day 1 of IVF. wish us luck on making a science narwhal

Someone needs to open a business called The LaundroCat which combines a laundry and cat cafe. Have a coffee and cuddle a cat while you wait for your laundry to be done. There is a lot of potential for extra sales in the cafe as no one would be able to leave because the cats would immediately sit on the freshly washed clothes.

I’ve reached a stage in my life where new kitchen gadgets are a source of excitement. Bought a blender yesterday that also heats/cooks the food as it is being blended. Think of all the possibilities…

Hu-fucking-zzah! For anyone following my utterly tedious work sitcho, it is finally SIGNIFICANTLY better after some feet were solidly put down at today's meeting. I have time frames! And $ figures! And direction! And managed to tell our overbearing yet thoroughly incompetent admin/"HR" to (a) stop patronising me (not in those words) and (b) that her particular processes might be protecting the business, but if she was so genuinely concerned about my well being then her officious way of doing things and dragging them out 1000% didn't help (almost in those words).

Definitely much better work life balance coming up, I CAN LET GO OF MY OLD PROJECTS FUCK YES, and I can genuinely taste the freedom to finally start moving on, whether it be here or elsewhere. Now, if only my rent wasn't so high - but at least it won't change until next April. Feeling p good right now. I'm much happier with the uncertainty (atm) of the next chapter vs the dread of staying on.

Until then... Hectic couple of weeks before the role change!

E: soxcat tax as it's her last night here. She's been an exceptional kitty the last few days. Love this little bunch of fur and cuddles.

prrrr

bought a little 12" ooni fyra the other day and gave it a kick in the guts last night. pumped out a margherita and a pepperoni pie. each pie took a little over a minute to cook.

i think i focused a little too much on getting a high temp, something difficult to do with my other pizza cooking options. first one came out with a bottom that was burnt evenly across the whole bottom (though the carbon layer was very thin), the second one i dropped the temp of the stone about 50c and it came out much better, but i probably need to drop it a little more, and let the pies cook for a little longer. the dough was fully cooked, but some of the toppings (like buffalo mozzarella chunks) didn't have time to melt fully. the pepperoni did cup though.

i think i also need to blend my pizza sauce (usually i like it chunky) but on a small 12" pie cooked super fast it can lead to a bit of unevenness, and makes it harder to get the sauce much closer to the edges which i also need to do (with the cheese too), as large rising edge crust caused the ingredients to shift towards the middle.

after 2 pies we were full (puppers also got a slice each, and the cats got some pepperoni), but i reckon next weekend i will do much better. still, they were fucking delicious and pretty damned good for a first poke. apologies for unappealing torch-lit pizza pic, gets dark early these atm.

the machine itself is pretty easy to operate, just runs on hardwood pellets, though it can only store about 15 mins of pellets at a time, so you need to keep topping it up. getting pizzas into and out of the small aperture is pretty easy too. seems like a pretty good contraption, and i reckon it wont be long before i have a technique down to pump out ripper pizzas.

Got dinner from a pizza place called The Gusher.

There's only one choice of drink for the occasion..

ouch big fight with fam.

butters puts up a better fight we've been here before.

The dude who runs the dodgy laundromat I'm in paid for my machine because I'm wearing a Raiders cap and he is too. He doesn't know I just wear the hats because I like them, I don't follow NFL at all.

Being growled at by a pre-teen certainly feels great first thing on a Monday.

Finally after 26hrs I can now take myself to bed and sleep, I think I can taste sounds at the moment.

Really hoping the local woolies has sweet potat noodles (the glassy type).

I had a dream about japchae last night. Specifically it was an intimate macro close up sesame seeds.

I know I'm going to be disappointed. One didn't just dream, I really did so plz universe I need that japachae.

Ha. Posted that "Awful Aspects of Spring" Leunig cartoon to the Book of Faces because I found a copy of it during Operation Sort Shit and it seems to have gone down like a lead balloon.
Dear me.

I was going to offer you all chips but I ate them :( sorry everybodu.

Thank you dear friend (you know who you are 💜), for our dinner tonight. It's absolutely delicious. Truly appreciated.

Phones were dying so I decided to nip home from the hospital, only once I get back the nurse tells me I'm not allowed back in until 7am even though I literally left for 15 minutes... The poor housemates alone in hospital now and I feel like the biggest tit for leaving them there. Last time I went, I swear they let people in and out pretty frequently for the short stay ward because it's one of the weird in between places of the hospital.

Monday fuck yeah let’s do this.

Very monotone dinner tonight.

baked fennel, cauliflower chips and pesto kiev balls

The person I was going to mentor today is away, so if it is not busy I have unexpected bonus time I will be able to study. Which right now means looking through lots of pictures of houses so is pretty fun. Monday's turning out to be not so bad after all.

I don't know what it is, but like man I hate going to work. I would rather be home.

But once I get to work I get into the grove of things and enjoy my time. Of course once it's 5pm I am off the clock, but it's just kind of weird.

Could help that I can listen to podcasts and such. At the moment I'm trying to get up to date with Critical Role (and by up to date I mean, I have 48 episodes to go).

I have spent all day looking through housing design magazines and have come to a few conclusions.

1. There area a lot more people who can afford really big windows then there are truly interesting or innovative designs.
2. All houses look better if photographed with a dog or cat visible.
3. Some people have an unfathomably high tolerance for multiple clashing patterns and colours.
4. Some people have an unfathomably high tolerance for a complete absence of colour or pattern.
5. The design feature I like most is the ability to see outside to a garden. Big windows are good for this, but tall windows or multiple windows at different heights works well too.
6. After looking through too many designs they all start to blur together. It is apparently possible to overdose on housing magazines.

sky pretty

To the Melbourne tradies. If you don't want the work just say so. Don't give half assed quotes then not get back to customers when the quotes are outrageously incomplete.

Had a great meeting at work with my manager. He's down from WA so we don't get much face to face time. Feeling better about my job, a lot of stress just melted away. Sometimes confronting people about things is the best bet.

Gotta love calling PTV, or the department of transport as they now call themselves.

Call

Go through the menus choosing the right option

"Sorry that's not actually my department, let me transfer you click"

Hold music that's meant to be relaxing but is actually really terrifying

Old dude who's definitely smoked a few too many ciggies answers and gives you oddly specific information with information you never provided (thanks Myki history)

Old dude spends half the call coughing

At the end of the call cue smoker voice "yeah thanks for calling. There's a survey now"

Click

"HOW LIKELY WOULD YOU BE TO RECOMMEND PUBLIC TRANSPORT VICTORIA TO A FRIEND OR COLLEAGUE?????????????????????"

"Thanks for calling click"

This is why I email

No wonder the cats didn't join me last night - I forgot to turn the heater off. Oops.

Exercises completed. Coles salmon sushi for breakfast. Bus is late.

Is Monday? :(

Whoops, it's 12:42am and I have yet to shower.

I like late night showers. But I should stop going through my bookmarks and getting rid of things I've already bought or are sold out/not found. But I'm very tempted to spend $97.50 on a journal/diary, but I'm scared to spend that much money. But I miss having a physical journal, I used to bullet journal a lot but decided to go digital post-2020 and yeah I wasted money because I hardly used it. Might have to think about it whether I need a journal or an SSD card.

Edit: Ooo I could AfterPay it... it seems to be a very popular planner, so I don't want it sold out. Decisions decisions.

My dinner

Image of a bowl of tubular spaghetti, yes you read correctly with the finest selection of mushrooms hand picked from my backyard. Topped with a sliver of finger skin (I swear it was only a little bit. Promise) with fresh garlic.

When one isa eating ze pasta one must speaka Italiano though ze entirety of ze meal no.

So no update on the car. Wonder what happens if they cant fix it? I guess I'd have to tell them to buy it off me. its 8 years old with 140k km on it, it cant just die. Grappling with the ethics of IF they fix it, how do I sell it? I looked into just selling it direct to car sales, they only offered me 13k, and I paid 19.5k for it at the start of the year. Feel a bit dodge selling it privately knowing its issues.

Sky pretty