Tuesday, December 31, 2019

DECEMBER ROUND UP

I started the month still feeling down about my health and work, but I knew if I didn't pick myself up I'd be in the depth of depression during December, my favourite month of the year and that simply cannot happen.

I had a few minor wins at work, nothing to really change things, but to give me a little hope and I sorted out my foot and legs. A few Osteopath appointments righted a very achy foot. And a visit to my GP who worked out some tabs were causing my legs to swell, off them immediately and within a week my legs were pretty much back to normal. 


So just like that I felt a huge weight off health wise and decided I just need more patience and a giant smile to get me through the work stuff. Luckily I had many, many preschool Christmas visits and storytimes to work through, and if little kids are not the essence of Christmas and beauty, I don't know what is.

I say December is my favourite time of the year, I love the Christmas spirit, finding the right present for my loved ones, celebrating, and enjoying time out and about with family and friends. My birthday is Boxing Day, so I wait all year for 'me' to be celebrated. I have always thought birthdays are important and even more so for me now. They are about celebrating getting through each year and hopefully becoming wiser and more knowledgeable about this thing called life! Obviously the timing of my birthday is shite, it is problematic and a pain up my (and everyone's) arse but it IS my birthday and it IS important! Especially as a single gal, it can go either way, so I just try to make things as lovely as I can, because I deserve it! And if I don't make my life lovely, who will!!??


One of the first big events in December is my Dad's birthday, so we had our usual family gathering at the local pub with cake after.

One of the big things missing in my life while I was unwell was choir, having the bad throat infection and losing my voice meant I couldn't sing. This I am sure added to my drop in mental health. So I returned mid-december and it was glorious, including our final Christmas Party singing carols including my favourite, Happy Christmas (war is over).



My bestie, Cathy (yes, yes, we know, we know!!), had her birthday in November and we finally got to celebrate it with brunch at Table 1 Espresso, always amazing, followed by a visit to the new chocolate shop at Warners Bay - you must go and check it out, so lovely! Then we headed to MAC, as it is now called, LM Art Gallery that is! And that exhibition is still amazing. We ended the day with a cool drink on their balcony overlooking the lake. Time well spent with loved ones is priceless.









During my meltdowns at the end of Nov and beginning of Dec I made my yearly Kineisology appointment, feeling better I still took it and as always it really helped consolidate my 'stuff'. My lovely therapist is at Lochinvar so I took the opportunity to do a vineyards run, and collect some wine etc for the festive period. It was very dry and brown as you can imagine, but the roses at Peterson's were still beautiful.






My lovely gals and I had our Christmas night out at the new Signal Box in Newcastle. This is a restaurant in the old Signal Box on the now defunct railway lines. To be honest I would rather have the railway there, but that's best alone now. The restaurant was newly opened and obviously having teething issues. The service wasn't great and the food overpriced for what it was. Edible and nice but nothing to rave over. I think it was trying to be too fancy for what it was. The breakfast and lunch menu looked much better and laid back. It had very large windows to open for breezes etc, which would have been fine had it not been a smoggy, windy night. The company however, was top rate, so we had a lovely night nonetheless.

I commenced my 2 week holidays - yay, not had a break since April, which when you have been as unwell as me and gone through all we've gone through at work felt like 8 years not 8 months - with a trip to the gold class cinema to see Star Wars. My Christmas Present from my sister and her family. I really enjoyed the movie, it was a little clunky in the first half but the second half rocked. I still think the first out of the later trilogy was the best, but this was not so shabby.

The weekend following was full with Markets at Warners Bay, brunch at Hunter Valley Botanical gardens with friends, Brunch with school friends since kindi, a One Song Sing and a family dinner.








The One Song Sing was at Babylon as usual and Paul Kelly's How to Make Gravy and it was spectacular. Beautifully arranged, emotional to sing, and a huge turn out. Yay for music. You can see the video of it here.






The following day I headed down to Sydney with friends to see Elton John and you can read about that here.

Christmas Eve I headed to my sister's property to spend time with the family. We had a great evening with a BBQ and pavlova and a mammoth game of Monopoly.




Christmas Day was joyous, a little sleep in, present time, breakfast croissants, huge baked dinner with all the meats for lunch and yummy trifle. Home for a nap, and out to Mum and Dad's for supper.







My birthday had a low key day, but filled with phone calls and messages of love. I had dinner at the Mary Ellen with the family. My nephew, 17, drove me back to my parents for cake in my car. He is a great driver, but it was surreal. The home for a nightcap.






The days leading up to New Years Eve were mostly spent lounging at home, sleeping in, reading, listening to music, watching tele, pottering online, writing, napping and eating. I had some outtings though. Lunch at 6 Degrees at the Brewery, a bit of a shop, afternoon cocktails with good friends.







It's been a crazy year, not exactly a good one, but such is life, stay tuned over the next week for my year round up and year reviews.
Here are my December Reviews.


and my usual pics:






No comments: