When you are where you are meant to be.... things flow.

Yesterday was a strange day. It was my first day after (finally) finishing the uni term, a uni term that had damn near traumatised me. Last term I took on fulltime uni as we had settled into Kalgoorlie to work for 6 months or so and Zac had just started daycare two days a week. However - that "plan" (like many, when you become a parent) was not to be.

Zac instantly hated daycare... He cried from the moment we dropped him off until the moment we picked him up. His teachers were stressed because he seemed to be the "exception" to the whole "Oh, he will be laughing and playing (and stop crying) as soon as you're out ther door", instead - he was very consistant for a couple of weeks at two days a week. We realised this was causing him ALOT of stress and his teachers were having trouble giving him the support he needed because they simply hadn't experienced such a consistantly sad child.

This led to us pulling him out of daycare, I mean - I enjoy every moment with my son. When he is in daycare I miss him terribly. I (honestly) only sent him because it is the "thing you do" but my husband pointed out that alot of our life decisions go against that grain so if I love being with Zac and dont mind having him home full time, then why send him to daycare when he clearly isnt settling in? We believe that he wasnt settling in because of our lifestyle and always moving around, as he previously LOVED his "home-daycare" he used to attend (read: this would have been an entirely different situation if he had have settled in happily - he would still be attending now).

Thus the decision was finalised, and although my time alone went down to basically zero, my uni workload persisted. This lead to a very stressful term for me! I experienced alot of guilt because there were many times I had to just give up and sit Zac in front of the TV so that I could get some work done (those who know me know that I am the kinda mum whom is ALWAYS playing with her child and teaching him things and going outdoors with him when we are together) so this all added to both of our stress levels, which then bounced off eachother even more so.

Anyway, I woke up yesterday with no uni work and was just baffled... We got up slowly and casually, I washed some dishes, tidied the van, got ontop of the washing. Then we went and caught up with some friends we have met here in Kalgoorlie, THEN we came home... and relaxed??!?!?!?!?

..... it was BLISSFUL!

We made the bed so it was nice and neat, then layed on the bed, under the aircon and played cars, puzzles, lego, flash cards, dominoes, for hours. It felt so good to just be able to enjoy Zac again and play with him with my attention all on him. Then around 5:30 in the afternoon I took him for a big walk around Boulder while the sun started to get lower in the sky. Would you believe that after all of this attention, busy day etc. he fell STRAIGHT to sleep when I put him to bed. Wow, It all just felt so right, like it is the way its meant to be for us - like everything was flowing naturally again. (the last three weeks zac has experienced a major sleep regression, thats why this sleep "thing" has been massive for us now).

I hadnt realised how much my desire to get a qualification was affecting Zacs life. I knew I took on too much but I didnt realise how much my inability to keep up with it all was responsible for all of the massive changes Zac has been experiencing lately. With this thought in mind; life feels so blissful again. I love enjoying Zac and making the most of every second I have with him, so I am so happy to get to experience that again.

Today it has been the same, a nice relaxing morning with a little bit of housework. Then the day is ours, to play and learn together, to enjoy eachothers company and experience life together. I feel so lucky to be in a position to be home with my son all the time, I feel grateful that I enjoy his company so much and that I get to really teach him the basics aswell as about life and the world.

So today I am a little "high on life", I feel really happy, relaxed, at ease and inspired. I feel energised and ready to really be the mum I always wanted to be. I know my son would be proud of me in years to come if I could stand up and say "I singlehandedly finished a FULLTIME uni degree in just a few years, while raising my child and having a husband working extremely long hours. Because of this I was able to take on a high paying job and buy my son everything he could have dreamed of", but I know I am raising a child whom would be prouder to be able to say "my mum taught me the ABC, to read, to write, to play and how to be a good person, she was always there when I needed her and my memories are of her time, not of objects".

I feel so grateful for everything my life has brought to me. There have been some substantially tough times, but they have only intensified my desire to sieze the moment, be with my husband and son and experience a simple, happy life.

What YOU can expect from 'Living the Simple Dream' in 2012

What can you expect from Living the Simple Dream in 2012?

We have had such a great response to our blog in 2011 and we know that as well as all of the people who found it through our Facebook page, we also have a lot of family and friends following. Our blog’s (both our travel and our general “lifestyle” blog) are a great way for us to share this lifestyle with people, inspire others to live a life outside the box and to give our family and friends a place to go to regularly see what we are upto.

Why do we do this?

We created the Living The Simple Dream “blog” page to share our thoughts and experiences on the simple, nomadic lifestyle. We want to show people that this lifestyle is wonderful, freeing and 100% achievable. We want to use ourselves and our life as an example to inspire others to chase their own dreams and life the life that they want to live. We have found that the blog site simply is not enough though, to convey this message adequately.

A new Website for LTSD?

This is why we plan on having a proper website made in 2012. The website will have our albums, blog posts, tips and advice, a record of everywhere we visit (we will also import over all of our entries from our travel blog) that will hopefully link back to a map. It will have useful links for other travel blogs, forums and information. Hopefully it will be a very resourceful page for people considering taking the big leap into a new, nomadic life!  

Some of the new regular posts we will be using our webpage for in 2012 will be:

regular weekly/bi weekly posts

Personal posts about the way we percieve our journey

Finally getting around to the promised “blog series” on setting up our car for outback travel

Many more “blog series” posts covering a range of different topics and experiences

Posts that involve and include the people that follow our journey

Regular photo posts

and MUCH, much more!

Our message to you:

We hope that everyone has enjoyed following our journey and will stay with us next year to see what adventures we get upto! We hope that we can bring you a bigger and better blog page that’s easier to use, more resourceful and can better convey the message we want to send about ourselves and our lifestyle. We hope that we are able to use our lifestyle to inspire and encourage people to chase and live their own dreams. Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey this year and we look forward to sharing 2012 with you all.