Holidays

How do you holiday?

Apparently it's an Art. With a capital 'A'.

The art of balancing fun time, down time, time with the various people you can't see when you're not on holidays. I did some thinking about 'true re-creation' last summer and managed to find a nice balance (after several false starts!) The key: getting the needed rest from work and engaging in true re-creation, that which would refresh and re-energise. Travel, as I've discovered of late, is optional.

So far this summer has been filled with - Christmas!

Spending time with a cherished family from whom I borrow my Christmas traditions. So much love :) 

Christmas shopping with a dear old friend. Laughing over 'bad photos' is the best!

The Choir singing at our Christmas Eve midnight service.

Hearing from a favourite steadfast preacher.

It was lovely having mum and my Aunty (who lives down the road) stay for Christmas and join in on the festivities. Mum especially enjoyed the 2012 ET-esque 'glowstick' for our annual rendition of 'Silent Night'. 

 

It's also been fun being a tourist in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, where I'm living for the summer. A change is as good as a holiday, they say. Why not take a change as a holiday? 

Smooth Moves - said no one ever!

So I moved house lately. When I told a neighbour in the lift, he shared a common thought:

"Oh moving's the worst"

Yea, it was pretty manic. It felt that way especially whenever I chanced upon the thought in my mind in the lead up. But boy was I thankful for good help from a friend (a self-titled 'underdog') who guessed (accurately) that I didn't have much idea what I was doing, let alone manpower. So he, very kindly, turned up with my brother, a ute and shared a few tips. Boy, was I thankful.

Did you know you can ask your local supermarket for their used boxes? This was his tip and a revelation to me. And meant I didn't have to spend anything on packing boxes and could keep going back when I needed more. Sure, I ended up with a bit of a reputation at the local Woolies, but what's that for convenience?

(thankful also for my former life as a box packer) 

Now I'm living with a Chinese-Egyptian family I met through their take-away shop. When I was working on campus, their chicken naan was the cheapest option when I forgot to bring food from home. I was quite the regular - now I live with them. Well, I guess some might call that usual... :p

Hi there :)

My name's Amanda and I'm starting this blog because something crazy happened to me this year that changed my life - and my lifestyle. I want to let you know about it so we can take this new life journey together if you like :)

Let me tell you about it. It starts with this greeting card.

I loved getting this card. I'm sure the person who gave it to me didn't even realise how or why I'd love it. At first, I liked it because I thought it looked like me, see:

But then one day, I ended up looking like this!

And it was around that day that the card became truer of me.

When they saw that photo, I think some of my Facebook friends thought I was having radiotherapy for Cancer or something. But that's not true, it was just impacted wisdom teeth. Four of them. Ouch.

But just like surviving cancer or something like that can change the way you look at the world and the way you make the most of life, so did receiving what I needed to have that operation :)

I've been working a (wonderful but) low-income job (that I love) the last two years. In deciding to do that, I knew it would leave me little money to spare. It wasn't the most popular decision in my family-of-origin so going to them for help was a little (!) less-than-tempting. Two days before that photo was taken, I became totally overwhelmed by the cost of the operation, overwhelmed by work at the time, overwhelmed by health and difficult relationships, basically overwhelmed by life. That's unusual for me - I can be pretty annoyingly-Pollyanna sometimes!

But then someone gave me $1000. A couple who only knew half the story. Just after I'd prayed to God asking for help in all those things. And that's when the war paint went on. War. On. Fear.


Telling a friend how overwhelmed I was feeling helped me to see that I was being consumed by fear of all those things. And what specifically I was afraid of. Fear that was telling me things like "you won't be able to get your work done/your savings WILL run out/nobody will be able to pick you up from the hospital after the anaesthetic...and then won't you be doomed." And it was controlling me and stopping me from trying new things, holding me back in life.

But none of those things happened, did they?

Repeat: Someone gave me $1000. To pay for the operation. Umm..? Thank you?

Two days later I was eating jellies and icecream and my teeth had come out. Not even a post-operative ache.

Picking me up after the operation...

That day, life for me stopped being dominated by fear. That makes life a lot cooler, hey?

Well, fear of those things at least. Let's see what happens next.