today…

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Today is different.

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…”

comparisons

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I’m having a bit of a ‘comparison’ dilemma at the moment and whilst I know that comparing oneself to others is never a healthy or helpful thing – I’m just not quite sure how to get it “out of my system”…

It makes it that much harder – because the person I am making the comparison with, is my Love.

My Love is 5 years older than me, and is a healthy happy vibrant person, who loves Continue reading “comparisons”

a quickie

After yesterdays mammoth post, I thought today would just be a ‘quickie’ 🙂

Sometimes – just cleaning up and sorting out a small corner of your home, can make a huge difference to how you feel about the rest of the day.

I had had one of those mornings where I came back to the Farm feeling pretty crappy, frustrated and annoyed. Continue reading “a quickie”

an update!

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!
Sarah

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.

 

those that inspire

A month or so ago, a girlfriend and I had a coffee-date at one of the lovely local cafes.

We work together, but don’t socialise much at work, because we both just tend to get busy, plus we work in different parts of the office – so when either of us has a break, we both tend to just zone out for that time period, and pretend we’re anywhere else, rather than spending it with others, being social in the staff room.

It had been almost a year since we last caught up outside of work, and we had a rather in-depth discussion about how we were both in exactly the same ‘place’ as we’d angsted about being in, a year earlier…
Still in the same jobs, still being miserable, and still talking about leaving.

But this time, unbeknownst to each other, we’d each been formulating a plan…

Neither of us had the details down pat, but we’d each decided that by the end of the year, we would not still be dreading that walk through those sliding glass doors each week.
We would not still be being consistently treated like crap, when we routinely went above and beyond…

My friend had a more time-specific plan than I – she planned for August 1 to be her end date.
My end date was planned to occur once our house in town had sold.

Last week was a particularly stressful and horrid week at work.
At the start of this week, my friend privately talked to me at work, apologised, and quietly told me that she was submitting her resignation on Wednesday morning…she just couldn’t hold out any longer…

I was overjoyed!!

There was certainly no need for her apology – although I deeply appreciated the sentiment behind it.
She and I “get” each other, and we have each others back.
We understand just what working in that particular pressure-cooker environment, with that particular mix of staff, is like – in a way that few others can.

So – here we are at Wednesday – and today she did it!!
She handed in her resignation.

I am so happy for her, and proud for her that she has taken this step.
She already walks with more of a lightness to her step – and despite it being another shitty day at work, I can see the ‘light’ returning to her eyes.

Yes, I am a little sad that in a few short weeks, she will no longer be there for me to roll my eyes at 100 times a day when something goes sideways, and I’ll miss not having someone there who has my back, and ‘understands’ – but I honestly could not be happier for her – that she has take the leap.

I can only hope that when that glorious day arrives for me, I can hold my head high and muster up just a tenth of the dignity and grace that my friend showed today…

She’s one brave, strong, inspirational Lady that one – and I just hope we don’t lose touch.
Sarah

 

wants & needs

As I’ve said before – I’m at the point in my Life now where there’s some things that have taken on more importance than others…one of those things is my OWN happiness.

I’ve worked at my current job for almost 9 years now, and have worked my way up about as far as I am able to, with the way that this particular business is structured.

I’m also at the stage where I am no longer enjoying my job – a job I used to love.

Because of that, I have scaled right back and have gone from working 5 or 6 shifts a week, down to two – and for a day either side of those two days, I’m either talking myself into going to work, or ‘recovering’ from the mental and emotional load that’s has come from being at work.

Additionally, my workload responsibilities have increased dramatically in the last 4 years, but the pay rate has remained static, other than the obligatory CPI increases.
It’s just not an ideal way to ‘waste’ 4 days a week…
As far as I’m concerned, there a lot more useful and productive ways I could be spending my time – and that’s my goal at the moment.

I’m hoping that by the end of the year, I will be able to resign/retire from work – and once again be a full-time House Spouse.

My Love and I have discussed this in depth, and we’re pretty sure that once the house in town has sold – well be able to swing it!
I am currently earning less each month than the mortgage payments on the house in town, so with that mortgage gone, we’d actually still be ‘ahead’, even without my wage!!

Life is not static, no experience (pleasure or pain) permanent, but for now – I simply have to live it, and make the best of it that I can – whilst working toward and preparing for being able to move to the Farm full time; leave work, take up my role of full-time House Spouse, and continue to grow the Life I want and need…

 

Stepping back a bit. 

Editors Note:
I started writing this a few weeks back, and realized that i just keep adding to it, when i really should be just posting stuff as soon as its written, and then writing a new post as things happen…
I’ll
try get more organized! lol

Not exactly in the vein of “a new year, a new you” – but some may think it so….

Twenty something years ago, I went ‘back to my roots’, and moved to a thirty acre block in the middle of the backwoods of south west Qld, that didn’t have sealed roads, running water, electricity, plumbing of any sort, or any neighbours.
When we first moved there – it didn’t even have gas.

All we had was a big unlined one room colorbond shed, with an annex slab added, for a ‘kitchen’, and we did have a nice big dam!
I also had four small children – the youngest being just 6 weeks old, and the second youngest still in cloth nappies.(none of that disposable business when my kids were little. lol)

It was a lot of hard work – pretty much from sunup to sundown, but by the time we sold up and left – a 5 bedroom home, a visitors cabin, a genny shed, a huge 3 bay work shed, 2 large tanks, and a smaller header tank, another huge dam, a massive thriving vege garden that had shade cloth cover – so we could grow all year round – chook yards, a pig pen, a fully fenced house yard with gardens, sheep, over an 1ac of fenced protea plants, and orchard trees, an 8′ x 8′ walk-in larder/pantry, with gas fridge, a wetback wood stove, a pot-belly stove, solar power, with generator backup, and plumbing with a real bathroom, with a bath, shower, and flushing loo!!

Even tho we put in our loo, we still kept the old pit toilet going. It was in a nice spot, which we moved round every few months, and it had a nice outlook.
On a beautiful day, it was nice to still be able to ‘go’ out in amongst the forest, and just sit and contemplate…And each time we moved it, we’d plant something on top, that would grow in leaps and bounds from all the nutrients. lol

We even had a library.
(I’ve been known to be a little book-crazy!!)

Now, well over twenty years on – I’m feeling the need to get back to the simple life.
Back to basics.

Not to the extreme that it was in those very early day – although it wouldn’t bother me in least if it turned out that way – but definitely back to a life that has meaning and feeling.

I’ve started growing my own veggies again – and whilst it’s only baby steps so far – we’re trying with the rare spare time that we do have, to work towards making some differences in our Life.
So far in the garden, we’ve got:
two different types of potatoes,
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Two types of beans
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Coriander
Basil
Spring onions
Carrots and
Chillies.
It’s a start!!

We’ve also been working on ‘reclaiming’ more of our yard, so we can put in more beds.

At the moment, we have what can best be described as a sort-of Balinese rainforest type garden.
Lots of lushness, ferns, palms etc.

We’ve been gradually paring back, so that we will have the privacy that we so desperately crave, but so that our yard can also be a whole lot more productive than its currently being.

Just yesterday we had someone come in, who wanted our old woodshed, and he came and tore it all down, and started carting it off.
Free gardening in exchange for a free woodshed!Gotta be happy with that!
The amount of room that that alone will give us to put gardens in, will be staggering. Wheeehee.

And on the news the other day, there was rumor about Masters (the big hardware store) possibly closing down, and therefore having huge sales.
We wanna be there for those sales I can tell you!!

We’ve also just bought a more economical car, which thankfully, is a ute – so that will make it a whole lot easier than its been for a long time, to get plants, supplies etc, from point A to point B!

On a slightly different topic – I have been unsubscribing like a demon of late.

All these things one subscribes to that just end up wasting your time and cluttering up your inbox (& your mind!) – I’ve been unsubbing from as fast as they come in.

A very liberating way start to each day.
Give it a try! ☺

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