Caretaking in Childers

In our van again

We spent two weeks in the Gympie region parked up at our favourite spot, which we fondly call ‘home base’. We spent the time reorganising the van and enjoying the peace of the property.

During our last week in Rockhampton, we had thrown our names in the hat for this caretaking gig in Childers. Once again, it was quite odd as to how it came about, because there were no photos or details given to make it look or sound attractive, but the time frame and distance from Gympie fit the bill. And I felt a prompting to put up our hands up for it. We were chosen!

On our way home from Rocky we detoured to meet the homeowners and to set their minds at ease, as they had not used homesitters before. It has to be quite a challenge to go off and leave everything you own in the hands of total strangers, including your precious animals. We understand this. After our meeting we all felt more at ease, and we began to look forward to our time here.

Three moon silos in Monto

On Saturday we left Gympie. Fifty minutes later we stopped off at Tiaro’s free camp for the night, which was, once again, a pleasant experience. It was a hot hot day, but there were trees to sit under with a bit of breeze blowing. We had lunch in the only café and found a seat right under the ceiling fan. A win! 

From Tiaro we drove an hour to Childers’s free camp. This was a new and enjoyable stop for us. Free water on offer, a lovely grassy area with a picnic table right behind the van, with a short walk into town to look around. The night wasn't that good though ... the streetlamp lit the area up like day, the sugar cane train kept rolling by, and the public parks and picnic area cleaner did her job very noisily at 3 AM! Yikes. We were hammered in the morning. 😆 

 

By tea-time on Monday, we arrived to a warm welcome from the owners here in Dallarnil, just 15 minutes from Childers. We spent the day meeting the animals and learning our routine for the next three to four weeks (we're not sure when they are returning 🤭). We parked the van on the front lawn and settled in. The next day was also spent with the homeowners, watching and learning, and taking note of their expectations. Early on Wednesday they left, and we kicked into caretaking mode. A storm on the first evening was mild. But the next night’s storm was robust and rather scary. We tied down the hatches, rolled in the awning, and waited, praying that the large hailstones would pass us by. They did! And thankfully the van is watertight. Although, a couple of times it shook in the strong wind gusts.
The next morning, we were up with the rooster! 😄 Straight after coffee with the sun peeking through the trees, we took a walk outside. For all its ferociousness, the ‘damage’ was quite mild. Tons of leaves and bits of bark, a few broken branches and some chairs that blew about from the veranda at the front of the house. All the animals were accounted for, and no fences had trees across them. Whew. 😅 We face a few more days of storms before they pass. Hoping for the best. 

Our tasks will keep us busy for a few hours morning and evening, but otherwise we can simply enjoy the peace of the bush (that is, if the storms aren’t fierce).  We are also privileged to enjoy fresh veggies from the garden, fresh eggs each day, and fruit that is slowly ripening. The birdlife is abundant, giving us many a chuckle.

I'm also happy to report that AJ's back seems to be healed, so that he is able to do chores around the property again. He is still doing his exercises and is more careful. Sometimes he forgets himself ... like 2 days ago when he climbed onto the front of the van without a ladder, burnt himself on the hot steel, and in his hurry to climb down he fell ... head first! 😣😖😤 As I write this, I realise again, that it is only by the grace of our God that he didn't break his neck (or put his back out again!) *Sighs* All praise to our Father for His protecting angels. 🙏🏼

Future plans? 

Future plans – these are in God’s hands! 
Caretaking gigs are mostly unpaid, like house sitting, in Australia. Most caretaking gigs come with a provision of bounty from the land in one way or another, and a free spot to park up with power and water.  

Apart from the chores that need to be done, I have been working on a few endeavours with the future in mind. My aim is to have a variety of projects for a diversified income. One of these was launching an SB CREATIVE (dropshipping) store on TeePublic.com, a site that makes it super easy to have a ‘passive income' store. I enjoy creating designs and find it to be therapeutic. The store began with an idea for a Christian themed T-shirt. 

Then I heard of a gap in the market for the camping genre too, so decided to try my hand at that. But a million others also heard about that gap, and it is also now flooded. The whole project has taken more of my time than I should’ve spent on it, but it was fun! Again, I learned that a passive income is not really passive. If you don’t market it effectively and constantly, nobody really knows it’s there. PS: While we're on the subject, please pay the store a visit if you can. Number of visits help to bump it up on the algorithm. Please send the link to friends too. Thank you. 

While we were in Rocky, I managed to do a course to obtain the Food Safety certification needed when working in the hospitality industry. In my nervousness, I almost lost the tip of a finger during the practical assessment. So much blood from the tip of a finger! Ugh! The blood was not as much as my embarrassment, though, I can assure you. At least it helped them tick another box - the one on how I dealt with injury while working with food!! 🥴🙄 It was a rookie error! 
In other news …

Ongoing are courses in Reservation Management Systems. Every job (as in every field, everywhere) requires experienced persons. How you get experience beats me. But we will keep on trusting and trying. A gazillion other projects are in line, and in my mind. *gulps*  

Blogging takes a lot of time, a commodity that has not been in abundance for me lately. The travel blog on our website isn't doing too badly for a start. You'll see a 'Buy me a Coffee' link below all my blog posts. This is merely a polite way to gain support to keep on writing.  

Through the faith lens...

God invites us in Proverbs 16 v 3 to “commit your actions to the Lord, and all your plans will succeed.” (Note the word, will.) I constantly remind myself of this verse, as I attempt to tick off items from a ‘to do’ list that defies any efforts to shrink it. As soon as one item is ticked, another is added. Next week, I’ll be trying to complete a few projects that I’m currently working on, but each day delivers new curve balls. I am no closer to mastering SEO or constructing a contractual agreement for any work we might receive. I realise that I took on too much. I have admitted that much, and that's a beginning. I am constantly tired with an over active brain. Depression began to gnaw, but the busyness of life didn't allow me the luxury of wallowing in its mud.

Some days our panic levels enter the red zone. (Here I can assure you that box-breathing is a thing, and it helps! 😄) On other days, we are confident that God has got this! All I can say right now is that He is our refuge and strength. When we panic, we turn to His Word. Yes, it’s our crutch, but I’ve come to realise more fully that it is not merely a crutch, but a light illuminating our path (Psalm 119 v 105), driving the darkness away. However, our spiritual enemy doesn’t give up … he prowls and snaps at our heels, looking to dismantle any gains and reminding us of our weaknesses. Ephesians 6 v 10-18 is vital to withstand these attacks.

As believers, we sing, ‘I give you my all’, and ‘Just as I am …’. Easily uttered! You're prepared to give him everything, until He asks for it. Here is when your sincerity and loyalty is tested. The value you place on things is challenged. Those that offer security: your goals; your plan Bs; your bank account; your dreams; your independence; your strength; your skills; and your habits, to name a few. You face the glaring reality that something else takes precedence above your love for the Lord and it is a sobering awakening. The tendency to fall apart at the mere idea of losing what you hold dear becomes a raw realisation. You recognise how your thoughts gravitate more towards these things than towards God. Outside of the devotional hour, and away from the prayer stance, you stand in your own strength – expecting Him to fall in with your plans and desires, and impatient when He fails to respond to hastily uttered requests. This is the path I travelled over the last few months and it hurt.

AJ is focussed on actually believing God. This has challenged me to think more on it. We say we believe His promises, but do we? As a couple, we remind ourselves time and again of earlier promises that came to us via various sources through the years, beginning as early as the day of our baptism in 1988.  (A person in the church presented us with a prophetic word and a passage of scripture to back it up. And how it has been fulfilled again and again since then!) Many years later, after a church service in Benoni, a total stranger came up to me and gave me Psalm 27 v 14, and he said "The Lord says He will give you the heart of a lion." I often recall that moment, how when at my lowest, God sent a stranger with a Word. Lately, I have felt His strengthening hand.

Presently, we choose to believe, and so we feel more often at peace than not … and when one of us begins to doubt, the other is usually able to encourage. God’s Word is filled with promises, we simply need to take that step and believe. It’s called ‘faith’. Every time I'm sure that I understand what faith is, I find out that I'm still discovering the fullness and the mystery of it. And, dear friend, it is an active choice we must make – to believe fully. To look at our life through the lens of faith.

Lastly, I feel the Lord urging me to ‘run the race’, ‘finish the race’, and to ‘run and do not faint’.

“And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” (Heb 12 v 1 , 2.)

Looking back gives us the confidence to look forward. Our God is faithful. His Word says He doesn't change. God, the Sovereign One over all, determines the details. Whether we know Him or not. Our focus has shifted more fully onto Him. Because He has asked us to hand everything over to Him, we can only trust Him to guide our efforts. In the end, we pray that His name will be glorified. 

For we are [[all]] His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us]. (Ephes. 2 v 10 from the Amplified Bible.)

Blessings, until next time.🌼 

Stock photo: 'Believe', by Kevin Malik, on Pexels

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April surprises, updates, and rollercoasters

April surprises

We were in Mt Marshall for a week when our daughter arrived with the grandies! Instead of staying for two nights as planned, they ended up staying for 5, and that was fun!

We celebrated my birthday and Cassie’s birthday…

We chatted our chins off…

We had pizza, pancakes and hot cross buns without end…

We played ‘nail salon’ with yours truly giving everyone a foot massage …😂

Kiddies’ mum had a chance to catch up on some rest …

And the dog had many cuddles and lots of walks!

With three days of rain, we took a few days to adjust to an empty house. We were thrilled as the water tanks were filled to overflowing again. 😃  After the rain, we got stuck into completing some chores around the house and garden for a few days.

Because we’re attempting to save funds, we are not doing much sightseeing. But the panoramic scenery all around us is a feast for the eye and calming to the soul.

We also took some time to give the van some TLC.

Website changes

First, I’d like to explain some changes regarding this blog and our website. You received notices on social media that the blog has been separated from the website, only to then receive an auto-generated email to say a new blog is posted on the website … then you see it was a post from a month ago! Confusing, I agree. 😑🥴 And I apologise.

To clarify, I felt it safer to separate this faith-focused blog from the unDESERTED website as it (the website) is registered in Australia. Religious persecution is rising, and Australia is becoming a battleground for Christians. It takes one person to report ‘hate speech’ and you are facing a potential litigation nightmare. We pray that the tide turns soon, but we are not hopeful as the two main parties, the incumbent Labour (socialist, Marxist) Party in Queensland and its opposition, the LNP coalition (supposedly more conservative), are simply two sides of the same coin. The Labour Party also holds the national government. Unless the voters boot out the same old, same old, corrupt self-serving politicians and the woke socialists, I fear Queensland, indeed the whole nation is doomed to more of the same. The ACL runs an informative website and campaigns against the draconian laws that are being put forward nationally and in individual states. I hope you find the time to click on the link and read about what is happening here; it is no different to what is taking place in the US and the UK.

But I digress … back to the website …I have brought our info up to date to reflect our current situation. However, when I removed the blog, I made a ‘Where are we now?’ page instead but found that it was harder to let everyone know when it updated. So, I created a blog page again, but this time it will be purely a travel blog. As soon as I published the Mt Marshall entry, the website remembered the previous blog settings and let everyone know that I had published a new post. 😆 

I need to knuckle down and post more regularly, as I hope to place ads and eventually monetise. I am also hoping to soon complete an online store with a few digital items (mainly with a camping/travelling focus) for sale. I’m afraid my head is still off in 100 directions daily … trying to generate a passive, diverse, income. Perhaps I've bitten off more than I can chew, time will tell.

YouTube Channels

On the website are links provided to unDeserted on Youtube, where I hope to post more travel and van-life videos, as well as the Home Cook in a Van channel, where I aim to post a few easy recipes. If you like what you see (I know they're rookie videos 😆) please like, subscribe and share if you want to, to give these channels a bit of a boost. 

LibSandy Proofreading

If you explore the website, you will see a page for LibSandy. 

Some may know that I had this planned in 2019 before Covid hit. Because of Covid, I was unable to get going and the whole idea had to be shelved in subsequent years. I have now resurrected the idea to offer proofreading services and have been doing some refresher training to that end. My focus will be on websites, business docs, social media campaigns, etc. The tricky part is marketing it … while it may seem that we must have HEAPS of time on our hands, I still find the days too short to accomplish plans. My to-do list keeps growing. I would appreciate a mention here and there if you know of anyone looking for proofreading. And, no, AI (artificial intelligence) doesn’t cut it! AI is just not there yet, unable to understand nuances, style and overall tone of voice in writing. Not to mention proper grammar, picking up typos, knowing style guides and dealing with subjective errors. I rest my case, for now … 😄

So, to summarise, our website is found, as always, on https://www.undeserted.com with its own ‘Where are we now? ’travel blog page. For these entries, subscribers to our site will receive a notification email from the website when there is a new post, and new posts will be advertised on Instagram.  

On the other hand, this (Christian) blog with updates for friends and family is found at https://undeserted.blogspot.com (hosted by Google). For these, I will post 'new blog post' notices on WhatsApp and Telegram. 

Warwick

We make a trip every 14 days to Warwick for groceries. On one occasion we took the day to view the city. It is known as the rose and rodeo capital. We walked the route to many beautiful heritage-listed sandstone buildings, which are dotted about the city. 

Warwick Post Office bldg.

We viewed parks and gardens, one of which has an iron sculpture as a tribute to the many roles of horses in society. 

The well-manicured Leslie Park had hosted the ANZAC day celebrations the day before, so we visited the war memorial to view the many wreaths laid in memory of the fallen, before enjoying a KFC lunch in the park. It was a lovely day.

Glengallen Homestead

We visited nearby Glengallen Homestead and Heritage Centre, located on the northern slope of Mt Marshall. 

Side view and kitchen entrance

Fascinating to see a project underway to restore the sandstone homestead to its former glory. Thought to be only half of the dwelling as originally planned but never finished, it was constructed in 1867, and has a colourful yet sad history. It stood empty, neglected, and left for ruin well into the early 2000s.

These protruding blocks are thought to be where an
exact copy of the existing wing would have been attached.

Its heyday was during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as successive owners invested in sheep farming, particularly merino sheep. I must admit, that walking around the property brought back memories of the beautiful mansions we visited on ostrich farms in the Oudtshoorn district, South Africa, where the booming years of ostrich farming allowed owners to live lavish lives in the late 1800s, before crashing to a sad, inglorious end by the time WW1 had ended.

Drawing room, Glengallen Homestead

Various factors contributed to Glengallen’s neglect by owners and caretakers, with the property being sold in 1993 at a fraction of its value to the Glengallen Historical Trust. The latter made a case to the Queensland government for its heritage status and won. One of the interesting facts raised was that it is one of only two sandstone homestead mansions built over two storeys. With grants from the Centenary Federation Fund, restoration commenced in 2002. Restoring the balconies and verandahs alone cost over $1 million. 

Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

On our travel blog, I hope to cover the story of Glengallen a little more fully.

With 2 weeks to go before heading to Gympie, we know we will miss these views and the glorious walks in the countryside. As winter approaches it has become quite cold already. God willing, we are aiming to take a week-long camping trip back to Gympie, stopping at a few new places we haven’t visited before.

Roller coasters are fun … right?

Why do people pay to go on a roller coaster? This I read in a discussion a few weeks ago. You take the roller coaster, they said, because it gives a rush of adrenalin and thrills per second, delivers scary twists and turns, fills your gut alternately with butterflies, fear, and tremors, and ends in a rush of victory! Safe at the base station and still in one piece. It provides belly laughs to all the spectators, who provide the photos to prove the contortions in your face, eyes bulging, hands gripping wherever they can, and hair waving wildly. If only photos could capture the screams …but we have videos to thank for that. All in all, roller coasters are fun.

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

But when the roller coaster of life’s tumultuous circumstances takes you on a ride, you are not enamoured! You wish it away. With raw fear, silent screams, and real tremors in your belly, you wake up many a day wishing it was just a dream. That elusive base station is always one more bend and two more mountainous climbs away. One day you’re strong and face the wind. On another you’re down in the dip, approaching an imaginative hair-raising bend with a steep cliff at the edge of a very narrow road. Most days you know that you know that you know you are going to struggle to get through with no fuel in the physical, let alone the emotional, tank. 

And then God steps in! For the hundredth time you are reminded that you’re not alone. That He has a plan. That He is working behind the scenes on your behalf. You hear Him say that He will direct your paths. You find sudden peace amidst the storm; energy to put the next foot forward. The sun rises each morning, and the birdsong is new again. Our Lord’s brother James, in James 1 vv 2-4 encourages us with,

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.“

Oh my! Isn't that another form of thankfulness? Here is a quote from something I read last week: 

“… life is still an incredible journey. It is a gift from God, a never-to-be-repeated experience wherein we get to walk by faith and not by sight. And the key to thriving in a world that can be topsy-turvy is thankfulness.”

And this too,

“The thrill ride of life enriches us in a variety of ways. It challenges and convicts us. It develops character and intimacy through pain and perseverance. It shows us glimpses of glory beyond what we could have imagined. It takes us beyond ourselves while making us deeply aware of ourselves. All of it is an opportunity and a cause for thankfulness.” (From, The Transformational Power of Gratitude, by Yellow Balloons and Grace School of Theology.)

Hope

And then there’s hope!  Endless hope, because our Saviour, Jesus, is for us and has promised to not leave us or forsake us.

We are still very much in the ‘waiting room’ as it were. We have faced trying moments as God continues to work in us, on our fears and insecurities, teaching us to cope with disappointment as a few of our plans have fallen flat. Living remotely has helped us to think in isolation, and the Lord God has taken this time and place to put us through the refining fire.

In a devotional I read last week by Reinhard Bonnke, he was discussing having the ‘eyes of faith’ when things seemed impossible. He said, 

“We have got to get a new set of eyes first. We’ve got to have the eyes of our hearts opened, and to do this requires that we abandon our fears to our King and trust Him absolutely.” (From, “Watch With Me Series 2, on YouVersion.)

“Lord, I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9 v 24

May His name be glorified at the end of this road.🧡

Well, that’s us for now. Thanks for stopping by. We appreciate each of you, your prayers, your messages and your encouraging wishes. 

Blessings, Sandy (& AJ). 🌼

So Much Time?

Where are we? 

Jones Hill, Gympie. Part rural, part suburb. We are within an expanding housing estate with many new builds. 

Time? So much time? 

Every other day we have someone, usually a very well-meaning individual, remark on how much time we must have on our hands!  Or they ask what we have recently done that’s exciting. Of me, women often ask, “Are you knitting? Do you crochet? You must have so much time now.” “Which books have you read lately?” Of AJ, "How's your golf coming on?" 

Politely we answer, but before we are tempted to roll our eyes, we remember that folk do not grasp the intricacies of our lifestyle.

Before the wheels of the van can roll, countless tasks must be ticked off. Checklists are our go-to. Everything must be secured and ticked off. Inside and out. Once the campsite is set up, the interior also needs setting up to function smoothly. There is a checklist for that too. Everything must be placed where it belongs. ALL. THE. TIME.

The day usually begins with a walk. A long walk. Or with an attempted workout session. 

After a shower we have breakfast. A good one! Stamina is needed for the day. Morning devotionals, Bible reading and prayer – THE most important ingredient for said stamina – are slotted in somewhere too. Often while we walk.

The van must constantly be kept clean, or we have uninvited passengers – the creepy-crawly kind. Usually, there are tyres to inflate and then deflate. (A must for towing.) There is fuel to be sourced. Water to be sourced. Yes, we must plan where to get water. 

Like you, we can simply open a tap in the van, but it must first get into the tanks beneath us, before we can open the tap. That can be hard work and take a good chunk out of the day.

In between daily tasks, there are routes to work out, reservations to make (if necessary), supplies to be shopped for (we cannot carry a month’s worth in a van), and washing to do since we only have enough to wear for a few days. House sitting research and agreements are time-consuming. Making doctors’ and dentists’ appointments takes on a whole new dimension, as you ponder the calendar to see where you will be at that point.

Inevitably there is something to fix. Or something to reattach to the wall. Or something to store under the bed, which requires taking everything off the bed that you have temporarily placed onto the bed to get it out of your way.

And then there’s the admin! Logbooks to update for the taxman. Expenditure spreadsheets. A budget to monitor. Annual payments to schedule. Job research. Warranties to maintain through annual inspections. Online advice to monitor, to keep up to date with State requirements. Since we mostly work online, we have a commitment to update and maintain computers. Software updates. New software to learn. Technology tutorials. 

Social media! Keeping followers happy. Replying to multiple messages from the four corners of the world is a pleasure, albeit a challenging one. Thus, these blog posts. Interacting with others is what it’s all about … after all it’s called social media. Conversation, like tennis, cannot be maintained only from one side. And one doesn’t lurk! Lurking is … in the same camp as being a peeping Tom. It takes me a long time to write and publish a blog post. 

Suffice it to say that I write and read, read and write; write and read … mull over … sleep on … edit. Read, edit, read; rewrite and read. Then edit some more! You get the picture?

“Time waits for no one,” said someone somewhere. How true! When you look again, midday is encroaching. My man believes in meals at a certain time. It’s the way he was raised, and the way it’s been done for 43 years of our togetherness. But it’s good because once the main meal of the day is done, the afternoon affords more time for tasks. (Shall I let you in on a secret … by 3 pm I’m usually horizontal for 30 mins, struggling to remain vertical. But even then, I simultaneously listen to a grammar podcast or read editing theory. Oh, for a good fiction book! Maybe one day. *sighs*)

House sitting

When house sitting, the home must be kept scrupulously clean or else the task is that much harder once we’re ready to vacate. When we have house sittings booked back-to-back, we find ourselves in a strange house, cooking in a strange kitchen, sleeping in a strange bed, and so on, every 2 to 3 weeks. And goodness … can we move in?! 

Computers, screens, printer, toiletries, clothing, linen and towels (yes, we use our own), groceries and more are carted in. Everything we use that isn’t ours must be replaced in its spot after use, or we will not remember where it belonged. Our grocery supplies join the homeowners’ in their grocery cupboard and fridge. Each of our items need to be marked, or at the end of the gig we’re going, “Which is which?” “Whose is whose?”  “Is this my mixed herbs, or hers?”  “Is this our tomato sauce, or theirs?” “Are these frozen mixed veg ours?” “Is this hand soap ours?” It’s even more confusing when both shop at the same stores and favour the same products. In some cases, we move so often, that when AJ is looking for something, for example, I’ll say, “It’s on the counter” … when that was at the previous place. In the current house it has a new spot. Sometimes it does my head in. AJ’s too.

 

There are the inevitable small tasks written on a list. And often, when we attempt to use the vacuum cleaner, it needs a cleaning service before it is effective. Or the toilet leaks. Or the kitchen sink leaks. Or a plug doesn’t seal. There is always something that AJ needs to mend.

 

There is usually a garden to water and keep tidy and lawns to mow. Some gardens take hours a day, some a couple of hours a week. Also pot plants … at some gigs there are myriad numbers (plants that I have never seen before which I pray over, for fear of killing them … 🥴😅), tucked away in every nook and cranny, hanging from beams, parading at doorways and then sometimes there are few. I favour the manufactured kind, that do not need water!

Perpetual scanning of your surroundings for critters takes massive amounts of focus and awareness-energy. And time! “Close the door!” “Close the screen!” is the continual cry, as we watch for snakes, spiders, geckos and even toads, which love to slip in by a door. 

The mozzies and midges aim to eat you alive. The big 5 in Africa are mostly contained behind fences. Here, even an insect screen cannot keep the smallest ones out and everything is on a mission – to zap, to bite, to kill, or to move in with you. As I type now, I’ve swatted the back of my neck, feeling something unseen crawl on me. Perhaps it's all this talk of the critters. And I keep spotting that gecko that slipped in two days ago when it dropped off the outside of the door into the house … he’s behind the cupboard in this room. Every time, every time, I spot it, I think it’s a snake.

Just yesterday we had an Air Conditioner go thud, thud, thud, on us, and stop. The hottest day of the year! Feel temp 40C. Upon investigation outside, there it was – a snake – unceremoniously (as our son-in-law remarked) wrapped around the blades of the unit’s fan. Unable to identify it, I phoned the local snake catcher. He arrived 30 minutes later, without me having taken my sweltering eye off that unit. I grinned when I noted that he’s as old as we are, and also takes double the time to get down on his hands and knees to investigate. 

When the cover came off, out came a recently deceased snake, still in its death throes … for a call-out fee of $110. Ugh! 

It’s against the law to kill a snake in this country (or so we have been told), but darn … who can afford a snake catcher? So next time, guess what?! If we are unable to send Scaly-the-snake off to a safe spot, it will be la-la-land for either one of us or for Scaly, as we attempt our own capture-and-release.

While in the Gympie region, if the telephone rings and we receive a request for help from our beloved daughter, everything is put on hold for a good 4 or 5 hours, and off we go to do grandparent duties. We’ve chatted with grey nomads in campsites, who have bravely confessed that their kids don’t know where to find them. And when they do, they quickly move on, leaving them to catch up again. 

So?

“So?”, you may remark, “this is no different to my day, and I get to make things, to read, to gym etc.”

Well, maybe it’s just me/us … but at the end of each day we’re pooped! I hit the sack at 8 pm, AJ not long after. We are up again at 5 am, only for it all to start over. Again, I say, this is the life we have chosen. This is the life we are making the most of. Independence and survival are at the top of the list for us. Where is the time to enjoy a good book? Where is the time to quietly knit or sew? Where is time for sightseeing and doing exciting things? And playing golf takes the better part of a full day!

No … not for us. We had our turn in Qatar. Now, it is not our turn.

Nevertheless, now and then we do get to have fun moments, and they are valued, to be sure. Sometimes they pounce upon us unexpectedly. They can arrive without fanfare. Many times, they are over in a flash … if you weren’t alert and mindful, they’d pass you by. Even some planned moments are merely fleeting. But thankful, grateful, and blessed we are.

 

Thanks for stopping by. 🌼

Blessings. 

Images: 

All tree frog cartoon images by Alexa from Pixabay

Bug image by 17314653 from Pixabay

Frog ornament image by 165106 from Pixabay

Frog in the boat image by Eveline de Bruin from Pixabay