10 years from now…

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10 years from now, dreams, home, life, planning, pre-retirement plans, Preparation, Retirement planning, travel

I was talking to a friend last week about how easy it is to get bogged down with the small stuff in life, the nuisances, the things that irritate you, the annoying people we deal with each day and the stuff that keeps our minds spinning and makes us forget, who we are, why we are here and what our life means to us.  Its so easy to get caught up in the minor details of our life and forget the bigger picture when we make those smaller details bigger than they should be.

I was reminded of this recently, when I was worrying about something I really couldn’t change and questioned myself, did it really matter in the big scheme of things? A small minor thing bothering me now is minuscule when you look at the amount of time I still plan to spend breathing on this earth, this moment, right now is such a tiny part of that life.

This is so important to remember when we are caught up in the smaller details of our lives, that it too will pass and all the worrying and churning around in my head wont be the least bit important to me in 10, 20 or 30 years time, if in fact I am blessed to still be here. And that point stops me every time these days…that turning 53 this year means I am definitely over the middle age mark and since crossing the threshold into my fifties a few years back I now see every day as a blessing.

I recall a long time ago, when I was a young girl in primary school we were asked to think of what we might be doing when we were thirty or forty and I thought then gosh, that is so old. Each year I as I get another year older I realise more and more that each day is very precious to me which is why I love to spend the time around my birthday usually treating myself to a whole week of relaxing, contemplating my life and generally doing what I love to do, sleeping in, sitting by the fire in winter with a pile of books, planning, dreaming and thinking of how I want the next year of my life to look like.

This time next year I will be somewhere on Lake Como, Italy with my husband at the end of what is going to be the trip of our lives.  I will have ticked off a few bucket list items by the time I am there, one of which will be having finally travelled across the world with my husband. Today we have just over 9 months until we walk out our front door for 3 months. I have always wanted to spend another birthday on the other side of the world, so next year I get to have that experience once again but for now, the next best thing to travelling for me is spending time at home just pottering around in one of the nicest places I love, my home, my haven.

This next year will be a big one for us, a time for a new adjustment, Bill’s retirement in approximately 3 months time. It will be a time for change, going back to one salary and together making the changes in our lives that we need to make this work.  The best birthday present I can give myself this year is to spend a bit of time this week imagining how I want my life to look like in just over 10 years time when I too will be starting to look towards retirement.  It’s no point turning up then wondering if we are going to be alright, the time is now to begin to put things into place that will make the difference when that time comes…the planner in me loves this idea….

November already?…

Tags

acheivements, awareness, changes, chemical free, contentment, creating a better life, End of another year, happiness, happy, Health, healthy living, home, life, natural living, no preservatives, November, quiet time, real food, stroke

Wow, another year nearly closing as the end of November draws near. What happened to 2016 as it flew right past us! The familiar vibe of Christmas is beginning to take shape once again and in a little over 6 weeks we will be saying farewell to another year on this earth.

Usually I would have ticked off a list of goals I wanted to achieve but as I look back on this past year I realise that I actually did slow down a lot this year. I feel this year that I didn’t rush, but sorted through a lot of things as they arose calmly while letting go of what no longer served us and that lesson gave me the clear insight of how I want to live the rest of my life…

From that perspective, I feel that I have been more settled this year, both at work and at home.  Now 20 months into my new job, my work life has settled down enough for it not to be a day to day stress of newness,  but also now I can focus on working out what it is I really want to be doing and even if that means making a few more changes for the better, I feel confident in doing so. But generally I am enjoying the contentment we are feeling right now. Both Bill and I are noticing how familiar and easy our commutes to and from work are now and as we drive around our beautiful little community it no longer feels new, in fact it definitely feels like ‘home.‘

So, what did go well this year?  I know my health has improved. In fact, both mine and my husbands health have improved after his diagnosis of having had a stroke shocked us into changing our diets and begin a lifelong  journey of learning about real food. My thirst for finding good nutritional food is now a growing passion.  There is still room for improvement but we are on the right path, trying to buy local fruit and veggies and avoid less processed foods. I am absolutely loving this new path and definitely feeling the benefits. We have learnt the important lesson of the big food industries who are hell bent on hiding chemicals, carcinogens and preservatives in our foods creating illness across the globe and not blinking an eyelid. Learning about this deception has been an eyeopener and one I will continue to research and share as my passion for eating real food becomes my new way of life.  Our only way forward to protecting  our own health and the health of our children is to shop organically, buy home grown or better still as I am doing, learn to grow your own.

I have recently found a fabulous Australian company who sources only natural & certified organic hair, beauty & healthy living products. I am one of their newest fans.  You can find them here if you are interested in taking care of your skin and health and want to reduce the chemicals entering your body. (I can swear by their deodorant, totally natural and totally amazing!)

http://www.nourishedlife.com.au/

I have had a few bouts of vertigo this year which was a new health challenge for me.  It seems to affect me when I am feeling stressed and my shoulder and neck muscles are super tight so its been a challenge to keep this at bay but as I am learning to take better care of myself I try to notice when my body is tightening up and stretch it out before it becomes chronic which then leads to the vertigo. This is not always easy to do when weeks are busy, however,  I think this now needs to be an ongoing management promise I must make sure I keep.  I am learning to get up from my desk at work more regularly when I have been sitting too long and go out and stretch, even a couple of minutes a couple of times a day is making a difference and walking a bit more, walking is so important, particularly for those of us who sit all day long. I already know what I want to focus more on next year, gratefulness and time for me, to ensure that I do keep stresses away and take the time to meditate, breathe and have some quiet time among the rush of our modern lives.

As I get older,

I am learning,

there is much value in quiet time

each day…

Its also time to regenerate a new habit to take into next year or maybe its a habit I had let go of recently as doubt or worry crept in.  I have been accused a few times in my life of being ‘too cheery‘ or’too positive‘, and even though I normally laugh it off as I know its the only way forward, its hard not to get caught up in some of the negativity which infiltrates our lives on a daily basis. I have at times, particularly at work, doubted my abilities and fed into the negativity which makes you doubt yourself and give your power away, so its time to restock what I am filling my mind with and make sure I am creating a prosperous year ahead for us, one of love, abundance, joy, appreciation and laughter, for these feelings are the only ones which will propel your life forward…

Finding joy in the ordinary…

Tags

Finding joy in the ordinary, happiness, happy, happy place, Harmony, home, Inside, joy, peace, The secret of happiness

What makes each of us ‘Happy’?

And why cant we feel like this all the time?

I recently watched an Oprah Soul Sunday on Happiness as she chatted with Shawn Achor, a Harvard trained researcher and best selling author of Before Happiness and The Happiness Advantage.  Shawn tells us that happiness is a choice and this is what I have found to be true, that its up to us to choose happiness and joy everyday we step out into the world, which will determine how our days pan out. This is not to say that bad or upsetting things will not reach us, they still will however it is up to us how we choose to react to certain things we choose how our day will turn.

Many of us get up each morning and think our days are whatever ‘fate’ has in store for us but I have come to realise over the past decade or so that our thoughts are what create our days, our weeks and our lives.  We determine each and every day what comes into our space by what we think about all day long, and the longer you hold a thought, good or bad, the more likely it is that you are manifesting it towards you. Even when some days are not going so great or you are in a space in time just waiting for the tide to turn or perhaps in a job you really have no passion about, try to find something each day to keep you smiling. For me its my pictures on my walls at work of the places I will go when the time is right for me to fulfill those dreams, until then, they keep me focused on my dreams and keep them alive amongst an ordinary day.

As this year is nearing its last third, I am sensing a calmer me where I am beginning to tie up all loose ends, unclutter my life just a little bit more and having decided just this week that no, I really don’t need that degree to make me or anyone else happy in my life, I feel like a huge weight has lifted from me.

I have been sitting thinking a lot recently about what really makes me happy at this stage of my life and its truly just the simple things like spending time out and about with my hubby and together dreaming of what we want to do to our home, picking out paint colours and planning what to do next, working on my plans to travel, just hanging around at home, spending time with my books, making time for myself to develop more spiritually by making time for meditation or just regular quiet time where I can hear my thoughts without constant chatter of what I think I need to be doing. Anywhere I find harmony and peace, that’s where my happy place is found.

My job now, is to find my ‘happy place’ more often than not by retreating each day just for 20 – 30 minutes into a silent world where I can be grateful for all the experiences, all the people in my life and remember all the love I can offer others for that is where my joy lies, not in climbing any career ladder or striving to be or have more, just finding beautiful experiences in my life and finding joy in the ordinary of day to day living…

 

Making space for new beginnings…

Tags

closing doors, freedom to choose, gratefulness, home, life choices, making space, moving on, New beginnings, sanctuary

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to our old life.  If you have been following my blog and this journey for a while you will know that it started about two years ago now on a little trip down to Geelong to visit our Grandchildren and on return we both realised the dread in the pit of our stomachs was our souls crying out for a change. That trip was the beginning of the turning point for the rest of our life (you can read the full post here titled ‘The Journey unfolds‘ Dec 8 2012).

Looking back, I have always loved that our life has been a series of little adventures. Marrying a soldier meant we were packing up our house every two years or so to set off to a new place to live. I never minded this at all. In fact, I can distinctly remember that two year itch  I would feel when it was nearly time to pack up house again. When the kids were young we always found the fun side of this and loved the newness of exploring different towns and getting to know what was around.  We never did get bored, always found something to keep us occupied.  That is one of the loveliest memories of our early married days and still today, we love to get out and explore new places, new surroundings but when it was time for both children to head to high school we were happy to put roots down and settle in one place.  That is when we found our perfect little house in Watsonia and spent twelve years there while the kids grew up. I actually never thought we would leave this house and was in the middle of renovating it to a beautiful little cottage, but life had other plans for us which all began on that trip back from Geelong…

This new path we are now on makes us feel alive, makes us feel like we belong here but now has come the time to start closing some doors, particularly on that little house in Watsonia.  Its a cathartic feeling really, saying a final goodbye to a life I spent most of my growing up years in.  Melbourne has been my home for all of my life but I know now that my new home has become the place where my heart is most happy. Our new place which I have dubbed ‘my beach retreat’ gives me peace and harmony amidst the still stressful days of long commutes, something I am praying the sale of the home will help me rectify.

Over the years I have come to learn something about myself and that is I am noise sensitive and love the quiet life, no traffic, less rushing, no stress, in fact searching for peace has become a ritual for me, it soothes my soul and that is how I wish the rest of my life to be.  In order for us to fully move on we must close the door on Melbourne which meant selling our family home. For me, as I take care of the financial side of things, juggling two mortgages for the past 2 years has been very stressful so to see the back of one of them  will make me smile and give me back my freedom.  My freedom to choose where I work and at what salary. To be tied to a job I no longer feel passion for has been a hard act to swallow but financially I have not been able to let it go. I am looking forward to the day I will be free to make different choices.

So… sometimes in life you just have to move on, accept that the picture you had in your mind did not make it to your future and know that a new picture will emerge, most times so much better than you could ever have imagined…its often not until you close those doors that a new door will open and you never look back.

For now, its the in between time, we have not sold our old home yet but its on the market just waiting for that new owner to walk through its doors which means when a new door is opening for them, its closing for us and the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to get a little bit brighter as I look forward to what is now on its way…

So Farewell ‘Medbury’ you bought us something we never thought we would have, a family home, a place of solitude and love where my children felt safe and grew up knowing what a ‘family home’ meant, you taught me the feeling of our ‘sanctuary’ and what that meant to me after a hard day , you taught me that I love the comforts of a family home, the beauty of living with quality home furnishings such as beautiful leadlight and shutters and I thankyou for that, but most of all I  thankyou for giving us our future, a new spark to live out the rest of our days, you helped us realise our dream down by the sea where we intend on enjoying and will never take for granted just how we got here…

    

 

    

We have much to look forward to as the end of this year is approaching.  Its our 25th Wedding anniversary year and we have not been able to celebrate yet because of putting the house on the market, but once it sells we will have much to celebrate.  I have plans for ‘silver’ presents for both of us and a wonderful belated honeymoon to share in Tasmania which we could not afford to do all those years ago.

I feel we have now come full circle, finally living in a place we dreamed about in our early marriage and spoke of nearly every year since, 25 years later going on our honeymoon to the same place we were heading to but had to pull out – I cant wait to be on that plane and driving to the very special accommodation for us… this time I have something really wonderful in store…

Because I truly believe…