December, 2017, done phew.

December went really fast. How original. I put up this 'Names of Jesus' advent calendar I bought this year. Note the mirror on the floor, and remember it for later.

Maddie moved out, I had two nights of living alone, and then Coralie moved in on the Saturday. I did quite a bit of cleaning. Cleaning out Maddie's things she left behind, and just cleaning because there was less stuff in the house so it felt ready to clean. The vacuum cleaner was a horror movie, I ordered new filters because the filters shown were so filthy you cant even see the one at the front, its literally now made of dust.

I was tired and run down. I had a false alarm about a coldsore and then 2 weeks later I actually got a coldsore. An awful one. I felt really wiped out. Mum invited me to go visit a lady we know called Beth but she wasn't home, so we had a "coffee" at heritage gardens cafe (she had an iced chocolate and I had a milkshake through a straw because when you have a coldsore you cant get it wet or have chocolate).

The Greenhills shopping centre next stage opened, and it was a HUGE event for Maitland. All the other stages so far have been underwhelming, I've mainly enjoyed the new carparks, but other than that its like, yay another chemist, woo woo. But this stage is heaps of new shops, a Target, a food court. Most of the shops are teeny bopper disposable fashion. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. I look at them and think all this is going to be in landfill in 6 months. But there are a few good shops, like The Body Shop, the board games shop, the book shop, and a Kwan Mart asian grocery shop.

This is me and the new housemate, we walked there and explored.

Farewell Maddie's garden chairs. They always had redback spiders in the legs but they were nice.

Here is a job I did! Or at least, I paid someone to do it which involved making a phone call so basically a huge effort from me. I got the mirror that had been on the floor forever, and got it hung up!

My team at work had a Christmas do, hunter valley aqua golf and putt putt. These are 2 colleages from my office The Centre For Excellence. N on the left had cancer so was away from May onwards having 12 rounds of chemo, but the cancer seems to have gone and he's putting on weight again and has started coming back in to work. Thankful to God, it was a really hard year for that family but they have the holidays together with hope for next year. And on the right is the new eLearning designer, who is young and a fast learner everyone loves her, looks like a good fit for the team and its nice to have her company in my office. I have realised I need to keep my mouth shut and not try and show her things, because after a while that got on my nerves when peoples show me things instead of letting me figure them out, and she doesn't need help anyway. It's just that with a 10+ year age gap between me and her, and me and Coralie, I'm starting to be aware that I am always tempted to sprinkle my opinions onto others and it's better for them to make their own minds up and learn things for themselves.

Oh what a month it was for my garden. A triumph was, I bought and installed an irrigation system. I got all the bits from bunnings with the help of an assistant, it took us like an hour to figure out all the connections I needed. I bought a timer, and as you can see all these tubes and things. It took 2 hours to put it up. And then it took a few days to get the timer working properly and the tap not leaking. But now it's a dream! It goes on every 6 hours for 2 minutes, keeping my wall garden pots damp all day and lush during the hottest days. It's become so green in the few weeks I've been running it. I've also got it dripping in the veggie garden but that part isn't really watering enough, but I don't really care about that.

So this is my garden at its peak of beauty. Notice the leafy trees growing over the fence.

And then the neighbours next door cut them all down. I was devastated. Many friends showed great sympathy towards me. Some have known the loss of a tree that a neighbour cut down. I guess some people think all trees are messy, and a mulberry tree certainly is messy, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for the birds, the shade, and the fruit. The yard is so much starker now, the light is glary.

I've been trying to find someone to build an arbour or pergola. Stratco quote $4000, which is a bit too much. If I cant find a cheaper one I might pay it though. I would like to grow wisteria or an ornamental grape or a climbing rose. A bit of shade, some softness, some bird-friendly branches, some pot-plant-hanging. I'll keep asking around, what I need is a retired guy with building skills who I can pay a couple of thousand. Real builders aren't interested in small jobs like this. I dont know if its beyond my DIY limits. I'd need some help.

I scored some meat 75% off, including these pork spare ribs. I did a proper job cooking them (http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/spicy-pork-spare-ribs/731a9c07-6214-41fa-86fe-2708b99f028f) and I followed the recipe properly re basting and everything, and they were amazing. I invited 3 friends from home group over for dinner to share in my bounty, a $3.50 gourmet dinner. We played cards and rummikub. I would like to try and do more dinner hospitality with couples and a broader range of people in 2018, not just exercise with women.

I spent a lot of time planning carols in December. I did some practices for my Carols in the Garage, and for Christmas Eve church. In the garage this year I had Julie play violin. It was a really special night.

And for church, I had a younger group I hadn't played with before, which was a bit of a herding cats challenge, and i prayed a lot for patience, and in the end it was really lovely. The girls sang beautifully, their voices blended and they harmonised and it was magic. And I had some good arrangements of the carols and Toby and I pulled them together smoothly. I think people in general are too lazy with carols, and we just go through the motions and pump them out, but just like any other song at church the point is to praise God and the music can be stirring and the words can be swords.

So there was Christmas day, which JK didn't join us for this year, but a boyfriend of a sister did, which was lovely. We did all our usual family traditions. I was given a drill! And an indoor composting system! Very useful things I wouldn't have bought, which is the best sort of present.

On Boxing Day JK and I went to Blackbut reserve, I loved seeing and hearing all the birds. Also the wombats.

JK cooked dinner at my place and mum and dad came over for dinner, so now JK and the Greens have a boxing day dinner tradition.

I forget what happened that week. It was the sort of week you don't know what day it is. I think we swam at Julie's pool when I watered her plants, we saw Jumanji which was great, and I had a massive cleaning day (car, windows, laundry cupboards). Rather tired though. I'm listening to audiobooks of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, the first book was great. I'm up to the second, it's a little slower and less interesting.

On Friday Georgina came up, it was really hot, JK came over and we hung out in the aircon chatting for the evening.

On Saturday morning we had nothing planned, but spontaneously drove to Dungog to buy flowers. I enjoyed a small art co-op shop there too.

Then we picked up Jess Jo from Broadmeadow, and went to Mereweather for a swim. I was planning to walk along the beach but it was really hot, just had to get in the water. JK joined us.

We went back to her place and showered then went to the Persian Place for dinner. The food was tasty in a sour way.

We walked down to Honeysuckle because a gelato shop was giving out free scoops! I had a most delicious jaffa flavour. This year I have really loved orange/chocolate. The Connoisseur blood orange ice cream, and this gelato, WOULD REPURCHASE.

I like the harbour, how it's got all the restaurants on one side and the other side is so industrial.

Some more time I forget what we did, probably swam in Julie's pool. Went to Maitland again this year for fireworks. They haven't finished renovating all the access points from the shops to the river so it was a bit hard to get around, but this toboggan thing was a great idea.

It was a lovely balmy night.

So easy to watch the fireworks and get home afterwards.

The next day we saw Pitch Perfect 3, which was great. 2 fun movies in one week! My faith in cinema has been restored. We put together the fastest feast ever and then the girls went back to Sydney, and JK and I had a snooze then went for a swim in Julie's pool again for a few hours, dropped in on her friend who just moved in near me, had leftovers for dinner, and that was that. New year's day over, and now it's just the year.

We had some conversations about our goals for this year. It's really great that JK has more energy and less fatigue then previous years, so she can plan to move forward with her life this year, whereas past years have seemed like mainly surviving with fatigue. Very thankful for that. Her and G have some really clear ideas of what to work on this year, professionally and personally. E has a new job to settle into. There are holidays planned and exercise goals set.

How I feel about my life at this point is, I don't have much space for a new goal. I've got personal stuff I'm working on and not making much progress, so keep working on that. I can't really pick a new creative thing, because I'm already learning the cello, so keep working on that. I have a kayak, so I plan to use it this summer. I have a job, regular ministries at church, regular exercise, regular home group, I'm kind of regular with my prayer and almost regular with my bible reading, I just have to keep going. So its good that I have a full and interesting life with time to do all those different things, and I'm doing them, but at this point I've got nothing NEW to think of doing. 2018 will probably be the same as 2017. Here comes the new year same as the old year.

I record here my plan, such as it is, for 2018: keep going with all those good things. Invite a few more people over for dinner, maybe every month or 2 months. Go kayaking at least 5 times before the end of summer.

Thank you to you all, my tiny group of blog-readers! I will continue this blog because I really like the time each month to sort through my photos and remember what happened and process my thoughts and my state of mind. I like that you guys read along too! I'm not someone who can write all my thoughts in a journal for nobody to ever read, I articulate better thinking of it as a conversation with you. A one-sided online D+M cuppa and catch up.

Finally, we make our plans, but God is in control. It's reassuring to look back on the last year, and look at all the things I didn't expect but that God worked for my good. So even if I don't plan to strike out in new and interesting directions, God has laid down a road ahead of me and he is going to provide for every step I take along it. There will be mistakes, there will be steady progress, and there will be surprises.

I have enjoyed praying this prayer over the new year season.

https://www.challies.com/articles/a-prayer-for-a-new-year/