saturday: sweet june success

Justin and I went to the botanic gardens today with some carrot and apple to see how Sweet Juniper was settling in - there was a bit of doubt that she would be living in her possum house that we had installed in a shady umbrella tree.

Justin climbed up the tree and called to the Bugs - "poss poss" - and he was surprised when her little head popped out of the hole! I think she remembers us! As you can see, she enjoyed her sweet treat



I'm glad that she is all okay and settled into her possum house!! We will be visiting her regularly with treats - I think she will appreciate a delivery of albizia flowers.

In other news - Justin left for Cairns today to go on his big bush walk adventure. It's already lonely around here :'( I killed some time today and went to the shops - I brought back 2 dresses and 2 work jumpers...bummed around on the couch watching Flight of the Conchords, and now watching Grease (can you believe I have never seen it before?)

I'm also mulling over a PHO job next year in medicine - Dr D keeps offering it to me, and I am still not sure if I want it. Being on call all morning/night would suck.

sunday: goodbye, sweet june bugs

January 2009: we were packing up our life in Milton, about to travel north for my new job and Justin's new campus. In all the madness, a little bundle of fluff was discovered on our doorstep.

The Sweet June adventure has now come to a close - she is now an adult possum, her legs and paws have healed up...and although her right eye will never be the same again, she is pretty much just as good as any old possum! So today, we set up her possum box in a tree in the botanic gardens, and said goodbye to the June Bugs.





GOODBYE SWEET JUNES!! It was an honour being your foster parents. We will miss you and your long tail (which would curl around anything that went near it).

I am a little bit worried about her. I hope she is okay out there in the big wide world, all by herself. We are going to visit her box next week to check up on her.

monday: so it turns out i could have swine flu...

So last Friday I woke up feeling a bit...off. I started getting allodynia of some sort, but thought, SUCK IT IN, it's probably nothing. I headed off to work. At the emergency department, I managed to see two patients before finally deciding that I could no longer last another second at work and must go home immediately to die a slow and painful death in bed. I felt really bad asking the big boss at work if I could take the rest of the day off, but he was really nice about it, just because he is one of the nice big bosses (there are numerous big bosses in the ED, luckily for me a nice one was on that day). He said, "do you have a temperature? You should get one of the nurses to take your temperature. And we should probably swab you.." and I said, "I'll take my own temperature" - and I did, as triage nurses are always busy. It was 37.6 degrees - not TOO bad, right? And I didn't particularly want to get swabbed, so I left quietly and drove home. Thankfully Justin was there so I could moan to him about my aches and pains - then I drugged myself up with some paracetamol and ibuprofen and slept

Over the weekend I seemed to rapidly deteriorate - I think I was in a bit of denial about getting sick, cos I pretty much never get sick. Not even little colds or anything like that. So on Sunday when I woke up feeling like death on a stick, Justin and I decided to go down to the ED to get some tamiflu (I really should have got that stuff on Friday cos I am convinced it works really well now!) We both had to get triaged - the best bit of all of this is I now have a UR NUMBER...and hospital stickers!! Yay!! I was always jealous of those patients and their hospital stickers.

My temperature in ED had gone up to 39.3 deg c and my pulse rate was 103 - tachycardic, hooray for me! So my fellow workmates in ED were all like, zomg get the hell away! SWIIINNEE FLUUU, and I had to get swabbed, which I swear is payback from all the patients I had swabbed. Possibly worst medical experience ever - although I can imagine a DRE aka PR exam is worse.

And now I am in "voluntary isolation" -- hopefully swab results will be back on Tuesday, but knowing what it was like in ED with getting back to patients with swab results, I am not expecting a phone call anytime soon. SO I have had a chance to finish my new born baby beanie (pictured above) which looks slightly bigger than real life in that picture, I presume because my hands are smaller than average?? And I even attempted to make a curry paste from scratch, which was nearly a FAIL due to me feeling progressively worse during the cooking process. Plus, it is extremely hard to cook when you have lost pretty much all sense of smell and taste!

sunday: knitting part 2 - cable beanie

Another thing I knitted a few months ago, before I became obsessed with knitting socks - a 4x cable beanie, as modelled by Justin - made with chunky wool. Too bad it is too warm here to use any of my knitted things! I have so many knitted things I plan to make to send off to people, although winter will be over by the time they are finished!

NOTE: We have booked tickets to Japan and Malaysia at the end of the year - I'm sure I will be able to use this beanie in Japan in December! I probably need to knit some mittens too - they will be next on my list perhaps

sunday: sock crazy

I have been going totally sock crazy since I started knitting socks. All I have been knitting is socks, socks and more socks! Although I have only completed 2 PAIRS of socks - I also have quite a number of odd socks who are waiting for the 2nd sock to be made. This is one of the completed pairs of socks - some baby blue socks I made for Justin's mum - they are waiting to be shipped off in the mail.

We've also been harvesting from the garden - my favourite so far has been zucchini flowers - tempura-ed! They are very delicious (those micro tomatoes aren't ours - we found them at a car park at the Heritage Markets - how cute are they?!)

friday: miniature bakery

One night as I was browsing etsy for some miniature food (as you do when you have a debit mastercard) Justin said, "why don't you just make your own miniature food?"

I originally thought, as if I can make miniature food out of clay that actually looks realistic..but after a few days of thinking about it (yes, I actually did think about it for days) I decided to give it a go. And you know what, it's really fun and not as hard as it looks! And it's addictive! I started off making bread sticks and fancy country style bread, then I made the vanilla frosted cakes, then some hot cross buns (both with currants and no currents) and then some cream buns! I wish I had a proper camera with a macro lens to show them close up with proper detail but all I have is a camera phone. You can see how small they are though. I need to get some more coloured clay tomorrow - all I have at the moment is white and yellow.

Pretty nifty though, hey.

I can't wait to make more things for my miniature bakery tomorrow! Now all I need is a display unit for them.

monday: things from the week

Last weekend I signed up for a Rockhampton library card - there are some crafty books I have been thinking of borrowing, but perhaps next week. They are crafty books, of course. Although I am slightly tempted to pick up a fiction book - I haven't read for fun in ages - mainly because while I studying there were other books that had to be read - textbooks of course :P




One thing I wish they had a book on is how to make miniature food from clay - I bought some cute patisserie delights from Etsy (can't wait for them to arrive in the mail!) and now I'm thinking, perhaps I can make my own.....




And lastly - we are thinking of holidays - both a 5 week one at the end of the year, and a weekend shopping/eating trip away. I was thinking Melbourne until I remembered the swine flu thing...maybe Sydney?

friday: wwkipd, miniature knitting and my debit mastercard (woot!)

It's Friday ALREADY! Wooo! And the best news - I NOW HAVE A DEBIT MASTERCARD.

This means I am officially a grown-up. Obviously getting your first credit card is a sign of being a grown-up, right?

I applied for one on Monday (taking advantage of my night shifts and the time I have off during the day when shops are actually open) and it arrived in the mail today. I am so excited. This weekend I am going to go absolutely crazy on etsy. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. I am so deprived of shopping at the moment. There is nothing special or nice to buy here in Rockhampton. Just the usual shops, but I mean, they don't even have a David Jones or Myer here. They have something called "Stewarts" which is their fancy shop but everything in it is way too big.

In other news: apparently tomorrow is World Wide Knit in Public Day! So you can finally knit on the train, at restaurants, at the supermarket while pushing your trolley, where ever, and not look like a weirdo. Well, not a complete one anyway. Although I think I would probably be the only one knitting in public in Rockhampton (not including market stall owners who selling their knitted stuff)

Oh and speaking of knitting, how CUTE is this:

Althea Crome of Bugknits (who did the mini knitting for the film Coraline) did these mini socks (the photo is also from her site) - as well as a bunch of other crazy mini knitted things (check out her website!) which I am absolutely LOVING right now! I need to join a miniature lovers society or something.

thursday: the conquering of mt jim crow

Things to do while you are travelling around the north: if you're looking for a challenge, why not try climbing Mt Jim Crow? It's not for the faint of heart, or the frail. There is a track at the beginning which makes you think, oh..this isn't too bad AT ALL - but as you keep ascending the track disappears and it becomes a mad scramble up the mountain with loose rocks under your feet (did you notice the sign in the picture says "warning - climbing Jim Crow is unsafe"?)

Don't get me wrong, people climb it. We saw two other groups of people during our climb. The views at the top aren't too bad either:


I got a bit wigged out looking down from the cliff when I realised how small our car looked from the top and how far up we really were! I get the feeling I have a thing with heights...

In other news: I started working in emergency this week. I'm not 100% sure I like it. I'm on night shifts from 4pm-12.30am so I get time off during daylight hours when shops are actually open which is quite bizarre.

But anyway, ED. The non-acute side is very GP-like and to tell you the truth, a bit boring. Mainly URTIs and ?fractures.

I punched something while I was drunk
A netball hit my little finger
My baby's foot was shut in a car door

That sort of thing.

And then there is the acute side: chest pain, arrhythmias, cardiac failure, SOB, bleeds, trauma

A bit full on when you first start working there. I was on the acute side last night and I was dealing with an arrhythmia/raised troponin and a chest pain/CCF. I think tonight I'll take the GP cases - I still need to recover from last night ;)

wednesday: brrrrrrrrr

I thought winter had forgotten this town, but I take it back. Mornings and evenings are COLD. Afternoons still feel like spring though. I would say summer, but summers here are pretty extreme*

*We have only experienced one summer in this town, but I think it's safe to say all summers here are hot+++

wednesday: two days left

This is my last week on the medical ward as an intern. It's a bit sad. Today was the last day I had to hold the met pager as a medical intern - it didn't go off - which is a good thing...but there's something very final about today even though there are 2 days left.

The med ward might be organizing a farewell dinner for the interns - if anyone can be bothered. But today we went out to get some lunch at an indonesian place during education (shhhhhhhhh) and it was kind of like a farewell.

monday: doodling

Sitting in front of the tv and doodling on the wacom - I wonder if wearing red in winter makes you feel warmer...