19.12.08
Posted in Journal at 3:06 pm by Sarah
I don’t know why people leave Christmas shopping till the last minute. A lot of people I’ve talked to say that they don’t shop until the week before Christmas. To me, that’s crazy. Why would you subject yourself to that? Parking nightmares, crowds of stressed out people, panicky last minute decisions….
Me? I make a list around early to mid-November. Each gift is particular and unique to each person. And I try to get alot of stuff online so I don’t have to go to shopping centres that often. We managed just one trip this year, armed with a list and a plan of attack. Maybe I’ve inherited my mother’s approach. As kids we never understood her apparent aversion to shopping centres. I understand now…
Handmade stuff has taken a back seat this year. Although I love making things for people, I didn’t feel the urge this year. It was probably best for self-preservation purposes. I did do some cup painting for the girls at work. It was fun thinking up different designs for each of them. Although the paint consistency still frustrates me.. I might do some more investigation into what else is out there…
And my poor Christmas tree remains in its box. I really didn’t see the point in putting it up this year. We don’t have room to be honest, and we aren’t actually spending any part of Christmas at home. Plus, H continues his staunch anti-Christmas tree campaign. It’s still a bit sad… but I’m looking forward to having plenty of room for my little tree in the new place next year. 
I really should remember not to venture into Borders around Christmas time. They have the cutest cards and wrappings. I had to tear myself away from Christmas wrapping with a babooshka doll print. It’s just way too wasteful to be spending your money on one day a year goodies. I did get a cute little 2009 diary that fits perfectly in my bag. Well… I really truely needed one!!
We just had our work bible study Christmas lunch. It’s always very cool, we had decorations and crackers and the whole do… including presents! I even had a special baby present which was so cute… there’s just something about little booties that make you a bit gaga.
Happy Christmas!
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17.12.08
Posted in Baby, Church/Ministry, Journal at 1:49 pm by Sarah
I was expecting this week to be hard… but in a different sort of way.
Apparently the combination of the slow progression of our lives being turned upsidedown, a few sad farewells, some frustrating moments, and pregnancy hormones… means that I’m all over the place. I’ve already had to deal with the crying for no reason stuff… but now I have multiple reasons and my emotions are going haywire.
We spent Saturday at the QHAC Market Day – kind of a car boot/mega garage sale. I basically cleaned out my wardrobe and grabbed a whole bunch of stuff that H has been procrastinating about putting on Ebay. L came and shared a table with me. The weather was crazy, it was drizzling at 7am when I arrived, from there it alternated between gale force winds and unbearable heat. I spent most of the day under a golf umbrella. I sold a few things, covering about half of what we spent on a second hand change table and playpen from one of the other stalls. We waited until we couldn’t bear the heat any longer and packed up. I chucked the clothes in the Anglicare bin and gave the bulky stuff to CCC to be sold next time.
We farewelled church again this week. I’m sure it was a bit strange for the rest of the congregation to be saying goodbye to people they’ve only just met. But it was sad to say goodbye to our people. There was a bit of weirdness, like we’d really already said goodbye to church when we left QHAC a month ago.
I’m pretty sure the chairs they use in parenting class are designed specifically to torture pregnant women. On Monday I was sitting on two pillows, plus another for my back, and I still was in agony by the end of the class. We didn’t end up doing pain management, much to my disappointment. We just went over the stages of labour again. We also got to see some water births. I have to say it doesn’t look half bad… that is if you don’t mind being starkers. Of course, most people say at that point you really couldn’t care less.
We also had to to see the ob again yesterday. I was suppposed to have the diabetes test, but since the ob was running late, the pathology didn’t have time before closing. So I’ll have to do it next week when we go in for class again. This stuff is going to be so much easier next month when we live 10 mins away - as opposed to an hour!!
This week is my last week at work. I feel strangely calm about that actually. I have never made work my identity, so leaving it doesn’t upset me too much. My friends will be harder to leave, they have made work so much more bearable over the last few months.
Next week was supposed to be relaxing, but somehow we’ve managed to fill it with appointments and stuff… so much for those midday naps I was longing for! And then Christmas, and the whole bunch of logistical hurdles that come standard with multiple families (and growing). I hope it all comes together eventually..
Next month I envisage to be a little nuts. We’ve had to rearrange our moving plans slightly, so we can be settled in time for H to have knee surgery again. Did I mention he did his knee in last week? Well… he did. Yup…. it’s going to be nuts.
So.. yes. Things are a little crazy. Do I have an excuse to be slightly mental?
27 weeks
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09.12.08
Posted in Baby, Journal at 3:41 pm by Sarah
This article was a point of interest this week…
A report on this week’s parenting class….. tune out now if you’re squeamish!
Read the rest of this entry »
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08.12.08
Posted in Church/Ministry, Journal, Projects at 3:15 pm by Sarah
I spent Saturday with an old workmate who needed a friend. We headed off to Chatswood and ate yum cha and got massages. I got my hair trimmed and tidied. And we both splurged on some body products. It was fun… but my feet were killing me by the end of the day. Plus, the heat, even though we were inside a shopping centre for the majority of the time, was gross. A yummy fruit smoothie was just the perfect thing before we left.
Saturday night was our last Supporters Dinner in Quakers Hill. It was….. surprisingly inspiring. In fact it was the first dinner I have attended where the whole room was fired up… indignant… ready to do something about TAFE ministry! An action plan dialogue even continued over dinner because no one wanted to stop. It was so exciting to see, after witnessing Craig’s apparent voice-in-the-wilderness over the last few years, people who wanted to be involved.. to make things happen. Pure awesomeness.
We got farewelled and I managed to mumble a few lines about supporting H as his wife and ministering to Western Sydney, before completely forgetting to mention our impending parenthood next year. It was good to see a couple more people are being welcomed into the fold and to know the hole we leave won’t be as big as we’d feared.
Sunday I beached out on the couch in front of the fan after a mega sleep in. Played a bit of Lego Star Wars and stayed out of H’s way as he prepared to do the sermon that night. Between H’s nap and my fuzzy-headedness we managed to run late for church (more serious now we live 10-15 mins away) but we ended up making it before the service started.
It was our second-last week at Oakhurst yesterday. The more time I spend there, the less anxious I am about leaving our little congregation in their hands. The demographic at the evening service is less funky, young, seemingly-got-it-all-together peeps and more wonderfully special and unique people.
The tension we felt previously isn’t there, we don’t need to run around and make sure we don’t step on anyone’s toes. Because they are behind us, they’re part of us. We belong. There are more hands for set up and pack up, we can people minister more freely… knowing that there are more than enough people covering all the hands-on jobs. And the kids have half a dozen teenage girl babysitters ready and willing to play with them and cart them around. I think they will do well there… even though I’ll miss them terribly when we go. I’m almost sad to leave such a perfect set-up.
We got home and I watched ‘Never Been Kissed’ for the billionth time as I folded the washing and contemplated how much junk we could gather together and sell at the Market Day next weekend (Plug: Come buy stuff at QHAC next Saturday 13th!!).
I’ve started thinking about what I want to spend my time doing over the next few months, since I won’t be working. Besides the obvious pack up and move, I’m thinking I might set up an Etsy shop. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but haven’t had enough time to maintain. Having said that, I have no idea how motherhood will affect this, but I figure better now than never. Should be fun anyway!
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02.12.08
Posted in Baby, Journal at 12:19 pm by Sarah
I was pretty anxious about our first parenting class last night. I’m not sure exactly why… perhaps high expectations of meeting other mums… or feeling a little overwhelmed by yet another reality check.
Either way… after arriving a little early, I waited around for H to arrive. He was still on the bus with only 5 minutes until start time, so I started trying to find where I was supposed to be. After running around for ages in RPA, asking directions several times and feeling pretty lost, I finally found the room. (And, excuse me, but a tiny A4 sheet stuck to a (open) door is not good signage!) H had the same problem and arrived a little later, leaving me to spend 10 minutes lamenting over how pathetic I must look, walking in by myself. (school classroom flash-backs… anyone?)
The room was filled with pillows and bean bags. No one used them except for one women who had really bad back pain. Who wants to sprawl out on the floor in front of a bunch of strangers?
We started with a video on fathers, and how they can actually be pretty involved from the word go. Most guys don’t expect to have a huge role in parenting until the walking and talking stage, so it was pretty useful stuff. The midwife running the course explained that half our time would be spent on birth, and the other half on parenting. Made sense to me.
The midwife was one of those rough, tough, no-nonsense types. She mentioned how many billions of years she had been doing midwifery several times (perhaps to concrete our trust)… and how horribly busy they are in the labour wards (perhaps to warn us).
During the break, it was nice to talk to other first time mums. It’s incredibly relieving to realise you’re not the only one freaking out about the millions of things you don’t know yet. And H seemed to have fun chatting to the other dads. It also gave me a bit of an insight into why mums at church (in general) can tend to be a bit cliquey. Just talking to someone who knows exactly what’s going on is very comforting.
We ended up breaking into guys and girls and listing 5 (only 5!!) things we wanted to know about birth, and another 5 about parenting. It was so cool to realise how similar our concerns and fears were. We never got to read what the guys wrote… I think we’ll be up for some interesting revelations next week!
It was interesting to note the demographics of the group. Most were approx 5+ years older than we were, and several women were studying and/or had ongoing careers. Only one couple in our group had opted to use the Birthing Centre as opposed to the labour ward (I went for the labour ward on my ob’s advice). Also, 90% of our group were having ’surprises’! I wonder if this is more common for the first child….
Our night ended late – due to parking mishap that H has expanded on here. He graciously didn’t mention that it was my fault for not reading the sign…. (why oh why do hospitals always have crap parking????)
Hopefully next week will be a little less traumatic, and a little more fun.
25 weeks tomorrow
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