Saturday

Although it could be any damn day of the week.

How many people had an image of retirement that didn't happen.

We did.

I don't know what I expected but knowing Himself I should have known that it wouldn't turn out the way I thought it might.

I thought we would travel. Not much and not far but explore the country a bit. Himself balked at the cost of kennelling the dogs. I told him that you include that in the cost of the trip.

To date. No trips. We do have Stepson's 50th coming up in April and we were going to do a quick fly up and back and I was going to keep going North to visit the aunt. I am now thinking that if the Mermaid will come and stay and look after the beasts for a week or 10 days, we can get the dogs professionally walked two or three times (they are too much for the Mermaid) and we could drive up and back. Himself loves a good drive. I can visit the aunt later. Wish me luck as I plan to plant the seed.

I thought we would go out more. We don't. 

I thought we would entertain. We need friends to entertain and we only have family (a whole post there!).

I thought Himself would indulge in the hobbies he always complained about never having time for. We moved here because the previous place didn't have the space. We have lots of space but he just keeps moving shit  tools and equipment around the garage (which serves as his workshop). He will do a job (usually maintenance - not hobby related) and not put his things away which means when I finally convince him to go and actually do something enjoyable he has to clean and tidy the space up first. 

Yes. I am in a whingy mood today. My back is giving me gyp but then I did stand in the kitchen for a couple of hours today preparing tonight's dinner (Beef Rendang) and then making asparagus, pea and mint muffins for brunch. They were OK. My muffin tins were too small so I got Himself to buy me ones with a bigger hole and I will try them one more time. Considering I have gone from doing no shopping or cooking other than baking to full on menu planning, shopping and preparation I'm not doing too badly.

He has gone to put petrol in his car and then we will have our regular scrabble game. I shall have a gin and soda (or 3) and maybe even some cheese and pickled onions. I am sure I will get over my bad mood then. I let him win yesterday because I had been thrashing him (I read way more than he does and have always loved language) and I could see him getting down-hearted. 

See, I can be nice.

I caught up with just J today for a light brunch and some nattering and knitting. We find it easier with just the two of us. C has a lot of issues and depending on the day can be a bit prickly. We love her to bits and do enjoy her company but sometimes it's nice to be able to chat without having to second guess ourselves.

I then went to the supermarket. All. By. Myself. Which meant I was able to buy a couple of toys for the girls (I've invited Lily to come over next week when we have Sally) without being asked if they were necessary, some decent gin that was only a few dollars more than the cheap shit stuff and could spend time just looking and seeing what's around. I did forget to check out brussels sprouts. They are a winter veg but I don't think anyone knows what the seasons are at the moment, including the produce.

It is quite a pleasant day. Not too hot and not too windy. 

Sally has been playing games on her ipad and sending me messages about the game and asking me to guess what she's drawing. Yesterday she facetimed me and I got to see Alice who waved when she saw my face and heard my voice. These are the good things about technology. It is why the NSW girls know who we are even though they barely see us twice a year in person.

After dealing with some annoying pain issues and the ever increasing weight I bit the bullet this week and went back onto the Fast 800 program designed by Michael Mosely. I lost weight and felt so much better back in 2021 using this. Looking back at my entries at the time I can see why I went off the rails. Covid, isolation and a deteriorating mother in law for starters. 

Anyway, I have written out the meals for a couple of weeks and so far so good. I still have a couple of gins and soda in the evening and scrabble food is a small piece of cheese, some pickled onions, a small handful of nuts, some berries - that sort of thing. Not the large amounts of cheese, biscuits, nuts and crisps. And the wine is a treat for now and again. I know, I know.

I have a very all or nothing personality and this has been my downfall in many endeavours. If I can't do it 100% first time it will toss it in. Oh, the negative self talk I have subjected myself to over the years. I am learning to not stress over things not being perfect. As long as the finished product looks good and does the job, only I will know if it isn't perfect. And isn't that one of the joys of handmade stuff? If I choose to not have wine and cheese today that doesn't mean I won't have it down the track. During past efforts at weight loss I have been known to throw out recipe books because I will never cook that food again. Rabbit food for me forever. Welcome to the crazy that is my mind.

When we started the quick lockdown that was going to save us back in 2020 I shaved my hair and coloured it pink. It was a bit of a giggle that I thought would last a month at the most. Over the next 2 years I kept it very short as it was easy to do at home and I wasn't game to go to a hairdresser - not going to wear a mask for that amount of time! I went to local cheap cut place the day before nephew's wedding and ended up very short again. I haven't touched it since and Himself says he prefers it with some length. I will get it tidied up soon as I am feeling a bit like an old English sheepdog. This morning I was running late to meet and J and my hair really needed a wash. No problem until I couldn't find the hairdryer and remembered it had ended up in the garage as a tool for something or other. I met her looking like I'd just come out of the swimming pool (in my dreams nightmares). Had we not spent more time than planned nattering I would have popped into BigW and grabbed one but I had just about reached my limit of people and still had to go to the supermarket.

I am now waiting for Himself to come back from the Shed. 

Chicken fajitas for dinner in lettuce leaves. Last night's dinner was really tasty and it made enough to have freeze. I love having frozen meals on standby.

Still weary

It was very interesting reading everyone's experiences and opinions of the internet. It seems so many of us have made close friends as a result of it.

Today I went to my favourite yarn shop in Hastings with J and C. We bought more yarn, sat and knitted for a bit and had lunch at our favourite cafe.

All good things. 

I came home and baked a loaf of bread and prepared dinner - spicy chilli beans - and we played a couple of games of scrabble.

For some reason I am very, very tired. This week I have tweaked our appalling eating habits and that might account for some of it - withdrawal from processed sugary crap and too much wine. I will give it another couple of weeks and then go and see the doctor if the weariness doesn't lift.

So I am going to love and leave you and go and try to knit a sock without making too many mistakes.

I will, however, leave you with this. It took my breath away. 

A bit of navel gazing.

The thermometer on the balcony says it is 15C and it is raining. What happened to Summer? 

We are forecast for more warm weather in the next few days. This is why Melburnians complain about the heat/cold. We never get a chance to acclimatise.

My planned visit to Bunnings didn't happen - I wasn't going to be pulling plants out of the garden in the rain. Maybe Friday, now.

I have been thinking a bit of late about life and I how I got to where I am now. And I can honestly say it is down, in no small part, to the internet and blogging friends in particular.

In the early-mid 90s we got our first desk top computer thanks to a company Himself was working for who was upgrading theirs. This was before every household had one and the internet was a fascinating thing. Remember the dial up tone and the little tune it played and the sloooooooow blue line getting gradually longer as the connection was made? But where to from there? There wasn't a lot around at the time.

I returned to study in '96 and remember using the computer more as a word processor for assignments than any actual research. When I was at uni from '98 - '00 on line research was just becoming a thing with complicated instructions as how to reference such research and it wasn't really encouraged as the reliability of the source couldn't be readily confirmed. I can't remember if we could submit assignments on line but mine were all done at the faculty office with the triplicate cover sheet. This was a nursing faculty and it is probable others were more advanced.

Around this time I rejoined weight watchers for the umpteenth time and discovered their online forum. This was the start of everything. It was such an amazing thing to be able to chat with people all around Australia and New Zealand (and then the world). Through this I met some lovely people and started reading blogs (or journals I think they were called back then). I started my first online journal in 2000 using, I think, Open Diary which is no more, sadly, and a chunk of my blogging life went with it. It was called "From Fat Tabby to Sleek Siamese" - yes a lot of the dieting world became avid bloggers and I was one of them. Diet Coke Rocks is still around but she blogs more about her day to day life now and I have followed her for over 20 years. Trish, who used to write on No More Pigging Out (now defunct), and I have kept in touch on and off over the years and she has kindly invited me to stay when I drive to NSW next month to break the trip. Many of the people I used to follow gave up when Facebook arrived. Some have returned. Most not. I think this is partly what led to my hiatus until I picked things up again in late 2020. And I am so glad I did. There is a different vibe out there. Gentler (trolls notwithstanding but there are everywhere) and wiser. A mature humour. The ability to actually delve into things and get to know people which you can't do on modern, more popular platforms.

Through the blogging community and the WW forum I met up with some women who became close friends. It was one of these women that introduced us to the estate at Bonbeach we ended up moving to so every friend I made there was as a result of internet interaction. When we moved here I joined a Facebook craft group which led to making some very dear friends. Himself's association with The Shed was as a result of internet research looking for somewhere for him to hang out.

I miss the days when you met your friends/partners at school/uni/work/sporting clubs etc. When I was a young mother there were groups of friends developed through the kindergartens and primary schools our kids went to. Conversations wove and wandered around the different people as they tend to when you are in a group of more than two people. Online it tends to be one thread of conversation at a time and people are quick to take offence as misunderstanding is so much easier without facial expressions and tone of voice. Or maybe that is just a symptom of today's society.

I am really trying to wind back the time I spend just faffing around aimlessly on the internet as I don't think it is a very healthy place. But I am grateful for the friends I have made and the people I have interacted with. The real ones.

Tuesday

The girls were dropped off and One and Ebs took Goose to the vet for the final time.

The girls had been told age appropriately what was happening but they haven't encountered the permanent loss of death before. Lily drew the heart on my path because she missed Goose and she put a dog bone in the middle of it. She picked some roses for mummy to take to the dog vet to give to Goose. I think they know she isn't coming home but think she is at the vet. This is fine until they are old enough to understand. Ivy was just focussed on doing Ivy stuff as only a three year can do.

At least they weren't given some bullshit story about Goose being sent to a farm or given to another family as I know some people have told their kids.

After they left we had a game of scrabble (we are now 3:2 to me) and I prepared dinner.

I made salmon patties with salad and put fresh chilli in the salad to compliment the Asian flavours of the patties. 

At some point I rubbed my eye. It has almost stopped stinging!

The girls and I harvested one of the spud tubs. I think we got about a dozen. I didn't take a photo as I was too busy supervising and Ivy insisted they had to go back to her house and she had to rebury some in some dirt so daddy could dig them out. They also picked some carrots and beans. I loved the way Ivy just yanked at anything in the hope it might be a carrot. I think the capsicum will survive. Not sure about the yellow bean.

Max hid the entire time they were here and is now running round and round the house, taking the 5 stairs into the top room in two jumps and coming down in one leap. 

I am now going to watch some telly and have an earlyish night. I am still rather tired.

Before I go though, Happiest of Birthdays to Angela. May you have many more. Who'd a thunk a little blog writing would have led to a meet up with such a beautiful soul. And she loves yarn and gardening. 

Tired

I didn't have a late night last night but I could not get to sleep. We had the aircon on but it was noisy and I couldn't get comfortable. I was still awake when Himself came to bed around 1.30. I finally drifted off to sleep to be woken by him effing and blinding. 

He thought he could hear water. So he went down into the back garden to check a tap he had been trying to fix. Nothing. Then he crawled under the house to see if he had damaged the pipe connected to the tap. Nothing. He listened to walls and floors trying to find the source. Nothing. Finally he thought to check the front garden and also to see if the water meter was running. 

It turns out when I had watered the garden I had not fully turned the tap off that leads to the connection on the vege pod. It wasn't a huge deluge because I always check the pod after I have turned the tap off but it was enough to wake the deaf bastard who can't hear me talking to him when I am standing right behind him.

So he came back to bed cussing but swears he wasn't trying to wake me up to tell me.

Everyone was unsettled and I got up earlier than usual to let the dogs out knowing I was going to be tired and grumpy all day.

It was a horrible hot and sticky day today with scattered storms which did nothing to ease the discomfort. Add in the lack of sleep (did I mention I was tired?) and I felt quite sick but didn't want to lie down as that would have made things worse. I hate sleeping in the middle of the day.

We went to the supermarket but we had to go to the big one at Karingal where we can park under cover instead of the small local one. I hate crowded supermarkets.

For a few months he has been doing the shopping and you would think I had never set foot in a supermarket before. "Tell me what's next on your list so I can direct you". 

After we came home he went for a drive to suss out a dog friendly beach. It looks lovely so when the weather is cooler and the idiots have gone back to work and school we will take them down for a swim. 

While he was out I had a go at the colourwork jumper I am making for Billie. It is an interesting way of knitting in that you have yarn in each hand to alternate the colours. All went well for my first round (with quite a bit of unknitting) until I got the end of the round and had one stitch too few (or one too many, I didn't count). I ripped the whole lot out in disgust and went to work on the sock I started for Himself on Christmas Day. I went to divide the stitches for the heel and found I had too many so that got ripped out as well.

It is cooler outside but still warm and muggy inside so I am going to take my tired, grumpy self up to the cooler room and watch some telly for a while. 

Tomorrow One is having Goose put to sleep so I will be watching the girls.

1/1/23

We did stay up til midnight but more because we were busy doing things than wanting to see the New Year in. I have been watching the Recruit on Netflix. Not a bad series.

Today was a quiet day of pottering. Reading blogs and the like.

We played our first two games of Scrabble for the year. Not a good start for me but I do have 364 days to catch up.

I checked my comments' spam folder and for some reason there were quite a few. I do apologise for not answering if you have commented and will try to remember to check the stupid thing every day. There is no rhyme nor reason to why some comments go to spam but I am not going to make a fuss. We know what happens if google doesn't like you anymore.

I cooked a fish dish for dinner which should have been delicious but the fish was meh. It probably was not the wisest decision to buy a piece of fish from the supermarket on New Years Day. The flavours were lovely - ginger, garlic, coriander and rice wine vinegar. The fish was wrapped in foil and steamed over Asian veges which were then drizzled with the liquid from the fish and topped off with soy sauce and olive oil. Definitely worth another go when I am sensible enough to buy fish properly!

It is now getting dark so I will give the poor garden a drink. Just in time for the storms forecast for tomorrow. It was a hot summer day. Too hot for me but not for the idiots fools deluded souls who flocked to the beaches. Over 30C is too hot for the beach. Thank heavens for air-conditioning.

And Jinx agrees ...