2018 Year in Review

Looking back at 2018 fills me with loads of contentment. When I was kid, I'd hear things like "just wait to you're older" and not in the good context either, more like, when you reach this mythical age of adulthood you will be swamped by the stresses of the world, with money problems and things that you'd never even imagine as a kid. Now I'm 34 and each year just keeps getting better and better.  I have more control over my time, I have more vision to my direction and I just feel super happy and grateful to be alive! I'm so stoked for 2019.  I was super eager to put away our Christmas stuff on boxing day not because I wanted Christmas to be gone just because I'm ready for the next chapter!

In 2018, I continued with my bought/gift/made series!

Carmen and Ben's mum came to stay with us at the start of the year and she taught us mosaics!

I successfully completed my year of blooms project (still have December to post!) It was such a great project to do, I feel like I learnt so much about gardening and flowers and just got deep on the nature appreciation tangent, which is exactly where I want my life headed!

Although clay died down when we got to our new place, the first half of the year was strong!

Ben and I celebrated out 8th year anniversary and took a trip down to Brisbane

I had a go at kick starter!

We visited Goma and saw the Patricia Piccinini exhibition

Yayoi Kusama!

I got into paper making and hoarding petals to include with my paper.

I continued learning about gardening, set up a garden at our old place and a new one at our current home

Focused on making my wooden stands and establishing my side project Spirit You.  

To be honest about 70% of my free time went to this and I have zero regrets!

Lowy taught me how to weave a basket out of cane

I didn't take as much film as I'd like but I did throw myself into a more active lifestyle, continuing it over from 2017. Lots of mountain climbs and bush walks and swims and I tried stand up paddle boarding for the first time and loved it!

For my birthday I visited Nimbin and tried glamping for the first time

I also gave the pottery a wheel ago and stuck with it until I was able to produce something half decent

I also visited Crystal Castle on my birthday which was an utterly magical experience

I'm not sure if I ever shared on here but Gremlin's health took a really bad turn this year.  After moving he developed feline urinary disorder which we narrowed down to the stress of moving into a new environment and change.  There was a stage where we had to race him to an emergency vet and lucky Ben had the funds to go ahead with whatever was needed to save him.  He now has to be on a special diet for the rest of his life and we just have to keep a super close eye on him.  

I love our cats so much, the thought of them not being around breaks my heart!!

I made some beach trips this year and added to my collection

I also devoted hours to watching youtube makeup tutorials so I could learn cat eye! Not an expert but I'm a lot better than I used to be! I also started growing out my bleached hair to let it recover and in the process noticed lots of tiny greys :P

We said goodbye to our house in the country and moved into suburbia

I finally was able to wear earrings again after having sensitive ears for so long

Totally in love with my new room and the ability to decorate it!

Although I didn't get to go as much as I'd liked I still made solid efforts to go thrifting when I could!

I bought my first large piece of furniture and got into chalk painting!

We visited an orchid show and I fell further in love with orchids this year

We visited Ben's mum out in biggenden and his brother down in Port Macquarie earlier in the year

And I finished the year off creatively by making Spirit Yonis!

Every year I fill out a little questionnaire of my year (just for myself) which I save in a folder.  One of the questions is, "what date remains etched in your memory?" and for me it's Nov. 14th.  I don't think I talked about this on my blog but I finally found out I have endometriosis.  I might do a big blog entry on it at some stage its just progressed at such a slow pace with many moving parts that its never felt complete to share. Nov 14th stands out in particular because it was my first time to have surgery and general anesthetic.  Looking back it was a really amazing time in my life, it made me slow down and refocus and I'm really grateful for it and all the amazing free health care I received and continue to receive and Ben being around.  I now have loads more clarity on my health an amazing feeling when previously I'd felt in the dark. 

I'm 100% positive for 2019, apparently (according to Elizabeth Peru) it's going to fast paced creative year and one where you'll need to avoid the negative chatter around - I can do that, I think!

I wish each and everyone of you an amazing year ahead!!!

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Merry Christmas

Wishing you a tree-mendous Christmas!! 

tee-hee!

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Year of Blooms

I bawled my eyes out at the end of Loving Vincent, a film about Vincent van Gogh but before the tears I had an epiphany of sorts - that I'm meant to be planting flowers and lots of them. So this year, I'm doing a project called, year of blooms. I have a rough idea in my head but I'm letting the project be open to change with a simple guideline to have more flowers in the world! This project has already seen hopeful synchronicity. The first flower I picked to plant was sunflowers and as I'm typing this, realising it's the bloom that started the project (thanks Vincent!) though originally picked because it's the right time (I hope!) and I was gifted sunflower seeds (from Ben's brother's wife) after I mentioned how lovely her garden and the sunflowers growing in it, were.

In November, Ben and I visited a cafe where I spent far too long admiring their plant wall. I took photos to remember the plants to seek some out for myself. I pointed to one plant with pretty flowers and asked Ben if he knew what it was, he did, a plant we had been gifted by Ben's Mum years ago but had never bloomed. Three weeks later I let out a little gasp - tiny white flowers sprung forth from the pot – the loveliest omen!

My african violet, despite it's abundance blooms (when gifted to me from Dad) lived the rest of the time, with pretty leaves. You might also guess where this is headed, below is a photo from a couple of weeks ago....

We moved into our new place, flattening out a path from the top house to below and at the end of the path, an overgrown flower bed with two rose bushes amongst the weeds. I've been rose obsessed for too many years but I only just planted my first rose last year. In 2012 we took a trip to Tasmania and visited a hedge maze. As we walked through the maze, hand-painted signs with quotes on them were scattered on the paths. I'm terrible at remembering quotes but I always remember the sentiment of this one, even if in delivery I muddled a few words. It's been an important philosophy to contemplate, especially with renting - the idea of waiting for the perfect time, but how you spend your days, becomes how you spend your life, right? It's definitely time to plant those roses.

Ben's Mum gifted me with this book for Christmas and (below) a desert rose with many seed pods ready to sprout.

I'm going to check back in every month and keep you updated on the project. I need to build a new garden bed for my sunflowers and I'm also going to sprinkle a packet of wildflowers seeds Ben bought. I explained my vague project to our garden friend Lowy and the first thing that came to mind for him was Masanobu Fukuoka and his earth balls. I want to plant seeds at home but the majority of the project will be guerilla gardening with the idea to spread as much beauty as I can :) :) January will keep me busy, sourcing materials and writing lists and starting the growing process! If you have any input or ideas, I'd love to hear them too :) :) 

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