Whoops, had the first flat tyre in a long time today.
And it was right proper blown - big chunk out of the sidewall, off the rim and everything. None of this slow leak and looks flat nonsense! Luckily I was already at work when it happened, so was able to change it there instead of on the side of the road.
Even better - the spare worked! Fingers crossed it holds, these are all old tyres with the rubber worn and on the way out. And at $400 a pop (no pun intended) I can't afford to replace the tyres yet. Have another old spare on rim already which I was able to put onto the car so already have an emergency spare - but it has some pretty deep gouges on the tread, so i'm pretty sure it'll work as an emergency spare to get me back to the house and not much more after that.
Fingers crossed!
Just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
All time, money, energy and effort is going in to getting the new place up to a standard where it can be managed easily. It's getting there, it just takes time. And a lot of effort. Made loads of progress, we've come a long way from where we were the day we moved in. And sorted a lot of the chaos!
But a bit more money would have helped. Could have had all our issues sorted and space for the stuff we have two years ago - if we just had an extra hundred thousand. Or two!
Oh well, just have to work with what we have.
But damn I'm tired....
Holy crap!
My brother's cat, which was already really old went missing. I posted about her back in 2021 when she disappeared after a surgery.
Today we had a call saying she'd been found! Can't believe she managed to survive so long out on her own in the bush. The vet called me as I was still down as an alternate contact, they hadn't been able to get hold of him. Apparently she's in a pretty poor state, fingers crossed.
Edit: my brother went to the vet, and she recognised him. She had multiple organs failing, very under weight and had several injuries. He did the right thing and chose to have her put down. She was a fighter and lived to almost 18 years I think. A very sad end, to have found her again after so many years lost only to have to let her go again. But it was for the best, it would have been a long, hard road to try and get her back to good health with little chance of success. It would have prolonged her suffering for no real gain.
At least when she closed her eyes, she was in the arms of a loved one and not alone in the street or surrounded by strangers.
Heart is heavy with pain and loss. Good bye Amber.
After just over 17 years, Bobito has passed away.
He was my brothers cat, born 18 Sep 2008 to a stray cat that was hanging around our house at the time. We adopted her, Amber (she died around 2021), she started hanging around the house some time in August of 2008 (I think I made a post on this blog about her); she had a litter of kittens not long after she started hanging around.
Bobito was the runt of the litter, a wee little tiny kitty. He kept getting up to mischief in the shed where Amber lived with her kittens. My brother saved him a few times when he got stuck in various places.
When they were a few weeks old, we gave away most of the kittens, but my bro couldn't bear to part with Bobito. So we kept him and he became his familiar. Amber also became a family cat.
We moved, they came with us. I got married and moved out, the two cats stayed with him.
And now after nearly two decades, Bobito has closed his eyes for the last time.
Rest young man, you will be missed.
My bro will be heartbroken, no more furry warmth by his side. No more eager eyes watching him get home from work. No more angry meows demanding food.
Not a big or interesting update,but posting this as a reminder to me later.
Rotated the tyres on both the Prado and the Navara this morning.
On a separate matter, feeling a bit down that I've done so few updates on this. I think this is the first one this year!
Making progress on the house, including the lean to. Slow, painful progress but progress nonetheless.
Hopefully finished the remote tasks with work and I can stay around the house to continue doing work.
No other really major things coming up at the moment.
Though this weekend? Was very much a lazy long weekend. Should have gotten a fair bit more done, but ended up doing late starts and being rather un-motivated. Really not feeling it. But wet season approaches, and it must be done.
Been pretty hectic and working non-stop on the new place since June. Making progress!
Went for a run - first one since 28 June (according to my records) where I went for a run on my own account. We do some exercise for work, but even that has been lacking due to all the downtime I've had. Not too bad - did 2.9km in 18min, going to be feeling it in the morning!
Edit late 25 Jan - yup, really feeling it in my legs!
Yay! Took a while and I was way behind most other people, but I finally collected from the last region. Turns out I had enough friends (other players, not actual friends) from around the world to get most of them. Savanah and Sandstorm I was able to get relatively easily but the last one - Tundra - proved quite elusive. I had needed just one more for ages!
Another box ticked, wheee!
We've found another property and have made an offer on it. Fingers crossed!
We had a nice big property we'd been chasing for a few years (long story), it finally went to auction a few weeks ago but we were outbid. And of course my pet peeve, the reserve was higher than it should have been. Seems like such a waste of time to me - just come out and say what the seller wants for the property rather than running through the charade of an auction just to wrap it up with "reserve not met".
If we don't get it, we'll keep looking. If we do get it, we'll have a few busy weekends... for the next year or three.
We tried watching this movie the other day, it's meant to be some you-beut aweseomsauce movie ... but we just couldn't get into it. Very muddled, hard to follow - not for us. Loads of people liked it (I believe it won a bunch of awards as well), but not our thing.
In a similar vein, a few weeks prior we watched the Queen biopic. I can honestly say I never thought about Freddy Mercury's name. Now that I've spent three seconds thinking about it, it is kind of obvious that it was a stage name. I didn't realise his ethnicity either - again, probably because I don't spend a lot of time thinking about celebrities.
The way I normally work is I'll like a specific song (or songs) from a band but not be a fan of their other stuff. No idea why, but I know some other people love bands and all their works. I'm not a fan of country music, but there are some specific country songs that I like.
So, I made the first batch. Basically used the ingredients that I had on available:
And one more makes 28 - nice!
First time ever making a post every day on this blog. A bit annoying that I did resort to making a few "forced" making a post for the sake of making a post posts. I didn't really have anything to say, but I said stuff anyway - not my style.
Happy to have set a goal and completed it, would be happier if I'd actually posted meaningful stuff each time. But at least I have one up for each day of the month.
Am I going to do it again? No, I dont see any advantage in trying to force more posts for the sake of making posts. I will be trying to post more, but mainly when I have something to share.
To aid in post workout recovery (and as a snack), there are a bunch of different recipes for power balls - also known as sports balls or protein balls. Loads of places sell them, but I'm always a bit wary about what stuff companies put in them. Home made is more likely to be better, though not cheaper.
Most of the recipes that I've found use peanut butter as a main ingredient which sounds good to me. Adding some type of protein powder is good and will help with muscle recovery but not all protein powders are created equal and tend to be expensive. Egg is a simple substitute though then storage becomes an issue. Not much point eating something healthy that makes me really sick!
A common binding agent is butter, which would have similar refrigeration and short shelf life issues as the eggs. A bunch use coconut shavings on the outside as a way to stop them sticking together.
I might have a go at making some, if I can. Hunting around for a good recipe with ingredients I can afford and tastes halfway decent is proving a challenge.
Yay, another post about Pokemon Go!
This weekend was the global version of the Hoenn Tour. Caught a fair amount of Hoenn mons which helped, and it was brillinat that I was able to get a Relicanth (the reason this is important is because this one is normally only able to be caught in NZ, and was the only one I was missing from the complete Hoenn set).
Did a fair amount of walking, but we "cheated" and were walking around the air-conditioned shops. Much better over the alternative of walking in the rain on the muggy streets.
