I’ve never really owned a pair of sturdy (or otherwise) winter boots, but Joan was quite insistent we’d need them for our European Xmas jaunt.

There was nothing for it but a quick trip to Declathlon, where I found two pairs – both half price.

They fit well and are very comfy – and for something that I will possibly wear once every few years, not worth spending hundreds of dollars on.

I will take the shorter pair for a test run on my next visit to the book bindery. No matter what the temperature, or how thick the socks, the cold from the ancient stone floors seeps through your shoes and into your bones. Perhaps the “fur” lining will help!

♥

My permanent crown was fitted today. Those minutes when the temporary crown is popped off and the air hits your exposed nerve is not something I care to experience often!

I’m still feeling sensitive, but this should settle over the next couple of days.

I return next week to get my night guard, then I really do hope that is it for dental work for quite some time!

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I’ve been working with a file of data for the last couple of days at SML. It’s been fairly detailed and fairly excruciating.

This is type of work is kind of below my pay grade these days and I’m a little rusty, but needs must. There’s a deadline and I know the subject.

There are quite a few transformations involved with the data and I’ve been diligently saving my changes as I go.

By the end of today there was one more piece of information left to track down. But it was late and I wanted to leave the office, so thought I’d grab 30 minutes to wrap everything up when I got back to ThePalace(OfLove). Thus not carrying this task into next week.

Imagine my horror when I opened the file and realised I’d been diligently saving my work as a file type that only saved the first page – of many pages. And the first page contained pretty much nothing I needed. A good analogy would be having a contents page, but no actual contents.

Oops.

Fortunately my brain (good brain!) could recall most of what I had done, so it was 2.5 hours smashing it out rather than the 30 minutes intended.

This is a well known trap – and such a rookie error!

I am quite relieved to see the back of it and dance happily into my Friday off!

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A little break.

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Today I took the very sensible step of acquiring a backpack to cart my laptop and other accoutrements to SML on my in-office days.

I’ve been using a quite excellent padded tote we acquired (as a freebie) on our second trip to Japan. As excellent as it is, I’m sure this is contributing to my recent bout of rather painful shoulder pain.

But really I think the major cause is that I seem to be regularly sitting with the tops of my shoulders mostly level with the bottom of my ears. It has likely been this way for a very long while, but I only really became aware of it yesterday. After that I couldn’t stop noticing it – it appears to be my default posture.

All this undoubtedly been exacerbated by my recent duolingo obsession – and accompanying extra time with phone in hand.

At least if I’m aware of it, I can do something about it. That is until it stops hurting and I’m sure I will revert to terrible posture once more. And repeat.

At the moment it’s all heat packs, tennis balls and painkillers. And complaining.

♥

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a stuff-in-the-supermarket post, but Holy!Goodness! I think this makes up for those missing years.

Baked Beans … with vegemite.

I can’t even.

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Late tonight, out the bedroom window.

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No post today – rather annoying headache dancing about for most of the day.

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Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony

It was very excellent! Though I was less enamoured of the 4th.

I’ve really loved having a Sydney Symphony Orchestra subscription for the past 2 years! Long may it continue.

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A couple of weeks in and NewBoss is great – very demanding and driven. It’s almost as if I’ve woken from a lengthy fairytale-style sleep and realised how much I enjoy working at a decent pace. And actually how bored and sluggish I have been in a work context for the past many, many months.

The gears are grinding very slowly as I try to recall how to do this!

♥