Boring

I used to enjoy grocery shopping, now I just pain hate it. I was half way through it today and thought... I gotta get out of here. But I finished it off and now I have so many to put away.
I know you all know how shopping works, but let me recap.

1. Get grocery item off shelf into your trolley
2. Out of trolley onto conveyor belt
3. Back into trolley
4. From trolley into car
5. Car into house
6. Then pack away.

That is SIX time we are handling these items - when are they inventing the all in one mega scanner that you just push your trolley through. It will take off two steps.

RLS Update.

Well its still all very annoying. I sleep good of I take a sleeping pill. The rest of the time its total s***t excuse my language. When you work shift work and finish work at 10.30pm and have to start again at 7am - which means not to bed until close to 11pm and then up at 5.30... can't really take a sleeping pill to get you through the night, cos it'll be too hard to wake up the next day - trust me I've tried and I'm a zombie - would you want your nurse (or your mother's nurse) to be a zombie and non functioning until 9am, I didn't think so. My GP assures me it has a short half life and that I'll "get used to it". But my big question is do I want to get used it? I don't want to spend the rest of my life dependant on sleeping tablets. Its not good, even now at 9.50am my brain is all foggy, my hearing is weird, my legs are ACHING, and I'm just plain miserable.
Luckily those of you in blogland cannot see my house, there is just NO energy to do anything. As soon as I finish this I will try to clean up. Jamie gets annoyed at me cos I'm not pulling my weight - and yes Margie, he helps marvellously and as he puts it, he does almost everything. I still cook and do the clothes washing, but very little else. I really don't know where to go now....
Let me list - for myself and those out there - what I have tried.

• Magnesium tablets
• Hot baths and camomile tea
• Deep Heat rubbed into my legs
• Clonazepam (from the family of Valium) starting at 0.25mg and then anything up to 2mg - very drugged, very very addictive.
• Oxycontin (slow acting morphine)
• Temazepam (sleeping tablet)
• Anti-dopamine meds (for Parkinson Disease - I was EXTREMELY nauseaus - full on vomiting for 4 days, won't try that again)
• Gabapentin (neurotransmitter inhibitor) - varying doses and times of the day, worked at the beginning now its crap.
• Flunitrazapine (supposedly a SHORT acting sleeping tablets but makes me VERY foggy - but I'll get used to it)
• I also slightly tried many other therapies but limited funding has not allowed that to happen.
• Salt free diet - very hard to maintain, especially when one is exhausted from just maintaining an income and keeping up with the laundry.

Just yesterday I could have screamed when I was told by a colleage that her husband "suffers from RLS" and camphor wrapped in a penny under the sheets works a treat. Well I'm sorry, but that will not do with me. I'm SICK, very SICK and its a really stupid illness that is not understood by people and I've had enough.

I don't want to hear about old wives tales of how camphor mixes with pennies and cures me. Its not curable, its something I have to live with and it sucks.

Now I'm so HOT, sweating all of the time, my face burns from heat almost constantly. My legs hurt, my back hurts, my arms ache, my brain is mushy and I'm supposed to care about camphor, I know she is trying to help. But I really want to know what to do to help.

Sorry again this has turned into a rant, but I'm exhausted. Work is so hard, so hot - it would have been over 30 degrees in the room, the patients are sweating so much its rediculous, I have to wear heavy pants and thick cotton shirts and I get so hot. I did a quick shift with only about 3 hours sleep and I don't know what to do with myself.

I did buy some easter eggs today and they look lovely. I'll take a photo of my display when the house is tidy (check back sometime in the next three weeks).

Long time - no blog.

Sorry about that folks.

Just wanted to share a picture of my darling family. Its a really nice one of us taken about three weeks ago at a birthday party we went to.

Mmmmmm Comfort Food.

I was looking for a yummy dessert, so I went to a really daggy cookbook - "The Hants County Cookbook" and found Poverty Pudding. Doesn't sounds too good, but the ingredients - brown sugar mmmmmm
Not as great as I wanted, but yummy hot syrup over ice cream.
Yes I know, the diet the starts tomorrow! Not sure which tomorrow, but its tomorrow Hah ahahaha

Footy Training.

After a huge kerpuffle yesterday which ended up with my two blokes not liking each other.
Today is a different story and I so wish I had photos. We did footy training. Thursday is the first official Junior AFL training session and Jamie wants Mark fit. Tonight we headed over to the swamp park, swatting mozzies the whole way - I'm sure Shrek is down there somewhere.

First of all was jog - sprint - jog - sprint - jog - SPRINT. He thought that was it.. but no Jamie had other plans. We handballed it to each other, ran and jumped and kicked and avoided the dogs who were chasing each other through the whole thing. The we did some tackling, marking, more running and by this stage I was fully involved too... I ran the length of the park (well maybe half of the length) lots of kicking and running. Then we did some situps, pushups, star jumps, more sprints. It was actually fun and Mark after initially thinking the whole world was against him is now very happy with himself and happy to be playing real footy.

The best part was near the end - Marko collapsed on the ground in a "snow angel" type of fashion with a huge grin on his face. I wish I had the camera - there in a split second - was the perfect scrapbook page ever. :( I missed it again.

Question for the folks in Melbourne... who has our big "normal" camera?

Very cool.

Saw this on Kathryn's blog, and it has reminded me I have SOOOO much more travelling to do in this world. Can't wait for Jamie and I to be able to travel.

Pop on over to this site and check it out for yourself. Shows you where in the world you have been on a map. Very cool.

Part III

Hmm, now its Sunday morning.

• Woke up about 5am. Lay there for a little bit and then decided to quietly get up so as not to wake Connie. No such luck she was already awake as well, so we showered and then went back to the scrap room, it was very strange to be scrapping and watching the sun come up. We chatted - yes I know that I actually mean I talked poor Connie's ear off - and it was so wonderful to catch up with her again, I so miss living just around the corner from her -as I have written on one of my LOs, its so wonder to actually like your family and your in-laws as well. I must be one of the luckiest people in the world.
• Decided to skip the TaiChi class, just couldn't be bothered.
• Breakfast of bacon and eggs YUMMMM. Have I mentioned that the food at the Country Place was marvellous and if anyone out there in blog land is looking for a nice place to hold a function or convention, I would recommend this place.
• Back to scrapping again. I did a total of around 15 - 20 projects for the weekend. I finished off my friend Joanne's wedding album. About 10 LOs of my own. Covered the Smiggle diary that we were all given. The Urban Lilly class which were delightful little boxes with mini books inside. I loved making them but am now unsure what to do with them.
• Then it really was just pack up and head home.

Unfortunately this is when my life turned - for want of a better word - to shit. I had an almost total breakdown on Sunday night. I think I cried to mum for about 90 minutes, that is a really long time to cry. My Restless Leg Syndrome is so bad that it is ruining my life. The lack of sleep is what is worst, RLS is a sleep disorder mostly, not a neurological or muscle problem. Its so frustrating because so many people think its funny, why would moving your legs a little bit worry you so much, why don't you try magnesium, have you tried ............... and the list is endless. Yes I have tried them all, and not much helps. I'm currently on Gabapentin and a sleeping tablet and for the last 4 nights its been ok, not great but ok. Its still worrying me so much that I feel quite sick most of the time. Daytime napping is quite rediculous, and night time NOTHING isn't so bad, but I keep on remembering all the times when its 3am and I have not had a wink of sleep, I'm so exhausted from pacing the floor and the only thing on television is that stupid QuizMania (who invented that show). So I'm now taping everything I like and rewatching my favourite shows... I have the whole current season of Greys Anatomy on my hard drive and its so easy to rewatch, if you are the tv junkie I am.

Anyway RLS has hijacked this post, so I'll leave it there and will go into more detail another day, I might even take a picture of my legs for a scrap page about my suffering one day! Could be quite therapeutic, but will have to shave my legs first don't you think.

Man that has been a ramble and if you have gotten to the end of it I congratulate you, and if you leave me a comment, I might even send you a Freddo! Actually lets aim for a record - the 10th comment WILL get a Freddo and something nice that I will make for you in the post. Come on (as Lleyton would say) lets get the comment section on this daggy little blog happening. I can make a pretty fancy bookmark you know!

Love you guys, lets see those comments roll in!

Part II

Where was I up to....

I'll start again at Saturday morning.

• Had a poor night's sleep, woke up at 6.45am had a shower and decided yes I would go on that "walk" with Connie, Bec and Julie. Hmmm darn near nearly killed me - I knew I was unfit, but that unfit. Went downhill to start with and then UP, my breathing got worse and it was very embarassing. Went so red in the face - had to have another shower to cool my body down and I'm now all recovered.
• Breakfast was lovely, a smorasboard of cereal, fruit, compote, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, toast and Liz brought her own "Kiwi honey". I had Just Right with a spoon of mixed berries YUM.
• Back to the scrap room. Fun.
• Did a class with Katie Toland which was really nice. I'm so in love with painting chipboard and putting little white dots on it. There is a picture of the LO on Katie's blog, they all turned out beautiful, but when you are working with such a talent, there isn't much hope of it failing.
• Then back to general scrapping.
• I had a massage - felt really good.
• Then back to general scrapping.
• Dinner - REALLY yummy lamb cutlets and a passionfruit pannacotta for dessert.
• Then back to general scrapping.
• Went to bed at 10pm - one of the earliest in the room.

Amazing

Just had the best weekend ever - maybe not ever - but it was great, The Scrapanalia Retreat in the Dandenongs.

Went down on Thursday at midday, got Marko's new birth certificate from BDM with his real name. When we changed his name just before starting school, I had one then, dont' know what happened to it. Now I have a very official looking certificate which says "Mark Emmanuel Lantz" formerly known as Mark Emmanuel Orset. Glad that is fully sorted, now I can open him a bank account in his REAL name.

Jo and the most amazing, wonderful, delightful, funny, gorgeous, round, talkative, almost sitting, playing games Sheena Tara Geary came over. Had a great time with the girls. Jo and I shared in my old room and Sheena got kicked out to the office. It was so nioce being home with my mummy, daddy and little sister, felt so normal and nice. Had some lovely cuddles with Miss Sheena, found out that longish hair and babies who GRIP are not good friends, by hair survived. Sheena has discovered that when propped up in a sitting position if you get a good rock going and then flail your arm up you will fall backwards - then you put your little hands up and then do it all again. Very cute.

Friday arvo we went to Olinda to the retreat and it was amazing. The place was gorgeous, green, and fresh. Rooms were nice - shame about water restrictions as the showers were lovely. Dinner was equally amazing, silver service - Salmon on loose lasagne YUMMY. Then to the scrap room. We scrapped the whole time except for meals and sleeping, we worked it out to be about 28 hours and I'm not sick of it.

To be continued.....