canberra pedestrian crossing

Hey hey, we’re in the nation’s capital for a mini-break.

Things I’ve learned:
+ this is not really a city for walking
+ i need to learn to make a selfie-face (or even learn to make a non-hideous face for photos)
+ you think that country towns are full of ye olde quainte and delicious cakes and gastronomique pub lunches – really they aren’t
+ I very much like having country roads all to myself
+ seeing wee lambs gamboling in paddocks makes me question that whole meat-eating thing

Tomorrow we’re taking panzo for his first very long leisurely drive. I’m insanely excited about our mini-break this weekend (SML has been intense and I could really do with the break). Lots of feasting, walking and relaxing is on the agenda.

xxx

Meanwhile, some extra snaps from date night on Saturday. We definitely need more date nights in our lives. I think we have kind of become hermits since moving to ThePalace(OfLove). Though hermitude is an excellent money-saving life-choice and ThePalace is wonderful, it is nice to get out and amongst it.

ubiquitous date night feet shot (forgot to get one with don’s feet)

hung just at the level for the wait staff to clock their heads on it

walked via the foreshore to grab a drink at bulletin place before heading home

that famous building

yeah, our city is not too shabby at all

monday 01/08

Once a year if we’re lucky, the kitties will get this close to one another and I become wildly excited¹.

Even more astounding is that BabyKitty was actually on the bed! This basically never happens – maybe it might have happened once about 3 years ago.

And today was the third day out of four where BabyKitty jumped up on the bed in the morning and lolled about. I very radically decided to spend Sunday morning in bed reading and she curled up next to my feet for hours.

wednesday 03/08

Cats are weird.

Don and I are heading out for a mini-break over the weekend, leaving Joe/Frank and Joan to mind ThePalace(OfLove) and kitty wrangle. The kitties are insanely change-averse, so I feel like this uneasy kitty-alliance and calm is unlikely to last the weekend.

xxx

¹ I’ve never really considered why I get wildly excited, possibly I have happy visions of kitties snuggling or because I just want everyone to love.

Of course I could not resist the temptation to count the contents of that wee bolts bag this evening.

A grand total of 1,002 tiny bolts | 86 nuts/washers | 2 jumpers/shunts. Yipes! I’d rather underestimated the volume with my guess of 200!

After counting I tipped them into the excellent foldio2 for a quick photoshoot

And how could I resist making a heart?

I did quite enjoy messing about with them, but I do think they have to go. I’m in a completely different life-space than when I began accumulating this stuff, which I estimate was <gasp> over 15 years ago. Back then I was much more of a tinkerer and who knew what you’d need in an emergency or to bust out at the very last minute for a school project?

After sorting through the rest of the hardware collection (big bolts, small screws, big screws &etc), I intend to cull this bag down to 20 and donate the rest to the bower.

And I actually feel surprisingly good about that decision.

That wonderful video card I installed in the tv computer has sadly resulted in lots of freezes and crashing.

I’m running through the huge gamut of potential diagnoses, and it occurred to me that maybe the card wasn’t seated properly, so I dragged out one of the hardware boxes from the garage to grab a tiny bolt to attach the card to the case:

I can’t even imagine how many very tiny bolts are in this bag (more than 200?) and what on earth I thought I was going to do with them.

It didn’t fix my video issues, but it has made me reflect on some of the stuff I am holding onto. To be fair, this bag once would have really sparked quite a lot of joy, but now I’m all like “huh?”

So I’m now at 8 weeks of rubbing caster oil into my venous lake for 5 minutes twice a day.

Progress shots below:

You can compare to week 3 here.

If I’m honest, I’m not seeing much progress at all. The spot currently quite dark and unchanged in size. I’ll occasionally get a light patch around the edge, but this isn’t a constant thing and I’m wondering if it is weather/temperature dependent.

I still have quite a bit of the bottle left, so will bash on. Perhaps I need to ramp up either the frequency or time? Will report back in another couple of weeks.

We’re making a habit of this theatre thing. Tonight it was The Hanging which we both loved.

I was all this has overtones of Picnic at Hanging Rock … and then I was all like well duh.

Now we’re enjoying post-play drinks at The Bar at the end of The Wharf, the view is kind of adequate:

what could they possibly want?

I’m going to give this weekend Action Items list another crack, despite the process seemingly manifesting a cold last weekend. I’ll ease back a smidge in an attempt to actually manage to cross stuff off:

✚ ~5km run [carried forward from last week]
✚ meal plan for the week ahead
✚ dinner out
✚ theatre
✚ knit 2x pattern repeats of scarf [carried forward from last week – was 5 pattern repeats]
✚ attend to eyebrows [carried forward from last week]
✚ take 10 different photos with DSLR [carried forward from last week]
✚ take 10 photos of small things in my excellent foldio
✚ read a book [carried forward from last week – was 2 books]
✚ make a list of things I’ve been meaning to post about (so I’m not forced to resort to tedious lists such as this) [carried forward from last week]
✚ start practicing stretches for the splits goal [carried forward from last week]
✚ moderate length bike ride
✚ make something cakey
✚ face mask
✚ nap for at least an hour
✚ grocery shopping

The key here will be to avoid the InformationSuperhighway rather than scroll and click my way through the two days.

mysterious cycling glove and wine, both of unknown origin, outside don’s office this evening

Another evening where I did not stick to my plan for doing something outside my usual routine. I feel like it might be a better strategy to plan something for post-work in the morning when I am all fresh and enthusiastic, rather than relying on inspiration to strike after a hard day at SML.

It is a mystery how people manage to do things after work. I’m generally quite knackered when I arrive home and tonight I was in bed by 9:30 (as is the case most nights, though admittedly I do read for a while) – what on earth has become of me?!

However, I am feeling a good deal healthier (hurrah!) and I eased myself back into exercise with 100 squats this evening – after taking a break to concentrate on Getting Better.

Hmmm, well that doing things outside the routine didn’t last terribly long! I’m not entirely sure what happened this evening, but time just vanished.

Enjoy some photos taken from the sick couch on Sunday. A very young turtle dove was enjoying time on the lower balcony, the kitties were extremely intrigued:

And I was very entertained.