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It's raining, It's pouring

I haven't been writing as many blog posts in my head lately. I used to often think of how I'd share an experience or an update and what words I would use - usually I didn't remember them exactly by the time I got to writing but I was thinking of it a lot. But as we get more and more embedded in our lives here, it feels like the updates are a lot more mundane!

Also I think my head has been very full this year and there hasn't been room for pondering my posts here. It's been a very up-and-down journey trying to get the right balance with my business. My tendency to say yes a lot and to want to help a lot had my weeks extremely full. Too full and even though I've been open to sub-contracting some of my work, it's been tough finding the right person or people to work with so I haven't been able to offload much.

So last month I made a conscious effort to scale back my work days and have had mixed results in sticking with it but I'm not really accepting any new clients so I'm just trying to focus on what I have on my plate and trying not to add much more. (Even though there's going to be a TEDx event here next year that I'd love to be involved in organising...)

I never really thought I suffered from "shiny-things-syndrome" but looking at where I put my time last year sure was a multitude of things and events. So, I'm not a Zumba instructor anymore (I'm still attending classes though!) and I've decided not to renew my license for the Desire Map facilitation. So it's just Assistia clients and a select few events (the twice-yearly clothes swap and the monthly dance dance party party events I run). I have a couple other ideas of things I'd like to get started in the community but will approach them with a less "yes yes yes" mentality.

So, we've actually been hibernating a fair bit over weekends and evenings these last couple months. Partly because I my iron is low so energy has been slow and as mentioned, my work has been taking a lot of it!

Dustin has wrapped up his contract with the department of conservation as of last week. He's taken on a small building project to build a deck for a guy who lives nearby that he's done some building for in the past. And some torrential rainfalls this weekend have highlighted that there's some work needed on our roof! It's technically leaking so time to consider replacing it but with that brings a chance to re-pitch the roofing on the back patio and back bedroom (which were an add-on in the 70s) so if we decide to risk a winter roof replacement then he'll have lots to keep active with while he waits for a new contract.

He had a few nights away for work to complete some tasks at a few huts before his contract was up. There were a few of 2-3 nights - some they were flown in and others they walked in. One was deep in the mountains - somewhere in the large green circle - I don't actually know where:


And we're about a month away from having some Canadian visitors! Dustin's mom, sister and sister's friend are headed our way. They start in the Cook Islands, head to the South Island and then arrive in New Plymouth. They have all visited NP before so it'll be awesome for them to see some other places - not to mention the South Island is absolutely stunning in the winter. Dustin's going to meet them down in Queenstown for a few nights and he comes back a couple days before they are due in town.

So hopefully the weather holds up ok for their visit! The Taranaki rugby season kicks off the night before they fly out so we plan to catch a match with them. After the All Blacks and Lions series ended in a draw last night, we're ready for some wins!!

It's been quite a sunny winter but definitely chilly enough to put Porter's sweater on him one morning walk! Dustin has even been in shorts at t-shirt at work more than once within the last few weeks.





I decided to practice my sewing and actually use a pattern to create some projects over the rainier weather. So my first project was a new bed for Porter which he seems to enjoy...



Dustin's still brew, brew, brewing away. He's made a couple that are less hoppy for our August guests! And there's a couple friends who are wanting to learn more about brewing so he's had many guest-brewers come along recently.







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