May miscellany.

After Tocal Field days, I had a few days off here and there, caught up on some big housework jobs, and tried to rest. Unfortunately after I push myself, I have a few weeks of inflammation, worse arthritis and fatigue. This lemon pie was probably a day off treat. 

How perfect is this Koko Black easter egg? JK bought some easter chocolate on sale because we lost ours to the mouse. The mouse was a lingering plague but seems to be gone now.

I cleaned some of the yuck off the back cement... the rain was unending and things were getting slimy. I also caught up on my emails which were yucky too.

I also did Banjo duties again.

And also build the second part of the spare bed.

I had a bunch of medical things to get done. Still trying to solve the mystery of the 2020 gum lesion so I saw an immunologist and got a lot of tests done, pathology and a chest xray - no idea what is going on. Next job is a biopsy. I'm now on another drug, which is for the lesion and also for RA.

Being tired, going to appointments and tests, made me irritable and I caused this car accident. 6 week wait for smash repair. 

After the smash repair appointment I treated myself to Spotlight (yuck) and Howards storage world where I got this amazing new shower caddy that holds properly and wont rust.

And another job that I finally crossed off the list was getting rid of my old mattresses, now I have the IKEA ones, and there was a council Mattress Muster. So I really got a lot of big jobs done, well done me!

Music has been going well. The band I put together for 6pm has gelled awesomely, and we had lunch after music prac (minus a covidy member, this is her joining in on the phone). We have been practicing on Sunday at 11am in my garage, but now it has become cold we have moved to A's granny flat practice room, and now we have a lot of songs under our belt we can practice 2 weeks music in one session.

The weekend after field days I ran the practice for the Renew conference band. Everyone played and sang well together and I played cello. The end of May was the conference. I was a bit stressed about the Friday night set up and practice, as it was 3 weeks since our first practice, but overall I had lots of faith in the girls. And I was able to think, once the Friday is done, on the Saturday it will just go how it goes and it will be fine! One song leader had to pull out being sick but we had it covered, everything went very smoothly and I could see women really enjoying the music and getting into the singing. The whole day was really successful and the music was a part of a whole great thing.

Once I all these jobs were done, and Renew was off my mind, I checked in on my weight and found out I'm still gradually putting on kgs. Slowly but steadily. So I have implemented some resets. 

• 3 workouts a week (30 min)
• lunchtime walks
• no chocolate at work
• cut out black tea

So basically more exercise and less sugar and caffeine. I was not very excited about this because feeling inflamed doesn't make it fun to exercise, but I did some research and found out that exercise is very good for RA. And, it definitely didn't make it worse, because the inflammation dropped off after I started regular exercise. I've probably reduced my dark chocolate intake by 80% and black tea by the same. These are good improvements. Hopefully this is a sustainable lifestyle.

Some funsies! Had a fun Saturday, with the Maitland Taste festival where JK and I bought cheese and salami and flowers.

And then we went up to Singleton for a light festival and queued a long time for korean food truck chicken. Heather was visiting!

Regular lunchtime walks: baby swans! Between the 2 adults swans so you cant see them but there are 5.

And that is that! Made it through May. It's not the easiest month of the year, with TFD and Renew, and sometimes I am struggling with having a housemate and not having as much of my own space. But I got a lot done, managed my stress well (still reading New Morning Mercies) and finished with better habits than I started. Lots of answered prayer.