Its only a matter of days now, before we leave on our much-needed vacation, so as you can imagine I am neck deep in planning and organising, which for me means the there are lists aplenty going on!
Lists for whats already packed, lists for what still needs to be packed, list for things that need doing around the house and garden, and lists about whom we still need to see to take care of our Home, Farm and animals while we’re gone.
Lists to remind us of what needs printing out, a list that spells out our semi-intended itinerary, and a meal-planning list so that there is hopefully minimal amounts of food that will need to be composted prior to us leaving.
As I’ve said before, its two years since we last went to New Zealand, and it will be our very first extended leave away from the Farm, since we bought it.
And I’m freaking out just a wee bit! 😐
Its such a double-dilemma for me personally…
New Zealand is my soul-home.
It is where I belong.
It is where my insides quieten, and my heart feels full.
Had Life panned out differently, we would currently be nestled in our home at Okiato, overlooking Opua Harbour right now…but that didn’t pan out – so compromises had to be made, and dreams re-developed.
Now – we have our beautiful Farm, nestled in the foothills of the Carrington Ranges – and we live in a small 63m2 (678ft2) home that we’re in the process of converting from a machinery shed.
And I love our Home and Farm fiercely!
They too, now feed my soul and fill my heart…
The Farm is my haven.
Its where my soul gets replenished when the rest of ‘life’ drains me.
Its my safe place.
Its where no-one judges me.
It is where I grow food to nourish our bodies while the serenity nourishes my mind and spirit.
Because of this, there is a part of me doesn’t want to go away and leave them, for what feels like soooo long!
I know…. first world problems right?! 😐
So – I’m more than a tad angsty right now.
The list-making helps me feel more in control of that – and I keep reminding myself that I’m going to my soul-home for a while so we can both rest, relax, regroup and reconnect – I’m not leaving our Farm, never to return!
I am going somewhere special to spend time with someone special.
I am going to go and make memories to hold deep in my heart.
I’m going ‘home’ for a little while… And we’ll be back wrapped in the safety of our gorgeous serene Farm before we even know it, wondering how on earth the time passed so damn quick!
What’s not to love, with the changing of the colours of the trees signalling the changing of the seasons.
THIS is what we’re off to spend time soaking up…
Theres noooo business like snowwwww business….!
The most gorgeous scenery in the entire world.
Smoking you ask?
Are you still smoking? Wellllll – I’m glad you asked!!
It’s a month in (well, 4 weeks lol) – in case you’ve been keeping track – and still she doesn’t smoke!
That’s right folks.
I’m a month clean!!
But what I’m even more incredibly proud and grateful for – is that my Love is also a month clean of not smoking!!!
Neither of us can say that there haven’t been times when we’d have liked to have had a cigarette – that would be outright lying – and when our son got hit by a car whilst riding his motorbike to work one morning, and was whisked off by Ambulance with expected internal bleeding – welllll…. it was pretty much a ‘perfect-storm excuse’ for either of us to have wimped out and given in.
But we DIDN’T!!!
Yep – we still need to remind ourselves every.single.day that we can’t have ‘just one or two’ – because there is no such thing.
But a month in, and we’re still making the choice every day, to stay nicotine free.
I’m super proud of us 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’ve spent my “free-time Friday” this week, moving furniture around a bit within our little home.
I’ve now made room for my writing desk to go into our living room space so that it will front on to the big glass doors, which means I’ll now have a lovely view of our garden to look out on when I write, instead of only being able to see the top of the trees – which was my previous view from the dining room table – due to me being ‘horizontally challenged’ 😀
I love our garden so much – and love to take my laptop outside to write, when the weather is being kind – but of late its either been blisteringly hot, or pouring with rain – and as we don’t yet have a covered outdoor area, it means I am confined to indoors during those times.
Right now, we don’t use our lounge-room area a whole lot – its more of a winter area for us in the evenings; but when I’m home alone, I’ll often use the area for reading, otherwise it doesn’t get a lot of traffic – so I’ve been looking at ways to re-jig it, so that it not only gets more use, but is a more practical space for us.
And what better way to do that than to incorporate my writing desk into the area!
I have also been keeping a look-out at the tip-shop and the second-hand shops for a day-bed, which I will put along the wall that currently houses a huuuuuuge lounge-chair and a chest of drawers.
The drawers will move to the next wall over, and the lounge-chair will probably be sold.
We don’t use the lounge-chair, and rarely have visitors who would use it – so its just being a space-sucker! (although our puppies may disagree with my opinions on this particular piece of furniture)
Its all a work in progress, and today I’m loving’ the progress I’ve made! 🙂
My lovely calm writing space. You can see the view I have, in the title Image for this post 🙂
The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden.
It doesn’t make you unlovable or undesirable or undeserving of care.
It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy…It makes you human.
Everyone struggles.
Everyone has a difficult time coping, and at times, we all fall apart.
During these times, we aren’t always easy to be around — and that’s okay.
No one is easy to be around one hundred percent of the time.
Yes, you may sometimes be unpleasant or difficult.
And yes, you may sometimes do or say things that make the people around you feel helpless or sad.
But those things aren’t all of who you are and they certainly don’t discount your worth as a human being.
The truth is that you can be struggling and still be loved.
You can be difficult and still be cared for.
You can be less than perfect, and still be deserving of compassion and kindness…
1. You are not your body and your body is not you but you best look after each other anyway.
You might be together for a while.
2. You’ll never have more potential than you do right now, so find a way to use more of what you’ve got.
3. You think too much.
4. It’s not a time issue.
It’s a how-you-manage-your-time issue.
5. You’ll never be perfect, so aim for better.
6. You’ll never live in the future or the past, so find a way to be happy in the now.
7. Your beliefs, standards and rules will change over time so don’t get too self-righteous about your current ones.
8. Life doesn’t get better, you do.
Life is life – it will happen to you, around you and despite you.
It’s your job to get better in the middle of it all.
9. Your body is not the problem.
It’s the consequence.
10. You’ll never find yourself in things.
So stop looking there.
11. Even though you might not feel it, think it, believe it or hear it, you are good enough.
12. Your happiness works from the inside-out.
Not the other way around.
13. Things only have the meaning you give them.
Every day, you get to create your own reality.
So choose your labels wisely.
14. Nobody can take your power but you can give it away.
Master your fear and you’ll master your life.
15. Real success is not about what you earn, own, achieve or win but who you become along the way.
Its a year on from my “one step at a time” post – and I’m reflecting a bit about where I am now as opposed to this time last year.
Some things haven’t yet changed.
I am still at my job as a Manager, I am still working three days a week, and I’m still not a full-time HouseSpouse.
YET!
A lot has change though…
We have the house in town on the market – for sale.
We have moved full-time into the FarmHouse.
We have stacks of garden beds that are flourishing with edible produce, that fills our bellies with wholesome homegrown goodness.
We have enough surplus veggies that I am able to do canning so that our pantry shelves are stocked with a variety of foods that we know the ingredients of, and I routinely make our own bread.
We have chickens that supply us with all of our own fresh eggs, and we home-cook 95% of the food we eat.
I have managed to reduce our food budget substantially.
I have also paid off a lot of credit card debt, and will hopefully have paid off the remainder of it in less than a year.
We also no longer have cable tv or home phone line payments to have to find the money for.
I have reduced my clothing spending significantly, although we are going to need to buy some new-to-us work shirts soon, as the ones we currently share are getting a bit faded and threadbare lol.
And – we’ve reduced our power and water consumption!
I may not be as close to where I want to be as I would like – but I am certainly a lot closer than I was a year ago – and for that, I’m pretty darn proud of the headway I’ve made…
Today I got out of bed quite well rested.
I had a really decent sleep last night, because it rained through the night, and i always sleep soooo much better when it rains.
I have also taken a fortnight off work – which actually winds up being 18 days – so that is a big load of stress gone off my back for the time being!!
And to top it off, I also slept well because My Love & I came to a very important decision last night, Continue reading “today…”
Its hard to fathom that its already been a month since the horror of not knowing if my Family was safe, following Hurricane Irma.
It was just over 48hrs after the hurricane swept through Tortola, before we finally heard that our Nephew, his family and two small children were safe – and another agonising 36hrs before we heard that my sister was also safe, and had managed to walk for miles – through what was basically a war-zone, to be reunited with them.
The relief when I finally heard my sisters voice on the other end of the phone line, was beyond description, and I hadn’t realise just how “wound-up” I’d been, until the exhaustion hit the following day, and I ended up getting sick, which we figured was probably a reaction to the stress I’d been under.
That whole business of remaining stoic during the crisis – and then falling into a puddle after its all over, type business.
Yep – thats exactly what I did!!
I ended up having 2 days off work – mental health days – to get myself back together, to sleep, and to just ‘heal’ from all that had gone on.
I’ve been putting in as much time as I can on my days off (which is usually about 3 hours at a time), into getting the house in town more prepared for finally being ready to go on the market.
I’ve got the majority of the painting done, and the general clean-up, and just have some touch-ups to do, the fridge cavity to paint, and the front room to clean properly, and I’ll have done most of the stuff that I am able to do by my self.
I need my Love to get a few chores done – and the chain has been being dragged there a bit.
I get that its a shitty job, and that motivation is lacking – I feel exactly the same way – but unfortunately we don’t have the money to get someone else in to do it – so we just need to suck it up, do what we gotta do – and get this proverbial bloody noose from around our necks!
There is no easy way out of this! (dammit!)
Earlier in the year, when tickets were first released, we managed to score two passes to the Elton John concert that was coming to the near-by City, in September.
We’d pretty much forgotten all about it, until the media hype surrounding the event sparked up and reminded us – so last weekend, off we trundled to the concert.
It was really good, and he can still belt out a song as well if not better than he ever could – and for ¾ of the concert, I was having a lovely time.
We had a great view of the stage, and were pretty much almost close enough to smell his sweat!
Then, at the ¾ mark, the security whom had been soooo good up until that point, decided to let the crowds that had been at the back of the stadium, surge down to the front.
Let me tell you – when there is a 25,000 strong crowd of people, surging around you – its more than a little overwhelming!!
For the last ¼, of the concert – my anxiety kicked in big time, and I think at the time, that I was pretty sure I was going to die in that Stadium!!!
I don’t think there was much at all that I heard of the last quarter – and what was going on for me, was a rush of adrenalin surging through me, that translated to the whoosh of a jet-engine inside my head.
It wasn’t nice….
Once the concert was over – getting out of the Stadium was surprisingly uncomplicated, and the congestion wasn’t too bad at all.
Unfortunately we then had a two hour wait, standing in a very slow moving line, to get a cab back to our hotel.
And apart from some of the foul-mouthed idiots that were in the line behind us – it was actually a relatively painless process!
I’m still going to the Physio on an almost weekly basis – and have had a bit of a back-slide in the last fortnight, which was exacerbated by the concert weekend, and spending so long sitting in a hard plastic chair, and then another couple of hours of standing in line for the cab.
So my body is having a bit of a flare-up at the moment, and the pain-levels have kicked up a notch or three.
Thankfully its nowhere even close to the pain I was in earlier in the year – but its been a frustrating reminder that I will never be truely ‘over’ this stuff, and its just a case of managing the condition as best I can, with help from the professionals…
I did get a bit of sad news last week during my Physio session though.
My Physio girl is going on an around-the-country adventure, and has resigned, and will be leaving as of the end of next week.
She has helped me so amazing much over the last eight months, that a part of me is a little bit scared of her leaving…
I’ll be moving over to another Physio in the same practice – whom I’ve seen numerous times and have a decent rapport with – but a part of me has come to rely on the ‘genius’ that my current girl has been.
She has made such an incredible difference to my abilities and pain levels over the previous months, that I can’t help but wonder how it will all go without her ‘by my side’, cheering me along.
I am incredibly excited for her though.
She is a wonderful young woman, with the world at her feet – and she should be going out there and grabbing every opportunity she can, with both hands.
Today – I had my first full day at home in a verrrry long time.
I didn’t go to work, I didn’t go to the house in town, I didn’t have to leave the Farm for anything – I just got to stay home all day – and it was BLISS!!
My Love had to go to work til about 1pm – so I was home-alone for the morning, to revel in it to the full!
I did laundry, had a solo breakfast whilst reading one of my favourite books, rearranged my closet, packed away most of the winter clothing, took the heavy blanket off the bed, did dishes, tidied the kitchen, and all the while listening to some of my favourite podcasts.
It was just sooo incredibly good for my soul – and a day that I desperately needed.
I’ve also had a birthday in the last month, and got a beautiful dinner cooked for me, and a relaxing evening spent at home with my Love, just being fed and generally pampered…
On the work front, we have a new member of Management starting next week.
A position that has been empty for the last two years, due to us not being able to find a suitable candidate to fill the position – so fingers crossed that it works out well, and takes some of the load off the rest of us who have been doing the duties of the position in the interim.
I’m a bit concerned that we have been doing those duties for so long now, that there won’t be enough of a ‘shifting’ of the duties to ease the load much – but I need to go into this with an open mind, and trust that the right thing will happen, and that the stress of the last few years will be relieved at least a little…
A bit of excitement happened this week.
Our neighbours on the northern side went for a day trip up to the rainforest, and while they were there visited a small intensive farm, that grew vanilla, amongst other things.
It seems that while they were there, the experience of what could be done on a relatively small parcel of land – lit an incredibly wonderful fire of enthusiasm into the man-of-the house, and he came home full of plans, eagerness and green type ideas of what he could accomplish on his own 1ac block – and a burning desire to learn everything he could about permaculture, gardening, food-forests and the like.
So this morning, I loaded up a hard-drive with ebooks, shows and various interesting links, and added a couple of all-rounder type books from our bookcase to the parcel, and handed it over the fence for him to dip in to.
He was pretty excited by it all – and headed off inside with his booty.
Hopefully he’ll enjoy it, cos for me the excitement is in having someone right next door to share knowledge, resources and a joy of this type of mind-set!!
We’ll be getting a couple of new-to-us unwanted hens in a couple of weeks, so it will be a learning curve of integrating them with our two bantams Jac & Izzy.
Hopefully will all go smoothly, and they’ll be happy to live together.
Despite the heat and dry of the last couple of week, the gardens are flourishing, but its looking a bit like we might lose two of the trees we planted a few weeks back.
They’re struggling a bit at the moment, so we’ve been giving them some extra care – but only time will tell if we can nurse them through this rough time that they’re currently having. Fingers crossed!!
Well – its Sunday which means my Love and I get to spend the day together getting some jobs around the Farm done – so I’d best get on with it and “do stuff“!!
Have a great week all.
And remember – sharing is caring… 🙂 you never know who of your friends might be interested in the Adventure!
I hope you do 🙂
Until next time – have a good one and look after YOU!
Eggs from our girls – Jac & Izzy.
Making laundry liquid with soap left-overs.
Elton John in concert.
Kipfler potatoes shooting.
Left-overs for lunch. Lamb korma on toast. YUM!
Our garden giving us some lurvvvve. Beautiful tomatoes.
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