photo saturday: xmas trees

big white christmas tree... with bright baublesneon tree, soldiers three and a carboard reindeer
These are the things I know to be true right now...
  • Ma will need to have an operation on her shoulder otherwise she'll never have full use of it back.
  • We don't know when that operation will be, but the sooner the better in the scheme of things.
  • The Fringe program went live yesterday and my first "shortlist" had 41 shows on it.
  • I'm taking time off between Christmas and New Year, the first time I've done that since I started back at The Nuthouse. I really need the break.
  • I signed the paperwork, so I'll be staying in my apartment for another 12 months.
  • I put Christmas decorations up for the first time properly in three years.
  • I was definitely not into putting up the tree at Ma's place today.
So that's what's true right now. Let me rewind a little and fill in the gaps.

Sunday I dragged my printer out from under the bed and went about printing up Ma's calendar, this year with the theme of sculpture (but surprisingly with a minimal number of shots from Sculpture By The Sea, since I've used those in a number of other calendars).

ma's calendar 2017
The printer paper I used isn't quite as good I don't think, or something happened with the print, I don't know, but the text seems a little soft.

Once I was done with printing, I bundled up the pages and headed off to the closest Officeworks (which is, obviously, a completely different one from the one I've got every other calendar bound at). And I don't know if it was because it was a different place, but halfway through the process the very nice gentleman asked me if I wanted the half circle hanger added to the calendar.

The obvious answer... "FUCK YES". Not what I said, but I thought it pretty hard. So after 9 years of making these things, it looks fully professional with the little half-circle cut out of the top and a hanger. It's the epitome of "easily pleased", but I really am thrillled he suggested it and that it works.

Also, at least he did it properly this time, not like the screw up from last year.

After I came back from Officeworks I went across to the Village to get my hair cut (actually, I made a booking and went back 45 minutes later)... there's definitely a difference between getting a haircut from the person who's been doing it for probably the better part of a decade and some random...

It's not a bad cut, it's just not up to the Tink standard.

I made an Asian inspired salad for lunch this week... rice, marinated beef, baby corn, snow peas, haloumi, spring onion, red onion, baby spinach and a mango and lime dressing. One of the better ones I've made since I switched over to salads to be honest.

Work was... functional. We had 2 different birthdays, which meant 2 sets of donuts. I was a little tweaked on sugar by the second day to be honest.

I took my little gay pink glitter tinsel Christmas tree to work a couple of weeks ago, but didn't put it out on my desk until Thursday when the calendar finally rolled around to December.

pixelbrick wreath
And then I came home, dragged my Christmas supplies out from under the bed and went though them, picking out some stuff to make the house look slightly festive.

The two major things were the neon Christmas tree I've had for a few years now... just the pink and green neon make it feel more Christmasy, I have no idea why. The other was the off brand building brick pixel wreath I picked up on sale last year. It didn't arrive until after Christmas, so this is the first time I've had the chance to put it together.

It's definitely an off brand brick... it doesn't go together smooth like LEGO, but it's pretty sturdy. I wanted to put it on the door, but that wasn't as easy as it seemed, so I went with one of the existing nails in the wall.

Friday was Fringe Day. I had a couple of things I needed to do as soon as I got to work... and when they wrapped up, the guide had dropped... and I'll admit, I took some time out to go through it.

And my first "shortlist", as I mentioned before, was 41 shows. Partly due to the fact that there was a metric fuckton of Shakespeare this year. After a couple of revisions (one at lunch and one when I got home) I got the list down to about 25... but after showing the list to Ma earlier, I think I killed another few off.

So tomorrow morning I'll sit down and plot everything out, get my timings sorted (I also need to plug in the two Festival shows we already have tickets for), and then go ahead and book the tickets.

Ah, Fringe time.

Anyway... after work I just needed some retail therapy... and I had an order that had come in at the comic book store, so I figured let's just go do some shopping.

Yeah, Friday night shopping... in the city... in December... on the same day as the Fringe launch party. Yes, I do need my head examined, thank you for asking.

I picked up the last couple of things I need for Ma, a decidedly 1960's Christmas CD, my graphic novel (and ordered way too many more LOL) and stopped off to pick up the artwork I bought at the last Peanut Gallery show.

And then I walked my very, very tired feet home and ordered a pizza.

Today I was much more organised than I've been the last few weeks... partly because I realised that the Foodland at Norwood opens at 7:30, so if I got my crap together I could be there, shop, come back and be on my way to Ma's without losing an entire half of the day.

Granted, I wasn't spot on time, but I was definitely earlier than I have been.

For some reason I spent much more than usual, although I bought a metric fuckton of bacon (it was on special) and the makings for two lots of Rocky Road.

After I'd done everything I needed to do, I headed off to Ma's.

We didn't have a plan... at some earlier point she'd said something about not knowing whether she wanted to put the tree up at all... and I'll admit, I was fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. It's also not a decision I could make for her... but by the time we started thinking about it it was already lunch time and, obviously, Ma hadn't done any of the things she usually does to get ready for putting the tree up...

In the end she decided that we should put it up... so we did.

Like I said, I wasn't particularly into it... yes, it was good we did it, it looks good (we got some new brightly coloured ornaments that look pretty damn good on the white tree), but I wasn't really in the right headspace.

But we got there.

Fortunately there wasn't a lot of wrapping of presents... Ma has already done a bit, and some of the people she would normally buy for she's just sending money or whatever, so we put together the presents for Princess T and Miss Oh.

I think we did pretty good with our choice of packaging this time around... we usually put their presents into some kind of box and wrap it all up like a hamper... but this year we bought them "beach bags"... I mean they're really just big tote bags, but it's the beach kind of idea. And then we've filled them with all manner of stuff.

But usually we would just have left everything open and accessible... but no, I was in charge this year, so we did my usual trick for Ma's presents... I wrapped everything with tissue paper and wrapped it with some curly ribbon.

They think getting into Ma's presents takes some times... wait until they get a load of me (and yes, that was a Jack Nicholson/Joker reference).

So that was it really... I got there at, I dunno, not quite 11am and left at not quite 6pm.

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