Date: 24 November 2012 16:03:36
I didn't actually intend the last sentence of my last post to be some kind of challenge. (What am I going to do with the new found energy?!?!) Honestly, I didn't!!
So, in no particular order -
The shopping trolley experiment. This has been continued, and results continue to be really good. I now realise I'd been living with a low-grade chronic all over achiness, and increasingly limited mobility in my left shoulder for a couple of years now, which I'd been putting down to other possible reasonable causes. It's only with the removal of the real cause that the light has dawned. I am not as decrepit as I thought I was, I am, in reality, a fit, healthy middle aged woman who was just carrying far too heavy a load in physical terms.
What is astounding me is how easy it has been on the trains. Possibly helped by the fact that I commute against the flow. Most people commute into a city from elsewhere. Me, I love city living, but commute to a medium sized town for work purposes. So, mostly, my trains are not chock-a-block with people whose ankles I can damage with the trolley. Then, it really is conferring a mad, eccentric, middle aged status upon me . Yippee!! And, um, shopping trolleys are cheaper to replace than a rucksack...
General Synod I am calmer now, but I have spent much of this week not being so, post General Synod voting on ordaining women as Bishops. I have spent a significant amount of time trying to explain, coherently, painfully, and carefully to my friends and colleagues who have no interest in going to church themselves, but know I do (and who were daft enough to ask for my opinion!), about the matter of ordaining women as bishops, how Synod works, a bit of the history. I have also been a sounding board for many of my ordained friends of both genders. I have remained at a distance from church politics for quite some time, but I am wondering how long I can continue with that when so many lay people I know are not being fairly or accurately represented at General Synod level. Or least, how I can be better informed about who my Lay Representatives are and making sure they fairly represent their whole constituency, since full time 9 - 5 term time employment and being on General Synod are not compatible. (This, for me, is possibly one of the clear issues to have come out of this mess - the limited number of laity who can be on General Synod.) If nothing else,this may well have shaken me out of a sense of complacency, and apathy about a number of things.
Teenage girls I appear to be on a bit of a steep learning curve about them! Despite the fact I was once a teenage girl, I sometimes wonder about my experiences, how typical they were, and possibly did I live out my teenager-dom on a totally different planet. It was in a different time zone... of 30 or so years ago. For this week, I am grateful for the baby steps forwards, and the fact we are currently communicating reasonably well. For who only knows what it'll be like next week! I shall look at the angel they made me for my Christmas Tree (I will have to have one this year now!) and remind myself of this week when things get rough again.
Computers I have long had a bit of a love/hate relationship with learning new things. I'm slow to take it on, but when I do, I get obsessional. With computer stuff, I'm competent enough with them on a day to day basis, but every now and again, I have to learn new stuff, and I don't always like it. But, I can safely report I have come to terms with the new music writing software, and we have developed an amicable relationship. Enough for me to confidently agree to writing out stuff for other people to use. I am on a mission to replace all the hand written, and frankly getting unreadable and faded music I have to read on a regular basis. Just need to work out how to get it to write music that doesn't need a time signature.
Finances For the first time since turning my life completely upside down a few years ago, I seem to have a little regular, disposable income, some savings and money left at the end of the month. Squee!!!