Day 31

personally, i don't think we ever tell friends how much they mean to us. how much we love them, how much we appreciate them. we don't tell them why we love them, why we appreciate them and why we are their friend. last year i asked a group of my friends why they are my friend. what is it about me that makes them want to spend their precious time with me, what is it that they get from me, what is it that i give them. the responses i got were awesome. i love my friends.
this morning i awoke to an extremely fabulous email from a friend. it was completely unsolicited. this friend decided that they don't tell me often enough how much they love me. how much they appreciate my support. how much they appreciate my friendship.
to receive this was so amazing, and made me proud of who i am. more importantly it made me proud to have such an amazing friend. even, more, importantly, it made me realise how important it is to tell your friends how much you do love them and how much they mean to you.
i love you guys xx
for me, i think it's really important to tell my friends how much they mean to me, and are important to me, particularly as so many are living in different cities to me right now.
this friend falls into this group. just the other day they were telling me how much they missed my hugs.....i was going to photograph a hug, but all it would have been, was a blur (or my breasts, which i'm sure some of you would have appreciated, but really, you wouldn't have been able to tell!!!)
so firstly love, this is for you. i miss you too....lots. and of course, and not in the least, this is for all of you, my wonderful friends. i love you. i miss you (even if i only saw you a few hours ago) xxxx

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Day 30

i feel like i have been in a world of my own lately, a strange little world it is too. it's not as though i am removed from all around me, it's more that i feel like there is something in the way of my interacting with all around me. i still manage to participate in life on a superficial level, but nothing seems to be sinking in. my conversations with people, yup, no, wouldn't have a clue what has been discussed all of an hour later, let alone a day. what i have done, yup, no, often have no flippen idea....so really, my blog for Day 9 was a bloody miracle. my worry with this 'space' i seem to be in, is that i am letting life pass me by. i'm drifting along once again, achieving nothing, seeing nothing, taking nothing in.....just surviving.
i was already contemplating this sense of nothing that i am feeling today and then a few things happened tonite to reiterate this point.
firstly i was talking to my dear friend in germany, whose husband, late last year, was diagnosed with cancer in his jaw. he is currently going thru 18months of treatment, and is only a little older than me. agnes was nearing the end of her phd, and completing her 'thesis', which has quite obviously been put of hold. tonite she said a couple of things that really helped with the way i am feeling..... ".....i sometimes feel like i am standing at a station and none of the trains passing by are stopping to pick me up....." & well, achievement, that word doesn't mean anything, really!. and really she is right, we all achieve in our own ways each and every day. what is achievement for one person is totally different for another. often it is just the expectations one places on oneself...i know this to be especially true for me.
secondly my father called. he has just been away for ten days and so was calling to catch up. in amongst the catch up thou was some bad news. a good family friend was killed a week ago in a car accident. i was shocked to say the least. i have had a lot of people around me die over the years, but no one i know fairly well, die in an accident. it reiterated the point that we are here for such a short period of time and really should make use of as much of that time as we can. treasure it and respect it. do what you can during it and with it.
with any luck, my 'fog' will disappear soon enough and i can once again be a friend, in the moment, at, the moment and ensure i grab all those opportunities i have been given and will be given in the future.

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Day 29

the days are getting shorter, and the nights longer. nest weekend the clocks go back, and daylight savings is over. tonite was the last sunday, until september, that it will still be light at 8pm (just). to 'celebrate' this i figured i'd go and try and do the shoot i was intending to do a few weeks back, before i stupidly shut the front door behind me without my keys.
it was a clear day today, so the sunset would be pretty standard, no amazing, amazing colours with no clouds in the sky to bounce and diffuse the light. i was right, pretty standard and very warm....nothing to spectacular...and can i say, when you have LIMITED time and doing self portraits, it's hard work. definitely a good excuse for some pocket wizards i say

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Day 28

i had the pleasure this morning of spending a little over two hours sitting in a medlab waiting room while i had a glucose tolerance test. I hadn't eaten since last nite, and had to get in there first thing to have a blood test. then i had to drink what tastes like exceptionally sweet lemonade...wait for an hour, have another blood test, then wait another hour for another blood test. my arm seriously looks a mess....lots of holes (including the one from thursday).
this was another test for my pancreas...i guess to see if i have any insulin issues, or something. i was rather a crappy way to spend my only day off, but hey, it has to be done. i have my appointment for the specialist, in 10 days, so have to make sure all the results are with him. i still have one test to go that i have been putting off. the 'poo' test. i'm sorry, i can cope with most things, but having to take a sample of my poo for some reason i just do not find pleasant at all, beside the fact that it may have to be stored in my fridge until i can get to a lab....ugh!!! oh well, i guess i will have to face the music and get it sorted in the next day or two, otherwise the results won't be with my specialist for next monday.

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Day 27

today was another one of those, not much going on day's.....probably more because i slept the afternoon away. it had seemed like a long week and i was shattered. napping was good, but ya know how you always wake up feeling like croc after a day sleep? well i do anyway...and today was no exception - ughness. i had a friend coming over for dinner tonight too, so i had to wake up pretty flippen quickly coz i still hadn't worked out what it was we were having for dinner, let alone have the ingredients.
of course i managed to get everything done, and surprisingly dinner wasn't that bad... woulda been nicer with a glass of vino tho.

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Day 26

tonite i found myself, as i do most thursday nite's, down on my hands and knees. quite the opposite to how i started my day, flat on my back.
ok i should explain, otherwise it really does sound like i am a prostitute.
first thing today i had my mri to sus out my pancreas. ok....so definately not something i'd want to go through every day. i knew you go into a small space, but that small!!! no way. eye's stayed shut the, entire, time otherwise i knew i would totally freak out. to make matter's worse, you get to listen to music, and i asked them to put kiwi fm on...told them the approximate frequency. well they couldn't find it, instead i got nuie fm, beats of the pacific.......so my least favourite kind of music. to top things off, towards the end of the scan, they had to inject a dye into me. they had put the lure in prior to the scan starting, so i had a needle in my arm through the entire scan.....pain. the magnetic rays played havoc with it. again, so glad i don't have to go thru that every day.
so down to my hands and knees. thursday nite's i clean/babysit. i really didn't have the energy to go tonite, but i managed to get myself out the front door and there.....oh the joys. tbh, it isn't that bad. it's only a small house, and i have ben looking after caitlyn for two years now, so it's all good. they have recently acquired a new addition to the family, barkley, a choc lab/german pointer x. he is very cute, and puppylike...currently at the biting stage. but this creates more hands and knees time, cleaning everything at his level that is covered in muddy paw prints.

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Day 25

today i, finally, got to see a film that i have been waiting months and months to see.....the reader. i first saw the trailer for this film months ago on apple trailers, a site i regularly visit to check out what is heading for our big screens. kate winslet stars in the adapted novel by bernhard schlink, set in germany over a period of 40+ years.
it was rumoured that nicole kidman was originally meant to play the role of hanna, that earnt kw an oscar and golden globe earlier this year. god i am glad she didn't. what makes this performance so amazing is the seemingly lack of emotional presence that character has, an apparently very cold character. in my mind nk is like that every day, where as kw is the total opposite. any interview with her, seen or read, evokes emotion, she always appears warm, vivacious and forthcoming. so to become the character that she is, is truly deserved of the accolades she has received.
it's a deeply moving movie, but more so really it is held together by the performances of kate winslet and amazingly talented and young, david kross. sheesh - to have, that, many naked scenes in one of your first film's would be pretty nerve-wracking....so so impressive! oh btw - such a hot bod, even if he was probably only 17 when the movie was shot.

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