A Lesson about Sunday Evenings

Sunday evenings are downtime in this house...

Once the jobs are all done; the lunches are prepped, the washing is away - it's designated time to do sweet FA.

BUT. Last night I had my 'project get-everything-done pants' on. Knowing that Christmas is around the corner & soon after a very probable move of house, I'm being ruthless with the things we no longer need or want. Last night it was the kitchen - every cupboard & drawer was gone through, culled & cleaned. In my frenzied "lets do this!" de-cluttering  madness, I passed by the oven & seen the state it was in - might as bloody well...

On went the gloves, spray went the "EASY-OFF Oven Cleaner" bottle of holy snapping poison that even though I held my breath and ran away after spraying, still hung in the air and made me gag, cough & spit.... Left for the instructed half an hour to do it's thing, I kept on going through the other cupboards. It was then time, a little after 8pm, to actually clean the oven... gloves back on I got stuck into it, scrubbing away, enjoying the satisfying clean that was coming with each side of the oven - the door is was like a mirror; at the same time my thoughts turned to "Bet no other bastard has their head in their oven cleaning at this time on a Sunday night... it's Outlander night for crying out loud!"

Afterwards, sacrificial chux wipes & scourers went straight into their own bin bag & put in the garage to be taken out of the house. After a thorough wash of everything, buckets, my hands & arms, the cupboards that had gotten splashed a little... it was time to do the chilling out thing. Stardew Valley for me while Jake was watching DnD videos on Youtube. Eyes drooping I finally toddled into bed at around 10:30pm.

As I was drifting off I kept waking with a start, unable to catch my breath properly. I noticed that the back of my tongue & top of my throat were not quite right. I was finding it hard to swallow& could only take proper deep breaths if I concentrated & didn't lat down - I had to sit completely upright.
Telling Jake this he got me a Ibuprofen to bring down the swelling & a hit of Ventolin just to try & keep the airways open. A half hour later when there was no change we tried an antihistamine. When by 12pm there was no change & I had also tried various other methods of reducing the swelling, I was starting to panic, which really wasn't helpful. Jake called 13HEALTH at this point & Anne the RN didn't miss a beat, calling us an ambulance on the spot. Well that made me panic even more. The Rapid Response Ambulance Officer arrived first in her wagon, telling me all of my vitals were fine but because of the symptoms affecting an airway it was important that I went to the hospital until they could identify what had caused it & what to do to fix it.

The ambos with the stretcher came shortly after & told me that they would have to keep me monitored, I let them do their thing, feeling more & more anxious, nauseous & shaky. Not really paying attention to them & concentrating on getting those big lung-fulls of air, spitting saliva as I couldn't physically swallow it. Logan was out of the question - it was full. QEII & Mater were also filling up fast so because we were already on the border of the Gold Coast, we ended up opting to go to the GCUH. Upon arrival it was so quiet, we were the only ambulance in the place & there was a bed straight away, no waiting in corridors. I was glad & felt reassured that I was in the right place for my condition. As I got as comfortable as I could in my bed, still sitting to get those big breaths down, the crazy started. Police Officers dragging a screaming banshee down the corridor' medical alarms going off, the other 2 patients in my bay being drama queens... Not so quiet, then.

When doctor Toby arrived & announced that they had no damn idea what was happening, but explained that it was like an allergic reaction & I needed to be monitored as it was an airway, we chatted, about the what & how. Was it something I'd eaten? Despite the delay between use & symptoms, was it the oven cleaner? After assuring the now 5th person that no I did not eat any of the things I am known to be allergic to, yes I ate a different kind of sausages for dinner from a new Deli with some different flavouring. And no, funnily enough I didn't try to fume up on the oven cleaner... They decided they would give me steroids ("I'll give you some here and send you home with another day or two. No wait, I'll just dose you up big & it'll be good for about 48 hours...") Sounds good... I suppose?

To Short Stay I went to keep monitored until the drugs kicked in. It didn't take too long. By 3:45 I was actually starting to get really drowsy from lack of sleep & when I laid down I found that even though my tongue & throat still felt funny, I was able to doze. Not knowing when I would wake up or be released, I let my boss know I wasn't going to make it to work & let myself fall asleep.

Suddenly it was actual morning (the hours in which other humans area also awake) & I was being woken up by a tiny angel in a Thumper nightie & a giant bear in a Storm Trooper shirt. I felt shaky but so much better. Still not 100% but not struggling for a full breath & able to swallow! Checking my obs for good measure & writing me a letter to take to my GP if things didn't come right after today, Dr Toby assured me that I should come right on back at any sign of trouble like that again but to go home and rest and sleep.. "if you can, I mean those steroids will probably have you buzzing." Thanks Tobes.

So, it could well have been the snags, it could have been any combination of factors - like my toothpaste mixing with some lingering oven cleaner chemical that I had breathed in - who bloody knows. Although they were unable to identify exactly what the issue was, I have my money on the oven cleaner.

After I was released we decided to pop to the shops, get some bacon & hash browns to have a nice family breakfast - something we so often miss out on in the rush to daycare & work. While I tore off the TEN sticky monitors from very soft tender parts of my body & washed away the hospital, Jake made a lovely breakfast. With balls the size of coconuts, he put the hash browns in the oven & said "Gee the oven looks great!" I just had to look at him "It wanna look f***ing great!"

And so the moral to the story, the reason for the write up... Cleaning ovens on Sunday evenings is for psychos & I have learnt my very valuable lesson - next Sunday & every one thereafter I will ensure I park my ass on the couch & enjoy the designated FA time. Which is what I'm going to do right now - with the roids in system making my nerves do Saturday Night Fever in the background but the rest of my body & mind exhausted from the lack of sleep & the general anxiety of it all - it's time for that episode of Outlander.

The Fiasco of the Shelves

Let's start the story of the shelves by remembering how my pregnancy was; lots of spewing, lots of exhaustion, passing out here & there, preterm "labour" (contracting but no cervix action) & lots of... lets call them 'hormonal episodes'.

So in April 2016, post wedding & honeymoon these beautiful shelves were the center of my attention. See, Jake & I had spent months tracking down the perfect boxes to house our massive movie collection. Thousands of discs & not much space we decided to put the discs in sleeves, put them in boxes & abracadabra - storage issue fixed. Or not so fixed; our amazing boxes that fit 2 rows of sleeves & hundreds of titles per box, were massive. Too deep for our current bookcases too wide for our display cube shelves. Hunting went the pregnant lady, intent on nesting & having this all sorted before the arrival of Little Miss. Shop after shop turned up nothing, until I stumbled across the perfect shelves, measuring tape out and all. I bought 2 of these massive bastards on the spot - planning for the movie collection to expand as years went on. 

Paid in full with delivery date locked in, I couldn't have been more happy with my furniture purchase. Being at work full time, they found it difficult to arrange a delivery date that worked for me, so Mum had offered to come to my house for the delivery & show them where to put the cases. I cleared the space where they could go & waited eagerly - I would come home from work that day and load up my lovely new shelves with the movie boxes & it was going to be amazing.

Said delivery date arrived & no shelves came to my house. I was pretty shattered, I had been pretty excited about this. Now I'm pretty reasonable, totally understand that things can hit the fan for any company & cause them to not be able to fulfill their end of things as planned so I was firm when I called but pretty open to hear "The truck broke down", "Delivery guy was off sick, couldn't get anyone in". I didn't.
Instead I heard: "Oh it didn't come in to the warehouse we'll have to wait for the next shipment."
"So you guys knew it wasn't coming?"
"Yeah, we'll just put the delivery date back a couple of we-" He never finished that sentence.
The poor guy though honestly, he probably dealt with cranky customers on a regular basis. But I don't think he was in any way prepared for a near-hyperventilating hormonal pregnant lady to near rip his ear off from the other end of the phone. We had a short chat about how I had paid upfront & expected to be treated not only as a valued customer but as a person, you know because I had organised and had a day off work because of this delivery - blatant lie but a snapshot of how hopping bloody mad I was at that point.
I got a $50 refund for the inconvenience & a new delivery date.

The week of the new delivery date I got a call from the company (look at that customer service!) to say that they had accidentally been shipped to Adelaide & they would have to postpone the delivery...

2 weeks after that Mum was again at home, ready for the arrival of these beautiful, grandiose shelves. They arrived this time. Mum called me at work to let me know & I remember her sounding a little precarious on the call... She was pissed first of all that one of the guys had dumped the shelves on an electrical cord. She was worried the cord would be damaged from the weight & she couldn't lift it off herself. I told her not to worry, Jake could lift it off when he got home. Then she said the words that shot my anger through the roof: "Um... they've arrived in flat pack"
Pretty sure all of my colleagues & a number of clients heard about the flat pack shelves over the next half an hour. I had plans that night too - I was headed to my Dads for a quick cuppa on my way home from work. By the time I got home it would take me all night to get these shelves up. I had imagined them arriving as they were in the shop & had picked them for this very reason. I was 6 months pregnant at this point & didn't want the fuss of putting very large heavy shelving together. I called the store again & tore off some other poor blokes head. He was a little more of a jerk than the gentleman from the first call & that got right up my nose, so I fought even harder. I got another $50 back...

Pretty spent from my outburst over the phone, I went to Dad's for out cuppa. Dad is a heavy smoker & even if he stopped I think it would take a number of years before the smell to leave his home & the things in it. The smell of smoke was insidious, it clung to my clothes & hair as soon as I entered his house & as always Dad has to have a dig about something, anything & I left his house fuming over I can't even remember what. (Not sure if it was my weight, my tattoos or what that time) I drove my little Yaris Betty through Waterford like a bat out of hell, wanting to get away from Dad & into a shower where I could get this stench off me.

I got home to find flat pack shelves strew across one end of the lounge room. Jake began his usual afternoon routine of cleaning up after & feeding the dogs, getting wash off the line, etc. I looked at my flat pack shelves with distaste & began to vent my anger as I stripped of for a shower. My lovely husband listened & sympathized. He encouraged me to have my shower & relax & we would worry about the shelves another day. I hopped into the shower & turned the faucet - no water came out. Frustration rising I called to Jake who went to the other taps in the house - a trickle from the kitchen tap, otherwise nothing. While Jake organised to call the plumber on our real estate emergency list, I for lack of a more apt description - lost my shit.

6 months pregnant, completely naked & absolutely pissed off I got my spanner, screwdriver & started ripping open those flat pack boxes in the middle of my lounge room. I could have made a ship of sailors blush as the stream of profanities came with every small step of the process. I do believe my husband helped me put the shelves up out of fear & utter shock.. He also had the realisation that he hadn't checked the water main & done this in between building, coming back in like a man who had won a prize, announcing it was a simple fix all along - I do believe the phrase "if looks could kill" came into play here. One full case of shelves & a half later I started to feel not so great. Coming down off an absolute blinding rage I noted that I was indeed completely starkers, cold & lightheaded. Probably a lack of food from spewing up through the day & just generally from growing a tiny human... then spending my evening like a lunatic putting together some extremely heavy furniture. Whatever it was I came to a pretty sudden halt - I had hurt my back in my rage-filled episode & that immediately went to concern for bub. But there was half a case of shelves left. I don't do things by halves. Thankfully Jacob had the sense to call on our wonderful neighbour Paul, who came over & continued the shelf building while I locked myself in the bathroom and cried.

There is a brace that crosses over the back of the shelves which screws tight to create enough tension to stabilise the cases. Jake told me about the broken eyelet for one of these braces as soon as I walked out of the bathroom. The next day I made another call to jerk #2 from the shop. According to him they had "already given me too much money back" & said they could swap the broken shelf for another - which would mean another 2 week wait. NOPE. I asked if he expected me to go through this whole thing again; botched deliveries, flat pack, putting it together for it to be broken! Then he decided he would send me  a $50 voucher to use in their store. I told him his store was shit & I wouldn't ever buy a single item from there again. We hung up after that. In truth my brother had already come & welded the cross beam on so there was no way it could break (or come apart) again... we need to find a big-ass trailer for the next time we move...

Also, the book-ends I purchased with my $50 store voucher are divine... 

77 floors of nope

My adorable bear-man Jacob loves thrills. He finds something especially exciting about heights. I really don’t share his fascination with being so far from safe, solid ground.

So me, fiancé of the year, decided to book him a Q1 climb. You know that tall ass building in the middle of Surfers Paradise? The tallest building in Australia? That's the one!

I booked it on the quiet, excitement building knowing how excited he would be. Locked in, paid in full with a meal included. What a lovely morning it would be!

I have some insane ability (curse) where I get scared of things and scenarios that are probably not even possible let alone likely but become my obvious reality. In the weeks leading up to the surprise I was overcome with nightmares. Ridiculous fabrications from the corners of my mind where the wind got so bad, Jake got blown off the building while on the climb... after calming that thought by going over the obvious precautions that would literally be tying him to the structure, my mind would find yet another horrible situation where the whole building snapped in half, falling into the ocean where Jake couldn't escape the trusty binds that prevented him coming away from the thing. Oh, I'm that good.

I can't quite recall how close it was to the actual day of the climb when Jake woke up to find me hyperventilating on the lounge late one night. Yet another dream about the climb had accosted my sleep & I'd had quite enough. I couldn't stand it anymore! Ruining the surprise completely, I told Jake what dreams I had been having & why. Master of reassurance that he is, he just sprang around in his seat, happily imagining his climb to the top whilst I stressed that I had booked us into our doom.

The morning of the climb, my anxiety got so intense I had to run (literally & in the worst damn shoes) to the nearest pharmacy for some rescue remedy; something to take the edge off. Before Jake’s booking, we had time to suss the whole thing out. Did I mention Jake is scared of elevators, not a debilitating phobia but certainly not something he is comfortable with. So I held his hand with concern as we rode the super-fast elevator to the top floor. He was fine as soon as the doors opened & we stepped out into a small hallway that gave no indication that our elevation was now at a ridiculous extreme. No, that became clear upon stepping out into the wide glass walled “room” that encompasses the teeny tiny lie that is the elevator hall.

My legs trembled like mad & my biggest annoyance was that there was no way I was getting near enough to the glass to take any type of quality photo. I nudged my camera at Jake & told him to take some for me, I was staying right here, holding onto the wall for dear life. So that was of course his first snap. This is me, trying not to die …

We walked around the entire building like this – me shuffling along the wall, Jake at the glass, giddily snapping photos. Thankfully it was time to retreat. Back down the elevator where Jake met up with his fellow climbers & geared up. Now I had to get back up there, alone & take photos of this fool as he went outside and climbed to the very top. What the bloody hell had I been thinking? I made myself take photos of Jake’s climb. Sitting as I did because the thought of looking up & not being secured to anything made me even more terrified. As with any paid tour, they kept stopping and chatting. I kept hugging those inside seats well away from the window & checking on where he was every so often.

I convinced myself I could read a book while I waited (I'm a real funny gal). I read the same paragraph over and over because every time a careless toddler wandered over to the window & smooshed their face up on the glass and looked DOWN, I almost had a heart attack. I gave up on the book and hugged the walls again, moving around seemed to be more distracting if unreasonably difficult. I even tried to get some photos on my own.

Now, the Asian tourist scene at the Q1 that day was pretty happening. These loud, pushy visitors had below zero concern for the terrified Australian girl taking a tentative step away from the wall… they all just bustled on past, gathering me up in their crowd and edging me toward the window. The wind was knocked out of me, not by the physical contact but by the sudden realisation I was so close to the window, I couldn’t bring myself to move, as if I was on a thawing lake coming into Spring and any movement would make the ground give way beneath me. I don’t think anyone noticed me and I am glad but I certainly wish I had seen myself. It would have been comical to watch.

Jake finished his climb & I was there waiting as he stepped back inside the walls of the building, much to my relief. Did I mention I had breakfast added to this little adventure. I now had to sit and eat up in the air like it was all good. I managed to have something & keep it down while Jake, exhilarated from his climb downed a 3 tier seafood platter & nattered about all of the facts he had learnt oh and by the way, he had HUNG OFF the building. Harnessed yes but clearly hanging off the side of the place. I am so glad I didn’t know that was going to happen.

It was time to close down this part of the days adventure & I was more than happy to GTFO. This is where I all but skipped to the car after being reunited with solid ground…

Forget Me Not

It came to my attention this week as I was searching for some old photos that I couldn't remember or could barely remember the events surrounding them being taken. This made me incredibly sad - some of them were taken not so long ago too. The Mummy memory bank had a slow but consistent leak, methinks. So, I decided that in the spirit of not wanting to forget anything precious I would blog them. Nothing fancy, nothing intense. Just some fond moments from the days I don't want to forget. Hence the new blog guys. Something different from the Milk Drunk Doll, Life By Ink & Dare you to Move styles. Stayed tuned for my first installment from memory - coming soon!