So I flexed off Friday.  With no power and no internet there were no distractions, so had a super productive morning tidying the house, and I got behind the tv cabinet and tidied up and pulled out a bunch of stuff no longer in use and finally FINALLY put the PS3, Wii and new dvd player into the cabinet, so that's all much more betterer.

Then I picked up Neil and we went to Ryan McNaught's Brick Man exhibition.  As you do.

Then I came home (via work and a bit of supply shopping) and tidied up the rack which had degenerated into a massive mess, and pulled out my computer desk and tidied and cleaned behind that.

David and Kat came to stay and we did a jigsaw and got pizza for dinner (two nights in a row hrmmm).

So a super productive Friday.

Saturday wasn't as productive but did get a bit of stuff done.  Went out to the club in the afternoon and helped Fiona prep and serve dinner for sixty people.  These dinners are getting bit out of control...

Sunday morning was mostly food prep and a bit of tidying.  Had Nat and Andrew come over for our annual hanami lunch which was nice.  And then played Mario Kart all afternoon. 

Went down to Kit's in the evening, took a bit of cheese that turned out to be dinner (big lunch, not hungry), but got talked into staying later and later.  Whoops.

Monday was still trying to keep up with All The Things.  Got some of it done but not all.  Later in the arvo we went over to EffanC's for drinks and dinner, and R&F came too which was nice.  Collapsed into bed for an early night.

James and George will be in town this Christmas so thought I'd finally finish reading a book I borrowed off James.

About fifteen years ago.

!

The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories was pretty cool.  Some interesting and good stories, some a little "huh?"  One had a similar premise to the movie Passengers, where a girl is woken up during an interstellar flight.  One about a population of earth so huge that not enough people could work, and people tried any way they could to get work.  Full of editing mistakes/typos though - the most I've ever seen in a book.  Enjoyable before-bed reading.

Had a very frustrating afternoon yesterday.  Literally spent more time arguing with someone about doing doco than it ultimately took them to do it.  Whyyy????  Why do people not listen to me when I say doing things properly the first time saves more time in the long run?  *sigh*

But we watched First Contact last night which was a bit of fun.

So Saturday I did actually have a pretty good day.  The morning was mostly house worky type stuff, and the afternoon was mostly photo sorting type stuff, So Much Photo Sorting.  The idea being to group the majority of my "friends" photos together so that I can just burn dvds for people all at once.  I got through about two different sets of friends.  Partly. 

Just before 17:00 the little brother type person arrived and I was like, right, let's go shopping (the sweetie had only just gotten home and didn't feel like shopping).  So did food shopping for the evening and the week.  So much quicker with David than Stu haha!

In the evening went over to R&F's with the extended N-Gang for some lovely curries.  Was quite a pleasant evening and late, but not stoopidly late.

Sunday the sweetie went to work *again*, so David and I spent the entire day doing a 1500 piece jigsaw which was completely unproductive but pretty cool.  We finished it over dinner (of roast chicken).  I considered going to take fountain photos during the day but by the time I checked its running times it was too late.  Oh well.  Kit and Pete also came up for a while over dinner.

Last night the sweetie and I both slept terribly.  Even though we went to bed early, him not getting to sleep and me waking up and staying awake for hours took its toll.  Stu couldn't concentrate and ended up going home after lunch.  I would have gone too but had too many things to do, so struggled through the afternoon and took a bus home. 

Tonight ended up being a washing, beer and pizza kind of a night.  Way too early in the week for that sort of thing, but I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on photo labelling.  So at 19:45 I declare it bed time.

Also I was playing Candy Crush on the bus this arvo and hit the "five extra moves" button by accident.  There went another 10 of my gold, reducing me to 1 gold left.  I think I've used the gold I've collected on Candy Crush about twice deliberately, the rest of the gold has been wasted by phone upgrades or just ridiculousness like that.  I rage quit it and don't know that I'll go back any time soon.

Insane week at work this week.  Task after task after task, and no time at all for project work.  Then 3pm Friday I had like five people all wanting things from me AT ONCE which I hate.  Still, it calmed down after an hour and a half or so..

I also finished scanning mum's photos of our trip to the US in 2004.  I was reading my blog of the trip and looking at all my photos as I did so, which was a lot of fun.  Man, dad drove me completely mental on that trip.  Very stressful.  

This week we've also been getting through more Anthony Bourdain as well as Star Trek VI on Thursday night and Generations last night.

Hoping to have some catchup time today, while Stu goes to work, on account of his work being crazy busy as well...

In other news.. green bin!!! green bin!!! green bin!!! green bin!!! green bin!!!  It came a week ago and got collected for the first time this week.  So exciting!!!

Another show I had to squeeze in when I had free time was ABC's Back in Time for Dinner (which I mentioned earlier: I especially liked the 80s and 90s episodes for the fun memories but was also pretty cool to see all the stuff they dug up for furnishing and decorating their house for the earlier decades).  But because I'm obsessive that way, I tried to find their house on Google maps.  I had a pretty good idea it was in the St George area, based on their visits to Carss Park, Brighton Le Sands/La Perouse and various places in Mortdale. 

This is all I really had to go on to find their house:

And I could make some guesses as to which way their house was pointed based on sun direction.  Took me most of an episode to find it.  What was funny is that when you look at it on street view there's a crowd of people outside it!

Other fun things in the show - Tupperware!  We had sooo much of this Tupperware.  In fact I still have most of it.  I was thinking there might be a market for it, so it's boxed up with thoughts of selling it on ebay...

And the Pigs and Chickens tiles featured!

Quite enjoyed the show.

So in the past week and a half..

Harry Potter movies watched: 4 - Philosopher's Stone Sunday, Chamber of Secrets Tuesday, Prisoner of Azkaban Thursday/Friday, Goblet of Fire Sunday

Other movies watched: 1 - The Great Gatsby Friday a week and a half ago - a bit over the top.

Pub lunches with EffanC: 2 - At The Lake George Hotel Saturday week ago, which would have been nice except the piece of pork belly, which I asked specifically if it came with crackling, had SOGGY SKIN, not CRACKLING.  Stu's piece was a bit better so had some of his.  And the Lighty yesterday, in the sun which was nice.

TV series finished: 2 - Finally finished Enterprise.  The first two seasons were very episodic, while the second two seasons had longer story arcs.  And tonight finished Back in Time for Dinner.  I especially liked the 80s and 90s episodes for the fun memories but was also pretty cool to see all the stuff they dug up for furnishing and decorating their house for the earlier decades.

TV series continued: 2 - The Layover and David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities

Dinner parties hosted: 1 - had some N-gang people over for beef cheeks on Saturday night.  Cooked 1.8kg but only ended up with one container of leftovers - doh!

Exhibitions attended: 0 - Cath and I tried to see the Cartier exhibition yesterday but being the last day it was a bit crazy.  The queue stretched all the way around the gallery and it wasn't moving.  Decided to screw that.  Wandered around the Aboriginal art section and the James Turrell Skyspace and through the sculpture garden instead.

Nights woke up at 2am and never got back to sleep: 3 - Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights.  Except for maybe about half an hour between 5am and 6am.  

Days spent time crying in a stair well: 2 - Thursday and Friday.

Weeknights spent drinking instead of doing anything useful: At least 3

Tears shed: Many

Things I can do about the situation: 1 - get in at 6am every day.  Anything else would make me look like a selfish bitch.

People that like me: about 4 - see aforementioned comment about being a selfish bitch.

Mornings I spend at least half an hour on house work type stuff, and only if I'm lucky do I have time to scan photos.  The evenings are dinner and watching tv with the sweetie and then I only get an hour or so before knock off time at 8:30 when I can do a jigsaw or some other hobby for an hour before collapsing into bed.  Tonight's hour got taken up with scanning photos that I didn't do this morning and backing up my phone/camera/computer.  Didn't even get time to label any East Asia photos.  

On top of that I'm feeling super anxious about impending changes at work.  It may suit some people's brains, but not my asperger's brain.

Last night was the last night of our work drinks in its current location.  To be moved upstairs next month.

To celebrate the end of an era I invited everyone I had a phone number for, and *heaps* of people came - the place was packed!  It was a pretty epic night, and we nearly succeeded in the mission to drink the bar dry so things wouldn't need to be moved.  Everyone that came had a great night.  

Where were we?

Friday night went over to Chrissie's for a roast chicken dinner and lemon delicious for dessert which was lovely.  I can't believe Nathan is four months old already.. I've barely seen him!  I'm such a slack friend...

Afterwards we were invited over to R&F's for supper which was nice as well.

Scott brought these.  Can't remember what they were called, but they had little syringes of frangelico you injected into them.

Saturday I hopped in the car and headed for Sydney.  Made it in time for lunch at the New Golden Emperor Chinese Restaurant in Kirrawee for Mum's birthday lunch.  It was pretty average.  You know you're in a western Chinese restaurant when you don't even get chopsticks.  Still, the $8.30 lunch special which included chicken and corn soup was pretty good value and the serving sizes were huge.

The other Karen and I got the $9.30 satay chicken and satay vegetables and mixed the two to get a better mix of meat/vegetables.  This is just the chicken dish.

After lunch we went back to Mum's and Aunty Di and Uncle Graham (not my uncle/aunty) and June came over as well and we had a couple of games of Five Crowns which was a bit of fun.  

Everyone left around 5pm and we were like "now what?".  So we went to Vivid.  As you do :)  I'll put pics for that in a separate post.  It was pretty crowded and the sweetie would have hated every second of it, but it was good to go be a tourist in Sydney again and get photos of pretty lights.

Sunday morning we went to church, where there were cakes for Mum and Elizabeth's birthdays.

Then headed an hour and a quarter across the other side of Sydney to Uncle Ken and Jeanine's place for lunch to celebrate Ken's birthday.  Various members of Ken and Jeanine's extended families were there - over twenty people outside for lunch!  

All the news reports and locals (except Ken) were complaining about how freezing it was, but it was an absolutely glorious day and NOT cold ;)

Then we went back to Mum's and I came home.

Monday I was pretty depressed because I didn't get any down/home time over the weekend.  It's only Wednesday but this week has felt *very* long :(