september

For the past 12 months, Monday evenings have always started around 4pm. That’s when I’m thinking about winding up whatever I’ve been doing so I can round up all our gym gear, make myself a protein shake, get changed and ready so I can head to the gym just after 5pm. Monday evenings are a 50-minute spinning class, followed by a HIIT session then home for showers and a quick, healthy dinner. This week though, I didn’t go. Still sore from the long (for me) run on Sunday morning, I chose instead to go for a walk along the beach with Nic, come home for a massive bowl of salad leaves and an episode of American Horror Story. I am learning more ways that I can nourish and care for myself – sometimes that means full-on gym nights and sometimes it doesn’t.

I spent a week in Australia at the beginning of September. Some of the time with my sister and brother-in-law and some at a workshop I’ve been wanting to do for years. Some of what I’ve learned has been difficult to process… My head trying to make sense of something that can’t be explained with any kind of logic. So begins a daily process of asking myself to suspend disbelief and get out of my own way. And some part of me knows that we are all more capable of magic than we could ever imagine.

Things on my mind today:

• Where are my camera batteries?
• Did I turn the stove off just now
• Do I have time to go for a run in between skype, dropping the cat off, catching a ferry & shopping for our weekend away
• Remember to pack towels
• And there might be swimming, so pack for that too
• Shall I run with up Palmers track to Mt Hobson with Sarah on Friday morning (a route I walked with Nic on my first trip to GBI)?
• I gotta find those camera batteries!

Home is becoming more of a home as we settle into this place. With a lovely boardwalk meandering through the trees connecting the house and the office, I am taking great delight in travelling between the two in my slippers! We have pulled up the carpet and underlay in our bedroom (+ the lino we discovered underneath!) so we can have the concrete ground back and treated with a moisture seal. Another of the perils of buying a holiday home that used to be a storage shed. But this way we get to make the room exactly how we want it. Plus we get to sleep in the studio for a couple of weeks whilst the floor is treated, we paint the walls a colour we like and we have new carpet installed. We are now making a joke about #shithillsideroadpeoplesay that includes “this is the last big expense for this year“. Haha

I’m loving cooking with some new (to me) salt mixes – one a chilli & lime salt made locally and one a spicy herbamare mix. And we seem to be piling okonomiyaki sauce on pretty much everything. Inspired by drinks in cafe’s, I’ve also been making my own turmeric tonic, and herbal tea mixes and dreaming up some ways to make iced teas for the summer. And picnics. I’m dreaming of picnics.

My surroundings continue to inspire me, even though my weeks might look fairly mundane to an observer. Not always in ways that make me want to pick up a camera to document it, sometimes just stopping for a moment to breathe it all in is enough.

There’s been running. Not a whole lot of it but what I have done has been mega. I’ve already run 2 half marathons in the past 2 months and that’s just been around the trails here. The queenstown half should be easy terrain-wise.

Thanks to everyone who filled in my survey. I almost have enough people to get on and do a 31-day project that is subscriber only content. If you haven’t already filled it in, and you’re interested in receiving a short daily email from me, please do so. Monthly projects seem to be a thing for me and I’d love to do one that is shared only with people who really want it.

I have a feeling October is going to be amazing too.