2018, onwards…

Well, that didn’t exactly go to plan. I feel like I am actually in one of those meme’s of a toddler trying to ice-skate, or pick-up tennis balls one at a time while another one bounces to the ground, or plummeting head first down a water slide hitting both sides like a game of human pinball. I had big plans for 2018. Big plans in bold italics. Silly Emma, once you put it in bold italics you’re doomed, surely. My ducks were going to be in a row, damn it! And look, just look, at Emma’s ducks now. They’ve most certainly flown south for the Winter. Or actually ended up on Christmas dinner plates. Emma’s ducks: last seen waddling off into the distance. Sigh… #emmas2018 started off well, but the year panned out completely off script and slightly out of control. Life, eh?

In January we got to enjoy some really special family down time at a beach house in Balnarring which my mum hired for the whole family. And what a house it was!

In February our big blossom started kinder (sob) and ventured out from under this mama duck’s wings. She has simply bloomed in our teeny tiny community’s kinder. This year I am committee president. Of course I am.

In March we watched lots of potatoes being harvested. Lots and lots of potatoes. We also helped with shearing, feeding hungry tummies and bouncing on wool bales. We listened to that little voice (again) who was asking what we wanted for our family…

In April we collected chocolate eggs by the creek and explored the glorious Grampians…

In May we waved good-bye to the Autumn colour and hello to grey Winter days. We also waved good-bye to Harriet’s nursery as the girls started sharing a bedroom, and hello to a long awaited big new garden bed (a big tick off the 2018 list!)

In June, our blossom turned FOUR. We went to the Wizard of Oz in Melbourne with cousins in the city, Daddy made a start on the cubby and we helped Jyoti, Josh, Michael and Cat make salami at Westlands…

In July our peach turned TWO. We celebrated both our growing girls with a unicorn and rainbow birthday party, naturally. We also shared our big news: we were going on a grand adventure! After lots (and lots!) of searching and research we bought ‘Tilly the Tvan’ and she joined our family from across Bass Strait. Matt finished work with Rural Bank after 4.5 years of working off-farm, all the girls had ever known. I ironed his last shirts and farewelled the finance wife life…

In August we busily (busily!) prepared for our big trip – so many lists to tick off and a humungous amount of work to do to Tilly and the car. Matt worked ridiculously hard and long into the night (and early hours of the morning). On the morning of August 19th we left Brindabella for what was going to be 3.5 months of life on the road, we helped with shearing at ‘Inverness’ as our first stop and then ventured into the Flinders Ranges…

September brought us up the Oodnadatta track, to Dalhousie Springs, to Chambers Pillar, to the amazing and humbling experience that is Uluru and Kata-Tjuta. We journeyed through some of this country’s most remote regions, through the Tanami desert and around Lake Gregory. We returned to our beloved Kimberley with two little blondies in tow this time. We danced around campfires and swam in waterholes and slept all together in a camper for seven weeks (yes, September only has four weeks, but from August-October – ha!) We jammed a whole lot into September though…

At the beginning of October, we got a call on our satellite phone at Mitchell Falls, it was 44 degrees and we were six days by spaceship to civilisation, we made a snap decision, followed by a very fast trip home – we travelled about 5000km in five days I think. I honestly can’t remember. It’s all a blur…one day you’re looking out at the ocean in Kalumburu towards Indonesia, the next you’re in a hospital room in Melbourne…

In November we settled, somewhat, back into life at home. Disjointed and adrift, we just kept paddling, Matt picked up the slack, Eleanor went back to kinder, I bounced from Melbourne to home, mostly Melbourne. Harriet grew approximately sixteen inches overnight…

In December we welcomed Christmas with a renewed sense of joy and wonder at what life gives us, in all it’s crazy idiosyncracies, plot twists, swings and roundabouts…

Plus, there’s always hydrangeas, right?

What a year. What a steep learning curve. A few smacks in the head, a few lightbulb moments. I’m grateful for so very much in this life, but the ability (and opportunity) to learn from mistakes is a big one. Huge, even. Biting off more than I can chew, saying no, saying yes, knowing when the difference is. Realising that I can not please everyone, be everything to everyone – I am not a jar of Nutella! I’m all for positivity in a new year, but I also think I can do better every day, not just on January 1st. And it’s not the actual doing better (although that’d be good), it’s the trying to do better that probably matters most. So, in 2019 I won’t have resolutions. No #emmas2019. No expectations. No unrealistic limits. I will do what I do. Try harder, aim higher, head down, bum up, all that. But as I say to my girls: “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset”. 

My 2018 ‘resolutions’ were big ones. Big is sometimes good, but I definitely realised this year that big is not better. Comparison is the thief of joy, of that I am most certain. So this year I will do me, you do you. At the beginning of 2018 I scoffed at the traditional ‘resolutions’: save money, drink more water blah blah blah… Ha! I was bypassing those for bigger goals, bigger plans. Well, guess what? 2019 will be the year of saving money, drinking more water, stripping it back to simple things, slow things, little things, important things. And of course, no ‘things’ at all.