Being Peta

I didn't mean to honestly....
My eldest son downloaded it and i got curious.  So one evening when I was feeling too tired to do much else and the quality of the tele was lower then it's usual aquatic state I set up my own account on Runes of Magic, a free, downloadable MMORGP.  I logged in and went to the character generating screen.  And was impressed. 
( Click here to read about my impressions of Runes of Magic and my very first Roleplaying experience with Terinu!!!!! )

The thing i dislike most about working full time nights is that my circadian rythm, which was always a little off kilter since i started at Barwon Health, is now completely stuffed.  My body does not know when to eat or sleep.  And with only two or three nights off inbetween blocks of work I no longer get the chance to normalise it.  I've taken to sleeping in late and and staying up really late (wee hours of the morn) on my days off to minimise the damage and make it easier to stay awake at work.  Dislike this immensely as I normally get up before 8 am on my days off... I feel like I've missed half the day by the time I'm out of bed now.  And I feel suddenly overwhelmingly tired in the middle of the afternoon and I have to down whatever I'm doing and just have a sleep.  In fact I feel tired all the time... which is why production has ground to a halt on the comic.  I'm simply too tired to do anything on my down time besides watch t.v. (normally only something I'd do if I'm desperately bored which I never am.), play some computer games or occassionally read.  That's when I get the time for it.

I'm taking holidays at the end of August and then going back to my normal working hours.  So the end of this is finally in sight.

Seriously... if horrible medical proceedures turns your stomach please don't read.


It's 5:30 am and I'm taking a rare break at work.  I can hear a squall of rain falling outside.  It's short lived, never enough to do more then wet the ground.  But still nice to listen to over the radio.

It's been a crappy night.  I guess i should have expected it after how smoothly Saturday and Sunday night went.  The highlight, or more acurately low light, was having to deal with a blocked urinary catheter.  usually I'm really good at those but this thing was completely stuffed and had to be replaced.  Problems: the lady in question is grossly, grossly over weight with a huge abdo hernia to hold up meaning even sighting a urethra a job in itself.  Gross gross faecal contamination thanks to the day staff member who wasn't brave enough to risk all those skin folds after the poor woman evacuated her bowels last.  The chronic hip and leg pain the patient suffers from meaning positioning her extremely large, stiff, oedematous legs in a reasonable position for the proceedure was next to impossible.  And finally the lady in question is an ex registered nurse... no pressure there :P

But after dosing her up with lotsa' nice analgesia i attempted to replace her stuffed catheter.  Twice actually with an hours break inbetween.   It's the first time I've failed trying to place a catheter. :(  I had to stop as the poor woman was just in too much pain with her legs to continue.

Then, as I'd used up all the available perscribed options for pain relief I had to chase down a Doctor to get an order for something stronger.  This is mission impossible, by the way.  You cannot get a Doctor here at night time except through the Melbourne based locum service.  And at this time of the morning they nolonger take calls.  They won't perscribe over the phone but have to come out and see the patient personally.  All I wanted was a damn phone perscription for endone!!!

Eventually managed to get the patients own doctor's private number and rang her at home, waking her up.  Note: Doctors are very crabby when woken at 4:30 in the morning.  i don't like doing it.  BUT!  My first responsibility is to my patients, not catering to the medico's convenience.  If I need to damn well wake one in the middle of the night you better believe i will.  Anyway, finally got the order for analgesic I needed.  Now to pass on this mess to day staff to deal with.  Not looking for to handover. no no no.

The nice side was the patient in question was very gratious about the whole thing.  Man I felt for her.

Ryan is officially fifteen.

OMG when did that happen.



Hubby Wayne was quite chuffed with himself.  He's a self taught chef and he makes the most amazing curries and Thai food etc.   Last night he spent two hours cooking a curry banquet with all the trimming.  Yes it was to die for (currently munching on left overs for lunch.)  Wayne was very proud of himself and announced that it was all hand made, no tins used.

Ryan: " Yup... you can tell there was no tins or there would have been bits of metal floating in it."

Fragg I wish I was that quick.

Wayne got a job... yay!!!!

The short version... we've been in the financial hole since my partners ex-boss screwed us with sudden termination minus the termination payout  (read: 12 grand ) also minus the super he should have been paying for the last three years etc.  With at least five other (big) companies sueing him there is no hope of recovering our money.  Wayne got together with a few other ex employers and formed their own company and have been able to pick up contracts BUT with the financial crisis contracts are downsizing or drying up.  The two partners have been drawing wages from the company but with us having an alternate form of income... namely me, we haven't been pulling a full wage.  Which means I'm working full time.

Full time night shift + all the OT I can get +mother duties and house cleaning = no time for Peta to play.

meaning no comic for the past umpteen months.

But Wayne starts work in July... no wage til August... but the end is in sight.

Only two more months of full time and i can drop back to part time again.

I can do two more months.

'Course I can.

Claudia Black :)

Because she is the only actor I feel could pull off a female Doctor and make her awesome.

Waiting for my husband to get back from shopping to stock up for Christmas tomorrow (we're hosting it.)  I spotted this on Jeriendhal's journal and pinched it.  Just needed something vegi to distract me.

I WILL have to send you a parcel of timtams and instructions ASAP, Royce :)

( Well I've done most of them you can do on this side of the continent.... )

Life is not good for me at the moment.

I feel like I'm running around like a headless chook trying to do everything and cover all the bases and keep everything going while around me, people are living and enjoying a more leisurely pace, but in the end things go wrong and I'm the one to blame because I missed something, or I didn't try hard enough, or I took some time off to do something for me, or I said the wrong thing.

Stress is killing me. I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water in money matters, in mothering and in keeping the house in some kind of order and in meeting my social responsibilities, and being a good wife to my husband. I'm now at the stage where I'm going numb and just going through the motions.

Work is not a happy place at present. I don't know whether its the dynamics of new staff, or the increased stress levels but the bitch meter has gone right up into the red zone. I usually just stay away from all that shit... but last night I was on the receiving end of a tiny bit of it which hasn't done anything to improve my mood.

I just want to run. I want to grab a bag of clothes and head out the door and keep walking. It must be just an instinctive response to all this painful stimuli because in reality I would NEVER leave my husband and kids.

My eldest son is still in bed, the other two are at their grand parents. I hope my son sleeps in really late. Right now I'm a sooking mess and i don't want him to see me like this as the poor kid is stressed out enough about going to the dentist today. (On top of having no money he needs urgent dental work which we can't afford.) he's such a sensitive kid... part of my stress has been associated with trying to hide it because he gets stressed out if he knows I'm having problems. It's been bloody painful trying to function as if everything is going to to work out fine to protect those around me when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and scream.

My mate is stressed too. Starting up a new business is a risky venture and I'm so friggin' proud of him for making a go of this. But at the same time i feel cut off from seeking support from him. I don't want to dump him with my problems when I know he's got plenty of worries of his own. I want him to feel comfortable and rested in his own home so that he'll feel supported and able to concentrate on his own work without being distracted by me. I don't think he's ever comfortable listening to my problems anyway. He wants to help and often he can't and that just frustrates him.

I don't know when I'll be back to being me again. I hope soon. I've had a gut full of this. I am so sick of feeling that no matter what i do it's just not good enough. you know the term 'learned helplessness'... where after a while the poor rat stops trying to jump away from getting the electric shocks because it doesn't make any difference... she's going to get barbaqued anyway... that's exactly the way I feel right now.

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lab.drwicked.com

Trying out the writing website suggested by Moonshadowed in her journal. It is evil and effective. :) I actually did two sessions of 30 minutes each. (I went ten minutes over in the one above.) I managed to stay ahead of the claock the whole time though i had to keep resisting the urge to go back and fix spelling and punctuation errors. the trick, I found, was to keep my eyes down on the keyboard and not look at what I'd written.

In all I did 1490 words in an hour and ten minutes... which is amazing for me. I'm going to try finsh off 'Merry Dance' over my holidays using this program. My biggest problem is i don't know where to go next with the story. being forced to write anything at all might eventually keep me rolling in some direction.

Holidays are less then a week away YAY!!!!!!!!!! I so need a bit of time to catch up on the comic and do a little art on the side. now I've just got to hope my tax return comes in soon so i can do the Christmas shopping. (Read my partner has started a business with several associates... it's going well but it means no income from him for the past two months, none that we can use for the house anyway, which means we're living off my part time wage.)

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Anime Nerd
Drama Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Social Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I think I missed out on Artistic nerd because I know almost nothing about classical painting.

I've broken through the block that was preventing me from writing the terinu novelette I started last year.  This story has evolved into more of a testing ground for setting up the main comics future direction.  Still, it's a good experience to write and maybe I'll make it public when the spoilerage level reduces.

One thing it has made me focus on is the military ranking system for the Vulpine Space Navy.  I need to expand on building the structure of the Vulpine armed forces as well as the humans (and clarify the Creo and Galen ones as well).  So here we go.   I know nothing of real life military structure beyond what a commissioned and non comissioned officer is.  So please feel free to pick this to death if you you see any glaring faults.

Note this is only loosely based on existing ranking systems... heavily tweaked in the lower ranks as the vulpine forces are all combined into a single space navy entity.  (They have a civilian police force to deal with planet side matters.)

Oh for fruits sake.  I know, as my dear departed mum told me, that we rarely get out of bed feeling 100% all over.  But five weeks worth of friggin' respiratory infection!  I was starting to feel okay again after the last patch of AB's but last night it came back and it brought a couple of friends with it.  Feel like crap.  At least I'm not coughing a lung up like my poor little girl who's been off school all week.  Poor kid, she's had a tough week.  Her tank wiped except for one lonely black line tetra and a catfish I'm still suss on, missing out on house sports day which she loves as she is sport mad... and her house won.  Missing out on basketball.  I'm going to have to do something special with her when we're both better.  I'm so glad i have a sick certificate for this weekend.  i worked last week and it just about wiped me.

Aquarium news: I found out what happened to the water quality.  Because of the drought, Barwon Water has started pumping bore water into the system.  Bore water is very very hard.  I've filled an eighty litre bin and thrown in a mangrove root to leach the hardness out of it and use that to rebuild the tank.  (I know, I have to watch the acidity and make sure I don't make it too soft.)  I'll replant the tank like mad to deal with the nitrates and wait until everything tests perfect before we start going fish shopping again.  I'd love to find her a pair of hoplos to replace Fred.  Hoplos have lots of personality and are a bit more resilient then pictis, which I'm also fond of.

My A3 scanner is no longer talking to my computer.  I think it's died as it won't even switch on properly.  So I can't load up my next 'oh so very late' comic page.  Veg is going to try arrange to buy a new one this weekend for me.  Love you, sweetheart, those A3 ones are frellin' expensive.

Until then we're just going to have to wait for the update.

In other news...  Unable to sleep anyways I played WoW last night.  My druid, after 3 1/2 years has just turned seventy as I have children, a job, a comic to write and other interests that take precidence.  I usually only play in the late evenings with my hubby (we don't watch tv, we do this instead.) and on Friday after dinner til late when our friends come across to play.   My guild took me into Kara for the first time (read one very poorly geared feral druid blue elf girl faces one high level bad ass dungeon if you don't know World of Warcraft).  And I off teddy tanked... in all my green gear glory... lol.  I was as nervouse as hell... especially when Dan (our fearless and very nice leader) got me to solo tank Juliette.. twice cause she ress's.  And I did it!!!  Go me.  After that a smaller group of us ran Steam Vaults with me main tanking.  Managed it with only a few wipes due to bad luck/ timing.  Despite all of that I'm determined to spec up Shadowvixen as teddy tank.  We don't have enough tanks on this server and dps toons are a dime a dozen.  I can see why it's thought of as one of the toughest positions in a raid.  My appreciation of really good tanks sky rocketed last night.

Hmm... adding this.  Most of you may not know what a tank in WoW is.  A tank is the person (toon) whos job it is to attract the monsters attention and getting it to direct all of its attacks onto him or herself , thus protecting the rest of the team by acting as a meat shield.  A tank need to have a high level of armour to resist the damage done to him or herself, the abilty to attract and keep the monsters attention which is very bloody difficult depending on how much damage the rest of the team are doing to it.  And a tank need other toons to keep him/her alive by healing him/her throughout the fight.

Just got off the phone with Tara.

My tabby Jenny has just passed away.

Crap.

Just crap.

Sorry, this is a sad crappy post just to get something off my chest.

i had the awful job of removing the bodies of a couple of very much loved fish from my daughters tank just now.  A hoplo catfish we called Fred: a big guy that we've had forever and a clown loach.  They're the latest victims of something that has gone terribly wrong with the tank in the last ten days. 

The thing is i definately think it's something I've done.  When we came back from holidays the tank needed a good clean, there was a  thin film of algae on the glass and the water level had dropped from evaporation.  So I did a water change as usual, added salts, cleaned the glass, changed the filters(all stuff i do every 6 weeks for the past two years).  I ordered a new light from the pet shop and picked up a few bristlenose cats to add to the tank to control the algae.

Some days later i noticed Fred hanging about the top of the tank, hiding behind the filter, which he only does if he's being bullied.  But there were no fish bullting him.  He was also less reluctant to feed.  i though the tiny bristlenoses might be upsetting him because they were new and were bottom dwellers also so I thought a few more days with them would calm him down.  Then some of the other fish seemed to loose interest in feeding.  Then we started having deaths.  Both juvenile mollies.  I took a sample a water sample to the aquarium to be tested were i found out that the hardness was very high and there was more nitrate then there should be.  (I won't go into the ammonia/ nitrite/nitrate cycle only that all are lethal for fish but bacteria in the gravel and filter system breaks one down into the next.  You can't break nitrate down but it's also the least deadly to fish so it can be removed with regular water changes to constantly dilute it.)

High hardness is also deadly for fish.  the problem is geelong's tap water has suddenly got harder, probably due to the drought and  Barwon Waters management of it.  I didn't know this and added the usual amount of salt to the water which hardens soft water as you usually need to to maintain the correct ph. level. (Okay, I'm not going into that... just a steady ph. is essentual for healthy fish).  So with the added salts the water was way to hard.  So I did a 30% water change on the day and 10% water change the following days to graudually reduce the levels back down to normal.

During this time, a black widow tetra and a guppy also suddenly died. Another tetra was showing signs of infection due to stress so we went back to have the water retested... hardness was coming down, we were now half way back to normal.  My husband bought some drops to put in the water to treat the infection, which was probably the result of stress.

The remaining fish seem to be recovering except for the infected tetra.  They're swimming about normally and taking an interest in feeded.  Fred was alive three hours ago when I checked him.  But when i got up before he was gone.  I checked in the clown loach's hidy hole to find she was dead too.

I couldn't bear to put them in the rubbish so I buried them both in the front garden.  Fred's death has upset me to a rediculous level.  i think because I have been trying so hard to save him.  I'm dreading telling my daughter when she comes home from grandma's.  I'm just hoping, that with exception of the sick tetra which i don't think will make it, that this tank is recovering and the rest of the small population will be okay.

The wierd thing is hoplos are very tolerant of all sorts of water conditions while bristlenose cats are very sensitive.  Why did the hoplo get sick while the bristlenoses were still happily chomping away at the pebbles and glass doing their thing.

My fear is that it wasn't the water conditions that caused the problem but a disease that the bristlenoses introduced when I added them to the tank.  In any case I know that it is something I did but I really wish i knew exactly what caused this.

You may be wondering why my comic hasn't updated when it should.  this is partically because I have lacked the time to even scratch me... well you know.  Both my sons had their birthday parties this last month with the requesite sleep overs on top of everything else.

But the still reason you'll all have to wait a bit longer before i can update is that I have been abducted.  Yup... stolen away with only an hours notice to pack before a limo pulled up our driveway to take me to the airport.  Dear Veg, my soul mate, has arranged  a mystery holiday for me for my birthday.  He's been teasing me for the last four weeks with cryptic clues about what this present was going to be such as the colours 'red blue red' and that it was going to be spiritual (well duh! of course alcohol was going to be involved.)  The there would be a lot of water and that my kids and many of our friends have all had a hand in arranging it... and this was before i even was aware that it was going to be a holiday (a fact i've only just found out.)  I still don't know where we're going so i'll update you all when i can.  All i know is that I'll be back by next Monday. :)

Best wishes til then.

Nurse Crack.  LOL

I love Doctor Who.  I've watched it since I was a little kids starting way back in the JohnPertwee era.
In general I do not like television.  I will go for months without switching the thing on..  I don't mind the occassional movie and sometimes a tv series will grip me for a short while with the notable exception of Farscape that I adored from start to finish.  I can handle episodes of 'House' in small doses but thats about it.

Doctor Who is different.  It's the one series I will watch almost without question perhaps because it has always been a part of my life but also because this revival has been so totally awesome and encompases the some of the best 50 minute episodes of any series I've ever seen.  ('Blink', for example and the two parter that concludes with 'The Doctor Dances'.)

And i guess thats why when they do birth a clanger it really REALLY pisses me off.

And for me 'The Doctors daughter' was a clanger in so many ways.

I'll try to summerise the worst bits here.  Under a cut of course due to spoilerage.

You're kidding me!!!!!

(Sends all of her painting equipment to India.)

Makes me hate poachers all the more.

Pinched this from Jeriendhal who pinched it from sumwunelse.

Choose twelve of your original characters, in any particular order. Then, answer the questions that follow, but DON'T LOOK AT THE QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU PICK THE CHARACTERS!




That was 30 minutes of my life i can't get back.

But it WAS fun. :)

Happy Mothers Day to all the mums out there.

Mine started on a sad note at just after 3 am at work were one of our long time residents died, expectantly, aftergoing into cadiac failure.  We had her husband , children and some grand children through paying their respects.  So terrible that it happened to occur on mothers day.

After i got off shift this morning I headed down to the florist for a posey to put beneigth my Mum's memorial rose (which had a lovely big peach coloured bloom on it.)  So I had a little cry there in private 'cause i miss her and theres so much i'd love to tell her about.  I like to put the flowers down there first so that when my sisters come to pay respects theres already flowers sitting behind the plaque so it doesn't look stark.

Anyway I'm off to bed now.  Kyra was dissapointed about not being able to do the morning thing but she understands I'm just too zonked after a shift, plus nobody gets up on a Sunday before nine (except for Chayton who gets up to play the computer in peace) and I'm not waiting up that long.

Wayne and the kids have hatched a plan to make up for it by doing something special for dinner tonight... fortunately i have no reason to be afraid as Wayne is an excellent cook and Ryan's not far behind (you should taste his apple crumble!)

Anyway i'm rambling so Goodnight or whatever. Wishing the best to all the Mothers out there, hope you have a good one and somebody else remembers to clean up after it all.