very small victories

Argh! I wrote this on Thursday and just reàlised it didn’t post. Gosh-darned tablet, this is not the first time this has happened. I’m still counting it toward my posting streak – of 96 days! Only 269 daysand a whole lot of filler until I hit my target.

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I did also take some pleasing kitty pix with the DSLR before that sunset. What an adorable monstrous beast BabyKitty is – this is why she gets away with waking me at 4am demanding food.

I wonder if I should accept the idea that it is unlikely that I will achieve much in the evenings because I’m generally too drained. I really don’t care for that as an option though. Perhaps I need to focus on just doing one non-cooking activity and build up from there. I might give that a crack for a week and see how I progress.

But in very good news, did not snack at all this evening – we’ll just gloss over the fact that it was a fast day.

minor progress

One of my goals over the break was (and is in general) to take more photos with the DSLR, so I captured the rather excellent sunset from the top balcony on Thursday night.

Sadly I didn’t do too much with the camera after that. I think I need to make some sort of pact with myself not to immediately reach for the iphone when I want to photograph something.

And as for that post-work no-snacking goal? This morning I had all good intentions that I would come home and instead of plonking myself down in front of the laptop, I would Action some Items to avoiding eating All The Things. But by day’s end those plans had fallen well by the wayside and I ate almost my body weight in salted peanuts. Hey protein! And not biscuits! Baby-steps.

easter break 2016: day five

Sadly, today was the last day of my lovely break. And the last day of my three action items. And what do you know? All done!

I’m totally rolling this approach out to other weekends/months. I’m amazed that I actually managed to do three of the things that I have been putting off for months! Probably

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I took Corey down from the wall and rode him down to the bike shop for the first service.

I even rode all the way there and back on the road! At some point I will stop being excited by that – this is not that time.

He’s definitely a little smoother since.

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Coat rack – fin!

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Planter – fin!

A little crooked, but I’m pretty pleased with how it looks – certainly much better than the cardboard template that sat there for 3 months!

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In non-action items, I went for a 2.2km run (slowly increasing the distance), screwed up my knitting (now repaired),

watched a bunch of Midsomer Murders, repaired Joe/Frank’s split work pants and turned that other dress into a skirt (about an hour of hand sewing to go).

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Back to SML tomorrow – it is going to be completely nuts for the next couple of months.

I have a couple of small goals for the next couple of weeks – and one of them is to cut back on the snacking. We’ve made a pact that we will cease with the making of bikkies or cakes because we cannot control ourselves in the face of them! These cookies are particularly amazing, the recipe makes tons, and has been part of our downfall.

easter break 2016: day four

After we’d had our usual morning coffee in bed, I said to Don, “let’s go for a little ride” and so we did.

Exercise? Check!

Rather shorter than the usual route – quite a bit hillier, which definitely got the heart going.

I’m starting to get really fond of this bike riding caper.

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I took that good hard look at the garden and did a little re-potting and re-arranging.

Not the best pix, but looks infinitely better than it did! And ready for the (hopefully) cold weather.

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Not on the list was buying giant hooks to hang our bikes on the wall of the garage – it has made a HUGE difference to the tidiness level in there.

[imagine pix of bikes hanging to wall]

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And War and Peace … well, I finished what in my edition is part 1, chapter 5: Natasha and Boris and am about to start chapter 6: Anna Mikhaylovna and Boris go to the dying Count Bezukhov’s as soon as I hit post on this.

I was loving this when I started reading it, but suddenly one afternoon found the characters really quite awful and stopped reading for a couple of months. And worse, avoided reading anything else. I’ll push on a bit longer, but will abandon if I start hoping for everyone to die right this minute.

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Tomorrow is the last day of my holiday <sob>. I will take corey-the-bike for his first service; attach the knobs to the coat rack; finish the plant stand.

easter break 2016: day three

Rather slothful today, a bit of pottering and an awesome stew made in dwayne-the-cast-iron-casserole and Action Items achieved!

1. finish pink skirt waistband
2. drill holes for brackets in and varnish plant stand
3. varnish coat rack

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And after starting about 6 months ago, I finally finished converting that pink dress into a skirt.

It was pretty much all hand-sewing and while time-consuming, worth it I think. I was quite pleased with the outcome. As was the recipient!

This had been hanging about for an age, so I’m really glad to have it off the list!

We’ll ignore the fact that there is another dress I was planning to convert – which I may or may not get to!

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The plant stand and coat rack were a little slow to get going owing to a flat drill battery. Holes were eventually made and wipe on poly applied.

In retrospect, I probably should have worn gloves to apply it because even after scrubbing with soap and water, my hands feel a little weird and sticky.

Now only one coat on one side of each to go! Then everything has to sit for 24 hours – so completing will be on the Tuesday list.

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And for tomorrow? Take a good, hard look at the plants on the lower balcony, exercise (precisely what exercise to be determined), read at least one chapter of war and peace (a 50before50 project that has rather gone off the rails)

easter break 2016: day two

I think I rather like this 3 Action Items a day approach. It seems to focus the mind and I’m actually doing the things.

Ran that 2km. Pretty boring, but I was pleased to finally get out there. Started out a little faster than I had planned, but reined it back for the second km.

Iced afterward as instructed AND I HAVE NO PAIN! Very exciting.

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Not on the action items list, but I fiddled with the plant stand base – slightly wider brackets, which I think looks tons more pleasing, will once I get rid of the blue tape.

We also took a trip to the charity shop and I donated those frames I’d salvaged from the SML move. They were cluttering the garage and I admitted to myself that I was unlikely to actually do anything with them.

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Tonight was a solo evening for me – Joe/Frank was working and Don and Bessie spectating at the ducks game. It started pretty late, and I’ve just accepted that I am not going to games where I am going to arrive home after 10:30 (such an old lady!)

Don made chilli cheese fries before they left. SO YUMMY!

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Who knew that a pair of compasses would have practical application In Real Life?

I feel like this rack will look pretty sweet – and made with junk we had laying about.

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And then I sat down and watched a couple of episodes of Midsomer Murders while I pottered about and worked on the pink skirt. It was a glorious – I absolutely needed this.

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Action Items tomorrow: finish pink skirt waistband; drill holes for brackets in and varnish plant stand; varnish coat rack.

easter break 2016: day one

You’ll recall that I had set three Action Items for today, so as not to get all overwhelmed by having so much time off and ending up doing nothing.

1. Non-epic bike ride,
2. complete napkins
3. measure for plant stand

And woo hoo! Action Items achieved!

Shorter, but quite fast (for us), bike ride this morning with some big breakthroughs for me. I finally got the hang of corners, thanks to RelentlesslyCheerfulPhysio who asked if was I using my left (back) brake when turning. Ermmm, no I wasn’t. But I did today and no more running into fences! And then I mostly rode on the road – even through a scary big, multi-lane intersection! Amazing!


i don’t think you can get a more totally oz abbreviation


adore the typeface on this

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I bought a plank of cedar back in January with the intention of making something to hold the plant in the corner … and then did precisely nothing with it.

My intention was only to do the measuring today, but I was full of energy after the ride, so grabbed the saw and then the painters tape to test the placement of the brackets.

It definitely needs some wax / polish / varnish (or something) because it looks a little cardboardy and I think possibly longer angle brackets to take the wood out to all the way to the edge of the base.

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And I sat up in my land, busted out the sewing machine and hemmed 15 napkins while listening to a couple of episodes of love and radio.

I even had two glasses of wine to celebrate AND then stopped – which is a small miracle.

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Tomorrow? 2km run, prep the materials for the coat rack, complete that pink skirt (that was a dress) for Bessie.

type a(ish) tendencies

How on earth can I not have any un-blogged photos to post here?

Must attempt to rectify that on the FIVE DAY WEEKEND!

We’re kicking off with an early, non-epic, bike ride tomorrow and then I’ll see where the day takes me.

I’m winding myself up a little about this because I feel like I need to squeeze every drop out of these 5 days. I can’t imagine when I am going to get such a stretch of free-time at home again – Xmas? Nothing like this to make me retreat to the InformationSuperhighway and accomplish precisely not-a-lot. I am at a complete loss as to why I do this to myself.

I think I need to come up with three things I’d like to do each day of the five (that are not hauswerk), be satisfied with that and consider anything else a bonus.

So tomorrow: bike ride, complete napkins, measure for plant stand.

I’ll report back.

and then the cabbie told me I was very skinny

Because the long Easter weekend is almost upon us (five days off for me – woo!), my thoughts have turned to an Action Items list to maximise my

Among those things are a bike ride, finally unpacking the overlocker, making a plant stand, finishing up those napkins, making a rack to hold coats and hats for the garage. And I was really hoping that I might be able to begin the process of returning to running.

I saw RelentlesslyCheerfulPhysio today, in the hopes of getting the all clear – and I did! I’m all repaired and can run a very gentle and slow (no problems with the slow) 2km and build up from there. I AM SO EXCITED! Also, I have to do lots of balancing on one leg – which is pretty amusing to behold.

During the discussion about how to approach my return, RelentlesslyCheerfulPhysio said, “you’re really fit, but you’re not running fit right now”. And the voice in my head was all, ” HolyGoodness! I guess I am fit!” I’d really never thought of myself in those terms before. And then his lovely wife/office manager called me “sporty”, and I had to consider that actually maybe I am a bit sporty! Mind. Blown.

Just who is this person?! I don’t recognise her at all.

i’d rather keep paying


camouflage

We were finally region-locked out of US Netflix on the weekend – the humanity! Australian Netflix is quite dreadful, so for a while had to resort to watching actual physical DVDs. Admittedly this is probably a good thing as we have many in the stash that we haven’t watched and we keep buying new ones.

We’re currently flipping between House of Lies (timely as we’re getting the management consultants into SML) and Silicon Valley – both quite funny.

We now have an interim solution to the locking, but if you have any VPN recommendations, I would be delighted to hear them!