October mostly nothings.

I'm ahead of the month end this month! This weekend is quiet, next weekend is busy. 

I finished a small knitting project.

I watch less TV. I spend a lot of my rest time on the couch, listening to podcasts and looking at my garden and reading books and eating my meals and doing admin and pretty much everything happens here.

I did some big $$ shopping! Ziera went into administration so I bought a pair of boots for next year. They were a good discount so it was a good time to buy anyway but I would have delayed purchasing if not gripped by fear of having no orthotic shoes to buy in the future.

I also bought a raincoat, after 18 months of agonising.

The occasion was the Riverlights festival which was a bit rainy but still wonderful.

This is my name in Tamil.

Another special night out was seeing Much Ado About Nothing at Newcastle Civic Theatre. I've seen this play several times, I think I saw it last year by Upstage, it's one of my favourites. 

Now to important garden news! I picked a large bunch of paper daisies from my garden!

I've been fighting aphids on my roses!

I didn't expect to get any irises because I recently dug them up and separated them, but I got 2!

I've had poppies from June non stop! They are starting to thin out now as we get hot days but the last flush has been gorgeous.

I took a bunch of garden flowers down to Elsie when I saw her new place, and also cooked a huge batch of soup for G, and we had brunch in Lane Cover.

I found driving to Sydney and back in the one day extremely tiring, it was raining and holiday traffic. I've been realising that I now have to pay a recovery price for hard things. A hard driving day, then a couch day. The arthritis has been pretty good this month, although starting to heat up the last couple of days.

I've been looking out for a garden bench, and spotted some vintage chairs on Facebook and bought them last Saturday. It was a nice drive out to Seaham to get them as well. I love having such cute, cheap, reused chairs.

I've started doing another kids book at work.

I also got inside a tractor one day. And went to the dairy another day.

This is some family, on mums birthday, after she got out of hospital. I took a day off work and hung out at the hospital with her after her surgery.

I signed up for hello fresh, because I have been suddenly bored of my slow cooker food. Even the smallest box takes me ages to eat, and the cooking is time consuming, but it does taste good.

I've been to the nutritionist about arthritis and I'm goign to try and cut down on sugar for a month. So some changes to my shopping. Berries instead of bananas. Paleo bread instead of sourdough. It's doable in my home cooking and food prep, but hard when eating out.

Finally, yesterday it was really hot and windy, and whilst I mostly watched TV and did washing, I did go to the baths with JK and JM and had my first swim of the summer! It said it was 18, but it was nice, maybe the pool had warmed up in the sun. My joints are hot, I love to cool them down in water.

We had pizza and watched the tide come in.

And that's it! A pretty short post.

September things.

The shape of September has been finishing the ARTP book, which was my last big capacity stretching job for the season, then switching in to unwind mode for the rest of the year! If you want to see my book or learn about aboriginal training in agriculture, its a free download and we printed a few hundred hard copies.

So, I may not have shared photos of my first tulips yet! Enjoy.

I started summer flower seedlings and eggplants as well, but due to a lot of travel this month they all died except the eggplants, and the sweet peas which I had already planted outside.

I finally saw the rheumatoid arthritis specialist, in Newcastle. As it happens the 3 months I waited to see him everything got better, I reckon it had been 6 weeks since my last sore fevery spell, and there was sort of nothing to examine when he poked all my joints. But I read out my list of indicators I had recorded on my phone and also there was the blood test, so he has gone with early stage inflammatory arthritis, which will come and go, come and go, and when it comes and stays then he will treat it. But the great thing is that now I can see him any time. If I get a flare up next week, I can call up. Next check in is december. Then I popped to the string shop again and bought a dampening thing for the G string and talked about upgrading my cello one day.

My traditional reward for going to health things in newcastle is Heritage Gardens on the way home, I had lemon meringue pie for lunch and looked at blueberry plants, and magnolias, which are on my wish list at the moment.

A flowery native bush called my eye so I bought it and planted it next to my lavender. Starting a bee friendly patch.

I would like to finish this tapestry. I'm going to leave it on the table and not get netflix in the hope that I finish it in the next 12 months. So far, slow. I've sat down at it twice.

Coralie's hens night was held and was tasty and fun!

My annual Mudgee holiday was timed for after my book went to the printer. It was pretty rainy at first so I read a book and did some family stuff to help out. They had a sick sheep and a lot of things all on the one day so it was good to just read and help.

I'm pretty good friends with the kids now after maybe 5 visits, it's fun being around them.

I really enjoyed Big Little Lies, it is Australian and very satisfying. I'm pretty out of the loop on best selling books (I mostly listen to Her Royal Spyness mysteries on Audible) so everyone has already read it except me, but if you haven't, go read it, I would repurchase. I also read Where have all the boys gone, set in Scotland. And I had a free book on Audible, The Rosie Project, which I finished yesterday, and also recommend, it's a cross between the Curious incident of the dog in the night and a rom com, and also Australian. Dry yet sweet.

Just some heifers escaped from up the road.

I did also get out of the house! One day I had a relaxation massage and browsed the shops and my usual cafe, and the next day Helen and I went to lunch at a winery and more shopping.

I bought myself this beautiful clock which doesn't tick. My ticking clock from kmart has been getting on my nerves in my quiet house. I also bought a little bitty butter dish which I have always wanted a small one. I looked for ideas for baby presents as well.

As you can see, poppies are still going. I could plant them earlier I reckon. They have been flowering since June and still heaps of buds now its October.

So I decided to not buy a baby gift but paint a personal portrait of Sven for the Wilsons. It was hectic to get back from Mudgee and paint it before going to Spotlight, Olive Tree Markets and then the party on Saturday afternoon but it worked out well thankfully.

Here are some beautiful photos from the party taken by Bronte.

I got to the party and had to decide if I would hang out with old people, parents, or youths. I chose youths. We now have a tradition of taking "Sleepover club" photos whenever we are together. This is the first. But we later recruited a 5th member.

I've added another plant and beautiful pot to my house. The pot is from Henry and Tunks, and the plant is from Fancy Plants. It has been a long time since I bought a new plant. It's because I am obsessed with ceramics.

Then I had a couple of days at Tocal then I went down to Yanco again for the Aboriginal celebration which was special. On the way I bought myself a coffee, a mocha, I didn't like it and I didn't notice an improvement of my energy so I would not repurchase. Give me tea any day. That is my keep cup in a coffee machine as proof though.

The other thing I enjoyed about the trip was getting to know colleagues I was travelling with. It was much more fun than last month when I went on my own.

I got a coldsore. Not surprising with all this running around. Oh the other thing was my cycle went all out of whack, the progesterone pill was good for a few months but then suddenly went a bit bad like the Mirena, and by the end of September my stomach was super sore again from probably my weird uterus stuff and all the heavy food I ate travelling and the wedding, so I've just been given another type of progesterone to try. Anyway. I've been all a bit physically weary and gross and not surprising I had a coldsore.

Then it was back home again, and Saturday was Julia's baby shower, which was a happy morning tea of her friends and family, and I am thankful I didn't have to organise it. It would have been a lovely thing to do but it was beyond my capacity this month. Her friend from church did a wonderful job.

Then I had a quick turnaround and went to Coralie's wedding! It was a lovely wedding, C and her family did a wonderful job, it was all comfortable and relaxed and fun and pretty. Thankfully I fitted into my dress from 2 years ago.

The expanded Sleepover Club, second portrait.

Paterson School of Arts hall was a beautiful venue.

And everything was as it should be, cake cutting, sweet speeches, fun dancing, 10pm finish.

I'm ready to take life down a few gears until the end of the year. I'm ready for daylight savings and long lazy evenings. I'm ready to have routine around exercise and eating healthy. I'm ready to rearrange my furniture again.

My roses are now 1/4 of the way up the pergola.

August: spring relief.

It is very much spring in every way now. The days are getting longer, my garden is full of flowers! And it’s rainy and I have no plans so its the perfect day to blog. 

I picked my 7 lemons! And made Lemon Butter and a double batch of slice, which was pretty much a whole day of baking. But its my favourite thing to do with lemons, a lovely gift to share with people, so it’s worth it. Otherwise my lemons would sit in the fridge because what else is worthy of them? 

At the start of the month my roses had buds.

My first tulips bloomed, and poppies and the usual flowers are bringing me a lot of joy. I am also starting some seedlings for summer flowers and eggplant. I don’t usually do much in summer because of the heat but I will give it a shot this year.

The veggie garden is amazing right now. I’ve got beetroot to pick, kale, silverbeet, and a huge tomato bush flowering already.

One particularly nice Saturday I visited my brother (with Dad to fetch a car back) and then I went to the flower markets. I haven't been there in a very long time, after my original obsession wore off. They have expanded into a nearby warehouse and now have a greenhouse for plants, a cafe, a play room, and some small providors doing sour dough and cheese for sale. It was excellent. I bought a few things as well as a huge bunch of pink flowers I shared with mum.

A church girl had her 21st at Nelson Bay. It was really nice to be invited and hang out in the sun with them.

Another Saturday I went to the Aroma festival with church friends, it was super super windy, but that kept the numbers down. I bought heaps of bread and treats.

I've had a bare bulb on a lamp stand for a while since I finally demoted my ugly brown lamp shade to the garage. I haven't been able to find nice lamp shades anywhere. I finally discovered Early Settler has a small range, but not enough to my fancy compared to covering my own.

So I bit the bullet, bought a plain shade from bunnings and some spray glue from hot dollar, and did some craft.

It's all about careful cutting and gluing.

I'm really happy with the result!

It's fabric I bought from Nerida Hansen back in the boxing day sales. Linen. Brings me pride and joy now whenever I see it. 

It was a big month for work. I went to Sydney one Monday for a session on government advertising on social media. It was an experience. I met an interesting person who worked in births deaths and marriages.

The website was finished and I organised a photo cake to celebrate. 

Then I moved on to focus on the book I am writing and designing about the ARTP (Aboriginal Rural Training Program). This is a capacity building job for me, quite a learning curve, quite potentially stressful. 

I had to travel down to Leeton to gather material from the team there. I also had dinner with a cousin. This is the snow I flew over on the way down.

This is the little Rex plane I flew in.

This is the Roxy at Leeton.

This is my temp office.

This is the start of the long, tree-lined driveways to the Yanco Ag Institute. It has orange tree groves to the right as well.

I managed to eat a lot of food in my motel, but the morning I flew out I treated myself to a cafe breakfast, with orange juice farmed by the cafe owner. It was lovely and I took a bottle home to mum.

When I got back, my rose leaves had started to open!

And then I got a cold, so wasn’t able to push through on the book with all the material I had gathered until I was better.

The DND group I joined has started playing Werewolf Legacy, which is a form of Mafia that has a long story arc. We played that for the first time just before I got sick. I am looking forward to the next game next weekend!

At the end of the month, the roses are leafy little bushes! I am now wondering when they will start getting long climbing stems.

I had an intense week at work just trying really hard to bring the ARTP book into shape. I had a bit of a confidence crisis on Wednesday, maybe I was tired and sick of it. But got through that and it's almost finished I think. 

So on Thursday my manager suggested I do some short days, and I left mid afternoon and went to the art gallery. There was a Kathryn Del Martin exhibition (beautiful, but as my manager says, SCARY) and some Aboriginal art by local school children. The ARTP book has helped me learn more about Aboriginal cultures so I enjoyed that too.

I had afternoon tea at the gallery too. I unfortunately didn't bring a book! Maybe I should start "reading in cafes" again, because I have quite a few library books I still haven't read.

When I came out, there were police cars everywhere and a huge police response shutting down the main street in front of the gallery and town hall. Bizarre.

I've had a couple of floor scrubbing sessions this month. I figure if I scrub small sections each time I mop I will eventually do the whole floor. It is fiddly even with a long handled scrubber, but I love the result. Compare the left line with the right line. 

I have also had a plumber come and replace my flexi hoses and fix a leak in my ensuite sink. He came on one of my sick days so I got to see him work, I was impressed with him and glad that job is done now. I'm really tired of organising all these house things. I just had leaf free gutter guard put on yesterday, so that's another house job done. Before the end of the year I need to sort out the change of strata manager, and I would also like to steam clean my carpets. And then after that, I am done. I vow to do no more projects or maintenance next year. No painting walls or anything. This year has been huge, I've done the pergola and all the washers and the strata research and the gutter guard research and added shelves to my tea cupboard and scrubbed grout and I forget what else. Next year, I will sit back and just LIVE here. Take a 12 month break from the To Do list. I am happy with all my improvements, but I think I need to draw a line under it and take a break.

I've not done much exercise this month, with the travel and being sick. I did however have a pinched nerve thing in my right hip, tingly legs and tight numbing pain etc, maybe brought on by sitting around when I had a cold. Stretching to relieve it made me realise how tight I am! So I have started doing Down Dog app yoga a bit more regularly, and it has been good. After a week I felt less tight, and nerves much better. I'm working on my motivation to get back into Jillian, but at the moment I am bored with it. I might look into gyms and classes. Also I have my rheumatologist appointment next week, so hopefully I'll find out what is good to do for that. The first 6 months this year weren't great, and I think mild aches and so on make it a bit harder to want to exercise. Like maybe I should be swimming instead of Jillian. 

I really feel like I'm coming to the end of the stressful and busy season that started in April or maybe March. I'm planning to hopefully go to Mudgee in 3 weeks, after the book is finished, and then the rest of the year will be much more regular. I'll do another kids book, manage content and promotion, and see how they renovate my office and who comes in to work there. That will be interesting.

I'll finish with my view from the couch. Poppies, seedlings growing, flower pots being watered by rain. Good things.