So the last couple of days have been busy with more bits and pieces.

Mum went home Tuesday morning, and spent the rest of the day and also Wednesday morning doing "finance" type stuff - downloading various statements, sorting receipts (cross checking bank statements, chucking out the boring ones), that sort of thing.

Went out to feed various cats, then out for lunch, then did our food shopping for the next week.

Got home and Kit asked if we could help her taken Petal to the vet (her car is out of action), so did that, and had a drink at Bentspoke while we waited.  Like Wig and Pen it has interesting beers, and would be good to drop in every so often to try different ones.

This morning I've just been blogging the rest of my photos that need blogging.

Still have a lot more stuff I need to do this holiday break, and only four days left to do it ....

McDonalds introduced something new recently - Loaded Fries

OMFG these things are so good!!!

But OMFG the fat and salt content.  *This* is why I have a problem with weight and high blood pressure. *sigh*

A Schnitz outlet opened up earlier in the year.  We avoided it for the first few weeks on account of crazy crowds.  But one day I saw it with not much queue so went and tried it.

I decided to try their very basic chicken schnitzel to start with.  It wasn't too bad.  Maybe a little bland.  And definitely expensive ($9.90).

A few months later when the stars aligned and there wasn't much queue, I tried another one - this time their parmagana chicken schnitzel.  This was even more expensive ($13.90), and messy.  Just look at the mess!  It was also soggy.  I don't think parmagana works on a roll.

The biggest problem with Schnitz (other than it's very high prices for a food court lunch) is that noone knows how to GET THE F@!# OUT OF THE WAY!  Seriously people, once you've ordered, move up to the other end of the counter where you pick up the burger!  The number of times in that few months I simply kept walking past because I couldn't tell if people were actually in the queue, or had ordered and were waiting for pickup.. Even that second time I went, there were a couple in front of me that had ordered but kept hanging around on the fricken *wrong side*.  Idiots!

So yeah lots of idiots, high prices, and so far uninspiring food have put me off the place.  It does still seem popular with other people though, so maybe it'll survive.

Christmas eve we got to come home a little early and pretty much just chillaxed - most of the hard work of cleaning the house having been done the weekend before.  In the evening Kit and later Ben came up and we watched Life of Brian, and Holy Grail, and the very end of the carols after Kit went home cause she's allergic to carols.  We'd missed the Hallelujah chorus, so Ben and I found Christmas carols on YouTube to sing along to hehe.

Christmas day I vacuumed a heap of algae to waste - I felt bad about doing this again this summer, but I suppose Adelaide will thank me (and I needn't have worried - Canberra got something like 16mm of rain yesterday which gave Canberra a thorough soaking).

Then it was a bit of food preparation.

Chris and Zac came up first, then mum arrived, and we had roast pork and epic potato bake and veggies and junk food and bubbly.  It was all quite lovely.

A little while later Annie and the family turned up and did some presents stuff for the kids and had dessert - lemon meringue pie that Chris made, and pavlova that Annie made.

In the afternoon we had a swim, and in the evening we watched Die Hard 2.

Quite a lovely day!

Wednesday night we did a big food shop.  And I got some stuff for Friday's BBQ.

Thursday Kit came up for drinks and pizza, and then Chrissie came up with a bag of fish that she'd been carting around for a couple of days.  So I filled a small tank and dumped the fish in that.  The next morning I moved four of the platies and the catfish in with the krib.

Friday morning it was out to Hawker to pick up 160 sausages - this year a full half of them were the chili ones that everyone loves (except me heh).  Also to the mall to pick up bread and salad stuff.  Thought we had *heaps* of money, so spent it on things like Tim Tams and ended up using up the entire budget.  So that worked out well.

And then it was organising transport for all the food and drinks.  So yeah organised and ran a BBQ for fifty people.  It all went really smoothly and I think everyone had a good time.  There were some drinks leftover, a bunch of the chili sausages (which I sent down the coast with Lachie), and some salad stuff (which I brought home but will need to be a bit careful about as it was sitting in the sun (in cold water) for a while).

Yesterday in the morning we went to the markets to pick up some deli meats and other goodies, then back home to make up about four salads - a caesar salad, a potato salad, a waldorf salad and a prosciutto and mango salad.  Annie and Stu came over first and the girls had a swim, then Potty and Kerry as well and we all ate lots of food.  Then there was more swimming.  And generally chillaxing.  A relatively stress-free family Christmas (it helped that I'd lowered my expectations *a lot* this year).  In the evening we watched Star Trek VI and the Carols in the Domain.

Also last night I moved the five danios from the two foot downstairs with the krib.  It's a lot cooler down there, and danios really don't like the heat.  I've left the five danios in the angel tank for now, and have been dumping ice in there as fast as I can make it.  I'd be making more, except our freezer (and fridge) are completely chock-a-block full.  We have enough leftovers from yesterday to last the entire week.  W00t!

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!

Was actually in a fairly good mood most of today.  Managed to get a few things working in preparation for a rollout tomorrow night which was good.

Went to Bunnings on the way home (Stu needed more whipper snipper cord).  I bought a new pool skimmer box because the old one has disintegrated, but unfortunately the new one is not going to work, so will have to keep looking.

By the time I'd vacuumed the pool it was nearly 7pm and I didn't feel like more standing to cook.  So the sweetie ordered pizza. hrmmm.

I did another first aid module.  This one said it would take 15-20 minutes.  It took 7.  These guys have no concept of reality.

One year ago today we went out to the end of the old Kai Tak runway in Hong Kong, and had a look at the cruise ship terminal there.  Then we got up close to the checkerboard hill, and finally wandered around Kowloon Walled City Park.

Many many years ago, don't remember when, I saw "Three Kings" with George Clooney.  And on account of me having dementia, I remembered pretty much nothing about it.  So we watched it again tonight on Netflix and I had no idea what would happen.  It started off completely ridiculously (like over the top ridiculous - but then - how much of the sentiment amongst soldiers there was actually like that??) and we almost abandonded it, but it actually improved more than I thought it would.

Other than that.. today...

I was awake for three hours in the middle of the night again last night - this time *because* hurty and I threw up half my painkillers because apparently that's what can happen if you don't drink enough fluid with them.  Yay.  So had a bit of a sleepin and really didn't get up til 10am, of course by which time the day was half over.  Yay.

Make up some caeasar salad for lunch with Serena's cos lettuce, and some rissoles for dinner with Serena's parsley and some mince that needed using up.

One year ago today we did another Hong Kong Foodie Tour - this time to Sham Shui Po, wandered through the Golden Computer Arcade, and went up Sky 100.

Tuesday - Melbourne Cup day.  Helped run a big party at work and made sure all the food got eaten there or taken as leftovers.

Wednesday - Celebration of Neil and Dave5's respective 40ths

Thursday - work drinks, then BBQ at @CLBradley's

Friday - quiet night to myself

Saturday - went to the Ingress First Saturday at Gold Creek, then over to Mishi's for games in the evening.  We played a game of Roborally first up, which proved to be difficult, even on a "starter" board.  We also played The Logo Game which I won (really must give that back to DC - after scouring for good trivia night questions).

Today was just housework and food shopping.  But after my enthusiasm was deflated the whole day became a chore to get through.  But we did do a thorough clean of the bedroom - vacuumed about five years' worth of dust from behind the bed, as well as wiped down most horizontal surfaces.  And Stu did some gardening.  And I did some pool stuff.  Cooked a stack of veggies for dinner, to go with some leftover pork.  And no washing up.  Just wiped out the frying pan, and chucked the baking paper.  Easiest cleanup from a roast ever.

Feeling like it's bed time at 8pm though :/

Pretty quiet week.  Nothing particular of note.  

Oh, we did have dinner at the Dumpling Inn for the first time since they were closed for so long.

And dinner with Stu's dad on Wednesday at The District.

Yeah so much for low sodium.

Friday I was depressed about food in general.  Watched Tora Tora Tora with the sweetie.  One of the better war movies from Dad's collection.  He last watched it in March 2013 - around the time he was diagnosed with his brain tumour.

Saturday the sweetie worked on his assignment.  I climbed mountains and did house and garden stuff.

In the afternoon we went over to Scott and Kerry's for a family gathering.  Which was relatively pleasant.

Today was brunch with @phonakins who was in town for the weekend, and Helen and Sean (I think that was their names), internet friends of hers.

Then I did more garden stuff.  

Did an instant lamb roast for dinner (roasted veggies with some leftover lamb that was in the freezer).  And watched House and Frozen.  Do you wanna build a snowman?

Oh also.  My watch fricken died again.  #grunt