Miss me much??? I do too...

As usual I have neglected this blog so much that even I thought it was no longer functioning. Then I realised it was I that was no longer functioning or for that matter writing. Anyway, here I am and I'm coming back with a not so happy post. I'm not even sure why I'm sharing this but non-the-less I am, so read on if you care to but remember it's not a very happy post.

As many of you know or maybe you don't either way I'll remind you that I have been and still am HIV positive and have been since 1986. Now the fact that I have lived with this dread disease for 25 years and am still around to be writing about it is wonderful. Well, wonderful that I'm alive not wonderful that I've had to live with this disease for so long and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. I am one of those unlucky ones that watched one to many of my friends loose their lives to this disease including two of my own partners. It will actually be exactly 25 years to the date on the 16 of this month that I found out I was positive. It's funny how you remember certain life changing things. Well maybe not so much funny as just plain odd/interesting/strange, you get my point.

I am lucky in that I was able to survive long enough to have access to the antiviral medications that became available in 1994. Those drugs and have extended and saved many peoples lives since then. I'll be honest it's not been nor is it for anyone a joy ride taking these medications with all of their various side effects like constant diarrhoea, nausea etc. Regardless, I persevered and finally found a combination that provided me with the protection I needed and had the least amount of side effects. Now, I have taken this combination of medications for over 9 years and through all of that time they have kept my little friend (aka the virus) at bay, tucked away in it's own little corner not bothering anyone.

The drugs, if you don't already know, are supposed to keep the virus at such a low level that it has a hard time replicate and as such has a hard time destroying your immune system. At the same time by holding the virus at bay and with your immune system not under constant attack the system itself is better able at repairing itself and bringing your defences up to normal or higher levels of protection. My counts as far as the virus is concerned are always in the undetectable range which is where we want it to be and my immune system albeit on the low end of normal nevertheless is in the normal range. That is until 4 weeks ago...

It seems that after all of these years of gliding along rather smoothly. My little friend has decided that it is not content with playing all by itself in that dark little corner. No, it wants to come back out and play in the sunshine with all the other immune cells, blood cells and all the other parts of my body. It just wants to have fun again. Problem is, when it has fun I don't. So, what am I saying? Well, what I'm saying is I now have a detectable viral load and my immune system is headed to the no go zone. Now, we don't need to panic because there are lots of new medications to choose from so there should be some combination I can take that will send my little friend back into his little hole where he will hopefully stay for a very long time. We have done some blood work to see what medications I have apparently be come resistant to and can no longer use and then allow us to to decide what other new medications I can try and we will go on from there.

I know I shouldn't worry but I'm not very happy at the moment. It's not that I was fooled to believe that the virus had left the building. I've not only lived with it for to long but I've also worked in the field of HIV education so I know the in and outs of this terrible disease. It's just a kick to the head and it makes you suddenly feel so damn vulnerable. All from something we can't see with the naked eye but that we got from being naked. Hmmm, I digress Anyhoo, no time to wallow in self pity, nor would I as I did enough of that a long time ago. Lets figure out what we're going to do and just do it. I've got nothing to loose and so much to gain.

Moving on up, or is it moving out?

Well, it's a little bit of both, as we are on the path to moving back into our apartment in the city. By city I mean Sydney. We have found ourselves quasi homeless after living in an apartment under my husband's parent's house. It wasn't it an optimum situation but it provided us a space, breathing room and most of all time to help make decisions about where and how much we wanted to spend on a new home back here in Sydney. For those of you who who are up to speed, we recently moved back to Sydnay after living in Tasmania for the last 5 years. We unfortunately had to move back to Sydney for several reasons, health being an important player. We kept our house in Tassie and are renting it out which will provide us with a nice bit of change to spend on our new mortgage. It will at least make the payments.

Anyway, here we are back in Sydney. We are planning on moving back into our apartment in the city which we were letting out for the past 6 years. We had to unfortunately give our current tenants notice. They were good tenants but we need a place to live. A place to live I might add that is mortgage free, so no monthly rental for us to lay out. We plan on living back in the apartment for probably a year at which time we hope to have found a new house to purchase. So wish us luck and here's to hoping that our current tenants find something sooner. The sooner the better as we can stop living out of suitcases, moving from hotel to hotel and other various forms of accommodations.

Oh and while I'm on the topic of moving and being homeless, seeing that all all of our worldly goods, bar three suitcases of clothing, are in storage, I will not be able to participate in March's 12 of 12. I probably won't be able to do Aprils and possibly May's unless as I said we are able to move back into our apartment sooner. It all depends on the current tenants. We shall see...

12 of 12 for February 2011

Hi Dee Ho all of you other 12 of 12ers and also to the few viewers that happen to stumble upon this blog or those few who do continue to follow my few postings. Anyway, after that long introduction here we are with another submission of photos for the event called 12 of 12. Now this this event was the brain child of this man. The basics of this monthly event is to take pictures throughout your day on the 12 day of every month and post them for all to see. Originally the photos were supposed to show the time of each picture was taken, along with a short explanation about the photo. I have to admit I have changed my event slightly. I do post my photos in the order in which I took them and I do offer a small explanation but I don't add a time nor I take the pictures throughout my day. generally I take my photos in a time frame of when I that I am able to find the time to take a set of photos. Okay once again I have become long winded. With my explanations as well as making grammatically in correct ling sentences. So here we go with this months 12 of 12 I went with a theme last month and I have done the same with month's. Well sort of as this month it's all about colour. Enjoy...

I have no idea what this is plant, but it is some type of a grass used in may of the gardens around the neighbourhood.

Not unlike many places that get very hot during summer; we have crepe myrtles that. this plant grow. well in the dry and/or humid environments.

This picture come from the neighbourhood flower seller and the colours are brilliant not to mention the roses are pretty.

A mixture of flowers from the market which once again provide lovely colour.

I just love sunflowers and I also a fan of the seeds.

Another flower I am not sure what they are called but I think by the looks of them the are some type of mum. I did find out that this is the natural colour of this flower.

Did you know that the lovely gerber daisy are related to the sunflower family and that they originated in Africa?

Who doesn't love a lovely tulip? Do you get the idea I got stuck at the flower market? What can I say? I'm mot sure that all of these count as an acceptable set of 12 of 12 photos but this what I am offering.

Okay, I've move away from the flower market and took this picture of a native flower here in Australia. The flower is a bottle brush and they like to call it a Christmas bottle brush due to as you can see the read flower. they also have white ones that also come out around Christmas.

This flower did not give us much un the way of colour. Maybe the reason it is so dull is because it is actually a weed.

Another flower that I don't know the name of, but I thought it was pretty. What do you think?

And finally, I flower that is growing in our garden and I can't remember the name of the damn. I know it starts with a "P". It is on the tip of my tongue and is just won't come to me. Maybe it will later. Well, as I said I hope you enjoyed the photos and I'll see you next month. I hope I can take a better assortment of pictures. See ya'

Well, that's all I have for this months. I hope you enjoyed my photos this month. I know that there are a lot of pictures from the flower seller near the house but I just could not help myself with all of the colour that was provided from the flowers that we have available during the summer months. See you next month with maybe another post in between the 12 of 12 entries...

So what are they???

Hello dear bloggers and fellow 12 of 12r's, as you all know by now I did a guess what this is theme for my first 2011 12 of 12 photo blog post. Now, many of you took a stab at guessing what the partial photo was related to a larger whole. I will say that some of the photos were probably a bit difficult to decipher and others you made good guesses. Anyway I promised I would post the larger pictures in a few days and this is the post to do just that. so enjoy and see how close you were to the real thing...

So, number one ends up being the bindings of a set of books. There's nothing special about the books being the Twilight series. They just happen to be the ones that I chose to take a picture of noting more and nothing less.

Now this is a glass which is handblown the top part actually sits in the base so all you pick up is the blue coane we have a set of four when we have a special dinner. they were a birthday present from the hubby.

The close up of the fabric that covers the chair is special in that this chair waas damaged in transit on our move back up to Sydney. It took us six months to have the removal company to have the chair re-covered and get it back to us. Anyway, we chose the fabric and we personally like it.

As many of you guessed the close up was the control panel of our microwave.

Also you had no trouble guessing that this was stairwell

I don't have to tell you this was a bottle and the picture of course was just a close up of the condensation on the outside of the bottle.

Next we had a picute of part af the grill covering a fan

Then next we had a close up of the grouting that connects the tiles on our floor.

This one had many of you guessing and of much interesting. Well now I can reveal that is was a close up of a glass paper weight.

Now this next one is another very special birthday present from hubby. As you can see the small photo was a close-up of the glass rod that sits in the larger of the two items. These are also hand-blown from the same man that created the blue glasses. So, what are they you ask? They are glass spinning tops and when you take the glass rod out you can actually spin them, but make sure it on a very safe, flat, and non-abrasive surface. I, as you might have guessed, am an avid collector of hand-blown glass items. If they can make it I'll try to buy it.

Along with glass items we also collect pieces of art. You know that are is subjective and some people will like this painting and some people won't. I personally do and I picked this particular piece out. It is by an artist by the name of Christoper Orr. I just really like the colours he uses. So we added this little piece by him to our collection and if could get hubby to let me I'd buy a few more.

And last but not least it is not the most inspiring item and at the end of the day it's just our dirty clothes hamper. I wonder if it says anything about this blog post or about my 12 of 12 pictures. Who knows? I just hope you enjoyed this months 12 of 12 and I look forward to next month's and let's see what I can come up with to keep you entertained.

12 of 12 January 2011

Well, here it is a brand new year and the start of new monthly 12 of 12 photos. This month I've gone with the theme of guess what the photo is. So take your best shot and at the same time I hope you like the photos as they are I need to thank the man who started 12 of 12 and you can visit his site here. In the next few days I'll show you the larger photos and explain what the are. So, on with the photos. Enjoy...

This may be an easy one...

Again possibly an easy one

Part of a much bigger item...

This should be really easy...

I guess a lot of these should be fairly easy but some will be harder...

Go ahead guess...

Hmm, what eve could it be ...

Once again part of a much larger thing...

Kind of pretty isn't it...

Another pretty one that's part of a larger item that I'm sure you will never guess what it is...

This should be easy or maybe not...

This isn't what you think it is...

Well that's all for this month I hope you enjoyed this month's photo's and I will see you next month with another batch of 12 of 12 photos