/karen/

Story: 22/9/08-28/9/08

Saturday, 18 October, 2008

Monday 22/9/08

I woke up at 6:15 and ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed. I was in at work by 7:30. It was Briefing thinking day so I generated reports and printed articles for Tony for the November issue. Unfortunately Tony never made it in that day. Elsie had to cancel our standing appointment, so I watched the first episode of Black Books with everyone in the boardroom. It's much funnier watching it with other people.

In the afternoon, since Tony wasn't around, I kept on with what I was doing. I was home by 4:30 and met Ben coming up the path (he had locked himself out and had gotten the keys from the office). I played Wii Fit for a while (and got a Wii Fit Age of 26 for the first time!), then had a shower. I did computer things while Ben made dinner (we're trying this new thing where he cooks during the week and I cook on weekends). We watched the last episode of David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals, two episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and then The Simpsons. It was nice to just sit and let my brain turn to mush for a couple of hours. We went to bed around midnight.

Tuesday 23/9/08

Day off! I tried not to sleep in too much, and got up at around 8:15/8:30. I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, then blocked the Branching Out scarf. I did laundry, dealt with my email and Bookface, and caught up on blog reading. Bec was online so we caught up on IM. Ben went out for a meeting in the city and I had leftovers for lunch. I tried to solve the database login problem with the old MM site but didn't get very far; there seemed to be hurdles and hurdles to jump over. Fortunately Duncan M was online in the late afternoon and he was able to help us fix it. By the evening, it was working fine and the problem we had had was straightened out once and for all.

(Bother. I did end up working on my day off. Stupid! Stupid!)

In the afternoon I played with Wii Fit, then had a shower and did some computer things (blogging!). We then went to pick up Ben M, and had dinner at Andrew and Paulina's place. We got to meet their little girl who was only a few weeks old. We also got to meet Sylvia who was a friend (I think) of theirs from South America. Sylvia cooked us a really yummy meal. Paulina was in and out because it was baby feeding time. Over dinner, Ben was greatly amused by Sylvia and Paulina translating the names of TV cartoon characters into Spanish. Afterwards, we dropped Sylvia off at where she was staying on the other side of the bridge. Then we went home, I finished blogging and we went to bed.

Wednesday 24/9/08

I woke up at 6:45 and was in at work by 7:30. I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed there. I got stuck doing web things. I met with Tony, talked about November Briefing things and the ongoing saga that was the website. Emma and I also met to talk through stuff. Then I met with Ian about the website.

I pushed on and managed to fix most of the problems. Then I went out and picked up some nibblies as I was out of morning tea snacks. After lunch, I pushed on with work and did a bunch of stuff for the September Briefing (yes, I was really behind!) except for one piece for The Longing. Then I started doing things for the November Briefing.

At 6 pm, I stopped work and started doing my homework for Bible study before going off to Tom and Jenny's place. We were a smaller group: there was no Bec and no George. We also finished earlier than usual so I was home by 9:30. The four-page comic script I had been half working on in my head suddenly came together while I was in shower, so I scribbled it down and then went to bed.

Thursday 25/9/08

We both didn't sleep well. I kept waking up, and Ben had a dream in which I was mad a him, so he got up and went and lay on the couch for a while. So he was awake when I got up.

I was in at work at 7:30, trying to get to November Briefing stuff but not quite being up for it. I ended up marking up Stuart Crawshaw's article on youth ministry and that took most of the day before it was so long. Once I finished that, there were other web things to attend to as well.

For lunch, Bec, Guan, Duncan and I met at the noodle and dumpling house, and had lunch together. We talked about what we were listening to at the moment. I was telling them about Broken Social Scene and how I was really behind Ben when it came to music, and Guan said that everyone would feel behind Ben.

In the afternoon, we had prayer meeting and then a Briefing I was almost totally unprepared for (I forgot that I had already drafted the agenda a couple of weeks earlier). After the meeting, I went home and played with Wii Fit for 30-40 minutes and had a shower. Ben made grilled salmon for dinner. We watched a bit of TV and then I got stuck into reading applications for The Faithful Writer masterclass. I went to bed at midnight and I still hadn't finished.

Friday 26/9/08

I wanted to get up earlier but I didn't. I finished reading the applications, then did some stuff online. Breakfast was at the computer. Bec was online and trying to fix her blog problems. I had a bit of time so I tried to help her with little success. Then I realised I'd told Ben the wrong thing: I needed to be at work by 9:30, not leave the house by 9:30. So we rushed to get there.

In the end, we were in by 9:45. I tried to get to the November Briefing editing but got sidetracked by other things (mostly web things). Ben went and bought us Japanese for lunch from Pinocchio's (yum!). Then I met with Elsie to read the Bible and pray.

At 3, we had a Faithful Writer committee meeting. Bec was sick so sent her apologies, and Trevor was running late. We debriefed about the conference, looked at the finances, talked about the masterclass applications and raised some ideas about what we could do next year.

Afterwards, I got stuck into November Briefing things, and I made a To Do list organised under various headings of all the tasks I needed to do. One of our authors finally sent through his Bible brief, but it was in Word 2007 docx format which I couldn't open because my operating system is too old (grrr!) Emma had to open and convert it for me.

I left at 6 after everyone else had left: Ben picked me up and drove me home, and very kindly gave me time to heat my dinner and eat it (while I read my Bible) before we headed out again. He dropped me off at Cameron and Lara's for PEC women's fellowship. (I'm still welcome there even though I no longer attend PEC.) I was quite early so I helped set up, and then chatted to the girls as they arrived. Rosey did an excellent talk on music and singing in church, and we hung around afterwards, eating nibblies and talking. I ended up helping to wash and clean up, and then Naomi gave me a lift home.

At home, I worked on a rewrite of one of the feature articles for November and sent it off. Then I went to bed.

Saturday 27/9/08

Ben was up at 8 am (even though he didn't get in until midnight or 1), and he went off to help with set up for How Sweet the Sound. I had a more leisurely morning, sleeping in a bit, then having a shower and going for a walk to Enmore. It was lovely sunny day which was good as I was feeling rather down. I wanted to get some change from the post office but the guy wouldn't give me as much as I wanted. I was then going to walk to Newtown to see if I could find a black tablecloth, but then spotted a discount variety store across the street. I found most of what I needed in there: an A4-size mirror, a wooden picture frame, a white tablecloth (made of very cheap polyester), hooks and an extension cord.

I walked home, then wrote out labels for all my knitted items on squares of manila folder that were leftovers from when I used to learn Greek vocab. (I punched star-shaped holes in them and then used safety pins to attach them to the knitting.) My mum was on Google Talk so I chatted to her for a bit. I ate noodles for lunch and watched half of the So You Think You Can Dance? (US) finale (three weeks late!) Then Ben came home feeling rather exhaused.

Lizz arrived as I was making business cards. I finished off my prep, packed everything up, loaded the car and then we drove to North Ryde, finding a parking spot just outside the gates. It was 3:45 and most of the other stall holders were already there, setting up. I was sharing half a booth with another girl who was selling jewellery, but I also had the bit in between stalls to put the cot quilts and table runners that Cathy had sent with Lizz. Lizz helped me set up, and we strung fairy lights across the top of the booth frame.

(And I brought St. Katherine so she could wear the enormous pink pomp pom hat.)

Here's me in the stall:

People started arriving, browsing through all the stalls (there were about seven of them), but as I said before, I didn't end up selling very much. And I've already written my thoughts on a couple of things I could have done.

Here are the pipe cleaner animals that Marinka was selling for $1 to raise money for FEVA:

I heard a bit of the music in the forecourt through the door(the jazz music that Con and Richard Maegraith and the others were playing was lovely, and I found Joe Hardy's stuff very interesting). During the second half of the night, most of the bands were in the main auditorium and I didn't go listen to them. I spent most of the night behind my stall, but I did get up at one point, and I went for a wander around to the other stalls, and socialised a little. And for some reason, people kept turning off the lights (which meant my stall was the most brightly lit because of all the fairy lights).

At 10 pm I decided to pack up because I was tired. Lizz helped me take down all the fairy lights, put everything back in their ziplock bags and take it all out to the car. The bands hadn't quite finished and Ben wanted to stay 'til the end, so we wandered around for a bit, and also got a bit of food. I bought this beautiful Chinese silk jacket from a vintage clothing stall for $20, and because there was another one for the same price, I bought that for Lizz as a thank you for helping out. We left at 11 pm just as Gethsemane were wrapping up.

We drove home, brought everything up and unpacked. I sorted a few things out for the following day, and then went to bed.

Sunday 28/9/08

I was up at 9, I ate breakfast, read my Bible and played with Wii Fit for 30-40 minutes. I washed up, then had a shower, and then made sure Lizz had enough breakfast. I took in the laundry and put on Stranger than Fiction for Lizz because she wanted to see it. Then I got on the computer, checked my email and Bookface, installed Expression Engine for Bec and set up the database. I also did a bit of practising on the piano while waiting for the downloads/installations. And then I left for Wild Street's “So You Think You Can Carol?” auditions for their Christmas service.

Janet, who I sort of knew through FEVA, was running them, and the process was a bit like Australian Idol (but not as nasty). They even had a video camera and were filming people which sort of freaked me out. But I stood in front of the screen and sang the first verse of “O Holy Night” unaccompanied (but down a tone because I can't hit that high B flat), and then I did it on the piano (less well), and then I also did the “On a Starlit Night/Silent Night” piece for them. They told me I was good and, even though I botched the accompaniment, I was in; they just weren't sure how to work it out logistically in terms of accompaniment and stuff.

Afterwards I drove to Pacific Square, parked in a sidestreet and got myself a nice lunch: a chicken and sweet chili sauce wrap lightly toasted from Billy's Espresso. It was nice to just sit and eat, and watch the people go by. And not long after I sat down, a jazz guitarist and singer (with large floppy hat and sunglasses) got up and performed a few numbers.

I sat there and scribbled for a while, then drove to Bec's who had just made some macaroons:

She offered me some, and we sat at the dining table, munching on them until her mum came home. Then I was going to help her set up her blog properly on the subdomain, but the site was down again (grr). So instead we watched an episode and a half of Wonderfalls (which made me nostalgic for Canada, even though it's set on the American side of Niagara Falls), and I sat and knitted.

Then we went to band practice. Flick was sick and George wasn't up for singing, so I offered to fill in. It was fun and nice to sing with Bec and Titus. It was a good service with a good sermon from Rod (who had skipped a chapter and was doing the end of 1 John while Kurt was still on holidays). Afterwards, George told us all about her weekend and how she and her friend got stuck in the state forest at midnight (go read it; it's great). It had us in stitches (George tells stories very well).

I didn't stay for dinner because I was tired. Instead, I drove home and watched the rest of the So You Think You Can Dance? (US) finale (finally!) and one episode of The Simpsons. And then I went to bed.

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