Pretty quiet week.  Nothing particular of note.  

Oh, we did have dinner at the Dumpling Inn for the first time since they were closed for so long.

And dinner with Stu's dad on Wednesday at The District.

Yeah so much for low sodium.

Friday I was depressed about food in general.  Watched Tora Tora Tora with the sweetie.  One of the better war movies from Dad's collection.  He last watched it in March 2013 - around the time he was diagnosed with his brain tumour.

Saturday the sweetie worked on his assignment.  I climbed mountains and did house and garden stuff.

In the afternoon we went over to Scott and Kerry's for a family gathering.  Which was relatively pleasant.

Today was brunch with @phonakins who was in town for the weekend, and Helen and Sean (I think that was their names), internet friends of hers.

Then I did more garden stuff.  

Did an instant lamb roast for dinner (roasted veggies with some leftover lamb that was in the freezer).  And watched House and Frozen.  Do you wanna build a snowman?

Oh also.  My watch fricken died again.  #grunt

Had a pretty quiet weekend.  Stu was mostly just working on his uni assignments.  We did watch a couple of movies though - both I got on Bluray very cheap.  There was Les Miserables, and Ghostbusters.

I once saw an amateur stage production of Les Miserables and had absolutely no idea what was going on.  So seeing it as a movie was quite helpful and it was easy enough to follow that way.  I quite enjoyed it, but it was very *long* and towards the end I'm like, guys you really could cut that song length down a bit.. 

And Ghostbusters I haven't seen since *at least* before 2002 - probably a good while before that, so could easily be twenty years since I last saw it.  It's a bit silly and dated, but not nearly as much as I thought it could be.  Fun times.

And we're still eating those damned beans.

Very quiet weekend.  I had a Getting Things Done kind of weekend (including housework, sorting holiday paperwork, photo and email sorting, and cooking), while the sweetie had a Hide From the World kind of weekend (including sleeping and uni work).

We also watched all four Indiana Jones movies on Friday and Saturday nights.

Did I mention the food?

That tin of water chestnuts has been sitting in our pantry for *years* and I wanted to use them in something.  And for me any excuse is a good excuse to have hoisin sauce.

Fry duck breasts til golden, then a minute or so on the other side, then into the oven for eight to ten minutes.

While that's happening, heat up some snow peas and the water chestnuts.  Serve with rice.  Yum!  Delicious!

Today I started cooking dinner this morning.

For today's version I'm using four lamb shanks (not huge ones), two slices of bacon (we're trying to cut down on our processed meat so less bacon than usual, a small bag of your favourite mushrooms, a couple of potatoes, a couple of small onions, garlic, a bay leaf, tomato paste, about half a carton of stock, worcestershire sauce, a third of a bottle of red wine, several large spoonfuls of cornflour to thicken the sauce, and a little pepper.  I think that's all.

Chuck the shanks, potato, tomato paste, corn flour, worcestershire sauce, stock and wine into the slow cooker.

Fry up the bacon, garlic, onion and mushroom

Add everything in

Get really impatient with the cooking process.  Pretend to be healthy by eating a large salad of rocket, tomato and feta for lunch.  Topped with kewpie mayonnaise.  Double mayo after the photo is taken.  Resist the urge to eat salami all afternoon because, *hunger* (I ate a bit of cheese and some almonds).

Hurry up!

By 6:30pm it's looking good.  In a messy bad sort of way.

Pull all the meat off the bones.  Turns out there's quite a bit on four lamb shanks.  Who knew?  

Mix it all back in.  Maybe we'll get more than four servings out of this if the meat is split up.  (We'll probably get six)

Serve.  Devour.  

I was sad yesterday to hear of the death of James Horner.  After John Williams, he is up there with Jerry Goldsmith and Hans Zimmer among my favourite Hollywood composers.  Ok so Titanic might have had a lot to do with that - loved that soundtrack.  Knew that music well enough to be able to pick his music in other movies without even knowing it was him.

He was born exactly twenty years before me.  Rest in peace.

So fairly busy week this week.

Monday night the little brother came to stay.

Tuesday they finished off the white chocolate caramel slice.  David also replaced the light in our study which had blown on the weekend so that was nice.

Wednesday we went to the movies to see Jurassic World.

Thursday the little brother couldn't help himself and replaced half the lights in the house with LEDs :)  I also made another white chocolate caramel slice.

Friday was a swim night.

Saturday was a club night which turned out to be a bit of a wedding reception.  The shed was done up nicely and we had a lovely evening.

Sunday was just food shopping and not much else.

And so there goes another week.  We did two jigsaws over the course of the week as well which was cool.

And now back to it again ...

So the sweetie and I have been married for seven years today :)

This morning I cooked cheesy potato hash browns.  Then while the pan was still hot I cooked dinner.  Then it was after 11am, and I was about to head out (to the movies with Kerry). 

This afternoon I did lots of housey type stuff.  But no photo sorting.  My holiday photo blogging is about to come to a screaming halt.

Dinner was beef stroganoff, then we thought we'd watched something a bit romantic, so we watched The Notebook on Netflix.  Urrgh.  Slowest.  Movie.  Ever.  Ok not really but was super slow and a few minutes in and I'm like, is this thing over yet?  I didn't really even care that much who she ended up with in the end.  Then we watched Frozen.

Three years ago today I had to celebrate our wedding anniversary without the sweetie which was super sad.  But they did give us champagne at breakfast because it was the Israeli Independence Day.  Then we went to the Garden Tomb, and the Tower of David museum, and wandered around Jerusalem.

Friday, September 10th 2004...

FQ Topic: Scenario

FQ1: You've been given a million dollars to donate to a worthy charity! Which organization would benefit from your generosity and why are they deserving?
um, probably the Red Cross.  They just seem to always be there when needed.

FQ2: You've testified against the mob and have to leave the country! Where do you go to start your new life, and what new career will you pursue?
Probably Europe.  Career?  Travel blogger? :)

FQ3: A movie studio has given you carte blanche to develop a sequel to a film of your choice! What's your sequel going to be about and who's starring in it?
Harry Potter during the years after the books finished.  There's still so much more to those stories that could be told.  Since it's still so close to the original movies, you could get all the original actors.

FQ RE-BLOG: A tragic computer malfunction has erased your current blog so you decide to start over again under a fictitious identity. Who would you become and what would you write about?
Blerf.  I have enough trouble writing about *reality*, let alone fiction.

Compare with last time ...

Eleven years ago I did one of those memes which was to list the current IMDB Top 250 movies, and highlight which ones you've seen.  The list has changed a bit since then, and I've seen more of the movies on the list (a bunch of them doing a dvd rental trial with Telstra that really didn't work out all that well, so I never took up the offer).  So here's the 2015 version, highlighted bold for the ones I've seen.  100 out of 250 this time.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. Schindler's List (1993)
7. 12 Angry Men (1957)
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
10. Fight Club (1999)
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
12. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
13. Forrest Gump (1994)
14. Inception (2010)
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
16. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
17. Goodfellas (1990)
18. The Matrix (1999)
19. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
20. Seven Samurai (1954)
21. City of God (2002)
22. Interstellar (2014)
23. Se7en (1995)
24. The Usual Suspects (1995)
25. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
26. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
27. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
28. Léon: The Professional (1994)
29. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
30. Casablanca (1942)
31. American History X (1998)
32. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
33. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
34. City Lights (1931)
35. Spirited Away (2001)
36. Psycho (1960)
37. Whiplash (2014)
38. Rear Window (1954)
39. The Intouchables (2011)
40. Modern Times (1936)
41. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
42. The Green Mile (1999)
43. Memento (2000)
44. The Pianist (2002)
45. The Departed (2006)
46. Gladiator (2000)
47. Apocalypse Now (1979)
48. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
49. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
50. Back to the Future (1985)
51. Alien (1979)
52. The Prestige (2006)
53. The Great Dictator (1940)
54. The Lion King (1994)
55. The Lives of Others (2006)
56. Cinema Paradiso (1988)
57. Django Unchained (2012)
58. The Shining (1980)
59. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
60. Paths of Glory (1957)
61. American Beauty (1999)
62. WALL·E (2008)
63. North by Northwest (1959)
64. Aliens (1986)
65. Citizen Kane (1941)
66. Vertigo (1958)
67. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
68. Amélie (2001)
69. M (1931)
70. Das Boot (1981)
71. Oldboy (2003)
72. Princess Mononoke (1997)
73. Toy Story 3 (2010)
74. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
75. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
76. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
77. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
78. Taxi Driver (1976)
79. Braveheart (1995)
80. Double Indemnity (1944)
81. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
82. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
83. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
84. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
85. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
86. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
87. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
88. The Sting (1973)
89. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
90. Amadeus (1984)
91. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
92. Snatch. (2000)
93. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
94. The Kid (1921)
95. For a Few Dollars More (1965)
96. Rashomon (1950)
97. L.A. Confidential (1997)
98. All About Eve (1950)
99. The Apartment (1960)
100. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
101. Toy Story (1995)
102. Some Like It Hot (1959)
103. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
104. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
105. A Separation (2011)
106. The Third Man (1949)
107. Yojimbo (1961)
108. Batman Begins (2005)
109. Like Stars on Earth (2007)
110. Metropolis (1927)
111. Unforgiven (1992)
112. Scarface (1983)
113. Raging Bull (1980)
114. 3 Idiots (2009)
115. Up (2009)
116. Chinatown (1974)
117. Downfall (2004)
118. The Great Escape (1963)
119. Die Hard (1988)
120. The Hunt (2012)
121. On the Waterfront (1954)
122. Heat (1995)
123. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
124. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
125. Good Will Hunting (1997)
126. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
127. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
128. The Gold Rush (1925)
129. The Seventh Seal (1957)
130. The Bandit (1996)
131. Ikiru (1952)
132. The Elephant Man (1980)
133. Ran (1985)
134. Blade Runner (1982)
135. Wild Strawberries (1957)
136. The General (1926)
137. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
138. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
139. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
140. Casin0 (1995)
141. Gone Girl (2014)
142. Gran Torino (2008)
143. Warrior (2011)
144. The Big Lebowski (1998)
145. Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
146. V for Vendetta (2005)
147. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)
148. Rebecca (1940)
149. The Deer Hunter (1978)
150. Rang De Basanti (2006)
151. How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
152. A Wednesday (2008)
153. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
154. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
155. It Happened One Night (1934)
156. Fargo (1996)
157. Trainspotting (1996)
158. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
159. Gone with the Wind (1939)
160. Into the Wild (2007)
161. Rush (2013)
162. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
163. Dial M for Murder (1954)
164. The Sixth Sense (1999)
165. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
166. The Wages of Fear (1953)
167. The Thing (1982)
168. Finding Nemo (2003)
169. Incendies (2010)
170. Mary and Max (2009)
171. No Country for Old Men (2007)
172. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
173. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
174. Platoon (1986)
175. Life of Brian (1979)
176. Network (1976)
177. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
178. Touch of Evil (1958)
179. Diabolique (1955)
180. There Will Be Blood (2007)
181. Annie Hall (1977)
182. The Princess Bride (1987)
183. Stand by Me (1986)
184. Boyhood (2014)
185. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
186. Ben-Hur (1959)
187. Amores Perros (2000)
188. In the Name of the Father (1993)
189. The 400 Blows (1959)
190. Sin City (2005)
191. Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)
192. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
193. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
194. Persona (1966)
195. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
196. Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
197. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
198. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
199. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
200. The Avengers (2012)
201. Gandhi (1982)
202. The Imitation Game (2014)
203. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
204. Donnie Darko (2001)
205. Strangers on a Train (1951)
206. 8½ (1963)
207. Shutter Island (2010)
208. Infernal Affairs (2002)
209. Stalker (1979)
210. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
211. Jaws (1975)
212. Before Sunrise (1995)
213. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)
214. High Noon (1952)
215. Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)
216. The Terminator (1984)
217. Groundhog Day (1993)
218. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
219. Notorious (1946)
220. The King's Speech (2010)
221. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
222. Ip Man (2008)
223. Rocky (1976)
224. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
225. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
226. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
227. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
228. La Haine (1995)
229. Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
230. Memories of Murder (2003)
231. Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
232. Barry Lyndon (1975)
233. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
234. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
235. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
236. The Truman Show (1998)
237. Castle in the Sky (1986)
238. La Strada (1954)
239. The Help (2011)
240. Jurassic Park (1993)
241. The Big Sleep (1946)
242. Roman Holiday (1953)
243. The Graduate (1967)
244. Papillon (1973)
245. Prisoners (2013)
246. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
247. The Hustler (1961)
248. PK (2014)
249. Akira (1988)
250. Underground (1995)

Friday:  watched The Lego Movie with the sweetie (got a super awesome deal from JB HiFi cause they'd mucked up a specials deal, and it came out in my favour :) )

Saturday: quiet day, not much, watched tv, docos, sorting crap out, painting etc.  Watched Monsters Inc on tv, because that always seems more logical that popping in the Blu-Ray .... hrmm

Sunday: also pretty quiet.  Went for a walk with the sweetie to do an Ingress mission.  Went to Mishi's in the evening for a lot of chatting, and a game of Pandemic, which was a bit complicated but we somehow managed to win.  We'd need to play it a few more times to get the hang of the strategy.

Monday: got up at stoopid o'clock to see the balloons (sadly there was a bit of fog around so they took off and all but disappeared).  Watched My Girl on tv and docos while painting.  

Photo sorting that is.  November and December last year (and a little bit this year) and then I'll be done with the first pass of sorting my digital photos into folders.  There'll still be quite a bit recategorisation needed to get everything into a setup that I'm happy with.  Then I'll need to finish scanning and sorting my prints.  And one day mum and dad's...  (and we won't even go there with all the holiday photos...)

Backtracking a little.  The other night at the movies we saw a trailer for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and were talking about it and it came up that we should watch the original.  So last night I went over to EffanC's to watch it (left the sweetie at home to work on his uni assignment).  We chatted and nibbled for a while before watching it.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, I thought it was very well done.  Must go see the sequel.  The sweetie came over and saw the end of it and then we went home.

Today I was able to work through some of the work that's been accumulating while sorting out problems, so that was good.

Early night tonight.