o0o
Do you do meal planning?
If not – why not?
I love to meal-plan, but I don’t always manage to get it done Continue reading “meal planning”
Tag: mindfulness
the blur
o0o
Recently – I have felt myself spiraling in panic.
This is not a ‘new’ sensation for me.
When parts of my life are not running smoothly and for some reason, Continue reading “the blur”
lists aplenty
o0o
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.
groovy gadgets
o0o
Hows this for a groovy gadget?!??
Today a friend posted a picture of something his wife had made at a Simple Living class that she had attended, and I thought it was soooo awesome that I’m wanting to make one too!!
Now I just need to carve out a bit of time to do it in.
Isn’t it fabulous?
Have you made something like it or are planning to?
If you have, I’d love to see it!
all wrapped up!
open and ready to use 🙂
glad you asked!
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 🙂 🙂 🙂
making friends
o0o
Friends – thats todays subject!
Is it just me, or do others find it incredibly hard to make super-close friends?
I have a lot of people that I know that I can go have a cuppa, a meal, a wine etc with, or that I chat to with some regularity, but usually on a fairly superficial level – but I have no-one that I honestly feel I could share anything+everything with.
I know a part of it is my reticence to be truely vulnerable with people, particularly after two incidents when i thought i had made a close friend – only to find that the friendship wasn’t what i believed it to be – and i got very hurt in the process…
Throughout school (and we’re still friends to this day actually!) I had a wonderful friend Helen that knew every secret I held.
Knew me probably almost better than I knew myself at that age! lol
We can still pick up where we last left off with none of that awful awkwardness, and I would trust telling her anything – but the sad reality is – that we only catch up every few years – so there isn’t that daily / weekly opportunity…
In my 20’s I had another wonderful friend Caroline – who I spoke to every.single.day – and spent a lot of precious time with, and we aways had each others back.
That woman kept my sanity intact for a lotta years(!!) – but then I moved away, and we just seemed to slip away from each other…
Fast forward and here I am in my 50’s.
I had one brief friendship that meant a lot to me, that was ‘blossoming’, when I was in my mid-forties, but then she moved away – and it just sort of moved on without the necessary contact that close friendships take…
And these day I just don’t quite know how one gets to that place of going from a casual acquaintance / friend, to being someone who is really close!!
I know it takes an investment of time – and of course a certain amount of trust, vulnerability and faith – but how does one know just when the time is, that its safe to roll out those parts of you?
What if you think you like someone enough to be a friend, and then you have a few coffee ‘dates’, a few chats, maybe a lunch or two, and you get to thinking “naaaaaa – this just isn’t my kind of person” – how do you then dial it back without appearing rude, when up until then you’d been willing to invest the time, just in case this was going to be a friendship that worked out?
(and YES – I’m very aware that it might be me, who isn’t someone else idea of ‘the right person‘!)
How do you even know that you’re capable of being a decent friend?
Maybe I don’t have close friends ‘cos i’m not only not good at the making-friends part of it, but maybe i’m actually someone that people just aren’t draw to, to make friends with!!
Perhaps not a pleasant thought – but one that certainly needs looking at in the interests of honesty! 😐
I’m not one for groups, teams, hobbies, sports or crafts – so that way of meeting people is out.
I also don’t still have kids at school any more, so thats not an option.
Not only would the parents at the school-gate probably feel a little ‘young’ for me, but it would just be creepy to have some old lady without a kid to pick up, hanging’ out at the school-gates, trying to talk to random people!! 😀
Work is work and whilst I have met a few people through my work whom I feel like I have ‘clicked’ with – there is still the whole ‘work’ thing about it (and often a ‘hierarchy’ thing), that just makes it feel kinda awkward – both for me and them.
Sooooo – what does one do?
How do YOU go about this whole ‘making friends’ business?
Thoughts and opinions welcome and encouraged, so please feel free to share, as I’d love to get a wealth of knowledge and opinions on this topic! 🙂
Cheers,
i’m DONE!
Ready to cheer me on?
I told you a week or two ago in the smoking gun post, that I was going to do it – and now here I am!!
As of last night – I am a non-smoker.
A former smoker, an ex-smoker – call it what you will.
But as of when I went to bed last night – I am deciding to not stick another cigarette in my mouth.
I’ve said this before – and I’ve caved in.
Not because I’ve particularly wanted one, and certainly not because I’ve needed one, but because I have stupidly succumbed to ‘peer pressure’ (real or imagined!) and have taken it back up again – mostly because my Love has continued smoking.
This time can not be the same as previous times.
This time it won’t be.
Because this time I’m not “giving up” anything.
The fact is that I won’t be ‘giving up’ – I’ll be gaining!
Gaining back my life, gaining back finances, gaining back some health, gaining back the ability to breathe more freely, gaining back time!
Most people don’t realise how much time that smoking sucks out of the day.
And I fully believe that thats why a lot of people restart – simply because they don’t know what to do with all the time they suddenly find on their hands – and they’ve done nothing in the lead-up to stopping smoking, to ensure that they have strategies in place to combat the feeling of ‘what do i do with myself now‘….!
Personally, I’ve spent the last two weeks working out how I will combat those moments when I’d usually go for a ciggie – because all it is, is habit!
Its a habit to have one after a meal, its a habit to have one with my coffee, its a habit to have one with a glass of wine, its a habit to have one when on the phone, its a habit to have one before bed …… every.single.stupid.cigarette is a habit.
An idiotic lethally toxic habit that is poisoning our bodies, and sending us ever more quickly closer to the grave…
But ya know what?
Not any more!
I’m done!
Feel free to cheer for me – cos I sure am 😀 😀 😀
I’m DONE with the Monster on my back!
The breakfast of a champion non-smoker
progress
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 🙂
you’re not a burden
.
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…
gettin’ closer
.
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…