2018: the worst

So in the last post I shared the highlights of 2018.

And now the low lights of 2018:

• Bruised both my big toes from snow boarding (still waiting for the toenails to fall off!)
• Garage gate and oven needed to get fixed (and I was the accidentally culprit of both incidents)
• One of the pipes in our house bursted due to emergency works done by the water company in our area (thankful we had home insurance to cover it)
• Car broke down (on the night we were supposed to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday)
• I had a car crash (thankfully no injuries)
• I had a number of traffic infringements (after being basically a model driver for most of my driving life)

Yeah, it was not a good car year or house year.

But at the same time, lots to be thankful for – we had funds or either insurance to get things fixed or paid. Thankful we have a roof over our heads and modes of transport to get us around. My husband and I are both in good health.

2018: the best

As I start writing this post, it’s New Year Eve. There’s just something about being on the cusp of a new year that brings expectation of “newness” and hope for the future.

But as I’ve learnt, it’s important to look back in order to move forward.

Rather than go month by month, I thought this year I’d do a tally of the different activities that took place:

Housewarming: 1

Engagement Party: 1

Baby Shower: 1

Went to the Snow: 1 (Falls Creek)

Live concert: 1 (Ed Sherran)

Musical: 1 (Wizard of Oz with mum)

Travelled Overseas: 1 (Japan)

Weddings: 2

Hens’ events: 2

Escape Room: 2

Virtual Reality Experience: 2

Big special family occasions: 3 (CNYs and 100th day celebration)

Major Networking Events: 3 (including attending the Australia Open)

Travelled Interstate: 4 (3 x to Sydney and 1 x to Gold Coast)

Hosted group gatherings at our house: 5

Movies in the cinemas: 5 (Pitch Perfect 3, Avengers, For the Love of God, Jurassic Park, First Man, Crazy Rich Asians)

Birthday parties/dinners: 14 (1 x 1^st, 4 x 30^th, 1 x 25^th, 1 x 60^th, 1 x 70^th, 3 x 29^th, 1 x 26^th, 3 x 64^th

Catchups: 20 (separate occasions – either as a double date or an individual catch up)

Other memorable events that didn’t make it into the tally were:

• Attended Alisa’s Open House and Morning Tea Art Exhibition
• Won tickets to the Digital Strategy and Innovation Summit (in Sydney)
• Peace Wise Training
• I attempted F45 training(!)
• Attended a Behind Bigger Questions event – Sam Chan
• Art Afternoon with Beth
• RICE Movement Regional Rally
• Started attending monthly Christian Business Group
• Joined Fresh Networking
• Attended a watercolour workshop (with @byjoeecheong)
• Attended Institute for Civil Society’s supporter breakfast
• RED Kingdom Come Night
• Recorded my podcast interview with Ruby Lee
• Attended a Christmas in July dinner party
• CLS Annual Dinner
• Had a fancy lunch at Woodman Estate (finally using my bridal shower gift voucher!)
• 1st year wedding anniversary celebrations (at our favourite restaurant and then a weekend away)
• A number of Mentor/Mentee Meetings with a law student
• Numerous Pray Love Care nights

Oh and I started a small business (you can read the summary of that here).

You are not that important.

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged.

I realised in part because like most things that I start and then don’t follow through I have a fear of failure complex – I worry so much that I will fail that I don’t do anything at all because if I don’t do anything, then I cannot fail right?

Such a bad thought pattern – which makes me wonder, where did this come from?

Perhaps it’s from my cultural Asian background where anything less than perfection is not good enough. Though my parents did not necessarily put this on me, I think I just somehow inherited this mentality from those around me.

This is still just a working thought in progress.

Anyway, one way to break this cycle is to just do it anyway. Try not to be too perfectionist about it and just do it anyway even if it is “crap”.

So here I am blogging again.

Something that helped me push past the barrier this evening as I type this was a timely perspective shifter.

I was having a business meeting today and was inspired by how this one lady I met was running three businesses and somehow also working full-time in a 9-5 job. I started to compare myself to her and could almost hear my internal thoughts saying: “You need to get your act together. Stop worrying and just do what you need to do to get your business moving forward.”

So on the way home, I was thinking about all the things I could do to fill up my free night tonight – I was going to do this and that and then after I would do this and then that. As much as it was great for me to have all these things to do, I started to have that overwhelmed kind of feeling creep up on me again. “Oh there’s too much to do.” “It’s not going to make a difference anyway.” “It’s too hard.”

I could feel that familiar sense of helplessness start to overwhelm my mind. But before I was going to resign myself to an evening of TV/Netflix bingeing, I thought I’d share my thoughts on a chapter from the book I was reading with my Whatsapp Book Club.

There were some biblical truths than helped me get a better perspective in life that I wanted to note down:

• Life is hard.
• You are not that important.
• Your life is not about you.
• You are not in control.
• You are going to die.

Selah.

Wow. Doesn’t that just help put life back in its rightful place? Every day we live on this earth is a gift and there are things that are beyond our control. And yes life can be hard but it is also not about me (and how many followers or likes I get on Instagram) – it’s ultimately about something more and I need to keep that in mind if I’m going to do anything of worth in this life.

So even as I go and do a bit of my side hustle project, tonight I cannot make it about me. It has to be about something greater and something beyond me.

That’s what I need to meditate on and work towards.

Ok – that’s it for now. At least I broke through and am slowly got the blogging juices going again.

We’ll see how this goes.

– Amy

P.S. If there is anyone actually reading this, I apologies if it seems to be a steady flow of consciousness with no real thought or structure – it is what it is.

The maths of love

Bishop Stephen Neill: ‘If a mathematical analysis of “love” in this sense were to be attempted, it would probably assign 10% to emotion; 20% to understanding; 70% to will.’

02/05/2014

learning to let go of mistakes made along the way; lesson relearnt each day.

#Fast2014: Day 7 – 10

Only a summary this time because I kind of forgot to record what food I was eating at each meal…

I have to say that in the last 3 days, I did start to struggle when it came to the food.  Working in an office that has regular morning tea (that usually includes sweets and other junk food) it became more challenging to avoid the chocolate that got offered to me on more than one occasion.  It was especially hard having to forego the meat as well. I know I’m not doing a complete Daniel Fast because I’m still having my carbs and dairy but even that was starting to be a challenge.

However, lots of good spiritual food in the last 3 days.  All recorded in my diary and I’m not keen to retype it at all at this hour.

General thoughts: I believe that in this time of fasting, my faith has been enlarged and I’ve come to know the Holy Spirit more and want His presence in my life even more.  There is not a clear vision yet of what our English service but I feel much less stressed out about it.  Just learning/re-learning to trust God in the midst of the unknown.

And that’s a good outcome.

purpose in the waiting

Waiting on God is Hard, and That’s OK.

the truest source of refuel

How Jesus Refuelled.

Hungry for more? Fast!

from: http://messengerinternational.org/blog/devotional/fasting-changing-way-see/

It starts tomorrow (5 January 2014 US time).

Some purposes for fasting as outlined by Lisa Bevere:

I declare Christ

Let my life – my daily actions and words – declare Christ to the world!