April 2024

Not the end of the month but taking the time I have now.

Wins

• Been combing through my clothes and things and putting stuff in a "let go box". 
• Getting more use from my standing desk at work and now it is cooler doing some lunchtime walks as well. I did a glute activation workshop at pilates which motivated me to sit less.'
• I bought a new computer which was a major pain I'm still not sure I've got it sorted, but one win is that all by myself I partitioned a 5 TB harddrive into a 2TB time machine and a 3TB drive for my photos.
• Set a goal to do hospitality in the holidays. Invited 3, as of today, 1 family came, the 2nd family had sick kids, and a woman from church is planning to come over next wednesday. So not bad.  
• In line with this goal, I declined an invite to play piano at a womens conference. Always hard to know how much to do, and I usually find saying yes is a great experience, but I decided since I had my hospitality goal, and I'm taking on a cello student term 2-3, that's enough extra stuff for me to worry about right now. Maybe I need to come up with a theory about capacity baseline and how many extra things are sustainable, like maximum one worry at any one time.
• I had a Friday off at the start of April, because work was quiet and I had flex time to use, and I ended up shopping over in the homemaker area, Spotlight had a sale, I bought curtain fabric for my last 2 bedroom windows, and a mattress topper at another shop, and just wandered around with no time pressure and it was raining and I also didn't go wild on the spending runway. I just bought the things on my house wish list. I made the curtains over 3 days. It sort of finished off the house I think. 
• Also did my Autumn garden turnover, removed zinnias and planted poppy seedlings. 
• Did some outfit challenges where I tried to wear only 2 colours. Obsessed with capsule wardrobe theory atm.

Overall theme has been intentionality. 

Stress level atm: low

Health: Quite good. Back stiffness issues continue. Still seeing physio. Sleep a bit disrupted. But energy is good, inflammation mostly low. Had a flare up last weekend which I wonder is related to all the white bread I ate.

OOTD selfies are hard. This is what passes for me as a 2 colour outfit. I also culled that skirt bc it has stretched out so much.

Behold curtains.

Nobody was bitten.

March 2024

March was a top month! It was full but most of it was good. I took a lot of opportunities to cram in good things and helpful things! 

My sister organised a photo shoot for our whole family which was a bit achievement, stressful with the weather and getting everyone together including H from Brisbane, but we got it done and it is special to have the family captured at this point in time. You have to treasure it.

The V project at work continued to strain, but we pulled a significant stage off, and when my colleague went to hospital sick, my team leader and I stepped in to fill his place the next day, and I had almost a regular nights sleep instead of laying awake being anxious about it! Maybe it was because it was the absolute worst case scenario there was nothing left to worry about. I felt like this was a big win. Overall the rest of work has settled down so I don't have to keep up as fast a pace which is good.

Grad day, me getting my 10 year service award.

I have had a pretty rough start to the year in terms of my body, my inflammation has increased with the stress of back to work life and probably doing the pilates challenge, and even once I took steps to manage my stress and cut out sugar, it hasn't relieved much, so I increased my medication. Also back is stiff.

However aside from that issue, March saw a lot of things improve! The humidity slowly decreasing and cooler nights making me less uncomfortable. Some quiet but productive weekends and then some busy and fun weekends. 

My niece D and I had birthdays close together so one weekend was just packed with family and friends. I hosted Sydney friends for my 40th and had a lunch at heritage gardens tea room. I also enjoyed trivia on tuesday night with my home group ladies on my actual birthday, and a morning tea at work, which I requested because it was also my 10th year of working at Tocal. So the last week of March was just a lovely week on a high of love and birthday fun and general appreciation (while also worrying about work print jobs and music practices and the usual!). My house has several bunches of flowers.

My personal obsession was outfits. Watching youtube videos from hannah louise poston and testing her method of 1 or 2 colours in an outfit. I had some pleasing results. I broke my "make do challenge" and bought these giant navy linen pants, which I didn't need but will use a lot.

The lectio365 app was a wonderful thread of easter reflection through the month and the 3 special services this weekend - Praise and Passover, Good Friday and Easter - were helpful in painting a picture of the centre of the gospel so beautifully. I felt more immersed and affected by it this year than before. Even my gardening on Easter Sunday felt like a part of it. Cleaning out the dying summer flowers and planting seedlings to look forward to Spring.

Kayaking on Easter Saturday morning w mum and Kelly.

This Easter weekend has been great. Monday is just the sunny peaceful day off I need EVERY WEEK!