It’s almost a quarter of the way through 2022 already, and it has been a pretty full year so far. Our eldest has been settling into uni life and a casual job, and learning to drive. Our second has started driving lessons as well, so it really feels as through we’re on the cusp of an epochal change in our family!

It’s been fun helping our eldest organise a bank account, student concession card, tax file number, superannuation account and the like, all these little steps to adulthood that I forgot are quite a big deal when you are 17 turning 18.

Work is busy but pretty fulfilling these days. After obsessively following developments in Ukraine for the first couple of weeks of the current war, I’m now limiting it to a 15-min check in once a day, just for the sake of sanity.

After a few lovely sunny autumn days it’s raining again today. Weeks of unrelenting rain basically destroyed my tomato and basil plants and I want to do some first aid in my little potted garden. But not today.

How about some links?

Here’s what I’ve just finished reading, The Dark Night: Psychological experience and spiritual reality, by Fr Marc Foley OCD. Fr Foley is a Discalced Carmelite priest and a psychologist and he just has a lovely gentle way of handing the topic, but he does make one look at oneself, which makes it perfect for Lent. I wouldn’t recommend it as a summer holiday beach read, put it that way.

Some of what I’ve been writing this week:

A little bit about Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis from the perspective of Aussie generosity

A bit about the floods in northern NSW

What rising living costs may mean for some charities

I’ve enjoyed listening to this Orthodox hymn to the Mother of Christ from Valaam Monastery and some good old Harry Connick Jr.

Also here’s where to find me on Instagram. If I can get into the garden this weekend I’ll post some photos! The one at the top of this post is an old one from when things looked a little better…