Sunshine Challenge #4
Jul. 25th, 2025 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestSo, I've managed to get behind on the Sunshine Challenge, but never mind, I can still have a go. This is #4, I think.
Fun House
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.
having healthy teeth My teeth/smile, probably the prettiest thing about me. And the dentist, just yesterday afternoon, approved my oral hygiene and said all was well. Good.
singing Spent much of last weekend singing. My (women's barbershop) chorus had coaching, concentrating on Performance. Saturday was excellent, though exhausting; Sunday began rather muted, but once we got into our second song, the energy quickly ramped up again and we did useful consolidation.
We had a couple of guests at tonight's rehearsal, which was nice because we always do a smidge better with an audience. Have to keep the energy going until October, but if we do, I suspect I'll lose a couple of pounds in the meantime! Singing and dancing simultaneously is hard work.
Alan Cumming Has long been my kinky crush, and I love him even more after watching this: https://tomandlorenzo.com/2025/07/the-traitors-star-alan-cumming-steps-in-as-guest-host-on-jimmy-kimmel-live/
a pedicure with my Bun We did this last week, after a morning prowling through charity shops (for my purposes) and hunting down a pair of jeans for her. Had lunch at The Kimchi restaurant, very tasty indeed. Then the pedicure, for which we sat in massaging chairs and had our soaked feet attacked with what looked alarmingly like cheesegraters. It all worked out well, we emerged with soft feet, and my toes are BARBIE PINK. Temporarily.
my knitting! I have nearly finished the scarf I'm doing in a very fine llama yarn which is rather less enjoyable than I'd expected it to be. It's the Gardens of Giverny pattern, which I'm using in order to try to keep the multicoloured yarn under control. The multicoloured is the yarn that makes little bright 'fish' shapes along the rows by means of short rows, and it's interspersed with broad stripes of dark green. There will be plenty of yarn left over, as I'm nearly at full length for the scarf and the balls are still substantial, so I'm trying to figure out if I could knit tiny single-colour squares and join them up in some useful way. Probably not, I suspect. But knitting in general brings me joy, and I have many fabulous yarns just waiting to be employed in the near future, when I can decide which one to use and what pattern to knit.
Pedro Pascal, because (a) he's a splendidly worthy crush, and (b) he makes my socks melt.
my Boy taking responsibility Sadly he did not get the Treasury job, but they provided him with useful feedback on the interview, which I hope will help him in future. And he has (finally) signed up with an employment agency *and* applied for another job, so I am very pleased with him. Wish him luck. He's a very poor interviewee but a good employee, can he but find a new job.
vegetables are growing in my garden I have cropped the curly kale twice now, and it is delicious, although to be fair, even bought kale is pretty darn good when oiled, salted and peppered and cooked for about eight minutes in a fairly hot oven. Yesterday I added a sprinkling of parmesan, which I will certainly do again instead of the salt. There were, alas, two over-large courgettes, one of which remains attached to its plant and will have to be treated like a marrow when I cull it, but that's okay, really. The French beans have been prolific so far and show no signs of running out. The mange touts generally provide about half a dozen pods at a time, which is not a great showing. Next year I shall have to plant more of them. Spinach has grown at a great rate, and we had some as part of my aubergine/onion/tomato/garam masala side dish.
The first few tomatoes were, I think, from the purple plum tomato that I bought at chorus, and were delicious indeed! There are plenty more toms growing, though I hope the sun will return to encourage them to turn red. We also ate some of the cherry plums, stewed with a little sugar and a modicum of cinnamon. Very nice, and there are loads more for the taking. Just rather high on the tree.
The blackberries are starting to blacken. They will also require ladder attention. The apples are burgeoning like mad. I think the universe may be trying to tell me something here.
socks fromturlough I was lucky enough to receive yet another fabulous pair of socks recently, very vividly striped with interesting texture on the top. It is a wonderful thing that turlough is partial to knitting socks, and bestowing them on her friends. Beast and I are grateful recipients!
cuddling my Beast Doesn't really need an explanation.
For a wee bonus, https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DMrBhsi6e/?mibextid=wwXIfr Gorgeous.
Fun House
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.
having healthy teeth My teeth/smile, probably the prettiest thing about me. And the dentist, just yesterday afternoon, approved my oral hygiene and said all was well. Good.
singing Spent much of last weekend singing. My (women's barbershop) chorus had coaching, concentrating on Performance. Saturday was excellent, though exhausting; Sunday began rather muted, but once we got into our second song, the energy quickly ramped up again and we did useful consolidation.
We had a couple of guests at tonight's rehearsal, which was nice because we always do a smidge better with an audience. Have to keep the energy going until October, but if we do, I suspect I'll lose a couple of pounds in the meantime! Singing and dancing simultaneously is hard work.
Alan Cumming Has long been my kinky crush, and I love him even more after watching this: https://tomandlorenzo.com/2025/07/the-traitors-star-alan-cumming-steps-in-as-guest-host-on-jimmy-kimmel-live/
a pedicure with my Bun We did this last week, after a morning prowling through charity shops (for my purposes) and hunting down a pair of jeans for her. Had lunch at The Kimchi restaurant, very tasty indeed. Then the pedicure, for which we sat in massaging chairs and had our soaked feet attacked with what looked alarmingly like cheesegraters. It all worked out well, we emerged with soft feet, and my toes are BARBIE PINK. Temporarily.
my knitting! I have nearly finished the scarf I'm doing in a very fine llama yarn which is rather less enjoyable than I'd expected it to be. It's the Gardens of Giverny pattern, which I'm using in order to try to keep the multicoloured yarn under control. The multicoloured is the yarn that makes little bright 'fish' shapes along the rows by means of short rows, and it's interspersed with broad stripes of dark green. There will be plenty of yarn left over, as I'm nearly at full length for the scarf and the balls are still substantial, so I'm trying to figure out if I could knit tiny single-colour squares and join them up in some useful way. Probably not, I suspect. But knitting in general brings me joy, and I have many fabulous yarns just waiting to be employed in the near future, when I can decide which one to use and what pattern to knit.
Pedro Pascal, because (a) he's a splendidly worthy crush, and (b) he makes my socks melt.
my Boy taking responsibility Sadly he did not get the Treasury job, but they provided him with useful feedback on the interview, which I hope will help him in future. And he has (finally) signed up with an employment agency *and* applied for another job, so I am very pleased with him. Wish him luck. He's a very poor interviewee but a good employee, can he but find a new job.
vegetables are growing in my garden I have cropped the curly kale twice now, and it is delicious, although to be fair, even bought kale is pretty darn good when oiled, salted and peppered and cooked for about eight minutes in a fairly hot oven. Yesterday I added a sprinkling of parmesan, which I will certainly do again instead of the salt. There were, alas, two over-large courgettes, one of which remains attached to its plant and will have to be treated like a marrow when I cull it, but that's okay, really. The French beans have been prolific so far and show no signs of running out. The mange touts generally provide about half a dozen pods at a time, which is not a great showing. Next year I shall have to plant more of them. Spinach has grown at a great rate, and we had some as part of my aubergine/onion/tomato/garam masala side dish.
The first few tomatoes were, I think, from the purple plum tomato that I bought at chorus, and were delicious indeed! There are plenty more toms growing, though I hope the sun will return to encourage them to turn red. We also ate some of the cherry plums, stewed with a little sugar and a modicum of cinnamon. Very nice, and there are loads more for the taking. Just rather high on the tree.
The blackberries are starting to blacken. They will also require ladder attention. The apples are burgeoning like mad. I think the universe may be trying to tell me something here.
socks from
turlough I was lucky enough to receive yet another fabulous pair of socks recently, very vividly striped with interesting texture on the top. It is a wonderful thing that turlough is partial to knitting socks, and bestowing them on her friends. Beast and I are grateful recipients!cuddling my Beast Doesn't really need an explanation.
For a wee bonus, https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DMrBhsi6e/?mibextid=wwXIfr Gorgeous.
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Date: 2025-07-25 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-25 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-25 03:53 pm (UTC)Well done about the teeth. I have so many fillings and crowns and whatnot, I did NOT take good care of my teeth when young.
Interview feedback is vital. My best one was something like: 'we got the idea that your department is very efficient and economical but we didn't get an idea of what YOU do in the department to help them work well. Talk yourself up a bit more.'
Vegetables- I grew potatoes and tomatoes after Brexit and during the pandemic, and very useful they were too. But I gave up recently, and yet the potatoes are still growing steadfastly, we'll have a potato harvest whether we like it or not! lol. It's always useful to grow your own veg isn't it.
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Date: 2025-07-25 04:00 pm (UTC)I shall have to try and coach my son on talking himself up! Difficult, since I haven't had an interview myself in a very, very long time.
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Date: 2025-07-26 08:29 am (UTC)Oh yes that interview was a loooooong time ago, it's hard for modest people to talk themselves up isn't it.
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Date: 2025-07-27 11:13 am (UTC)Knitting with a fine yarn can be problematic if it happens to be fluffy (don't know if your yarn is fluffy, but the yarn in my 'shawl of doom' is....)
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Date: 2025-07-28 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-28 06:36 pm (UTC)