April: What I did on my long weekends!

I've got time to blog today (ANZAC Day) because I'm tired - turns out I get tired the next day after a big day! #middleage

April started with the church Women's Weekend Away. It was the second one, and I was on the committee this year. I organised the music team and song, and that went well. The whole weekend was good, it's a "camp" that I really enjoy and really find refreshing, because it's very thoughtfully run, and I don't feel lonely and single (since it's only women), and I don't feel guilty about going and having an afternoon nap. I even did Jillian with Ros and Fiona!

A suprise was that Debbie and some others had organised letters written to each of us, from husbands and parents. A theme of the weekend was words of encouragement. It was very special.

Dollar King sells neat little gift tags if you need them! I got these for my 2 musos.

I've decided to cook roast beef once a month, it's cheap and easy and delicious. I call it Beef Week. Keep that iron up.

The next weekend, on Friday night, JK and I went down to see The Play That Goes Wrong in Sydney, with Ann Marie, and we stayed at her place over night too. The play was funny, just all funny bits, like bloopers. Some parts too silly, but some parts very clever. And clean humour too.

We had a nice stay at AMs place, it's in a very quiet area near national park, and we had a lazy morning with cups of tea and chatting and looking at her balcony plants.

JK and I went to Eastwood for an asian lunch, then drove home. I've decided you can do a trip to Sydney two ways. You can cram a lot in, see a bunch of people, go to the dentist, see a play, go to IKEA, get everything done, which is good, but it's also exhausting. Or, you can just go for one thing. Like just drive down, see one person, drive back.

When I got home on Saturday it was fairly late but I went to Bunnings because I decided to add another shelf to my kitchen cupboard for plates, and I had asked for the garden department to set aside 2 mega trays of poppy seedlings, one for me one for a friend. They couldn't find my poppies :(

Anyway I got the shelf piece cut to size, and installed that easily. On Sunday morning Bunnings rang, and had my poppies! One tray had been overwatered or something so it was wilting, they marked it down to $2! So that's a happy ending to the story!

Here is my veggie garden with lots of poppy seedlings. There are also 4 celery seedlings. Peas at the back and a variety of herbs around the front. I got really obsessed with flower farming at this time. I follow a lot of flower farmers on instagram now, one is called Floret Farm, and I've ordered her book. I was all set to change career to flower farming when I'm tired of being a graphic designer, but that feeling has gone. I'll just grow more flowers in my backyard.

In the week before Easter, church put on the Mark Drama. We used the local youth theatre space, that's my parents rug in the middle, it was filled with chairs. It was very good, I would definitely see it again. It's good for everyone to see. It was entertaining and powerful. And I like that it isn't bait-and-switch evangelism. And there isn't any filtering out of the weird bits, it's all Mark, so that's as honest as you can get. I took my retired neighbour, who used to be a Christian, and now just relies on being a nice bloke.

A lovely colleague at work brought felting things to work and after work we had a lesson. It was really easy! I enjoyed it! Would be a great craft for camps and things. Low skill level required. Messy and wet. Cheap. No tools apart from towels, soap, a stick, and the template. I made some booties.

Maddie's shower was dribbling, and I thought it wasn't turned off properly. When I went to turn it off, it turns out it was leaking. :(. And since it was Good Friday, bunnings was shut, so I was stuck with a dripping shower, and a guest coming.

I told Dad, and he brought tools to church so that I could fix it on Saturday (parents were going to Goulburn) once I got new washers. But happily the plumber was at church and Dad got new washers and came over and replaced them! It saved the day! Look at the old broken plastic washer compared to the new brass one. My house has the cheapest of everything I think.

Oh the other thing is, I woke up with a sore throat on Friday. I did Jillian, and went to church, and turned out it was a cold. Such a spoiling of a lovely weekend, as AM visited and we had plans. It wasn't a very bad cold, I stayed out of bed and took drugs and carried tissues with me everywhere. I was just zonked in the afternoons.

On Friday afternoon JK came over with a friend from her church. We attempted to make Hot Cross Buns before AM arrived, but the yeast was expired, and the breadmaker wasn't clicked in the first time, so they were duds. We watched Anne of Green Gables which was a first time for them. So good.

On Saturday, AM, Ros and I went to the Gresford Billy Cart Derby. They close the main street!

AM and I bought lemon trees. I've been thinking of it for a long time.

JK came over again in the afternoon, we finished AOGG, and had a second attempt at HCB, which was a lot better. I know I was too tired to do anything, I sat on a chair in the kitchen, sneezing, and instructed people what to do. That's how we did dinner as well, which was basil pesto using basil from my garden. Anyway these HCB were good!

On Sunday we didn't go to morning church as I was on evening music, so AM and I had a cup of tea and talked. I showed her the Barefoot Investor book, as we were discussing money and super and stuff, and she read bits of it while she was here, and loved it! She bought 2 copies when she got home. It's just such conservative, common sense stuff. She has got a proper financial adviser, but doesn't like all the advice to buy an investment property etc. Pape is realistic about life. A house is a home. Credit cards are bad. Super is good. Having a buffer saves a lot of stress when things go wrong.

On Sunday afternoon, we drove to Merewether and saw JK and the dog. I forgot to say JK was dog sitting and brought the dog over every day! It was nice to see a dog in the backyard. We had $10 pizza and the others walked while I lay in the sun, until we drove back for church and music practice.

On Monday, after we severely pruned our lemon trees, AM and I went for a stroll around Morpeth and had an early lunch there. Then we went to Heritage Gardens nursery to buy pots and soil for our lemon tree. I love this pot. I used a christmas gift voucher from mum and dad to buy it. It looks simple and a bit aged.

I tried to go to work on Tuesday, since the sneezing and snot was gone, and I felt OK, but then I got tired, and a coldsore developed, so I went home and slept the afternoon. Went back to bed on Wednesday too. It was strange that I had 4 days of looking like I had a cold but not being in bed, and then when the outward symptoms had cleared up I got all the fatigue part. At some point I discovered Classical Art Memes on facebook. Many hours of entertainment while recovering from my cold in bed.

Felt 100% on Thursday so back to work for 2 days, then another long weekend! Started with music practice for church on Thursday night. It was my first time without Nathan, we had a fill-in to help song lead, and we had tacos, and practice was great! We decided to swap one song and did some fun things with harmonies.

I borrowed a bunch of power tools from parents. They also gave me some school work to chuck out. I enjoyed seeing this handwritten year 12 essay.

I had a very fun day on Saturday. I mainly did jobs, like whipper snipping, tidying the pantry, using the slow cooker for the first time (pork), and washing the bird cage properly. Georgina popped in for a hello on her way to Tamworth and gave me a home made butter chicken. I experimented with Instagram Stories, which was rather fun. Heather was down from Brisbane so JK and M joined us at the new Korean place in Maitland which does fried chicken and is cheap (split bill $10 each! just like Kingsford Eat Street days!) and gelato. I got a photo of us because it's the only time we've done a group thing, even though we are all connected separately.

On Sunday I was tired. Turns out, a physically productive day is tiring the next day. On Sunday, Mum and H and I went to Singleton to visit Julia and her church. We had lunch, then came home, I had a bit of a rest, then music prac at church. Church went well and the music was good. I am glad that it wasn't like we missed Nathan, it was just different. We forgot the last verse of one song though!

On Monday, energy back! I am glad I took the day off work. I spent the whole day in the backyard, wearing gumboots and a hat. I dismantled 2 pallets with 9 planks each on them. I had 2 planks leftover from a bookshelf I used to have in Sydney, planks are useful sometimes, and I cut them up with Mum's circular saw.

The idea is to put a wooden facade in front of these hanging pots, to make them look more attractive, and to keep the sun off the pots, because the roots get really hot in there.

I saved the instagram story of the day which shows my building site. It was all on the ground so pretty tiring for my back. Back isn't great, need to go back to physio. Also need to pay more attention to my posture.

I finished the day with 3 of these on the fence, and 1 other completed, 2 left to construct. But I had to go and do Jillian with Fi.

Today is Tuesday, yay still not at work, and I'm so tired from yesterday. There is definitely a cost to lots of physical work. So I'm doing admin on the computer and catching up on correspondence. I'm going to go for a walk to destiffen the muscles, and finish nailing my last 2 pallet things together so I can return the power tools and tidy up, but that's about all. Need to recover to go back to work.

Last night Elsie and I signed up to do Tiffxo fitness program in May for free. There is a discount code if you want to try it, TIFFLIFE. It's martial arts based. I'm game to try something new after 6 years of Jillian! There is an eating plan also which I'm not as keen on, she wants to put a limit on my tea drinking and that ain't gonna happen.