On the Mend.

I am back at work today after having taken practically all week off last week. I didn't take the week off by choice, I was forced to stay at home until I was better. When I emailed work last Thursday to say that I'm well enough to come back on Friday the Second Boss called me to insist that I stay at home and that if I tried to come to work the Big Boss will just send me home anyway. I think they all felt justified in keeping me away because my voice still sounds husky. I really hate taking time off, I come back more stressed because work just piles up. I was going to sneak into work last Friday to grab some work to take home but thought better of it and then worried about the work all weekend. When I arrived super early at work this morning, what do you know, the work has been done for me! Two of my colleagues split some of the work between the two of them and my intern also picked up some of what I left behind. Bless them all. There was still a gazillion things I had to do but the help really was beyond measure. They didn't have to, nobody asked them, they just did it as a 'gift'. One of them also made me lunch because she knew I probably haven't been cooking so there's no leftover and she was right. I am so lucky. Thank you my beautiful colleagues.

Little things amuse me like this new thing that keeps me alive:

Doesn't it remind you of a bong?! LOL!

Things That Keep Me Alive.

Humidifier which actually belongs to Bubby but my hot steam vaporiser makes the whole room so damp that moisture drips from the walls and ceiling, Vicks vapor rub, ventolin puffer, steroid puffer, steroid nasal spray, papaw ointment because dry lips kill you slowly, thermometer to tell me if my fever gets high enough to go to the doctor again and a bottle of water. Not shown are a box of tissues, antibiotics and a packet of paracetamol. I just wish to be able to breathe. Damn you, asthma and acute rhinosinusitis. Hubby is away on business for the week but thankfully my parents insisted on staying with us. I wouldn't have had the energy to take care of Bubby and cook and clean and work. I worked 15 hours today which is just stupid of me considering the state I'm in but deadlines can't wait and I have decided to take tomorrow off so things had to be completed today. I'm likely to do more work from home tomorrow anyway but at least I won't be bothered by people dumping more work on my desk, things that people say will only take me a couple of minutes to look at but always takes up much longer. So over it all at the moment.

Update: At 5.45 AM after a night of restless sleep, lots of coughing, lots of soreness everywhere and not much breathing.

Colour Matching

I know colour blocking is still the rage at the moment but I've never been trendy and I probably never will. Today was such a nice and warm day that I was actually able to wear a skirt and bare my legs and wear short sleeves! 

I look really stiff. Can you tell I'm not a poser?

It was a bit chilly in the morning so I wore a blazer and scarf. Brown and blush is the colour palette for today and everything I wore matched, I think. I don't really care if my outfits don't match, to be honest. My whole fashion philosophy goes something along the lines of "I like this top, I like this bottom, I like these shoes, I like this scarf" and put them all together to make me happy.

Even my nail polish matched!

On the note of matching colours, my new puffer comes in the prettiest dispenser and the cap matched my nail polish on the weekend.

I'm currently watching X Factor and cringing. Don't some of these kids have friends who tell them they're crap? 

Sick of Being Sick.

When people told me Bubby will be sick for the first four years of his life once he starts daycare they weren't lying or exaggerating. Bubby is sick again for the hundredth time since he started daycare. And I am sick again for the 95th time. People also say that he'll be hardly sick at all once his immune system builds up by the time he starts preschool. I wonder if it means I will be hardly sick by then too. This latest bout of illness is a bit of a trifecta. Bubby started off with flu-like symptoms which developed into ear infection # 97 but just to be different he also had gastro AND tonsilitis. The gastro didn't seem to bother him much but the earaches and the sore throat certainly did. Can anyone paint a sadder picture than a sick mummy trying to take care of a sick baby?

Bubby is much better now but I'm still struggling. Bubby gets ear infections when he's sick, I get asthma. I've been wheezing so badly I sound like Stevie in Malcolm in the Middle. I was in a very bad way last Saturday night that I was going to drive myself to the 24 hour medical centre after I've put Bubby to bed but decided to sleep it off and go first thing on Sunday morning. I left early the following morning to avoid the crowd (there's nothing worse than a crowded clinic waiting room, all the germs floating in the air!) only to find the supposed 24 hour clinic was closed.

I'm no math genius but 7 am-10 pm is in fact 9 hours short of 24 hours. It's really a 15-hour medical centre. Anyway, even after I got a muffin and a hot chocolate I still had to wait a while in the cold but the important thing is I was the first one there and I got my asthma puffer and antibiotics. 

Speaking of antibiotics, Bubby tried to drink his bottle of antibiotics all at once! I placed the bottle on the dining table after I gave his dose and I went to wash the syringe when I turned around he looked like he was taking a swig from the bottle. I nearly had a heart attack. I dialled HealthDirect which put me onto Poison Information Hotline all while I was trying to measure how much was left in the bottle 3 mL at a time (because I only had a syringe. I really must 'borrow' a measuring cylinder from work) and calculating how many doses he's already had since Thursday, how much should be left and work out how much he has drank. It worked out he would have ingested less than 10 mL if any and that children can drink the entire bottle with little risk of an overdose. Apparently, this sort of thing happens all the time. It's a scary thought. It all happened in the 7 steps it took me to walk to the sink and rinse the syringe. Bubby looked quite pleased with himself, the little rascal. When the medic was asking me if he was responsive I was chasing after him in the kitchen because he's ran away with the bottle cap. Moral of the story is never leave medicine within children's reach and know that this level changes over time and have emergency numbers on the fridge.

Bubby's Belated Birthday Bash.

I need to pick up my blogging mojo and what better way than to write about Bubby's first birthday party. It was a very small party with only ten of us including Bubby. There were balloons, banners and barbeque and I even baked a cake. (Yes, yes, I like alliterations.)

It's a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. It's pretty dodgy looking but I've never baked a cake before and I certainly have never decorated one. The cake was pretty dry but the ganache was quite good. I used the leftover ganache to make mocha which wasn't too bad at all. I was also going to put the Batman figurine as a cake topper but I didn't leave enough space. It was the same cake topper that my brother had for his first birthday.

We also got to use our dining room for the first time.

Bubby liked his present from my parents. He would throw a tantrum if I so much as try to unbuckle the seatbelt.

There was some dancing afterwards. This kid knows how to party.

I'm currently watching rhythmic gymnastics. Finally, Channel 9 televises a sport that is interesting at a semi-decent hour although I really should go to bed. TGIF in about 20 minutes.

A Sad Day. The Dirty C Word.

You know the feeling of your stomach dropping when you realised that you've lost something you really love, has sentimental value and also expensive? Well it happened to me on Saturday. I opened my sun glass case to find no sunglasses in it. I thought hard and realised I haven't worn it since Thursday. I hoped that it was somewhere at home or in the car but it wasn't. The last place I haven't looked was my desk at work, until this morning. It wasn't there. There's a good chance I either left it on the train but most likely in the fitting room when I tried on dresses. I called the store but nobody has handed it in. I didn't expect anyone would. It was a birthday gift from my parents last year and I really loved it. They're similar to this

I was pretty down for most of the day, you'd think someone had died. I moped through work, through grocery shopping, through picking up Bubby, through the drive home and I was about to mope through preparing dinner until I decided to check my phone for calls and messages. That's when I was given a harsh perspective that slapped me back to an even more painful reality. I was so preoccupied with mourning my sunglasses that I didn't realise I had received a message a couple of hours before. It was from the husband of my dear friend, Kat, informing her friends that she passed away peacefully in her sleep after a long but courageous battle with cancer. I stood staring at my phone reading the message over and over for a good 10 minutes completely numb. Even though we knew it was coming and I've said my goodbye it was still hard to imagine and even more difficult to accept. I called hubby but couldn't get the words out so talked about dinner and Bubby instead. I called another one of our close friends talked for a little bit like normal before the floodgates opened. I wasn't upset that she has passed, she was ready and she's in a better place now. She lived life the fullest and she had no regrets. I was sad for what she had to leave behind, a husband and a young daughter. How do you explain to a two year old that her mummy isn't coming back? How does a grieving husband cope when his daughter just wants her mum? It breaks my heart.

Apologies for being morose. I try to keep things light around here but there's no making light of this.

Goodbye, my dearest Kat. Thanks for the great memories, the friendship, taking turns sleeping on the couch during the many all nighters in the lab trying to finish experiments and our theses, the shared love of Jane Austen, Mr Darcy, ballet and sangria. Rest in peace.

Batman and Bargains.

Hubby and I went on our first date since having Bubby, well second if I count the time I had lunch with him while I was running errands in the city. We saw the latest Batman movie.

Hubby was clever enough to find a discount voucher online for Optus customers so we paid half price. Score! It's really sad that the last movie we saw at the cinema was Inception and it wasn't even a pleasant experience as an idiot couple brought their very young child in the cinema and it cried, a lot. They obviously have never heard of mums and bubs session, or babysitters. I guess we're lucky as my parents were very keen to babysit. So keen that they arrived at 8.30 am, two hours early. We need to go out more often.

After the movie we went and bought a TV. Another bargain at 20% off, another score! On top of that I also got 10,000 bonus points on my Myer One card which is equal to a $100 gift voucher. Awesome! Just don't ask me what kind of TV it is. It's a Panasonic and it's very big. I think it's this one.

I actually don't really know why we needed another TV and rather urgently too when we already have a big TV. I would have thought that a fridge which has a door that doesn't close properly and a washing machine that has paint peeling off due to rust needed replacement sooner and a clothes dryer would also be nice. I don't think a very big TV will keep food from spoiling, wash clothes and dry them. Just sayin'.

After the TV purchase was a done deal I went to get a dress for my brother's wedding from Coast of London. I tried it on last Thursday but the shop didn't have it in my size. They'd have to order it from Melbourne but I was apprehensive about buying a dress I haven't tried on in my size so I walked away to think about it. It was originally $385 marked down to $169. I really liked the dress even though it's a winter colour. Seeing as I'm a sucker for a good sale so I went back to get it today. As luck would have it there was another 20% on top of he sale price. Score! It came down to $155 including the $20 express postage fee. It's a plum coloured Thai silk taffeta belted dress with a full skirt and removal straps. I'd have to wear the straps as Bubby has a habit of pulling down my top when he wants milk. I might try and see if I can turn it into a halter neck. Here it is in a size 10.

I ordered the size 8 but I'm in between a 6 and an 8. I hope it fits fine when it arrives as I forgot to ask their return policy. 

All in all it's been a good day!