Sunday, September 2, 2018

August: all the good things! Love and robot vacuum cleaners.

August! Things went pretty well! I drink water kefir regularly, its what I stir my morning detox powder into. I do a batch every 3 days. Wouldn't say its amazing but it's kind of working. I'm into all the probiotics at the moment and so I've stopped buying komucha for a treat now I have this, so actually it's probably worth it.

 

Self-reliance triumph. The kitchen tap got loose again. Disappointing because I paid a plumber to fix/replace it, and it didn't stay tight and fixed for very long, maybe a year. So I went to bunnings and bought a tool to tighten it myself, so I'll be doing that from now on whenever it gets loose.


I've had the urge to declutter a lot this month. I've had a lot of satisfaction in going through the bathroom cupboard, tidying shelves and little spaces around the house, garage corners, getting rid of things. I took down this postcard wall and put them in a box, it suddenly felt a bit immature to have a messy gallery wall. 


The poppy colours are very sweet this year.


HAve been doing lovely lunchtime walks with K. It's the perfect time of year. Not cold, not sweaty.


Also at work, launched into illustrating a kids book. I've done 6/10 illustrations so far. It's looking pretty cute.



2 more paintings framed, to give away. THis is Liz's wedding present, her wedding was on a Sunday in August.


This one is in my room but I'd like to give it to friends soon.


My sister Julia's wedding drew closer, and despite her protests another bridesmaid organised an overnight shindig which was lovely. Out near Cessnock somewhere I'd never been, so an interesting drive. Much dairy food I couldn't eat (cheese, cheesecake etc) but I took my dark chocolate. We shared loving words about Julia, gave her gifts, watched a video of Luke saying nice things and answering test questions, dinner, and a fire.





This was my main diet for helping my stomach. Veggie bake for breakfast.


Broccoli salad for lunch. My stomach has been better than it was, but still unreliable. It's definitely reacting to my uterus reacting to the mirena. Each month is better.


Our lolly loving colleague went on maternity leave, so that should help :)


I had occasional treats, especially once Ruth said I could eat SOME dairy (cheese, goat's milk) and could stop reading all the labels for milk. Ros organised dinner with a few girls and burger urge. I ate chips and burger and stomach was Ok! Better than a month ago. And we watched Bachy after, and one of the girls is living in College so is going to pop over to watch Bachy regularly.


Saturday morning walks continue to be a housemate highlight. We had guests, F and little C.


An older man at church wanted to have coffee with me and get my help with an email.


More spring cleaning, I dismantled this native posy I received in March for sickness, and kept the nicest bits in vases.



I am moving my mortgage from one bank to another for cheaper rate. It's such a hassle. But you have to make the effort because this is where the BIG savings in life are. Things like milk prices and petrol prices take too much of our attention, while big money is being wasted on higher interest rates. It'll take me a couple of hours maybe of my time in admin, finding the forms and stuff, but the money I will save over the next few years will be a very good return on 2 hours work. Thousands of dollars. SMORT.

Dad has commissioned some oil paintings for Christmas presents so I did one.


I enjoy a lot of ambient piano chill music at the moment. Listening to it right now in fact. I'm also listening to podcasts. So if I want chillout background it's piano, if I want comedy it's The Flophouse (bad movie reviews).


So yes, nothing much happened in August. Until! 31st of August, we get ready for my sister's wedding! We transformed Singleton Baptist with curtains and fairy lights, trucked in extra chairs, kept calm despite miscommunications and some emergency purchases from big W.


Saturday 1st September, yesterday, was the wedding day. A local hosted us all for the bridal party get ready. She put out a beautiful breakfast and hosted many people to get ready and make a mess.


Elsie did a wonderful job on Julia and Mum's makeup, and I did a pretty decent job on mine and talked Heather through hers, and the other bridesmaids did their own. Heather and I did our own hair, the others went for professional help.

The wedding went off really well. The personalities of Luke and Julia shone through. Lots of funny moments. Many friends and family travelled for the day, and everyone I talked to was having a good time and enjoying the food and catching up.

My brother bought a suit, so I got a selfie with him looking presentable.


No photos on my phone did justice to Julia's makeup but you can see how beautiful she was.


I always love good speeches, and my parents did beautifully. Also, the decision to create the curtains was very smort. Was a wonderful backdrop for the wedding and the speeches and photos.


Julia went barefoot and Luke wore old boots. Nice. Mum made Julia's dress and it looked really nice. Julia was so happy the the dress and the music on the day, her friends performed a song from the greatest showman soundtrack on piano and violin we walked up the aisle, and the congregational songs were done well with loud singing (Take my Life, and All Glory Be to Christ), so those were the big things she was happy about.


The bridesmaids dresses were from eshakti, and they got a lot of nice comments. I think 6 or 7 people told me how good we looked. There were 5 bridesmaids, and we lived in different places, so shopping together wasn't an option, so I suggested Julia pick a dress from the eshakti website and then we measure and order our own. We had the option to change up the sleeves, so I went for half sleeves for warmth, and pockets were optional, which was so useful to have phone, keys and lipstick on me for the day.


The wedding and lunch went 10:30 to about 1:30, which was nice and short and not so long that people got bored. There were no formal photos done, people took the photos they wanted after the speeches. There was a photographer, an inexperienced one who didn't really know what he was doing and didn't charge much for his time, so maybe there will be some good photos from him, but I'd be surprised. But I don't think photos were high priority for Julia or Luke. The day was very good.

Me, JK, Heather an Erica drove back to Maitland for a rest at my place for the afternoon, then back to Singleton for dinner at the pub with a smaller group of family and friends. Julia had already dismantled her hairstyle and put on casual clothes!





So praise God for a lovely wedding and a lovely new brother-in-law!

Today, I went to morning church with the visiting rellies. It's nice to visit occasionally also.

And Elsie made one of my obsessions a reality, delivering my robot vacuum cleaner! I plan to run him around the tiled areas twice a week or so. To clean up after Percy and in the kitchen. THere is an app and everything. 


So that's August. One of the best months so far.