Sunday.  31st.  Backdating this because Kit was here and I ran out of time in the afternoon on the 7th.  Leftover lamb and all the veggies for dinner (I left those bits of sweet potato in the oven for a few days, we ate them a few days after that, we didn't die).  Lie to Me and You Can't Ask That.  

Monday.  1st.  Couldn't get to sleep til like midnight.  Then woke up at 5:30 although got a tiny bit more sleep.  Didn't have many slides to fix up, although one I did like eight times before I eventually gave up because it was too hard and I was too tired.  I was feeling stressed that I was going to have to work both days next weekend, which made me double booked with a club working bee and Kit was coming to stay Sunday as well.  And my desk was a mess and the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it in just a day since I last cleaned it, then I was hanging the washing out and I missed a phone call.  I mean who calls at 8:24am?? I might have had a bit of a meltdown because it was all too hard.  I did have an interesting day at work though, learning about timeouts on firewalls.  Popped into the mall at lunch because I needed to get my glasses fixed (the screw fell out of one of the arms on the weekend).  Also went to the post office to drop off a package for the sweetie, had some lunch and did a bit of food shopping.  Had to do some overtime in the evening, so no labelling.

Tuesday.  Slept a lot better - hurrah.  Brain was functioning a hundred times better than Monday.  I set a reminder to watch a few horses run around an oval, but was busy and missed the alert, and hence the horses.  Oh well.  Only managed to label 118 photos, so getting further behind :(  Also my wrist hurts.  Finished day 48, up to Hokkaido.

Wednesday.  Slept okish.  I *finally* finished fixup scans of all 181 boxes of Dad's slides.  I really wish I'd put more effort in the first round through, it would have saved most of a year's worth of effort to redo them this year.  Although it probably would have taken longer to do the first pass.  Will spend the "scanning time" for the rest of the year processing the slides (dating/labelling/renaming/processing/filing).  Managed to label 215 photos (used music practise time to do some - having a short break to give my wrist a rest).  Only 200 behind now.

Thursday.  Slept ok.  Ok day.  Very busy.  Rain!!

Friday.  Ok day - been there 14 years!  

Did some cleaning in the afternoon which made me happy.  That was done by 3pm and I'm like, I'm done for the week now right? hehe.  Had to hang around til late though to find out if Saturday work was going to go ahead or not, but in the end it got cancelled.  So I quickly gathered up a few things and headed out to the club with the sweetie.  It was cool enough to run the fire!  CRD came over to chat for a while too which was nice.

Saturday.  Slept okish.  Spent most of the morning de-nailing fence palings.  I got a message from Annie in the middle of it asking if I was in the queue for the Lego store opening, and I'm like, has she even *met* me?  hrmmm.  Did a few bits and pieces after lunch but it was getting hot and we were tired, so we just came home.  We basically collapsed when we got home.  Watched You Can't Ask That - on gamblers - I reckon the gamblers were more messed up than the ice users..  Pizza and X Files (finished season 2).

And how cool is this mask Tab made!?

Sunday.  Watched one of the guys doing some upgrades for a couple of hours in the morning.  Learnt some stuff which was good.  Then I finally got to have my weekend.  Spent the afternoon tidying up the house and doing all the weekend things.  Then Kit came over we chatted and had slow cooker turkey and potato bake and veggies for dinner.  The turkey was a little dry, will need to refine the recipe (I literally just chucked the thing in the slow cooker), and I should have had some gravy with it.

Sunday.  24th.  Not backdating :)  Butterfly lamb roast for dinner.  Put on Hocus Pocus, because Bette Midler, but wasn't watching it very closely.  Instead I was planning out an itinerary for Italy if we end up going.  

Monday.  Woke up a bit after 1am and never really got back to sleep (except for a couple of small sleeps between 4:30 and 6).  Zombie day.  Trying to sort out a big mess and not functioning very well didn't help.  It was a KFC drive through for lunch kind of a day.  Ended up rage quitting the day at 16:30 because I'd had enough and I was too tired.  Had beef cheeks cooked a week ago for dinner, and even managed to label 109 photos, which isn't as many as I need to do, but still better than nothing.

The garden is a riot of colour though!

Tuesday.  Slept much more betterly.  Still trying to sort out the mess at work.  Spent most of the day on it.  Short power outage at lunch.  I reckon they were prepping for Thursday and had a whoopsie.  After work was weeding (out the front), music, dinner, then spent ages trying to find some music files and I hadn't even started labelling by 19:39.  Hmmm.  I did manage to finish day 44 - arrived in Japan!  Was watching Lie to Me (Depraved Heart) and had to LOL at the house in Pasadena that I'd literally just seen in Beaches the other night!

I then managed to label day 45, which doesn't really count as a day - this was the trip from Tokyo to Osaka.  I also watched the first couple of episodes of You Can't Ask That on iView.

Wednesday.  Took like an hour to get to sleep, then woked up a bit after 3:30 and never got back to sleep.  I'm so fricken tired of insomnia.  Brain dead zombie morning.  It was a KFC good-thing-I-brought-extra-on-Monday for lunch kind of a day.  I don't even remember the afternoon.  It was a couple of beers and chicken kiev for dinner kind of an evening.  I did manage to label 84 photos though, so 205 behind for the week.  Hopefully can make that up over the next few days.

Thursday.  Slept relatively well.  Power went off around 9am.  Had a guy from some Not Registered for GST company show up to give us a quote on some garden work.  I asked if he was fully insured and he said yes, but I'm just worried.. all seems a little.. dodgy..   Then did some jigsaw and some paint by numbers, then we headed out to do some long-needed shopping at Bunnings.  Spent ages there trying to find All The Things.  Got maccas on the way home (the power had actually come back on around 11:35 - a couple of hours earlier than expected).  Did a bunch of gardening and planting plants with the sweetie in the afternoon but then not too much else, and some music practise.  Basically just a nice day off.  Watched a bunch of tv including Lie to Me and You Can't Ask That in the evening.

Friday.  Up at stoopid o'clock to do some upgrades, but testing was delayed because half the people testing had no power at home due to storms.  The morning dragged on because I started so early, and they finally gave us the go ahead to do the other half of the upgrades *very* close to lunch.  So got that done then headed out into covid-infected Canberra for a farewell lunch for Luke at the Lighty.  First time I'd seen any of my colleagues in two and a half months!  But I was a bit late arriving and so ended up sitting in the sun.  As soon as I finished lunch I asked to swap seats with someone who is not allergic to the sun, but the damage was done - I'd been sunburnt :(   Not that I knew that to start with, and it was actually a lovely afternoon catching up with all the guys.

Saturday.  Did some weekend stuff in the morning including a couple of loads of washing.  And cheesy hashbrowns for breakfast :)

Then late morning we headed out to the club for a bbq lunch (first time out there since late July).  Stu swam and I tidied up the van and finally setup the "pantry" - a chest of drawers I bought at the Green Shed months ago.  Brought home a bunch of food that had been sitting out there for years, tidied everything up and loaded a couple of the drawers with snackages and tea/coffee.  Then I was finally able to give the coffee machine a home, and could move the kettle off the only bit of bench space next to the sink.  So the whole space is a lot tidier.  There used to be a little table here with an oven on top of it and all the food and containers and crap on top of that, but the oven couldn't be used there because it needed a lot more space around it and we never cook out there anyway (we just take leftovers or bbq).  It's not quite what I wanted for this space (I wanted a cupboard that was a bit bigger), but it'll do for now.

Also!  Flowers!

We actually didn't stay the night, but came home instead.  Both of us felt like it was a Sunday afternoon because we usually come home from the club on a Sunday.  Cooked some mushrooms and macaroni and had creamy mushroom mac and cheese for dinner.  We had salad at lunch.  Honest.  ;)

Watch Big in the evening, which I haven't seen since the late 80s.  And some episodes of You Can't Ask That.

Sunday.  Today.  Busy day trying to cram in two days of weekend into one essentially.  Stu even got lots done too which was nice.  Didn't have too much time for any fun, but did do a little bit of jigsaw and one short session of paint-by-numbers.  Had a second guy from Not Registered for GST company show up asking if we needed any work done, and I'm like, you guys came just the other day.  If this company can afford to have employees, surely they'd have enough turnover to need to be registered for GST?? hrmmmmm!!

Stu found this in his four foot tank - how cute is it!

The poppies have started flowering too

I guess I've filled in the gap in the middle since last week.. that's about it though.. 

Dinner will be leftover butterfly lamb, with a bunch of fresh roasted veggies.

Sunday.  17th.  Not backdating ;)  Spent about four hours cooking All The Food that I'd bought that morning - lamb roast, cauliflower bake and roasted veggies which was dinner, as well as some pork mince/bacon/onion to have whenever (froze half straight away), butter chicken (from a simmer sauce, made up five meals with rice, froze two of them), Asian style beef cheeks (which went into the evening because I was late starting, and froze some of that too).  Was quite exhausted by all the effort by the end of it.  Started watching Big Business (not sure that I'd ever seen it - if I had it was a very long time ago).  

Monday.  Slept relatively well.  Busy day.  I thought I'd have some time to sit down and clean up stuff on the proxies from the weekend.  bwhahahahah.  Yeah right.  Got pulled in every other direction including more upgrades and people wanting All The Things.  Not even enough time to consider some other cleanup work I'd planned for the week.  Then got asked to do some firewall rules in a new environment that I have ZERO experience with.  So much for an RDO this week.  Also got a letter saying they're planning on cutting off our power next Thursday.  Which means either going into the office, or having that RDO.  I think I'll take the RDO.  Because, jigsaws, paint by numbers, weeding, decluttering.  All those things I never have time to do because I spend so much time on the computer.  After work was weeding and music practise and dinner, but the sweetie cooked dinner (salmon and salad) which was lovely of him.  Managed 224 photos in an hour after dinner (mostly in Miniland in Legoland Billund).  But I still hadn't emptied the dishwasher from the morning or put away the towels from the weekend or my clothes from today.  Fricken stop the world I want to get off!!!  I don't have time for this whole going to work malarky.  Into season 17 of The Simpsons (which unusually didn't start with a Treehouse of Horror).  Also finished Big Business while continuing to label, managing 311 all up, finishing day 42 in Legoland Billund.  Not a bad effort.  Now mostly caught up.  Was putting away all the stuff from the dishwasher when I realised I was missing a baking dish.  OMFG I'd left it in the oven overnight!!  With potatoes in it!! (to give the potatoes a wee bit longer to cook).  Decided they'd be fine and chucked em in a container in the fridge.

Tuesday.  Slept ok.  But had a pretty horrible day.  Still no time to clean up from the weekend because busy doing upgrades, and freaking out over someone who may be leaving and leaving me with aforementioned firewall rules in new environment which I have ZERO experience with, then there was two and a quarter hours in meetings and stoopid tickets and people not cleaning up mess and I literally had a couple of meltdowns during the day because it was all too hard. 

But look! Exclamation point rainbow!

Did some weeding then headed out for dinner.  It was Cath's birthday so they'd decided to take up the easing of restrictions to go out for dinner with R&F.  We were a bit nervous about heading out into covid-infected Canberra, but we were the only group in the restaurant, other than three or four people that came for takeaway pickups.  It was actually a lovely night out, awesome to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in months, and lots of yummy food.

Wednesday.  OMFG epic insomnia.  Woke up a bit after 2am and never got back to sleep :(  So a complete zombie morning, although I did manage to get some stuff done so that was ok.  Did weeding and music practise after work and even managed 122 photos (from my afternoon in Copenhagen).  Was super epic tired though.  And also got the sad news that Mrs Cartan had died.  In bed by 9pm.

Thursday.  Slept much better.  Dennis (an ex-colleague of Stu's) came over for coffee and a croissant before week (which also made me nervous, because, covid).  But I was in a MUCH better mental state at work and got a great long primer from Sharpie on firewall rules in new environment which I have ZERO experience with.  Usual Thursday night.  Started watching Beaches.  Because Bette Midler.  

Friday.  Slept well enough.  Ok morning.   Took an hour out of work to watch Mrs Cartan's funeral.  Live-streamed funerals are pretty much commonplace now.  What a world.  I think I'll post some extra detail in a separate post.  A little after that was lunch time, and I finished watching Beaches.  Watching two funerals online in a couple of hours was quite surreal.  Busy afternoon, then weeding etc.  Started watching Down and Out in Beverly Hills, because Better MIdler.  Watched the first half of The Shiralee, which neither of us had ever seen.

This is part of the jungle I'm trying to clear with my weeding.

Saturday.  Slept well!  Then a day of All The Things.  Had a super productive day which was great.  Spent a few hours in the afternoon getting back into sorting Vic's Lego - this time all the minifigs so I can clear a space so Stu can do some sorting.  In the middle of that a couple of young magpies came down into the backyard and they were both singing which was lovely.  Watched the second half of The Shiralee in the evening.

Sunday.  Today.  Rinse and repeat of yesterday in some ways.  Spent a good chunk of the afternoon planning our Oberammergau trip.  After we decided to cancel the tour, I decided we should book just Oberammergau, lock it in, then see how things pan out.  If we have to cancel it'll be 36 Euros (I paid for cancellation insurance) and that's it. So booked that, and then started making maps of all the things we want to see.  I locked in all the places from Como, then I started going through the tour itinerary to see what they had planned to see, and made a map of those too.  Some days would have been good to do on tour (like Cinque Terre with a boat cruise) but other days would have been a waste, like the day doing a cheese factory tour (I mean sure, that would have be fun, but not really worth the money) and a tour of the Ferrari musem.  Not to mention the many half days given over to "free time".  Let's just hope covid has calmed down somewhat in Europe by then.  I have more confidence in that than I do in America early next year.  Dinner tonight will be some butterfly lamb with all the roast veggies.

Agonisingly slow progress on Mickey

Sunday.  10th.  Not backdating ;)  Leftover roast pork with a whole bunch of freshly roasted veggies for dinner.  Watched The Pursuit of Happyness which wasn't bad.  It did remind me of sometimes when we were kids getting home late from something, and we'd pretend to be asleep in the car so Mum and Dad would carry us upstairs and put us to bed :)

Monday.  Slept fairly well.  Day went pretty quickly - busy fixing up proxy profiles.  Saw all the birds at lunch.  Leftover chicken wings from a club night with rice and cabbage for dinner.  Finally hit 20000 photos labelled!!  197 done all up, only 15 behind (into Legoland Billund).

Tuesday.  Took *forever* to get to sleep - stressing about All The Things, holidays, health, having to go to the chemist etc etc etc.  Then I woke up at 3am hungry and needing to pee, so did that, then saw an email from the cruise company with bad news about our trip next year (I'm trying to get out of it because too many retarded Americans won't get vaccinated) so then it took *forever* to get back to sleep.  Zombie tired all day, didn't really get much done all day.  Was too tired and depressed to feel like weeding or music practise or labelling, so instead had a couple of beers, watched an episode of Connected (Clouds), and had an early night.  I really need to keep reminding myself that even if we lose all the thousands of dollars we've spent on our holidays we might not be able to go on, we're still a helluva a lot better off than so many other people this pandemic.  We still have jobs, food, a roof over our heads, and haven't gotten sick from covid (so far).

Wednesday.  After the early night actually slept quite well for a change.  Busy day, although didn't get to do the *one thing* I wanted to do because of interruptions and people wanting stuff.  Did some weeding and music practise, but had a tv dinner for dinner.  208 photos labelled all up, now 115 behind.

Sometimes I get down about fish keeping, because tanks get manky and fish die.  Then I get a tank like this which i super healthy and all the plants are growing like crazy and no algae and the little fishies are breeding like rabbits.  Such a joy this tank.

Thursday.  Somewhat broken sleep, not helped by a couple of storms rolling through.  Headed out early to get blood tests done for a checkup.  Got to see a bit of floriade in Belco.

Ok day.  Got rained on seeing the birds, but they were pretty eager.  No virtual drinks this week.  Started watching 50 Shades of Grey, but only made it about half an hour in.  Really didn't like the guy at all.  Watched Lie to Me instead.  

Friday.  Awake from 3-5am so zombie morning (although somewhat better afternoon).  Did manage to achieve some stuff too which was useful.  Watched Inferno in the evening which we hadn't seen before.  Pretty much just like the other two, and fun distractions with the been-theres in Turkey :)

Saturday.  Up at stoopid o'clock and then spent the entire day doing upgrades, first with HBZ then with Con.  A few hiccoughs along the way, but I think we got there in the end.  See what happens Monday I guess.  Did some weeding and music and talked to the mother type person.  She ended up cancelling our Oberammergau trip because the tour company were being pooheads.  I would certainly never travel with them again.  Mainly because they were *hideously* expensive for what you got.  Basically all it included was hotels, a coach and a tour guide - no lunches, very few dinners, and not much in the way of attraction entries either - it was all "free time in the town".  If I'm paying that much, I want them to take me to as many places as possible, not just dump us in a town and tell us to fend for ourselves.  If I wanted to do that I could take a train.  So we're actually considering doing that - taking trains around northern Italy, and maybe hire a car for a few days to see some harder to get to places in the mountains.  And even after all the money we lost, the trip will probably still be cheaper to do it ourselves.  The sweetie got Chong Co for dinner, and we watched Tora! Tora! Tora! (on Disney, even though I inherted Dad's DVD of it - shoulda watched the DVD though - Disney's subtitles were a bit hit and miss in places - like only flashing for a fraction of a second and not giving you enough time to read them).  

Sunday.  Today.  Up at stoopid o'clock to finally go do food shopping at Coles (first time since 8 September!!).  Then came home and finally got to have my weekend.  Spent all morning doing all the usual weekend stuff I need to get done, then weeding, lunch, music, photo processing and blogging.  And now's just after 3pm and I'm about to go spend a few hours cooking all the food so I don't have to do much in the next week or two.  

Last weekend I got some ingredients to make San Choy Bow.  I knew Chris had lettuce and beef mince (even though you should really use pork mince) so that was the starting point.  This recipe was based on a recipe from recipetineats.

So the mince.  A pack of mince, mushrooms, an onion, a tin of water chestnuts (I shoulda bought the tin of bamboo shoots Chris had as well), ginger and garlic.  The recipe suggested carrots but I didn't have any, so used some broccolini stems instead.

Fry it all up (I did this on the Sunday).

On the Monday I made up the sauce - 

1 1/4 tsp cornflour / cornstarch (mushed in water to make a paste)
1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (or sub Mirin or dry sherry) - I used dry sherry
1 tsp white sugar

Marvel at the abstract art when you add dark soy sauce to cornflower slush

Mix it all in

Enjoy!

On the October long weekend in 2001 I finished painting the laundry and bathroom (I think).  Yes, it's very blue.  I didn't want it to be a pastel/baby blue, so I went darker.  Problem is it was a bit too dark and basically made the rooms look like a swimming pool.  Oh well.

But here's where I wish memory works better.  I swear Luc came over that weekend to help me paint.  But I have a photo from two weeks later where I thought I remembered him helping me with the laundry door, and I'm pretty sure he did some of his own painting (those little squares weren't in my place, I have no idea what they are).  So I have no idea.  Stoopid memory.  And I really wish I'd started blogging earlier.

Sunday.  15th.  Backdating this, but only by a day :)  Cooked All The Food for dinner (lots of veggies, that went with some pulled pork I dug out of the freezer). 

Simpsons/X Files, then watched some commentry on John Williams' music.  Seriously the guy is a genius.  Check out Listening In's commentry on Jurassic Park, Prisoner of Azkaban, Star Wars and ET.

Monday.  Woke up at ~1am for a couple of hours.  Sigh.  Ok day. 

Even if we don't get to go to Floriade this year, I'll have my little neighbourhood patch of it.

Sausages and leftover veggies for dinner.  Managed 49 photos before dinner.  Had to do a fixup of geodata on some too.  Managed 192 all up, and an episode of Air Crash Investigations.

Tuesday.  Slept well for a change.  Not a bad day, looking at more cleaning to be done.  63 photos labelled before dinner - finished Day 29 Canon photos.  Still a long way behind :(  Managed 177 all up and an episode of Air Crash.

Wednesday.  Decided yesterday I'd do a mid week food shop, and go early to minimise exposure to potentially infectious people.  Worked pretty well, and the carpark was deserted.

Took me longer than I thought it would because I had to keep stopping to go back and push my own trolley (normally Stu drives).  There was plenty of toilet paper (I didn't get any cause we still had over half a pack left).  But there were a couple of fresh things I couldn't get (like cabbage and basil).  So did all that, as well as getting a bag of fresh veggies, milk and eggs for EffanC.  They'd been down the coast when lockdown was declared in both the ACT and NSW, so they had to come home and were still waiting on a Coles delivery.  

Was just getting ready for work when Stu said our nearby IGA was a covid exposure site.  And guess who was there during one of the specified close contact times last week?  Yeup.  All because Stu wanted ice cream we can't get at Chris's ;)  OMFG I was a nervous wreck all day.  We'd have to go get tested, although couldn't go during the day because Stu was busy doing interviews for work, and we weren't sure if we'd even get in after work, with the EPIC testing site having been closed at like 4pm on the Tuesday due to high demand.  We were worried we'd have to wait around all night and still not get tested and have to go back, or even get turned away completely.  Plus if we did test positive, then Coles would be an exposure site and I'd have put EffanC at risk too.  Yeah I was a mess all day.  Although my stress did turn to anger.  We should have been notified *immediately* once the IGA was listed.  We both checked in with the CheckinCBR app, so they would have known we were there at the specified time.  Was pretty pissed off about that actually.  Anyway, as soon as Stu was finished up with interviews we headed out.  Stu wanted to try Kambah first.  One website said it closed at 5pm, another 4pm.  So we weren't sure when it would close.  Turns out it closes at 4pm and it had already closed by the time we got there.  (as it turns out, the 5pm closing time was from last year but I'd missed that when I was looking because I was so stressed).  So headed to Brindabella.  I was expecting traffic to be banked back around the airport, but we got all the way to Brindabella and were wondering where all the cars were.  Turns out it simply wasn't crowded (even though half an hour before we left home they'd tweeted it would be a three hour wait).  We took a whole stack of food.  We didn't need it.  We got to the first triage tent at 17:07 then joined the queue.  It took til about 18:00 to get to the big tent, then about twenty five minutes to get to the front of the line to get our tests.  It was unpleasant, but not as bad as I thought it would be.  So an hour twenty and we were out of there.  Got home, had some salad for dinner (hurrah for fresh food), then had a Zoom drink with EffanC.  Needed it.  Collapsed into bed for an early night.

Thursday.  Woke up at ~1am til past 3am.  Sigh.  Busy day, mostly dealing with interruptions.  Beer, pizza, Simpsons, X Files and an early night.

Friday.  Hurty for a bit in the night.  Woke up in the morning to find we'd been smsed our test results - negative.  Phew.  Ok day.  Had another Zoom drink/catchup with EffanC.  Salmon and salad for dinner, then Simpsons and Moneyball.  An odd choice for the sweetie I thought, but based on a true story and not a bad movie, for a sports movie ;)

Saturday.  Slept ok for a change.  Although that didn't stop my clumsiness trying to put out our pills/vitamins for the week, spilling things *three fricken times*.  Very upsetting.  Alternated between house stuff, photo labelling (still trying to catch up from a crazy couple of weeks), and jigsaw.  Made Dominos pepperoni and feta on puff pastry pizza for lunch.  

In the afternoon we got SMSes from ACT Health - "Check In CBR has identifed that you may have attended a COVID-19 exposure location".  Yeah no kidding guys, this was the message I should have gotten THREE AND A HALF DAYS AGO!!!!!  Fricken hopeless.  Chicken kiev and roast veggies for dinner.  Then watched Wall Street, which I'd never actually seen before.

Sunday.  Slep ok.  Another day of house stuff, photo stuff, and jigsaw.  My ideal weekend really.  And literally no different to a non-lockdown weekend (well other than not having to do food shopping, and not being able to go see my birds, on account of being in strict lockdown). 

Got a call from WA Health in the afternoon - taking some of the load off ACT Health and calling people in exposure sites - making sure we'd been tested and were quarantining.. yes and yes.  We'll have to get tested again this week, hopefully won't have to wait as long this time. 

Another afternoon of cooking all the food (mince to have with whatever at some point, and an arribbiata bake sans basil). 

Downloaded my phone photos.  Apple has gone back to arranging photos into a thousand per folder.  I mean why change to arranging them by month (a change for the better I thought) if you were just going to revert it a couple of months later??  Far out I hate Apple.  Watched The Movies that Made Us episode on Forrest Gump, and then the first half of Forrest Gump.  And blogged this Monday, ssh don't tell anyone!

Sunday.  8th.  Filling in the evening after I blogged :)  Cooked All The Veggies for dinner.  Had all the roasted veggies, with mince and cheese and sour cream on the potato wedges.  Yumminess.

Simpsons, X Files, Air Crash Investigations.

Monday.  Ok day.  Got practise looking at traffic spikes and figuring out what they were.  Labelled 182 photos - have finished Egypt and onto London, day 28.

Tuesday.  Pretty quiet day, although didn't get much done.  Leftovers/Simpsons/jigsaw/cleaned kitchen/backed up computer and suddenly it's 8pm.  Hrmm.  And labelling goes super slowly when you need to identify every building in Legoland Miniland (eg Covent Garden, which I'd never been to before, so that took a bit of flying around Google Maps trying to find it).  So I only managed to label 26 photos before dinner, did a few more while watching tv, managing 48 all up for the evening.  hrmmm.

Wednesday.  Started off ok, but then felt like a failure because I couldn't solve some stoopid problems with stoopid firewalls and stoopid proxies.  Then arguments with people who made me feel like everything I do is wrong.  Sigh.  It was a wine and scotch and no photo labelling kind of an evening.  

Thursday.  Woke up at 3am but didn't get back to sleep ~5am :(  So I was tired and grumpy.  The bathroom sealer people called me in the morning - the asbestos test came back positive (duh) so they won't do minor works, they'll only do a complete bathroom renovation so the asbestos can all be removed.  Sigh.  More fighting with stoopid firewalls and feeling like a failure and people hate me cause I hate everything.  Felt miserable all afternoon.  

But on a lighter note, before lunch it was announced Canberra would go into a snap seven day lockdown due to our first local cases of covid in over a year (it finally happened).  And my first reaction was woohoo.  I mean literally.  To just stay at home and not have to deal with people (at least directly) for a week - heaven.  I mean don't get me wrong, I do actually feel really bad for peeps in the hospitality and "non-essential" retail whose anxiety levels will go through the roof not knowing where their next pay check will come from, or anyone that had a wedding or something planned for this weekend - that'd be pretty devastating for them.  Neil and I had lunch at the mall as usual, then we went for a walk through the fresh food section to laugh at all the people panic buying milk and toilet paper.  About half the trolleys we saw had toilet paper in them.

I should point out that after all the panic buying of toilet paper finished last year and it was readily available again, I bought a pack of 24 and put it downstairs.  Then I've continued to buy it normally ever since, knowing that if we ever did have a snap lockdown, we'd be set.  In fact we'd just opened a pack of 12, so won't need any in the short term.

At 12:49pm there was already a queue to get into Woollies

And there was a queue at Baker's Delight too

HBZ also went shopping just after lunch, and already all the toilet paper was gone, and it took him an hour and a half to get through the checkouts.  Yikes!

On the way home we stopped for essentials - read - beer! ;)  Although tragically, Chris had sold out of Corona! *gasp*  ;)

Beer and pizza for dinner.  This is why I'm going to die young:

Friday the 13th.  Got somewhat better sleep, and actually managed to achieve some stuff at work.  Went for a walk at lunch and saw my birds. 

In the afternoon I went to check the mailbox and this daisy was there to greet me

So I got photos of some of the other flowers out already as well

Picked up TV dinners from Chris's (we actually have a freezer full of leftovers, but I really didn't feel like cooking) - he said it had been pretty quiet. 

Watched the 2008 Get Smart with the sweetie, which was completely ridiculous but I was snorting all through it - just a bit of fun :)

Saturday.  I'd had an early night, but woke up a bit before 5 and never got back to sleep.  Turned 30.  I'll let you figure out what base (thanks DC :) ).  Stu cooked breakfast of Pialligo bacon and cheesy hash browns. So brown but so good!!!!

Then had a lovely day just pottering around the house, doing jigsaw and the like.  Stu also had fun, building his little morse code thingie...

At lunch we went for a walk to see the birds, and saw this very smelly burnt out car.

And the sweetie took a photo of me in front of the same wattle tree I had photos of the other day.

In the afternoon I did a 500 piece jigsaw as a break from the agonisingly slow Dumbo.  Sadly it was missing a piece, but that's what you get for Green Shed jigsaws.  The sky was pretty at dusk too.

We may have shared some bubbles.

We got Chong Co delivered for dinner!

We had the wagyu salad and the duck salad (I asked for everything "medium" but the beef was a bit hot for me - endorphins!)

As well as the pork belly prik pao (not crispy anymore from being in transit) and satay chicken

Delicious!

After dinner we put on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which we enjoyed with heated Gluhwein and candles.

And all through the day (except the 10 second blackout and time taken for the router to reconnect) Stu put on a John Williams playlist which added a wonderful soundtrack to actually quite a wonderful day.

Sunday.  Another nice quiet day.  Took ages to do slide fixup scanning because every time I rescanned a bunch of slides, they'd get dust in different positions :(  

Late in the morning we went for a walk and saw these tiny flowers

With bee!

For lunch I made salami and olive pizza scrolls

My lockdown lunch is better than yours!

In the afternoon I alternated between Dumbo jigsaw and Legoland photo labelling (including geotagging a bunch I'd taken on the train but hadn't set the location) - managed 113 photos - so I'm still *way* behind where I need to be.  I also pulled everything out of the freezer and did an audit of what we have.  There's quite a bit of leftover meat (including a bunch of food from various club nights), and some frozen veggies.  I'm thinking I might do an early morning shopping trip one day this week to get more fresh food.

Then put on dinner (all the veggies, with some pulled pork from the freezer) - finished off most of our fresh vegetables, and blogged.

Monday.  26th.  Backdating.  Frustration and grumpiness at work *all day*.  Finished up day 25 labelling (which I should have done on the weekend).  In the end labelled 261 photos in the evening, so mostly caught up to where I wanted to be.

Tuesday.  Not much better day than Monday.  Ended up worse, and feeling depressed cause I suck and noone likes me.  Had leftover pasta bake for dinner (and got a yuk taste of anchovies).  Backed up my computer but didn't do any photo labelling.  Did jigsaw and played 2048 for the first time in a couple of years.  Even got up to 4096.

Wednesday.  Woke up at 3:23 and never got back to sleep.  So it was a zombie day.  Couldn't really concentrate on anything, not helped by people interrupting every five seconds.  Doc Oc pizzas and wine for dinner.  Started watching Queen: Days of Our Lives (2011).

Thursday.  Slept quite a bit better (went to bed at 20:30), other than being awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night cause of hurty.  In what world is a monthly cycle 21 days???  FFS.  Ok day.  Mulled wine at drinks for a Christmas in July night.

Then met up with EffanC and R&F at Hachiko for dinner which was lovely.

It was a lovely night and a great reminder that I do have some pretty great friends.

Friday.  Ok day.  Knocked off work a little early but then spent the evening prepping for tomorrow - for the club Christmas in July.  Struggled to get onto the butcher to order the pork - firstly couldn't find a phone number online, ended up having to resort to Yellow Pages.  But then they wouldn't answer the phone :(  Then I started stressing about fitting CRD into the car with all the foods and gear.  Sigh.  Finished the first episode of Queen: Days of Our Lives, and started episode two.  

My little patch of floriade is sprouting!

Saturday.  Headed out early and did the shopping for dinner.  Finished the Coles shop quite quickly, then headed back to the butcher.  Turns out their phone handset was broken which is why they weren't answering.  Luckily was able to get enough pork.  Then picked up CRD and headed out to the club.  Set everything up and took a photo of all the food.

First up was getting the lamb ready and into the slow cooker.  I'd never done lamb like this in the slow cooker so had no idea how it would turn out.  It actually turned out really well - lovely and moist.  

I had to wash pretty much everything before I started.  All the cooking gear was covered in white dust.  And I literally had to leave the kitchen a couple of times while other people wandered in and started fussing around and washing things up.  I actually can't concentrate with people buzzing about, super stressful.

Then I prepped all the pork - just oil and salt.

Then made a couple of epic potato bakes.

I also made up a sweet potato salad, and some lactose-free roast potatoes

The oven is the slowest oven in the world, so I probably should have left the foil off a lot longer on the potatoes

I delegated making the roast turkeys in the bbq.  So we had a bain-marie full of pork, the slow cooker full of lamb, and another bain-marie with the turkey.  The pork and lamb turned out beautifully, but the crackling didn't work so well (slowest oven in the world) and the turkey was over done on the bottom (really need a better way to do it than on the barbeque).

I also made a big batch of gravy, and a pot of apple sauce

There was also a big pot of peas/corn/carrots.

Had a couple of helpers to serve it all up.  It was quite well received .. phew!!

Chris brought these great little puddings

And Tab brought puddings and pavlovas and fruit and ice cream.

Then there were some very noisy games so I went and hid because it was all too loud.  Later went out and had some whiskey and rum in the sun room.  This whiskey smelt like peanut butter and tasted like butterscotch schnapps.  Yum!  And the Master Mary rum tasted like Christmas.

Then loud people came out, so I went to bed.

Sadly after really concentrating on the food all afternoon and evening, I really didn't feel like I caught up properly with anyone.  I actually only sat down at the table for a few minutes to scoff my dinner.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well.  Went up to finish cleaning up and packing up.  Found out the cause of all the white powder around the kitchen - mice had been getting into the corn flour and tracking it all around.  I even saw a couple of mice running around the shelves.  I threw out anything that had mouse holes, which was all the corn flour and some of the regular flour.  Anything open but with no evidence of mouse activity I brought home to reassess.  And anything unopened and still sealed with no holes I put into a sealable plastic container. 

They pulled the pergola down while I was cooking on Saturday 

Then came home after dropping off CRD.  But it was still nearly lunch time by the time we got home, and I was my usual Sunday-after-a-club-event-depressed because of the lack of time at home on the weekend.  I did manage to clean out a shelf in the pantry and water change all the downstairs fish tanks and download photos, but not blog.  Used up some of the mince I cooked last weekend with some One Pan Dinner.  

Monday.  5th.  Not backdating!  Slept relatively well.  Woke up at 6:40 and didn't push myself to do any scanning.  Worked from home and had a pretty decent day, not too many stoopid problems bugging me, in fact even solved a few people's problems for them which was nice.  Stu was still sick though and stayed home.  Made an "instant" lasagna for dinner with stuff I made on the weekend (the mince and a bechamel/cheese sauce I did for the veggies).  Did a bit of jigsaw and watched the third episode of Diagnosis.

Tuesday.  Slept well again but still a bit sniffly so worked from home.  A lot more distractions today, and then hurty.  Stu worked from home which was nice.  Finally finished off the potatoes we brought home from the club (I think there would have been about thirty of them, all cooked, so it was a race to get them eaten before they went moldy).  This time I fried them with the last of the unfrozen mince from the club night, and a bunch of cheese.  I did them without mince for lunch and we liked them so much I did it again for dinner with mince.  So yummy, my favourite of the ways we got through those potatoes. 

Did my quota of photo labelling by 19:18 and even ran the dishwasher.  Watched a couple of episodes of Diagnosis.  Got quite frustrated with the mother in the fifth episode, but then I later found the girl's Instagram account, where she was pretty scathing of the show and how it portrayed them.  She'd also had a couple of surgeries for some vascular problems that had never been thought of in the show.  

Wednesday.  Slept well until I woke up with hurty at 1:15 and it kept me away til nearly 3am.  Sigh.  So another zombie day.  Vicki was in town which offered the perfect excuse to work from home again.  Got photo labelling done early so X Files and Diagnosis in the evening (after finishing off the last of the unfrozen club leftovers - some spring rolls and chicken wings and chipolatas).

Thursday.  Finally felt up to scanning slides again, first time in nearly a week due to insomnia or sickness.  It was also the first time in nearly a week we didn't have the heater on in the morning and it was *cold* in the house.  Ok day, ok drinks.  Feeling a general depression over not really fitting in and not getting on with people and not really being "friends" with anyone much I work with.  So felt a bit blah even at drinks.  Started watching I, Tonya.

Friday.  Slept ok.  Ok day.  Did up doco and change paperwork for next round of cleaning next week.  Finished watching Fantasia.

Saturday.  Quiet day, alternating with housework and jigsaw. 

Yet again, went into battle dealing with the government online.  This time I wanted to get a certificate of my covid vaccination.  But to do that you have to link Medicare or the Health Record (which I think I opted out of) to mygov.  But of course it refused to link my Medicare account didn't it.  It wanted the number and address details etc, but kept complaining I hadn't answered things correctly, at which point it prompted to fill in all the details of my bank accounts and my last doctor's appointment, including the date and how much it cost.  And I'm like wtf.  So I rage quit on that and called them.  Fortunately I pretty much got straight through, and they gave me a linking code I could enter and that worked and it linked up and I got my covid vaccination certificate.  Hurrah.  Now let's just hope they'll let us travel.  I'd be happy to do home quarantine when we get back if that's what it takes.  So long as I don't have to fight with tour companies about getting money back on trips...  

Found someone had uploaded Brides of Christ to DailyMotion, so watched the first episode of that.  We watched this when it came out back in 1991, and I blogged that I watched in when it was on tv again in 2003.  Downloaded and processed phone photos while that was on.  Dinner was some mince that I cooked last weeked, with tomato paste and tomatoes and pasta.  Into season 2 of the X Files, and then I finished I, Tonya.  It's actually not a bad movie.  Margot Robbie did a pretty good job (she even did a lot of the skating), although she's just a bit tall and *big* to pass for Tonya Harding, who was tiny. 

Sunday.  A quiet day of housework stuff, jigsaw, and blogging and computer stuff.  We did go out for lunch and food shopping/chemist as well.  About to go prep dinner.