Daily Discussion Thread: 🎉🍾🍻🎇🎆 Wednesday, 1 January, 2025

Happy New Year! Love you all dearly, this community means so much to me, the knowledge, the kindness, the friends I've made here. You have all encouraged me to pursue my dreams in one form or another, and I am eternally grateful to you all for everything you are. Not just for what you mean to me, but for what we mean to each other.

Love you all, and sending you all good vibes for 2025!

💜💜💜

Me too fluffball. Me too.

I'm standing in a field near my house. There were fireworks going off literally in a 360 degree circle around me 🤣

Happy new year everyone!!!

Here's hoping for a great year for us all ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

It’s the only time of year I wish I lived in a rougher area. I don’t have a view of the city, so some illegal fireworks might be nice. Where are all the ferals when you need them.
- Someone did illegal fireworks in the last place (yuppy area) at 2:37am on the 6th of January last year. There's always hope. Scared the shit out of me because I was watching a scary(ish) movie
  https://youtu.be/Dwr6uADe-TM
  (It went for a few mins but my phone died)

This is the contented face of a boy who got some salmon for tea.

Besties for life now.

Happy new year all! I’m a happy drunk tonight, the best kind.

Love this. Stealing it for work group chat tomorrow

Made a fren at the beach last night:

Don't really see them there. This one was very unsure of me but still curious. Then some dick rode past on a petrol motorbike (which I've also never seen before) and it flew away. Pretty sure riding a motorbike on the beach is illegal. Anyway I hope his bike corrodes.

And here's my main homegurl:
She's started to worble with cheese (with CaCO3) in her mouth which is very impressive. I always thought they'd have to move their beaks to change pitch and loudness but apparently not. I presume it's either a 'thank you' or 'that's right mf what took you so long'.

Bit of a bummer, I know, but I want to spare a thought for the 172+ fire trucks, and probably at least double that in firies, currently still battling the Grampians fire. It's grown to 76k Ha now

ee we all made it hny :)

I'm gonna admit my biggest blunder of the year (so far): I've been really confused about wtf "hny" stands for. Honey? Took me a solid 8 minutes to work out it's meant to be happy new year
- sorry honey
- I thought it was honey as well

Good morrow fellow humans. Please partake in some nutrition with me.

That looks very yummy. I have an egg delivery on Friday, I may have to take inspiration from you for a few breakfasts once they arrive.
Yum. I partook in a nutrition but failed to capture it in a photograph. I had 250g mince sauteed with mushroom, zucchini, broccoli with paprika, chilli, cumin and turmeric! Back to one low carb meal a day for me (with reasonable accommodations made for eating out).
Looks lovely. What will you be having?
- A selection of par boilt proteins on carbohydrate
Yum yum! What is that?
I see poached eggs but can’t make out the rest.
- Pumpkin toast, bacon, chilli jam

Big day today. We got into Carlton early and had second breakfast at Brunetti's, went for a walk where the boys pressed all the pedestrian crossing lights, then went into the movie.

Plopped the boys down and the new Wallace and Gromit was great. They pretty much sat and watched the whole thing. Anything longer and it would have been a struggle. It's a direct sequel to The Wrong Trousers so good to refresh on that first if you want to watch it.

Then home and to a friend's place for early dinner. We did a lot today, but it doesn't feel exhausting, which is a nice feeling for once

Sounds like you all had a lovely day. 🙂
Sounds like you all had an awesome day!

My dear son wasn't interested in staying up till midnight and also wanted someone to sleep with him. I volunteered as tribute. At 10pm.

His bed is not good for my back. He smacked me about in his sleep by accident (I think). I woke up every 2hrs and took ages to return to sleep. Around 3am he mumbled a "sorry" to me. But I think he was dreaming.

And now he is rejecting my pancakes.

I've had worse New Years. I'm gonna go eat pancakes.

Happy New Year, may this one be good to all.

It's done.

Finally, the gardening project I've been working on since the start of December is complete with everything I have available (still waiting on two citrus trees).

120+ plants (of which ~90 are chillies). At least a couple of hundred meters of piping have been laid for the irrigation system. Also then extended the irrigation system to also include the two garden beds and solve a pressure problem in zone 1 with an additional output.

So many hours. Now I just need to tidy up, but that can wait until the New Year right?

Edit: forgot to add that as a renter and not technically able to make holes etc the project had significant additional complexity (I should also add our landlords are lovely and defo wouldn't have minded some drilling, but I know they'd have been round helping do everything if I asked about drilling holes)

Some absolute fuckwit is letting fireworks off now. At 4am.

Fuck this piece of shit suburb and fuck the people that live here.

6 weeks to go.

Happy 2025! The future is here!

Welcome to the world of tomorrow

I have a bunch of lame pics from Geelong and my garden. I often forget to take photos when I'm out. Too busy looking with my eyes.

Enjoy. 🙂

On my way to Spencer street went thru Melbourne Central and saw the Omega 13 device. Looked awesome.

Geelong pelican. Big.

sea monster

an exciting museum. ( truly, this was probably interesting but I wasn't going to find out for $12. I grew up among farms and have seen factories too. So nothing new.

but what I noticed about Geelong which really *is great * is that it's very wheel chair friendly and I saw many disabled people enjoying a holiday .

night time flowers

happy snail light

"Too busy looking with my eyes"
I'm the same. I try to be present in the moment, where a lot of people live their lives through a viewfinder. Nice pictures. It's been years since I've been to that part of the world.
- I find sometimes having the camera enhances the moment. It helps me to focus on details and look at things from different angles, thinking about how/if something can make a good photo. I also like to put photos together into sets, so I will be thinking about things like how the detail on different old building compares, or finding all of the individual flowers in a garden as well as looking at the overall view. Then when I get back home and go through all the pictures to put together an album for the day it both helps to solidify all the memories and gives me a nice reminder to look back on.
  I think the problem is that a lot of people take a photo instead of really looking, just as a way of ticking off a box of "I went here". Or they are just focussing on taking pictures of themselves, and wherever they are is just a backdrop.
- lol, it was hard to explain. I'm looking to experience, not looking to take great shots.
  And most of what I see is so common and banal anyway taking a pic for other people to see rarely crosses my mind.
Nice pics!
I like taking piccys but it's always liberating to just enjoy the experience. But being honest, I never go back to look through old piccys. Basically just taking them for the hell of it.
Is that a Bella Donna? My mum was a nurse, and once told me about one of her patients who went blind from eating it for ‘entertainment’. Luckily for them that effect wore off after a few days.
- 4 o'clock flower?

Happy new year all!

Dishwasher running, washing on, flat tidied. I have reset, and can start 2025 on the right footing

How are dad & step mum doing? Have they recovered from the covid?
Well done. I have some washing on, have mopped and will be doing some tidying up in the kitchen and doing some meal prep shortly. A nice clean start to the year.

Quite a few fires in the city: https://emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/

Especially the west lol. Putting the fire in illegal fireworks

The traditional 15 minutes of chaos for the fire service every new year.
Yep that's not surprising considering how many fireworks i saw down here.

I've done nothing except leisure stuff since xmas. I think tomorrow I'll kick off productivity. Maybe.

Hopefully.

Better than my approach of “chip away so it looks like you at least tried but ultimately achieve nothing” aproach
Same. I have eased back into it today with a little clean but now it's book time.... tomorrow I might do two things. Who knows. Don't want to overdo it !
- I did some food shopping, and I'm in music mode. I'm with you regarding tomorrow lol. I've got till the 13th of Jan but it is moving quickly.

Brought in the new year as I'd like to spend it: sleeping soundly

🎉 🎈 🎊

Cat over fence quotient : 3 plus a family of ringtail possums. Not at the same time. I think my back fence is a superhighway of sorts.

Absconding or seeking sanctuary?
Fur bub here was very good, surprisingly she napped through it
- Absconding I think. Definitely the possums were doing that.

Happy New Year to all you lovely people in this daily thread ❤️

I'm doing a new year fridge cleanout, and apparently I should have done it a while ago. There are a few vegetables in there that are now liquids.

Oh man it happens so easily. Especially when you consider the storage of items before we get a chance to buy them. Like if you've ever grown lettuce, picked some and put it into the fridge, it surprises you with how long it lasts! It's truly eye-opening. Then you buy shop lettuce and it lasts an abysmal short amount of time and you think, hang on...
- Very true. Most of this stuff has come from the food waste market, so it is already on the precipice. With Christmas and a finger injury causing delays a bit of stuff just didn't make it.
  On the positive side, I've now got some pumpkin and zucchini roasting (to be frozen for future grilled sandwiches), I have enough for meals for the next few days to get me through until the next market, and I'm about to get onto cutting up some peaches and apricots for the freezer and to go into some overnight oats. That should use up pretty much everything and leave me with a clean slate.
I’ll be doing my clean out tomorrow.
I forgot about a tub of yogurt I had and it wasn’t looking so good. Be tossing that tomorrow and a few other things sitting around.
Hopefully the couple of oranges I have haven’t disintegrated yet.
Same. I've been away so the fridge was pretty empty but I did give myself permission to toss a few freezer mystery items.

So the big clean up is still happening. I did a vicious prune of the pot plants, but it feels so light and airy now at the front door.

I didn’t finish indoors, but I managed to do a light carpet clean of the dining area and set up the table for a lovely cheese and gin evening for NYE.

I’m still slightly weirded out by following the conventional layout meaning the couch is right in line with the front door, but I cannot deny how crazy spacious it feels after all this time. And the relief on my eyes. Being further away from the idiot box has really helped.

Right now it’s:

Culling all cables to go to Officeworks recycle
Moving some old camera bodies on

In the pipeline:

Sort out misc crap
Hard clothing cull
Finally get rid of old HD that I was only keeping to sort old photos (very stupid, it takes me ages to get to the decision I should have made at the start).
Unused items to the op shop

If all goes well, next clean out will be the storage.

Nice work!

I put some bird seed out in the backyard the other day, thinking the cat would enjoy watching more birdies through the window.

We haven't had many more birds, but that could be because the mice are eating it. Ewww. They seem to be living under the deck.

I guess I'll venture to Bunnings tomorrow and get some Ratsak or whatever. I know they're everywhere but I'd just as soon they don't migrate into the house.

I did the same for my cat. She would sit there all day and randomly attack the security door lol

Ugh!! Insta is grossssss 😭 it's ads or old classmates from HS. So many posted their "influencer" new years eve stories, about their mlm "success" (pfft), getting married, having babies, filtered videos and pictures of baby feet and food and A E S T H E T I C artsy things.

It just feels all so fake to me, idk. Maybe I'm just a loser stoner still finding my way, but I'd rather be this than them. I can't imagine going to cool places and posting about it on a platform like that where people like, know my real name and it's all super filtered. I dont understand the appeal, who is the performance for? Idk. I'm just out of touch I think.

I only use insta for cats and some fan accounts of my favourite bands.
- Here here!
- Lol that's fair, if I cared about SM then perhaps I would bother to to do a mass unfollow and refollow, teaching the algorithm that I want cats. But I don't think I care enough haha I guess it's just occured to me I like getting the memes from mates because it means they saw it and thought it would make me laugh. I appreciate that I think lol.
I’m the same, I’ve kind of gone off platforms where everyone is low key competing/maintaining an image/comparing themselves to unrealistic standards and anybody could find you. It’s healthy I think
- It's weird, and like posting their newborn or toddlers on there too in like a weird grey-beige aesthetic like their child is some corporate jargon that marketing it's trying to peddle to the call centre monkeys. What happened to primary colours and fun cartoony wallpapers in nurseries. I get maybe the whole not assuming the gender of a baby is a thing at play, but the beige-grey shit is just so.... Boring. Like they're not even excited about having a kid or something.
  Thanks for listening to my ~~TedTalk~~ irrelevant opinion as a childfree enby 😂
I got off it for that reason. I absolutely cannot stand when people take photos so they can post them on social media, and then curate their profiles (PROBABLY) so they can get validation from others. I have a friend that curates her photos to be colour-coordinated or something, but I don't see the point of any of it at all. It just screams low self-esteem and fake to me.
I wonder if it's because they want to share things with a larger circle? Maybe it helps them feel connected to the world?
- I have a friend that curates her photos to be colour-coordinated or something, but I don't see the point of any of it at all. It just screams low self-esteem and fake to me.
  Yesss same! Some of them had like this theme going on on their profile where all their pics made a bigger pic, or were posted in 3s. And for what? For who? For the millions of bots that plague insta and twitter and FB and whatever?
  Maybe it does help them feel connected, but like, they have partners or husbands and go on campings trips or whatever, it's weird they still need validation from old HS classmates, strangers, and bots.
  I'm probably just getting old and shitty 😂😂
Getting off insta was great for my mental health.

I am pleased to report that my finger has not been hurting as I feared, and the tenderness around the splinter site has mostly gone. Although it is a touch ichy, which is annoying. Especially around the injection points from the local anaesthetic for some reason.

I've been adding up all the bills, and my finger cost a total of $340, plus whatever subsidies the govt. gives the priority care clinic (including the tetanus shot they gave me which didn't have any charge). About 2/3 of that was paid by Medicare, I only paid around $130 out of pocket. Which I would have been happier spending on other things, but in the scheme of things is not too bad.

The early bird catches the worm, but the early walker catches the spiderweb across the face.

Wrong year Baku hehe

Oh how's that I never even noticed
Cheers for the reminder low, genuinely appreciated
(Now to accidentally keep writing 2024 every time I have to write the date anywhere for the next month lol)
lol

Tried to make cupcakes. Split the cupcake mixture everywhere. Lost the lid for the milk and while trying to find it spilt about 500ml all over the bench and floor. Burnt my cupcakes. Burnt my wrist trying to get the cupcake tray out of the oven.

E: oh and I also dropped and broke a cup while I was trying to measure the milk

E2: I realized I forgot to make the icing so I went to wash my measuring spoons. It slipped back and flipped soap and hot water into my eyes

Sometimes it's just not meant to be. It doesn't matter. Write it off and try again another day. Cupcakes should not cause stress.
- Unfortunately they're already made now. I can hardly write them off. And the stress horse has already bolted
Eh, it happens. Been cooking for a long time and sometimes the mishaps all stack together and the whole process is kerfuffle from start to end. Hope the Kerfuffle cupcakes tastes good anyway.

I love the way supermarkets sell a whole bunch of "salad kits" and vegetable mixes that are primarily shredded cabbage and carrot with a different label. I just used a "stir fry vegetable mix" to make coleslaw. I've had pretty much the same mix of vegies labeled as "asian salad" (with a soy/sesame based dressing), "mexican salad" (with a spicy chilli dressing) or just a "healthy salad" (with a yoghurt dressing and some seeds).

I caved and bought the mini countertop dishwasher because it seems like staying on top of the dishes is really hard for me.

Hopefully the generic Coles dishwasher powder works in it. I need to tighten up on money again

The Coles powder will work great in it.
The aldi stuff isn't bad, tablets or powder.
- Someone was telling me to get liquid as apparently these don’t dissolve stuff well
Yay! I don't know what I'd do without the dishwasher
- I feel bad about it because it seems like such a luxury item. But I want to keep my kitchen hygienic
  Edit: At least it might save water and mean I don’t use disposables
I was one of those people who used to let the dishes pile up and switched to a dishwasher. Problem was then I found that I would just treat the dishwasher a cupboard and pile up dirty plates on the side until the dishwasher was mostly empty and then reload it when i needed clean things. Rinse, repeat.
What fixed it for me and I don't know if you've tried is: when cooking, constantly clean. It means that by the end you only have your plate / cutlery to go (plus maybe 1 pan) which should be done immediately after finishing eating. It makes it a ton easier as you're already busy cooking anyways so might as well be cleaning too.
Edit: also lol, there was a period where I exclusively used paper plates and disposable cutlery to solve your problem 😂
- Yeah I’ve used paper plates but expensive and wasteful. I don’t really cook, this is more to keep up on pet bowls and spoons/saucers/mugs
generic dish powder works fine
just wash the filter of your machine every week and it will work great 🙂

I've been to pilates and done a load of washing. The rest of the day will be gentle pottering, or possibly flat-out lazing.

Beep Beep 🏎️
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

Okay food Lamborghini. Give me your most expensive delicacy
- ⚡️🥔🍠🧀🧈🌶️
Okay food datsun 120y, give us your most economical option.
- ⚡️🥔
A plate of nachoes, three mixed tacos and a burrito please.
- 🌽🌽🛢️_🌮🌮^🌮🌯
Did you sell your food truck???
- Public Holiday pay makes us rich
Fish n chips please! With vinegar, none of that sauce nonsense
- 🐟🍟🥃
Okay little red corvette, I need a love that’s gonna last
- Apologies. That is not for sale.
Hmm how about waffle fries?
- 🥔🧇🛢️

Ended up staying up later than anticipated playing some games with overseas mates. Timezonea usually make that quite difficult unless I stay up late, which I try to do less these days than I used to. But it was nice

Gonna gwt into bed now though. At least I won't be thenonly perosn sleeping in until the middle of the day today

Never been to the airport viewing area before. This is wild! It’s like a party or something.

I love the airport so much. The airport used to be a fun day out in summer holidays as a kid, just me and some mates. We'd catch a bus there and stay the whole day.
Watch all the airplanes from the old viewing deck. Explore the warrens of office hallways, look at the shops. Buy snacks. You could visit gate areas. Lounge in the futuristic waiting areas. Visit the aerospace museum ( which was free )

I'm pleased to report that TheStench™️ is quite drastically improved. Those little magic odour bags genuinely work a treat. The smell is still strong, but has now faded enough I feel comfortable getting dressed in the bathroom again

I also got all the stuff off the floor, and Jason has now done a whole House map and vacc. Downside: now everything is on the couch and bench (again). Hoping that by the end of next week I'll have found the energy and motivation to properly unpack and either find a place for everything, or donate what I can't

The bloody iview player decided to cark it 2 minutes before new years. That was a bit disrespectful. Managed to pull it up on YouTube, but the YouTube stream is like 30 seconds behind so it hit midnight way before the countdown even started. Get a dog up ya bloody Australian internet

I can hear the fireworks quite loudly, but I can't see them from the backyard or the street. Bit of a bummer. Oh well. I'm gonna crack open my ginger beer and fancy Tony chocolate and pretend it's a solo party

The iView stream was behind as well, fireworks outside at least 30s before.
- Bit of a boo. They need to pick up their game! Wonder if the idiot box is a bit more synchronised

Ooft. Bad day. I've been drifting in and out of sleep since 3 something. I've got that classic hit by a truck feeling too. Also woke up feeling unhappy out of nowhere. Don't think I'll make that biryani tonight, that can wait til tomorrow

And virgin have screwed us again! Oversold. Why the f are they allowed to do this? Tiny now flies in at 6:30pm so it’s gonna be a clusterfuck tonight.

How do you oversell seats on a plane?
You can’t even do that at a cinema!
I’m so sorry, I hope you get it all sorted out soon. I’d be very angry.
Airlines love bending us over the fuselage and having a red hot go, and there's fuck all us plebs can do about it sigh
Sorry man, that sucks major smelly balls :(
- Yeah, Mrs is on the phone to them now. Who the fuck bumps a mum with a young toddler?

done a bit of housework, tired now ...lol

what has been really good today is that the young Seagoons have said this house is very dusty, very. So it's not me being lax, it really is dusty. They think it's the carpet, I think it's not just carpet but dust from the front courtyard, the windows that don't close properly, the clothes drier adds some dust, the cats, and car and bus exhaust all combining to make this extra dusty.

@Baku@aussie.zone are you a time traveler?

Cheers spicy, it's all part of the annual tradition of constantly getting the year wrong
Must've been rough going from 1999 > 2000. No saving that. I think I can at least kinda butcher a 4 I to a 5 if I get it wrong

FFS.

I’m trying to build the nanoblocks model I got for Christmas, and there’s one specific bit that keeps falling apart when I try to do it. This is my third attempt

I got some zuru flower things and one of them I cannot get to stay together either.
- I had a nano block dinosaur and it would just crumble in my hand.

Those lasers were cool.

Om gonna try my hand at making chicken biryani tonight. I found a recipe on that tin eats site. A few substitutions will be in order though. I don't have plain yogurt or chicken thighs. ChatGPT suggested using coconut milk with a dash of lemon juice slightly evaporated in place of plain yogurt, so I'm gonna try that. I have drumsticks, but no chicken thighs. But I also have lots of chicken breast. The recipe has a note about substituting thighs for breast. Not recommended apparently, but it does have an alternative recommendation to try to keep them juicyish

Another problem I'll probably run into, is that I think everything is meant to be mixed into one enormous pot and cooked together or simmered for a while. In my infinite wisdom, I only bought one pot. I do have a giant wok I can probably use, but it's got a very thin base so I'll need to be careful about the heat

E: and I don't have ghee or butter because I normally substitute all butter for margarine. So that's what it's getting

Curious, what is it about butter you don’t like?
- It's not entirely don't like. Sometimes I do use butter for baking. But I avoid putting butter or margarine on anything I don't have to. Don't know why, I just don't like it
  I only really buy margarine because it's cheaper, I can't notice a taste or consistency difference in almost everything I cook or bake, so certainly not worth the extra money most of the time

DDT Techies, what type of adhesive/tape is used inside laptops to stick down small flat cables? What is it called?

I've always only used normal double sided tape from Kmart or whatever
Idk if that's the recommended method or not though
- The laptop runs pretty hot so looking at thermal tape. (I also have normal double-sided tape, but I think it’s dead, LOL).
ESD safe tape maybe?
- Thanks! Maybe?
  I really was hoping to find an equiv in Bunnings since everywhere else is shut today. Worse case I’ll have to get it tomorrow, but I’d love to finish it today.

Lots of planes around (as well as fireworks).

Circling like vultures... Wonder how much it costs to rent a plane (and a pilot) for NYE, seems like the best way to see the fireworks

so tired

good night everyone, sweet dreams, luv you all 😘

Sifu free on EpicGames today.

Thanks for the reminder.
I find that game so hard.

Morning everyone

Watching a video where a guy talks about the Werribee line for over an hour. It's quite interesting

Taitset? Dudes awesome! Be sure to watch his runaway train video if you havnt seen it.
- I was just telling miss seagoon about the runaway train video ... !!! .
- I'm watching it right now!
https://aussie.zone/post/16521060
- Oh what a coincidence! It showed up on my TV's recommended. It's crazy how he knows so much about the train lines and the system and cool to see someone talk about something they're passionate about in heaps of depth, with a bit of sarcasm. It's also kinda eerie how there are bits of old rail in the asphalt, abandoned buildings and signal boxes. So much history!! So cool. It's like an itch in my brain has been scratched.
  Also why North Melbourne station is in West Melbourne? I'm guessing for shits and gigs.
omg, I'm watching it too ... 🤣

Are the cheaper brands of bar soap ok for most people? (Like the Balnea green tea and milk & honey scents.) I found their pure soap a bit harsh but that might just be me. I use their unscented sorbolene bars but people might like scent.

What about the ‘clean linen’ scent of another cheap brand or the same sort of thing from Aldi?

I don’t have heaps of money myself so I’m thinking of buying cheap multipacks and re-wrapping the individual bars in leftover Xmas wrapping paper to help share them out at the community pantry. (I can buy higher quality and individually wrapped but would afford fewer bars.)

But if you were struggling to afford the absolute basics would you find that insulting (cheap quality) or gross (handled/not in original packaging) or would the soap be too harsh for you and your kids?

I would be grateful.
- Hopefully it’s fine. I’m trying to balance between my own budget and not donating absolute shite 😢
  Also the Xmas wrapping paper might seem a little rude. Both in the sense of being leftover/discounted and kind of suggesting that a bar of soap is a gift…
  Just trying to consider people’s dignity

Cooking fail. Wanted to make a rice bowl with a miso mayo. Mixed some miso with some kewpie, garlic and ginger. All I taste is salt. Too much miso I reckon.

So how does everyone use their dish washer? ( assuming they have one?)

I run mine in the afternoon and after dinner whether it's full or not, iow, I do it on a time basis. I like to organise by time.

Miss Seagoon waits until there are enough dishes. I think she organises by task.

I waited until it's full. I'm surprised to hear you say that you don't. I've always thought of that as slightly wasteful, even if it doesn't use that much electricity or water, since it doesn't scale down based on the amount of dishes you put in
(Also, not having enough, or dirty enough, dishes can make your dishwasher tabs or rinse aid leave a bit of residue)
- I have dishwasher powder so that I can scale down the quantity if I don't do a very full load.
  I think trying to focus on the dishwasher being full does not work well if you do a lot of cooking, as you tend to produce a lot of dishes in batches, and then you don't have enough space to fit everything in & have to run the dishwasher with some stuff left on the bench waiting. Then you have to unload straight away to put the rest of the dishes away ,which then have to wait until you have more dishes and the whole process repeats. As long as it is at least half full I will run it to keep to a schedule that works for me.
- In the afternoon I wash the dishes and utensils, etc , for the evening cooking and I wash up at night to have a clean kitchen to wake up to.
I put mine on with a timer when I go to bed, so that it uses the cheaper electricity rate. Then it is ready to empty in the morning.
I occassionally run extra during the day if I am cooking a lot, or skip running it if I have not used many dishes.
- I'd love a timer on the dishwasher but this one is pretty basic.
It goes on either after tea if it's full, or as I go out the door to work in the morning after breakfast dishes are in. If I'm baking I'll fill and run it multiple times in a day.