Treats and Achievements

As I wander through the house looking at the indents in the carpet, the empty hooks on the wall and the totally stripped children's beds, I'm left thinking how important it is to celebrate each achievement you reach when you're heading towards a big goal. Well… not every achievement, but every decent-sized one at least.

A couple of nights back, for example (COUNTDOWN Day 9) we were lucky enough to have our Aussie-based daughter and her partner over for tea. It was a night of food, games, laughter and it ended with a bonfire and sparklers, making it even more memorable and fun (although maybe for the neighbours it just made it smoky). Although the fire also had the added advantage of being a great way for me to dispose of all those papers I didn't really want the rubbish truck to dump at the local tip.

A little earlier in the month Steve and I also went out and celebrated the official settlement of the house sale, and, of course, there were a few other big events celebrated in the weeks before that. Although, I have to admit I don't think we'll be celebrating the fact that I've just sold our bed which means we'll be sleeping on the floor as of Friday!

Celebrating achievements has a variety of bonus', other than them being fun and giving you some time out, when you're working your way through a challenging (and/or large) task they help keep you on track and reassure you that all the hard work is worthwhile and that you're making headway.

Of course, not all the celebrations have to include fire, (although I find fire quite appealing it's not really that wise in Australia unfortunately). The treat you choose could just as easily involve ice-cream, cappuccinos or chocolate – or at least it does in our family. I guess there must be some people out there who would choose different treats, not that I could think of what they might be.

After all, are there really any better treats than ice-cream, cappuccinos or chocolate? 

If there are, let me know, with 7 days to go there are hopefully still a few more achievements to celebrate.

COUNTDOWN: 7 days

Send It Where?

We're now at the exciting stage of our adventure where everything needs redirecting – but you know what… that's a little tricky when you have nowhere to redirect it to!

We still have our PO Box for a few more months, but that requires us being in the area to empty it or paying the ongoing fee for having our mail redirected (and that's providing the PO would be happy with us constantly changing the address the mail has to be redirected to!)

The solution… again… understanding friends who will let us use their address!

But how about this – would you believe it – despite the wonderful advances in technology and the wide variety of lifestyles – there are still a lot of companies, services and all kinds of businesses that won't deal with you unless you have a bricks and mortar address? That's the aspect of this that I find most interesting and confronting.

After all, don't truly homeless people have to deal with services? What about people, with no family or friends, who travel constantly, don’t they need to be contactable? I know emails and mobile phones aren't the perfect answer, but they are an answer.

After all, if you can communicate with somebody by mobile phone and email, isn't that really enough? Yes, a mailing address might make the transition to a greener environment (i.e. less unnecessary printed matter) easier, but is it essential for everyone?

There you go, there's my thought for this week. What are your thoughts on it, how would you exist in an envelope-free society?

In the meantime, I'm still monitoring everything that arrives in the mailbox and redirecting or cancelling everything I can. But on the other hand, it's amazing how much less mail we'll be getting when we won't have all the household and utility bills to pay.

Apologies for no regular post last week, as you might expect things have been getting a little more chaotic here than usual, and just to make things even more exciting I went down with a head cold. Still, I think we're over the hump of everything now and working towards Moving Day (6th June).

COUNTDOWN: 13 days

Wahoo!

Just a quick post here today because…
believe it or not, it has finally happened…
and I can't even find the words to describe how I feel but…
somebody out there has finally had the decency to buy our house!

Yes, our house is SOLD and our adventure can finally start!

WAHOO!

Please feel free to do a happy dance for us!

But What If...

There’s no doubt about it, one of the major concerns about house-sitting full-time is, what are we going to do when the house-sits don’t match up? In other words, what are we going to do when we have nowhere to sleep?

I know we joke about sleeping in the car, and indeed it is long enough for us to sleep comfortably in it, but even we admit that it wouldn’t be our first choice.

Then, of course, we do have some caring and generous friends who have offered us the use of their spare room. Plus, I have no doubt that, if we turned up on the doorstep of a selection of other friends, that they would be more than happy to offer us their couch for the night. But, the last thing we want to be is a nuisance. For the regular cry to be, ‘Oh look there’s Steve and Lizzie again! I bet they are only visiting because they haven’t got anywhere better to sleep!

How well house-sits really join up is something we won’t know until we’re actually doing it full-time. Hopefully there won’t be any problems and it will suit us perfectly, but in the meantime – just in case – we’re making ‘in case’ plans.

At the back of our minds there’s the thought of buying a small two-man tent for those odd nights. It would be cheap and adaptable, but I have to admit not very appealing in weather like we’re having at the moment(i.e. storms), plus it would require us to carry around more bits and pieces. (Also, it’s a long time since we’ve been camping – and who knows the ground may have got harder, bumpier and lower down since we last slept on it!)

Another option would be AirBNB. Cheaper than conventional hotels, doesn’t require us to carry extra bits, plus we get to live in all kinds of different places and have a holiday.

However, one of the other options that really appeals is where we do volunteer work at places for a few hours a day and in return they feed us and provide us with accommodation. When I first heard about this, most of the work was farm labour, which I have to admit I initially felt might not be ideal for me and Steve. It might have been once, and I would like to think it would be again after a bit more exercise, but – if I were honest – probably not at the moment.

Then the other day, whilst doing some more research, I found more online companies putting volunteers in touch with people needing help, and much to my delight these companies were after a lot more than farm labour. They listed babysitters, painters, admin workers, retailers and all kinds of things you (or more importantly ‘we’) can do without being young and fit. We might even find people looking for writers and photographers – even more appealing. Imagine that, travelling Australia or the world writing for somebody four hours a day and being paid in food and accommodation then being allowed to go off and explore or reflect for the rest of the day…

Almost sounds like the perfect life...

Here are some links just in case it appeals to you too:

wwoof

Workaday

HelpX