Friday, July 31, 2015

Quiet things.

After a very hectic weekend, mostly at work, I took a recovery day on Monday. It was a fun weekend though.







Aside: I’m seriously thinking about how I can observe the Sabbath. I have seen what it does to me, working full time then having busy weekends over and over again. And God has designed the Sabbath for us to enjoy, but by not being disciplined about it at ALL, in the freedom I have in Christ, I think I’m not enjoying it. I’ve dipped into the following resources this week.

http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sermons/work-and-rest

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/02/magazine/bring-back-the-sabbath.html

http://www.challies.com/articles/the-day-of-rest

I’ve come up with a couple of ideas. I think I need to defend my sabbath, and use it wisely. So the first, defending. I got a message last night asking me to bring a dessert to church for some reason. I said yes, while groaning. I’ll have morning church on music, then be baking for work morning tea and church supper, watch some TV with Maddie, then night church. And that’s how I lose a sabbath. Then I remembered some of the things I absorbed, and decided to to my baking on Saturday instead. I was inspired by reading that hardcore Jews pre-rip their toilet paper on Friday. It isn’t impossible to defend the sabbath but it took that step of planning and rescheduling. And the second thought, use it wisely, will be about what I do with my mind and time, to rest and devote it to God. Will this mean screen-free time? A long morning devotion? Time to read edifying books? It’s becoming clear that real rest takes discipline.

Anyway, the work last weekend went well, I sold merchandise and there were fireworks and bagpipes in the evening so for unpaid time it was pretty good.

On my recovery day, I did some housework, waited for Optus NBN technician to never show up, and watched Chuck S3. I like S3 a lot. The NBN debacle was frustrating, because they just expect you to take another day off work and wait around indefinitely every time they don’t turn up. But then after getting really angry (had to hang up on an Indian call center employee because of tears) I realised that I’m not at all unhappy without the internet, and actually I don’t care if it’s connected or not. Meanwhile, Optus isn’t making any money until it’s connected. If it takes a month for them to connect, that’s money they effectively lose. Which made me feel a little bit more powerful, so now, whatever, I'm not going to sweat about it any more. Optus have left me messages saying they have made a new appointment, but I don't really care. 

I bought some drawer compartments for my socks. Because why not. I find the idea of an organised sock drawer very soothing. I can now see all my socks! This is more satisfying than it sounds.


I also listen to Unstuff Your Life every so often. I think books about organising and decluttering are helpful and personally I find them relaxing as well. It is helpful to reinforce my minimalism ethos regularly. For example, I can become flummoxed by gifts. There’s a teapot sitting on the bench, and I love that someone thought of me when they were at a garage sale and spontaneously gave it to me, but I don’t really want to keep another 1-cup teapot, because I already have one I like. UYL reminds me that the whole point of the gift was in the thought, and not in the keeping of the object in a cupboard, when actually someone else might like the teapot and use it if I let it pass through to the opshop. By regularly combing through the stuff I own, I want to make sure I have the space in my life to do what I think is important.

If you like piano music from period dramas as much as me, there is a youtube guy called TweedleDee1 who has arranged a whole bunch of themes and they look reasonably easy and you can download them here. My weekend amusement.
https://www.youtube.com/user/TweedleDee1/about

I'm also enjoying The Bachelor with my housemate. I'm not in it for the dates, dates are awkward. I enjoy the relationship dynamics in the mansion aka 'girl prison'. The theme is being insecure about your personality because if you're too quiet he wont notice you and send you home, or if you're too out-there he doesn't take you seriously, although basically, the whole premise of the show dooms 95% of the women on it to fail at a relationship no matter what. I like to read recaps afterwards and get an extra dose of snark.

http://www.mamamia.com.au/rogue/rosie-recaps-bachelor-season-3-episode-2/
Oshie’s hair comes out to break up with the losers for Bachie Wood, because if the Bachelor did that himself he’d seem like a dick who’s dating 16 women and just dumped three of them on national TV. Look how good Bachie Wood is at looking sad and remorseful while Oshie does his dirty work:
(pic)
Much emotion. So feels. Very hair.
Quality.

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