Melbourne

Last day of work before Christmas is over, yay! Due to my work schedule my family is celebrating a day early, so tomorrow is Christmas Eve for me. Then back to work for real Christmas Day. It always feels slightly odd to be on a slightly different timeline from everyone else, but it is the time spent with family which is important, not which day it is on.

Happy birthday to me 🥳

Tonight was a very interesting experiment (and unfortunate lesson). The males of the house wanted Hungry Jacks, but Miniest wanted ravioli. So I ordered the takeout and got to work cooking the ravioli and making a simple Napolitano sauce to go with it. Her ravioli was ready and eaten with dishwasher loaded while the dasher was still waiting for the order. Then when the order arrived it was missing half of the items! Mr P's burger was soggy and cold and his drink wasn't cold. Had to reorder and wait again. A lesson that so-called "fast food" ain't fast at all sometimes, and you're better off with even a simple thrown together home cooked meal than that garbage.

I just had such a beautiful morning. Met up with my chess buddy at what has become our regular cafe in Prahran, got a nice spot in the sun. Had a lovely cheese and egg omelette with avo. Played for two hours and didn't feel bad for taking up seats for so long because it wasn't that busy. Walked back to her place to meet her foster cat who was very shy.

Then I decided to walk home instead of tram because the weather is PERFECT. Did some shopping on the way, and because I felt amazing I decided to buy a scratchie and won $17. Walk home took about 1h15m and I feel amazing right now

Comfy

Crisis averted, I spent the entire late arvo and evening sans phone thinking I'd left it in various places, got home just as Marge hit and still couldn't find it, major panic thinking I'd need to retrace so many locations in the dark and rain - thankfully I could whatsapp someone on my desktop to call it and found the damn thing sitting on the top of the loo. Honestly!

I've done a shit tonne today including sneaking into the office to use the dishwasher for the collection of takeaway boxes I've accumulated in the last 4 weeks and doing 2.5 hrs of work while it dried; I'm so tired now and need to put new sheets on but God, if this evening wasn't a message from the universe to stop procrastinating and set up the new phone already... urgh!! Shops, sheets, dinner, phone, sleep. I got this.

BTW it says 13C outside, still feels like a stuffy 23C in my unit despite windows open all day, goddamn this stupid heat box.

Was up at 4am for another spew. Drinking on Saturday really messed me up. I can't go hard like I used to. Didn't help that I didn't have enough water ugh.

Got some decent sleep last night though, the cat came and snuggled with me after my toilet trip which was just blissful. He nudges the doona with his head and paws my face to ask me to make him a cubby. Best friend in the whole world.

Potentially doxxing where I work but I'll be out of there soon, I don't really care. Christmas always brings out the crazies.

Marge is here! Thank goodness.

In your opinion what is the worst alternative milk out there? For me it's coconut milk. If you add that to hot chocolate it does not taste like a Bounty. It tastes like Reef sun tan oil.

sky ugly

Netting up more apricot branches today. Takes waay longer than doing the whole tree as one.

But they're getting close!

Big tree this year. Hoping the netting works and will do some apricot hawt sauce.

Perfect weather for an early night.

I'm le tired

So, I didn't realise that the place I work at does annual reviews not 12 months after you start but at the end of the calendar year for everyone (when I was booked in for a "review" along with everyone else I thought it was just an end of year chat). It went really well - I got a bit of a pay bump in addition to CPI increase which was a really lovely way to end the year 🎉 after how things went down at my old workplace it is really nice for a change to feel appreciated in a meaningful way!

I don't know what the calculations would be on making it all happen yet, but I think starting that journey is definitely on the cards for 2025. So many chapters are closing, this represents a way out, something definitely needs to change...

Okay, off to the kids clothes shop to hopefully get this overcharge resolved without any fuss, then heaps of washing, laundromat, and a bitta work.

E: the overcharge thing went really well, turns out there was a further 20% off the already discounted price so I got $33 back. Worth the trip! 😎

Also cheesed off someone by "stealing" their parking spot but cmon they were trying to turn right into it across Station St, Fairfield - I didn't see them, it's technically illegal and I doubt they would've made the angle park without mounting the median and maybe nearly collecting a cyclist. It was just a 30 min park anyway. It's a shit area to park but deal with it.

Have made holiday to-do list for jobs around the house. Feeling too hungover to make a start on anything today, so doing the list makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something.

It’s a pretty aspirational list and I feel tired just looking at it. If I knock off a couple of the harder tasks I’ll be happy. Especially the painting jobs, they have to get done. I haaate painting. Mass clean out of crap accumulating in closets needs to happen as well.

I wish to register a complaint about bars & cafes who choose plain mdf boxen as seating.. My elderly butt wants some upholstery!

Nomination for most commonly said phrase in this house: Get out of the cupboard.

So feeling a lot better today but still unwell. Tested negative which is good. But going to be a very lazy day.

I’m so annoyed I can’t do dairy anymore. Thankfully generic bricks of soy milk are available and taste ok but everything else costs a fair bit more for less.

I miss those big tubs of basic home brand icecream and bulk yogurt. Also I would have liked to use the containers to plant in.

Woke up to find her like this. Fell asleep again for about an hour. Still like this.

We're still learning about how shadows work.

Wow the wind behind the rain is quite chilly. I got the rain-protected windows open to let it in the house. Inside temp dropping rapidly.

The turkey has arrived. 6.836 kg

No vomit today from Tinyest. I had the shits last night but the gastro stop settled that, and Mrs b is fine. We’re thinking maybe bad chicken or something from Cole’s deli yesterday, otherwise it’s the quickest gastro I’ve ever seen.

No sleep gang checking in. Frustrating. Too many thoughts swirling.

Hmm smells like smoke outside

I've got some disappointing news: toasters have been shrinkflated. I bought a cheapy from Kmart which looks identical to the cheapy from Kmart at the last place, but is apparently a newer model. My bread no longer fits. Not 'doesn't fit' as in too chonky, doesn't fit as in it sticks out the top and requires rotation to stop about a quarter of it coming out raw. It's only cheap woolies bread. It isn't anything fancy

Met a cool magpie in my backyard. I wanna be their friend and feed them and such, but that's not good for them, even if it's healthy food. Can't let em be dependent on humans.

Still gonna hang out while I have my coffee though I think

I'm really tired now. I might have a nap and let the dog spoon me.

That NBN box thingy hasn't moved from sunshine West since it was scanned there for the 12th or 13th time on Friday. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. It could be good, cause they might have already dumped it at wherever the local delivery facility is ready to be scanned in tomorrow morning, or maybe they've sent it back to Adelaide (it took 3 days to/from Adelaide, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's a scan at 2:30 this morning through Adelaide again)

In any case, if it doesn't arrive tomorrow, I'm just going to call up the ISP again and ask for a new one and then return this one to sender whenever it does eventually arrive

I went shopping and I tried on some pants at Sheike I liked and I went a size smaller and if I wanted skin tight could have gone a size smaller again 😭 It's so nice to get nice things and not feel like crap when clothes shopping because much too fat 🙂

so I got these, they are soft flowing and cool for hot days https://www.sheike.com.au/products/bermuda-post-pant-grey https://www.sheike.com.au/products/sanctuary-pant-print