I can’t even remember when we actually planned it, but our holiday to Japan (yes, we’re going back) has been locked in for mid-May to mid-June for a good while now.

A few weeks ago I was suffering through a fairly ordinary half-day workshop and during a lull messaged Don with “I’m ready to go on holiday”, he responded with a “Me too!!!”. He sent another message a couple of hours later with a “How soon do you reckon you could go on holiday if we were to move it up?”. Me: “wut?”

Don’s work had just scored a huge project which he’s critical to. A huge project which was scheduled at the same time we were away (and immovable). Could we move our holiday? They’d pay any cancellation fees and and upgrade our flights to business class.

Oh okay – if you insist.

We now leave on the 27th – less than two weeks away!

Turns out it is now inconvenient for me work-wise, but hey, SML will definitely cope!

bushfire!

We’ve had a long stretch of unseasonably high temperatures (30oC in April – what?!), and over the weekend low humidity and incredibly high winds. There were hazard reduction burns on Friday which blanketed the city in smoke and then a (now under control) bushfire on Saturday – so we have a house full of smoke (smells like a campfire is next to my desk) and dust, and all manner of niggling little ailments – dry eyes, itchy skin, respiratory issues and such.

Thankfully there’s a 60% chance of rain tomorrow, which hopefully we will most of this settle, because what with the sleeplessness and the ankle thing, I’ve enough ailments already thank-you-very-much! And I’d really like to be in relatively good health for the unexpectedly early holiday we’re taking in two weeks – more on that in another post.

Urgh! What on earth are these sudden onset sleep issues?

Zero problems getting to sleep, but waking every couple of hours – and being exceedingly wakeful.

And what I assume are hot flushes – and the equivalent of whatever ravenous is for thirsty and consequently drinking about a litre of water over the course of the night.

Quite unpleasant.

I’ve been experiencing a bunch of ankle issues yet again which appear to be triggered by walking rather than running. I suspected this a while back, but this has been confirmed by process of elimination (ie. my running is virtually non-existent).

A couple of weeks ago I bought a pair of pretty slick nikes** with the intention of taking them on holiday for general walking about. I wore them for a day and my right leg was pretty well screwed afterward – requiring lots of cool packs and elevation.

Nothing for it but to head off to the podiatrist.

Diagnosis is that I have very wobbly and unstable ankles (and a touch of arthritis – what!?!?) and I’m under instruction to replace most of my footwear (including the sweet nikes) with more stable options. I never ever wear heels and always go for sensible sensible shoes, but obviously not quite sensible enough.

Fortunately no need for orthotics! I can buy at least 3 pairs of sensible shoes for the cost of those!

** if the link breaks, they’re duel racers.

After swearing off it entirely seven months ago, and after a quite heavy de-clutter of the accounts I was following, I’ve recently been occasionally glancing at instagram here and there using the web-browser.

One of the first things I did when going back was to buy a second print from the amazing kate mulheron, my first being of the wonderful Sirius – which had been sitting in a drawer for almost a year (oops).

We carted both prints off to the framer a couple of weeks ago and hung them this weekend. As is the way with these things, the framing cost as much as the prints, but the framer did a bang-up job and they look spectacular – much better than my poor photograph conveys.

And I succumbed to re-installing instagram on my phone to post the results.

So maybe I’m back?

But if I am back I’ll definitely keep the majority of my viewing through the browser only. This has the benefit of larger images (for my old lady eyes! I really need to start wearing glasses to look at my phone!) – and no adverts. And I’ll use the app only for posting.

We’ll see how long this lasts before I’m sucked back down into the abyss.

xxx

Buying that second print was one of the reasons I was avoiding instagram – because going there made me want to buy All The Things. But with the amount of stuff I’ve been acquiring lately, it seems like I’ll buy all the things irrespective of instagram.

And unfortunately I’m still very heavily influenced by stuff I see online. For example, a couple of months ago I had a desk chair shipped from Germany! I mean it is really very cool and I needed a chair and it’s entirely made from post consumer waste – but what?! Around the same time as the chair I bought a wonderful book of patterns, thinking I’d go all handmade wardrobe – this would change everything! When after some time I had done nothing with it, I had a good hard talk to myself and sold it, untouched, on ebay – at a loss, but the buyer seemed delighted. And just last week I really seriously considered buying an egg spoon. An egg spoon. I really can’t roll my eyes hard enough.

Honestly I don’t know what comes over me. Clearly I’m have some void I’m trying to fill.

I hit 500 days alcohol-free yesterday.

I’d like to say I planned something super-fabulous to mark the occasion, but I kind of forgot that I was anywhere near the milestone until I randomly opened my day counting app** on Wednesday and saw I was at 499.

While I didn’t plan anything fabulous, I did do something fabulous – which was day 1 of a 3 day easter yoga retreat (3x2hr sessions, spread over 3 days) at the studio around the corner. There are 9 of us attending and the majority would easily be over 40, most fairly experienced – half can easily do headstands (I am definitely not in that half and am definitely one of the less experienced). Today’s session involved lots of draping selves over upturned chairs. It was quite challenging and I adored every minute of it! And did not disgrace myself (yet) which was even better.

I think this is probably the first time I’ve done something like this for myself in ages. I must seek out more challenging get-out-of-the-palace(oflove) activities.

** for a very long time I was checking the count multiple times a day – strange how the relationship changes over time.

Clever Bessie was recently commissioned by a regional art gallery she volunteers at to produce wall graphics and other collateral for an exhibition of local primary and secondary kids artwork which was accompanying a touring exhibition of portraits.

We attended the opening on Saturday afternoon to check it out.

the space

Difficult to photograph, but Wow – Big impact!

masks of well-known artists

The kids had been mentored by one of the portraitists and artwork was really delightful! Though wow – some angsty kids out there.

the one on the bottom right is my absolute favourite

xxx

We’re hoping to grab some of Bessie’s Giant cut-outs after the exhibition closes to display somewhere in ThePalace(OfLove)

81 days into my year of no chocolate and this evening my father-in-law, Phil, hands me this …

I’m still resisting.

Barely.

trying to prove to don how much he takes over the bed in his sleep. pretty dismal as evidence, but i like the shadows.

In exciting news, I’ve lost 4.3kg in about 6 weeks after recommencing (heavily modified) 5:2. Well really 4:3 – 3 days of fasting during the day and eating a normal (not calorie reduced) dinner.

I feel so much less sluggish – and hopefully carrying a little less weight around will be somewhat kinder on the ankle and will allow me to get back to (gentle, so gentle) running.

I’m planning to keep at it until I get to my target (which is another 5.7kg), then probably stick to one day per week. Though the planned holiday in May|June might require pausing the program for a bit.

And I’ll continue to avoid buying loads of chocolate and biscuits for project teams – or at least stop participating in their consumption!

bug on the footpath – walking home from work 16.03.18 – the first photo i’ve taken for ages

It’s allegedly autumn, but temperatures reached 40^oC (104^oF) today – which is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds.

This morning Don and Phil (Don’s dad) strolled down to the local park to catch a grade cricket match and this evening trekked to the rugby because – father|son bonding through exotic sports in extreme temperatures.

xxx

This ongoing internet break has been interesting. Completely unintentionally I’m almost at the point where I’ve stripped away everything that I used to occupy myself with – I’m not sewing|knitting|crafting, there are very few experiments in cooking, very little running, no blogging, no taking of photographs, no cycling, no experiments in gardening and that 60s list has not been given a glance.

I had been reading quite a lot and was consumed by a few audiobooks – but recently even that as a distraction mechanism has begun to wane (horrors), for I just can’t find anything that grabs me.

So after there was pretty much nothing left to do except hauswork**, what I’ve mostly been doing is having some serious conversations with myself about how I want to be spending time. I’ve been slowly examining my former activities and deciding whether I want to add them back in to my life.

What I’m keeping:
+ meditation
+ pilates and|or yoga
+ morning journal

(very DFH^^)

I’m very much back and forth on whether to continue with blogging. I’ve been at it for 14 years next month (holy!goodness!) – which is like 28% of my life. I know I’m definitely not going back to daily blogging. It was an excellent experiment, but I found that in the rush to get a post in I was skipping over things that were interesting or that I’d want to refer to later, but which would have taken a bit of effort to write. So blogging stays in the keep pile for now, with possibly a further review!

And I was all for abandoning knitting, but then I happened upon my knitting bag while putting something else in a cupboard and was keen to pick up the needles again (though way too hot for such things right now). Must add KonMarie-joy-sparking questions to my assessments.

What I’m discarding:
+ the idea that the weekend must be used for complicated cookery.

There’s obviously still a fair bit to review!

xxx

I’ve also completed another round of decluttering which was (of course) very satisfying. Though it must be said that at this point there’s not an overwhelming amount of clutter, but I do enjoy the exercise of paring back – and it fits in with the overall theme of examining stuff.

xxx

^^ Dirty Hippy
** and way too much shopping – clearly I’m interested in filling some life-void with too many pretty things.