Grump level

The general background level of grumpiness has been gradually building all morning. It began with a mediocre night, resulting in very sore eyes (my achilles…heel??) with lots of pins and needles. Then the heat and humidity started settling in (gotta love Sydney weather), which reminded me to sort the failed AC in the youngest’s room.…

Crying all the time

I am not normally a cryer. In my adult decades I have cried maybe a dozen times, and most would have been at films. I have often thought of this. I’ve had a partner who thought of me as emotionally stilted as part of some pure protestant preference (spoiler: I’m not).But things are changing, sometimes…

Stupid Findings #243: The Royal Order of Adjectives

(stolen from here) This rule dictates the specific order in which adjectives should be arranged in a sentence, and native speakers follow it instinctively without being taught. The order is: Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, Purpose, Noun. For example: A lovely small old square brown French leather handbag. It sounds wrong if you…

Stupid Findings #628: Nachos

To make nacho cheese, an emulsifier is used to stop the proteins and the fats from separating as the cheese cools down, which keeps the cheese creamy and dippable. The emulsifier used is Sodium Citrate, which has a chemical formula of… NaCHO

Missed Birthday

“Bishop James Ussher was the 17th-century cleric who put a date to Creation, calculating that it occurred at 6 p.m. on October 22, 4004 B.C.E”. (noticed from here) So we just missed the creation’s 6,027th birthday. Why don’t we have the day off for this?

A good day

Well, this got complicated quickly. You would think it would be a relatively simple concept and that most people could quickly whip out examples of a ‘good day’. From that, we could then distill down what a Good Daytm really means. Apparently not! Start with The main secret of having a productive day (and the…

I hate naming these things

I hate naming because I never have a theme for any of my days lately. There are no overarching ‘things I’ve learnt that the world should know’ concepts—just stuff. Still, I’m a little more with it today, after several days of limited and erratic sleep. I’ve learnt to measure my mental state using several mechanisms.…

A better world

A mixed bag of inputs this morning. I’m still knackered from all the 4 am wakeups lately, and I can feel my low tolerance levels. Still, after bulk Ariane from Xanthe on the way to her very last high school exam (!), I neutralised the pop with a few good podcasts. Ever reliable Krista Tippet…

Things change quickly

But not in any way expected. Six days after my last day at Cisra (canon r and d australia), my dear old mum died suddenly. At an increasingly rickety 89, it was going to be sooner rather than later, and the manner (surrounded by family) was good, but it’s still a serious shock. At least…