A photo a day: Week 41

Last week was a particularly interesting week for us.  It began with us saying goodbye to our old fridge, two visits to the hospital and catching chickens.  I've thrown in a few extra photo's so it should really be "a few photo's a day" this week.

October 8

Our fridge, which we inherited from my Grandma about 11 years ago, has been slowly dying an icy death.  The fridge was made in the early 1970's, so it is nearly as old as me.  It has been passed down from my Grandma and Pa and moved from Indooroopilly to Hervey Bay and then moved and passed on to my mum at Redland Bay and then on to us here in Sydney.  It is a well travelled fridge.  At long last I have managed to convince Donald that it was time to get a new one (with the help of his brother Alister backing me up).  This fridge is rusty, the seals are broken and moldy, the fridge elements iced up and so did the freezer.  It was a nightmare to defrost, which is why I hardly ever defrosted it and finding things in the freezer you were lucky to escape frostbitten fingers for digging through the ice.  Alas it has now gone to be recycled.  Thank you old fridge for the long service you gave.

Behold our new fridge!!  I am so excited, I have never owned a new fridge before and this one is so spacious.  It's wonderful having a freezer that I can find things in now and that it is soooo clean.  I bought it through appliances on line.  They took my old fridge away and installed the new one, all I had to do was defrost the old fridge for the last time and order the new one online.

October 9

Of course to sweeten the deal for Donald I bought a selection of ice creams to fill up the freezer with.  I think he's slowly warming to the idea of a new fridge.  Although he did say that it was too easy to scoop the ice cream now as the new freezer keeps it at just the right temperature and you can scoop out lots at a time which is dangerous, with the old fridge the ice cream was so hard you could only scoop out a little bit at a time so you didn't eat as much. 

October 10

Sam came home from school last Wednesday with an aching back, he'd felt nauseous and clammy at school that afternoon.  He told me that he's had this pain off and on for the past ten days, since he fell while he was on the Young Men's camp in the holidays.  So we went to the doctors, who thought he may have a virus, but ordered an abdominal x-ray just to be sure.

October 11

Thursday morning Sam had his x-ray and while he was on the x-ray bed they decided to take a few more and then they ordered an ultrasound.  I knew something was up, but was waiting until they were ready to tell me.  It was during the ultrasound that the radiologist left the room to say she was just going to "check the pictures".  So here Sam and I were left for at least 10 minutes until the radiologist came back with a Doctor this time, who started to ultrasound Sam's abdomen again.  So I ventured to ask what they were looking for.  What they showed me was that Sam's left kidney was dilated and his right kidney was of a normal size.  They said that his kidney may not be draining properly and retaining some of the fluid.  It's what they call a Hydronephrosis with a duplex collecting system.  So Sam is off on Thursday for further tests, a MAG3 nuclear scan to be exact, and then off to the Pediatric Urologist to determine the course of action.  So far Sam just has sharp pain in his left kidney every couple of days, but otherwise he is fine and at least we can monitor him now.  Fingers crossed it's not too serious a problem.

Here are some mulberries we picked from the tree outside of the doctors office.  They were so good, at least we picked them after we came out of the doctors as we all had mulberry stains on our hands and teeth.  I wish we had a mulberry tree, I remember my mum used to make mulberry and apple strudels, so delicious!

October 11

October 12

I have been told by my husband that I snore rather loudly.  He seems to think that I keep him awake at nights. . . . and here I thought it was the other way around!  I would wake through the night hearing this loud sound in my ears and then realise it was me!  I had sinus surgery last year and it has helped immensely with breathing and I have not touched an antibiotic since the operation in August last year.  I figure this to be a major success, however on the flip side I seem to be snoring worse since then.  So I went for a sleep study at Royal North Shore hospital on Thursday night.  They hooked me up with all sorts of wires, papier-mâchéd the wires into my hair, stuck them to my chin, temples, forehead, chest, stomache and legs and plugged me into a little box that I could carry around until I was ready to settle down to sleep.  Then they plugged the box of wires into their computer system, strapped some more oxygen tubes to my nose and clipped a heart monitor onto my finger.  Then I was supposed to slip into a deep relaxing sleep with all of these wires attached and a camera filming my sleep movements.  I'm afraid it wasn't the best nights sleep, especially as the person in the next room was snoring all-night-long!!  I have to wait until November for the results with my Respiratory specialist.  It should be interesting!!

Amelia the chook chaser.

October 13

My Miss Amelia has a taste for chickens, not only does she like eating a bit of chicken, but she loves to chase chooks as well.  If she can, she will escape out the front door if it is left open and run next door to the cat Trouble or to our other neighbours who have chooks.  Today it was the chooks.  Apparently she chased them through the back fence into another neighbours yard and scattered 7 of them in all different places.  Amelia returned home on her own with a very sheepish look, cowering and wagging her tail.  She had done wrong!!  I found 3 out of the 7 chickens and waited until later in the afternoon to see if the others would return.  Fortunately they did and they all looked none the worse for wear.

October 14

Sunday morning we watched General Conference (for our church) in the comfort of our lounge.  I really enjoy sitting with the family listening to our church leaders speak.  While Ethan and Toby had fantastic conference packs they received from Primary, an activity booklet, pens, pencils and a snack, I crocheted (still working on my blanket only a few more rows then a border to go), Donald sat and sketched and Sam snuggled under the blankets.  I really love listening to President Monson his inspirational words and sense of humour.

These are the most delicious double baked potatoes we had for dinner last night accompanied with BBQ sausages and salad.  One day I will get organised and share the recipe.

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