Thursday night: after Wednesday night's insomnia I got to sleep quite quickly.  But then I woke up at around 3am on Friday morning and never got back to sleep.  Actually I lie.  I got up at 6:15 and made up a potato bake, and went back to bed while it cooked, and got about half an hour more sleep.

Friday: got home, spent three quarters of an hour packing the car up, then headed down the coast.  Arrived a bit after eight, fired up the spa, then realised the Sandy Foot pizza place closes at 8pm :(  So had potato bake for dinner.  Then went in the spa and stayed up entirely too late.  

Saturday: had a very slow start.  We might have all been a bit seedy.  Well ok not all of us.  D and F were suitably restrained and were only a bit tired heh.  I cooked some bacon and eggs for brunch, then we headed up to Myrtle Beach for a swim.  The water was nice and it was all very pleasant until we all got a bit out of our depth and then struggled to get back.  I managed ok, but I could see how easy it would be to panic.  Stu and C got a lot more stuck but were ok in the end.  Had some bubbly and some fruit on the beach, then had another quick dip before heading back.  

Went into Bateman's Bay for dinner - to the Little Restaurant and Bar.  We'd been there before, and the food was just as good this time.  I had a very nice wagyu steak.  Went for a bit of a walk to walk off dinner, but ended up getting some ice cream for dessert.  Went in the spa again, but didn't stay up as late.

Sunday: fairly early start.  Headed out around 9:15 and headed down to Armand's Beach.  But the weather closed in, so after a bit of a swim, we adjourned to shelter to have some bubbly and cheese (too cold for fruit).  Headed back to the beach a bit later for another quick swim.  Got some ice cream in Bermagui at the Gelati Clinic.  Then headed back to the house.  Chillaxed for a while, then ordered some pizzas for dinner.  Then we danced for a while to C's music before getting in the spa.  But after a long day we were pretty tired and were all in bed by 10pm.  Silly really.

Monday: had a biggish breakfast of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and zucchini hash browns, then cleaned up the house then headed home.  I got part way through unpacking and doing some washing, before heading up to Mount Rogers to kill a layered blue field (good for the step count though).  Then a quiet evening just gathering ourselves.

Tuesday: back to reality.  Downloaded all my photos, but haven't chosen any for the blog yet.  This will probably get updated at some point in the future :)

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!

But the most recent one: people that buy stuff on ebay that don't bother to contact you after a week, even after repeated emails to them.  Or people that buy stuff on ebay, keep saying they'll be there "tomorrow" and then never turn up.

Hate.

In other news.

I've been having more Christmas parties - a big work one that went late and was a lot of fun.

Then instead of a nice relaxing weekend, I had to deal with aforementioned sucky people, as well as lots of other people trying to coordinate pickups remotely at mum's.  And this was down at the coast, without a computer, and I didn't have my ebay password and it was all a super huge stress.  Really really didn't want to have to go away that weekend, but it was S&K's combined 40th and we've been terrible relatives this year so thought we'd better go.  So had to go via the club, then headed down.  Stayed at Dave's house (thanks Dave!) but just did some jigsaw while Stu collapsed, then we watched some Veronica Mars and had pizza for dinner.  Didn't even bother with the spa.  Next morning was the party, although it didn't really get going til we had to leave.  Left there and headed straight to Sydney (we had to take two cars down the coast).  Sigh.  

Got to Sydney and didn't even get to dump my stuff - had to go straight to the new place to meet the uncles etc, then we went out for dinner which was quite nice.

Home, dealing with annoying ebay people, collapse.  Didn't get to sleep til like 1am though :(

And then there was chaos in the city today which made things .. interesting ..

So I had "Do you wanna build a snow man?" in my head all day Saturday.

Yup, I went to the snow.  But I didn't build a snowman.  I was too busy skiing.

Steve picked me up at 5:10am but then we had to go back a bit cause Ray had forgotten his snowboard boots.  Ski Co in Cooma was a bit crowded but got in and out fairly quickly since I had my paperwork from last time and said just get me the same stuff.  But maccas was too busy so I didn't get the breakfast I was counting on.  And I was starving.  And you shouldn't talk to me when I have low blood sugar like that.  Hmmmm.

I was almost too grumpy to take this photo of a fogbow.

But then we phoned through to Mountain Munchies in Jindabyne so I could order a big brekkie roll pickup.  So that worked well.  And it was it pretty good too.

Hacked a few portals while trying to get through the bottleneck that is the intersection of Barry Way and Kosciuszko Road.  Still own them too, four days later.

So got to the snow around nineish.  Dumped my beanie and both jumpers in the car - it was that hot even before I started for the day. 

I had a fantastic day.  Started at front valley then over to Blue Cow and did Pleasant Valley and Roller Coaster and Excelerator and the summit and then over to Guthega.  Had the longest wait of the day at the bottom of the Blue Calf T Bar, so didn't go back there.  But had a few great runs there, including a couple I'd never done before.  Was heading up Blue Cow T Bar for another run when it broke down.  Waited for a while there but then decided to give up on it and have lunch.  Had a pie at the little kiosk they'd setup at the top of the Car Park Double.  So then I was going to head to Freedom to get out, but the Blue Cow T opened up again so had another couple of runs there before heading all the way back to Perisher for Pretty Valley, Interceptor and Happy Valley.  At 4pm I could have met up with Steve and Ray or had another couple of runs, but my knees were starting to really ache.  I'm getting old!!  So we had a couple of beers and they went down a treat :)

Definitely felt like I had a lot more confidence this trip which was good.  Maybe I'll even tackle more runs on Mt P one day ..

Pleasant Valley - my favourite run

Me on the Pleasant Valley Quad

Moguls next to Excelerator

From the summit looking back to Blue Cow

From Blue Cow looking across to the summit

Dam at Guthega Pondage

This view of Mt Kosciuszko and the main ranges never gets old for me.  Love it.

Obligatory selfie

My phone battery pretty much died by lunch time so no piccies in the afternoon.

I also carted the GPS around, but I'd forgotten to charge it from after my last Sydney trip.  So it started complaining of low battery at 1pm-ish.  But it soldiered on and made it til almost 4pm, finally conking out half way up my last t-bar.  I also realised I hadn't downloaded it from two Sydney trips.  It can hold quite a lot of data in memory!  Love that little thing.

For most of Saturday afternoon I went through our receipts.  Mine went back to 2001, Stu's back to about 2008.  I'd pretty much kept every receipt of mine *ever*.  I always kept meaning to reconcile them with credit card statements, but that hasn't happened in years.  And I had great visions of entering groceries into some sort of database to watch how prices changed over time.  Yah right.

But I've been applying a rule to stuff like that - if noone would care about it after I died, then there's really no point keeping it.

Honestly, who's going to care how much I spent on groceries after I'm gone?

So this is the pile of receipts I'm chucking out.

I did keep some things.  A few sentimental ones, like Infinity on the Gold Coast where I went with Stu on our one and only date.  And receipts for dvds and cds, and appliances and the like that we still own.  Fourteen years of receipts down to this.

There was a bit of nostalgia in some of them, especially for the older stuff.  And some fun things like VHS tapes, which I was still buying as recently as 2005.  Zooper Doopers! I found a receipt for some of those from 2005, which means I've had some ice blocks in my freezer for about nine years... *gulp* .. maybe I should eat them this summer!  And at my old work, plenty of ATM withdrawals and Post Office receipts from my ebay packing in 2003-2004 that reminded me of places I haven't thought about in seven years.  Receipts from places like Rosehill, where I used to visit Striker for Evilhouse video nights.  Petrol receipts from places on the way to/from CIA visits and visits to Stu.  BigW receipts of DVD purchases when I first got a DVD player.  I used to go there whenever I needed to go shopping for groceries and have a look for weekly specials.  I used to get all my meat from Sonny's Butcher at Rockdale Plaza, and all my fruit and veg from Mile's Fresh Food Market, which I can't even remember whereabouts in the plaza that is now.  Booze came from Woolworth's Liquour, and the rest of my groceries from Franklins.

So much of my life history in little bits of paper.

So much of my life forgotten because it seemed too inane to blog about.

I wish I'd started blogging a lot earlier than 2003...!!

Spent entirely too much of my March free time doing the last section of my "Life" jigsaw...

So that's Life complete!

Just look how thick it is - twenty four layers of 1000 piece squares

(it's on layers of paper so that when I set it up on the floor it won't get dirty)

These were a couple of jigsaws TJ brought in for us.

The first was super simple

And the next was tricky but fun

This is a little one of Chicago.  I think this was one from my brother's collection .. maybe..

And this little one I borrowed from DC's coast house took me about two and a bit hours in front of the tv.  I did a bit of the edge one night, and the rest the next night.

So we were planning to go down the coast Friday night, but I was too worried about the fish.  So we stayed home, cooled the house a little, iced up the tanks, and then went down Saturday morning.

We made a lot of little stops along the way - brunch, lunch and a stack of Ingress portal hacking.  So it took us four hours to get there.  Whoops.

There was a lot of smoke around Nelligen

Clyde River Bridge at Batemans Bay

Seagull

Dolphin portal

Pelicans on the Clyde

I love how the pelicans sit on the light posts in Batemans Bay

Whatchu looking at?

Bird poop anyone?

Batemans Bay

I settled in with a jigsaw while the sweetie gathered himself, then we went up to Myrtle Beach.  It was a bit too crowded on the main beach for our liking, so we went further down to the next beach.  There was a lot of seaweed there which was a bit annoying, but it was a lovely swim.

Grasshopper .. taken with my iPhone!

I love the walk to/from Myrtle Beach

Came back and did some jigsaw, then got pizza for dinner.  Watched an episode of Buffy, then went in the spa.

Medium meatlovers, small puttanesca, small ham and pineapple

Yellow moon (handheld dodgy shot)

Had a pretty good nights' sleep.  Best all week in fact.  Being a heap cooler will do that.

This morning I finished the jigsaw, cooked us some bacon and eggs for breakfast, then we packed up and came home (via a few more portals).

Railcar at Bungendore station

So a fairly short trip this time, but very nice nonetheless.  Sadly we didn't get to meet the mythical Alice.  Maybe next time.

Also thanks heaps to Doc for taking care of the fish on Saturday for us.

This afternoon I sorted some photos (and a side note: challenge accepted), debugged the pool, had dinner and watched some Sherlock.

So 2013. Busy year!

We saw in 2013 with a small pool party at our place with Nat and Andrew and also Steve for a while.

  
We did a bit of travelling this year.

In January we went up the coast to South West Rocks to a school reunion of sorts for Stu and to visit Stu's dad. We drove up and down the coast, swam, visited Trial Bay Gaol, and caught up with Fiona and Margie on the way home.

We only managed to get to the coast once this year, in May. It was somewhat of a disaster with the spa being too cold on Friday night and too hot on Saturday night and a few other things that made it all a bit unpleasant (except for during the day on Saturday which was pretty good). Almost went again later in the year but had to go to Sydney and otherwise we've just been too busy.

We went to Queensland in July for a lovely long weekend to visit Chay and David.

At the end of July we flew up to Sydney for my Dad's 70th and one of my 40th parties (see below).

In October we decided at the last minute to go to Hong Kong for a week at the end of October. It was a great week, even if a little too humid. It's the most spontaneous holiday I've ever taken. I didn't do too much planning for it, because the more I researched, the more things I found of interest to see. So I stopped researching altogether and we took it as it came.

  
At work I had a mostly good year. I started off the year cleaning and pretty much cleaned all year. I started with the knowledge base articles for our team, then moved onto the log transfer system, then the load balancers. I also rehashed an old domino database for documentation which brought back a lot of memories of my last job. For the rest of the time it mostly felt like I was the "goto" person for any and all problems that came along. We were partly restructured, but the powers that be didn't really have a clear idea of what they wanted, so things didn't change as much as we originally thought they would. I made Stu drag out his tuxedo again for the work ball which was a lot of fun.

Healthwise I felt like I was sick the whole first half of the year - with colds in January, March, April, May and June. So that was pretty horrible. Not flus though, just annoying colds. Got another one the night before we went to Hong Kong too - yay :( But have been ok otherwise.

  
We had a super busy social year this year. In fact it was so busy that we went from May to September without having a free Saturday night. As a consequence our Buffy and Angel watching was almost non-existent. There were plenty of visits to/from Annie and Potty and the families. Various people came over for dinner and/or swims at the beginning of the year. Nat and Andrew came over a few times, as well as Andrew by himself when Nat was travelling. There were various after works drinks with my colleagues and Stu's and family and friends. Various Singstar/Mario Kart nights were had. Several BBQs at @CLBradley's. Several games nights at Mishi's. Had a video night at our place with work people. We visited people for lunches/dinners such as Matt and Helen, Andrew and Jen, Chris and Geoff, Josh and Ally, Windy and Nanette etc. We saw Daniel and Fi a few times when they came down. Several people came to stay including David and Yvonne, Ken and Jeanine, Fiona a couple of times and Stu's old school friend Tom. I met up with @StuartCRyan a few times in Sydney (we met in real life for the first time at my birthday). I also went to visit David in Junee.

Speaking of birthdays, I turned forty this year. To celebrate I had *three* great parties - one in Sydney, a big one at home the Saturday before my birthday, then a big lunch at work on my birthday followed by a nice dinner and seeing Phantom of the Opera. I was certainly in a different place mentally for my fortieth. During the whole run-up to my thirtieth I was very depressed, and my actual birthday was pretty meh. Such a different story this year though.

  
In sadder news, my Nana died of old age earlier in the year. And then I found out at the funeral that I have another cousin that I'd never heard about before!

Also in sad news, my father got diagnosed with a brain tumour in March. He had surgery immediately (and they had to cancel a holiday to New Zealand), followed by chemo and radiotherapy. Unfortunately it didn't really help, and he was hospitalised in July because he kept falling over and wasn't able to walk properly. He's been getting progressively worse and has been in a nursing home since September. In August I started going up to Sydney fairly regularly to see Dad and help Mum with the mammoth task of clearing out the garage and workshop. We've mostly been sorting things so far as I don't want to get rid of things until Dad goes. Fortunately I've been able to work out of the Sydney office so not having to take leave at the moment.

  
We've been enjoying a lot of visits to our little social club. We camped there over the Australia day long weekend, and the new tent survived a storm and massive downpour fairly well. But then a caravan came up for sale, so we bought it! We went to most of the club nights during the year, and plenty of other times as well. It's Stu's little get-away-from-the-world place and he thoroughly enjoys it.

With work people or the sweetie, tried out a few new restaurants. Continued going to Black Pepper for brunches and also Pulp Kitchen a few times. Went to Dumpling Inn a few times and Bella Vista as well. Didn't try too many desserts this year, although did make a Mars Bar slice and a peppermint rocky road, as well as an apple crumble and caramel slice that we tried at the club.

  
We bought another four baby angels for the angel tank. One died but the other three survived, so now have four angels and about seven danios in that tank. We got a lovely little betta for the macquarium, but he never thrived and died in six weeks. So thinking I'll probably give the macquarium away. The four foot still has a school of duboisis, two multies, a lelupi and a J.transcriptus. There's three multis downstairs, but after breeding once, the single baby I saw disappeared and haven't seen any since. There's still three or four quite old kribs downstairs as well.

Not much Lego action this year. I did get a cute little plane from Fiona, and a small City set from Ric for my birthday. I went with Nat and Andrew to Brick Expo, but was very frustrated with the crowds. I dismantled the Millennium Falcon which had been out for four years! Also over the Christmas break got to sort out and build all of Jake's lego which has been fun.

I did a lot of jigsaws this year. Mostly downstairs until downstairs got too cold. Mostly little ones, but also another section of the huge "Life" puzzle. Gave up on the skies of two jigsaws because their quality was just too poor.

I celebrated my tenth blogiversary this year. To mark the occasion I upgraded to Movable Type 5. But got very frustrated with the fact that I now cannot SSH to my host. Also with Movable Type which is *very* buggy. Next year my domain is up for renewal and I'm thinking about moving my domain to a new host with a new blogging platform. But the whole idea is pretty scary, so we'll see about that...

Shows

• The only show I saw this year was The Phantom of the Opera on my birthday.

Movies
Not many movies this year either...

• The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey
• Star Trek - Into Darkness
• Garden of Words and Ghost in the Shell: Arise

Books

• Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
• Polgara the Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
• Careful, he might hear you, by Sumner Locke Elliott
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
• A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
• I Hate You - Don't Leave Me by Jerold Kreisman and Hal Straus
• The Naked Husband by Mark D'Arbanville
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs
• Airport by Arthur Hailey
• Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwall

Other stuff

• Had a full day at the War Memorial with Ken and Jeanine
• Had a jigsaw race with Nat
• Found my first geocache with Nat and Andrew
• Saw a Roller Derby bout
• Mum got her first mobile phone
• Had a random day off work to tidy up all the fish tank stuff in the garage
• Went for some walks around Palmerville with the sweetie
• Spotted the ISS a few times and waved to @Cmdr_Hadfield. Wasn't quite the same when he came back to earth.
• Went to the balloon fiesta on Canberra Day
• Watched the last couple of episodes and finale of House, which considering the timing with dad was pretty sad
• Took Stu's car for a drive up Mount Ainslie and got covered in lady bugs
• Our PS3 stopped playing DVD disks. Bluray is still ok though.  We considered getting a PS4 but the device isn't backwards compatible with old games.
• Went out to Captain's Flat on our fifth wedding anniversary
• Finished a cross stitch I got for Christmas in 1992
• Went up Black Mountain Tower
• Voted in ABC Classic FM's top 100 music in the movies, and most of my votes were in the top two hundred
• Did a blog for our trip to America in 1983
• Gave up reading Boing Boing, Life Hacker and Neatorama, Dooce and Dilbert
• Got extremely pissed off when Google Reader shut down. Destroyed my faith in Google.
• Looked at Comma Feed, Feedly and The Old Reader. Stuck with The Old Reader.  The Old Reader subsequently crashed from all the extra load of departing Google users, but was able to get funding to run on better hosting and has been fine ever since.
• Got more of my photos onto the RiotACT
• Cancelled Aussie Farmers Direct orders
• Had a look around Wintercon at EPIC
• Stu had a few car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• I had a LOT of car dramas that Melba Motors didn't fix
• Saw the Skywhale
• Played through Diablo with the sweetie.  On easy mode.  Sue me.
• Did proper karaoke for the first time ever (and I've been to Japan four times!)
• Went to a Christmas Carols service at Como

So that's the end of 2013.  New Year's Eve will be spent out at the club with food and booze and friends and fairy lights and fireworks :)

So yes.  A whole week has gone by.  Whoops.

Had a roller coaster week at work.  Days where things went well and I was fixing problems all over the place.  Days where nothing went right and I felt like it should have been beer o'clock by 10am :(  Got a new computer so also had a bit of time making sure that was setup.

Tuesday night we met up with Dan (the cousin version) at The Wig&Pen for drinks, and then we went to Iori for dinner.  I'd had wagyu beef at Coo some time ago and it was awesome, so thought I'd try it at Iori.  It was pretty fail.  Not melt-in-your-mouth at all. Oh well.  But it was a good night catching up with Dan.

Friday night Neil opened the bar for a farewell, so we gate crashed, which made for a pleasant start to the weekend.

Saturday morning we went to Black Pepper for breakfast.

Then we did our food shopping and came home.

Spent pretty much the rest of the weekend (aside from visiting Annie and the family on Saturday night) cleaning and tidying the house.  Made a lot of progress on things that didn't matter so much (like the garage and dungeon) and not so much on the things that really need doing (like vacuuming).  But the study floor is almost clear now which is pretty miraculous.

George climbed a tree this morning

Ever wonder what over 25000 pieces of jigsaw would look like all mixed up?  Anyone want to find out? ;)

Saw two different rainbows several hours apart today.  Yet we didn't get any rain!

Thursday

So Thursday we had a nice slow morning.  Saw Fiona off, then got ready and headed to the airport.

Took a Virgin Australia flight because it was $20 each cheaper than Qantas.  Stu even got a spare seat next to him which was nice.  Got some snackages on the plane for lunch.

Canberra from the plane

Gulgong - the town on the $10 note.  Well it used to be.

Turns out I even got a couple of pics of Chay and David's suburb, and the reserve (middle) that we did a couple of walks around.

Had the nice approach into Brisbane, and I think pretty much the only time I've done this approach, in daylight, with a window seat.

Picked up our hire car and then headed into New Farm to have a look at the city, get something more to eat, and have a look at Stu's old house. (I took my jumper off after I got off the plane, and didn't put it back on again til we arrived back in Canberra!)

Then we headed out to Chay and David's.

We've driven past this pool a few times, but this was the first time I'd ever seen anyone in it.

For dinner we picked up some beer and pizza.  I had pepperoni and feta, with a couple of pieces leftover for breakfast.

We played a few games of Buzz and did some Singstar.

Friday

Fairly slow morning.  I'd had awful trouble sleeping because of the heat, and also the bed sagged in towards Stu so felt like I was lying on a slope all night.

After my pizza leftovers for breakfast, we eventually headed out to Orion, where we got the sweetie a coffee and had sushi for lunch.

In the afternoon I worked on a jigsaw Chay had picked up for me, and we all pretty much just chilled out.

Later in the afternoon we all went for a walk in the nearby reserve.

We also had a look at the memorial to Jeremy Wackrow (spelt Jeremy Wacrow on the memorial), who had been found dead there in October 1995.  (The next day on the same walk we even ran into the guy that found him).

Had some very nice fish and cauliflower bake for dinner.  

Then we headed over to Storm's where we played quite a few games of Emporer-Scum, and then some Singstar til very late.

Saturday

Better sleep last night!  I had leftover cauliflower bake for breakfast.  Continued to work on the jigsaw, where I had to defend the pieces against Ichi stealing them!

We were going to go to the cafe in Springfield Lakes for lunch, but it was closed!  How rude!

So we went back to Orion for sushi again.

After lunch we went for a drive to go see Helen's amazing new house.

Came home and finished the jigsaw.

David cooked up the rest of the fish, as well as a whole stack of yummy veggies.  Yum!

Watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was good, but it was very strange seeing Emma Watson try to do an American accent!  Then played a bit of Singstar.

Sunday

Woke up at 5am, then couldn't get back to sleep :(:(:(  Got up and we headed off to Sizzler for breakfast.  All you can eat bacon FTW!  Except the bacon ran out, so it wasn't all you could eat, unless you wanted to wait.  So waited, but the bacon wasn't as nice in this batch.  Mushrooms were almost gone the first round, so had to wait for those too.  Didn't have a croissant cause they looked pretty doughy.  The potato gems were really nice though.  And had the added bonus of not needing to eat again til dinner time.

Picked up another small jigsaw at Crazy Clark's on the way home.

Did a bit of the jigsaw, then had a long afternoon siesta.  

Had another walk around the reserve, but it wasn't nearly as nice - heaps of trail bikes making a whole tonne of noise :(

Had corned beef that had been in the slow cooker all day.

After dinner played a couple of games of Buzz, then watched Sherlock, then some Singstar.

David and I tied in "Who Wants to Live Forever"

Monday

Quiet morning.  Had muffins for breakfast and finished the little jigsaw.

Then we headed out to the airport and had some snackages in the Qantas club.

The flight back was also pretty good, and most of the back of the plane was empty, so Stu got a spare seat next to him again.  Flew right over the top of Sydney, then into Canberra from the south.

Gold Coast

Cessnock (with the Crowne Plaza where we stayed at Christmas at the bottom left)

Lake Macquarie and some of Newcastle

Tuggerah Lakes

Gosford and Brisbane Water

Eastern Suburbs of Sydney

Canberra

So as always, a lovely weekend away!