Kathina ceremony

Three weeks in my new role, and while I like it, there is so much to learn and a lot of it takes time and experience to really understand what is going on. Overall, I am not feeling 110% at the moment. I am due to present at our End of Year wrap up (in front of more than 100 people) on my last day of work (before we fly off to Malaysia) next month. I HATE PUBLIC SPEAKING. I DO, I REALLY HATE IT! Our bosses push us to do it, but I still think if its not for me, it is not for me!

Back at home, we finally completed painting the house! It only took us a good 8 weeks to paint two bedrooms, a hall way, the kitchen and the dining area! I still can't believe we lived with green walls for 8 and a half years. Like seriously, what were we thinking?? It is now 'Natural White'. It looks great. We also replaced the carpets in all the bedrooms. The old carpets were more than 15 years old. Exactly. What were we thinking?

And today, was a special day for Buddhist followers at the Warburton monastery. It is the annual Kathina ceremony, where we get to offer robes to the monks. I was able to get in touch with a lady who organised the robes, and she secured two robes for us, one for myself and one for my brother. I was not sure on how to persuade Grumpy to attend this day with me (as it is a 90 minute drive from home), considering he calls himself, and our child, Christians! But he agreed! Little Bambi was quite excited. She attends church and reads books about the Bible, yet she knows the Buddha and is able to also do some basic Buddhist chanting. We stood in line and offered rice to the monks for their lunch. Grumpy helped Little Bambi offer rice to the monks bowl (melts my heart!). As soon as she was done with the rice offering, she started eating the rice herself!

While we were having our lunch at the monastery, Little Bambi was getting bored and so I agreed to take her to the field for a walk. She enjoyed running around the big open space. As Little Bambi and I were playing and talking, a monk walked past us as he finished his lunch and was returning to keep his bowl. He saw us and then he stopped. He turned around and asked if we wanted ice cream? Of course we want ice cream! The monk then said he had to place it on the ground to pass it to us, which is part of our Buddhist custom. I bowed to the monk and said "Thank you!" We ran back to Grumpy "Guess what? A monk just gave us a Magnum!" HAHA It was funny then but now as I sit down in bed and reflect, I think how incredibly special that was! Very rarely we get offered ice cream by a Buddhist monk!

After we offered the robes, we stopped by at a cherry farm on the way home. 

Grumpy and I, completely clueless to the conditions of entry. We filled up two big buckets with cherries, thinking they were 'free' and part of the $9 entry fee. Hahaha when we were done, we were a further $55 poorer! Damnit! We drove home thinking, WHAT are we going to do with $55 worth of cherries?!?!? Oh well, Little Bambi enjoyed it and we had a pretty eventful day. 

Good night! xx
Jules