One Bruise Or Two?

Well, if you’re in Western Australia like us you’d have to admit that we are now entering short-wearing weather… not consistently, but I’m pretty sure we will be any week now. For us (and our lifestyle) it’s brought all kinds of predictable seasonal adjustments, but this year it’s also brought an expected realisation. 

Well, maybe not for Steve, but definitely for me… So what was it?

Simply put, how many bruises I have on my legs and the fact that I don’t really have the vaguest idea where the majority of them came from! Let’s face it there are over a dozen, large, rainbow-coloured ones all over my legs and I had hardly any idea how they got there!

Yes, I know there are those I got almost a fortnight back when I went bike riding and lost my balance turning a corner. Not that I was really aware of how badly I landed at the time - funnily enough the stack of biting ants who attacked me for landing on their nest kind of distracted me from that at the time.

Then there were the bruises I got on my shins a few days later whilst running up the stairs all because I was too impatient to wait for the lift.

All those I accept, it’s the others that confused me. I mean how could I get so many hefty bruises and not know where they came from? It’s not like I’m overly athletic or lead a boisterous life. But this many bruises in short-wearing weather was definitely something I would rather avoid for various reasons.

The first step though was to discover what was causing them and that, my friends, is something I’ve spent many days trying to figure out. Yet only finally figured out this morning!

There I was snuggled up in bed, drifting back and forth between consciousness, a selection of thoughts in my mind (including the quandary about the bruises) when one of the large and endearing pups we’re currently caring for jumped on the bed and, as usual, landed on me! I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out! After all, let’s face it, two large puppies landing on you numerous times every morning is bound to leave some impression, isn’t it?

All I can say is… good job they’re so cute. And… hey, I can’t help it if they prefer to jump on my side of the bed rather than Steve’s, can I?

Car, Shed or Wheelbarrow?

Isn’t it amazing how many things we hold on to just in case ‘they might be useful’? I guess most of us would only have to go for a quick rummage through our shed, spare room, back cupboard or attic to find a few ‘possibly useful’ things.

We certainly have over the years, but wouldn’t you think that when we carry just about everything we actively need with us that we’d have nothing that falls into that category, but… believe it or not… you’d be wrong!

After 14 months on the road Steve and I decided to do another downsize and I have to admit to being somewhat surprised by exactly how much we’ve been holding on to simply because it ‘might be useful’. Some for a possible business idea, others for possible events or situations, and some purely because we hadn’t thought about parting with it, but either way we’ve been carrying a whole load of stuff we didn’t need! And let’s face it, with so little space why cart around so much (packing and unpacking it every few weeks) simply because it might be useful?

Besides wouldn’t it be better to pass the unused things on to people who need them now, confident in the knowledge that IF we truly did need the item we’d come up with the perfect (but maybe alternative) solution like Macgyver, find exactly what we wanted on Special at Good Sammy’s or Target, or simply… what the heck… make do with what we have.

Truth is, I guess, that most of us have (or have had at some time) more than we really need to live our life, yet it’s not until we have to pare down everything to fit (or have it pared down for us) that we realise what’s a true essential and what’s simply excess baggage.

Life on so many levels seems full of items, possibilities and essentials, yet many of them are simply cluttering and obscuring what it is we really want or need.

A thought that was only backed up recently when a friend related a story to me about one of her past relatives who had happily worked in the Australian outback, walking from one job to another with her husband whilst pushing a wheelbarrow that held all their belongings.

Imagine that, everything that was important to you in a wheelbarrow? How our priorities and expectations have changed over the years…