See these china dogs? These are souvenirs from my first trip to England and Europe, back in 2015. Soon I’ll be back there again, marvelling at how the countryside can be so incredibly GREEN and hearing all those amazing accents. In less than 5 weeks I’ll be there.
I made a decision to change my flight to England and bring my arrival forward by a few days. I wrote about it here on the other blog, in a post called ‘Sometimes it’s ok to be extravagant.’ It deals with my thought processes and reasons why I agreed to spend an extortionate amount of money to do this. If you haven’t already read it, pop across and read it. I’ll wait…
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Ok. I didn’t want to go over the same information twice. It’s boring for those who read both blogs. (Hi Helen!)
But when I think back to 1997, when I was sitting on the back steps watching my little boys playing in the yard and coming to the inescapable conclusion that I was pushing sh*t uphill with my marriage and being SO VERY SCARED about the practicalities of forging a life as the only adult in the house … never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that I’d be in a position to casually drop an extra 2K on a trip, simply to ensure that I’d meet a lunch date.
Isn’t life incredible? A few of you have been reading almost from the beginning of this blog – we’ve come a helluva long way together, babyyy! I think when I started the blog Ryan was around 12 or 13. He’s now 28 years old, working in my sewing room to put together the shelving units we bought a few days ago. The photo shows the first of 3 units that will be going along the back wall.
Evan26 has now finished his course at Clown College in France and he and his mate Will have a couple of weeks of travelling around, then they’ll be home. Hasn’t it gone quick? People at work tease me for “being retired but not really – you’re here all the time!!” but honestly, I feel pretty lucky to be able to access work that’s easy, very well paid and allows me to help my boys with the big things that they want to do.
(If only that scared girl back in 1997 could have seen into the future. She would have been far less stressed!)
I think that my one big stroke of luck was buying the house in the McKinnon zone in 1996 and then riding the wave when Melbourne’s property boom happened. We were there for 19 years and got the benefit of a secure house over our heads in a brilliant school zone.
The rest of my ‘luck’ was made up of thousands upon thousands of decisions that I made along the way. Every frugal decision that turned into a habit was a tiny step forward towards the goal of having a fully paid-for home for security for the boys and me. Along the way, we travelled overseas a couple of times, and the boys went on every school camp. Travel is important. They were allowed one extracurricular activity each and in the end, they all gravitated to music lessons.
I was able to make it all slowly come together by allowing the boys some of what they wanted and giving them all of what they needed. Turns out that raising 4 boys on one wage is a good thing – it certainly makes you prioritise where you put the money!
Anyway, it’s good for me to look back sometimes and realise how far the boys and I have come. Usually, I set big audacious goals and by the time I’ve reached them, I’m already focused on the next big goal. I never really savour them at the time.
Now that I’m only having 2 days or so between finishing my work contract and getting on the plane, I’ve decided to try and do one thing a day to get ready. So of course today I did two. I joined the National Trust so that when I visit National Trust places in England I’ll get in for free. I also cut a bar of Velvet soap into a smaller piece to take with me.
I’ll be handwashing my clothes – mainly Merino pieces and tights as well as my “unmentionables” (haha!) – and it occurred to me that I don’t need to take a whole bar of soap with me. A whole bar of Velvet soap is heavy and takes up space. I’d already bought it to wash my Merino dress, as enzymes in laundry detergents eat away at the wool and ruin it, so this is an added refinement to adapt to the ‘carry-on’ lifestyle. I googled ‘How to cut a bar of soap’ and in 2 minutes the job was done. Look at me being all practical!
I’m up to day 30 of the 100 days challenge with this dress. Almost a third of the way there!
We’re down to our last pumpkin! Not bad from a punnet of butternut pumpkin seedlings from Bunnings. They’ve seen us through to nearly the end of winter.
We’re having another “Educate Izzy’ movie night tomorrow night, where she’ll be seeing ‘The Terminator.’ I might sneak in some of this pumpkin to have mashed potato and pumpkin with our slow-cooked lamb shanks.
Well, I’d better go and finish harvesting the lemons from my tree. We’ve had a bumper crop this year and I’m not letting a single one go to waste! I’m making lemon juice ice cubes to store in bags in the freezer.
Dad joke of the day:
Dancing With Frogs 