nice weather today!

today is sunday.

it's 6 days until my birthday/grand final day.

sydney vs hawthorn - another week long stressful time for me no doubt lol be nice for sydney to win the flag this year as a special birthday treat for myself...

today was a slow day... sorted out the slow cooker for dinner about 9am this morning, so it's almost ready - threw in a cup of frozen peas and beans for the last half hour... and rice is currently cooking away in the microwave - 2 cups this time so there'll be plenty leftover for the leftover beef and mushroom ragout thing to put in the freezer...

the beef cubes was what i bought from the meat barn in warrnambool a few weeks ago and damn you can really tell the difference in quality from what you get at the supermarket - nowhere near as red in colour to start with!

and i don't think i'm gonna brown the meat before throwing it in the slow cooker any more either cause it just makes it tough afterwards, i just played with a bit of the beef in there just now and it was crumbling beautifully, so it'll be nice and soft and tender :-)

i remember after i broke up with my ex 2 years ago, the first sorta 'date' thing i had was with a bloke from warburton - he came over and i made slow cooker beef stroganoff - i'll never forget that night - the beef was PERFECTLY cooked, and tasted fantastic.

the company was lovely, he was a gamer - a boardgamer - i quite enjoy board games - we played this one called pandemic (i think) - was really interesting, i enjoyed it, especially when he told me it's better with more than 2 players cause it's difficult to win the game otherwise - and low and behold, we won the game between the both of us lol

so i found mail in my letterbox today lol i'm hoping it was just overlooked from friday, and not from the street with the same name in ballan but "street" instead of "court" - bloody useless council...

i got a few bank statements and a freebie gift i scored online from recon - little plastic wallet thingo with their logo on it and a condom in their brand of card sleeve that fit into the wallet - i think they are promoting the safer side of life i guess lol ah well, nice to get something for nothing and delivered to the letter box for a bit of excitement :-)

house is tidy, bills are paid, chooks are in order (still no eggs, bugger), bank statements reconciled, ironing complete

spent a couple hours around lunch time today on my bed watching some family guy then had a snooze for about an hour or so... then sat out in the backyard on the shed slab looking through the mail and absorbing the sunshine

i sorta felt a bit bored at times though... it's times like these, that i've probably bloggered about already in the past, that i think it might be nice to have a boyfriend to spend the time with - but that's then the exact reason (that hits me 3 seconds later) why i shouldn't be in a relationship - it would end up just being a 'fill in' position until i got sick of em and then want to break it off - bit like other bf's i've had in the past really....

what i really need, is to spend more time with friends

i had a lovely night out on friday in werribee for dinner (mexican, yummo! gimme chilli baby!) catching up with jon, grant, peter and their friend (who i can't remember what her name is at the moment, but she was very lovely) - i did start to freak out a little bit at one point when the restaurant was pretty much at capacity and got quite loud, but then i just remembered the help that Jyan gave me a few weeks ago with just taking a step back, taking a few deeps breaths and just focusing on enjoying the time with people i knew and enjoying the food.

peter is big on russ harris, so we had a great chat about him and the mechanisms he promotes with mindfulness and focusing on your life right now, to help with stressing less about what's out of our control. i should try and get a copy of his book again, or at least listen to the cd of his just to get my mind back on track again...

last night i had a great catch up with my good mate james - had a great time at the steakhouse, delicious food as always, and top service (also, as always) - love that place...... chatted about our respective recent trips to europe as we hadn't seen each other for months and months.... was nice to reflect on the good times i had over there and appreciate the experiences i had... no anxiety worries last night which was nice, i guess i'm used to going there and love talking about anything with james, he really makes me feel like i can talk about anything at all and he's always gonna be on my side... he helped me out lots last year when i was in my very very dark places, he would always give me a good hug and i know he shed a few tears for me at times too cause he could see how hard i was trying to make things work for myself but just felt bad that my wheels would just spin in the mud..... he's a good guy and has a lovely partner - they make a great couple and i love em heaps

so back to work tomorrow... i was getting a bit ahead of myself yesterday thinking "oh golly tomorrow is sunday then work on monday already" but i snapped myself out of it and just thought to myself "just deal with work when monday turns up, you're barely half way through the weekend yet!"

so 3 x 12 hour days is my target and then thursday off to centrelink for a catch up, hopefully the first and last for this time around, and then the weekend to catch up with friends, celebrate birthday and hopefully watch the swannies bring the flag home to sydney/south melbourne

go bloods!