Elsie came to visit, we both took a couple of days off work and had a mini holiday in the hunter valley. Free accommodation at my house! It is actually quite relaxing, I should take days off work more often just to go to cafes and read and think. Weekends can be full of demanding things and the shops are so busy.
So I picked Elsie up on Wednesday evening and we had dinner at my parents with my sister and my parents, mainly dad, ran a discussion group for us about the process of anger to forgiveness. It was very interesting. Good to have a productive conversation about real things.
On Thursday I did Jillian and then we went to Maitland art gallery. The cafe there is lovely.
Then we walked through op shops and other things around Maitland. I bought this $10 stool!
At home I had a go at baking a cinnamon scroll thing from breadmaker dough. Not enough sugar in them.
Then I went to cello lesson because it was Thursday. Then home for dinner, then I went to music practice for morning church.
On Friday Elsie and JK and I went to breakfast at the Teale cafe, which is just excellent for breakfasts. Then Elsie and I went to Hunter Valley Gardens (Ent book voucher). At this time of year not many flowers, but on the other hand, not many people! Which is great for the selfies in the storybook garden. I only have the ones off my phone, Elsie has lots of her on her phone.
Then we had a late light lunch and then a cookie and milk (Ent book voucher). I bought a rose reed infuser! I am obsessed with nice smells this year. It’s like smelly candles or smelly hand cream or jurlique rose mist, but constant and convenient. I love it. Nice smells are making me happy.
Then we did some more op shopping and I didn't by the Taj Mahal birdcage but I did buy a small white coffee table for Percy's cage to go on. It was on a pallet on 2 IKEA stools, and before that a pile of cardboard boxes. I've been looking for an appropriate thing for ages!
Then we went to Newy for Chinese dinner with JK (Ent book voucher) and cold rock ice cream (Ent book voucher!!!! 4 in one day!).
On Saturday it was sleeping in time, and then we went to JKs house to crash her porridge party, and hung out there until I took Elsie to the station. The rest of my weekend was just chores and church really. Sunday was very full of church and church music, I had 2.5 hours at home in the afternoon. But it’s good to do music at church.
So some other things. As pop culture happy hour says, “making me happy this week”.
Last week I did a ‘cello recital’ at work at morning tea. That was lovely, it was hilarious that my colleague called himself my Manager and gathered people together and formally introduced me to everyone like it wasn’t just people who already know me listening to my beginner skillz. And I played 2 scales and 5 short pieces, and I played them very well actually, and everyone enjoyed it because it was a different thing to do. And everyone had a lovely time. I’m really keen to be able to get good enough to play along with people, because as I said before, it’s good to do music at church. A lot of church songs are easy enough, but I’m limited in what key I can play in. I wonder if there is a cello capo out there. So anyway, it’s term 3, and I said I’d give it a red hot go for a year and then decide. Maybe after next term I’ll go to a rehearsal with the music team and see what I can do, because I’d contintue the lessons for longer if I could start to transition into the church context.
Exercise. I’ve started walking regularly again. I stopped in summer because it is too hot at lunchtime and I do other things in the evening like cello practice. But now it’s nice and cool I walk at lunch, and I realised I really miss walking home from work so I walk after work, and yes, sometimes I don’t play the cello. But variety is the banquet of life. Evening walks are nice because of the smells of cooking and sometimes a wood fire, which is the best outdoors smell in the world, smoke in the winter. And also because I go somewhere open and get some sunset. I like to see the sunset clouds and stand on a railway footbridge with a bit of a view and stare at it and listen to music and feel the feelings. I miss the walking I did in Sydney it was nice to be outdoors all the time and helpful to have the time to think and process. Some times I feel sad, sometimes I feel blessed. I think it's good to have a bit of space to see how I'm going. Still plugging away at Jillian mostly 3 times a week. Can’t say that makes me happy but I do value the strength and muscle tone it gives me. It fits into my routine pretty well and I get a lot of bang for my buck and it doesn’t cause me an injury so it must be a pretty safe and sustainable form of exercise. So I keep it up.
I've found I've got an appetite to read Christian books, which I always felt guilty about not reading many Christian books when I worked at MM, but I guess that would be a busmans holiday. So now I am actually interested because I'm not working with them all day. I've even started The Cross of Christ, and so has someone else in my home group. We are both surprised that it's much easier to read now than when we bought it as uni students, but still, it's long and heavy. I've finished chapter 1.
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