April walks and moods.

I have continued to enjoy the blessings of semi isolation. I think 100% lockdown would be very hard, but I've still been working at Tocal (in an empty office) and most days of the week I go for a walk with someone to stay in touch with my friends and get exercise, and it has been lovely. The colder weather, feeling all windswept, walking with a friend, really enjoying that. 

So life is good as it is, but then requests started to come in and I got anxious again about all the things potentially on my plate. I will actually say no to a few of them. I just don't know, if I say no to things, will my comfort zone shrink? Will I end up being a selfish person who prioritises me time and self care above everything else? I also want to figure out how to have a day of rest every week. So that when normal events resume, I just say no to invitations, don't go to the shops, stuff like that, for either saturday or sunday. I feel like having a set sabbath will mean less decisions, less potential guilt or FOMO, because I would have pre-scheduled that time for certain activities and not others. I think in reality it will be really hard to do though.

This is my current work walk buddy and the magnificent draft horse at Tocal.

One friend and I have done walks to explore old local cemetaries.

It's good to have everything green and pretty, and with a lot of lovely winter light, and a lot of time to paint. On the Easter long weekend I first did a whole lot of gardening and window washing and those sort of jobs that had built up for months, and then I started oil painting again. Over a few weekends I did one large laborious landscape, and one small interesting oil sketch.

I found a pleasing solution to the fashion problem of painting. I hate feeling frumpy in old baggy clothes when I am trying to be artistic. So I bought this thick cotton apron! I will have to keep wearing old clothes because my arms get painty but at least I'll have something cool on over the top.

My family doesn't do a lot of phone calls and group videos, none really, so it has been nice to do a couple of them on facebook messenger or zoom. I also do Jillian with Ros on a facebook video call. And getting into playing computer games online, on board game arena. 

Healthwise, my annoying sore wrist has given birth to a visible ganglion cyst. I crowdsourced the topic on facebook, and probably the thing is to don't do thing that hurt. However I am not sure if its exercise or cello which aggravates it.

This week I got to the end of another course of mini pills, Microlut, and that too was not a good endo management. Probably the least bad for my guts, but too much bleeding and that's tiring. So my lovely new GP got me into a gynaecologist (on the same day! praise God) and now I'm going to get a bit more serious management. The Gyn put me on ANOTHER type of pill and I need to go off and get ultrasounded, because nobody has looked in there for 2 years now. It's good to be getting looked after but also it's hard because I have to think about things like my eggs and my short reproductive window and whether lesions are penetrating my bowel and stuff. And if I had already had kids, no problem whip it all out. I'm at such an awkward age where I now have a closing window, and because of my endo damage its a narrow window, but I'm not yet actually beyond the possibility of having kids. It's causing grief and stress. In the big scheme of things, like eternity, or even 10 years, it's a light and momentary trouble. I'm so grateful that my condition doesn't affect my quality of life. But right now it sucks to process this stuff every few months when I talk to another doctor.

Garden update. Grass is green and tidy, geraniums in the wall garden are flourishing and flowering, roses continue to climb more branches up the pergola, and the chinese star jasmine is sending heaps of exploratory vines around the fence, I hope that next summer sees a massive expansion of green covering the colourbond fences.

I have 3 types of poppies growing from seed! It is however such a SLOWWWWW process. After a month, the first ones I planted are still so weak and small. I have already planted out some edible greens and some sweet peas.

Here is the garden, with sweet pea trellises going, but a lot of empty space waiting for poppies.

A little patch of mini chrysanthemums that I planted 2 years ago and forgot about suddenly flowered magnificently by my back door. Would repurchase. 

I was using the tilt shift instagram filter to take photos of flowers like above, and I used to add bible verses and post in my stories. People really liked them, it was a little good practice for me too. I no longer have that filter with the app update sadly.

And finally I have crochet from a pattern! It is supper hard. These are small and quick booties for Lucy, but took me so long because I had to youtube every instruction.

Finding myself watching a lot of TV because it gets dark early and I don't have nights out. I am aiming to change that in May, consume less media and more paper books. It's a hard habit to break though, as much because I like the noise and company of the TV... reading a book in a quiet house at night is a bit uncomfortable. It's the hard thing about living alone and not having visitors atm, I'm either alone with my thoughts, or I'm distracting myself with podcasts and TV non-stop. So we shall see. Can I become comfortable with my silence.