One of my 60before60 challenges is to give up chocolate for a year.

After quitting alcohol 412 (!) days ago, chocolate quickly became my stress-reduction substitute. And much like alcohol I can’t just limit myself to a small amount, I must eat All The Chocolate.

So I’m challenging myself to give it a rest and to reduce stress through things like exercise and meditation (and possibly cake of the non-chocolate variety).

I scoffed my last block tonight:

yes, i really did eat all of that

I don’t ordinarily go for 1 January to do this sort of thing (I think you have more success when you pick a random day), but let’s do this!

A mere two days until I’m back at SML for Hell Month.

It’s been a pretty great break – a very good mix of sloth, un-achieving and lazing about.

And just like that it was over …

day twenty-two: T2 detox

xxx

day twenty-three: T2 riotous rose

xxx

day twenty-four: iphone lens kit

fisheye – lounge room

macro – eye of kitty toy

xxx

While my advent calendar was been fabulously fabulous; and Don and Joe/Frank enjoyed their beer and cider (respectively) advent calendars; Joan and Bessie were very disappointed with their yankee candle calendars which they’d had shipped from the UK. I’d have to agree – the candles themselves smell really artifical and chemically – and then when burning, meh – very underwhelming. They abandoned the whole exercise about day 10.

Definitely inspired to do tailored advent calendars for everyone next year (though obviously they won’t be so fabulously packaged as mine!)

It’s late, I’m really quite tired after a pretty productive kind of day.

Enjoy a photo of NewKitty artifully arranging a “pashmina” with her claws.

Possibly this is why I can’t have nice things.

Astoundingly – it’s nine (NINE!) years today since Don and I were married!

We celebrated with a low-key lunch of pho and (of course) Vietnamese coffee.

NINE!

surprise tomatoes – seeds in the soil from the worm farm

Plants I can’t grow (despite best** efforts over several years):
+ tomatoes (surprise tomatoes work – planned do not)
+ coriander (cilantro)
+ dill
+ cucumbers
+ succulents
+ celery
+ garlic
+ palm trees

Plants I can grow (mostly – we fight with the caterpillars for many)
+ parsley
+ thyme
+ rosemary
+ bay
+ basil
+ mint
+ chives
+ rocket (though it tends to bolt)
+ goblin trees (Moreton Bay figs)
+ pony tails
+ lemons (barely – maybe 3 in 3 years)
+ chilies
+ cat grass

xxx

** okay, maybe not best efforts

We appear to be developing a bit of a world map puzzle Christmas tradition. This started out as a 50before50 project and we’re now in our third year.

We busted out the new puzzle this afternoon. When I say we, I mean Don – I helped sort the edges for a bit and then read and snoozed, he completed the outside and sorted all the pieces into various categories.

We’d intended a bike ride this morning, but we’d had a pretty rotten sleep thanks to some noisy neighbours having very loud squealy-giggly conversations on their balcony (Don went down at around 2am to politely ask them to maybe keep it down a bit – which they surprisingly did). The weather was also less than ideal so we took it as a Sign and instead just futzed about for most of the day.

It was exceptionally relaxing – I don’t know that I’ve felt this mellow in a while.

Hope yours was equally satisfying!

Joan achieved Saint status today when she took Joe/Frank off on holiday for three weeks to Taipei and Myanmar.

Joe/Frank has had aspirations to travel overseas for a while, but independent travel really isn’t feasible for him at this point. Joan-intrepid-traveller was planning her christmas vacation and thought he might like to accompany her. She hoped to share her love of travelling and give him an experience he wouldn’t otherwise have.

This is just so heartwarming – I’m full of All The Feelings.

We’ve been tracking their progress on flight radar, where Santa and the Reindeer also made an appearance (yes, really!).

It’s going to be VERY quiet in ThePalace(OfLove).

Nine glorious days until I’m back to work.

Before I return for the worst month ever I’d like to have completed at least the following:
+ 1x bike ride
+ 1x hike
+ paint one wall on upper balcony
+ complete year six on my embroidery
+ repot some plants
+ post the 2017 meals list
+ 1x tiny gentle attempt at a short run
+ find a couple of books that don’t suck
+ finish the 60before60 list
+ work out my not-resolutions for 2018

What I would rather not do is sit at my desk all day futzing around on the InformationSuperhighway. We’ll see how that pans out.

Seriously gushing at the goodness of this gift – the contents are perfect.

Onward with week three …

day fifteen: T2 pumping pomegranate

xxx

day sixteen: T2 lemongrass + ginger

xxx

day seventeen: T2 turkish apple chunky

xxx

day eighteen: T2 sleep tight

xxx

day nineteen: burts bees – coconut + pear lip balm | lemon butter cuticle cream (desperately needed!)

xxx

day twenty: T2 apple crumble

xxx

day twenty-one: kitty paper clips!