April, kept calm and had lots of fun.

Hello hello hello! April was a very large month! Many wonderful things happened and I stayed calm through the usual hectic season.

I am rather pleased to see this photo. I do so many little things that I forget about. This reminds me that I propagated several plants and gave them to friends and colleagues. It was good to get on top of the side sprouts and good to share plants.
Evening church band did music on Good Friday and I heard it "sounded lovely". The water in my street was turned off. And then I packed and took Percy down to Toukley for an easter holiday!

We packed a lot in. A Friday swim at the little Bay at Norah.

The next day we did a bush walk down to a beach and then around the rocks to see some caves with pink stuff.

We had milkshakes and burgers from a vintage style American diner and ate it at a lookout in the national park. Some of us had another little swim after lunch.

Then we went to a fancy place at Gosford and had a nice dinner "for my birthday", wearing lovely dresses and everything.

On Sunday morning 3 of us went to Lighthouse church and enjoyed it, would go back again. Probably had another quick swim but it was overcast and choppy, but you never regret any swim.

The house at Toukley was pretty good, it had amazing sunset views. We also did little walks along the edge.

So that was wonderful. I took a jigsaw puzzle but did hardly any of it. Finished it at home on my dining table over the rest of April.

At some point JK and DD had me over for dinner and a bonfire of garden waste. One of my favourite free activities.

Next main item on the agenda was the Anzac Day weekend (not long) which I had booked to see a play in Sydney so I stayed in teh CBD and fit a lot of things in! I dropped on Elsie and Rachel in Lane Cove. I paid for parking at a Wilson over the road from the hotel. A Matthias Media girls reunion dinner in Newtown, at a Kingsford style chinese restaurant to eat Shan Dong chicken. And then we had croffles and cronuts and gelato up the street. Very fun time.

This is my saturday plan. 

I went to the Fabric store when it opened. I got some linen on sale to make a dress. Not colourful, just 2 shades of grey really. But a cheap linen dress to test a pattern!

THen headed to the nearby Chinese Friendship Garden, which I explored with Caroline and her daughter who was super smart and nice.

They are really beautiful gardens. So many views.

We had CHinese food, dumplings and Shandong chicken again, at nearby new restaurants which are built where the entertainment centre was. Elsie joined us.

And then we walked up to Pitt St mall. I forgot that Myer has mostly so many ugly clothes. But we found some cool raincoats! And bought them.

Went back to my hotel to rest and change, and then went down to Barangaroo for Chinese food dinner (again but the fanciest one) before the play.

We only just made it in time for the start of the play. It was creepy, had lots of singing, probably too long or a bit too many ghosts. Really clever theatre tricks and amazing wig transformations and good accents I thought. Karen dropped me back at my hotel.

In more normal life, I took a jigsaw puzzle to work. We've had some people move into our office recently, so to create harmony and build relationships I thought the puzzle would be nice. And also, with it being an extra busy month, to keep the stress levels down a bit. This one was done in a week, then someone else brought in a really hard one which is going to take at least a month and probably has missing pieces.

I spend April really working towards the Tocal Field Days. The planning is already done, but doing the printing online shopping and so on. For example with this set up, I ordered the gazebo, the PVC to cover the table, and 1 of the 3 pull up banners was new. It all came in through April, some of it literally on the last possible day. 

This is the other thing I set up, a 10x21m tent. Dramas with that big banner going missing so I got it reprinted in 2 days to get it in time to put it up. Other dramas with someone getting sick so we couldn't do the quad bike display we planned but instead parked them out the front and that worked really well actually.

We ran talks in the tent and they worked mostly very well. That was my main focus over the weekend, as well as giving the book shop team lunch breaks and doing social media and stuff.

Spot the premier! This was while I got lunch. She visited the tent and got some selfies while I ate my lunch.

Here is a new skort I bought online from Gorman because of a Shopback sale, it was marked down also, so was about $60 in the end with shipping. Very fun.

Also bought this cool jumper, FULL PRICE!

 

March, still nice.

Not much happened in March and life is quite good. Mood and health good. I bought these beautiful big statement earrings from a maker on instagram. 

Garden is looking phenomenal! Everything is lush and flowery, the possum hasn't been back to the roses, the jasmine is spreading over the fence. I have planted some seeds for Autumn but waiting for the current garden to finish to pull things out.

I've found you can buy pheromone traps for citrus leaf minors which are a pestilence on my lemon tree. I had only seen the worms and I had no idea the tiny moths would be in their hundreds. I had no chance of controlling the pest by trying to squash them.

Went to rheumatologist and decided to start methatrexate. It makes me a bit sleepy sometimes and some short moments of nausea sometimes. Not improvement yet in stiffness.

I moved furniture around for that New House feeling. I've moved most of my green chairs into bedrooms and brought my musical instruments into the front living room which I don't use. Might as well use it for music practice. I have enjoyed doing music with Ros every 3 weeks. Especially this month as singing came back. My cello teacher has gone caravanning so there is a little break from cello.

Also moved some plants into my bedroom.

Some social highlights. My parents were married for 40 years and my sister was down from Brisbane so we had a family dinner at the golf course. 

We bought a 2 person kayak from a friend and H and me went out on a Tuesday night and paddled from Morpeth to Hinton and back. The water was a little strong after the rain but this was before the flooding so still safe.

And we also went to the Civic theatre and saw Newcastle Grammer Schools production of Wicked which was AMAZING. The leads were professional. The music gave me goosebumps.

This was dinner with some new friends after church and my guest from Moore College mission. It's great to have new people to meet at church.

And better late than never, J birthed my second niece!

I went to a meeting at my pastor's house. We talked about spiritual growth. 

Women at church put on an evening called Holy Guacamole and 2 friends from work came along, it went pretty well.

Birthday 37 was on a Friday, and I decided to take the day off and see Danielle, and also it was a busy week so felt like I needed a break. Usual park walk with flowers from Cass and William.

Lunch at Heritage Gardens with parents and JK.

Jess my billet packed a picnic for my birthday which I took up to Singleton. Got a little cuddle with the baby and had good chats with the parents.

And that was it! Pretty nice month. Not much to say about it.

 

February and going strong!

Hello.

I hope this blog post finds you well as the year settles in to what it looks like being. Things are certainly happening. Here are my obsessions.

I had to return my cast iron pot with a non-fitting lid, but I got a refund and spent half of it on new kitchen scales, which are actually very useful. A lot of recipes have weighing options which are more accurate than volumes.

I found a similar pot for $30 I think it was, on facebook from a bloke who has a warehouse full of stuff in Telarah. 

I have cooked 3 loaves now, and still working out my own process. It's getting easier but the results haven't improved. My first loaf, very messy and difficult, was probably the best, the 3rd which was easier by far, was still good but not as high and springy, I think it was too warm and activated too early. So over time I'm getting a feel for how to balance all the variables and getting a better skill for dough handling.

Cooking has been a development area this month. I had ordered Six Seasons from the internet and it took weeks to come. Very satisfied with it. It's been weird doing different things like soaking things in vinegar or iced water. But so convenient to cook with what is in season. I've made 3 recipes so far, 2 salads one pasta.

I have also been enjoying "friend dates". Branching out of my routine and usual people. 

I am especially aiming to get to know younger women at church this year. 

Have had a month in my new home group, and it is very nice and still feeling new and polite. 

Some cultural highlights! The local rep did The Mousetrap and I had JK and Dan over for a fancy dinner of leftovers in wraps before the play. 

I really enjoyed the landscapes exhibition at MRAG, seeing some beautiful nature captured especially places that have changed unrecognisably since they were painted.

I broke a cello string the week before my first lesson, so I went in to newcastle on a saturday to buy a replacement and if you are going all the way in for a 5 min job, why not go for a swim. The water was cold, the sky grey, but so refreshing.

Borrowing a tapestry stand from Ruth is my latest attempt to finish the tapestry. I have actually sat down a few times and made bit of progress. It is definitely easier.

At work, the most remarkable thing was I spent a few hours each day for a week learning about leadership. It was full-on, intense, but packed full of valuable things. I am trying to be more self-aware at work. And God-aware.

I've had a really strong start to the year with my health! I did heaps of 7 min workouts which really gave me a boost. My tummy is better and I've lost a little fat off it I think so I can wear some of my old pants again. And my energy was GREAT. I was feeling 100% for the first time. Taking vitamins and going for walks and everything. Last weekend I noticed feeling tired, and that has continued this week at work, so I think all my salads and fun cooking has meant not enough red meat. So I'm going back to boring but useful slow cooked beef curry. I had a one-off awful day yesterday, when I couldn't sleep on thursday night until 2am, so lack of sleep combined with building inflammation and lower iron. Struggled to get going, had 4 good hours of work, at 6 hours I could not make it any further my body was hurting. So it's a shame, for some reason fatigue has built up again and I'm back to <70% energy. Hopefully beef will help. And no more sugary food like tomato. Plain plain plain.

Another thing is, I found a house I like and went to the open house. I really like it, it ticks a lot of boxes, but I think I want to stay here a bit longer, see my roses flower. The other house didn't have an ensuite, one bathroom far away, which is the main drawback for me. I love my ensuite. But it did have a great yard, established trees, and is very cute. The famously crazy property market is too overwhelming to consider. Easier to stay here.

I've started my annual organising of things, the women conf band and the field days DPI tent, and either I'm succeeding in not being stressed, or it's just a lot easier this year because of recycling work from last year. I think both. I don't care as much, and things are easier. I've made the call out outsource some of the music to younger women so we have 2 small groups instead of 1 big band, and not organising a band is a huge burden lifted. There was too much pressure on me to find female drummers and guitarists out of thin air in previous years. Now I'm not bothering. And with the work stuff, I've negotiated some frustrating situations like team meetings with pretty good patience and diplomacy. 

Here is my bible verse for the year, for trying to be God-aware at work and all day.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.

Think about him in all your ways, and he will guide you in right paths.