ANZAC Weekend

Eeyore was my favourite Disney character growing up.
I definitely identified with him when I was younger.

Over the last few months I have come to the realisation that I am suffering from depression. There is no single event that has caused this, but more of a mixture of things. It's not severe but for a while now it seems like SO MUCH EFFORT to do ANYTHING! I don't want to clean, work on my Master's project, or even hang out with people most of the time. Last week I was working on my literature review for my Master's thesis and I really struggled to put in the effort I knew I should. Depression is interesting because you hate being miserable, but you feel as if you can't help it. I've felt bad multiple times for getting angry at Matt for simple things. Depression makes you see the worst in everything and it takes all your willpower to just stay in control of your emotions and thoughts. This is my 3rd or 4th time being depressed and it is not the worst, but it is never fun.

I've come to terms with my depression and am working on it and not afraid if others know. I would rather people understand that if I seem irresponsible, moody, or self-centered that it is because I'm struggling with an internal battle. I have no doubts that I will win this battle, but it will take time.

There is good news to this story! I finally asked Matt to give me a priesthood blessing of comfort to help me with my depression and my school work. It was way overdue! I knew that the words from his mouth were the Lord's and He knew exactly what I needed to hear to calm my troubled heart. Did it cure my depression? No, but I felt more hope that helped me work towards finding happiness in every aspect of life.

After my blessing Matt and I went to visit Josie and Lachie Mackie. It's been ages since we have done anything with just them and it was fun to eat and chat. The best part was going to the Sydney Temple afterwards. It is always nice to share spiritual moments with close friends!

Thursday was the beginning of all the big activities! That night I finally got a much needed haircut...

After that Matt and I picked up a projector from a friend, and loaded our car with all the sweets and other food for the Young Women sleepover and headed to Cate Lynch's apartment. Poor Matt had to go back and forth from the house to pick up stuff I forgot - he's a trooper! Finally I got the projector set up and the girls started arriving. Unfortunately the pizza was late, but it was well worth it when it came! It is a MASSIVE pizza from a place called Johnny's.

In the end only four young women showed up, with one having to leave that night, but it was fun anyway. We watched Saving Mr. Banks and Howl's Moving Castle while eating lots of goodies. By the time we finished the second movie it was 2:30 am. We had planned to go to the ANZAC memorial service at 4 am, but when Cate came out of her room around 3:30 am only I woke up. We decided to let them sleep in, especially since a couple of the girls were having allergy problems and Racheal (2nd counsellor) was recovering from being sick.

The leaders all got up by 7:30 am and I made ebelskivers for breakfast before we were going to leave to go kayaking. I went to go get Matt who was one of the priesthood leaders coming on the trip and found he too had gotten little sleep. He and Racheal's husband David had stayed up till 2 am playing games that night!

We had booked kayaks for 13 people, but we had 5 people that couldn't make it and were still trying to fill up spots early Friday morning. In the end we only had two spots that couldn't be filled thankfully.

Kayaking was a lot of fun! We had our youngest girls in a double kayak with one of the priesthood leaders and everyone else had their own kayak. It was a nice stroll around the bay in Mosman, although it was difficult to keep all 9 kayaks together!

We only had one person tip over in the beginning which is so easy to do when you are first learning! Luckily it was there and not later because Matt found thousands of blue bottle jellyfish in the water later on.

After cleaning up Cate's place and going home Matt and I took a much needed nap! Later he had some friends over for games again, but this time it didn't go till the wee hours of the morning. I was glad he had people over because it motivated us to put everything away from the sleepover, and I was able to get a lot of work done on my literature review upstairs. It's so nice to have my own study room!

Saturday I had planned to go horseback riding with Alayna. I took this as an opportunity to justify purchasing some heeled boots for "riding." After a few shops I found some I liked and picked up Alayna to drive an hour to Glenworth Valley. It was a very large horse riding place and there were a lot of people. We went with a group of about 8 people and that sort of split into experienced and beginners. I felt bad that I wasn't near Alayna the whole time, but my horse did NOT like to be held back for long and so after a while I gave up trying to stay with the slower group. Sometimes beginner horses are too happy to go at a really slow pace. It was a beautiful area. We both had fun and I really enjoyed getting to know Alayna better on the drive, although she might have learned more about me since I talk so much! We completed our trip with some yummy shakes and donuts at Krispy Kreme.

I was exhausted when I got home and Matt and I decided to watch Memoirs of a Geisha. I still really like the movie, but in the end I decided a Geisha is a terrible role. It is easy to forget in the movie that the men are married and the Geisha are basically escorts to meet the men's entertainment and sexual needs. Sometimes it is difficult to understand foreign traditions.

Yesterday Matt and I were able to visit my friends Dean and Crystal after church. We have discussed hanging out with them multiple times but it never worked out. Finally we discovered Sundays are good for both of us and so we went and had dinner with them. I met Dean and Crystal when I was in the Greenwich ward (LDS church near Sydney) and was surprised to discover they are only 10 minutes away from us! We made plans to have dinner next week at our place. I am so glad we have so many young couples and friends to spend time with here! We have been very blessed.

The cat randomly decides to jump on my back, and as I bent down he jumped on and laid down - Goofball!