Happy Anniversary!

It's our fifth wedding anniversary today.

What was I thinking?!?!
Just kidding. 

I love you for ever!

Happy Anniversary Hon 

xoxo

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This is just some of the stuff Mark goes through every day.
He feels like he is never able to plan anything because he never knows what each day will be like when he wakes up. Will it be his 'normal' bad day or a very bad day as far as his fibro-fog and pain are concerned. I know he gets frustrated all the time.
I really hate seeing him suffer and I wish that I could make things better for him. 

We need to take it one day at a time, right?

It's Our Anniversary Today

Today Mark and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary.

We don't have any plans for today. Not yet anyway. 

I think we are going out for dinner or lunch on the weekend.

It's hard to believe it's been three years since our wedding day. It feels longer :P well, maybe that's because we have been together for almost 10 years.

I'm thinking I should try my dress on again. I have lost more weight since we got married. 

It might look even better on me than it did that day (~_o) 

Happy Anniversary hon. I love you!! ♥♥♥

Finished Item - Crochet - Beanies

Yesterday morning I posted the blanket and these two beanies to my niece, Kylie.

I had to squish everything into a 3 kg prepaid satchel. It was hard going but I did it. I think it took me almost 5 minutes to shove it all into the satchel without wrecking it (the satchel that is).

Today is going to be a busy day. Well sort of busy. I am taking Mark to get an ultrasound done on his upper abdomen. I am hoping that we will be able to find out whether he has gall stones or not. He is suffering with the pain. I'm crossing my fingers that it isn't anything serious. 

Later in the day we have someone from the Shire coming over for Brodie. We will be able to talk about how he is going to get funding so he can continue at Yooralla Day Services among other things. His previous funding has ceased now that he is 21. 

Anyway I better be off so we can head off for Marks scan.

Men Can Be So Stubborn

What a week! Last Sunday night I had to take Mark to the hospital because he was suffering from severe abdominal pain. The thing is he had been suffering for ten whole days before he even told me about it *rolls eyes* typical bloke, right?  He had been suffering from this while the boys and I were visiting family in Adelaide and he never told me. I could've kicked his bottom for not telling me. It turns out that he may have gall stones and the pain is in the area where his liver/gall bladder is. We went to see one of the doctors at our clinic on Monday morning to get a referral for an ultrasound. He is now booked in for one next Tuesday. We go back to the doctor on Friday to get the results.

That little white dot in the pupil is the aluminium fragment.

On Monday night Mark was working in his shed grinding something with his dremel. He had been wearing safety glasses. He took them off to examine what he was working on when he saw that there was a small piece that needed to be removed. So he got the dremel and began working on it. This time however he did not put the safety glasses back on. You can see where I am going here, right? You got it. The piece of metal flew off and got him in the eye. In the pupil to be precise *OUCH* Guess what?!?! We had another trip down to the hospital.

Thankfully the rest of the week was uneventful at least on the medical front. Knock on wood that there are no more 'emergencies' coming up!

He's Such A Romantic

Mark gave me some flours tonight. Isn't he a romantic?!?! 

I love my geeky husband who has such a wicked sense of humour!

Happy Little Camper

Mark is off camping in the Alpine region for a few days. He sent me this photo last night in an email via his ham radio which means it wasn't sent through an internet connection. At least not at his end. 

There are 4 individual tents/trailers set up.

It's meant to snow up in the Alpine area this weekend. At least that's what the weather bureau has forecast. So far it has only been raining. Mark did say that he was enjoying himself so that's the main thing right? I just hope that if it does snow that he and his fellow campers remain safe and warm.

That spot marked A is where the campsite is

Ooo He Was Sneaky ..

Mark was very sneaky this morning and took a photo of me at the desk. It almost looks like he drew it though. He used a app on his tablet called Paper Camera. It's also available for iphone. I have to admit it's not a bad shot really.

7 Year Itch? Not Likely...

On Wednesday it was the 7th anniversary of when Mark and I first started dating. I suggested that we should go out and celebrate. Any excuse to go out for a feed right?? Also any excuse to get out of cooking! Plus I thought it was a good idea to have two anniversaries (~_o) 

We didn't end up going out on Wednesday like we initially planned. Mark wasn't feeling up to it so we went out for lunch yesterday at one of the local Chinese restaurants here in town. 

We chose the two person banquet. 

Prawn toast and spring rolls with a sweet chilli dipping sauce

Mongolian beef - the sauce was divine!

Fried rice

Prawns with vegetables

It was very filling. I didn't even want to eat dinner last night. Although I think it may have had something to do with the temperature still being around the 38C (100F) at 8 pm. Yuck! Far too hot to eat. 

That old saying about the 7 year itch thing I guess you can say that it doesn't really apply to us considering we only just got married last month.

Here's to many more happy years together!

On Golden Pond

Well it's not exactly a golden pond it's more like a red plastic pond but it's ours and I think it looks pretty good. Mark has been on a clean up kick at the moment. The facet joint injections have kicked in and he is getting some pain relief from them. 

Mark has tackled the backyard and got rid of the mountains of weeks and grass that had grown wild in what used to be our veggie patch. 

We have had the little fish pond for a while but the first lot of little fishies died a while back and we now have four new ones. 

Yesterday we went to a garden centre in town and bought some volcanic rock to go around the outside of the pond. The pond is technically a kids wading pool but I think it looks pretty good as a pond.

Mark had phoned another garden nursery in town to check if they sold plants that were suitable for ponds. In fact he phoned them three times. They hung up on his twice and the third time his call went to voice mail. We ended up going to the next town over from us and spent over $70 in plants and other items. Their loss!

Don't worry about the water being all mucky and dirty. That only happened when Mark had disturbed the gravel on the bottom of the pond while placing the plants in the water.

I took these last two photos just a few minutes ago to show what the pond looks like today now that all the sediment has settled down.

the fish hide under the wood underneath the little waterfall.

What do you think? It looks pretty good huh.

In The Dog House ...

Mark set up his camping gear out in the front yard yesterday. The camouflage tent/cover was purchased at one of the local Op shops in town. Mark wanted to check that everything was okay and in good working order. 

I bought Mark a swag last week. It's that funny looking thing in the photo below under the tent thing. It closes up all nice and snug and secure. I think I would be a tad claustrophobic if I had to sleep in it. Mark had set the swag up in the backyard the other day soon after I had bought it. He had even slept in it that night. Yep I know strange huh, fancy not wanting to sleep indoors?!? Angus even slept in it the following night but got a little bit scared and came inside. I don't blame him although he would have been very safe in the back yard.

I told Mark that this was his dog house for when he get into trouble. He smiled. In fact he said it is more comfortable than a dog house. If you could see the mattress, the sleeping bag, pillow and blankets you would think it was very comfy too.

A Camping We Will Go

Mark and one of his ham radio friends have gone camping this week. They're going somewhere in the Avon Wilderness park which is about 2 - 3 hours drive from home. I have no idea what they will be doing there other than using their radio gear.

I told Mark to treat this week as his 'bucks night'. I was joking but he thought it was a great idea. I don't know if I should be worried or not lol. His friend said that he would bring him home safe so I shouldn't worry. I am sure they will have a good time.

Map of where Mark is going camping. You can click on it to enlarge it & you will be able to see it more clearly.

It's the first time Mark and I have been apart for more than one night since we got together. It's going to be strange without him here. Hopefully this week will fly past & he will be home before I know it.

You Sew and Sew

Mark finally got around to sewing the android patch I made onto his vest. Perhaps this means he will wear it more often now. I'm not sure anyone other than a geek or an android user will understand what the reference is. Not that it matters really. It may just be a tool to get a conversation started and goodness knows how much Mark loves to talk and talk and talk! He's a real chatterbox.

I Was Given The Universe .. Well A Galaxy .. Sort Of

I got the best surprise yesterday morning after the postie, Luke, had been to our home. I knew Mark was getting a new phone. He had ordered a Galaxy SIII and I was going to get his old phone. Which was fine by me as my old LG Optimus wasn't holding charge even with a new battery. I wasn't able to save much data on it or install many apps due to the size limitation (only 139 MB of storage was available to use) and I was unable to install things to the memory card. I was constantly needing to delete data to make room. I was very happy to get Mark's old phone because it could do things mine could not. Like save to the memory card.

Mark's new phone arrived and he brought me his old phone so that I could start 'making it mine' by adding the SIM card and the SD card. There I was beginning to set it up and Mark walks over to me holding a box all wrapped up in pretty paper and a card to go with it. Imagine my surprise when I open it to find that Mark had bought me a brand new Galaxy Nexus and a pretty purple cover to protect it. The cheeky thing!

I was glad that I had something to distract me yesterday afternoon. I was busy installing apps and playing (~_~) it's nice to know that I wont run out of space on this phone. Well not in a hurry anyway. There's 16 GB of storage with 1 GB of memory! The camera in it is pretty good too. I managed to sneak a photo of Brodz and a pic of Angus (who willingly let me take a photo). Those two are so camera shy. I wonder where they get that from ... it has nothing to do with a girl who used to hide behind doors and things because she didn't want her picture taken. Nope nothing to do with that at all!!

How gorgeous are these two boys?? Don't tell them I posted pics of them here though. They wont be happy with me.

Well I'm off to hang out some washing and hopefully get it dry before the weather changes. Then I am off to play with my phone and do some crocheting once I work out what I am making next.

♥ I Love My Geek ♥

Mark surprised me with a card he had made up. 

He's actually had a lot of them made up (around 250 of them) so that he can leave me messages ☺

I ♥ my geek

He really is a romantic at heart.

Life Begins At 40

Happy 40th Birthday Mark 

(& Sean)

A recent photo of Mark (photo by Paul Stubbs)

 

 May You Live a Long Life
May you live a long life
Full of gladness and health
With a pocket full of gold
As the least of your wealth
May the dreams you hold dearest
Be those which come true
May the kindness you spread,
Keep returning to you.

(An Irish blessing)

My Photographer

Mark has a new Digital SLR camera. He's written about it on his blog. Mark has all sorts of fancy lenses & things to go with the camera. He did tell me but my mind didn't seem to be able to hand on to all the details (o_0)

If you're interested you can check out his post HERE. He's taken some amazing photos with it already. Here's just a few of them.

I have no idea what the plants are that have been photographed. All I know is that they're flowers and they look pretty :D 

Mark's other photos can be found here on flickr.
If you check out the photos on flickr you can download them for wallpapers :D 

He's Holding A Torch For Me ...

This torch is nice and heavy weighing in at 3.1 kg (6.8 pounds) and is 48 cm (18.89 inches) long

Mark has a thing for torches. He likes them about as much as I like knitting & crocheting. Mark also likes maglites. Mark had been looking at these torches on ebay the other week and was saying how he was going to buy himself one next pay day. So when I got that extra money from Centrelink this week I decided that I would buy the torch instead.

Of course the torch isn't complete yet. We've ordered some accessories to go with it but they are coming from the US so they may take a while to get here. I have no idea what they are but Mark wanted them. As I said he likes torches as much as I like knitting & crocheting but it's really not something that I am that interested in. Now if it had been some fancy new skein of yarn or needles & hooks I would've paid more attention (sorry Hon )

I wonder how many torches we have in the house now ... not that I have ever counted them all but I bet there's quite a few. (edited update: Mark rattled off how many torches we have and there are at least a dozen. I lost count lol)

I Drove For More Than 3 Hours Today

Gosh it's been a very long day today. I drove all the way into Brighton this morning to take Mark to a Cardiologist appointment. A 178km round trip ( just over 110 miles) which meant at least 3 hours travelling time & yes I drove ALL the way. It's no wonder I feel pooped *yawn* I could use a Nanna nap.

the route we travelled

The cardiologist (a Professor) we saw was really, really nice! I am so glad that Mark's doctor referred us to him. I was very impressed with the way he explained things to us.
He looked at all the test results and the scans that we brought with us. The Prof. told Mark that his heart looked beautiful. I guess that's a good thing for a cardiologist to say. There were no blockages or anything which of course is all good. He explained that the pains in Mark's chest is a cardiac spasm. We were also told that Mark has dyslipidemia which basically means that there are abnormal amounts of cholesterol in his blood & not the good cholesterol either. (it's something I need to watch for too being a diabetic - I didn't know that).

With this in mind it may mean that Mark might need medication to help reduce his cholesterol levels at a later date. For now the Professor is very happy to let the GP handle things & that of course if things change for the worse he can go back to see him.

We were also given some reading material to take home. [Which I will get stuck into when I don't feel so sleepy *yawn* or hungry for that matter (it's almost dinner time)] He also explained to us that Mark is at risk of developing problems later in life if things are left to continue as they are. In other words it wont hurt Mark to lose a little bit of weight, become more active (maybe join me for a walk or go swimming), quit smoking and just generally eat more healthily. (Sorry hon you may need to cut back on all of those noodles you love eating!)

At least we have some answers. & that was exactly what we were looking for :) now we just need to put things into action. Well Mark does. I already have my own health plan to work with :D

It's Like The Tardis

Mark's a bit of a neat freak when it comes to his shed (also known as "The Man Cave"). I suppose that's kind of natural when its where he spends a lot of his time. Well apart from bed where he seems to sleep a lot some days (sorry hon but it is true).

Mark can watch TV on the top monitor.

or he can spend some time just watching his fish

Would you believe that if he moves his chair that there is even a space for him to lie on the floor to sleep or just watch TV. Although Mark never sleeps in there because he is in the dog house but there is always a first time :P

Everything has a place to "live"

You don't think he is a little bit OCD do you? Sometimes I think he might be.

everything is labelled
(if I can't find my labeller inside I know it is in the shed!)

Each tool box is organised carefully to fit EVERYTHING in

I swear that Mark's shed is like the TARDIS (from Doctor Who its that blue police box he travels in). Its much BIGGER on the inside! I honestly don't know how he manages to keep ALL his stuff in there!

Mark says I can borrow his tools but I never do

Look how tidy things are.

There really IS a place for everything!

Now if I could only get Mark to tidy up the backyard or even better inside the house (the kitchen cupboards need organising) on a regular basis this home would be fantastic. I'm not picking on you Mark, honest! xoxo