More thoughts on busyness, efficiency, and space.

Article from Gotherefor about the goodness of busyness, challenging the default of grumbling about it. Personally I find the challenge is not grumbling about being busy, but grumbling about being TIRED from the busy. I really try not too. I know I've got nothing to boast about in the tiredness department because I get good sleep.

http://gotherefor.com/offer.php?intid=28981

I've listened to a couple of podcasts from ABC, one on being efficient at work, I like this sort of thing, I find it comforting to listen to and I am a strong believer in decluttering, short meetings, unsubscribing from email. You can look at efficiency as a way of fitting more in, being more productive, but also, a bit of discpline makes life simpler, actually. If you are discplined about unsubscribing from emails, you have a much less overwhelming inbox. Whether an emptier inbox makes you more productive I don't know, but it certainly promotes calm. I'd rather see promotions and news in my facebook feed where I can note them as I scroll past, than in my inbox where they need to be clicked on, decided on, deleted.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/a-busy-life-to-the-good-life/id206169790?i=350166973&mt=2

The second podcast was about busyness. Not a lot in it, but I like the challenge again to the attitude that goes along with busy. "I'm busy and it's all very important and stressful". What about stopping, putting your shoulders back, smiling at others, and maybe you wont feel like a drudge anymore.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/beginners-guide-to-working/id206169790?i=354167462&mt=2

A Missy Higgins song that has been floating in my mind recently, and I wanted to listen to it again. Everyone's Waiting. It's a beautiful song, I think it's about the pressure to produce stuff, and carving out space to reflect. The video is a lovely metaphor too, fighting through waves, then sinking under them where it's still.

Because I was too pov to have a computer or internet at home for many years, I used my work computer as my personal computer. It's a good place to have your music library anyway I think, so you can listen while working. But now, at last, I have untangled my personal from my work computer – the Apple IDs and the email accounts and the iTunes. I've logged out of Facebook, so that to check it I don't just have to type F in the browser – I have to type in my password, which is a good extra step to have to make it not worth the effort. Work computer is very clean now.

Update on the kitten of home group: 4 weeks.

Update on the garden. I didn't get many colours of sweet pea, only the old fashioned variety came good, the pale pink and pale purple, with more scent than colour. I've picked them regularly.

A few of the random plants I hoped were poppies turned out to be poppies! They bloom and die very quickly. 

 Going to have some tomatoes this summer! Which is my motivation to keep watering and caring for the garden now the peas are gone. I could do more but I spend my time pondering the construction of garden beds and doing nothing. The main game in summer is mowing. Mow mow mow. Every 2 or 3 weeks. I can't decide if its worth it, should I pave once I've build garden beds, but I'm afraid the result will be a hot paved oven. Colour bond fences and pavers, ugh. I really want to be sure I've got enough green things to compensate for before I lose the grass.

JK and I had burgers and then washed both our cars.

Did some drawing this weekend as well.

Granny Smith Festival, stuff.

I took last friday afternoon off to head to sydney. It was hot and there was a truck run off the road so some bad traffic on the M1, but once I got to AMs house, so peaceful.

We chucked in our saturday plan for a bush walk and instead went to the granny smith festival at eastwood, which is basically just a huge community day and not much to do with apples. I loved it.

Succulents are a good trend right now.

I also liked lying around reading chick lit.

I’ve started posting photos on instagram of really mundane things. IG is the worst social media for me, I feel like the conversation isn’t there, just the showing off. So I’ve started to post a photo each day of something very very normal, with no filter. So I’m not sharing pics of my sweet peas, food I eat in cafes, cute things. I’m sharing photos of an empty chocolate packet, messy bits in my house. I don’t know if this will make others feel better, but it makes me feel rebellious.

In work news, my time of acting team leader is almost over. I started out stressed and highly productive, and I've achieved some things, and now this week I sunk into apathy and back to my normal job really. Not completely, but pretty much. Just tired I guess. And i have some good achievements behind me anyway. It has been a good exercise for expanding my capacity.

I'm not walking enough. A bit of walking does me a world of good.

I'm psyching myself up to restart my daily drawings. Actually in Sydney at AMs church I met a lady who is a professional urban illustrator. Liz Steele. She blogs and stuff so I friended her on Facebook, and that is inspiring, seeing her watercolours. I actually don't know many people in real life who draw, come to think of it. Any? Pretty sure not.

I'm trying to re-instill good habits like making the bed and hanging up clothes. They take no time, and make such a difference.

I really liked this youtube conversation video from Sara Groves, a songwriter, about the value of "unproductive" time. I don't think being busy is bad, I've noticed that being busy is energising at the time, and opens my eyes to possibilities, and getting things done makes a difference in the world. But speed and efficiency isn't always the best way to do certain things or relate to certain people. I don't think I feel guilt about "indulging" myself with artistic pursuits. But I guess I do put a high value on efficiency, and I'm impatient with people. And things like prayer I find hard, because its not doing anything and the things I need to do push in on my mind, unless I have a big time buffer around it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y8JSNknIzE

Little bits of good paintings.

I feel like I want to paint when I see paintings. I like the texture of oil paintings a lot.

Prayer 3.

ADORATION

Our Father in Heaven.

We, your people, gathered here tonight, praise you as the only God of the universe. The creator of all that exists. Perfect in power, in knowledge, in judgement and in love. We praise you, our Father, because you make and uphold all things, you rule all the nations, you reign over time as generation after generation comes and goes, you alone will remain, unchangeable, incorruptable, forever. 

And you, father, made each one of us with your own hands and gave us the breath of life. you’ve watched over us. You give us all things necessary for life and godliness. Let us bless you at all times and not forget how you have forgiven us, healed us, redeemed our lives from destruction, crowned us with your loving kindness, satisfied us with good things, and inwardly renew us day by day.

We praise Jesus, your only son, firstborn over all creation, who did not grasp hold of his place on the throne, but gave himself up, made himself one of us, humbling himself even to die the death of a criminal by execution. He died to conquer sin and death, and he now sits at Gods right hand, and the day will come when everyone will bow before him. We praise Jesus and call him our king and trust in his name, receive forgiveness by his blood, and strength by his presence.

We praise the Holy Spirit of God, who gives us the words to praise, who gives us the desire to seek God, who helps us listen to his word, who changes us to be more like Jesus, and we commit everything we do and say to God, for building his church and his kingdom.

CONFESSION

Father, at this time we confess our sin. Our frequent sin, our deliberate sin, our selfish sin. Everything that is evil in your sight. Even the good things that we do for others are often based in earning approval or trying to seem like we have it all together. We all try and live without you as God and all we have is a facade of niceness, over souls that are broken, helpless and dying. The whole world is proof that humanity is the problem. War, poverty, pollution – we can’t even help ourselves from hurting the people we love. Our sins are terrible. Too many to count, too heavy to carry. So we confess them to you knowing that Jesus carried them to the cross. When we turned away from you, you turned towards us. you paid the price, died the death, you wash us clean and make us your sons and daughters. Like King David wrote, “let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” So we bring you our broken spirits, our broken and contrite hearts, which are restored to you in Jesus.

THANKSGIVING

Heavenly Father, you have blessed each one of us with more than we deserve. We have enough to eat, we have houses, we have clothes, we have a stable government and responsible defence forces and a better health system than most other countries. We thank you for fresh water, food, access to education, emergency services, so many things we just take for granted. Each one of us is blessed also by unique circumstances, people we know, help we’ve received, opportunities we don’t deserve, and we will take a moment to think in our own minds of the people we are grateful for, the blessings in our lives, and give you thanks.

…………….

SUPPLICATION

Father, you are a powerful and generous God who loves to hear our prayers, so we bring before you the things we hope for.

We ask that wars would cease. We ask that nations and individuals would show compassion to the vulnerable. We ask for a generous response to the refugee situation. We ask for an end to corrupt governments which exploit the people they should be serving. We ask for an end to first-world materialism which replaces God with Stuff and wastes the earths resources. We pray that government policy would uphold traditional marriage while respecting the needs of all people. We pray for an end to domestic violence. We pray for an end to inequality of indigenous Australians in areas like education, health, employment, and every measure of wellbeing. The list of things wrong with this world is long. We take a minute to think in our own minds of an issue beyond our control that we feel burdened by, that we ask you work in.

…..

Every person in the world needs, more than anything else, to know Jesus and be reconciled to God. So we pray for boldness for Christians to take the gospel out. We bring before you Christians who are persecuted minorities in many countries, that they would not be afraid to live for Jesus. Help them to love their enemies, and do good to those who persecute them, as Jesus said and did.

We bring before you some of our partners in gospel proclamation. Kelly Landrigan in France, Simon, Margie and Noah in Namibia and Maddie Gillham here with us, the Mackees in the NT, and Heather Green at Newcastle Uni. Use these men and women to grow you kingdom wherever they are sent. We too, here in Maitland, ask for boldness and opportunities, at work, at school, in our homes, with our friends or our families, to speak of Jesus. “Because we know the fear of the Lord, we seek to persuade people…. for Christ’s love compels us.”

Father, some of us here tonight are burdened by sorrow. We think of the XX family from morning church, grieving so much the loss of little X. And their close friends and family who also feel it deeply and are caring for them at this time. We just ask that they know your faithfulness through the pain and as they are weary from suffering, and that they draw closer to you. We trust ultimately in the hope of heaven.

I’ll finish with the words Paul wrote to the Eshesians, chapter 3. For each one of us:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Riverlights 2015.

Week 2 of higher duties was still rather frantic, I was still feeling my way, but I finished the week with a meeting which I sort of organised and led and I got good feedback on that. I made a cool flowchart on the whiteboard. Set some actions in place. Things to follow up this week.

Went to a new friends house to watch Bachelorette. Took some sweet peas.

Mum and I went to the multicultural festival which is called Riverlights and its quite charming.

These are Eddie's poppies. I have some red ones, but I think I haven't watered the garden enough and they are very small. This display is much prettier.

This is a 3 week old kitten that came to home group. Its been a sad couple of weeks, there was a funeral the day before, and that day some sad news for my flatmate from Africa, but kitten therapy is helpful.

Floriade 2015.

This is mainly a slightly late post about the October long weekend at Floriade. Never too late for pretty photos.

Had my first blackout for a couple of hours home alone on a Monday night. 

My peas ended so i pulled them out, but the sweet peas are still going, I only have pale pink and pale purple flowers, for some reason no bright colours. But the pale ones smell sweetest. I pick a bunch twice a week. So scented.

I had my first week of higher duties at work. The first week was stressful, as it was basically starting a new job, having new responsibilities, relating to people differently with unknown expectations, I just really wanted to figure out what it all was so that I could make a first move on everything. I actually made really good ground, figured out a lot quite quickly, but at the time it was stressful. What I do when I'm stressed is write lists, I have lists in diary, notepad, other notepad, A3 notepad, on the window, on my iCal, and also in my inbox. I think thats a record.

 Anyway, then the long weekend. I caught a train down to Eastwood to share the drive from there to ACT with JK. We had an Asian lunch and a funny conversation with the man who shared our table. 

We stopped in Goulburn at the Paragon, and then had a relaxed night eating at home and colouring in and watching TV.

The next morning we went to brunch with nearby drummers, a games shop where I bought a puzzle, koko black, lunch at the cupping room when the other 3 arrived because thats a trendy place.

We went to the art gallery which was an enjoyable interlude. I took a few photos which I might post separately. Then to the shops for food and cheap PJ pants and home for another dinner in. 3 of us went for a jog around the lake at Belconnen, Ginenderra, it was 7km, which is the longest Ive ever jogged although it wasn't non stop. It made my hips sore. But it was a good achievement. Canberra is a good town for outdoors activities.

 It felt like a very efficient day with a variety of fun.

Sunday we went to church, then Floriade. We didn’t go home and change out of jeans so it was a bit hot and close to lunchtime and I didn’t want to hang around as long as I otherwise would have. However its a good flower show and its free, except we paid for the ferris wheel.

I took photos directly down at the flowers which I'll share as something different to the mass tulip photos. You get a bit of detail and its like a large bunch of flowers.

We tried to get huge milkshakes but the queue was off putting so we had pizza at a pub nearby instead. More puzzletime.

The next morning, with only a 45 minute wait, we got a table and giant milkshakes.

A good time was had by all.