April: new season.

This monthly reflection is rather late due to Tocal Field Days, but now its an excellent excuse to stay in bed and blog rather than exercise, so here is my April!

I came back from Tassie so refreshed, that was an amazing holiday. On the Thursday I had a follow-up appointment about my Mirena, and we concluded that 9 months of it making my life worse = get it out. It made me have low level cramps and spotting and IBS for a few weeks a month, even at its best. So the doctor removed it, and talked about my decreased fertility and egg freezing and depressing things like that. I prefer to go along with my life not worrying about what might or might not happen. It was a bit of a downer. And also discouraging that I went through a lot of pain and sickness for that treatment and it never worked and now I'll be trying a pill.

Our church women's weekend away was then on the Friday-Sunday. I was feeling pretty low and not keen to be around a group of people, but very much wanted to hear some good bible preaching, and it was VERY good. This woman is gifted. I can't remember her name right now though! 

I was so teary. So depressed at having a broken uterus and surrounded by babies. I wanted to cry every 30 minutes. And then I realised that I was probably all hormonally messed up from having the mirena removed and the progesterone being cut off and it was a full on crash until my body got back into normal hormone production. My period came unexpectedly on Saturday and I wasn't prepared for it, it was a worse period than normal. So it was a rough, sad week or so after that doctor appointment and all my holiday joy was washed away.

The weekend was good though, because the bible teaching was challenging and deep, and when I set myself up on my own to knit and listen to things, I was joined by one woman and I enjoyed the one on one conversation. I had a lot of lovely caring conversations with different women.

One of the grass experts at work offered to do a lunchtime guided walk and that was fantastic, although a little depressing to learn about Coolatai Grass. This pink grass is blooming on the roadsides at the moment, I love it.

The low-slanting sun and dust and clouds are creating beautiful skies and landscapes again. I might start painting again when I've got May out of the way.

Amidst the busy stuff, I made time to go to Sydney one Sunday with AH from work, to see some botanical illustration at the botanical gardens. A lovely day, inspiring garden and art, and fun times. We caught the train, it was $2.70 return! So cheap!

Being a tourist is one of the happiest things.

I received an easter bunny from Nathan's family at work. So heart warming.

My cyclamen seeds that I planted actually grew! I am now nursing 3 single leaf babies.

Work was busy because we were heading towards the Tocal Field Days and I had a lot of printing to organise as well as the tent setup. More on that next month.

The other big event on my plate is the Women of Truth conference band. I can't say that's going well, I really don't know how its going, but it'll happen somehow. I've had a couple of frustrations. Finding a percussionist has been nearly impossible, and a lot of stress, and then the guitarist isn't on facebook so doesn't get the info I share in the message group and I forgot to remind her about practice separately. So our April practice was without a drummer or a guitarist. Our "second" practice in mid May (the week before the conference) will actually be our first whole band practice. So who knows how this will go, but nobody else seems to want the job so this is it.

I rearranged my house to fit a band in.

I really enjoy how moving furniture around makes rooms completely new! I love this room, its completely different now. I actually decluttered my sofa to Julia's house where it can join the rest of the sections, which helped with making space.

We had a housemate breakfast on the carpet because we love it so much.

The easter long weekend was amazing. It really helped me take a breath and rebalance myself and push off the stress and depression that was clouding over me. I took some extra days off and had a full week, at home, chilling, forgetting about the field days, catching up on my life, feeling better about things, finally getting my Autumn gardening done. This is my haul from heritage gardens! Some flowers, rosemary, spinach and some pots to grow my melbourne tulips etc in.

There's some family things happening at the moment, one of which was, Mum started to get investigated for breast cancer around mid April. 2 May this was confirmed as cancer. Now we know it's a primary cancer and hasn't spread, so should be OK, but we're looking at a time of chemo and surgery and things like that. We're also expecting and praying that a baby will be born in 6 months! The first grandchild for my parents.

I went for an evening walk once, and I realised there are suddenly roses everywhere! Such beauty. I'm anticipating my own coming soon. This weekend I'm going to prepare the garden for them.

I discovered facebook marketplace for myself and got these 4 cute chairs for $20 for the field days tent. Love them.

Trying to decide about this chair. Give it away, or refurb it? I think it's doable as a sewing job. I'll have to tackle it in the second half of the year if so.

Elsie came up because she got a lift with her friend. She stayed with JK, and we had a lovely Saturday jaunt shopping in a warehouse and an op shop. Weird thing to do but very fun and good bargains. Because of health-issue-body-changes, I needed new pants and E needed new dresses, and the lady at Archer and Paige let us visit her warehouse and buy things for $60 each. Loose linen pants are my new best clothes, and I also bought this checked shirt which I didn't need but I am really into blue now for some reason.

We went to newcastle foreshore for a walk and some lunch and ice cream, then prayed together at JKs.

Shopping has been a highlight of the month actually! As well as the new pants and shirt, I finally replaced my oldest most loved brown sandals, with new yellow sandals on sale at Ziera ($150 so still a serious purchase).

I also replaced my black work cardigan with this grey striped coatigan.

Now I feel better without the Mirena I have been able to stick to my old workout 3 times a week plan, and get back into lunchtime walks as well now its cooler. I've got a lot of achy joints this year, but can't have everything. My iron is better, my stomach is better, I'm starting to get fit again. New clothes too, even though they are shallow external things they are good for your mood. I'm thankful for this new season.

March, friends everywhere.

Most of March was mundane, but I crowned it with a lovely holiday!

I reflected back on March last year when I got sick. From my instagram feed there were so many reminders of the good times throughout the scary time. 

One thing I have discovered is David Jones sells some lovely tea and I go and look for sales. In particular I have enjoyed Dandy Chai from Ovvio which is a caffeine free chai. I am fully stocked with tea now for both myself and gifts! I need to find some other reason to go to David Jones.

I was growing my hair out for the last year, but decided to go short again. It had reached that meh length where it didn't look good worn out and I was bored of always tying it up. I went for a longish bob, and then in a couple of months I'll go for a short short bob again.

There was a girls night with JM and JK and I enjoyed a really nice mocktail. It's been really really good to socialise regularly and do fun things, makes a huge difference to be not just dragging through the routine of life, working and food prepping and doing the things I have to do.

Taking it a little easy with exercise still. Would like to be working out 3 times a week but its usually only once. I have mixed a bit more walking and jogging in though, and I think it's important to have seasons of variation. I've been exploring the old parts of my suburb, walk/ jogging around the park, and really enjoying being outside now its cooling down.

Maitland Levee had a thing where shops displayed art in windows. I really love these architectural sketches on cereal boxes, and I follow the artist on instagram as he draws around the world. I regret not buying one of these really. But didn't know if I wanted to frame a cereal box.

The next childrens book is under way, about a free range chicken, which I have enjoyed a lot. Getting good at drawing on ipad and enjoy the process.

Eating a lot of beef and having a transfusion made me feel a lot better quickly. However I have a lot of achy back from drawing and often achy hands and joints in general. Hoping it fades as the tiredness has.

Getting to the nice part of the month! Last year AM gave me an eshakti voucher, and I should have used it on my bridesmaid dress, but I didn't, so I decided to buy some dresses in time for my birthday this year. I got 2 in knit cotton with long/half sleeves, which will be good in cooler weather. I like wearing shift dresses more with my bloaty tummy. They were both longer than I wanted so I hemmed them and I'm very happy with them.

I finally got around to sewing one of my cockatoo fabrics into a shirt as planned since January. I wanted to wear it on holiday! Good motivation. It wasn't that hard a job and the fabric was great to sew up. It slips to the side a lot, maybe my shoulders are crooked. So just have to make sure bra straps are respectable.

I repotted my pilea to improve the soil with perlite for drainage and to extract a baby and grow it in its own pot. I can't get the leaves to stay flat though. The plants are growing well, but with curled leaves. Very annoying.

In the outside garden I dug up and divided my irises and shared them with friends. I now have 2 clumps from the original 4 irises and the clumps have been shared with several so that's not a bad result.

Denise sent me flowers a week before my birthday so I could enjoy them before my holiday!

I organised a family lunch and a friends dinner, both groups about 8 people, and I'm very thankful for feasting and family and friends, it especially felt like ages since I'd had a big group of friends out for dinner which I used to do often in Sydney for Eat Street. Greenhills was a very suitable place for eating out and then hanging out afterwards eating yoghurtland or tellaballs for dessert in the courtyard.

And then I worked on Monday and Tuesday, my colleagues got me a nice chocolate tart and sang happy birthday, and then I drove down to Sydney and had thai takeaway and slept over with Anna.

We flew to Melbourne (plus taxis), checked in and had a rest, then went out for a late lunch in a laneway cafe, I'm pretty sure I've gone to this one twice before, its not intimidating and it is nice.

I had a very short list of clothes I can justify buying if I found them in Melbourne. So no more shirts or dresses, but a cute raincoat would be allowed. Nothing tempted me anyway. We walked over to the art gallery because I wanted to see it, last time I only had time for the Van Gogh exhibition. There was actually a ladies evening dress exhibit set up amongst the regular paintings of the free entry parts of the gallery which we really enjoyed.

We had a well equipped kitchenette so we had dinner in the hotel and watched our free movie Jurassic World, which later Anna said was a highlight of the whole holiday. I continually pointed out the whole situation could have been avoided if they had good SWMS, risk assessments, and followed emergency protocols and chains of command. But no, instead of double checking the tracking devices first they opened gates willy nilly and it went downhill from there and lots of people died. Other than that is was really fun.

On Thursday I went to the International Flower Show. I discovered this was on only earlier in the week from an instagram post, I was superjoyed to find out it was on when I was in town, and all I had to do was catch the free tram across the CBD and I was there. I spent maybe 5 hours there until I got tired. I had a wonderful time. 

I planted a plant but I had to leave it in the hotel.

The exhibition hall was full of displays of art, dresses made of flowers, shops with cool plant related things.

I wanted to buy many things, obviously couldn't buy plants. But I bought some bulbs and corms (which I posted home to avoid confiscation in Tasmania).

I met Bei En! A lovely social media friend who lives in Melbourne and I never met before. I returned the books she sent me when I was sick, and we hung out and ate takeaway and maybe watched something forgettable on TV, but we were overall both relieved that we liked each other and were normal. It's wonderful to find another kindred spirit! I'm always slightly amazed whenever I connect with new friends, it's nice to think that we don't actually stop making friends as we get older. It gets a little rarer after school and uni and onwards, but its still happening.

On Friday Anna and I went to a sales pitch for the timeshare we were staying in, because they bribed us to attend with a $100 Coles Myer voucher each for our 2 hours. We both walked away without buying timeshare. It's like a gym membership, good value if its the solution to your needs, but I already enjoy my holidays adequately, and I don't need more resorts, I need more weeks of annual leave tbh.

Then we went out for brunch, then we checked out, then we went to Queen Victoria Markets, and there is a lot of junk, but the food is good, so note to self and others, next time go there FIRST and buy food you can eat in your hotel, we wasted opportunities to eat gourmet food and instead ate supermarket food.

There was also a houseplant shop and I bought a watering can for my indoor plants, which I have been wanting for a while because you really do need a long thin spout to in through the leaves.

We had an afternoon flight to Launceston and I had paid for a window seat because I decided i wanted to look out the window as we flew over Melbourne and Lon. I then wished I had picked the shady side of the plane, but the way the clouds were lit was amazing.

We had a short flight then a long wait on the plane for stairs then a long wait in the airport for bags. Country airports. The sniffer dog caught fruit in Anna's bag.

Rachel took us home and we had the most delicious meatballs and spaghetti I have ever had. It was wonderful to live with an amazing home cook.

On Saturday morning we all (with Bec) went to the markets for breakfast and browsing. They are really good markets.

Bec had to go to the theatre for the matinee and evening shows, so she left, and we went to a craft market.

Somebody needs to do houseplant embroidery like this, they are really cute.

I bought a few overpriced handmade things, a headband and a keyring and some chocolate. Then we looked at the Japanese monkeys. You cant really see but its swinging on the rope. They also walked around in water which was funny.

We went to the last night of Strictly Ballroom and Bec was amazing and professional as the grandma. I also thought the leads were perfect and the musical was overall a lot better than when I saw it in Sydney when it opened. Not the strongest musical out there but really fun.

I ran over a pademelon driving home.

We had some down time on Sunday. I went to church with Rachel while the others rested, and I did some reading, I read CS Lewis' The Weight of Glory and Learning in Wartime. And Alexander McCall Smith's Emma. Great holiday reading.

I did some walking around Grindelwald. It's quaint and odd.

On Monday, the 4 of us jaunted off in the car to a Hazlenut farm and we gathered hazlenuts and had morning tea!

And then we went to Woolmers, a colonial estate a bit like Tocal in that its a homestead and farm, but a different sort of farm, more gardens, and a lot of original decor from the 1800s and early 1900s. A time capsule. Tastes have really changed.

There was a fabulous fancy rooster which really amused us.

You can see the two halves of the house, the Georgian extension and the older colonial style.

On Tuesday we didn't do much, we went to Cateract Gorge and did some browsing of the shops in town and I finished my book and we had a last dinner together and watched Strictly Ballroom on DVD.

And then we flew home on Wednesday morning! After about an hour and 40min delay at the airport because of fog in Sydney and then a brief Jetstar system failure.

I had a cafe lunch with Anna in Botany and drove home and then it was back to reality and also April.