September pleasantries and pancakes.

Hello readers! Welcome to the September recap. My September has been basically pleasant. Main downside has been ongoing side effects from zolodex implant, but not as bad as the first month, re sleep and headaches. I've been trying to exercise properly more regularly, because I'm less tired, and my tummy is getting fat, and I'm renewing my motivation to eat low sugar. Many sugar treats were creeping in, so I went to the library and second hand book shops and grabbed all the low inflammation diet books I could find. The one I bought is That Sugar Book and it's been helpful motivation. Sometimes you just need a good doco or book to brainwash you to do something.

 

September was peak garden beauty. October is starting to wilt already. The poppies were overall a disappointment possibly due to the nutrients in the soil, but maybe they were weird plants. However the sweet peas had a good year, and cornflower also grew, and I've got paper daisies. Enough happening to pick small fragrant bunches for the house.

I anticipate the jasmine should this summer hopefully meet up over the fence in the corner, turning the bottom of the yard into a green box!

I've got seedlings for summer garden, similar to last year with eggplant and zinnia, with a few other experiments, some of which have not germinated.

Office update: farewell to the map cabinet, hello new table and cupboards.

I also bought some plants to line the door ramp, so it's slowly coming together. The important thing is I see this nice table and cupboards when I look out my office now. The rest is out of my eyeline, so I can ignore it.

We also won an award at work, which was a nice buzz for the team. This was the live streamed award ceremony.

Loyal blog-reader Bei-En and I have been doing some zoom+netflix parties. 

One of the main events was my week in Mudgee. There is a new silo art at Merriwa which you should stop at, you can't miss it, it is huge and amazing. I treated myself to a squashed sausage roll with cheese and bacon on it. It was wonderful. THat was probably the start of a week less than ideal eating which had its effect on me but you know, holidays.

Pretty chooks and cute lambs and everything green this time.

My main activity was reading rom-com books, and sometimes walking around the shops in town. Last year I spent heaps of money on things like a nice clock, this year I only bought some hair clips and lemon butter and a brush pen.

I set myself a creative project to do a little painting each day and was very happy with my experiments with the new brush pen.

Our trip to one of the lovely restaurants where I ate too much and really completed the damage to my stomach.

Worth it though.

Oh the hair clips, my big purchase lol, are like rainbow tortoishell and I'm very happy with them. I usually pin my hair to the side with bobby pins. These are happy.

I purchased egg-cups for my boiled-egg-loving friend Denise when she visited. Another grown-up achievement.

She came with a car load of craft projects and I set her up and she taught herself what she needed to do from the shirt pattern with occasional confirmation from me, while I read my book. It was a delightful weekend. 

She took this photo of me.

I've been making a lot of pancakes from my own recipe, it has banana, oats, chia and a lot of healthy things, and I try to eat them without honey on them now but they almost don't need it (but honey makes everything better).

I've been feeling like I should read more, and I think the reason I don't is my discomfort living solo with a silent house. I always like the noise of a podcast, audiobook or TV show, more so when I live alone. However I have a wonderful pile of books I want to read so I need to get used to it. I just much prefer reading with other people around. Anyway I have just started a habit of "quiet reading time", just little bits after work or before bed. Currently I'm reading The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, borrowed from my pastor who loved it, and I have to say I love the atmosphere and life detail of people who cut wood 150 years ago and worry about who to marry and what will happen when John South dies. Fascinating things like the shoes they wear to walk in the snow (pattens) and how they plant trees and how they have bells on horses so they can hear someone coming along the narrow lanes and not have to reverse their cart and the bells are tuned to the notes of the octave. I recommend it.

And that is about all I can think of to reflect on this month!

August, winter to spring.

Hello readers! Spring is upon us and I have enjoyed it. 

I had a long weekend visit from E and I have no photos of us doing anything because we had a very relaxed time. We went to op shops, Kmart, Aldi, had lunch with Dad (see below greek pastry thing from Aldi), had a nice walk at Walka Water Works, and chilled at home a lot. Shared each other's online churches.

We tested out the local Vietnamese food truck that is in someone's front yard and I've never been brave enough to visit, it was really good and the owner is lovely so would repurchase, and have converted others as well.

Not much "deep cleaning" this month, but I borrowed dads gurney and cleaned my back step, freshened it up and moved the pots around and got rid of red back spiders.

I also finally got rid of my broken dishwasher! Got it collected by metal recyclers. Now I have a useful place for my bins. That took like 2 years.

This is my first public mask wearing, which was at bunnings.

My work friend A invited me and another colleague over to her place to have Raclette, which is a little indoor BBQ grill that you can put cheese in little pots underneath to melt. So everything gets covered in melted cheese. Neighbour joined us so it was a random mix. Great to see her house finally, it's a "shouse" ie shed house. A good hour drive away though, which is a beautiful drive, but I would be a hermit if I lived an hour away because I'm too lazy to go that far to see anybody. I live in the suburbs for a reason. 

My TV obsession in August was the Malory Towers adaptation on iView. Really well made, simple and authentic and happy. Good nostalgic escapism. I have also of course enjoyed the Bachelor franchise. Not that I like the actual Bachelor, it's the interactions of the rest of the cast and crew, and the recap analysis of the show on podcasts. Is someone a villain or is that just how they are presented by the edit, etc.

Health wise, I have been waking up every night and having a headache every 3 days. I thought I must be dehydrated or something so I bought a new drink bottle with hour markers on it. Finally at the end of the month mum said "what side effects does that implant have?" and lo and behold, headaches, bad sleep, hot flushes, etc etc etc. I think drinking more water helps, the headaches have decreased, but also, just good to know that I have only 2 more months of bad sleep and so on, it's not something I have to try and fix.

Tired of feeling too tired to exercise properly and full of bad habits, I decided to start going for morning walks. I usually jog a few blocks. I walk wed-friday in the morning, evenings on the weekend. Monday and Tuesday are too long to add walks, I need to save my energy. This week I was too tired on Wednesday (I woke up ok but body was achy and brain rebelled at forcing myself), walked on Thursday cos still rather flat, and walked with jogs on Friday. This is me not looking invigorated to be walking at 6.30am.

This is the lovely sunrise the first morning I walked. 

Re obsessions, I want bright clothes. I have, for the sake of comfort, worn a lot of frumpy dull clothes. Glad I bought bright comfy clothes from Birdsnest but I want more. My wardrobe has a lot of grey neutrals, which are practical, professional, soft on the eye, easy to blend and match together. What I suddenly want though is lots of clashing bold colours. I almost spent $300 on Gorman on sale. Then I had a fruGal assessment and decided I should sew something, so T found me a free pattern, and I got some orange cotton/linen on sale at spotlight, and for $40 I achieved a satisfying bright comfy dress. It has received compliments from strangers so this is something I should do more of. I will not reuse the free pattern though, it is somehow both tight and baggy. But now I've tested the style I feel better if I buy a pattern and more expensive fabric.

Finally, I saw Lucy twice! Once I rushed to my parents because she was visiting, and then last weekend I went up with my parents and had the arvo. There was chicken yard construction, and I went home with a kefir mother.

My current obsession is cutting out sugar, cos I know it made me feel better, but now it has crept back in all over the place. Honey here, fundraiser chocolate there, connoisseur because someone visits. Got some library books to motivate me. 

I'm also adding bible reading habits back in, now after work. And then after that I do cello practice. Getting habits right really helps get stuff done. But having energy helps too, it's a vicious cycle in Winter.

My garden is full of flowers, which I will post next month, although the poppies have not amounted to much sadly after all my labour hatching them from seed. Everything else is blooming though so I still have posies and the sweet peas smell gorgeous.

 

July, I pretty much forgot about it already!

Today is the 9th of August and I just realised I never caught up on July. Pretty sure nothing happened so won't be a long job to blog.

I've dug up this cross stitch that I lost the last colour for and repurchased a skein of it, so now I'm chugging away at it and making very good progress. Expect it to be finished soon. And then maybe I'll do some of that monstrous tapestry...

I have no idea when this was, but I tackled the question of freezing eggs. Several Drs have asked me about it, and maybe one friend, so I confronted it. It must have been the start of July. I luckily got an appointment the week I rang, thanks to a cancellation. I have really benefited from cancellations this year. I asked a couple of good friends to have someone accompany me and JK came. We had a nice lunch beforehand. Had a meeting with a fertility doctor and got the facts. On that day, I was really 50/50 about it. Kids are pretty special and I can put up with a month of unpleasant stuff to give myself the chance in the next year maybe if by some miracle I start dating. It was really good to get the information, the facts, instead of never knowing and always thinking, I could have had kids if I had been brave enough to freeze eggs instead of avoiding thinking about it. But it the whole thing is still just exhausting and sad to think about. The Dr said about half of people decide not to. I mean, having to make a DECISION is the hard part. It really weighs on you, and it was never my desire to make decisions like this in my life. 

Then we dropped in my admissions form for the hospital and that was that.

The next day I had the day off, it was a Friday, and this was planned because I knew it would be extremely hard and sad to process, and I always have a few days mood and energy crash after a doctor appointment. I cried in bed for a couple of hours, then went and got a blood test. I started to think about what I have always wanted out of life, and what my core feelings about things are, apart from this fertility crisis. And I started to feel like I wouldn't do egg freezing. But I had about 4 days until I got the blood test results and had to say yes or no, so I just let it percolate. 

I made some self care plans for the day. I arranged to visit a friend and talk about stuff with her, and do some homewares shopping. I had a good talk and cry with C. And then bought a lamp. And looked at sheets. I had a huge obsession with sheets, both cotton and flannelette. I went to Adairs a lot.

Over the next few days I really settled towards not doing IVF. Reasons: 

1. My ethos has never been particularly proactive in regards to marriage and children. I don't want to do online dating. I don't want to freeze eggs. I prefer to focus on the life I have and approach it with serious intentions and plans for my future as a single woman. It would be nice if my situation changes but I'm not really focused on achieving marriage and children. Otherwise I would have acted differently in the past. 
2. I'm single, not married and not currently trying to have a baby, so it is a lot to go through for an unlikely eventuality. If I was married and trying right now, that would be different.
3. The best case scenario was a 20% chance of successful pregnancy. I realised that meant it is extremely unlikely. Again, if I was married, a chance would be worth a chance. As a single person, it seems pointless. I am a pessimist.
4. It would exacerbate my endometriosis and have some risk of infection.
5. I got the blood test results and they were quite poor. Would get 3 eggs not 10. That makes a 6% chance I suppose, ie, in the end egg freezing is not possible. I was cheerful at the news as it took away the decision, but I was going to say no anyway.

So going forward, I am a barren woman. The next big question is how surgery goes, will I be menopausal or not. But until then I have a break from doctors.

What I have found some comfort in this winter is deep cleaning. As mentioned last month with the kitchen cupboard cleaning. I finally got my broken dishwasher out of my kitchen and I now keep my bins in the cavity. I had to buy a bit from Bunnings to cap off the hose. So I also cleaned behind the fridge and places like that. I have been working on corners of junk.

My new shoe area in the garage - where I always remove my shows before coming into the house now. I've committed to the system. (Note the dishwasher is still in the garage, have not succeeded in organising metal collection yet)

The general accumulation of life that I am working to tidy. Yesterday I finished that oil painting.

I did my first adult walk at Walka Water Works. It is now my favourite walk because it has really good birds. It often rains.

My comfort TV has been 8 out of 10 cats does countdown. It's a blend of word puzzles and British shenanigans. Sometimes I do the puzzles.

I did some "before and after" photos of my house based on the old realestate website pics when I bought it. 

My poppy garden is a disappointment, I must have made the soil to rich, everything is leafy but no flowers. Nitrogen can do that apparently.

This is my new work phone, which I used to do a lot of work calls for covid-19. It was interesting but after a day and a half I had a bit of a crash. "Debriefed" to an EAP counsellor. Was a bit of a zombie for 2 days. I've had too much of my own work since then to do more phone work.

I had my monthly cuddle meetup with Lucy, and lovely conversation with Luke and Julia. 

Picked up a job at work that required a trip to Armidale to video some cow stuff. This was my rest stop on the Thunderbolts way.

This is the freezing cold feedlot.

This is me looking at my work at the motel.

This is me zooming into home group from the motel.

And then I finished the month injecting my own zoladex implant. I was supposed to get it professionally done but the chemist talked me through it, it came with instructions, and I've done plenty of needles into my stomach, so I just did it myself. This is a monthly implant to make my fibroid shrink before surgery. Other than this, I'm on a break from doctors. I did have a clinic at maitland hospital, but I cancelled it. I've decided to keep life simple and not get second opinions, just go private with Dr Joshi and trust her. I mean she is going to use a robot so she must be clever.