 7 weeks, I headed over for a bon voyage dinner (cold roast lamb, fresh roast vegies, chocolate self saucing pudding and custard – so so yummy).

This is all sounding pretty good isn’t it? but here comes the event that changed the best weekend to the almost the best weekend.

I went to the sewing room to borrow a sewing machine to fill in my time that was formerly occupied with study … Then I stood on something and let out a few words. A sewing room of course meant that I stood on a sewing needle. I looked at my foot and couldn’t see anything but a itsy bitsy teen drop of blood. I ran my hand over the carpet and pulled out a needle fragment – about 1cm long.

Ok I thought, I must have just stood on that spot in the carpet and it poked me and didn’t do anything else …. you can see where this is going can’t you ….

I walked back out to the kitchen, grabbed an ice-pack and numbed my foot for a while and then it was time for me to head home and for Mum to pack her bags.

I woke up Monday morning in pain, so much pain. I called Mum at sparrow’s fart to wish her will on her trip but the call was mostly me sobbing in my pain about my foot. Poor Mum, here she is heading half way round the world for the next 7 weeks and she has a 25 year old daughter sobbing down the phone line in pain.

I took Monday off work, went to the local GP and got a tetanus shot and he told me just to keep my foot elevated and stay off it. By the way, tetanus shots are so painless now – nothing like they used to be. I’ve had no bruise or arm pain – bonus. At this stage I had no reason to think that there was any part of the needle in my foot.

Monday night I was still in agony. Tuesday morning, I drove into work (no way could I walk to and from the train station) for a couple of hours to sort out my work and then I made an appointment with my family GP on the Northside for that arvo. A bit of a chat, a script and an x-ray referral later I was heading down to the local x-ray clinic for a few scans as the amount of pain I was in was indicating that something must be in there.

A few jokes with the radiographer later and ohh look at what we have here. Yep, there sure is a needle in my foot. I must have stood on the needle, part of it went into my foot and then broke off (thus the part I found in the carpet). A call to the doc to tell him that I yep I’ve got a needle in my foot. He then went into organising me to see a surgeon to remove it as it is not something that a GP can remove due to possible complications with the bone/nerves etc. Fun times.

Why hello sewing needle, what are you doing in there?

I had today off and will have the rest of the week off at least.
I’ve got a consult with the surgeon tomorrow morning and hopefully they will be able to fit me in for surgery on Friday…

I’ve spent the better part of the last three days, in bed with my foot elevated and an ice-pack strapped on it at times. Laying down in bed the pain is only there in the morning. I wake up to the most excruciating pain.

As I type this now, I would only be able to tell you that I had a needle in my foot by the fact that I can’t move the smaller toes on my foot or the fact that it is slightly swollen.

If I stand up though, that is a whole different story … that is when the pain kicks in and the needle starts to make its presence known. I’ve become apt at walking on the heel of my foot.

I’m sooo looking forward to the consult tomorrow morning. I just want that thing out of my foot! I’ve spent a fair bit of my life walking round bare-foot and I think after this I will be wearing shoes a bit more than I used to. I don’t want a repeat of this adventure any time soon.

The lesson to learn from this post? Wear shoes when walking round a craft/sewing room.

To be continued …

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Weekend Mornings

There is one thing that I always try to make time for on at least one morning of the weekend and that is to have a slow breakfast on the deck couch with a pot of tea (Sencha Peach from T2, muesli with yoghurt and fruit or toast with Vegemite and some reading material. It may be the most recent book I’ve got out of the library or it will be an issue of Real Living.

tea and magazines

Whilst, the above activities are not affected by the weather, the following is. If the sun is out and I can’t tell you how happy I was that it was out this morning, the hum of the washing machine downstairs is the sound of a weekend morning. This of course provides the following outcome.

washing on the line

Georgie took me to the Valentino Retrospective at GOMA this mid-afternoon as a belated birthday present. Whoa, those outfits are amazing, some are plain crazy, some are beautiful, others are amazing. The work and detail is just incredible.

I took this photo on the way past QAG heading towards GOMA.

Cement Paradise

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24.99726 years

Tomorrow I turn 25. As of tomorrow I am most certainly in my mid 20s. 25 it sounds so much more formal than 24.

For everything that the last 364 days have brought me, from the good, the bad, the ugly, the forgettable, the unforgettable, the amazing, the challenging, the one thing that I think will always be a hallmark of my 24th year is of course Pabbi dying. My 25th year starts to unfold tomorrow and as the year passes it will be interesting to see what it brings. I’ve got a number of things I want to complete/accomplish next year but mostly I’m here to live and to make the most whilst doing just that; living life.

and to move away from birthdays but onto happenings of the last week.

For the past week I’ve been literally overdosing on strawberries.
Strawberries ....

I am very pleased to announce that I got 80% for my accounting exam last week, it put me in the top 9% of the class, I aim to improve on that as the semester continues. The exam was Saturday morning and Saturday evening was Riverfire which we watched from a hill in Wooloowin. Oh sigh, we had 3, yes 3 dump and burns this year from the one plane. Oh the F-111 is one special plane.

Dump and Burn

Tonight after work N and I had “dinner” at the 40 Days and 40 Nights of Chocolate Buffet at the Bistro Allure. Oh I’m just recovering from chocolate and sugar overdose. I’ll go again in a couple of weeks with some of the girls from work and I’ve got a game plan worked out. The plan from which I shall not deviate is to get one piece at a time, eat that piece and then go back for more. mmmm chocolate ….

One of the many cases of goodies
Chocolate Buffet at Bistro Allure

N’s plate
Chocolate Buffet at Bistro Allure

My plate
Chocolate Buffet at Bistro Allure

This is one of the adorable presents I got from one of the girls at work today. A mini tea set. The perfect desk accessory for a tea fanatic like myself. I had received the little sugar pot at Easter and was told that I would get the rest of the present for my birthday. Total gold. The best thing is that the tea pot actually pours 🙂

A mini tea set for my birthday

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Riverfire tonight

It’s Riverfire tonight and it is quite windy… We’ll have to see how it pans out but fireworks and the amount of wind we’ve got at the moment tends not to make a good show.

This is the last year for the F-111, well so they say since last year was meant to be the last as well, frankly I’ll believe it when it doesn’t do a flyover next year …. There are no Roulettes this year which is quite a 🙁 for me. I love seeing them doing all their formations etc instead there’ll be some Black Hawks flying about …

Riverfire from the Beach at Captain Burke Park

I made pizza muffins earlier – basically this recipe but with more veggies in. They’ll be snack food tonight along with some Lebanese pastries I picked up on the way home from uni this morning.

I had my first uni exam this morning, 9am on a Saturday … I was fairly confident going in, going out well, I’m still confident I’ll get a decent mark but not as confident as I was going in.

Some collected links from the last little while which I’ve been meaning to share.

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Elections and Memories

What a whirlwind it’s been since 18:00 last night when the booths closed and the counting started … I spent the night glued to the ABC coverage,  #ausvotes on Twitter, the AEC Virtual Tally Room, etc etc and wishing I had more than my two computer monitors so I could keep up on all the changes. I fell asleep before the coverage finished for the night and consequently had all sorts of dreams and nightmares about the possible outcomes when I woke up this morning.

I’ve had ABC News24 on most of the day and have had a fantastic time drawing my own conclusions from polling data on the AEC website. It’s really interesting to look at the first preference breakdowns for individual booths (Auchenflower Booth for the seat of Ryan). I’ve compared the swings, the informal votes, the two-candidate-preferred results and more. Looking at the results on a booth basis can confirm what you already may think as the general political feel in that area.

I would really love to see the booth results mapped and to have the ability to toggle layers to show first preference votes for each party. There would be some very interesting gradient changes shown.

However, all this talk of polling data and the such does not talk about what has been on my mind the most since about 17:00 yesterday and that is of Pabbi; my late father.

Pabbi, normal face

For as long as I can remember on election nights, he was always glued to the TV (well glued in a Pabbi way, which meant going back and forth to the verandah for a smoke or a drink). When he was younger he was quite active in politics both in Iceland and in Australia. One of the things I remember most is the fact that in Iceland he was a member of one of the right-wing parties. When he came to Australia, he realised that right-wing in Iceland was closer to the left-wing in Australia…. He was a member of the ALP for some time and he would often talk about his time as a scrutineer or about ALP identities  from his era.

I would love to know what Pabbi’s views would have been on the removal of K-Rudd, the rise of Gillard, the shocking campaign that has been run, the numbers that have resulted and the hung parliament situation which we are extremely like to be faced with. In wanting to know his views on the current events, part of me is happy in a way that he is not here as I do not think he would have been impressed with the actions of the campaign, the way in which Australia has voted and well everything Tony Abbott has done. Pabbi was very much not an Abbott fan … and I am happy that he doesn’t have to even contemplate the possibility that Abbott might be the PM.

As a side note though, if you are looking for the most up to date results go to the AEC site. Currently the ABC says the ALP has won 72 seats and the Coalition has won 70 seats, Channel 7 says ALP 72 and Coalition 71, SBS says ALP 70 and Coalition 72….. The AEC, you know the Australian Electoral Commission, says ALP 70 and Coalition 72… ahh numbers

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Iceland at work

Iceland at work

This is what my desk looks like at work, at knock off time when all the files have been locked up. I’ve always had 4×6 photos or postcards running along the top of the mini-wall. A few days after I came home from Iceland I made 9 A4 collages of a whole bunch of photos from the trip to put up at work. It has been a great improvement over a bunch of 4x6s and I think it looks a whole lot better than the digital photo frames that are typically used. Co-workers pause and look at them, I get to smile at all those faces and places I miss and it just brightens up my drab desk so much!

Week 2 of uni is now over and I’ve got a lot of respect for all those who work full time and study part time…. It’s a hard slog, I’m slowly getting into the swing of things and I’m sure in a few weeks it will be like I’ve always been doing this.

Here is a photoshop comp of the 9 A4 pages together. Click on the photo to see it full size.
The photos on my desk mini-wall