Sunday.  29th.  Dinner was leftovers I brought home from the club. DS9 4.18 then Lego Masters 7.9.

Monday.  Early night, but took ages to get to sleep then woke up at like 3:30 for ages. Did eventually get a bit more sleep but not much.

Spent the day staring at the rules in a dev environment that are a mishmash of several versions of things including imports of prod. It's a complete mess. I've been wanting to clean it up for literally seven years and finally had a good excuse because I need to do it to prep for a project that will require us to actually do real work in there (and I can't see anything in there at the moment). Andor 2.10 then Lego Masters 7.10 (semi final - a Harry Potter build which was a heap of fun!).

Tuesday. 

Acts 2:21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved... Originally from Joel 2:28-32. After the apostles receive the Holy Spirit.  Just a reminder.

Slept mostly ok. Definitely had energy this morning more so than other mornings recently. Had my morning routine done by like 7:40 instead of after 8. Not quite the whole day cleaning up dev (too many people wanting things) but I did delete nearly 1360 policies that weren't in use - winning!!

It was perfect soup weather on Tuesday

Cooked a tuna bake (forgot the dill) with brussels sprouts and broccolini for dinner.

Andor 2.11. The second half of this series has definitely picked up quite a bit, I'm enjoying it a lot more. Then it was sorting out Mum's photos, removing some duplicates and getting a "definitive" version for picking later.

Wednesday.  

Acts 3:19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out .. after God heals a lame man through Peter, and Peter is telling the onlookers about Jesus.  What he said.

Slept mostly ok. Deleted more crap today. Went into the city after work to get a filter for a new lens I'm hoping to get because Ted's said it wouldn't be available til like September. Turns out it was the lens not available not the filter.. which makes more sense but FFS now I have two filters and no lens. Sigh.

Leftovers for dinner. Andor 2.12 (season finale) then Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy 7.11 (season finale). **spoilers** .. I reckon Trent and Alex's build was totally win-worthy, but obviously Brickman preferred the art of Henry and Cade's.

Thursday.  Slept okish. More deleting crap and tidying and documenting what's left in the dev environment I'm working on.

Good Games vending machine!! 

Good drinks although not many people. Pizzas then DS9 4.19 then the Bomb and the Cold War episode 8. Before it started I was telling Stu that I'd really like to watch a documentary on some thing I was thinking about.. but we started watching the show and forgot about it. And then for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was that we were talking about. And neither could Stu. All we could remember was it was some engineering thing, because I remember telling him that I liked engineering stuff like dams, bridges and towers, but I never could have been an engineer cause I'm dumb and no good at advanced maths. Oh well.

Friday.  

Acts 4:12 - Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved .. Peter talking about Jesus to the High Priest, elders and the teachers of the law in Jerusalem after he was arrested for talking about the resurrection.

Slept relatively ok. Did a bit of tidying/documenting but not as much as I'd have liked. Found this video by Kurzgesagt quite depressing.  Chris didn't have Kievs so we had some chicken pieces but they were a bit too spicy for me. I did make a nice dipping sauce of yoghurt, garlic powder, lemon juice and dill though.

Death in Paradise 14.7 then Flying High because I needed something light.

Saturday.  Awake from like 1:30 til after 5 or so. Stressing about All The Things. Hurray. Surprisingly unzombielike though. Mostly Lego filing all day. Annie came over for a while in the afternoon which was nice and she brought some nice peanut butter and choc chip cookies she made. Dumpling Inn for dinner then we watched Rogue One, which worked well after just finishing Andor.

Sunday. 

Acts 4:32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.... oof yeah that doesn't happen much anymore!

Slept through til ~4 before waking up and never getting back to sleep. Stressing about All The Things. Got some stuff done during the day but not nearly enough.

Food shopping in the afternoon.

Sunday.  17th.  Had an almost vegetarian dinner (except for the bacon hehe).  The bullhorn chillis were $2 from Toms.

Watched the second Christmas special of the American Lego Masters series.

Monday.  Slept okish (took ages to get to sleep and woke up early.

The sky sure was blue after all the rain on the weekend!

Dunno what was up with this currawong.  Maybe it ate too many strawberries haha

Nick helped me out with a script and I actually got it working which was super happy making.  Leftover lemon pepper chicken for dinner.  Queensland photo picking, jigsaw, Men Against Fire on Black Mirror.  I'm sure if real militaries could do that they would.  The Bricklink order (the quote) was "cancelled"  #grunt.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep then woke up early.  The Bricklink seller said the quote was already cancelled when he went to look.  And there was no way to reopen it.  #grunt.  

From Bricklink:

Canceled - There are three reasons a quote is canceled:
The seller did not provide a quote within three business days.
The buyer did not take action on the quote within three business days.
The items in the quote were sold before the order was generated.

Probably that last one.  Fortunately I was able to add everything to a wishlist so it was (relatively) easy to reorder it.  

Productive day, got some scripts working, did some music, tidied the house a bit, cooked dinner, did some photo picking and watched some tv.

Wednesday.  Took a while to get to sleep and woke up early.

Finally!  A strawberry haul!  These were in the pool so the currawongs didn't know about them, and the snails never found them either.  

Ok day at work - made some progress on scripting - got one of Daniel's premigration scripts working so that made me super happy.  Road block on another function though.  Home late, dinner, backups, hair, jigsaw, bed.

Thursday.  Took a while to get to sleep and woke up early.  Sensing a theme here. 

Busy day prepping and working with the vendor on a big cleanup of the mess they made.  Had to work through drinks so didn't really get to talk to people much.  Pizzas, bed.

Oh, and David might have been on the news the other night..

Friday. 

Finish of the cleanup went ok, noone screamed.  Mostly scripting all day.  Managed to get something super complicated working so that was cool (adding IP addresses to a group, sounds like it should be simple right hahahahaahh), but didn't finish Daniel's complicated script converting.  Kievs for dinner.

USS Callister on Black Mirror which was actually kinda fun.  A little bit like White Christmas in some ways.

Saturday.  Breakfast with Annie at Gang Gang which was nice.

Did our food shopping afterwards.  Then All The Things all day.  

Cooked up the last of the leftover pork in a red curry

Death in Paradise 10.5 and then Arkangel on Black Mirror.  

Yeah so it's early.  Sue me.

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok but woke up fairly early.  Just around the time the cacaphony of birds was starting.  Got a smidge more sleep until 5:30.  House stuff in the morning.  I even mowed the lawn!  Probably the first time in over thirty years.  I had to mow the lawn sometimes as a teenager and I HATED it!!  The lawnmower was loud and hard to start and our lawn was huge and I would ALWAYS get hit by debris even with the catcher on (which was a pain to have to empty over and over again).  I never did it here either because our lawnmower was loud and hard to start and I'd been scarred from doing it as a teenager.  Anyways.  We got a new lawnmower the other week because the starter cord on the old one broke right off.  The new one is battery powered (we did get a new 36v battery and charger because it was easier to just get the kit rather than putting in a special order for just the mower.  Turns out the new battery is chunkier so that's useful.  The thing is super easy to start - you just press down the start button and pull one of the levers (you have to keep the lever(s) held down for it to keep operating which is the only real annoyance).  And it's relatively quiet.  So yeah, winning.

Other than that just various house/computer stuffs all day.

Monday.  Christmas Day!  Late night because of the carols, but then woke up at 6am.  Because that's what I do.  Ok sleep in between though.  Never turned my computer on all day because of storms coming and going and needing to do All The Things anyway. 

When you plant mint seeds and poppies grow instead

Cooked up an epic Christmas Day feast for the two of us.

There was a woollies turkey roast, some sweet potato and sage, a blue cheese potato bake, brussels sprouts with bacon and hazelnuts and onion and sage stuffing.

Just cleaning and Lego after lunch, then headed over to Annie's for drinks and dessert.  It's been exactly a year since we saw them all last.  We're such slackers.

Tuesday.  Boxing Day.  Got to sleep ok but then awake from 4am for ages.  Spent all morning cooking and cleaning.  Stu went to pick up the mother type person.  Then everyone else got here.  Had snackages and did presents and stuffs.

Lunch was epic roast pork (crackling was great but the pork was a little over done), epic potato bake (there were heaps of leftovers!!), potato and sweet potato, peas, home made apple sauce and gravy.

After lunch David went on a shopping and visiting expedition, so I put up the America photos from my blog (they really need culling for a slideshow though).  David was gone for hours haha.  When he eventually did get back we put on Mum's Tasmania slide show.  Meanwhile, we got a message from Annie (who we saw yesterday and who said when we got there she had a sore throat) that she was covid positive.  Sigh.  Had dessert for dinner and an early night.

Wednesday.  Slept okish I think.  Spent most of the morning with Mum looking at Tasmania photos from three out of four of her trips there (1968 with YHA, 1971 with Dad, 2023 with Evelyn and Outback Spirit).  Mum went off to lunch with the others.  I was going to go to Tony's birthday lunch at Dickson, but decided not to "just in case" stoopid covid (it would have been fine).  Instead cleaned up and sorted cables.  When everyone got back David told me what all the cables were so I labelled everything.  We then had a game of Five Crowns which I won.  Put on the news for Mum and made her some garlic prawns with some of the prawns D&K brought up.  Then we watched Luca, which Mum even managed to stay mostly awake through.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3:45 and never got back to sleep.  Sigh.  Dropped Mum off at Jolimont and had a full on meltdown on the way home.  Too much stress?  Release of stress?  I dunno, but over half my break was over and all I've done was cleaning and cooking and family and haven't had a chance to relax yet.  Man I still miss uni holidays.  So.  Much.  Put on some washing and tidied up the fridge and labelled stuff.  Then just another day of trying to get All The Things done.  Did I mention I haven't had a chance to relax yet?  Finished season one of Mash.. the blue ladies!!  They played that episode *a lot* in the eighties.  Then The Orville 2.6.

After sorting the cables that came out of this box and putting them all back in.. sigh..

Friday.  Slept relatively well.  Another day of All The Things.  Got heaps done.  Rewarded myself later in the afternoon by starting a jigsaw.  Stu got pizza for dinner, then Mash, Death in Paradise 7.5 and Twin Peaks 1.7.

Saturday.  Slept relatively well.  Another day of All The Things.  Got heaps done.  In the afternoon I watched the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer because I don't think I've ever actually seen it.  I actually really really HATE the song.  Yeah let's all bully someone for being a bit weird, and only like them if we can use them for something.  So horrible.  The tv special isn't any better, but Clarice is nice.  The Crown 6.5, Twin Peaks 1.8 (which is the end of season one - I thought that would be the end, but it keeps on going haha).

Sunday.  New Year's Eve.  Slept mostly ok although awake around 4 for a while.  Another busy day, mostly catching up on blogging and finishing my year in review post, with a bit of jigsaw as well.  We might have had peeps over tonight, but we're still isolating "just in case" we get covid.  So will be a nice quiet night with just the two of us.

Sunday.  6th.  Finished the leftover pork from the club for dinner with a bit of char siu sauce which made it very nice.  Early night.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Stu was still feeling uneasy in his bowels.  Had a not so insane morning which let me catch up on some tickets.  Spent an hour after work doing house cleaning.  Leftovers for dinner.  Did some culling but still didn't finish Verona/Venice.  Watched War on Waste 2.2 (saw third episode another night this week, don't remember which night though).  

Tuesday.  Took til like 1am to get to sleep - itchy and restless legs.  Still woke up before 6 though.  First thing in the morning they came by to dig holes for the new trees, then a little while later they came by to plant the trees.  Which look decidedly like bottlebrushes not English hawthorns.  Not that I'm complaining, just different to what they said.  Another day of non stop interruptions and all the stoopid.  Chicken kiev for dinner.  Because I didn't feel like leftovers.

Wednesday.  Got to sleep ok but then woke up at like 4 for like an hour an a half.  Stressing about All The Things.  Stu was somewhat back to normal with his bowels.  Very unpleasant week for him.  They came by to mulch in the trees.  Lots of being hassled again.  Made some pasta with some mince I dug out of the freezer.  Then I finished culling down the Italy trip!!!  And culled down the food and hotel photos as well.  1303 photos in the main section and a couple of hundred each extra for food and hotels.  Wondering if I had a scratchy throat...

Thursday.  Definitely feeling like I had a scratchy throat.  hmmm.  Decided to work from home.  Craziness in the afternoon.  Sigh.  Still not actually feeling sick, just a slight scratchy throat and an infrequent cough.  Took a RAT at some point today, I think.  Negative.  Pizza for dinner, Futurama, Death in Paradise 5.3.

Friday.  Throat still a bit scratchy.  The plan was to take an RDO and clean the house.  But at this point I didn't even know if I'd be going ahead with the party.  So I worked in the morning.  Did another RAT.  Still negative.  Finished up around 2 then did a quick bit of house cleaning, then went and did the food shopping for the party.  Tv dinners for dinner.  Just because.  5.4 of Death in Paradise.

Saturday.  Went to be early but then woke up at midnight for over three hours.  Stressing about All The Things.  Sigh. 

Spent all day cleaning.  All of this should have been done yesterday and Saturday was meant to be completely chilled with just the food prep to do.  Sigh.  Just before Kit left the coast I did a third RAT.  Still negative.  But messaged everyone anyway to let them know the situation and they didn't have to come if they didn't want to risk getting sick.  A few people did pull out and I don't blame them.

I'll save the party for another post.

Sunday.  Woke up at 6:30.  Because that's what I do.  No matter how late I go to bed.  Saw Kit off at 8.  Tried to get more sleep but failed.  Slow day just doing a big cleanup - two loads of washing up, sorting the rubbish and recycling and vacuuming the lounge room.  Not much else.  Did start a jigsaw in the afternoon because didn't feel like doing anything else.  Cooked up some of the leftover party food for dinner with some brussells sprouts.  

Saw a cool video on sesquizygotic twins this week, in which twins share all of their maternal DNA, but only about half their paternal DNA.  They're stoopidly rare and they're not quite sure how it happens.  One theory is that an egg gets two sperm, and somehow they still manage to divide up the chromosomes successfully so as to not get duplicates.  Cool stuff!

Monday.  5th.  Slept ok.  Got on early to see if there were any problems from Friday's work but haven't heard of any.  More cleaning planning.  Hacking photinia and creeper after work.  Basa bake for dinner.  Then watched crap on the internet while filing photos, and did some music.

Tuesday.  Woke up before 4 and never got back to sleep.  Sigh.  I don't even know what I did all day.  Did some weeding at lunch.  Had leftovers for dinner.  Music after dinner again.  Oh I started watching Survivor Canberra, a fan-produced show which is actually pretty decent (aside from audio quality issues in one of the early episodes).  

Wednesday.  Woke up at like 5.  hrmm.  Very distracing day.  Everyone wanting All The Things.  Went and run a heap of errands at lunch - bought some new pj bottoms, bought some bubbly, booked an eye appointment and went to the bank to get pretty green ones for the kids.  We won't mention the old fart who barged past me waiting outside the bank to go in, then convinced himself that he was next despite me saying I was waiting outside.  Buttplug.  But I did see Fleur from Lego Masters in the mall!  I almost said hello but I just wasn't sure (I have no idea where any of the contestants are even from).  After work caught up wih Aaron at the lighty which was nice.  Talked about everything and nothing.  Mostly work I guess.  

Thursday.  Solar installation day!!  One guy spent all day moving out roof files, grinding them down, and attaching mounting brackets.  In the afternoon another guy came as well and they got most of the panels up.  Went in to work for drinks.  Pork larb for dinner.

Friday.  The solar guys had the power off most of the day to completely rewire the switch board and plumb in all the devices.  I used the lack of electricity time to sort out all the boxes we've collected over the past couple of years.  At lunch time I went in for round two of work Christmas parties which was a very pleasant afternoon.  Chicken kiev for dinner and the second episode of Picard.

The first step is admitting you have a problem..

Saturday.  Solar guys installed the battery and associated cabling.  They wandered off in the middle of the day but didn't actually tell us they were done for the day.  In the meantime, Stu hired a carpet shampooer to attack the moldy carpet where the shelf had been downstairs.  It did a decent job although is not perfect.  Also did the hallway and some bits of the lounge room and study.  I was trying to attack my todo list but it was all too hard and ended up wasting most of the day catching up on rss feeds.  Sigh.  After dinner went over to see Mila in advance of her 21st birthday.  

These are all the seeds from *one* poppy head!

Sunday.  Went out for brunch at Market St Eats and did some food shopping.  Then cooking pretty much all afternoon (although did squeeze in twenty minutes of music).  Sigh.  Jenn came over for dinner - a very overcooked vege lasagna.  Then a relatively early night.

A mummy-long-legs and her babies (being evicted from the house)

Monday.  Woke up at 1:40 to the thunder of a coming storm.  And then didn't get back to sleep til like 4.  Sigh.  Bit of a zombie day.  Another day of all the people wanting all the things.  Solar guy spent all day wiring up the battery.  Apparently these things are so new that there's a few design quirks that need to be worked around.  He disconnected power a bit after lunch for like twenty minutes to hook it in.  Leftovers from first work Christmas party for dinner.  And caught up on blogging.  I still can't get Geosetter to work.  It died last week - refuses to load the map.  I suspect it's because it's using an ancient IE api that Google no longer supports (as of the end of November, so the timing fits), but noone else is complaining on the forum so I have no idea.  Might have to start looking for another photo geotagging app.  

Sunday.  31st.  Leftovers from Saturday night for dinner.  Finished watching Obi-Wan.  I liked that they had James Earl Jones voicing Darth Vader.. only .. they *didn't* ..!! they deep faked him!  And having Ian McDiarmid was pretty cool too.

Monday.  Slept ok-ish but woke up early.  Started panicking over my todo list.  Started trying to get in control by giving the house a bit of a tidy.  But had a meltdown as soon as I logged into work because people were making mess and it was all too much.  Had a cleaning planning day.  Leftover pork for dinner.

Oh, the other week my everyday walking shoes split (I bought these in 2015 and worn them almost every day since) so last week I bought some new ones.  Almost the same, look slightly different.

In the evening I tried to book flights to Europe with Qantas.  Big mistake.  I tried to book the exact same itinerary as I did three years ago (when it failed epically and I spent *hours* trying to sort it out and in the end said "screw you" and went with Emirates).  Well in three years QANTAS STILL HASN'T FIXED THEIR BOOKING SYSTEM!!!!  As with last time, you select a multi city trip (I only had three legs, nothing too complicated), it lets you get all the way through including doing seat allocations, but when you go to pay you get this error:

Sorry, an error seems to have occurred, and this page cannot be displayed (15079, 23951, 420)

Thanks a fricking lot QANTAS.  I can't believe they're still so bad at this crap.  It's like they're actively trying to deter business and alienate customers.  Literally every time I have to deal with Qantas I have to go through the sheer agony of their booking systems (if it wasn't for their AMAZING flight crews I'd probably boycot them completely).  

I used Webjet to hunt around for alternatives.  But THANKS COVID.. NOT.. there's very limited options at the moment.  Etihad had no flights available at all for the legs I wanted, and Emirates for the same legs was going to cost three thousand dollars more.  Yikes.  Lufthansa would have been ok except they had some really crazy connections that totally blew out the travel times.  So I booked the flights through WebJet, which was going to cost $200 more.  And sure enough, their APIs had the same issues with Qantas.  I got this error:

Customer Service Advice
We have been unable to confirm your requested itinerary, but have retained a copy of your requirements under Webjet Booking Reference: <redacted>
We will now process your itinerary manually and confirm your booking within 48 hours.
If you are departing within the next 48 hours we will contact you today. Please do not attempt to make another booking on this site or another, as this may result in a duplicate. Please wait for us to contact you.
Thank you for your co-operation.
Customer Service Centre

So I left it.  At least someone at WebJet will have to deal with Qantas and not fricken ME!!   

The next day I got an email from WebJet that everything was sorted and the flights had been booked.  Hurray.

Tuesday.  Cleaning day and holiday research.  Did a basa bake for dinner which was lovely.

Wednesday.  Rinse and repeat of Tuesday.  I had a whole commentary in my head about how getting older makes you more *fearful*.  I really noticed this a while back riding Kit's horses (I literally had no fear about riding horses when I was younger but now they're so *big* and it's a long damned way down!) and let's not mention The Nerve Test.  So I was stressing about all the ways things could go wrong with our holiday.  Although in the grand scheme of things, mostly all we'd lose is money.  I really need to keep that perspective.  

I did an experiment with the brussels sprouts - would they crisp up better "right way up" or "upside down"?  Turns out, didn't really make a difference!

Thursday.  Lay awake until like midnight stressing over All The Things (mostly holiday stuff).  Then woke up at 1am by the storm for an hour or so.  Then woke up early too.  Sigh.  Zombie day.  Farewell for Alex at lunch.  Quiet drinks.  All The Water!!!

Friday.  Slept a lot better.  There was even a lovely sunny day after the wild weather all day yesterday.  I needed milk for breakfast so went over to Chris's to get some.  I didn't have enough for the eftpos minimum so thought I'd get a bottle of cab sav.  But he didn't have any singles out of the one I like so he was going to open a box but I said I'd buy the box.  It was on special too, so that was a bonus.  Except carrying it back home the box split and smashed all over the car park.  Lost two bottles of wine right there.  And then I was trying to clean up the mess and pricked myself with a shard of glass and started bleeding.  Sigh.  Another customer came up and I asked her to ask Chris for help.  So he came out and took away all the broken glass and gave me a bag for the other four bottles and the milk.  They say not to cry over spilt milk but you can cry over spilt wine, surely?  Another cleaning day. Chicken kiev for dinner.  Watched Kingsman: The Secret Service which was a bit of silly fun.  

Saturday.  Went food shopping first thing.  Then a bunch of house work.  Then dropped off my backup drive at work, bought some new fish tank lights for the 620T, and accidentally bought myself an early birthday present.

Got home and then it was time to do All The Cooking.  I made a low(ish) carb, vegetarian lasagna.

Slightly over done, whoops..

Had the hills over to enjoy it and Jess had a lot of fun playing Stu's instruments.  Wait, that sounds wrong.  ;)  Specifically, his cornettos.. cornetti?  After dinner Jess and I played a whole bunch of stuff together and she played all the harmonies around me trying to keep up with her awesomeness.  It was so much fun :)

Sunday.  Did a bunch of research on countries that we plan to visit on smartraveller.  Should all be fine.  Then a whole heap of fish tank stuff.  Also some camera side-by-side testing.  The new camera is much on par with my Canon and my iPhone for most things, but it does excel in extremelly low light.  Read: under the house with just vent holes for light.  It's not so great on closeups (but some of that may be me needing to get used to the settings) and it does struggle to focus.  The iPhone probably wins on difficult lighting (with pretty decent HDR), and the Canon wins on speed and focus (except in very low light).

It's almost completely dark under the house, so this shot is actually pretty impressive.

Then it was cooking All The Food.

Tuesday morning woke up at 4:38 and never got back to sleep.  Hurrah.  Made a broccoli bake for dinner, will post that separately.  Evening was just UK photo labelling and an early night.

Tuesday night I slept somewhat better.  Stu didn't.  Le sigh.  Wednesday evening cooked chicken kiev and got up to 2794 UK photos labelled.  

Also in the evening David and I were on our computers when a possum walked onto the window sill outside the study window and looked in at us.  Twice!  (but not quite long enough for either of us to get a photo of it either time.  Possum was playing possum it was! ;) ).  As I went to bed I had that feeling again that our bedroom is a place I go to *not* sleep :(

Thursday.  Well I had a nice early night on Wednesday, but didn't get to sleep for FOUR HOURS.  Fricken hurrah.  David did very nicely go and satisfy a craving I had for Country Cheeses with cheese spread ;)  I haven't had Country Cheeses with cheese spread in probably about fifteen years.  I stopped eating them because, sodium.

The fog on Thursday took til about lunchtime to clear.  Then it came back.  At like 4:30pm ?!?  So weird!!

Evening was pizza and the first two episodes of Space Force.  The boys were cacking themselves.  I thought it was dumb.

Friday.  Awake for a while from 12:20 then up from 5:30.  Fog was gone.  Weird, because I thought it would be as thick as you could imagine.  Got up to 1400 of Dad's slides scanned.  I really hope Mum can find the book David thinks exists with details of all the slides, otherwise all this effort will be for naught - as the slides I'm scanning are not labelled other than a general topic and month/year in another book I have.  I mean some photos are pretty obvious what they are, and a month/year is sufficient, but so many photos are just a mystery what they are.

For lunch I cooked up some leftover rice with peas/corn, ham, soy, sesame oil, and a bit of leftover parsnip.  I let it get hot and a bit crunchy so that was really nice.  Really must learn how to cook paella.

In the evening we left work a little early and headed out to the club - first time we'd been out there since March.  We got the fire going and had some wine and some leftover pulled pork and had a very nice and quiet evening together.

Saturday morning Stu went to the committee meeting, and I spent the entire morning cleaning and organising the van.  Didn't get everything done on the todo list, but did clear out a heap of stuff.  Pity I didn't take any before/after photos!

Came home in the afternoon but didn't really do much.  Saw this dog saying hi on the way home.

Sausages for dinner and we watched Attack of the Clones.  I'd forgotten just how bad it is.  So much of the dialogue is completely cringeworthy.  I still have no idea how *anyone* would fall in love with petulant teenager Anakin.  So dumb.  

Any guesses what these are? :)

This morning I took a bootload of stuff to the Green Shed.  Mostly from the van, but also this little candle holder I bought when I first moved out of home in 2000.  It's very pretty and in a completely darkened room you can see the stars.  But in a normally lit room you can't actually see the candle from most angles, which makes it a bit of a waste.  I've only ever used a few times in the past twenty years, so thought it may as well go.

This afternoon I did get a bit more done on the todo list, and we had (will have - it's nearly done!) chicken cordon bleu for dinner.

So after Easter we only needed to take three days off to have ten days in a row off.  Connor was cool with me doing that, so that's just what I did :)  (The sweetie had to go to work on the Friday).

The mission for the break was to attack some of the clutter around the house.  I made a very long list before the break, knowing that we wouldn't get anywhere near getting it all done.  

Day 1.  Lesson 1.  Clothes.

We actually did what they did on the show (I've only seen the Netflix show, although Stu has read the book) and pulled all of our clothes from both cupboards and put them on the bed.  The pile was pretty big, bigger than I thought it would be, but smaller than most of the people on the show.  Then we through it all.  Stu actually got rid of a *lot* of clothes.  I didn't get rid of much.  And there's a couple of things in the give away pile that I might take back.  Even though they don't fit.  Just because they're a bit sentimental.

Day 2 I attacked the linen cupboard.  It was actually relatively neat already, but I did pull out a few things to give away, and tidy a little.  I still want to get a few tubs for linen that's not used very often, to slow down the silverfish.

Day 3 I went for the pantry.  This actually took a couple of days, doing a shelf at a time.

Then I ran out of steam.  And David and Kat came to stay haha.

I did get to the gardening corner of the garage on the Friday.

So still a lot I want to get done.  Just have to take the odd random day off here and there ;) 

So Monday.  Day four of our break.  But I didn't get anything much done around the house because I spent the morning getting organised to go to the club.  Made some cheese twists for lunch before heading out.  The previous owners of the van left a lot of kitchen stuff and tools behind which is great, but *all* the cupboards were full of stuff, with no free space to put any of our stuff.  Got a bit overwhelmed by it on Monday afternoon.  And it poured with rain.  A lot.  Had some leftovers we'd brought for dinner, and watched the start of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on tv, but went to bed before it finished.

Tuesday I spent pretty much the whole day cleaning out the cupboards and reorgansing everything so it fitted into the cupboards more logically, and left most of the big cupboard free for our stuff.  Did a couple of loads of washing up to wash stuff in the drawers and some of the cookware.  Felt a lot happier with things by the end.  Although still nowhere good to store food.  D&I fired up the fire in the oasis, so we had a beer with them which was nice.  Tried out the bbq.  It doesn't light with the lighter thingie, but runs ok if you light it.  Cooked some sausages for dinner and we had a nice bottle of 2011 shiraz I got in 2014.

Wednesday morning we came home.  Thanks to Tony though for taking our bins out - they'd been collected by the time we got home, and the recycling bin in particular would have been a disaster if we'd missed the pickup.  Cooked some pizza scrolls for lunch.  In the afternoon cleared/cleaned the middle shelf of the pantry and the two drawers under the oven.  Cooked honey mustard chicken for dinner, watched Homeland and From Russia With Love.

Didn't do much Thursday.  Did some photo filing in the morning, then headed over to Chrissie's for a bbq for lunch.  James was in town, first time I'd seen him in twenty five years, with Anita, and Susannah and Rob were there too.  So it was quite the family gathering for them.  And then they got out all the family photos that survived the bushfire (as an aside, Como Presbyterian Church reopened twenty three years ago on this day as I type this, same day as Port Arthur massacre.. moving on..).  David and Kat came over late in the afternoon and we had lamb roast and started a 2000 piece jigsaw.

Friday Stu went to work.  David pulled apart our bedroom fan light which had died a couple of months ago.  We'd gotten a new bulb but it hadn't worked either.  Turns out the ballast had gone.  Someone let the smoke out.  This fan light had been installed in November 2008.  A "Brilliant" branded fan light we got from Bunnings.  Don't do that people.  We never could get a replacement light for it.  The last one we got was a much smaller T4 bulb because we couldn't find any the right size.  Pretty sure that was in April 2014.  So instead of trying to replace the ballast and not get a bulb that fitted anyway, we decided to get a similar sized LED oyster light and mount that instead.  It looks slightly odd, but works just fine and cheaper than a whole new fan light.  Most awesomest brother ever!

So that was done in the morning and we were like.. now what?  D/K went out for a wander round Canberra and I got stuck into cleaning out the "gardening" corner of the garage.  Too many spiders and other disgustingness for my liking.  D/K gave me a lift into town later where I met up with the sweetie for a drink and dinner for our anniversary (and they went off and did their own thing).  We went to Temporada and had quite a delicious, if very expensive, dinner.

Saturday and David couldn't help himself, he wanted to replace our ancient fluoro kitchen/family room light fittings with LED ones.  So a trip to Bunnings (where it was decided against getting the "Brilliant" branded ones, even though they looked nice because a) Bunnings staff couldn't/wouldn't get the panel of test lights turned on to look at them, and b) they're Brilliant branded, which we've already established seems to be non-standard anyway), and then a trip to Project Lighting.  Got some flat round lights that don't quite cover up the old holes, so we'll need to sand/bog/paint that at some point.

We did one of the lights in the morning, then headed out to the club to show D/K the new van (and get out of Stu's way as he was trying to study).  Had a bbq out there (we really need a new gas cylinder), then came home again, and David replaced the other light.  Had pizza for dinner, watched Goldfinger, and finished the big jigsaw.  Pretty good effort for two days. 

Sunday D/K went home and I spent the day coming to terms with the end of my holiday :(  Tidied up a lot of the house, did two loads of linen washing, got some holiday blog entries online, got some kiev balls from the shops and cooked those for dinner, watched Brooklyn 99 and Death in Paradise.

Ten days is not enough time off.  I really need those three month holiday I used to get when I was at uni... *sigh* ....

Monday we got home a bit late which left me a little stressed because I need to do All The Things on Mondays, in addition to a backup I was meant to run on the weekend but never did.  I thought it was going to talk all night because I'd done a heap of moving files around, which means robocopy would then have to delete/recopy everything.  But in the end I moved them around on the disk first so it was pretty quick.  I ran Spacemonger over the disk and it added up 1.3 million files in 51000 folders.  Freaky.  We also started watching Brooklyn 99.  Stu has actually seen it all through before but suggested watching it anyway.  Not a bad show.  A bit silly but a bit of fun.  But.  KEEP THE DAMNED CAMERA STILL!!  It's got the whole Modern Family can't-keep-the-damned-camera-still thing going on which I HATE.  It's even worse than Discovery's damned lens flare.  

Must be mother's day soon..

Tuesday had the club committee meeting here so I half listened in while labelling photos (1/3 way through w00t!).  Also baked a Yum! Delicious! cake which all got eated.

The neighbour's ducks

Hey sucker!

Wednesday I was surprised to find an actual light meal at the Labor Club, so didn't end up stuffing myself silly.  Because for dinner we went to Dumpling Inn with Hannah to talk Harry Potter.

Labor Club caesar salad

Dumpling Inn

Thursday night I swear it actually got warmer as the evening progressed.  We made the most of one of the last mild evenings of the season.  At home, Stu ordered extra large pizzas for dinner hrmmm.  Then afterwards had a drink with Kit and Pete and played a game of Kismet (I won, w00t!).  The fact they are 130km away is irrelevant.

Friday we Marie Kondo-ed our clothes.  We actually pulled everything out and put it all out on the bed.  My pile was somewhat bigger than I thought it would be, but nowhere near as big as some of the piles we saw on the show.  Finished watching the Desolation of Smaug, then watched Thor Ragnarok which is a bit of fluff (reviewers either completely loved or completely hated it).  We'd seen Dr Strange so knew who he was, but not sure if there were other references we didn't get, on account of only seeing a few MCU films (it's creeping up - have seen Guardians of the Galaxy 1&2, Dr Strange, now this).

Saturday just bits and pieces.  Did a Bunnings run (no tubs in the size/style I wanted that weren't crap).  Spent some time Marie Kondo-ing the linen cupboard.  Finally sorted out the wine that's been making a mess under the house - consolidated boxes (down to about 7.5 boxes now) so it's all a bit more organised.  Watched the Battle of the Five Armies.  Just as dumb as I remembered it.

Today spent some time in the garage in the morning, but barely made a dent.  Made some cheese and vegemite scrolls for lunch which were pretty awesome.  Marie Kondo-ed three shelves in the pantry in the afternoon.  Roast chicken for dinner, Discovery (finishing up season 2), and Dr No, which I haven't seen in ages.