The length of time it has taken me to write another blog post is a little tardy on my behalf. I have truly been enjoying the lifestyle that living in the rural corner of South-East Queensland brings. Apart from the incredibly taxing waiting time for anything internet related to complete. During our last gripe about this Mum lamented it had taken a whole day for a song to be downloaded through itunes…. Seriously, ask Beth and I’m sure she’ll tell you that kind of expanse of time is on par with Malawi timeframes. The outcome of this is such that you unplug for a while reconciling yourself that all those things you were going to learn about via the web will be done another day, you read in a hammock, you complete projects that have been bubbling around in your head for 5 or so years and you hang out with your parents to discover they are people with whom you really like spending time with. A pretty sweet gig if you can swing it!
The days all start with a goal of getting projects completed, underway or at least attempted. Dad and I have had a couple of trial and error Pinterest experiments, Mum has stood by in the kitchen and watched as I attempt (read: butcher) pinterest/blog inspired ‘health food’ recipes and then proceed to try and make it into something vaguely edible. Usually I succeed. To date, only one batch of gluten and dairy free pancake mix has made it into the compost bin – beyond repair. Turns out I am the ultimate scientist, take something proven to work and tinker with it and see what happens. Please note that only once out of all of the many recipes I’ve ‘tinkered’ with, have I written down what I’ve done to recreate it at a future date. Sometimes perfection in the moment should be left to be remembered in the annals of time. Somewhere in there, between carefully selecting the kale leaves for the morning smoothie and introducing almond milk into the household, I’ve managed to conjure up the nick name ‘Hippy’ between my Dad and Deb (who has been a constant source of entertainment to my parents in my international absence). Note to self, stop introducing friends to my parents – it may end poorly for me!! Ha ha ha
It has been incredibly wonderful to have time to pause, take stock and realise that there is a cyclic process running in the background of each day if you look for a little while. The cycling process on the farm is muuuuuuuuucccccccch slower than that of the Brissy life, I mean, sometimes breakfast doesn’t finish until well after 9am out there. Depending on the experiment underway of course. Reflecting on my former working life, I would feel guilty or anxious if I wasn’t rolling into work by 7:30-7:45am. I feel equally as productive as I did at that point in my life, only far more rested and available for other people now. Bringing the slowness of the rural living into my city life, that’s my new goal (of which I only realised while writing this down). The flip side is occasionally I feel this overwhelming need to feel pressure. Like I should be creating time constraints on activities I’m performing, people I’m meeting, giving myself a plan as to how EXACTLY my day should go.
Really, I have no control over this. I realised and fought against it for many years, I would stress about being early to appointments to have the client be inexplicably late anyway, I would get stuck in traffic when I was down to the wire and everyone was fine. As I type this, I’m waiting on things to fall into place, to take the next step onwards, leaping from my ‘holiday mode’ to ‘reality mode’ as one person put it. I thought about that concept of ‘reality mode’ and then figured I’ll change the words into ‘dream reality’ as I continue to live my dream. I mean, I may as well try to. I only get one crack at this, why would I aim to do anything else? Responsibly and respectfully of course! Plus I have some pretty cool people to emulate – Hannah who is livin’ large within her Swirling Spoon blog (I’m also incredibly excited that I’ve learnt how to link things – benefits of using a computer vs a tablet, seems so much easier!) and every other person who has a TED Talk, a You Tube Channel and, you know, is living their life to its fullest expression!
As an update for all those interested, until such time as I am gainfully employed in full (or near to full) time capacity, my days are spent reading things, listening to things, making food of some sort for people whom I love (sometimes in stealth mode while they are at work, sometimes overtly in their own kitchens while they are home), planning yoga sessions, running/walking or the like, planning lunches/coffees and future visits with fun people, and convincing myself that 20 minutes of meditation each day is actually achievable. Oh, and ‘forcing’ Mum to watch the Bachelorette- coz everyone needs a vice. It’s a sweet existence and I love sharing it!
Happy Wanderings!
Hx