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One month to go – countdown

Last month in my twenties. Does it change anything? No. Does it matter? Yes. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I have this idea that a girl will have most definitely disappeared into a women. It probably happened a long time ago. And just because I still don’t know what I am doing, does not mean it hasn’t already happened.

It’s also a potential marker, where you thought you’d be by this time and what you’d have accomplished. Not according to anyone else, but according your teenage diary.

#endoftwenties #endofanera #endofadecade #big30

Negative vibes allowed

I totally want to write a blog about how 2020 has been eye opening and how it allowed me to search in my soul and see a completely different perspective of life. Of course I managed to meditate all the way through it and am a better person for it. Well… not really. I am here to tell you that I not only have accomplished absolutely nothing, I have also felt pretty shit for a better part of this year. While objectively I have nothing to complain about compared to a large percentage of people on this planet, I am still an entitled millennial and the misery of others can only make me feel worse, if anything. Yes, we live close to the beach, yes we are all healthy and yes we love each other and our child is so beautiful, clever and a source of endless love and emotion… but! And it’s this but that I want to talk about.

#2020 #awayfromhome #family

Head over heels compromising.

I have lost three debit cards in three weeks. One I have found. In a pocket of my puffer jacket that I forgot at work.

I have also lost my new earphones. I have ordered new ones and immediately found the first pair in a pocket of my pants.

I finally remembered to bring my keep cup to work. I have dropped it as I was walking to the café. It was glass.

This wouldn’t be so weird if I wasn’t generally the most organised person.

I am still coming to terms that my apartment is no longer my apartment, but the toddler’s apartment and things are no longer where I put them and my beautiful plants are constantly violated.

I am so head over heels with trying to manage all the stuff and things and having so much on my mind that I forget most of it.

We now have an extensive family calendar that now captures everything and unless it’s there, it’s not happening. Every pick up, swimming lesson, pilates class and even a short run in the morning and dinner duties. Taking that short break at work to drive and see at least 30 minutes of Josie’s gymnastics class. I thought family calendars were just for soccer mums who are in love with stationary.

Either way this year wouldn’t have gone as planned. It’s now end of September and we are still battling the never ending flu season. I am starting to become claustrophobic even though I live on a large island. I am desperate for a getaway and a break. We wanted to get married, but we couldn’t.

So just like that, life feels like a one massive compromise.

I have started to work full time couple of months back, which is definitely better for my mental health. So far it has been positive. It’s in a great location, my boss is a nice and understanding human being and both of my closest colleagues have a very similar sense of humour. The pay is decent even with the kindy and a nanny. In the first few weeks it even felt like I am doing something that’s on my level of intelligence and experience. Now that I have learned about the product and the system, I am pretty much just cruising again. I swear the next job I will get must be at least a level up. For now I am just giving myself a little bit of a break as it’s been the first full time job after a while.

As much as I would like to say I am a super human, but trying to jam pilates, yoga or even a 3k run into my weeks, is a challenge. Especially weeks like these when there was the parenting workshop I was organising or our fake wedding. Sometimes I want G&T instead of dinner. And some days I am so mentally and physically drained that after having coffee, I don’t get a boost of energy, I just get the shakes and emotions. Today is definitely one of those days. That’s why I am typing this into an email window.

I know mums are always trying to up each other who’s the most tired mum of all. So here I am with my little bit into the game: I am so freaking tired. I don’t think I have ever been this tired. I am thinking of moving countries just so I could drop my kid off at grandma’s at least once a month. It takes time adjusting to being a mum, it takes time to adjusting to being a working mum too.

I have also started to go to a crossfit gym, I have been three times so far and each time I hated it a little bit less. It’s totally out of my comfort zone, but I really feel like it’s needed. On Friday when I was leaving the gym after work, I was on the phone with my friend and she was asking if I was coming for a pizza party we have been invited to and I said: yeah totally I’m feeling energised ... I am a crossfitter now... I say things like this, get used to it! Hahaha. Anyway.

At the end of the day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

#workingmum #keepingfit #stayingorganised #familycalendar

Unpopular opinions

Boy wasn’t my life so much simpler when I believed that feminists are hairy and unhappy women and the ones who always have a date on Valentine’s have nothing to do with it. Life was so much simpler when I closed my eyes to whatever is happening outside of my bubble. I was definitely more popular when I believed that sapiens have only made it so far because of eating meat. Why did I have to find out that 90% of the big animals on the planet are domesticated? And these domesticated animals are living the shortest most miserable lives.

#plantbased

Low waste and sustainable parenting

Low waste - meaning low waste for us, which is nowhere near perfect.

Sustainable - meaning we can sustain it everyday without driving ourselves crazy.

I have always led a somehow minimalistic lifestyle even before the word minimalistic was used in this sense. As a child my real hobby was to take all the things I owned from my room and only return the ones that I really loved. (Yes I had friends). Even at uni, my flatmate who had a room twice her size, came to paint banners in my tiny room because there was space.

I never owned a lot of things but that was mostly to moving a lot. All this was never any specific intention. I didn’t try to be low waste or minimalistic in order to save the planet, that came much later. To be honest the real wake up call was when I was pregnant and started to do a research on baby nappies. I read that an average baby will used about 2.5 tun of nappies before learning how to use the potty. Seven thousand nappies give or take a few. That information really really struck. Basically even after your newborn’s grandchildren are dead, there will still be seven thousand nappies somewhere in a landfill.

#low waste #sustainable #sustainability #parenting

How much can you change in heart?

It was one of those cool evenings that affects you in a way. I was sixteen and on my own in Spain for the first time, learning Spanish and getting lost in the streets. I was staying in an almost empty university accommodation because it was the middle of summer. One boy started chatting with me in the computer room and later that evening we sat in the middle of a roundabout, watching the traffic. He said he can read one thing from his palm of the hand and proceeded to show me that the place where the two lines start to separate, that’s when you become independent in life. My lines were separate from the beginning and he said: well that’s why you are here when you are sixteen. I have used this line reading as a party trick several times. I think we continued the night drinking Jack Daniels with his roommate. I never saw him again, I know he went off to live in New York. We wrote to each other a couple of times. I asked what’s new and he said: lots of things have happened, new relationships, new job, new city, but in heart, I am pretty much the same. I still remember it because I loved it! I used it so many times myself. So how much can people really change? Are we in heart still just the same? I really would like to think so. I really would like to think that in heart I was always the same.

#change #heart

Can women have it all?

Am I really going to tackle such a broad topic in a short blog post? No probably not. I also cannot speak for all the women. Just this one. Me. Slightly lost, yogi, blonde who is obsessed with healthy food. This privileged white girl from a good family with decent education from one of the world’s oldest universities on the old continent. So if this one can’t have it all, how does the rest stand a chance?

You know how it’s so ok to be lost when you are teenager? How it’s still tolerated when you are at university or you are testing the waters in your first job? But it’s misunderstood when you are a mother nearing thirty who should have everything figured out. Well I wish I took the time to be lost ten years earlier. I wasn’t though. If I was, it must have faded from my memory. I somehow always knew what the next step was.

#motherhood #feminism

These days

Goddamnit I didn’t imagine that I would spend the last year of my twenties in quarantine. I wanted to drink coffee, read books, cancel plans and do nothing out of my own will!

Did the last few years go too fast or what? I know that thirty is the new twenty (surely some people somewhere have said it, at least some insta influencers, I would bet my morning filter on this), but it’s still kind of scary, no not scary… what’s the right word? Annoying, yes it’s just plain annoying. It has nothing to do with where I wanted to be/what I wanted to have at this age, it’s more like where the hell is my great butt and why god oh why am I getting sun spots and that in between the eyebrows wrinkle? I was aware of this wrinkle at an early age. I still remember this conversation with my best friend:

Me: “I am worried about my in between the eyebrows wrinkle.”

Her: “Like she won’t go to college or what?”

Despite all the necessary precautions like staying away from the sun, moisturising, adopting the resting bitch face, always wearing sunglasses, that sneaky frown line still made an appearance.

Jokes aside, things are getting serious when you are nearing thirty. (I can already see my fifty year old self laughing at this, nearly spilling my afternoon whisky somewhere in the future.)

In this past year I have had so many real adult experiences, (yet somehow the teenager within still laughed at the phrase “adult experience”), like picking up my child from kinder-garden, leaving the office on time so I could pick up my child from kinder-garden…I know it sounds like the same thing, but honestly those were two very different feelings and emotions. We also started a long distance house renovation. I can now say grown up things like: We are just putting up the roof. Or: The architects have completed the study, do you want to see it?

My absolute favourite thing that came with adulting is the good quality of sustenance. I am so happy that we drink the good wine, the good coffee, the good whiskey and eat all the good food. Mind you, I don’t think I could handle a shitty wine hangover anymore. I need to function at 5AM most days, some days at 4.40AM and some blissful, scarce and wonderful mornings, I don’t have to open my eyes until 5.30AM. Aaah motherhood. So when choosing to go for a run or do nothing during the first nap time, it takes ALL the will and effort to put the sneakers on. I did it today though. My knee hurt a little. I am now that person who runs on that grassy patch to alleviate the impact on the concrete. I know, I know to be concerned with vanity and ageing in the time of corona. However if I can’t make fun of things anymore, that’s when there’s no point in living. I wake up every day knowing very well that I have no real problems in life, I appreciate it by being a compassionate and hopefully a kind person to those around me.

I was supposed to be at a yoga retreat right now with Dominika. For the first time since Josefina was born, I was supposed to have four days just to myself. I remember that even when I was at uni writing my dissertation and studying for my finals, training for a half marathon, working night shifts and fundraising for Childreach, I still had a day every now and then that was just for me and for my books. I really miss those recharge days.

Gold Coast is the perfect place to raise a child in, the weather is awesome all the time, you barely have to dress them, the veggies and fruit is always fresh and in abundance and there’s a ridiculous amount of young mums that you can hang out with. However being so far away from family sucks in this instance. I would love to just drop Josie off at grandma’s for the weekend. Don’t ever underestimate the value of having people you can trust around you. I think that’s the one downside of living in Australia. It’s all fun and games when you are just a rebel twenty-five year old, but at twenty-nine, it’s serious business. I am kidding of course, but having a kid sure does change things from that perspective.

Despite the situation in the world (and the politics in homeland), I am actually going through a really blissful time in my life. Josie is so much more fun now that she’s progressed to toddler level. Lukas is working from home and we are like the best family unit I know. I know it is taking a worldwide toll, but when are you going to get this time to truly bond with the ones closest to you? We are taking it as a fantastic opportunity to talk, take walks, spend time on the beach, drink more than we should, plan the future and more adult experiences hahahaha. Lukas also completed a great deal of DYI and just proved to me even more that I chose the right mate for life. We will probably have to postpone our wedding, which sucks, but thanks to quarantine drinking and no yoga routine, I probably won’t fit my wedding dress anymore so just as well. I am hope everyone is staying safe.

#lifeinthetimeofcorona

Parenthood, vanity and the environment

I was walking in the park and the old song Life from Desree came up and I felt like skipping and dance walking so I did, after a cautious glance over my shoulder. Boy why have we created so many restrictions for ourselves? The other day we went to the beach with Lisa and Sagababy and she was just exhibiting her rudie nudie bum for all the world to see and I thought, it would be so liberating if I could just run into the sea with my bare bum and just splash around. I can’t though, I am a mother now and I don’t want someone to take my baby away from me haha.

I did want to talk about the environment, low waste living and our minimalistic household - hence the title. But now that I am actually typing, I feel like talking about a different environment, the place where we live, the house, the street and neighbourhood. I believe that apart from good relationships with your partner, friends and family, good health and general good quality of living, one other thing is important for happiness - community life. Already when I started to watch Cougar Town back in the first year of university, I always thought how amazing it is to have great friends as your neighbours, I imagined what would it be like to have that one girlfriend that you can have coffee with in your pjs. Let’s face it, slumber parties are a thing of a past when you become an adult. I know it’s sad, but that’s the way it is. And having that one neighbour friend can almost make it feel like you have slumber party. And lately it’s happened so many times that my girlfriends just came over and we were cooking a dinner together, then Lukas came from work and we were all jolly and lived happily ever after. Alright, I know I am making this sound like a B rated romantic movie, but it really was like that I swear. Double pinkie swear. In all honesty though, even in my “about” section of this blog, I talk about how I am homesick because I don’t know where my home is, but for the first time ever I feel like at home. Maybe it’s the relationship, maybe it’s the baby, maybe that’s what family is actually about. However I have never known my neighbours by name, but now I know what they do, who their family members are, what their jobs are, we talk on the sidewalk and in the stairwell. The other day we had dinner and wine. And that’s just the regular neighbours, in the case of Lisa, she actually became the closest person I have here, I trust her with everything. Apart from wonderful neighbours, I do enjoy a great community when I go to bootcamp, where I have made real friends. When I teach mums and bubs yoga or when I go to my own yoga practice which coincidentally is only 220m away because we are probably in the best neighbourhood ever. Speaking of the yogi family, my friend Laura and her boyfriend Nate took us to the most amazing forest retreat in the national park and it was a paradise. A hot tub on the terrace, nature views to die for, forest walks, yoga, good food, good wine. The only problem was that we couldn’t stay there forever.

#family #community

2019 - the year of the Shrimp

Now that time is drawing near, I have decided to compile my thoughts on pregnancy. What I really don’t understand is that how come making babies is so much fun but pregnancy is such a drag? Talk about being played by nature. I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of July and few weeks later I had a beautiful photo of my uterus to prove it. Of course we wanted a baby, we just didn’t expect it would happen right away and when I travelled back home after year and a half of being away, there was a party or two, a wedding and a few gin and tonics. What can I say? At my first hospital appointment the midwife asked and straight away answered: “How many alcoholic beverages have you had since pregnant, none?” Haha.

#pregnancy #birthday #love

Tasmania and New Zealand

Every since returning to Gold Coast from my European holidays I have been teaching yoga, working on the Lisa Maria Movement boot camp and yoga, I have been busy with my mom and my little brother who came to visit and did countless of admin and property management for Lukas. Still trying to find work of course. Having been pregnant already, I was looking for a part time job and something that would be easy to leave in the next six months. Unfortunately I was not so lucky so I ended up with a lot of free time on my hands. Something that I am not usually so familiar with.

#happynewyear

Homeland

In 8 months, I will be celebrating the ten year anniversary of living abroad. And when I say celebrating, I don’t think of it as an achievement or something that I have been planning. Just as an anniversary that simply came by. Ten years, literally a decade, since I have packed my bags in 2009, got on that one way flight to Edinburgh in my Vans hoodie. Four years of university in Scotland, a year of travels, mostly Latin America, but also Africa, little bit of Scandinavia and a lot of Italy. Another 2 years in Scotland, a very brief period in Italy, few months back at home before I have settled the furthest away from home possible - the Land Down Under. The fact that it’s so far away and that it takes at least 24 hours to get home, not to mention costs a small fortune, was the reason why it’s taken me a whole year and a half before I made it back for a visit. Maybe because it’s been so long since I have been at home, maybe because the culture here is just so different to what I have been used to, maybe because of the freaking blissful happiness of living with a partner that just sees life the same way I do, this visit was much harder than I thought it would be.

#homeland

Yoga

I only had one day after Japan to repack for Byron Bay and off I went for my yoga teacher course. Something that I wanted to do for a long time. I have been toying with yoga on and off since forever. Sometimes coming to classes with my mom, joining a few at the local gym that I went to, running away if the teacher was too hippie. I even discovered yoga with Adrienne where a lot of people start. And then upon moving to Prague, I needed something to complement my running, I finally started a “regular” ashtanga practice once a week with my friend Viky and I was hooked. I loved how all of my muscles hurt the next day and I loved how much more challenging than running it was. Apart from learning Italian, running, wining and dining with my good friends and going back to nature on the weekends, this was my short four months in Prague. So when I moved to Nobby’s Beach, I was delighted to find out a yoga studio that I could literally see from my terrace and it was fantastic too! Overlooking the sea with a great instructor and from three times a week, it was suddenly five times a week and I couldn’t shut up about it either. So naturally I wanted to take it to another level and I spent a lot of time researching the best options and finally settled on Byron Yoga and I can sincerely say no regrets! It was fantastic.

#yoga #yogalife

Western Australia and Japan

I really should have written about this when it happened, it’s so hard to remember, it almost makes me wonder why we travel so much. Perth was nice, mostly because we got to spend some time with our friends, but otherwise just another city. Freemantle was pretty and hispter = there was good coffee. We’ve enjoyed the drive to Busselton, taking the more scenic route, stopping around pretty ocean sights. Lukas desperately needed a haircut and came across one really innovative young barber. Before he knew it, he was upside down on the chair and had a face mask on, I had to laugh, but he looked even more handsome than usual after. The best thing about Busselton was our airbnb, the prettiest room with the funniest little dog, who was more than keen on cuddles. Exactly what I needed after the hectic end to the Commonwealth Games. We got to go to some vineyards, explored the local nature and soon we were on a plane to Tokyo.

The most wonderful, spectacular show...

Nobody will ever explain to me why I had to go through three rounds of interviews across six months to do literally the least skilled job that I ever had to do. My handsome boyfriend lost all credibility as he made me believe that working on Games will be the best thing I will ever do. Hands down the worst job I ever had. And that includes waitressing in the hot summer next to the beach in Spain. But of course it wasn’t all bad and the positive person in me likes to find positives in everything so I will start with the really cool things I got to experience. First of all, it was a very multicultural environment and I got to meet some really really amazing people that have travelled and lived literally everywhere. Some of which I am still in close touch today. I actually got the see the Games! So this is something that never really crossed my mind as an object of desire, but when I was actually there, it was spectacular. The atmosphere at the athletics, where I got to see prince Edward and Usain Bolt, was unreal. The same goes for the Rugby Sevens Final, where I got kicked out of the lounge, but not until I had their beer and sweets. Volleyball was fun, before the kickoff at Triathlon Jonny Brownlee actually answered when I spoke to him, swimming was a riot and of course diving - have you seen the body of Tom Daley? Our crew in Logistics wasn’t bad at all and we did share some really good jokes.

Unfortunately I had the worst manager. But maybe that was a good experience in itself because not everyone I meet will be intelligent, open minded, willing to offer a helping hand and actually listen when you talk to them. Maybe I was too lucky in my past jobs where my superiors were quite happy to let me get on with my work and actually do something worth while. It definitely is a life experience having to work with someone who sucks up to his superiors yet looks down on his inferiors. With someone who is weak, yet finds a way to make your life more difficult. Who wants to prove something, not realising the cost of his decisions. Especially someone who you cannot trust because he only has bad things to say about everyone behind their back. Sure that was an experience too. However when I think back on how amazing the cluster manager and the manager of Logistics altogether were, I feel so sad. So many people in the same role just had a much better experience because they weren’t “led” by a spiteful human being. Long story short, apart from really long hours, which varied from 50h/week in February to 70h/week in April, the work was definitely way too physical. I managed to end up in hospital with a severely bruised intercostal muscle, turns out that when you have 53kg you are not exactly equipped to push and pull about 100kg back on forth every single day for weeks at a time. And it wasn’t just me, my closest colleague ended up at the doctor’s as well with injuries and even the strongest one really had his days. At one point, I didn’t sleep in my bed for a week, only at two office chairs on the sporting venue. So to be entirely truthful, I was never happier to end a work contract and when we sent off the last truck away, we took about a hundred celebratory photos. It took me weeks to physically recover, I didn’t even get to enjoy the wrap up parties because I was just dead tired. So here you go, this was the job for which I was competing with hundreds of other applicants and that paid much much less than my old simple 7-8 hours a day job.

#commonwealth games

Full Circle

I love the rain. It only took nearly two and a half years away from Scotland to finally admit that. The pleasure that I take from not having to leave the house because it’s so rainy, windy or cold and just allow myself to watch the Crown, read books and get creative, I love it. There are not many days like these on the Cold Coast, but for some reason the whole September and October seem to be like that intermittently. I can’t believe it took me so long to go back to writing this excuse for a blog. Forgetting to renew my domain is one reason, actually being so blissfully happy in my own life, that I forget to talk to the world about it, is another.

#travels

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