Great news and inspiration

I'm still wallowing in my restful weekend but I don't feel relaxed and content. I'm more agitated, lazy and flat, all at the same time. I sat on the lounge for a ridiculously inordinate amount of time this morning, doing bugger all. Decided to see if there have been any interesting comments on the craigharper.com blog. To my surprise, there was Monday's article, all fresh and pretty. And included in the article was a letter from Hellen - a regular reader/commenter who was caught in the recent horrendous bushfires in VIC, namely Kinglake. Reading that she was not only OK but that she was looking at the experience as an opportunity to "get her shit together" and "suck it up" was inspiring, to say the least.

Thanks, Hellen. You've allowed me some clarity to realise that there really isn't anywhere I'd rather be than in my life. And even in my body. It's taken all my life thus far to get where I am - and I've had some pretty great experiences and achievements - and now it's a pretty damn fine place to be!

The restful (lazy) weekend is over. No more wallowing. Time to suck it up (yet again) and get on with living life!

(The picture is from my farm and is of bushfires in 1994. Scary stuff - and not even close to what has recently happened in VIC.)

Some things never change .. but some things do!

As I mention in my blog intro, I'm a bit of a tom-boy. Don't get me wrong - I'm a girl in all the ways that matter. I just have some attributes that are .. strange.

Let's see if I can paint a bit of a picture. I never owned a Barbie. The only doll I ever owned was the Bionic Man .... you know the one - he had the hole through his head so you can look through his bionic eye. Too cool. (I really wanted the G.I. Joe doll though - and that really, really awesome boat he had!) I never had dolls' houses or the like. I had a train set, a racing car set, a cricket set, a skateboard and a huge box of Lego - including the engine (hours of fun!).

As I got older, I had a BMX bike. And usually a classy array of scabs on my elbows and knees from perpetually trying to tame the nearby BMX track. Older still and I started hankering for a dirt bike (motorbike). Never got that one though. Bugger.

I grew up in the city (Newcastle, NSW) but the first place I bought when I lived away from home was a small property (20 acres) in the Hunter Valley. I lived alone and boy, don't you learn fast how to fix things and make do in emergencies! For about 5 years all my birthday and Xmas presents from family were things like a ladder, a wheelbarrow, a cordless drill, a sander, a whipper-snipper, a lawn-mower. I even had a tractor - but that was really just for show.

I learnt that 30 x 30kg hay bales constituted a bloody good workout when moving them from the trailer to the shed. That long railway sleepers are EXTREMELY heavy when you try to move them alone - and a wheelbarrow only helps a little. That trying to auger through sandstone and clay to put in concrete foundations for a stable/shed is damn hard work. And that living alone on the land is unforgiving and perpetual physical work. Not to mention the responsibility of the animals that rely on you.

I had to learn how to give a horse a tetanus injection. That snakes still bite you even if you don't see them. That redback spiders are not aggressive but that centipedes are among the ugliest things on this planet. That pythons who live in your ceiling and sleep above your bedroom hate the vibrations caused from a ceiling fan. That I'm not above trying to bribe the pizza place with $100 to deliver 30km out of town. And that I'm too lazy to drive to the hospital when I slice halfway through my finger with the edge of a dog food can lid (it stopped bleeding eventually, but remains numb to this day).

I went for a job interview the other day. It's with a recycling plant (I'd be working in the office, by the way), so is effectively near a big pile of rubbish. One of their questions was how I would handle having to go over to the site shed and be around that pile of rubbish. I described how in previous jobs I've had to don woolen (fire-proof) clothing to wander up and down kilometres of pots filled with molten aluminium counting gas bottles, and also walk about 2km out of a dis-used mine shaft (coal mine) in (up to thigh deep) mud with only the light on my hardhat and only stinky, sweaty, stale air to breathe. They laughed and decided I was probably tough enough to handle the rubbish. (Bet you had no idea that the life of an accountant could possibly be so .. dirty!)

Am I really that odd?? (Don't bother answering that - I think I already know the answer.)

These colourful experiences have all brought me to where I am today. Sure, I do karate and seem to enjoy being punched and kicked all over the place, and I drive a V8 Monaro. But aside from that, I think my feminine side is now alive and well. No more farm, minimal power tools, nil flannelette shirts and only one pair of steel-capped boots. I can even walk in high heels these days!

It's been quite the journey thus far .. can't wait to see what the next 40 years holds for me. So don't let anyone's judgement confine you. One person's boring past is the next person's entertaining (even enviable) story. It's taken me a while, but I don't want to be anyone but me now. I've think I've earned the right to be myself. Besides, everyone else is taken!

(First pic is of Bear, my beloved dog - he now chases rabbits in that big farm in the sky. The second is of the world's longest horse. Not really. I had two horses the same colour - both tried to cram into the little shed.)