Feeling gratitude and happiness for
This was one of the those crazy roller coaster weeks where I got fed up with everything and wanted to quit, and then really awesome things happened to pull my head in and show me just how amazing life is and how fortunate I really am.
Clap hands for Savannah
The cutest thing in the world happened this week. Savannah learned to clap. The joy that lights up on her face when she practices is sheer delight. I’m so proud of my clever bubba. I am, however not to fussed with the idea of her choosing to practice from 1- 3:30am.
Our new Nissan X-TRAIL Ti
Hello lovely lady (the car I mean)
We picked it up with only 10kms on it. Never done that before. Never had a brand new car. Never had a comfortable car full of cool gadgets and conveniences. I’ve always been too busy travelling and letting that be my luxury.
I never knew having a car like this would feel so good. We LOVE it and can’t stop buzzing over how cool it is. The perfect car for road trips and now we are itching to go on it.
I’m so lucky that travel taught me that nothing in life is permanent and this too shall pass–the bad and the good. This beautiful cars is ours only temporarily but we will love it like its our own for our short 6 months together.
We have the car as part of the Kidspot Village Voice Going Places campaign that I have been writing family travel articles on now for the past 8 weeks. It’s a brilliant campaign and I can’t wait to highlight our beautiful country and give tips for road tripping and family travel.
Kidspot and Village Voices
I love how Kidspot is using the power of their platform and blogger’s platforms to create exciting initiatives and brand campaigns. This is something I have spoken about on this space for so long with my blogger brand relationship posts. With Kidspot are finding ways to make it work and to open up doors for great things for all of us. LOVE and GRATITUDE.
AND I am learning so much from the super helpful and encouraging team over there!
Empowering Quote
Don’t demand that things happen the way you want, but want them to happen the way they do. Then your life will always go well.
–Epictetus
Florence and the machine concert at the Sydney Opera House
Florence and the Machine
The most beautiful venue in the world. I had never been to an event inside this world-famous building before, so when I was invited by Priceless Sydney, MasterCard new exciting programme, I jumped at the chance, even though I didn’t know that much about her.
FOOL me. She was amazing! Light, funny and a gentle spirit with a powerful voice that controlled the symphony orchestra behind hernand an expression of Her soul filled the room. I was mesmerized and am now a big fan.
Playing in the sand at Terrigal Beach
Gratitude for my lovely husband for sitting through it with me and pretending he loved it too.
Song of the Week- Dog Days are over by Florence and the Machine
I think this was my favourite song of the evening and it was the perfect song to hear after just picking up our Nissan X_TRAIL. I thought of the blackness of my last few years and for the first time since 2007 I saw a clear and light path ahead of me.
I realized that everything I had been through had been worth it and that maybe I can stop being lost and afraid. Total and utter joy and gratitude is what I once feel again for my life. I’m sorry that I had that disappear for so long.
(p.s not sure even if this song means this. When I listened to it I thought she was singing Dark days, but have now discovered it was dog days!!)
Blog Posts I’m reading
Baby Mac’s video entry for the Day in her Life
You know when you’ve heard of a blogger for ages but you have just not gotten around to check them out. I finally landed on Baby Mac’s site this week with this post and now I am in love. AMAZING. That video is pure gold and I want to have some of that creative genius. I then went on to read her About Page which I also loved.
Life is not metiocricity so it’s time to pick yourself up by Kelly Exeter from a Life less Frantic
I love this post that tackles with the thing I dislike most about Australian culture- The Tall Poppy Syndrome
Imagine by Chris Guillebeau on Zen Habits
This post gave me the boost I needed this week when I wanted to quit. Imagine is all I’ve been doing for years and it comes from my need to have freedom and desire to offer value. Thanks for keeping me on track Chris!
Learning Photoshop
‘ve learned so much this week on how to use Photoshop and I am loving it. I have so much more to learn though and would love any helpful tips or points in the right direction to learn them!
I was most excited to creatE this image. Even though it’s not brilliant it shows I learned how to put pictures on canvas with text. Hey, I said I was just starting out right?
From my The only thing that makes sense post over on y travel blog
Speaking at an empowering childbirth Event
On Saturday I spoke at an event and shared my birthing stories. It was a lovely event that was all about embracing what is so beautiful about childbirth and what it gives to women. There was a baby maker there, Catherine Chan, a lady who practices Chinese medicine and has helped so many women, who were labelled as infertile, fall pregnant as well as heal other illnesses and afflictions. It was fascinating to listen to the power of nature and the mind!
What are you celebrating this week?
Comments
kirri
It looks like you’ve had a pretty kick-ass week Caz!
BTW – I always thought it was ‘Dark Days are over” as well….I used to hassle my mum all the time for singing songs incorrectly and looks like its my turn now 🙂
Caz
I think we should just keep it as dark days Kirri. Sounds way better and has a better meaning I think. It’s pretty exciting when things start to turn around. I’m so grateful now that I never quit
Karen
Hi Caz
Your week sounds pretty cool! My week was awesome too…. my husband Dre and I arrived back in our current hometown of Luang Namtha, northern Laos, after spending a couple of months travelling and visiting family and friends in New Zealand and Australia. Every day we’ve been back, we’ve had to pinch ourselves at how cool it is to be here! Life rocks!
Karen
Caz
Oh Karen, I’m so envious. Living in Laos must be so awesome!! You must just be so relaxed. What are you doing there? How long will you be there? Did you get a shock when you returned back to the dreaded Western world?
Karen
Hi Caz
Yep, I can’t deny that it’s pretty awesome. Very, very relaxed…. more than I ever imagined life could be when we lived in western civilisation.
We stumbled upon this place when we travelled Asia for about 18 months, and after coming back about 5-6 times and staying for what ended up being about 4-5 months as tourists in this town, we realised we were in love. So now we’re helping the local community with things like learning about western service, food, etc, and we’ve helped one local guy open a shop and have been training the staff in the shop, teaching them English, (just conversationally), sending tourists into small villages so that they can earn income from tourism, stuff like that.
It’s more fulfilling than I imagined life could be…. come for a visit sometime 🙂
Yes it was a shock to return to ‘busyness’. In NZ and Australia, everyone, including us when we were there, is just so busy.
I don’t think we’ll be in Laos forever, or maybe we will, we’ll see what the future holds. We have lots more travel plans too, so we’ll see where the wind takes us.
Karen
Caz
Your life sounds so amazing! Good on you for creating that yourself and for helping out the local people in such an empowering way. Great story! We would love to come for a visit. I Love Laos.