Forecast (Friday 10/5): 13-25°
Attained: 13-25°

Forecast (Saturday 11/5): 13-25°
Attained: 14-24°

Forecast (today 12/5): 16-22°
Attained: 18-22°


Mother's Day!
Cubs game me a big box of chocolates...





Between the three of us we finished them off while watching the DVD of The Hobbit. :)
Tired now...

Cubs also made me a card!





They know me so well...


~=o>

Forecast (yesterday): 15-25°
Attained: 11-23°

Forecast (today): 13-25°
Attained: 16-25°

25°? Tch...

Cubs and I went to see a Die Hard double at the Astor yesterday night. The first installment, followed by the most recent.
Was heaps of fun. Very interesting to see the two films together, to see the difference in style and cinematography. The latest one is very tight, very fast compared to the first, but the first has a better story. And villain.
Ah, Hans...



(nicked from online and uncredited)

Tell you what though, after two testosterone soaked BSU films ('Blowing Stuff Up' I learnt a new term) I really, really wanted a beer. :)

~=o>

Forecast Monday 6/5: 6-18°
Attained: 6-19°

Forecast today 7/5: 9-20°
Attained: 10-20°

Good grief, we've got a High Fire Danger alert for tomorrow! This is ridiculous, it's almost (what-passes-for) winter here!

~=o>
The boss is away for a few weeks so I somehow managed to volunteer to Chair the next staff meeting. Yerrss, professional development, an' all that, apparently.
Anyway, today I had to get the agenda organised. Bwhahahahah! For that read: take previous agenda, change dates, throw in a couple of token new things so it looks like I'm paying attention, show it to next in charge and hope for the best.
She made a couple of emminently sensible suggestions but otherwise said it was fine. Phew.

~=o>
KittenKong was not impressed with my veg/rice stew, despite being initially attracted to the smell of the chicken/lamb stock in which it was cooked.




Stew was very nom and surprisingly filling.


~=o>

Forecast Thursday 2/5: 8-18°
Attained: 7-18°

Forecast Friday 3/5: 10-20°
Attained: 11-19°

Forecast Saturday 4/5: ?-15°
Attained: 11-17°

Forecast Sunday 5/5: 9-16°
Attained: 11-15°

Oops, been a few days since posting. Let's see if I can remember what's been happening?

Thursday: I took the cubs to see The Hobbit at the Astor. Their first time seeing the movie and they loved it. :) I reacquainted myself with the fabulosity of Gandalf's scarf.

Friday: Um. I worked, then had the house to myself overnight cos the cubs were at their dad's. I cooked roast chicken.

Saturday: I went to see Spartacus at the Astor. The management made an announcement before the show, apologising profusely for the poor quality of the print. It was a digital transfer from the film, but not a good one. The word 'travesty' was used and the announcer hoped we'd be able to get past the quality of the print and try and enjoy the movie anyway. (They're true Film Buffs there :)
Yes, the quality wasn't good - it was like watching a VHS tape projected on to a big screen - and it wasn't a patch on the 80's restoration, but it wasn't unwatchable. Plus there was no scratching or jumping of the film, which will turn me off straight away. Besides it's such a good movie I could overlook the minor fuzzing.
Spartacus is in my top 5 movies of all time. My reasons for loving it have changed around over the 35+ years I've been watching it - the epicness, the gladiatoryness, the campness, the homoeroticism, the zomg-Kubrik-is-a-geniusness - but this time 'round I fell in love with it again for the performances by Peter Ustinov and Laurence Olivier. Amazing, funny and subtle compared to most of the rest of the cast... :)

Sunday (today): Not a lot happened, admittedly. I've been picking away at the epilogue of some fanfic I'm writing, and cooking, and reading. Eh, could've been worse.

~=o>

Forecast: 11-17°
Attained: 10-16°

On the way to work this morning.
Hot air balloons passing overhead...




And there they go... :)




A good start to the day.

~=o>

Forecast: 9-20°
Attained: 8-19°

Not much to say, really...

~=o>

Forecast: 11-19°
Attained: 11-18°

Cubs and I went with their dad to see Iron Man 3 tonight. It was pretty good :)
I'm disappointed though that the Thor 2 trailer wasn't shown. [pout]



~=o>

Forecast: 16-20°
Attained: 16-19°

Weird day. Went off for a 40 minute nap and woke up four hours later. I probably shouldn't have done that...

~=o>
Did I get anything crossed of my List this weekend? No, but I did some other things that weren't listed on it to start with so that's good.

~=o>

Forecast: 15-24°
Attained: 15-24°

I went off for a nap this afternoon, slept longer than intended and woke up to an empty house.
Cubs had gone to their dad's for the night. I only know this because I txt'd to ask.

Mind you house-to-myself = chips! Mmmmm...

~=o>
Earlier today:

Me: [poking about in a cub's room, making him change his sheets, get rid of some rubbish etc.]
Cub: Isn't there something in your room you could be tidying.
Me: Yep, but your room is irritating me more at the moment...

I mined the laundry basket today, dragging out and washing the stuff that's been lurking in there for months. Will be repurposing some of it - doona to quillow! - and donating some of it to the op shop.

This isn't a spring cleaning urge - it's autumn, anyway - but more of a oh-finally-it's-not-too-hot-too-move-dammit-I-need-to-sort-shit-out urge. :)

~=o>

Forecast: 14-22°
Attained: 16-23°

Sooo... it's the weekend again. Let's see if I can cross anything of my to-do list this time...

~=o>
I'd heard about this...




I'll watch it all at some point. :)

~=o>

Forecast: 11-21°
Attained: 11-21°

For this public holiday I had planned on going to see Iron Man 3 but by the time I felt even vaguely inclined to leave the house it was 6.30pm so, no. I did however get 3 loads of washing done, rifled through the pantry and got rid of a few more bits and bobs, and finished reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (spoilery link).

Everything else I'd planned to do today can wait for the weekend. :)

~=o>

Forecast: 11-20°
Attained: 14-20°

Woohoo, ANZAC day public holiday tomorrow! I get two fridays this week :)

~=o>
These biscuits are adorable. I wouldn't want to eat them.




(nicked from somewhere on tumblr.)

~=o>

Forecast: 12-18°
Attained: 12-19°

So, we've finally got an actual trailer for Thor: the Dark World.



On tumblr, the Thor fandom is spazzing out as are Loki's Army/Hiddlestoners. (TBH, I've watched the trailer about a dozen times already, but mostly only from 1:24 on. There was squeeing. BRB. Watching it again... :)

~=o>

Forecast: 12-19°
Attained: 12-17°

Was my normal day-off today. I reviewed the list of things I could be doing at home and decided to screw that and use my complimentary movie ticket instead.

Jurassic Park 3D!

It's been years since I've seen this, long enough to have forgotten some of it. I jumped and squeaked a few times... :)
The 3D treatment worked well, mostly; there were a few bits where the foreground was blurred enough to be distracting.

~=o>

Forecast: 7-20°
Attained: 7-20°

Busy day. Started early with a trip to the shops to get supplies for Ms Raven's party this afternoon, then a quick dash up to the train station to pick up the cubs' father who's just come back from overseas. He came back to our place for a little while, catching up with the cubs while I made a pile of fairy bread.
We gave him a lift home then drove out to Studley Park Boathouse and Picnic Area for the party.

Well. That was an adventure.
It would've been fine if I hadn't misread the sodding street directory, taken a wrong turn and ended up three suburbs away. Then had to find my way back to where it all went wrong, in Sunday traffic, in a part of Melbourne that doesn't seem to hold much store in clearly labelling streets. Most of the delay was trying to find out where the frack we were then try to correlate it back to the directory. Grrr...
My poor cubs. They put up with a lot from me. There was swearing, and almost tears, and - frankly - histrionics as I became more and more pissed off.
Anyway, after a few more minor false turns we finally got back to where I'd originally decided that hang on, shouldn't we be going that way? The absolute pisser of the thing was that three streets down from where we should've gone was the turn-off we should've taken. I was incredulous, and there was more swearing cos now I was sure the gods were laughing at me. Humph.

After that it was relatively easy, except for arriving an hour late, and there being no convenient parking. I dropped the cubs off with the picnic stuff then went off to find parking on the main road. Ended up being ten minutes walk away, which doesn't sound like much but I was in a foul mood and begrudged every extra step...

But! The day was good! Lots of food, all the fairy bread was eaten, and there was walks and bridges and a river and games and shennanigans. Five of our assorted youngsters, including a cub and the birthday girl, hired a row boat -



- to go messing about on the river.



Hee, and in honour of the Wind in the Willows theme, here's soulsis in rabbit ears. (She doesn't know I took this picture.)



It was a lovely day, in a lovely spot. We made it home without incident - almost: a small wrong-turn but nowhere near as bad as previously - then a quiet evening at home, without dinner cos we were all so full of party food. :)

~=o>

Forecast: 9-19°
Attained: 10-18°

Ridiculously, it wasn't that cold this morning but I was freezing. Had to go back to bed to warm up, and then was fine for the rest of the day. Just as the first few days of summer weather knock me about a little, so do the first cool days.

~=o>
Cubs and I are going to Ms Raven's (my 20 y.o. neice) birthday party tomorrow. It's Wind in the Willows themed and is being held down by a river.
I have had plenty of time to come up with a costume, or at least ears of some description, but no, just wasn't quite that organised...

~=o>

Forecast: 10-18°
Attained: 10-17°

I was microwaving some veggies for tonights dinner when I smelt burnt plastic...




Annoyed. This was my favourite microwave container. Not quite sure how that happened.

~=o>
It's chilly inside this evening. Though KittenKong is quite content.



~=o>

Forecast: 10-17°
Attained: 11-18°

I had to have some blood drawn today, to check if my vitD/vitK/haemoglobin levels are as laughably low as they were last year.
Was in and out of the place within five minutes, and had a really good phlebotomist, one of them as takes blood. She was gentle. We chatted, and she commiserated with me about I.V.s [shudder].

And then I nipped across the road to an op shop. It was one of the ones that tend to be expensive - they're doing this for charity, you hear me, charity! - so I wasn't expecting much.
But! I found this pressed-glass platter for $1! In very good nick! I've been collecting this pattern for close to thirty years now, and I don't have a piece like this. :)

In the background you can see cat haunches, for scale.




Close up of the pattern. I call it 'Cathedral Window'. No idea what it's actually called.



~=o>

Forecast: 9-20°
Attained: 12-19°

I've just spent three days at the main campus - instead of my usual dotted about all over the place - and it was rilly, rilly haaaaaard. Three days in a row of grrr-making parking, and three days in a row of having to wear corporate appropriate clothes. I don't have that many! That's one of the reasons I like going out to the other campuses: I can relax a bit about what I'm wearing...
In some ways, having a uniform for work is a great idea.

On the plus side, three days in the one place gave me a really good grip on the continuity of tasks and I got heaps done.

Day off tomorrow, then back on Friday - the main campus, again - then back to my regularly scheduled three day weekends. Phew...

~=o>

Forecast: 10-19°
Attained: 12-20°

[snicker] I gave the cubs a fright last night.
I'd gone to bed early but had to get up a little while later to use the loo. The floors here are really creaky, which means you can always tell when someone's moving about. The cubs were both in the back bedroom near the toilet and of course they weren't expecting to hear anything...
Two anxious little faces peering around the door. One of the cubs was holding his walking cane. :)
I didn't laugh. Really I didn't.

~=o>
There's a reason otters aren't kept as pets...




~=o>