Wonderful morning turning into the day from hell

I’ll start with the best part of the day yesterday … then you can feel free to skip everything else while I have a moan about the day’s deterioration 😉

Yesterday I planned my day out well (or so I thought) to save my petrol costs – I had to drive out to Heidelberg to get my back fixed, so thought I’d call in and get quotes on self-storage, clear my PO Box and get my blood tests done on the way.  When I arrived at the clinic just after 12.30 I was told I had to wait until 1.30 as the Nurse had gone to lunch … I’d been fasting all day so far, so that wasn’t great news, plus my bladder was bursting, but I hung on in case I had to do a mid-stream or something.  Anyway, that was OK, as it gave me time to pop over to the Post Office and I had a little look around the Camberwell fresh food markets to fill in the rest of the time, and bought myself a small treat of a few large green olives stuffed with blue cheese (woohoo, big spender! LOL).  BUT, I had some GREAT treats waiting for me in my PO Box that had me grinning all the way back to the doctors surgery … (this is obviously the good part of the day)

The first thing I saw looking up at me at the top of the pile was this wee ‘just because’ card from Barbara:

 

Aren’t they the cutest little faces?  That straightaway put a big grin on my face – little duckie faces never fail to make me smile.  In fact, I have a ‘few’ in my bathroom that I don’t think I’ve shared with you yet … every time I see a new one I have to buy it … and Mum always joins me in the hunt when she’s over 😀  I actually saw a giant sized blue one while I was out yesterday that I fell in love with … but that’ll have to wait for another day 😉  In fact, you can see all the designs available on this website of the smaller Bud ducks like I’ve been getting … you gotta just love some of ’em!

 

At the bottom of the pile of mail I also came across two ‘parcel slips’ – and lo and behold there were two wonderful gifts waiting for me.  The contents wiped the grin off my face, as my jaw promptly hit the concrete in awe!!

First up was a parcel from Paula – with some wonderful fabbies that are going to be so useful (the black/gold quilting fabric is already in mind for finishing “Onyx” by Paw Printings once I get it stitched, it will be perfect!), and I’m always in need of neutral stitching fabrics 🙂  Stationery is always handy, so the pencils will be useful, but the piece de la resistance was that Paula sent me the entire Winter Snapperland series off my ‘ultimate’ wishlist – along with the border chart (which I just realised I forgot to include in the photo), and the snappers … I’m totally blown away by the whole parcel!  Thank you again Paula for a wonderfully thoughtful parcel – I love everything!

 

Lucky last (but most definitely not the least), I received my gift from Judith – I knew this one was coming, but I had no idea how exquisite the contents would be!  Another gift that finished the job of leaving me speechless … Judith sent me one of her awesome cartonnage creations – isn’t this incredible??  I’ve been getting the urge to try some cartonnage myself after drooling over the contents of this blog, and now this has given me even more incentive (and funnily enough, I was just looking through the book Isabelle sent me for my birthday and pondering future projects).  Along with the beautiful box, Judith also sent some scrummy blue fabbies – and I’d just been killing extra time beforehand (before I went to the markets) at a newsagents flipping through magazines … I’d just seen a log cabin quilt done in a “tropical sea” theme all in teals, turquoises and blues, that I loved and now my mind is ticking over even more with the addition of these new fabrics.  But even if I don’t do that quilt, I have dozens of other ideas to use it for – the difficulty will be in the choosing! 😀  So thank you again, Judith, for an exquisite gift.  (The top picture is pretty accurate of the colours.)

In fact a huge thank again to all three of you for truly brightening an otherwise shocking day.  In fact I started getting all teary-eyed again while typing my thank you email to Judith this morning … your generosity and kindness has truly touched me! {{{hugs}}}

As you can gather from the start of this post, the rest of the day went quickly downhill.  I finally got into the medical centre only to find apparently I’d been fasting too long, so they didn’t do the tests.  I figured I’d just find a lab closer to home and go this morning … but now I’ll be putting it off until tomorrow morning …

As I was driving over to Heidelberg I started getting a bit of a headache – perhaps from lack of food, but it could be a multitude of things, including just general stress.  Anyway, driving into the bright sunlight it was triggering off even more, which made me wonder if it was a migraine starting to take hold.  I picked up a couple of groceries from Heidelberg while killing a bit of extra time, then went to get my back/shoulder manipulated.  All I can say is thank goodness she only does it for about 2 minutes … it’s bl**dy excruciating while she’s digging in and manipulating the nerves around … apparently I’d done a really good job of twisting it, so she had great fun fixing it up … wish I could say the same thing!  Anyway, thankfully that’s all over and done with, and now I just have a stiff neck/shoulder, but that’s perhaps more due to the stress and tension than anything else right now, and a bit of tenderness where she was digging around.

On the way home I decided to make a detour and miss the works traffic and headed to Box Hill – by then I was feeling quite hot and seedy so called into a pharmacy and picked up some Ibuprofen, then called past to say hi to my pal Sharon … she wouldn’t let me have dinner on my own, and told me to come home with her as she’s just up the road.  I picked up a couple of prawn rice paper rolls just so I could take my ‘nurofen’ straightaway, and by the time I got to Sharon’s I was feeling more than just a bit seedy!  After taking my tablets I think I lasted 10 minutes at the most before I was in their toilet with my head down it!  I obviously didn’t end up staying for dinner, but thought it wise I just get myself home as soon as possible and into bed … easier said than done, and in hindsight I would have been better staying there a bit longer!

I felt so dreadful driving home, I ended up pulling over on the side of the road a few times to throw up … and a couple of times felt so bad I was unable to drive, so I dropped the drivers seat down and lay down for a while before driving a few more streets before being sick and laying down again.  The last time I was sooooo close to home and I kept trying to hold on, but in the end had to swerve the car over … I just had time to open the door before I started vomiting again.  It took me about 2 1/2 hours to drive home, where it’s normally about 45 minutes with no traffic … I came home and grabbed a bucket for beside the bed, and just crawled straight in.

Hence the reason I’ve opted not to go have my blood tests this morning, as I don’t have any food in my stomach, and I’m sure as heck not going for 8-12 hours with no food during the day today … I need to try to get some nutrients back into my body.  I have to say I still feel a bit grotty today, and think I may go back to bed for another couple of hours.  But first I’m going to make a big jug of iced tea to sip throughout the day (I’m not a huge water fan, so at least this’ll get some liquids into me).

The great news, though, is that I spoke to Mum this morning and she received her passport in the mail yesterday morning, which means she’s going to be flying over on Sunday, all going well – just in time for Mother’s Day!  I’m so glad I put her on my work benefits, so she can do that easily.  I’ve only been able to get one day off work around the moving time, so it’ll be great having Mum here, and I went in yesterday morning (before going to the PO Box) to work out costs of storage etc, and today I’m heading out to pick up some packing boxes … and I’ve also organised to have my internet and phone line cancelled on 1 June … but everything else can wait, as I think I’m heading back to bed again now …

One good thing is that I’m able to keep my email mailbox open, for the cost of $25/year, so at least once my account has been closed, I can either re-open it again with iinet as my provider when I eventually move into a permanent home, or if I go with a wireless option (eg with Unwired), then I can still access those emails via a gateway – makes it so much easier!  It does mean, however, that I may have to rely on internet cafes and libraries for 2-3 months … it also means I just might get more stitching done that way too 😉

Right, enough waffling … I’m off to bed! 😉