Life, Love and the Everyday

Some days I'm happy to go out and see people. Other days I wrestle with my emotions, reasoning my fears with common-sense rather than justify them and stay at home where I'm content and comfortable with everything I already know. On days where my anxiety begs me to call up work and say I'm sick - I gently take it by the hand and say that we'll be ok. We might laugh or cry, but we'll be ok. I have learnt as a writer, we need to be around people and see the best and worst of being human - because if we just lock ourselves away from the world then we won't emphasise with our characters, adapt our views or cultivate and develop our work - and we won't grow as people. This is the pep-talk I am giving myself on this sunny Friday morning on my morning commute to work. And its working. So far. - Sarah x

LIFE There is a saying, 'No matter how you feel. Get up, dress up, show up and never give up'. And I do all that. To be honest though, some days I do it better than others. There are days when I want to just be safe with what I know, somewhere I am confident. And that's at home. Shortly after moving into our new house, I have realised that these days I crave something more of a simpler and quiet life without so much rush and bustle. I am good at hiding - but I have found that if I hide too well and too often, people won't come and find me and while that is good for when I'm smashing out a novel; it can get rather lonely.  So I have started to show my face, getting more comfortable with it - Instagram has been awesome and people have been so encouraging and supportive. Last week I got over my self-consciousness and posted a video of me painting a planter that I'm going to plant strawberries in. It took a couple of tries to get t...

LIFE Our second week in our new home has been uneventful...mostly. A. fell down in the city and chipped a front tooth. The circumstance had me thinking of the childhood rhyme Jack & Jill and I wonder if, when Jack fell down the hill whether his front teeth was the crown he broke... As for myself, I made the mistake of hand-washing our clothes in the laundry sink and hung it out to dry on the line. I forgot we left our clothes pegs at Fawlty Towers! The washing was hanging out there for three days until A. and *Harry found it all scattered on the lawn around the line! Whoops! LOVE The perks of living in a suburb where the buses go every 10-20 minutes means a longer sleep-in for yours truly. What's really cute is that A. and I walk to the bus stop together and this ritual makes me giddy. On Tuesday A. was off to the gym and he was wearing his Storm supporter gym shorts and in that moment I really wished God had Instagram too so I could send him an appreciation post wit...

LIFE Everyday we learn something about our new home. It prefers traditional furniture but likes the sound of rap. On Saturday morning when A. walked to the nearby shops, about five houses down he found a lawn-sale. He and *Harry went and picked out a closet, a tv cabinet and a few other things. I went by myself a little later and selected some garden tools, an old fashioned rocking horse, a white wooden table and a collapsible work-bench. Yesterday our new goods were delivered by the previous owners and it took a couple of trips. I found myself down the street again and was invited to look through what was left. Instead I found myself listening to the stories of two sisters who had grown up happily in that house. I was transported back to the 50's when the house we are now living in was bush-land with children from the neighbourhood building forts and climbing trees until dinner-time on weekends and during school holidays. It was a magical childhood for both of them, until the...

LIFE As far as moving goes, we had a good day on Saturday. There was a little bit of stress because we moved with a tradie ute that had no sides and a trailer. We knocked down six loads worth in three trips. Our removalists from AirTasker, a husband and wife team came with their beautiful three-year old girl and we did some drawing while her parents and A. worked out the best way to manoeuvre the furniture out of the unit. Once they moved the furniture downstairs they worked hard to angle and position everything just so within legal bounds on the ute and trailer. They pulled off a miracle, helped us move our furniture into the house and asked us where to put it before leaving for their next task.  To celebrate our new home, my family came and Dad ordered pizza. We were completely knackered but were so happy, eating pizzas and passing my baby cousin around in a circle and swapping stories. The only thing that was missing was *Cassandra's presence. Our new home is wonderful. I...

LIFE New beginnings are hard work, for a short amount of time our lives evolve around them.  A. is working hard at his new job and I am packing up what remains of our time at Fawlty Towers. You don't realize how much you have and what you don't need until you are nominated by default to deal with chaos. My neighbor Jess heard my screeches of frustration and helped me sort through the CD's and DVD's with no cases and the life A. lived before me.  I kept all the sentimental things like photos of relatives and the things I knew he would want to keep, like the Deftones and Metallica. It was a bit of a daunting task - a relationship tester and I am a little nervous because my test result will be revealed at our new abode. Speaking of which, The Move is in three days. Yesterday I spoke with a nice lady called Amelia from the company who is responsible for connecting our electricity, gas and water. She put me through to this recorded message where the speaker was stride...

Weeks before A. and I headed to Brunei Darusallem, Singapore and Malaysia this reality that we are about to step into feels like a dream. A really good dream. Our guest room and hall-way are stacked with sealed boxes and in five days, we will be saying goodbye to living at Fawlty Towers. As for the people of Fawlty Towers, I'm going to miss living in our little tight-knit community; what houses our community is a red brick throwback from the 80's with rusticating iron work and temperamental plumbing but it's familiar and in the four years we have lived here, it's been home. We moved in here in June 2013, it was the making of who I am today. I came here depressed, lonely and angry with how I had worked so hard for everything only to have it slip through my hands. But I was hopeful. I prayed to God everyday for guidance, for understanding and healing. And God helped me through that time, I remember reading a verse in the Bible about how G...