Farewell 2014

What a year!

I feel like this last year was a bit of a whirlwind.  I went into 2014 a little bit unsure of everything and I literally had no idea what the year would hold for me. Which, although unsettling was kind of a nice way to go into a new year.

We went into January learning how to be together again and were still stepping carefully after a temporary separation in 2013. Strangely enough ‘stepping carefully’ didn’t last all that long. I guess once you have kids, it’s stomp on through or nothing! I went back to work part time, despite my reservations, and I have to say 2 and a 1/2 days turned out really well.

February was apparently a huge month for me. (I didn’t realise it until just now looking back at all the posts I wrote. LOVE blogging for this reason). I found my place in the yoga community at Zenko, TOTALLY stepped out of my comfort zone to do a trial and haven’t looked back teaching there this year! Oh and somehow amongst all that I found time to put together all my refined-sugar-free recipes into a free Ebook.

By March we were neck deep in renovating a house in quite possibly the WORST condition in the whole of the Sunshine Coast. Nothing like a new challenge to test a relationship hey?!

In April I was considering how I would ever do anything other than renovating again, when I desperately wanted to be devoting more time to this little space.

I must have been thinking a lot about Motherhood in May, thats all I seemed to write about?! Maybe in preparation for the creation of The Kindred Collective later in the year?  I think I was having a hard time with it all this month because I was writing about things like ‘bringing my best self home’ and ‘embracing life like our little people do’.  I can’t really remember what specifically was happening but I do remember feeling overwhelmed by it all.

By June I’d finally found some time to do some sewing again and made this boho clutch and Caitlin and I from Mother Down Under launched our community for Mothers The Kindred Collective.

In July I was announcing that I was pregnant, exhausted and pretty much just hibernating for the winter. 

August was mostly about the Problogger conference and TWO WHOLE NIGHTS to myself and trying to surrender to all the changes of pregnancy all over again.

By September I was feeling good again, finally cooking, sewing and creating again.

October was huge month, with our Kindred event with Nikki from Styling You, and I also finally released my ebook Mothering the Soul out into the world.  October also say Andrew and I celebrating our anniversary and reflecting on how much had changed for the good since last year.

In November I was struggling with how much we still had to do on the house and how little I was still able to do whilst 6 months pregnant and with a toddler in tow.  I was really working hard to choose joy though. It’s a bit of a daily struggle with kids, isn’t it?!

December of course was all about Christmas – bunting, homemade wrapping and optimistically some craft with the toddler.  Life outside of the blog was crazy with manic renovations in the lead up to Christmas.  Then it all stopped as life stepped in to remind us that at the end of the day, none of that stuff matters.

I’m going into 2015 feeling like the word surrender is coming at me from everywhere. Surrendering to my body and the little I am able to do at the moment. Surrendering to what our house is actually like, despite where we’d like it to be. And probably most importantly, surrendering to Motherhood all over again.  {And now that I’ve written that word down so many times in a short space of time, can I tell you that I suddenly hate it?! It looks and sounds strange all of a sudden.  Am I the only one this happens to?}

I was reading something from The Little Sage the other day about how 2015 is a yin or feminine year as opposed to the yang (masculine) energy of last year, and that we really need to embrace the feminine (intuition, softening, working with our natural rhythms rather than pushing).  I think that prediction is pretty spot on for me.  There was a lot of pushing and working hard for me in 2014 and this year I need to slow down and let all of that go, which is a challenge in itself for me as I naturally want to keep going, doing, working, seeing.  Slowing down and surrendering is harder for me to get my head around but I know I’ll only make life harder for myself if I can’t.  So that’s my goal for 2015.  To just surrender to each moment as it comes. I’ll let you know how it goes.

What are you working on in 2015?

* oh and just because I’m surrendering this year doesn’t mean I don’t still have plans and I won’t still be planning.  It just means I’m making them WAY more realistic and I’m taking each day as it comes, not beating myself up if all I achieve in a day is getting dressed.  The planner above can be downloaded for free at The Kindred Collective.