Checking in, DT fam. Hope you’re all well.

Some evening cat relaxation for y'all

teddy is still munted as.

Oh mah gourd oh mah gourd oh mah gourd. Tonight's dinner was incredible and I got 4.5/5 yum yums from the family.

My dinner

Image of a bowl of homemade beef pho with noodles, bean shoots and coriander.

I'm not the sort of person who shares memes but it encapsulates my current view and why I'm doing all this. Also it just really struck a chord.

Day 7 is complete and I'm feeling stronger than an ox. Well, I was born in the year of the ox so I guess it fits. Still off the alcohol and Mr Peeler accepts that there's no tipple to be had during the day. It's doing us all good!

Have a great day all!

Quitting vapes has been easier than I thought. God what a fucking waste of money. GP bulk billed my telephone appt. Amazing weather. Cats are happy. Friends have been in touch, they're both related to my old workplace so I do have some nice memories and reflections of it finally. I still have daily violent fantasies of kneecapping or bashing the brains in of the person there who sexually assaulted and harassed me and also undermined my work but I think that's part of the healing process. I hope I don't see him though. I'm a pacifist and he can probably fight, but it might be ugly.

Work was good, took my colleague for some driving practise before their license test tomorrow. She's another trans woman and working with and chatting with her has been fantastic. I'm not saying cis people are an issue to work with as my boss and other colleagues are also wonderful, but talking to someone who gets almost every bit of what I'm experiencing because they're experiencing too is really nice. She's also not at all the stereotypical trans woman either so we can also bitch about the gatekeepers and the lack of a real trans "tribe".

Another kinda busy night of aa and such and some food, then bed before 9. Fuck it's nice to feel like I'm in control of my future and my plans keep coming up milhouse.

Thanks for reading.

Finished my ten sessions with the psychologist last week, they sent a report back to the GP with a recommendation that I see a psychiatrist for an ADHD diagnosis. The GP gave me a referral and I followed up. It's $1000 just for the initial consultation, and hundreds for each subsequent appointment. WTF! Plus I can't get in until at least December. Is it any wonder there's a bit of a mental health crisis in this country when support is so expensive.

Bought myself a bag of dim sims to steam at home so I'm not paying $2+ each for them from the places near here. Had some for lunch. Am pleased *cabbage fart*

How we all doing today?

Older blokes: is it a requirement where you have to grunt and groan your way through a visit to the office toilet? I swear to god some of them sound like a match at the Australian open!

I think it's time to take my first mental health day off or something. Or maybe it's just the overstimulation from cooking. I just... Yeah

Kicked lunch off with some baby spring rolls. Moving onto the next course - beans and toast

My new commercial portable hotplate arrived yesterday, so I've been testing it out this morning. It works really well with my pressure-canner, so one of my biggest concerns about a gasless cooking future has been solved. Because it's portable it also makes my preserving setup a bit more flexible which is nice.

After a frustrating search for a new pillow I've finally found the right one - Bas Phillips memory foam gel infused pillow.

Kinda glad I'm childfree by choice, I would hate to be a parent of one of those poor kids from those daycares in NSW and QLD

i wont elaborate further than that, it's in the news atm

But holy shit. The absolute worst of the worst of society being in that close proximity. Those poor children. I hope they can heal and find happiness.

@CEOofmyhouse@CEOofmyhouse56@aussie.zone

The Devour tuna mornay is very good indeed

My tuna mornay lunch

wow 20C tomorrow

I'm making beef pho for dinner tonight so I'm making the bogan stock now and it's pretty fucking good. I have surprised myself.

I've been wanting to go to bed since lunch.

I've been up for half an hour and the temperature inside is up to 20 degrees. I've had crappy heating for so long this is a revelation. Old heating would have taken hours to get that high (and on cold days not managed to get that high at all) plus cost a small forturne to get there.

I wish I was still strong enough to do active outdoorsy things D:<

No photos for this one but I ended up scoring some more discount salad.

Egg potato and bacon salad and 2 medium tubs of pasta salad.

Should last me a couple of days.

Opinion: croissants are delicious just as they are, adding things to them (cheese, ham, jam) makes them a little bit worse. Give me that buttery goodness unadulterated.

What a whirlwind of a day. Trying to catch up with work from yesterday after the database I use fell down and crashed for all of yesterday.

Playing catch up is not fun.

The moon was absolutely beautiful this morning. Driving home just past 7am, the sky was clear, the fields were steaming and the moon was giant and glowing and glorious.

I am addicted to making my own chipotle mayo at the moment, and I really need to stop. I just have it with everything, I probably even smell like chipotle.

Feel the warmth sunsetting behind the pinkish clouds
As evening falls into deep blueish purple dusk
Music playing, a gig for free, singing out loud
The notes drift up, his voice drones lowly busking
Cool breeze blows back and forth slowly wafting
Scents of cuisines from countries never seen
I breathe them in and dream of beaches gleaming
Of mountains snowcapped, of ancient cities sleeping
Waiting for my footsteps.

Found a new series to watch called Hijack. Didn't read anything about it except it stars Idris Elba and it seems to be about a plane being hijacked. Timely viewing for someone taking an international flight in 12 days.

Apparently there was an incident at that Nazi Gym's powerlifting event, and Blair Cottrell completely fucked himself up when trying to lift.

I decided to go for a walk outside earlier, because the weather was nice. Now I can't stop sneezing 🤦‍♀️ I just wanted to enjoy the warmth and now my brain is making it's grand escape out me nostrils ughhhh

shakes fist at sky

This rant/whine requires some backstory.

Backstory

When I got married a few years a (pretty sure I've said this in the past?) I took my wifes last name cause her family are lovely and my family are... well... A holes. All my friends and stuff know me by my new name, anyone who doesn't basically doesn't know me any more. it sort of became a bit of a cull of old "friends" and stuff since I don't have Facebook I don't really have a public presence any more. Which TBH, I like.

This morning was my 3rd encounter with someone from my past in like 2 weeks. The previous 2 all used my old name so before I even saw their face I knew I didn't wanna talk to them. Fortunately the guy this morning didn't recognize me (thank fuck cause I dont have nice things to say to him at all). But why am I suddenly running into people from the past? No offence to these people, but like cant we just pretend we dont know each other? We're not mates any more so why do we have to exchange pleasantries? Just nod so that we recognized each other if you have to acknowledge it at all. No need for the: "Oh man whats new?!" "well, a shit load actually, but we're not really mates so you dont know that hey"

I know I know, I sound like a grumpy entitled arsehole.

Lunch product review - Pork banh mi at Midside Vietnamese Bakery in Bridge road. Salad - poor, no pickled daikon or any onion, only carrot & cucumber and coriander and I was asked if I wanted chilli. Meat - very poor, stewed, fragmented and tasteless. No crispy crackling either. Far too much hoisin sauce. Bread - good. Nice crispy baguette roll of moderate size and good flavour. Not quite as good as the tiger roll at my local but pretty good. But the kicker is (and will cause me to go back from time to time) is the liver pate on the roll - bloody marvellous! Completely legit and one of the best I've ever tasted. Cost $10 (without chilli) takeaway. Next time will order a liver pate roll with some salad and no sauce. Might not be a classic banh mi but who cares. That liver pate is divine.

🔋

Once again, a much longer day than intended, but I just want to mention this extremely, extremely lucky but cheeky situation that made the drive home slightly less painful:

city road jackpot

Was heading down Swan St--> City Rd and realised the queue to turn left onto Power Street headed back all the way before the St Kilda Rd overpass, and there was no way I was gonna be able to cut in or bother waiting in such a long queue, so I figured fuck it, I'll cruise in the middle lane and maybe get onto the Westgate at Port Melbourne instead

But after rolling right past this insane queue, some kind of hidden instinct kicked in and I slowed down just so I could be first at the lights at Southbank Boulevard, 200m from Power St - took a look at the big heavy ute to my left, and thought what the hell...

...so the microsecond the light turned green I absolutely gunned it and changed lanes to the left, with plenty of space before the ute.

And so I got home without having to inch along on City Road full of hate and frustration - although I do feel a bit guilty for still cutting the queue somehow.

I promise I'll never do it again 🙇 hopefully this is the last peak hour drive I have to do out west. I don't know how people do this daily