if your plans bear fruit - make jam!

Last week the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) informed me that I had been approved as a Accredited Mental Health Social Worker. Usually you have to be qualified as a social worker for two years before you can be accredited, but I applied under their 'exceptional circumstances' rule, due to my 30 year long history of working in mental health, albeit as an art therapist.

I can now apply for a Medicare Provider Number, go into private practice, and work in the Better Access to Mental Health Care Initiative. This basically means that Medicare will cover the client's costs for therapy for up to 10 sessions a year. Not enough, but better than nothing.

This was my original reason for doing the Masters of Social Work, and I am somewhat amazed to have achieved my goal! In fact, there are so many decisions I have to make now: where to work; how to start; and how to fit it all in with what I am already doing; its a little overwhelming.

But these are good dilemmas to be grappling with..and it is also quite exciting.

S brought home 4 kilos of strawberries the other day. They were not quite good enough to distribute, so I got to make strawberry jam. I am quite entranced by the transformational process of jam-making. I have also recently made mango and apple chutney, and Brazilian cherry and rosella jelly (which turned out more like a quince paste).

Its great to have so much beautiful fruit around at the moment. Mangoes, pawpaws, strawberries, grapes and figs.

We also have an abundance of eggs, as five of our chooks are laying, and our newly fitted bird netting over the chook run is working, as it prevents crows from swooping down and stealing the eggs. The pigeons can still get in, but they only eat a little of the chook food, and they seems to be able to get out again, after flapping around in a panic for a while. 

Finally, we had a journal making workshop this week at work, for teenage girls. This is one I made earlier.So much fun.

more later.

how should we live now?

 escape hatch, QUT bike path

Early this week we went to a talk by Bob Brown, ex-leader of the Green party, at the State Library, as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival. The theme was something like, Intelligence, Stupidity and how Australia got the future it voted for (my interpretation), delivered just an hour after Clive Palmer made his 'maiden' speech in federal parliament.

We are living in interesting times.

And the inevitable question: if we can't save the planet, how should we live now?

Mr Brown's advice: travel, enjoy life, and sleep out under the stars. 

His favourite place? The Tarkine wilderness in Southern Tasmania.

 south bank, brisbane

 under the bridge at south bank, brisbane

 eucalypt forest, Mt Tamborine

 botanic gardens, Brisbane

I always liked Voltaire's ending to Candide: we must cultivate our garden. What else?

On a lighter note, its been almost a movie marathon in the past few weeks. Celebrating the end of studying...the following five movies in six weeks:

1. enough said
2. about time
3. one chance
4. the sister
5. 20 feet from stardom

All well worth the time.

I have a job interview. And I have almost completed my Mental Health Social Worker application.

MBSR course finishes this week. Homework: do something that is a small step towards a positive change.

Are we brave enough for this?

And something a bit challenging: having a party!

more later.