Melbourne

The winner with the $50 guess is PeelerSheila! I spent $126.50 over 2 days then didn't drink booze for the rest of the trip because that's when I got sick.

Enjoy your celebratory Numbat!

Bin fuckery with neighbour was avoided.

The cheeky fucker swapped his green for recycling last night (saw it when I got home late).

He brought it in right after pick up this morning too (at like 7 am).

I'll still claim the moral victory.

Aaand home. Banger of a day outside but for now I think I'll just lay down for a bit.

I have a long, slow cooking day planned today in preparation for a Mexican dinner tomorrow night. I am making carnitas, which is basically pork slow cooked in fat. It will be served in soft tacos, so I will be making an oven-roasted salsa today, then making tortillas and some other accompaniments tomorrow. I am also going to make desserts today - caramel flan, which is similar to a creme caramel, but made with condensed and evaporated milks. I'm taking it all to my sister's house, so it should work well to be able to heat and serve with minimal fuss and mess there while still being a bit fancy.

JFC every goddamn bricks and mortar retailer has been so desperate to start becoming a "marketplace" they've made themselves and their websites utterly fucking useless

I just wanted to see if woolies had brulee torches in stock for me to walk down and pick up. Instead I get wall to wall listings for their "market partners" and if you're gonna pull that bullshit then what the absolute fuck are you for.

Work has been a bit wild, the two new people at work (who joined a month after me) are thinking of leaving.

It's insane, the phones have been going nuts, they want us to priotise the new inquires while also staying on top of all the emails to complete. But the phones have been going nuts so we're behind. Shit flows downhill so upper is shitting on middle, shitting on us. They've introduced KPIs but averaged it over 8 hours instead of 7 (2x 15 min breaks, 1x 30min lunch) so they don't make sense.

On breaks, we're always behind. We have to take them in order, so as the late shift I don't have lunch until 3pm.

The office is an echo chamber, so quite loud, but they want us in office full-time. Not feasible when clients can hear the other operators so clearly they think the lines have crossed.

I could go on. I think if the other two and I left, it'd leave the business in complete shit. I'm smashing their stupid KPIs, but I want to cry everyday from the utter mismanagement of the call centre. It's bush week every day and I'm tired

/endrant

Ten minutes without worrying that Ted Cat is going to bite my bum. Is that too much to ask?

( he's on the balcony meowing like a sad waif )

Whoops, managed to sleep for 10 hours straight and got up half an hour ago. Haven't slept this long in forever even when I've been exhausted. Absolutely starving, need to get around to making a proper lunch today instead of potato gems and frozen fish fillets...

caught my reflection in a mirror. My god I look like a mess! Not physically (I've kind of got that whole exhausted but a little bit sexy thing going on) but the eyes.... they look so run down, and the smile just looks off. 3 rough nights sleep plus 2 early morning starts appear to be taking their toll, even if my mood is still ok.

You know when you can't be bothered cooking but you end up doing it anyway and it turns out really good. Yeah.

PTV logic is weird

Anyone else use a linux distro as main computer?

Grocery shopping - everything $1 - $2 more expensive. Bring on the review of price gouging.

Over the last year, golden circle cordial has gone from $3.20 to $5. I’d switched from cottees at $5.90 a bottle, and here we are now..

Finished book 2 in the Silo trilogy, and tbh... This was definitely not as great a read as the first book - actually quite hated it by the end, felt rushed and disjointed in the third part and I didn't care about most of the characters; worst of all the writing felt so lazy when it came to the technology and certain key developments. So much hand-waving and incredibly plot-convenient tech... anyway, I'm committed now and I'd just like to see where this all goes, so onto the final book.

Beach sunsets are pretty sunsets

o/

My sunset piccy.

Good swim, no doggo pats although I almost ran over a pug at low speed because it's the same colour as the path so that's something.

Mixing red and white wine never ends well.

This one hurts today.

I'm reading a discussion about reading

and to me the saddest thing about having ptsd was for many years I was too ill and mentally tired to read books. ( other than a few specialist psychiatry books ) So lacking in mental stamina I couldn't even watch movies

so now when I watch movies I really appreciate it. I still don't read as much as I used too. This is something that still gives me real grief 😔

abuse takes so much away from a person

I just mixed up all the My Dog tins so little dog gets a different one every day. He does not give a shit what flavour it is nor if it's the same flavour every day for two weeks but I care and that's what matters.

I'm sure supermarkets are laughing at the Prime Minister tut tutting them about price increases.

Did a big clean out of my personal email. Mass delete of promotional junk mail that seems to turn up regardless of ticking ‘do not send emails’ when making online purchases. Unsubscribed from most. Got a few ‘need 3 days to process your unsubscribe’ or ‘error, unable to unsubscribe at this time’ and other thoroughly bullshit excuses.

Mother has advise she will be stopping by to drop off some things and to make sure I am still alive. Not going to lie even if I can only stare at her from a distance I think it will be nice for my brain.

Also on a high note, I opened my curtains a little bit today for the first time since Sunday and have cracked the window for a little fresh air. Still feel disgusting, and it appears my immune system is non-existent as I break out in all sorts of things, but at least I have some freshness coming at me.

Early estimates project hundreds of millions of dollars improvement to the city of Shepperton once floodwaters rise, properly prices alone set to skyrocket when instead of living in a shithole town you get to live next to a nice new lake instead.

Trying to watch a specific movie. Checked Netflix, Foxtel, and amazon prime. Movie not there. But then we find it on Amazon but it’s asking for more money to watch it. Is Amazon movies some extra money grabbing thing ??? It should not be this hard.

Tonight's dinner is sorted.

Truffle fettuccini with chicken and field mushrooms in a creamy parmesan garlic sauce

What do you get if you cross a cow and a rooster?

Roost beef.

Breakfast 🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

Chilli patch is still kicking. Giving them good doses of GoGo juice (which I think is basically seasol but better.. maybe) and tomato food and haven't killed them so that's good to see. Might be time to introduce the Potassium. Whether to go liquid or potash pellets I'm not sure yet.

big thai one on the left is having a great time and turning into quite the dense shrubbery.

But the one I'm reallly looking forward to are the little piri piri ones (bottom right). Just hope they weren't the cultivar that, thanks to a sneaky wayward bee, x bred with cayennes last year because they tasted like shit.

spoiler

---

Which also brings us toooo...

today's rave choon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSKDRKYOsco

Anybody want to guess how much I spent on booze on the cruise?

Keep in mind that in order to make the booze drinks package worth it, I would have had to have spent $75 every day on alcohol (which is how much more on top of the non-booze package I got it would have cost).

So as long as my total is below $750 I made the right choice.

Closest guess wins umm.. a prize of some kind.. I'll figure it out. Guesses open until 9pm.