Results tagged “Weekend” from Kazza the Blank One

Did absolutely no UK planning this weekend.  The closest I came to UK planning was trying to watch Harry Potter (1) to take screen shots of places I want to go to next month.  Except my computer won't play commercial DVDs anymore.  I'm guessing it's some kind of Winblows 7 failness that's blocking commercial DVDs (I can play DVDs I've burnt myself without any problems).  So got quite depressed about the whole thing last night.

Saturday arvo Potty smsed me to see if I'd like to go roller blading down at the lake.  So wandered over their place and we all headed down.

End of another week.  After the last project was finally released last weekend, here I was thinking I'd have time to do all the other crap I've been neglecting.  No such luck.  Just as busy as ever (with all the crap).

Haven't done any real photo sorting in weeks.  I started pulling out photos for the Queensland trip but didn't get very far through it.

This morning the parents headed off to church so I did some UK planning and Stu did some sleeping and some uni work.

I was going to blog tonight. Really I was.  Except I haven't downloaded my photos yet.  Not that anything exciting has happened, so you haven't missed anything.

Bit of an all over the place day today.

Yesterday was woken up fairly early by completely useless alerts.  Then patching alerts a while later meant I didn't get a sleep in.  Had a nice quiet morning.  Built some Lego.  In the afternoon did some food shopping.  Stu cooked a nice bean dish for dinner.  

Went out for breakfast this morning to Black Pepper, then feed the birdies by the lake and then did some shopping at the markets.

Yesterday was a blissfully quiet day.  I don't think we even left the house.  Did some computer work in the morning, and some jigsaw, and cleaned the pool (while the sweetie had a migraine :( ).  Finished the evening off with a little beer, some tv and jigsaw.

Saturday was rainy and miserable, so felt no guilt at all sitting on my computer most of the day, and cleaning the house in between.  

Another totally glorious autumn day today!

Exhibition Building panorama, taken on the iPhone and stitched with AutoStitch on the phone

Yesterday the call was put out... and Nat and Andrew answered (well the little brother did too, but too impractical for him to make it).

So I haven't blogged all week.

Had a nice weekend at the coast last weekend.

Last night we had Nat and Andrew over so we could eat the Batman chicken nuggets I'd had for a few months in the freezer.  We also played some Pictionary (the boys sooo didn't want to) and watched Love Actually and had pasta and salad for dinner.  

I still don't have pictures for this entry.  If anyone cares, come back in a few days.

Yesterday morning (well actually Friday night), the sweetie decided we should go out for breakfast.  So after making sure servers were working after patching reboots we went to Black Pepper in Belconnen.  Wasn't too bad.  I had eggs benedict with some really yummy bacon, although I don't think I'd have it with the farmhouse muffin again.

Long weekend and very little time at home.. doh!!

So yesterday had me doing the housework to tidy up and clean before Dave and Alex came over for a late lunch (of nomm pasta bake).  Much beer and wine was drunk over the course of the afternoon.  Then the original plan was for them to go home and put The Mighty Angus to bed, but someone had the idea for us to go over and play Singstar :)  Where of course we drank quite a lot more wine.  And sang lots.  And I got beaten! :)  These guys are pretty good :)  Wasn't a hugely late night, but the effects of ten hours of drinking kinda made itself known heh.  

Spent a good chunk of today moving the rest of the books into the garage, and building more shelves...

Such a stinking hot day today!!  Actually it only got to about 36 which wasn't as bad as during the week or last week.  

Saturday was a nice quiet day at home.  At night went out for Chris H's 50th.  Was a good night, had fun.

Another quiet day at home.  Humidity really began to permeate this arvo.  And tonight the green stuff is back with a vengeance :)

So Sunday the little brother was here in the morning.  We did a Bunnings run and picked up some bits and pieces, including some hooks to hang my Lego mosaics.  Have I ever mentioned my little brother rocks?

So the little brother turned up late last night, and we stayed up well into the morning doing a jigsaw.  Finished it today.

Last night Libby came over for drinks, Europe photos, a good long swim, and dinner.  Was a very pleasant evening.  Discovered that our small wine glasses float very nicely in the pool :)

Spent entirely too much time today playing with my bucky magnets :)

So I did get some useful stuff done.  Like tending to the pool and the weeds in the pavers.  And working some more on my Japan photos.  And the shopping.

So spent all morning finalising Trivia Night questions.  

So Saturday morning we headed up to Kangaroo Valley to celebrate Chris B's 50th.  They've got a gorgeous place there.  Got there at lunch time and had a very pleasant afternoon of beer, nibbles, chatting, and watching the more energetic peoples play bocce, croquet and horseshoes.  

Was gonna blog photos of our weekend away, but fell asleep on the lounge.. which I *never* do!

Bit of a slow start to the day.  Played FunTrivia for a couple of hours.  Managed to get the highest points in my class for the day by playing a whole stack of easy quizzes.  Got that badge so don't have to try so hard now :)

Stu had to be in Sydney both last week and this week for work.  They wouldn't pay for him to stay in Sydney over the weekend, and were reluctant to fly him home, altho presumably they would have if he'd insisted.  So anyway, after work on Friday I drove up and we stayed in the hotel together (it's really really weird paying for accommodation in Sydney!)

Blogging from Batemans Bay Maccas for no other reason than because I can.  Well sort of.  It's so slow it's almost unusable.

Have had a rainy but quite relaxing weekend at the coast.  On our way home now.

After we got back from Japan I decided it would be super awesome to have a hanami in our front yard this year when our weeping cherry was in bloom.  It was indeed, super awesome :)

Had a house and garden day today.  Went and hired a saw on a pole and lopped some branches that were interfering with our telephone line.

First up, a pic of the cherry blossoms that are starting to open (took this yesterday) Today was quite a spectacular spring day. Got picked up by Scott and Kerry and headed out to Yass for lunch. The country side is very green at the moment. One of Annie's chooks

They have heaps of gorgeous daffodils Cherry blossoms are making me feel like I'm back in Japan (except there were bees today) Lunch was some wonderful roast beef that Annie cooked, and a spectacular ice cream cake that Ruth made Then we went down to Yass park with all the kids Got home very late, and had to cram a whole stack of work into a very short time before it got too dark. Cooked mushroom pizzas for dinner (that's a base of a few big portabella mushrooms, stuffed with veggies and cheese) and played some Olympics and got another crown. Still hate hate hate fencing. And called the parents for father's day. Is it bed time now? :)

So I've had a productive day and it's only 2:30pm ..

Had another peaceful kind of a day at home.  Bit more tidying (sorted out and tidied some crap downstairs), lots of Olympic-ing (I'm soo gonna have wii arm tomorrow), and cooking of dinner.  

The Canberra Times Fountain

Last night we did pasta for dinner, and watched Donnie Darko (director's cut edition).  I saw this movie years ago and have been wanting to watch it again ever since.  And Stu had never seen it, so watch it we did.  I'm pretty sure this director's cut version had a lot more explanation about the time travel stuff than the version I saw did ...

So the weekend.  Where was I?

Ok that was all out of order.  

Had a slow quiet day today.  Got some of the things done that I didn't manage to get done yesterday so that was good.  Although didn't get around to trying resurrect my old captcha generator, so still no leaving comments for now.

Had a fairly quiet morning.  Got quite a lot of rss feed items read.  Was under five hundred unread tonight, which is quite an achievement!

Had a relaxing morning this morning.  Slept in for a bit, then got ready and went and played Wii Olympics.  Of course the kids joined me... but thas ok ;)  Won a few gold medals for them, and was beaten soundly in a few events too :)

Had a fairly productive day today.  For a while I was setting a timer and doing 15 minutes of computer stuff then 15 minutes of non computer stuff.  Non computer stuff was mostly tidying tho heh.

Since I got most of what I wanted to do this weekend done yesterday, today I was free to do whatever I pleased.  Of course that really just meant I could sort out my hard drives :/  

And here ends another weekend :/

Our cherry tree that last weekend was mostly all yellow leaves, had lost just about all its leaves by this weekend..



Still lots of colour on some of the other trees

My arms hurt from all the exertion yesterday .. hrmmmm...

Wasted plenty of time today.  Got a few things done too, but not much.  Got about half way through going through my Japan photos and selecting highlights for showing people.  Well a first pass go through.  They will still need more culling so people that we subject them to don't die of boredom.  And then when that's done will pick out the best of the highlights and update the blog entries.  I said I'd do that with our Europe photos too, so that will have to be next...

Electric blankie is waiting for me... :)

Had rather a late start on Saturday.  We headed out around 12pm to do our shopping, but of course being Anzac Day, shops weren't open til 1pm.. not even Coles (which I thought might have opened round 12).  So had to waste a bit of time before doing our shopping.  Stocked up on supplies, came home, got ready, and eventually headed out the door round 3:50pm. 

Had a nice easy drive down to the coast, arriving just after 6pm.  Whereupon it was decided it was beer o'clock.  We cooked a store-bought quiche for dinner (I mustn't have been with real men ;) ).  Eventually got in the spa and stayed there for the next five or so hours.  Ooops.  :)  DC mostly kept up with me drinking-wise.  Not quite, but I was still impressed :)

Got the house a bit tidier.  Cleaned the kitchen only to mess it up again (although not too badly) for dinner.  Watched some House.  Read hundreds of news feeds, but still have thousands to go.  Dusted and vacuumed.  Have no idea what is attracting the meeces. 

Not much else to report.  Boring day really.

Well we had plans.  We were going to do food shopping.  We were going to go to the book fair.  We were going to go out to dinner.

In the end we only went out to dinner.  The rest of the day I spent fighting with Google Maps to get our itinerary finalised and maps organised for printing.  Also had a look at the online JR trip finder thingie and got a whole stack of possible train trips organised.  Only to find that JR changed their fares and timetables in March, but the utility said it had data from December.  Doh!  So the trains I've looked up might not be right.

Dinner was nice.  We met up with Helen and Ian at the Asian Cafe in town.  The initial service was a little slow, but once they took our order the food came very fast.  And it was really really good too.  We got five things and they were all excellent.  But then tried to find somewhere to buy ice cream for dessert.  Walked all around Civic but nothing was open (although we probably could have gotten something at Cafe Essen or My Cafe).

And so ends another weekend.  A week of frantic work ahead of me ....

It was a gorgeous day today.

So I spent most of it inside on or fighting with the computer.

Oops.

So I actually took 570 photos at Damien's wedding.  Stu took another 267. Will post some tomorrow.

Spent the afternoon alternating between getting insanely frustrated with our net connection that can't connect properly to Google Maps, and cleaning the pool.  With Google Maps, more often than not we just get a SYN_SENT and then nothing else.  So we tried removing the wireless router that was in series with the other router.  So far it seems a bit more reliable.  So spent the evening adding heaps of places into the Tokyo section and sorting it out.  Our Google Map has enough on it to keep us occupied for about six months... not quite sure what we're going to get to see from it in just two weeks...

Tonight I watched Skyfire from the balcony.  Really must go in one year to watch it up close..

Friday I snapped this:



Yesterday was quite a busy day.

Went into town to spend lots of money on the Stubie.  He got an Olympus E-420 digital SLR camera.  He actually wanted an E-620, but that's not due out til April - after our Japan trip.  He also got a couple of pairs of jeans and some underwear.  Had lunch in the Canberra Centre - where I had a full roast pork meal for $8 - and it was very nom-worthy!.  And then we tried to spend a DJs gift card we got for our wedding.  Man that was hard work.  Who knew spending money in DJs could be so hard.  Unless you want to spend $300 of course :/ 




The rain yesterday was very cool, although we still need more of it!  Hint! Hint!
(in the morning Mt Ainslie was gone, in the afternoon it was decorated with a rainbow)






For dinner we went down Northbourne Ave to find some places in the Entertainment Book to use our card for.  The first place we went to (Zipp) claimed to be fully booked at 7:30pm, even though the place was only about 1/3 full.  hrmmm.  So went up to Breeze.  The food was good enough and the service was quite good, however yet again, we came across an Entertainment Book restaurant that didn't give the deal specified in the book.  We were supposed to get "buy one main course get one free", which would have been worth $28, however they only gave us a $17 discount.  I wanted to say something, but Stu is more allergic to confrontation than I am, so we just gave no tip.  Which made me feel a bit sorry for the dude cause he was actually pretty good.  <mails the Entertainment Book people>

Then we toddled off to see The Reader (via dessert at Baskin and Robbins), and got home very late.

Today was a bit quieter.  Got a bit of house tidying and Japan planning done.  Did our food shopping.

And that was it really. 

Less than two weeks to go!  Wheeeee!!

Nothing much of a day.  Did a bit of tidying and cleaning and Japan planning.
Went shopping for a few bits and pieces for dinner tonight.

Which was freakin awesome!  Stu had these two big squashes he needed to cook, so he split them in half, then put them in ramekins with mushroom, garlic and fetta cheese.. epic nom!! 
I did some roast potato as well and some roast garlic.. it was all delicious.

That and some red wine all helped make this evening very pleasant :)

So Friday night we left work early and headed down to the coast.

The eastern side of the Great Dividing Range, especially closer to the coast, is remarkably green at the moment.

Arrived in Bateman's Bay around sunset.

Had a slow morning.  It was cold and grey and didn't feel like doing much. 

After lunch worked on a new lego mosaic design.

Later on we went for a drive, and went down to the lake to go tweeter watching and coot and swan feeding.  The black swans are a lot less agro without cygnets to care for.  There was a pair that we fed and one of them even let us touch it without freaking out or trying to bite us.  It was more interested in getting food than running away! :)

man, I'm getting slack!! ;)

On the go all day today pretty much.  First up headed to Yarralumla to pick a couple of goldfish.  Then went shopping on the way home.  Then my parents came over for lunch on their way back through town.  Then Annie and kids came over to pick up the fish. 

Suddenly it was 2pm .. oops!

Spent a bit of time tidying up the house, then Tom came over and we had several beers while Stu cooked dinner (better than my stir-fries cause he's talented that way ;) ).  Watched (well sort of watched cause we were mostly chatting) Prototype This and Iron Chef, then we settled down and watched Spiderman 2, which Stu and I had not seen before.  It was pretty good as suggested by reviews, although a few very cringe-worthy moments (which got even worse in Spidey 3).

So it made for a very pleasant evening, although I do suspect Stu might regret his overindulgence in alcohol tomorrow ;)

Not too much else this weekend.  Did a bit of house tidying, unpacking, towel washing, in-tray clearing, ip blocking, kitchen cleaning, Khan special features watching, etc.  Stu cooked another of his fantastic curries after I nagged asked him to use the cauliflower he bought a few weeks ago :)

Didn't get the puddle cleaned - was too cold outside, and it was raining, although did have another go at cleaning the front gutters yesterday.  Have slept in winter pjs that last couple of nights - craziness!!

Japan planning went backwards this week after people changed their minds.  Still hoping to have flights booked by Tuesday though....

Another stupidly hot day.  I even bit the bullet and chucked a bit of water on some of the plants in the front garden, even though that goes against my belief that plants in Canberra should be able to survive the summer or they don't belong in Canberra.

Did absolutely nothing all morning and most of the afternoon.  Was just too hot to move. 

Matt and Helen came over mid afternoon and we hung out downstairs for a bit then went for a nice long swim.  Chatted them for a while longer before they went home.  If the weather hadn't been so silly we'd have asked them if they wanted to stay for dinner, but I was just too exhausted.

The poor little fishies (well mainly just the julies, but the multies as well) suffered badly today, with the tank temperature getting up to about 34C.  Quite a few of them have died :(  Chucked in quite a bit of ice, but it didn't really help much, maybe dropping it half a degree or so.

Had a late dinner of pizza and sides, but I really wasn't hungry so didn't each much.

The change that finally came through was just about the most magical thing in the universe...

Fish tank temperature:



Study temperature peaked at about 39C

Feeling very tired of the constant heat.  Worse today because we were home for most of it, as opposed to being in a nice air conditioned office.

Grocery shopping was painful because it was hot, and very crowded, and screaming kids and annoying parents.

Scott and Kerry and Jake came over later in the afternoon for a swim.  Then Melita came over for a swim and a few drinks and dinner of various salads.  Watched Iron Chef (an early one - 1993 - sooo different - they went so slowly and only did one or two dishes - but shocking because the challenger actually won!), and Rockwiz and played a couple of games of Fluxx.

Wonder if I could sleep in the pool .... :/

Oh what a beautiful breeze that is blowing through Canberra...!!!  Bom reports latest temperature as 21.5C - yayyy!!

So this morning got out mah buckit, the ladder and a latex glove and attacked the worst of the clogged gutters.  It was extremely dry, and mostly red dust from the roof tiles.  Left matter was actually at a minimum.  Filled two bucket-loads doing a quarter of the guttering of the house.  It was very hot and dusty and made my boogers turn red :/  (Stu couldn't find our dust masks).  The top bit of the downpipe, a 30-cm or so section, was actually filled solid with soil.  No wonder the gutters overflowed during rain :(  So dug all that out and tested that water could flow down the downpipe now - it could - yayy!!

Spent the rest of the morning recovering from that.  And didn't get much else done in the early afternoon either.. oops..

Around 3pm, the hoardes descended upon us.  Just about everyone went for a swim and it was very pleasant.  There was critical mass of guests so they could basically entertain each other, without need for us :)

For dinner I attempted my first ever turkey roast.  It was a 1.6kg leg roast.  Although surprisingly little meat, given the size of the bones in it.  I think it turned out fairly well, and even Stu had some of it (although he's sure to regret it later!).  That and our usual roast veggies.

Tonight I made a concerted effort to get my non-personal news feeds to under 1000 unread... now up to only being two weeks behind on those feeds...

Today was quite relaxed.  Slept in a bit, just generally hung around.  Started playing Roborally until Ralph and Ali and the kids came over.  Played a bit of eco Fluxx and then had lunch (leftover lamb roast and potato with cheese on a roll). 

After lunch finally left Sydney and dropped in to visit David and Yvonne.  Saw some random photos from their Romania holiday and the Unanderra derailment.  So that was all very pleasant.

Then finally came home, getting home just on dinner time.  Used a big pile of Lizzi's tomatoes for a pasta sauce, was very nice.

And so that was my weekend.  It turned out to be a very nice, if very hot and humid weekend.  I don't think Stu could have dealt with it - it was people the entire time.  And not his people (his people are more ok than my people).  But anyway.

As per usual I don't want to go to work tomorrow...

Yesterday very early my alarm went off and I had to try and remember why I'd set it for such an outrageous hour (7am).  Then I remembered I was planning to go to church - on the complete other side of the city (about 70km away).  So trundled off and made it in about an hour and five minutes, which was a pretty good run all things considered.  Church was actually quite good, and the minister they have at my parents' church is enthusiastic.  Thinking we should probably go more regularly in Canberra :/

Dad and I wandered up the computer fair, but it was very small, maybe 1/4 - 1/3 the size of the one in Epic (although Dad did say it's usually a bit bigger, but even so there wasn't much there).  I would have bought another usb hub, except after being screwed over last time by the place in epic (I paid $12 for it but it basically doesn't work) I decided I'll get an actual name brand one instead of a dodgy brothers no-name special.  I did get a toy though which I hope will work.

Had lunch at the parents' and we watched the rivers episode of Planet Earth on blu-ray.  Very pretty!

Next headed off to Luc and Lizzi's for "afternoon tea" (if a small glass of oj counts as that) and had a look at their back yard, which is now a back yard again after having been a rubble pile for so long.  And they have the most spectacular sunflowers - the heads of the things are probably 40cm across, and the trunks maybe 7-8cm thick!  /me wanna grow sunflowers at home, although I've probably left it a little late for this season.  Really need to get rainwater tanks installed too....

Left there and went and drove past my old house, then went to the airport to watch the planes for a while.  On the way there I noticed a Singapore Airlines A380 at the terminal and wondered how long it would be til it left.  Well there were actually a bunch of plane spotters there (with scanners and everything), and they said not that long.  So waited and sure enough, off it went!!  So this time got to document the fact that I'd seen an A380 flying! :)  Very excitement-making :)

Then headed off to Alan and Marylon's for dinner, drank some wine and had a very nice time.  James drove my car back here afterwards.

And so ended Sunday..

Yesterday morning was pretty slow.  Slept in, washed my hair, read some news feeds etc. 

A bit before lunch headed into Hornsby where I met up with Daniel and Fee for lunch.  Wandered around til we found a cafe (Blu) and got lunch there.  I had a melt which wasn't bad, but probably not worth $13.  So chatted for a while and then wandered around the games shops in the shopping centre.  All in all a very pleasant couple of hours.

Then headed down to Rhodes where I fought the hordes trying to find parking :(  (This after not paying attention to my own golden rule - never go to Rhodes/Ikea on a weekend!!).  Seriously, parking at Rhodes shopping centre SUX!!!!  There's just too many people going there and not enough parking.  I don't know what on earth possessed Ikea to shut down their other Sydney stores, but I'm sure it's a dumb decision.  I didn't even consider buying anything because it was just too hot and stressful to even think about getting anything back to the car.  My poor little car was overheating too, which meant I couldn't have the aircon on while looking for parking.  *sigh*

Anyways, headed back to J&G's and jumped in their pool (which was 32C! eep!).  Still, it was still nice to clean off somewhat.

George cooked a very nomm roast dinner, and later we watched Mythbusters and then played Carcassonne (Ark of the Covenant edition (which I won by like 39 points or something)) and a few games of Fluxx.  I quite like Fluxx it's a fun game and you don't get too hung up about winning strategies (because the goal of the game keeps changing).  You win pretty much by luck only, which makes it just kinda fun.

Didn't sleep quite as well last night, but not too badly.

So yesterday I got ready then hopped in the car and drove to Sydney.  Stopping once for petrol and once for morning tea and a toiley break at Maccas in Goulburn.  Passed a sneaky speed camera trap parked in bushes just over a rise.  Checked my speed and it was pretty much exactly 110, phew :)

Got to my old work at lunch time to find they had already wandered up the road without me :(  But at least they hadn't ordered.  Got a caesar salad thinking it'd be lighter than my usual chicken kiev but it still filled me up heaps!!  Wandered back to the office to discover really not much as changed.  Stuff that's been in the same places for years was all still there!  The server room was pretty much unchanged.  More clutter in there, a few new servers, and a few servers that had been turned off.  The biggest change was all the new people heh.  Stacks of new people there, scary.



Hung around there for a bit, then wandered out to Paramatta to see the new cia offices.  Pretty swishy!  Although parking there sucks :( 



Left with Kirk and we wandered back to Ric's place.  Had a beer there before going for a walk to the Italian Forum, going to Caesars for dinner. 



I had a mushroom pasta thing (pappardelle alla funghi or something) which was quite yummy, but unfortunately I was still full from lunch, so didn't feel like eating it :(  Ric got a marinara and Kirk got a meat platter.  Was all pretty good.  Stayed chatting for a while before we wandered back to Ric's and then I left.





Survived the Warringah Expressway (I really hate that bit of road, you never know what lane to be in and constantly have to change lanes to keep on going straight ahead :( ), and arrived at James and George's a bit before midnight.  Chatted for a bit before collapsing into bed.  Can't believe how solidly I slept - closed my eyes and it was night, opened them and it was morning.  Have no memories of being awake in the night at all.  Pretty cool :)

The '/" key on this laptop is broken - very distressing!! :(

Had a relatively slow morning, but did get a few things done on the todo list. Rage had an 80s day (and a good chunk of them being Singstar songs) which was quite amusing.

After lunch we went to Mitchell to get a bale of hay and drop off some fluoros at the Resource Management Centre. Stopped in to the junk shed and came home with a couple of jigsaws and a few books - oops :)

Went to Scott and Kerry's for dinner (Kerry made a great vegetarian curry) and then watched Rendition. It was a bit disjointed and hard to follow at the beginning but picked up and was quite thought provoking. It's the sort of movie you kinda need to watch twice to pick up on everything that's going on.

Quite tired now...

It has to be said that Jeremy Irons is damned hot in Die Hard with a Vengeance (as mentioned previously :) )

Got all the Christmas decorations finally put away this morning.  Then a Bunnings run and shopping.  Then some gardening, but not getting much done on my todo list :/

And that was about it for the day.  Boring really...

So this morning we (read: Stu) got up early and we wandered off to Nat & Andrew's (where the parking situation is very UNuserfriendly) and then off to the Farmer's Markets.  There wasn't much there this time of year (altho the chickies were still there so we said hello to them) so we didn't buy much.  Played with Natto's ocarina which was a lot of fun - really must get a couple!! and everyone else looked up ecclectic medieval instruments on YouTube.

Then took out the last batch of stuff from our storage unit (after lunch at Fortune Box).  We've had the place for so long it feels kinda weird to let it go. 

The afternoon was spent doing "housy" stuff.

Tonight we watched the second part of Tinman (with Iron Chef and Rockwiz in the middle - felt very hungry while Iron Chef was on so cooked up the last of the Christmas turkey with garlic and honey - so yummm and Rockwiz wasn't the same without Julia) over a few drinks..  But I swear it ended just too suddenly .. I was expecting Askedelia to take over the kingdom as a "good" queen and DG to go home to Kansas or wherever .. but it just stopped so suddenly - the stoopid voiceovers starting even before the credits music had started... :(

So I've had quite a lot of cointreau tonight on account of having sold out of all our cheap alcomohol... really must go have a yokult before bed......

Not sure where the Life on Mars reference came from, maybe a link to Ghost Whisperer or something.....

Yesterday we planned to do absolutely nothing.  And that's exactly what we did. 

That's not to say we didn't *do* anything, we just had nothing planned.  No going out, no shopping, no visitors.  Just a total veg day. 

Watched some videos, had a swim, did some jigsaw, looked for images to mosaic, read some news feeds.  It was bliss!

"Then I had to spoil it all by saying something smelly like I smell you...."

ok I have that in my head from the other night too... oops... ;)

Started early today by tidying up downstairs, sweeping and vacuuming the house.  Then things slowed down a bit and did a bit of news feed reading.  We also went shopping ($275 later oops) and went for a walk.

Can't wait for Chay and David to be here so we can sing lots of sing star .. (with the proviso that they bring their ps2 and singstars with them... ! heh)

Tonight we felt it was beer o'clock so went and got a six-pack.  And afterwards thought we could open a bottle of wine.  So several hours and about eight standard drinks each later .. oops... :)

Watched the Mythbusters Christmas lights episode .. which was a little silly cause I'm sure they didn't test how things happened in the real world.  Yes Christmas tree fires happen, but probably not they way they tried it.  I'm a little paranoid about Christmas lights, but probably unnecessarily cause with low-voltage lights these days it's probably not such an issue.. I remember being very careful about hanging lights on my parents' Christmas tree to make sure the bulbs weren't touching anything, but the lights I have these days are very low voltage so the chances of fire are probably very low...

Oysters tonight on Iron Chef... didn't really feel a great urge to watch this one..
(the first oyster I ever ate was straight off the Great Barrier Reef when I was about six years old.  Had another one about twenty years later, and a few at Pulp Kitchen a year or so ago on a steak).  Maybe I should try them again..

It was most depressing waking up this morning.  My weekend was definitely too short. 

The downstairs room is somewhat more organised, although had to sacrifice my model bookshelf to do it.  Guess the models won't be coming out of storage for a while longer.  And a trip to Ikea will be necessary pretty soon. 

Having trouble copying files from our vista machines to the old w2k box.  Not sure if is problem with the old machine itself (although Skype seems to work quite happily) or some weird interaction between vista and w2k.  Wouldn't surprise me if it was vista...

Despite the fact that Die Hard 2 has plot holes large enough to drive trucks through, I still rather enjoy it and watched it again on telly tonight. 

Prior to that I was at Dave's for a Christmas/house warming drinks/afternoon tea thing.  I drank a little too much champagne .. oops..

Prior to that was tidying up the house/unpacking etc.

Yesterday was more of the same (unpacking and tidying that is).  As well as lunch at Fortune Box and Melita over for afternoon tea.

I still haven't sorted out photos from the past couple of weeks, even though that was on the todo list for today too.

Thirsty..

My day between 10am and 4pm went something like this:

* drop off boxes at Di's
* drop off electric screwdriver at Damien's
* head for Tuggers to drop off trailer
* organise trailer at storage unit
* get stressed out cause Potty said they were doing something else and unable to help
* get stressed out when they change their plans so they can come help us
* drop off trailer at Libby's
* come back to storage unit and load up car and trailer with boxes, wardrobe and shelves
* stop twice on the Barton Highway because the wardrobe was threating to fall apart and blow bits of wood all over the highway
* get home and unload trailer
* have a nice lunch (but slightly rushed) with Scott and Kerry of veggie hot dogs
* head into work to kick broken proxy servers
* drop trailer back at storage place
* went shopping for beer for bbq tonight and a birthday present
* come home

Yup, we were on the go pretty much nonstop for six hours :(

After we got home I did actually manage to tidy up the spare room downstairs.  I didn't really do any unpacking, just rearranged the boxes and the crap, and stacked everything neatly along the walls instead of haphazardly in the middle of the floor.  The room actually looks like a nice room to be in now which makes me feel good.  Stu was pretty impressed too.  Then I cooled off by scooping crud out of the puddle with the net.

And instead of getting a night off, we went over to Windy's for a birthday bbq.  Noone else from work went tho, so didn't know anyone else, but was still a pleasant evening.  Too many evil nibblies tho, ate far too much methinks ;)

Have I ever mentioned that my brother rocks!!??  Yup, seems I have .. twice.. :)

He was coming down to Canberra for the week to work on a train, so last night came over to stay the night.  This morning we thought maybe he could have a look at the adsl link which is a bit flakey, and maybe replace a light fitting for us.

Instead he invited his friends over (Shane and Chris with Lowie in tow) and they wired the whole house!!!  Cleaned up the incoming phone line, cat 6ed the study, lounge room, spare room and bedroom, with everything terminating to the garage where we'll get a proper switch setup, as well as fixing up the aerial and wiring up the downstairs room with an aerial outlet...!! omigosh!!  We were so excited - this was so much more than we were expecting of the day!  And we did end up getting the study (dining room) light fitting replaced, a compact fluorescent dimmer installed (only $10 for dimmable compact fluorescents these days, although you do need a trailing edge dimmer not a leading edge one like most currently are), and the other dimmer moved to the living room chandeliers.  Totally f-ing brilliant! 

Of course having so many people in the house all day was pretty draining, so we ordered pizza and watched the first couple of episodes of Californication season 2.  And then I had a meltdown because my computer wouldn't connect to the internet.  We replaced the cable (that was working previously) and all seems well, but it was just too much to bear at the time.  

And we didn't get anything else that we'd been planning to do this weekend done, but hey, who's complaining..?? :)

Busy day today.

Someone from work came over and took away a bunch of our boxes.

Damien came over with lunch and to see the house.  Stu and Damien talked for a couple of hours about work.
Yay.

Then we went over to Damien's new place which was like going back in time to the seventies.  And we thought our house was bad.  Omigosh.  Orange glass.  Original shag pile carpet.  Original appliances.  It was all very amusing and needed to be documented :)

Did a big shopping run, since only did fruit and veg last weekend.  Have a fully stocked fridge again. 

Babysat Jake so Scott and Kerry could go to the movies.  Spent the evening remoting to work to fix a mail problem, and building a lego ferry while watching Mythbusters, Iron Chef and Rockwiz.

Then into work to move a few files off a c: drive on a server that was sending alerts every twenty minutes cause it was low on disk space.

So very very tired now..

Why is it I always seem to leave blogging photos til the end of the weekend..? :)

This was actually taken during the week - Canberra is so green at the moment.  Gotta love that la nina weather.  But even with all the rain we've had this year, our dams haven't risen all that much.  Which is why cramming more people into Canberra is rather a silly idea..

At work on Friday, one of the sections had some of these for their morning tea - Lolly Gobble Bliss Bombs!!  I haven't had these in years (although I've had caramelised popcorn in that time).  I instantly got a craving, so when Windy said he was going to the shops I asked him to buy me a packet...

Yum! Delicious!

On Saturday we trekked out to Fyshwick to pick up a printer for me little brother. What a beast! This stoopidly big A3 laser printer that he picked up at auction for $7 (!) We also stopped at a coffee machine shop so Stu could drool over the coffee machines and grinders. Then we went to Fisher Discounts to go to the upstairs section that we missed last time we were there (which we never would have known about had someone at work not told us). I got myself a model of the Space Shuttle which I've wanted for ages (although this one is by Revell so the quality may not be great), and Stu got a bunch of little bits and pieces to go with his wargaming stuff. But the total came to less than the price tags we added up, so we were under the voucher by like $20. To save having to come back and spend the remainder, we impulse bought a little electric screwdriver that was at the counter. Oops :)

I also took some more photos of our English Country Garden on Saturday. It's really quite a lovely garden, and things take their turns flowering all through spring to summer. At the moment the lilac is starting to bloom, the wisteria is going nuts, this big creeper thing is about to explode with flowers, irises have burst forth all over the place, some pink/purple daisies are quietly doing their thing in the shade, and lavendar and roses are getting ready to go. Some fresias I planted are also quietly blooming yellow in the shade near the daisies. Rosemary and daphne have been and gone, as have the jonquils that I planted. I'll actually kinda miss this garden when we move. Will have to try and take some cuttings of a few things...

The rest of Saturday was spent packing, cleaning, and dismantling the Millenium Falcon.

Sunday: repeat.

Monday: repeat, with weeding of the yard.
Actually didn't get much packing or cleaning done today. Oh well.

MIB II was on tonight just as we were ready to eat dinner, so we ended up watching that.  And cause Tommy Lee Jones is kinda cute in that, I had the urge to watch Under Siege as well heh :)   Definitely need to get back to Hawaii to have another tour of the Missouri (and get to Alabama one day to see the Alabama as well).

Other than that, we trekked out to Fyshwick to pick up a beast of a printer for me little brother, and spend one of our wedding vouchers.

And started packing....

I realised tonight I hadn't downloaded my photos in over a week.. oops!!

Last weekend was very springy...

A few of my mint seedlings survived the winter and are starting to thrive again..

This currawong sat in the back yard for quite a while, which gave me time to get a photo of it..

A young (pink) daisy..

A few shots of Canberra/Gungahlin..

I'll never tire of the blossom trees around here..

Not sure what this is..?

I like the cutlery they have in the Thai place we went to for lunch on Wednesday (Lemon Grass I think??)..

Of course the big news of this week is that we exchanged contracts for a house!! Terribly exciting for us :) Turns out our new house has a beautiful weeping cherry which is in full bloom at the moment..

Saw this on the ground on Friday afternoon, which I deemed stop-in-the-middle-of-the-city-to-take-a-photo-worthy..

Friday evening saw a bunch of us go to the Wig and Pen for after work drinks. It was a good fun night, although the place is far too pricey to be wanting to do it too often. At one point we got one beer, a plate of chips and a plate of wedges. For $21.30 ?!?!? Friggen rip-off. But the beer is pretty good.

On Saturday, Annie and most of the rest of the family came over with French champagne to celebrate our house-buying (actually the champagne was given to them when Little Squishy was born, but they hadn't gotten around to drinking it.. so we celebrated both occasions :) )

With our dinner (home-made pizzas) we opened another one of our wedding wines - a very nice Coonawarra shiraz. Quite delicious.. for a red wine ;)

Today we spent much of the day cleaning up the house in preparation for moving out.

And we went to the book fair :)

We filled up a shopping bag ($10 worth) with 38 books, so think we got our money's worth :)
Here's the ones I grabbed..

I'm most excited about "The Final Countdown". Dad and I saw this movie years and years ago, and then couldn't remember the name of it for the longest time. I've not seen it again since, so will be cool to read the book.

And so that's pretty much the last week and a bit.... :)

So.  Nat and Andrew came over on Friday night.  They stayed relatively sober while Stu and I got a little sloshed.. oops.. hope they don't hate us...

This was the second bottle of wine we drank (after a sparkling cabernet)..



Natalie had fun with my Russian Dolls..

Sunday Stu arranged another breakfast out and about. Although this one at the slightly more civilised time of 9:30. Met up with Pauline and Brett at Satis (where yet again we were forced to perch on tiny stools while we waited for the others to arrive, but did manage to squeeze onto an (outdoor) table eventually). I swear that place needs to invest in some towels to dry up the back section which has been wet every time we've been there >:(

Had their "big" breakfast this time ($12.50).. rapidly running out of things on their menu to try...

Had a fairly quiet rest of the day before heading over to Potty's for cocktails and nibbles.

How many people do you think it takes to make pina coladas? Four apparently - three workers and one supervisor ;)

The end result was pretty cool though...

And the other ones they made were even nicer..

And Kerry had a nice selection of finger food too..

So it was all very pleasant.

We were planning on going out to dinner afterward, but Stu came down with a migraine, so we ended up just going home. Whereupon we ordered a pepperoni pizza on puff pastry... omigosh!! soooo good!! (we've had them before but had forgotten their evil goodness heh). Stu suffered on the Monday for it, but claimed it was totally worth it ;)

As an aside, on Saturday night we made home-made pizzas and opened another of our wedding present bottles of wine - this time a Pepperjack shiraz, which went surprisingly well with the pizzas.

Urghh... tiring weekend....

Saturday morning had to go shopping and clean the house.

Found this recycling bin at the markets in Gungahlin which cracked me up..

So then the parents arrived. Stu made a delicious vegan-friendly fried rice for lunch, and then we looked at honeymoon photos. Pretty much all afternoon. :/

Around 6pm we headed off to Della Rocca for dinner (our birthday dinner, the parents' shout). I had a veal dish (allan pana I think) which was pretty good. But we still had room for dessert, so had some.. heh. Even managed to convince mum to drink a little of the sparkling cabernet we took along (!)

So came back and finished going through the honeymoon photos. Mum liked the Legoland and Alps pics the most. Dad didn't really care for all the "city" photos.. but as that was about 95% of the trip, he got a little bored.. hrmm..

This morning we sat around wondering what to do when Potty called up and said they were heading out to Casuarina Sands for a picnic, so we tagged along.

The ducks came to be fed..

Walked down to the weir which was very pretty..

Scott made Jake a raft, so they brought it down to launch it..

The boys scrambled out to the middle..

It took a couple of relaunches to get it to finally go..

Having done that, we wandered home again.

The parents left, and just after that, Annie and the kids arrived. We all went for a little walk.

This galah watched us..

It was very bright in the sun..

And then home again.

I slow cooked a roast pork for dinner. We considered inviting people over, but we were a bit peopled out by this point. The pork turned out really well, and really cheaply too - the bone was very small, so mostly meat at $4.45/kilo.

And that was our weekend. I could use another one...

Urghh.  Sunday was tiring.

So we were out the door at 7:20 to be in town by 8 to pick up Rully for breakfast.  We toddled off to My Cafe in Manuka which was one of only a couple of places open so early.  Stu had French toast, and I had the mushrooms and capsicum on toast..

After breakfast we headed for the hills .. Red Hill in fact. Nice view, but looking into the sun..

Stu wanted to be friends with kangaroos..

I don't think they wanted to be friends..

There was even snow on the Brindabellas over Woden..

So by now it was mid morning, so we dropped Rully off and headed out to Yass for lunch. Which was very pleasant, and had a delicious lunch and Little Squishy was being very cute..

And took a walk in the sun and photographed the flowers..

So that was all very nice, but we didn't get home til after 5pm .. and so after having been out *all* day we were pretty exhausted. Felt like crawling into bed when we got home. But after *stopping* for a bit felt a bit better.

This morning we meandered down to the lake to see Stu's favourite family of swans.  We took along some old bread, which they rather enjoyed.  Entirely too cute...!

One of them got a bit agro at a crow..

The grown ups were happy to eat out of Stu's hand

Next we went for a bit of a wander around the lake.

Fed some seagulls..

And kept walking around to find the cormorant we passed on the way in.

Stu wanted to be its friend..

Stretch...

Up close..

Coming back, Black Mountain tower had emerged from the clouds and the weeping willows are budding..

For lunch we went to Satis *again* (third time in three weeks?) .. but this time met up with Sean and Mel. Stu had scrambled tofu and Mel had banana bread...

And then finally headed home. And it snowed!!! Well it was probably more sleet than snow, but it was still pretty cool...

There was even a little bit on the ground when we got home..

Looking forward to a potato bake for dinner tonight..

Didn't get a whole lot done this morning.

Eventually we headed out.  The jonquils were begging to have their photos taken again, so I obliged them..



We went for a bit of a drive to have a look at some houses for sale, to get an idea of the neighbourhoods.  There's definitely bogans all over Canberra.. :/

Then we went back to Satis for lunch.  Now they do their breakfast menu til noon most days, and all day Sundays.  Except on Sundays it seems you can't get anything *but* the breakfast menu.  Even if you did happen to come at the right time, the "mains" menu only has about three items on it.  The food is good and all, but there's not a lot of variety.  But Stu loves the coffee so I guess we'll be going there semi-regularly.

Today they had these dudes outside entertaining everyone..

Played secretary today, filing piles of crud in various intrays into my filing cabinet. 

Then we watched Secretary.  Very strange sort of movie. 

And also watched Breakfast at Tiffany's which I'd never seen before.  Can't believe they got away with some of the things they did... heh

Generally pleased with how much stuff I got done today.

Should probably clean the house a bit tomorrow though..

This morning we headed out into the freezing morning to go to Satis in Watson with DAB, Jo and Mandy.

Stu raved about how good the coffee was, but having to sit outside in the freezing cold wasn't much fun, even under the heater.

The others arrived and we moved to a table (still outside but at least not perched on little stools) and ordered brunch. I had a cheese and tomato toasted sandwich which was excellent..

and a side of "hash browns" that was somewhat unusual, but not too bad..

Stu had the granola, which he thought was very nice

The discussion was mostly political which I didn't find that interesting, but after I warmed up it was still a very pleasant outing.

Then we just did the food shopping and came home and pottered around the house for the rest of the afternoon. We're up to "I, Borg" in Star Trek.

oh, and I took these pics of some flowering jonquils yesterday..

oh, and this is how the sparrows get in.. they must slip on the smooth metal and fall in...

Didn't really get a whole lot done, but still was a nice day.

This morning our fireplace caught another sparrow (three died in there while we were on our honeymoon :( ).  Spent ages chasing it round the living room.  In fact I even had it pinned by the tail feathers at one point, only to have all the tail feathers come adrift and it get away :(

But I did manage to catch it eventually, and off it flew into the trees.

Then we went over to Damien's for lunch and games.

Started the afternoon off with Guillotine, which was quite fun, and Stu won. Then a game of Carcassonne which Stu also won, but it was very close. And finally Killer Bunnies, which wasn't a whole lot better than last time, although much less complamicated without all the extra expansion sets. It really is a rather pointless game. Damien won that one in the end.

Finally home for home-made pizzas and some Star Trek.

One of our favourite weekend breakfasts (or brunches) is home-made hash browns.  They are *so* simple - just grate some potato and fry in your favourite oil.  Or for a completely evil variation, add shredded cheese and bacon bits.  Soooo good!!

We also got some salad bits on Saturday, so had a nice (if not authentic) caesar salad for second lunch yesterday.

For dinner yesterday Stu roasted a bunch of veggies and a veggie roast.  Quite yum, but the potatoes could have done with *something*... not sure what..

Tonight I did a satay tofu stirfry.  Dug out the wok for this, which is much easier to use with bok choy than a small frying pan!

And last night we watched Happy Feet.  Meh.  I think it tried too hard.  It was almost like a Moulin Rouge wanna-be.  So it just didn't quite work for me.  Stu thought it was a little strange too.  Shrug :)

School kids are infesting the buses again.. sux majorly :(

So this week had me on a six day SANS security course.  It was pretty good.  Although it did vary too much between really technical stuff and more management-level stuff.

We saw this dude on the first day and asked him where he got his t-shirt from.. :) (apparently it was a one-off limited run - doh!)

We had the biggest room at the Convention Centre which gave us a nice walk up to get our food at breaks

So since I was going to be out most of Saturday, Stu invited Damien over for a war game.  I came home part way through it.

Why is it I seem to do this on a Sunday night... really must do this more often heh (I suppose it doesn't help that all of these pics have been taken since Friday)

Neil brought along some sparkling shiraz to a work farewell on Friday.. it was delicious!!


Saw this chastity belt (!) at markets on Saturday


Clare Valley Riesling - one of the bottles we got as a wedding present from work, was very pleasant

Bendy clouds seen while out and about today

On Saturday we finally got a bunch of photos printed out to put in the thankyou cards we're going to send people.  We also got one of them enlarged and a frame for it.  Looks pretty nifty.  Not really looking forward to writing a whole stack of cards out in long-hand though....

Credit for this photo goes to Andrew W

oh, this was from last weekend, the poached pears with caramelised wine sauce.. delish!!


So the weekend started with dinner at the Hog's Breath cafe with Damien.  Much was discussed but primarily our honeymoon and his love life :)

Didn't do a whole lot yesterday, and then went out to dinner at Scott and Kerry's where much roast vegetation and a bit of chicken was enjoyed.

Today we went out to Gunning for lunch to celebrate Annie's birthday. 

So quite a pleasant weekend.  Even did a bit of tidying, and worked on our honeymoon photos a bit. 

Do I have to go back to work now?

• big kids entertained with fireworks
• shopping done
• walked around the neighbourhood
• cooked a scrumptious roast chicken
• Stu cooked a fantastic curry, with even better pears in a white wine/sugar sauce for dessert
• washed the sheets as a result of an early morning very messy nose bleed
• macquarium cleaned out and re-filled (with white gravel; note to self: a 4cm thick layer of polystyrene needs a lot of weighing down)
• watched Million Dollar Baby
• had subsequent weird dreams about having to accommodate dead-beat people in our house and not being able to stand it
• watched some of "The Triumph of the Nerds" and rather enjoyed it (even if it is twelve years old now)
• taught Stu to play Carcassonne with the game we got as a wedding present
• narrowed down a short-list of photos from the honeymoon to send to people with thankyou notes
• more flight photos located on Google Earth
• upgraded Java and installed windows updates
  

So we had an inaugural monthly family lunch today.  Well that's the plan anyway.

Had everyone over for a roast pork (and veggie roast), which everybody seemed to like, woot! :)  Had everyone round the table which was a little cramped, but nice all the same.  Ate a lot though, and by 10pm I still wasn't hungry, but forced myself to eat something so I don't wake up at 4am starving heh

Really must figure out how to blog from my Blackberry...

So Friday we tidied house and did fishy-type things before heading for the Big Smoke. 

Stopped in Goulburn for lunch, and got an alternative view of the Big Merino.  And strangely enough this was the only photo I took all weekend!  How unlike me! :)


Dropped in on D&Y, and even remembered to take my toaster oven, which me little brother fixed for me... he rocks!  Had afternoon tea there before heading to my parents'.  Dropped off my Lego cake-topper and picked up pinking shears and had a very Stu-unfriendly dinner which he suffered over for the next day or so :(

Then headed up to J&G's where much wii-ing was to be had.

Needed to point out that Sydney roads are horrendously bad.  The physical state of them that is.  The car rattled and bumped like you wouldn't believe. Had forgotten how awful some Sydney roads are.

Saturday we went on a shopping mission to Bondi Junction.  Stu got the hiking shoes he was after.  I tried on some too, but they didn't have as good arch support as my runners, so didn't get any.  We even ran into John, which was pretty cool.. as I thought it might have been nice to have lunch with him but it was all too hard by the time I thought of it.  Oh well.

In the evening Ralph and Ali and Luc and Liz came over with various kidlets and George did a massive roast in three ovens!  We played Emporer-Scum as that was the easiest game that scaled well to eight people.  I went from middle to third to fifth to Scum, then back to third.  Stu went out as Emporer :)

After the others left, we played more wii, and had wii-shoulder the next day to prove it :)

On Sunday I went to church with J&G while Stu recovered.  Then a quiet afternoon.  Stu went and visited Tim and Dave and Dave gave us a jackstone!  Which are devilish little things to make.  I went with J&G to A&M's where much wine was drunk and food eaten. 

And then sadly it was time to come home.  I lost it going past the airport.  I *miss* Sydney, and Sunday night dinners, and my friends and living next to the airport.  *sigh*  Managed to stay awake til Sutton Forest, but after that I collapsed and didn't regain consciousness till our street.

Today was spent recovering and tidying and shopping and honeymoon planning.

And have to go back to work tomorrow :(

Had a relatively productive day today.  Well at least I got the first draft of my wedding invitations done.  We also went shopping.  And I cooked a spectacular lamb roast. 

Still stressing about how much I have to do tho.  And figure out a guest list.  Blah.