My loves,

Buckle up… this will be one of those longer ye ole fashioned miandering blog posts. Diary style of what I’m up to, what I’m thinking and feeling… all those good things.

To be honest, 2024 is so far… NOTHING like what I was thinking it would be.

All my goals and plans in lots of ways are no longer right for right now, and instead I’m in the process of creating a new vision… one that feels a bit unexpected and surprising.

If I’d had to give up on these goals like this last year, it would have probably made a pretty big impact on my self-esteem. For a little while there, I was really hard on myself in feeling like I’d made mistakes in some of my decisions in the past. Thankfully, doing regular kinesiology work with my darling Kerry has helped me enormously. She said:

“Instead of telling yourself the story that this means you can’t trust your own decisions… what if you recognised that you made good decisions based on the information you had at the time? And then when new information came to light, you made a different decision? You can’t control what other people do. You can’t magically intuit how they are going to behave in the future. You can only make decisions based on the information you have right now.”

I’m so grateful for the work we’ve done together. So even though this first half of the year has been intense, my inside self feels mostly unrattled. All I’m doing is seeing what new information life is presenting me, and working with that instead.

There’s been moments in the past six months or so where I’ve felt like a professional firefighter, where so much of my time and energy is needed to put out the latest fire. And so often what is needed is love, boundaries and clarity.

I don’t like to vagueblog, but I also can’t share many parts of exactly what’s been happening because they involve other people, and I don’t like to write other people’s stories for them.

It’s just been a lot on many fronts with extended family difficulties and school challenges for both my kids. Mate, being middle aged is A LOT. The sandwich generation era has sandwiched hard!

All of this has been a bit of a shake up in terms of us reevaluating where we are now, and what’s needed next.

For those who’ve been around these parts for a long time, you might know where this is heading. Yep… looks like we’ll be moving again! 

We’ve been here on the Sunshine Coast for 6 years now. I feel so grateful for our time here. I’ve met some beautiful humans – especially my local business goddess circle. I will eternally cackle when I think of my two Scorpiofest weekends away with beloved girlfriends. I’m grateful that I got to homeschool for a wee while here in its incredible homeschooling community, and that my kids got to experience four years of alternative schooling that they adored.

I’m grateful that my kids have gotten to have time with their grandparents here – one of the big reasons we moved here was for them to be able to connect more with their ancestors. I’ve adored getting to know this land – the magic of its rivers, the long swatches of beaches, the tea trees and the black cockatoos.

I feel enormously lucky that we got to live through the pandemic here in the safe bubble that Queensland provided, and that we did it while living on an acreage. In my heart, I will always remember bike riding with my daughters along our isolated road in the midst of an enormous butterfly migration. I’ve never seen anything like it before – how millions of them danced through the air around us as we rode, and kept coming for weeks. While there was so much uncertainty and anxiety and grief emanating around the globe in those early days of the pandemic, that enormous flock of butterflies and that one small bike ride with my little loves was one of the most exquisite things I’ve ever born witness to.

We moved here with younger kids – an 8 year old and a 4 year old. Our dream was for us to be able to raise them on acreage, with connection to their grandparents, and to live a sea/tree change life with them. And it feels like we’ve been able to do that… and I’m so proud of us for making that happen.

And now, just like that, in a split second and an eternity, we have older kids. Our 14 year old only has 4 years left of school. Our youngest is now 10. Our vision for what’s next is changing.

We’ve been wondering for a while now what happens next after school for our eldest. For all its beauty, a sea/tree change often doesn’t give young adults many options when it comes to further education or starting careers. And for lots of families, they’re happy to either work with what’s available locally, or for their kids to move to “the big smoke” for university or work. I know when I was growing up in a rural location that moving away was the only option for me.

For us though, we’re a pretty close knit unit bunch. One of our highest values is family time, and being connected with our kids. And I found myself feeling jealous of friends who lived in locations where their kids could live at home (if they wanted) while going to university or starting careers.

With my business, we are location independent. We can live anywhere… so if we had the opportunity to be able to have more years with our kids as young adults, why wouldn’t we? The answer was pretty clear to us after all that – we were ready to move back to Canberra.

This will be our third time moving to Canberra. It might not be our biologically born home town, but it has become one.

Oh, Canberra.

It’s hard to tell people about Canberra sometimes. Probably because if you tell most Australians you’re wanting to move to Canberra from the Sunshine Coast, they think you are nuts. For most Australians, they think Canberra is cold, boring or both.

They are right about it being cold, of course. We Australians tend to be a largely cold-adverse lot, with warmer weather being seen as the gold standard for lifestyle. Whereas I have a husband who smile widens the closer it gets to zero degrees, and one kid who clearly inherited his cold-loving genes. She’s the kid who wishes she could wear jumpers and jeans year-round, who hates the beach and fantasises about living in Finland. For me & my other kid – we’re happy to be wherever we are!

I’m always fascinated by the public opinion of Canberra being boring. Here’s this beautifully planned city with less than half a million people that has some of the country’s best cultural attractions. Some of my favourite places on earth are there. Where else can you spend a delightful day meandering from the National Library of Australia to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery? I’m getting a little artsy nerd boner just THINKING of it.

And then of course there’s the zoo and Questacon and Old Parliament House and Cockington Green and Gold Creek Village and Lanyon and and and…. Some people adore The War Memorial but it gives me the Big Sads so I tend to skip that one.

Socio-economically it’s a fascinating place too. Canberra has the most highly educated population in Australia, and it also happens to be the most left-leaning state as well. It topped the nation in voting for same-sex marriage in 2018. Its Chief Minister of 10 years is the first and only Australian head of government to identify as LGBTQIA+. It is one of the top 5 most sustainable cities in the world, and was the first city outside of Europe to achieve a 100% renewable energy supply. It also happens to be the world’s best at Wordle, because that’s important too.

Then there’s the nature magic of Canberra. I think at least 90% of the hiking I’ve done in my life has been there. Maybe it’s because there are walking trails spread through most suburbs that wind around hills and sky. Maybe it’s because Canberra has my beloved Tidbinbilla National Park, jewel of my heart and long term love. Maybe it’s the soft sage hues of the alpine land set wild against cornflower blue skies. Or maybe, most of all, it’s because the nature spirits feel so deeply kind and welcoming there. All of this, and more.

I guess the thing with Canberra is that it’s a peculiar kind of magic. It only enchants certain people, and the love story alludes others. And that’s probably for the best… otherwise it would be overrun with too many humans!

For me, Canberra has always been a place that’s felt soft and loving and kind to me and my love. Canberra has gifted us both so much. It also means returning to our community of dear friends who’ve become family after decades of love. I have complicated and sometimes strained relationships with my family of origin, but we have good and easy and solid community with our Canberra folk. It will be a lovely homecoming to be nestled among them again.

For our kids, Canberra means lots of great options for finishing their schooling & doing university (if that’s what they are called to). It means lots of job opportunities & possibilities for them as they start out as adults.

Will it be our forever place? Ha! No, I doubt it. I doubt that about any place. If we want to move again, we will. There’s still so many places to get to know and love.

Do I love moving? Not the actual physical act of packing and unpacking… but otherwise… yes. I love getting to fall in love with a new home and explore around it and getting to experience the energy and beauty of new areas. It’s like slow travelling!

For years of restless unknowing, it bothered me that I didn’t truly know where “home” was… before realising I just happen to have a very large one. My country is my home. My love story is with Australia, and I feel so damn blessed that we’ve been able to live and love so many parts of it over the years – from the rainforested wilderness of FNQ, to the windswept glory of Tasmania and all the jewels between. I feel so lucky that with my business we’ve been able to move when we’ve wanted and needed to.

It’s funny though, I’ve hesitated sharing all this because we haven’t bought a house in Canberra yet, haven’t set the move date yet. Who knows what might happen – the wind may change! We might decide to stay here! We might decide somewhere else completely! And that’s okay. For right now, the winds of change are pulling, and this is where it’s looking to take us.

Thank you, as always, for sharing this winding, stunning, wild journey with me. I can’t wait to share what’s next and unfolding with you. And I’m so deeply grateful to have path companions like you beside me.

All my love,