Jejune's Place

Teapots & Words

2012-01-24T11:41:00.002+11:00

I know it's been ages ... blame these books! Between writing two Dummies books at once, and keeping up with my syndicated puzzle commitments, there aren't many hours left in the day. Plus we have a lodger now, and Dotter has moved back home, so she's in my office, and I'm in the family room, and ... it's good, but the house is very full and a bit mad.

Isn't this teapot PERFECT? It's a Paul Cardew design, which I discovered online. Only one shop in America was still selling it ... it's just a two cup pot. I especially love the ceramic fountain pen handle on the lid! They clearly didn't get a crossword setter in to help with the layout of the grids ... they aren't fully filled in, and include (unnecessarily and offensively) words about COFFEE. Shock horror!

Mr Griffles continues to grow both in size and adorablage. He is a little fluffy powerhouse, running full tilt at the world! He loves to chase it tail until he staggers from being so dizzy, and watches TV! I've never had a TV-watching dog before, it's so funny, he barks at the bad guys when they shoot their guns!

Griff is also a water dog - another first for us. He loves to splash his paw in his water bowl, and has a shallow wading pool out the back to play in. So funny!

He and Miss Petal are mostly getting on now — they'll even sleep in close proximity now ... there are plenty of tussles and growls and roughhousing too, though, but on the whole, I think it's going well. We've just got one of those clever 'slot into your sliding door' panels with a doggy door at the bottom, and Griff has mastered it in 24 hours. Petal isn't so keen on it though, even with liver treats on the other side!

OK, back to the insane and brain-hurting world of cryptic crosswords. You think it's mind-numbing solving them? Try writing them >.<

Announcing the birth of ...

2011-12-10T09:13:00.001+11:00

... my latest book!

This is the first book ever written for adults with hip dysplasia. I started it in November 2009, just after my total hip replacement, and was joined by my co-author Dr Sophie West, soon thereafter. Like me, Sophie has bilateral hip dysplasia, and is in the unique position of being both an orthopaedic surgeon who does hip surgery, and a patient who has had two periacetabular osteotomies!

It's taken two years of writing, months of editing, reviews by three dedicated editors, and about two months of very hard slog for me in doing all the layout, design, illustrations, editing changes, and proofreading, not to mention registering my business Sutherland Studios as a publisher, obtaining the ISBNs (paperback and hardcover), and getting the CIP Data entry from the National Library.

A Guide for Adults with Hip Dysplasia is 456 pages long, has over 50 illustrations and x-rays, and over 400 quotations from 50 real live adults and teens with hip dyplasia.

We are self-publishing via the print-on-demand giant, Lulu.com. We did approach medical publishers, but they deemed the book "too niche market" ... what, something that has roughly the same incidence as multiple sclerosis? How many patient guides are there for MS? And none for adults with dysplasia?!

Phew!

Super Griff!

2011-12-07T12:15:00.001+11:00

Griff, our new long-haired chihuahua puppy, has landed! Also known as Mr Griffles, Fuzzy McFuzzpants, and other silly names ...

He likes to stretch (or fly) ...

He doesn't mind baths too much

He is rather shy with new people, but very cuddly and floofy and cuddly with his family. He bounces around the backyard like a bunny! He also has an advanced case of Hyperwiggleitis. Which muscle should I move? ALL OF THEM AT ONCE!

Petal was seriously unimpressed at first (the photo shows them at their first meeting!). But she's getting used to having a boisterous little brother now, after a couple of weeks, and there are more play times now rather than fights and growls.

Wordy Nails

2011-11-06T13:29:00.001+11:00

My friend Cindy introduced me to wordy nails — which are the perfect 'accessory' for me!

Gather your equipment:

Light coloured nail polish (I used white)
Clear nail polish / top coat
Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, vodka, mouthwash etc)
A small cup
Newspaper
Nail file etc to shape your nails

1. First of all, shape and paint your nails as usual. Allow the polish to dry.

2. Tear up the newsprint into small strips. Think about which direction you want the text to run on your nail (along, across, random?).

Then pour a little of your alcohol source into the little cup.

Dip your fingertip in, getting the nail completely wet.

3. Press a piece of newspaper onto the nail, and press down firmly for a few seconds.

4. Lift off the paper, and — voila!

5. Coat your nails with the clear varnish, to protect the lettering. Once the top coat is dry, wash your fingers (you'll probably have newsprint on your skin around your nails, too).

Isn't it cool?!

Because this is a printing method, the lettering will be reversed.

Don't limit yourself to words, you could use stock reports to get reversed numbers, or comic strips, or ads ... I'm going to try the puzzle pages, of course!

I experimented with laser print outs, and they don't work. The printing isn't dissolvable ink ...

Chicken Stock — Without Chicken!

2011-10-23T22:05:00.000+11:00

I enjoy making stuff from scratch, that we'd normally buy ... and it occurred to me — chicken stock powder! Surely you could make it yourself?

Well yes, yes you can! This is the recipe (from Bryanna Clark Grogan)

Makes about 1 1/2 cups of stock powder

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups nutritional yeast flakes
3 Tbspn onion powder
2 1/2 Tbspns salt
2 1/2 tspn garlic granules or powder
1 Tbspn soymilk powder or protein powder
1 Tbspn white sugar
1 tspn dried thyme
1 tspn finely crumbled dried sage (NOT powdered)
1 tspn paprika
1/2 tspn tumeric

Whiz them all up in your blender or food processor :

Store in a dry jar. That's it! Very satisfying!

Use 2 tspns : 1 cup of water.

The nutritional yeast flakes were the only really tricky ingredient to find (try your local health food shop). It was rather expensive (around $20 for that big bag), but that is enough to make about 6 batches of this powder! I used dried thyme from my garden, could only find powdered sage so that would have to do, used dried onion flakes instead of powder, and used a plain protein powder (also a huge bag which will last forever).

I've used up one batch already, this is my second one. It makes a nice broth, and is good in recipes, of course. Plus you can adjust the amount of salt if you're wanting to cut back on that.

Good fun and quick to make!

It's gotta be done

2011-10-17T20:51:00.000+11:00

As you know, I've been on Prednisolone for nearly a year — I came off it last month, thank goodness. But it's left quite a harsh legacy (apart from the restoration of most of my vision, which I acknowledge is a Very Good Thing™). The steroids have given me (possibly permanent) glaucoma, NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, ie fatty liver disease), high blood pressure, and an extra 15 kg of weight. And I was "extra curvy" to start with :/

Yellow Iris in my mum's garden, Cobargo NSW

I absolutely have to lose the extra weight — apart from truly hating the way I look, it is essential for the health of my liver and blood pressure. I could be looking at a liver transplant down the track if I don't do something. I've struggled with my weight since I was a kid, so this is a huge bugbear for me, physically and psychologically. I have also developed osteoarthritis in my feet and ankles (legacy of years of hip problems / short leg etc), which makes my feet very painful all the time, and makes walking horrible.

So — aaargh! What to do?! My liverologist (hepatologist, I know, I know; liverologist sounds so much better, and is less likely to be confused with a reptile specialist) said to 'Be much stricter about your diet'. My diet isn't really that bad to start with — I don't eat practically any take-away food, cook most meals from scratch, don't have deep fried foods, don't keep lollies or cakes in the house and so on, but clearly there was room for improvement (portion control, for one thing!). Exercise is also a problem, what with the restrictions from my artificial hip (no running, jumping, high impact anything) and arthritic feet.

The basic ingredients for weight loss are, of course, less energy intake + more energy expenditure. For the exercise I'm following the plan in the Body for Life for Women plan (which my doctors have endorsed) - alternating days of aerobic exercise (exercise bike, swimming, short walks, bellydancing, gardening etc, starting slowly with 5 minutes per time, working up to 30 minute sessions eventually) and weights (I started slowly with 1 kg weights, am nearly up to 2.5 kg weight now). My knees aren't thrilled about the aerobic stuff, but I do quite enjoy the weights, I must say. Hopefully increased weight loss and fitness will help decrease the knee and foot pain (and increase the life of my hip prosthesis too).

For the food, I'm actually counting calories (OMFG!), but this chore is made so much easier with a nifty free app for my iPod called MyFitnessPal. It's accessible online too, and runs on all sorts of mobile devices. It has a massive database over 1 million foods (including Australian brands), and you can add your own recipes and foods etc. It remembers your frequently used foods and meals, and makes the whole record-keeping process very quick and easy. Research keeps proving that people who write down what they eat each day tend to lose a lot more weight (accountability and embarrassment, I guess!). It's also rather eye-opening learning the calories of various foods (it doesn't show Kj, although you can do your weight in metric). Ricotta cheese? OMG ...

So. I'm just doing it. And it's got to be something I do forever. I figured if I can't devote 30-60 minutes a day to looking after my own health and own body, how sad is that? No-one else can do it for me, after all.

As for the neuro-sarcoidosis, it's being well controlled with CellCept (mycophenolate), thank goodness, and I'm on much less medication than before. I've not had a hospital appointment for a couple of months (and I was averaging one a week for the last year). I do struggle with fatigue still, but my vision is OK and stable. I've got about 5% permanent vision loss (central vision unfortunately so it's very noticeable still). I use a few vision aids (bright lights, increased text sizes etc) and am a client of Vision Australia (who are wonderful, by the way). The side-effects from the Prednisolone are more of a problem, really!

There's a ticker at the bottom of my blog now. I'm nearly 3 kg (6.6 lb) down, after 2 months, and about 20 kg (44 lb) or so to go (to be an even healthier weight than when I started on Prednisolone a year ago). My GP is very happy with how I'm going so far. It has to be slow loss, too, as rapid weight (apart from being bloody impossible to do, bad for you, and hard to maintain) stresses your liver too much.

That's me being accountable and telling you about it (despite my tendency to keep it private). That's something else that's supposed to help, enlisting the support and encouragement from your friends and family, and 'going public'. :)

Puzzling

2011-10-15T11:35:00.002+11:00

I've started a new blog, called Puzzling! Puzzling as in the adjective and the verb, LOL.

As you can probably figure out, it's all about puzzles, fun with English, how to solve puzzles, tips and tricks, where to find puzzles, how I write puzzles, and anything else I can think of that's related! Plus puppeh piccies, of course ;)

I'd love for you to visit and Follow me, and comment, and join in! If you post questions about puzzles or English, I'll do my best to answer them too.

Cheekychi Walter Griffin

2011-10-14T18:33:00.000+11:00

Yes, our family is growing! I'm very excited to introduce you to Cheekychi Walter Griffin, to be known as Griff (Red vs Blue reference, for those who know). Walter Griffin is also a reference to Walter Burley Griffin, who designed Canberra :)

He's 5 weeks now, and is a long-haired pure-bred chihuahua from the Cheekychi stables up in the Central Coast, NSW. He comes to live with us in about a month, in mid-November.

We're hoping Petal will eventually be happy about her new brother! Apart from the incredible squee factor of having TWO chihuahuas, we're also doing it for her, as it's good for pups to have another pup to live and play with. This became really obvious to us when we puppysat my mum's Lhasa apso Bonnie for 5 weeks earlier this year, and we saw how much fun Petal and Bonnie had together.

Isn't he totes adorbs?!!

Cruise! Part 3

2011-09-28T10:47:00.008+10:00

And for the final part ...

On Thursday 25 August we arrived at Yorkeys Knob, and after much waiting around, finally were ferried to shore, and got onto the Kuranda Scenic Rail tour. Unfortunately we were pretty much last on the train, and didn't get good seats. Hubby opened doors and stood up for much of the way to get these pics. I was a bit surprised at how the rain forest wasn't at all lush, but rather dry, but after all, it was the dry season!

We got to the Kuranda railway station, and were then taken by bus up to the Village, where we had one hour to buy souvenirs, get lunch and do the tourist thing. We found crocodile jerky for Dotter, and Scottish alcoholic fudge for Son. I really don't like the tourist thing.

And then the bus ride back down the mountain, and the wait for the tender ... this actually was a bit too hot, but the wait wasn't long thankfully.

On Friday the Pacific Pearl docked near Airlie Beach. We had intended to go ashore and just hang out by ourselves, but the past two days had been far too exhausting, so we decided to stay on board instead. It was nice to avoid the endless waits for the tenders, too! Hubby got some nice pics on board ... we tried the pool on the top deck, and lasted - ohhh - 1 minute. It was bloody freezing!! (We did actually leave a suggestion with P&O about heating their pools!!)

Me reading instead of freezing.

A pirate ship!

On Saturday the Pearl headed back towards Sydney, and the shore days were over. We went to the cooking demonstration, which was run by Willie (the British cruise entertainment director, a very funny lovely guy, far left), the Portuguese Maitre'd of the Waterfront restaurant (centre) and Canadian head chef (right). The whole 'show' was very funny, especially the bit where the chef added a ton of chilli to the prawn dish, and poor Willie had to eat it! We spoke with Willie afterwards, and he told us he hated chilli, and was in agony, poor man!

After the show there was a tour of the ship's kitchens, which wasn't to be missed! (We'd have loved to have seen the engine rooms, but they no longer run such tours for 'security reasons', sadly.)

We walked through the Waterfront restaurant (this is the fancier option for dining each day, rather than the cafeteria style Plantation). We had several meals here, very nice food!

The kitchens were on the deck below the restaurant, accessed via escalators. MASSIVE, as you'd expect. No windows that we could see. A pretty full on working environment ...

They'd made some nice displays for the passengers to see, this one was impressive!

It was time to get ready to leave, sadly. Here's Hubby with our cabin steward, Eldose. He's from the south of India, and he's about to sign on for his 6th tour (which is about 8 months long) with P&O. Hard work! He's a lovely young man, always helpful and cheerful.

Most of the staff who were the 'workers' (cooks, waiters, stewards, cleaners, child carers etc) were Asian or Indian. The rates of pay for this level of staff is only about $5 Australian/hour. While that seems horrifically low to us, hopefully it translates in to a much better income in their lands of origin. P&O does provide all training for them, so you can go in with absolutely no qualifications.

Most of the 'command staff' (ship's captain and so on, entertainers, directors of sections etc) were British or Australian. We found this dichotomy a bit uncomfortable ...

Coming in to Sydney with the sun rise, early on Monday 29 August.

This is the map of exactly where we went (I've drawn over the route in red).

And down the gangway back to solid earth ...until next time! We were actually quite ready to go home after 10 days. It was funny, we had to go through Customs and Quarantine, and fill in the whole 'returning citizen' form and everything. The form asks "Which country did you spend most time in while abroad?" - uuuh, Australia. >.<

So, summing up ...

Overall, we did enjoy the cruise. It was great to get away from everything, and be largely out of phone / web contact with the world for a while! Our quarters were lovely, the food and service were good. You really could just do nothing, and relax properly. If you wanted to be social and do stuff, there were lots of options too.

I think next time we wouldn't go on any organised shore trips ... we found these uncomfortably like being back at school, waiting in a group for ages, with a label stuck on our shirts, and the whole tedious tendering process to get on shore, and then being shunted around in a group on buses etc. Next time, we'd just go to shore, and do our own thing. Being a tourist on a tour bus, nup, that whole scene just isn't us.

We didn't really find any other 'people like us' until the night before we left, when we were seated next to a couple from Melbourne at the Waterfront restaurant — he was a pharmacist and she was a GP, and I wish we'd met them a week earlier!

At least half of the passengers were much older than us, and most people we met were more 'working class' (for want of a better word) - perfectly nice people (on the whole, apart from the old biddies who loved to complain about everything on the cruise! Argh!), but no-one who we could have a really in-depth conversation with. While we weren't out to party and socialise, I did feel a bit isolated at times. I suspect that if we could afford it, on the Princess cruises (run by the same company, but more expensive) we'd be more likely to find people we had interests in common with. But because my income is practically non-existent, we have to go for the 'one income' or 'two crap incomes' option.

But we liked it enough to pay a deposit for our next cruise (it was a cheaper deposit if purchased on board, plus free on-board credit, and full refund if you don't use it within 4 years). So I'm sure we'll be sailing away again, one of these days, maybe off to a Pacific island or two!

Cruise! Part 2

2011-09-08T10:37:00.005+10:00

Time for the next instalment!

So — this is The Plantation, which is the buffet / cafeteria style eating area on the Pacific Pearl. They serve the usual main meals, and are only closed for a few hours in the afternoon. Hygiene is a big thing on the ship (easy for germs to spread!) so every time we entered a food area, there was someone dispensing 'water-free antiseptic gel' which we had to rub on our hands. You don't need a reservation to eat here, just line up, get a tray, and choose what you like! The food was good, pretty standard fare - lunch and dinners had salad fixings, bread rolls, soup, roast meat and veg, a curry and rice, and other options. Not a lot of Asian or spicy food, though.

There was only one laundrette on board for the use of 1,800 passengers! There used to be two (still inadequate!), but the one which was on our floor has recently been 'decommissioned'. You can pay to have your laundry done, but at a "per item" cost, we decided it was better just to wash one or two things a day in our tiny bathroom sink. The shower has a clothes line installed in it, too, so that was easy.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was our dinner at the Salt Grill on Monday 22 August — this is Luke Mangan™ restaurant on board (and everything was stamped with Luke's name — glasses, plates, bottles of olive oil etc etc, all a bit much, the man is a brand). We had to make reservations to eat here, and there was an additional charge of $40/head — which is incredibly reasonable for a 5 star restaurant! We paid extra for some mineral water and wine to go with the meal.

The food was utterly superb. First time I've had truffle anything too ...

I had :

Sea scallops with blue cheese polenta and truffle oil-infused mushrooms

Grilled barramundi with chipotle aioli

Ralph had :

Anchovies in the tin with garlic bread (pictured in the link above, so check it out) - the most melt in your mouth anchovies, and not too salty!

A whole flounder with butter/tomato/caper sauce

Sides we shared were :

Truffle and parmesan french fries (OMFG), zucchini with bacon and basil, carrots with dukkah.

We had the same dessert, which was sublime:

Coconut Rice Pudding with Mango. Served with a scoop of mango sorbet, a ginger snap filled with whipped cream, and leaf of coriander (cilantro) which tasted amazing sweet in combination with the rice pudding!

Because it was a special occasion (our 26th wedding anniversary, well not that day, but close enough) ... they also gave us a little cake! We had to take it away with us, as we were stuffed as googs (eggs)!

If you're really keen, you can see the whole menu here :)

The cabin stewards present you with these funny towel animals, who decorate your room while you're there ... Eldose brought us this little fellow, WiFi Elephant, so called as we stuck our WiFi modem thingy on top of him when we were close to shore (onboard internet via satellite was horrendously expensive so we mostly did without).

I managed to do a few little painting sketches while on board, which I hope to work up into full paintings before too long.

We sailed past Willis Island on Tuesday 23rd. This was mainly so the ship entered international waters, and the Duty Free Shop could actually offer Duty Free prices! It hosts a weather monitoring station. That night we went to the Pirates show in the theatre, which was really well done, fine singing and dancing, and ended up being pirates vs ninjas, which was hilarious (and most of the audience didn't get, of course!).

Wednesday 24th was our first shore trip! We had reached Port Douglas at last, and it was time for our Low Isles trip. The whole 'tendering process' (getting passengers off the huge ship and onto land via smaller boats) is a right pain the ass. Very slow. They had commissioned the use of this catamaran to act as an additional 'ferry', which was good, as the Pearl only has two tenders, which seat about 60 people (you can do the maths — getting the majority of 1,800 passengers off the ship, with a 20 minute ride each way, 60 people at a time...). This photo shows the catamaran docked at the Pearl, and the little walkway connecting the two!

This is the catamaran (white) and one of the Pearl's tenders (orange and white). And below is the catamaran we went on for our snorkelling trip, at the Port Douglas marina.

A nice view of the Pearl from the Port Douglas harbour ...

The trip out to the Low Isles took close on an hour. The weather was really windy and rather chilly still, and the ride was very rough. Quite a few people suffered from sea sickness :p

Finally we could see our destination! It has a lighthouse and research station on it, and is a Marine National Park.

More 'tendering' of us from the catamaran to the island, along with snorkelling gear (supplied by the tour operators). There were some 'grass huts' - more huge umbrellas with palm fronds tied on top. It was very windy.

Hubby walking along the shore ... he suffers very badly from the sun (CFS complication), so wore this all-over body sun gear / rash suit, which worked a treat!

A sea cucumber!

We both went snorkelling, which was good fun ... we weren't supposed to touch the corals at all, and I found that difficult as it was low tide, and not much water covered the corals, so you couldn't really swim over them safely. And the water was very murky from the wind, so visibility was limited. And cold. But nevertheless it was enjoyable (mostly), although the weather conditions really did impact on the experience a lot for me. Hubby stayed in longer than me, and went out further.

We had a little underwater bag for our digital camera to go in ... (the cheapskate's underwater camera option) — limited success, it was impossible to see the viewing screen underwater (the murky water conditions didn't help here) and the black rim of the bag section over the lens kept impinging on the field of view! But by shooting 'blindly' he still managed to get some good shots. The turtle having a rest was an exciting discovery!

We went back on board the catamaran for some lunch — a fairly basic buffet lunch, but the huge pile of prawns made up for the rest of the meal!

Afterwards, most of the other people went back to the island, but Hubby and I were pretty exhausted, so we stayed on board. I did a watercolour / ink sketch of the island, which I'm quite pleased with.

Finally it was time to go ... and en route back to Port Douglas a whale was sighted! Hubby was incredibly lucky in having his camera out — the ship was bounding all over the place (very rough ride again) so getting this shot, when the whale was only visible for a matter of 2 or 3 seconds, was amazing! Maybe a humpback whale?

The Pearl from afar ... it is bloody big, isn't it!?

Aaaaaaaaaw ....

The end of a long and tiring day at sea ...

Cruise! Part 1

2011-09-01T18:54:00.002+10:00

Guess what I've just done?! Hubby and I went on our first ever cruise! It was also a very belated honeymoon, as we never had one (only 26 years late!). We went on the 10 day Tropical Dreams cruise on P&O's Pacific Pearl.

There's a lot to show you, so I'll do this in several posts over the next week or so :)

We left on Friday 19 August ... here's our straw sun hats and our boarding passes for the 7 am flight from Canberra to Sydney ...

A nice surprise was the Meet and Greet service at the Sydney Airport ... we were just looking around for the train into town, when we noticed a woman standing by the baggage carousel with a Pacific Pearl sign - they could take us and our luggage directly to the harbour, and arrange for our suitcases to be delivered to our room (for a fee), an offer we gladly took up, much less lugging of cases around and wandering the streets of Sydney. This also allowed us to check in very early, so we had time to go to the Sydney Aquarium which was just up the road.

There we saw the dugongs - 2 of only 8 captive dugongs in the world! Proof that a diet of lettuce / sea grass can make you fat, LOL ;)

This fellow was swimming over our heads, over the underwater tunnel!

The day was very cold and wet, so we got a taxi back to the wharf, and it was time to board! This is a shot from the gangway ...

Hubby happily looking out on a dreary wintery Sydney day, from our room!

Our cabin was very nice, compact but plenty big enough.

Our cabin was well situated (by accident, not having any experience of such things) - quite central in the ship, on Deck 6. This was the scene just around the corner from us: The Mix bar, which was a nice quiet place to sit and read / knit / play cards during the day.

And the view over the railings ... this is the Atrium, the central hub of the ship, and where most of the shops and several cafés were located, as well as Reception etc.

At around 4 pm we set "sail"! Two tug boats helped push the Pacific Pearl under the Harbour Bridge and out of Sydney Harbour. We did brave the top deck for a while, but the weather rapidly worsened and by the time we hit the open ocean, it was quite rough going. A lot of people suffered with bad seasickness that first night ... we felt a bit queasy at times, but nothing too bad. In fact, Hubby loved the rocking motion and slept better than he has done in years (yes, we're trying to figure out how to make our bed at home to do the same, possibly chihuahuas in a wheel, with a cradle contraption?!).

Here's the minuscule bathroom, which had toilet, sink, cupboards and shower. The shower had a retractible clothes line in it too, which is just as well — there was only ONE laundrette on board for the whole 1,800 passengers! We just washed a few things each day in the basin.

A nice cuppa tea in the buffet restaurant (The Plantation). What a view, hey? Hygiene was very important on board ... every time you entered an eating area, there was someone there with that water-free hand sanitiser gel, which everyone had to use.

We had two sea days, finding our way about the ship, getting to know the routines, and starting to wind down from a hectic week leading up to our departure. Our cabin steward was Eldose, a smiling young Indian boy.

On Sunday morning we docked in Brisbane. Because the bad weather was travelling up with us (sigh) we had to dock at the Fisherman's Wharf area, where the industrial ships docked, rather up upriver in Brisbane. This engendered a few plan changes, but nothing too dreadful. We caught up with my puzzle writing buddy (and sole colleague), Greg Parker of The Puzzle Wizard fame). It was just great to see him again after several years!

Some brekkies in bed were had ... free apart from a $3 room service fee ...

Picturesquely churning waters of the Pacific Ocean ...

And a sunset to end this post on ...

To be continued ...

Fidorido

2011-07-12T13:18:00.002+10:00

Miss Petal has a fairy godmother, LittleNeedles, who lives in Nevada ... look what she sent her all the way from America!

This is a Fidorido car seat for dogs. It buckles in to the car, like a child's car seat. The seat belt runs across the cushion, which is underneath the fleecy cover (which is removable and washable).

The pup puts on a close-fitting harness. There are straps at the side of the car seat which are clipped on to metal rings on the side of the doggy harness, so the goggy is tethered securely in place, but can still stand up, sit down, and walk around a little!

Petal has a bad track record with car travel, she hates the regular doggy car harness (which is just looped through a seat belt), carries on and gets tangled up and complains loudly the whole time!

I took her out for her first little ride just now, and she did very well! She complained a little, and got a little caught up in the straps once, but it was a massive improvement over her usual car trip experience!

Apparently it also makes a good dog bed inside, but for the moment I think we'll keep it in the car (back seat in general).

And even better? It has room for TWO little goggies .. ;)

Thank heavens for goggy fairy godmothers!!!

Cut Glass Vase

2011-05-22T18:50:00.001+10:00

I've been practicing reflections and so on in my watercolours of late. This is today's effort.

Still a few details to add, some shadows to finalise, and my signature, and it needs to be scanned properly (not just have a dodgy photo taken in poor light) ... but I'm happy with how it's turned out so far!

Monday morning: here it is closer to finished. Just need to sign it.

Yaaaaaarn

2011-05-14T09:20:00.006+10:00

The Old Bus Depot Markets are holding their annual Celebration of Wool tomorrow! Head over if you're in town and want to sample a wonderful and tempting collection of fleece, yarns, knitted goods, and much more! My pal HappySpider will be there with a stall of handspun and hand-dyed yarn, and knitted goodies! I don't know if I'll make it in (seriously, I do not need more yarn at the moment!) but it is a great event. Just make sure you dress up warmly. I always get freezing feet, so handknit socks and solid shoes are recommended. And fingerless gloves. And a scarf. And do try the hot spicy apple cider. Perfect ...

In actual knitting content (don't die of shock!) this is the Vent d'est vent d'ouest cowl (East wind, West wind). I'm making it for a young friend who has a rare thyroid cancer, and is about to undergo some really horrible and scary neck surgery next week. I hope the possum merino will be super soft and non-itchy for her, will keep her poor sore neck warm over winter, and cover her scars.

The lace pattern is quite easy (I'm not a good one for complicated lace patterns, while I can do them, I just don't enjoy the requisite intense mental concentration to do them well), and the possum merino a delight to work with. The lace pattern will be more apparent once it's been blocked (I promise to post pics once it's finished).

And how could I possibly resist this adorable tape measure? I get to pull its ear off. Naaaaaaaaaaw.

Hope you're staying warm on this chilly "autumn" (more like winter of late) weekend! A good time to curl up with some hot chocolate, knitting, and a puppy on your lap :D

Puppehs

2011-05-06T19:43:00.006+10:00

Miss Petal has a new friend, young Gizmo. He is a long-haired 11-week old chihuahua who is nearly as big as her already! He belongs to a young couple who are friends of our kids (and ours). On his first visit he grabbed her squeaky toy, and ran around and around with it. And Petal chased him ... she didn't want to get the toy back, she just wanted to chase him. She got upset when he turned around and chased her!

My "puppy" is pretty cute too, isn't he?

Aaah Blogger, finally! Your image layout and uploading is much nicer now!

2011-05-02T08:03:00.004+10:00

Look what you can do with a packet of Jacquard iDye Poly!

I would normally never buy anything in a pale apricot, it just isn't my colour. But when I was in Sydney last November for TAM (ie late spring), there were a few very cold windy days, and I hadn't packed for cool weather, so I wandered around Central Sydney looking for something to stop me shivering. This was the only cardigan I could find that 1) didn't cost the earth, and 2) fitted me. There was a massive range of colours to choose from, as long as I only wanted apricot.

Enter iDye ... ! After an hour of simmering in the dye pot, it's looking good! The cardigan is 80% acrylic 20% lycra. It needs a light ironing, but the fabric still feels quite soft, and I think I'll get a lot of wear out of it now.

A to Z

2011-04-30T14:09:00.005+10:00

Here's a funny game to try, invented by M1K1 over at the A Little Bit Crafty blog. You know how your web browser will automatically fill in URLs for you as you start typing? Well, here's what I get for each letter of the alphabet as the first letter typed ...

A: Amazon.com. Need I say more?

B: Blogger.com. Here I am again!

C: China232. A blog that I have some business connections with ...

D: Denise Sutherland. My Author page on Facebook

E: English Language Skills — my latest venture!

F: Facebook, of course

G: Google, my best friend

H: Hyperbole and a Half, the most utterly and insanely hilarious blog in the world

I: Index-L - the international e-mail list for indexers

J: Jejune's Place,a self-referential link

K: Knitty, the best online knitting magazine

L: Lab Tests Online, a useful resource when you have lots of blood tests

M: Mahikari Basics, a site I've helped write and design. Cults. Just say no.

N: National Library of Australia, a resource I use a lot

O: Online Banking, with Westpac

P: Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, a site I have been frequenting much of late!

Q: Questionable Content, one of my regular web comics

R: Ravelry, the best knitting site in the world

S: Sutherland Studios, my business web site

T: Taste.com.au, a great online recipe resource

U: Unravelled, my friend Taph's blog

V: Vocabulary: Funny Words, a recent article I wrote

W: Writing, the writing subcategory on ELS

X: XKCD, another favourite web comic

Y: Your Dictionary, an online resource I use on occasion

Z: Zazzle, Moum! I can roun arcoss the parp!! The image on this mug is my current Facebook profile picture :)

What is YOUR web link alphabet?!

Dummies Woman!

2011-04-28T07:30:00.005+10:00

A few months ago I was asked to write a little cryptogram for Wiley's employee newsletter, which I was happy to do ... and in thanks they sent me out (by UPS, no less) a 20th Anniversary Dummies Premium Pack, which arrived yesterday.

There's a t-shirt (which fits!), bookmarks, two cold drink / stubby holders (Son grabbed one for his daily can of Mother - which now reads "Mother for Dummies" when the can is in situ, LOL), a watch, and two funny LED flashlights ...

The flashlights are hilarious ... they're made from foamy plastic vinyl stuff, and only about 5 mm thick, with 2 clear LEDs at the end ... and they're printed to look like flashlights, LOL! They also have a magnet in them, so you can keep it on the fridge or wherever. Very cute.

So what with the other Dummies merchandise Wiley have sent me as an author over the past few years (pens, keyring, thumb drive etc), I can now be revealed in public as my true persona - DUMMIES WOMAN!!!

LOL :)

CellCept!

2011-04-27T14:29:00.007+10:00

Here they are, my first CellCept tablets! There is actually a co-payment of $27.40 per month's dose (these two boxes together) that I have to pay, which is totally reasonable! So much better than $660!

As I suspected, the dose is fairly high, 2,000 mg per day (4 x 500 mg tablets).

My immunologist said they come across this problem quite a lot — immune-suppressant medications not being on the PBS for immune diseases (which you gotta admit sounds ridiculous when you put it like that). Often they're approved for very specific cases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, or to stop organ rejection, but if they're used to treat other rarer conditions they're not covered.

So, he has obtained a permanent authority for me to have access to this drug at the subsidised rate from now on. He thinks there's a good chance that it will help me, and not damage my liver further, but only time will tell. I start tonight, and will need weekly blood tests for a little while to check that all is well, and then monthly blood tests to check how my liver and blood counts are going. It's another one that increases my risk of getting cancer, and I'll have to stay out of sunlight etc. But hopefully I won't get any bad side effects this time!

My vision has deteriorated a little in recent weeks, so I need to stay on the high doses of Prednisolone for a little longer, but can start tapering down once the CellCept is established.

PHEW BLOODY PHEW

2011-04-23T09:51:00.003+10:00

My immunologist just called (yes, on Easter Saturday), and he's got approval for the new medication (CellCept) which means that THE CANBERRA HOSPITAL WILL COVER THE COST!!!!! Entirely!!! I'll just have to get my medication from the hospital pharmacy, but it won't cost me a CENT. I start next Wednesday.

Weak with relief!!!!!!!

I kinda wish he'd explained what "getting approval" meant last week, would have saved me a lot of heartache and anguish ...

Happy Easter all :D

Loverly livery

2011-04-19T09:01:00.013+10:00

A quick update:

My liver function is slowly improving (only 5 times higher than normal now, instead of 10), which means that (very unusually) the Imuran was the cause of the problems. This is good, as it means the sarcoid isn't in my liver, and my liver symptoms are slowly getting better.

But it also has some rather alarming consequences, the main one being that we're about to go bankrupt ... the next immune suppressant med I can try (and we're starting to run out of options) is CellCept (Mycophenolate) which isn't on the PBS for non-organ transplant patients, and costs around $660-$1,100 per box (of 300 tablets). Typical doses are 4-8 tablets a day. It's likely to cost around $20/day ... my immunologist needs to get hospital approval to even write the script, so I don't know my starting dose or exact cost yet.

This tendency for my neuro-sarcoidosis to be hard to treat is not a good one :( It's also not good when your immunologist says you're "special" (as in very unusual).

My vision has deteriorated again rather rapidly over the past week off Imuran ... so I'm back up to 50 mg of Prednisolone, crap crap crap (I had got down to 6 mg). Luckily I have Eye Clinic this week, so we can assess how it's going objectively. Hopefully I won't be on this high a dose for long (a few weeks?), but the tapering down process takes months and months. Back to steroid-induced diabetes, insomnia, and the rest.

I can't bear the thought of even more weight gain (almost suicidally depressed about the extra 15 kg since starting on Pred in October last year), so am just going off sugar as much as possible, for good. It won't be easy, but I've got to do something.

Bye bye cakes :(

(Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing I made a while ago, using the super cute Fred & Friends silicone tea cup cake pans, from my good pal Cindy).

And thank you everyone for your lovely comments, I really appreciate hearing from each and every one of you!!

How I love thee, liver?

2011-04-11T18:14:00.012+10:00

I'm trying to keep medical posts to a bare minimum, I'm sure it all gets rather boring pretty quickly (I know it's pretty boring living with it!).

Things have hit a bit of a bump in the road ... I'm starting to get liver problems, my LFTs (liver function tests) are quite high, which indicates problems of some sort. I have quite a few 'liver' symptoms too (nausea, vomiting, itchiness, no appetite, dull ache in upper abdomen, excessive fatigue etc). My immunologist took me off Methotrexate a month ago, when my Gamma GT level was 150, as this was much too high (normal is under 42 or so) and Methotrexate can affect the liver – but after a month on Imuran (which shouldn't be damaging my liver), my Gamma GT result is 497! Around 10 times normal levels! Yikes!

It's possible that the Imuran has caused this, but not very likely. There's practically no chance that the six other meds I take are causing the problem. More likely, unfortunately, is that the sarcoidosis has got into my liver. This happens in around 50% of sarcoid patients, so it's not an uncommon development. It's just a bit shitty, really. In general it shouldn't lead to permanent damage, but in the worst case scenario you can end up needing a transplant (I know several sarcoid patients who are waiting for liver transplants).

I've been off the Imuran for 3 days now, so if that was causing the problems, I should gradually feel better. If it's sarcoidosis causing the problems, I'll gradually feel worse. Tending towards the latter so far ...

So I have more blood tests this week, and a biliary ultrasound. There's a chance I'll end up back in hospital if my condition keeps getting worse (ie it's sarcoid, not a drug reaction), especially if the itchiness and vomiting get worse. I may need a liver biopsy (La la la la I can't hear you!!) >.<

And I think my vision is slightly deteriorating again ... bugger it. I guess this means my corticosteroids are too low (I'm only on 6 mg/day – a big difference from the 60 mg/day I started on). The weight gain from the steroids could be a source of the liver problems, too, I've put on about 12 kg (26 lb) because of the steroids, and this can contribute to fatty liver problems. If that's what I've got. But we don't know yet.

Anyway. Trying not to obsess about it too much, will let you know what transpires.

P.S. I REALLY FUCKING HATE TAKING STEROIDS. It's actually a toss up as to whether I'd rather be half blind or really fat.

P.P.S. The super cute tea cosy is one I knitted for my sister, and is from my amazingly clever friend Loani Prior's book "Really Wild Tea Cosies". It's the Garden Party design. And my sister-in-law fell in love with it, so I made one for her too!

indexing, learning about .... 19

2011-03-26T16:37:00.011+11:00

A few weekends ago, Taph and I travelled up to Sydney to attend the Introduction to Book Indexing course, run by the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, at the Thomas Reuters Building in Pyrmont (above).

It ran over 2 days, and there were 10 of us in the course - roughly half were women our age (mid 40s or so), and the other half were older women, closer to retirement age. And there was one man, a teacher from Melbourne. Glenda Browne (who has won an Ig Noble Prize for her article about indexing the word "The") was a very lovely and informative teacher (and the author of the one indexing book I own, The Indexing Companion).

Over the two days we covered such topics as analysing texts, principles of indexing, alphabetical order (not as obvious as you might think!), working with publishers, editing indexes, how to index names, and much more besides. There was a lot to take in!

In the past month or so I've gathered some of the things needed for indexing. I now own a copy of Cindex, the only indexing software available for the Mac (which helps with formatting indexes). I've got the ridiculously expensive Australian New Zealand Standards Document 999:1999 on indexing ($121 for a 48 page photocopied A4 booklet! WTF guys?!). I've got The Indexing Companion Workbook. And I've even subscribed to The Indexer, the international journal for indexers (yes folks, there is a journal for everything! Calling it 'fun-packed' - as they do - is a bit of a stretch though!).

I've joined the ACT branch of ANZSI, and had tea with the delightful president Shirley. I'll be going on my first ANZSI 'field trip' next month, into the depths of the library at Parliament House.

Amongst all this profligate spending, I have also been practicing and learning, trying to get my head around the jargon and the methods. The biggest challenge with writing a good index is how to summarise a concept from the book, into a few concise words that a reader - who is either familiar or unfamiliar with the topic - would search for in the index. And then arranging the information, with main headings and subheadings, in a logical way. I find this part rather challenging, but I gather I'm not alone in this.

While I could put my name on the ANZSI list of indexers available now, I don't feel confident enough to offer my services just yet. I'll do the Intermediate course, which is run over a month (May-June) and online (we index a book, and get feedback from Glenda during the process). Most days I spend an hour or so working through the Workbook, or reading about indexing.

I'll also look into arranging some (paid) mentoring from a Canberra indexer, to get them to look over some example indexes I want to write. I think I'll do an index for the book Quirkology by Dr Richard Wiseman - then I'll send it to him and his publisher (to use for free, if they so desire), and hopefully that may lead to some work with them in the future. I'd like to specialise in medical and science indexes, as well as other work of course. I think I'll draw the line at books on religion, politics or economics, though!

Aubergine

2011-02-21T10:54:00.004+11:00

I just had to share this - rather excited, my first ever eggplants! I've never got this far with an eggplant before, actual fruit ... they're still tiny, but hopefully it's all up (and bigger) from here! Aren't they cute?

A new path

2011-02-10T16:04:00.009+11:00

The puzzle business is really getting to me. Or rather, not getting to me. I haven't had a book deal in over 18 months, and my regular sales to newspapers are minimal. I've done cold calling, paid for advertising, spent endless hours writing proposals that are rejected or (worse) ignored. Book sales of my Dummies titles are so bad that returns from bookshops (of unsold stock) outnumber sales roughly fourfold (that was the breaking point for me). No amount of hard work is making this happen. Newspapers don't want new crossword compilers, not until the existing ones fall off their twigs (they're mostly male retirees). As Bernard Black says "The work is hard, but the pay is bad."

After nine years of trying to make this into a full-time profession, I'm throwing in the towel.

I won't stop writing for my agents Auspac Media, of course, and if a publisher comes with a proposal, I'll leap at the chance. But I'm stopping beating my head against this particular brick wall. It feels good to stop! It doesn't actually change much in what I'm doing each week, I still have a few regular puzzles to write, but it's more my attitude, not feeling like I have to keep trying and trying and TRYING, or constantly stressing and trying to think of new ways to find puzzle work. It's quite a relief.

I really need some better work that actually pays (gasp!). Honestly, I'd be better off financially if I was a check-out chick. I've explored various options - nothing has eventuated from the graphic design contract work. One option is to get a certificate in accounting and take on bookkeeping work one or two days a week – that's my last resort plan. There is a lot of work available in this area, and I'm sure I could do it, I don't mind maths, but it's not frightfully interesting to me.

My current plan, however, is to train as an indexer! An indexer is the person who - yes, you guessed it - writes the index in the back of non-fiction books, journals, cookbooks, annual reports, and so on. I have pretty much all the skills and interests to make this an appealing word nerd option, which will hopefully eventually bring me in actual paying work. Indexing is also nice short fast project work (an indexer gets the final page proofs just before a book goes to press, and generally only a week or two to do the job) - my favourite sort of work.

While indexing is a job that can be assisted by computers, it really has to be done by a person (very similar to puzzle writing there!). There aren't many indexers in Australia (around 200), and most are retirees. I'll be one of the 'new generation' ...

So I've joined the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, am slowly gathering a library of the relevant reference books, am attending a basic course in indexing in Sydney next month, and will probably do the intermediate course a few months later as well. There's quite an apprenticeship to serve, really - no formal university training courses in indexing exist in Australia. The process of becoming officially registered involves submitted a published index (ie one you've written for a real book) to the ANZSI Registration Committee - I hope to be ready to apply for registration in a year or so. I've got a lot to learn before then!

Drawing a Day

2011-01-29T16:17:00.003+11:00

So, how am I going with my 2011 Drawing a Day project? I've done about 22 drawings in the past 29 days, so not too bad ... plenty of them are boring (the TV controller, a vegetable peeler ...) but since faces and figures are what I want to get better at, I figured I'd better, you know, start actually drawing them.

My last two drawings (from photo reference) ...

Sort of looks like the model, kinda ...

Looks quite a lot like the model ...

Food out the Front

2011-01-23T11:10:00.007+11:00

When we first moved in to our current house, this is how the garden bed beneath our bedroom window looked - just a bush and tambark mulch.

And it stayed that way until last November, when the bay windows had to be repaired ...

The whole bush was removed ... and I was left with this.

I started to take cuttings of succulents and was slowly filling in the bed that way. But then I had a brain wave ... why not grow vegies?! It is a really good spot, very sunny, and the soil seemed to be pretty good too. My strip of vegie garden in the backyard was going OK, but not really well. This way I could double my vegie garden area, without having to actually make a new garden bed!

The convention of not growing food in your front garden stems from medieval times, when you could proclaim your wealth by not having to use every bit of your land for food production. Bugger that, hey?! Why the hell not grow vegies and herbs out the front?!

So anyway ... I put in thyme, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, chilli, butternut pumpkin, and strawberries.

The strawberries aren't going that well, they probably need a less shaded area (the zucchini leaves are shading the other plants, I keep having to lop them off!). But the basil is doing the best I've ever had, and the tomatoes and zucchini as well! In between the vegies are nasturtiums (also edible) and the succulents. It certainly helps that we're having the wettest summer in about a decade, too.

The cucumbers are just starting to set fruit, and there are a few flowers on the chilli plant. And because this part of the garden has tambark and rough eucalyptus mulch everywhere, the slugs and snails haven't been visiting. Well, that's my guess as to why, anyway ;)

Next season I'll make sure I leave more room for the zucchini, so they don't shade other plants. And maybe add a bit of trellis at the back for beans or peas ... and I'd better start planning the autumn / winter crops soon too!

Cooking Green

2011-01-14T18:19:00.009+11:00

A few months back I got a copy of the book Cooking Green by Kate Heyhoe. If you're interested in reducing your carbon footprint in the kitchen, I can certainly recommend it. It's full of good analysis of the various pros and cons of different cooking methods, and kitchen equipment and appliances, and lots of tips and hints and suggestions for what you can do differently, and even a bunch of recipes cooked with "green principles". Whether you're designing a kitchen from scratch, or seeing what you can change with what you've already got, this book has good ideas.

Here's an easy one you can do - when cooking pasta, bring the water to the boil, add your pasta, stir and let it boil for a few minutes, then turn the heat off entirely, put a lid on the saucepan, and let it sit for 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Works perfectly well.

Here's what she has to say about ovens :

"If you make no other changes to the ways you cook, stop using your oven.

"Ovens are the Humvees of the kitchen. According to the Department of Energy, about 87% of an electric oven's heat is wasted, absorbed not by the food, but by the oven walls or dissipated into the room."

...

"If you do nothing else to green your cookprint, switch from a conventional oven to a toaster or countertop oven. Anytime you can bake, roast, or broil in a smaller oven, you're cooking greener. Plus, compared to conventional ovens, small ovens preheat and cool down in almost no time at all, and they don't heat up the entire kitchen."

So I asked for a benchtop oven for Christmas (from my FIL, who is easily guided as to what we'd like, and has deeper pockets than us) ...meet my Breville Smart Oven. It is really awesome. We've been able to retire our regular toaster, and for not much more bench space, we have this :

It comes with a baking tray, grill pan, and pizza pan, and takes dishes up to 33 cm (13") square. A lot of my ovenware fits in it already. It's big enough to roast a small chook, and can toast up to 4 slices of bread at a time. It has settings for crumpets (more heat on the top), grilling, roasting, defrosting, and heaps more. I love being able to just dial up the temperature exactly (in 5º steps), and I can even swap between Fahrenheit and Celsius if I want to.

Another lovely feature is that it turns off automatically once the cooking time has been reached, more like a microwave oven, so overcooking isn't a problem. I've used it frequently, and found it excellent, with good even heat. And because the trays are smaller, they're much easier to clean (unlike oven grill trays which never fit in the sink). Just a little thing, but it all adds up!

I haven't used the wall oven once since getting this little beauty.

Luscious Loveliness

2011-01-07T12:05:00.005+11:00

My friend Joey sent a big box of treats my way this Christmas, and I just have to show off just a sample what she made ....

She is a very accomplished spinner ...

Alpaca + merino :

Merino, alpaca, silk and tea bag strings (I'm thinking tea cosy for this yarn!) :

Linen + merino :

Bunny + silk :

And she is a very skilful knitter!

A Hemlock Ring Shawl in laceweight yarn :

A cute crocheted project bag :

Really stunningly finely knit beaded fingerless gloves :

And a thick and cosy lacework lap rug, which will be wonderful in winter :

There is more yarn, and a string bag (which is camera-shy), and other treats besides ... but you get the idea - really very generous and lovely gifts! Thank you Joey!!

1-1-11

2011-01-01T08:12:00.008+11:00

Happy New Year all! I love today's day - 1-1-11 - aaah, number patterns. Life would be so much more boring without you!

I don't normally go in for New Year's Resolutions ... but in 2011 I do have some goals, so in the interests of accountability, I'll post them here.

1 - A Drawing a Day

This is an activity I used to have to do when in graphic design college. I haven't been doing much art in recent years, and want to get back into it, and especially to improve my figure drawing skills. Producing one drawing a day - even just a quick sketch - will be a good way to get my "artistic eyes" working again, and while I know there will be days when I don't want to, it should hopefully also be fun. I will scan and post the occasional sketch here too.

Here's Drawing 1, some garlic which I harvested from my vegie garden yesterday :

2 - Frugal Living

We don't have much debt, compared to many - a credit card that has got a bit out of hand (but no loans or mortgage). We have been living a bit beyond our means, I gotta admit. We have a pretty frugal life anyway (a necessity when we're living off 1.2 incomes) - no movies, no theatre, very few holidays, few restaurant meals, and so on. Most of our income goes on rent, medical bills, prescriptions, food, car costs, and other bills - and that part can't really change much.

So 2011 will be a year of further tightening our belts, selling off some assets (second car, my recurve bow etc), buying more food from Aldi and less from Woolies, op shops, curbing the 'wanties', making do, being happy with what we've got (which is plenty!), cooking from the pantry, homemade gifts, knitting from my (let's face it) extensive stash, reusing, recycling, saving, and not buying more books, yarn, cookbooks, kitchen gadgets and tools (my biggest weakness, actually), cool stuff online, and so on.

We've been on this sort of regime many times in the past, so it hopefully won't be too hard to do. Having 3 of us at home instead of 4 should also help cut costs. Apart from cutting our debt, we're also saving for an energy-efficient fridge next year, and changing our fuel-inefficient old 1996 station wagon for a newer, smaller, fuel-efficient car.

3 - Regular Exercise

Aiming for a long walk, exercise bike ride, gardening, or a swim, or something, 3 or 4 times a week. While I really want to lose weight (the damned prednisolone has made me stack on the kilos, unfortunately, if inevitably), my main goal with the exercise is fitness. It's good for my hip, emotional well-being, and overall health. So, I'm not setting weight loss goals, they are too hard to achieve when on steroids, and I don't know how long I'll be on the meds. But being active is something I hope to be able to do.

So - it's out there, I've told you, now I just have to DO IT! LOL :)

Gift Bags

2010-12-28T11:33:00.018+11:00

For many years now, we've used fabric bags for our Christmas and birthday gifts within our immediate family (ie we don't give them away, but reuse them). Using these bags saves on paper wrapping, sticky tape, and wrapping time. They are super easy and fast to make, and I thought you might like to see how it's done!

Ingredients

• Decorative fabric, this can be Christmas fabric, kiddy print fabric, old sheets, recycled shirts, use whatever you have to hand. A soft polyester / cotton fabric works best, you don't want to use anything sheer or too stiff. You'll want to make a range of bag sizes, from little (jewellery!) to huge (for those kiddy toys!), so fabric scraps of nearly any size will work well.

• Ribbon or cording to tie the bags closed. You can even use plaited yarn or knit i-cord for this.

• Sewing thread.

Method

Step 1 : Cut your fabric to twice the size you want your bag. I don't measure anything, I just fold the fabric in half to get the rough size I'm after, and cut to size. The fold can either be on the side of the bag, or the base, it doesn't matter.

Step 2 : Get the cord for the tie closure, and fold it in half. You want a decent amount of ribbon or cord, so you can tie a pretty bow. Place the folded ribbon on the side of the bag, far enough down from the top of the bag to give a nice ruffled effect when the bag is tied shut - roughly 1/4 of the total height of the bag (or so).

Step 3: Fold the fabric over so right sides are together, and pin the 2 sides to be sewn together, catching in the looped end of the cord in the side seam as shown below. Sew the seams. I usually sew over the ribbon bit a few times for extra strength.

Step 4 : trim the corners of the bag. You can finish the seams if you like, but honestly, I don't bother - the bag isn't going to get that much wear and tear, or even need washing much.

Step 5 : Fold the top edge of the bag over twice to make a narrow hem, iron it if you're so inclined (I don't bother, and just finger press it), pin, and sew.

Step 6 : Turn the bag right side out, give it a firm shake, turn out the corners, you can even iron it if you're really getting carried away, and you're done! It really is that quick - about 10 minutes to make 1 bag from scratch.

After filling your bag with the gift, tie the ribbon to close it, and pin on a name tag or add one with a hole punched in it over the ribbon tie.

Some more ideas :

• For children's gifts - dinosaur fabric, animal fabric, brightly coloured sheets, stripes, there are a million great kid print fabrics out there. (Make sure you tie their bags with double knots to stop peeking under the Christmas tree!)

• Make small bags from exquisite quilting fabrics.

• Make the top of a bag out of calico or some other plain fabric, and add a band or base of a fancy or panel print fabric.

• Make personalised bags for your family, with their names cut out of fabric or embroidered on, if you're into appliqué or embroidery.

• Make a drawstring closure instead of just stitching in the ribbon if you're feeling extravagant.

• Have two different fabrics for the front and back of the bag.

• Raid your local op shop for old clothes and linen which are decorative and of the right sort of weight and drape, and chop them up for your bags.

• Get your kids to draw Christmas / birthday pictures with fabric markers / crayons onto plain calico, set their artwork (usually this means ironing the fabric), and then use the fabric to make some bags.

• Make enough bags that you can give them away with gifts to friends and family, and spread the "gift bag" love!

Tuk Tuk Dreams

2010-12-22T16:51:00.011+11:00

My rather amazing and activist brother David met Laban in Canberra some years ago. This story here is a genuine and heartfelt one, and if you'd like to get involved, there are links at the bottom of the page.

Here is the first letter from my brother :

Dear Family and Friends - make a difference this Xmas with a gift to help my friend Laban Baragu in Kenya.

Laban befriended us in Canberra a few years ago and has kept in contact over the years. He recently contacted me to ask for financial help - he now has a small family and is struggling to provide for them. I am committed to helping him in whatever way I can and ask that you support me.
For the last few years, he and his wife have operated a small shoe stall at the markets but are finding it very difficult to make a living above the poverty line. Laban had a micro-loan but was not making enough money from the shoe stall to pay it back - the bank took his furniture as payment.

Here is a recent email from Laban:
Hallo David, do you think the photos will serve the purpose? whats the progress. Sometime i have sleepless night i cry to myself coz am not able to provide for my son the proper meals, its a shame but i try my best. Sometime I go with a single meal per day to at least have something for the following day if i don't succeed. Thank you for taking your time to knowing what we are going thro' and trying to help us. Am praying to my God that everything falls into its place. With the tuk tuk my family will be able to overcome all the troubles, all i have to do is put more hour into the business and the rest will be history, i will be able to stand on my own and take care of my family.

Thank you once again and regards to your family.
Laban

Laban is now trying to change his life by buying a second-hand Tuk-Tuk (motor-bike taxi) - which he says will provide a greater income and allow him to move above the poverty line and provide for his family.
The challenge is in buying the Tuk-Tuk - he is no longer eligible for a micro-loan, and while Laban is adamant that he will pay back any money lent to him, a gift will remove so much pressure and allow him to focus on building the business, while still spending time with his wife and son Ryan. I am aiming for $3,000 which will allow him to purchase the Tuk Tuk outright and not owe anything.

So why not support Laban's Tuk Tuk Dream, either with a donation or a gift on behalf of someone else - a great present for those of us who have enough.
If you are interested, let me know how much you want to give and who you want to gift it from (name and address) - I will then make up a small card and send it to who you nominate by Christmas- stating that you have helped Laban and his family on their behalf. I will also provide updates on Laban's progress as I receive them.

Thank you for considering this call for help and please pass this email on to those who you think may be open.
Lots of love,
David

=====================================================

Last week David set up a small Cause on Facebook, and there are just a few of us there, doing what we can. He posted this a few days ago :

======================================================

We've nearly reached half way - $1,355! And today with the help of extra loan funds, I have sent $1,700 to Laban so he can put down a deposit on a tuk tuk and start using it. He will then need to pay the remaining $1,300 within 9 months - but hopefully we can make that happen sooner.

I rang Laban today and told him that I had deposited the funds and that it was a gift from those who have contributed - he burst into tears. I could hear the utter relief in his voice. He was so thankful to everyone - "Words cannot express how I feel." he said in his soft, gentle voice.
We are certaintly making a difference - join us who have donated if you can, so we can complete this dream. Thank you all.

David

===================================================

To help out, visit the Causes page on Facebook.

To contact David directly, send me an email and I'll pass it along.

What I really love about this is how directly and quickly we can make a difference. I support Medicin san Frontiers and Amnesty International, but somehow, contributing to Laban's Tuk Tuk Dream is so much more satisfying and rewarding. There are no middle men here, no administration costs, just direct action and direct help. And I'm in awe of my brother, who follows his words with action, rallies people around him, and passionately stands up for people and causes. I think you'll agree he's a pretty awesome guy.

Glassy Goodness

2010-12-20T10:41:00.006+11:00

Son is honing his glasswork skills, as you can see.

His art marbles and phone charms are now available in the Craft ACT Shop in Civic. He's submitted his application to the Flower Marble course with John Kobuki next July at the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York (a big adventure!!!). He's had some commissions. And he's started making geckoes!

You can see more photos of his work here. He is slowly getting his Etsy shop started too, so stay tuned :)

Eye Exams

2010-12-07T17:35:00.030+11:00

A health update for you. My new neurologist, the wonderful Dr Lueck, is quite sure that I have neuro-sarcoidosis. This will always be a 'best guess' diagnosis, as the only way to be 100% sure is to get a tissue biopsy, and a brain biopsy isn't something anyone wants to do, or will do.

It turns out that my lumbar puncture tests results were abnormal - how the f--k all the doctors missed this when I was in hospital, I'll never know! Gah!

I did have oligoclonal bands and elevated white blood cell counts, and combined with the abnormal MRI and the location of the lesions (optic chiasm), it all adds up to a completely typical presentation for neurosarcoid. There you go, I'm normal at last! Ha!

Yesterday I had my latest peripheral visual field exam, and there was a little bit more improvement. Not a lot, but a bit. This is what has been squeezed out from another month on insanely high doses of prednisolone (40 mg/day).

Just so you can see what corticosteroids can do for you, if you have neurological vision loss, check out these results :

These are my test results from September. The black bits are where I can't see. Dark grey areas show partial vision. The circle represents my entire field of peripheral vision. The test is done by staring at a central light, and pressing a beeper every time you notice a light - these lights are pin points at different brightness levels (often very faint!) that flicker on and off.

I then had a month on 60 mg of prednisolone, and another month on 50 mg. These are the rather startlingly wonderful results from the end of October. This is what corticosteroids are bloody good at! At this point they let me drive again :)

And these are my test results from yesterday. The red circles show the optic nerve - we've all got blind spots there! So there has definitely been a little more improvement after another month on 40 mg of pred, but that central bit is pretty stubborn, isn't it?

The blank spots are still obvious and somewhat annoying all the time, I often miss bits when reading instructions and recipes, in particular. This may be permanent scarring, and I may just have to get used to it. My vision has also become generally extremely blurry since September, which is probably neurological in cause (not a drug side effect), so I'm getting my glasses prescription updated this week.

I'll see what Dr Lueck wants to do, whether I need to stay on such high doses or not. I'm seeing my immunologist Dr Cook next week, and suspect that I'll be put onto the immuno-suppressant meds, like Azathioprine and Cyclophosphamide (a chemotherapy agent). They are also "steroid sparing" meds, which means if you take them at the same time as prednisolone, you can get the same effect at a lower dose of steroids. These are generally very long-term meds for neurosarcoid patients. I just have to hope Dr Cook agrees with Dr Lueck about the neurosarcoid diagnosis, there's still some discussion going, I suspect ... still hoping to avoid the cerebral angiogram.

It turns out that the awful itchy blistering skin lesions I've had on my calves for the past couple of summers are probably sarcoid in origin too - I've been to a dermatologist, and when they recur (unlikely while I'm on steroids) I'll have them biopsied. This could provide us with the 'gold standard' tissue diagnosis for a definitive sarcoidosis diagnosis, so is the only time when I'm kinda hoping the horrible lesions come back!

One benefit of having such a rare disease (less than 4 per 100,000 people have it) is that you get the best doctors - both my specialists are the heads of their departments. I'm officially interesting.

I'm also on Lyrica now to deal with the numbness in my right arm and face, and the neuropathic foot pain. Getting used to it was dreadful, but after 10 days (during which I felt like a zombie and came *this* close to quitting) my body decided to just get on with things ... it does help a bit, but doesn't stop these symptoms entirely. The foot pain is more like 2-5 out of 10, instead of 7-9, though, so that's a definite benefit.

I really hope I can drop down on the prednisolone soon, the side effects are getting more difficult to accept, especially the Cushingoid weight gain / redistribution :( Feeling a bit like hiding away in a cave at the moment. I'm doing what I can to be as healthy as possible - eating well, cutting out sugar, exercising daily - but there's only so much you can achieve against such high steroid doses. It's all rather hideously inevitable. So if I look like a bloated frog next time you see me, be kind ...

TAM Sydney Diary

2010-12-01T11:19:00.018+11:00

Warning : link and photo heavy post! Ready to come on a trip with me?

The Amazing Meeting certainly lived up to its monicker! It really was amazing, and a fitting first TAM for Australia. (What is TAM? This explains it all.)

I travelled up by the 6:45 am train on Thursday ... what a great way to get places. I love the train.

A cryptic crossword, sock on the needles and a Peter Robinson audio book Dry Bones that Dream on my iPod (thanks to LittleNeedles!). Perfect.

On Thursday I wandered about the Powerhouse Museum for several hours til my feet complained, and then checked in to my hotel (Ibis Hotel, World Square) ... nice room ...

.. crap view!

In the afternoon I visited Kinokuniya, the wonderful Japanese bookshop in The Galeries Victoria. While I was there I noticed that they had a single copy of Word Searches for Dummies ... well, why not, I thought? They might like it signed? So I took it to the Information Desk - where I espied Anh Do doing exactly the same thing, signing a pile of his new book! So we had a great little chat, and a few fist bumps. So that was all pretty exciting. I was relatively restrained with my purchases, mainly bought gifts for the family, and the Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders book for myself.

I had dinner sitting at a 'shared table' (ie without knowing the others on the table) at the dumpling restaurant Din Tai Fung. The food was good, basically yum cha. A bit weird ordering without having prices listed against the menu, but it worked out. The lychee and green tea slushy ice drink was a highlight. Noisy, very busy, popular venue.

On Friday I had the morning free, so walked up to Morris & Sons, my first 'in person' shopping experience there! What a great shop! I looked for angora without success, but did stock up on some KnitPro accessories, extra tips (trying the acrylic ones) and cables.

And at lunchtime it was time to register for TAM, and get started!

We all got Placebo Bands in our conference bags! Richard Saunders showed us the tricks that are used to make the Power Balance bracelets appear to work ... honestly, don't waste your money. You can get your own Placebo Bands here, they are only $2, and any profits go to non-religious charities.

The conference was held at the Sydney Masonic Centre, around the corner from my hotel (yeah, that was on purpose). The building was impressive, and very comfortable. Most sessions were held in the Grand Lodge, which held just over 600 people ...

... including pirates ...

Over the 3 days we heard many and varied speakers, all of them interesting. This is Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast holding forth ...

Friday night was a "TAM Fringe" event - my good mate Sally came along to this, was great to see her, and excellent that she could get along to this, despite missing out on a ticket to TAM. This was at Maloney's Hotel, thankfully just across the road from my hotel. The food was fine, but the surroundings were terribly loud, sigh. I really don't cope well with noisy surroundings any more. A weird "Canberra moment" - the young American woman sitting next to me turned out to live less than 1km from me, in the same suburb! We'll be catching up some time soon.

I think that one of the best parts of TAM was being able to meet my heroes, and make new friends ... this is me with talented musician and podcaster George Hrab of the Geologic Podcast (amongst many other things), who is just the nicest and coolest guy ever. He'll be in Canberra at Skeptics in the Pub (Sun 5 Dec 1-4 pm King O'Malley's Pub in Civic) next weekend if you're around and interested in meeting him! (Still hating what mega-doses of prednisolone are doing to my body and face. Sigh.)

Other authors / skeptics I met included Brian Dunning, Rebecca Watson, Evan Bernstein, the Novella gang (ie the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe team), Dr Rob Morrison (yes, that Rob Morrison, from The Curiosity Show), Kylie Sturgess, Richard Saunders, my favourite science writer and general hero, Simon Singh, and The Amazing James Randi himself ... I collected autographs in the back pages of Carl Sagan's classic book, The Demon-Haunted World (Admission : using the book for autographs was Andrew's idea, not mine, I just knew a good bandwagon when I saw one!).

Simon asked me to take photos when he met James Randi, and email them to him :)

Rebecca Watson was all exited to meet a puzzle writer, and asked if I'd like to write a regular puzzle for the Skepchick site - shit yeah! And Kylie Sturgess was interested in the Mahikari literature and stories I had to lend her, so maybe this will lead to a bit more heat on that particular deceptive group ... So stay tuned - exciting things are happening :D

Dr Paul Willis from ABC's science show Catalyst was our excellent and hilarious MC for the whole event. The lectures and workshops ranged over a wide range of topics, from science-based medicine and education to science journalism, elbology, skeptical activism, astronomy, live podcast recordings, and so much more. The effervescent Dr Karl spoke (actually, I think "enthused" is more appropriate for Dr Karl), as did Dick Smith - I hadn't realised that he was one of the founders of the Australian Skeptics 30 years ago. Julian Morrow from The Chaser was there too, on several panels.

Saturday night was the conference dinner, held on board a massive catamaran. The food was OK - just a buffet - and it was a bit too crowded and noisy for my taste, but still fun to have attended.

The crowd attending TAM was a good one - roughly 1/3 were women, and there were a lot of young people, some kids, and plenty of uni students. A change from the early TAMs, which Randi said were completely older white guys, The students from the Freethought University Alliance were there in force, and I was interviewed for the Young Australian Skeptics podcast ("vox pop" section). There were also many retirees, and a wide range of nationalities. The mood was overwhelmingly positive, and there was plenty of laughter, silliness, and good humour in all the talks and in general.

The best - and quietest - meal of the weekend was at the Korean restaurant Dae Jang Kum, on Sunday night with Chrys from the Gold Coast and Steve from Melbourne ... OMG, go there if you get the chance. The Spicy Squid and Pork Belly was perfect - just the right amount of chilli and extremely nommable. You know it's good when most of the other patrons are Korean ...

On Monday, despite being utterly exhausted (there's only so much one can handle with chronic illness after all) I bussed over to the NSW Art Gallery - something I've wanted to do for decades, and have never managed yet. So that was enjoyable, I'm glad I made the effort.

I then had several hours to kill in central Sydney, and really didn't want to spend more money or hurt my feet any more than necessary. In the end I plopped down in a café with my knitting (a sock for hubby) for a couple of hours ...

Then it was just a matter of collecting my luggage from the hotel and walking to the train station ... there's my train! Another enjoyable, quiet, and uneventful trip home, getting in around 10.30 pm.

This book says it all for me - being involved in a faith healing cult for 14 years was what eventually led me to this skeptical path in 2000 ...

Positive Chi

2010-11-19T10:23:00.009+11:00

My friend Millard has designed a gorgeous kid's jumper, called Positive Chi (chi being short for chihuahua). I decided to knit it for my nephew Tom's first birthday. Here's how it turned out!

Here's Tom trying it on when it was about 3/4 done ... I made the Medium size, which should fit him well when we get to cooler weather next year. I haven't managed to get a pic of him wearing the finished jumper yet.

The pattern has a lot of attention to detail, and some nice design features, starting with a tubular cast on, and finishing off with these duplicate stitched paw prints ...

... and a chihuahua on the front. This was my first time doing duplicate stitch, and I must say I love it!

The sleeves have a nice neat line of decreases ... (slip 2 sts tog knitwise, knit 1, pass the 2 slipped stitches over).

The collar and placket are in seed stitch.

It has inset 'undershirt' sleeves, knit in 8 ply and sewn in. The main jumper is knit in 12 ply. I used Bendigo Classic (machine washable) 12 ply, in Guava, Java, and Magnolia.

As a finishing touch there's this neck facing sewn in at the end - not essential, but a nice design feature.

For those of you interested in the fine details, you can access my Ravelry project page here. And yes, I know I made a mistake in the stripe pattern. I meant that. Honest.

The Garage From Hell

2010-11-08T07:41:00.008+11:00

We've never done well with garages ... boxes and stuff tend to be shoved and piled in every which way, and the 3 other members of the family (all with ADHD / Aspergers) just don't do organised, sorted, or tidy. So it's down to me ... "Dealing with the garage" was my main goal for 2010!

This was how our double garage looked 2 years ago, and it's only got worse since then ...

And yesterday ... this is after I've spent about 15 hours in the past few months sorting through every box, repacking, decluttering, finding new homes for furniture through Freecycle, taking a whole load of rubbish to the tip, several loads of stuff to the recycling centre, and a car full of donations for St Vinnies.

And after 8 hours of work yesterday. I've set up the sofa and table near Son's workbench, so he's got a nice place to sit and think. The pigeon holes on the back wall used to be the mail boxes for the staff at Mt Stromlo Observatory, decades ago.

Before :

After! The ratty cage has a hammock in it (not a bat hanging upside down).

And Son's glass workbench, complete with expensive computer-controlled kiln and all the best gear, torches, glass rods, books and so on ...

My cleaning up manic obsessiveness is fading as my prednisolone dose drops (I'm on 40 mg instead of 60 now). I still want things to be tidy, but don't have the increased energy levels, so this was pretty hard and exhausting work. Back to my normal fatigue levels, unfortunately.

So it's not entirely done, but it's damn close, and quite bearable now. Not so excruciatingly embarrassing to take people in there. There are even metres of swept clean floor to walk on! Hubby really needs to sort through the masses of tools and nails mixed with screws and wood offcuts and other mess, and boxes of his wires and electronic detritus. One day ... maybe. Don't hold your breath.

Tea Candy Recipe

2010-10-30T13:12:00.026+11:00

A generous gift from a friend has started me on a culinary adventure ... here's how it all started.

Last week the lovely Stacie sent me this very thoughtful gift, with a beautiful card, audio book (seeing as reading is still a challenge for me) of A History of Hand Knitting, and a handful of lollies. (Thank you Stacie! You rock!)

See what they are? TEA flavoured candy! Nom nom nom!!

I immediately searched online to see if anyone in Australia sold anything similar, but I haven't found anything. So the next stop was to find a recipe. I found this one, and gave it a try. The toffees ended up a little too chewy (ie tooth breaking!) and the tea flavour was very weak/non-existent. In the second batch I cooked the syrup to a slightly higher temperature, and got a better hard consistency. But the tea flavour was still too faint.

After several batches and various trials and tribulations, here is my final recipe. I hope you enjoy it too!

Jejune's Tea Candy

Equipment

Large heavy saucepan
Metal spoon
Candy thermometer (essential!!)
Baking tray

Ingredients

1 cup white sugar
100 ml glucose syrup (115g) or light corn syrup
1/3 cup tea essence (recipe below)

This quantity makes a small batch, about 270g of candy. The recipe can easily be doubled or even quadrupled. NB : bigger batches will take longer to cook, a quadruple batch takes close to an hour to get to 164ºC (as opposed to 20 minutes for a small batch).

First of all, make the tea essence:

Tea Essence

Put ~1/8 cup loose tea leaves, or 6 tea bags into a heatproof bowl or mug. I used regular black tea, but use whatever your favourite is!

Pour boiling water over - you need about 1/3 cup of liquid for the candy, so add at least 2/3 cup of boiling water (as the tea leaves will sop up a fair bit of the water). Let this mixture sit for at least 10 minutes. You can also boil it in the microwave for a few minutes to further concentrate the tea flavour. The stronger the better! Strain the tea leaves out just before you use it.

Method

1. Place all ingredients (sugar, glucose syrup, tea essence) in the saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring, until all the sugar crystals are dissolved. Put the candy thermometer into the pan, so the base is sitting in the syrup.

2. Bring the syrup to the boil. This is a Thou Shalt Never Leave the Kitchen recipe ... you can do other stuff while the syrup boils (you know the dishes need washing), but do not leave it! The syrup should just be bubbling along nicely on medium heat. You don't need to stir it.

3. Use the pastry brush dipped in water to wash any stray crystals off the sides of the saucepan back into the mixture.

4. While the syrup boils, prepare the pan - you can line it with foil if you like (not essential). The main thing to do is grease the tin with a plain vegetable oil like canola or sunflower oil. You can also use mini muffin tins, candy forms, a gem scone tray, or other metal pans as the mood takes you.

5. Keep a close eye on the temperature! The magic number is 164ºC (330ºF). This will give you a hard crack candy, without burning the sugar. I found that while a plain syrup set well at 168º, when I added the tea essence at the start of cooking (rather than at the end, as per the original recipe I tried) 168º was too hot and burnt the candy.

From the start of cooking to reaching the end point of 164º takes me about 20 minutes (using a gas stove on medium heat). A quadruple batch will take close on an hour.

6. When the syrup reaches 164ºC, turn off the heat and gently pour the mixture into your prepared pan.

7. After about 5 minutes, score the candy with a sharp knife. The window of opportunity for scoring the candy is only about 5 minutes, before 10 minutes have passed. Use a pot holder to hold the tin, and be careful - the candy is still very hot! You don't need to cut all the way through to the tin, just press down to make grooves.

8. Leave the candy to cool completely, at least an hour. Then tip it out of the pan and break it up into cute little cushions. It should snap satisfyingly along the lines you scored.

9. Place in an attractive container, and either give as a gift (this batch is for my brother-in-law) or have as a treat in the pantry. They are very hard candies, like lollipops, good for sucking on.

Clean up is easy if you just let everything soak in hot water for a while, the hard candy will just dissolve away.

I'd love to hear how you get on with this recipe. I still think it needs to have a stronger tea flavour ... let me know if you come up with any improvements!

Smilee Grapefruit

2010-10-25T18:29:00.013+11:00

I wanted to share a real find with you - Son and I were at our local Lebanese grocers (at the Mawson shops, for locals) the other day, and he spotted these packs of Deemah Smilee drink mix. It comes in pineapple and mango flavours. So - in the spirit of always liking to try new foods and drinks from other lands - we got a pack of each.

The powder mixes up in water a bit like Tang, but is much less sweet, and the flavour is really good. The pineapple one tastes closer to freshly juiced pineapple than tinned pineapple juice, and the mango one is refreshing as well.

A $3 bag makes 6 litres of drink. It's also great sprinkled on plain yoghurt or ice cream! I can see this will become a regular addition to our pantry!

And it's Halloween next Sunday! A holiday I have very fond memories of as a child growing up in America ... who can forget the goose costume my dad made for me one year, with a fully feathered and beaked mask (kitchen paper feathers) and webbed feet! I don't quite know why I wanted to be a goose when I was 6, but I think it was something to do with Charlotte's Web? And as a teenager, living on Mt Stromlo (which had a very international community) my brother Dave and I would dress up in scary garb and put on our "spooky sound effects" record to play to the younger kids who did trick or treating around the mountain (that's us in 1980!) :

This is me and the kids (Dotter as Baby Tiger, and Son as a Friendly Ghost) with some young French friends in Boulder CO, when we lived there in the mid-1990s. The kids loved Halloween then, and I admit I loved the chance to dress up as well!

I've been interested to see that this year there's been a huge increase in Halloween paraphernalia in the shops. Plastic pumpkin buckets, packs of individually packaged lollies, witches hats, masks, window decorations, the lot! Shops even have "Halloween displays" in prominent positions, a real rarity (yeah, next to the Christmas decorations which are out already, bleah).

I don't have an issue with this - apart from it being the wrong bloody season for the festival (we have Easter in autumn, and Halloween in spring, gah). Halloween, while at its most commercial and popular in the States, originated in Scotland, as All Saint's Day over 1300 years ago, in the 700s, and spread through Britain first, before eventually being exported to the New World by Irish immigrants in the 1800s. It is celebrated around the world in many different guises, but has never really taken off in Australia - maybe because of the season mismatch, or a mistaken reaction against an 'American' holiday?

The major supermarkets are even stocking large pumpkins for carving purposes (out of season!) - at $25/each, though, I wanted to go for something cheaper. I couldn't find non-cut-cup small pumpkins, then Dotter had the brain wave of carving up a few grapefruit ... which proved to be super fast, cheap, easy and effective! A few of these little guys will light the side of our driveway, so kids know we have treats in store :)

Redonkulous

2010-10-22T14:53:00.023+11:00

I'm on a fair few meds at the moment (to put it mildly) ...

The generic brand Salpraz pisses me off hugely - they have the most wasteful packaging you can imagine. I get the better-packaged (and better working) brand Somac instead now. This Salpraz box is for just 30 tablets, and is a good 6 cm (over 2") high, with only 6 tablets per foil sheet.

See those huge foil blisters? And the size of the tablet that comes out of them? It's redonkulous. It's hard to actually find the blasted tablet within the blister ... the packaging is about 5 times too big.

When you're on prednisolone, especially at insanely high levels, you need a medical alert bracelet. Because I won't be on it long term (hopefully), I didn't want to pay for an expensive metal bracelet. So I ordered one of these blank rubber wrist bands from the Aussie company Mediband, and wrote my condition inside. They do a good range - I got a Type 1 Diabetes one for Dotter as well (although she also has a metal medic alert necklace). This is the one I got.

This week I've seen my physiotherapist, immunologist and neurologist and GP. The three auto-immune contestants are still Sjögren's Syndrome (which my grandmother had), CNS Vasculitis (or possibly Sjögren's + Vasculitis) or Sarcoidosis. I need a bunch more rather unpleasant tests to narrow things down, a cerebral angiogram being the most frightening. I'm trying not to think about it too much ... there's a long way to go yet, with a fair bit of outpatient hospital time ahead.

I think there's a little improvement in my visual field, but I won't know for sure until next week when I have a new peripheral vision test. I'm still not allowed to drive. My right arm is still numb, and the numbness now extends into the right side of my jaw and mouth. The reflexes in my right leg are "hard to elicit". I'm having a nerve conduction study done soon.

The prednisolone is pretty horrible. I don't recommend it. I've got a lot of side effects, from the minor (bitter taste in my mouth all the time, severe heartburn, insomnia) to the serious (steroid-induced diabetes). My doctors are keen to get me off it soon, I'll start tapering off at the end of October, and be off it by the end of November. I'm not responding as well as they were hoping.

I'm likely to need to be on some hefty immune-suppressant meds long-term, including one used for organ transplant patients to stop rejection, and low doses of a chemotherapy agent (with all the associated hair loss, nausea and the rest). Both of them are carcinogenic.

Whatever I have, it's definitely auto-immune, and there's no cure, so the rest of my life will be all about managing symptoms, flare ups and remissions.

Just taking it a day at a time at the moment, and taking advantage of this prednisolone-induced manic cleaning obsession while it lasts ... also doing a fair bit of blatant retail therapy, I must admit :/

Come in for a cuppa!

2010-10-15T11:57:00.013+11:00

We've been renting this house in Tuggeranong for nearly 3 years now, and for the first time it's decent enough to show you around! Dotter moving out has instigated a huge spring cleaning; the increased energy and decreased sleep I've got from these very high doses of Prednisolone has thrown me into almost a 'nesting instinct' - almost every closet and room has been turned out now, and nearly the whole house has been de-cluttered and organised in a matter of a few weeks! It's quite insane. I'm taking advantage of it while it lasts!

So - welcome to our home, come in and have a cuppa tea and some homemade cupcakes! Note the all important yarn stash in the front hall (wooden chest, basket and picnic hamper, all full).

I bought these bookshelves with some of my ill -gotten gains from Cracking Codes and Cryptograms for Dummies ...

My Roland electric piano is under the sheet ... I need to get back to playing more regularly.

The trusty exercise bike is positioned so we can watch telly while exercising ...

I love the bay windows in the living room. We have them in the master bedroom too.

The dining table setting is our best piece(s) of furniture, it seats 8 and is really solidly made.

My kitchen! It's a good size, with a gas stove. I made the curtains from a doona cover from an op shop. Spot the handknitted hand towel ...

The family room area is tiled, and adjoins the kitchen.

Dotter did the Phoenix painting when she was in high school.

Petal's food and water bowls, and her flat tray for her toys (she can't get into anything higher!) are on the left there.

The laundry is off the family room. I love my front loader!

My little office is also off the family room. The white plan chest used to belong to Ralph's grandfather and namesake, Ralph Malcolm Warner, who was a war artist.

The mega book cover foam-core posters were sent to me by Wiley, to use in (heretofore non-existent) publicity stuff.

My trusty little desk, MacBook, filing cabinet, comfy chair, and Miss Petal's bed ...

The back section of the house contains two bedrooms, the loo, and main bathroom. I'll draw a kindly veil over Son's room - we're only 1/3 of the way through sorting out his mess :)

Remember Dotter's room (scroll down to the next post)? This is how it looks now! The white desk holds my sewing machine, haberdashery, and beading supplies.

And inside the closet in Dotter's room I made this cardboard divider for some of my fabric stash ... fully green compliant ;)

Miss Petal is all worn out from helping to clean up (cos you know she's so helpful around the place).

Time for our cup of tea and cupcakes! Thank you for visiting!

Fledgeling

2010-10-11T08:25:00.011+11:00

The deed is done, Dotter has fledged, and moved out of home into a group house about 30 km north of us (~ 18 miles). The opportunity arose for her to move in with her AIE teacher Adam, of all people. Another games programmer, Evan, is the third housemate. Dotter and Adam are great mates, and the school gave their blessing to the move, as Adam isn't responsible for marking Dotter's work.

Dotter is pathologically untidy .... just for the record (because I hope never to have to deal with this again) this is her bedroom at home, admittedly mid-move, but fairly typical of the standard state of her room (we long ago decided to choose our battles with our kids, and tidy rooms wasn't worth the constant anguish). It took her and me over 12 hours to sort through it all, de-clutter, throw out barge loads of rubbish, and pack a much smaller subset to take with her.

Miss Petal got in on the act too ...

It's all sorted, greatly reduced, and packed, ready to go ... one trip for these things, one for furniture, and one for her succulent plants collection ...

Here's a bit of the drive north ... we're heading for Florey, in Belconnen.

The house is small but very neat, uncluttered, and tidy, in good repair. It's a corner block, and there's a little front yard.

The local Florey shops are really excellent - only a 10 minute walk away, and there's a Medical Centre, which is accepting new patients (not something you assume in our fair city), is open 7 days a week (WTF?!!), and you can walk in (without an appointment, if needs be - so you'll wait, but you'll see someone). There's a chemist (open 9am to 9pm every day of the year except for Christmas), a take-away, a large IGA supermarket, butchery, bakery, hairdresser, physiotherapist, Chinese restaurant, Morks Thai restaurant, The Perfect Bean family-run café, and a Dominos Pizza ... The suburb is well served by buses, and there's two Aldis nearby.

A small but well-equipped kitchen ...

And a puppeh! Here's Son with young Bobby, a chi/terrier cross, who belongs to Adam. He's a quiet shy pup, and hopefully we'll be able to introduce him to Petal one day for play dates. Check out his Mohawk hair-do!

Dotter's new room is looking good (and hopefully it will last!) ... she knows she needs to change her ways. I'm sure that being in a group house will be an added incentive to be tidier.

The wire baskets hold shoes, and a small stash. We figured it was best if the bulk of her yarn collection stayed with us, and she can replenish it as needs be.

The proud girl in occupation!

It's weird not having her here, and I will miss her, of course - we're very close - but I think it's all going to be OK. She was ready to go, is excited by the journey ahead, and is good at getting on with people and resolving any conflicts head-on. I'm happy to see her making her way in the world, and I know she'll be able to cope. Independence has always been our goal as parents., starting with getting our kids helping in the kitchen at 3, having their own bank accounts from age 8, responsible for their own laundry from age 10, and learning to shop for groceries and plan meals.

And to be brutally honest, I won't miss living with her mess, not even a little bit ...

Pieces falling into place

2010-09-28T10:33:00.010+10:00

The picture is finally emerging of what's going on ... my CT angiogram was clear, thank goodness. So CNS Vasculitis looks unlikely (although there's always a chance it could be early stages, not picked up etc etc). PHEW.

So the most likely diagnosis is neurosarcoidosis. And now that I'm reading more about it, a bunch of odd little symptoms I've had for the past 4-5 years are suddenly falling into place, which I admit I'm finding rather exciting. Stuff like :

• Onycholysis (painless lifting of the fingernails from their beds)

• Loss of sense of taste and smell

• Loss of sensation in any body part (currently have a numb right arm, and the numbness is spreading to my jaw and back of my neck)

• Facial nerve involvement (I had a 6th nerve palsy five years ago, with no cause determined)

• Dry eyes

• Vision loss

• Muscle aches and pains

• Brain fog

• Nasty itchy blistering skin lesions associated with sun exposure

• Dry scaly skin

It is even often associated with fibromyalgia. Far out.

I'll be started on corticosteroids today or tomorrow. Hopefully only for 3-4 months this time No saying yet whether my vision will repair on steroids, but I'm hoping so! I think I've probably got the chronic form of the disease, given that I think I've had symptoms for at least 5 years, so it's likely to be something I'll have to be dealing with for many years, if not lifelong.

I've also informed my hip surgeon about all this, as being on steroids may have an impact on the stability of my artificial hip - he'll call my neurologist for a chat. I suspect I'll end up on calcium supplements. And I'll have regular vision checks, and MRIs.

Hope to get out of hospital by the end of the week, with any luck. Feeling pretty good, I'm just so relieved that it's probably not the fatal (if untreated) vasculitis.

The Travelling Pillow

2010-09-27T17:18:00.003+10:00

Here is my hospital boudoir ...

And here's my hospital pillow ... but wait, what's that on it ... ?

Yes, it's covered with writing! OMG! It's a travelling pillow!

I'm a big fan of travelling things - I do BookCrossing, I have a travelling lamb puppet ... and now I've stumbled on a travelling pillow - who knew that hospital pillows got around so much?!

For posterity, this is what it says - my comments in brackets :

This pillow started its life in Cooma Oct 2009
Please write my journey so they see where I've been :)

Ward 13

A Level - CDH (cooma District Hospital)

I'm back in Cooma! Just 4 now

20/5/10 TCH (The Canberra Hospital) 6B

9/6/10 Day surgery TCH

20/6/10 TCH ED (Emergency Dept) we rule

25/6/10 Theatres Calvary Belconnen (Calvary Hospital)

21/7/10 Calvary Mortuary (oh dear)

23/7/10 Calvary Mortuary (still!)

17/8/10 Calvary ED (Emergency Dept)

26/8/10 6E Private

4/9/10 ED Calvary PTO (end of the pillow)

5/9/10 Still here in Calvary ED

7/9/10 ED EMU (Emergency Dept, Emergency Medical Unit)

18/9/10 TCH 7a (this is where I am now)

Isn't that cool?!!! Since I'm in Ward 7a, probably no need to add anything, but maybe I'll add a line when I get out of here ...

I've had a CT angiogram of my poor old noggin with contrast injected on Saturday, hope to get the results tomorrow and start on medication SOON. Rather sick of waiting, waiting, waiting ....

Mystery Birthday Girl Returns!

2010-09-24T15:52:00.011+10:00

I'm baaaack ... in hospital. My vision is still getting worse (more like 30% gone) so here I am. After a marathon 24 hours in casualty (22.5 hours on a hard bed in the casualty ward), I'm back in the Stroke/Neurology Ward of Canberra Hospital.

Happily, they've decided against doing a bunch of very invasive horrible tests (brain biopsy, cerebral angiogram and bronchoalveolar lavage), which are the only ways of being 100% sure what I've got. It's most likely one of two things - both very rare (of course) drum roll please ....

Localised CNS vasculitis

Neuro Sarcoidosis

The reason we're not doing further testing is that the testing may still be inconclusive, as whatever I've got is in its early stages, and is pretty horrible. And the treatment for both conditions is the same - corticosteroids.

So we're just going to start on some treatment, under supervision in hospital. If it's the vasculitis, my vision should repair well. If it's the sarcoid, full recovery of my vision isn't as assured. Fingers crossed.

I'm dealing with the usual collection of elderly women with various levels of stroke damage / dementia / deafness / difficult, disruptive and noisy behaviours in my 4-bed ward ...

Anyway, I had nearly a week at home, which included my second 23rd birthday! In the absence of other fun things to show you, I'll just show off the lovely gifts my friends and family gave me :)

Last year Hubby and Son gave me a Kenwood Chef, which is just awesome and I love. This year Hubby gave me two attachments for it, a sieve/colander (like a mouli), and a great pasta maker attachment, which works a bit like a mincer attachment. So you mix up the dough in the bowl, and then poke bits into the pasta attachment to make spaghetti and noodles! And they taste amazing. Nothing like it.

Here they are cooking! It was a surprisingly quick midweek dinner ...

Son knows my weakness (murder mysteries) ... he gave me Volume 3 of Inspector Morse (I'm a huge fan of the books, and have even met Colin Dexter!) ... completing my collection!Dotter was very thoughtful, and gave me two iTunes vouchers, so I could buy some audio books (as I can't read easily at the moment). I bought an Ian Rankin (Rebus) book and a Lindsey Davis (Falco) one.

My extravagant friend LittleNeedles sent me a bunch of books from my Amazon WishList :

Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan (stunning knitting with maths/science/nature inspiration), The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken (not because I hate to cook, but because it takes me back to my childhood, my mum has the original edition), :59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman (the most fantastic "self-help" book ever, with every single strategy proven by research! If you only buy one book this year, buy this one!), and The Everything Rice Cooker Cookbook by Hui Tay (how to use your rice cooker for so much more than just rice!). As if this bounty wasn't enough, she put in this volume of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies!

Friend K gave me some Knittery yarn in 'Monet colours' and some girly skin care treats and delicious soap (and yes, I did taste it!).

Friend C gave me this gorgeous china tea cup, saucer and plate, to add to my collection - he'd found it in an antiques shop months ago!

Brother D and SIL D gave me this cheery fine china mug and some Turkish Delight, which did not survive to the photo shoot ;)

Friend J sent me some handmade stitch markers and a box of this glorious handspun yarn - she's a clever chicken, and very skilled spinner.

My mum and step-dad gave me this beautifully crafted tray, made by my step-dad. Very special.

Friend H gave me a PDF book of 7 Small Shawl patterns by Rosemary Hill, which are just gorgeous.

Friend I gave me a signed copy of The Outback Café Cookbook by Mark Olive (using traditional bush tucker ingredients) - she's even met him! I can't wait to give the recipes a try.

And Sister J and BIL M gave me the most stunningly cute kitchen measuring cups from Fred & Friends, and a wooden necklace from the National Museum. Both unphotographed as yet ...

A good haul, spread over a good week, and most of all a lot of love, fun, hugs and treats, which is what any good birthday should be replete with!

And thank you to the friends who have given me thoughtful and appreciated gifts while I've been in hospital - your visits and your gifts have made my visits that much easier to handle.

Spring!

2010-09-18T11:32:00.008+10:00

Spring has sprung! There are flowers!

A flowering eucalyptus which I exfoliated when I went for a walk in the sunshine just now ...

My trusty daphne bush, which has survived in a pot for many years, and keeps on going. One of my favourite scents!

Snowdrop bulbs that I planted a few months ago!

And yes, I can still knit, thank goodness, just as long as it's fairly plain knitting - lace, cables, fine work, and things with decreases at the ends of rows are too hard (as I can't see how many stitches are on the left needle) ...

I started this in hospital. It's the Saorise Shawl / Skirt by Norah Gaughan (Interweave Knits, Spring 2009). Each row is now over 900 stitches, and takes around half an hour! And the increases will continue until we're up over 2,000 stitches per row! Using Bendigo Harmony (wool / cotton / lycra) in Wisteria. It's lovely!

Mystery girl is home again!

2010-09-17T18:50:00.016+10:00

I'm back home, after 11 days in the Stroke/Neurology Ward. So farewell to "bed arrest" and my noisy room mates! Miss Petal is very happy to have me home :)

I don't have a diagnosis. They just ran out of tests to do, and I ran out of patience. My vision hasn't got better - wel, I think my right eye is a bit better, but my left eye is worse. I also developed paresthesia in my right arm while I was there, which I still have. Feels slightly numb, with a light touch of pins and needles. My neurologists say this is probably from scarring (ie demyelination in my brain, with subsequent development of scar tissue). My right leg nerve reflexes were a bit slow, too. They think my vision should improve, but they don't know how long it will take, or whether I'll get all of it back.

I've got a fair list of symptoms to keep an eye out for - basically, any ability that disappears. Muscle weakness, and so on. They think that the 6th nerve palsy I had 5 years ago is probably related. I've also lost my senses of taste and smell about once a year, for a month or so, for the past 4 or 5 years. Something's not right. I'm to go straight to Casualty if anything changes suddenly. I'll have another MRI in about 6 months to check what's happening inside my head. The only way to find out more is to do a brain biopsy, which they don't intend to do (phew!).

MS has been definitively ruled out, for several reasons, which in some ways is a pity. Clearly there's demyelination happening in my brain, it shows up on my MRI scan. It would be so much easier to have a clear unequivocal diagnosis, with some clear treatment options. As it is, we know something's wrong, but there's no diagnosis and no treatment options. The other demyelinating diseases look more scary than MS.

Today I pottered around, caught up on housework and laundry - nice to be active again! I also called Vision Australia, and will be interviewed soon, so I can become a 'client'. I am also looking into getting a Vision Impaired bus pass for our local buses, so I can use concession tickets, as I'm not allowed to drive. Reading is still a major problem. I've got an appointment with the Vocational Occupational Therapist at hospital next week, hopefully they'll have some ideas! I'm also sussing out my Mac's Universal Access settings, and Safari's Reader, which could make using a read aloud function a bit easier online.

Thank you everyone for your lovely comments, emails, and visits ... you all helped me so much!

Amsler grids

2010-09-12T14:35:00.006+10:00

Amsler grids are an easy way to test eyesight - especially for problems like macular degeneration and glaucoma. You look at the central black dot with one eye at a time, and note any missing areas, bent lines etc.

This is how the Amsler grid looks for me, when I look with either eye ...

ETA : This is the test that convinced me something really was wrong (in my case, neurological vision loss caused by neuro-sarcoidosis). If you have vision loss in both eyes in the same region on the Amsler grid, go to Casualty! It is neurological in origin, something happening in your brain not your eyes, and could be from a stroke. Don't muck about.

Unexpected, Part 2

2010-09-11T09:09:00.009+10:00

So here I am. I've been in the stroke unit since Monday, and had tons of blood tests, eye tests, CT scans, ultrasounds, MRI scans and a lumbar puncture. I've definitely lost 25% of my visual field in both eyes (which is very unusual). Reading is hard. I gather it's probably optic neuritis.

I *haven't* had a stroke. But the MRI did show lesions in my brain, both in an area affecting vision, and in the middle of my brain. My neurologist thinks it could be multiple sclerosis or sarcoidosis. So here I stay until a diagnosis is confirmed and they can start me on some treatment. It's all pretty fucky.

Later on : Hubby has brought in my computer and an internet dongle thingy, so I'm ONLINE in hospital!

This image shows you what reading is like for me at the moment ... I really hope this repairs if it's caused by MS, it could repair in 4-12 weeks. I'm not allowed to drive until my field of vision is better, too.

The blank areas shift and change when I move my head and eyes, so it makes seeing fine detail (like letters) rather challenging.

Unexpected

2010-09-11T08:28:00.006+10:00

i'm writing this on my phone's web browser with predictive text, so no pictures this time. The reason for this is I've been in hospital since Monday, and will still here into next week.

About a week ago I noticed trouble reading and that there were blank areas in my vision. I did an Amsler test (you'll have to google it yourself sorry!) which confirmed this. On Monday I went straight to my optometrist, who was concerned. He said my eyes looked perfectly healthy, but that vision loss where the same region is lost in both eyes generally indicates a neurological problem. He told me to go straight to casualty.

Fictitious entry

2010-08-27T12:51:00.007+10:00

Fictitious entries. Copyright Easter Eggs. Trap streets. Whatever you call them, these are little tricks that publishers of reference works (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, street directories, maps etc) play on us all, in a (possibly vain) attempt to help protect their copyright, or at least prove that someone has nicked their work.

They put errors into their work. On purpose.

Dictionaries usually have a word or two or many more (one older dictionary has around 200!) that are completely invented by the dictionary's editorial staff. The American Oxford Dictionary (which I use on my Mac) has the word esquivalence, for example. It takes a bunch of lexicographers to pinpoint the incorrect words, too, as the (unofficial) hunt for them is always a bit of fun (although it somewhat negates the purpose of having them there in the first place and probably pisses off the publisher once their fictitious entries are revealed!). The fact there are no synonyms listed for esquivalence is a bit of a hint (although there are plenty of perfectly normal words that don't have common synonyms).

Atlases will have extra "Trap streets" (usually just places or cul de sacs), or distorted streets, with non-existent or misspelt names. So if another map is printed, and the error appears on it - they can quite legitimately say "Ah haaaa! You copied our work!" There's a good article on the practice here.

I just think it's cool.

Not a sausage

2010-08-13T13:59:00.015+10:00

The thing about writing puzzles for a living is – well, it's not much of a living. Sure, the work is really interesting, challenging, and unusual, and it's mostly fun (although there are times when my brain recoils from the merest suggestion that I require it to come up with yet another blasted crossword clue). But I earn less than the dole (or New Start, or whatever it's called nowadays) ... and newspapers are struggling, losing ad revenue, which means they cut things that cost them money, like puzzles, including mine. Not much happening on the book front either.

I've tried selling puzzle PDFs on my web site (not a single sale, in a year), I've tried cold calling (never to be repeated, shudder, but it did get me the Royal Flying Doctor's puzzle book job), I've advertised, I've quoted, I've proposed, and all to no avail. Not a sausage. Well, a few rather weeny sausages. Cocktail frankfurters.

All this has really been getting me down. Significantly down. Closing-the-business, throwing-in-the-towel, getting-a-job-as-a-checkout-chick down. I've tried so hard, for so long, to turn this into a full time, well paying career. Currently it's a part time, seriously crap paying career. I still love it, I'm not giving it up, and I have obligations to my syndicator and a few steadfast clients, but I've got to broaden my horizons.

So I'm falling back on what is, after all, my profession. Graphic design, web design, all that good old designy stuff. Pixels, picas, and proofs. Grids, gifs, and gutters.

However. I don't want to go back to those intense (and let's be frank, somewhat horrible) years of seeing multiple clients every day, insane deadlines, power networking breakfasts, and billing and contract hassles. Well, there's no getting away from deadlines in this industry, they're a given. Just give me the work, I'll do it on time, and pay me. But I need to be flexible - if Wiley offer me another book deal, I've got to be able to take it on without problems or letting clients down.

A few days ago I remembered there's a group in Canberra called Design Emergency. They subcontract designers and editors out to government departments, businesses, and even design studios, for short term projects. Editors with design experience (and vice versa) are a hot property, apparently, which is cool, cos I can tick that particular box. I've spoken with the owner, and it looks like it could work really well - I can put myself up for 3 days a week (I need about 2 days a week to do my puzzle work), and if something big turns up, I simply say I'm not available for a bit.

I needed a portfolio, of course. It felt weird digging out all my old CDs of design work, going back through 12 years ... remembering past clients (there were a lot of them!), seeing who was still in business, who wasn't, who still uses a logo I designed for them, and all that. Finding stuff I'd forgotten I'd done, like this illustration for the Department of Maths at the ANU :

And this logo (from the "no longer in business" category) :

I've even ordered the upgrade for my Adobe Creative Suite (going from CS3 to CS5, for a horrendous amount of money - I skip every other upgrade, so it was about time), so I'll be 'industry standard' again.

So. I've just submitted my design resumé, writing/editing resumé, and design portfolio, for consideration. Hopefully I'll get onto their books. Wish me luck! It's all a tiny bit scary ...

Hyacinth

2010-07-27T11:44:00.005+10:00

I've always wanted to do this, so when I found a special 'forcing vase' at an op shop a few months back, I grabbed it, and bought myself a hyacinth bulb. It's taken some weeks to sprout ... isn't it gorgeous? And I love the scent.

From early June ...

And a few weeks later ...

This is super easy to do, here's some different instructions on how to go about it, if you want a bit of springtime inside too! I didn't follow any instructions, though, so I didn't keep it in the fridge, or a dark cupboard or anything else. I just sat it on my desk in my office (which isn't frightfully sunny or warm) and it did its thing.

Something fishy

2010-07-09T12:16:00.002+10:00

Dotter turned 19 yesterday. A few weeks ago I asked her what she'd like me to make for her, and she chose this :

It's the Dead or Alive fish hat from Knitty ...

Happy birthday my girl! Um, by the way, did you notice you've got a dead fish on your head?

Failsafe cuffs

2010-06-26T10:14:00.007+10:00

We're nearly a month into the Failsafe elimination diet, and endless days of eating food like this - mostly tasty, but either white, cream, or pale green coloured. Definitely missing stronger flavours like tomatoes and chilli. Bored with it all. A lot.

But has it helped? Not for Dotter or Hubby. There's been no obvious improvement in things like fatigue or joint pain for them (and they have the most severe illnesses). We have yet to do the challenges (they will start next week, and take a few weeks to complete), but we're not very hopeful. Our doctor did say it can take a full 4 weeks before any improvement is seen, though - that falls on Monday. But I doubt it's going to help, or that they're suddenly going to feel better.

However, very unexpectedly, it has helped me! My fibromyalgia has been much much worse since my surgery, even 7 months out. I've struggled to work, or even write emails, because of the brain fog, I've had almost constant headaches, and so on, pretty solidly for months.

For the past two weeks, my brain fog has pretty much lifted, the constant headaches are gone, and, while I'm not full of energy, I'm certainly better than I was a month ago, and these improvements are lasting. I was thinking maybe I'd just had a virus, but my doctor says that the anaesthetics and heavy duty pain meds post-op have really knocked me around (very common for fibro patients), and the low-chemical diet has given my body a chance to recover from the impact of surgery more quickly. I don't need to be on it long term, probably not beyond the challenges, but it's really nice to be able to sit down to a day's work, and actually achieve stuff.

Dotter made this Pikachu costume for a cosplay day at her uni - pretty cool to have cosplay days, hey? Piiii-kaaaaa!

Don't die of shock - some actual knitting content! I had been warned that Bendigo Luxury would stretch after blocking, so I made the sleeves on my Crossword jumper a bit short ... however, they didn't stretch. The length - or lack thereof - kept bugging me. And the crossword fair isle was getting rather grubby, with pilling.

So I cut them off.

Then I picked up the red stitches, and knit a long long ribbed cuff (40 rows) for each sleeve. They're now long enough to be wrist warmers, up to my knuckles! Great for working in my office and keeping warm. And when I need to do messier stuff, I can just fold the cuffs back. SO much better!

Do opposites attract?

2010-06-23T11:19:00.012+10:00

Poor lovelorn Bobby Ram has been at the bottle ... no wonder I haven't seen him in ages!

Drowning his sorrows clearly isn't getting him anywhere.

So I lent him this book : 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology - Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behaviour by Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio and Beyerstein. This may seem a bit strange, considering that he's a sheep, but I'm sure there are parallels between sheepy and human behaviour.

The important one for Bobby was Myth #27 - Opposite Attract : We Are Most Romantically Attracted to People [or Lambs] Who Differ from Us.

I felt this myth related to his relationship with Lulu - Lulu is crazy, promiscuous, badly behaved, unreliable, and rather wicked ... and Bobby is quite the opposite.

So, are they destined to be together? We know the answer, but it's taking Bobby a while to grasp the reality.

The whole "opposites attract" belief is very widespread. It makes for a great movie plot, but isn't good for real life – research evidence suggests this belief isn't true. Some quotes from the book (pg 137) :

"Indeed, dozens of studies demonstrate that people with similar personality traits are more likely to be attracted to each other than people with dissimilar personality traits."

"The same rule applies to friendships, by the way. We're considerably more likely to hang out with people with similar than dissimilar personality traits."

"Similarity in personality traits isn't merely a good predictor of initial attraction. It's also a good predictor of marital stability and happiness."

"The 'like attracts like' conclusion extends beyond personality to our attitudes and values. The classic work of Donn Byrne and his colleagues demonstrates that the more similar someone's attitudes (for example, political views) are to ours, the more we tend to like that person."

The problem arises when people use the 'opposites attract' rule to guide their choices in partners, as Bobby has clearly done with Lulu ... sure, it's exciting to be around someone so different, but it's not a good decision for long-term relationships.

Bobby seems a bit more relaxed now, I hope that he's found greater peace of mind, and understands that Lulu isn't a good lamb for him.

I strongly recommend this book, it's fascinating to dip into. Here are a few of the other myths covered in the book (NB these statements are all wrong) :

#2 Some people are left-brained, others are right-brained

#6 Playing Mozart's music to infants boosts their intelligence

#12 Hypnosis is useful for retrieving memories of forgotten events

#18 Students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles

#26 A positive attitude can stave off cancer

#29 Men and women communicate in completely different ways

#36 Our handwriting reveals our personality traits

I was surprised by many of these too!

While there are a host of books and web sites about debunking medical myths, this is the first book for the general public about psychology myths. It's also being used as a text book for uni psych students. It's written in an entertaining style, is quite funny in parts and easy to read, and includes all the references to the research papers cited if you want to look further.

So - hopefully Bobby can move on now, and find himself a lamb of similar temperament ... we can only hope!

Finding my Marbles

2010-06-21T10:06:00.004+10:00

Son's glass workshop in the garage is nearly complete now, he has an oxygen tank, propane tank, a new glasswork torch, the kiln, all the safety gear, from metal blinds (less flammable than fabric!) to the fire extinguisher and flashback arrestors on the gas tanks. He's taking it all very seriously, and wants to do this for the rest of his life!

With the oxygen on board, he can now get hotter temperatures, and make bigger things - like art marbles! (To see the sorts of things he's aspiring to make, check out this site - or search on "art marble" for a ton more.) These are hand-crafted, so getting them spherical is quite a trick. He's improving each time! I thought you'd like to see a few (so we can say we knew him before he got famous ;) ...

This is the largest one so far, about as big as a 50¢ piece (Australian).

This is a little one, can you see the swirl of red beneath the glittery stuff, and the 'turbulent' edge of black at the surface? This sort of design is called a 'galaxy' marble.

A chip of dichroic glass sits inside this one, and looks a bit like an opal.

Another swirly galaxy type marble, with a glaze of frit (the reddish stuff).

And his first attempt at a flower marble!

They're rather tricky to photograph, always best seen when held up to the light, and looked at from all angles! But hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea.

In a couple of weeks he's having a full weekend of private tuition with renown glass artist Peter Minson ... this is basically his tertiary education, and he's launching into it with a passion!

Bubbly Windows

2010-06-16T09:29:00.005+10:00

Woo hoo, Blogger has new templates and a gazillion new background images!

Ok, on with the serious stuff ...

As you know, we rent. I often feel frustrated that we can't really make significant 'green living' adaptations to where we live - can't put in solar hot water, or grey water systems, etc.

My office in particular is extremely cold, and my desk is right next to the window (next to the only power point, so moving the desk isn't an easy option).

All winter I have torrents of cold air falling onto my lap and legs - I wrap up in a dressing gown with a blanket on my legs, and a hot water bottle under my feet, but it's still ridiculously cold, and not good for my rather crap legs and joints.

The latest issue of G Magazine (which is great up-beat Aussie magazine) has an article about greening your rental home - and one suggestion was to use bubble wrap to insulate your windows!

I have tons of bubble wrap lying around from being a business, and Son's prolific online shopping addiction ;) So I set to work right away with whatever I could find, and a roll of sticky tape :

I put it on bubble side towards the window, and used the minimum amount of sticky tape on the window frame to hold it on - I'd get a better seal if I used tape around all the edges, no doubt, but I want to minimise the tape residue clean up when I take it all off!

The view from the window needs blocking in any case - a bare fence, weeds, and noisy neighbours. It just nicely blurs things :

While it doesn't stop all the cold air, I must say it's pretty bloody good. First thing in the mornings (even after -4ºC (24ºF) overnight) my office sits at around 17ºC (63ºF) without any extra heating. I haven't needed to swaddle up in my dressing gown yet!

Hippy Update

2010-06-04T14:55:00.009+10:00

My new hip is 6 months old! I saw my surgeon last week, he is delighted with how I'm walking. The joint still hurts a bit now and then, but compared to pre-op, it's a vast improvement. I don't need a walking stick or crutches any more, yay! The scar has healed really well, and the obturator nerve damage is healing too. I've finished my 6 months on Warfarin, no more rat poison yay!

Some movements are still difficult, like putting a sock and shoe on my left foot, but on the whole I've adjusted to the permanent hip restrictions. Let's face it, I'm not that upset about not being allowed to run, jog, jump, or play rough or contact sports (I know, isn't it great to have a legitimate excuse?!).

But. (You knew there was a but, didn't you?)

My surgeon corrected the length of my left leg, which is now 1 cm longer, and closer to 'normal', and straightened my leg (which had been surgically rotated outwards by 30º when I was a kid). You'd think my pelvis would be glad of this change but nooooooooo, it's grumbling all the time, ungrateful wretch.

I've got all sorts of aches and pains from this - iliopsoas bursitis, all sorts of stretched nerve problems, coccydynia (ie sore bum when I sit or move from sitting to standing), sore lower back when lying on my tummy, a torn calf muscle, and so on ad nauseam. My fibromyalgia has been flared up since surgery too, which is an exhausting pain in many ways than one.

This week I've developed searing aches, pains and intense muscle cramps down both legs. Woo hooo. My GP was concerned it could have been DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis), especially as I got a pulmonary embolism post-op, and am at a higher risk of developing blood clots now. So yesterday I tottered off for a lengthy and OMG expensive ultrasound of my legs. The good news is they're all nice healthy veins, no sign of clots. The bad news is, I still have terrible pain!

I had a quick chat with my physio today, and he thinks it's "neural tension", I guess my nerves are being constricted or pressed on somehow or other. I'm seeing him next week. He's told me to do lots of 'trigger point' releasing with the Ball of Pain (tennis ball). Celebrex does help a lot, thankfully, so something inflammatory is going on at some level.

My sports physician and physio both say it'll take at least a year for my body to adjust to the new state of affairs, so I'm halfway through ... it'll be a novel experience to have my hips, pelvis and legs working better. It's a bit disappointing that the surgery didn't suddenly fix everything, but that was probably a naïve expectation!

Miss Petal is finding this cold weather rather - well - COLD! She loves to snooze in this sleeping bag ...

Failsafe fun

2010-06-01T19:48:00.008+10:00

We've just started an experiment ... a month of the Failsafe Diet. Dotter's doctor suggested it, as Dotter has oral allergies to all fruits and many vegetables, which are also high in salicylates.

Failsafe stands for Free of Additives, Low in Salicylates, Amines and Flavour Enhancers. Sue Dengate coined the term, for the low-chemical, low-reactive exclusion diet developed by the Allergy Unit at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

There's increasing scientific evidence that this diet is very helpful for some people, so despite my usual scepticism, I'm willing to give it a try; it's often recommended for kids with ADHD, and in fact I gave it a (half-hearted) try about 12 years ago when Dotter was first diagnosed. We're trying it this time for some long-term treatment-resistant health problems - Hubby and I are doing it as well - it's such a bother to do, we may as well all go through it together.

So, what does this entail? (Go here if you want to see the full description).

It's easier if I just list what we can eat :

Pears - ripe, peeled, or tinned in syrup (not juice) - this is the only fruit allowed

Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, bamboo shoots, shallots, celery, leeks, chives, iceberg lettuce, white potatoes, swedes, green beans (limited amounts) - no tomatoes, people, no tomatoes!

Fresh meats (not cured or smoked), eggs, fresh chicken, freshly caught fish, most dairy. Bread (if preservative and vinegar free). Legumes, grains, rice (not Basmati or Jasmine), pasta, cous cous etc, but no corn products. White sugar, soft brown sugar, golden syrup, maple syrup. Cashews, rice bubbles, oatmeal, WeetBix.

Citric acid, garlic (limited), salt, poppy seeds, saffron, garlic salt, parsley (limited). Sunflower or canola oil (no olive oil).

Decaf coffee. Water. Milk.

No peppermint, so no toothpaste (we're using salt instead), and I've got Dotter low-allergenic shampoo, conditioner, shower wash, skin cream, and deodorant, and we'll use "sensitive" clothes detergent for a month too (as salicylates can be absorbed through the skin).

That's it folks! No herbs, spices, vinegar, tea, chocolate, not even pepper. This is my new 'spice' cupboard (a bit less than the 20+ spices and herbs I normally use!) :

There's a lot of cooking to do, as I need to make tons of things from scratch. Mayonnaise, hummus, pear jam, cashew butter, "magic lemon cordial" (sugar syrup with citric acid), chickpea snacks, and so on, in addition to dinners. I'm getting a lot of use from my food processor, and needing to cook several times a day to keep stocks up.

One of the big things to avoid in bread is preservative 282, it's not possible to find commerical English Muffins without out (well, I haven't found any yet!). So I made some!

It's a simple bread dough, made with milk. The dough rises once, and is then rolled out and rounds are cut out. The only adjustment I made to the recipe was to substitute the cornmeal coating with bran.

After a second rising, sitting on baking paper with bran, they're cooked - in a fry pan! I had no idea English Muffins were fried ... just in a little oil, on low heat for about 7-8 minutes each side.

And yes - toasted with butter - they taste bloody wonderful!

We won't know if this is helping us health-wise for a good 3 or 4 weeks - then we can do the amine challenge, and then the salicylate challenge, and so on. If it does make a difference, it will be totally worth it, even if it means continuing the diet long term. I do feel rather wistful about my seven new cookbooks, though, now sitting abandoned on the bookshelf ...

Glass Safari

2010-05-10T16:27:00.003+10:00

Mother's Day was pretty quiet here – but I was long overdue a rest day. Hubby made me brekkie in bed (tea and toast), and I was able to read in bed *all morning*. He also cooked dinner (risotto) and Son made a Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding for dessert (nom nom nom!).

I have very cool kids.

Son gave me this necklace. Yes, he made it, including all the beads! Very special ...

And Dotter knows me so well - this is the Food Safari cookbook, which has a fantastic selection of recipes from 34 countries. I can't wait to give them a whirl! I've eaten the Jewish Orange & Almond Cake (courtesy of Bells) and it was utterly divine ...

Young Bobby Ram has been moping around the house - only change he's made so far is to experiment with a nose ring. Young Flopsy Mopsy Lamby has been bugging him, as only a little child can ... she may present enough of an annoyance to get him to go out and socialise.

Little lost ram

2010-05-06T13:33:00.007+10:00

Look what's just arrived on my doorstep - a decent sized surprise box from Roxie! It's full of delightful 10-12 ply cotton (thicker cotton is hard to come by in Aussieland) - perfect for a multitude of hand towels and suchlike! Plus books 2 and 3 in the Sanna series (written by the very clever Ms Roxie herself) - signed no less - a real treat! (Sanna and the Dragons, and Sanna meets Dauntless Swiftsure)

But - wait - what's this? Lurking in a corner, looking a little peaky from his long trip in the airless cargo hold and bumpy postie's van ... OMG, it's young Bobby Ram!

What's going on?! Why did he desert his loving family? I checked out Roxie's blog, and discovered the story :

... I got a call from the Transcendent Peace Potter's Commune and Herb Farm. They had just received a letter from Bobby. I thought he had gone home to them. The letter read, "Lulu has brok my heart and left. She mad a ful ov me in front ov my frends an famly and I cannt stand to see them laffing at me or wurse, feeling sory for me. So I am going away. Mabe someone will bucher me for mutton. I donnt care. I love you all. Bobby"

Well, at least we've found him now! Hopefully we can show him a good time, save him from the butchers, and find him a sweet gentle young lamb to help heal his broken heart. Lulu was always going to create havoc, she really isn't a lamb to have a quiet life with ... !

And yes, I frogged the Kai-Mei socks. The yarn is marinating in my stash, while I wait for my sock-knitting enthusiasm to return. Thank you everyone for your thoughtful, interesting, and supportive comments on the whole problem!

Unbearable

2010-04-30T13:36:00.008+10:00

See these socks? Aren't the gorgeous? Made with Knittery merino + cashmere yarn, which was a birthday gift from my friend KM. The pattern is Kai-Mei by Cookie A, with a gorgeous lace panel angled from the ankle to the toe across each foot - there's a left and a right sock. I'm a slow sock knitter, I started these in December, finished them last week. Triumph!

They're too big.

Really, they are. They fit on my feet well (I did check after the first one was finished!), but when I put them on with shoes, the ribbed sections flop around my ankles, and the socks twist around my feet as I walk.

Mumble mumble mumble, I finally checked my gauge, shaddaup so wot if it was wrong, you're not the boss of me!

F%$#!

I don't want to give them away as the yarn is special and gorgeous (and no longer being made).

I don't want to unravel them because of ALL THAT WORK. The whole lace thing, and everything.

I'm going to have to unravel them, aren't I?

Don't mind me while I go and weep into my cup of tea ...

Crossword Jumper

2010-04-20T18:19:00.005+10:00

Lots of crosswords in this post!

I'm working as a Technical Editor again on a new Wiley book. I've got 150 crosswords to edit, which means fact checking all the clues, making suggestions / corrections, assessing their difficulty level, and checking the page proofs. The job will take a couple of months.

For each puzzle I print out the clue list and the answer grid, and then read each clue, and check its answer. If the answer is obviously correct or simple, I cross off the clue number. If there's something that has to be fact checked (eg the title of a movie, the date of some event, an actor's name etc) I circle the clue number. I also circle clues which have unusual words as answers, especially since these puzzles are supposed to be easy.

Then I hit the computer - by using my Oxford Dictionary (US version), Google, Wikipedia, IMDb, online encyclopaedias, and many other web sites, I can generally quickly verify each circled clue, or correct them if needs be.

I use the clue database on Cruciverb.com too, an invaluable resource when editing American crosswords. The yellow highlighter shows clues that I've made editing notes on. After checking all the clues on one puzzle, I edit the Word document adding my notes and corrections to the clues, and then send it back to the Project Editor at Wiley.

Unfortunately, there isn't the time to solve each puzzle from scratch, filling in the grid clue by clue (which would be more fun!). I have to work fast; each puzzle takes around an hour to edit, so it's still a lot of work.

And some more crosswords - this is a Crossword Jumper design I've been planning in my head for around a year now - a deep red jumper with crossword edging. (The Ravelry link has full pattern notes.)

I ordered a bunch of Bendigo Luxury 8 ply in Brick, Black and Cream, and made a start on 28 March! I'm using the rough "design your own" guidelines from Custom Knits to help.

In 3 weeks I've got this far (which is a bit of a speed record for me!), and am so happy with how it's turning out. I've added short row shaping in the bust, and waist shaping. The crossword grid is a British style grid of my own design.

There was a fair bit of unravelling and trials for the lower edges - the stranded knitting sections were curling up quite badly. The solution was adding hems in black behind each crossword grid section - a few rows of black, 1 row of purl (which creates an easy 'fold line') and then a change to slightly smaller needles. Then I knit however many rows it took to completely cover the back of the stranded knitting section. Then the hem is stitched into place. So they're double fabric in those parts, very stable and warm!

I reckon I'd better Scotchguard the grids to protect my knitting from people writing words into the grids, LOL ;)

Lulu's Travels

2010-04-15T11:33:00.009+10:00

Ms Lulu Naughty Lamb is in America, having a great time, toying with the affections of various young impressionable rams, visiting people, stealing wine, and generally creating havoc ...

If you'd like her to visit YOU (if you're in Canada / USA), let me know! Roxie is sorting out her itinerary at the moment, and Lulu's passport is ready for your 'journal entries' :)

Here are the highlights of her current American tour :

And some of her notorious past exploits ...

Mr Bumpy

2010-04-12T16:54:00.010+10:00

Man, how did it get to be nearly three weeks since I posted? I've been steadily busy, both with work and social stuff, but also generally feeling unwell, a combination of a fibromyalgia flare up with a virus. Lots of headaches, extra fatigue, ache and pains, and so on. All rather boring, just makes daily life that much harder to get through.

Anyway. I realised I hadn't introduced our newest family member to you ... so - drum roll please ... introducing my first ever real robot - Mr Bumpy!

Mr Bumpy is a Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner. He is *WONDERFUL*.

Hubby bought him as a pre-surgery gift for me, as I'm not allowed to do heavy cleaning like vacuuming. Besides, who wants to anyway?

Mr Bumpy trundles around the floor, bumping into things (hence his very clever name, LOL, which is also a reference to the main character in this show), whisking the edges of everything with his little white flickery brushes (photo below, lower left, with the yellow centre) and sucking up debris!

His path is very random, but he gets all areas covered in the end. He's about 35 cm across and 8 cm high, and can scoot under most furniture. He can untangle himself from electric cables too.

It takes Mr Bumpy about 20 minutes to do the living room. He comes with an 'invisible wall' unit which projects a beam which he won't cross - so you place it wherever you need to restrict the area he goes into, especially handy if there isn't a door in that section of the house.

This is the dust compartment, which is quite small. There's also a fine filter section. So there is a certain amount of regular maintenance to be done, emptying the spoils of Mr Bumpy's journeys, and cleaning the brushes and rollers.

When he gets tired (low on power), he goes automatically back to his dock station and recharges.

This model isn't the latest available in the States (Australia lagging behind as usual), which can be scheduled and have remote controls and so on, but we're very happy with our Mr Bumpy regardless. Being able to push one button ("Clean") and have him go off to work, is a delight still, even after several months.

One time he bumped into a table which caused a coaster to drop on top of him, and he trundled around happily for ages with the coaster in place - I think he was hoping for a cup of tea!

While we still need a regular vacuum cleaner for things like major messes (broken glass etc) and cleaning upholstery, Mr Bumpy does a great job for regular cleaning of all floors (carpet and tile), even along the skirting boards. He's quieter than a regular vacuum cleaner, even Miss Petal isn't scared of him. And we don't have to vacuum (practically ever) any more! Bliss!

Luxury Tweed

2010-03-26T17:02:00.003+11:00

Can I just say ... it's a good day when two packages full of yarn arrive at once!

Rowan Silky Tweed, from South Seas Knitting, courtesy of a gift voucher from a bunch of lovely friends, which they gave me after my hip surgery, and I'm finally well enough to enjoy. Destined to be a jumper or cardigan, pattern not decided yet!

And Bendigo Luxury (8 ply) for the crossword-trimmed jumper I've been designing in my head for over a year now. Yum.

That's my winter knitting sorted for the year!

Cool glass

2010-03-23T16:45:00.006+11:00

Son has finally found something he loves ... glasswork! He's been doing a lampworking class at the Canberra Glassworks this month (4 x 3 hour sessions), and is excelling. He's the youngest student in the class (middle aged women are the norm!), is very adept and a quick learner.

These are what he made on his first lesson :

His teacher said he was doing advanced level beads by the second class (that's these ones) :

His goal is to learn to make (and sell) glass body jewellery, like the stuff here. There is currently no-one in Australia making this sort of body jewellery, and there's definitely a market! He and Dotter have to buy all their glass jewellery from the States. So we're not talking 'pretty beads' here, but glass jewellery for people who are into body modification (as both my kids are). Labrets, plugs, pinchers, twists, and so on.

The next step is further training with this guy (about 120 km from us), and the purchase of the equipment (small kiln, blow torch, mandrels, glass sticks, safety gear, and so on).

He has the requisite balance of artistic and design talent, with handicraft skills, connections to the body art & modification online community, and obsessive interest (one of the occasional pluses of Asperger's).

This is the most positive development for Son in years. Here's hoping he can gradually reach his goals! Considering that he's been unemployed with practically no goals for the past 3 years, this is a big step forward, even if there's only slow progress from here (there have been a lot of disappointments and false starts in the past few years, so I'm trying to be realistic). I'm very proud of him. And relieved. Yup, definitely relief in there too.

And here's your Miss Petal photo for the day. She turned 1 on 14 March, and this is her birthday jumper (Rav link to the pattern).

Nanna's Relish

2010-03-19T21:43:00.009+11:00

I have a sprawling, single, tomato plant (that was all I got planted before my surgery) - it's a low-acid orange tomato, and the bush has taken over half the vegie patch! There have been kilos of tomatoes, and the inevitable need for tomato chutney!

I haven't made this recipe before - but it's been in the family for a very long time. It's my grandmother's recipe, and my absolute favourite. It brings back many memories! The name 'Nariel' is from my great-grandfather's property. It has a great spicy flavour - from curry and mustard - and is wonderful with cold meats, cheese sandwiches, and many other things!

Nanna Jean's 'Nariel' Tomato Relish

• 2.5 kg ripe tomatoes - skinned (oops, I missed that bit!).

Chop the tomatoes, put in a large bowl and sprinkle liberally with salt. Cover, stand overnight.

• 1 kg onions - sliced.

Place in a bowl, sprinkle liberally with salt. Cover, stand overnight.

The next day, drain off the liquid from both tomatoes and onions. Combine them in a large pan, press down, and just cover with best quality vinegar (I used cider vinegar). Bring to the boil.

Add 750g sugar.

Next, make the spice paste!

• 3 Tbspn mustard powder

• 2 Tbspn curry powder

• 1/2 handful of salt (a fairly random measurement!)

• 1 large cup plain flour

• More cider vinegar (~ 1/2 cup)

Gradually mix the dry ingredients with the extra vinegar to make a paste.

Add the spice flour paste to the saucepan, mix well. Simmer together for 2 hours, stirring occasionally to avoid the mixture sticking to the base.

Bottle in hot jars, seal while hot.

I found it took a lot longer than 2 hours to cook to a reasonable thickness. You can thicken it further by mixing in either a mixture of flour and vinegar, or cornstarch and water.

If you're using a gas stove, use a heat diffuser to keep the heat as minimal as possible.

Enjoy!

Friends from far and wide

2010-03-08T12:12:00.010+11:00

Saturday was a very exciting day at our place. Janette and Roxie (and their lovely better halves) came to visit! Janette from Sydney, and Roxie all the way from Oregon USA!! Look - proof!

It was a real treat to meet a blog friend from so far far away - and to see Janette again too! All this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for our blogs - isn't that a funny thought!

Ms Lulu was very excited. She got a new dress, and (in true form) stole a bracelet and earrings from my jewellery box to wear for the occasion.

I didn't realise why she was so excited, until our guests arrived ... Bobby and Bucky Merino had hitched a ride with Roxie! I gather Bobby and Lulu have had some correspondence before they met, too. No wonder she kept scampering out of my office at odd hours ...

The boys brought her gifts - a tinsel boa, and a bellydancing belt!

Us humans received some lovely gifts as well, cheerful Hawaiian pineapple set of kitchen linen (tea towel, oven mitts, coasters ...), beautiful flowers, some gourmet olive oil, and this very special sparkling wine from Oregon (called Argyle, perfect for a knitter, no?). Hubby and I will enjoy this next weekend, for our 25th wedding anniversary!

Lulu lapped up the attention. Bucky and Bobby were her new best friends! They hatched a plan while we were having dinner ...

... for which I made a Thai meal - Beef Massaman Curry, Chicken with Basil, Tangy Salad, Jasmine Rice, with Ginger Citrus Bananas and Coconut Custard to finish. Complete with chilli flower and shallot curl garnishes and everything! Yum.

Miss Petal wasn't to be outdone by any silly lambs. She charmed everyone with her sweet cuteness (even if Bobby and Bucky did get a bit jealous), and had constant cuddles. She even hopped into Roxie's handbag hoping to effect an escape! However, Lulu was the successful one there ... she snuck away with Bobby and Bucky, to see the world!

So for my knit blogger friends in North America, if you're interested in having Ms Lulu come to visit, drop me an e-mail and we can arrange her itinerary :)

(Photo courtesy of Roxie's blog)

Oooh pretty little bee

2010-02-26T22:17:00.006+11:00

Having a bit of fun playing around with the gorgeous templates from The Cutest Blog on the Block ... still the same blog, just a new look!

Firstly, thank you everyone who wrote such lovely and thoughtful comments about Uncle Paul. He was a very special person, and I wish I'd had more time with him.

Miss Petal gave us all a scare earlier this week - she got too friendly with a bee! Her poor little face got all swollen, and I rushed her to the vet for injections of anti-histamine and cortisone. On the advice of Petal's breeder, and many other chi owners, I now have Bendryl (with anti-histamine) in the cupboard for first aid. Her throat had the worst swelling, so I wonder whether she actually ate the ill-fated bee! The vet couldn't find any sign of the stinger.

Around 11.30pm the injections must have worn off, as she then developed raised reddish welts on her legs and around her mouth. Thankfully they disappeared within an hour or two, but we had an unsettled night, checking her to make sure all was well.

And it was - she's bright and active again, and hopefully has learnt her lesson about being friends with insects! As Viv, her breeder, says, chihuahuas are 'treacle beaks', always sticking their noses into something!

Proof that chihuahuas hunt in (back)packs :)