Some of the good things since last month’s post:

• We spent the weekend at Point Lonsdale with my parents. All the kids came down for at least some of the time as well as E’s fiance. My mum bought S a fancy birthday cake. I strictly avoided dairy for the weekend so I could have some. It was so worth it.

• I thought this post was intriguing: “Thank you for being annoying” – “In this model, happiness comes not from the absence of error in these systems, but from the correction of error. That is, happiness isn’t a full belly, it’s a belly that’s being filled. So if you wanna feel good, you gotta let things get at least a little out of whack so you can whack them back into place again. The whacking is, in fact, the fun part.” A fairly long read, but worthwhile.
• How to Include Kids Without Centering Them. An article with ideas for successful inter-generational gatherings
• I got a back squat PB.
• I finally defrosted the chillies that I’d harvested throughout summer and autumn and made Sweet Chilli Sauce.

• It took about three weeks of avoiding dairy, but I finally stopped getting hives
• Our Grampians Weekend
• When the weather starts to warm up, I often keep the living room door open during the day. 8th October was the first door open day of the season. It’s also been warm enough to hang washing on the line some days.
• Seeing Red-rumped parrots on a run, I’ve also started spotting the bright blue male Splendid Fairy Wrens again.
• Finishing the beautiful 4000-piece puzzle. This was a hard one. Starting work on our next one—a much easier 2000-piece one.

• E and K bought home a couple of boxes of sample cakes to do a wedding cake taste test. The favourites were chocolate, lemon and raspberry white chocolate. They provided a very decadent dessert for dinner that night.
• Finding my dress to wear to Ethan’s wedding. No reveal yet—you will need to wait for February.
• Elisabeths’s international activity challenge—CWBC. I’ve loved seeing everyone’s posts.
• I know it’s the leaves you want with sage, but look how pretty these flowers are.

• By downsizing from a house to an apartment, we have been able to help the kids get into their own places. After much frustration, E and K finally signed a contract for a two-bedroom apartment. They settle on the 17th December and at the moment, the plan is for E to move in there until the wedding, after which K will join him. G and I are very happy that we no longer feel the need to scour real estate listings and deal with their disorganisation.
• A Blurb 50% off voucher landed in my inbox. I had two of the kids’ books covering their primary school years complete, except for proofreading and uploading, so I sent them off for printing. Of course, S did the cheeky check to see if her book was thicker than her brother’s.

• We met our friends S and P for dinner and heard all about their trip to Norway and Iceland.
• G and I have been helping lead our church’s Alpha course. We are having such great discussion each week. We’ve led a number of these and, it’s different every time. Bonus—dinner is sorted on Sunday nights.
• We got some more furniture for the yard, so we now have another little place to sit and can choose sun or shade depending on the time of day.

• Spectating at the Melbourne Marathon. I really love spectating at big races. You get all the atmosphere with none of the pain.
• I found a bookmark in one of my library books. I can’t decide whether it’s cute or freakish.

• Going above and beyond noticing the Good things and writing them down—I love this post of Pip’s “Best of: Why you should start a ‘Thank You Cascade’ + 18 ways to do it!:
• After our successful completion of the big, hard puzzle, the girls and I went on a puzzle-making binge, completing a number of puzzles between 1000-2000 pieces. We get most of our puzzles from the Op Shop and some of them had missing pieces, but that doesn’t hold us back.

• We had some good soaking rain, that, while a bit of an inconvenience, was sorely needed. The gardens and parks have certainly perked up.
• G organised a fun catch-up with the running group for Steak Night at The Bot.
• I got some of my jobs done including tying up the citrus to the wires G put up along the fence, and assembling the wicking bed. It is now ready for the tomatoes.

• Getting to the dog park at an early enough time for Riley to catch up with Sonny and us to catch up with her owner. Our schedules have changed a bit, so we haven’t been walking at 8 am as often as we used to.
• Watching Slow Horses. Wishing this season was longer than 6 episodes.
• I’m still getting a few snow peas each week and the broad beans are ready to eat now too.

• The girls took us out for lunch to thank us for coming over to fix the door on their new cabinet. They had to assemble it didn’t get it quite right. We went to Finders Keepers. They have one of best oat chai lattes.
• I began this list with a weekend at my parents and we are back there again. Melbourne has a public holiday on Tuesday and a lot of people (including us this year) take Monday off to make it an extra long weekend.

Have you watched something recently that you weren’t ready for it to end? What’s your current go to hot drink order?