Right now on Cresting the Hill, you will find my post as guest blogger for Leanne’s MIDLIFE SYMPHONY series.
In this series, bloggers discuss what we are doing to make the second half of life the best half of life. Arguably, the best years of your life?
My house move to the Home by the Sea turned into a better than expected lifestyle change just the way I had dreamt of it. Read more about my sea change.
When the sun set on another Mother’s Day, I thought more about what is important to me and what I am grateful for. My kids are now all adults so gifts are unimportant and somewhat redundant.
Is Mothering itself a gift?
Why do we give gifts on Mother’s day?
I had to question hard the motivation behind this tradition and ask why we continue to give gifts as a social convention, in an affluent society.
A visit to or from family is more and more a tradition on Mothers day.
It has become even more of a social event this year as the lifting of Covid restrictions coincided with weekend of Mother’s Day.
Is the spirit of Mother’s Day encapsulated in a friendly smile or gesture from a family member, friend or neighbour?
It might be one or all of those things, but the most important thing is to feel healthy and content on mind and spirit.
Gifts then, do seem redundant and more of a symbol than a necessary purchase.
I am blessed that I have had a comfortable life. This is not to say I have not been without quite a bit of heartache, bad luck or troubles in my life and despite these matters, I cannot say that I have not been comfortable, for the most part.
In hindsight, many of my problems are just inconveniences or issues that must be solved, or persevered with, until they sort. I have been lucky, and pushed through until the sadness passed to find resilience and maintain hope.
I have hope.
I have freedom.
I have achieved certain goals and have new challenges ahead that I am enthusiastic about.
I have job satisfaction. I have a job and income, although for how long is never guaranteed, anymore, especially at my age. For that, I am grateful. Work can be a privilege we might take for granted.
I have the bountiful emotional returns of raising children, with all its fatigue, responsibilities and worries, but moreover, the joys and pride of raising three little people on this planet.
I got to travel to some pretty special places and spend times with many different people from all over the world.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn a language other than English.
I was lucky enough to be in a postiion to design a beautiful home and live by the sea.
This was my morning view.
How can one not feel in awe of nature’s magnificence?
I have a home and family.
And this is the place where I chose to spend this year’s Mother’s Day and the rest of my life.
We really don’t need the frills and follies.
Spreading loving kindness is the only daily ritual and practice I need.
Kindness is life-changing and much more satisfying to the soul, than any material object can impart.
Hi I’ve always had a yearning to sketch.
As a young child, at times in my teens, and now in semi retirement, I find great joy in sketching. Sketching doesn’t have to be perfect.
Sketching is almost a semi conscious activity. I let the pencil, or pen, do the work and don’t think too much about what I am doing.
In that way I find it is relaxing and therapeutic.
Sometimes it works ans sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.
I’ve been making some sketches with a view to decorating a few basic Calico shopping bags.
Re-useable bags are going to be around from now on and they’re a great way to reduce our use of plastics.
I added a little colour to one of them as a gift to a neighbour. Asking her what her favorite colour was and then adding a little dry brushed/watercoloured style gouache, here and there.
I then heat set it with a hot iron.
What do you think?
From the Home by the sea.
Our little estate by the sea is set to grow and thrive. The developers have not just built houses. They want to build a community.
The development will also include a shopping and dining precinct.
I am looking forward to it. No fixed date yet, but it will include cafes, a fresh food and small market and a ancillary health suites. Good for those wanting to retire by the sea.
Some people are concerned about the high density that more development may bring. To me, it is part of living in an attractive part of the world. Near services, close to a major capital hub, or at least within commuting distance, and a waterfront lifestyle.
For many that is paradise. And of course, it represents profits for the developer, who commenced the original part of this peninsular development about fifty years ago.
Any development always represents a tussle between losing the natural environment and the needs of a growing population, and an economy that pushes and supports progress and profits. How to balance the two?
Not easy.
There is a community group that is opposing the increase in height from 5 stories to 7 stories for mid to high density townhomes and apartments.
Am I concerned? Normally I would be, and if it was right on my doorstep, yes I would absolutely be against it? But really they are arguing about air space. The air between five and seven stories!
In New York, air space about floor level has a price, and can be transferred, bought and sold, just like any real estate lot! Can you believe that?
As far as environmental concerns go, the debate between five and seven stories is not so relevant, but it does set a worrying precedent.
What are your thoughts on development? Pros? Cons?
Day 18 – Spend time with those you love
Does I need a prompt for this? Absolutely not.
It is the most precious time for me. My family. My children. My dog. There is only one of each of us, in one moment, in one space. Make life special.
Approach each second with loving kindness.
Day 19 – Celebrate how far we’ve come
Definitely some positivity in this prompt.
Look back but only to see how far you have come, how much you have grown.
Almost one year ago, we embarked on a new path in life. A year of new chapters and starts and of course,a few hiccups along the way.
I have never felt like making a #seachange has ever been a mistake. Perhaps others might disagree.
For me staying ‘put’ would equate to to stagnatation. In stagnation, disappointment and regret thrive and life ebbs away til the only thing left is routine or despair.
Be brave. You have almost nothing to lose if you embrace some change in your life.
If you do not have the luxury of changing your environment:
Change perspective
Change attitude
Change preferences
Change thoughts
Change your life
I’ve been working my way through this challenge mostly every day, but sometimes every second day. After all, life does get in the way of blogging challenges at times, doesn’t it?
Day 14 – Done
Day 15 – disconnect from the phone
Gosh so many of us seem to spend inordinate amount of hours on the phone. Either in scrolling social media, doing work, reading emails, reading books, scanning pictures or social media.
It’s endless and the phone seems to take more and more of our valuable communication time. I have even seen older people are scrolling through phones at coffee shops, bus stations or on trains. Even my 90 year old mother in law sends texts and uses an ipad.
Can a human race no longer tolerate boredom or sitting with nothing to do?
That valuable time to imagine, to dwell and to think.
Have we completely are we on the way to completely eliminating that from Society because we must be occupied 100% of the time?
Today I thought of it about that and read the prompt. I managed to disconnect my phone, no strike that, didn’t manage but chose to disconnect from the phone for about 8 hours at work.
It is not so hard to disconnect from the phone for more than that length of time, at work. However, I am still working on a screen.
When i have a social engagement the phone is away in my bag and ignored.
I do not check the phone while I am out with lunch with friends or having a coffee with a mate. Do you?
The wind in your hair, the smell of salt water in one’s nostrils, and the laid back lifestyle. That is what we think of we most of us think of living at the beach.
Four weeks ago, we moved to a home by the sea, after more than 35 years living in the suburbs but that wasn’t the original plan.
After selling the house my husband had built with his own hands, we went looking for a minimalist low maintenance lifestyle close to family and friends. We were, for quite some time, set on re-locating to a townhouse in the inner city and having a weekend flat at the beach. The Minimalist Inner city lifestyle. Close to restaurants, all kinds of services and facilities and unfortunately, the sort of place, workers and commuters all love to live. So it is busy, too busy for us now that we are nearing retirement and the quieter lifestyle that provides.
Sometimes, the universe intervenes. We searched and searched to find the right townhouse for us. It wasn’t there. Or, if it was, someone else got there first and outbid us. I must admit we had a contract on another, but it didn’t feel right and there were problems so the contract was terminated. We decided the townhouse hipster lifestyle wasn’t for us. All the time, the universe was sending us here, to the sea, where we wanted to be.
The adult kids moved out, as there was no way that they were going to live up near the beach, some 20 kms away from the trappings of work, friends and the inner city lifestyle.
So it is quite a change – a sea change to move in to the house we have been designing and building for the last year.
There have been frustrating times, and some problems along the way, but overall the building process was a lot of fun. And we made it. Yay!
The Moving process, of course, is not at all fun. Most of our old furniture didn’t fit into a townhouse – so we disposed of it. We had so many boxes packed away in storage, and a lot of new boxes for the new furniture. They all had to be unpacked and removed.
But that is all behind us now. The boxes have been recycled, the packing materials dumped and we settling into our new routine.
The Universe was right, and we were lucky to find the right piece of land, negotiated with a builder at the right time and voila, now our house is our home.
Now we are ensconced in our new house and we are happy. We’ve met many new neighbours, many in the same stage of life as us, and travelling to work hasn’t even taken near as long as I thought.
The MOTH is busy with little tasks around the house, and happy again, and the Schnauzer is thrilled she has a yard to play in once more.
Would I build a house again from scratch? Yes, most definitely.
Would I move again? No, definitely not.
So here we stay! We are putting down roots.
Sometimes life feels just like the water in these jets.
The delays in getting our keys to the Little Home by the Sea have been somewhat frustrating, but we can see that things are still happening.
The fencing crew are hard at work. We need to add a retaining wall behind the fence to elevate the ground level.
Otherwise the slope will be too steep.
Then we will be home.
I can’t wait now. It is exciting.
A Home by the Sea 
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