Spring 2024

I let the post routine slip a bit and I'm OK with that! I thought I'd just recap all the creative things I did in the last couple of months. I was doing a sort of long service leave / sabbatical while still working and doing my life, working 4 days, doing pottery on Wednesdays, taking a break from rosters at church, slowing life down. I think slowness has been a theme or an aim of the months. I think God is slow, in that he has the eternal view so a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day; and in that I don't have time to relate to him unless I'm slow. I've been having slow mornings this year, which has made it a lot easier to pray, and sets me up for a less stressful day. I even heard that literally slowing down your movements calms your nervous system. It's a challenge.

I went to a little art thing that a work friend was doing at the botanic gardens. I wrote on these postcards and gave them to my bosses. When I finish my pottery experience, I would like to get back into oils and watercolour. Even just small studies like this are beautiful and mindful. 

My first ceramic project was this coil pot! It was smoothed on the wheel, carved, glazed, so it took a month or so altogether, but I LOVED making it. I had some ideas about what I wanted to make last term, but I went along with the learning process and made what worked - just going along with it was a good process. In making this, I tried not to overcook it. It took its own shape, when I trimmed it I stopped when I liked how it looked rather than conforming it to a curved bowl, I carved a design that started freestyle and ended up being inspired by soil structure, the whole experience was a great way to let the process flow rather than be productivity focused or have a goal and force it.

Not every week was so mindful. Sometimes I cried, like my first attempts at throwing. Or when I had bad traffic, ran late, and was anxious to get things done. Sunflower lady has a good radar and offered me a hug.

Not my creativity, but I went to the quilt show at Tocal, because that is high quality craft and very impressive and beautiful.

A colleague wanted to go to the Albert Mucha exhibition in Sydney, and since he was driving, that was a great way to do a daytrip and see and learn about an artist I recognise his work but hadn't studied. He started from a commercial background and transitioned to fine art loaded with political and religious symbols.

More pottery - slip casting. A bit too easy to get caught up in a fast production line. But it gave me a great number of small pieces to explore the glazing process without worrying about ruining something precious from the wheel.

A Saturday arvo in Morpeth, revisiting the gallery, looking at the orchid exhibition, 

A long weekend in Brisbane! First stop, The Nest.

A Friday daytripping around Brisbane and buying shoes, and a Saturday in Toowoomba at the flower festival.

Also the meuseum in Toowoomba has a floral artist exhibition, I can't remember her name now, and she was racist so I don't approve her as a person, but her floral illustrations are like portraits of flowers but still like scientific illustrations. 

Sunday in Brisbane after church I smashed out a big section of my ancient knitting project. Sometimes you have to do craft when you don't feel inspired otherwise they just don't get finished.

I started sewing recently as well, even though I didn't feel like it, I felt like I should make some baby clothes before all the babies grew up. And once I got things started, I kept going, I was on a roll and I decided to use up as much fabric as I could on small pairs of shorts, thus culling my stash of useless small pieces of leftovers, and making very cheap christmas presents! I also made myself the brown rainbow dress, it was $5 m sateen from the Nest.

The end of term - I held an exhibition in the office! My colleagues have been delightfully interested in everything I did each week!

Once it was the school holidays, I pushed myself to really make a mess - I did the sewing, which spread out over weeks instead of being a single weekend then wrap up, and I got out my leftover clay and did some handbuilding. 

It's so easy to put creative things off. They make a mess. You need to make and remake things to get better so it doesn't feel worth it sometimes. You save it for the weekend then the weekend is busy. You will do it later. But you just have to get into it. My first win was coming home from Pilates on Saturday and getting out the clay and starting making a thing for 90 min before I had a late lunch. My biggest achievement was leaving work at 3.30 on a monday, and doing 4 hours of clay and sewing before bed! 

To finish, I've been finding encouraging pearls to inspire my creative process here and there. I shared this article with another beginner in my pottery class. https://janetasantesullivan.substack.com/p/honoring-our-beginner-stage

"Instead of relying on muscle memory, our work flows more freely and authentically—whether it’s art, writing, or our first day on a new job—allowing us to tap into unfiltered creativity and genuine enthusiasm that can often get snuffed once we become seasoned.

"What if we celebrated and valued our beginner selves just as much as our experienced selves? Why do we think that only years of struggle and grinding can validate our creations? Maybe there’s a unique worth in the raw, unrefined way of being and doing that comes from our initial attempts, a purity that deserves recognition and appreciation."

 

July 2024

Belated reflections on the first month of my term of sort of sabbatical / long service leave. I built this vision the end of last year I think, probably in Darwin. Journal more, pray more, slow down, be creative, and take term 3 at 4 days a week and spend Wednesdays doing ceramics. I’ve been steadily digesting some good podcasts and audiobooks (see Cal Newport and Gloria Mark, the Ezra Klein show interviews are good but they appear all over the place, and also Ezra Klein on the Search Engine podcast with the topic “Is there a sane way to use the internet?”) about attention and deep thinking. I was really noticing the last couple of years how hard it is for me to be immersed in anything anymore, a book or a movie, so I started retraining myself in 2023 or earlier by reading light YA fantasy series in paperbacks (not audiobooks - I do love audiobooks but the point I was seeking was not multi-tasking and being deeply immersed in a world just by holding and reading a book and not doing ANYTHING ELSE). I deleted tiktok back in summer. I recently started deleting Instagram off my phone every Sunday night and trying not to download it again until Saturday. I enjoy Instagram a lot and I do contribute to it, I post, I comment, I like, so I still want to be on there, but I had an addiction to pick it up at the slightest feeling of boredom or hard work. And Instagram content is better when you use it less often - when you catch up on your friends, rather than get a whole bunch of never-ending filler feed and sponsored posts and memes. So I think this is a good balance. I have somewhat turned to other apps to fill the space (Substack and Pinterest) but I also have sometimes doodled ideas for ceramics, or journaled, instead of opening instagram, so that is a win. 

This is a very rambling out of order post but that’s the context I guess.

Church made a lovely moment out of me finishing up and taking a 3 month break from the music team, and it was super sweet to be appreciated, and I also think it was a helpful thing for our little night congregation to see and share in, appreciating that it is good to serve and it’s also good to take a break, and it’s good to celebrate service not just when someone leaves or retires! Many people serve faithfully for decades in sunday school or music or outreach or social justice ministries and it’s good to acknowledge this is a special thing.

The first week of the holidays I had covid (3rd time) super annoying and I was impatient with possible ongoing infections but thankfully I recovered just enough in time to go on holidays to Wentworth Falls with sister and JK and Sweep! I managed to walk a big section of the Grand cliff top walk. The house was very comfy and restful so we did some jigsaw puzzle and crosswords, cooked dinners at home, ate out for H’s birthday, looked at Leura shops, had hot chocolate and saw the 3 sisters. At first I thought, just napping in the afternoon is a waste of time I could nap at home, but then I realised, I do not nap at home, at home I Get Stuff Done. In a holiday house nothing needs to be cleaned or fixed or weeded, it’s a reprieve from daily demands, so it actually good value really to just nap or soak in a bath, things I could literally do any day at home but I rarely do.  

I bought 2 lino prints at the Nook, they are not cheap so I pondered for a couple of days, but I am starting to want more things on my wall and not just things that I have painted or sewn. Have other people’s art and how they see the world. Speaking of seeing the world, I took great joy on the bushwalk of noticing the water. Waterfalls, creeks, dribbles and drips and pools. As I walked I filmed snippets to create a reel of water. This reminded me of the linocut of the pool of water and I decided that yes I should buy it, there was a strong creative connection with it this week. The ladies in the Nook said that the artist was going to be quite delighted to sell two, as they are more expensive than most things in the co-op. 

The first week of term I was pretty busy, 3 birthdays, I gave JK her portrait of Sweep and the card Sweep made for her, and we went to the Farmers Wife for lunch with Denise, and generally swanned around. Dad has a simple meal out, and Johnny had lunch and a cake with a few family. I gave him a red helium balloon because I noticed how obsessed he was to play with them at my birthday. It was $2.60 and it definitely was a good value present. He took it to bed and everything.

And yay, I did my first Ceramics class. It was great. I consciously switched off my efficient goal frugal brain because I didn’t want to force an outcome of creativity or productivity and fail due due being pretty new at it. So I slowed down and went with the flow and let my decisions be shaped by what looked OK at the time. Me and another new person in the class were guided through a coil-then-wheel salad bowl. I also made a little cat with my spare time. It was good to play and 3 hours was long enough to not be rushed. This is my storage box that stays at the workshop, with my clay, the tools that Elsie gave me, and other miscellaneous things.

The next week I was tired from all the birthdays and busyness, but I therapeutically carved a soil structure inspired design into the outside of my bowl. It feels like an artwork. I’m proud of how I let the bowl have straight sides and not conform to a curved bowl shape. I’m proud of how the carving design percolated through my brain from my day job. I’m proud that I was able to slow down and be patient and enjoy the process and not just rush to the most efficient outcome - productivity and efficiency is a real strong side of my personality. Week 3 I leaned more into productivity and I think I want to try and hold that back, but on the day I just wanted get something finished and not have so many WIP on the go. However more on that next month.

My colleagues are so excited for my classes and love the idea of using LSL this way. For me it makes so much sense because I don’t want to do a long overseas holiday this year, I want to do more creative stuff - but I don’t want to fit it in after work, because that is making my life more and more busy and hectic. Taking a day away from work is creating more space in my week. All part of the slow down, reflect more, create more, scroll less, pace myself better. Even things like not having to be so strict about bedtime on a school night (eg church and home group nights) because I know I’ve got Wednesday off to catch up a little bit.

It’s good to be having this taste test term of 4 days a week at this point in my life, and indulge in learning something new that I’ve been curious to try for a few years now. It’s that middle aged season where I’m kind of set in a pattern and good at the skills that I need in my life. Breaking the pattern a little, and playing with new creative experiences.

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. 

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.