A thought about community and volunteering and stuff

I was so delighted to come across this scene on my way back from Penola last week.

The community spirit around these parts makes me so proud, it's a warm and fuzzy feeling, a sense of belonging to something bigger.

Yesterday I attended a BBQ with clients and staff of the organisation I volunteer with. It was a great feeling turning up for some salad and snags and being welcomed and recognised. It's wonderful to be involved and included in celebrations at this time of year, in my local community.

I enjoy my volunteering role and benefit from the weekly interaction in a social sense, just as much as the exercise session ladies do. One of the old dears asked me yesterday what exactly it is that I DO as a volunteer. I was a bit lost for words. I am just a volunteer.

I guess that I am there to support the paid carers and the work of the organisation basically. 

I do enjoy the exercise sessions, and the chats over morning tea after. I think this social aspect is the most important thing for older people. Getting out of the house and in the community. The feeling that they are part of society still, part of something bigger.

They have great stories to tell and I feel privileged to be able to listen to them. So to add to my volunteering role, I am not only a support, but a listener. A willing ear.

In other news, with all the end of year concerts out the way, I am overjoyed that it is the last dayof school for the girls for 2019. I am ready for sleep ins and lazy days.

There is no rest for the wicked though, with our holiday shack fully booked until the middle of January at the moment. I will be wearing a track, with cleaning duties. 

I am also becoming reflective on the past year, what I have achieved and realising how I want to move into the next year. This one has been a doozy, not unlike a roller coaster, with so many knocks and scrapes. I am hopeful.

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Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve!

I tried some Christmas lights bokeh last week. I think it turned out pretty well.

Merry Christmas from my family to you xx

 

 

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2018 Mount Gambier christmas pageant

This is one of my favourite days of the year. It means Christmas is ON like Donkey Kong. 

We traditionally put up our Christmas tree this weekend, not a day before!

I get just as excited as the kids do. Probably more so, as I wave back a the happy smiling people on the floats. The pageant has such a fantastic cheery, friendly atmosphere. How can anyone not feel good here?!

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Christmas garden art - painted tree stumps

They are supposed to be reindeer. I drilled holes in the top and inserted twigs to look like antlers.

I only usually do crafty, creative shit when I am inspired, and my most recent creative flair comes from these painted tree stumps I saw on Facebook during the week. I am not entirely sure it was even from the page I have linked here, I don't think it was. 

I know I am guilty of it in my earlier days of social media sharing, and probably even recently. But people sharing other peoples stuff on social media, and not crediting the original poster shits me. I even saw it over the weekend, a popular page sharing a pile of washing adorned with christmas lights as thier own photo. Most of their followers asumed it WAS thier photo, and if I hadn't seen it a couple of hours earlier on the original posters page, I would have thought it was thiers. An act of cunning. Facebook is a fickle and deceiving place. 

God knows, most of the photos I post are when things are good, things are pretty and I'm putting the best forward. There is plenty of shit times round here, where I am stressed, swearing like a sailor and crying in the dishwater(because I still wash dishes in an actual sink). I am not exactly reaching for the phone at these times, believe me. I am reaching to flick the kettle switch or for a wine glass. Mostly the latter. Depends on which side of Friday it is.

I don't know about you, but the last week for me has been exhausting. A couple of late nights and I have been fucked. It seems like everyone has wanted their piece of me, and their hasn't been much time for me to pause and catch up. I am so looking forward to not having to be responsibly forced to be up and organised for six weeks. 

I was inspired yesterday, the weather was fabulous and my creative juices were in flood mode. I hit the cheap shop for paint and brushes and got busy in the driveway, decorating the left over stumps from our tree removing from last year. The white agapanthus have relished with the extra sunshine!

I painted three of the stumps and used a few slats from the pallet cubby our neighbour has built for his kids. I am not sure of who actually owns this strip of garden, us or the neighbours, it's like no man's land. I think there is an unspoken truce of halfies. At least thats how I look at it. 

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