Ahhh, sleep, I NEED you!

I’ve definitely broken a filling – I managed to get a good look at it last night.  Lost about a quarter of a BIG amalgam filling in my second lower molar. I have lots of fillings, and most of them were done before I was in my mid twenties… I suspect this particular one could date from my childhood, so possibly 30 years ago. That’s probably about the lifespan of these fillings…. fingers crossed that it’s the only one that is giving up! (And hey, I’m NOT a dentist, so I could be totally wrong about that. Well, fancy that. here’s an article saying 10 years is a good run! )  Also fingers crossed that the nice dentist can repair the filling, and not have to replace the whole thing…

I’m also reminding myself that it’s okay to feel anxious. It’s *struggling* with those feelings that causes the problem.  And I am accepting that for me anxiety feels very physical – I keep having to run to the loo, my mouth is dry, my stomach hurts.  And I can’t fix it with more food (not even more frozen grapes!) – I just have to stay calm and let the anxious feelings be there.  I can get through this.

Just gone one o’clock.  (I’m browsing whilst writing, it doesn’t really take me that long to write 300 words!)

I could really do without the next door neighbour SCREAMING at her toddler every 5 minutes  – I swear, that kid must think his name is either “Djuwarna Belting?” or “LEAVE IT!”  At least this time there’s just one toddler, his Mum, and a teenager who may or may not be the mother’s offspring…don’t know, don’t care, just want her to bloody well respect the fact that she is NOT alone in the neighbourhood and that not everyone cares for her DOOMF DOOMF DOOMF music all day and night!

I doubt they’ll last long, anyway – when I had to go over the other day and ask for the stereo to be turned down, the “responsible adult” came to the door, beer in hand, at 3 in the afternoon.  The screeching gets worse during the day until it peaks at around 5:30, when “Djuwarna” becomes “SIT DOWN! EAT IT! Djuwarna Belting?”

1:20pm.  34.5 outside, 33.1 inside.

Going to work in my art journal for a while now.

Here are two drawings that will go in that journal – they’re not finished here, they will be cut out and  put on a background with some other images:

False Friend and Small Town Art Critic

[clicky for biggy]

“False Friend” has a knife in one hand (to stab me in the back) while the other hand holds a tulip.  The background is Ranger Adirondack acrylic dabber paint in “Sandal”  and the coloured pencils are all Prismacolor (which I just lovelovelove!).

“Small Town Art Critic” is determined not to like anything he sees because he is a blocked artist himself who hasn’t done any art in years, but he goes to every gallery opening and drinks the free wine.  Background is some cheap craft white acrylic paint, drawing in Prismacolor pencil.

Both are on old book pages – there’s something about painting/drawing on book pages I really like – I did a lot of it when I was doing the Art Diploma course at TAFE.

Meanwhile my back is still cactus. (For readers who are wondering what the hell that means, “cactus” means “not working” (Wiktionary says “(Australian, slang): Non-functional, broken, exhausted.)

And we have new neighbours in one of the three properties around us up for rent.  Time will tell if they’re bearable… so far she seems to be on a cleaning jag, scrubbing the bathroom windowsill with a toothbrush  – sheesh!  (I dare not scrub ours because the wood has rotted!)  No big dogs or hordes of toddlers in evidence as yet…

Not much else has happened this week… I have a toothache, which is making me miserable and costing me sleep, so I am overtired and grumpy again. Just got to get through to 11 o’clock tomorrow and the dentist will fix it.  I am so tired of it hurting I’m almost looking forward to going to the dentist!  (and I am the biggest sook of a patient…) Luckily we have lots of Oil of Cloves in the meantime…

The new King sized quilt for the bed has been WONDERFUL.   Even when Constance the Counterpane Counterweight hops up, there is still enough quilt to cover both me and Mr Beloved.  So nice not to have to wrestle for the quilt!

And in wonderful news: the Shouties next door have moved out!  No more THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD as the three children under 5 start running up and down the wooden floored hallway next door at 6 every morning.  (It sounded like it was in our house – our bedroom wall being only about 2 metres away from their house.)

Surely after all the &(*#^!&(^@&*( neighbours we’ve had in that house, we must be due for a nice quiet retired couple with a small quiet dog and no grandchildren? We can only hope…

Mr Beloved headed off to Germ Central (aka the Doctor’s waiting room during school holidays) on Monday, and surprise surprise – he brought home a little something with him.  A snuffly, achy, ohmygosh do I really have to get up I feel MISERABLE kind of something.

Which he has been crook with for the last 4 days and  which now  – SURPRISE – is laying me low as well.

Nearby, the ongoing wake-with-nightly-bonfires and cleanup of the house where sadly, two housemates are never coming home again after a terrible accident a week ago continues…  and makes me determined to tackle the mess in our house and yard just as soon as I don’t feel so rotten. I would hate for my friends and family to have to come and deal with our stuff… I mean, *I* know why there are books in boxes in every room, and piles of saved paper for my art journals, and what various fabric pieces are an essential part of or are planned to become, but to anyone else it would just be sad, overwhelming clutter.

But for now – I’m off to watch Time Team and have a homemade  banana and bacon pizza for tea. (Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it!)

So I’ve been having a few memory and distraction problems of late.  More so than usual – it’s taking me more pages to remember if I’ve read a book before (although this could also be attributable to reading too many cosy mysteries); I lose things more easily (“Darl? Have you seen….?”) and then yesterday was a doozy.

Started out with an almighty CRASH of smashing crockery at 6 am as I hauled the blankets back across the bed, having forgotten completely that I’d let the dog have the yoghurt bowl (on the bed) and forgotten to move it before I went to sleep… the bowl hit the floor and luckily smashed into two big pieces rather than a gazillion little ones.  (And for those of you who think either eating yoghurt in bed or letting the dog lick the nearly empty yoghurt bowl is unacceptable, what are you doing reading MY blog?!)

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah E. Harkness

Then last night as I was just about to go to sleep, having read a few pages of the interesting but ohmygosh-I’m-so-tiiiiiired book that I read before I go to sleep (in this case, A Discovery of Witches by Deborah E. Harkness, which is turning out to be better than some reviews lead me to believe) I put on my CPAP mask and realised  – OH NOES – it wasn’t working.

Because earlier on  I cleaned one piece of my CPAP mask – normally I’d clean the whole thing, but I noticed ONE part that just needed some attention -

Not me - someone else in the very attractive (!) Mirage Quattro mask

Small, silicone piece crucial to the mask working properly

and I lost the silicone piece listed here (for some reason in Spanish!) as “ports cap”.  But I didn’t REALISE I’d lost it until I put the mask on.

Much kerfuffle as Caity veers ever closer to panic (because it’s after midnight on Saturday night, the only place that sells the CPAP parts isn’t open until Monday and I CAN’T SLEEP without the mask) and Mr Beloved treats the bedroom as a crime scene, carefully and systematically moving scarves, clothes, blankets, etc while I dither about the edges…  and it’s not easy to find a clear silicone thingummy at something towards 1 am in a dusty room – but at last the missing piece was found and I could sleep.    Catastrophe averted!

Phew.  But it’s illustrative of my memory not being what it was, and my distractibility (is that even a word?!) increasing.  It’s hard for me to concentrate on things, is what I’m saying.  I write down all the medicines I take in a book, every time I take them, have done for the last year or two, just so I can be sure whether I have taken them or not… seriously, at my age, I feel like I shouldn’t have to do that!  Oh well, it is what it is.

And now I have to go do something or other but I can’t quite remember what it is…

Haven’t got much done this week.  The highlight was Mr Beloved’s long anticipated trip to the radiologists for a sub-acromial injection – that is, an ultrasound guided injection of local anaesthetic + cortisone to alleviate the bursitis in his shoulder (caused by falling UP the stairs and inadvertently shoulder-charging the house, some time back in January.)  I dragged myself out of bed expecting that I would need to drive him home from the appointment  – only to find that he was nearly BOUNCING with joy as he left the building!

The initial relief was mostly from the local; we’re hoping that it will continue to improve as the steroid does its work.  We’re both astonished at how effective the shot has been -  he’s had restricted movement in that shoulder and arm and lots of pain for MONTHS.  And now he can move his shoulder again and lift his arm to get into jackets and so on – amazing!

So he’s been working on the studio: (Clicky for biggy)

Caity's desk

Mr Beloved's desk

And – we almost missed it – our baby girl turned SEVEN this week!

Connie on her first day with us

Wasn’t she the cutest little teddy bear of a pup?!

She FLIES! With her favourite new ball

She does more for the household’s happiness and well-being than just about anything else.  I often joke to my psychiatrist and psychologist that poodles should be supplied on medicare!   She went to the groomer this week so is looking particularly fluffy and her teeny little toes are shaved.  We still have fights about her being brushed but she prefers her own coat to anything else, so we have to leave her fur long in this cold weather.

It's almost impossible to get them both looking at the camera...

Miss Kit Tern has been very tolerant of this rumbustious addition to the household.  Neither of them are good at posing for the camera, though.

On the agenda for this week: more book sorting (will it never end?!) and a trip to The Department That Controls Our Lives with bank statements to prove that we have spent ALL THE MONEY on getting the house fixed, so please don’t think that we are earning vast amounts of interest on our savings and reduce our pensions.  Sheesh.

So I’ve been inside a lot this week.

Not that I’ve got much done.  The psychiatrist has agreed that I can reduce the amount of the new drug (Seroquel) from 300mg to 200mg but as it’s stored in body fat (of which I have a lot!) it’s going to be 6 weeks before we can expect any change.  I’m hoping that the reduced dose will help with the severe dry mouth and anger.

Although the psychiatrist says anger is a good sign, that depression is anger turned inwards, and that being angry means I’m getting better.  I don’t buy that: I don’t actually feel angry at anyone or about anything, it’s just this horrible low grade grump non-stop.  “What else can you turn that energy towards?” asks the psych.  ARRRRRGHH!  There’s always housework but I’m SO not in the mood for scrubbing walls.

I’m very happy my parents are coming to visit.  (I know I’ve mentioned this before.) But they know how we really live anyway – so even though the house will be cleaner than usual in honour of their visit, it’s not fooling anyone.

Whinge whinge whinge.

Here’s something:

Habitat

Now, you might think these are just the Wildflower  Emblem of Our Suburb, and you’d be right: the abandoned car is just that.  But it’s also something else.

{clicky biggy}

It’s habitat.

This Superb Fairy Wren (Malurus-cyaneus) has decided that it must spend HOURS every day shaping up against that other bloke in the mirror.  The poor little jenny-wren hops about on top of the roof rack on the same car, ignored!

(apologies for poor quality, these are little birds and I had to use a lot of zoom on my point and shoot camera!)

(There is also something VERY WEIRD going on with this same car in the last two days with strange people getting in and out of it and bedding and food being put in.  We can see this because it’s parked under our kitchen window.  The street side windows of the car have been covered with newspaper. Suspicious much? Yeah, we think so, too.  Especially since before this weekend that car has been just sitting in the yard for well over a year, untouched except by birds….)

So, apart from that – not much going on. I made cards this week at Social Cre8te instead of doing any art journal pages.  Just not really in the mood for much.  Seems to be the song of this blog lately.  I’m just not feeling very interesting.

Oh and a fun book I  recently read:

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding: Sky pirates!

The one exhibition I really wanted to see was well worth seeing – but alas, due to the fragile nature of the objects, no photography was allowed – and I didn’t want to spend $10 on a booklet (I would have bought 2 or three postcards, had any been available, but ten dollars is just too much.  AH, the life of the pov!)

Maybe I’ve just been at home too much, but I found the hoards of screaming children utterly exhausting.  After 20 minutes (which felt like an hour!) I had to retreat to the cafe for a cold drink.  I’m glad we avoided school holidays, I can only imagine what hell that must be.

I thought that the museum was very … empty.  Mr Beloved was also quite disappointed.  It was as though the entire centre was set up purely for small kids.  Fair enough as far as that goes, but not the Museum experience we were after.  I strongly suspect that the days of quiet contemplation of exhibits in cases are gone for good, more’s the pity.  Interaction schminteraction. (And you kids, get off my lawn!)

We then wandered outside for lunch (mmm, love that zucchini slice – it’s even good cold!) then down to the Queensland Art Gallery.  I’m very pleased I got to see the “Hats: an Anthology by Stephen Jones” exhibition,  even though that was quite busy too.  Mr Beloved noted that Stephen Jones’s own designs were very skillfully and beautifully made – often the best thing in the case.

By the time we left the Queensland Art Gallery and headed over to the Gallery Of Modern Art  I was getting reeeeaaaaallly tired.  We didn’t bother with the Ron Mueck exhibition because even the concession tickets were $10 each – and to be quite frank, his work totally creeps me out anyway.

I think we really tried to do too much in one day – about half an hour after this photo was taken (it’s at the end of GOMA, looking out onto the river) I just Could.Not.Go.On  and so even though we were about an hour early for meeting the friends, we decided to go to the cafe and just sit.

Mr Beloved was wearing a recognisable hat – and was recognised (it was the first face to face meeting with online friends).

We made quite good time out of the city, and got home around 6 pm.  On Sunday night the police came knocking on the door at about 20 to 9 – the business over the road had been broken into some time on the weekend, a big safe had been removed (probably with the aid of a circular saw) and had we heard anything?

Well, the neighbourhood dogs pretty much bark non-stop, every night,  so the barking I heard on Friday night might have been relevant – or not.  Talk about crying wolf…

Maybe now the business will invest in some proper security (although I doubt it.) As I remarked to the nice policemen, we get all sorts of cars and stray people down the end of the street because there’s no street light.

I called Mum and Dad at their new Adelaide house last night, too.  Week one, so they’re still trying to unpack, but they seem to be going ok.

I’m still trying to get rid of STUFF – there WILL be books leaving via Bookcrossing this week!

Well. There’s a reason.

I now have a brand spankin’ new OFFICIAL diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder.  (Something which had been suspected for a very loooooooooong time, as in, since I was a teenager…) Which means: new medications. And going off old ones.  And so far, we (Mr Beloved and the support team: the Nice Psychiatrist and the Wonderful GP, and the Friends Who Are Team Caity) have managed to avoid going inpatient for the changeover: it’s still an option, but one I really don’t want to take up.

But sheesh, it’s not easy. There are definitely times I would like my old head back. Times when feeling EVERYTHING TOO MUCH is  – well, too much.  And the ANGER, the RAGE at things is Not Fun.  And my immune system is not co-operating: in all this turmoil, I’m catching every little bug that goes ’round (And I’d like to especially thank that $&*%^ cow who COUGHED EVERYWHERE, with no attempt to keep her germs to herself, in the doctor’s waiting room last Wednesday. Your lack of consideration was *really* not appreciated.)  I feel like my head is TOO FULL, and not just of snot from the sinus infection. (Ok, TMI, perhaps. But true.)

Also, panic attacks? I know how to deal with them (count breathing s l o  w  l  y , breathe into paper bags, whatever it takes to get more CO2 and less O2 happening) but I don’t LIKE them. (Not that I can think of anyone who WOULD like them.)

Six weeks, apparently, is the length of time it takes to know if a particular drug is working.  Two down. Four to go. Unless the dosage is upped when I see the Nice Psychiatrist on Wednesday.

And did I mention the other inevitable side effect of increased appetite? No shit, WHY couldn’t just ONE of the drugs I have to take be an appetite SUPPRESSANT, huh? Nope, EVERY. SINGLE.  ONE.   makes me crave carbs.  It’s almost enough to make one believe in a conspiracy between Big Pharma and Big Agribusiness.  Bread? Sure, I’ll have another slice.  Or three.  With butter, and maybe some jam.  And are there any bikkies left? How about some pasta?

Thank goodness that I am no longer enslaved to Diet Coke: if every glass of (fizzy!) mineral water I have was the Evil Black Drink, I’d be (a) broke;  (b) addicted and (c) sweating aspartame. (Is that possible? I swear, I can get back on that stuff so fast that my endocrine system gets whiplash.)

Not much art journalling getting done;  not much of anything, really.  I’m sleeping more deeply but when I’m awake I’m too scattered to achieve much.  Not sure I like this version of me at all.  The drugged up depressed version was easier to manage.

ANYWAY, I am looking forward to baking on Wednesday – I’ll be making one of my all time favourite recipes, the banana variation of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s  Cordon Rose Cream Cheesecake. (I can’t believe I forgot to put her new book on my wish list for my Birthday!  ARGGH!)  On Thursday, I’ll take it to Social Cre8te, as my birthday cake.  These days I try to only bake if the results can be sent out the door so I don’t scoff the lot. (But the leftovers of the banana cheesecake are definitely coming home so Mr Beloved and I can share it – his birthday is the day after mine.)

In other news: Mum and Dad got the house in Adelaide they wanted; and now their Wagga house is on the market.  ( I confess to being just a teensy bit jealous that they’re going to live near my brother, and not me, but Adelaide is really a much better fit for where they’re at.)

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print… oh, except that one of the Neighbours from Hell has an “UNDER CONTRACT” sign on the realtor’s board outside his house (yay!) and another Neighbour from Hell has had a ginormous loud breakup in their relationship and seems to be moving out.  (And since they’re the ones who tend to be REALLY LOUD just outside our bedroom window at 3 am, he can’t leave soon enough for us. )

Time to take the next handful of medications…

HaPpY DaNcInG – I reckon he’s moving out, don’t you?!

Yeah yeah, I know, better the devil you know – but at least a DIFFERENT devil will be a change.  And I won’t miss him being self-important on his mobile phone in the backyard at all hours of the day or night; nor will I miss him screaming across several house blocks at somebody else’s dog to “SHUDDUP, YA MONGREL!” while he nurses his breakfast beer.

Now, if we could just get the other annoying lot with the psycho (and notified dangerous) dog to move…