September: holiday and ordinary

First half of September holidays, second half very ordinary.

I headed to Dubbo for work team workshop, which I enjoy, and we squeezed a quick couple of hours visit to the zoo when we got there too. 

 

The last morning of the conference I was very stressed because my booking for Katoomba had been cancelled and I hadn't found out. It would have been fine if I had known because Ros was no longer able to join me so I would have cancelled the plan and got a refund, easy. However now it left me not sure where I'd sleep the night. THankfully the agent was able to find a vacant house in wentworth falls!

Unfortunately the house was vacant because the owner had a whole lot of tradies rocking up, so I stayed in my room for a while and then headed out to avoid them. I felt like I was in the way of the owner but also felt like I was not having a very nice holiday because of the working being done on the house, so I was quite stressed. I had a conversation with the lovely owner before I went out, asking if I was out of the way all day could they let me have it to myself the next day, and I also messaged the agent about it, and they ended up working that out, and giving me a bonus night for free. After that stressful start to the holiday, it was all up from there!

I thought I'd walk from Wentworth Falls to Leura, but all the rain had made landslides damage a lot of the walks, so I did just a nice waterfally walk instead, on the advice of 2 ladies and 3 rangers I met.

Anna arrived and we had lunch at Leura. It was AMAZING to have a good catch up with her! We can pick up like nothing has changed and no time has passed. We spent the afternoon at Leura shops, had dinner back at the house. The next morning, we had breakfast at WF post office cafe, and I really enjoyed shopping at the small set of boutique shops, I bought some candles I am now obsessed with from Southern Wild, and a yellow shirt from the UK brand Seasalt. The news of the Queen's death was a lot to process and discuss with shopkeepers. 

We did the Wentworth Falls bushwalk, and after lunch at home we went to Katoomba. Katoomba is the village most affected by the lack of international travel, sadly. We shopped at The Little Lost Bookshop, and evening at the 3 sisters was spectacular, then we had Tibetan food for dinner.

Anna headed to church camp on Saturday morning, and I stayed another day on my own. I can't remember what I did. I had plans of doing tapestry but I'm pretty sure I didn't. 

On Sunday I quickly checked out the nearby amazing rock platform with no fences, and then headed to Mudgee.

I had to stretch out my activities to fill in my visit. I did the rounds of the local shops, but pretty much didn't buy anything this time except food. I had lunch with H on her lunch break each day, plus a few teas and cakes. I enjoyed the Mudgee Museum which has a fabulous doll collection, while the art gallery is basically one space but had a good installation of paper marionette brolgas.

S took me on a bushwalk which had lots of little creeks to cross, so it was lucky I had my hiking boots.

I gave them a puzzle as a thankyou gift and we did it within my stay. 

And I cooked butter chicken one night for dinner.

The amazing french patisserie Althea was closed most of my visit but opened on the day I left so I got some takeaway pastries. It is a must visit. 

And now back to regular life! I bravely went to a Mafia night but I did well, it's a game that I always make an embarrassing mistake, forget who I'm supposed to kill or something, but I played well enough. 

We had a wedding squished into our 6pm service one Sunday which made doing music chaotic, there were two bands doing different things, and for some reason the sound switched off for the guitar for the end of it, but we pulled it off. My next music challenge is church camp band.

There was a tiny little market in Maitland, and a new bakery has opened which used to be in the Gaol a few years ago, good bread, JK and I went and bumped into Ros there! Got some fried chicken also at the new asian fried chicken shop.

On the Queen's memorial public holiday Thursday, JK and I went up to Singleton and hung out with the family. Sweep chased the chickens and one seemed to be lost but it was just hiding.

We filled in the whole afternoon with games and then I headed back for a Pilates class, because my current system is to fit in a few regular ones each week that I book in advance, and then jump in any bonus classes if I feel like it and they are available.

I organised a coffee with Tony, which is something to do every few months. And I joined JK's fb social group for cocktails, which was nice to do something different and meet some different people without any sort of motivation beyond drinking and chatting - don't have to build work relationships or spiritual relationships or anything, just meet and move on.

A big fail: I washed a load of my winter woolies in the machine on the wrong setting and ruined half of them and damaged the rest. My favourite merino cardigan shrunk, other things were felted. Some are going to be still wearable but a wrap is now a scarf. I guess that's less stuff to care about in future, and caring for wool is a battle here there are so many moths, but it was sad.

A big win: I ordered a replacement washing line from bunnings because my old one had rusted through at the outside end, and I got it off the wall, and Dad came over with his masonry drill to help put the new one up. I then adjusted the lines myself to work so that some are higher and some are lower, bc me and JK are different heights.

The garden is now flourishing! New green leaves on the fence jasmine, and its the first year of enjoying a fully green fence! New leaves on the roses and I've just noticed a rosebud. I did a little digging to fix the wonky bird bath, and JK picked up a second hand shelf that fits her succulent collection, which freed up some of the other chairs and such outside. On the October long weekend I was home alone one night and lit candles and sat outside and enjoyed it. Ate and drank and listened to Missy Higgins.

And finally, excitingly, mum and dad are renovating more of the family home, so it is goodbye to the OG shag carpet and other such out of date wonders. 

I returned to work after my holiday refreshed and aiming to be nice to everyone and not stressed and grumpy, and thankfully that has been achieved. How long can I keep it up hmooo. I organised an after work dinner catch up with A who left and T, which was a good thing achieved, very enjoyable and grownup work ladies having cocktails and burgers. I'll probably do one early next year again. Work and life has now switched into "what can I get done by the end of the year, and let's not add anything more to the plate now OK". I've got a set of things to finish at work, and I'm counting down the number of weeks of music left, and I've got a few social things I want to do.

And to finish with, I am really enjoying Reformer Pilates! Aiming for 3 a week - 2 workouts after work and 1 stretch session on SUnday before church. Will do a bonus on Saturday or sometime if I feel like it. I'm enjoying the early rush of gains you get when you are exercising regularly and learning new moves and getting more coordinated and stronger. I'm enjoying that it doesn't make my feet hurt, because it's mostly lying down haha and even when standing, it's often sliding rather than stepping or jumping. I think it's helping with my posture and core, but my shoulder pain is improved from months of Physio anyway. I enjoy exercising not at home as I am a bit bored of that, having a place of my own to exercise in Maitland. I push myself harder with other humans around. I'm having a red hot go at getting fit and healthy again and if possible losing the few kilos I put on during covid and surgery times. Watch this space.

August... joy, discouragement, trivia, pilates, new office.

We had some sunshine relief in August! The backyard is still soggy though, and it does keep raining. But it feels less apocalyptic now the washing can dry. My garden is slowly springing back to life, but there is an aphid plague!

I'm really getting into pub trivia now with whatever random group I can. This group was a post-funeral church group that turned into women's trivia team. Meanwhile there is a lot of death around at the moment, my friend's father also died this month.

JK went away for a week and I was dog-carer! I tried to take him on a lot of long walks and finally explored down a path I've driven past. I found a bee swam there and reported it to the varroa response. Sweep also had some play time with a friend so I just picked him up from there after work. He was very upset at the start of the week, and I let him sleep on my bed once, but he got happier as the week went on.

This is some polite but borderline bacon-love.

I replaced my slow cooker (broken lid) with an Instant Pot and I've started to experiment with it! This ugly mess was a very fast very tasty spicy chicken burrito thing.

I also pressure cooked and crisped a whole chicken and then made soup.

Decided to make a change and move my stuff over 2 desks. It's not a big change but I guess it's some symbolism because I've sat in the same box for 8 years. It meant having a real clean up, getting to the bottom of the clutter, the way you do when you move house. It took a while but it feels good. 

I'm also having a go at a standing desk, borrowed a desktop one. I'm standing a few hours each day.

A nice fun normal thing was to go to the Aroma festival! The sun was out and so was the wind, but it was just so long since we've done simple things like this. Even today the Olive Tree Markets are cancelled because of the bad weather. I used to like the rain but now its bad.

I went to Singleton and hung out a bit with Julia and Jonny, we enjoyed a really nice lunch at a cafe at the shops and it was nice to have adult sister time.

I still have a lot of appointments. But everything is going OK. My mouth ulcer thing is still there after 2 years but the immunologist has run all the tests and thinks it's looking better than it used to. I usually fit appointments around work but it does make life busy, so I took a whole day off for a newcastle appointment. I went in and then met JK and sweep at the dog beach and we had a walk, some brunch at Nobby's, and then went on our ways. I had a to do list like get a WWCC check, car washed, paint shop, plus some fun things. I ended up trying on clothes and buying some things at a boutique near the paint shop, and at the op shops near service nsw. I had to wait an hour for a slot at the car wash (had a free wash) so I had arvo tea at MRAG and looked through the art. Overall it was a lovely day with a lot of variety and productivity.

I did not enjoy being on an organising committee for a work event, and nearly every meeting I vented some frustration. This is unprofessional behaviour and is limiting my career prospects, plus it's not good character. I became extremely discouraged about this because it's a long running issue that I'm not making progress on, plus I felt a bit ripped off that all my managers only saw me in the meetings I hate, and not doing all the very good work that I do, so it felt like an unlucky assessment. But that's beside the point really, that I'm an impatient person and it comes out in a bad way.

The event went well, I went in during Saturday to do some bus marshalling and then went and hung out at Morpeth in the sun.

On Saturday night I lit candles and managed the sound and music which went well but meant I went up and down the stairs for 5 hours.

The event went well and everyone enjoyed it.

On the Sunday I was EXHAUSTED. A long week, emotional discouragement, late night, stairs climbing, I was done for. Unfortunately I had full band double practice and the usual weekend jobs to do and church music.

The exciting news is that I've done my first pilates at the studio. I've been looking for a change from home workouts for about a year, but my energy comes and goes, and I would like to do kickboxing but that would probably be EXHAUSTING, so I'm doing reformer pilates instead, it's in a new studio in Maitland which is very nice, and it's pretty affordable. I've done 2 classes so far and it seems to be at a good level to burn some muscles, but I've not been painfully sore DOMS the next day. I'm going to try and do a class on tuesday, wednesday, saturday and sunday. 

My right shoulder has been painful all year but is finally pretty much better. Im still trying to keep up with the physio and have good posture so hopefully pilates helps with that.

And I've started checking out open homes near me. I'm in research phase. I think I want to see a financial planner though before I make a decision (I can't make a decision).

July: floods and family

Just a lovely sunset from a walk I did one evening around East Maitland to explore the realestate in that section of town. While I walked I listened to the new four seasons 2022, and the Winter section played beautifully with this.

I’ll get the crappy stuff out of the way. At the start of July, it was raining a lot again which led to flooding again. It’s usually a time to goggle at the amount of water in the river, but this time I was just over it. Sick of the rain and tired of the flood photos. It was the biggest flood in a while so the highway and a lot of other significant roads had to be shut for over a week, and the queues around the back roads put everyone in a stress.

Tocal was the site of a fodder drop collection, so that was a new thing to see. Helicopter noise at work added to the drama for a week. Also in this photo, note the bee hives. They are set to be destroyed because the varroa mite incursion has spread from Newcastle to Maitland. For a while Tocal was just on the edge of the eradication zone, but now it’s been taken in. Tocal has become a field crew base for the response, with RFS fire trucks and beekeepers and government people descending every day to get their missions, and a lab to test samples, and the whole thing. 

My car was in the smash repair for 9 days at this time. At one point they rang up and asked for the key to get the roof racks off, and normally that would be an annoying bother, but it was impossible to get home, get the key and drive it to the other side of Maitland during business hours. In the end I waited until 7.30 pm and dropped it in their receptionist mailbox. Picking the car up was a similar race against time between finishing work and them closing.

I also broke heaps of things, cleaned up glass twice, and one smash was the slow cooker lid rendering the slow cooker useless. I decided to replace it with a multi cooker, which does slow cooking, pressure cooking, air frying, searing, yogurt, rice and everything really. Good timing because a few weeks later JK beloved air fryer died. 

Meanwhile work was really busy, I was barraged with heaps of promotion stuff and everything was happening all at once, so my stress levels rose. And, I had 2 cold sores in the one month, and I cut my finger. And my shoulder has been sore all year and still sore, despite physio. I started avoiding sleeping on my right side, so it doesn’t hurt as much in the morning, but not good to be disrupting my sleep.

This is me looking like I felt.

So that’s the bad news. I soothed my stress with a lot of real estate obsession. Lets now move on to the good times!

Expanded the music team - we added a girl playing drums and oboe earlier in the month, and at the end of the month we added a boy on drums. It’s been raising the anxiety for me, but I’m glad we can add them, and that we can train them and have that fellowship between older and younger people. It felt a bit hairy, but praise God we made it through without speeding up too much etc.

Heather visited mid-July because she had some work in Sydney, so we had a birthday dinner including my brothers new girlfriend - he’s been secretly cooking this relationship up all year and finally formalised it! We had also had a dinner to meet her. So two big family dinners.

I drove up to Brisbane with Heather, after I had my car back and after her birthday, on Saturday. We stopped at Woolgoolga for lunch. It was amazing to be away from floods!

 And we stopped at our cousins at Tweed Heads briefly. Then we had dinner at her friend’s place and watched the new Persuasion.

We did her church the next morning, I was super tired so read and slept through a church meeting afterwards. Had a restful afternoon, I was getting pretty inflamed due to the stressful couple of weeks, so we watched the old thor movie on Disney, and the movie about the Guy in the game which was great, but I forgot the name. 

On Monday I drove across Brisbane which was stressful, to the botanical gardens and Mt Coot-tha, then home and finished Heathers YA book I had started, then at night we went to the new Thor movie with Erica!

On Tuesday I drove to Port Macquarie. I had some traffic at the Gold Coast, but it’s a pretty easy drive. I went to Ricardos strawberry and tomato farm, and did the berry picking thing but they were barely ripe, probably picked out from the holidays.

 Stayed in the cheapest motel in Port, which was very nice location but not a nice room or warm bed. So I went out with a book and read, the weather wasn’t great but better to be outside. Then I did a coast walk, and it was all worthwhile!!! The sun broke through the clouds for an amazing sunset, the beach was beautiful, it made the whole drive and cheap motel worth it. I walked around for a couple of hours, and got Thai takeaway for dinner. I found a farmer market just packing up which was a shame to miss, but I bought some eggs, and chatter to the farmers and their daughter had been to Tocal.

Slept in my puffer jacket due to lack of a proper quilt. But in the morning I went to the closest cafe, the girls were lovely and I had a beautiful tea and breakfast. I went for another walk and got caught in an unforecast rainstorm, before I refilled petrol (AGAIN) and left. I got home for a late lunch. Went back to work for Thursday and Friday, thankfully the pace was slowing down and the rest of the month was a better level of busy.

On Saturday, Mum and I joined Julia for a costco visit. I didn’t go too crazy! I wouldn’t change my life to shop there.

On Sunday it was Dad’s birthday, I went over for lunch, and gave him a special Japanese bread knife same as I have.

On Monday it was JK birthday. I had my car in for a service which I was planning to go in to work in the afternoon, but it ended up taking too long so I just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Anyway, because I was home, I could do proper things to make it fun for her! Her tradition is a birthday door, so I quietly blew up a balloon garland and attached it to her door. She woke up to it while I was out, but she was AMAZED. 

I bought her a friande cake on my walk home from Toyota and sang happy birthday. We went to Tre Viet for lunch with Mum, and I gave her her presents - silver balloon dog earrings I bought in Melb, and a flashy light for walking Sweep at night. After waiting for an hour at Toyota, I came home for a bit, and then went to my first cello lesson for the term. 

JK organised a trivia team at the bradford on thursday for her birthday, lovely fun. Won some drinks again!

Sweep was a disgrace, chewed this carpet. He hasn't touched it since he got smacked for it though. JK covered it with contact as per G's ferret proofing advice.

On Friday 30th, Julia gave birth to John Leonardo Davis!

On Saturday, I watched the Single Minded conference, topic was the body, most of the day, and in the afternoon walked to the hospital to visit Julia and John.

So that was a BIG month. Extremes of weather and mood and life.