~*I got a New Toy*~

I finally bought myself a new toy it's the Iriver T10 512 MP3 Player and it's so kewl!! I got it cheap too as I bought four!! LOL My brother Ben decided against the IPOD Shuffle since the Iriver had more battery life and the FM feature and a few other things he liked about it, which the IPOD didn't have, his wife Ang wanted one too, so we asked around for some good cash discounts on 3 Irivers. We got one, then my sister Anna wanted one too (she did want a IPOD Nano at first) so now we were looking for four of them. We got a great deal and I picked them up yesterday. LOL I was coming home with 4 Irivers heheh felt good too.

I had a play with my new mp3 player and it's pretty easy too use, light and small and it's red, not pink like some people say...think they are colour blind. Ben came over after work wanting to play with his new toy too and he was really pleased with how easy you can get around the settings and how compact it is. It was Ben's birthday on the 12th so he got his as a present. Anna should get her's today or tomorow and she can't wait.

Now I'll be wheeling around the streets listening to music from my Iriver

Here are the specifcations for the Iriver T10 512

FEATURES: Plays up to 17+ hours of music, 512MB internal storage, Supports subscription music services, Vivid color display, Up to 53 hours of battery life, Skip-free and sport-ready, Built-in sport clip, FM tuner and FM recorder, Voice recorder, Plays MP3, WMA and OGG music files, Enhanced 3D audio (supports SRS WOW), Fast USB 2.0 transfers, 1 year warranty.
PACKED WITH: Iriver earphones, USB 2.0 interface cable, Printed manual, Installation CD, AA battery.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Windows XP (SP1 or higher), Windows Media Player 10, CD-ROM Drive, USB Port

~*Sudoku*~

Yep I finally got into having a go at Sudoku. Mum is pretty addicted to the puzzles and while out shopping we saw some really cheap Sudoku puzzle books, so she told me how you do the puzzles which sounded not as hard as I thought, so we got two books. I have now done a couple puzzles and try and do one every night. The book has Easy ones then gets to the Harder ones. It's pretty easy to do, not much thinking and I like doing them. Check out the website too http://www.sudoku.com/

~*New Toys I Want*~

• XBOX 360 Premiere Edition:

Wireless controller, 20GB Hard-drive, Media Remote, Xbox Live Silver, HD Video & Audio connectivity

• New Computer:

Intel P4 3.2 GHZ, Windows XP Media Centre Edition, 200GB Hard-drive, 2GB RAM, 256MB Video Card, DVD-RW, 19" or 21" Monitor and all the other kewl features you get.

• Iriver T10 512 MP3 Player:

FEATURES: Plays up to 17+ hours of music, 512MB internal storage, Supports subscription music services, Vivid color display, Up to 53 hours of battery life, Skip-free and sport-ready, Built-in sport clip, FM tuner and FM recorder, Voice recorder, Plays MP3, WMA and OGG music files, Enhanced 3D audio (supports SRS WOW), Fast USB 2.0 transfers, 1 year warranty.

PACKED WITH: Iriver earphones, USB 2.0 interface cable, Printed manual, Installation CD, AA battery.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Windows XP (SP1 or higher), Windows Media Player 10, CD-ROM Drive, USB Port.

• Nokia 3G Cell Phone: I'm not sure which one I want yet, but with 3G
  

or

Oh what come's first??...decisions, descions..money..money...sighs..WIN LOTTO

~*XBOX 360*~

I've been debating about Pre-ordering a XBOX 360 Premier Box and VIP Premiere Pack for awhile now. I have never had an Xbox, only a PS1 which was good at the time. I've never been a serious game player so this is one reason why I'm debating over it at such a big cost too. But since I'm jobless and not doing a lot, I might get into playing games more on the Xbox and using it's other features, as playing games on a PC is a bit slow. I was thinking I could use the Xbox for playing games and watching DVD's (even though I have a non-multiplayer DVD Player) and also download some Arcade games. I would use my PC for my usual surfing, emailing, forums and the games I already have for my pc. I have also checked out the Xbox.com website and found two games I think I'd enjoy playing, which are The Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion and Kameo: Elements of Power.

The XBOX 360 Premier Edition Box $719.99 includes:

1. Wireless controller
2. 20GB Hard-drive
3. Media Remote
4. Xbox Live Silver
5. HD Video & Audio connectivity

VIP Premiere Pack $169.95 includes:

1. Wireless controller
2. Game: Perfect Dark Zero
3. Limited Xbox 360 Faceplate
4. Xbox 360 DVD & VIP Access to the 360 Website
5. Demos
6. VIP Premiere Card for giveaways (not sure if this is from the shop I pre-order from)

I have up till March 20th to get my pre-order in if I want it. If I pre-order the Xbox 360 and the VIP Premiere Pack for $889.95, then I get $200 FREE Surival Pack, which includes, Xbox 360 carry bag, Xbox t-shirt, Xbox cap and playable demos (which I don't really need..but it's FREE). I also get my name put into a Draw for a Plasma LCD TV. Or I just buy the Xbox 360 Premier Edition Box for $719.99, but still, that's a lot of money. Errrr Decisions..decisions

Oh I found this XBOX Song LOL http://www.ggl.com/news.php?NewsId=2106

~*My Struggle with Ulcers!!*~

I don’t wish ulcers upon anyone! They are painful, interfere with daily activities and take months to heal.
Sometime between January and March 2004 I had many mosquito bites on my left ankle from wearing nothing on my feet, had a couple bites on my right foot too. In that time I had noticed that one bite on the side of my left ankle must have got infected and had a small oval scab over it.
Near the end of April the scab looked bigger and was getting sore and I couldn’t understand why, as I thought it was a healing scab. Few day’s later the scab had a red ring around it and the scab had spread over my Achilles tendon scar.
I was at the doctor’s picking up a prescription, while I was there I asked my nurse to take a look at it. The nurse said it was an ulcer, and I asked her what she meant. After finding out, she said I would have to get a dressing put on it, to ease the scab off to see what damage the ulcer has done and how deep it was. I kind of freaked out a bit as I didn’t want to find out how deep it was. My doctor did not come and see it, the nurse informed my doctor, and he asked her to organize the district nurses to come out twice a week to dress it. I was not given antibiotics at the time.

A week or two later the district nurse came over and talked to me about the history of it and how I got it and did the dressing. She arranged to get a district nurse out to see me twice a week. The scab eventually came off and the ulcer looked deep and I was in a bit of pain. I was taking Neurofen which my doctor said was OK to take for the pain.
I had not just one district nurse, but almost a different nurse each visit. This was hard as they hadn’t seen how the ulcer was before and what was being done, they just went by what was written in my chart. There was no continuity.

In September I developed an infection, this time I had two heavy infections in my ulcer called Pseudamonas and Staphylococcus A. These infections had given me two more ulcers, on the side of my ankle and my skin had broken down too. My skin and ulcers were being treated with many medical dressings, sometimes the ulcers would start looking good, then a different dressing and I am back to square one. My doctor had looked at the swab results and put me on antibiotics which I reacted too so I had to ring my doctor for something different, My Mum rushed up to the doctor’s to get the antibiotics as I needed them fast and I was too sick to leave the house. I reacted to these too and was quite sick for two weeks while taking them. I had to elevate my leg as much as I could as my leg was very swollen and at times felt like it was going to explode. I said to my doctor that I need more pain killers as I had finished a bottle of 96 Neurophen capsules. As the pain was still there and getting worse I was given Paracetamol but to take it only when needed.
Over this time the pain at night got so extreme I was crying in pain, having to sit up with my legs hanging off the edge of the bed due to the pain and pressure of the oedema in my feet and legs. I also found it very painful with the pressure of my ulcers against the mattress. There were times I wanted morphine or something stronger for the pain. I dreaded going to bed at night, knowing how much pain I was going to be in. This went on for three weeks to the point I couldn’t take it anymore. Paracetamol didn’t work so I rang back and I was given Codalgin which helped a bit.
My brother luckily had finished work for a few weeks and could come and stay with me and sort something out to reduce the pain at night. He put pillows under my leg so there was nothing against the ulcers and got up in the middle of the night a few times to recorrect the pillows and get my leg in a comfy position. After the first two nights, I was managing to get some sleep and having less pain, it felt good.

The ulcers were not healing, my skin was almost raw, was red, sore, swollen and still infected with Pseudamonas. My Mum had arranged a private appointment with a Wound Care Consultant. We discussed why the ulcers were not healing, what treatment options I had. I made my decision to get help from her. I needed to change my doctor to one in the same IPO as the wound care specialist nurse so the cost of dressings would be covered. The following week I went to the Medical Centre and the Wound Consultant told me the treatment plan. I was to have compression bandages done every day for two weeks to get the oedema down plus full elevation of my leg. The plan of attack was to get the oedema down, then treat the infection, then treat the ulcers. Two weeks later my leg oedema had gone down almost back to normal size and the infection was starting to get under control. The infection was treated with Iodosorb cream which needed changing daily. Four weeks later my ulcers were under control and healing was showing. After having nine months of treatment from the district nurses to 4 weeks of treatment with success is a huge improvement.

I developed an ulcer on my right leg near the ankle as I had banged my leg on my wheelchair and had some pressure there too, while the left leg ulcers were healing. We treated the new ulcer with Iodosorb and a batch of antibiotics for a while as I had a couple small infections of pseudomonas. I was using a compression stocking on my other leg now while skin was healing, so we started using a compression stocking on my right leg too as there was a little oedema there too. This took a couple months to heal and did in time for me to go to Australia in April 2005.

I am wearing compression stockings every day now on both legs to help the skin heal back to normal, this will take 12 months. Wearing the stockings will also keep away any oedema and help circulation. Ulcers and pressure sores are similar so I have to watch out for pressure on my legs too. Be aware of any scabs, pressure sores and red sore areas as you don’t want to deal with what I had to go through, with a lot of pain and exhaustion.

Ulcer Being treated by District Nurse: note swelling of leg

Ulcer's being treated by Wound Care Consultant

Leg in Compression Bandages

~*ProfessioNAIL*~

I'm so annoyed with the so called ProfesioNAIL ladies. I went to get my 'usual' gel overlay back fill done and my nails filed down abit as they are too long. It's really hard cause these girls do not speak English as a first language so for them trying to understand what I'm wanting is crazy. Anyhow I told them what I wanted, she started filing down my nails to the length I was happy with. She then said that she would have to remove all the hard gel overlay nails off my real nails, and redo the gel overlay so I said fine, $40 that be. It felt quite weird having hard gel nails being peeled off the top of my own nails. She had done that then she cut's my nails again, and I was thinking is she just cutting the ends off?? but noooooo she cut them so short, right down to my skin..I just about died!! Then she pulled out false nails, I said no I don't want those, I asked for gel overlay, like I always have. After some dicussion with another work mate then back to me, she said ok. She said do you like short nails?? I said no, you cut em short...duhhh She then filed them round, saying it's hard to file short nails. Then she painted them with clear nail polish as I requested. OH and the cost had gone up to $55.00. errrrr So anyway my fingers abit sore and I wasn't happy with what she did. I won't let her near my nails again!! I do like ProfessioNAILS as they normally do a good job and I can sit comfortable at there tables. I just have to wait till my nails grow to get nails:(

This is what my nails did look like when I went in, now they are very short!!

~*Auckland Anniversary*~

Yesterday was Auckland Anniversary so Dad and I went down to Mission Bay by the waterfront. The sun was out and clear blue sky with high humidity. Dad and I went to the viewing peak area, which had huge areas of nice green cut grass. Lot's of people were there too looking at the view. A plane had flew across really low and it was neat seeing that fly over our heads lol We could see lots of sailing boats racing and some really small sailing boats. We saw one huge sail boat that had five sails!! and a Navy Ship which sounded off the gun for the boat race.

Dad and I went around more to the other side to see Mission Bay and next minute an F16 or F18 plane flew over our heads really low too along with the roar of the flyover. It then went straight up into the sky and did some twirls then went around the back of the viewing area, so we thought, cause next minute we heard a load zooooom noise and the F18 did another low fly over, this time the plane was even lower and clearer to see..It was WAY kewl!!! I loved it, I wanted more flyovers hehe

It's a shame I didn't have my camara with me. We then walked down the peak and down into Mission Bay and had BK for lunch. Yep both me and Dad had BK!! Yummy.. We did see another place, think it was a War Bird plane but it did some neat stuff too.
We then walked back to the van and headed home.

~*New Web site Created*~

I haven't blogged for a few weeks as I've been really busy. I spend all last week creating my new website. I have finally finished it and feel quite proud of my work:)

Click on the picture below to go to my website and enjoy browsing.

~*Happy Birthday to Me*~

to

I had an awesome birthday. I just relaxed for the day then my brother came over and we watched Mr & Mrs Smith and it was pretty good. We didn't have to pay for the dvd either as it was a pressie from the store:) We then met up with the rest of family at a Thai place and had a very yummy Dinner. I haven't had thai food for years and it was really nice. We had a variety of different foods to share between us all.

I got some pressies too, clothes, Harry Potter calendar, some money, some dvds and some other little things:) One of the dvds I got was called 'Inside I'm Dancing' and the two main characters are two guys with disabilitys, one has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and the other has Cerbral Palsey. I watched it and it was really good, funny and sad.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

~*Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire*~

I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire today and it was wicked!! I can't wait till the DVD omes out so I can add that to my collection. I'm actually in the middle of reading the book for the second time and the movie missed a heap of detailed stuff. They didn't even show the Quidditch World Cup game which would have been good to see on screen. The graphics and effects were great too.

Yesterday I bought the 'World Of Harry Potter Collection' PC Game Pack, 3 games in one box. I got HP and the Sorcerer's Stone, HP and the Chamber of Secrets and HP Quidditch World Cup games and a Collection CD. The first game is going quite good, learning how to do some magic spells LOL and how to move Harry around..oh and Fred and George are training me (harry) heheh

~*Fun Day out and about*~

I drove 12.1km distance while out and about in town today. The sunshine was out, it was hot but also windy. I took the train and met up with my friend Kerry in town. We wheeled around the waterfront, stopped by the at the Ferry Information and got a Timetable. We also checked out the ramps that we use to get on and off the boats as neither of us have used our new TDX powerchairs to get on and off the boat and they work slightly different to rear wheel drive chairs. We then wheeled around the Viaduct and chatted about sports and a friend of ours who's in hospital very sick. We then went in and out of lots of resturants trying to find the right place that would fit our budget LOL. We found one sitting in front of the harbour. I had nacho's and a rum n coke and he had scollops and salad and a vodkia n coke or 2 or 3 LOL

We checked out some pubs and saw this pub with ice sculptures inside. I couldn't get in and glad I couldn't in a way...cause it was -5degrees inside. It was a bar with an ice floor, ice glasses, ice tables, ice everything!! They only serve Vodkia shots lol and you pay so much to get all the warm jackets, scarfs and boots. They only let you in for 20 mins too as drinking vodkia shots and the cold can get you really drunk..so they say. But wow I never knew such a thing exsisted in my own town LOL

After awhile we headed off and wheeled up one side of town. We ended up at SkyCity and went into the Casnio and wandered around. I haven't been there for 5yrs or so and it's changed a lot. We sat and had a drink, this time I had a coffee. We then had a go on the 1cent machines hehe yea make the money last longer LOL. I stuck $2 in and won 100 credits then lost it and Kerry spend some of his money too.

We then went back down towards the train station, stopping in Sounds for awhile. We then headed off home on two different trains. I had a really good day, and have a bit of sun burn.

~*Happy New Year*~

Wishing all my family and friends a......

~*Boxing Day*~

Today we went to the Boxing Day Sales, yep and the mall we were in was packed!!! I reakon it was more packed than before christmas. I didn't get much at all, just looked around, shops were very very crowded and I couldn't be bothered getting in the ques to pay for the items. The que in the EB Games shop was huge and went outside the store, actually a lot of ques were like this. Anna got some clothes and things as she doesn't have a mall in the town she lives. Ben and Ang got a few good things for 1/2 price and so did Mum. I think Dad and I were the only ones that didn't get much. We had a nice lunch in CocknBull which was also packed but the food is nice there. I caught up with a few friends too. I then got dropped off home that night where Casey my cat was waiting for me:)

~*Christmas Day*~

Christmas Day arrived bright and early for me, as I had to be ready early to be picked up. Dad arrived and wished me a Merry Christmas and then we headed to the airport and picked up my sister Anna. We then went back to Dad's where everyone was there. We had morning tea which included Mum's home made mince pies and some wine and it was really good, along with catching up with everyone and having a good time. The weather was pretty good, we sat on the deck in the sunshine which wasn't too hot, just right. I saw a Dove, these Dove's seem to be here every christmas, here is a photo of one..

I think it's pretty and I almost got to touch it, but it backed away from me lol..I took a few photos as I love taking photos, so check them out below...

~*Anna and Jenn*~

~*Christmas Tree and pressies for all*~

~*Dinner Table-Theme ia Silver and White*~

I have a bunch more photo's but those were the ones I wanted to share. We had a different table stting theme for lunch too hehe, we like themes as it make's it look nice too. We had a late lunch which included hapkuku fish, tuna, prawns cooked in garlic n butter which spelt good but I don't like pawns, mussels, potato n bacon salad, green salad and a few other little things and of course wine:) We used Mum's big coloured wine glasses too.

We then got stuck into giving and recieving pressies and that was fun. Even Ben's dog got a pressie hehe it was an identity charm for the dogs name to be ingraved on it and the contact number. It was quite long and it touched the floor so it will need to be shortened. I got some nice pressies including a 208 cd/dvd case holder, some cash, clothes, Kahlua, chocolates, bottle of white wine and a heap of dvds and some other things:) Mum and Dad got a DVD player from themselves hehe it was funny as the label was addressed to Mum and Dad, from Mum and Dad hehe Everyone got some really nice things.

We then relaxed, chatted and had some wine for the rest of the day. For dinner we had a variety of meats, chicken, lamb and pork with roast vegetables and salads etc, it was so yummy!! For pudding we had christmas pudding and brandy butter and a fruit sponge too. We had crackers too along with another gift so that was special. Around midnight Ben and Anna let of a few fireworks and that was really kewl! One firecracker fell off the deck and went shooting in all directions under a tree heheh..that was funny. I had a great christmas day with my family:)

~*Merry Christmas*~

It's Christmas Eve and as you can see Dancer is running around trying to get all the other Reindeers ready for Santa tonight. I've been busy wrapping up pressies and packing a few things as I'm going to my parents place tomorow for a couple days. On Christmas morning Dad will pick me up, then we will go to the airport to pick up my sister Anna, who is coming up for a couble days too. She hasn't been with us over Christmas for 4 years so it be good to have her with us. I won't be blogging tomorow so I want to wish you a

	I wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and an exciting Happy New Year!! Graphic's made by

~*My Elf Name*~

Here is my Elf Name

Christmas Elf Name My Christmas Elf Name is Get your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

~*Christmas is almost here*~

It's December already!! That means Christmas isn't too far away, infact it's only two weeks away. I was putting up my christmas tree last week and it has lights and red and gold decorations. It looks really good in at night too. Since my christmas tree isn't real, I might get some pine incents and burn them, then I get the nice smell of the pine too.

I am half way through getting presents for family and friend's which is good. The shops are getting really crowded now so it make's getting into the shop's (in my powerchair) harder now, actually I can't get into some shops now. This is why I tend to shop during the year as I can still get in and around the shops.

Yesterday I had my last sports practice and at the end we had a christmas afternoon tea along with secret santa gifts for the players. I got a nice bottle of wine.