/karen/

Stamina rose

Tuesday, 12 August, 2008

Monday 21/7/08

I was up at 6:45, I jumped in the car and went straight to work. I felt tired. I did breakfast/Bible/pray at work; thanks to Dave (at least my memory tells me it was Dave; I can't actually find the post), I've discovered For the Love of God by D.A. Carson online. I don't think God cares whether I read my Bible at work or at home.

I spent the morning doing Briefing #360 things: printing reports, doing article assessment, updating our database, and so on. I went to see the doctor at 8:45 (but I was kept waiting 'til 9:15) who confirmed from my blood test that the medication is helping my cholesterol. Their EFTPOS machine was down so I had to make a trip to the bank in order to pay them.

When I got back to the office, I dealt with Sola Panel, email and Faithful Writer logistics. I started getting panicky about all the things not under my control. I burned a CD of materials—text, pictures, etc.—to give to Bec who was doing the booklet for us. We had lunch together and talked children of divorce stuff which made us both sad.

In the afternoon, I kept going with a million fooey things, then left around 4 pm to go home. I picked up Ben and we descended upon Marrickville Metro to do the fruit and veg, meat and supermarket shopping. For some reason, everyone's EFTPOS machines were down, so in order to pay for the meat (because I didn't withdraw enough that morning), I had to scab off Ben. (I don't think banks should penalize you for so many withdrawal transactions when it's their equipment that isn't working.) The grocery shopping was a relative painless affair (always helps when it's two of us!) and we carried it upstairs in one trip, and put it all away.

I then spent the next two hours chopping chicken and watching TV. Ben made coconut chili basil chicken for us for dinner, and we watched David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals (the episode on chisellers. I didn't know squirrels are colourblind and that beavers actually eat wood! And how cool was it that we got to see inside of the beaver hut!) and The Farmer Wants a Wife. Then I did the dishes, had a shower and went to bed.

Tuesday 22/7/08

I tried to get up at 6:15 and failed. I got up at 6:30 instead, got my stuff together and drove to work. I read my Bible and had breakfast at work. I need to get my prayer cards online so I can pray too. Then I got stuck into it: email, Sola Panel, Briefing commissioning, ordering books for review, and so on. Bec sent through the first draft of The Faithful Writer program and it looked great! I also dealt with more You things, Bible brief commissioning and sorting out stuff for the Briefing meeting on Thursday.

I had a meeting with Tony in the afternoon to talk Briefing stuff (but not my article because he hadn't quite finished it yet). We talked about future issues, Briefing meeting agenda and Bible brief. I meant to leave at 4 to go back to the Asian supermarket to exchange the peanuts (we bought the wrong ones) but I ended up running out of time. Plus I had to get petrol.

I got home around 5 and we had leftovers for dinner and watched TV in the evening (The Simpsons, NCIS, taped stuff, etc.) Then I tried to pull my tax stuff together and ended up going to bed late.

Wednesday 23/7/08

We woke up at 8, I had a shower, then ate breakfast/read Bible/prayed. We found out that Miriam was our neighbour's for staff meeting and arranged to do lunch. But first Ben and I went to see our accountant to do our tax. (Normally I do it but this year, with Ben's business, I felt like it was getting too complicated for me.) The accountant did Ben's tax first and then mine. Ben asked lots of tax questions which I didn't really follow. When mine was done, I was disappointed to discover I owed the government money yet again. Gah.

After that, we went to the supermarket to exchange the peanuts and Ben did some clothes shopping. At home, we waited to hear from Miriam (I went on the computer to do email and work things) but we didn't hear from her. I was getting hungry. Ben went to check and it turned out that lunch was included for them in their meeting. Ben went to buy some lunch from Man^oosh in Enmore and brought some back for me. (It was very yummy! I even ate the olives and I don't even like olives.)

Then at 2:30 we hopped in the car and drove to Rockdale to drop off some books we didn't want any more at Rockdale Christian Books. Then we drove to Josh's. Ben was going away to the Blue Mountains with Josh and some of Josh's American friends, and was playing chauffeur for them. I said goodbye to them and drove to Miranda Fair to see if I could find a Wii. Wouldn't you know it, they were sold out in the whole of Miranda Fair. But I did find a wonderful coat in Tree of Life—the sort of coat the Kate Hudson wears in Almost Famous and Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted (it was reduced from $190 to $60). Then I drove to Spotlight and bought more yarn and a knitting pattern book. Unfortunately I forgot my member card—oh well.

Back at home, I had a very short turnaround before I had to be out the door again—along with a bottle of water and a bucket of microwave popcorn. I caught the train to Town Hall and went to Greater Union George St. I queued in the ticket line only to be told that the pass I'd been given at Kings Comics was enough to get us in. Elsie was also in early so met me there. We went in past the ticket collector, then stood outside the cinema and talked while they cleaned it and then eventually let us in. I saw W. Chew Chan who had MC-ed at Free Comic Book Day last year. Elsie and I had the best seats, and settled back in them to watch The Forbidden Kingdom which had so much potential and all the elements of a very fun film reminiscent of 80s classics like Back to the Future, only it totally sagged in the middle and the script let us down. I also thought that some of the Chinese actors should have just spoken Chinese instead of English (for example, Jet Li: everyone laughed when he opened his mouth). That said, the kung fu was amazing, and the sets and costumes breathtaking.

Afterwards, Elsie and I went out in search of dinner. We passed a new Japanese restaurant in the alley next to Planet Hollywood but weren't tempted enough to go in. We wound up at Sakura as usual, and ate soft shell crab rolls, sashimi and eel rice (yum!) I ate too much. Then I said goodbye to Elsie and headed home (which was a bit lonely without my husband). I went to bed and read.

Thursday 24/7/08

I woke up, drove to work and got in at 7 or so. I did Bible/breakfast/pray and saw John who was also in extremely early. Work was fighting foo, dealing with email, Sola Panel (exploring Technorati and ShareThis), ordering books, then trying to prepare for the Briefing meeting—printing reports, trying to get web stats, etc. Tony stuck his head in just before he went out and asked me to do the agenda, so I put it together along with my reports. I worked through lunch, then we had staff meeting with Gordon getting us to read 1 Samuel. And then we had the Briefing meeting. Everyone was tired so it was hard to focus, but it was still productive.

Afterwards, I kept working away at cleaning Briefing #360 stuff. I finished work around 6:30 and drove home. Ben still wasn't back. I cooked myself the mince stir fry thing and watched TV. I wanted to have a shower but I didn't want to miss Ben's call. The rain was bucketing down and I wondered if it was just easier for me to drive down to Josh's and pick him up. I got a call from my brother-in-law's phone and it was Ben saying his mobile battery had died and to pick him up from Sydenham at 11:30. I went to fetch him.

At home, there was a package addressed to him containing the last of my birthday present. He made me shut my eyes and the put it into my hands: it was two plush pieces of bread from My Paper Crane! They made me happy. Then we went to bed.

Friday 25/7/08

Faithful Writer registrations close. I slept in a bit, then had a shower, ate breakfast, read the Bible and prayed. We were in at work at around 9:30/10 am. I brought my bean bag for Bec's office since it was lying around doing nothing at home. I also brought the bread so I could look at them every day at work:

I spent the day preparing for The Faithful Writer meeting: I tried to finish processing registrations (which was a little frustrating as certain things kept going wrong), I checked and re-checked numbers, drafted an agenda, put together stats and figures on the budget, and so on. I had lunch with Kurt. On the way out, we ran into Bec and Guan who had gone to get donuts. I chatted to them for a while while Kurt was talking to Mark. Then we went out to Ben's Thai and talked church things and how to serve people with depression in church.

The Faithful Writer meeting in the afternoon went well: I was nervous about everything beforehand but afterwards I felt like everything was mostly under control. I kept working in the afternoon, trying to get into Briefing things. Ben picked me up just before 6 and we went home. Thank goodness we had nothing on. So we had leftovers for dinner and watched TV, and then he went off to see Mark Kozelek at the Factory Theatre. I stayed home, watched TV and knitted. I ended up pulling out the scarf I was trying to make with yarn remnants and 15mm needles. We went to bed late.

Saturday 26/7/08

We slept in a bit, then got up, showered, had breakfast, read the Bible and prayed. I think I've done it almost every single day of this week which is rare for me. I wrapped the present and wrote the card, stayed on the computer too long, and then was a bit late in setting off. We drove to my mum and Peter's where the packing was in full swing, and loaded up the car with stuff: old programs from operas I went to, books, LPs, etc. Then we drove to Ben's parents' place, listening to John Denver and The Muppets sing The 12 Days of Christmas.

We had a birthday lunch with Hans, Cathy, Tim, Ros and Lizz. Hans and Cathy showed us their photos from Palm Cove and we ate cake from the New York patisserie:

which was followed by present-opening. I gave Ros the bag I bought at the summer Hope Street Markets (it was made by Tamptations), along with some bath gel and moisturiser, and the Tuttifrutti scarf. Normally she loves chocolate, but today the pregnancy was making her feel sick so she couldn't eat any.

Afterwards, we drove home and I spent a couple of hours doing computer things and watching TV. I dropped Ben off at Nancy's for her birthday party (which I would have gone to but it had been postponed the week before and then I had already RSVP-ed to the ESCAPE Social Trivia Quiz that night), then came back, ate some dinner and watched Peacemaker over dinner. Then I went to pick up Ali and we drove to North Sydney. We were way early; I completely overestimated how long it would take us to get there. We passed the time a bit by walking around St Thomas's North Sydney which is a magnificent building, and then met a guy named Brent on our way back down to the hall, who told me all about World Youth Day (he was Catholic). The hall gradually filled up with people for the Trivia Quiz. Someone told me that it was viewed as being a Christian “singles” thing, but I had seen it as a chance to get to know some Wild Street folk. Unfortunately there was only four of us who came. Oh well.

Ali, Hendry I ended up on a team of about 12 people together. We called ourselves “The Dark Side”. The theme of the night was Australian trivia, and I discovered I knew an awful lot of useless information about movies and television in the first round, but not much about anything else. I did get to talk to Wild Street folk for a bit, but I also got to hang out with Ali which was nice. Our team didn't do too badly: in the end, we came third. I'm glad we didn't win because the prizes were Daily Reading Bibles—not to deprecate Daily Reading Bibles (which are great and useful and encouraging!) but for obvious reasons, that's not really a great prize for me!

Then I drove Ali and Kirsty home, and went home. I phoned Ben while sitting in the driveway. He was still at Nancy's and people were still hanging out, so I went over to join them. We sat and talk and ate cheese and crackers, and read bits of Lists to Live Your Life By out loud (some were pretty hilarious). We left at 1 am, went home and went to bed.

Sunday 27/7/08

Rest day. I got up, had a shower, rang JB Hifi at Leichhardt and discovered they had a Wii but no Wii Fit. I drove over and bought it, and got the family pack at as well because it had Sonic the Hedgehog games. At home, I watched Peacemaker and ironed clothes, and ate lunch. I went on the computer and tried to catch up on newsletters but barely made a dent. Then I made risoni for church pot luck dinner: I did half at home and brought the rest of the ingredients with me.

Greg was speaking at church—on whether religion has a future in Australia. I thought he spoke well. Straight after the service ended, I headed to the kitchen to finish the risoni. It took longer than expected so I didn't spend much time socialising, but I did get to hang out with Mel, Amelia, Hendry and Titus for a bit. Then people started trickling in and we ate dinner together, and many people complimented me on the risoni. It all went which is perhaps the most flattering thing for a cook. I helped clean up for a bit, then Ben and I drove home and I IM-ed with Bec for a bit and then tried to do a million things before breakfast: tax amendment (one of my receipts came in late), emailing various people and preparing for the week ahead. I had been determined to be in bed by 10 but it turned into 10:30 and then 11 because I was reading and then couldn't sleep. I think I was still awake when Ben came to bed. Grr.

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