Good news for me this weekend though. Dave’s parents are taking us on holiday to Wales for the week. I’m not going to be able to do much, but I’m taking my Macbook with me, so I’ll be entertained while they go off on their long walks. I’m going to see if I can do anything fancy with iMovie too. It’ll just be nice to get away for a bit even if I can’t run around on the beach chasing Lydia. Dave also wants to take my wheelchair, so I’ll a least be able to look around a couple of shops with them. I didn’t want to ask because it is hard work pushing me around for a few hours, but he’s insisted. He’s a good ‘un

Season 2 of 30 Rock arrived in the post today. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to watch this show – it’s awesome! It’s keeping entertained while I wait for the new seasons of everything else to start. It’s actually a nice change to be able to catch up on a show that’s been on for a while and just plow through them instead of the unbearable one episode per week. I’m really looking forward to when the final season of LOST comes out on DVD so I can re-watch them. Dave will be watching with me this time. He stopped watching mid way through season 1 because he didn’t want to get too invested in it, as anything with an over-arching plot tends to get cancelled then he gets pissed off. He also wanted to wait and see if I went off into a rage over the ending, but I loved it, so he’s agreed to watch it with me. I can’t decide if I’m looking forward to explaining everything to him though. I may have to set out a ‘lesson plan’ or something to list what I can and can’t explain and at which point I can explain them. Oh god this is going to be really annoying and difficult isn’t it?

Thank you for all the comments congratulating me on getting the Deputy Coach job. It’s going really well, and with Xmas coming up I’m able to do more hours and overtime. I’m on the early shift now until Xmas and it’s great. I wish it was permanent It’s taken me a while to get used to going to bed so early. I find it really hard to sleep if I know I’ve got to be up at a certain time, and keep waking up to check the time. After doing that for most of the night, when I see that it’s 3.30am I just give up on sleeping and roll down the stairs. Ah well, at least it gives me the chance to catch up on my favourite shows on Hulu (especially Heroes Season 3. Hahaha, that show is totally nuts now. I can’t stop watching).

Lydia’s doing really well. She’s been ill with a stomach bug over the last couple of days, but she’s a lot better now. She’s been in such a lovely mood recently too. We sometimes have to remind her to use her manners with us (she’s great with other people though), but she’s been absolutely perfect and is really helpful too. When I was carrying a load of washing upstairs, she opened the door for me, switched the stairs light on and told me to be careful! How cute is that? She loves washing dishes and dusting….I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts!

She acts like a parent herself sometimes, especially with other children at the park. One little boy was throwing a tantrum because he didn’t want to leave, so his Mum started to slowly walk off without him. Lydia was in total shock at this and ran after his Mum shouting “What are you doing?! Where are you going?!”. She then pointed at the boy, ran up to him and started pulling him screaming “Come on! Your Mum’s going away! Come onnnnnn!”. Oh god, it was hilarious!

So what’s the latest gossip from the internet? I definitely need to do some catching up on various sites. Can anyone recommend some linkage for me, please? My bookmarks folder is a little bare

About 5 minutes before leaving work tonight I was handed a letter telling me that I had got the job! I’m so incredibly happy! I’ve never gotten a job after an interview before. I’ve always gone through employment agencies, but anything that I applied for myself and had to have an interview for, I never got. I always got on well with the interviewers and they seemed to really like me, but then they wouldn’t hire me. So when this interview went well I didn’t really dare to believe that I would actually be successful!

What a great way to start the weekend!

Tonight it’s no different. It’s made worse by the fact that I’ve got an assessment at work tomorrow and I need to get myself into the right frame of mind. It’s not as if the assessment is going to be first thing in the morning….it’s at 6pm, but I’m still keeping myself awake :damnyou: At least having a nap shouldn’t be a problem!

Going off on a slight tangent now, but have any of you tried Dropbox yet? It’s a fantastic way of storing your files with easy access online. You install the software on your computer, and anything that you want to be able to access elsewhere, you save to the Dropbox folder, and it syncs the files to your account online. It’s great if you want to access something at work that you did at home, or to share files for a group project. I’ve got 9 invites left, so leave a comment if you’d like to try it.

In the meantime, if you simply have to keep up with the inane stuff I do, here’s my Twitter and Facebook

We had a great Xmas, but especially Lydia. She was still opening presents 3 days after Xmas Day! She got a little overwhelmed with everything though and after a while of squealing at presents, she wanted to sit in the bath and play for a bit. She got oodles of presents including a Thomas the Tank Engine playhouse, a new train track (on a better table than our dining one!) and some trains and cars. As you can probably tell, she loves trains at the moment, but she especially loves putting the toy cars on the tracks, pushing the train towards it shouting ‘Oh nooooo!’ in a high-pitched voice

I got some great presents too, which I’m not going to list I’m all gadgeted up now though! I got Leopard for my Macbook and iWork 08, which are lovely to use. I also treated myself with the money I got from the overtime I did over Xmas and got an iPod Touch! I love it so much It was even better after I managed to Jailbreak it and added some iPhone apps. There’s an official update that does that now, but I’m not paying $20 for it!

Well, it’s 3am now and just as I was about to go to bed…Lydia wakes up crying. Ah well, I doubt I’d be able to sleep anyway. I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping recently for some reason. Poor, poor me. I’ll have to make do with snuggling with Lydia on the couch

I am terrible at speaking in public or in front of other people, so when we were told that we had to give a 5 minute presentation using a flipchart, I panicked Thankfully, this site came to my rescue, as I did a presentation on Icklebug.net I drew a huge picture of one of the bunnies on one page. On the second page I drew the bunnies in various states of being thrown around (speech bubbles and everything! Yay effort!), the sun gradually moving across the screen according to the time, and having to chase the title text when you try to click on it. Well, I added little squiggles to the side to show movement. That’s art that is.

We also had to give a presentation in front of the Big Boss (*dramatic music*). It didn’t go too bad and she said that I seemed very confident. I tripped up in my words a couple of times, but thankfully I could squeeze the remote control (to flick through the slides) to help me to concentrate.

Next week I’ve got to do presentations in front of a total of 90 people over the course of 8hrs a day for 5 days Thankfully, I’m only the Assistant Trainer, so hopefully the Lead Trainers will let me get away with 2 presentations a day. We’ll see how I feel at the time, but at least I’ve got the Powerpoint files so I can practice a bit over the weekend.

I’ll post about about the Mindless Self Indulgence gig me and Sandra went to on the 13th next time. I loved the gig, but the people attending…I wanted to murder them. I’m just trying to think of a way to phrase my post about it in a way that doesn’t make me seem like an angry, old fart

The support bands were brilliant. I’d not heard of any of them before because I’ve been really out of the metal scene for ages. After seeing these bands I’ve realised how much I’ve been missing. I’ve been such an old fogie and listening to basically the same stuff over and over; getting new music every now and again from friends. I’ve really been stuck in a rut, music-wise. Solitude, Malifice, God Forbid have made me want to get into metal again.

Devil Driver put on a fantastic show. There was just so much enthusiasm from the band and the crowd was going absolutely mental. I desperately wanted to join the people downstairs, but I don’t think I would have survived! I managed to get a few photos, but they’re not the best quality due to how far away I was, trying to stay upright holding onto my stick and the camera, and knowing bugger all about photography If anyone can make these photos look better (or want to attempt to), email me/leave a comment and I’ll get the originals to you.

I’m more or less recovered from my operation now. I’ve just got a low-level ache in my ears. I’m trying to avoid taking the painkillers that they gave me until night time as they make me feel all groggy and weird. I’m back at work tomorrow, so I’ll definitely wait until afterwards to take them. I don’t want to start tripping at my desk I already practically piss myself if I have to type ‘Cockermouth’ for a city, never mind if those painkillers make me all giggly too! There’d be a howl of laughter, then a huge crash as I fall to the floor giggling. I’d probably still keep mis-typing Dartmouth as Fartmouth too *clutches tummy*. My humour is not the most sophisticated in the world.

I think I’ll pop up to town soon to see if I can actually get a coffee from Starbucks within an hour. I can’t believe how busy it is in there. It’s not like any of the other coffee shops are losing business either because they’re all packed too. I doubt that I’ll go very often though as I just can’t relax there. It’s in the busiest part of the shopping centre and has huge glass windows too. I just feel as though I’m constantly on display. The service is much better at Nero’s too. You don’t feel as though you’re on a conveyor belt and you actually get some privacy from the outside world too.

Mmm…coffee

I got to the Hospital at 12pm and was told that I was 5th on the list, so I should go in at about 5pm. ‘Great’, I thought, ‘a five hour wait at least’. I had plenty to keep me occupied though, so I wasn’t too bothered. The Surgeon came to see me, looked through my notes and we had the following conversation:

Surgeon =
Me =

– *looks at notes* ‘Grommets…that’s straight-forward, and I see you’ve had the procedure before. How many times?’
– ‘Yeah, several when I was a child. At least three times I think?’
– *nods* ‘oh, you’re having a biopsy too? OK that’s fine’.
– ‘Erm…biopsy? I was told that it was just grommets’
– ‘Perhaps ignorance is bliss *laughs*’
–

He buggers off while I’m just staring open-mouthed at him. I asked a Nurse when she came round to put away my notes and she said that it was just part of the procedure. I would have pestered more but I could hardly hear anything anyway (funnily enough). I always think of stuff to ask /after/ I’ve had the chance to, which is really bloody annoying, but I just concentrate so much on what people are saying that it kind of blocks everything else out until afterwards. If that makes sense?

Another woman was in the bed opposite to me and she was told to get into her hospital gown and get into the bed. She’d been fasting since 7pm the night before, so I assumed that she would go before me. I was still in my normal clothes at 3.30pm and having a read, when the Porter comes in and asks me to get changed so he can take me to theatre because the list has been moved around. Yay for me, not so yay for the woman opposite.

Once I was in theatre they put the vent thing in the back of my hand and put some saline in first to clear the vein. The Surgeon said ‘well, say bye bye then!’ and injected something else. That didn’t seem to do anything at all and they said that they were going to give me some oxygen. When they put the oxygen mask on though, it smelled and tasted just like the anaesthetic gas they gave me when I was little. When they put it on my head started to feel all fuzzy as well. When I had the injection for my last operation, I could feel it travelling up my arm, but I didn’t get any of that this time. I definitely had the reaction to the ‘oxygen’ though. If that’s the case though, I wish they’d have just said as it could have freaked me out. Not that I could have done anything while knocked out, but still.

When I woke up in the recovery room I could hardly breathe. My mouth was so dry because I hadn’t had anything to drink since 11.30am. Plus I had a roll of cloth wadding taped under my nose too which didn’t help. On my way back to the ward, my friend Tammy said hello as she happened to be working there at the time which was a lovely surprise Once I got back to the ward, she came and sat with me for a few minutes to keep me company. It was lovely of her to do that, but I felt really out of it, so I don’t know if I was acting weird or not, heheh. I vaguely remember asking for a cocktail umbrella to put in my glass of water though.

A bit later I decided to take the wadding off because it was starting to come unstuck (and was pissing me off immensly). I assumed it was there because it was like when I had that camera tube stuck up my nose when I saw the ENT consultant, and it was there to catch the…well, snot. Imagine my surprise when I took it off and saw that it was covered in blood! So /that’s/ where the biopsy was for :rolleyes:

So there ends my tale of hospitalisation (stop saying thank god ). They let me go about 2hrs later and I was home for about 7pm. Now I can relax with my funky painkillers until I go back to work on Thursday. Eeeeeee, that’s grand