5 Monsters

Does anyone want to keep this anymore?  We seem to have moved to FaceBook.  Of course not as much detail goes on there but …

Well it seems that I now have to have a fine needle biopsy on some cysts in my left breast. God knows I paid enough to get them smaller, you would think they would behave themselves!!!! Will do that next week. I have a tear in my tendon on right arm and some type of arthritic lump in the bone on my right shoulder, hence the difficulty moving it. I have some swollen areas in both my achilles tendons. I am to make an appointment with a rheumatoid specialist to get some sort of help with all of those. I am thinking cortizone in the shoulder and away we go. I will now be having a 2hr blood sugar test as my level was a little on the high side last week. So this week I have to eat all the things I have not been eating for the past couple of months, bread, cereal and pasta and then do the glucose test. Honestly, this getting old thing is becoming way too hard. Aging is not for the faint hearted let me tell you!!! Hopefully sugar test will be okay and I am not on the road to type 2 diabetes! I will definately being doing more exercise and more dieting. So girls keep your fingers and toes crossed that I only have a slight glitch in the sugar and by cysts are just stupid cysts!

Got a letter from Mum saying she is not coming to Annushka’s Holy Communion.  She does not want to fly so that is that.  The end of the visits from Mum I guess.

I feel sorry for Annushka.  Mum got her really excited about this and she has told all her friends that her Mama and aunty Sharon were coming.  Holy Communion’s are a big deal here.  Probably the Italian influence.  It is like a mini-wedding - from what they wear to the gifts they receive (mainly money apparently) to the celebration after (they book retaurants months in advance).  We were all told that we had to limit our guests in the church to 15 per family.  Extra guests would have to sit elsewhere in the church.  Imagine! 

And poor Annushka, sitting there with just her parents now … 

Hope you had a nice day. Did you get any great present? Of course with all that snow you are getting you probably got the day off!!! I have seen some pics of London ground to a halt with the snow… How are you going up your way? Wishing you lot of good cheer for your day.

I forgot to post that I booked out trip to Oz.  I’ve been wathcing Qantas like the stock market and I got $500 off on their recent sale.   So we arrive 29 Jul and leave 26 August.

I am planning a 50th birthday party for myself at my friend Marilyn apartment - probably on  1 August.   Depends if Michele will be there by then.  Michele???? 

Happy New Year to all. The girls and I went down to Canberra on New Year’s Eve to stay with Julie and Grant for a few days and watch the fireworks on Lake Burley Griffin. We went last year and had a great visit. I am too old for New Year - I won’t go anywhere too crowded now - too many drunks etc. If I could go to a nice restaurant with a couple of friends for a great dinner and drinks, then I would do that but otherwise Canberra or watching on tv suits me. We went to 9pm fireworks and then went home and drank some wine and we played Trivial Pursuit until 2am - watch the Sydney fireworks on tv. Steve had to work all through Christmas so he stayed in Sydney.
On New Year’s Day Julie and I took our girls to the National Gallery to see the Degas exhibition. It was just gorgeous and as it was a public holiday there was almost no one there, so no queueing. The exhibition has been hugely popular and very booked out. They even had a room for kids where they could go and draw themselves or dress up as ballerinas (Degas favourites) and do puzzles. Emma really enjoyed that.
I went back to work on 5 Jan for a week and then had the next week off and we all went down to Wagga to visit our friends. First I had to stay home on the Monday and watch the Golden Globes awards live on my tv - love the frocks on the red carpet.
Our friends have bought a property 25km out of Wagga at a place called The Rock. I call it The Hole!!! Their house is beautiful and they have a pool and gorgeous gardens but surrounded by 150acres of very dry drought ridden paddocks!
The weather was between 43 and 45 degrees for a couple of days and then went down to a pleasant 27-30. We spent our time in the shops in Wagga, drinking champagne and playing poker (in preparation for our trip to Las Vegas).
Am now back at work and very bored with it all. Weather here in Sydney this week is hot, hot and humid. Not quite as humid as Qld but enough!
We will all be celebrating Australia Day this weekend - I plan to eat some lamingtons and drink some champagne! We will be visiting a few friends over the weekend so that means I don’t have to cook! Yay!
Happy Australia Day to you all!

We found out yesterday Annushka’s school could be closing in June. They will have a meeting next week to decide.  I really do not want it to close.  So please, everyone pray we survive this …

I hope you all have a very Happy New Year.  We saw the New Year in very quietly.  We had a quizz and played charades.  It is great that we all still stay together for New Year but I don’t know what it will be like next year so this was lovely.  I am definitely coming to Australia in August - somewhere around the the 6th August to about the 27th - I haven’t booked the tickets yet.  I will bring Alex and Declan and then I won’t feel guilty - Ashleigh is a bit upset but I cannot afford to bring her too.  I hope Sharon will put us up!  I can’t wait.  Mum does not want a party but maybe we could have a reunion! 

I haven’t been on for a while (as Michele said) but we have been so busy these last couple of months - I really don’t know where the time has gone! We have just had Steve’s sister, Marnie, and her husband Murray out here for 3 weeks. They arrived at the end of October, so that took up a lot of time.
We threw a welcome to Oz party for them the day after they arrived and invited about 30 people who know Marnie (this is her 4th trip to Oz). Her husband has never been overseas before. It was fantastic fun. Julie (Sweeney) and her husband Grant came up from Canberra for it. They were with us in Canada a couple of years ago for Christmas, so are friendly with Marnie.
Steve had the whole 3 weeks off and took them to all the big sights. Murray wanted to see kangaroos and koalas (as they do), so he got up close and personal with all those stinking marsupials! All we did was eat and drink and get fatter over the 3 weeks. At least I went to work, so could keep myself in check for some of the time.
We had Emma’s birthday party while they were here as well. We went disco ten pin bowling. Fantastic fun. Although my back was not great at the end - I do think bowling and champagne is not always a good mix!!
Steve and I went to see Sheryl Crow and John Mellencamp last week. I am such a big fan of John Mellencamp (still living in the 80s!!!). We were really lucky to get complimentary tickets as Steve’s niece, who know lives in Nashville, is best friends with Sheryl Crow’s nanny, so she got us tics and we got to take her out while she was here in Sydney. So we all won!!!
We have done nothing but go to work Christmas parties, lunches etc. Honestly this December silly season is killing me!!!! I have just about undone all the good work I had put in over the last few months……
Oh well, now it’s on to the new year resolutions (again)….
So that has been our Nov/Dec so far.

Well I can’t believe it has been a year since my 50th spectacular!!! It was such a wonderful few days with all my family that I will really treasure. I missed them all this year.

Was much quieter this year but I didn’t let it slip by unnoticed. Went with some girlfriends on the 30th for a lovely lunch down by the water near us - sat outside under an umbrella and drank 4 bottles of champagne, ate lunch and laughed a lot. I had to come home and have a “nanna nap” for an hour after that! Well I am not as young as I used to be….

Had my birthday off work and had lunch and a movie with a friend and then that night took Madi and Emma to see the new Reece Witherspoon movie and some dinner, so we all had fun.