So a pretty good weekend.  In that I got to spend most of it at home doing *stuff*.

Yesterday I installed Windows 10 on my puta.  After one false start I tried again and it installed.  Took most of the day to download, install, fail, try again and install.

Some notes so far:

* video adapter was not found straight away so had to download an updated driver for it
* ugly window frames.  seriously.  ugly.
* it kept all my task bar settings which was nice of it
* gadgets are gone - but logitech motion sensor still works
* images defaulted back to opening with microsoft, had to change back to acdsee
* geosetter had a spaz about Internet Explorer, but I'm not sure it was that - could just have been our internet which has been mostly dead all weekend, or the file on the site just wasn't there anymore.  Coincidence?

Other than that yesterday was fish tank stuff, housework and food shopping.  Chrissie came up in the evening for a roast pork dinner, and we just chatted for ages after dinner which was nice.

Today was some food cooking, holiday photo processing, a walk with Chris, pool maintenance, more food cooking etc.  I'm sure there was more but it escapes me right now.

Our internet has been epic fubar this weekend.  Usually it's bad when it's windy/rainy, but it's been especially fail this weekend.  

Oh we also bought some danios to be dither fish in my upstairs two foot, which they did splendidly for.  The rummy nosed tetras coloured up beautifully and have been swimming around not just hiding.  The danios I have in my big tank look *huge* in comparison - I think they're all girls!  Stu bought some worms which I've fed to all the fish.  The angel knew exactly what to do, but the danios took a while to figure out they were food!

So Friday night after the hot water dramas, headed out with Kit and Serena for a couple of drinks at the George.  Then came home and had a nice early night.

Saturday spent pretty much the whole day alternating between Nonogram puzzles and housework.  Tidied the spare room, the bedroom, cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, vacuumed half the house, washed some sheets.  I think that was all.  Then Potty and Jake arrived so chilled out with them for the rest of the arvo.  Cooked a lamb roast for dinner.

Today we had a fairly lazy start to the day.  I might have gotten more stuff done in the afternoon, but I started feeling fuzzy like I'm coming down with something.  This time there's a bit of a cough as well.  *sigh*  So really didn't get anything much done today :(  The sweetie has been feeling pretty blah too - all weekend in fact.  Fun times.. not.. :(

Pretty quiet/boring weekend for us.  Although I was super busy doing house stuff - mostly the pool and fish tank stuff, a bit of housework, some cooking (a beef stew), food shopping, walking with Chris and also with the sweetie, and drinks with Kit and Ben.  In fact I was so busy doing the house stuff I barely had time for anything else, including photo processing (only managed three days worth over the weekend).

And is America *ever* going to toughen its gun laws or what?  Seriously.

Saturday I was at work for six hours trying to get some work done before next weekend.  I was hoping to do it all.  I did maybe a third :(

In the evening we watched a documentary "My Beautiful Broken Brain" on Netflix, and the Bourne Ultimatum.

Sunday we headed out to Namagi with Kit to do the Granite Tors walk.  Took an hour twenty to get up (my heart was *not* thanking me for it) and an hour and ten back down.  Kit very nicely supplied some sausages and we had a bit of a bbq at the end.

This snake was *right next to me* on the path.  I only heard it after I'd passed it.  Scary!

We was up there

Nice spot for a picnic lunch

The remains of the tracking station

In the evening we watched Star Trek Generations and had a relatively early night.

Today I did houseworkey stuff, cooked dinner before lunch, spent the afternoon blogging my USA 2000 trip and geotagging my Hong Kong photos.

In the evening we enjoyed deviled lamb shanks and watched the Bourne Legacy.

Friday I finally got one of my new firewalls live.  Seemed to all work ok.  Now think I may make our (my) deadlines.

Friday night a cool change came through which was *heavenly*.  I opened the entire house up and the relief was amazing.  Dropped into Kit's briefly in the evening (she fed us a couple of slices of Aldi/enhanced pizza which was just what we needed and saved us ordering evil pizzas).

Saturday was a trip to the Canberra Show, but I'll save that for another post.  Got home completely wrecked (on our feet for about seven hours, 16000 steps, with only a rest at Zierholz in the middle).  Needed to just *sit* for a while to recover.  Started watching Back to the Future III, but ended up down at Kit's for a while cause she had some friends over.  Got to bed on time, but woke up in the middle of the night for an hour or so.

Today just houseworkey stuff and shopping.  In the afternoon we watched Das Rheingold.  This was a production Stu saw at Dendy a while back by the New York Met.  It was quite well done (although lonnnng heh).  Stu cooked home-made salt and pepper squid for dinner and we finished watching Back to the Future III.

Also this weekend (as well as watching some House - we're into season 8 now), we started watching Fuller House.  I loved Full House as a teenager and they're doing a remake.  It was chocked full of references to the old show, and they have a couple of serious digs at the Olsen twins.  It's a little bit more adult focussed - not quite as family friendly I don't think.  Hoping that it finds its own feet though and not just a complete remake of the original series.

Lately I seem to be feeling a constant low level stress/depression (that regularly flares up to much stronger versions).  Work is certainly not helping.  The heat over the last couple of weeks.  Lack of sleep.  Body cycles that should be four weeks being only three.  Food.  Blood pressure.  Missing jigsaw piece from a new and expensive jigsaw.  Bank fees.  Housework.  Vacuuming.  Trivia nights to prepare for.  A computer that hasn't installed updates since a cancelled upgrade to Windows 10 last year (other than Security Essentials updates) and doesn't seem to have the ability to either.  iPhone batteries that don't last the day.  Clutter.  Dust.  Holiday finances.  Weight.  Deteriorating eyesight.

Yup.

There just doesn't seem to be enough *time* in the world.  Last night was cool off in the pool, cook and eat dinner while watching House, a walk with Chris and just a little bit of time on the jigsaw.  And then it's bed time.  I didn't get any computer time.  I still haven't even *seen* most of my last holiday photos, let alone geotag them.  Tonight was better, but had to fight with my computer for too long after it started spazzing out.  Got a bit of trivia night stuff done at least.  A whole half hour.  Yay.

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 :/

OK so I didn't.  I actually didn't do all that much at all.

But after a weekend of work, we have a new pool at the club.

Monday was just catching up on housework.  Why does it never end?  Why do we *always* have a messy kitchen/house??

Had a reasonably quiet weekend.  Stu has been sick since last week, so didn't go out Friday night.  

Saturday was the club AGM, but we only went out for it and came home again after.  I cooked duck for dinner and we watched The China Syndrome, which Stu had never seen.

Today Stu studied and I did jigsaws.  Correction.  The same jigsaw, just the other side.  All will be revealed soon.  And housework.  Always housework.  And started setting up another blog for all my Australian holidays (since I'm scanning all my old holiday photos and would be good to get some of them online).  Tonight I did a lamb roast (we have sooo much food in the fridge it's not funny) and we watched Highlander.  I don't think we've actually seen it since we went to Scotland in 2010.  Been theres! :)

Very quiet weekend.  I had a Getting Things Done kind of weekend (including housework, sorting holiday paperwork, photo and email sorting, and cooking), while the sweetie had a Hide From the World kind of weekend (including sleeping and uni work).

We also watched all four Indiana Jones movies on Friday and Saturday nights.

Did I mention the food?

That tin of water chestnuts has been sitting in our pantry for *years* and I wanted to use them in something.  And for me any excuse is a good excuse to have hoisin sauce.

Fry duck breasts til golden, then a minute or so on the other side, then into the oven for eight to ten minutes.

While that's happening, heat up some snow peas and the water chestnuts.  Serve with rice.  Yum!  Delicious!

Today I started cooking dinner this morning.

For today's version I'm using four lamb shanks (not huge ones), two slices of bacon (we're trying to cut down on our processed meat so less bacon than usual, a small bag of your favourite mushrooms, a couple of potatoes, a couple of small onions, garlic, a bay leaf, tomato paste, about half a carton of stock, worcestershire sauce, a third of a bottle of red wine, several large spoonfuls of cornflour to thicken the sauce, and a little pepper.  I think that's all.

Chuck the shanks, potato, tomato paste, corn flour, worcestershire sauce, stock and wine into the slow cooker.

Fry up the bacon, garlic, onion and mushroom

Add everything in

Get really impatient with the cooking process.  Pretend to be healthy by eating a large salad of rocket, tomato and feta for lunch.  Topped with kewpie mayonnaise.  Double mayo after the photo is taken.  Resist the urge to eat salami all afternoon because, *hunger* (I ate a bit of cheese and some almonds).

Hurry up!

By 6:30pm it's looking good.  In a messy bad sort of way.

Pull all the meat off the bones.  Turns out there's quite a bit on four lamb shanks.  Who knew?  

Mix it all back in.  Maybe we'll get more than four servings out of this if the meat is split up.  (We'll probably get six)

Serve.  Devour.