June 2024

 I'm feeling good! I think I've was inflamed and tired for 2-3 months, but June has been different. 2 things potentially helping. Introducing more quantity and variety of veggies into my diet (and cutting out rice and other grains to make space in my diet) and maybe getting sick end of May and having a break to recover. 

June has been mostly a nice routine, some busy weekends and some quiet weekends. Here are some of the highlights.

• Saw a local musical Marvelous Wondrettes, very fun and good singing, with 2 gals from church.
• Spent a day in Dungog with my mum.
• 2 x visits to a cafe on my own, once to start a sketch project, the next to finish a book. 
• Started a crochet blanket (not granny squares as below, that is just a colour test).

I am now starting my 3 month sabbatical from rosters at church, and getting ready to start my day off a week long service leave from work. Night church made a special occasion of my finishing up music, Rog said a few words about how music blesses the church and how he's seen my intention for it, there was cake, and so many people wrote messages in a card. It was incredibly touching. 

I reached the halfway point of my 1 year make do challenge and stopped. It's been a good time to examine personal style and cull my size 12s and resist buying things I got obsessed with. But I also bought things, the first time because I forgot, and then after that it was like, well I already bought something so why not. It wasn't a complete failure because I mostly did think more about what I needed rather than what I wanted. It's always fun to buy quirky things, but then what I need is actually more boring and basic, so taking some time to feel the need helped. 

There is an activity that you can do that I still want to do, you add up hours you spend doing different thigns and make a pie chart or whatever, and then you can see how much time you spend WEARING different types of clothes. And maybe you need to stop buying fun dresses, or activewear, because you have a lot of it in proportion to the amount of time you spend being active or frocking up. Whereas you might have an easier time getting dressed most days if you buy a couple more boring but comfortable work pants. Creating some data instead of going off your feelings.

Anyway that will do for today!

May 2024

 This roundup includes the end of April because I'm not in a precise routine and I'm OK with that! I'm starting with the key celebrations in no particular order. Baby Elsie had a 100 days party!

Maddie got married! I spent the day with Heather, celebrating at a church in the lower Blue Mountains, catching up with friends. It was a great example of a large + simple wedding. So large. 

And finally, and most significantly, I finally hosted Percy's gender reveal, on a Friday night on Facebook live video. I danced him around, I lit sparklers, and I smashed a large chocolate egg to reveal BLUE! Percy is, after all, a boy. But it was so wonderful because so many people were watching, with their kids as well, and their pets, and even people who had never met me were so invested in this event. I am personally proud that I did something so silly and inclusive! 

This is Jimmy the budgie watching the Percy dance. 

Routines and rituals are important, because that is how I eat healthy meals, go to pilates, get all the things prepared in a calm way that I need to do, but it is also important to feel free, to take little detours, to break up the rhythm with some improv here and there. 

It has felt like it has been raining constantly, and my back is tight and achy, and I'm still in a flare up (the covid/flu shots didn't help), and I'm just dragging myself through the week. But in a flash of inspiration I drove home the less efficient way, and decided to stop and do the short walk at the Morpeth Bridge. Such a small thing, that really didn't take long, but made me feel like I was making a choice for myself instead of running on a treadmill.

I'm on a campaign to increase the variety of veggies I eat for my gut biome. I got the usual sourdough and pastry and the Taste festival but also some local produce that included purple beans, purple broccoli and purple beetroot. I'm using the pressure cooker to cook whole chickens and make chicken and vegetable soup (including saving the aspic from the chicken which I now know is not fat but collagen!), and I am also doing a tray bake of vegetables regularly too because just having baked veggies on hand is an easy option to add them to my breakfast eggs and toast or whatever. 

For the first time I went to the Hexham bowlo with the giant mozzie. Not much to say about it, but I think it is a notable first.

Another first, I am a cello teacher! About 5 lessons in now, getting more comfortable with it and haven't broken any of her cello strings.

Two womens conferences, one at Tocal with my church, here is some lovely artwork. Working the field days weekend plus 2 full day conferences in May has made the month very full, I really miss those days off because I find when I do take a day off I spend it CATCHING UP not resting...

And after missing many covids and colds at the office and all around, I finally got sick! Not a major event, just a head cold. I'm not missing anything huge, life is in a quieter patch now. I did a bit of work from home to keep the urgent stuff moving. I bought myself a Peppermint magazine yesterday to break up the monotony of instagram and Sherlock Holmes and podcasts. Trying to savour the slowness of time while sick.