We had a grand time at our holiday party today. I'm glad we make the effort to get out in the cold and drive over there. I didn't take as many photos as I thought I would. This is one of my favorites. It was taken with my Canon PowerShot A540 in nightime mode with the flash turned off.
There was only one baby at the party today, but he was a cute one. I can't resist sleeping babies. This is with my new camera, and once again, poor quality. I'm going to have to put my new one away until I have time to sit down with the manual and figure out what I am doing wrong. The pictures look good on my computer, and a couple that I took earlier that didn't upload well to Vox printed just fine. Looked good. So what's going on here? I may just have to stick to shot with my old camera when I want to upload to Vox, but all my shots from Wal-Mart with my new camera upload just fine. I'm going to take it with me tomorrow and take a picture of something just to see what happens.
I hope things are slow at work tomorrow. I'm ready for an easy day!
I was trying to take photos of the moon last night from inside the house with some interesting results.
Does this look like a full moon to you? I can't figure out what the shape is in the lower right hand corner.
I had reduced the number of pixels to distort the photo, then saved the distorted view. Then I increased the number of pixels to get a larger photo. The image in the right hand corner almost looks like a self portrait, but if it was, where is the camera? Anyway, it is pretty weird.
This looks like black and white icicles, doesn't it? Enough weird stuff for today. I need to get ready to go to our party. I made some lemon bars, but I accidentally put in twice as much salt as the recipe called for, so I'm not sure if they will be edible. Oh, well. I tried!
Went to the country today. We drove to the country town of Gatton about 45 minutes from our home in Brisbane, and had lunch at their new "cultural" centre. Knowing the local "culture" a little bit too well, I was somewhat concerned about what we were going to experience, but I need not have feared at all. It was very well done, and though relatively newly opened, and obvious that there is still work to do on the landscaping etc, it was equal to any other "cultural" center we have experienced within Australia.
Many years ago, back in the early 1970s, a very forwarded thinking gentleman from the local agricualtural college lobbied very, very hard for a lake to be created in a swampy area just outside the town. The local people thought he was a "mad bastard" in the Aussie vernacular, but he kept at it and eventually won the local council over. Now look at it! The birds have such a haven and many of the locals take their daily walks around the lake. The centre was built in 2009 and houses the library, an art gallery that displays local artists and a truck museum. The town of Gatton is the hub of a rich agricultural area "the salad bowl of the Lockey Valley" and so the trucking industry is a major employer for the town.
So, the center not only has a trucking museum, but on a slight rise next to the lake they have created a monument that lists the names of all the local drivers that have died - too many in accidents, but also as part of the cycle of life. Families pay a small amount to have the name of their loved one inscribed.
There is a lovely sandstone carving outside the cultural centre that commemorates the agricultural pioneers of the district.
and next door to the centre is the local historical village :
Not far away, on the other side of the historical village, a terrible murder was committed at the end of the 19th century. Three members of the Murphy family - two sisters and a brother- were murdered on their way home from a local dance. Their murder was never solved and to this day all the locals have theories about who killed them - irish family vendetta: a jilted lover; incestuous relationship; vargrant who diappeared into the night? I guess now, no one will ever know for sure.
Lights on the Hill - song lyrics by Slim Dusty
It's a long straight road and the engine is deep
I can't help thinkin' of a good night's sleep
And the long long roads of my li-ife were a callin' me
These rough old hands are a-glued to the wheel
My eyes full of sand from the way they feel
And the lights comin' over the hi-ill are a-blindin' me
It's a long tough haul from a-way down south
A man's gotta find a little bread for his mouth
And a home for a girl as swee-eet as my honey can be
So it's down through the gears, she's a-startin' to pull
The gauge on the tank is a-showin' they're full
And the lights comin' over the hi-ill are a-blindin' me
There's rain on the road and I can feel the load start a-shiftin'
I-i-in a dance
Too late, I see the post and I haven't got a ghost of a chance
Ah-hah-hah-no
The windscreen wipers are a-beatin' in time
The song they sing is a part of my mind
And I can't believe it's a-really happenin' to me
Oh, but I'm over the edge and down the mountain side
I know they'll tell about the night I died
In the rain when the lights on the hi-ill were a-blindin' me
Hey!
There's rain on the road and I can feel the load start a-shiftin'
I-i-in a dance
Too late, I see the post and I haven't got a ghost of a chance
Ah-hah-hah-no
The windscreen wipers are a-beatin' in time
The song they sing is a part of my mind
And I can't believe it's a-really happenin' to me
Oh, but I'm over the edge and down the mountain side
I know they'll tell about the night I died
In the rain when the lights on the hi-ill were a-blindin' me
In the rain when the lights on t
From Fishing!
We ended 2009 with a wonderful fishing trip up past Meeteetse Wyoming. I must admit, I had only been ice fishing one other time in my life, and that was quite some years ago. So, yea...I was a little nervous. My husband assured me all was safe, and of course I trusted him. Still, as I watched him slide the sled full of fishing supplies across the lake, I felt a twinge of apprehension.
There he was...he hadn't fallen in! Surely I could be brave enough. So, the kids & I followed. A little ways out, I heard this MOANING...SLAP sound. OK...I was just about ready to turn around...but Bill hadn't fallen in! So along we trudged. Once out by my dear husband, he informed me that the sound was the water moving & slapping against the ice. OK. I soon was preoccupied with facination as I watched him drill holes in the ice.
What really reassured me was the depth of the ice in those holes.
I love to fish, and I thought these little poles were so cute! So, after 7 holes were drilled, and the poles were all set, we set up for some warmth inside & out...
We cleaned the ice out of the holes...
We patiently waited....
And then...
The excitement was non-stop for awhile! We ended up catching 6 beautiful Cutthroat Trout, and I (no, I'm not really bragging) caught the 3 pound 20 inch one! So exciting! My husband might just be building my confidence, but he told me that he was a little jealous!
So...as we ended 2009, we started 2010. Today we went to a different location, Buffalo Bill Resevoir. Beautiful!
I'm not so nervous to ice fish anymore, and as much as I love fishing, I love to cook up the fish! So, I have a feeling 2010 will be full of fishing expeditions...regardless of the season!
But first, a photo from the Wednesday before Christmas that I forgot to post earlier. The rain was blowing in from the east, which it rarely does. It was running down the glass of the window, and the window screen. From across the room, it looked like ice. This is both cropped and resized.
We had 10 degrees this morning, our coldest day so far this winter. The sun was shining most of the morning, but gave way to clouds this afternoon. Never did warm up very much.
We watched three of our grandkids last night so their parents could enjoy a night out at a concert. They were fine until it was time to go to bed, then they wanted to be home. After three stories, I managed to get them all asleep in my bed. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well. The first thing I did after they went home was take a nap!
Haven't accomplished much the rest of the day, but that is okay. I need a little down time. We are invited to a party tomorrow. Hope I feel better than I do tonight. We are going by ourselves so we can always come home as early as we want to.
The plot thickens with my camera issues. The Christmas picture that I like so well was taken with my new camera. I thought it was taken with my old one, but I looked it up tonight. It was set on Auto mode with the flash turned off.
Think I'll go watch some football, then go to bed early. Toodles!
~
Last night, I went to bed around 10:30pm expecting 8 + hours sleep and a good start to 2010 but my neighbours across the road decided I should vicariously party with them. They let off fireworks in the street around 11.30 and then continued to party on their front porch until about 4am..... they must have been fairly liquor-lubricated to continue partying in the sub-freezing temperature.
So ... 2009 has closed for business. After taking into account all the credits and debits of my year my balance sheet has finished very solidly on the credit side. I have a job and I got to go home for my first Christmas (and summer!) since 1999 and I witnessed my eldest son's wedding.
I haven't made New Year Resolutions since I was a teenager and realised that few lasted past the middle of January, but I do reflect on the year just passed and think on ways I could make going forward better.
This morning, feeling tired and grumpy, I gave some thought as to how I could ensure I see many more January 1st mornings - strangely, those thoughts turned to conjuring up ways to get rid of the neighbours!
Happy New Year, Everyone! Today I have some significant news to share.
On December 17, 2009, in the very early hours of the morning, I nearly bled to death. I’m afraid I’m serious ─ by the time I was admitted into hospital from the emergency room, I was down to about a quarter of the amount of blood needed to sustain life.
The irony of this situation is that I was under a doctor’s care at the time, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m going public with this today. The second reason is because since I have been off Facebook, my blogs, and other social networking sites, I’ve been getting emails from ‘fans’ asking questions such as: “Are you in rehab? You can tell me! My brother was in rehab last year at this time.” and “Did you have Demi-Moore-head-to-toe-plastic-surgery? Please post pics!”
I was inclined to let these strangers think what they would, but I’ve also been receiving messages of genuine concern, and those are why I’ve decided to write about this very personal experience publicly.
As boring as this probably makes me, a drug habit and/or a craving to own gravity-defying boobies had nothing to do with my absence from the internet. What actually happened was that on November 9, I had what should have been routine uterine fibroid surgery. I wanted to keep the knowledge of that fact limited to my family and closer circle of friends, because to me there is nothing more cringe-worthy than people announcing these things on their Facebook status updates: Jack is …”getting out of jail this week!” Jane…”’s a husband is a lousy cheat!” Patricia…”had a fibroid the size of a baseball removed from her uterus.”
Yuck.
So, I didn’t announce it, (until now) and only made vague references to “not feeling well”, and even those mentions were only because I’d missed some social and business events. However, the “not feeling well” stretched on and on, and when I questioned my doctor, he went from voicing some concern to being brusquely irritated, “You must be patient. You’re not a patient person.”
And that’s where he got me. I’ve heard that more than once. Even my own husband seconded it. So, I tried to be patient. And, as it turns out, I can be patient. Actually, I was so patient, I nearly died of it.
I’m sorry, I still squeamish about writing the specifics, but suffice it to say that I was bleeding, but in such an unusual pattern that it didn’t raise any alarm bells with the doctor. To be fair to him, the symptoms were atypical. Coupled with this detail was my enormous energy level that was only somewhat depleted by the anemia that was increasing weekly. In fact, the day before I was driven to the Emergency Room by my panicked husband, I attended a business meeting, then went to the market, and ended the day with a walk on the treadmill at my gym!
So, I can’t completely blame the doctor and others around me for missing the signs. But I do blame myself. For the reason that I knew something was wrong, and yet, I allowed myself to be talked out of that gut feeling, because an authority figure’s opinion on that was different than mine. I allowed my criticism of myself for my renowned lack of patience to cow me into accepting advice I knew I shouldn’t have accepted.
This really galls me. In the aftermath of a surgery from which I was not even remotely recovered after six weeks, followed by near-death in which I could literally feel ‘things shutting down’ on the way to the ER, a frantic blood transfusion of six units of blood, a second surgery to correct the problem that was causing the internal bleeding, and a stay in hospital that was like a Saturday Night Live skit (they actually woke me up at 2 a.m. after this ordeal to weigh me), and now looking at another few weeks before I’m able to resume all my normal activities, that one fact that I conceded precedence is what still disturbs me most about this experience. Because if I hadn’t, if I’d trusted myself, none of it would’ve occurred.
Usually, I am confident, capable, and secure in myself. In my writings, especially my political ones, I’m constantly stating how we must all think for ourselves, not cling to an ideology or allow some rhetorical speaker to do our thinking for us. And yet, it took this illness to discover that on some levels, I am still trying to be that ‘good little girl’ who is liked by everyone. Given the right circumstances, press the right buttons, and I will still defer to the instincts of others rather than my own. This was a more shocking realization than the ER doc’s words, “Wow- your blood counts are dangerously low. Lucky for you, you’re so fit. You wouldn’t have made it here otherwise.”
And now, because I’ve been so sick for so long (close to two months, now) I have to work twice as hard just to get back to that fitness level I worked so hard to attain in the first place. I also left the hospital with a cough that makes me sound like a TB victim, due to the second surgery temporarily diminishing my lungs capacity, and am short of breath just walking up a flight of stairs. I have to drink a horrid iron potion that tastes like rotted prunes and old coffee grinds. My skin feels like sandpaper, and I have been warned by my hairdresser that some of my hair might fall out due to the trauma. Pitiful, right? You bet. And stupid, too.
But I did learn some lessons, and oh, boy ─ they were big ones. And I think they might be important enough to share:
First is that this year has been an amazing year for me, and not just because it was almost my last one. I didn’t know when I first published my book that there would be a number of people who’d dislike me as a result. Never thought of that aspect of it, but there it was. So that was a lesson, if not learned for the first time, reiterated: Your true friends are the ones who stick with you not only when times are bad, but also when times for you are really, really good. A sad thing to realize, but an important thing.
On the plus side, there were yet a far greater number of people who were tremendously pleased for me and supportive of my first book. Friends I hadn’t seen in years contacted me to offer sincere congratulations, and new people I met through my writing groups, blogs, etc., were equally enthusiastic and complimentary. I feel truly blessed by this. I’ve always thought that the media overhypes the evil of humankind, and now that the average person has his/her own way of communicating globally through the internet, I find that this is true ─ humanity is mostly good, not mostly bad. It’s a shame that we only get reports about the bad from our mainstream news sources. This was a terrific thing to discover.
I also understood from being ill, that my husband and children, to borrow a phrase from Sally Field, “really do like me”. My son slept at hospital with me the first night I was there, and my husband, whose idea of cooking is to make a sandwich, delivered hot, homemade meals to my bedside every night once I got home. And then there were my friends who rallied ─ Thanksgiving dinner, two Christmas dinners, flowers, get well cards, and phone calls. Messages on Facebook and emails from my colleagues, new friends and former pupils, (who feel like nieces and nephews to me) all meant so, so much.
I’ve always valued my friends and my family, but I admit it was wonderful seeing the tangible proof that they value me, too. It was one more reason to get well, so that I could appreciate and enjoy them all the more.
But the biggest lesson I learned is from now on, with no worries about how others will feel, I’m going to embrace my impatience, rather than try to change it. It’s full speed ahead for me, now and always, because I’m made that way. And never again will I not trust myself. Never again will I feel intimidated by others’ opinions, be they valid or not. And when I find myself wavering from this resolution, I’m going to remember the bruises on my arms from IV needles, the feeling weak and dizzy, the crying as the questions ran around in my head as to why I wasn’t recovering, and all the other momentous experiences of this illness now burned in my memory. They all happened because I still haven’t completely shaken the “Good-Girls-Don’t-Make-a-Fuss Syndrome.” Screw that. From now on, I AM MAKING A FUSS. And it will be your choice to like me for it or not, however you please.
I challenge everyone reading this to do the same. If we do one thing differently this year, let’s embrace ourselves, even with all our faults. I don’t mean ‘be a sociopath and proud’. I mean that while not deliberately causing harm to others, let’s acknowledge that we will make mistakes, that we are not perfect, but we are still worthwhile human beings who have something to offer our friends, our family, and the world. Let’s acknowledge that we can and should have faith in our own selves, even with those imperfections. If we start with that attitude, the year ahead will open us to new encounters. Since we’ll feel more confident, we won’t be afraid when one of our beliefs is challenged, because if we learn that that belief is wrong, it will make us feel empowered, not weakened. We’ll have the courage to fail, not feeling that we are “failures”, but rather human beings on a journey to ever-increasing knowledge. And while none of this will necessarily make the year ahead be filled with all the health, happiness and success we all wish each other every January 1, it will certainly help it be filled with less anxiety and self-doubt.
So, look out 2010 ─
here we come!
P.S- As is the case due to VOX software problems, anyone who would like to leave a comment, can do so on my Facebook page, or on my Word Press blog. The links are: http://www.facebook.com/#/patriciaVdavis?ref=profile
and http://patriciavolonakisdavis.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/2009-the-year-that-ended-dangerously/ I'm very sorry about this continued inconvenience.Main reason I rarely post her anymore. Happy New Year, Everyone. I wish you all a wonderful year!
There's only ten minutes of this year (and this decade) left..so I will be brief. For some reason I feel like I ought to be doing something special at midnight. Hell if Iknow what that something should be though. Pooky is already asleep, and after the day we both put in at work today I really don't feel right waking him, so here I am.
Kind of tragic, ain't I?
Anyway, I thought about blogging on something profound. ...but I am lazy. I'll leave the profoundness to more capable hands.
"Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too
slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings."
Happy 2010!
Mr FD and I were discussing whether to watch a particular program on teleivsion when Mr FD said we didn't need to as "I have the VD."
I burst out laughing at his delusion of grandeur.
His reply was "there is no way out of this is there?"
Best laugh I have had all year (you didn't think I was going to miss the opportunity to say that did you really?)
And Mr FD didn't watch the program as he has the DVD.
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