Today really marks the day where activities for Christmas start big time.
This morning we are having a get together like church, but our main service is this afternoon at 4.30.  I will be watching the weather as there are storms predicted for later this arvo.  We shall see.
We are having a Christmas get together for all.  It includes a free sausage bbq.  There are 300 or so snags.  People have been busy preparing snagsand other things.  On the outside of our centre, in the car park, there will be ethnic dancing, a petting zoo, table tennis, coffee and the youth are doing something.  Inside is face painting, ballon twisting, a photo booth and activities for really little people.  The whole lot is topped off with community carol singing.
After that it is quiet for a day.  On Tuesday Merril sees her sisters for Christmas.  I am seeing the neighbour for a music session.  He is fly in fly out and loves the guitar.  I hear him practicing regularly when home.  He is getting better and better. 
We then travel to the Sunshine Coast for Christmas lunch with my brother.  We like to visit a bookshop up there before we see him, and that is what we will do.  I imagine there will be a few book presents as a result.  I am hoping I remember to take some things I got for him when covid hit (I keep forgetting to take them) and the get together did not happen.
Then on Friday night we have the table tennis club break up.  That tends to be a quieter affair, but we go each year.
Sunday afternoon is a monthly meeting of the N3C board I am a part of.
I am getting the feeling that the imagined quiet time following will not be a quiet time.
We have a few dreams of getting stuff done around the house. See what happens.

I am often gobsmacked.
This morning in bed I was thinking about it being important to see myself as I wanted to be, rather than maybe the way I am.  I am totally thankful for the way I am, but as a mate of mine says, “he is just trying to hustle up a living like the rest of us.”
Yet I was thinking about boxes and how the saying is, “they think outside the box.”  I reckon it is important I stay within the confines of a box but a bigger box than I may have limited myself too.
By a box I mean regulations for living.  I saw a couple of kids excitedly declare a game was on.  It was soccer.  One declared there were no rules.  I thought to myself that is a recipe for disaster.  To me there always needs to be rules, but they may be different to the ones in place.  I believe that is how rugby was born and inspired the phrase when describing its birth “the boy who ran with the ball.”  It became, not a case of “no rules,” but “different rules.”
I think one of the most inhibiting phrases is, “we are doing it this way because we have always done it that way.”  To adhere to that for me is to make a box with a wall of concrete.  It is to make what may be transitory, permanent.
What amazed me this morning is something I read in the light of what I was thinking about.  It was a quote from a Wallace Wattles (much of who’s thought I have trouble with).  It was quoted in the James Clear email and said, “Do not merely think that you are going to become great; think that you are great now. Do not think that you will begin to act in a great way at some future time; begin now. Do not think that you will act in a great way when you reach a different environment; act in a great way where you are now. Do not think that you will begin to act in a great way when you begin to deal with great things; begin to deal in a great way with small things.”
I guess all I am trying to say, in an imperfect way, is I should not limit myself to what has been, and what is the upper limit of family expectations.  It is not about thinking of myself in a prideful arrogant way, but thinking of myself taking hold of the possibilities of what could be rather than limiting myself to an unnecessary limiting confine.

It has been an interesting week.  We had a breakup of something for this year and I realized something.  I have gone from the one expected to offer his chair to one who is offered a chair.  Ok I will still offer a chair, but I am not seen as the young fella sitting that could stand these days.
Oh well.  Comes a time. But there was one thing I saw in that scenario which I think is worthwhile to know.
A mate and I were talking yesterday about how so often it is hard for someone to accept help.  Particularly us guys.  We like to think we are independent and “I don’t need help.”  Yet the truth is something else.  I worked around the yard yesterday.  Not for a great deal of time but today I am bone weary.  A younger fella assisted me, and he was right as rain.  Just like I would have been once.  But no more. Not by choice but by a changing picture.
I am not one to decline offered help.  My thinking is, “let’s just get in and do this.”  What may be a hard slog for me is made easier by enthusiastic helpers.  Yet there are those who decline assistance based on what is really a false pride saying, “I can do this.”  Truth is they probably can, but they will pay a price for not accepting the help on offer.
At the breakup I was standing.  It arose because heaps turned up.  There were heaps of chairs but also heaps of people.  We were one chair short.  I had organized the event and was happy others were sitting and was ok standing.
But a young fella offered me his chair.  It was in that moment I realized something.  When someone offers something, I can be denying them a feel good moment if I decline the offer for illegitimate reasons. 
I’ll be honest in saying I did not need to sit but I did.  It was as much for him as it was for me.  By my sitting we both were encouraged.
That was the point for me.  Accepting a genuine offer of help often is good for two rather than just one.