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Hello lovely people.
Even though I'm on the south side of the building, the sun seems to reflect off a neighbour's window or something, and shines in my window through a whole lot of leaves, making a really nice pattern on the wall.
Sorry, I know I'm the living embodiment of those "get better work stories" ads, but I'm trying to be part of things anyway!
It's easy to forget the little things sometimes. As we get older daily life feels more and more routine, I even feel like I'm on autopilot some days.
I need to stop and enjoy the little things a bit more I think :)
You're right about it as we get older. I've noticed the same thing.
I mean I notice cool stuff like sunlight or the butterflies because those are like events, but sometimes I will be sitting there with my toothbrush in my hand and no memory of if I have just brushed my teeth or not! I don't want to zone out so much.
Noticing the little things is an important part of living you best life 🙂
Very true!
There's a book called "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating" which is by someone in a really bad way and that was like, the highlight of her day, hearing this snail chow down on a houseplant next to her bed. I try to always remember that.
I don't usually think of snails as making noise. Must have been a really quiet room!
Have you read the book? Is it good?
Only excerpts, but they were great! I should actually try and find it again. At the time it was recommended to me I couldn't read very much, but I could read it now.
I've added it to my list to read (someday). My list is growing very long because I've been doing a terrible job of reading lately, but I will eventually read it 🙂
Cool!
Just had the water company out to fix our supply. Seems the water meter was clogged with muck restricting the flow. We have untreated irrigation water as a supply, so not really surprising given the recent pipework upgrades they’ve been doing. The engineer told me they’ve had hundreds of calls in recent weeks from people with the same problem.
Hope they get it sorted for you soon!
Thanks, it was sorted in 30 minutes. The engineer saw the poor flow at our place, went up to the water meter by the road, did his thing, and bingo, back to normal.
Result!
Excellent! Having water to our houses instead of having to walk to a well or something is such a cool thing but it's only when it goes out that we really realise that.
I know. Have had some outages for a few days. Filled a dozen buckets beforehand for the toilet flush. Another thing that’ll really stuff the country is if the internet ever goes out.
Yeah, even ignoring all the business and infrastructure uses I think we offload a lot of tasks that used to be cognition and memory, onto the internet.
Somewhat related, but not really - Had our first watercare bill come through, and its 0. Apparently the previous reading was an actual reading, and so was this one, and the start and end readings are the same - Anyone with some experience with something like this?
I did read that you get "0" bills when they have previously estimated too high, but a bit stumped as the bill says the starting reading was an actual reading too.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the house was sitting empty for a while before we moved in? (as in probably >6 months).
Anyone with some experience with something like this?
I had a leak in January that perfectly lined up with an actual reading. The estimated bill afterward was so high that the next actual reading was a few hundred dollars into the negative. I'd paid it because I wasn't sure if their leak allowance would cover it, but it did so we haven't had to pay again since, which is nice I guess.
Pretty sure we'll be back up to zero dollars this month.
Pretty normal to have some "Zero" readings then I'm assuming? (Though your leak wouldn't be classed as normal! :) )
Anybody got a good recommendation for Cat Sunscreen?
I've heard good things about Aniwell Filtaclear, but it seems it's out of stock everywhere, and it has been for a while (as when I checked last summer it was out of stock then too).
No but tbat sounds good. Back in the 90s we were told to put zinc on them but they didn't like it much.
Doing a bit of reading online, it seems that cats could potentially get Zinc poisoning if they get too much of it?, which is curious to me, as most of the pet sunscreens you see advertise that they have Zinc in them.
The other option seems to be Titanium Dioxide which apparently isn't as toxic? 🤷♂️
Titanium sounds like the better option then. I wonder what the difference is from human sunscreen.
Yeah, that's the reason I was looking at the Aniwell FiltaClear, but seems I've managed to find another brand that does Titanium rather than Zinc - DR Zoo Natural Zinc Free Sun Cream for anyone that's interested.
I wonder what the difference is from human sunscreen
Haven't really looked into the difference yet. Maybe something I should look into
Well, my Broadlink RM 3 mini IR blaster has arrived. And I can't even get it to connect to the official app. Poor start so far...
I don't think I can be much help, I haven't opened the app since I first got it. The only thing I recall is my phone needed to be on the same 2.4ghz network for the first setup
Well I have the phone connected to a 2.4Ghz network, but I'm not sure what's stopping the thing connecting. How does it get the network details?
Honestly I don't know and can't recall if I had issues setting it up. Quick googling shows there might be a different app now? But I can't see it on the play store. I'll have to see if I can find the manual for it
edit: I think your phone connects to it when it's in setup mode (flashing light), then you enter credentials for your network and then it connects?
So I managed to get it to connect to the network using the alternate (AP) pairing method, but not the app (the app couldn't find it on the network, but reported the device had connected).
However, getting to this point was enough for Home Assistant to pick it up, so hopefully I'm good from here!
Edit: Except for the bit where I have no idea what I'm doing 😆
Except for the bit where I have no idea what I’m doing
Sounds like a normal day for me!
😆
I'm pretty new to Home Assistant, and often I feel like I'm learning things in the wrong order. But I'm sure I'll get there eventually. I have managed to teach it heat pump on and off commands, so that's a start.