Belinda’s Blog

Wow, it’s the last day of Summer already and tomorrow it is March! How fast is this year going???

I’m a big fan of Summer but when going to work and spending a lot of time outdoors, I’m quite happy to see the end of the heat and look forward to some milder days and Autumn clothing. Sad what i get excited over, really

Steven’s Dad had his PET scan today. Results will be known by the end of the week. Steven booked flights last weekend to fly up to spend time with his parents next weekend. He will get there around 2PM on Friday & jet in again just in time for work on Monday. I hope he has lots of quality time  w/ his family and that they don’t just sit around acting all morbid. Despite what they must all be feeling, they sure as hell could do with some fun I am sure, so I hope that they fit in some of that I will really miss him, but it’s something he needs to do and I don’t begrudge that one moment. I will no doubt find ways of wiling away the hours!

Work has been good so far this week. We are really in the swing of things now. Tomorrow is our school swimming carnival. I will be smothering myself from head to toe in sunscreen and hoping it doesn’t let me down! I still wear the scars of someone who was badly burnt last Friday (!). I no longer feel sore, but it’s still extremely red/pink and the continuing comments on the matter are somewhat embarrassing!!! Hopefully tomorrow will not be a repeat of the cricket outing in regards to sun exposure

As part of my role as cricket coach at school, yesterday was one of the days that we hopped on a bus and headed to a sporting complex, where we would play 3 matches against other schools.

I went along, armed with hat, lots of water and already covered in sunscreen (with more in my bag when needed).

However, the fields we went to were awful in terms of shelter. There was basically NONE! though we had been told there were trees (ahem, they were on the outer perimeter of the complex and nowhere near where we would be!).

It was SO awful sitting out in the heat supervising and scoring their matches.

But as I found out later:

a) sunscreen isn’t as effective as you think when you are in ZERO shelter, and

b) I had missed a few spots of skin by accident, which I’m now paying for dearly!

The suncreened areas are mostly brown but I have some redness around where my shirt sleeves started. But the areas that I missed where where my 3/4 jeans ended. My legs were out front of me with the scoring book on my lap, so I have a fairly significant patch on the front of each leg, which is just bright red/pink and walking at the moment is fairly uncomfortable. It’s sure going to make my leg wax today interesting (and painful methinks?!*).

Next time at that ground, we are definitely going to take the sunshades (which we were told we would not need. Grrr).

In the meantime, moisturiser is my best friend 

Steven’s Dad saw the surgeon on Thurs, so we now know a bit more about how this is dealt with.

Prior to surgery, he must have a PET scan done. This is a total body scan to see if there is cancer anywhere else in his body.

If there are cancers in other places, he will not be put through the surgery and he will immediately start chemo & radation therapy. We are hoping this will not happen.

If there are no other cancer sites, he will have surgery in the next few weeks. This surgery is a major, 6 hr operation, in which 9cm of his oesophagus will be removed. Then, due to it being too short, the stomach is moved to a higher position (stitched in place somehow/somewhere) and some of it removed, to fit into its new spot. He will require 14 days hospitalisation and will take around 6 months to fully recover from it and feel himself again. There is, like any major operation, the chance that he will not make it through the surgery. However, should he make it through, he will be considered “cured” (ie not in remission).

While the operation is daunting and the recovery probably not too pleasant, we are of course hoping that this is what the course of action will be, so that he will be cured. Nevertheless, it is a worry on all our minds at this time. Steven is hoping to go and visit him prior to the surgery to spend some time with him and give him lots of hugs from us. Please hope that all goes well.

“Your Dad has cancer”.

We found out today that Steven’s Dad has oesophagus cancer. At this stage we don’t know how advanced it is, but they had diagnosed him with Barrett’s oesphagus and apparently cancer is not uncommon with this. So they tested him and the results came back positive.

Apparently they will have some test results back tonight (blood results, CAT scan etc) and then Thursday he wil have surgery, which will determine the severity and whether they can just remove it , or whether it’s bad and will require chemo etc.

Fingers crossed. He’s never been a well guy though so this is a concern and so not expected.

The start of yet another week. Each week seems to come around faster & get more packed than the week before!

Headed back to work today after a few sick days & I just feel like I have a mountain of stuff to do. Our off-class timetable got changed again too, so I feel a bit all over the place. Won’t take long and I’ll adjust to this final timetabling for the year 

I’ve also been enticed to work with a sport team as they managed 1 team more than planned and they needed an extra teacher. Given that I understand and enjoy cricket it will be fun to take a group of kids away to play for our school

Still feeling a bit sick and work tired me out today but a few early nights til I’m right back on track, and things will be fine.

And today heralded the beginning of trying the eating plan again. I was way too all over the place in January so it’s worth another shot now. I just feel gross being anything bigger than  a 10-12 and I LOVE my winter 10-12 clothes, so that is a huge motivating factor.

Feeling a bit hungry tonight but it won’t take long to adjust to it again.

Well I”m off to make dinner and then a bit of work before a nice early night!

Have had a fairly low key weekend. I woke with a headache right behind my left eye yesterday. I skipped my bikini wax in favour of a head massage at the beautician, and it helped momentarily but still persisted. We checked out some bathroom stuff and had dinner at my parents but with some rests in between b/c of my head.

Today just taking it easy, other than some necessary housework.

Friday, I made contact with my MIL after 2 weeks of no contact. I am still upset by his family’s actions and various other things, but I don’t wish for Steven to be in the middle of a feud, so I did what was best. I just plan on not discussing certain subjects and keeping a lot of things that I would have once shared, private. Hey, at least I’m keeping the peace right? 

I’m just trying to really focus on the positive things right now, because I’ve found it so easy to concentrate on the negative and lose sight of what makes me happy. It’s difficult because I’m still grieving, but it’s worth a shot. I’m a planner by nature and I need lots of things on the go to keep me happy. we’ll see how that goes!

Steven’s birthday is on Wednesday. He says he doesn’t want to be 31    How cute is that?

He prob won’t get his present from me on Wednesday for various reasons. It’s a bit complicated, but it will happen. He’s just such a great hubby that I wish I could spoil him with lavish gifts. But we’re trying to show restraint when it comes to spending at the moment; the more frugal we are, the sooner we get our bathroom. and god knows, we want that bathroom! 

Gotta go do a bit of schoolwork and then if the weather is still OK, I’d love to take the dogs for a run on the beach!

Happy Sunday!

Remember a little while ago, I hit Colorado, voucher firmly in my hot little hand? I got those lovely shoes?

Well this is the rest of what I purchased…finally found the image for it. The pic doesn’t do it justice – it’s gorgeous!

OK this past week we have been really starting to think about bathroom ’stuff’, since we are prob about 2 mths off doing our renovation. It was time to start thinking style, colours and layout.

So far, this is what we’ve come up with.

*We want a bathroom that has clean lines

*We want a bathroom that is bright

*We want a bathroom with minimalist look and feel

As a result, we’re going to go with mainly white. I want checkerboard type tiling on floors, walls will be partially tiled. As for the painted areas, not sure. Maybe a splash of colour.

To save space, we are want a combination spa bath and shower in one. A glass pivot door on the shower area over a rectangular spa bath. Chrome tapware, handheld shower head with massage options etc.
Also we’ve tossed out the idea of a vanity unit and we just want a nice simple basin. Vanities take up space and usually get filled with clutter. Either a pedestal basin like this:

or a wall hung basin like this:

Aside from that, a 3 draw mobile trolley for storage (if I cant find a pic of it online I willscan later from catalog), and adding a toilet into the room with all that saved floorspace. Aso there is a cabinet that I want that will kinda act as a low ‘wall’ to separate the toilet from the rest of the room and provide further storage. I love this cabinet – again I will scan if I can’t find the company online.

Going to go looking tomorrow some more to check out prices of the things we want. Should be able to get what we are after for 6K or slightly less.

Bad -  I woke up feeling really bad this morning. Sneezing, watery eyes, achy.  I had to call in sick again and I’ve spent most of the day on the lounge sleeping and sweating and sneezing.  Feeling sick has also left me feeling very emotional and so I’m feeling somewhat down about life. Hopefully tomorrow I will be well enough to go to work and the social thing our stage has organised at a teacher’s house tomorrow night! *cross fingers*
Good -  my nails are long enough now to wear dark polish!  Anyone who knows me well knows I almost always have long square nails, always with polish (usually dark shades of brown). When pregnant my nails went to crap…they grew so fast they got weak. So I’d  had them short for a while until they got their strength back , then started growing them longer again. I don’t usually polish myself between manicures but i saw they were long enough to have a fave dark brown polish, so here I sit with my nails painted in colours I like again! yay!  Gotta be grateful for the little things, right?