annarti | Entries tagged with footy

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: living room
Current Music: game grumps play ding dang rimples

My ankle is fully functional once more 🥳 I've been walking or running around, so far, three of the parks in the Parklands, with varying levels of interest, but mostly I'm just pleased I can finally use my ankle again and restart my workout. Despite the almost-month off, Garmin is still confident I can achieve the reset goal of 5km in 35 minutes, so that's a relief.

This was a busy weekend! On Saturday morning, caught up with Cassie's friend Maya, who was down for the week-ish, so we went for breakfast down at Brighton then a walk along the beach before it got too arse-bakingly hot. It was already 30°C when I woke up at 8:30 but it was still early enough that the Norfolk Island pines along the beach cast shadows in the beachy direction, so. Coulda been worse?

That evening, Amanda and I went to Orpheus, technically my second show of the Fringe after I won the freebie tix to Tommy's Naughty Forty last week. Orpheus was fantastic. Beautifully written, beautifully told, the little bit of audience participation with a comparatively small audience was so touching and I had a wonderful time 😊

Sunday~ was round 1 of footyball! Wherein Amanda won a free double pass through the Rainbow Crows so I got to go, too =3 We were behind the goals right next to the opposition cheer squad, who were St Kilda (Victoria). Preface: it has not rained since last year. On Wednesday, the forecast for Saturday was 39 with a 70% chance of 5-10mm, which are incongruous in Adelaide. I was dubious, to say the least. By Friday, the 39 hadn't changed but the rain had changed to Sunday, and was now a 70% chance of 0-2mm. By Sunday, it was a 70% chance of <1mm which... idk what that even means. A 70% chance of sweet piss-all? Does that mean a 30% chance of something? (spoilers: no, it doesn't)

So, during the game (which we won by 10 goals, 'spretty sweet), precipitiation started happening. 'Drizzle' would be a lie. 'Spitting' would be generous. When you're standing in the shower and you have that mistiness splashing off of you? That's what started happening. All the Victorians instantly got out their emergency ponchos and waterproof North Faces and being ridiculously prepared for rain. In Adelaide. HAH. None of the South Australians moved, except to knowingly roll our eyes at the Vics and wonder what the hell this weird wet stuff misting down from the sky was. Sure enough, the misting lasted about 20 seconds and that was it. That was our 70% chance of <1mm, not even enough to warrant wiping it off your glasses, it was that nothing.

More importantly, we won a game of footyball! Convincingly! This gives me hope for our season.

While watching, someone mentioned the score at the cricket, wherein we were 5/500-odd. When the footy finished, we'd declared for 600-something and already had two Queensland wickets, so instead of going home we headed up North Terrace to Karen Rolton Oval, during which time the Queenslanders lost another wicket, and turned up in time for the final session of the day. When you've finished watching your South Aussie boys flog some Vics, why not pop across town to wathc your other South Aussie boys flog some Queenslanders? :D Another two wickets fell in the final session of the day and we headed home, promptly forgetting to pop a bottle of Croser for the Crows because it's been so long, whoops.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: living room

Have new phone, which is neither green nor waterproof, but it was cheap, so that'll do. Ankle also healed! I can do the fitness again! Which has meant Walk Week happened as planned last week! This was a thing I made up after having had this list of walks printed and mapped out for about two years now. I've done a couple of them here and there, but for Walk Week I made to do one a day for the week, particularly picking that week because of the public holiday Monday and also daylight savings is still in effect, making most use of time after work. The idea was to basically replicate as best I could when I was in Japan, where despite eating any deep fried dough on a stick that I came across, I still lost two kilos because there was so much walking.

Day 1 (last Sunday) was at Mount George and, because that went more quickly than I'd expected, the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. Mount George looked gorgeous, stunning views across the Hills, but it was so close to the freeway that there was no point where I couldn't hear it. One of the best things about bushwalking is being entirely enveloped in nature, and when there's this constant sound of traffic it sort of takes the serenity away. Botanic Gardens were as delightful as ever.

Day 2, public holiday Monday, was Noarlunga South to Moana, which was suitably dramatic. I walked along the clifftop on the way south then along the very wide and occasionally very rocky beach on the way north again. These berries which I know nothing about were growing all along the footpath. I figured, if they were poisonous, they wouldn't be so prevalent so I gave one a taste. More like a tiny plum, with the shape of the stone inside, and somehow sweet, salty and sour all at once. Odd little thing.

Day 3, back to work and fitting my walk in before sunset, here's the Marion Coastal Walk. Everyone who's been a student in SA has been to this park. Just look at all the geology going on! Sugarloaf! Giant boulders dumped on the beach by an ancient glacier! Layering of sedimentary rock and folding and colapsing! Also nice sunset. Which mostly happened while I was on a sodding detour through suburbia while the footpath was under maintainence.

Day 4, Andrew's Walk in Andrew Perry Reserve, very close to work. This one was odd and I don't know how it made a 'take your breath away' list of walks. I'd made it barely a kilometre in and came up against a quarry that I couldn't get around. I tried following the creek but it was just suburbia, so I gave up and went to the Himeji Gardens instead. It's tiny and hence not fitnessy but it WAS gorgeous, so I felt better about that =3

Day 5, covering two closeby walks in the Adelaide Uni loop (not sure how that made the list, when the whole of Linear Park was already on it) and the Folks on the Hill walk in North Adelaide, an historic walk looking at some classic houses and buildings. I felt like a proper tourist in my own city doing this one! Right down to scaffolding covering one of the landmarks. If you've ever been on holiday with me, you'll know I'm cursed with this kind of thing.

Day 6, the Waterfall Walk at Belair National Park, which I'd kinda wanted to hold off on until there was actual water falling but I've run out of walks near me that I can do after work. This one was kind of disappointing because of all the weeds. That first one of the waterfall (well, cliff)? All the green at the bottom of the cliff, ALL down that valley, it's blackberry. Finally get out of the blackberry and up away from the creek and you get into the bush, then back down again at the end and there's heaps of hawthorn and olive trees. Belair National Park requires that you pay if you're going in with a car (I parked out the front because I'm here to walk, so let's walk through the park), which I'd always assumed went towards, y'know, protecting the park. It's still ridiculous since all parks are maintained by the government anyway. But to see all the weeds? Especially knowing they'd just done some burning off at the top of the hill in November, it was disappointing.

Day 7, my triumphant finale, Linear Park! Following the River Torrens from its mouth at Henley Beach into the city. I started feeling it by the time I got to the city, rested a bit for lunch, then the way back was made of ow. My feet absolutely caned. Left foot had three blisters, somehow the right had none. But I made it! And then Mum and I went out to dinner to Apoteca, not technically as celebration, but it felt it! We decided to have a girls' night out while Dad and Colin were having a boys' weekend in Melbourne. It was awesome.

So over the course of that week I walked 93.25km (on actual walks, I'm sure I cracked 100 by just generally getting around) and lost 1.5 kilos! Victory! I'm so proud of myself for achieving this, especially when it was looking like my ankle would be stuffed and I wouldn't be able to do it at all, so to actually do it every day... I'm stoked. I even felt excited to do each walk, even Linear Park, as intimidating as it was. MADE IT. Next challenge, I'm going to do the Kayla Itsines thingo, because shuddup that's why. Next two weeks I'm gearing up for that. I've been jogging on the beach to build up endurance and also make sure my ankle is indeed healed. So far so good.

In other news: the bleedingly obvious. Yesterday I went shopping for the first time since the panic buying started and... that was an experience! I already knew about the TP situation, obviously, and knew it'd largely extended to pasta and tinned food, though there was at least some of that still on shelves. Of flour, which I needed plain flour (or thought I did, turns out I already had a bag I hadn't yet emptied into the jar thank GOD), there was one 500g bag of fancy pants wholemeal self raising flour. Fresh veggies were all business as usual. Some of the missing stuff was weird, though, like milk. There were a few 1L cartons and half a shelf of Pura 2L but the rest was GONE. How even? How do you stockpile fresh milk? What are people doing, keeping it in the freezer? Milk doesn't freeze well, also it'd take up a hell of a lot of space. Also, I needed coathangers. There was one three-pack of fancy wooden ones for $6, which is way more than I'd like to spend on coathangers. Why coathangers? Went around the corner to Target and got some there in a 5-pack of wire ones for $5, much more like it. I did have to get the last two bags of fancy pants kitty litter, though. I'm sure Rory'll know the difference.

Finally, after years of meaning to do it and not getting around to it, I booked flights to Sydney to see Vivid! Vivid is now cancelled. Go figure. Still going to Sydney, though, and also Brisbane. This'll be happening for two weeks at the end of May/beginning of June, assuming Qantas and Tiger aren't both bankrupt and completely grounded by then, but y'know, playing it by ear. I might just have to wear a HAZMAT suit going to Sydney.

Watching sport with no crowd is weird. We had the first of three cricket matches against the Kiwis with no crowd, and it was so quiet you could hear the guys' pads squeaking in the stump mike as they walked out to bat. 'The crowd errupts!' cried Mark Waugh at the fall of a Kiwi wicket. 'Look at him, that one guy down there clapped... How'd he get in?' The next day the Kiwi government announced that anyone coming into the country after midnight that night would be subjected to a 14-day quarantine, so the Kiwis went home and that was the end of the series.

AFLW, which I've been going to every local match of this season, just watched on telly this time. For some reason the friends and family of the visiting team were allowed into the stands, so our home ground had about 20 away supporters, applause echoing in the stands. The mens' season is due to start tomorrow and, at this stage, they're still going ahead, but I mean the odds of the season actually getting to the end are pretty slim. If there's so much as one case among the teams they'll call it off, I'm sure. The women's game without the 10k-ish crowd noise is weird enough. Mens' game, with the 50k+ Adelaide Oval empty, will be surreal. The frigging MCG holds 100k and we'll be able to actually hear the players talking to each other.

This morning PM ScoMo put a level 4 travel warning for the entire world. That's the highest it goes. It's just a straight up 'do not travel.' We've never done that before. Ban on gatherings of over 100 people, but we've been very strongly reassured we're not going into lockdown. To have any real, lasting effect, we'd have to go into lockdown for 6 months, which isn't sustainable. Schools are staying open, because kids are pretty much unaffected by the thing and, if they were to close schools, it'd put more people at risk because who are the kids going to be staying with? At-risk grandparents. That, or parents are going to have to stay home to look after them, and the biggest thing is to keep everyone working, earning money and subsequently spending money to keep the country moving as best we can.

Work is... quiet but still trucking on. Printing isn't one of the vulnerable industries at this stage, we're still getting our orders for business cards and pull-up banners, but we've got time on our hands to prepare should we need to start working from home, setting up Microsoft Teams and OneDrive and accessing webmail and all that, if neeeded.

Laura's due to give birth next month, so that's super exciting :D The hospital's only allowing two guests sum total, Colin counts as one, so to be fair on everyone they're not having anyone else in the hospital and will just allow people to come by their house on case-by-case basis to see bub. So they'll basically be on their own lockdown, which is sad but necessary and, if I'm honest, probably a bit of a relief for them. Legit reason to stop the constant stream of people into their house to see babby!

I say I'll keep on top of DW entries but it never sodding happens. Still, at least I get around to it eventually? Right?

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: living room
Current Music: wimbledon men's semi, djokovic vs bautista agut

It's happening again :O None of the links work yet except those that link out--tpyo, Fig Jam and [Snapshot Henchman]--but the splash functions! Hooray!

Saw Toy Story 4 on Tuesday with new frand! I think I have a new favourite Toy Story, maybe. Best line: 'I think Daddy needs to say some Words now so we'll just go over here, okay, Sweetie?' I want to start using that phrase in my daily life. 'I need to say some Words now.'

Pixar fangirl 4 lyfe.

Which all leads me to: NEW FRAND!

Her name's Alice and she has the most adorable and photogenic three-year-old you ever did see, called Laszlo. I met her on Tinder and we at the very least clicked as friends, if not anything romantic because 'narti does not do childs. Met for coffee/hot chocolate back in... March, I think? YES because we went to the AFLW Grand Final. Anyway yes, we've been to do fun things pretty much weekly since then. Gone to the zoo, went to a Cabaret Festival show called The Swell Mob which I didn't do very well at because it was a sort of... interactive performancey thing? Idk. Like all the characters were LARPing, so I feel Sallie and Ku would've done awesomely at it but I just didn't know what sorts of questions to ask and who to talk to and what was going on. It was fun but I know I didn't get as much out of it as I could have.

Alice plays AFL herself so I've gone to see one of her matches en route to Victor Harbor where we got ice cream and played minigolf, gone to a community screening of Wall-E which was... an experience XD It was in this little country hall, the kids all had a costume competition where they dressed up as robots and gave a fashion parade during the interval--yes, there was an interval--and it was all rather odd. She's from the UK originally, moved to Perth as a teenager and hence picked up on Fremantle as an AFL team, so we've been watching the odd Freo match up at my place.

She's a love, as is Laszlo. Srsly perfect small child, which really does just confirm to me that I don't want one myself. He went bowling the day we went to see Toy Story 4 and got to choose a prize from a cabinet at the end, and picked the sparkly tiara, which he was trying on while watching the movie. He sits and pays attention to the entire movie while watching and gets totally invested when characters are sad, while other kids twice his age are climbing over the seats. He carefully pats the cat, I've seen him throw one hissy-fit (because I wanted donuts and bought donuts, and he didn't want donuts so he didn't get donuts. You bet I was thinking of the 'why my kid is crying' tumblr) and the rest of the time he's got the biggest grin and is always excited to see me. At the end of Toy Story 4 as he's hugging his Woody toy I asked who his favourite character was, to which he answered, 'Mummy!'

But everything still gets planned around the small child, which is ttly fine in a friendship but I couldn't deal in a relationship. Having to either plan around his bedtime, which activities are going to be fun for a 3-year-old, how much time he can deal with, or alternatively when Alice's mum's free to take him. Basically, child must always be entertained, and everything winds up being about the small child. I need way too much me-time to be able to deal with that day in, day out, no matter how perfect the kid is. So yes. Happy for a friend to have a small child, not for a significant other.

MEANWHILE. This is the most piss-weak winter I can remember. It's July and we've had, like, four days over 20. WINTER. We're at least still getting reasonably steady rain and I haven't needed to water the garden, but the rest of the country isn't doing so well. The drought in the eastern states scares me.

But my back's healed! So there's that. And bloogum's finally getting a makeover. Maybe I'll have that done by the end of the year. HHHHHHHHHAH.

Current Mood: chill
Current Location: living room
Current Music: crimson ~ morcheeba

K SO FUNNY STORY. Every time I've been on the computer since the last update, it's been to write. The previous chapter I finished before this current awesome run was in April last year. I'm now halfway through the fifth in less than a month, and holy shit balls I love it. You'll remember my last update, a month ago, was about how I'd finally forced myself to work out was happening in this mess of a book, and wishing to do the cliché writer thing and go to coffee shops to do the writings. I've so totally been doing that. That very week, the weather was GORGEOUS, so every day after work I took my laptop down to the beach, picked a café with a power point and, ideally, a view of the beach, and wrote. I've spent entire weekend days down at Brighton and Glenelg, just writing, and it's been magnificent. That's honestly been most of what's been happening.

Easter happened, though! With the traditional Oakbank races, where we open with a champagne breakfast and continue the day from there. I've found my calling with the veggies and they were so good. I got lots of comments :D I had fennel, carrots, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, red onion and half a clove of garlic each, all roasted on the barbecue. I had an awesome oil I made up for them, too, made up of about a quarter oil from a sundried tomatoes jar, a quarter of my own chilli oil I've previously made, tablespoon each of paprika, rosemary, oregano and thyme, couple of cloves of grated garlic and a few chopped up sundried tomatoes, then topped the jar up with olive oil. It was soooooo good, especially the roasted garlic in the middle, and the steak Dad did (also on the barbie) had such an amazing gutsy sauce with it, aww yeah. There's just something about having barbecued gourmet food outside, even though this was just the most perfect weather day we've ever had for Oakbank, there's still that rustic outdoorsiness of it all that makes food taste even better and gutsier.

Also some horses ran past every now and then.

The previous weekend, when the weather was more autumny and Mum and I were having coffee and talking about options for my very dead garden, Mum just suddenly sat up and went, 'Ooh! Gran has wooden crates in the shed!' So we quickly checked with Dad's brother to make sure they didn't want them, then that very day we headed down to Gran's and obtained said crates. They're just perfect. Also grabbed a whole lot of bricks to stand them on and carted them up to my place to dump in the back garden in anticipation.

The rest of the Easter weekend, so Sunday and Monday, Mum came over and we implemented the crates. Hacked up the weed mat of the pallets to get the dirt out, which was so horribly dry and dusty because they just weren't working. I lined the new wooden crates with more weed mat while mum filled them up with a mix of dirt, soil wetter and dynamic lifter. We got most of them done on Sunday, but had an impromptu call from Colin on Saturday to go to theirs for dinner that Sunday. In truth we's both had enough of them by that point anyway, so woo! Easy out.

Dinner was awesome crispy skinned barbecue pork with Laura's roasted veggies and incredible three-layered cake 8D I ate well Easter weekend.

Monday we finished off the boxes and went PLANT SHOPPING WHEEEEEEE. God it's fun. The fruits of our labour. Some of the plants down the far end will grow to around 1.5m tall so they'll make a gorgeous little jungle down that end.

Last couple of weekends have been the writing thing, then this weekend, well 8D I've decided to take a week of leave. It's Anzac Day on Wednesday, which is a really messy day for a public holiday, so I'm taking four days of annual leave for a nine-day holiday, hell yeah. I've never taken leave purely to take a break and still hang around Adelaide not doing anything, so this is just delightful. Theoretically, boss will text me on Tuesday to tell me if it's gotten busy and I'll be needed on Thursday and Friday, but given that a pretty serious chunk of our clients will probably be doing the same thing, I don't think that's likely to happen.

So through the week while I was at work, Mum came up and deposited ten slabs of slate at my back door, also from Gran's, so today I laid those down the services end of the garden, under the washing line and in front of the tank and hot water service. I also planted a few more of the alpine pratia, which is the little green blobs in the ground to be my ground cover. They're just loving the warm weather right now, just about doubled in size since those photos were taken. Now I've got dirt laid down in the ground in place of that horrible sand I was recommended before, I reckon I'll give the baby's tears another shot down where the slate is, cos it likes growing between rocks. This time, the garden will live, just you watch!

Tomorrow, trip to the art gallery with the whole family, first for lunch, then to see the Musée D'Orsay exhibition, which I'm super excited for. It's an exhibition of impressionists, like Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet... Impressionism is probably my favourite historical art movement so this will be awesome.

For the rest of the week, the weather is still ridiculous (29 on Monday at the end of April? What is this madness?) so I'll be going to the beach, sitting in the garden, might book a massage, have breakfast at disgustingly hipster cafés, going to see movies... it's gonna be awesome.

Also the Crows beat Sydney last night in Sydney with literally half the team, including pretty much the whole midfield, out with injury. I'd written them off so hard I didn't even tip them, but they WON. I'm so proud! A truly glorious start to my week off.

Current Mood: guilty
Current Location: home
Current Music: highway unicorn (road to love) ~ lady gaga

RIGHT THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS, SELF. Regardless of... whatever excuses you come up with... neglecting LJ is Not Cool. I do read it daily, but apparently I don't update, like, ever. So this changes now. Minimum weekly updates from here on. Because the last one was in frICKING JUNE. AND THAT WAS ONLY A NOTHING POST. Actual life update was MAY wtf. So yeah.

Winter happened. Not much went on in winter. I dropped the ball on fitness which I firmly blame on the weather. The fitness thing I was doing started requiring daily walks, which is Hard when you get home at bang on sunset and literally every walk is in the dark and cold and potentially wet, so that didn't go much further than mid-June, sadly. I picked it up again this week, so this program will take me through til Christmas, and the weather will only improve in the runup. Also, daylight savings means I'll hardly ever have to do the outdoor stuff at night.

Also in winter, some family drama that I've been sworn to secrecy over and that has been going on since lasts December all came to a head. That week I didn't manage to go a day without crying about it, and I still can't make it through a week without at least one or two crying-fits about it. This has been consuming me all year, but even more since it 'finished' (it didn't) in August. UGH shutting up now before I say anything incriminating.

IN OTHER NEWS. Art of Cocoa is becoming a thing. That is a purely default layout, btw, including the header image that has nothing at all to do with cocoa. I was going to keep it totally secret until I was ready to make it properly public, but I'm too excited. I love that logo. I had so much fun making it! The plan for this month is to make up a welcome pack for ten local cafés, with a sample jar of the mix for the café to distribute to customers and a short survey for customers to fill out. This is to see whether the idea is even viable as a business, and whether people are likely to buy it. First plan is for selling it to cafés, then if that goes well, see about getting it into supermarkets. I'M SO SCARED BUT SO EXCITED AT THE SAME TIME. After job hunting for over four years (well, three, since I've deliberately not done any job hunting this year) and getting nowhere, I thought I'd give this a shot as a backup plan. omfg how awesome would it be, though?

Last weekend, Joe (boyfriend) and I drove to Melbourne for the AFL Grand Final because MY BOYS MADE IT! omg the week leading up to it was so awesome. Crows stuff all over Adelaide, streamers and balloons in cafés and supermarkets and hanging from fences and letterboxes, excitement everywhere, EEE! I knocked off work early on Friday and we headed off at 3pm, driving up the freeway with hundreds of other cars with Crows scarves on the dashboards, hanging out the windows and on the back shelf. Every town was decked out in the navy, red and gold all the way to the border and it was so exciting 8D Then we got over border to Victoria and even the electronic street signs were saying 'Welcome, Crows, to Tiger Country.' Really they should've said 'Tiger Land' being as that's their theme song, but whatever.

For the game on Saturday, we went to a local pub with Joe's dad and his wife, who live in Essendon, so while the pub was full of Victorians, it at least wasn't Richmond and they were more just jumping on the Richmond bandwagon rather than actually die hard supporters. As we Crows were X)

The first quarter was AWESOME. We came out of the blocks hard, scored the first two goals in emphatic fashion, and I was super confident. All through the year, as long as we've won the first quarter, we've been sweet. If we stuff it then we're playing catch-up and we suck at that. But we came out hard and it was SO MUCH FUN waving my Crows scarf around amongst the half-hearted Tigers. Won the first quarter, then lost the second by not scoring a single goddamn goal all quarter, but we were still only nine points down. IT'S FINE it's only nine points, that's bugger-all in footy, not even two goals. But somehow, we just collapsed after half time. Couldn't kick straight, fumbled everything, did not at all play like the team we'd been all through September. Eventually the final siren ended our agony at 60 to 108, so that sucked. Felt despondent the rest of the weekend, didn't turn on the telly all Monday, but at least we didn't lose by anywhere near as much as Port did in their last Grand Final, so we've still got that over them :D?

ALSO I got into work on Tuesday (public holiday on Monday) to find my workmate had managed to secure me a mini SNES over the weekend! So I promptly paid her for that and now have it in my hot little hands here ♥

Rory continues to be an adorable tiny kitty, though he's probably fully-grown now. He's SUCH a sweetie I love him.

This month I'm going to replot the end of Gold AGAIN and maybe get back to writing it. Also going to make a genuine effort at commenting on friends' stuff cos damnit that's the only contact I get with people. AND POST MOAR omfg. Weekly! WEEKLY POSTS! DO IT!

Current Mood: good
Current Location: home
Current Music: the day you come ~ powderfinger

Interrupting Japan postings for a loooooong overdue life update:

I have a kitten! A few photos up on my Insta. His name is Rory, cos he's a LION, rawr. Also because my favourite Crow is Rory Sloane. Mostly the second thing. And there are three Rorys in the team right now. But yes. My tiny meow is adorable <3 He likes sitting on my shoulder, purrs so loudly you can hear him from the other side of the room, so affectionate and sweet.

I also have a boi-thing! His name is Joe. He's a chef currently out of work with a bung shoulder that was bung when I met him late last year. Met on Tinder (shuddup) and things are awesome. Super respectful, not pressuring anything and just happy to go with the flow. I like him lots. I keep meaning to do a full post on this new and exciting aspect of life but it seems to be all but June and I've done nothing of the sort. It'll happen!

I am doing the fitness! I tried starting right at the beginning of the year, doing something every day I wasn't busy, but being the beginning of the year I was busy every day. So midway through January, when it turned out I'd done about 4 days of fitness out of the two weeks, I changed that to fitness every day regardless. Keeping that streak going has been great motivation. Primarily it's been sprints, which means 4 sprints over the course of 20 minutes--flog it for 30 seconds then rest for the next 4 minutes 30--and I kept the streak going all the way up until I didn't have enough daylight after work to do so, upping it by then to 6 sprints in 20 minutes. Also, yes, Japan fell in there, where I didn't do sprints but the walking totally counted. So for the past three weeks I've picked up things to do that aren't the sprints, pushups and situps and squats and such on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and 45-ish minute walks Tuesday/Thursday, still doing sprints on Saturday and stretches on Sunday. So far going well but I haven't had any walks that've tested me yet. The weather's been holding out, but tomorrow it's going to be the first of the proper winter days when I get home, cold and dark and wet and probably windy, but I'M GONNA DO IT. I've lost 15 kilos so far, aiming for another 10-ish. It's all making me feel super good about myself, for sticking with it and for making pants that wouldn't go over my hips last year now suddenly become baggy, for being proud of what I'm making happen in the mirror, for not giving up when the weather turned to shit... I feel good about me :D

I did a workshop over the weekend about indoor plants. I hope to keep them alive. I now have ivy in the toilet room draping down from the window, and a tiny new parlour palm that will get nice and tall and can go by the front door and look stunning, and a bunch of cuttings that I will attempt to turn into plants.

Crows are awesome and I love all of them. Just flogged Freo by 100 points in the wettest conditions I've ever seen in Adelaide. It was incredible.

Current Mood: chill
Current Location: home
Current Music: adore ~ cash+david

192/585 photos edited, or around about a third. This is pretty much all I did today until I got bored at dinner time and watched tv instead. But I'm doing them! Then catch up on emails and in tray and I believe I'll be back on track. Wish I could've taken another week at the end just to have a holiday from my holiday XD Alas, no annual leave left.

Other things that have happened:
Teppanyaki dinner at Mum and Dad's featuring the saké I brought back from Japan!
Pizza dinner with Linda at Tony Tomatoes! Much yum was had.
Dentist! The chipped off bit that has been chipped off for years (but not painful or anything) has now been filled in and the old filling replaced. I have tooth there now. 'sweird.
Dinner on Friday night with boything Joseph! Regaled with tales of Japan but not showing photos until they're edited.
Suspected last beach day of the year yesterday. I'll be surprised if it gets warm enough again to go down til next summer.
Footy is awesome right now. Crows ladies won the inaugural AFLW Grand Final, and the boys have started off the season 3-0, including knocking off the flag favourites in round one, our Achilles heel the Hawks in round two, and the Power in the Showdown last night. I have very good feelings about this season 8D

Now I'm going to go read, because I've had enough fiddling with levels and saturation for one day.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Location: living room
Current Music: cricket, 3rd odi live from adelaide oval, aus vs sri lanka

Why has it been four years since I last updated the fanart page on bloogum? WHY? The commissions bit is starting to get really long and, on this layout, ugly. I'm going to be considering a new layout shortly. Hrm. ALSO get myself an update schedule for the thing. Every three months at least cos this is nuts.

General life updates: doctor yesterday to get more stuff for my ears, sorted. Dentist today because it's apparently been 10 years since I last went wtf. Teeth generally good, just one spot where I have an old filling that's pushed out the tooth a bit and caused decay? Idk. Getting that filling replaced anyway, and that's the filling's fault not mine. I'm booked in for when I get back from Japan.

I've been to an AFL Women's match 8D Mum and I went on Sunday, Crows vs Carlton. It was much fun. Super low scoring but we won in the end, woo! There was a long bomb from about 70m from Erin Phillips, who is awesome, that bounced a couple of times before going through and getting us the win. I love this comp ♥ ♥

God there's a lot going on. I leave for Japan (well, Sydney for a few days first, then onto Japan) next Friday, and before then I'm going to a sake flight with Mum and Dad, watching more AFL ladies, going out with Tinder date (who I think is upgraded now to boything but I NEED TIME TO WRITE THAT POST PROPERLY) to a Fringe show, going out with Colin, Laura and Tinder-boything to Madame Hanoi's for dinner, getting a haircut and donating blood. I have one night with nothing planned. By which I mean I plan on doing nothing. Hoo boy. Oh and I have to pack in there somewhere, too.

DAAAAAAH.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: living room
Current Music: cricket, first test, aus vs sth africa at the waca

Hooooolyyyyy shiiiiiit

I mean, not a goddamn chance, but damn. That's the ultimate dream right there. I'll still apply, because why the frig not, and who knows? There's always a chance of something. Take me on as a not-head, even, refer me to another place. As I always convince myself, what have I got to lose?

I can dream.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: home
Current Music: something to be ~ rob thomas

TREE GONE! Photos to come tomorrow :D

Tonight we watched the exhibition match of women's AFL! It was pretty awesome, even though it was Melbourne v Western Bulldogs and the players from both teams will be scattered across the country when they actually start playing women's AFL in earnest next year. But it was exciting! They tackled just as much and just as hard as the blokes, they kicked long bombs from 50m just like the blokes, the rules and uniforms were identical to the blokes... and I can't tell you how incredibly happy that makes me. So many women's sports are basically just a dumbed-down version of the men's game. In cricket, they bring the boundary in because the women can't bowl as fast or hit the ball as hard as the men. Even tennis, where the women are just as famous as the men, they only play three sets to the men's five.

The AFL's done a far better job of marketing this, though. They're just straight up marketing the game. Hey look, guys, MORE FOOTBALL! They still play four quarters of 20 minutes each. They're not trying to sex it up by putting them in skirts and low-cut tops, they are literally identical uniforms. Exhibit A: dudes, and Exhibit B: chicks. SO REFRESHING. They're not a curtain raiser for a men's match; this was the match. This weekend there's been no Premiership footy because they now have a bye before the finals start next weekend (long story. I blame Freo.) so this match was it. The AFL's making sure people watch it, because they want more footy, and that's brilliant. Right from the beginning, they're treating it as just more football. It's not a dumbed-down bloke's game, but a legit sport to go and watch.

Now of course, early days, the first season's only going to go for eight weeks and there are only eight teams (of whom the Crows are one WOOOOO), so presumably everyone plays each other once for the first seven weeks, then the top two face off in a grand final. The top players get $15k for the season, and the bottom get $5k, so as yet this is clearly not a career like it is for the guys. But if they get the support, if they get crowds and sell tickets and merch, give it a decade for all the little kiddies playing AusKick to start looking at it as a career, and we'll get some seriously awesome stuff happening.

Like goal-kicking. Srsly, ladies, you're going to have to learn to kick straight in front of goal. Again, dudes get paid enough that it's a full-time job for them so they have time to practice such things as goal-kicking, whereas the ladies have jobs outside AFL and significantly less time to train... but still. Kick straighter from set shots plzkthx :D

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: home
Current Music: i will possess your heart ~ death cab for cutie

General life update is go! Thursday was my brother's 29th birthday, but we had the celebration on Friday night because then you can a) not drive home and b) sleep in the next day. Thursday was footy night, where we kicked 28 frigging points omfg. And North still lost. Might've been embarrassing kicking from my boys, but North still lost. I knew they'd be found out. They've only been beating the bottom eight. Come up against a genuine contender and they're screwed. Apart from the woeful goal kicking, my boys played brilliantly, still beat them by over 5 goals (or 28 points and a goal, ahaha). YAY FOOTY.

Friday night, Colin's birthday! Up at Mum and Dad's as per tradition, where Mum did amaaaazing duck four ways that I think Colin's requested for the past three birthdays now, but omfg it is SO GOOD. Beef fillet for main, and salted caramel brownie with home made salted caramel ice cream for dessert. so good I love my mum.

Over Thursday and Friday it'd been pissing with rain, with the forecast being for more of the same over the weekend, so Mum and I decided to forego getting dirt as was the plan. BUT. Saturday morning was sunny! So I suggested doing the dirt to Mum and she agreed with speed that suggested she'd been thinking about it, too. So off we went, rented a trailer and bought some lovely garden bed soil from Crafers. The guys there are so lovely. When he was lowering the scoop into the trailer he held it right down, carefully tipped a tonne of dirt in to make a nice big mound, then used the tractor scoop to pat down the top of the mound. Idk I just find that really cute XD Then we used buckets, filled them up and loaded them into the wheelbarrow to empty into the pallets. Still a fair bit left over, maybe enough for a half wine barrel that I could then plant a lemon tree in, but for the moment it's just in a wheelie bin at Mum and Dad's. This weekend we buy plants 8D

I've also finally been looking at NBN plans, after my street was connected to it, what, two months ago? Probably end up sticking with Internode, even though they seem to be the most expensive (barring Optus and Telstra). I just trust them more, and it makes a big difference them having their head office in Adelaide. All the el cheapo companies don't seem to get much of a rap on Whirlpool. Even though they're like half the cost, they're unreliable and slow, especially in peak time, so I don't want to go with a 12 month contract and live with a year of frustrating internet. HMM.

I've organised to get a quote for fixing Yoshi, so we'll see where that goes. Estimating $2000 but I sure as hell won't be paying it =|

Finally, I think, TV and associated home theatre system which includes bluray player and speakers. The speakers come in white! Which I hardly ever see, especially not for the stand-up ones. Also they're pretty. So that'll be my full entertainment system for about $3500, not bad. Kinda like a Sony telly, too, but I don't know that it's worth the extra money right now. Haven't actually bought them yet, I'd like to first check if Hardly Normal can do any better, or if they've even got the speakers in white at all, but either way I'm getting them tomorrow 8D

Dinner time, then OitNB yaaaaay.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: home
Current Music: garden of seborhin ~ guildwars: nightfall soundtrack

I KNOW NOBODY CARES OR EVEN KNOWS BUT I'M PUTTING THIS HERE FOR POSTERITY.

EDDIE BETTS YOU GODDAMN GENIUS.

I had a GOOD weekend. I don't know that I've mentioned this stupid post before, because it's super boring and has yet been SO FRUSTRATING. Nobody will notice it once it's done, but omfg. So. Visual aids. In 07 there, the first one, you can see the two posts holding up the veranda, the one right at the back beside the tank and then the next one along, around about the middle. Those were the two posts I was going to string the new clothes line up between, but as you can see in photo 05, the second one linked, that post is behind the tank, and the tank is about the height of the door. So the clothes line would have to go over top of the tank, and I'd be hanging clothes about a foot over my head. Yeah no.

So last weekend I went to Bunnings and bought myself another steel post and a couple of brackets, lined the post up against the gap and marked it to the right length, then took it around to Dad's welding mate to cut it up and weld the brackets onto it. Took it home for Dad to then bolt it to the veranda beam and the concrete... and the stupid thing was 8mm too long. I frigging hate steel. You can't stretch it or squash it or bend it or anything. If it's 8mm too long there is no shoving that thing in place. And Dad, in what he seems to think is a practical voice of 'you need to do this' but actually has a very strong tone of 'you failed. You tried this thing and it's failed and you fail,' made me cry because he just wouldn't stop with the not-at-all-practical doom-and-gloom-and-also-you-fail voice, which was exactly what I did NOT want to hear after the week I'd just had at work... and I just... screw steel.

Anyway. I think Mum had Words and he toned back a bit, helpfully measured up the stupid frigging post and also came with me to buy the right bolts for the job. I called his mate back again to come back with the post later on in the week, and generally calmed down.

Bringing us to Friday just gone, took the post back up to Dad's mate's place, pissing with rain and bloody freezing HI WINTER. He cut off the offending 8mm, welded the bracket back on (twice, because he'd done it the wrong way around the first time, with a cheerful 'see? We all make mistakes =D' and omg I heart him) and was generally awesome. Saturday morning I took that baby outside and slotted it smoothly in between veranda and concrete. Easy as. Not yet bolted in but it's ready to go! What a good start to the weekend.

So that's the story of the post. So far. It's going to be the least interesting and least noticed part of the whole garden--the whole HOUSE--and yet it's been the single most frustrating part of anything so far. ANYWAY.

I triumphantly sent the photo of the thing standing up on its own, happily wedged in, to Dad and his mate, then drove around to give him a thank you 6-pack of Coopers. Then to Mum and Dad's for lunch and then take them to the airport as thank you-in-advance for bolting in the post and clothes line (to Dad) and thank you for helping dig up baby's tears last weekend in the rain (to Mum). They're off to Bali, because Bali is hella cheap right now and I'm sorely tempted myself. We had a coffee and cake at the airport just waiting for their boarding time, then I headed back up to theirs to watch the footy (EDDIIIIIEEEEE ♥ TEEEX ♥) and put my washing in the dryer. Cos. Still don't have a clothes line. ahahaaaaha we'll get there.

Sunday sleep in, followed by a pyjama day of writing and that was that. What a good weekend. Got my post fixed, nice coffee, amaaaazing footy, and writing. Now shower and more writing, I hope. I mean, it seems to be doing its own thing, so who knows?

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: home
Current Music: game grumps

We was robbed =( The umpires sucked and gave away free kicks that shouldn't have been that stole goals from us and others that gave goals to them and we lost by THREE POINTS and seriously screw biased umpires. Even the commentators couldn't explain what the hell certain free kicks were for. I mean, I wasn't expecting us to win--it was the Hawks, at the G, after a hellishly exhausting game last weekend against Sydney--but to come so close to winning a game like that? And have it robbed by the umpires? REALLY HURTS.

SO ANYWAY. I have the slab laid for my new tank :D Then the crap all gets removed on Wednesday and then GREEN. And GARDEN!

Also here have a ( nude Yamin )

Current Mood: stoked
Current Location: home
Current Music: crows song

WATCHED FOOTY.

WON FOOTY.

SO STOKED YOU CAN'T BELIEVE IT.

So in AFL, teams have what's called a salary cap. They're only allowed to pay their player list a total of a certain amount, which is the same across the board, with some exceptions we're about to get to. This means that even the super rich teams can still only pay their top players so much, because otherwise it'd leave nothing left for the rest of the team. Therefore, in terms of pay, reasonably even playing field so one team can't just throw money at the top players and win every year, so the competition stays reasonably even.

To the same end is draft picks. At the end of the year, various players who are either out of contract with their club and feel like not playing for the club, and also new blokes who haven't played for anyone yet, go into the draft. Depending on their skill they're ranked at number 1 through to idk however big the draft is, I guess. Pick number one--best player in the draft--goes to whoever was the bottom of the ladder at the end of the previous year. Pick number two goes to the team second from the bottom, all the way to the team who won the Grand Final getting the bottom picks. Idea here being that even the shit teams get to bolster their numbers with talented new blokes who will make them improve in the years to come.

Now we get to the exceptions where all this goes out the window in favour of the dollar. AFL's dollar, specifically.

AFL is pretty much only followed in Victoria (where the sport began), SA and WA. New South Wales and Queensland both have teams, but they're rugby states and tbh nobody there gives a rat's what's going on in AFL. The only reason Sydney and Brisbane have teams at all is because the AFL pumps money into them in the hopes of also getting money out of them. That salary cap? Theirs is higher than the AFL-traditional teams. The draft picks? Better than they really should get for their finishing position. So teams like Sydney, who we just played, can throw shedloads more money at the top players. They dominate, even though their home cities couldn't care less what goes on in AFL. Brisbane won three Grand Finals in a row* and nobody in Brisbane even knew about it, let alone cared, because they're not a traditional football town. Why the AFL keeps persisting over there I have no idea.

To give you an idea of traditional vs non-traditional cities, Adelaide has a population of a bit over a million, and the Crows and Power have a combined membership of a bit over 100,000--roughly 10% of the city. Sydney has a population of about 4.5 million, but their two AFL teams combined barely pull 40,000--less than 1% of the city. Why the AFL persists over there I have no idea, but whatever. Point is, Sydney doesn't give a shit.

Anyway. Four years back, one of the Crows ditched us. Initially the expectation was that he'd go home to the Gold Coast (near Brisbane, brand new team, even MORE money from the AFL but so hilariously bad they didn't win a single game the entire first season), so we were all thinking aww, poor homesick babby, can't hack it down here where it's cold and his friends aren't. The Crows, btw, had flown half his family over here to make him not homesick. And also we loved him and cheered him as we would any tall forward who's on the verge of pissing off home.

He went to Sydney, little dipshit, and left behind him a salary cap breach that cos the Crows some serious cash and draft picks for the next two years. So he was money-grabbing while he was here, and money-grabbing when he pissed off to Sydney.

Now, if you hadn't guessed already from my general demeanour, Adelaide is parochial like you wouldn't believe. City in general, not just the Crows. When it comes to our footy team, though? If you leave for money, we will boo the ever-living shit out of you when you have the balls to come back here. If you leave for money, and leave a scandal like that in your wake? We'll pack the Adelaide Oval with the express purpose OF booing you.

The next year, when Sydney came back to Adelaide, Tippet was still on suspension from those salary cap breaches, so he wasn't playing for Sydney. Year after that, Sydney didn't come to Adelaide to play the Crows. Nor the year after that*. Last year Sydney came, but Tippet had bunged his knee, so he didn't play. Weasel.

Last night, after four goddamn YEARS, playing for a team that just throws money around and still struggles to get half the membership of the Crows in a city four times its size, Tippet came back to play the Crows.

Oohhhhhh man, the boos when he went near the ball. It was glorious. We have been waiting FOUR YEARS to boo that money-grabbing little traitor. 51,000 strong, whenever he went near it. I was hoping we'd keep him goalless as well, but eh, keeping him to two isn't bad, especially when this is Sydney. I don't like Sydney, I hate how the AFL pampers them and just lets them buy the star players from whoever they feel like, and I hate how nobody gives a shit about them.

I love, LOVE, that my boys beat them. It was up and down all night, Crows never down by more than a goal, but never ahead by more than two. Those 51,000 may have booed Tippet with passion, but the ROARS when the Crows kicked vital goals. aksjdghas goosebumps 8D And Eddie Betts omfg you absolute STAR. We got him through some clever trading and idk what else the season after Tippet's salary cap screwed us over. He booted one from what's become known as Eddie's pocket, because it's so tight nobody can frigging kick it from there except by pure dumb luck, unless you're Eddie Betts, who I've never seen miss from said pocket. He kicked the sealer, the one that put us too far in front for Sydney to come back in the time remaining. For that one, the crowd was already cheering at its loudest when he got his hands on the ball and was running for goal, that it couldn't get any louder when the ball went through the goal. He was genius and class and just so grinning and stoked whenever he kicked one.

Tippet kicked two. Eddie kicked four. We won by less than two.

Sucked in, Sydney. With all your money and subsidies and exceptions, you can't to half of what Adelaide can do. I LOVE MY BOYS.

Oh my god I love my boys

*Brisbane is now shit and couldn't beat a team of under-9s. The system works!
** Seriously AFL screw you and your anti-SA bias.

Current Mood: jittery
Current Location: home

Can't watch footy. Want to know what happened. Can't. CAN'T EVEN. OMFG.

Mum and Dad had my aunt and uncle up for dinner tonight, when the Crows were on, so we made a pact that we'd watch it tomorrow and neither of us would look up the scores or watch any of it until then and it's killing me not knowing. I very nearly caved, turned on Channel 7 at 7:13, 3 minutes after the ball would've been bounced, to find they'd delayed the broadcast by half an hour why would you even I thought we were past those days. But still. If I had to suffer delayed, heavily interrupted broadcast anyway, I turned it off and have been a good girl and I don't know what's happened.

Mum better have been a good girl, too. And Dad. Mostly Dad, cos he'll give it away before we even turn it on. Except actually no, he couldn't, because he won't be up yet so HAH.

I have the internet right there *TWITCH*

Current Mood: stoked
Current Location: home
Current Music: here she comes ~ the androids

Crows remain awesome and we're playing again next week WHOOOOO omgf I love those boys. So bad. I can't even.

They were interviewing Walker (this dude, who is the captain) after the game, straight after one of his teammates. He answered one question about said teammate with, 'I was told I'd be on straight after Danger and he kept going for, like, an HOUR. Can talk the wool off a sheep, that bloke.'

LOVE. SO MUCH LOVE. And his kick to Charlie Cameron and the long bomb from 55 out that probably ended up going like 70m alkjdsghalksjdg I just. I can't. God I hope we can take this to the Grand Final. They deserve it. They SO very deserve it.

...It's finals season, guys, expect more of this for at least as long as the Crows are in the finals. WHICH WILL BE THE NEXT THREE WEEKENDS JUST YOU WATCH.

Also I got my cheque yesterday for my Flinders Street monies, yay! Head for the bank on Friday and get that deposited, that'll be nice.

And the weather is springy! It's been mid-20s for the past couple of days, but going back to winter this week because that's what an Adelaide spring is. Still, I'm enjoying it while it's on. Sat in the sun and read a book this morning and went for coffee with Mum, Colin and Laura in the afternoon, at a little Hills café with a creek at the back, lovely. AND THEN CROWS omfg what a good day.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. Colin and Laura gave me my birthday present! WHICH IS A 1985 HENSCHKE HILL OF GRACE. It's an expensive red wine. Oh man it's beautiful. I'm going to invite them both over to drink it with me and make something perfect to go with it. What an amazing foodie birthday this has been 8DDD

Current Mood: chilled
Current Location: home
Current Music: danse hongroise, the sleeping beauty ~ tchaikovsky

Today was GORGEOUS but it seems this was just the standard tease before spring turns back into winter again. Raining and 15 for the rest of the week, boo. BUT. I won two free Whoppers while I was away! For fluking 9 from 9 in the footy tipping at work TWICE, once for the first weekend and once for the weekend just gone. Which means back when I put my tips in three weeks ago I predicted Geelong would lose on Friday and that the Crows would win yesterday. The lesson here is, put your tips in three weeks in advance.

I've also got my $4 microphone. I haven't been game to plug it in yet, but tbh I won't know how it goes until I Skype with someone and get told whether I'm just as faint as I've always been, worse, or better.

I just want Saturday now. FOOTYYYYYYY. C'mon Geelong. We've thrashed the last three teams we've played by an average of 70-odd points.

Bring it.

If we get the home final I might just have to go. See if I can get Mum to come.

Current Mood: GO CROWS!
Current Location: home
Current Music: since you've been gone ~ powderfinger

<footy>

HOLY SHIT I LOVE THE CROWS. That was the best match I've seen in a long time. Not only did we beat the team second on the ladder but we totally THRASHED them. First quarter ended at 51 to 1. We kept the second-ranked team in the AFL goalless for the first term. Homg it was beautiful. And our kicking was so straight! What was it, 6 or 7 goals straight, before the record was blemished by a WEagle rushing a behind? The crowd all booed him for tarnishing our beautiful run. And the coach was looking so proud of his boys, and they were all patting each other on the back, and grinning and just so HAPPY. I mean, I know we've just thrashed Brisbane and Essendon but about 100 points each, but they're pretty crap teams these days. THE WEAGLES. HOLY SHIT I can't get over it. I want to watch that match again. Crows not just making up the eight, now. They're a contender.

</footy>

Days like these make me happy to be back in Adelaide. I mean, it's still very much jeans and jumper weather, but the blossoms are all out and it was a lovely drive over to Mum and Dad's, sun's out and all dappled through the gum trees, AMAZING footy with people who are just as excited about it as I am, noice coffee with a lovely view... though tbh I've gotten a lot of coffees and lunches with amazing views over the last two weeks XD It's just nice to have a view which is also familiar.

Still frigging cold, though.

Right I need a list. Because I have a lot of shit to do over the course of the next week and lists help me.

o Comment on All the Things. Fics x3 and pics x1,000,000
o Photoshop and upload Sydney/road trip photos
o Post Sydney/road trip photos (oh god that's going to take ages)
o Scan group certificate proving period of employment at Flinders Street, upload for FEG claim
o Find homes for birthday presents
o Vacuum
o Sweep/mop floors
o Put clothes away
o In tray. Always the in tray
o Look into Netflix
o Finish chapter 15. It's like 4 pages in. I can manage another 3 by week's end
o Tidy living/dining
o Tidy studio
o Clean bathroom/loo/laundry

I'll update that as required.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: home
Current Music: the attraction of evil ~ merlin soundtrack

So many things happening. I've stuck in the cornice piece in the studio, so the studio is now FINISHED, including all the fiddly fartarsey bits :D Also the curtains were installed today, which finishes the bedroom and gets a start on the living room. Bedroom is PERFECT. The real test will be in the morning to see how it goes at blocking light. So that's DONE now, except for a pretty thing I want to put on the chest of drawers, being a log with air plants attached to it, inspired by this sort of thing. I found a log on Sunday which is now at Mum and Dad's drying by the fireplace with a note saying DO NOT BURN attached to it. Once it's dried I'll figure out what to actually do with it.

Living room curtains are a little less saturated than I'd thought but still lovely. It's hard to tell from a single swatch sample what it's going to look like covering an entire wall, but it feels so much cosier in there with curtains instead of vertical blinds. Also new pull-down white blinds, both in living and bedrooms, so I can let light in without my nosey neighbours snooping on me as soon as I open the vertical blinds. SO GOOD.

Sunday I did a brush pen lettering day course thingie, which was fabulous fun and so so useful. I'll stick what I did up on

h_bee later on. We started with two pencils rubber-banded together to get the idea of the thick and thin, which is pretty much what it's all about, getting that contrast between thick and thin lines. She gave us two pens each and I'm now going to have to invest in some more. Cos. PRETTY. They're so much fun to letter with and I'd love to try lining something with them, too. Expect lettering things soon. Yes.

It was really well-structured, moving through basic movements to get used to the pens, showing us how to do some particularly tricky letters like that swishy lower-case r and just S in general (the trick is to just let it do its own thing and don't try and force it, then it just comes out swishy and natural), going through the alphabet, linking letters together, playing with different baselines for each letter of the work (omg hers looked so pretty. I couldn't get the knack. PRACTICE.) and finally making a nice composition of a short phrase. The one I had in mind is the one in my icon there, but figured it was too long for such an exercise, so she suggested shortening it to just 'True strength is only eating one square' which worked out nicely. It was SO much fun. She reckons she'll do a follow-up closer to the end of the year, so I'll totally be in on that.

Then raced up to Mum and Dad's for the Showdown, which was the most epic Showdown I think we've ever had. Walshy would've been proud of both sides. 3 point win omfg. They played so well for the first three quarters, though, especially the very beginning, which is where we've been sucking most of the year. Aaaah I love footy.

Yesterday, up at Mum and Dad's again to pick up bread and got home later so didn't get the chance to update then, and then today MORE stuff happened.

At work, our entire system was broken from about lunch time. One of my workmates installed some ransomware. She's been sending out bunches and bunches of statements and invoices to clients who have outstanding accounts of more than 30 days, and likewise requesting them from our suppliers (long story short, our now-former accounts person was shit and now there's heaps of stuff that's marked incorrectly as either paid or unpaid and it's taking an age to go through and sort it all out). So when she got an email mentioning the attached statement 'from' a client, she opened it without double checking.

We noticed probably within half an hour, maybe an hour, when bits of job bags and invoices weren't working anymore. The ransomware had infected all the jpg files associated with the quoting system. So we yanked all the network cables from everything, including the servers, and that was the end of productivity for the day. At last update, outside IT guys are working on it. It only got as far as the quoting system's server, which is completely backed up as of last night (so if we lose anything it'll only be from this morning) and hasn't touched anything like artwork files or the files that operate the printers.

I did a bit of finishing, rubber-banding some stuff to go out, bit of laminating... made a coffee... yep. Sat reading a chapter of book until about 4:20 when I decided this was ridic and went home.

And now I've only just caught up on almost three days of the standards. So much stuff happening! Now I will take Shwiggy to bed and do some writing, maybe. If the feels let me. Writing feels is HARD.

Current Mood: proud
Current Location: bed

House things, in dot point form because it's all little fiddly fartarsey crap:

o Patched up and painted the ceiling holes, though at least two will need another coat and I accidentally poked a hole in one of the patchup jobs in the bedroom so I'll need to shove some more No-More-Cracks into that one. Whoops.

o Tomorrow I pick up offcuts of carpet that I've finally had turned into nice little edged carpets to use as doormats and kitchen-exit-to-dining-room mats to keep tracking dust through my carpet. FINALLY. Taken me bloody long enough.

o Saturday Dad comes to install dimmer switches in living room and studio, screw the hooky thing for the blind in the studio into the wall, and hang up the pinup board for my jewellery in my bedroom. I'll be plastering the cornice piece into place in the studio. Fiddly fartarsey things that will likely take most of the day.

o Curtains come in on Tuesday! Then that's IT for the permanent inside-house stuff.

Last weekend was the first game the Crows played since their coach was murdered and I think the whole country, not just the whole supporter base or even the whole state, was proud of them. For starters just for turning up, but oh man, they did NOT give up. They even won two of the four quarters, and against a team I probably would have expected us to lose against even without current circumstances.

And then the siren went and half of the players started crying. And they did the circle in the middle of the ground as all the teams have been doing this week, arms over shoulders, Eagle-Crow-Eagle-Crow, and I think probably most of them were crying by that point. The Eagles all waited on the ground applauding as they walked off, and the crowd. This was in Perth, not Adelaide. They cheered my boys off like they were their own. I mean a serious, standing up, clapping hands over heads, shouting WOOOOO! for the opposition, all the way back into their rooms. So then I was bloody crying.

And Foxtel did the respectful thing and didn't follow them down into the rooms afterwards with cameras, which was really jolly nice of them. The CEO thanked them at the press conference for that, so it wasn't just me and Mum who noticed.

I love my sport. Nobody could give a shit about the final score. I am just so, so proud of my boys, and so proud of my sport and everyone involved in it. Except Eddie Maguire. He's a pratt will always remain one.

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Yrae Chronicles

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Life Update!

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June 2025

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