Just had a slightly tearful goodbye meeting where they brought in some old colleagues too for my goodbye. Have handed in all my gear and am off to the pub while I wait for other peeps to finish and join me! Feeling.
Miss Meow caught all the greebles earlies tonight, so I should be alright. Sleep well, I've heard greebles don't bother drunk people, so you should be fine too.
Update on the diverse lifestyle magpies in my street, as of last night. Old Mrs magpie has moved 3 streets over and found a new (male) mate known to all as the Admiral (a long term resident), but still enjoys rolled oats from my hand. She hasn't built a nest yet. Young Mrs magpie has taken a young male mate (as yet unnamed by us), and has built a nest just over the road in a street tree. It's too far up to see if there are eggs yet, but we can hope. The young male, who is a complete dill and alternates between doing his duty by feeding young Mrs magpie, and begging food from her. He doesn't take food from humans yet, though young Mrs magpie has started doing so for the first time just a week ago. We think he's still learning how to do husbanding properly, but as he's less than 2 years old that's not surprising. Young Mrs magpie is also about 2 years old. Will keep you all updated on this teenage romance.
If you need more time and peace of mind about petrol and don’t mind using the 7-11 app and having an account for it you can fuel price lock in a price of your nearest 7-11s in your area for a week.
There was a lovely story yesterday about a Jack Russell who alerted a neighbour that her owner was having a medical emergency and basically saved the owners life.
My husband: Gee some dogs are smart. Some have jobs and do some remarkable stuff. Your dog eats tissues.
One of my dogs would be very sad. He would lay with me untill someone found me. The other would take a leg for the bone the second I went down on the ground.
Our JRT protects the child from the vacuum cleaner with such ferocity we have teeth marks in the dyson. But she had a mouse friend living in the cupboard beside her bed and she even shared her food.
I should have tidied up my stationery earlier - I found $100!!!
I recall a couple of years ago thinking I must have been overly optimistic in my estimates of how much money I had received from selling some of my stuff, I guess I was right after all. Shoving my cash inside a random notebook until I could put it in the bank seemed like a good idea at the time.
I've had a wonderful start to the week. Since it's book week I got invited to a couple of schools. I did some talking about my books and writing and read a couple of chapters to kids from grades 3/4 and 5/6. I asked the kids if they liked scary stories, and then what scary stories they like and one kid said 'Revenge of the Flightless' which had me all teary-eyed.
Also scored a box of chocolates.
Yesterday I was a 'celebrity' reader for another school so I read a couple of chapters to about 40 kids who mostly seemed enthralled (though I am sure I heard one kid whispering 'this is boring' lol). And after that I did a writing workshop. I thought I'd get like 5 kids interested, but had 30. It was like my own classroom and we started thinking about stories and how we write them and I got them to talk about scary experiences in their lives and how we can use them as ideas for stories, creating characters and all that. It was really fun.
I got the 92 on my assignment.
I was also told that the librarian at my daughters school (who recently bought my books for their library) is reading them and really likes them.
This morning I got a message from the parent of one of the kids in the workshop thanking me for doing it and how her son came home talking about it, and being confident in sharing his work (I mentioned at the end to not be afraid of sharing their work with friends and family and how it took me 35 years to have that courage).
And finally, I volunteered to read in my daughters class this morning (not my books) and I got to see a glimpse of how classrooms look and work before I got to read. It went well which was good and my daughters face was priceless (despite her asking me to do it).
Can someone tell me what planet is in retrograde or why I have such random anxiety today? There's no reason but it's been shocking all day. I had a great night's sleep last night too...
When I'm at work (food manufacturing) I don't mind because I'm getting paid for it, so when I'm doing it at home it seems an especially thankless task!
Me too. Its endless. I try to minimise creating them when cooking but they spawn anyway from whichever circle of hell they arise from. Forever. Until death do us part. Or maybe not, if that’s the particular hell I get assigned to in the afterlife.
The new double edge razor brush for cats has already removed 4 knots from Ted, the annoying one under his chin too. Poor little guy, he didn't ask for all that fur. ( I have to wear gloves or Ted shreds me )
Omg JLo is so cringe. Fancy making a film about how much in love you apparently are, only to divorce the love interest for the second time a few months later.
Oh man I heard about the "documentary" not that they'd broken up. And apparently had to scale back or cancel a tour. Rough time for 00's pop starts at the moment.
Because new stationery is always what will inspire you to change your life and get organised. And then you don't use it, so you buy more, because this time it will work.
I think most of it is for reasons that no longer apply now that we tend to do everything on computers. Also a bunch of stuff from when I was selling a lot more on eBay. I think the chances of me using three full boxes of address labels in my lifetiime are now fairly slim.
pretty sure youse guys are beginners. I have two ikea cubes of calligraphy paper, one box of art paper, about ten big scrolls of paper and then a box of normal stationery/note pads. I have a box of inks and paints.
After so much bullshit and fighting I got an assignment extension for 3 days! This really takes off the edge and gives me much more breathing space... thank fuck.
Progress is still slow, but solid, and definitely adding up. I'm starting to feel less shitty about my reduced mental capacity and more excited about being back in the world of logic and empirical data, not just lazy opinions. Got to chat to some people that really lifted my spirits/rejuvenated things and made me feel like maybe this is all actually heading somewhere meaningful.
I'm going to feel PARTICULARLY great once I get this thing off my plate though! I can just feel the satisfaction already.
I luckily don't have to do that haha, Mickey is just a wriggly boi!
But I did have to grab his legs like a hog-tie to stop him spreading them out hahaha couldn't do it the way they teach at school, and I hate grabbing them by the scruff (it's kinda okay when they're very young kittens, but the older the cat the more strain it places on their neck when scruffed, causing damage and an angry, in-pain cat; there are better ways to do it).
Roadworks in my street today. Wonder how long it'll last this time. It's only been a couple of years since the last lot, and my street is only 10 houses long!
I googled to find out what the best meal replacement shakes are and canstar strongly recommended Aldi's one. The trouble with Aldi is that you can never be sure you can get what you want there. I just got back from Aldi and sure enough.. nope no sign of them. If I did manage to get some and wanted to use them regularly there'd be a chance they just wouldn't have them the next time I needed some. I'm really really underwhelmed by Aldi in general so this didn't help. I did grab a bag of coffee beans though.
Meanwhile.. I've invited someone over for dinner next week. Any suggestions on what I should cook? As far as I know there aren't any special dietary requirements but I might actually double check on that.
Double check on dietary requirements, then ask us again. Lots of good cooks here, so you'll likely get some good suggestions. Also budget requirements cos cost of living. For example, if you want to spend more than $100 or less than $50 to feed how many people.
The only requirement is "nothing too spicy", which isn't to say zero spice, just nothing hot.
Budget isn't an issue. The two things I have are money and time. I don't need to go overboard on cost though just for the sake of being fancy, she is very down to earth. It'll just be the two of us.
Thanks, that makes me feel better about them not having any. I'll keep researching. Canstar has manshake pretty far down the list which I found surprising because it seems fine. Keen to find out what better ones there are though.
dumb question, is everyone elses bedside draw full of... junk? I've got cables, old watches that still work but I rarely wear, headphones, but nothing I actually use? Theres no better place for some of it, but it ends up being a draw full of rarely used stuff.
I don't have bedside draws, but the bottom draw in the kitchen is where I store that stuff, and other bits and pieces (a screwdriver, tape, an N95 mask, the tapes things from the wall hanging hooks from woolies, a figurine of Shaymin (Pokemon) and I think Meowth)
I don’t have bedside drawers. There’s a jewellery box on top of a kinda shoe rack.
The “junk” is mostly in the study/guest room, some sorted and classified, some just dumped with later intentions.
Yep I've got a bedside table draw full of tangled random cables and my Kindle lives in there too. Somehow I can pick out the cable I need without too much fuss, but it def could be tidied up. It's on the list to do someday.
Haven't got bedside drawers but my bedside table is actually my daughter's desk, which is too small for her to use effectively as a desk anymore. It sits in between her bed and mine and functions as both our bedside tables. As well as random desky things it displays an odd assortment of children's books and toys, moisturising lotions and lip balms. Inside the single cupboard of the desk are some books I like to keep near me (like the Tao the Ching, which I read, and a family hymn book, which I don't). I also keep a spare phone there. Mostly there is a selection of old exercise books the kids did school work in during the early years in the before times, when nobody had anxiety or school refusal and they were enthusiastic about learning and school in general. They were golden times and I didn't realise it, and sometimes I get some of those books out and read some of their crazy imaginative stories and think about it all.
Melbcat has another uti - or the previous one still isn’t gone. My poor little pudding. I’ve shelled out for a lab culture and we’re looking at a stronger course of the strong antibiotics (with a risk of blindness).
She’s getting force fed pain meds to ensure she’s covered. I’ll look after her
After my wedding day and the birth of my child, I'd say best-day-of-my-life-#3 would be when I went to Katz's Deli in NY and consumed triple my own body weight in pickle-laden sandwich perfection.
Ham, sliced in a packet (champagne or smoked, whatever) or a roast ham thing, is a good way to substitute bacon (I just realised that sounded silly, both are pig ha).
Just chop it up into small squares/dice it and throw it in the pan till crispy!
I've decided I'm gonna make horses doovers for dinner on Friday (perhaps). So far I've got devilled eggs, blinis with smoked salmon, bruschetta and mini sausage rolls.
I'm trying to include all the important 5 food groups, butter, cheese, bread, pastry and cucumber. It's gonna be so classy with beer.
Blinis are drop scones made with buckwheat - and delicious with smoked fish. And even more delicious with cream cheese & cranberry jam/sauce. Yep the same stuff that goes on turkey. I say go the blinis!
Don't judge the homemade ones by the horrible little puddles of crud that caterers serve up under that name.