More embarrassment...

Today the very nice doctor from the Red Cross rang to check on me. Not just me but all the donors who swooned to the point of unconsciousness. After a nice chat we came to the conclusion that I shouldn't donate anymore.

My bruises are healing but my bruised pride is still smarting.

My credibility as the Transfusion nurse for the Health Service is shot.

Embarrassing...

Did some laps at the pool this morning, managed to avoid the man who doesn't like to share.

Had some nice sushi before I went to the blood bank.

Gave a unit of blood.

Fainted in the refreshment area.

Feeling very foolish right now, but it was a good way to get attention. People were fanning me, checking my BP and showing concern. It took me a while to feel right again, but once I did feel OK they made me wait longer and didn't want me to drive home. The staff intimated that perhaps I shouldn't rush back. My bad veins and swan diving just creates a lot of paperwork.

I must have bumped my head on the way south as I have a tender lump on my forehead to show for my altruistic efforts.

But don't let that put you off donating, just don't get up too quick.

Handy...

I found a very handy thing.

 Its a belt with a stretchy lyra pouch called a SPIbelt. I found it at a Rebel Sport store when I had stopped looking for such a thing. I should have gone straight to the trusty internet to tell me, it was just that I didn't know what it was I was looking for.

Mine is pink, just like this one

Now no more keys down the bra or down the trouser leg.

No more fiddling with the iPod.

Just running.

The only thing I have to worry about is puddles and mud and dog poo.

Done...

my puzzle is done.

my working week is done.

I'd like other things to be done but will have to wait.

I enjoyed doing the jigsaw, I haven't done one for a while and while it wasn't the hardest one to do, I liked chipping away at it for a few nights. It is already packed away to be done ? in the future. How often do you do puzzles, do they ever get done more than once?

Puzzled...

Busy doing a jigsaw puzzle, see you in a few days.

I gotta feeling...

I like this song from The Black Eyed Peas and will have to put it on my running track, when I work out how. I have no helpful children at home at the moment so it will have to wait. I am yet to master the iStore.

We managed to survive the day the world is ending very nicely thanks.

I was able to get washing done & dried in the balmy warm wind.

I made a coffee cake and a delicious lasagna.

I had a cappucino with Hayley at a local cafe while Erin was at rehearsals for Beauty  & the Beast.

I finished my latest Jodi Picoult book 'The Pact' and am looking forward to the next one. I discovered a couple of avid Picoult readers at work and between us we have lots of her titles, a mini lending library has begun.

It was a nice way to spend the last day, not very exciting but satisfying.

I'm off to enjoy a cup of tea with my coffee cake!

If the shoe fits...

New shoes are all the go around here

My new boots

Chris' new boots

to replace these




I thought only women bought shoes that were too small and then persisted for ages to wear them

 















Callum finally got some new shoes too


the old ones were falling apart and I've been nagging him for ages to come shopping for new ones. He found these quickly, got the size 10's on and they weren't super expensive.




Hayley came home with these

She got her apprenticeship top up payment and went straight out and bought some new shoes!







And Erin has her eye on these for her birthday

Callum was the only one who actually needed shoes but new footwear can make you feel pretty good.

Oops...

When you don't get a tea break & have to eat your lunch on the run sometimes you get to finish a bit early to make up for it.

Actually finishing early means I get to get in a whole run before it gets dark. And running after a busy shift clears your head. So I headed down to the track this afternoon.

Now my car key is similar to this little black device. Because I drive down to the track I need to carry my key when I run. I don't have a pocket in my pants or top so I need to carry the key.

Tonight I thought I would tuck the key into my waistband but of course when I started off the key disappeared down my skinny running pants.

I'd had the whole track to myself until that moment, I looked around to see if any one would see me fishing around down my pants and sure enough a man with a dog came running up behind me. I did a little kick & wiggle and retrieved it from the sock end and set off again. I felt like such a goose.

In the swim...

I went for a swim this morning instead of a run. I'm trying to get back into the swing of running every second day as I was before the Mother's Day 4km. With bad weather & a busy schedule since that sunday I have been a bit haphazard about the whole exercise thing.

So trying to get back into a routine I headed up to the indoor pool.When I got to the lap lanes I saw that the 6 lanes each had one swimmer and there were no signs for a slow, medium or fast lanes. So I summed up the abilities of the 6 swimmers and picked one that looked about my pace.

So far so good. I started swimming and noticed the man in my lane was in fact swimming at about the same speed as me. We each had a pause at opposite ends of the lane and at no time were we crashing into each other or being held up. But he surprised me by asking me to 'stick to the right side of the lane and he would stick to the left because he had to keep looking out for me and was worried he was going to crash into me.'

Huh?

If we are going down each side of the lane might we not have to pass each other at some point?

Did he have his eyes shut inside his googles?

Now maybe I don't know the etiquette of lane sharing in Melton, but in the past it was always stick to the left and pick a different lane if you were faster than the others.  I've swum at some really busy pools and I vividly remember the washing machine like turbulence at the Harold Holt pool one morning after a night duty. This particular morning I swam up behind a one legged man and nearly got kicked in the face!

This morning I looked around the lanes and a kind woman told me to come over to her lane as she was nearly finished. That was all good until they closed the lane for the aerobics class. The crazy man had gone by then & I swam a few more laps.

I'm not going to let this incident deter me from swimming again but I will be careful in picking my lane!

CITY!!!...

The Mancester City fan in our house is a bit tired today but very happy.

The Sky Blues won the FA cup, beating Stoke City 1-0.

We don't mention the 'other' Manchester team from the Premier league in this household, the one that most people know of...you know the 'United' team. According to the Mitchells, Man U is not the team, they are not a real Manchester team.

Manchester City fans have waited 35 years for this trophy, they have been relegated down 2 divisions and fought their way back and blah blah blah. I'm just glad they won so I don't have to listen anymore.

A centenary...

Erin & I braved the cold weather, rugged up in coats, scarves and hats, to watch a parade last night.

Our branch of the CFA celebrated their 100 years of operation by having a torch light parade. Thirty local brigades from Ararat to Yarambat paraded from Maddingly Park and down the Main Street with Bacchus Marsh leading the show. They marched in uniform accompanied by pipe marching bands. Fire trucks from all eras were also part of the procession. It was quite the spectacle. I thought the torches would be the battery operated kind but they were small kerosene lamps that the marchers held away from their bodies on a long stick.

this 50 seconds of video is from a torchlight parade in Mildura earlier this year but shows exactly what it is like

There were lots of local people cheering them on and I was very proud and glad we had gone down to watch.

Bacchus Marsh is a funny town in that you have to be third generation born, died, worked  & volunteered here to be able to call yourself a 'local'. I don't agree. I feel like a local. I live, work, raise my family and participate in all things local I know lots of the history of the town and have local pride so I classify myself as a Bacchus Marshian.

Cookies...

I had a little nervy turn just now. I was unable to open my blog. I tried restarting the computer and I tried  the laptop. Still nada. Only a code instead of the blog.

With a little panic in my voice I asked my computer tech hubbie to HELP!

He had to clear my cookies.

And now it is working (obviously as I am back to posting)

Not sure if this has anything to do with my Masterchef or banana references yesterday but I always thought cookies were good things but like in life, too much of a good thing, or in this case too many cookies in your cache, is not a good thing.

Ironically if it's not just me you won't know either that it's the cookies fault, unless you have a resident tech.

Good luck with that!

Not Masterchef...

Some recent ups and downs in the kitchen have proven that my knockbacks from Masterchef were prudent.

I whipped up a beef and choy sum stir fry tonight, perfect if you need a quick tasty dinner. It is an all round family pleaser but I also made a chicken & sweet potato cous cous dish. The morocan seasoning on the roasted vegetables and chicken was really nice but the cous cous was a disaster.

Oh well, I'll keep trying.

It has been absolutely freezing here and wet. We've had to get out our scarves and coats already. It has put a dampner on my running too. Erin was very pleased though that the school cross country event was cancelled this afternoon. In this non tropical weather I had a hankering for a ...banana. So I splurged and bought 3 which cost $7.50, very extravagant. I really missed them since the cyclone devastated the crops in Qld and decided to treat myself.

Bananas and snow...seems fitting today.

Post Mother's Day...

I have a huge basket of ironing to do

I am thinking of doing another run

Erin is growing up to be a beautiful young woman

My mother's day...

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

I have had a very good Mother's Day!

It started out very early, no sleep in or breakfast in bed for me. Hayley and I were off early on the 7:02 train into the city to join 1000's of others in the Mother's Day Classic.

The forecast was for a cool, showery day. Thankfully the rain held off til the afternoon.

I was all smiles before the race

 and very red in the face by the end. I didn't run all the way, but my catch a breath walking was still pretty quick. There were all sorts in the race... small children, older than me people, much fitter and quicker than me people, toddlers in jogging strollers and mercifully for my ego some who who older and slower than me.

 I was pretty happy to be at the end but was thinking how will I ever find Hayley amongst the throng at the finish line. She had been waiting to take these pictures and then raced up to me and caught my attention by yelling out 'Mum'.

She said to me with a tear in her eye that she was really proud of me, and I was really appreciative of her company and support. I was pretty proud of me too.

We collected my showbag, had a coffee and caught the train home to have a hot shower.

This afternoon I thought I would check the results page and I was surprised to see they had been very efficient in putting it up already

I came 3959th out of 5347!

It gets better...I came 2858 for gender and 675th in my age division (you have to have some credit for aging) with a PB of 29:56:2 minutes. I was pretty happy with that number and maybe could improve on it without having to dodge and weave around the course. Some finished in 11-15 minutes and perhaps I could go a bit quicker without hills and obstacles. We'll see next time (if there is a next time)

Later, after lunch, Callum came in on his motorbike and pulled out of his bag this bunch of flowers, they had survived both remarkably well, Thanks Cal

It has been a great day and I will be scrapping a layout to remember it all by soon.

Today...

I took my dear friend to her radiotherapy appointment. She is finding working and driving the 110 km round trip is becoming exhausting & she has only just done the second of six weeks of daily treatments.

We were able to have some yummy lunch and a poke around the shops in Ballarat beforehand. It was a good chance for a catch up. Overall she is doing really well.

(Question for you Louise - what is the 'other' kind of RT she has after the first few weeks?)

I also went down to the Performing Arts Headquarters annual Teacher's Spectacular tonight. The Drama, Singing, Dance and various Music teachers got to perform and show off their talents. It was a very good night, the highlight for me was a rendition of the old classic 'Stairway to heaven' performed with 3 violins and a bass guitar.

Therefore, no housework done today, no laundry and a thrown together chilli for dinner.

Getting close now...

just 2 more days now until my first fun run

I received my race kit in the post

I'm all set now, I have the timing tag, race number and my special socks. All I need now is a fine morning, not too cold and no rain.

And not to come last.

Crafty...

in a good way.

I mentioned to my clever husband that I wanted to find a rack/thingy to hang up my necklaces.

I had turned this little rack from a mini quilt hanger into an earring holder.

and I showed Chris the kind of thing I wanted.

He got a little glint in his eye, asked me if we had any wire hangers then disappeared out to his shed. A short time later he presented me with this

I can now hang up the necklaces that previously had been coiled up in little compartments of a tackle type box. The rubbery ones weren't doing very well coiled up like that and are much better hanging. I can see them easily and wear them often.

Thanks hun for whipping that up for me.

April...

Looking back at April I see it has been filled with cooking, running, holidays and weddings.

Erin had a hair make over...

Before

 During

 And after

 My hairdresser couldn't get over Erin's thick luxurious hair and kept running her fingers through it and exclaiming 'where did she get such lovely hair? not from you'. Thanks Amber for the boost to my morale!

 Autumn has become apparent in my garden, the leaves are changing and falling.

 I've also been scrapping the recent picnic

We've used up all our available downloads for the month so the internet is sooooo slooooow, it has taken more than an hour to load and post this April update. I can't stand it anymore I'm going to bed.