Out and about

Monday:

I had lots of plans for the day, although life got in the way a bit first. Tim had a problem with his bike so I drove him to work, which wasn't a problem, but then I decided to change my plans because I was over that side of the lake now. I went to the Art Gallery so I could work on editing my novel in the café there. After some trouble getting into the car park, I realised that in fact the place didn't open for another hour! So I ended up going with my original plan and headed over to the café at the Arboretum.

There is such a beautiful view from the windows. I first sat for an hour with my pot of tea and looked out the window and played games on my iPhone. This was definitely not wasted time, I was more relaxed and happy than I had been for a couple of weeks since I got sick, and I really enjoyed it. Still a sore throat today, but otherwise much better.

I then did some work on my manuscript, not a lot but it was a good start considering I haven't even looked at it since dad got sick.

It was a lovely mild winter's day, the only unpleasant bit was this entrance to the café, the approach is always frigid like the Ice King's morning breath. I think it forms a wind tunnel or something, and it's already on top of a mountain!

After my editing session, I went out for a walk among the trees. Some of them had woolly jumpers on, I think as an art installation rather than to keep them warm.

I took it pretty easy, but the whole area is on a steep hillside so there was a fair bit of up and down. I walked for about half an hour and enjoyed it! Such a lovely location.

I had lunch at the food court of the shopping centre and chose a Taiwanese chicken stir fry with a side of vegetables instead of rice. I ate half the chicken and all my broccoli. Then did the grocery shopping and came home.

I didn't blog yesterday, I didn't do much. I did eat some cake, and mentioned to Tim that I hadn't eaten any bread at lunchtime (we had steak sandwiches, I ate mine without the bread) as if that made it ok and he nearly wet himself laughing. I guess I didn't exactly mean cake was a good choice, or a better option than bread, I was just pointing out that I didn't have both.

We spent some time looking at houses for sale in Sydney. I printed out a floor plan that I thought was ideal for us (ie not just the right number of rooms, but things like having the kids' bedrooms near ours instead of right up the other end of the house or on a different floor), and then we found a house with almost that exact floor plan that had just been listed, in the area we want, probably in our price range (I rang the agent) although it's hard to be sure because it is going to auction and it's very competitive in Sydney at the moment. I really need to stop falling in love with houses I've only seen on the internet. But at least I have all the pleasure of loving them, while it lasts. We have a month to get there and see it before the auction, maybe they will take an offer before then? Can't next weekend, we have all of Tim's family visiting us. Anyway, we haven't got a definite yes from his work yet.

I have a lot of fun planning a move, and thinking about where the furniture will go and everything. And I'm not crushed if something (like Norfolk Island) doesn't end up happening. But while we are still in the planning stage, I do have some anxiety about someone else buying the house I want before I can grab it!

My other annoyance is that the tiling guy still hasn't come back, even though when I called last week they said by the end of that week. I need to get the ceiling fixed! And it's going to rain again this week, too.

I haven't posted photos of the new curtains yet. This is what the old ones looked like:

I haven't been able to get a photo that shows the true colours of the new ones, but the lounge and kitchen are a greyish blue:

Close-up pattern (yes that is the same as the previous picture!):

The study and games room are "string" colour, which I would call pale gold:

With the same pattern:

Sorry, that was the best I could do. They look quite elegant in real life.

Report card:
Diet: Mostly good.
Exercise: Good!
Water: Good, I'll get there by tonight.
Sleep: I thought I was very restless but I didn't feel tired today so I could be wrong. Wasn't wearing my fitbit for thrashing-around stats.
Mental health: Good.