moving on

On April 4 this year, we moved house! At the time, it felt like our world had been turned upside down. The rental property we'd been living in since our arrival on island over six years prior, was a place we considered home. The house sold beneath us and we were given thirty five days to vacate. We knew the house was on the market, but were in denial that anyone would actually buy it!!! A lack of suitable homes and increased rental prices left us a bit depressed for a while, but then someone came to our rescue, and we are very happy in our new residence. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and it turns out the forced move set in the motion the start of a crazy new plan for our future. It appears the upheaval gave us a chance to ask ourselves a few hard questions. I guess we'd been stuck in a rut without acknowledging it. Our new location has brought with it many benefits!

The piano didn't come with us by the way.

Following a better path

Image source here

I lost my way in Blog Land recently. Boy, it's a rabbit warren out there. We bloggers are prolific! There are so many wonderful inspirational writers, not to mention photographers. The problem is, I found myself drooling, no....getting a bit caught up in the consumable blogs. I call them that because for me they are, in essence, like beautiful shop window displays; "selling" everything from designer mummy outfits and magazine style home interiors to perfectly-gorgeously outfitted children. Some portray this with intention (for business purposes), while others present this image because it's how they live and who they are. I love those (a fore mentioned) things, I do, but in my heart of hearts I know it's wrong. Well, not wrong, just decadent and indulgent and against my gut feeling 'that our beautiful planet is getting choked up with all this unnecessary materialistic stuff'. 

I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to not want stuff. Perhaps women have that 'gatherer' trait ingrained. We don't spend all our days gathering nourishment and sustenance anymore, so we've moved on to harvesting wants or desirables. Part of why I love our small island life is we are shut off from consumerism, on a big scale anyway. I guess you could label me an "anti-consumerist'. I avoid chain stores and mass-produced as much as I can. The appalling air and lighting in shopping centres naturally deters me from entering anyway. But I'm not going to sit here and make out I don't enjoy wandering markets and specialty stores. What is it about shopping? Why do we enjoy touching, seeing and smelling new things? I wish I knew.

On the flip side, burrowing further and deeper has led me to discover some lovely bloggers who seem to be a bit more like me.  People who get excited when they dig up a real op shop treasure. Folks who have outdated mismatched furniture, crumbs on the floor and kids wearing hand-me-downs or home-made. Tree hugging writers who think about food miles and free-trade, chemical free cleaning, whole-food living and recycling. People who celebrate simplicity in general. Ah, kindred spirits. You know who you are! Thank you for keeping it real and giving me SO MUCH inspiration. xxx

More Blue Skies Ahead

It's official...we won't be leaving our beautiful island paradise at the end of this year.  Lucky for us too, we aren't ready to face the real world just yet. Our (or should I say 'my') extension application to stay on for two more years has been granted (phew.....what a nerve wrecking process THAT was...and I swear, I'm done with interviews for life). To say we are thrilled is an understatement! So now you have more time to come and visit us!

Words

Beautiful.
Powerful.
Dangerous.
I read so many wonderful words. They shape how I feel, how I react, who I am.
I love words....mostly.

Sometimes I think I have a gift for choosing the wrong words. Blurting them out without thinking. It's a family trait. We are a pretty outspoken bunch - sometimes pushing each other off the soap box just to get our say. Oh, together we "solve" all the world's problems, so these (sometimes passionate) discussions are not always a bad thing.  And they usually end in laughter.

But words. 

Simple little words. 

Once spoken, they can never be taken back.

I cherish certain words and phrases. I read quotes and messages for inspiration. It doesn't matter how many times I hear the words 'I Love You! - I'll never grow weary of them. Some people are masterful with words. They have a gift I envy.

But words.
Dam those words.
They can be so cutting, so unforgiving.

Sometimes it's just plain hard to find the right words. I'm not very good at backing down and as for apologising, well I may as well be hiking up Mt Everest dragging an elephant - yep, the act of saying sorry feels THAT impossible for me sometimes. And they are just words. What's the big deal, right?

I have words rolling around in my head at the moment. They hurt.

Words. Spoken. 

Intended for me....perhaps indirectly, but pointedly all the same. And not of the feel-good variety to be honest. They drift away, forgotten for a day, but like pieces of rubbish wrestling in the tide they keep washing to shore. They've been niggling like a stone stuck in my bike tire; I know the rock will dislodge eventually, but it's probably best if I just pull up and rip it out myself.

So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm pouring the toxic words down the drain. We hear words we don't like, that's life. It's what we do with them that matters. I'm learning to sift through, to find those words which empower me, make me feel good. I'm throwing the rest away. Especially when there are so many fabulous words to focus on instead!

The shoes of my loved-ones. This photo captures a funny moment (I might share it one day).

 PS Sometimes we just need to get words off our chest. I feel a bit better now.

So how did we get to this point?

We thought we were living out our big life plans reasonably well. And yet things just didn't feel right. We were struggling to manage the work/family balance. Our large energy guzzling house didn't really reflect who we were. Our mortgage didn't feel right. And generally speaking, our lifestyle didn't flow in a way that felt natural. We were losing sleep over some pretty big issues too; peak oil, predictions of economic doom, real estate busts, environmental disasters, commercialism and institutionalized schooling. Yes, heavy stuff! We were reading and discussing with like-minded friends topics such as living self-sufficiently, home-schooling and building environmentally suitable houses. We sometimes felt burdened and confused, but also excited because there were so many possibilities. It soon became pretty obvious, clearly our big life plans had to change. So we sold up, packed up and moved in with my folks. Ben quit his job and stayed at home with the kids full time and I returned to work five days a week. We had two main goals, firstly to save hard, and secondly, to come up with a new plan. We knew a few things for certain - we wanted to live with an environmental conscience, we hoped to be as self-sufficient as possible and we wanted as little debt as realistically achievable.

Finally we were free to drift and dream for a while. To work through our doubts. To work out if we'd gone completely crackers! Were we being realistic? Plenty of people around us thought we weren't. It didn't put us off - we knew that to be true to ourselves, we had to follow our instincts.

Living with Nannie and Pa proved to be great, especially for our kids. I headed out the door for work each day and Ben took on the task of home-schooling our first born. Domestic duties were shared, food costs split and contributions to electricity and phone bills made. Everybody had a role to fulfill. The house was big enough to allow everyone some privacy.  So we settled in and stopped obsessing about the future for a while.

And that, of course, is when our life journey took a most unexpected path. We were taken completely by surprise. We stumbled upon an ad in the paper. There was a job, perfect for me, on an island far, far away! I wasn't exactly sure where this island was and knew almost nothing about it - but I was intrigued and just had to find out more.  After a little bit of research, we realised what an amazing opportunity this could be. I had visions of us being just be like Swiss Family Robinson!!!! So applications were written, refined and emailed, a job interview endured (I have NEVER been so nervous in my whole life), job offered and accepted and well - the rest is history (still currently in the making of course), because here we are!

So now we reside on Norfolk Island, a small isolated, breathtakingly beautiful, island in the South Pacific.  We are part of a diverse population of just 1800 people, a proud community rich with culture, traditions and history. In this blog I hope to share with you the ins and outs of our daily life. And who knows, one day you might visit and see it for yourself!

Cheers,
Michelle

PS We still aim to be completely self sufficient one day and hope that in the future we can build/or buy a house that encompasses environmentally friendly principles. For now though, we just apply our ideals for living to our Norfolk existence - as best we can!

To blog or not to blog?

My sister does it, my Mum does it and now my cousins are doing it too. What are they all doing exactly? Blogging of course! I've been reading them for years. Some who know me well would tell you I'm addicted to reading them.  My favourites mostly deal with sewing, crafting and family life. It's been on my mind for a while now, that I should start my own. But can I write well enough? Do I have time? Will I be exposing my inner most private thoughts to the world? All questions that roll around and around in my head. But hey, what the heck, I might as well have a crack at it.

But where do I start this story of ours? At the beginning I suppose.