A couple of blog’s back I gave you some musings about my (well our) minimalist journey.  We have been working our way through the things at my mums (only 4 book boxes left at her place now).  It did however highlight two things – I’ve lost one item (that I’m aware of ) during the move and I have a lot of unfinished projects. As to the item lost, it is something that I would love to find, but have been unable to locate and we have now been through everything.  It is very annoying as it is a sentimental object and I’m upset to have lost it.  I will keep hoping that it is just tucked away somewhere, and may eventually be found. As to the unfinished projects, what became apparent as I was sorting through my paintings is that I have a few that are either unfinished or I decided to modify it in some way and have not done the work.  I also was sorting through my sewing stuff and discovered the same thing; I have items which I’ve started but not competed or I have finished and they need to be tweaked slightly.  Therefore, I’ve decided that the next 12 months is going to be all about finishing my unfinished projects.  I’m going through my calendar and setting aside time to do the things. First was a skirt I made which I loved but was a little too big at my waist, a lot of unpicking

Hello everyone Today’s blog is going to be a little bit different.  If you ever read my Fit & Fabulous blog it may not be too different, but today’s blog is about some musings that I have had over the past few weeks. I’ve recently gone down the rabbit hole of minimalism, specifically The Minimalists podcast.  It has been fascinating.  When you think about it, it makes sense, for those of you who have followed my blogs for years will know that I love having a capsule wardrobe.  When I came to Australia you would think I gave some thought about creating a capsule wardrobe for my work clothes, but no I just went ohh look at all these clothes and bought what I wanted rather than having a plan.  The reality is a capsule wardrobe sits nicely within the world of Minimalism.  I however like to refer to the idea more along the lines of essentialism. I’ve also spent the last six months or so getting into stoic philosophy.  Epicurus always appealed to me, but now I understand a bit more about different schools of philosophy.  I’ve purchased (on my kindle) a couple of books about stoic philosophers and found that really interesting.  Though please note that Epicurus is not a stoic philosopher. So how does stoicism and minimalism meld together? I’m not sure, but I think it is something I will explore over the next few months. I do like the idea of owning less things – especially

Hello everyone.  I went on a long weekend to Sydney – this necessitated a flight on a plane.  It was fabulous. I had a fabulous time with my girlfriend S.  I arrived on Friday evening and after a journey from the airport with some chatting, we went off to bed.  Saturday was planned to head out for afternoon tea (at lunch time).  This was my gift to S for her 50th birthday – we were meant to go on this outing in 2020 once I got back to Australia but, we all know what happened.  On Saturday we headed off to firstly go look at an art gallery which I really enjoyed.  A few art galleries later we headed off to our afternoon tea stop.  We had a lovely afternoon tea overlooking the harbour.  We had a very friendly kookaburra who tried to steal food from me (it didn’t succeed from me but did from another table).  After we had eaten, we went down to the harbour to get a ferry across to the city.  That was great.  A little while in town and then a bus ride home.  We spent the evening watching Howl’s Moving Castle. Sunday was a trip off to the Sydney Easter Show. We started the day with coffee and then the dog show.  It was great to see, and things have changed since I showed dogs.  We then continued through the other pavilions, looking at food, the history of the show, fashion, cake decorating, art

Why – well I’ve enjoyed my break, but as one year finishes and another starts I start to examine my goals and think ahead, and I like to do that via my blog.  Though looking back at the past two years, I’ve done a let’s look back and see all the positives that have happened.  I think I am going to do a bit of both. Firstly what have I been very thankful for this year, me getting an ongoing contract which I’m really enjoying, finding a job you like is hard, finding a contract you like even harder, so having a job that I like with managers who are happy to train me and give me extra things to do, fabulous.  Pat and I moving to our own place and finding it surprisingly quieter than anticipated and absolutely loving the suburb we have moved to.  Having hair that is finally long enough that I feel normal and it feels like me – seriously when you consider that in December 2019 I had less than a centimetre of hair on my head, having hair that touches my shoulders is wonderful – I’ve now made the decision to just let it grow, I’ll see where it is in 6 months and make a decision at that point about cutting it.  Along with that I can celebrate almost 2 years of being cancer free – having finished treatment in January 2020 and my trip to the Oncologist just before Christmas, he was

My photo club had a weekend field trip to Wagin, a rural country town with the main attraction being a giant statue of a ram. Being a serious photographer(?) I did not take any photos of the ram but if you insist, you can google ‘Wagin Ram’ and click on [images]. It was quite a drive to get there, about 3 hours. I drive-shared with a fellow club member and arrived in plenty of time to venture out to a nearby lake/mosquito swamp for a sunset shoot. A supermarket brand insect repellent worked wonders for me whilst I watched others faces swell up as their life blood was sucked out. The problem was that my eyes constantly stung as sweat washed the stuff into my eyes. The locals had arranged for a bush burn-off giving us a very good sunset to photograph The next day we were up at 4am for a dawn shoot. The locals had not been so accommodating this time and had cleared the sky of clouds for the sunrise, which was disappointing. The day improved with breakfast at “The Grande Olde Dumbleyung Inn” (I kid ye not!).   The rest of the day was spent visiting various farmsteads and sheep stations. We had three to visit  and, having a convoy of some 18 vehicles, we had to split up into three groups. Some shearing sheds, farming equipment and vehicles photographed as well as the rural landscape of rolling hills of pasture and crops. Also a lot