Half holiday, walk, Mudgee.

After Belgenny, i worked one day back at tocal then took some time off. I have been feeling like life is a long to do list, just have to get this done then survive this then make it through that etc etc.

Liz unfortunately couldn't join me for my walking group walk so I then had Friday alone instead of with her company, so I rang the Ortho first thing in the morning and asked if they could fit me in. They did which was PERFECT. I drove down to Sydney, Ortho, swam at Wylies...

...had fish and chips at coogee, went to see Kate and Mia for afternoon tea, booked a bed at katoomba YHA for the night, and drove to katoomba.

Had a dreadful salad from the supermarket for dinner. Slept pretty well in the hostel in a shared room. Went out for an excellent breakfast. Met my group at 10.30 at wentworth falls. 

The national pass is a very good walk. Stairs yes, but views, waterfalls, swimming pools, stepping stones, a lot of shade and coolness, cliff overhangs, and a cafe at the end then a short flat walk back.

Afterwards I drove to Mudgee and stayed with a family I knew at Mec olden days. It was good to see old friends and their new kids. It was nice living with a family, and I had fun with the kids, and spent time with Helen when they were at school, and helped with breakfast club and a big horrible advent craft. Helen is a good advice giver, I love chatting with her. I think Mudgee will be my new country holiday default bc it looks like Armidale is coming to an end. Below is Helen's cheese making, nail polish fun and craft.

Cheese lunch, nice cafe.

I drove back on Tuesday afternoon, had a quick strata meeting with my neighbours, and went to bible study. Prayer time was the warm fuzzies.

Now I've decided to get budgeting again. I just set up my recurring expenses, I'll track expenses for December, then set a realistic goal for my mortgage and everything next year. I'm finishing this year by paying parents back what I owe, buying a second hand MacBook Air, and a second hand queen sized bed.

Jess

Belgenny

Elsie and Lee came for a night! We went to King Bill.

I had two nights away with my work team together with others in our department who work on differerent sites. I went down in a minibus with most of the team from my site. This was my idea:

We stayed at a nice inn at Camden and did one and a half days of workshop at a historic farm called Belgenny run by the DPI.

Here is a very tempting bell. I rang it. Yolo I say.

I was asked to do two presentations, a short light amusing one about A Day In the Life of me. People enjoyed that, I filmed myself working and drew pictures of the people I work with so it was quite a snazzy production, I made it in iBooks Author and projected it on a screen while I talked about it. I am currently unable to upload things to the iBooks Store otherwise I would put it up there as a free download.

The other presentation was 30 minutes about ebooks. This one I typed up a speech which I read and had a few examples to show people. That one went really well too, I could see active listening and I answered questions.

I was pretty nervous in the lead-up to the retreat, about talking in front of the team but I knew it would be a good experience and everyone was kind and supportive and in the end I rather enjoyed myself. And I did well for the bosses which is also important.

Friends, Flowers.

This is a regular five day week. Five days of ordinary work. All in a row. How boring. I suppose I have to get back into routine.

Had a pretty relaxed weekend, people (Denise +2) stayed over to go to day on the green, so I had brunch with her and JK. In the evening I took Liz to Billabongs and we watched Austenland. It was lovely to have friendy company. The significant discovery of the weekend was that after admiring the posies on Little Flowers for a while, I found a florist in Morpeth that does the same style of flowers! This is very exciting. I want to tell everyone about it but also keep it a secret so that I can surprise ppl with cute cute flowers.

Other than that, once people left it was pretty dull. But dull is good for resting. It's just a bit of a let-down after the social adrenaline. It's a bit annoying that having nothing to do feels so boring, but having something to do all the time is tiring. I think I do need to slow down a bit and savour the dull moments.

Funeral, energy, wreath.

Grandmas funeral was on Tuesday. It was very good, a respectful Anglican service. I played the piano, my brother and sister read prayers very well, and other cousins read bible verses and things. For future reference, I am quite a crier, I couldn't have read psalm 23 or anything, it's a lucky thing I can play amazing grace on autopilot. I wonder how quantity of tears relates to Myer Briggs types. Dad and my uncle did a eulogy and that's the most interesting part to me because it's like the back-story. "Before she was grandma...". Then there was the burial at the cemetery. Then there was lunch/afternoon tea back at the house, half the people were quite cheery and having a great old family catchup, the other half sat there like zombies or fell asleep on the floor. Since I got up before 5am to drive to Bathurst with the siblings, and being sad is tiring, I was in the zombie camp.

After the extended family left there was a lottery to give each grandchild a cup and saucer and some fancywork linen. Then we drove back home. We stopped at maccas on pennant hills road for dinner and I quite enjoyed it. I can't remember the last time I ate maccas but the beef wrap was great. And they brought back the crunchie mcflurry, but I had a kit kat one. We listened to an audiobook Hard Magic all the way home.

So I took Wednesday off as well just for some space to rest. I did Jillian and housework and watched BBC Sense and Sensibility with commentary. Feeling better now than I have in a while. Neck is almost back to normal.

Making me happy this week is that I've hung my succulent wreath on the wall. I delayed the decision about where to hammer a hole into my wall, but there's really only one spot that gets the light and can be seen. It's the cutest thing. Makes my house look like an unhappy hipsters photo (it's next to my pallet furniture).

I also stuck up my photos, they are curling more than they used to. I'm considering getting some frames with lots of windows. One day. Or maybe just a lot more 3M sticky squares to hold the corners back.

I was thinking I should really sit back and let November slide by in maintenance mode. Not commit to anything new, just have more space in life for my introverty batteries to recharge. As it is, current commitments make weekends full anyway. Friends visiting, a midweek trip to Camden for a work team retreat (I've got to get 2 things done for that), a Sydney walking group walk which I am including Liz in, in the blue mountains if there are no fires, then I'll go on to Mudgee and stay with friends taking a few days off work. Then orthodontist on my way home. These are all things I'm looking forward to! But I shall definitely do less in December.

Here are some happy pics from Saturday, first freezing swim after the markets, and lunch, on a hot day.