Creating space, creating a habit

I've been decluttering my craftroom.  I still have a little more to go, including a box of stuff on the floor that I can't seem to find places for, and some things to take to school. I'm giving away some fabric and I've sorted through my scrapbooking things. But I still have a room packed full of things.

During last year I found this little 2-seater sofa at an op shop, and it changed everything about the room. But until now I had no time to really make it all work. 

Originally, I had these cute vintage velvet wingchairs in my craftroom. I loved the look of these chairs, they were a bargain, were in good condition and had just the vintage vibe I wanted. 

This is how I had the sitting area of my craft room set up originally

(on the other side of the room is my desk and most of my craft supplies) 

... and then I rearranged when we inherited this lovely leadlight cabinet.

But the trouble was that the chairs only looked cute. They didn't feel so great. When I sat on them I felt both constricted by the arms and wobbly on the seat cushion. My great plans of sitting daily to read the bible and pray on these chairs came to nothing. We sat on them on Friday nights for date night, and the rest of them time they just held piles of stuff, and I wondered why I didn't sit on them more. 

Then came the sofa.

Not vintage. Not the best colour. But comfortable.

A real game-changer.

And now I get to my new habit:

Each night I light this little candle

I open my little pencil case (a gift from a Korean student) and take out a pen.

(I keep the matches in there, also)

I open my bible

And my day-to-a-page diary (Aldi)

and I get reading and writing and praying.

You see, when I was younger I read my bible everyday, but as I got older, I found it hard to make the time.  This year I've discovered a few other things about me:

A lighted candle helps to remind me to stay and read and think, not to jump up and do something else. It makes the time a bit special (and smells amazing, the nicest vanilla candle I ever met ;)

A diary with pretty pages, smooth paper and the perfect sized page and just one page seems doable, compared to my old burnout style of writing pages and pages in a journal one day and not touching it again for months.

It helps to have a colourful bible and pencil case that coordinate, because I'm just that kind of girl.

A reading plan from my minister for our church to read Matthew 14-28 in the month of January has really helped. Especially when I recoloured it and made it pretty to match my diary ;)

I have a couple, but just a couple, of other reading and resource books in the pile for when I have extra time.  I plan to re-read the Jesus Storybook Bible again soon, I just love it, and it's not only for kids.

The other thing I've done is moved some suitcases which were piled up in the centre of the room. They were handy for storage and putting things on when I'm sitting at my desk, but not worth it in the end because of the cramped feeling they gave me. I also had a nest of tables in here, which felt rickety and not quite right. Now I manage with the little table attached to the standard lamp. And in case you're worried, I still have the olive velvet wingchairs, one in the craftroom next to the sofa, and one in the living room. And I still have some furniture from this room and elsewhere that I need to find space for, hmmm.

I'm so pleased that I was able to use this holiday time to manage the space and feel of this room, and to finally use it to accomplish one of my original aims of this room - to have a quiet space to sit and read and pray each day.

Closer to Christmas

Here's a couple more cards I've made this Christmas, using up some of the hunter green card I seem to have a lot of. Although it's a classic for Christmas, and I used to use it all the time, I tend to go reach more for olive card with red these days. The Merry Christmas stamp on the first card is a cheap one, from a polymer pack from Riot Art & Craft, and the Lovely as a Tree stamp is a classic, and so beautiful.

The weeks are rushing by, just 16 days till Christmas now. I've written most of my cards but might need to make a few more, my card list has increased significantly with new families at church on top of adding my 40 or so colleagues at work last year and this.

Tonight I was at my staff Christmas party, which was lots of fun. I'm grateful to have been working two years with these lovely people. There are five more school days this year, plus another function and two long staff meetings, it will be strange to be with my work friends so much this week and then it will suddenly stop, I won't see them for six weeks. But ... we teachers all need a holiday!

Introducing ...

... our new addition to the family, Cooper.

We brought Cooper home 10 days ago, and life will never be the same.

What I learned in 2016

If you've stuck with me through this year of not blogging very much at all 

you'll know that 2016 was a big year of change for me. 

I started working full-time (something I hadn't planned at all).

I studied part-time - something I never expected to do again.

One daughter is now an adult, still living at home, but not needing us so much 

(except to drive her sometimes). And the other daughter's almost grownup, also. 

Family life is very different from even a couple of years ago.

So ... what have I learned?

Working full-time is easier than doing lots of activities part-time

Yep, it's true. 4-5 years ago I was leading bible study, teaching recorder at a school, teaching piano at home, teaching piano at a school, selling stamps, learning ballet, going to church and being a mum. Each of those activities took 2.5hrs or less, not including travel time, so in theory I still had lots of free time. This year I've worked in a school full-time, and taught piano two afternoons a week. The piano teaching turned out to be too much, but I needed to keep it on in case my job didn't last. 

Instead of my mind being stretched in many different directions and locations, managing all my varied commitments and interests, and feeling guilty that I wasn't giving any of them enough attention, I enjoyed being at school and focusing on school only for 7+ hours a day. I'm looking forward to the day that I don't have to study anymore, when I can work and then come home and relax instead of hitting the books ;)

Maybe I'm not such an introvert after all

I've spent a few years thinking about my introvert nature, and using it to justify many quiet hours on the sofa, recovering from social gatherings, and quietly planning my life with noone else around.

This year changed all that, and it turns out I cope just fine interacting with 500 kids and 40 teachers every week, in fact, you might say I thrive on it. Looking back, I think my health and other issues were factors in my need to be still and quiet in the past, plus the busyness of doing all those activities. Plus it was a different stage of life with our girls being a bit younger. (Also, the girls are home so much now that alone time at home would rarely happen, even if I wasn't working).

Children's books are amazing

Ok, I already knew this one, but I love that my job as a teacher librarian lets me soak up all sorts of wonderful picture books and novels, just when my girls had grown out of them.

When I really have to want to do something, I can

All these years, I've given myself excuses, saying I was too busy to practise piano, read the bible, exercise, make phonecalls ... the list goes on. But it turns out that - even with full-time teaching - I have a few hours a day that I can (and do) put to studying, because I'm determined to be approved as a primary teacher, and then as a librarian. I do have some self-control, after all. Imagine what I will have time for once I finish studying!

It's important to keep learning

A year ago a friend said to me that he thinks it's important to keep learning. While I agreed with this in principle, having learnt two new instruments and taken up ballet in the last 8 or so years, I hadn't been learning then to the extent that I have this year. Now I can say even more wholeheartedly that I agree with him. This year I've learnt procedures, teaching philosophies, class and library management, and what feels like a whole new language with all the jargon in education. My brain feels stretched in a good way. 

I can be brave

I think this has come with age. Instead of being fearful of new situations and expectations, I look at them as challenges, and embrace them. 

God is good

Ok, I knew this one, as well. But in 2016 there have been many, many reminders of His goodness. 

What has helped?

Thinking about how I've coped this year ...

I love Trello to manage my lists of things to do, and my ideas.

Pinterest has helped so much with teaching ideas.

Eating healthily and sticking to a pretty simple eating routine has really helped. I eat almost the same foods every day, except dinner, and even our dinners usually all have some kind of meat with roast veges on the side, or are a mince dish. When I stick to it, my body thanks me.

I'm working on getting a good night's sleep every night, but I still love my late nights ...

Seeing a good chiropractor has helped, and I've started using some essential oils, which have often helped with pain or emotions. 

Walking and listening to a good podcast has given me new ideas and brain breaks. My favourites are Feathers and Mud Stories.

Steve has helped, enormously, often picking up my slack with cooking and chores while I studied. He did the bulk of driving the girls around - somehow 2016 involved more of this than ever. 

Bring on P-plates. 

Getting to church every week, and bible study as often as I can, has helped - I need friends, and I need to be reminded what God has done. Seeing my extended family from time to time has helped, too.

2017

I'm excited to see what 2017 holds. I don't expect so many changes next year, but that it will be a year of consolidation and growth and improvement in what I'm doing. I'll be studying a new course, and doing at least one block of professional experience. 

I hope over time I can give more to other people, and, having done the whole learning curve thing this year ,I hope to be a bit more outward-looking as the year progesses. 

➳

How was your 2016? What did you learn? What did you love?

What worked, and what didn't work?

Pixie comes to stay

Pixie the dog came to stay on the weekend. She was lots of fun.

I've never been a dog person, but I kind of miss her sitting on my lap, 

and the pat-pat of her little feet following me around the house ...

Thoughts on returning to full-time work

See what a restful image I post for this topic.

Regular readers will know that this year I returned to teaching after many years at home. Oh, I never really stopped teaching, whether it was teaching piano, teaching my girls, giving group recorder lessons, teaching stamping, leading a church group,  and more recently working as a casual teacher ... I've always being teaching someone something, but it certainly wasn't full-time. 

For the majority of the last 18 years, I've had a lot of freedom to my days. I had 9 years when my girls were both at school 5 full days a week, although more recently they have had half-days some days. In the early school years I over-committed, but over time I managed to carve away at my extra commitments until the last few years I was free most days, unless the phone rang and I was off teaching at one school or another.

So what did I do all day? Um ... a lot ... and not a lot.

I baked, and I rearranged. I shopped and I decluttered. I painted when we renovated, and when we didn't. I made cards and crocheted and blogged. I spent too much time look at other peoples' lives on the internet, but only if they had pretty or inspiring blogs. I put time into leading a bible study group, and valued those friendships and the knowledge I gained. I put necessary time into regaining my health through changing diets and going to appointments. Sometimes in recent years I helped my mother-in-law, as she moved house and became less independent. Sometimes I saw my extended family. All good things.

And of course I managed the things that needed managing for my family - the shopping, the gifts, the organising, the notes, the calendar, the music lessons. Housework even  sometimes happened.

And then, with a phone call, it all stopped. 

Stay tuned for what happened next.

And check this out! I'm thrilled to have received a shout out from The Big Smoke.

A holiday at Killcare

A family holiday

squeezed in between uni assignments, college days and work

just one hour north

a hop and a skip from Barranjoey Head

ocean views

quiet

a big deck

a small house 

bright and white and clean inside

lots of reading

colouring

movie-watching

playing games

sitting

feeling lazy

the beach

too cold for me after a few minutes in the water

walking on the rocks

sitting on a beach towel watching the waves and the people

bbq dinner

apple crumble

avoiding shops

managing with what food we have

short walks for me

recovering from a cold

lots of tissues

long exploratory hikes for Steve

time to stop and think

back over the term that has been

and compare life to a year ago

 when we had our last holiday

and wonder what the next 12 months will hold.

A year of changes

2016 has been a year of a lot of changes. 

Last year I did some casual teaching at about 8 local primary schools. I enjoyed it, mostly, but there was one school I really liked teaching at, and I was sorry not to be called there at all during Term 4. I used to daydream about getting some regular work there. Until one afternoon towards the end of term, when I had a call from their principal, asking about my availability for 2016. I told him I was available, and he said he would call back in a few days, sounding like he might have a position for me.

I waited, glued to my phone at all times. I spoke to him again in the last few days of school, but he had no news for me, the school's enrolment had dropped a little and they weren't sure how many teachers they needed. The school year ended, and I tried to forget about it all, wondering if I might hear from them again as school went back at the end of January. But on the 7th Jan I was surprised with a call offering me a temporary job as Teacher Librarian at this school that I really wanted to teach at!

This seemed nothing short of a miracle, because I am not a primary school teacher (but a high school teacher) and have no library experience. However that didn't seem to bother them! I accepted the job and spent the rest of January researching to find out what a Teacher Librarian actually does (and preparing for Emily's 18th birthday party). I met the retiring librarian of 26 years service before school started, and began the job at the end of January.

 I am loving spending my days with books and kids. This seems like the perfect job for me :)

Of course, I have plenty to learn, about children's literature, running a library, and teaching information literacy. But I'm finding it all a good challenge and coping well so far with working full-time again. It still seems amazing that I have this great job, and didn't even have to apply for it!

(Not sure why I didn't open the blinds for these photos?)

Over time, I might make some changes to the layout and decor of the library. You can see that the library is very well laid out and holds thousands of good books. For now, I'm content setting up the occasional display and making minor changes to add to the smooth running of my day :)

I've gotten to know two lovely ladies at school, one is the library assistant, who works in the library 2 days a week, accessioning books and doing the administration. My other friend is a teacher who shares the library office with me 3 days a week. If it wasn't for them, my job could become a bit lonely if I didn't make the effort to get to the staffroom, since the library office has everything I need for lunch and working, and I'm not working in a team as the classroom teachers are.

In addition to teaching full-time, I'm studying part-time by distance education to be fully qualified as a primary teacher, to keep my future options open. I'm not sure how long my great job in the library will last. My job seems easy in comparison to my studies, which could quite easily fill my every waking hour, but I'm just managing it all, somehow. 

It's a big year of change for Emily, also. She's studying Events Management, and won a huge scholarship to pay for her course, for which we are very thankful. Her full-time course takes just two days a week at college, and she works occasionally in a part-time job. 

Laura is in Yr 11 this year, so need to be studying a lot more, and even Steve is doing some studies as part of his job. I'm still teaching piano, but not leading bible study this year. There's a lot of driving the girls to do in the evenings, to their various activities, and occasionally on the weekends we can fit in some driving lessons for them. 

So, as you can imagine, almost every moment of every day is filled, which is such a change for me after years of being mostly at home, choosing my activities, setting the pace. But God is good, and we are all coping, I am loving it all (except when I have assignments due) and I am thankful for these new challenges and opportunities for us all.