Journalling, birthday.

I recently decided to start journalling. I've been kind of disdainful of journalling in the past, and I blog anyway, but I've got that nice free Kikkkik k diary, and I just keep it next to my pillow. When I go to bed I write down some stuff from the day. What I did, what I am excited about, something wise somebody said that I want to remember, something I realised, the take-home point from bible study or whatever.

The other thing I've done is a mind map. I did one before my job interview. So I did one one night last week, wrote down: significant events I'm processing, fears, frustrations, situations or options where I need wisdom, things I'm thankful for, goals and hopes, etc. Then prayed through it all. That was a useful process.

Brooke Fraser's new album is on heavy rotation for me. I didn't buy it for ages because I didn't like the first 2 songs I heard. But now I've got it, I like every other song, even with the different sound. I like Bloodrush, which is elevating, and Brutal Romance and New Histories which are more reflective (I get the line "Love and death, and death and love" going round and round in my head), and I like Magical Machine which is fun nonsense. I don't see any Christian subtext in these songs, which is a reason why the earlier albums are right next to my heart, but for now and this point in my life this is a very good album.

This is from one of my favourite classic BF songs, Shadowfeet. I remember when I first saw it on Video Hits.

Walking, stumbling, on these shadowfeet
towards home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing; less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began
And I have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day...

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
when time and space are through
I'll be found in you

The big event for me was my birthday. Quite nice. Work didn't find out until afterwards but somebody brought cake on Monday which was nice, so my actual birthday day was very low-key. Enjoyed dinner with family and JK and M. Very happy with my presents (things I asked for like car washing stuff and Endeavour, and nice things other people thought of like scarves and fairy lights and colouring in postcards). Housemate cooked French Toast for Saturday breakfast!

The big event for work was the graduation on Friday (I expect this will always clash with my birthday!) which involved my team hosting lunch for the external student grads, then graduation ceremony in the great hall. Quite a tiring day.

On the weekend a couple visited from Sydney to work the election, so I didn't see them until Sunday morning, but it was nice to have them stay.

I saw the Cinderella movie with JK and we enjoyed it a lot. It's pretty much the same as the cartoon in terms of plot. It doesn't make it a darker or more epic good/evil battle. It's just about duty to parents and being in a disfunctional family and having personal integrity and magical clothes. Lily James I thought was perfect for Cinderella because she seemed to be 100% thrilled with her giant skirt and she wore glitter well. There was a LOT of glitter. I think I prefer Ever After for my ideal Cinderella though.

I did a lot of card-making! I have long been wanting to declutter by turning craft supplies into handmade cards. And I never make cards when I need them because it's too last minute. Now I have over 20! I need envelopes.

At church I learnt the sound desk. That is such a long, tiring, thankless job. I now remember why I gave it up last time. So I don't think I'll do it heaps, but right now there is a gap because the two main guys are working weekends.

Generally at the moment I'm feeling like the year is underway and the ups and downs have evened out. Which is good. Life course is over so Monday Jillian with R is back. Cello is over for the term too. So I've got a bit more breathing space at the moment!

And I've decided to say Yes to spontaneous invitations, because I've got a lazy introverty negative default. So I think my default should be Yes.

One year on. Brooke Fraser and Sydney friends.

Last week was the one year point, since I left Sydney.

Last year I bought tickets to see Brooke Fraser with Bec, and the Sydney show was 18 March which was a Wednesday. Not convenient for living outside Sydney, so I took 3 days of leave and spend two nights with Bec staying in her new cabin, and had a big efficient visit.

So on Wednesday I packed and drove down in the morning. I felt sad instead of happy and anticipaty, I actually cried at bible study the night before. I don't know why I'm still a bit up and down. Anyway, I got a great park at Coogee beach at about 10:30 and had a nice swim in the ladies pool.

Then I went to the dentist. My teeth are great!

Then I went to visit K and her two little girls for lunch. Then I went to the Ortho for a quick retainer check. My teeth are great! So that's all set for another year.

Then I got my annual haircut (including wash and blow dry for $45) and I am very pleased with it. Then I had a smoothie and got some Asian sauce at pacific square. Then I drove to Hurstville where Bec lives. I thought it was just normal awful traffic but there was an accident. Then we went to Newtown and had Thai in a pub and gelato and saw Brooke Fraser. I like the old sound, none of the new songs sound like a part of my life the way the old ones do, but her voice and songwriting is always amazing and she did some old ones in a new way which I enjoyed and we got to sing along to Shadowfeet and CS Lewis Song. And she has the most adorable stage persona. She announced she is pregnant which was a pretty big moment. We saw many friends in the crowd.

On Thursday, Bec and I did work/art in the cabin, then when out for lunch, then napped.

Then we cleaned the worm farm she was giving me, then we walked to Hurstville station and got a train to the city. It was a happy Asian chicken dinner with friends, absolutely wonderful. I'm counting that as a birthday dinner a week early. Bec recorded Elsie and I explaining If You Are The One to her on her phone and made a Jessie video out of it, which I LOVE. Walked over to darling harbour water park, then back to Dixon street for n2 gelato. I had baklava flavour.

A Jelssievision tutorial IYATO from Bec Jee on Vimeo.

On Friday I dropped my plan to go to ikea, and went straight to the beach to have brunch and a swim in the ladies pool with JB, which flowed on to a swim and then lunch with Becky. It was a stunning day.

I was so lucky to live in that area. I left at about 2:20pm and got to maitland before 5, the traffic was a little bit hairy but it was at least moving, I beat the peak.

On Saturday I slept in, and then made an exciting trip to Bunnings to return a garden fork I bought last week and buy worms and stuff. Worms cost $50! Golly. But I'm pretty delighted to finally be able to process compost to feed my garden. I started it off with most of a rockmelon that went soft and some corn husk and the paper from Percy's cage.

I moved Maddie's solar powered fairy lights from the washing line to the fence, with some nifty wire bits of my own invention. I can see them from my bed at night. You can't have too many fairy lights I say.

I have been rejoicing over the sprouting of the pea and sweet pea seeds I planted last week! There are only about 3, but I got some bamboo stakes while I was at Bunnings and I've already hammered some into the ground to start a trellis, even though they still are just wee baby sprouts and can't hang on to anything yet. I am taking great delight in my garden.

Garden!

Bit to catch up on.

JK and I haven't done enough swimming this summer so the weekend before last we swam at the baths (the ocean was too dangerous and we got dumped even in the pool!) on Saturday morning.

Then I went to Steggles factory and stocked up the freezer, with a bonus 1kg of satay wings.

Then I did Jillian. Then I was tired. However, I puddled my way through the decluttering of my art cupboard (unpacked some bags that haven't been opened since I moved 1 year ago, found useful things like head torch and phone chargers, threw out useless things like OLD phone chargers). Did cello practice and a facebook drawing. Made 2 jars of brownie mix. Washed.

On Sunday I went to Maitland Park to use my scooter on the new path. It was a cool, pleasant morning. Then I checked out Taste festival, held in maitland mall and the first look at the mall revamp without construction fencing. Would have been more fun with a friend but didn't have the bothers to organise anything.

I bought 1 satay chicken skewer, 1 bottle ginger beer #singlelyf. I also bought tea for me and friends. I also browsed handbags, now I want a new handbag (a brown colorado one to match my brown shoes) but I've got some nice bags, bought on holidays and full of happy memories, and bags last for a long time. Excellent CPW. So I shall be minimalist and keep enjoying the bags I have. In the afternoon, more cello practice, another drawing, an episode of POI with M. Church, church dinner, church dinner washup, walk home.

The comments on my Sunday drawing, which was a monster, were hilarious. A monster stumped me for a while. I tried to draw a comical monster with eyes on stalks and 2 heads and stuff, it was awful. So I thought back to what scared me as a kid: the big bad banksia men from snugglepot and cuddlepie. But not exactly them, my childhood scary version of them, and it's amazing how well it works, a hairy thing with multiple sneaky eyes and multiple toothy mouths. Hair, teeth and eyes. It creeped people out.

Last week I joined in a 2 day workshop called Sharing Our Future Together. There were several useful things.

1. we went through different "tools" like the "circles of Control, Influence and Concern", a gratitude exercise, some visualisation, saying Could instead of Should.
2. we also worked on our own goals, and workshopped how to break them down into SMART goals, swapped phone numbers to check up on each other later.
3. I felt really refreshed afterwards. I really noticed the difference on Tuesday at bible study compared to the week before. I had the energy to laugh, let alone contribute.

I notice I don't have as much trouble "making time for me" as all the wives and mums I work with. It is a normal part of my life, but a guilt-laden issue for a lot of them apparently. Yay for #singlelyf. I also think that being a Christian makes a lot of good things happen regularly. If you go to church, you get a weekly reminder that the world doesn't rely on you. God runs it, so it's OK to let go of it for some rest. And we sing and pray our gratitude. So writing down 3 things I am grateful for didn't blow my mind. I was also pleasantly surprised at how confident I could be among a group of colleagues like that. One of the things was not saying "umm" and I can talk in front of a group of people I didn't know and people higher up in my department without saying umm once.

One surprising thing was the visualisation. I have my doubts about the "power" of it, but for the first time I actually got into it and enjoyed it. I wasn't telling my mind to shut up and relax, I just got completely absorbed in designing an imaginary mountain library, adding lovely things to it, going outside and breathing the mountain air, eating toasted pear and raspberry bread, and it was delightful. It was like when you are having a fun dream and you start to wake up but you don't want to leave the dream so you start making it up so that it keeps going.

I am trying to keep the positivity going and I've got my SMART goal underway.

So then this last weekend I had a productive, frugal and enjoyable shopping trip to Kotara with one of my sisters, dug up my grass for a garden, added compost from my parents, my housemate did some hospitality, I did a bit of Jillian, it was pretty quiet. The most exciting thing is the gardening.

Equanimity. Garden. Hospitality.

Last Saturday I went out to the Putty Road where a sister was house sitting. We went for a walk near this Aboriginal cave painting Baiame.

It was a long way away and there are some interesting farming landscapes and open cut mines in the area. So it was a nice day trip.

I’ve got a normal life now. No upheavals looming. 12 months of transition is coming to an end, it’ll just be that week-in week-out life again. Normal life means sometimes being serene, grateful and contented, and sometimes being flat, ranty and irked. In particular I’m trying to catch myself when I’m mentally ranting and pray about it, because I don’t like that feeling of obsessing over a negative issue. I had a funny lightbulb moment a few weeks ago, I was looking at another failed attempt at daily bible reading and prayer, ie, the new years resolution that didn’t last, and thinking “I really should pray for so much stuff, but whats the point, I never maintain he habit, It’s doomed to failure, there’s no point trying to pray, I FAIL”. And then I realised, what is prayer for? Asking a loving and powerful Father God for help. It is SO hard to see things through the grace lens not the works lens. So I’m giving it a go. I think. I haven’t noticed a dramatic change, I don’t have a daily habit now, but I think I’m praying about things a bit more.

Percy after he stuck his head under the shower

I think the change in season will be good.

Since I made the decision to buy a laptop instead of a garden, I feel a bit sad that I won’t have a garden. Because March is when you plant peas and sweet peas, and that’s the one thing I want to grow. It’s on my home-owner yard-owner bucket list. They are something I know I can grow, they grow fast and it’s satisfying, and I like to eat peas and pick sweet pea flowers. So, I have decided that I’m not going to wait for the money to build a proper raised garden bed, I’m just going to kill a patch of lawn, dig in some compost or something, and plant some seeds. It’ll all be dodgy and temporary but it will be something to enjoy. Here are some BEFORE photos for the record. Watch this space.

Maddie and I invited Eddie over for dinner. This is lasagna in my new baking dish, we ate at my new table. 3 is the number of proper chair and matching plates we have.

I put mint and ice in glasses! How classy is that.