#firsteverblog

THIS.BLOG.IS.FOR.YOU :]

Introducing my section, STEM-E:

I am scared of telling people what i am actually afraid of. The fear about things that cannot be seen but only be felt. Apparently  opening up eases the fear. But what about the fear of opening up itself?

"knock knock!"

"who's it?"

" INSECURITIES"

yes. this is where insecurities gives its entry. our fear changes into our insecurities. so now the question is which one should be dealt with first? the fear itself or the insecurities? Does dealing with our fear first  eases out our insecurities  or dealing with our insecurities first eases our fear?

So we did it. In January this year we moved our little family from comfortable bayside suburban Melbourne to Nowra, South Coast NSW, population 35,000. Home to the Navy, a hospital, the mighty Shoalhaven River and the highest ice-using rate in NSW.  The last bit we didn't know before we moved. Why did we do it? Well, it’s complicated…

The dream began in 2009 while visiting to our wedding venue. We were casually flipping through a real estate brochure of the Bateman’s Bay Area without even an idea of buying, ridiculing comfortable suburban-like homes in a rural setting, speculating that partly cleared land next to state forest would be ideal, turned the page and there it was. 72 acres of our future dreams, set in the unspoilt NSW South Coast, with distant ocean views, adjoining state forest, partly cleared but with spotted gum trees stretching tall and straight into our imaginations.

For 2 years we kept a watch on it, from the UK we rang and asked for information. We moved back to the suburbs of Melbourne and planned a trip to step foot on that land. The price dropped. We were the winning bidder of two. We hastily sold the Melbourne house, and decided on an adventurous move into a one-room shack in the bush without running water or power. And then we got pregnant. Which was awesome, I just never pictured myself as a hippy with a baby and a dog all squished up in one room with a day’s drive between me and a supportive mother and loving aunties! So we stayed in Melbourne and then another bubba arrived and the coastal property slowly became over grown, the self-sown wattles obscured the ocean views.

The planning didn’t stop and in the time it took me to have two toddlers, council finally approved the road we need to build to even reach our top building spot. My pre purchase ‘back of the envelope’ calculations of a $40K road were out by $200K. To some the dream might have looked more like a mirage. Paying exorbitant Melbourne rent was working our bank balance toward zero fast. So we decided on a moving date, I started looking for a job, and that’s how we landed in Nowra - half way between the job I landed and our job of land. We’re now onto Plan B, building on the other side of the block avoiding the need for an expensive road, but this area has its own challenges with only a single access point and higher fire risk.

I’m telling you all of this not just because I’m prone to verbosity, but because the trajectory of our dream isn’t straightforward, simple or even certain. Council or the Rural Fire Service may not approve this. We don’t have nearly enough money. People say we’re living the dream and I guess we are, but the point is we are hanging way out on a springy branch. It reminds me of that saying, ‘You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps’. On weekends when we stay on our land and I wake to birdsong, walk amongst the trees and am caressed by the soft salted breeze, I know why we are doing this. We are committed to making this happen. With Zane’s creativity, skills and energy, and my environmentalism, planning and persistence we are going to build ourselves a beautiful home that is respectful of its surroundings.

Hello World

Welcome to my blog.  

My name is Marion, and I have set up this blog to pass on “All The Wee Things” I have encountered in life that have helped make me a happier person.  

I turned 30 recently, and I suppose this has been the catalyst for reflecting on my life so far.   

I have met so many lovely people in life, and have often been told I’m a very happy person.  Now, I have my moments (!), but I take a lot of joy from life’s simpler pleasures, or “All The Wee Things,” and I just wanted to put them out there to the world, in case they somehow, helped someone, somewhere to find a little bit of extra happiness in their lives. And if no-one reads this apart from me, I’ll use it to cheer myself up as and when required! 

Thank you for visiting my blog!