Ok not literally.  But I did need to put a jumper on today.  And I feel like I may need an extra doona tonight.  Yipe.

Where were we?

Wednesday James was in town for work so we caught up at Bella Vista for dinner.

Friday night we watched a bit of tv, then I put up our Christmas tree.

Saturday was pretty much all just house stuff and food shopping.  Didn't have time to do any of my jigsaw but did fully dismantle the Life jigsaw back into baggies (we only dismantled it enough to get into bags on assembly day). 

In the evening Anita came over and she talked all night.  Did a super yummy pork belly for dinner and got plenty of leftovers.  (I did burn the top slightly when grilling it at the end).

Oh did I mention I had insomnia *again* on Friday night?  This time I woke up at 3:30am and never got back to sleep.  After getting up a couple of times to eat something because I was hungry, I finally gave up around 6am.  So I had a relatively early night Saturday night because I was exhausted.

Sunday was a bit of house stuff and a fair bit of jigsaw.  I also went cherry picking.  This is the biggest crop of cherries I've ever gotten off our tree.  They don't taste super great, and the dark purple juice will stain your whole mouth purple, but hey, phytochemicals!

In the evening we went over to EffanC's for cheese for dinner (yumm ;) ) and to watch The Room.  Yes, that one.  Ok I'd never heard of it, but everyone said it was supposed to be like one of the worst films ever made.  They certainly weren't wrong.  It was terrible.  It was so terrible it was *hilarious*.  Fun times :)

Friday night we finished the last episode of Voyager where they finally get home.  The last season had some pretty good episodes.  But now I'm looking forward to a break in *having* to watch an episode every night.  It just takes up so much time.  Then we watched The Tuxedo.  Because hey, Jason Isaacs, if only for a little bit.  And Jackie Chan.  Completely ridiculous fluff but a bit of fun.

Went to bed relatively early Friday night, but then woke up at about 1:30am.  And did not get back to sleep.  Til like 5:30am.  And then a couple of hours of broken sleep.  I was a complete zombie on Saturday.  I didn't have the energy to do *anything*.  Certainly no house work. I think I did about an hour or so of jigsaw and that was it.

After lunch we headed out to the club.  I helped decorate the hall while others prepped dinner.  Then we had a swim which was nice.  Fiona did a huge Christmas feast which was pretty epic.  I even managed to stay awake into the evening heh.  Came home before midnight.

Slept a lot better Saturday night (although only for about six hours).  So Sunday was bits and pieces of housework, jigsaw and food shopping.  Cooked pizzas for dinner and watched an episode of The Good Place, and then Sisters.  I'd said "something fun" for a movie to watch, and that's what we got.  hrmmmmmm! :)

Last night was an even better nights sleep so that was good.  I've finished scanning the last four albums mum brought down, with only their wedding album to go.  But it's very big and all the photos are glued in, so won't be able to scan it on the flatbed, so thinking of other ways to digitise it. Probably have it outside and just take digital photos of it.

Saturday morning I had to go into work for upgrades.  It all went well but took *forever* waiting for things.  So I didn't get home til like 1:30pm or something.  Serena was there, having just gotten back from ObstaSplash with Kit.  Took her home after a while, then went to Casey Supabarn to do our food shopping.  We accidentally bought a $70 bottle of sparkling shiraz, because either someone had mislabelled it, or someone had moved it, but we thought we would be paying $20 for it.  I was *pissed* when I saw the receipt when we got home.  And then I also noticed we'd been charged eight times for six tins of tuna.  The dude had reversed one of them, but it still meant we paid for seven tins of tuna when we only got six.  Won't be shopping there again any time soon.

So got home, and made a caramel slice.  And then it was 6pm.  Time to head over to EffanC's with aforementioned super expensive sparkling shiraz and caramel slice.  R&F were there too so it was quite a pleasant evening.  

But half my weekend was gone and I hadn't had any "home" time.

So Sunday we didn't leave the house.  I did a bit of housework and computer stuff and jigsaw.  Didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked, but better than nothing.  On Sunday afternoon I watched the original Beauty and the Beast, while finishing up part I of the Memorable Moments jigsaw.  In the evening I watched another unopened dvd - Dirty Dancing - which I bought from Big W for $5 - in January 2007!  Whoops.  I also watched First Flight: Secrets of the Dreamliner, about Qantas' purchase of their first 787 Dreamliner.  Very cool :)

So last Tuesday was a big Kingsley's lunch followed by me taking photos of people watching horses run around in a circle followed by a bunch of us heading back to Lachie's for darts, jigsaw (ok that was just me) and imitation Jenga (I didn't lose!)

Friday night we caught up with Kit and Pete for a while which was nice.

Saturday was pretty quiet.  Just housework and getting things done in the morning, and mostly jigsaw in the afternoon.  For dinner we went to the Dumpling Inn (which has *finally* reopened after being closed for like six months for "renovations" but we could barely notice any difference) with Chris and Mike and Zac.  We got there pretty early which meant we didn't have to wait all night for food which was good (and the place didn't fill up either, people must not realise it's reopened).

Sunday was also quiet, with housework type stuff interspersed with jigsaw.  In the evening we watched Beauty and the Beast - the live action one.  I quite enjoyed it, but not too convinced by Emma Watson as Belle, it felt like I was just watching Hermione.

And then back to it.  I've got my Sadie hat firmly on at the moment which generally makes me pretty happy.  Just puttering through work at my own pace and cleaning up mess.

Friday night we went over to Serena's for a bbq.  Ben and Sarah and Anita came over as well so that was a nice evening.

Saturday was alterating between jigsaw and housework and Getting Things Done.  Later in the afternoon we went over to EffanC's with Scott and that was all very nice.  Stu finally decided we should open the 1972 Grange Hermitage that he'd had forever, inherited off his BIL.  We could tell by looking at it that the cork had died a long time ago and wouldn't be drinkable.  We were right.  Sad times.  F cooked a beef and vegetable roll for dinner which was all very nice, and then we watched Natural Born Killers.  And I'm like W.T.F. the entire way through it.  hrmmm!

Sunday was more jigsaw, fitting other things in as well.  Did some food shopping at Crace in the afternoon.  It's actually quite pleasant to be able to park within 20m of the front entrance, and not have to deal with that nonsense that is coin-release trolleys.  And there's no crowds.  And they have plenty of interesting stuff too, so we may go there more often.  In the evening we watched Black Hat.  It was an enjoyable enough movie (especially for all the Hong Kong been-theres) but it was too high on the "yeah right" scale to make it any kind of believable.  

Tonight I was having my usual Monday night stress of too much to do and not enough time to do it.  Seriously, by the time I do all the things I *have* to do, I have about an hour to an hour and a half per evening to do the things I *want* to do.  I spend my week *hanging* for the weekends when I can actually get more than an hour to do anything fun.

Sigh.

Been pretty quiet lately.

Last weekend was super quiet - we only left the house to do some food shopping on Sunday.  But even though I didn't get a super huge amount of stuff done, at least I had a mental break, which I relished and felt the better for.

This week has been somewhat busy at work, but a couple of bouts of insomnia made things challenging.  Tuesday night I just couldn't get to sleep and so was a zombie on Wednesday.  Wednesday night I got to sleep around 9:30 but then woke up at at 1:15 and stayed awake for two or three hours. *sigh*

Also made these the other night:  Jamie Oliver's Asian fish cakes.  They were pretty should.  Should try them again some time.

Tonight it's 8:30pm and I totally feel ready for bed.

Hence I'm sad we don't get one...

Friday night we were going to go to Chrissie's for dinner cause Aunty Di and Uncle Graham were down.  But Chris was unwell, and AD and UG had gone home, so that got cancelled.

Instead a bunch of us went out to the Capital Brewery at Fyshwick for Simon's 40th, which was a great venue, pretty casual (altho no cash at the bar - only cards) and it was very pleasant evening.  I didn't end up buying any food, as there kept being fries, and when I saw the size of the Brod-meals I decided not to bloat myself by eating too much!  Thanks to the sweetie and Jim for lifts there/back.

Saturday was pretty much just houseworky type stuff, and a bit of food shopping.  In the afternoon Serena invited us over for an impromptu barbeque which was very nice, with Kit and Pete and Ben and Sarah and Anita also coming. 

Today was more houseworky stuff.

Oh and chickens.  And ducks.

!

Saw a three chickens hatch, missed a duckling and two other chickens.  Super epic awesome. :)

Bit of catching up here, and this isn't even everything heh

Tried out Gozleme King in the mall in June.  It was quite nice, although the spinach leaves a bit of an after taste on the top of my mouth that I don't like that much.  Later tried peri peri chicken which was nice enough too.  But would be nice if they had a "dine in" option as they go through a *lot* of cardboard boxes.

Got these heirloom tomatoes at the markets in July.  Not bad, although they do tend to dry out in the tub they're in at the markets because people don't buy them fast enough.

I used those tomatoes to make a tomato bake.  Roast the tomatoes for like an hour..

Top with basil and mozarella cheese

Bake for another 5-10 minutes or so.  So good.

Purple brussels sprouts we also got at the markets in July.  Don't think they were quite as nice as the green ones.  This is mixed with bacon, before being roasted.

Just a lamb roast I did in July

This was a beef cheeks dinner I did in July based on this recipe from Not Quite Nigella.

It doesn't look like much, but it sure was tasty!

Friday night the sweetie went off to a swim night, but I stayed at home and settled in and watched The Right Stuff.

Saturday morning we headed into town and had brunch at Gus's Place.  This was the first time I'd been since they reoopened.  It was pretty busy, and in fact the wait staff were clearing our tables practically before we'd finished eating.  I had eggs benedict, which was quite nice, altho the fibre or hair I found at the bottom was a bit of a put-off.

Then we picked up Stu's trousers which had been altered.  Then off to Bunnings to get another grout scraping blade.  Then to the markets for food shopping.  Then to Jem Aquatics so Stu could get some fish to cycle his new little tank.

By which time it's already early afternoon.  Didn't get too much useful done in the afternoon.

In the evening we went to EffanC's for dinner of lasagna which was very nice.  We watched Team America: World Police.  What.  The.  !!   Then we half watched The Princess Bride while chatting.  Unfortunately that meant for a *very* late night :(

This morning was just cleaning and doing food prep for lunch - our first hanami lunch of the year.  Chris and Mike and Zac came over for teriyaki chicken wings, tuna sushi that I made, and okonomiyaki.  It seemed to be well enjoyed.

In the afternoon I was so tired I couldn't sit still because my legs were so restless, so I actually had an afternoon siesta, which I almost never do.  It did help, but it left me feeling a little unsettled this evening.  I cooked some salmon for dinner and we watched Voyager (start of season six) and Survivor.

And there goes another weekend :/

I lost some danios in the two foot a while back, leaving only some rummy nose tetras.  Except they're scardey-cat fish and will hide if there's no other fish around, not even coming out for food.  I wasn't even sure how many I had, as I never saw more than two at a time.

So on the weekend I got some more danios, and it seems that I still have four out of five rummy nose tetras.  Because the danios swim all over the tank the tetras realise that it must be safe to come out.

Silly fish.

I also got a bristlenose for that tank and it's already doing a great job of cleaning the algae.

Stu got some more rainbow fish for his tank, and he did a big cleanout today, so it looks all sparkly.