Dirt happened!

One of the really hot days we keep having ended in a sudden cool change and the sky went pink.

This is my last little sweet pea flower. I pulled out the browning vines in front of my window and chucked them in the new veggie garden.

On Friday afternoon DB took me to the dirt shop and we got 3 loads which cost $105. 1.5 cubic meters of nice organic sandy composty soil.

Noah helped us put it in the gardens. This box is marking my drain thing that is yet to have a proper marker/access cover. I'm going to buy a black plastic pot and maybe cut the bottom off it and put it in the dirt. Then put another pot on top which can be lifted off.

Now I'm doing the thinking about the plants. It's the scariest part. I'm also going to buy my own whipper snipper so I can do that for myself.

JK and I drove down to the eastern suburbs on Saturday, to visit Bec's Spire Markets and buy things for presents, and also just see people and eat things. We got there early, did various things for 5 hours, then left, so it wasn't too long and tiring.

Today I'm sabbathing. Just pottering around at the table writing and drawing and listening to music. I read Psalm 25 and then looked up a metrical version to trying singing it. Caught up on a prayer update from France. Did a Facebook drawing. Need to walk more so I walked to Aldi for things.

Singleness skype for youth group.

This was recorded for a youth group night on the topic of singleness. I am really happy that the team thought it was worth doing a topical night on singleness, because the most popular topic is obviously dating, and apparently in the discussions kids acknowledged that they hadn't thought about being single, and so raising the possibility and drawing a bit of a picture of the positives and a bit of the struggles was something I leaped at the chance to do. This is pretty coherent although I got my age wrong and used the wrong word a couple of times.

Garden!

Random thought. This ad captures something about decluttering I think. I remember it came on TV a few years ago at a time when I was just deciding I needed to stop saving my stuff in boxes for some mythical future, I might as well enjoy it properly by using it and wearing it out. I am aiming towards owning nothing I don't use, and sometimes that means getting rid of things I don't use, and sometimes that means using things I don't use. I now sleep under quilts that used to live in a box. It means more joy sparks.



N brought some small delicious home grown peaches to work.

DB took me to Bunnings one lunchtime and we bought all this timber for my gardens! He cut it to size at home.

While I prepared the garden spaces.

Yesterday was massive. First thing in the morning DB came and we put together the gardens. It was so amazing putting it together, feeling the wood lock together as the screws drilled in, ending up with these solid things just like I drew them on paper. They look rather bulky, but I think it's a good use of the space, and when they have plants in them and growing over the edges they will look better. Next job is soil.

Then I had a 5 minute shower and get dressed and went with my parents to Dungog for a fundraiser afternoon tea for Destiny Haven, which mum is involved with. The testimonies of two women who had been loved and rehabilitated were very interesting and powerful.

After that I made a salad, dressed up like a pirate, and went to JKs Planksgiving.

That was a very full Saturday. Today, I'm having a rest. I did buy a vacuum cleaner first thing in the morning, I got a Miele, because it was a mid range ($330) brand with a strong motor and good reviews. And if in doubt, buy German! They rock at attention to detail in design. I used it, and I can tell it has good suction because of how hard it is to drag over the carpet and all the carpet fluffing up. So that's a job well done, I only delayed it for a month but I'm satisfied with my choice and money spent.

Now to have lunch and watch Poirot.

NCS, Garden.

The big obsession at the moment is the garden. It's all happening! Mainly because DB is kind and generous and semi-retired. I've been making the ground ready, pulling out the sweet peas, digging the edges.

I had to check with my panel of experts on Facebook whether this drain lid thing in the veggie patch area was important. I've decided to stick with my original plan of raising a garden on top of it but mark it with a pot so I can find it easily.

DB and I went to Bunnings in our lunch break and bought the timber. I paid for it, he took it home to treat it and cut it up. I need to think of a good thank you present. It's such a lovely thing for him to do with/for me.

More warm fuzzies from work, JH picked up this twin set couch for $10 (with an old futon for a dog bed) which fits sweetly in a bit of our office (the Centre for Excellence) that we cleared out recently (there was some drama around that), and I donated a beehive box for a side table and we are very proud of it.

On Saturday night I went to an NCS ball which was open to all past students because its the 50th anniversary. Somebody had put out these photos from balls of my era, but I only saw a couple of people from then. I don't think I'll go back to a fringe hairstyle. Or spaghetti straps. One thing I like about being the age I am now is knowing how to make the best of what I've got, knowing my strengths, being confident, rejecting things I don't like. Knowing how to put on makeup, carry a conversation, choose whether or not to wear high heels. Dancing is one of those things, I hated dancing in public and was way too shy as a uni student, but on Saturday night I just got in there.

Just wanted a photo of my sisters hair to record how long and thick it is.

Drawing.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/k1eHm0PNnjo

The above video from not long ago, about drawing instead of photographing things, as well as meeting Liz Steele a couple of weeks back and seeing her work on her social media, has prodded me into trying to record things in sketches rather than just photos. I want to also try different techniques and use colour, which I don't with my Facebook drawings.

A couple of dozen black cockatoos have been hanging out in the silky oaks behind my house, which is pretty special.

I thought it would be a good thing to record the development of my garden, so I sat down and drew its current status. It's not wonderful, but I felt like it was true about really looking when you are trying to draw it. I'm sure my sketching will get better if I do more of it, quantity is the secret to quality. I'm impatient though. Isn't that the problem in the first place!

Garden stage 1, hat, publishing.

Social media is one of the things in my life that I feel like I need to monitor and be aware of how I use it and how it affects me. Like food, or like exercise, or how much rest I get. I think the stuff I like about it is interaction: conversations, jokes, comment threads, the feeling when I say something and it resonates with others and they click Like or make a pun about it. I also like interesting articles that some people share, and sometimes joke memes. Apart from that stuff, I'm not into it as much. It's kind of due to boredom, but also I want to remember how to do things in real life without publishing them. I've now had a smartphone for 18 months, and basically I want to go back to more what it was like when I had a nokia and no internet at home. I wasn't cut off from the world, but I published less.

For some reason, the SM place I like the best currently is Pinterest. It's full of the shallow, beautiful stuff with none of the interaction or relationship, but I don't go there too often, I enjoy it in moderation, and it serves a useful purpose for when I'm saving things off the internet. It's a big, communal, craft and cooking and gardening magazine. For me, anyway, because the content algorithms have improved dramatically and I no longer get fitspo or quotes about living a beautiful life; I get how to make chicken wings and how to pave a garden path.

Speaking of gardening, I've met my mortgage goal for the year, and I've got an offer of help from a friend from work, so I'm going ahead with garden building! Denise helped me measure and mark out beds, and I showed the plan to DB, he approves it, so once the rain is over I will poison the grass in the marked areas, ready to dig up for the edging.

We also did nice weekend things like cafe. And we found a Christmas shop in Maitland.

We went to the nice nursery on Sunday. One of many plant photos I took. Didn't buy anything except gifts, but made a mental list.

I bought two vases at an op shop, for flowers/smoothies.

I decided to have a go at a whole food diet for a month, and then realised that I'm not good at eliminating chocolate. And also, I very strongly believe in being hospitable and polite, instead of rejecting food that others have prepared just because it fails my arbitrary food rules. Everything in moderation, including the whole food diet. So instead, I'm doing "Healthy Alternative Month", so that I am still challenged to replace certain food for healthier food, but I can just enjoy chocolate for what it is, which is chocolate and there is no alternative. And at the moment I don't have a problem with how much chocolate I eat.

Here is my Melbourne Cup Hat for work. It's my normal hat, with some clumps of flowers I picked off a vine in the garden at work. I won a box of chocolate which I will save for a special occasion in the office.

Heres some lichen, because I love it.

Here are jacarandas and a blue house in Maitland. This would look nice as a drawing. I wish had the skills to stop on the street and do a good sketch in 10 minutes.

And in the spirit of not publishing everything on the socials, what I do publish lately I am attempting to be real. So instead of perfect sweet pea blossoms, which I certainly see and enjoy, here is my very first tomato.

I've been thinking about how "How are you" irks me: I understand that it's just a friendly social glue, but personally I feel pressure to answer honestly and yet usually that's not the point. I'd rather we just say "Hello" or if we want to, we could add a comment on the weather, "Hello, it's muggy isn't it?". And then, there's the flip side, when we DO ask the question, it could be more meaningful. Like RUOK Day. I happened to listen this week to the manager tools podcast on employee retention https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/mt-2006-employee-retention/id74198801?i=356097992&mt=2 because this is a podcast I enjoy while I work, it sets a good tone and there are useful tips. Anyway they like one-on-ones rather than team meetings, and they want managers to build into their 1/1s the question (once a month) "How are you, overall?" which they think will get a considered response not a meaningless "well thanks", and listen and build up a picture of people they work with over time. That's one way of asking with interest.