No word of a lie, I have started > deleted > started again > edited > deleted and honestly I have no idea where I am any more with a post so I guess I will start again… again

So what’s been happening?

Well I have moved – pretty much anyway. Just have to do a final clean before the bond cleaners come in and do their clean and then I hand the keys back to the real estate on Thursday (12th November for those of you playing at home).

It feels like it has been has been a long process and I guess it actually has. I started decluttering back in the first week of September and I moved out the last of my stuff today. We did the big move this past Saturday – we being myself, my nephew and niece and her husband.

I can’t believe we did as much as we did in only a few hours – one trip to the dump (FYI I have now been to the dump a total of 9 times + plus a visit to the electronics disposal depot since this whole process started!), two car loads to my storage unit (yes I am now a grown up coz I have a storage unit!) and 2 cars & small truck to drop off furniture to other family and bring the stuff I am keeping to my nephews where I am living for the next couple of months.

I don’t want to get my hopes up but I think I already have an apartment lined up for early-mid January. The apartment is pretty much right across the road from work – which means I will be saving $300 a month on car parking PLUS the rent is reduced thanks to covid so I am saving about $60 a week there AND the internet is included!!!

Bloody winning I say

The only downside is that when I look out my windows I will see the office but because of how I would have my furniture (I may or may not have already drawn up a floorplan of where everything will go) I won’t even really be looking out the windows so it should be all good.

The convenience of the place being right next to work is amazing – I will be able to go home for lunch. It is literally like a 2 minute walk home – and I have to go up stairs to get to the office so I get a lot more exercise than I do now (I park right under the building). Whilst the apartment was not really my ideal one, I figure that even if I stay there for 12 months, I will have saved nearly $7000 on just the rent and car parking alone!

The downside of the convenience is I can’t use the “I got stuck in traffic” excuse again haha.

What else has happened?

Oh yeah, it was my birthday on Friday just gone. I turned 48! My mum was like “only 2 years till you’re 50”.. wow thanks mum haha.

This year’s birthday was weird – I didn’t travel anywhere, not that I could but because I couldn’t it meant I was actually able to move because my lease always ended around this time of the year and I have moved to the other side of the city so I guess that is like a birthday trip right?

I’ve been thinking about my birthday trips a lot lately – that was one of the blog posts I was gonna do but didn’t finish. I had been trying to work out where I had been for my birthday over the last 10 years since I have been travelling more and apart from one year where I can’t remember (probably just Brisbane) here is the list

• 2010 – London – this was my very first trip to London and I remember it like it was yesterday. This was when my love affair with the city began. It was, and still is, the best birthday I have ever had. Not only was I in this city that I ended up falling in love with but I also got to go and see the All Blacks play England at Twickenham. Such a great day.
• 2011 – Christchurch – I had actually been in Melbourne for a couple of days beforehand and did a day trip down the Great Ocean Road, which was amazing!
• 2012 – Hawaii – one of the best holidays ever! I went to Waikiki with two of my nieces and it was so freaking much fun – we’ll always have Teddy’s, girls
• 2013 – Sydney – I don’t know what possessed me but I decided to fly to Sydney and back in one day. It is only like an hours flight but at this time of year Sydney is one hour ahead of Brisbane because QLD doesn’t do daylight savings (after 17 years of living here I still have no idea why and no one has been able to give me a legit reason!). It was seriously the most exhausting day!
• 2014 – Brisbane – I worked on this day and I vowed I would never again work on my birthday. The best thing about this day was my friend baked me a Cookie Monster birthday cake and it was delicious!
• 2015 – cannot for the life of me remember where I was this year. I know I had been to Europe in Aug/Sept and Melbourne the weekend before I think so I think I was in Brisbane but I definitely didn’t work
• 2016 – Toowoomba – not sure why I didn’t go overseas this year either but I ended up doing a day trip out to Toowoomba to check out street art
• 2017 – London – can you believe I’ve only been to London twice on my birthday? Anyway this was a cool as freaking day! I got THE photo of St Paul’s Cathedral and that night I went to see my favourite comedian, Danny Bhoy.. even though I was sooooo sick, it was such a good day
• 2018 – Helsingor – I had wanted to go here as long as I had known it was the inspiration for Hamlet’s castle. It did not disappoint.
• 2019 – Portland, OR – I can’t believe this was last year. I loved my time in Portland and Oregon and I really would love to go there again. I spent half of the day doing a tour to see some amazing waterfalls.

This year I was meant to be in Scotland but I actually spent the day with my wee great, great niece (who is now 2 yrs & 3 mths) and it was just perfect. Any day with her is perfect ❤

We headed to check out the last of some local jacandra’s and she just stomped around in her little sundress and gumboots. I couldn’t have had a more perfect moment. (I realised I used the word “perfect” a lot just now but it really was just that haha)

So yeah apart from all that above, live has been just pretty normal. As my mother says “you can’t have exciting days every day Sarah” .. so true mum, so very true.