Wow. So 2025. It sure was a year!

Travel

I went to Adelaide with Mum in late February to visit my Uncle Graham who was in hospital for three months being treated for a lymphoma. He was doing really well at the time (he'd really only just started treatment). Good news is he's done with treatment and is (so far) cancer free. We went down the coast to visit Kit and Pete in March for Pete's birthday and I went to the Milton Show with Kit. I didn't go to Europe with Mum, even after spending months planning it. At least David got to go instead. I did go up to Sydney the day before they left to go through everything I'd prepared with them. In November the sweetie and I took ten days off and headed down the coast, staying in Narooma and Kiama. Didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked in Narooma due to reasons, so we hope to go back again some time soon. Did a day trip to Sydney in December to see Back to the Future the Musical.

Work

At work I was the Naughty Email Intervention Layer (NEIL) a few times while Neil took leave. We're not sure what's going to happen to his position when he retires next year (after 50 years!!!!). I got to do a bunch of work on some of our management scripts to get them working in the new environment. Learnt a lot, which I've now completely forgotten. Did scripts to check on the quality of objects/rules, backup configs, look for orphaned objects, print out our rules in a friendly format, delete crap. I love those delete scripts whenever I use them - they save So. Much. Time..!! Used Copilot (and Google AI) to help me with regex and Powershell (the regex stuff was pretty cool - I gave it a problem and it found me a solution - that worked!). Did lots of decommission work in the first two thirds of the year, ran out of time with everything else going to do much in the last third of the year. I still think my job description is mostly "Sadie". Helped Neil build and cut over to some new mail servers (which took months to finally get to do after they were like, oh, yeah there's a bug, soz). Ray brought in his pizza oven in February for a team lunch which was quite fun. We farewelled HBZ in February which was a bit sad, also farewelled Julian and Bruce in March and Imaar in October. There were trivia nights in March (a bit trash), June (a lot of fun, and we actually won, but luckily didn't have to run the next one - they decided in advance that the last place getters would run it) and October (a bit trash). Had a small "anti ball" in April but it was a bit of a fizzer and I don't think I'd bother trying to organise another one. Used "New" Outlook for only a couple of days in April because it was trash. The dealbreaker was shared calendars which just wouldn't render properly. Did a massive cleanup of our main dev environment, which I've been wanting to do for literally seven years. It makes me so happy that it's *clean* now! Worked on policy for our new cloud proxies, but even though I've been using myself for months we're still not really any closer to getting it released to everyone. In November it suddenly became crunch time on our existing proxies - the old hardware (which we've been using for TEN YEARS) was going EOL and we didn't want to renew the licence and we weren't ready to cut over to our new proxies, so I spent a few days migrating the policy to other equivalent but newer hardware, doing all the paperwork, and prepping it all so Con/Ward could cut it over while I was on holidays. It went mostly smoothly which was epic awesome. Spent a heap of time looking at what talks to some legacy domain controllers so could replicate their rules to new ones. Broke something during a transition though sadly. It was fixed super quickly once they told me though. Had to rework our ticket dashboards when they upgraded versions and our originals were done so long ago they were "legacy" and didn't work properly. Had various Christmas parties in December, including my annual bbq at the lake attended by over 40 people.

Health

I had a bit of a sore throat in February. Spent two days in bed and pretty sure I beat it off because I didn't seem to get fully sick. Mainly I was paranoid about getting sick because if I did I wouldn't have been able to see Uncle Graham in Adelaide. Ongoing bouts of insomnia and thermoregulation issues throughout the year (thanks menopause). Oh, and the minor inconvenience of the C-word. Not that C-word. The other C-word.

Family and Friends

We started the year (almost) with some of the n-gang (we left at 11:30 and got home just before midnight). Mum and D/K/S came for the family Christmas lunch in early January for last year, and a week before Christmas for this year. I definitely like doing an early family Christmas. Went to see Lily for her 21st in January. Had EffanC over for dinner in February, and also my birthday, and went over to theirs for dinner in May. David came to visit in March to install a new light fitting in the kitchen. Because the old one died. It was only six years old. Hating on how crap everything is nowadays. Mum tripped over just inside her village entrance in March and was knocked out and broke her collar bone. She went to hospital and they did a bunch of scans because they didn't know if she'd passed out and then fell, or got knocked out from the fall. Passing out first would have been super worrying. Fortunately there was security camera footage and you can clearly see she just tripped (she was power walking and was just moving off the main path when she tripped on a raised bit of concrete). Had Jenn over for dinner in March. It had been two years since we saw her last. Whoops! Caught up with Luc for drinks/dinner in May and December. Fiona came over with a care package in May, and visited again July. Tony also dropped in a care package in May, and we went to the arboretum in July, as well as had a couple of movie nights. Had lunch at the Burns Club with the Chrises and Tony in June and the Chrises and Glenda and Neil in December. Kit came to visit in August for Ben and Sarah's baby shower (which I would have loved to have gone to, but, people). Went and saw Annie and the family in August. Had Friday afternoon drinks with T/J in October - we really must do that more often! David and Kellie came to stay in November when they went and saw Ricky Martin. Went to Rob and Fiona's in November for a deck warming. Had Mishi's 60th in December. Had a super quiet Christmas Day, but Stu did got to see his family (and we'll hopefully catch up with them on New Years').  New Years Eve Eve party at M&M's with some of the n-gang.

The Social Club

We went out in June for Ian and Chris's 10th wedding anniversary formal night which was lovely. I did our annual Christmas in July by remote control this year - the sweetie did all the shopping for me, I did as much prep work as I could either at home or in the van, then got the sweetie and helpers to cook it all on the night (with lots of printed out instructions!). Went out again in September - Stu for a committee meeting, and I did some priming of cabinetry. Went to the Halloween Spooktacular night in October which was fun. Went out again in early November for a committee meeting for Stu, and I continued priming cabinetry. Then there was R&F's Christmas party in late November.

Photos

Spent ages picking out photos for Mum's funeral (on account of she wants to see it and I want to get it done in advance should the worst happen and then it would be one less thing I would need to think about). Spent chunks of time here and there tagging people in Picasa. I figured out how to have different databases for different people groups and even wrote a startup script to make it easy to switch between them. Jumped in to finally getting my Europe 2016 photos online - spent ages and ages culling culling culling, then labelling them and getting them online. I still have to make panoramas and get them online. Also filed a lot of photos into directories with more descriptive folder names. Re-scanned all of Mum's slides at the highest resolution my scanner would go (the first time I did them very quickly at a medium resolution). Then rescanned the ones with fluff on them, sometimes over and over and over again. I've geotagged our south coast trip from November, but that's all I've done so far.

Fish and Stumpy

Stumpy's UV light died at the end of last year, but I couldn't find anywhere that sold a 48" 10% UV light, so had to make do with an incandescent bulb which does heat *and* UV in one. He'd been pretty lethargic at the beginning of the year, possibly because of the lack of UV light. He perked up again with the new light, and got really quite tanned over the course of the year. My AquaOne 620T tank leaked in February because the filter wool drifted over and blocked the outlet, backing everything up. Whoever thought using chipboard to make fish tank stands would be a good idea should be shot. Lost the sucking catfish in the two foot downstairs in February - it was happy then was dead. Towards the end of the year I thought I was losing the clown loaches - they both hid in a corner and wouldn't come out. But in the last week or two they've been behaving more normally.

Our current fish inventory:
* upstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* four foot - nine congo tetras, one lone male guppy (I'll get him some friends when others in the other tanks get big enough), and an enormous fat loach
* Chrissie's tank - two clown loaches
* angel tank - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* downstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages

Lego

Spent ages of time (and money) on Vic's Lego. Bought a crazy number of loose pieces to complete some sets. I managed to complete all the Creator and City sets. I built and photographed the Creator sets and have been building the City sets. Still a long way to go though. The LEGO Group is taking over Bricklink more and more. This year they forced you to use your Lego account to sign into Bricklink and later in the year they gave two weeks notice they were going to suspend trading in a whole heap of countries (which they then pushed back til next year). I'm just waiting for them to enshittify it completely. The only set I built new was 31134 - Space Shuttle, which I got for my birthday, but haven't had a chance to build the other two sets I got for my birthday.

Jigsaws

A little bit quiet on the jigsaw front, especially at work. Bought two jigsaws with a voucher from my 50th birthday, but have only done one of them so far.

Other Hobbies

My favourite hobby at the moment is diamond painting. I find it super quieting for my brain (which always seems to be overstimulated). After the little Christmas tree I did on Christmas/Boxing Day last year, I've done Green Eyed Beauty, Pink Galah and Banksia, White Cockatoo and Waratahs, and started on Oh Christmas Tree (which Dave2 very kindly bought and posted to me, on account of not being able to find anywhere in Australia that still had it). I did an Anko miniblocks Owl in Tree that I got for Christmas from Kellie and David which was very cute. I also did a Nanoblocks Church I got from the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction in March. It wasn't quite complete but it was mostly there and is very cute. And there was also a Petit Blocks fox I got at Daiso for at work. It's very cute. I bought a brand-new-second-hand saxophone from the Young Music School sale in February. Had it serviced and got it back in August. I've done a little bit of playing on it but not as much as I would have liked. I did find some easy Christmas music for it which was fun and have been on the hunt for other music for it.

Weather

We had hail in January, August, September, November and December. There were various rainbows throughout the year. In October/November it went from needing the heater, the cooler, the heater, the cooler, the heater (although didn't actually run it that time) in the space of two weeks. Had lots of storms in November and December. Had an overnight low of 0C on 2 December.

Toys / Purchases / Techie Stuff

I bought a new camera in January because my old one (Dad's old one) had some dead pixels and just isn't as good as newer cameras in low light. But I got super frustrated at the 24-105mm lens which didn't have the range of my old camera/lens. I also got frustrated at how dull and lifeless the photos are from it. Did a bunch of testing comparing the new camera, the old 600D, my G5X and my iPhone. Also played with user mode settings to increase saturation and contrast, which has made a difference. In July I got a 24-240mm lens, much happier with it than the 24-105mm. The 24-105mm is still great for people photos and low light, but the 24-240mm is my general usage lens. I'm totally hating on Windoze 11 which does utterly daft things. Like if I open a text document on one desktop, it'll open it IN ANOTHER DESKTOP!!! Even if just a moment ago I'd opened and closed another text file on the original desktop. Or that it NEVER remembers folder settings. There's a few folders that I have specific settings (sorting by reverse date order, details instead of large icons etc..) and it resets them every fricken time I use them. HATE. There were a couple of times this year it remembered the settings, but mostly it just reset them. Or that sometimes when I unlock in the morning, windows that I've had on the right screen (my main screen) will randomly be moved to my left screen (which I don't use all the time) and I have to turn on that screen and move them back. Or that notepad is so trash now. If you have a large text file it becomes unusable due to the lag of it trying to do spell checks or whatever. Or it'll literally just not enter keystrokes and just skip one or more letters that you've typed. Or that Windoze will reboot AGAINST YOUR WILL when it feels like it. Or that whenever I attach a USB device it takes a full minute for windoze to recognise it. Or that whenever I attach or remove a USB device, explorer collapses what directories I have open, so I have to re-navigate to them all to get back into folder context. Or that when I open a command prompt (which I have pinned to my task bar), the command prompt doesn't open where the pinned icon is, it opens all the way over on the right of whatever else I have open. I got a new desktop at work and it's doing the same thing. Yet the Azure ones didn't do this. Or it'll just randomly jump to the top of the explorer window and I have scroll back down to find where I was working. Or it changed how folders are displayed by date. My computer crashed earlier in the year and in October as well. Frustration with Apple. If you let it automatically set the time zone, it'll just change the time zone on you randomly. It stuffed up a bunch of photos in Adelaide with its nonsense. Apple also merges timelines from different numbers into one message thread. So you reply to a message in the thread, but it goes to the home number not the mobile number and is never received. Apple is so stoopid. I had to split out Mum's mobile number into a different contact to stop that happening. Google broke Chromecast because they didn't renew a certificate. Eventually after a week or so they fixed it. OneNote threatened to force me into an Office365 subscription, but didn't end up doing it. I finally got around to setting up my phone to use my own hosted SMTP service because Optus was getting super flaky for trying to send mail. Raged at Optus who now FORCE you into using $5/day roaming unless you pull the sim out of your phone. BOM updated their website in October and half the country screamed at them for ruining things. Pretty sure CloudLoop made some change to email headers in mid to late November which means that mails from some places aren't rendering properly. I downloaded (and paid a little) for Thunderbird to handle mail from the problematic senders. Might one day copy everything across, but for now the way of filtering mail is super annoying.

House stuff

I spent ages in the first part of the year trying to get the back yard under control. Our lemon tree dropped probably about a thousand lemons over summer. I'm not even exaggerating - a branch fell off that had 110 lemons on it, and that was just one branch out of the whole huge tree. I juiced most of them and was drinking homemade lemonade for months. I grew a bunch of mini capsicums which I could harvest in April. Such a lot of effort (and having to water every single day) for so little reward (but a nice reward!). We tried to turn the heater on in April but either the controller or the heater was having a spaz and kept rebooting. In May we managed to get it to work and didn't turn it off for literally two weeks straight. After that we managed to operate it normally for the rest of the winter. But in spring, after being off for a few days, it got the crazy behaviour again. Potted a chrysanthemum that I'd accidentally uprooted out the front and it's been thriving. I still need to find a permanent home for it. Frustration the Mirabella Genio lights and app, terrible user interface and annoying to try and get them to repair. Started picking strawberries from the weeds in the back yard at the beginning of November and continued through early December. Not nearly as many poppies this year, must have been too dry for them.

Restaurants

We had Quan's Kitchen delivery in January (because Dumpling Inn presumably wasn't open yet). We went to Bar 59 a few times in January for work drinks, and again in April. Dumpling Inn is a continuing favourite, with deliveries in January, June (x2), July, August, September, October and December. So is Chong Co, with deliveries in March, April, May (x2), June, August and October. McGriddles at Maccas finally arrived in Australia! I had one in July but my sense of taste was shot at the time so couldn't judge it. Have had a few more since October though. Went to Ikko again for a work farewell in October. Went to Stellas by the Lake for brunch in November with David and Kellie, nominally for his 50th. Tried out Bamiyan with Luc in December which was really good. Tried out Grease Monkey in the mall in December. Went out to Four Winds for pizza lunch with Tony in December for our annual lunch out there. Went to the Labor Club with Mum and Stu in December. And to the Old Canberra Inn for Tony's birthday.

Food / Cooking

Our first meal of the new year was cheesy hash browns cooked on New Years Day. We usually have pizzas every Thursday night, mostly made ourself, but occasionally a commercial one. We often have Ingham's chicken Kievs on Friday nights. And we often have a roast dinner on Sunday nights. Made lemon pepper dill chicken a few times (with all that lemon juice!) and creamy lemon dill sauce with either chicken or fish a few times. Luv-a-duck Peking duck is a favourite, had that a few times. Did a pork neck in the slow cooker in February which was *amazing* and again in April. Tried Microwave Pork Crackle in February which was actually pretty good! Had steak a few times earlier in the year (we never get steak at home because Stu is usually meh about it). Had NQN's butt sorry beef cheeks in May. Stu cooked a little bit in April/May when he was on leave. Made a potato, blue cheese, and rosemary pizza in July. I couldn't taste it at the time, need to do it again. Did slow cooker lamb shanks in August. Tried a cheats mac & cheese with just a bit of water and cheese (and a bit of milk in one version, cream in another). Made a couple of coconut cakes - once in the microwave and once in the oven in August. Did slow cooker beef brisket in August. Baked a plain cake and icing in August from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday cake book to test the recipe. Officially started cooking cakes out of it in September (just one so far!). Made puff pastry scrolls a few times - vegemite or pizza flavoured. Cooked some crackling by itself in November which turned out pretty well. Made some gingerbread biscuits in December. Made a peppermint slice in December.

Theatre / Shows / Exhibitions

* Pompeii at the National Museum in January with Mum which was really good
* AI in Science talk in April with T/J, but missed the rest due to avoiding people and being busy
* Constellations at the NFSA in April with Tony which was amazing
* Back to the Future - The Musical with the sweetie in December which was a bit of fun

Movies (at the movies)

None. *gasp*

Movies (TV)

* Heaven is for Real
* Die Hard 3
* Darkest Hour
* Star Trek: Generations (after seeing the Duras sisters in DS9 1.3)
* Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
* Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Blackberry
* The Princess Bride
* Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
* Fantasia 2000
* Perfect Days
* Inglorious Basterds
* The Holdovers
* Jaws
* Flying High
* Rogue One
* Star Wars (A New Hope)
* The Empire Strikes Back
* Return of the Jedi
* The Post
* Cruella
* Forgetting Sarah Marshall
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
* Terms of Endearment
* Lego Batman Movie
* Lilo and Stitch (the original animated one, and the live action remake)
* The Green Mile
* Passengers
* The Last Emperor
* Back to the Future, I, II and III
* V for Vendetta
* The China Syndrome
* Die Hard and Die Hard 2
* Birdman
* The Neverending Story
* Love Actually
* Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2

TV

* Death in Paradise - seasons 11, 12, 13, 14
* Wednesday - seasons 1, 2
* Beyond Paradise - Death in Paradise but back in the UK
* Stranger Things - season 1 early in the year, then 2/3/4/5 later on
* Return to Paradise - a spinoff of Death in Paradise set on the south coast of NSW
* Meltdown: Three Mile Island
* Deep Space Nine - seasons 1-7
* Air Crash Investigations on Disney+
* Andor - season 2
* How to Change your Mind
* Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
* Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy
* Trainwreck: Poop Cruise
* Black Mirror - season 7
* Tokyo Trial
* Trainwreck: Storm Area 51
* The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem
* Futurama - season 13
* You Are What You Eat
* The Simpsons - bit of season 36
* Lost Melbourne documentary
* GameStop documentary
* Pirates: Behind the Legends - a couple of episodes

Books

None. Although I did get some way through The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Reading is just so *hard*.

Other Stuff

* Got frustrated at the lack of response from Access Canberra in January over the new MyWay+ issues
* Got some ok photos Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) in January
* Got our Queensland holiday from 2004 and Col and Sandra's wedding blogged. Only took 21 years to get online..
* Took some Cousin Itt photos in February
* Remembered 11 years since Dad carked it in February
* The Green Shed closed down booooo and was replaced by "Goodies Junction" run by Vinnies. Definitely preferred the Green Shed. Later in the year found out the owner of the Green Shed started a spinoff in Fyshwick.
* Did a keto diet for a few weeks in February to lose a few kilos. It was pretty effective! And mostly kept the weight off too.
* Neighbours moved to New Zealand in April
* Climbed Mt Rogers a bunch of times in April while I was trying to get a bit fitter for my holiday
* Did low carb again for a little while in April. Gave up when it became apparent I wasn't going overseas.
* Had a lovely drive around Canberra on our wedding anniversary in April
* Saw the Giant Crane in May
* Listened to the Classic 100 Piano in June
* Went to the Handmade Markets at EPIC in June
* Neighbours house was finally rented out in June
* Watched all of Jamie's Anti-Chef videos from the very beginning in order from August. Still only about two thirds of the way through them.
* A red-back spider took up residence in our letter box in August. She was spray-and-wiped.
* Crimson rosellas returned to chew on the beams supporting the roof
* Stu rage-retired in September. Then spent the better part of a month in agony from his back. Recovered from that only to have hearing problems and nausea.
* Saw comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), but only barely
* Visited the new "Green" Shed (The Shed) in October
* Stu more or less took over some cooking and some basic housework in October or November
* Plucked a number out of the air to go for in the Melbourne Cup (my birthday), and that horse won!
* Got frustrated at MyWay+ which doesn't work properly. Got one free ride out of it, but then figured out a fix.
* Got some photos of the aurora in November, although I never actually saw it
* Made a beer advent calendar out of beers I missed from work drinks that Neil saved for me
* Found a 2011 10c coin!!
* Chipped one of my front teeth
* Neighbours got a new barky dog
* Reread the second half of the New Testament

So there we have it.  I guess a fairly quiet year in a lot of ways.  We're both hoping 2026 will be better, especially health-wise.

Happy New Year!!!

Sunday.  21st.  Got home from Sydney, had a little bit of leftovers for second dinner.  Then watched part 2 of the GameStop documentary.

Monday.  Slept somewhat better. Back to work though. After two loads of washing and tidying the kitchen of course. Sigh. Did up the finances from the Christmas Party. Ended up with ~$14 leftover to carry forward to next year. Not too bad. Fixed up the rest of our tickets and reports dashboards in the afternoon. Stu cooked up some yellow curry vegetables for dinner which were quite nice. Finished the GameStop documentary. Stressed at how little time I have for everything. The todo list I started in September for the end of the year is only like 1/2-3/4 done. Still heaps of photo stuff I never got anywhere near completing. And now I have a whole heap more photo stuff to do. And I have to spend all my days at work. Sigh.

Tuesday.  Revelation 5:12 "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
Awake from 4ish. Did some music before work. Instead of any housework or weeding. Tried to get a pac file working at work. Made one change that worked but couldn't get another change working, so that was pretty frustrating. Then looked at another cleanup job I want to do. Leftover pork for dinner then watched part 2 on the pirates - Grace O'Malley (we watched part 1 on Francis Drake the other night but don't remember which night). Did some processing of my Canon photos and did some writing up of the past few days.

Wednesday.  Christmas Eve.  Okish sleep. Fixed a couple of scripts that were broken at the last upgrade - they changed Display_Name to DisplayName. Thanks. Not. Probably need to check a few of my other scripts as well. Other than that mostly just tidying up. Made a peppermint slice after work. Possibly added a bit too much water to the icing as it didn't really set. Or maybe I was just too impatient. Probably that. 

Did some Christmas music on the sax. I can get through them without too many mistakes now. Leftover pork and potato bake for dinner. Then we watched Die Hard 2 and the Carols by Candlelight. The Melbourne carols are degenerating a bit these days into the silliness that the Sydney carols have. I haven't watched the Sydney carols in years because it's just too cheesy. And of course all the good songs that you could sing along to get played during the ad breaks.  Played Carols bingo..

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

David Hobson singing The Holy City.. apparently his 13th time..

Uncle Doug Heywood..

Fun times!! We missed Ode to Joy and All I Want for Christmas is You at the beginning though.

Thursday.  Christmas Day. 
Revelation 11:15 "The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever."
The timing of reading that was pretty funny..!
Slept like crap. Spent most of the morning prepping and cooking lunch (even though I did a bunch of prep yesterday afternoon). We had an epic feast of roast turkey, blue cheese potato bake, brussels sprouts with bacon and hazelnuts, sweet potato, sage and onion stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce and garlic bread (not shown).

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

Note to self: don't follow the instructions on the box and put a frozen turkey in a baking dish in a hot oven...

Pretty annoyed about that, we use that baking dish all the time.  #grunt.

Did some Christmas music on the sax and did some dotz. Stu went over to Annie's (I didn't go because Lily was sick and I didn't want to then get sick for my only week off I get at home all year). I didn't even eat that much lunch but I felt full all afternoon and didn't feel like dinner. Dinner was a couple of beers and the last of the mulled wine. Watched Enola Holmes to see Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

Friday.  Slept okish. Went to Coles hoping to get some eggnog but sadly they'd sold out. Did pick up a few other things we needed though. Christmas stuff is not on special yet though.  It was super quiet both on the roads and at Jamo, so that was nice. Came home and tidied the house. Did some rescanning of Mum's slides. In the afternoon was Dotz and Lego, and watched David sailaway.

Leftovers for dinner I think, then Stranger Things 5.5. Tried for an early night. Failed.  Didn't help that I was getting ready for bed when I remembered to go look at some Christmas lights down the road.

Satruday.  Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. With going out for lunch for Tony's birthday in the middle.

I got the cheeseburger - w/ house pickles, American mustard, ketchup and diced spanish onion with salad ($23), only the photo I took never saved so you'll have to take my word for it.  Here's the sweetie instead with his fish and chips with apple slaw.

Neither of us were hungry after lunch so we just had a bit of garlic bread for dinner. Stranger Things 5.6. Managed a slightly early night.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well. Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Also some music.

In the last couple of weeks windoze has changed its definition of sort by date.  It used to sort my in tray of photos to blog by the date taken in combination with the date modified timestamp, so I could view the folder in real chronological order.  Now it sorts by date modified.  Which is super annoying because now I can't view them as I want to blog them.  Funnily enough Chrome still does it the good way, which is dumb that it's different, but also good because otherwise it'd be a pain trying to figure out the correct order to post photos.

Also annoyingly the turd neighbours that had the staffies that killed each other have gotten themselves another barky dog.. it was barking for ages again last night and today although has been quiet most of the afternoon.  Damien's wife three doors down yells at it sometimes to some effect.  But I was getting stressed today that this would be my new normal.  

Watched bits and pieces of the carols again on YouTube while posting this so that was a bit of fun!

Sunday a week and a half ago I gave up trying to do anything off my main todo list and just concentrated on Christmas stuff.  So once the house was clean I felt relaxed enough to make some gingerbread biscuits.  

I dug out the recipe given to us when we used to make gingerbread houses at church.  Then halved it.  This is the full recipe, which I might do one day to make an actual gingerbread house.

So this is the butter, suger and spices mixed up

Then with golden syrup and an egg (remember we're halving things)

I didn't chill the dough cause who has time for that crap.  Yeah dumb idea, it's super soft and sticky when it's warm.  I ended up putting it in the freezer while I was working on other biscuits.

I was a bit dubious about using the back of trays.  I really don't think it makes much difference.  I think having a little flour on the tray would help them not stick though.

The first batch I did for 7 minutes and they were fine.  Others I did for 10 minutes.  Also fine.

I bought this writing icing for the black - to replace licorice when making cakes from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake book.

The white was great.  The green was like a gel rather than icing.  Not great but still mostly worked ok.  The red was terrible - it was quite liquid and went everywhere.

Fun times!

Sunday.  7th.  The sweetie cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner, unfortunately there wasn't much in the way of leftovers! Stranger Things 5.1, set 18 months after the last season but filmed three years later.

Monday.  Slept okish I think (awake a few times hot).

This little spider ran across a chopping board, stopped just long enough for me to take a photo of it, then ran off, never to be seen again.  Googled that crap, apparently it's a scuttling spider of Cycloctenidae (although one Redditor is trying to get it nicknamed mittens spider).  It sure is cute!

More work on the domain controller rules. Managed to break something doing a cutover though. Sigh. I remember being confused by the mess the other week, and looks like I never went back to sorting out the mess, so that app got left out when I was adding the new rules.  Did some email sorting and filing after work. Stu cooked up some veggies for dinner which were quite nice.

Stranger Things 5.2. Did a bit of Christmas music on the recorder because the sax is all too hard. Photo filing in the evening.

Tuesday.  2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.  Be kinda cool if he returned in our lifetime.

Okish sleep. Busy day of not achieving much. Did finish going through the domain controller flows. Leftover pesto pasta and some salad for dinner. Stranger Things 5.3. Finished geotagging holiday photos from the phone (just checking them and fixing them up). Then talked to David for a bit about web hosting. I'm so out of the loop with modern DNS and hosting options these days.

Wednesday.  1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Restless sleep. Went to see nuking doctor, although only saw her briefly and spent most of the time with a registrar. NEIL briefly in the morning then spent the rest of the day fighting with our new DR laptop. How many IT professionals does it take to copy a file? Too (many). And a lot of angst. Still fighting with all the restrictions they put on these things. Stu cooked a delicious tuna bake and brussels sprouts for dinner.

Stranger Things 5.4. Now we need to wait til Christmas for more episodes to drop.

Thursday.  Restless sleep.  Meh day, didn't achieve much. 

Busy drinks which was good.  Someone (or something) has been cutting off the heads of my epic dandelion plant under the lemon tree.  I thought it was the neighbours but that doesn't really make sense.  Why would they come over and cut off flowers that haven't even popped yet?  Maybe it's possums.  The sweetie and I got grumpy at each other over differing expectations about life so that made for an unfun evening.  We did have pizzas and garlic bread.  I started watching Birdman.  Is this like art imitating life or what?  Batman? Birdman?  I knew literally nothing about the moving going into it other than it had Michael Keaton in it.  I had such a thing for him when he was Batman.  I noticed the "one take" shooting pretty early on and looked out for the transitions.

Friday.  1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. 

Okish sleep.  Spent much of the morning reworking our ticket dashboard to fix it up for the new version.  They've removed at least one useful thing (being able to colour code filter titles) but at least now you can choose the columns you want in the dashboard and not have your settings for that table be there.  First work Christmas party at lunch and all afternoon.  There was an epic roast lunch and all the food.  I ate lots so didn't get too silly. 

The sweetie was going to pick us up but a little before he had to leave he had epic dizziness and nausea and actually was sick (three times!!) - he *never* gets sick (almost never).  So Neil/Wello/me caught buses home.  Finished Birdman.  Yeup.  Weird.  

Saturday.  Pretty crap sleep funnily enough.  I think I was awake pretty much the whole time from about 2.  Stu was sick again overnight and nauseus all day.  I had a day of All The Things, mostly getting the house organised. 

I was so excited this week to find a 2011 10c coin!  I've never seen one before!

I may have taken over 50 photos of the cockatoos demolishing our self-seeded plum tree..

Kievs and wedgies for dinner. 

I also made a strawberry "sauce" from all the strawberries Tony picked and froze for us while we were away.  They all turned to mush after being frozen, so I smooshed them through a sieve and added a little sugar.  It worked really well with vanilla ice cream!

Then we watched The Neverending Story.  I don't think I've seen that movie since I was a teenager.  The DVD cost me like a dollar from Vinnies (it was still shrinkwrapped!) but I don't think I'll keep it - it was pretty cheesy!!

Sunday.  Okish sleep. Another day of All The Things. Although I put aside my regular todo list and just focussed on Christmas stuff.

And juicing lemons.

And taking photos of Stumpy.  Look how tanned he is with the combo heat/uv light!

Got enough done that I felt relaxed enough to make up some gingerbread biscuits after lunch!!  Then some music (I found a heap of good Christmas music for the saxophone yesterday so played those all through again today.  They're all a lot higher than your regular C major which is nearly impossible to play for me at the moment (I struggle with E and D, and C and B are right out).

Sunday.  2nd.  All The Leftovers for dinner - some pasta from the club, some veggies from last weekend, and some bits of cut up bread from the club fried in bacon fat (wheee). Stranger Things 2.1.

Monday.  Restless sleep.

Was about to do Monday morning STUFF including cleaning the kitchen and doing some weeding before my washing was ready to hang out, only to find a bit watery mess. Yesterday when I did a water change in Chrissie's tank I went around watering all the plants. I probably put too much into the big plant above the bins, so I stood with a towel waiting for it in case it overflowed. It came about half way up the tray then stopped, so I carried on. This morning there was water all over the top shelf, drips down the wall, drips onto the shelves and rungs below and over all the bins. Fricken great. So then I had clean up the mess. I don't have TIME for this trash. And that reminds me, I overfilled one of the ferns on top of Stumpy's tank and that went everywhere too. Sigh. Being NEIL and fighting with proxies at work. Nine minutes of weeding at lunch. Had to deal with mail servers being spazzes so didn't finish up til nearly dinner time. Sigh. Need. More. TIME!!! Stu cooked a couple of pretty spectacular pasta bakes with pasta leftover from the club event. The puttanesca one was pretty good, the creamy one needed a little more cream (we ran out) but was still tasty (and crispy!).

Stranger Things 2.2 then photo picking and half watching/listening to Half-Life Histories.

Tuesday.  Awake from around midnight for a couple of hours hurray. NEIL/proxies.

It hailed in the morning!

I wasn't in any sweeps this year (they've mostly died post covid) so picked number 14 (Half Yours, based on my birthday) before the race to see what would happen.  And he won!  With the second female jockey winning race.  Although I was a bit disturbed about all the blood, they said it was a "minor cut" on the inside of his cheek, but what from?  The bit? hrmmm

Cooked up a very tasty rump cap and veggies for dinner.

Stranger Things 2.3, photo stuffs.

Wednesday.  5th.  Remember remember.  Slept somewhat ok. I think. It was nice and cold which helped. Although it meant the house was like 13C in the morning. Couldn't be stuffed running around and closing up the vents (again) so endured the cold.

NEIL/proxies (rinse and repeat). One of my fingernails is falling off. Hurray. Leftovers for dinner. Stranger Things 2.4. I can't SEE anymore. For the last few months I've been able to use my regular glasses for the computer but now it's going back to me needing to wear my "computer" glasses. Sigh. Started watching V for Vendetta but only got half way through.

Thursday.  Slept okish I think. NEIL mostly and dealing with whatever crap people came to me with. Did spend a bit of time planning how to get off some legacy load balancers. Good drinks.

The only correct way to eat Cheezels!!!

Pizzas, Stranger Things 2.5.

Chris didn't have any "special sauce" so the one on the bottom had a sauce of mayo and tomato paste.  We put pickles and mince on it to make a "cheeseburger" pizza.

Friday.  

Tried to have a catchup day - tried to get my inbox under control. Still a long way to go. TV dinner for dinner (the sweetie was at the club) then watched The China Syndrome (influenced by all the those Half-Life Histories videos!). It was freaky that this movie came out just a few days before the Three Mile Island accident!

Saturday.  Awake from 4:28 when a massive bang woke me up. Nothing much on the radar or lightning maps. Was hoping it was just a "bolt out of the blue" but no, crazy lightning all around. Turned off my computer and disconnected a few things, then didn't get back to sleep. Hurray. Mostly house stuff in the morning and some slide rescanning. David and Kellie came over later in the afternoon and we locked in Christmas plans with the mother type person. Had a drink or two and a nice catchup.  Early dinner of kievs, then David and Kellie went off to see Ricky Martin, then the sweetie and I watched Back to the Future and V for Vendetta.

Sunday.  Couldn't get to sleep til like 1am on account of epic restless legs. Sigh. Took David and Kellie out for brunch as a belated birthday brunch for David so that was quite nice to hang out.

Had a quick walk down to the lake after.

These turds where zooming up and down the lake.  Pretty sure petrol motor boats are not allowed on Lake Ginninderra.  hrmmmm.

Then we went to Vinnies at Mitchell then the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction.

Came home and David fixed the last Mirabella light hurray! (took him a while - in the end he did what the sweetie was going to do - take out all the "good" lights and keep turning on/off until the last one went into pairing mode).  Then D&K went home, the sweetie went food shopping, and I did some music.  And just like that the weekend is over.. hrmmm..

Sunday.  26th.  Cooked up some leftover lamb? pork? and a heap of veggies for dinner.

Futurama 13.6.  Then I started watching You are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment on Netflix.

Monday.  Slept like crap. Had an early night but took forever to get to sleep, restless, then awake from like 4. Busy day achieving not much.

Cooked up two pasta bakes with pasta leftover from the weekend - a red one and a white one.

Futurama 13.7. Photo picking and filing. Watched the second episode of You are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, which had little to do with the twins and more on deforestation and climate change and other such fun problems caused by the food industry.

Still grunty about an interaction I had today. This dude, who I've literally never talked to before, messages me and says "Hey mechanic, I'm trying to go somewhere but my car doesn't work, what's wrong?" Ok not in those words, but that exact scenario. No self introduction, nothing about what he was doing, where he was doing it, any errors, or ANYTHING that would actually, you know, give me anything useful to go on. So I ignored the message for a while because I couldn't deal. Eventually he messaged again and starts complaining about it holding up some release or something, and I went through what I went through just there. Never heard back from him. Clearly it was a massive problem. Either that or he found someone nicer to annoy.

Tuesday.  Slept somewhat better maybe.

It was 0.0 degrees outside according to BOM. 12.4 inside according to my Ali Express thermometer. Ran the heater for a while today because it was COLD. I was cranky all day. Being NEIL is super distracting and I have too much to do and too distracted to do it. Then after work had to cook dinner (a bunch of mince and a heap of leftover pasta). Futurama 13.8. Then photo picking while half watching/listening to Half-Life Histories (a rabbit hole I went down after seeing a video on Therac-25 incidents). I blame Dave2 :)

Wednesday.  Woke up at like 4:00 and never got back to sleep. Sigh. Busy distracted day again, and achieving nothing. Well almost nothing. I did get one thing setup for the new proxies. Hanging out for Neil to get back so I can concentrate on other stuff.

Last of the leftover pork for dinner. Futurama 13.9. Another lame episode.  Went for a little walk with the sweetie after dinner.

I'm going to have to ask Damien if I can steal a few heads of these things when they're done

Thursday.  NEIL and proxy stuff mostly.  Had a farewell lunch for Imaar at Ikko.  I had slow cooked beef, it was very nice.

Got a message from Neil in the afternoon that he won't be back til the 17th!! arrgghhh!!  Good drinks though.  Tried the new orange flavoured Hard Rated - alcoholic Fanta!

Made pizzas with a heap of the leftover cheese from the club function last weekend.

Futurama 13.10 (end of season 13 .. hurray that's over and done with .. for now .. )

Friday.  Restless sleep.  NEIL and proxy stuff mostly.  

Got this cool eyeball from the oncologist centre

Kievs for dinner

Then we watched The Last Emperor.  I really didn't know the story at all.  It was kind of sad (and kinda weird it being in English).  I read afterwards what happened to his "main" wife, it was pretty awful.

Saturday.  Restless sleep.

Got ready and headed out to the club (Stu for a committee meeting, me to do more priming, which I forgot to document).  

Came home and picked our first strawberries

Only had like an hour at home before it was time to think about dinner.  I'd found a *heap* of leftovers in the club fridge, so I "dealt with it".  A heap more cheese and pasta, and some sliced up bread rolls.  Given it really wasn't going to last, I cooked up a heap of it.  Dinner of champions!

Then we watched Back to the Future.  Forty years after the events of the "present" time, seventy years after the events of the 1955 time.  Cool stuff.  Oh we ran the cooler when we got home today too.  So in the space of like a week and a half we've run the cooler, the heater, and the cooler again.  Silly really.

Sunday.  Restless sleep.  Panicking slightly over my todo list and losing half my weekend.  Spent a couple of hours in the morning doing gardening and housework and getting grunty about it.  Didn't achieve as much as I wanted.  And there goes the weekend...

After enjoying the first three Diamond Dotz kits so much, I was waiting for specials on the cockatoo set (one of the three by Carlie Edwards).  Eventually HobbySew had the cockatoo for $40, reduced from $62.50.  Of course the savings on the set got eaten up in the postage.

The canvas

This set has 35 colours, 13446 dotz.  And 10 snap-lock baggies to store them.  Dumb.

Finished!  Another glorious picture!!

I started this on 2 August (exactly six months after the galah) and finished it on 19 October (exactly six months after the galah).. I didn't even plan that, that was pure coincidence! Funny stuff!

Slight close up 

The waratahs

And the rubbish

Sunday.  5th.  Cooked up a cauliflower and potato bake, brussels sprouts and bacon and some zucchini to go with some leftover lamb for dinner.

DS9 7.22 then some of The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem. Oh, I forgot to mention that Aunty Rhonda called this arvo which was nice, haven't talked to her in forever.

Monday.  I keep getting the same APOD pic in my RSS feed. Went to the site and it hadn't been updated since Wednesday and had this note: "Due to the lapse in federal government funding, NASA is not updating this website. We sincerely regret this inconvenience." Sad times.

Flowerporn!!!

Quiet day. Actually had some time to do some hobbies which was nice. Feel like I don't have enough time on weekends for any fun stuff. So today was kinda nice. Leftovers for dinner. DS9 7.23 then finished watching The Antisocial Network.

Tuesday.  Philippians 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father... Hymn 178!!

Trash sleep - took ages to get to sleep (restless legs), restless sleep (hot and sweaty every five minutes), awake early (needing to pee). Sigh. Achieved basically nothing all morning. In the afternoon got absorbed in proxy stuff and almost forgot to go get nuked. Got home a bit late and asked the sweetie what he wanted for dinner. hrmm.

Then DS9 7.24.

Wednesday.  Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! .. Sounds like another song..

Slept somewhat better but awake super early. Another day of being busy but not achieving much. Nuking session 5, they were ready for me as soon as I got there. Leftovers for dinner then the finale of Deep Space Nine. Pretty decent finale actually. Except for Worf looking around and not seeing Jadzia in the montage, how dumb is that!? And no Rom or Leeta?? Why not?? Got back to my computer and it had rebooted. hmmm.  Logged in, and it crashed - black screen of death. Held my breath as I rebooted it again. Possibly windoze updates caused it to crash in the first place. I was going to make some other comments about my day but I forget now, because my computer had crashed and it took so long to get back in that I'd forgotten stuff. Sigh.

Oh, met one of the new neighbours today. I heard a car and person out the front so go out to open the door. Dude has left a package and is leaving. I say that he can knock if he likes and he said, oh I was just taking a photo then I was going knock. BS. You were already walking away. Whatever. So take the package inside. It's not for us. It's for the neighbours. So I go out again and try and stop the dude and told him he needs to go down the back for next door, and he's like, isn't this all the one house. Um. No. And he wouldn't take it, he was like, can you just take it. Fricken useless Fedex driver. They're getting as bad as America. Anyways, so dude's truck was there so I went down and gave it to him and said hi.  

Got depressed about closing off browser tabs I had open for the Europe trip I never went on. Sigh.

Thursday.  Slept like crap - awake for half the night hot and sweaty and restless. Fighting with All The Stoopid all day. Nuking session 6. They're too efficient, I never get time to do any jigsaw while I wait - pretty much every time I've been (except for one) they grab me as soon as I've changed! Watched this POV of Rise of the Resistance at lunch which was pretty cool. Definitely not as epic as doing it for reals though! 

Pizzas for dinner, then we watched a documenatry on Deep Space Nine called What We Left Behind which was pretty cool.  

Friday.  Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.. More stuff I need to remember.

More restless sleep. Another day of All The Crap from All The People wanting All The Things. Nuking day 7. Nearly half way done. Kievs for dinner then Wednesday 2.1. Then I watched Lilo and Stitch, the original animated version. Which I haven't seen in at least 20 years. I don't remember if I saw this at the movies or later. But it was before 2006.

Saturday.  Not great sleep again. Busy busy morning. Spent a good chunk of the afternoon trying to sort Mum's slides into chronological order based on frame information. Sadly Mum wasn't great about noting dates on her slides. Some I can't even pick a year - could be 1967 or 1968. There's a few places where frame numbers don't line up with dates. Meanwhile Stu's back pain is subsiding, replaced with weird hearing issues and vertigo and now nausea. Hurrah.  Cooked a pasta bake for dinner with some potatoes and zucchini then watched Wednesday 2.2.

Sunday.  Slept okish. We haven't run the heater in a few days. So had a look at the controller. Sure enough it's continually flashing on and off. So I have a feeling that it's actually the heater playing up, as this is the behaviour that we've seen when it hasn't been run for a while. Day of trying to keep on top of crap and fit some hobbies in there somewhere.

And Windoze has forgotten all my folder settings.  AGAIN.  #hate

Sunday.  21st.  Stu cooked a cabbage bake and I threw some zucchini in and we had that with some leftover roast beef. Definitely not a great roast - tough (even though it was rare to medium rare) and a line of gristle through it. DS9 7.10 which was pretty good. Think I'm getting a cold sore. Not surprising, and actually surprised I haven't gotten one sooner with my immune system being shot and all.

Monday.  Awake half the night stressing about some thing I had to delete at work and how I was going to do it. When I fully woke up I realised that thing didn't even exist and I'd probably just dreamt it. Sigh. Busy day being NEIL and doing All The Things for All The People. Leftovers for dinner then DS9 7.11 then Europe photo labelling (food photos!)

It hailed in the afternoon (very small hail)

It knocked lots of petals off the cherry tree..

Tuesday.  Felt like I was in the one position all night and that every time I woke up to consider rolling over I just stayed there. hrmm. Busy day being NEIL and doing All The Things for All The People. Someone at 16:40 asked me if I liked Kingsleys. Now I want Kingsleys!!! hrmmmmmmm. Leftovers for dinner, DS9 7.12 which was pretty silly, Europe food photo labelling.

#poppyporn starts... NOW!!!

Lunch was pepperoni and olive pizza scrolls..

Wednesday.  Another disjointed but busy day. "Your failure to plan does not constitute my emergency". Except when it does and you have to stay back doing stuff for peeps.  DS9 7.13. Finished Europe food photo labelling (finally!!)

Lunch was little cheese bread toasties, cream cheese, and either tomato, olive, cheese, pepperoni or roast garlic

Dinner was Luv-a-duck cheats Peking duck.  I love this so much!

Thursday.  Busy day doing All The Things for All The People. Pizzas for dinner, then DS9 7.14 (it would have been nice to go to Matt and Michelle's bucks/hens, but, people. Sigh). Thought I'd put on the Lego Batman Movie cause it's disappearing off Netflix soon and I couldn't remember if I'd ever seen it. Turns out I had, back in 2017, and apparently I own a copy. Not that I could find it when I looked..  So much for getting anything else done though, that movie requires 100% attention or you'll miss stuff!!

Friday.  Took an RDO!!  House stuff in the morning then labelling Europe photos. In the afternoon we went out to the club and lit the fire and had a few drinks and some tv dinners and it was all very pleasant. At 19:30 we were like, now what, and invited Ian down for some whisky which was lovely too.

#fresiaporn starts... NOW!!!

I got this bottle of shiraz from Ben and Sarah for my 50th and we shared it in front of the fire.  It was really nice!

Saturday.  Actually slept relatively well, I thought, although I wasn't really transfunctionating in the morning (not sure I was making much sense talking the mother type person).

I was going to make scrambled eggs.. but couldn't bring myself to break them when they all plopped into the pan intact..

Finally got around to doing a second coat of primer on some of the cabinetry. It's been sitting in a half done state for years.  This is an in-progress shot.

Came home in the afternoon. Stu was in agony from his back from after lunch until we got some more powerful painkillers into him when we got home. Most unpleasant for all involved. Mainly him. Finished labelling Europe hotel photos. Pizza for dinner (comfort food for the sweetie!), DS9 7.15, then bed.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well. A day of All The Things. Was a bit confused when I plugged my phone in to back it up that iTunes wanted to upgrade to iOS 26. WTF? I'm only on 18. Turns out they're aligning with the year. Which is dumb anyway because it's 2025 not 2026. Got to half way through htmlifying Europe hotel photos.

Sunday.  31st.  Baked a cake! Two cakes actually. A coconut cake done properly (in the oven!) and a plain vanilla butter cake from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book. Stu didn't want a numbered cake, but I decided I needed to practise cooking cakes (I never do it) so that one day I can make numbered cakes. And everything else. Used the top element only, which apparently doesn't work very well for baking cakes. The coconut cake was hot and crispy on top, but still soggy on the bottom (done in a silicone mould). The butter cake fared better because it was in a metal tin so the heat transferred better. It was a good experiment for testing out the oven, but next time I think I'll go back to my regular mode of rear element with fan (or at least top element with fan). I also may have made a batch of vanilla cream icing. With some very very very very old icing mixture. It had turned into little balls of hard icing sugar which needed persuading to go through the sifter. Dinner was pizzas, because, the sweetie. And birthday calories don't count right? DS9 6.17.

Monday.  1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

All. The. Crap. kind of a day. Leftovers for dinner I think. DS9 6.18.

Tuesday.  Rinse and repeat of Monday. Had a bit of a tootle on the saxophone. Cooked up a batch of brussels sprouts and bacon and a cauliflower and pasta bake for dinner. DS9 6.19.

Wednesday.  Rinse and repeat of Monday and Tuesday. Including saxophone. And leftovers of above. DS9 6.20 which was a lot of fun.

Thursday.  Did some work on prod DC migration stuff. No time for tootling though because I wanted to label some photos. Pizzas and garlic bread for dinner. DS9 6.21 and more labelling.

Friday.  Bits and pieces day. Tried to replicate a problem with our virtual environment but couldn't do it. I did manage to copy paste 12 groups with the APIs in a few minutes that would have taken hours to do manually. Did my Saturday morning routine after work so my Saturday would be more freed up. Kievs for dinner, DS9 6.22, Tokyo Trial #3.

Saturday.  Somewhat restless sleep. Even though I did a lot of my Saturday routine last night, I still ended up doing a whole bunch of housework today. Other bits and pieces too. Luv-a-duck, zucchini and leftover pasta bake for dinner. Then watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which I'd never seen before.

This turd has been taught to eat the house by its turd parents

Sunday.  Slept okish I think. Another day of just trying to Get Things Done.