Sunday.  5th.  Backdating.  Sorry. ;)  Cooked all the food - some mince to have however, as well as roast veggies and a cauliflower bake.  Into season 15 of The Simpsons.

Monday.  Ok day.  Spent the day trying to do *one thing* but not getting anywhere because of interruptions and people wanting stuff.  Sausages and leftover veggies for dinner.  113 photos labelled before dinner, 213 all up, up to my first day in Paris.  Then Air Crash Investigations.

Tuesday.  Slept relatively well.  Stressful day because I was in meetings for hours and hours and hours, but still had heaps of work to get done as well.  Ended up working a bit late and only managed to label 54 photos.

Wednesday.  Slept ok.  Got up a bit early, and this time I checked the Covid exposure sites *before* I went out to do some food shopping.  First time doing a proper shop in three weeks - our pantry list was getting super long from things that had run out or were running out.  Oddly, there were no bags of any kind for bagging up veggies, so I ended up using a shopping bag to get mushrooms.  Once again, Coles was depleted of different odd things, like almost no eggs (didn't need any this week), and mint ice cream.  But they did have bacon and cheese rolls out early this time.  I bought one pack thinking it would last me a couple of days, but the sweetie had other ideas and they lasted a day.  I shoulda bought two ;)  There was plenty of toilet paper, but I didn't need any this week either (been getting it from Chris's).  Ok day, busy afternoon, again in meetings but also trying to get work done.  Salmon and salad for dinner - hurrah for fresh food!  Managed to label 155 photos, only 52 behind now, should be easy to catch up.

Thursday.  Slept ok.  Horrible day - spent over half of it on the phone :(  So sucky and draining.

Friday.  Awake for a while in the middle of the night but not too bad.  Another day of trying to stay on top of things and fighting with peeps over all the stoopid.  Did some cleaning in the afternoon though which was good.  Knocked off a little early and tidied the house a bit, then tried to wrangle my insanely huge todo list.  Honey mustard chicken for dinner.  Then we watched Never Let Me Go which was kinda interesting and depressing.

Saturday.  All. The. Things.  Just a day of getting things done around the house.  Bolognase and salad for dinner, then we watched Gandhi, which I'd never actually seen before. 

Sunday.  Busy doing stuff, although no idea what, the todo list I ticked off didn't have much on it.  

Roast chicken for dinner, then watched Nanny McPhee which I'd seen a while ago.  Actually quite a sweet movie.  Although a bit like watching Love Actually.  Or Harry Potter.  Or Bridge Jones' Diary.  So much cast overlap :)

Monday.  23rd.  Backdating this.  Slept ok.  Fighting with vendors over strange intermittent problems.  Otherwise cleaning and tidying.  Kiev and veggies again for dinner.  Got most of my quota of photos labelled.  Watched Air Crash Investigations while blogging (took over an hour to blog the last week).

Tuesday.  Slept ok.  Cold and wet and miserable day!  Had to have the light on all day it was so dark.  Ok morning but a bit of a crazy afternoon (trying to concentrate on a meeting while trying to help people with crap).  Labelled 101 photos before dinner.  Only five rows of Dumbo to go.  Finished labelling after dinner.  

Stumpy got hungry early this year

Nearly there!

At this point I twinned up all the pieces, so progress went a lot faster.

Wednesday.  Ok day.  After work we headed back out to Brindabella to get our 14 day covid test.  At 5pm (peak hour) the main roads of Canberra looked like this:

Testing went a lot quicker this time.  We basically drove straight up to the big tent.  All up we were there just twenty minutes. 

Even afterwards in the heart of Civic it was pretty quiet.

Came home and got 72 photos labelled before dinner (just veggies and cheese sauce) and finished Dumbo in the evening.  This was probably the hardest section of the jigsaw so far.  Just so much brown/grey/blue/dark stuff so pieces could go anywhere.  I'm really *not* looking forward to Fantasia!

Thursday.  Slept ok.  Ok day.  Got our test results - negative.  Knew they would be :)  So left the house for the first time in over a week and went and saw some of my birds (they recognise me from a distance even with a mask on.  Clever birds!!). 

 Also stopped in at Chris's and picked up some supplies (including Corona!!).  

Simpsons/X Files (X Files: how to put a downer on your evening).  Started watching Forrest Gump.

Friday.  Slept ok.  Woke up to an SMS saying they couldn't find my test results, and I had to send them a screenshot to prove my negative test result *sigh*.  The whole handling of this outbreak has been a complete debacle!!  They had Stu's though.  Later I had a sad that I wasted two or three days rescanning slides last Christmas holidays, and yet I'm *still* trying to scan them to not have fluff/specks on them.  I'm *still* fixing up a box of slides per day.  Up to 130 out of 181 and wondering if it will *ever* get any easier.  hrmmmm. Ok day.  Made burritos for dinner with leftover wraps and mince from the club night a few months back (didn't eat all of them!).  

Simpsons and The Trial of the Chicago 7 in the evening.  I'd never heard of the incident.  Was fairly interesting anyway.

Saturday.  Nice quiet day of house stuff.  Put on Dumbo (on Disney+ even though I also have it on Bluray) so I could get a photo with the jigsaw.  As always, the jigsaw doesn't quite match an actual scene in the movie.  In this case, the jigsaw has Timothy Q Mouse, but in the movie he hadn't even met Timothy yet when he was having his bath.  

There was Mexican style fried rice for lunch (using the last of the rice and mince).

And am I a glutton for punishment of what? :)

Finished day 32 Eurasia labelling, only 86 beind the 500 per week schedule.  Lamb roast for dinner.  Watched The Girl on the Train in the evening.  It was ok I guess.

Sunday.  Achieved mostly nothing at all.  Saw my birds in the afternoon. 

I have to admit sometimes I'm pretty impressed with the iPhone camera.  I mean seriously.  This.  From a PHONE!!

Cooked all the veggies for dinner.  The sweetie even went back for seconds, so he must have liked them ;)  Super dumb episode of the X Files (Die Hand Die Verletzt) then Air Crash Investigations on MH17.

Sunday.  15th.  Backdating this, but only by a day :)  Cooked All The Food for dinner (lots of veggies, that went with some pulled pork I dug out of the freezer). 

Simpsons/X Files, then watched some commentry on John Williams' music.  Seriously the guy is a genius.  Check out Listening In's commentry on Jurassic Park, Prisoner of Azkaban, Star Wars and ET.

Monday.  Woke up at ~1am for a couple of hours.  Sigh.  Ok day. 

Even if we don't get to go to Floriade this year, I'll have my little neighbourhood patch of it.

Sausages and leftover veggies for dinner.  Managed 49 photos before dinner.  Had to do a fixup of geodata on some too.  Managed 192 all up, and an episode of Air Crash Investigations.

Tuesday.  Slept well for a change.  Not a bad day, looking at more cleaning to be done.  63 photos labelled before dinner - finished Day 29 Canon photos.  Still a long way behind :(  Managed 177 all up and an episode of Air Crash.

Wednesday.  Decided yesterday I'd do a mid week food shop, and go early to minimise exposure to potentially infectious people.  Worked pretty well, and the carpark was deserted.

Took me longer than I thought it would because I had to keep stopping to go back and push my own trolley (normally Stu drives).  There was plenty of toilet paper (I didn't get any cause we still had over half a pack left).  But there were a couple of fresh things I couldn't get (like cabbage and basil).  So did all that, as well as getting a bag of fresh veggies, milk and eggs for EffanC.  They'd been down the coast when lockdown was declared in both the ACT and NSW, so they had to come home and were still waiting on a Coles delivery.  

Was just getting ready for work when Stu said our nearby IGA was a covid exposure site.  And guess who was there during one of the specified close contact times last week?  Yeup.  All because Stu wanted ice cream we can't get at Chris's ;)  OMFG I was a nervous wreck all day.  We'd have to go get tested, although couldn't go during the day because Stu was busy doing interviews for work, and we weren't sure if we'd even get in after work, with the EPIC testing site having been closed at like 4pm on the Tuesday due to high demand.  We were worried we'd have to wait around all night and still not get tested and have to go back, or even get turned away completely.  Plus if we did test positive, then Coles would be an exposure site and I'd have put EffanC at risk too.  Yeah I was a mess all day.  Although my stress did turn to anger.  We should have been notified *immediately* once the IGA was listed.  We both checked in with the CheckinCBR app, so they would have known we were there at the specified time.  Was pretty pissed off about that actually.  Anyway, as soon as Stu was finished up with interviews we headed out.  Stu wanted to try Kambah first.  One website said it closed at 5pm, another 4pm.  So we weren't sure when it would close.  Turns out it closes at 4pm and it had already closed by the time we got there.  (as it turns out, the 5pm closing time was from last year but I'd missed that when I was looking because I was so stressed).  So headed to Brindabella.  I was expecting traffic to be banked back around the airport, but we got all the way to Brindabella and were wondering where all the cars were.  Turns out it simply wasn't crowded (even though half an hour before we left home they'd tweeted it would be a three hour wait).  We took a whole stack of food.  We didn't need it.  We got to the first triage tent at 17:07 then joined the queue.  It took til about 18:00 to get to the big tent, then about twenty five minutes to get to the front of the line to get our tests.  It was unpleasant, but not as bad as I thought it would be.  So an hour twenty and we were out of there.  Got home, had some salad for dinner (hurrah for fresh food), then had a Zoom drink with EffanC.  Needed it.  Collapsed into bed for an early night.

Thursday.  Woke up at ~1am til past 3am.  Sigh.  Busy day, mostly dealing with interruptions.  Beer, pizza, Simpsons, X Files and an early night.

Friday.  Hurty for a bit in the night.  Woke up in the morning to find we'd been smsed our test results - negative.  Phew.  Ok day.  Had another Zoom drink/catchup with EffanC.  Salmon and salad for dinner, then Simpsons and Moneyball.  An odd choice for the sweetie I thought, but based on a true story and not a bad movie, for a sports movie ;)

Saturday.  Slept ok for a change.  Although that didn't stop my clumsiness trying to put out our pills/vitamins for the week, spilling things *three fricken times*.  Very upsetting.  Alternated between house stuff, photo labelling (still trying to catch up from a crazy couple of weeks), and jigsaw.  Made Dominos pepperoni and feta on puff pastry pizza for lunch.  

In the afternoon we got SMSes from ACT Health - "Check In CBR has identifed that you may have attended a COVID-19 exposure location".  Yeah no kidding guys, this was the message I should have gotten THREE AND A HALF DAYS AGO!!!!!  Fricken hopeless.  Chicken kiev and roast veggies for dinner.  Then watched Wall Street, which I'd never actually seen before.

Sunday.  Slep ok.  Another day of house stuff, photo stuff, and jigsaw.  My ideal weekend really.  And literally no different to a non-lockdown weekend (well other than not having to do food shopping, and not being able to go see my birds, on account of being in strict lockdown). 

Got a call from WA Health in the afternoon - taking some of the load off ACT Health and calling people in exposure sites - making sure we'd been tested and were quarantining.. yes and yes.  We'll have to get tested again this week, hopefully won't have to wait as long this time. 

Another afternoon of cooking all the food (mince to have with whatever at some point, and an arribbiata bake sans basil). 

Downloaded my phone photos.  Apple has gone back to arranging photos into a thousand per folder.  I mean why change to arranging them by month (a change for the better I thought) if you were just going to revert it a couple of months later??  Far out I hate Apple.  Watched The Movies that Made Us episode on Forrest Gump, and then the first half of Forrest Gump.  And blogged this Monday, ssh don't tell anyone!

Monday.  26th.  Backdating.  Frustration and grumpiness at work *all day*.  Finished up day 25 labelling (which I should have done on the weekend).  In the end labelled 261 photos in the evening, so mostly caught up to where I wanted to be.

Tuesday.  Not much better day than Monday.  Ended up worse, and feeling depressed cause I suck and noone likes me.  Had leftover pasta bake for dinner (and got a yuk taste of anchovies).  Backed up my computer but didn't do any photo labelling.  Did jigsaw and played 2048 for the first time in a couple of years.  Even got up to 4096.

Wednesday.  Woke up at 3:23 and never got back to sleep.  So it was a zombie day.  Couldn't really concentrate on anything, not helped by people interrupting every five seconds.  Doc Oc pizzas and wine for dinner.  Started watching Queen: Days of Our Lives (2011).

Thursday.  Slept quite a bit better (went to bed at 20:30), other than being awake for an hour or two in the middle of the night cause of hurty.  In what world is a monthly cycle 21 days???  FFS.  Ok day.  Mulled wine at drinks for a Christmas in July night.

Then met up with EffanC and R&F at Hachiko for dinner which was lovely.

It was a lovely night and a great reminder that I do have some pretty great friends.

Friday.  Ok day.  Knocked off work a little early but then spent the evening prepping for tomorrow - for the club Christmas in July.  Struggled to get onto the butcher to order the pork - firstly couldn't find a phone number online, ended up having to resort to Yellow Pages.  But then they wouldn't answer the phone :(  Then I started stressing about fitting CRD into the car with all the foods and gear.  Sigh.  Finished the first episode of Queen: Days of Our Lives, and started episode two.  

My little patch of floriade is sprouting!

Saturday.  Headed out early and did the shopping for dinner.  Finished the Coles shop quite quickly, then headed back to the butcher.  Turns out their phone handset was broken which is why they weren't answering.  Luckily was able to get enough pork.  Then picked up CRD and headed out to the club.  Set everything up and took a photo of all the food.

First up was getting the lamb ready and into the slow cooker.  I'd never done lamb like this in the slow cooker so had no idea how it would turn out.  It actually turned out really well - lovely and moist.  

I had to wash pretty much everything before I started.  All the cooking gear was covered in white dust.  And I literally had to leave the kitchen a couple of times while other people wandered in and started fussing around and washing things up.  I actually can't concentrate with people buzzing about, super stressful.

Then I prepped all the pork - just oil and salt.

Then made a couple of epic potato bakes.

I also made up a sweet potato salad, and some lactose-free roast potatoes

The oven is the slowest oven in the world, so I probably should have left the foil off a lot longer on the potatoes

I delegated making the roast turkeys in the bbq.  So we had a bain-marie full of pork, the slow cooker full of lamb, and another bain-marie with the turkey.  The pork and lamb turned out beautifully, but the crackling didn't work so well (slowest oven in the world) and the turkey was over done on the bottom (really need a better way to do it than on the barbeque).

I also made a big batch of gravy, and a pot of apple sauce

There was also a big pot of peas/corn/carrots.

Had a couple of helpers to serve it all up.  It was quite well received .. phew!!

Chris brought these great little puddings

And Tab brought puddings and pavlovas and fruit and ice cream.

Then there were some very noisy games so I went and hid because it was all too loud.  Later went out and had some whiskey and rum in the sun room.  This whiskey smelt like peanut butter and tasted like butterscotch schnapps.  Yum!  And the Master Mary rum tasted like Christmas.

Then loud people came out, so I went to bed.

Sadly after really concentrating on the food all afternoon and evening, I really didn't feel like I caught up properly with anyone.  I actually only sat down at the table for a few minutes to scoff my dinner.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well.  Went up to finish cleaning up and packing up.  Found out the cause of all the white powder around the kitchen - mice had been getting into the corn flour and tracking it all around.  I even saw a couple of mice running around the shelves.  I threw out anything that had mouse holes, which was all the corn flour and some of the regular flour.  Anything open but with no evidence of mouse activity I brought home to reassess.  And anything unopened and still sealed with no holes I put into a sealable plastic container. 

They pulled the pergola down while I was cooking on Saturday 

Then came home after dropping off CRD.  But it was still nearly lunch time by the time we got home, and I was my usual Sunday-after-a-club-event-depressed because of the lack of time at home on the weekend.  I did manage to clean out a shelf in the pantry and water change all the downstairs fish tanks and download photos, but not blog.  Used up some of the mince I cooked last weekend with some One Pan Dinner.  

Monday.  5th.  Not backdating!  Slept relatively well.  Woke up at 6:40 and didn't push myself to do any scanning.  Worked from home and had a pretty decent day, not too many stoopid problems bugging me, in fact even solved a few people's problems for them which was nice.  Stu was still sick though and stayed home.  Made an "instant" lasagna for dinner with stuff I made on the weekend (the mince and a bechamel/cheese sauce I did for the veggies).  Did a bit of jigsaw and watched the third episode of Diagnosis.

Tuesday.  Slept well again but still a bit sniffly so worked from home.  A lot more distractions today, and then hurty.  Stu worked from home which was nice.  Finally finished off the potatoes we brought home from the club (I think there would have been about thirty of them, all cooked, so it was a race to get them eaten before they went moldy).  This time I fried them with the last of the unfrozen mince from the club night, and a bunch of cheese.  I did them without mince for lunch and we liked them so much I did it again for dinner with mince.  So yummy, my favourite of the ways we got through those potatoes. 

Did my quota of photo labelling by 19:18 and even ran the dishwasher.  Watched a couple of episodes of Diagnosis.  Got quite frustrated with the mother in the fifth episode, but then I later found the girl's Instagram account, where she was pretty scathing of the show and how it portrayed them.  She'd also had a couple of surgeries for some vascular problems that had never been thought of in the show.  

Wednesday.  Slept well until I woke up with hurty at 1:15 and it kept me away til nearly 3am.  Sigh.  So another zombie day.  Vicki was in town which offered the perfect excuse to work from home again.  Got photo labelling done early so X Files and Diagnosis in the evening (after finishing off the last of the unfrozen club leftovers - some spring rolls and chicken wings and chipolatas).

Thursday.  Finally felt up to scanning slides again, first time in nearly a week due to insomnia or sickness.  It was also the first time in nearly a week we didn't have the heater on in the morning and it was *cold* in the house.  Ok day, ok drinks.  Feeling a general depression over not really fitting in and not getting on with people and not really being "friends" with anyone much I work with.  So felt a bit blah even at drinks.  Started watching I, Tonya.

Friday.  Slept ok.  Ok day.  Did up doco and change paperwork for next round of cleaning next week.  Finished watching Fantasia.

Saturday.  Quiet day, alternating with housework and jigsaw. 

Yet again, went into battle dealing with the government online.  This time I wanted to get a certificate of my covid vaccination.  But to do that you have to link Medicare or the Health Record (which I think I opted out of) to mygov.  But of course it refused to link my Medicare account didn't it.  It wanted the number and address details etc, but kept complaining I hadn't answered things correctly, at which point it prompted to fill in all the details of my bank accounts and my last doctor's appointment, including the date and how much it cost.  And I'm like wtf.  So I rage quit on that and called them.  Fortunately I pretty much got straight through, and they gave me a linking code I could enter and that worked and it linked up and I got my covid vaccination certificate.  Hurrah.  Now let's just hope they'll let us travel.  I'd be happy to do home quarantine when we get back if that's what it takes.  So long as I don't have to fight with tour companies about getting money back on trips...  

Found someone had uploaded Brides of Christ to DailyMotion, so watched the first episode of that.  We watched this when it came out back in 1991, and I blogged that I watched in when it was on tv again in 2003.  Downloaded and processed phone photos while that was on.  Dinner was some mince that I cooked last weeked, with tomato paste and tomatoes and pasta.  Into season 2 of the X Files, and then I finished I, Tonya.  It's actually not a bad movie.  Margot Robbie did a pretty good job (she even did a lot of the skating), although she's just a bit tall and *big* to pass for Tonya Harding, who was tiny. 

Sunday.  A quiet day of housework stuff, jigsaw, and blogging and computer stuff.  We did go out for lunch and food shopping/chemist as well.  About to go prep dinner.  

Monday.  28th.  Backdating.  No symptoms from my second Pfizer jab, other than a sore arm, which wasn't even as bad as the first time.  First day of "the mask" except I didn't actually leave the house.  A project forced the hand on a cleanup I'd been wanting to do in forever only I was hesitant to get approvals to do it - cause if it ain't broke don't fix it.  Except it was broked, so was going to have to do the cleanup which was a big win.  Finished all of my labelling by dinner time.  Same club leftovers as last night - empanadas, potato, salad.  Finished off day 21 labelling after dinner, then Alfred Hitchcock and first episode of Diagnosis (produced by someone who was actually a consultant on House!

Tuesday.  Did the cleaning I planned yesterday.  Took my lunch so I wouldn't need to go to the mall and wear a mask.  Had a big outage in the afternoon although luckily I wasn't affected so pretty much business as usual.  Leftover club potatoes (one tray thinly sliced, one try a bit smashed, then baked - the smashed ones needed to be more smashed) and wings for dinner.  Labelled 220 photos after dinner.

Wednesday.  Woke up at 1:47 and didn't get back to sleep til well after 5am, stressing about All The Things.  I might have actually gone back to bed, except I had a dentist appointment in the morning - first in two years since I didn't go last year because of covid.  This was the first time of wearing a mask indoors.  Except I'd just been out in the freezing cold air, and as soon as I went inside the mask made my glasses fog up instantly.  I hadn't been to the dentist in their new location, and so I was trying to figure out where to go but I literally couldn't see.  No wonder people don't like wearing masks.  Zombie day.  Took my lunch again so I wouldn't have to go to the mall.  Did some bits and pieces of work but not terribly efficient.  Late home.  Even had a beer, tv dinners, and watched Fantasia 2000.

Thursday.  Woke up at 2:20 and didn't get back to sleep til nearly 5am.  Sigh.  Although strangely didn't feel as much of a zombie as yesterday.  Wearing the mask and having it fog up my glasses the whole time got pretty old pretty quickly.  First time at the mall, and (almost) everyone wearing masks.  Such a strange sight to see in Canberra!  There were police patrolling too, although they didn't pull up the one guy we saw not wearing his mask properly.  But also school holidays which made the mall all kinds of horrendous.  Neil bought a pack of ten reusable masks, so I bought a couple off him.  Pretty quiet drinks, then pizza, Simpsons, X Files, and the start of Fantasia.

Friday.  Woke up at 12:40 and didn't get back to sleep til around 3am.  Epic sigh.  During that time I felt like I was getting a bit of a cough and sniffle.  Started to work from home in the morning, but definitely sick, so gave up and went back to bed.  Spent most of the day in bed.  Not a single minute of sleep though.  Like I've missed about seven hours of sleep during the week and I was sick, you'd think I'd be able to sleep.  Nope.  My body simply refuses to sleep.  So fricken annoying.  Loaded potatoes with mince, parsley, cabbage, cream and sour cream for dinner then just watched crap on the internet.  Stu also started getting sick in the afternoon.  Most likely we both picked it up at the club on the weekend.  Hurrah. 

Saturday.  Took forever to get to sleep - couldn't breathe and restless.  But then did sleep okish after that til after 7am.  Stayed in bed all morning (aside from getting up for breakfast, and later cheesy hash browns with club potatoes for brunch).  Not sleeping of course. 

Spent the afternoon just watching stuff on the internet (a fair bit from Oversimplified), and puttering through rss feeds. 

Performed surgery on one of the masks I bought off Neil - simply threaded a paper clip through the top of it to make a nose bridge, to see if it'll make any difference to my glasses fogging up.

Tried to make NQN's accordion potatoes for dinner, but I think they really need to be raw first so they didn't really work.  Simpsons/X Files/stuff on internet in the evening.

Sunday.  Another very slow day, mostly just watching crap on the internet.  Cooked roast pork for dinner, although pretty fail on the crackling - possibly because I was using the deeper dish, so not as much air flow.  Also some mince to use with whatever, and lots of veggies.  Early night (didn't process photos or blog though).

Monday.  21st.  Accidentally slept in til my alarm because when I woke up earlier I thought it was 5:08 not 6:08 because my glasses were blocking the clock.  Had an ok day.  Fought with Powershell and XML.  Put on beef brisket at lunch time.  Labelled 166 photos before dinner and another 60 after dinner and cleaning up the kitchen.  Then watched the second episode of Netflix's Pandemic documentary (I think I watched the first one Sunday night).  It was filmed in 2019 and released in January 2020.  Which makes the timing of it especially eerie.  But omfg I can't stand anti-vaxxers.  They're fricken dangerous.

Tuesday.  Trying to concentrate on one thing, only to be hit with another big important thing, (it never rains but it pours) then had to go to a BS meeting in the middle of it all which was the biggest waste of my time ever.  Third episode of Pandemic in the evening.  Yesterday I'd had pain in my hamstrings, I'm guessing from all the weeding I did on the weekend, but Tuesday night my neck hurt if I turned my head side to side.  Very strange.

Wednesday.  Neck still hurt.  Mostly worked on the two big projects that needed rules.  Then the same firewall that caused me so much grief last year stitched me up again.  Sigh.  But did get caught up with photo labelling.

Thursday.  Woke up at dentist time but didn't get back to sleep til after 4 :( Neck slightly better.  But omfg all the stoopid.  All the firewalls being stoopid and people being stoopid made me lose it.  But there was cheesy garlic Subway for lunch and drinks.  Finished up season 11 of The Simpsons.  X Files, and 5th episode of Pandemic.

Friday.  Neck slightly better.  Busy day trying to get *one thing* done in between interruptions and questions and people wanting stuff. Lunch was pesto pasta I made (using jar pesto).

It rained a few times in the afternoon.  At 4pm this was the light level in my study..

Finally got it done a bit after 5pm and tested it and it worked!  Into season 12 of The Simpsons, then X Files.  Then I watched Black Swan, which was pretty intense.  I think I'd lose if I didn't know what was real...

Saturday.  Did some washing but really nothing much all day :(  Headed out to the club in the afternoon for a winter solstice carnivale.  The brief was "colourful dressups", and, being winter solstice, I figured I could do Elsa again and get another wear out of the dress ;)  (and finally got to use the hair pins that hadn't turned up in time last time).  Numbers were down because of all the cancellations because of Covid.

Lots of food..

I had a relatively early night (maybe 10:30), but I couldn't get to sleep for hours.  Felt too cold which probably didn't help.  I lit the fire when I woke up after 7, but didn't get much more sleep.  Got up and cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast, then went back to bed to try and get some more sleep.  Think I got a smidgen.  So didn't end up getting up til after 10:30 :(  Went up to see if anything needed cleaning, but it had all been done, so just took away heaps of the leftovers.  With assurances from people that the rest would get taken (last month I didn't take it all, but noone else took any, so a whole bunch of food ended up getting thrown out :( ).  We put orders in online for Chemist Warehouse, but they still weren't ready by the time we got home.  It was at least an hour and a half after putting the order in that we got smses.  Hopeless.  Headed out again (via the chemist) to Garran so I could get my second Pfizer jab!!!

They were a lot better organised (and had more staff on) so I was in and out in twenty minutes (five minutes signing in and answering questions and fifteen minutes after to make sure I didn't keel over).  Had leftover club empanadas and potatoes and salad for dinner. 

Watched the last episode of the Surgeon's Cut which I realised I hadn't seen, The Simpsons and the X Files with the sweetie, then the final episode of Pandemic: How to prevent an outbreak.  Which really didn't have a whole lot on actually how to prevent an outbreak, only that we're underprepared if there is one.  Covid-19 anyone?

And download and processed my photos from the week, and blogged.  Last week my phone wasn't taking photos sometimes.  This week I found it took like five in a burst a couple of times.  Fricken hopeless Apple. 

So far no symptoms from my jab, although I did warn people I may not be in tomorrow...

Monday. 14th.  Here's a photo of the cauliflower and mushroom bake I did that night.

Tuesday.  15th.  After a long weekend Tuesday felt like a Monday.  Got to do some cleaning in the afternoon.  In the evening I passed the halfway mark of my Eurasia photo labelling!   

Wednesday.  Finally finished the doco I wanted to have done by the end of last week.  Finished labelling day 19 of Eurasia photos.  Just over a third of the way through the holiday, but half way through the number of photos.  Started watching The Social Dilema.  Interesting and somewhat depressing.  

Thursday.  Garlic subs are back!

Finished The Social Dilema.  

Friday. Super busy afternoon cleaning.  Simpsons and X-Files with the sweetie, then I had a look through Disney+ for something to watch.  Happened across a Pixar movie I hadn't heard of, so thought "that'll do".  I didn't see any pictures, and all I saw in the review was "coming of age" film in Italy.  The film was "Luca" and it was lovely, and it had literally been released *that day* !  So that was pretty cool.

Saturday.  Day of doing all the things at home.  We did go out at lunch and did our food shopping at the markets.  Made crumbed basa for dinner, which I'll put in another post.  It was good but I put in too much lemon juice so it didn't really crisp up.  First thing in the morning they had the Batman soundtrack on the radio, so I thought was should watch Batman in the evening, so we did!

Sunday.  Spent most of the day choosing and processing photos for my This Day in History posts, which are getting further and further behind (I keep finding photos of Dad's to use and the perfectionist in me wants to use those but I haven't finished processing them yet.. hrmmm).  Still didn't get it all done though.  Immy came over for an hour in the afternoon to play with Stumpy.

Then I got stuck into prepping dinner - the second recipe out of my Women's Weekly Gratins and Bakes book.  I'll post that in its own post too.  But by the time I was done with dinner it was 17:45 and I still hadn't downloaded and processed my photos for the week, so it all just got too hard.

Backdating this entry by a week...

Monday.  Day after first covid shot.  Just a sore arm, but otherwise felt fine - oh well, no day off! ;)  Labelled most of my quota of photos before dinner, and all 193 by 19:19.  Watched some Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Netflix Human: The World Within.  

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - just super restless.  Had most photos labelled before dinner, but had to stop and turn the computer off because of the passing storm (One Drive was being a poo, and so was FTP to my hosting server and I hadn't backed up the computer that night yet).  Finished labelling day 18 by 19:33 then watched some more Alfred Hitchcock and Human show.  CSS is evil.

Wednesday.  Slept ok for a change.  Cleaning day when I wasn't getting distracted by stuff.  More Human show.  CSS is definitely evil.  I gave up fighting with it to get things how I wanted for my USA 2000 gallery.  I've pretty much finish it for now.  I'm not entirely happy with the design of it, but it'll do for the moment.  Now to start on the next holiday gallery ;)

How dumb is Whittaker's chocolate?  This salted caramel dark chocolate is very nice, but it refuses to break where it's supposed to, instead breaking through the middle of the pieces, making an awful mess, even after I attempt to cut through with a knife!

Thursday.  Annual whiskey night at work.

The Midleton was very smooth but the Kilchoman was smokey which made it the winner.

We also bought snackages for people to have on their tables 

Afterwards Con and I went over to Lachie's mate's place cause it was Lachie's thirtieth.

Friday.  Felt like peppermint tea in the morning.

Met up with the Chrises and Neil for lunch at Herbert's

I gave myself all week to do a bunch of doco I needed to do for the next round of cleaning, yet still didn't manage to finish it by Friday arvo :(  X-Files with the sweetie in the evening, and I watched Gifted, which was very sweet, and Mckenna Grace is pretty awesome.

Saturday.  Didn't get a whole lot done because I was somewhat distracted listening to the Classic 100.  

We did pop out in the morning so Stu could pick up a package, and get petrol, and have brunch with Kit.  My phone is playing up at the moment (iOS 14.6 maybe??) and sometimes just doesn't save a photo when you take it.  So it never saved the photo I took of my eggs benedict I had a Stella's by the Lake (no longer Black Pepper).  

Got home and put dinner on.  We found this cut of pork the other week and got it - because I feel like it's a waste of all that crackling to use it in a pulled pork.  Also made it a lot less fatty!

Sunday.  Rinse and repeat of radio listening.  Stu and Immy came over for a bit to play with Stumpy.

I pulled out some pens to test them.  These Pentel pens I've had since 1986.  They don't work too well, but all of them at least wrote something.. thirty five years later!!!

These gel pens are somewhat newer.  Although they could be as old as ten or fifteen years old.  None of them work properly (in fact some of them had issues from day one).  So sadly they all got tossed.

In the evening we went to EffanC's for dinner which was nice - first time we've really caught up with them all year.

Stu really liked this crumbed basa (so did I actually) - lemon juice, basa, then a thick layer of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and spring onions.

Monday.  Today.  Alternated between house stuff and photo stuff and even started a new section of the Disney behemoth jigsaw. 

Made pizza scrolls for lunch, with tomato paste, three cheeses, herbs, garlic powder, mushroom, olives and sundried tomato, but my phone didn't save the before photo I took, and stuffed up one of the after photos, so this is all I got.

Stoopid useless Apple.

Download photos off my phone this arvo for first time since 14.6  Photos are now arranged by month, instead of being in a new folder every time the phone clocks a thousand photos.  But Apple is STILL messing with the timestamps on my files.  I don't think they're EVER going to fix that bug.  Thinking my next phone is more likely going to be a Samsung.

Managed to get photo downloading and processing done, a bunch of Eurasia photo labelling done, cooked dinner (lots of roast veggies and some steak for me) and cleaned up, and watched the last episode of Human: The World Within (although Netflix played them in reverse order for reasons unknown) by about 20:45.  An hour later and I've also managed to blog.. hurrah..

Monday.  End of the weekend.  Cooked all the veggies for dinner.  Potato and sweet potato, tomato with buffalo mozarella I got for 80% off, brocollini and facon, cauliflower with paprika, and capsicum and zucchini.  And a bit of lamb I dug out of the freezer.

Tuesday.  We're into season 11 of The Simpsons.  Then photo labelling and the first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (I'm sure we used to watch this a bit when we were young).  

Wednesday.  Finally got caught up with my photo labelling, into Egypt this week.  More Alfred Hitchcock.

Thursday.  OMFG why is every interaction I have with the government so damned painful?!?!?  So it was announced on the news Thursday morning that 40-49 year olds are now eligible for Pfizer - win!!  So I logged on to book an appointment, except you need to create a myDHR account.  Sigh.  Don't they have some sort of centralised system attached to Medicare for all this crap?  So I went through the process of registering an account, except it died half way through with this error:

So I'm like.. did it go through or not??  (my tweet about it *still* hasn't been answered!!!)  Fricken hopeless.  So started all over again, and this time it went through.  Except then you have to wait up to 24 hours for them to confirm your eligibility before you can book an appointment.  Sigh.  In the end it probably only took an hour or so for them to get back to me, so booked an appointment for Sunday afternoon.

My Aunty Rhonda sent me this work of art this week, made by an aquaintance of hers.  It's a journal, but it's more like an adventure, with little pockets and fun little bits and pieces all through it.  Not quite sure what I'll do with it, but it sure is pretty!!

Friday.  Finished watching tv with the sweetie over dinner just after 6pm, so watched The Wolf of Wall Street.. which was very.. long..  I didn't realise it was based on a true story (what I get for not ever reading up on movies before I see them).

Saturday.  Took *forever* to get to sleep - my feet were freezing.  Woke up early though, tried to get back to sleep, ended up getting a bit more, slept til nearly 8am.  Bit of a slow start, and in the end pretty much all I did was play with my USA 2000 photo gallery.  The sweetie cooked dinner of chilli mince.  Then we watched a few hours of Gettysburg.

Sunday.  Took *forever* to get to sleep - this time I was too hot.  I think I'm dying. 

Made pancakes for lunch.

After cleaning the kitchen in the morning I just worked on my USA 2000 photo gallery.  In fact I got it to a point where you can have a look if you like.  I've still got some work to create the location index pages, and I need to setup a footer with contact deets and links back to my blog.  But if I die now, at least one of my holiday photo galleries will be online.  Saw my birds in the afternoon, then did a bunch of fish tank water changes.  Then I went and got my first dose of Pfizer vaccine!!!  I arrived about 17:15 for a 17:30 appointment.  Gave them my deets then waited.  And waited and waited and waited.  They didn't call me up to go in until 17:50, and then I had to wait while the single nurse there attended to the other person that came in at the same time as me.  It was 18:00 before I finally got my jab.  While I was waiting to make sure I didn't keel over, another person that came in was being seen at 18:05 - for an 18:15 appointment!!  No fair, how come I had to wait thirty five minutes, and he got in early???  Sigh. 

Got Kingsley's on the way home for dinner.  I'll probably wake up in the middle of the night hungry.  CSS is evil.  Or more precisely, how different browsers deal with it is infurating.  More Alfred Hitchcock while I downloaded and processed phone photos and blogged.

Now for the fun part.. waiting to see what side effects I get from the vaccine.. :)