Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Latest PBs

A few new personal bests to start you off.  Ten kms on the leg bike in 90 minutes (resistance level zero); ten kms on the arm bike (resistance level three) in 45 minutes; tax return submitted (with one day to spare!); and I finally finished Ken Follett's book "Winter of the World".

There are no new hydrotherapy achievements as last week's session was cancelled.

I have been disciplined enough to do this blog before embarking on Book 14 of "The Wheel of Time" series, which Robert Jordan started writing in 1984.  He died in 2007 but left instructions that enabled another author to complete the work - thank goodness!  At 918 pages it should keep me occupied for quite a while :-)

I have an appointment scheduled to try the Easy Stand Glider on Thursday morning.  Hopefully, my tax refund will be in my bank account by then :-)

I have another appointment at the Hospital with local Spinal Specialist Dr Tracey Simmons to discuss some changes to my drugs, HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen treatment), Botox (to try to help straighten my fingers on my left hand) and something that I can't remember in this point time: mental note: "Must make lists".

Hypermed.com.au (site recommended to me by Walter Starck) has piqued my interest into HBOT.  Unfortunately, I have also found websites detailing a fraud case against the owner and practitioner.  I have not had any strong feedback from previous clients as yet.  My investigations will continue........  

Darrel's Mum, Stepdad, Aunts and Uncles paid me a visit for afternoon tea which was enjoyed by all.  Col (Stepdad) remarked that Darrel had made the best cup of coffee in Townsville, which is high praise for Darrel and for my brother-in-law Ron Buschgens' coffee roasting skills.  Fortunately the roasting machine is working again, so Ron kindly gave me some beans to give to them for the long journey home.  They left this morning and hopefully are taking it easy and driving safely.

We caught up with our friend Gavin of matesrateswines.com.au for Friday night only, but he will be back next Sunday for another visit.  He has left Tasmania to enjoy two weeks of sunshine in North Queensland before winter sets in properly.  He sent a case of wine ahead of him and hopefully will have some left next Sunday ;-)

We had a great ladies' long lunch at Larissa's on Lockheed on Saturday.  We did not resolve Helen's wedding dress dilemmas.  Larissa made Long Island iced teas as a welcoming cocktail.  I had three which may explain my need for a little snooze in the sun after our magnificent lunch.  It was a great day.  

We had a lovely Mother's Day lunch at GYO on Sunday, followed by two games of scrabble.  After Val whipped my butt in the first one, I felt the need for some revenge, and got it!

I had a lovely catch-up with Mark Bogiatzis today - thanks for the coffees, Mark, and thanks to your Mum for a wonderful jar of home made Greek shortbread.

I spent the rest of the afternoon refreshing myself on the Wheel of Time Series, through Wikipedia; thank God for Wikipedia as it is difficult to remember the plotlines from the previous 13 books and prequel which total around 11,000 pages!

I love fantasy series but they are terrible for my scrabble as I keep thinking the made up worlds and words are real.  I shall probably play a lot of phonies tomorrow night at Scrabble Club.

There are some photos up on Facebook illustrating my incremental gains in yoga.  I can now get my fingers past my feet in a forward bend!  

I hope you all are well, and thank you again for taking the time to keep up with my progress via this blog (and a special thank you to Val for typing the last three).   Val accepts any error as her own in typing this.  Julie disagrees with Val on this.

That's enough - we deserve a glass of red wine now - BYE.  

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Monster truck


Hydrotherapy news first:  I am currently up to 21 laps of the 25 metre pool in my hydrotherapy sessions.  We have a make-shift arrangement to try and get my legs and flippers working.  Because I am so floaty we need ankle weights to keep my feet under water.  We also need a way  to make sure the flippers don't cross as I have a tendency to go pigeon-toed.  We do this with some foam floats which also offset some of the effect of the weights.  It is very difficult to get the balance right so I am still investigating alternatives.  

I am finding standing up in the pool a lot easier but still need a nice young man under each arm.  Then again, who doesn't?  :-)

We have also started teaching me to roll over.  This could be re-phrased as trying to teach me not to snort the chlorinated water......  I don't remember this rolling over business being so difficult when I was five!  The next time a proud parent tells me of their child's great achievements I will believe them!

As you can tell from all of this, my hydrotherapy sessions are a bit longer than they used to be.  This is because I have purchased the beach wheelchair aka monster truck.  The wheels are enormous.  Darrel pumped the tyres up quite high, not realising the implications this would have for me getting the chair in the water.  At one stage I thought it would be a paddle boat that took five of the students to sink the sucker!  This week I am letting the tyres down!  There are still a few things to sort out with the beach wheelchair - it has no brakes, which will be easily fixed by a chock of wood; it has no chest strap, so I am currently using a belt; it has no foot rests; AND, we managed to cause a little bit of damage when we accidentally ran the chair into a wall (Darrel is getting the tyre fixed for me, god bless him.  There are some photos on Facebook if you wish to see me in the monster truck chair!

I have found a few yoga instructors who are happy to come to the apartment to help me with my physiyoga.  Leah does Thai yoga massage so we have based her sessions more around that.  Meredith practises more traditional yoga and I have been loving the meditation and relaxation at the end of her sessions.  I may have a third instructor in the near future as well.

Yesterday I managed eight kilometres in one hour on the leg bike and ten kilometres on the arm bike.  I would like to do this every day but often run out of time and steam :-)

I have also been busy with my Accountant arranging last year's tax return and discussing various new business ideas.  The sales rep for EasyStand.com delayed his visit so I haven't yet tried the glider machine, but I am guessing my tax return refund will go towards it.  

It hasn't been all work and no play.  Scrabble Club continues to meet at my place every Wednesday and we try to make it to Touch of Salt for their Friday afternoon drinks whenever the weather and our schedules permit.  Their last minute decisions to cancel if it is raining have resulted in a few impromptu parties at The Dalgety.  Thank god Darrel loves to fish and cook, although I think we have finally finished the 86cm Coral Trout (yum yum).  It was great to catch up with the Junkies (Peter and Vicki) and have Jamie back from Gympie for a weekend and Yoga Tracy back in between field trips at one such impromptu gathering.

A big thank you to Mary Vernon for the free range eggs and to the Cyclone Testing Station for some beautiful native flowers.  Also to Darrel's Mum for the lovely jam.  

It is now time for Val and me to watch "The Voice" and "The Biggest Loser" and have a glass of wine.  I hope you all have such an enjoyable evening as we will.   


XXXX



Blonde


Darrel's Mum Joan and her husband Col are in town.  They have made the long trek from Port August in South Australia with their caravan.  Darrel, Joan and Col came over for lunch last Thursday. 
 
As we were going out later that afternoon, I suggested Darrel move my car to the Disabled spot on the ground floor.  I had a call from him shortly after to tell me that a van was illegally parked in the spot.  He checked with the Building Manager to make sure it was nothing to do with them.  As it wasn't, I told him to park the car in.  About half an hour later he had a call from the Building Manager advising that the man owning the van would like to get it out, and was very sorry to have parked there.  

I decided to go and meet him.  As Darrel was walking in front of me, he came over saying how sorry he was, to which Darrel replied "It's not me you have to apologise to, Mate.  He reiterated his apologies to me and handed me three $1 scratchies, saying he hoped I would win $25,000.  I said "Well, if I do and the local paper wants to know who you are, do you want me to tell them or would you prefer to remain anonymous?"  He was very keen on remaining anonymous :-)

I didn't scratch the scratchies until Saturday morning.  The top one had three symbols that were the same with an amount of $25,000 at the bottom of the panel!  After the initial shock had worn off, Darrel and I started phoning our families to tell them the good news.  Darrel even took a photo of the ticket and MMS'd it to Val and Kylie as proof.

Imagine my disappointment when they explained to me that the three $2 symbols meant that I had won $2, not the $25,000 at the bottom of the panel.  :-(

Thank god we didn't take it to the Newsagent before the truth reared its ugly head.

Oh, well, it makes for a good blonde joke :-)