Hey welcome to my new place, take a look around...

It was time for a change... so now I have some colour in my blog :)
Ahhh much better!

Happy New Year everyone!

And thanks for stopping by :) I wouldn't be who I am now if it wasn't for the bloggers and the forum posters. I'd be a rambling mess not knowing what the heck to do about being diabetic! Thanks everyone for the smiles, the stories, the advice, and the friendship. Here's to smooth sailing in the new year. Cheers! *clink*

A bit of America in little old New Zealand

This picture may not look like anything special to you if you're in America like most of my readers... but to me, these 4 chocolate treats were quite a find!

This stuff is not normally available in New Zealand, but I found these - along with a can of Dr Pepper - in my local dairy (milk bar? Deli? Whatever you call them... it's where you go when you need ciggies, milk and a paper!)

The Dr Pepper was gross - tasted like an overdose of sugar with more sugar added, and a bit of a 'blue lolly' taste (now how's that for a taste description?). I'd expected a vaguely peppery coca cola sort of taste. I thought that was weird enough, but this sugar-on-sugar-on-sugar stuff was just... Blergh! At twice the price of our usual drinks selection, I don't think I'll bother getting that again!

But the chocolates... YUM!

Now I finally know what you're all talking about when you rave about Reeses, and Milk Duds, etc. I only wish I could have tried the Peanut Butter Cups I hear so much about.

Giving thanks to my insulin for allowing me to indulge... and to my BG meter for giving me nice enough numbers afterwards ;) And to America for producing yummy munchies - and to my Mum and Dad for creating me...

And to my Christmas stash of chocolates - kiwi made choccies, I might add - that can keep me company for the next few evenings ;)

My house is a zoo!

We have three cats - big Bub, medium sized Minxie, and our little girl Noodle. For those who don't remember every word I've posted here (ahem), Noodle was a stray - a sick little girl who started visiting us a long time ago and then moved in earlier this year.

Cute or what? My three babies - Minx on the left, then Bub sleeping as usual in a weird position, and Noodle

We took this bedraggled looking girl to the vet and discovered she was about a decade older than we thought, had cancer, and probably wouldn't hang on more than a couple of months. Heart-breaking :( But we were glad to have her and give her a good home. She was so energetic and so loving :)

A few months later, we had this healthy looking girl with a wonderful shiny coat, still all bouncy and playful, still very loving, and still with cancerous looking growths but showing no sign of slowing down. The vet called her our miracle cat.


Fast forward to today... another vet visit, and now it seems she's actually YOUNGER than we thought, Never had cancer in the first place (but still something that brings on bad swelling around her tongue/throat), and.... *drum roll* she's pregnant.

OMG I'm going to be a 'Nana'!!

This was not a shock, because I saw her flirting with Mac (My son's name for this wandering male cat - he was 'MC' for Mystery Cat, then became Mac for short). I assumed that Noodle had had 'the chop'. But then I was told that female cats who've had 'the chop' aren't interested in flirting with the male sluts and rolling around in the hay.
And then I saw the bulge growing around her belly.
And growing some more.
And then I looked up cat pregnancies on the net and realised there's only a 9 week gestation.
And then I freaked out and called the vet.
But now I'm a happy girl... because now we not only get lots of babies, but we've also discovered she's quite healthy enough to have them, and isn't threatening to leave this world any time soon.

I HAVE NO IDEA what to do with kittens! I've never had a cat who was able to have babies before. I'm nervous, but also very excited. The hard part is going to be passing some of those kitties off to other people... I just know I'm going to fall in love with every one of them and not want to pass them on!

Any advice re kittens, or helping Noodle through her pregnancy (or how to keep myself sane) would be gratefully appreciated!

Woot! Kitties! How adorable!

2-3 weeks to go. Gorgeous kitty photos to come :)

P'ram Beach sunset part 2

Can I only have 4 pics per post?? I can't seem to get any more in... so here are the two others I wanted to share:
Ahhh I love this place :)

And here's a little video of the seagulls

"Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine..."
You've seen Finding Nemo, right?

Paraparaumu Beach... and why I love it.

Nature put on quite a show for us tonight...

One cheeky looking Seagull (Trunkles is looking for a caption for this pic over on his blog)
Click to enlarge...

And one STUNNING sunset:

Christmas Madness

1. Wrapping or gift bags? Wrapping paper. More fun ripping into it... or carefully peeling it off if it's something cool. To be honest, I think BOTH are a waste of money and filling up the earth with unnecessary rubbish! But I guess I have to have a balance between Christmas spirit and my urge to look after the planet - so wrapping paper it is, and lots of recycling afterwards.

2. Real or artificial tree? Oh man I soooo love real trees! We don't get them any more - my son gets asthma and I get headaches & sinus trouble. Pffft. So now we have a fake tree (which I have to admit, is SO much tidier).

3. When do you put up the tree? As late as I possibly can. Some time after the 12th, ish. We put it up earlier this year because my friend was over from Australia (around the 8th I think) but normally I'd wait.

4. When do you take the tree down? When I finally get sick of having a darker dining room - it blocks the windows. Sometime soon after New Year.

5. Do you like eggnog? I have no idea - it's not a common thing in this country (New Zealand).

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I really don't recall!

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No, and I never will. I do have a blow up Santa and two bright orange blow up reindeer though. (hehehe! Thankfully they're just small!)

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmmm I don't know... I seem to get pretty good stuff.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? I gave up sending cards. I'll still make sure I make contact with everyone - an email, a phone call, whatever - but cards suck up so much time and money and just end up in the bin. Maybe I'm a scrooge, but I haven't missed doing them - I do kinda miss getting them, though!

10. Favorite Christmas Movie? Oh no, I'm really showing my scrooge bits now - I tend to dislike Christmas movies... they have the ability to be so tacky.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Any time during the year if I see something that someone would like - otherwise, I aim for the end of November, but actually get things done somewhere around the 20th of December. Which happens to be today - and I hope I'm finished with it all because I so hate being in the malls when they're overcrowded and full of stressed people!

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Mum's gluten free Christmas cake is delicious... chocolate santas, roast dinner - geez, all the Christmas fare is pretty good :)

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear on the tree, surrounded by lots of nice little shiny decorations. (However, I happen to have coloured lights on the tree this year because our white ones were going cock-eyed). I like the coloured ones around the house. We bought three new sets this year - which takes our total up to about 12, which starts putting me in the 'crazy about Christmas lights' category, I think.

14. Favorite Christmas song? I grew up on Jim Reeve's Christmas Album - so that's the one that means it's really Christmas. However, I've heard it a few times every year for 32 years - so it has a good Christmas feeling to it, but it's also getting rather repetitive :P

This is the weirdest one, and I like it, but I wont call it my favourite!


15. Travel at Christmas or stay home? On Christmas day we sort of travel, but it's only an hour's drive to get to Mum's for Christmas Dinner. (Hey that's a long drive to us Kiwis!). We don't go on holiday around Christmas time because it's just too crowded everywhere, and the traffic jams etc are worth avoiding! Instead, because we're homeschooling, we can travel any time of the year we like. I think next year we'll be going to Auckland again, because our friend is moving up there.

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? I can if I get a little help from the Interweb ;)

17. Angel on the tree top or a star? We actually have a blank spot on the top of our tree. Sad eh? We used to have an angel - made from a Ken doll (as in Barbie & Ken). The poor guy lost his legs in a bath incident years ago, and then was subjected to wearing a frilly white dress with angel wings. It's ok, his friends don't see ;)

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? Christmas morning for sure!

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The stress that Christmas seems to bring to people. Everyone's just that little bit more touchy, worried about getting shopping done or planning a holiday... where's the Christmas buzz?

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? Nope - just lights & decorations of any kind, whatever my son and I feel like doing at the time.

21. What do you leave for Santa? Whatever we think he'll want. Normally a fizzy drink (only half, because Santa wont have time for a full drink) and something my son has baked. This year it's going to be Mellow Yellow - the coolest fizzy drink around - and probably an afghan biscuit.

22. Least favorite holiday song? Let me think about this one for a while...

23. Favorite ornament? None. Just the Christmas lights - they're the best :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I've gone belly-up and had a belly-full.

I'm writing this from inside Adobe Contribute. Just a trial run :) Not sure why people create programs to write blogs when it's so easy to do them online, but I'm about to find out!

I'm such a geek.

Anyways, this all started because I was filling in my (scary) BG numbers for last week and found a 'contribute to blog' button in excel. It was easier to play around in my blog than to actually look at my BG results for the week, so denial won the battle today and here I am playing :D

*sigh* It's been a bouncy few weeks (shocking for me, anyway, as I normally have very tight control).

Lets hope things look much better in the next couple of weeks as I finally get the correct Lantus dose, which has eluded me ever since I gave up the Metformin aaaaaages ago.

And, at the same time, I really must concentrate on eating a bit better... uhh, except perhaps for Christmas day :D Bad diet and uncontrollable numbers do SO go hand in hand, no matter how clever you are with Diabetes.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I better start getting in some exercise. Sheesh, when did my control go belly-up? It all snuck up on me.

SO, onward & upward. I wont stress too much about my shocking range, speedily rising highs and shameful waking numbers... I'll just move on and get rid of them :D (She says, with as much positive thinking as she can muster, and an energetic smile)

2007 12 10

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Scary, I'm actually willing to leave this file here and let the world see it. Until I chicken out and delete it later, of course ;)

It doesn't look THAT different to my normal results... but I know a lot of effort went in to keeping those results from being MUCH worse. And look at all those numbers in the teens! ARGH!

Edited to add: HAH! The file doesn't seem to be there, just some place marker. Well, just imagine some wiggly lines that go way out of the normal range at crazy times ;)