Picture This...

My week in pictures...and not all that much diabetically speaking! Other than a major boost in happiness as my blood sugars begin to behave thanks to getting back on track with my exercise! Gleeeeeee!

ONE: Recently my dietitian suggested the use of the 'Easy Diet Diary' for keeping track of my eating habits. I was reluctant at first as it seemed just another thing I have to follow-up on, fill in, and complete ever day! But I am converted, I L-O-V-E love it and my fiance is head-over-heels-hook-line-and-sinker immersed into it to. There are so 10s of thousands of foods in the database and it is sooooo easy to keep track of your goals. It displays, tracks and calculates carbs, sugar, fats, sodium and energy levels to help you stay on track, or loose weight AND it incorporates the effects of exercise...now I just wish I could make it sync with my iBGstar and I'd be set!!! Oh! and did I mention its AUSTRALIAN.

TWO: After spending all weekend cleaning up our apartment in anticipation of putting it on the market soon, I became a bit tearful at the thought of not having a grandmother or mother anymore with whom to share life's big moments. Without a sister or close female cousins either, I sometimes feel a little sad about who to share my engagement and wedding preparations with. Well my very own Mr Amazing came to the rescue, stopping by my office on Monday for lunch, armed with a copy of the latest Cosmo Bride and a card saying how much he would like to help with all the arrangements. Bless him!

THREE: Mid week meals at my family home means catching up with my gorgeous pets too! Love that Cat!!




FOUR: We came home one night to this big guy waiting by our door. They're meant to be good luck...I'll take that!



FIVE: The drive home! How can I not love where I live!

SIX: I saw this along the way this week and just really liked it!

SEVEN: My First Bridal expo this week! It was HECTIC...soooo many decisions to be made!!!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead x

What a diabetic looks like

How many times have you heard someone say words to the effect of 'oh but you don't look diabetic'? This happened to me quite a lot last year, most likely due to being more 'vocal' about diabetes than usual, and it got me thinking, 'What do people expect me to look like?' 'What do they expect me to say in response to that statement? ....... 'What does diabetes look like?'

Then today, at the pharmacy of all places, I heard those words again for the first time this year - only got three days in! There was a total episode of confusion between myself and the service assistant at the pharmacy. When I stated I'd arrived to pick up an order of blood strips and providing my name, she looked quite bewildered.

I replied to the look by saying 'for diabetes, blood strips for a glucose metre'.
'Oh' she replied, sounding unsure 'What kind?'
'BG Star'
I nearly lost her in bewilderment again to which I said 'Yes, they're a newish strip, its a bit of a funny name and a bit confusing I know'. So she walked off to find my order.
Next minute she holds up a bag and yells out my name to reconfirm. 'Yes that's it'
She then started talking about me in the third person. Yep, as if I wasn't there, I was most confused... then she handed back my NDSS card and said 'I didn't know you could only have the carer's name on the NDSS card'. WTF? I'm not a carer! I'm the diabetic.
Instead I politely said 'Thats just my card, but I don't think you can'.
To which she replied quite plainly 'Oh, you don't look diabetic'
Errmmmm......

Then just as I'm leaving she starts talking about me in the third person again, saying that they'll phone when the next order arrives... She obviously wasn't convinced I was the diabetic!

SO. I've decided that this year as part of my blogging, I'm going to take a simple image every day of what my life looks like that day...whether related directly to diabetes or not. Coz quite frankly we diabetics, whatever we look like, do alot more than just test, prick, eat and visit doctors (though that does of course shape my days!) Still blogging about the D of course but chucking in a bit of the other things that make me who I am.. .and possibly not one who 'looks like a diabetic' - whatever that's supposed to mean!

Today we went on a few site visits to check out venues for the engagement party... this is what greeted us when we stepped out at the first venue...

 

What'd you know!?! We ended up picking this place haha. Lets hope there are no ATTACK BIRDS in the spot we'll be dining! Perhaps I should tell my guests to bring their bike helmets or fashion a hat out of an old ice cream bucket for the night!

Getting my Inspiration On

Hot pink nails + my sparkly engagement ring = 2013 off to a good start!

Happy New Year!

I LOVE a new year! Now that I'm getting older, NYE and New Year's day almost seem like Christmas eve and Christmas day did when I was a kid. Full of hope, anticipation and excitement of what lays around the corner. The gift of a new year and all the possibilities that come with it. So excited!

Every year my partner and I, (well I should now be saying Fiance!) we write down our resolutions... dreams, wants and hopes for the year ahead. Then I organise a jar which contains 'magic things' to help make everything we've written come true. Glitter and trinkets from the year past, or colourful bobs and ends. We each also write each other a card, about what ever we want for each other in the coming year or for our relationship together, or simply just to say 'I Love You'.

We then gather all these things together, grab some sort of celebratory drink (Bubbles!), a rug and umbrella and head down to the beach at sunset on the first weekend in January after New Years Day. There we lay out our rug, facing the ocean we pop our drinks and read each other our resolutions - they need to be said out loud so the universe can hear them of course! We then place our lists in the jar along with our unopened cards to each other and screw the lid on tight, fastening it with a big bow. We make a final toast to the magic jar, sealed with a kiss of course!, then lay back and enjoy whats left of the sunset before walking back home.

A year later on New Years Day we open that year and once again read our resolutions, plus our cards to each other. We don't necessarily gauge our year on what we have or have not achieved on the list but instead sit there and just discuss - its important to remember that there are always so many more things crammed into the year than we'd originally put on that list!

Now this year I went to get our jar out of the back of the cupboard.... after the year we've had, such ups and downs, I wasn't as excited as usual, didn't know how I felt really. I reached for the jar, and because of its contents, its usually noisy to move...it wasn't.  Picking it up and pulling it closer to my face for inspection I was shocked....then I just couldn't stop laughing. The jar was JAM PACKED with mould. From white through every shade of green onwards to black. A toxic bomb not to be opened under any circumstances, for even if we did, I highly doubt we could read it! It just seemed meant to be. We didn't need to test ourselves further by going over the resolutions we struggled to keep last year. 2012 was hard, a struggle. The jar summed up the year. And I couldn't be happier to be starting this year anew.

Goodbye 2012!



Oh little blog, I've neglected you!

So it's almost been a month since I last posted! A month full of ups and bumps. Being engaged has started to sink in, with many random bouts of super excitedness... but with that comes the desire to share those moments with mum which brings on bouts of super loneliness. Ugh. Such an odd predicament to be in, one of the happiness times in my life but one of the hardest. And that's really the main reason I haven't blogged for a while. That, and trying to get back into work after all the excitement has been rather tough!

On another note, I inadvertently ended up with six, yes six! postcards to do for the World Diabetes Day Postcard Exchange. After writing the six different messages I almost felt like I'd been blogging anyway, but how excited was I when one of my lovely exchangees actually posted on this blog after receiving my card! Plus we really do seem to have quite a bit in common, on top on the whole T1 diabetic thing. Such a great idea and I'm already looking forward to next years WDDPE.

I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things over the next week or so, but please don't loose faith in the blog if I'm a bit 'vacant' over the next couple of weeks. I'm aiming to be back better and stronger in the new year.

Nothing like a fresh start!

Much Love for the festive season x

WOW Days

What a day today is shaping up to be! (and it's only 7am here!) I can't sleep coz it feels like Christmas! Of course World Diabetes Day is here (and I've got my Type 1 tee ready to pop on thanks to Type 1 Diabetes Memes) BUT Bigger news than that is this is my first official day as a fiance!

Eeekkkk! Mike and I hiked around Cradle Mountain National Park yesterday when he got down on bended knee to pop the question! Of course I said yes! A total surprise and I'm still pinching myself as it doesn't feel real yet!

I'm so proud of our hiking efforts yesterday. I'm not nearly close to being in great shape at the moment but we wanted to achieve something on our two year anniversary - something we could accomplish.. conquer! It seemed fitting to travel to Tasmania to do this (despite missing the solar eclipse in my home town!!) as we'd first fell deeply, wholeheartedly in love in Tassie in January of 2011, when as part of our trip we'd hiked at Wineglass Bay (Amazing and highly recommended!). But as most diabetics have found out at some point, no matter how prepared you might be, there always seems to be some curve balls! The moment we got out of the car in the national park I went to check my blood sugar. My finger pricker wasn't working! Whaaa!?!? That has never happened to me before! It was so strange, the 'prick' just wouldn't go in...like the mechanism in the pen has somehow got damaged and slipped further down the barrel than it is supposed to be at... so weird, and quite alarming! We fiddled with it and got it working...sort of...I usually use it at 1-3, now I'm using it at 5-8. I also told myself that I had plenty of lancets so at worse I'd just have to do it manually (which isn't much fun but I've had to do before).

November is Here!

Diabetes awareness month is here and we're just two weeks away from World Diabetes Day!

I haven't been able to write these past few days, as not only am I a bit tired and renovating the bar area at work, I had my BIG once a year eye check up yesterday afternoon. I've been a complete bucket of nerves. It's the one appointment that really makes me anxious.

I've worn glasses since before I had diabetes and every year that appointment has been just as scary, as every year my eyes seemed to get worse. The long waiting times, flash light tests, reading tests, colour blindness tests, anaesthetic eye drops, dilation eye drops, more anaesthetic eye drops, numerous fandangled props being thrust at your head to measure this that and the other.... They say it's because you're still growing in to your twenties but that combined with the potential complications of diabetes gets me panicked! Majorly. This year even more so, as with everything that's been going on, I know when I see my GP on Monday, she is going to tell me my HbA1C is too high.

BUT! Would you believe it, my eyes are BETTER than they were 12 months ago! This doesn't mean they're amazing but I have no diabetes complications showing whatsoever...just a bit of hereditary dodgyness and annoyances associated with my astigmatism....

I feel like I've just been gifted a beautiful warm hug full of hope. A blessing. Perhaps I could even say 'another chance'. Most definitely a reminder that my health is largely in my own hands, and it is up to me to take ownership over it everyday. Back to putting diabetes first.