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.