Miss you...

...dad.












I hope if there's an afterlife, that they pull a decent pint or three there.
I hope if there isn't an afterlife, that your component atoms have relocated themselves to suitable pints of beer. :-)

Before the new DiscWorld book...

...comes out on the 13th of October, I am attempting to reread all the previous ones. All thirty eight of them, plus the three Science of DiscWorld books (people miss these out, but if you don't at least read the story sections you are missing out on vast chunks of Rincewind and The Wizards).

I am partly reading, and partly listening to the unabridged audiobooks. This way even when I decide to have a reading break and go and do some jigsaw or some WoW or some stitching, I'm still getting through the books.

I might have to speed up a little though, I spent Sunday finishing off Reaper Man, which is book eleven.


DiscWorld Reading Guide

I am very aware...

...that nowadays I am a very intermittent blogger. I am trying my hardest not to be.

I have been trying to blog by thinking up ideas ahead of time - this then means that I feel like I have already written the blog post in question. When, of course, I have not.

I have been trying to blog by not thinking up ideas ahead of time - this then means that I go "I need to blog" and then go "errrr, about what...".

The fact that I have just had two weeks off work (holiday I booked in March when partly expecting Anthony to be able to get the time off too (he couldn't) and thoroughly expecting to be off work for a year from the start of November (maternity leave)) should have meant that I blogged. If only about my plans for my four days down south, or about what I did when I was down there.

Instead I did a lot of cross-stitching, played a bit of WoW, read/listened to (Audible rock) a lot of DiscWorld and did assorted jigsaw puzzling, Pinteresting, and clearing out of old cross-stitch magazining while watching an awful lot of NCIS.

Then this morning, despite going to bed at 2.30am (a very failed attempt at getting back onto "normal" time), I woke up at 8am and had ideas for blogs and crafts and all sorts of things. So instead of just snuggling back to sleep and losing them all, I got up and wrote some very short notes on life, the universe, and everything. (and found a million beautiful Whovian things on Pinterest, but that's today's previous post)

So I'm not going to promise suddenly organised blogging, 5 days a week, with a topic for each day. But I'm going to add "blogging at least once a week" to my Now List (that's from this here book), and see what happens.

I am currently...

...so deeply in love with this that it hurts.

The Dalek Game by tanaudel (not only for the illustrations, but also for her "Fire and Hemlock" inspired name)



I stumbled across her dalek illustrations on Flickr while I was drooling over these heavenly Mucha inspired prints



Now I just have to work out: a) where I can put them in my house, b) what I have to not buy in order to afford them.

No news...

...is good news. Right?

Well in terms of me not blogging it is. I have been actually busy having actual adventures... a whole two of them.

Plus after phoning the hospital every day for a week following @SarahAnnGreen's totally fabulous news, I was finally told that although I wouldn't be getting an appointment to see the consultant, I did have a letter in the post.

Cue four days of worriting (our post is crap).

The letter arrived, was hastily ripped open...and then I burst into tears.

Good tears, as you will know if you were on Twitter about 10 minutes later to read my joyous tweetlings.

I need to start taking folic acid and low-dose asprin as soon as I start trying to conceive again, then as soon as I get a positive test it's off to the doctors for a course of progesterone.

I get to choose between this and this.

I'm choosing the second one, I bruise far too easily even without the aspirin!

I'll keep you informed better in future... promise ;-)

Blood, blood...

...glorious blood. (with apologies to Flanders & Swann)

Today was appointment day to see the consultant at New Cross about my miscarriages. Unfortunately we didn't get to see him this time, but it wasn't as bad as last time.

We got a lovely nursing sister who talked me right through my entire history and picked out a few things to focus on. Then she took another armful of blood (note to self, right arm has better veins) for testing.

I will get to see the actual consultant in "probably August but possibly July, he's running some extra clinics". But "if you get an appointment in the next 10 days, well done but the blood tests won't be back by then".

Meh.

But I have enquired about progesterone and oestrogen testing and she has flagged this up in my notes for the consultant to review when I see him "as he knows more about that than I do".

Essentially no answers again, but when I do get to see him I will get a PLAN that will be passed on to my GP and will also be for me to keep and will potentially include things in it like no lifting of any sort, daily aspirin, etc etc.

Fingers very much crossed that I get an appointment in...oooh, 12 days maybe!

Plus much much love to all my darling darling twitter-folk for their support, hugs, kisses and virtual cake this morning, just what the doctor ordered ;-)

Seriously...

...prodding buttock.

I may have just found the perfect motivational tool for 99% of my days.

I've just managed to spend an entire hour on the cross-trainer (assisted by the wondrous Lady Gaga), my legs now feel like jelly and I'm worried I may faint in the shower, but I did it.

My motivational tool is below:

This is the baby jacket that my darling sister brought me back from Canada in 2005. In fact she brought it back exactly six years ago last Monday (20th). Unfortunately that makes tomorrow exactly six years since I had my first miscarriage.

We've got an appointment with the specialist at New Cross next Tuesday. Hopefully we'll get a few questions answered and get a few pointers for the future.

But I'm thinking that making myself sad and angry so that I blast it with the cross-trainer until I fall over will be an excellent coping technique.

As for the other 1% of the time when it just makes me want to eat chocolate, hopefully the 99% will help counteract it!