Hi! I feel like it has been ages since I wrote. I have been home from Warburton about a week, and I must say I am still recovering from my extreme experience in the outback. If you missed my 12 part series, please take a look at the blog and have a read. I wrote about my time teaching and exploring the surrounding area, including lots of beautiful photos and aboriginal art images. It was a wonderful experience, but I must say I am also very happy to be home.

I am feeling off right now. Un well. I was meant to be going hiking with a friend down south today, would have been fun but I have felt under the weather the last week or so. In a moment of flurried bursting energy, I painted all the pavers in my backyard yesterday. I had been wanting to do this job for awhile, so I was pleased to give them all a new lick of dark blue paint, bringing the garden paths back to looking awesome. I love painting, in all forms, and if I didn’t feel so crap today I would be down to Bunnings getting some new paint to re-paint my laundry. The colours in there are just not working for me any more.

In fact I went nuts with colour when I first moved in, having never had the chance to paint a wall that I could call my own; I literally have blue, green, yellow, pink, everywhere. Like a Mexican cantina. Lol. Sounds lurid, but some how it works and reflects my bright over zealous personality, of more is better. Colour that is.

I like to think of myself as a minimalist, with too much stuff. But I have reached the first stage of emancipation, I no longer feel the strong desire to BUY BUY BUY. And frankly, I am very happy about that. When new things come into my home, it almost sets off some anxiety, it feels cluttered enough. And that is spurring me on to do some serious de-cluttering very soon. Get rid of it! There is nothing more satisfying then throwing things away. Such a modern day concept. Buy it then chuck it. Gone-ski.

I also love fresh flowers, and luckily have many rose bushes out the front of my house to pluck from. It has inspired some painting recently too, I must say the intricacies of a rose petal are quite the challenge.

SO I hardly worked last week. 2 measly days, but it was enough. I was exhausted. I failed to go to work Thursday, preferring the scenery of the coast, how pompous of me. But true, I just could not deal. No deal. Arms crossed. It was great to see the kids I had not seen in over a month though, some had missed me, some I think not! Most kids are pretty oblivious to the Teachers; they have enough on their plate. Anyhow, there is only a week and a half left of term now then two more delicious weeks off.

I have booked my trip to Europe, yee-hah! I fly out to Oslo, Norway on June 18 and will fly home from Rome about a month later. In between I will spend time with friends in Belgium, travel to Croatia and traverse the countryside in Italy. I am looking forward to another Europe get away. I always have multiple trip ideas swimming around in my head, and already thinking USA and Hawaii next…and all those incredible lush National Parks. Anyhow, one trip at a time. I plan to write about my travels so look forward to that…

I have been enjoying spending time at home and getting grounded again. I felt somewhat discombobulated after my trip away. It was so different out there, like visiting another country with their own customs and ways of life. It is so good to gain a new perspective on life. However, when we move away, we then feel disconnected from what we previous felt so connected to. It has taken sometime to feel my groove again. Spending time at home is certainly helping, and I spend as much time as I can in the garden too. I really missed my plants. Sounds weird I know, but my garden gives me so much joy. Just being in it makes me feel good. I dream of owning a property one day with a big expansive garden full of beauty, colour, trees, fruit, vegetables, chickens, dogs and cats.

SO my April Intentions. I have realised that I have been spending a stupid amount of time scrolling through social media. Mindless fucking scrolling. And it really achieves nothing. I also realise a lot of things I am keeping up on are with friends who are not even really friends, often people I do not know who live overseas or wherever. I want my life to be more REAL. It’s a trap this social media. Highly distracting, fruitless, mind numbing, and really achieves squat. It is also bad for your mental health, enticing you with exotic locations, people, bodies, places, everything, wanting you to want more and more, rather than appreciating what you have around you right now. It really is quite sick. So one of my April intentions is to actively spend LESS time on social media, and my phone in general. I aim to achieve this by staying off Facebook, upload less, and spend zero time scrolling through any feeds. I prefer to gaze happily in my present moment and enjoy my surroundings, and be in my own reality. Because that is a pretty good place!

I need to exercise more. I want to try and do something physical every day for 30 to 60 mins. My body feels stiff and sore and inflexible and I actually have quite a lot of pain in it daily. Right now my neck is so stiff it hurts to swallow and turn. Arghh. Hard to exercise when you feel crap, but once this little lurgy has shifted I will be out there pounding the pavement once again.

In a nutshell:

+ Reduce/stop using social media.

+ Exercise more, daily 30 to 60 mins a day.

+ Sleep more, and at regular times.

+Try intermittent fasting, to lose a couple of Kg’s and feel better generally.

I wrote down all these ideas the other day, and now my fuzzy brain can’t remember them all. Oh yeah two more;

+ Journal write more.

+ Read more books.

Those are pretty good goals I think. Staying off social media will be the hardest. I will still allow myself a little bit but in general I do not want to spend time mindlessly scrolling through my feeds. I will still stay in touch with my friends through messenger and get this, I will just call them up! Wow!

And boom, nearly 1200 words!

That is enough for today! Hope you are enjoying your Easter, I didn’t even get to touch on that! It is a bit of a non event for me. I have to say I did try and make some dyed eggs, and decorate them with flower patterns, but it was a big fail. I tried dyeing them using purple cabbage, and beetroot, and brown onion skins. Surprisingly the brown onion skins worked the best!

Ok bye. Hope you are enjoying your long weekend!

Anita xx