March, in which life got hectic then quiet.

I skimmed through my February post to see if pandemics were on the horizon, and yes, I was enjoying podcasts about coronavirus. And yet my outlook was still looking ahead at a busy few months of a birthday in Melbourne at the flower show, rehearsals for Women of Truth, and organising the Tocal Field Days. My mental state was bored.

I don't need to explain anything to anyone, because having the foundations and routines and plans of our lives dismantled one by one is a shared experience! I was at first pretty excited, because how can you be bored with life when EVERYTHING is changing so fast and we are living in history! Plus I would have so many free weekends because of the mass gathering cancellations! Then, the cancellations went too far and I lost my birthday trip to the Melbourne Flower Show, JKs wedding at which I was to be a bridesmaid, church, dinners with friends. At some point 2/3 through March I got especially anxious. I woke up very early in the mornings worrying about things, like was it too reckless to have lunch in a restaurant for my birthday. And a couple of times I had really physical symptoms of anxiety, a heavy dread on my chest. I also noticed I was addicted to the news. Now I've gone back to normal. Overall not suffering anything particularly bad. I would also say that things really got busy for a couple of weeks when they changes were happening, things were pushed forward or plans changed and then changed again re church and stuff, but now everything has calmed down.

In the first week of March the toilet paper shortage began. I went to Singleton and spent most of a Saturday with Lucy and her fam. Learnt a new board game that is a bit like monopoly or ticket to ride but faster. I can't remember the name but it has a wild west theme and you try and grab land asap. I may continue to do a monthly visit to see Lucy, depends on the rules that follow.

I was asked to play the cello at our church womens weekend away and it was my first time playing cello for church singing so I was very excited! There were 2 practices. Thrive was held on the 13-15 March, just on the edge of the start of the cancellations. Mass gatherings were cancelled on the 13th. So we scraped through and were as safe as we could be. 

I spent saturday afternoon in bed. It was rainy, bed was cosy, and I was preserving energy to share my story in the night session. When I got up I had such bad hayfever I thought I was getting a cold which added to my anxiety. I realised it was hayfever a few days later. Anyway, Thrive was great, even the parts I slept through.

The 15th was our last Sunday of church in the hall, unexpectedly.

17th of March is of course Sweet Pea Day, which was my trigger to go to Bunnings and buy fresh seeds because my stock was expired. Thankfully I beat the rush on seeds which people hadn't yet stockpiled. I decided to try properly at growing poppies from seeds, because how could I resist these peonie poppies!!! The trick is, do not bury the seed. Put them on top, they need light. And keep them damp. I am also growing perpetual spinach, Kale, cornflowers and sweet peas from seed in a little nursery of punnets.

Not a very fun birthday, just got older and didn't go to Melbourne, no cake with friends or colleagues because of social distancing. The Saturday before I organised an early lunch with immediate family. This was when they had just brought in the 4 square metre pp rule, so the restaurant was very empty and spaced out. It was good to do something normal and birthday-ish. That week home group went to Zoom so I missed out on a chocolate cake with them. Work was equally bereft of cake and fun. On Thursday I was given flowers from a colleague, a gift hamper of treats from G, and a card from E. I went to mum and dad's for dinner and dessert which was also lovely. And a dress came in the mail that I had ordered a week earlier so that was like a present too!

I played keyboard and cello on our first recording of "home church" which is how we are doing church online. We don't have a church building to set up in and there isn't much reason to do it live, so it is pre-recorded and then shared on youtube on Sunday morning. I am looking forward to Sunday mornings and watching my church TV. I try and avoid checking the news or listening to podcasts, I just eat breakfast, put washing on, make tea, and then watch church. Here is a screenshot of our first service with me on cello! I probably wont do music again for a while because the current restrictions mean basically only families can be music teams and 4 people together this close is forboden.

Speaking of music, I did a duet with Bec in Tassie via the app Acapella. This was a rough unrehearsed first attempt. Have a listen here. Bec went on and added a 4th part. She is very good at the app and uses it a lot.

I have LOVED that my favourite musicians and even people I didn't know were musicians have been doing live music on instagram. Even if people are on the other side of the world, like a saturday night, I can watch it live on a Sunday morning. AMAZING MAGIC. Sara Groves and her family sing from her living room once or twice a week.

This one was a total surprise, the Sydney comedian Hi Josh on instagram is married to a very talented singer and her sister also sings and plays violin and I have loved their live music. Like Eva Cassidy.

Thursday morning this week I watched Jess Ray and her husband sing while I worked. 

This music has been a huge joy this month. As well as my garden.

This is me all dressed up to do a prayer at JKs wedding on zoom. Only a few weeks before the planned wedding the 5 person limit came in and the choice was to get married with 5 people or wait for who knows how long, so they jumped into action, put all their lovely plans aside, and married on the Saturday.

This is the wedding. They were very happy. I went to their house for the afternoon for luncheon and cake, sitting apart from the others of course.

I've started posting a bible verse every day on my instagram stories. It's a little creative/reflective routine. I have to take photos using the tilt shift blur on instagram and I have to keep an eye out for things to capture.

 Last week I worked from home 2 days while the office was recarpeted. I did not enjoy it. When I start WFH properly I will bring my proper big screen home and my desk chair. My laptop on the kitchen table is not productive and the wooden chair was hard to sit on. I also had a rhematoid flare up, my temperature rose by 0.4 degree during the week, and I just wanted to lie down, and I had to take neurofen. I believe walking is good for it so I did evening walks which were lovely and I saw some church people on my street a few blocks up.

Here is a page from the kids book I just finished.

I treated myself and the economy to a takeaway burger, and bumped distantly into K, another social treat! K and I have been watching the Lord of the Rings over the last few months, and we have one part to go.

Here is the office pre carpet, with the old carpet and all our drawers marshalled together. I sadly broke 2 jars of lovely loose leaf tea in the move.

And here is the new carpet!

This weekend, 4-5 April, is my first true isolation weekend. I haven't been to the shops (even though I have NO EGGS!!!!). I went for a walk on Saturday morning with Fi, she on the path and me on the road, and I think walking with a friend will be my main contact with people. Ros and I are thinking of doing Jillian in our own homes with Zoom on. Anyway, isolation isn't the worst. The weather is amazing, my garden is pretty and alive, I'm going to catch up on some jobs like washing windows, this blog, today I baked a (egg free low sugar) slice to use up pantry ingredients and purged a huge moth infestation from a jar of nuts. It's a season I can enjoy, I'm not a big fan of always being busy and organising things, I'm born for going for a walk with one friend and then pottering in the garden and house all weekend. The challenges are though, don't eat a lot of junk food, and don't consume a lot of media and entertainment. This is an opportunity to be creative, rather than distracted.

February rains.

There was one last stinking hot weekend. Mum and I joined the night kayak group from church and kayaked from Maitland to Morpeth on Saturday night in an inflatable double kayak, which was so much easier than solo in my heavy fat one. The whole exercise was a lot more pleasant than I expected. I think I saw microbats.

I visited Lucy and Julia gave me the experience of waking her up. She wakes up very cute. Until she opened her eyes and realised I wasn't her mum and then cried! But that was the only cry I heard that day, she is quite placid. Made french toast for breakfast before we went to Singleton church which was really good, and they also have air con which is amazing. I had a rest in the arvo and then went to night church, but thankfully a cool change came and Lucy also came which was a lovely double bonus as I got more cuddles.

Other good news, I've been picking and eating eggplants! Such beautiful vegetables and no pest problems. Would replant.

The regular rain has repaired my dead lawn a bit and given all the plants that didn't die a huge burst of growth. I am training my jasmine further along the fences and I think they are close to joining, hopefully this year.

And my climbing roses have reached the height of the pergola! Soon I can start training them across the top! This was my life goal this summer, have roses up the top.

I also installed hooks in the bathroom and moved some plants in there from office etc. It is quite glamorous (this is on a cloudy day, normally its brightly lit). Going for a jungle bath.

On to social activities! I have been watching the extended Lord of the Rings with Kristy, one disc a night some Fridays. This is some Aldi pizza and garlic bread displayed like a pizza grazing table. So fancyyy.

A birthday event at Telarah RSL for 80s to the Max. Would repurchase, good dancing music, need myself a ruffle skirt.

I left early though, because that is my rule now, leave everything at 9pm, but also to see the Maitland Show fireworks from the car on the drive home. Classic FM and fireworks on a quiet street near the park. Fireworks are one of my joys.

Finally, I ended the month with a dinner with a new and old church friend, and a Classical concert in Maitland, and another birthday high tea at Heritage Gardens.


On to work shenanigans. We set up a cosy breakout spot on the construction site. And the next day we had a big chuck out of the junk mountain.

Then we had the diverting fun of choosing between grey grey grey and grey carpet tiles. We chose the darkest grey.

This has been the coolest (although humid) Feb in years! So I have been getting back into lunchtime walks, even once in the rain, which was joyful. My Jillian workouts are not quite as frequent and I'm often tired so its good to be able to walk outside with the nice weather, for health and energy. Everything is green and the lagoons are full, quite lovely.

A bridesmaid dress has been chosen for JK wedding. I also designed the invite.

Had myself a day off this Wednesday! Just because I've been working all month heh. And work is a bit quiet so good to use the flex time. I did some reading and writing at home, and because I did have to leave the house to get my veggie box in Maitland I went to the art gallery.

There was a nice brief rain shower and I sheltered under a tree at the levee.

And had dinner with a couple of gal pals from church.

On Friday I had an excursion in the afternoon to just take some photos and stuff of a crop of corn get harvested at the dairy, and some students learning things.

Had a fancy italian dinner with other pals, and saw a string ensemble perform the 4 seasons and some other music.

Saturday morning saw another high tea at heritage gardens and lovely conversations, I bought a couple of punnets of cheap seedlings for my garden - more and more geraniums going in to my wall garden. Trying some IVY geraniums, they trail down, will see how they go. I also did my 3rd Centr workout for the week! They are under 20 minutes, this one was quite hard so I am very tired today.

Have still been more tired lately, but have also not been super disciplined with the sugar free diet, but am now more strict again, no birthday cake or wine or morning teas allowed. Try and get good results again. Unless its just the fluctuations of RA and hence just have to live with it. I took quite a few ibuprofen last week, but feeling a lot better this week. I also need to get my iron checked again because that's always a thing, but I am taking iron tablets.

I continue to feel bored with my life as well. Everything is in maintenance mode. Plodding my way through the big jobs that load me up in the first half of the year. I've pretty much sorted the core band members for Women of Truth in May, and also kept the organisation rolling for my part of the Tocal Field Days also in May. I've just decided to drop the Field Days role for next year . Me and S hoped that this year would be easier than last year but no. Maybe I don't work well in teams. So I think realising that is a good thing, I had felt that I should keep doing the job as part of my communications role, and make it a smooth running efficient event, but now that I've realised that it's still stuck in it's current stressful unmanageable form and nobody else wants that to change, I'm going to pass it on, and someone else can start from scratch and deal with it. And that will free up my energy in years to come, so I'll keep doing the band, and that's one of my dilemmas solved!

Still no Netflix. I have enjoyed podcasts about cults, internet security and culture, and investment scams, and also the corona virus. For example, Reply All, The Dropout, WeCrashed, The Dream S2, and the Missing Crypto Queen.

January again.

Hello! Welcome, readers, to another year in my life. January is such a routine you could probably copy and paste from last year! 

New year was friends, swimming, and really hot weather. 

Last year the fireworks were cancelled because of storms, this year they were cancelled because of the fire ban and all that terrible terrible stuff.

So we went to the movies and saw Knives Out in the evening, and then went to friends place with a pool, and then watched Sydney fireworks on TV. And then Elsie and I stayed awake until 2am because we decided to go through our instagram story archives and organise our highlights. As you do.

We did some shopping and I now have a big set of matching plates from Elsie and G bought me some wine glasses which are put away for my birthday. I'm not one to go out and buy new things and I love that I now have useful things that I like from my friends. G once bought me a bin and it is one of the best gifts ever. I had a broken pedal bin that annoyed me, but you know, still worked. She replaced it with the most amazing new bin that I love and it was also on sale. I hope it warms your heart as you read this G!

When G and K left, E stayed for the rest of the week. We did a couple of outings. One was, we went to the furniture shops. They are air conditioned. I physically can't fit giant couches in my small rooms so I'm well buffered from the temptation to buy things. I bought a cushion for $10 though. 

We bought jocelyn proust fabric at spotlight and a lamp at bunnings and I taught E how to cover a lamp shade. It turned out really well. Happy to show anyone how to do this when you visit.

To do something actually holiday-related, us and my parents went to Shoal Bay. We left early, did the Mt Tomaree walk before it was hot, sweated a lot because it was so humid (and foggy), had an iced chocolate, and left just as it started to get busy.

I had another 1 year old birthday party, and I bought a book for them, and then to get free shipping I bought some devotionals. I'm currently using this one. I like to read it each day. 

This the party. I go because I appreciate being asked. Feeling quite sad at never having children though.

BACK TO WORK! And gosh it got so brown and dead. I organised someone to take photos with a drone of the irrigation circles, actually it had just rained but hadn't gone green at all yet. But 2 weeks later, its fully green. The weather system broke and the coastal rains are back.

This is my back lawn. Although the section under the pergola didn't die. It has now been mown twice as it grows 10 cm a week.

So far, my plan for regular visits to Lucy has been going well. She is just about to hit 3 months and can now look around and smile at people. She is very easy going. She doesn't cry much.

I put wheels on the bottom of percy's cage table. It is amazing. It was cheap and easy and has changed my life for the better.

I also sewed 2 shirt from black cockatoo fabric. They match my lamp. It was good to tick off a sewing project off my list. I had a few goes at the tapestry but its still intimidating me.

If you look carefully in this photo there is a blue banded bee. There are a couple that love to pollinate my eggplants. They are my favourite garden visitors, along with wrens. I don't get a lot of wildlife in my garden yet, sometimes a blue tongue lizard though. Probably feasts on all the cockroaches.

We had a hot pot night for a home group girls social.

Workwise, I started the work year by cleaning my office. There was a little more construction and then I had to clean it again for more dust. But I did a big declutter and it still feels fresh and tidy. Then I went on and purged my computer, backing up and deleting old work. Then I hit my ebook updates that piled up last year and did them. I was back at work before a lot of other people so email was quiet and I was really productive. Right now I'm doing a lot of illustration and making progress on the next kids book, Freda (dairy cow).

Other mundanity of life: taking buckets of water from the shower to the garden. Going to pilates at the physio. Watching retro TV shows on free to air catchup - the 90s and 2000s are now retro... I've been reliving Pie in the Sky, Jonathan Creek, and Inspector Lynley. Some lunches with parents and friends: Jess and Dan, the Peggs from Mudgee. Trying not to eat sugar. Taking lots of vitamins. Processing conflict. Taking a week off WhatsApp. Being tired. Being thankful for rain. Listening obsessively to Reply All podcast. And then getting obsessed with internet security. Thinking about doing some more sewing, maybe with some Liberty of London on sale. But I have a lot of shirts. But when is a shirt too old to wear? Hanging plants off my bathroom ceiling. Decluttering by inches - the postcards on the fridge are my next target.

If I have one aim this year, it is to not get stressed.