Don and I had a morning coffee-tea-cake date at the AGNSW today – to hang out with some excellent art and to nourish our souls. I aspire to be the sort of person who does this!

While we were there we participated in Kimsooja: Archive of Mind. Kimsooja invites visitors to collect a handful of clay, sit at the large work surface, and empty their minds of distraction; to sink into the experience of forming a ball of clay between the hands, rolling and wrapping it into itself.

Your ball then becomes part of the artwork – which is displayed on an absolutely enormous table in a very spectacular room. The new Sydney Modern building is utterly wonderful – an amazing space for this!

To me (though I don’t think this is the intent) the clay colours bring to mind skin and the many different people who have contributed to the work – I find it quite uplifting and emotional.

My handful of clay:

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Don’s very excellent ball. He was really quite good at it. I may have persuaded him to take a pottery class with me.

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Our balls together waiting to join the group:

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My many-lined palm. I’m sure those lines mean good fortune and fabulous things in my future.

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Rather than exercise, this afternoon I lay about reading Ann Patchett: These Precious Days – which was definitely an excellent use of my time.

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Switch to Speakerphone
Hear your call through the speakerphone instead of holding iPhone to your ear.

Please. No.

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I’m absolutely not putting any pressure on myself at all, but I really want to do two things this weekend:

+ get some exercise
+ do something creative

Realistically this should be totally achievable, but there is a high probability that I’ll be reporting back on Sunday evening about how I got in my own way and found reasons not to do either.

The place where I sit to do most of my stitching and other similar genteel activities.

The plants are getting just a little out of control.

I really would benefit from setting myself up for success for the days I’m in the office. I’m at the point the novelty is slightly wearing off. For example:

+ I’m completely bored by the few work garments that fit me comfortably – and wearing them over and over (and over)

+ I’m completely bored by wandering the same shops at lunchtime – just to ensure I get out of the office

+ I’m completely bored by eating the same (delicious) supermarket chicken wrap every day for lunch

I’m also completely bored by being completely bored. I think I’ll spend the next few weeks trying a series of small shake ups.

Don and I are in the process of changing banks. This is very exciting, but also requires a little admin.

At the New Bank I have a transaction account and a “high interest” savings account.

On Saturday I transferred a sizeable chunk of money over from Old Bank and had to verify the transaction via 2FA. I then received a secondary lengthy text listing different scenarios and checking that I had not been scammed into transferring money. Very thorough.

I happened to check my email a little later and had received a “we could not transfer the money and it has been returned to your account” from Old Bank.

Hmmm, I thought. Maybe I can’t transfer straight to savings? And thought nothing of it for a bit.

And a little later still went back and checked the transaction and eventually realised that I was one digit out on the account number. Even though I was certain I’d double checked when setting up the payee^^. *facepalm emoji*

And I am supremely fortunate and eternally thankful that that misplaced digit did not belong to a real account number!

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^^ normally I’d copy/paste, but this was across devices and I taking shortcuts.

These have been the tabs on my phone for more than a year (maybe more than two years). All were opened from various editions of the art money newsletter and unintentionally kept there. At least originally it was unintentional, now I resist closing because I find them so soothing and lovely.

The best kind of browser tabs.

I also permantly have another artwork of a glorious pony, this poem and my blog editor – and that’s pretty much it.

No news (since last year – maybe early December?), no socials.

Astonishingly good for the mental health.

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My magical hard drive docking station arrived mid-week and I had a fun afternoon erasing most of the ancient hard drives ahead of sending them to the e-waste.

There was little of use on most of them, though there are two full of music and movies/tv that aren’t going anywhere.

There was an exciting moment when one drive became really very hot and started emitting an ozone smell – but all was well. Though not all well for the disc which was definitely very fried.

This does reinforce the need for multiple back-ups of important data – and may have finally pushed me in the direction of cloud storage for a secondary back-up. Not infallible of course, but can’t hurt!

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Of course I could not resist this magnificent flowering cactus^^ at ikea for $12 when I visited yesterday.

I have not had any success at all with cactus(es?) to this point – but I’m hopeful I’m a slightly better plant caretaker now that I am not consistently drowning everything.

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^^ no idea what type it is – perhaps a mammillaria?

I now have an excellent large(ish) work table in the garage!

It was formerly Don’s desk, but after regularly squeezing past it for 2+ years we finally replaced it with something that fit the awkward space better over the Xmas break.

I’ve been sitting on the garage floor to do most of my messy garage-type projects up to this point. I don’t mind sitting on the floor at all – but it is wonderful to have this space and large flat surface!

It has been excellent so far as a potting table and to clean-up my last concreting efforts.

I now need to plan more messy projects!