Autumn, Easter, family weekend.

Last week I was hovering on the edge of a cold. The long-awaited change of the seasons has come, and maybe it's too much of a shock! But I'm happy for Autumn anyway, I sleep better under blankets.

Speaking of sleeping better, my back is pretty much not complaining in the mornings anymore. I have adjusted to the new mattress, done some experimenting with pillows, various things. It's still a tiny bit crook maybe 1 or 2 days a week.

Despite all this wonderful sleep, and cold weather, I was feeling tired and almost sick. I think just the busy weekends have caught up with me. I thought every second weekend away alternating weekends at home was a good balance, and it did work really well for a while. I have squeezed so much joy out of life! And invested in important relationships. And avoided boring things like grocery shopping. 

Here is the good stuff going on.

My garden! I made ready and planted autumn seeds. I am glad my garden is small, as I am happy with the amount of work it requires, and I can keep it nice easily, but this is when I want more space because if I had more space I would plant so many sweet peas.

My birthday! Well, it's depressing to get older and all that, the 30s are going to be birthdays of sadness as my window for motherhood starts to close. I'm considering removing it from facebook and sort of denying the existance of birthdays all together so that nobody is sure how old I am (...about 30? mid-30s?... as I say about some of my friends!). But I have had joy from friends buying me an overnight bag. 1) it was on sale, = frugal, 2) they went halves, = frugal, 3) I got to track the shipping and collect it from the post office, 4) I can use it right away on the weekend!

Here are the struggles. 

There's a few new couples around, so I'm reminded of my solo status. I'm making an effort in particular with my housemate to be happy for people and not rain cynicism all over the joy of a new relationship. It's silly, I know all these people don't have perfect easy lives, but especially with young people it's like they don't know how lucky they are. That's self-pity.

I'm kind of bored of food. I have been for weeks. I'm bored of shopping, cooking, and eating what I cook. So in the spirit of not wasting energy on this area, I've cut down on shopping and cooking. I figure it's a good opportunity to eat through the contents of the fridge and pantry right to the back. Defrosting frozen meals, eating carrots, opening expired packets of biscuits. And then one day I'll do a Big Shop and restock all my staples. The meal that is suffering most from this approach is lunch. The best meals are breakfast and dessert. I've always got cereal and connoisseur ice cream!

And here are the photos.

My parents decided to get us all together for a weekend in a holiday house. It will now be an annual thing, probably close to a different persons birthday each year, which is a lovely tradition to start. This year the available weekend was Easter and it was my birthday. J brought the little boy she has been fostering for 3 weeks (and until he finds a forever home). He was good most of the time except for one bedtime. The rest of the time cute but demanding.

We stayed at Eaglereach at a house called Valley View run by Destiny Haven. It was very comfortable, also it was 45 minutes from home which is quiet easy, and also there were bush walks and kangaroo feeding and a spa and table tennis and different things to do at the site so that people could easily wander off and do something outdoors. But we also slept, read, and watched Castle season 1. I am PROUD to say I finished the Cross of Christ by John Stott. Not having a lot of phone signal was sad because I would have liked to put a lot of these photos on instagram, but really I'm trying to check on Facebook less so it was probably good overall. I could often receive and send texts.

Tamworth: Farmer Jess.

Congratulations mum and dad for being still healthily married after 35 years.

A girl at church invited me up with her to her parents farm at Tamworth. I had an AMAZING time. The drive up on Friday was heart to heart with macdonalds and driving music.

On Saturday I helped her dad and her and her sister with drafting and marking 60 lambs. I really wish I had video of me catching a lamb because it is a new skill, you’ve got to grab them by the leg and really commit when they struggle. I enjoyed riding a quad bike and a motorbike and sitting on the tray of a ute, all dangerous things with no helmet or anything.

The inside dog was a very cute Cavoodle.

2 hours of sheep work was exhausting, so after morning tea and lunch with some interesting visitors we had a 2 hour nap. Then we did some more hooning for fun.

Then we had an amazing home cooked meal. We also visited her gran who is unwell, and I played the piano a bit, and we sang together and our voices matched perfectly, she's got a better voice than me but I blended into it well.

Words can't really describe what a good weekend it was. Relationships, food, experiences, all enriching.

I've got a weekend at home, and I've spent a bit of time after work this week tidying up the garden to make ready for Autumn planting. Cut things back, mowed. I found a couple of baby rockmelons!

I will have to swap the layers on the worm farm to put the castings in the veggie garden, buy some very tall stakes, and get ready to plant peas.

Pause. Catch-up. It's Autumn at last!

Mixed feelings about it now being Autumn. It still feels like the year has only just started, but it's March so we are well into it and I'm about to get older. I'm super tired of hot weather and really really want some cool nights so that I can sleep properly, but on the other hand the days are getting shorter and I love daylight savings. So I guess it's good that things come around and keep changing. I had a very foggy drive to work one day this week, I do love fog.

Whenever I dump photos off my phone to my computer I realise how long its been since I blogged! Here are photos from Maitland Show, which I went to with R. It was really fabulous. I think because of LED lights.

As we drove away we realised there were fireworks, so we stopped on the road by a field and watched them, and Beethoven's 5th was on the radio, one of those perfectly soundtracked moments.

Last weekend I had a long-anticipated visit to Sydney. I had a couple of days of a work workshop which was very last minute as well. It was interesting, about how to entrepreneur, and we were at the Dawes Point area. It's so beautiful.

I made the most of it, Liz and I caught the bus into the city on Thursday night to eat on Dixon Street which we most enjoyable, and we went to muji because I am compelled to spend money there at every opportunity because I love fine pointed pens and japanese stationary, and we checked out Sephora but bought nothing.

Back to the reason I planned to visit Sydney: friends! I thought I would visit friends in the southern suburbs, mainly because there were new babies, and if you're in the area make the most of it is my philosophy. I got value for visit! I also went to the dentist. But mainly: Ann Marie, Anna, Caroline and Matt and Kimberly, Tricia, Julia and Luke, Bec and Rachel, and Denise.

When I visited J's church on Saturday night I randomly met some women whose dad lives in Maitland, so we arranged for me to take him to church on Sunday. That was a really lovely outcome. He's quite old and recently widowed and appreciated it a lot. Would never have met him or anything, if not for being at Kirrawee and being overheard saying I was from Maitland. Classic God.

And finally, Percy went for an explore the night I went to Sydney. Put himself in a tree. I tried to rescue him with a broom and he ended up flying back to me. Phew.

As a result of the Sydney trip, and not having any rest last weekend, I was in a tired slump. Very unenthusiastic about work. Thankful for freezer meals. Did no Jillian, but had lots of nice things to do after work - went for a walk with R instead of Jillian, had salad and painted nails with girls from homegroup, and had dinner with parents who are back from an amazing trip to NZ. On Wednesday I had arranged to spend time with blonde sister because she has been working locally, so we went to newcastle after dinner for a swim in the babies pool, and another friend met us there, which was so nice.

I think that's all. I'm having a Saturday where I don't leave the house or check my phone (well I have replied to some things, but not checking twitter etc). I did some Jillian, made a nice sandwich for lunch, ate my last Connoisseur paddle pop, watched a lot of TV and Netflix, mopped the floor, and found my camera. Much needed rest, although for a while I thought I was going to depress myself with thoughts. Better thoughts: what is the cheapest way to get comfortable seating for large groups? And how should I rearrange the furniture to fit large groups in? Or should we continue to use the garage and just put fairy lights up?