Hey you! How was your January? I don’t know about you, but if January is an indication of the rest of the year, I feel like I may just be booking myself into some kind of facility come the end of 2020.
January was such a tumultuous month. I feel like I have lived three months instead of one.  Our country has been burning for months. The parts that aren’t burning are bone dry and dying. And the small parts that aren’t burning or dying from drought have been flooding. January was the month I turned off the news. I couldn’t bear to watch any more stories of destruction and death, or political ineptness or corruption, or how all this money that was raised is only just trickling through to the people who desperately need it. January was the month I stopped visiting Facebook – from tears to anger to anxiety and worry, the emotional rollercoaster had to stop for a while
But January also saw us escaping the extremely hot days, the dust storms and the smoke from the bush fires raging for a few days. We went to Sydney and the central coast and for the first time in almost six weeks we were able to breathe easy.Â
In Sydney, we decided to surprise Beastie with a trip to Bondi Beach for her birthday. All of the terrible trio love (I mean LOVE) Bondi Rescue, but wee Beastie is obsessed with it, so we popped out early one morning to visit the famous (or infamous) Bondi!
Beastie was beside herself. They were actually filming the day we were there, and Bean and Bug grabbed a quick snap with Jules before we headed into the surf. Beastie was too shy!
We spent a day walking around the city. It is so different from when we lived there, but we were happily surprised to see some of our favourite city haunts were still around.Â
I love coming to the city and exploring, seeing the different architecture, the colours and the lights.
Of course, no trip to Sydney is complete without an ice cream outside the Opera House and a ferry ride under the bridge.
And after two jam-packed city days, we went up the coast to my brother’s house near Port Stevens.Â
Coming home was quiet. Not only because the terrible trio crashed five minutes into the trip home.
But because we came home via the Blue Mountains, which were destroyed by fires around Christmas. I have seen the mountains burn before, but never like this. Nothing like this.
And suddenly, all the news reports we had watched in horror for the last three months, all the Facebook posts we read, all the stories of survival and bravery and sacrifice, the stories of how the fires destroyed everything in its path, how immeasurable numbers of wildlife have been killed, hit home.Â
It was horrific and unimaginable, and every time I saw a sign thanking the RFS, I was reminded that these ordinary men and women are the true heroes in our country.Â
And then we hit the other side of the mountains in our journey west and we were had ourselves  another reality check
The bush fires are so violently in your face devastating, but the drought is silently and insidiously destroying lives, towns and communities. Unfortunately the brave RFS members can’t save our homes and towns from this disaster…
So home we came, but January wasn’t finished with us because not a week later we had close to 30ml of rain in a space of an hour.
And for land that hasn’t had proper rain for months now, our back yard became a river, and I spent a very wet and soggy 1/2 hour sweeping water away from our back door so it wouldn’t flood the house.Â
And although the rain did nothing but wash a shit ton of soil from our backyard to our neighbours’ front yard across the road, and give the bindis enough water to grow, we were treated to the most fabulous sunset that evening.
The rest of January was spent busily but quietly doing our almost annual organising and decluttering of our home, the studio took three days to clean (don’t laugh) and I am afraid to use my desk for fear of cluttering it up again!
We dyed our hair blue, painted our nails, planted the plants I bought while I was away, squeezed in the car, saw Jumanji, had movie nights and created mini LEGO cities.Â
And now that the terrible trio are back at school and we are adjusting to our new timetables, I am back in the studio full time and hoping to soon dig into some fun and interesting projects I have on my to-do list!Â
January felt like we lived three months in one, but looking back (and not including the environmental disasters and world events), it was a nice way to start the year.
Welcome 2020. Please make January the worst you will throw at us!
If you made it through this huge post, thank you for being here! Let me know how your January was. I hope you’ve been safe throughout this tumultuous start
From my whimsy world to yours.
Let’s stay connected
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