September obsessions.

So Julia got married on the first of September in the last blog. I've just been enjoying normal life. Garden is going gloriously. The iclandic poppies are abundant in frosty pinks. The lavender is blooming at last! An orchid in the bathroom is also blooming and the cyclamen is still blooming.  The lemon tree in the pot has hundreds of flowers so looks like I'll be a lemon mum this year.

Normal life = obsessions. One obsession was cotton pyjamas. Suddenly got disgusted with all my pyjamas and wanted nice new ones. I signed up for mailing lists and fortuitously Papinelle had a factory sale a week later! I bought some for myself and some for Christmas pressy, which means I'm very organised and have started Christmas shopping. I got on a role and did a little more online gift shopping. If there are sales, why not.

We had an office dog (needed to be minded so she didn't chew off her plaster cast). Greyhounds are good dogs.

We welcomed M back after a year of maternity leave! I put pansies on a brownie.

So people wise, the office is good. There are 4 of us in there. There are rumours of reorganisations and renovations. We all got a bee in our bonnet because our office is a bit of a storage space and feels messy and forgotten sometimes. Part of it was my fault though because I had all these pull up banners in there to get reprinted and refitted. So I had a big push and got 5 of them done and tidied up as much as I could. We have big compactors full of junk though, it's where hoarders keep their hoard but we are declutterers who want to purge.

I went to CanvasCon in Sydney with some colleagues. It was good to learn about elearning, and get to know the ladies from work and have a nice stay at Darling Harbour. Makes up for the grotty office with the rodents that eat through phonelines and printers don't work.

Also, I put my hand up to organise the Tocal/DPI tent at the Tocal Field Days next year. This is a big job. I asked a colleague to co-lead it with me. She has good admin skills. So I'm in charge of the vision for it, the look and how it is engaging, and she will make sure we have lights and power points and people rostered and all those things. Good plan I think. It's a shame that TFD and Women of Truth are both in May and I'm organising heavily in both now. I am already planning to drop cello for a bit next year to make room in my life for all this extra stuff.

I helped JK with a sewing and gospel afteroon. This is uni girls making beeswax wraps.

I also said yes to being on a little organising team for a womens night. Not my favourite thing, but it's just a few meetings and doing a flyer and then praying on the night.

G and E detoured to Tocal on their way to Tamworth and we had lunch! So lovely see them in the middle of a work day.

Had some home group socials. I don't really feel like socialising much, but these breakfasts are quite efficient, 8am-10am, so you can eat with people then get to the shops or whatever. And the other thing was a girls dinner at Kinn Thai wearing proper dresses, a proper night out, which made a nice change.

The Aussie Markets came to Maitland and at first I wasn't excited but then it was amazing. We had bao, korean fried chicken, and dessert.

JK gave me these fresias!

And we saw Crazy Rich Asians which was great, very enjoyable. Hopefully people start making classic rom coms again. They went down the toilet and the genre died, but it's the most delightful genre when done well. We ate asian snacks, and since then I've tried more. My favourite is cinnamon turtles.

Church also organised a screening of For the Love of God. It was good, carefully made, well explained, and a good broad overview of church history. I was unaware of things like how society didn't value humility before Jesus, which is interesting.

I enjoy the wisteria at Maitland Park every year, probably unable to grow my own since it eats pergolas. Ugh I'm still trying to get my pergola approved by strata. Nobody objects, it's just the strata manager being useless at organising a meeting. A future admin job is to get a new strata manager I think because I'm pretty sure this one is lazy and lying. Looks like I won't get it built before summer. Disappointing.

I did a bunch of admin to change my mortage to another bank but then at the last minute got a better interest rate where I am and stayed. If you have the papers signed to walk out the door when you ring them up they are very motivated to give you the new person rate not the existing customer rate, which is a difference of over a quarter %. So a few hours hassle for a few thousand dollars saved. Worth it.

I went to Tamworth to hear my cousin play in the Gunnedah Shire Band, which is a very very good brass band. Tamworth were very good, but Gunnedah was amazing. World class. I also stayed with E, and conveniently drove a load of Gumtree purchases up for her. A very efficient and useful trip.

Her decorating inspired me to get a better couch myself one day. Not this year. When I do I shall commission E because she is a gumtree wizard!

Also there are freesias in the lawn! I could do that!

The cutest cavoodle.

Some family.

I thought this was good. Not sentimental, but pretty much sums up life for me. I think about singleness and marriage a lot at the moment. Weddings and divorces and babies all around me. I'm standing still, peacefully dully still. I look forward to hearing the Living Single conference talks soon.

I gave a colleague a dress she admired that I was planning to donate, and she gave me lavender and a tea cup! So lovely.

I've been working one or two days a week on a kids book. I'm happy with the overall thing although now I want to redo a few spreads. My painting and illustration is good enough but i could do better if I did more than one draft! I do like this drawing though. I've been doing them on the ipad and then layering backgrounds in photoshop.

I did fit a painting day in, on the last weekend of the month. I don't seem to be developing a particular style of my own but each painting is slightly better than the previous month, I think. 

I've been obsessed with blazers. For many years now I have needed a blazer. But they are expensive. So I've chickened out and bought other things that were not a blazer, and didn't do the same job. ie, wear to job interviews, external meetings, corporate lunches. I only have the need a couple of times a year, but then I'm kicking myself. So I noticed some nice blazers in the Trenery section of David Jones, and tried them on, and this linen one is my pick, and I had to order a size they didn't have online but it was 25% off either way. It came in the mail today! Very happy with the fit. It might be too hot to wear tomorrow but I have a meeting so maybe I will.

Oh also! I bought a wardrobe app and uploaded all my clothes into it. I had no creativity to get dressed in the morning and the app has an outfit thing that shuffles clothes for you. And I was swapping my wardrobe around for summer anyway, so it was a good time to take photos of things. Or you can just find close enough pics online, or if you buy something new just take the actual pic from the online store. So in general I've been a bit clothes obsessed.

I also bought a stone frying pan on the weekend, in a House shop sale. My teflon one is all worn out, it was 2nd hand anyway. I'm not sure what stone cookware actually is, I pondered for 2 weeks before I bought one, but I've been enjoying using it so far.

So I've had a spendy month or two really. Robot vacuum and fry pan and blazer and things. But I guess I saved all that money on my mortage so it's all good! Sometimes you need to buy things and they were all things I put off for years.