All up a pretty decent year.  Nothing too life shattering.  Quite busy as always.

We didn't manage to get overseas this year.  Stu's work was being a bit special and didn't want to give him one of the weeks off in November.  We could have pushed a trip back a week, but then would have started missing Christmas parties, so we decided to postpone.  The only flying holiday we did was to Queensland to visit Chay and David which was a lovely relaxing long weekend as always.  We did get down the coast a couple of times.  Firstly in March, where we also went down to Bermagui, and over the June long weekend as well.  I only went to Sydney once this year - in May to inspect my flat, go to a body corporate meeting, and stay with mum.  We also did a weekend in Junee to visit the little brother.  And did a two night trip to the snow in September, after a failed proxy upgrade, and I was so flustered I forgot the charging cable for the GPS, *and* couldn't find the android.

At work I started the year busy but "comfortable" - in that I knew what I was doing most of the time.  We changed proxy vendors in May - and traded one set of problems for another.  At least the performance of the new ones is generally a lot better (I was still sad when we finally turned the old ones off for good).  At the end of June our team was restructured out of existence, and I lost most of the work I'd been doing to another team (I could have gone with the work to the new team, but decided I'd rather pick up new work with a more local team). Neil was away for the first month after the restructure, which mean I was literally the only person doing half the work of our old team.  So that was a super stressful month.  Then I moved desks away from Neil which made me feel even more isolated.  I spent several months in the new team really having no idea what I was doing.  But towards the end of the year I've been fairly well immersed in some new firewalls and am starting to get the hang of them.  Just before Christmas I organised a BBQ for fifty people which was pretty cool.

Healthwise I've been ok, but starting to notice the whole getting old thing.  It seemed I blogged quite a lot about insomnia.  Not able to get to sleep for no good reason, or waking up and not being able to get back to sleep.  I had a one-day cold in April, and a one-month cold in October.  I was at home for a full week in October, and was coughing for another three weeks after that :(  I started monitoring my blood pressure again, and noticed it was high *all the time*.  I tried a low-salt diet for a time, and it did come down, but it was pretty much impossible to maintain.  Go out for dinner?  High sodium.  Go out for lunch?  High sodium.  Pretty much anything in a jar or can?  High sodium.  Cheese?  High sodium.  I started taking my lunches into work several days a week which helped for lunches.  And was a bit more careful about dinners too, as well as buying low-sodium breakfast cereals.  But I was getting sick of the same boring stuff all the time, and let's face it, I can't live in a world without cheese, so I went on medication.  Still working on a dosage that will suit, although what I'm on now I think is causing some skin issues, so will see the doctor again in the new year to see if it's related, and maybe try a different medication.  I also realised in March that my bottom two wisdom teeth have finally fully erupted.  And my eyesight is getting worse.  Next year will definitely be an eye/teeth/skin/blood pressure sorting kind of a year.

We spent a lot of time with our "whisky" friends earlier in the year - dinners and movies etc - but less later in the year.  We only saw Nat and Andrew once this year in January which is a bit sad-making.  We had games nights at Mishi's in March, June and November, with a special party for her in December.  Met up with @phonakins when she was in town for Eat, Drink, Blog, and @Chrispycon and Anne when they were back from Hong Kong briefly.  Doc came over in September for some MarioKart and Singstar, but the TV died in the middle of a race, and we still haven't gotten it fixed because we're slackers.  Had dinner at the Dumpling Inn with Damien and Amanda in September.  Various people came to stay including Jo and Marc, the little brother several times, Chrissie a few times, and Mum in January and December.  Chris applied for a job and had moved to Canberra (in stumbling distance of us) within the space of a month, so that's pretty cool.  We've spent quite a bit of time with Kit and Ben over the year too which is fun.  It's nice having cool neighbours.  And finally we've still been enjoying our visits to "the club"  and going to the social occasions.  The pool exploded there earlier in the year, and we helped build the new one.  We also provided a Christmas in July feast there, and did pork again for the proper Christmas party.  Any excuse for me to do a big roast pork with crackling ;)

In the fishy world, I've been making better attempts to maintain the health of the fish and the fish tanks, although not until a bunch of disasters (and still had disasters after).  The original AR-620T had some small angels in it, but they had died over summer.  The last one had been in there a couple of days, and we only pulled it out just before putting in the last remaining duboisi and sucking catfish in there.  They died within two days which upset me rather a lot.  Tank of Death living up to its name :(  So the big four foot remained empty for a while.  My AR-620T also remained empty for a while.  I gave it a good cleaning out, and left it running with just plants for a couple of months to try and stabilise it.  Eventually I got five danios for it, which have survived, and later four baby angels which are also still alive.  That tank is actually looking really good at the moment, and I'm keeping up the regular water changes in it (it helps that with all the heat the potplants need a lot of water, so fish tank water goes onto the plants).  Stu gave his four foot a cleaning out and later in the year, and has set it up with really bright lights, and a soil-based substrate to make a planted tank.  He has some native fish in there too and it's looking pretty good.  The two foot tank has massive issues with this black slime algae, and I think it's pretty toxic.  The two nine-year-old black neon tetras and five rummy-nose tetras are still going ok in there.  I had five new danios in there which I've since taken downstairs to avoid the worst of the heat.  And then I bought five cories for that tank, hoping that maybe they'd eat some of the algae.  They started dying off pretty much straight away. :(  I moved the last two into the angel tank.  One continued to deteriorate and die, but the other one recovered and is still going strong in there.  The light in the two foot also just died the other day, so I'm going to completely clean that tank out and start again.  Downstairs the ten-year-old krib is still going, but she's looking pretty old.  I put five danios from upstairs in with her for the summer.  When Chris came down from Sydney she had nowhere to put all her platies, so I filled a spare tank for them.  I put four of them, and the big sucking catfish, in with the krib and the danios and the rest are still in a small tank awaiting their new home to be ready.  Stu also has two small tanks on his desk.  One has two endler guppies and a cherry shrimp, and the other has four teeny shrimp he just got the other day.  So currently seven tanks with animals in them at the moment!

I got two Lego sets this year - both from the Lego Movie.  I got the Double Decker Couch and SPACESHIP!!  I also made mosaics of the Ingress Enlightened logo in two different sizes (32x32 and 48x48)

I continue to do jigsaws.  I seem to have a never-ending supply of them.  Once they're done I usually give them away.  I still want to have some sort of jigsaw exchange going in Canberra, but I'm allergic to organising people, so good luck with that.  I finished a paint-by-numbers set of a fox earlier in the year, and bought a much larger one which took me months to do, but looks really good.  At the club I finished a longstitch that I'd inherited off Nana *years* ago.  It looks pretty good too but I've not done anything with it, it's just sitting downstairs.  I spent December evenings filing digital photos from the past year into folders by subject.  With a clean slate, it might now be time to start tweaking the folder filing system a bit.  Really the goal is to make it easy to find stuff, and obvious what things are in case I go and cark it.  Although if I go and cark it, noone will care about *any* of my photos .. or mum and dad's .. Speaking of which, I scanned three of mum's photo albums, and so far nearly a thousand of dad's photos this year.  All of my own scanned photos (from my own cameras) are all now digitised, labelled and renamed to include the date, roll and frame number.  I haven't filed those into folders yet though.

Weatherwise, the pool didn't fully freeze over much, but did form some beautiful ice flakes a couple of times.  It snowed once in September.  We've already had some quite hot days this summer, and I'm somewhat worried about the fish over January in this El Niño year.  I'll be doing a bit of fish tank rearranging to try and minimise casualties.

New food/recipies I tried this year included honey mustard chicken, made with actual ingredients, not out of a jar (except the mustard); duck breast fillets which are expensive but yummy; chicken kievs made from scratch, which were nice enough, but lacking the *salt* of the pre-prepared stuff (why does everything that tastes good have to have so much salt and fat???); a failed attempt at a lemon meringue pie, which was still tasty, just very goopy; various recipes trying to use up a kilo of white beans, the best being a cassoulet (salt and fat anyone?); a chocolate cake to celebrate Neil working at the same place for forty years - I haven't baked a cake in years!; a couple of things using wombok out of our garden (well, a planter box, to keep it out of reach of snails); and gingerbread cookies.

Didn't eat out as much this year.  We went to Kinh Do a couple of times.  Tried the degustation menu at Mezzalira which was pretty awesome.  Discovered Italian thick white hot chocolate in a hug mug at Max Brenner.  Finally got back to the Dumpling Inn after it had been closed for like a year.  Had dinner with Stu's dad at The District in Crace which was pretty good.  We tried the Wig & Pen at its new premesis, but it lacked the atmosphere of the old place.  Also tried its offshoot - Bentspoke which was nice enough.

Shows:
* Of Mice and Men

Movies:
* The Imitation Game
* The Theory of Everything
* Citizenfour
* x+y
* Cinderella
* Jurassic World
* Spectre
* Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

Books (I really stopped reading because I pretty much never catch the bus anymore, and tend to just play on my phone before bed):
* Conqueror of Darkness by Phyllis Garlick
* Letters to Karen by Charlie W. Shedd
* Pollyanna by Elanor H. Porter
* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Other stuff:
* Started the new year at the club but weren't very inspired by the whole evening and struggled to stay awake til midnight
* Started doing the FridayQ again for a while. Stopped when I got stumped and never took it back up again :( 
* Spent the summer watching Dad's documentaries while doing jigsaws and the like
* Finally fixed up our wedding photo book and had it reprinted
* Watched all three seasons of Veronica Mars
* Went to Costco for the first time
* Wandered around Mount Stromlo with the sweetie
* Almost quit Candy Crush in February, but took it up again.  Am currently within seven levels of the end (until they move the goalposts)
* Accidentally siphoned a huge amount of water out of the pool. Twice.
* Japanese culture night with Stu's Japanese class, which he has since stopped going to
* Came second in a work trivia night
* Went to the Balloon Fiesta on Canberra Day
* Got Netflix
* Scotch Malt Whisky Society tastings in March and in June
* Watched all three seasons of Rake
* Got Israel trip photos from three years ago online
* Finished scanning all my analogue photos
* Lost our really cool number plate and had to get a new set
* Watched all of Sherlock
* Got frustrated that you can't buy quality denim anymore for ladies' jeans
* Been with the sweetie for ten years!!
* Saw Nick Davies (investigative journalist who exposed the News of the World phone hacking scandal) at the Library
* Went to Whisky Live
* Chris and Zac came to visit in July. Went to the curry festival and went ice skating in Garema Place
* Cleaned out the "winter" hobby room in July, although didn't actually use the room
* Whisky night at work in July
* Cooked a Christmas in July feast the club - including four kilos of pork and two kilos of turkey, which all got eaten
* Watched all the Harry Potter movies
* Played through all the working maps I have for Unreal Tournament
* Celebrated turning 21 again, and recreated a photo taken on my 21st birthday
* Won a work trivia night. Busy planning the next one.
* Started a new blog for my Australian holidays, but haven't added much to it yet
* Saw "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson at the library
* Freecycled a bit of stuff, but still a lot more to go
* The watch I got for graduation died, and Mister Minit in Belconnon could not fix it, even after replacing the movement three times. Still pissed about it.
* Stu bought a battery-operated whipper snipper and a hedge trimmer and spent many evenings attacking the weeds
* Upgraded my phone from 6.1.4 to 9.1. There's a couple of things I like about the new OS (most especially the logical numbering of the photo directories when you attach the phone to your computer, photo sorting in general, as well as being able to manage attachments in SMSes), but mostly things are uglier and clunkier and it makes my phone chug, especially after unlocking the screen.
* Went to an Ingress First Saturday event
* Saw First Dog on the Moon at the Library
* Did a first aid course. Apparently now I'm qualified.
* Went Go-Karting for a vendor event
* Wore a dress to a wedding
* Hosted family Christmas lunch here
* Hosted a Christmas day lunch here
* Used the holiday break to do some thorough cleaning of the garage and fridge

So there goes 2015.  Have a happy and safe 2016!

Friday was the first of our work Christmas parties.  It was at the Lighthouse, but it was a little pricey - $35 for a two course meal (platter of entrees and a choice of three dishes for mains).  The problem with that being we have lunches at the Lighthouse all the time, and for $35 I could normally get a large meal *and* a few beers.  Also they were super super slow bringing food out - we didn't get entrees til 1pm, the fish mains at 1:30pm, and the steak mains at 2pm.  But it was a lovely day and there was plenty of time to have a bit of bubbly and they compensated us with a free drink voucher each so that was nice of them.  Had a great afternoon.

In the evening we watched Mockingjay Part 1.

Saturday we got ready and headed out to the club for the "official" opening of the pool.

Then we (I) cooked the roast pork (in a brand new oven!!) for a Christmas dinner.  The oven had never been used before so that was quite fun (although it was a bit sad to ruin its pristine condition!).  It works a lot better than the old one too and is much much much easier to light the oven and the cooktops - no more fiddling with a lighter and hoping you don't take the hairs off when you finally manage to light the oven.  The crackling turned out really well and I think the whole lot got demolished.  I also made up some apple sauce from scratch, and some gravy (which I'd forgotten to bring - so I was glad that we found a packet there). Other people brought other food so it was quite the feast.

Just before we were about to serve dinner, we got a call from Kit - she was getting water all through her yard.  I realised I'd left the hose disconnected from when I'd been watering the potplants that morning and it must have dropped down and started siphoning off the pool.  Kit jumped the back fence and saved the situation.  It was a little horrifying to think what could have happened if she hadn't noticed - another fifteen hours before we had planned to be home and it could have drained a *lot* of water.  Honestly, bestest neighbour *ever*!

After dinner was the compulsory fun.  Aka the Kris Kringle where you can open something new or steal something that's already been opened.  I'd completely forgotten about it til that morning, and then we were running late, so we didn't have time to do anything more imaginative that a couple of bottles of wine.  I'd used wine before and it's never popular, so was a bit reluctant to do it again, but didn't have time for anything else.  And guess which two things were the *very last* things to be picked up?  Yup, my two bottles of wine.  And to add insult to injury, the people that got them were all like "oh yay, wine".  I lost it.  I actually went up to both of them and said I'd buy them back off them, but they were all "oh, it's ok, it'll get drunk".  Yay.  I was feeling pretty miserable, and the sweetie had been feeling physically unwell all night, so we just went home.

Today was a cleaning and organising type day.

We also went over to Potty's cause he wanted to get rid of a bit of fridge stuff and some cleaning products that couldn't go in the truck.  I ended up with five full Coles bags of stuff, and a huge box full of cleaning products.  hrmmmm!!  I had to fire up the little fridge in the garage, and Tetris what I could into the freezer.  But got it all in.

For dinner I picked some of the wombok that's been growing like crazy, and cooked up some duck we'd gotten off potty.  

Saw some pretty cool storm clouds from a big storm out past Captains Flat

Also cooked up a batch of honey mustard chicken for lunches/dinners during the week.

And have been trying to get on top of my photos.

And I might have put the Christmas tree this afternoon.  Last year I had the idea to do a "Frozen" inspired theme - so I've only put on blue and silver stuff, with blue and white lights.  It's very blue!

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

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

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

And we're still eating those damned beans.

Twenty One. Again.

Today I turned twenty one again. Supposedly now I should know the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Or some such nonsense.

Last weekend when the little brother was here, he asked me about the photos he'd just sent me - photos he'd just had scanned of my 21st birthday. I did actually have the originals of the prints, which I'd scanned a couple of years ago. But it was still fun, and I said it was actually pretty scary how many of the things in the photo I still had. Then he said I should recreate the photo. I laughed, but then had a think about it, and for the most part decided it wouldn't be too hard to do.

So over the past few days I've collected together all that remains of my 21st birthday presents, as well as some of the other things in my room at the time.

Here they are!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. "Of course," he muttered. "That would have been too easy. Anakin, where are you?"
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can, What can you touch? The wall
3. Before you started this survey, what were you doing? Eating breakfast, and reading Dave2's version of this
4. What is the last thing you watched on TV? Sherlock
5. Without looking, guess what time it is 8:15am
6. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time? 8:25am
7. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? The water spray in the fish tank
8. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? Last night, coming home from EffanC's
9. Did you dream last night? Probably
10. Do you remember your dreams? Sometimes
11. When did you last laugh? Last night
12. Do you remember why / at what? Chatting with friends
13. What is on the walls of the room you are in? Paint
14. Seen anything weird lately? A girl who walks down three flights of stairs to use the girls bathroom on our floor
15. What do you think of this quiz? Not too bad so far
16. What is the last film you saw? Guardians of the Galaxy
17. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? Germany
18. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy? An aeroplane
19. Tell me something about you that most people don't know. Um
20. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Outlaw stoopid people
21. Do you like to dance? Sure
22. Would you ever consider living abroad? Yes
23. Does your name make any interesting anagrams? Probably
24. Who made the last incoming call on your phone? My neighbour.  She was a bit drunk.  OK a lot drunk.
25. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? A form to change my name with an organisation
26. Last time you swam in a pool? Last Friday night
27. Type of music you like most? Classical soundtracks (eg anything by John Williams).  Or rock.
28. Type of music you dislike most? Hip hop/rap crap
29. Are you listening to music right now? No
30. What color is your bedroom carpet? Beige with brown flecks
31. If you could change something about your home, without worry about expense or mess, what would you do? Seal in the laundry and put a toilet in downstairs
32. What was the last thing you bought? Lunch yesterday
33. Have you ever ridden on a motorbike? Yes - when I was about seven, at our neighbour's place
34. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? Yes
35. Do you have a garden? Yes
36. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Yes.  Actually I'll qualify that - I'm a bit fuzzy on the second verse (which never gets sung) and don't know the other verses (which aren't official anyway)
37. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? What day is it?
38. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? I dunno.  Maybe David Bowie
39. Who sent the last text message you received? My neighbour
40. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Gosh I dunno.  Bunnings?  Harvey Norman?  Ikea?
41. What time is bed time? 11pm lights out
42. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? No
43. How many tattoos do you have? None
44. If you don't have any, have you ever thought of getting one? No
45. What did you do for your last birthday? Drank lots of whiskey then had dinner at Bella Vista
46. Do you carry a donor card? Yes
47. Who was the last person you ate dinner with? The sweetie and EffanC
48. Is the glass half empty or half full? Depends on the direction it's going.  If you're drinking a glass of something, then at the half way point it's half empty.  If you're filling a glass, then at the half way point it's half full.
49. What's the farthest-away place you've been? Scotland
50. When's the last time you ate a homegrown tomato? Month or two ago - some of Kit's
51. Have you ever won a trophy? Yes - for swimming when we were kids
52. Are you a good cook? Not really.  Stu is much better, but he rarely ever cooks :(
53. Do you know how to pump your own gas? Yes.  Who wouldn't??
54. If you could meet any one person (from history or currently alive), who would it be? Jesus
55. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school? Yes
56. Do you touch-type? Yes
57. What's under your bed? Dust
58. Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe
59. Think fast, what do you like right now? Our heater
60. Where were you on Valentine's day? Gungahlin for supplies, then out to the club
61. What time do you get up? Usually between 6:45 and 7am
62. What was the name of your first pet? Bluey
63. Who is the second to last person to call you? EffanC
64. Is there anything going on this weekend? Tidying the house.  Trying to get rid of stuff
65. How are you feeling right now? Not too bad
66. What do you think about the most? Um. Work maybe.  
67. What time do you get up in the morning?
68. If you had A Big Win in the Lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Dunno.  I'd probably be questioning the authenticity of it on account of I don't buy lottery tickets.
69. Who would you tell first? Stu obviously
70. What is the last movie that you saw at the cinema? Cinderella
71. Do you sing in the shower? Not really
72. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? 
73. What do you do most when you are bored? Read rss feeds
74. What do you do for a living? Solve people's problems
75. Do you love your job? Some of it
76. What did you want to be when you grew up? Pilot
77. If you could have any job, what would you want to do/be? Pilot.  Actually probably not.  Flying for myself would be fun, but I couldn't handle the stress of flying other people.  Getting paid to travel the world would be good.
78. Which came first the chicken or the egg? One of them
79. How many keys on your key ring? I dunno.  Lemme go look.  Six.
80. Where would you retire to? Probably here
81. What kind of car do you drive? Ford Laser
82. What are your best physical features? My hair
83. What are your best characteristics? Attention to detail
84. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation where would you go? Europe? America? Antarctica? Cruise around the Mediterranean? St Maarten?
85. What kind of books do you like to read? Science fiction, adventure
86. Where would you want to retire to? 
87. What is your favorite time of the day? Sunset
88. Where did you grow up? Sydney
89. How far away from your birthplace do you live now? 285km
90. What are you reading now? I'm in between books
91. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning
92. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Yes
93. Can you close your eyes and raise your eyebrows? Yes
94. Do you have pets? We have fish
95. How many rings before you answer the phone? Um, as long as it takes to answer?
96. What is your best childhood memory? Maybe our trip to America in 1983
97. What are some of the different jobs that you have had in your life? Pie packer, shop assistant, ISP call centre, desktop support, systems administrator
98. Any new and exciting things that you would like to share? Um, not off the top of my head
99. What is most important in life? um, friends/family/God
100. What Inspires You? Good music

Tonight we went and saw x+y.

I'd never even heard of it.  In fact I didn't even know what we were seeing until we got to the theatre.

I thought it was lovely - a bit funny, awkward, very well done, and a bit emotional.  Quite enjoyed it.

Afterwards we had supper at Max Brennar's and ate entirely too much.

The rest of today was just housework and photo sorting and stuff.

Three years ago today we went to Zippori and Nazareth.

Wednesday I met up with the sweetie and we went to the Wig&Pen at its new premesis.  I have to say I was a little disappointed - it certainly doesn't have any of the character of the old pub.

Thursday was pretty meh.

Friday I went offline and spent about five hours doing doco/paperwork, and then about an hour doing all the changes I'd just written up.  Finished the day with a little fun doing clean up and diagrams.

Today was just bumming around the house sorting out stuff.  The sweetie made up these zucchini/cheese fritters which were quite nice.

Is it bed time now?

So 2014. We survived.

Probably the most significant event of the year was that my Dad died in February. Mum handled it fairly well, as she'd gotten used to the idea over the course of nearly a year. And in the end it was a relief of sorts, knowing that he was out of his misery and in a much better place. I continued doing trips to Sydney to help clear out the garage of all dad's stuff. We took many car loads to metal recycling and made a couple of hundred dollars out of it. We also freecycled quite a lot of stuff. In October mum got accepted into a retirement village and the next two months became a whirlwind of trips to Sydney, a trip to Hong Kong and Taipei, a trivia night that I had to prepare and run, a work ball I had to prepare for as well as life in general to be lived. I only just survived til December 16, then was able to collapse in a heap. It was pretty sad saying goodbye to the family home of forty two years.

So I actually had three big holidays this year. The first mum and I decided to go on when it was pretty obvious dad wasn't going to last much longer. That was for two weeks in Turkey. That was a pretty awesome trip and we saw heaps of amazing stuff. Then I did another trip with my mum in September. That was an Outback Spirit tour from Cairns to Brisbane via Mt Isa and Longreach. It was a good trip, but hideously expensive - as expensive as the Turkey trip, but didn't include international airfares, fancy hotels every night or restaurant quality meals for every meal. At the end of that trip we spent nearly a week with Chay and David which was a lovely chance to chillax after being go go go for two weeks. And the last big trip was to Hong Kong and Taipei for two weeks. I was in the middle of chaos at the time, so Stu did all the planning for it. That was a pretty good trip too, although we did struggle at times to find the best balance of going and seeing things and doing nothing and relaxing. Other than that, we went with DC to his coast house in January, to Bermagui in March, and also stayed at the coast briefly to go to Scott and Kerry's combined 40th.

Had an ok year at work. Spent a good amount of time "cleaning" - decommissioning old services and doing massive cleanups of firewall rules. Also got chucked in the deep end on a couple of projects that required extra assistance, so they were a bit stressful at times.

Healthwise I was pretty good this year. I got a cold during the Turkey trip (a pretty nasty flu thing had been going around the whole tour group so I got off pretty lightly). And it seems I got a cold probably at the movies the other night as yesterday I started sniffling. Other than that I've been pretty healthy.

We've spent heaps of time with our "whiskey" friends this year which has been awesome. But we've not seen nearly enough of Nat and Andrew as I'd have liked. We had a few games nights at Mishi's in January, August and December, with lunch at Damien's in December. My Sydney visits meant lunches (Peking duck!!!) with @StuartCRyan which was awesome, but sadly that won't be happening anymore. We saw Josh and Ally a couple of times, and Gaelian and Stef as well. A Sydney trip for George's 40th. A fair bit of drinking with the neighbours and playing with the animals. Various people came to stay over the year including the little brother, Chris and Zac, and Marc and Jo a couple of times. We're continuing to enjoy our visits to "the club" and went to many of the social events on during the year.

Pretty quiet year for the fish. All the zebra danios in the angel tank have finally died. I got five rummy nosed tetras for the two foot, and they're lovely little fish and drew out the black neon tetras which otherwise just spent their life hiding up the back of the tank. A couple of the duboisis died, which threw off the dominance balance, so one of them became dominant and picked off the rest of them one by one, so he's the only one left in that tank now with a sucking cat fish. Most of the kribs and multis downstairs are gone now too. Really would like to get rid of a lot of our fishtanks and crap ..

I didn't buy any Lego this year, but throughout January I got to play with all of Jake's Lego - around eighty sets of it! Building and dismantling and checking for missing pieces, and documenting. Sooo much fun! Also dismantled the Star Destroyer which had been out for four years!

Continued doing a lot of jigsaws at home during the summer, and some at work, although not anymore there which is a shame. I finally finished the 24000 piece "Life" jigsaw, but still haven't gotten around to taking it to work to document it all laid out. Not much else in the way of hobbies, other than part of a paint-by-numbers which I got for last break but still haven't finished.

January had a run of very hot days which required lots of icing the fish tanks to keep them cool. But the rest of the year was surprisingly mild. Winter had some very cold nights, but the pool only partly froze over a couple of times. We've had some very hot days too, but again generally it's been fairly mild. In fact this whole Christmas break has been *lovely*. Because of all the travel and chaos, the pool was a mess until just before Christmas, but because it hasn't been super hot since then, we haven't gone in yet.

Tried a surprising number of new recipes during the year - almost one a month by the look of it.
* two different lasagnas - both awesome
* black forest slice - needs some modification
* Boeuf Bourguignon inspired by Julie and Julia
* Coq au vin
* various vegetables
* breakfast raclette - trying to perfect a recipe
* white chocolate caramel slice
* duck breast
* harissa roast chicken
* zucchini and cheese fritters

We ate out a bit. I didn't think all that often, but still a fair amount. Our favourites are still Dumpling Inn and Pulp Kitchen. Bella Vista as well, although only once this year (maybe twice?). Went to Grazing a couple of times and it was awesome both times. Went to Ace Sushi a couple of times when doing shopping at the markets, but it's pretty average. Revisted Asian Cafe, Wig and Pen, Iori. New this year included:
* Grazing - awesome
* Ellacure - not fussed
* Edgar's - ok
* Bellucci's - pretty good
* Mocan and Green Grout - interesting
* A Baker - good
* Kinh Do - good
* Beijing House - meh

At work, other than the mall, tried out Altitude Cafe (meh), got thoroughly pissed off at Samiuz, went to Sanurs for an after party dinner, 2 Yummy a couple of times for after drinks dinners, and Outback Jacks a couple of times for team lunches/dinners (quite impressed with their feasts). Probably lots of other places too undocumented.

In Sydney our regular for Peking Duck was Super Bowl, and Tako Tuesdays were at Sushi and Grill on York Street for takoyaki - not fresh, but better than other places I'd tried, and it was just downstairs from work.

Also found a couple of speakeasys. The Baxter Inn in Sydney which is awesome. Went there by myself first up, then later with Luc and again later with Neil. Went to Molly with the sweetie as well.

Movies:
* The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
* The Lego Movie (x2)
* Lucy
* The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Books:
* Deadly Décisions, by Kathy Reichs
* The Earthsea Quartet, by Ursula LaGuin
* The Delinquents, by Criena Rohan
* Fatal Voyage, by Kathy Reichs
* Animal Farm, by George Orwell
* *batteries not included, by Wayland Drew
* Palomino, by Danielle Steel
* Star Wars Episode I, by Terry Brooks
* Dewey, by Vicki Myron
* A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
* Thunder Dog, by Michael Hingson
* Star Wars Episode II, by R.A. Salvatore

Other Stuff:
* Multicultural Festival aka meat on a stick day!
* Hall Markets for first time
* Mapping Our World exhibition at the National Library
* Balloon Fiesta in March
* Inherited Dad's camera
* Inspected the Sentinel apartments in Belconnen
* Inspected my flat in Sydney. Got depressed over deadbeat tenants who don't take care of other people's property
* Won another work trivia night. Ran the next one
* Airport open day - flying visit as could only spend an hour there
* Went to the War Memorial but was disappointed the WWI exhibition was closed for renovations
* Whiskey Live - 44 whiskeys oh my!
* Stu's Japanese classes cultural nights twice
* Poultry show at epic
* Had to buy a new lens because I'd smashed my other one in Turkey. Bought the same one
* Drama with cooling problems with my car. Found a new mechanic who I think might have fixed it
* Had to buy a new dishwasher as the last one burnt out
* Fired up Stu's old Android and started playing Ingress. Got a sim for it seven weeks later but the damage to my iPhone battery was done.
* Took a random day off and cleaned half the garage
* Zone 3 with work
* Bought Stu a new car on a very good finance deal - cheaper than our mortgage!
* BBQs at @CLBradley's. On one of them I borrowed Frozen and have been slightly obsessed with it ever since
* Chucked out years of receipts
* Birthday dinner of Chinese takeaway in Sydney
* Whiskey tasting night on my birthday, Bella vista for dinner
* Skiing in August
* Chickens and duckies next door (and lizards and frogs and cats and dogs)
* Total lunar eclipse
* Pulled off a semi-convincing Queen Elsa at our work Halloween Ball
* Mum tried to electrocute herself but thankfully failed
* Carols service at Como Church

So that's 2014 done! I know some of my readers have had a tough year (especially my brother). Hope things improve in 2015.

Happy new year!

So I've had a great Christmas break so far.  Mostly.

Christmas day was a fairly lazy start after staying up a little too late with Kit on Christmas Eve (I forced them to watch the carols hehe and then we half watched Frozen, oops).  Didn't get to Potty's til a bit later than I wanted to, which meant the pork didn't get on til a bit late, which meant it was going to be a late lunch.  But we brought heaps of nibbles so ordinarily that would have been fine.  But just as we were sitting down to eat lunch everything happened at once.  While serving ourselves lunch Annie and the family turned up (it was 2pm and they were meant to arrive after lunch, but lunch was late hrmm), and miss V took that as her cue to open her presents.  Next year I'm not putting labels on presents.  That'll learn em.  Anyway, so instead of a nice relaxing Christmas lunch it was all super rushed and stressful.  Grunt.  The rest of the afternoon was a bit better though.

George really didn't like his Christmas collar and was so depressed he almost got run over because he wouldn't get out of the way when we came home.

Friday morning I got stuck into my holiday break.  Friday and Saturday I had really productive days, getting stuff done around the house, as well as some sorting out of *stuff* and sorting my photos and lots of sorting of Dad's photos.  

Annie got me this for Christmas - super cute, goes with the little Neuschwanstein Castle she got me last year.

Cherries at Damien's

Sunday morning was more of dad's photo sorting, then we went over to Damien's for a Thermomix feast lunch.  Not a demo as such (he wasn't trying to sell us one), just a fun little banquet of dishes from it.

First he made up some pizza dough.

Then he made a very nice dip of cream cheese, garlic, green onions and parsely.

Then a leek and potato soup

The leftovers of the soup made the base for a sauce that went with this steamed chicken and vegetables

And here's that pizza

And finally a sorbet to finish

So quite a feast in the end!

Afterwards we played a round of the Logo Game, which I won, then came home and did more photo sorting.

Monday and today was primarily photo sorting and a bit of house stuff.  And shaking my head over dad's "system" of backups.  So much waste.

Here's the "before" pile.  The offsite backups, the archives, the working copies, backups of mum's photos, unsorted cds, copies of other people's photos, and an entire large spindle of unfiled duplicates.

And this is everything I'm chucking out.  Over four hundred cds :(  Such a waste.  They would never even have been used either.  He would have just burnt them, filed them, and that was the end of that.  And I swear about fifty of those cds were from their Gulf Savannah trip in 2007.  Sooo many copies of everything.  Sigh.

Last night we went to EffanC's for dinner, and after dinner we watched Labyrinth on the big screen (aka their lounge room wall).  It was super awesome.

So I've gotten a lot done this break, although not nearly as much as I wanted to.  There's still so many things on the todo list.  Life is too short.  Holidays are too short.  Sigh.

I left home today for the last time ever.  The family home.  Mum had lived there for forty two years.  I lived there for twenty six and a half years.

Sadness.

Although was too busy to feel much sadness during the process of removal, but did have a sad walk through at the end.

The end of an era.  The family home that noone else has lived in.  Now sold and to be rented out.

Yah.

But David and I did amuse ourselves by poking fun at mum .. "you've never moved have you?" .. because really she hadn't - not with a whole house of furniture and *stuff*.  Little things like rubbish bags and cleaning equipment she kept wanting to pack and send away and we're like, no you need to save those because you *will* need them.  heh.

Final council cleanup of everything left over

She got the dining table and chairs restored and reupholstered to match the new lounge.  It actually looks really good.

This is the sofa bed part of the new lounge

The china cabinet we built the other night, now filled up

So got mum moved in at the other end, and stayed til about 3pm unpacking boxes with Aunty Di.  Then I came home.  I never want to leave the house again.

Then I got depressed again at deadbeat ebayers who *still* haven't made any sort of contact with me.  I hate people.

I did finish decorating the Christmas tree though which made me feel a bit better.  It sparkles.