Dr Bekker

Well, I've been acquainting myself with yet another of the local medical practitioners here. In the first few days of arriving, I met the doctor and then the dentist, now I am on very friendly terms with the local Chiropractor and I’m also helping him with his kids private school tuition fees.
Yeah I know, I’m very generous.

I’ve been suffering with a very annoying sore lower back with the pain travelling down to my butt and leg, so bad in fact that the first thing I do in the morning after I get out of bed is take some nurofen for the pain, once it kicks in it makes it easier to get in and out of the shower and dress myself. So my new friend Dr Johann Bekker thought that I could benefit from:

Acupuncture (from Lat. acus, 'a needle', and pungere, 'to prick') is the practice of inserting very thin needles in particular points on the body to improve health and well-being, and is one component of traditional Oriental medicine. It has long been used by the Chinese for a wide variety of health complaints, and is practised throughout Asia. The practice of acupuncture is at least 2000 years old.

(see picture of the human pin cushion below) – Ouch!

After 4 visits and a surplus of ‘all natural’ medication which I have been taking religiously, I really don’t feel any better at all, so I cancelled my appointment with Dr Bekker that I had scheduled for today and I’ve made another one with a different ‘bone cruncher’ tomorrow – I feel a little bad for poor (bad choice of words) Dr Bekker and it feels a little like I’m cheating on him, but I need to get rid of this God awful pain I’m waking up with.

There are a few people that I wanted to thank and mention just because they are so great, often leaving me messages in the comments box to the right of my blog page!

Firstly little Laura – thank you so much for your love, support and the sweet messages you leave for me on my blog. I am so excited that you did so well in soccer and I truly wish I could be in the crowd cheering you on in your next game – just know that I will be there in spirit for you, always.

Then there’s my gorgeous girlfriend Joanne – thank you for the many, many phone calls and keeping in touch since we’ve been here – I miss you too! I really hope everything is going well with your new job and that it’s all you hoped it would be – say hi to Andy and the kids and give Aaron a couple of soft hugs from his Aunty Jo.

Now to my brother James who has also stayed in regular contact by phone and also by webcam – he’s actually started something with more and more of the family getting themselves set up to be able to video call – it’s so great that everyone is so keen to keep in touch. Also James, thank you so much for all you did in getting me the Fusion program so that I can use my Apple in Windows – to let you know, I have successfully installed it and given a little more spare time, I’ll actually be able to use the darn thing real soon! Thanks again for all the running around you did.

One more person I’d like to mention is my new ‘old friend’ Glenn. Glenn and I went to school together – too many years ago to mention and we found each other on the Friends Reunited site quite recently and have rekindled our friendship, which of course is much different now than it was then. We seem to be somewhat kindred spirits, both sensitive and artistic souls that relate to each other in a really beautiful, comfortable way. I’m really enjoying the contact and our conversations – thank you Glenn for being responsible for at least some of the smiles that appear on my face each day.

To my beautiful Uncle Noel, my love and thoughts are with you right now as you start out on the road to recovery after your shoulder reconstruction operation today. I’m waiting to hear the news of how it went, but I’m sure you will fighting fit again before we know it and being just as cheeky as ever. I love you and take care.

Lastly, but not least - to Mark & Vicki - We are so sorry we didn't call in on our way up and Joe is going to ring and beg for your forgiveness really soon! So now that you've got a heads up, you can decide whether you're going to let him off the hook or not! Talk to you soon xx

With being so busy and working so many hours, I have a growing list of things that I want and need to do - updating my blog is now one that I can cross off - at least for a few more days.

Before and After..

We have now finished our first week and Joe has added up our hours....100 between us!!
No wonder I'm exhausted!
I know that we've achieved a lot in the past few days, although it's hard to see the progress. I think the mental order of things is just as important as the physical - what's that saying:

'If you can dream it - you can do it'

Now I just have to get my head down and just get on with it - putting one foot in front of the other. I'm going to look forward to reading this post in a few months time and hopefully by then I can laugh off how stressed and inadequate I've been feeling.

So in the meantime, while I'm finding my feet, I thought I would share the blood, sweat and tears and yes, there were some of each of these things it took to set up our new home and some of the before photos so you can appreciate the change a little more...

(I thought I had a before photo of this room, but I can't find it)

I'm trying so hard to learn

Thursday 10th July 2008

OH MY LORD!!
What have we done?? Why at this time of my life would I put myself through this?
We’ve hardly had time to come up for air since we arrived here last Thursday. I thought the whole move thing was overwhelming – that ain’t nothing baby, compared to the party we’re throwing now!
What the hell was I thinking??
Between staff, invoices, till balancing, banking, staff, finding mistakes on the till rolls, ordering stock, talking to reps, fixing mistakes on the till rolls, staff, facing up stock, putting orders away, making notes on changes that HAVE to be made, oh and did I mention STAFF!!
They are not happy with our arrival. You have to realise that it is a small town and some of these people (mostly women) have been working here for years, they have experienced a lot of management changes and they are well aware that we are very ‘green’ at all this. Then there is the noise to contend with, we hear everything living upstairs, then when it’s time for bed, we can even hear them talking, you obviously can’t make out what they’re saying, but you hear the murmur of their voices and the banging and clanging that happens in any kitchen. The trucks below our bedroom window and their engines idling are all things I’m sure with time we’ll get used to (let’s pray).

I’ve told Joe that I’m going to make a concerted effort to stick it out for at least 3 months but if I find that I’m either not coping or not enjoying it here, that I will just go out and get a ‘normal’ job. So we’ll see how I go.
Ok, it’s getting very late and I have another 15-hour working day to get through tomorrow – yay, what fun, I don’t know how I got so lucky?
Cross everything that I will learn well tomorrow and that things will start to make some sense to me! xx

Finally!!! I'm back.....

Is there no end to the torture of relocating?

The different stages of emotion - excitement, enthusiasm, exhaustion and lastly, the I’m so over it stage, working its way into the mix and as is so typical of my life – It’s always all or nothing with me.

Firstly we had a cleaning dilemma, which ended in tears and yes, they were mine! It just felt like the whole process of packing and cleaning was dragging on forever.
This morning, we got up feeling really good about not having to stress about the house anymore, it was all taken care of (or so we stupidly thought). We drove over there and I did a walk through just to check out what they had done and was horrified to see that it had been a very slap happy job!! There were too many things that hadn't been done to even mention.
Joe got on the phone to the woman who had come out to quote and she virtually told us that we were lying and that they had never had anyone complain before. After arguing back and forth for a while, I realised that she wasn't listening to us and she ultimately told us if she got the cleaner to come back out, that there would be an extra charge. FOR WHAT?? - NOT HAPPY!
We soon realised, we had no leg to stand on, we had paid them when they left - in cash - and we still haven't received a receipt and on top of that we were running out of time and we couldn’t afford to waste another day just waiting around for them to be good and ready to come back.
On top of it all, I started to feel a little fluey – of course I did, now that I don’t have any ‘sick leave’!! Sure enough within a couple of days, the bad sore throat had turned into full-blown flu.
Like the little trooper I am though, I soldiered on.

Since we were officially homeless by Sunday 29th, we were very grateful to be given the invitation to be roomies with Jo, Andy, Aaron and Madison for the next few days. We couldn’t have felt more welcome or loved.
Aaron is our 12-year-old godson and a really special kid; we love him a lot and I know the feeling is mutual. He is very independent and manages household chores amazingly well (he would put my 20 yr old to shame).
He even cooked us pizza for tea on our last night there, he didn’t want or need any help and rightly so, he very confidently made peperoni & cheese and ham & pineapple pizzas and they were very yummy – good job Aaron!
We’re looking forward to lots of visits from them while we are up here and Aaron has already told us that he wants to be put to work and earn some money. We’re thinking maybe next school holidays he could come up and stay with us. Kids keep you young and help you to stay in touch with the ever changing, fast paced world we live in.

So it’s three o’clock am, Thursday 3rd July and all I’m hearing is this high pitch, beep – beep – beep!! The alarm! It’s now officially the start of our new life. We we’re really careful not to make too much noise – didn’t want to wake the roomies- then have to say our goodbyes all over again (I hate goodbyes)!! So at around four o’clock we just slipped away into the darkness without any fanfare, just the way I like it.

It wasn’t a very comfortable trip, feeling as lousy as I did. We stopped in at Eight Mile Plains (one of Joe’s old ‘Freedom’ haunts) for some water so I could take my cold & flu tablets. Our next stop was around 6am for brekky and a toilet break at Maccas in Gympie. As we were walking back to the car, I noticed that I had what felt like part of one of my back teeth missing. I had a look in the mirror on my sun visor and saw that I had lost a filling – Eww!! What next?? The rest of our road trip was uneventful and we were blessed with beautiful travelling weather. We did get stuck behind some wide load trucks a couple of times, but we were in no hurry, so sitting behind them for a few k’s didn’t matter too much.

We arrived at our new life in Calliope at around 11.30am and hit the ground running, we’ve hardly stopped since. We got stuck straight into unpacking and trying to organise our new ‘home’.
It didn’t look like much when we started but four days later and I’m really happy with the end result. It’s really cosy and it has all our favourite things displayed, especially beautiful family photos, so everyone we love are all around us all the time, you can’t help but think about them when you see their precious faces that we already miss so much.

We we’re supposed to officially start tomorrow (Monday) 7th July 2008, but of course Joe hasn’t been able to help himself and has spent a lot of the weekend downstairs, making himself known to staff and customers, learning the layout of the place and marking his territory. Because I have been so ill, I haven’t ventured downstairs at all since we’ve been here, so I’m sure the staff here think that I am merely a myth and don’t believe that I actually exist.
Tomorrow for me is a very daunting consideration but unless I take the steps, literally, towards the beginning of whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing here and for however the length of time we are here for, the entire expedition will be without value.

And of course the story continues….

These are some photos of my farewell from Konica Minolta night out on the 27th June. It unfortunately wasn't a great night having had some dramas attached to it (of course - but that's a whole other story) these photos were taken before all the unpleasantness began. Believe me, it was all down hill after that!