Getting my green thumb on, city style

My how this year has flown by.  I seem to be more and more amazed at the swiftness of time these days but it's still a shock that we're bearing down on Christmas at a great rate of knots.

I'm so very at ease and at home again in Brisbane now - our time on the downs seems like a distant memory, if not a dream.  It feels like we never left.  The weather has been beautiful and I'm loving the longer daylight hours as we move towards summer.  Time to get outside and enjoy the world after work is done for the day.

The one thing I've been lamenting since we moved down was my lack of veggie garden.  This rented unit, while it has a courtyard, doesn't have much in the way of gardening space.  It was the lack of fresh herbs at the back door that started it all for me - all that missing my own patch of dirt to dig and plant and potter around in, the walk through in the morning to see what was out there and finding new fruit, new seedlings, fresh strawberries.....I've been missing that without wanting to allow myself to.

Strange how my outlook has changed now though.  Before we left Brisbane I had this idea in my head that to garden you needed space, lots of space, and all the equipment and tools etc to get started.  Gee I wasted a lot of time with that mentality - I could have had a ripper garden down here then like I eventually had out there!!

I'm glad I've changed my thinking - I've been waiting so patiently for the onset of springy days so that I could dig out the gardening gloves and get cracking.  I was about to go to the supermarket and pick up a few of those polystyrene boxes to use as planters when a sneaky birthday appeared and gave me some pots and potting mix with which to create my patio garden.  I  love a good gardening gift and Lucky Phil knows the way to win my heart is via dirt and plants (or a good book or something crafty!) :)

And so now I have it all happening.  A great selection of my favourite herbs - coriander, basil, parsley, mint, chives - and some veggies to top it all off - tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, snow peas, corn.  And I can't forget the flowers for a bit of colour - this time around some snapdragons and lobelias.  I even managed to keep alive some strawberry plants from my garden on the downs - they have really taken off since they have been repotted and mulched.

Pineapples that have been growing roots in containers on my sink for about three years now - finally in soil and they are lapping it up!

Tomato seedlings from the self-sown cherry tomatoes from our previous home

A Mulberry Tree that somehow  was sown, sprouted and survived in a pot that I brought down with me.  He much prefers the soil in this one.... 

I'm loving the greenery at my back door now - so much better than the stark tiles and concrete walls of before.  I'm out there a whole lot more now too - soaking up the view and taking in the 'outside-ness' of it all.  I'm just waiting now on the pumpkin seeds to sprout on the windowsill and get a bit of size to them and they'll go out too - into the wild garden bed for those, they'll be in their element.

The countdown is now on until I can be eating the fruits of my labours!  Can't wait!!

Hello World!

Hello world!  I'm alive again!!!  YAAAAYYYY!!!

It feels like I've come out of a very long hibernation - hidden away in the depths of the earth under all sorts of rubble and insulating material only to wake hungry and anxious to see the sun - I feel alive again.  Life is good, the future is positive and things are looking up.  

So what have I been up to?  Why have I not been loitering around the internet as much as I used to (and to be truthful, I did loiter a lot.  A lot.)????  Weeellll, pull up a seat, grab yourself a coffee and I'll tell you all the goss.....

Where to start... well, Lucky Phil and I are now living in Bris-vegas.  We moved down about 3 1/2 months ago after doing a day trip two weeks before we had the moving truck booked to find somewhere to live.  Nothing like a tight timeframe to make you lower your standards and loosen your budget. Turned out well despite our expectations - train, supermarket, newsagency, post office and bottle shop (!!) at the end of the street and a 2 minute drive to work...couldn't have planned it if we tried.

We've bought a new business and took over the week we moved down.  This was also happening at the same time as we were closing down our previous business and packing up the house to move.  Stressful much.  We're now in the takeaway coffee game, providing caffeine hits to all and sundry.  Some days I feel like a dealer, publicly handing out dope to the masses right there on the footpath.  A HUGE learning curve for me - I not only don't drink coffee (sacrilege!!) but until a few days before we opened the doors for ourselves, had not ever made a coffee (instant home stuff for family and friends excluded).  Stressful V. much.

What next?  Oh yeah, we are loving the weather in Brissy.  Winter? You call this winter? Okay, sure, I'll take it!  I think I have worn a jumper for a full day only once since we moved down.  I certainly didn't need to pack those scarves and jackets, nor those flannelette sheets!  Mind you, I am most likely still acclimatised to the weather on top of the range (guaranteed to be 10 degrees less than the rest of the state) but this feels a lot like a Toowoomba summer to me.  I'm not complaining either way!  

We're making the most of the city this time around - a conscious decision to find new places and new experiences.  When we lived here last we took it for granted.  Sure, it might not have been as 'developed' then as it is now and it is certainly more multi-cultural now but we didn't actively enjoy it.  For the last six years we've been limited to only one restaurant that constituted our 'night out' (due to it's consistently good food - so many started out great but by the third visit we swore never to return) but now, every place we go serves the most amazing meal ever!  We are yet to have a bad experience (touch wood)....

Life is grand.  Lucky Phil told me at the start of the year that 2013 was going to be a year of change for us and hasn't it been that!  Big changes, good changes, happy changes.  And we're not even finished the year yet - who knows what else is in store for us.  What I do know though is that I'm ready for it!  yay!

Nearly there....

Phew!  What an absolutely life changing month May has been.  

In less than a week now, Lucky Phil and I will be taking the next big active step towards making our world a happier and more fulfilling place....

It started mid last month actually, when an opportunity presented itself that was too good to pass up and was a key stepping stone to changing our lives.  For so long we have preached to each other and to any one within earshot that if you aren't happy with something, you need to actively change it to get a different result, potentially the result you would prefer.  Change will happen on it's own but usually slowly.  You need to take decisive action to force change if you want it to happen any earlier.  And then something happened for 3 years in our lives where we stopped listening to our own advice and sunk into a cesspool of self-doubt and stagnation.  Three years of it.  It has nearly been the undoing of us (not 'us' us - just of our own selves).

But then we had a startling realisation, a light bulb moment, when we saw that this hole we were in was of our own doing and that we had the key to the door to get out of it.....Amazing thing the mind, change your mindset and you change your outlook on life and all of a sudden the clouds  in the sky are pretty and fluffy and a sign of a beautiful day rather than an indication of a potential storm....

And that's what we did.  We changed our mindset and now we are about to reap the rewards.  Last week I worked my last day in my job.  This weekend we pick up the keys to our new place in Brisbane and in a week we will be moving.  A week after that we will be taking over our new business and once again working together, just Lucky Phil and I.  About a month after that, the sale of our investment property will be finalised and our house will be rented out.

All happening at once.  Very exciting.

Now I just have to go through our bits and bobs and accumulated 'stuff' and work out what to keep, what to donate, what to chuck and what to store.  Three bedroom house on land to two bedroom unit.  I need to be very choosy.  

Nothing like a short timeline to really get the blood pumping!  

New chapter

I think I'm getting my groove back.  Actually, I know I am.  I can feel it.

It's a nice feeling.

Some big changes are in the works here in my world.  Plans have been formed on the fly and decisions made in moments.  And it feels good.  Feels right.

The biggest of those plans is the one where we pack up and leave this place where we currently live and go somewhere else.  A big decision at the best of times, packing up and moving, but one we have tossed around for a while and were planning at the end of the year anyway.  But we had an opportunity present itself Monday week ago that was too good to let slip through our fingers.  It didn't take much talking to decide to jump in with both feet!

And so we are.  Jumping without really looking.  No real safety net, no concrete plans, just an idea and a goal.  Irresponsible maybe?  But we are okay with it and willing to take our chances.  I mean, what is the worst that could happen?  We have to change our plans?  We have to come back?  Not ideal but if we had to, we could.

I never would would have thought that I would be okay with this sort of spontaneity, being as I am usually the one to have everything planned months in advance with plans made and written in triplicate, signed and filed well in advance.  And yet here I am, pushing for it, champing at the bit that it is taking so long and the end of next month is sooo far away!

Are we running away?  Or are we starting the next chapter?  Right now, I'm going with the new chapter.  We have spent too long waiting for things to change and they haven't.  So now we are making the change.  Forcing it.  Carving out our own new path.  And it feels good to be making decisions again.  Decisions that will bring about change from what we are doing now which is making us unhappy and miserable.

Lucky Phil always says that you can't expect a different result when you keep doing the same thing over and over again.  At last, we are following our own advice and doing something different.

Different is good.

Here's cheers to the next chapter!

Agileh

Agileh = happy man

This is where I'm at right now....

Like the ad sang, I'm going to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with nothing in between".

The LOML and I have had a few times in our lives together where we've chosen a more positive path and have lost a few people on the way.  Sad as it was at the time, we're mentally healthier because of it.

It seems that time is upon us once more.  

Now, more than ever in our lives, we have no room for negative talk, negative thinking, negative attitudes.  We have chosen to surround ourselves with people who are happy, cheerful, friendly, nice, respectful.....and it's rubbing off on us.

It's amazing how the conscious decision to focus on the good, on the positive, on the bright side can make all the difference.

My glass is half full.

Getting my Spring on

I absolutely, positively, without any shadow of a doubt, LOVE this time of year.

These camelias are all off the one tree we have growing outside our bedroom window.  It's a massive tree, not a bust,
and I couldn't begin to guess its age....

In my ideal world, spring and autumn are the only two seasons - spring being the longest of course.

We have Jasmine growing along the fence out the front - the smell is divine.

Three weeks ago I smelled the warm on the air and started preparing for it.  Down came the blankets nailed over the windows and doorways (I do what I can in this icebox house!) despite the weather reports of another cold snap.  The doors were thrown open and the breeze blew away all the winter stuffiness.

This year I've planted heaps of flowers in my veggie garden...

Glorious.

The colours are gorgeous....

The plants outside are all telling me spring is here to stay.

  Thank you plants.  I love spring too.

Of macadamias and avocados and so forth

When the LOML and I first looked at this house with the intention to buy, it had sat un-lived-in and un-loved for months.  The grass was knee-high, the front gate was chained shut and the letterbox was full of junk mail.  

While waiting for the real estate agent to show up, we had a sticky beak around the yard, as you do.  

I fell in love in an instant.  

Well-established fruit trees were everywhere - orange, lemon, grapefruit, mandarine, fig, avocado, pecan, persimmon, apricot, mulberry, peach, nectarine, kiwi fruit, bananas, loquat, custard apple, lime, lemonade.....I was in heaven.  

It blew me away that this suburban block, tucked unobtrusively between two businesses in the 'rough' side of town yet still amazingly close to the centre of town, still had the feel of the farmhouse it once was.

In my heart I knew, this was my home.  The viewing we were about to have was merely a formality.

One of the mulberry trees just inside the front gate, absolutely loaded with fruit this year!

Right now, the trees are feeling spring.  I cannot wait until all these flowers burst their buds and bring in the bees.

That's the macadamia on the left, pecan in the middle, avocado on the right.

Some days I feel like the most fortunate person on the planet.

Wall Art

Photos in albums are so boring and not-looked-at.

I much prefer to laminate mine and stick them on the wall for an every-day reminder of all the fun times.

The only trouble is finding a wall free for the next lot of memories.

I've got the bug

To be entirely truthful, I don't think I've ever not had it.  I first got it when I was 19 and it stuck around for a year or so - noticeably out there for all to see.

It then finished up and has since sat under the radar - unnoticeable, silent, patient.  You'd have never been able to tell just by looking at me.  Indeed, some people, now that they know can't believe that they never saw it from the outset.

I can't say I ever tried to hide it.  It just wasn't a big deal for me and wasn't really something the rest of the world needed to know.  Not that it was a secret, but it just wasn't really that important.

Until now.

The itch started a couple of months ago. (bear with me here, it's not as it seems!!)

A little tic, a bigger flicker, eventually an all out rash. 

There was to be no more hiding it.

Would you like to see a picture?

*****

I promise you won't be disgusted....

******

Ta-dah!!!  I've got the bug!!

My new bug - picked up a fortnight ago, found on the side of the highway just waiting to come home with me.  It's currently going through the roadworthy/ registration process but come the end of this week I shall be hooning around town in this little beauty!

1970s model, still in miles-per-hour and with a whole lot of personality!  Cosmetically she (I think it's a she....) is showing her age but nothing a few nips and tucks won't fix.  Mechanically she's 100% - nothing wrong with this old girl!


I am champing at the bit to be registered and on the road....!!!!!!

The gorgeousness of the season

I am absolutely loving this time of year, this year.  It feels like a million years since we last had an Autumn.  I think the trees are feeling the same too.  They have shed their inhibitions in major ways and are flaunting their hidden sides for all to see.

While the colours of the trees are only just starting to change (some a whole lot more than others), I can't wait until they each stop me speechless in my tracks.

I only wish the photo did this tree justice.  A pale comparison to reality.

Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

Driving

I love driving trips.  

Actually, I love driving trips when I'm not the driver.

I love peering out the window and watching the world pass by in a flurry.  Seeing how other people live, what their houses and yards are like, how their lounge rooms are set out (when driving at night and people don't shut their curtains - what can I say, I'm a voyeur!), what shops are in their town, who is walking the streets on dusk....that sort of thing.

The LOML and I do a lot of driving trips.  A whole heap of little ones - one or two days here and there - and a few big ones to date.  We are long overdue now for a big trip and it is on the cards for the near future.

We don't know where we'll go, which direction we'll head off in, or how far we'll travel but we do know that it's going to be great.  

The car will be packed with good tunes, a picnic rug and a fold-up chair or two, an esky with some bubbles on chill, some comfy shoes and a hat (the LOML refuses to wear a hat so that one's mine).  

If we see something we like along the way we'll pull over and explore a little more.  A no-longer-in-use railway bridge, a BBQ by a stream, a bushwalking sign pointing thatta-way out of sight.....

And when we get where we were going, we'll have a look around, maybe stay a night or two, and then hop back in the car and head on home, taking a different route than the one that got us there.

We truly do live in an area with some spectacular scenery.

Beautiful Day

Today is a good day. 

Not for any particular reason other than the sun is shining and the birds are tweeting.

For a while there a number of years ago (before LOML) I was very sad.  Couldn't see the point of anything.  Spent most of my time when not at work curled up on my bed staring at the wall.  Or sleeping.  Or crying. 

Not good. 

Had I gone to a doctor I most likely would have been given a prescription for anti-depressants.  But I didn't.

Life seemed so unfair at the time.  I didn't know where I was going or how I was going to get there if I did by some miraculous turn of fate find out my direction.  I felt so alone in a big, bad world that was just chewing me up one day at a time.

Then I heard a song. 

A song that made that day, that moment in time, bearable. 

I heard it the next day too.  And the day after that.  Some days I heard it two, three times.  And the downhill slide slowly started to turn into an uphill struggle.

Eventually I won.  And life got better.  Better than I ever imagined it could possibly be.

I still hear the song every now and then.  It still makes me feel good.  I smile more and feel happier.  For no other reason than I heard the song.


What is the song you ask? 


Not a song you would probably think could make such a difference to a sad girl's life.  Not a song that would be listed in the Top 100 Uplifting Tunes of the Year list.  Not even a song that you might rush out to buy RIGHT NOW because it was a number 1 best seller and all the cool kids had it.

But its catchy melody and sing-along-cos-you-know-the-words lyrics made it a bit of a hit and if I told you what it was, I know you'd know the words too.  Chances are you'd also say that it makes you smile. 

A good song all round. 

A song to make today or any day better, prettier, more uplifting.

It's a beautiful day. 

Keeping up with the Joneses

About 5 years ago I was struggling with the world as I knew it.  I felt like I didn’t fit the ‘norm’ – what society (media?) determined I should aspire to and for.  I didn’t want the big screen, high definition, plasma tv.  Heck, we didn’t even own a dvd player at the time and our tv was a cheapo from Kmart!  I certainly didn’t want to go into major debt to buy a fancy new car with shiny wheels just because everyone else in the street had one (just like I wouldn’t jump off a cliff if that was what everyone else was doing!).  And I was quite happy to not wear brand name clothes – give me generic K-mart (K-mare) or Target (Tar-jay) any day.  I also loved the little post-war house we were renovating (and I mean that literally – re-sheeting walls, painting and landscaping ourselves – not paying someone to do all the dirty work) even if it was a long, hard slog.  I didn't want a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom McMansion with a posh postcode and no backyard.  Keeping up with the Joneses just wasn’t (and still isn’t) for me.  I’d much rather drag them down to my level – certainly much cheaper!.

So I started to rebel against those people in my life who had that mindset – the ‘more, more, more’ mentality.  There wasn’t that many of them – mainly people I worked with – but I took great satisfaction in telling them I didn’t want ['must have' item] after they had professed its wonderful-ness and immediate desire to buy it because it would enrich their lives in soooo many ways (yeah right.  I smell a marketing success story).  In the end I think I was just written off as a little bit eccentric and odd because I didn’t want to play that game.  Whatever.  Suited me just fine.

And then I read a few books that gave name to the changes I had started to make in my way of thinking and the decisions I was making in my day-to-day life.  One book made me think about how the never-ending quest for happiness has seen us get to the point where we now work longer hours than ever before to pay off the increasing debt we accumulate by buying stuff we don’t need to impress people we don’t like – and still we’re not happy.  It certainly rang a bell in my mind and crystallised what I had been thinking but didn’t yet know how to put into words.  The book was Affluenza: when too much is never enough by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss and I still read it at least once a year to remind me that I’m not alone in thinking this way.

So those people are no longer in my life and I feel great.  I feel less cluttered and constricted.  I don’t go without and I don’t deprive myself of ‘things’ but I am more aware of why I want something.  If I still want it after a couple of days or weeks, then most times I buy it.  But I’m more immune than ever before to impulse shopping.  And you know what?  I’m happier now with less ‘things’ than I ever was when I had loads of stuff.  And that's what makes it all worthwhile. J