My beach retreat cottage…

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beach retreat, blessings, calm, coastal living, colours, cottage, cottage love, dreams, enjoying life, Gratitude, happy place, inspiration, meditation, paint, pre-retirement plans, pretty cottages, renovate, retreat

I have always loved pretty cottages, little nooks, places where you can hide from the rest of the world, indulge and just ‘be’ in the quietness of your pretty place.

At the beginning of 2015 I was blessed to see the build of my very own cottage, my indulgent spot, where I can go and just ‘be me’ without interruptions, expectations or compromise, just me, my books, my meditations and my thoughts right inside my own yard. Its perfect really because if I sit inside there is always something which needs doing or cleaning or sorting…when I go out to the cottage, I retreat, which is why it is aptly named ‘my beach retreat’

My beachretreat cottage came about while I was still commuting to Melbourne, trying desperately to seek some sort of sanity to making a living, I enrolled into a life coaching course with the intent on starting up my own business.  For now I have decide to put that idea on hold while we concentrate on the next 10 years getting ourselves in a better financial position to begin thinking of our retirement. Bill will be turning 57 this month so if we want to do this properly, we need to start planning now.  I will be retired for a long time so can always do something about my coaching idea then.  I have been blessed with a great local job which I know how hard it was to get, I certainly want to hang on to it as long as I can.

The plan when we moved down to the beach was always to sell our Melbourne home and we built the cottage so we would have space for our Melbourne family and visitors to stay when they came to visit overnight and the rest of the time, its mine to play in.

Everyday now, when I walk past the front gate, I glance over at my cottage and it reminds me to always see what you want to come into your life in your minds eye first.  Imagine it, savour it, live it first in your mind, then watch it appear in your life.

One of my all time favourite writers, the late Wayne Dyer wrote, ‘You’ll see it when you believe it” and this I know to be true, the trick is to really believe that you can have whatever it is you are desiring, then let it go, be patient and it will become your reality.

Seeing as this was such an event in my life, I wanted to share it with you and show you ‘the build’  The cabin crew were marvelous and are from N.S.W, a family owned business called Cabin Kits Galore.

Here is the cottage getting built from the ground up – all in a day!

And now the roof goes on…

and this was my classic reaction when I first saw it after a agonising 8 hours at work and travel time to Melbourne and back before I got to see it…

Taking it all in…

I’ve totally lost it here…

Finally when I composed myself, we celebrated with a drink…

Its wonderful to look back on that special day in our lives and recap the raw emotion I felt of utter gratefulness to have something so special to call my own. I often like to recall just how special that day was as it was a moment of pure joy incorporating feelings I love to remember and place into my ‘happy bank of memories’.

We have been busy since that fine January early evening, buying paint, spray guns, tape and other painting paraphernalia to paint the cottage.  It did take us most of the year with trips to Bunnings to look at paint swatches and work out which colour we would both be happy living with.  While we were going back and forth on colours we had lots of fun trips to our favourite stores such as High-Eight in Inverleigh, Vic where we bought our beautiful grey sofa and colourful mat and Early Settler, Geelong, Vic where I picked up a stunning white glass tall cabinet and matching TV cabinet which both look gorgeous.

    

A couple of weeks ago we were finally ready to paint and the first spray of colour went on.

I love it – its called Dulux ‘Rhino Grey’

But I think my favourite of all is the white trim…and what a marvelous job my hubby has done 🙂

Every time I look at my cottage now, It reminds me to forever be grateful for all our dreams and that our lives really can be whatever we want them to be, we just have to want it enough.  So for anyone reading this who has a yearning for something, anything at all, you can have it, you can do it, just keep it at the forefront of your mind, imagine it often and one day you will be looking straight at it.

I had no idea, what our life would look like when we first decided on a whim, to pack up and go live the dream that we had only thought about for 20 years. But here we are nearly three years after that initial decision, both working in beautiful local buildings surrounded by the sea, Bill, now part time and every day we both know it was the best decision we ever made to move out of the city and down the coast. Life has slowed down for both of us, we now have time to smell the roses, and do not feel the stresses of rushing or the madness of traffic jams and crazy drivers.  I just feel a calm living down here now and am incredibly grateful to have found the peace I had been craving for so long.

Now that the cottage is painted, an airconditioner going in for the summer, I will be in there more often as I have a few new goals for next year which will mean some quiet time such as regular meditation and yoga practicing and now I have just the perfect space for these quiet activities.

So,  if anyone is ever looking for me…. its most likely you will find me here…

 

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Discovering who I am…the road back to me…

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age, art, blessings, career choices, chronic fatigue, creativity, downsising, emptynester, getting older, healing, healthy eating, I quit sugar, meditation, painting, passions, slowing down, wisdom, yoga

I think it takes half a life time to really know who you want to be.  Some are lucky enough to know early in their lives and others spend a lifetime searching. I knew very early that I wanted to get married, have children and bring up my family and have spent the last 24 years doing just that, and very happily.

As those years rushed by at incredible speed I really didnt stop to wonder what would come after that. I imagined that I would have both my children living with us until they were about 24/25.  I had not expected to say goodbye to my beautiful Melly so early but in saying that also knew that our move was not somewhere she wanted to follow at her stage of life. Even though we dreamed of it all along, I dont think either of us believed it would happen until circumstances led us to this very spot. I know in my heart that my story still has another few chapters in it, of which I am yet to discover and create…

Growing up as a young girl I was always described as ‘creative’ and I loved art, writing and anything colourful. After I left school I worked in libraries for much of the next 15 years as I had a deep love of books as well as writing and my aspirations at the time was to become a librarian.  I was able to use my creative streak throughout this period as I worked with children as a ‘Children’s library officer’ so I spent years up ladders hanging things I had made, painting children’s book illustrations on windows and generally having the time of my life,  When my own children came along we spent many an hour reading wonderful children’s books, drawing, painting & arts and crafts. I have very vivid memories of myself singing The Wiggles ‘Rockabye your bear‘ at our nightime children’s storytimes which grew to be about 60 children at each event and was very apt at organising games such as “Pin the horn on the stegosaurus.”

So lately I have been wondering…whatever happened to that creative girl?  I know she is still with me, I just haven’t had much time for her over the past two decades.

It seems to me that somehow I traded my freedom/creative spirit for money. I am currently in a job which I do not use this creative side, but I get paid well which has a lot to do with why I am still there. I recognise that this can be a dangerous thing but I also know that my family would not be where we are without it. I need to learn what I can do to make it less of a burden on me emotionally and believe I am in the right place right now to establish ourselves so that we can live ‘the dream’  we have created for our future.

I do know, however that one area has ignited my passion again and that is investing in realestate. I am heading to Sydney at the end of this year to take part in a rennovations workshop held by Cherie Barber, Australia’s renovation queen. I hope to learn some tricks of the trade to enable me to pursue this passion more seriously.

 There are lots of things I want to do with my beach retreat, all of which cost money. My dilema in finding local work, I know will come with a pay cut and I hear you say that money is not everything but right now, after this move, it will help to settle us back into a good financial position and I can renovate the house while still commuting. I have had a look around at the job options closer to home and unless I decide to complete my degree and move up to a supervisory role (of which I definately do not want in this stage of my life), I will have to cut salary.  With this in mind, I need to have certain things around the house done otherwise you end up never doing them and I have already lived in a house half renovated, this time I plan to finish.

I definately know in my future I want the freedom and finances to do what I want, and not be tied down to a job in exchange for money.  I want to invest in realestate and write and paint and travel to beautiful parts of our world before my time is up.  I want to be an ‘author’ – ‘there’s no money in that’ my son told me yesterday.  It made me wonder just how many of us give up our dreams because someone tells you its not a good idea. I know for a fact that we wouldnt be living here in our beautiful cottage if we had listened to those who said it wasnt possible.

With this in the forefront of my mind,  I have decided to try a little experiment and set some goals in place that will eventually lead my road back to ‘me’ One thing I am embarking on soon is the 8 week challenge of giving up sugar through Sarah Wilson‘s ‘I quit sugar program’.  You can buy Sarah’s books on my blog if you think you would like to try some sugar free cooking.  Those who know me well know I have a sweet tooth and l am addicted to sugar so this is one of the goals I have set for myself to become sugar free and begin to live a lot healthier. It ties in with my yearning to slow down and get myself healthy through regular yoga and meditation. The 8 week challenge begins this month on the 26th August so now I have committed to it in writing I am accountable to succeeding as I have tried this before and fallen back on the sweets again and I am really determined to help Matt beat his chronic fatigue and that means better eating for all of us.

I kindly remind myself that you cannot make strategic moves such as we have recently done without being a bit stretched for a while so I need to accept this first and know that for the foreseeable future I still need my job to spend the time getting to a space where I can comfortably drop salary.

I need to look at my place of work as a blessing, a way to get back on track, this will create a positive vibe each day as I head out the door. Then I can look closer to home for a job perhaps which is only 4 days a week (one of my many goals is to eventually work part time). For now I know I must remain grateful that I have a good job and work with good people.  One of my favourite motivational authors, Louise Hay tells us that when we wish to move on from relationships or a job or be in a different place, be grateful and feel blessed by where you are, it is this action which will help you to move to where you wish to be.  So I am going to stop the grumblings that go on in my head at 5.10 each morning, feel blessed that I have a good job to go to each day which is paying my mortgage and all the lovely things that I wish for.

Later on, in the not too distant future I will have the feedom to slow down and live how I have always wanted, I need to accept that I am not quite there yet but heading there, and its then in that space and time my creative side will be able to shine once again, I will be able to write more, create more, paint and cook more, take up new hobbies such as photography yoga and meditation & learn to live a healthy clean life…now that sounds more like the ‘me‘ I know…