Gardens and smells and fun times.

Elsie came to visit, we both took a couple of days off work and had a mini holiday in the hunter valley. Free accommodation at my house! It is actually quite relaxing, I should take days off work more often just to go to cafes and read and think. Weekends can be full of demanding things and the shops are so busy.

So I picked Elsie up on Wednesday evening and we had dinner at my parents with my sister and my parents, mainly dad, ran a discussion group for us about the process of anger to forgiveness. It was very interesting. Good to have a productive conversation about real things.

On Thursday I did Jillian and then we went to Maitland art gallery. The cafe there is lovely.

Then we walked through op shops and other things around Maitland. I bought this $10 stool!

At home I had a go at baking a cinnamon scroll thing from breadmaker dough. Not enough sugar in them.

Then I went to cello lesson because it was Thursday. Then home for dinner, then I went to music practice for morning church.

On Friday Elsie and JK and I went to breakfast at the Teale cafe, which is just excellent for breakfasts. Then Elsie and I went to Hunter Valley Gardens (Ent book voucher). At this time of year not many flowers, but on the other hand, not many people! Which is great for the selfies in the storybook garden. I only have the ones off my phone, Elsie has lots of her on her phone.

Then we had a late light lunch and then a cookie and milk (Ent book voucher). I bought a rose reed infuser! I am obsessed with nice smells this year. It’s like smelly candles or smelly hand cream or jurlique rose mist, but constant and convenient. I love it. Nice smells are making me happy.

Then we did some more op shopping and I didn't by the Taj Mahal birdcage but I did buy a small white coffee table for Percy's cage to go on. It was on a pallet on 2 IKEA stools, and before that a pile of cardboard boxes. I've been looking for an appropriate thing for ages!

Then we went to Newy for Chinese dinner with JK (Ent book voucher) and cold rock ice cream (Ent book voucher!!!! 4 in one day!).

On Saturday it was sleeping in time, and then we went to JKs house to crash her porridge party, and hung out there until I took Elsie to the station. The rest of my weekend was just chores and church really. Sunday was very full of church and church music, I had 2.5 hours at home in the afternoon. But it’s good to do music at church.

So some other things. As pop culture happy hour says, “making me happy this week”.

Last week I did a ‘cello recital’ at work at morning tea. That was lovely, it was hilarious that my colleague called himself my Manager and gathered people together and formally introduced me to everyone like it wasn’t just people who already know me listening to my beginner skillz. And I played 2 scales and 5 short pieces, and I played them very well actually, and everyone enjoyed it because it was a different thing to do. And everyone had a lovely time. I’m really keen to be able to get good enough to play along with people, because as I said before, it’s good to do music at church. A lot of church songs are easy enough, but I’m limited in what key I can play in. I wonder if there is a cello capo out there. So anyway, it’s term 3, and I said I’d give it a red hot go for a year and then decide. Maybe after next term I’ll go to a rehearsal with the music team and see what I can do, because I’d contintue the lessons for longer if I could start to transition into the church context.

Exercise. I’ve started walking regularly again. I stopped in summer because it is too hot at lunchtime and I do other things in the evening like cello practice. But now it’s nice and cool I walk at lunch, and I realised I really miss walking home from work so I walk after work, and yes, sometimes I don’t play the cello. But variety is the banquet of life. Evening walks are nice because of the smells of cooking and sometimes a wood fire, which is the best outdoors smell in the world, smoke in the winter. And also because I go somewhere open and get some sunset. I like to see the sunset clouds and stand on a railway footbridge with a bit of a view and stare at it and listen to music and feel the feelings. I miss the walking I did in Sydney it was nice to be outdoors all the time and helpful to have the time to think and process. Some times I feel sad, sometimes I feel blessed. I think it's good to have a bit of space to see how I'm going. Still plugging away at Jillian mostly 3 times a week. Can’t say that makes me happy but I do value the strength and muscle tone it gives me. It fits into my routine pretty well and I get a lot of bang for my buck and it doesn’t cause me an injury so it must be a pretty safe and sustainable form of exercise. So I keep it up.

I've found I've got an appetite to read Christian books, which I always felt guilty about not reading many Christian books when I worked at MM, but I guess that would be a busmans holiday. So now I am actually interested because I'm not working with them all day. I've even started The Cross of Christ, and so has someone else in my home group. We are both surprised that it's much easier to read now than when we bought it as uni students, but still, it's long and heavy. I've finished chapter 1.

Floods, iron, bread, pea garden.

I am going to catch everything up. That I can remember.

I went back to the blood bank, with great interest, because after a very low haemoglobin result the last time (116) I ate a lot of beef, and vitamin c, was feeling good, and was expecting a higher number. I failed. They took blood from both fingers and my arm and it tested between 103-109. They sent the blood off for more analysis and I got a letter banning me from donations for 6 months and I should go to the doctor. It's disappointing that I got worse instead of better in spite of my beef effort. Also it's puzzling because I had low iron when I was a uni student but while I lived in Sydney it was well above the minimum. Now I'm back down and I can't think of a cause. So anyway, I saw a doctor and he just said "Women have low iron, get another blood test in 6 months". I've got ferro-grad tablets anyway. I've had some days that I've been really really tired, like exhausted after walking up steps and falling asleep in front of the TV and stuff. So that's the blood news.

Then flood news. Wind woke me up before 5am on a Tuesday morning, which is unusual because I always sleep through storms. I started to drive to work but I saw a police car guarding a tree/electricity combination on my street and then traffic lights flashing orange so I turned around and came home. Checked in with a colleague in the office who said he was the only person there other than maintenance and front office. So I stayed home. And then it started to really rain.

The backyard started to pool, and I was worried that the drain was blocked, so M and I went out in the rain to feel around in the drain, but it was just more water than the drain could take. So water filled the backyard until it started to flow over the retaining wall at the fence line and down into next doors yard. Which was lucky. Otherwise it would probably have come up another few inches and inside the house. Not so lucky for people at the bottom of the hill.

The front is a driveway, and it has large drains, but they were over capacity so we watched the water rise, just up to the garage door, before the rain stopped, and it slowly receded.

The only thing is that the gutters must have overflowed into the roof a bit because water was pouring through the back light. I'm a dummy who likes to see what happens so I told M to turn the light on. All the lights in the house went out. We switched the fuse back on, everything was ok. Not my best moment though.

Some time in the afternoon the water had drained away leaving all the woodchip mulch from the garden blocking the driveway drains because it all floated around. So we went out in the rain with a rake and shovel and cleared the drain and driveway, getting soaked. More heavy rain was predicted so at least the water could drain next time. In the end it didn't rain that much again.

My parents, sister and a woman from church came over at night, to cook dinner and watch TV in our electricity. I am immensely thankful we had power because if you are going to be home all day it's pretty boring if your phone goes flat and you can't boil the kettle and all that. As it is, we really enjoyed watching TV all day. Turns out nearly everyone lost power for at least one night and lots of people for 3-5 nights.

Maitland is built around a river, so suburbs are pretty much on hills with flood plains in between that have farms. Gives it a nice rural feel. It means that you can't really get around easily after a lot of rain because the roads between the suburbs get cut off by water as the rivers and creeks rise. So each morning for the rest of the week I attempted to get to work, but there were too many flooded roads. Work had no internet or running water anyway so there was no real need for me to go there and be a burden on resources making ebooks.

The next week was VERY busy, preparing for the Tocal Field Days, which at the last minute were cancelled due to an unstable road and more potential rain.

So back to the little things! I used one of my favourite things that I've bought, my baking dish, to bake a chicken etc for people last saturday night.

I'm feeling happy about the breadmaker. Mum gave it to me because she doesn't use it, and I had my doubts about using it too, but I use it a few times a month because bread is a really good social food. I've had people over and made olive bread and pull-aparts. It does all the messy stuff for you! I take the dough out after it's kneaded and risen in the machine, roll it out, spread cream cheese and tasty things on it, fold it and slice it and twist it, and then bake it in the oven in a cake tin. Really really good. Way more convenient than kneading by hand. Bread is going to be my specialty!

I inherited a pile of old jumpers from Granny. There are two that are good enough to wear that I'll keep, two that I'll pass on to someone who will appreciate them, and some that are not really going to be worn. I could donate them all but I've seen a craft on Pinterest for a blanket made of old jumpers that are felted and cut into squares and sewn together.

A cup of peppermint.

My peas didn't have sufficient wire structure to support them so I bought some wire mesh and untangled the pea pile and now they will grow tall and tidy.

Boots, hospitality in homes, bread.

Due to the easter long weekend I didn't want to go to the shops, so I used what I had, and this was amazing.

Some church friends had a house warming, which they put a lot of effort into! A fire in a bathtub, a lot of free couches off gumtree. Their backyard is huge.

I bought new boots! I am thinking of punching some more lace holes in because after they lace through those holes the laces are wrapped around the ankles then tied in a bow. It looks good, but I reckon more holes is better.

I am particularly joyful that the shoebox from the boots is perfect for storing my crochet project, which I am looking like finishing in the next couple of months.

Found these tomato seeds that I saved from the demolition of Grandfather's potting shed. They probably won't grow after 13 years but I chucked them in the garden anyway.

 Used the breadmaker. Made olive and herb bread. Put the olives in at the start so they ended up being blended finely through the bread, which was nice, the bread went brown, it was tasty, but I would add the olives later to keep them whole next time.

Then ate the bread like this. Antipasto with leftover deli meat from work! Picnic in the backyard! I have discovered that doing hospitality at home has many advantages. It's a novelty to me. R and I both had no plans for Saturday so we planned to hang out at my place instead of on our own. We went for a walk, had brunch at a cafe, then read the newspaper, crocheted, watched an episode of Endeavor with M, invited another girl over and had this for lunch at 3.30.

I've got back into the book A Loving Life again. I might finish it this year. It's fantastic. It's about the cost of love, of community, and it works through the story of Ruth. Personally I don't like costs and hard feelings so it's very challenging.

Work achievement: not that I had anything to do with the tie, but that's my logo.

Hanging out with Percy.

Easter photos.

I shall simply photo-journal the recent going's on.

I am planning on buying these boots.

 Percy's former owners came over for dinner. I cooked this thing that was actually delicious, I would call it "Moroccan" because it was warmly spicy and it had beef and chickpeas in it.

I made bread but forgot the salt, so I used some of it for french toast, and it was really good. I've never done french toast well before.

My peas continue to grow!

George came to visit one night at Easter and brought some hot cross bun dough with her, which impressed me no end. We did Jillian and then baked them and ate one. The freshest bun ever. Still eating them half a week later and they are still good, just need to warm them up and add lots of butter.

This is what we had for breakfast/lunch at 2.30 on a rainy afternoon in Morpeth. It is in my top 3 breakfasts in Maitland. Ham, fancy cheese, hollandaise, mustard.

This is the number of granny squares I have made in the last few years. Time to finish it off I think.

These are some cheap little trellises I got from Aldie to grow the sweet peas outside my bedroom window.

Journalling, birthday.

I recently decided to start journalling. I've been kind of disdainful of journalling in the past, and I blog anyway, but I've got that nice free Kikkkik k diary, and I just keep it next to my pillow. When I go to bed I write down some stuff from the day. What I did, what I am excited about, something wise somebody said that I want to remember, something I realised, the take-home point from bible study or whatever.

The other thing I've done is a mind map. I did one before my job interview. So I did one one night last week, wrote down: significant events I'm processing, fears, frustrations, situations or options where I need wisdom, things I'm thankful for, goals and hopes, etc. Then prayed through it all. That was a useful process.

Brooke Fraser's new album is on heavy rotation for me. I didn't buy it for ages because I didn't like the first 2 songs I heard. But now I've got it, I like every other song, even with the different sound. I like Bloodrush, which is elevating, and Brutal Romance and New Histories which are more reflective (I get the line "Love and death, and death and love" going round and round in my head), and I like Magical Machine which is fun nonsense. I don't see any Christian subtext in these songs, which is a reason why the earlier albums are right next to my heart, but for now and this point in my life this is a very good album.

This is from one of my favourite classic BF songs, Shadowfeet. I remember when I first saw it on Video Hits.

Walking, stumbling, on these shadowfeet
towards home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing; less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began
And I have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day...

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
when time and space are through
I'll be found in you

The big event for me was my birthday. Quite nice. Work didn't find out until afterwards but somebody brought cake on Monday which was nice, so my actual birthday day was very low-key. Enjoyed dinner with family and JK and M. Very happy with my presents (things I asked for like car washing stuff and Endeavour, and nice things other people thought of like scarves and fairy lights and colouring in postcards). Housemate cooked French Toast for Saturday breakfast!

The big event for work was the graduation on Friday (I expect this will always clash with my birthday!) which involved my team hosting lunch for the external student grads, then graduation ceremony in the great hall. Quite a tiring day.

On the weekend a couple visited from Sydney to work the election, so I didn't see them until Sunday morning, but it was nice to have them stay.

I saw the Cinderella movie with JK and we enjoyed it a lot. It's pretty much the same as the cartoon in terms of plot. It doesn't make it a darker or more epic good/evil battle. It's just about duty to parents and being in a disfunctional family and having personal integrity and magical clothes. Lily James I thought was perfect for Cinderella because she seemed to be 100% thrilled with her giant skirt and she wore glitter well. There was a LOT of glitter. I think I prefer Ever After for my ideal Cinderella though.

I did a lot of card-making! I have long been wanting to declutter by turning craft supplies into handmade cards. And I never make cards when I need them because it's too last minute. Now I have over 20! I need envelopes.

At church I learnt the sound desk. That is such a long, tiring, thankless job. I now remember why I gave it up last time. So I don't think I'll do it heaps, but right now there is a gap because the two main guys are working weekends.

Generally at the moment I'm feeling like the year is underway and the ups and downs have evened out. Which is good. Life course is over so Monday Jillian with R is back. Cello is over for the term too. So I've got a bit more breathing space at the moment!

And I've decided to say Yes to spontaneous invitations, because I've got a lazy introverty negative default. So I think my default should be Yes.