Sabbatical – Sandy Barker

Catching up with Author Samantha Tonge

May 27, 2020sandybarker

The wonderful Samantha Tonge warmly welcomed me to the writing community when I was a debut author and it is a pleasure to welcome her to my blog for a catch up.

Her latest book The Summer Island Swap is a wonderful way to vicariously travel to a far off destination from the comfort of home. So, let’s find out more.

Tell us what inspired you to write The Summer Island Swap.

My son returned from a conservation volunteering trip in the rainforest and I was fascinated by his stories of the work they did there and the rescued animals. And then I saw a photo of him with a monkey virtually wrapped around his head! I knew, in that instant, that I wanted to write a story about rescue animals and the kind of people who saved their lives.

Although I have to admit, I did also listen to tales of tarantulas and basic showers with horror and thought what fun it would be to drop a character into that environment who was expecting a rather more luxurious type of holiday – cue Sarah!

When did you start writing seriously?

When my youngest started school in 2005. Life had been a bit full-on until then although – corny as it sounds – I always knew that, one day, I would write. I was in my late 30s and it took a while, but I finally got my first publishing deal in 2013.

What do you love most about being an author?

Feedback from readers means EVERYTHING. To know that my work might have cheered someone up means the world. And sometimes my books have inspired people to follow their dreams and move abroad, or get help for a health condition, and finding those things out is extremely special.

What are you working on now?

My Christmas 2020 novel. I’m super-excited about it, even though it’s been extremely challenging to concentrate and write during lockdown. The male protagonist – funnily enough, Sandy! – is from Sydney and I hope readers find him as mesmerising as Jess, the female lead, does.

What do you hope readers will take away from The Summer Island Swap?

It’s a story about following your dreams and letting go of the past and I hope readers perhaps get inspired, in some small way, to do that. I faced 8 years of rejection to get published and it was difficult – and Sarah, the main character of this book, has faced hard times too to fulfil her dream which is to be independent and have her own home and a job she loves. So if readers took something from that, it would be brilliant. But more than that, I learnt a great deal about conservation whilst writing this book and doing so increased my love, even more, of the natural world. I hope readers find that interesting as well. However, having said all of that, what matters most to me is that readers simply enjoy the story and manage to escape from the difficult circumstances we are all facing at the moment.

The Blurb

Sometimes the best holidays are the ones you least expect…

After a long and turbulent year, Sarah is dreaming of the five-star getaway her sister has booked them on. White sands, cocktails, massages, the Caribbean is calling to them.

But the sisters turn up to tatty beaches, basic wooden shacks, a compost toilet and outdoor cold water showers. It turns out that at the last minute Amy decided a conservation project would be much more fun than a luxury resort.

So now Sarah’s battling mosquitoes, trying to stomach fish soup and praying for a swift escape. Life on a desert island though isn’t all doom and gloom. They’re at one with nature, learning about each other and making new friends. And Sarah is distracted by the dishy, yet incredibly moody, island leader she’s sure is hiding a secret.

Buy Links

Amazon UK | Amazon AU | Amazon US | Kobo

Follow Samantha

Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

A Grand Adventure: Sabbatical Life

February 24, 2019sandybarker

Those of you who followed our sabbatical journey will know that we spent most of 2018 living (and often working) abroad. I blogged throughout the year, with posts specifically about the sabbatical at the half-way mark, and then again on the home stretch.

We’ve been back in Australia about six weeks now, and have just moved into our new home in Docklands. As I interview for fulltime work, as I’m about to sign a publishing contract for my first book, and as I unpack and find new homes for our belongings, it’s a good time to reflect on our year of sabbatical life.

The days are long and the weeks go by fast

A dear friend we made in Bali, where we lived for two months, reflected that when she looked back, the weeks seemed to be flying by, but that each day felt full and long.

I can honestly say that this is how I felt for most of the year.

When I am present, when I live the breadth and depth of each day, they seem longer, fuller. I want to carry that feeling with me, to bottle that secret sauce, because it makes life feel more purposeful and I’m more content.

Ubud Bali

Porto Portugal

Sunset in Minnesota by Ben Reierson

A sense of accomplishment

As well as consulting for clients (writing, editing, and review educational materials), I wrote and edited two books. TWO WHOLE BOOKS, each 100,000 words. I wrote 200,000 words – funny, heartfelt narratives set in beautiful locations. I made up people, their lives and their adventures. I created from nothing the things they said and did – well, I borrowed some anecdotes from loved ones, but for the most part, those fictional people came to life in my head.

I worked on building my author platform, engaging with readers and authors from around the world, learning from them, supporting them, befriending them. I’ve made some wonderful literary friends over the past year – people I can contact with questions and requests, people who can rely on me for support and help if they need it. I will champion them and their writing, and they will do the same for me.

I also queried publishers and agents, honing my messaging about me and my books. I am proud and excited to say that I recently got a big fat YES from a UK-based publisher, which I will announce officially once I’ve signed the contract. Because of this sabbatical, my first book is being traditionally published and I will get to hold my book in my hands. The others will hopefully follow (squee!).

Writing by the pool in Bali

With fellow author Lucy from Wales

With my favourite author Lindsey Kelk

Writing with a view of Amsterdam

Feeding my soul

We lived in and visited some beautiful, exciting, and vibrant places. Bali, Portugal, Scotland, Ireland, rural Minnesota, London, the British Midlands, Amsterdam, Seattle, LA, Wales, New Zealand and my home state of Western Australia. Natural beauty, architectural wonders, history, and wildlife in copious doses. Our everyday life was a wonderful cacophony of sights, sounds, smells and tastes that we happily steeped ourselves in.

Walking the streets of Ubud, the sun beating down, the humidity hanging heavy in the air, the heady scent of tropical flowers mixing with petrol fumes and Indonesian spices – this became my idea of heaven.

Spending time with loved ones also fed my soul. Catching up with family and friends in WA, LA, Seattle, Minnesota, the UK, Ireland, and Amsterdam was a highlight. Living with Ben’s family and mine for extended periods of time was something special. Cooking a mid-week meal for people I love is – and has long been – a great pleasure for me. Chatting over that meal, as we recount our days, our mini-triumphs and challenges, heightens that joy.

‘Quality time’ it’s called. We all need that type of time with our loved ones. Even though I’ve lived my adult life ‘away’ from most of my family, I long for those times when I can look across the dinner table and meet the eyes of someone I love dearly but don’t see in person very often. The thing about being a traveller, someone who lives ‘away’ – you always miss someone. It’s the curse of the ex-pat. I had a year of topping up my soul with quality loved-ones time.

Christmas (UK)

Grandma Ellie (MN)

With my Dad (WA)

With my mum (WA)

With my nephew (UK)

With our dear friend, Sinead (Ireland)

And, wonderfully, we made some very dear new friends from across the world.

Secret Beach

Ubud with Lyndall

Dinner out in Ubud

Chicago with Kelly

The things you miss

Things are just things, really. We attach meaning to them. As I unpack boxes and find places for our things in our new home, I know (deep down) they’re just things, but they make me feel at home. Books I’ve loved, souvenirs and artefacts from our travels, family photos, my good knives, my cannisters (yes, really) – these things ‘spark joy’ as Marie Kondo would say. It’s nice to rediscover these things. Do I need them? No, I don’t. I spent the year with my clothes, toiletries and a stack of rectangles (laptop, iPad, Kindle, phone). I can live without things. For now, though, I will especially enjoy them.

I did really missed drawers, though. Like, really, totally, absolutely, completely missed putting my clothes into drawers. Even when we stayed somewhere for weeks or months, we kept our clothes in our packing cubes. Drawers are luxurious. Next time you take an article of clothing out of a drawer, just savour that feeling.

The things you get used to

In Bali, we slathered ourselves in sunscreen and showered several times a day. It was hot and humid and 80% of our time was spent outdoors. My hair looked like wool. And even so, Bali was my favourite place we lived in. I’d live there again in a heartbeat.

I am a creative home cook. In Bali, I cooked with tempeh for the first time and it became a staple. At the lake cabin in Minnesota, I had an electric frying pan and a microwave – that’s it – and I cooked a variety of dishes. In Portugal, it was difficult to get good fresh food – produce, dairy and proteins – but I adapted. In the UK (before and after Portugal), I was cooking for five instead of two, and three of the adults were eating Keto. Spoiled for fresh produce, because you are in the UK, I made giant pots of Keto-friendly stews, red sauces and soups.

I can write anywhere – and did. A sunlounger, a beach, a cafe (many cafes), the kitchen table (in many different kitchens), on planes and trains, and even on a boat. The world was my writing room. I loved it.

Uluwatu

Minnesota

Ubud

My big takeaways

I love Australia. It’s home – Melbourne especially. It’s a terrific city and we have loved ones here. I was happy to come back and I am excited to start the next chapter here.

I would do a sabbatical year again – or create a life where we live abroad for several months every year. There was a time when that thought terrified me – now I think it will become essential to us.

Ben is an incredibly brave, wonderful, supportive, imaginative person. “Why don’t we trade a year of retirement for now,” he said a couple of years ago. I am so grateful he did, but even more so that he gently nudged me to make the commitment. He is my bestie, my partner-in-crime, my travel buddy, my champion, my love. Thank you, Ben, for being all those things and more.

Porto

Ben

The home stretch of sabbatical life

November 30, 2018November 30, 2018sandybarker

In 1979 and 1980, my dad and his then-partner embarked on long-term travel. Their trip included a 3-month drive from Cape Town to Cairo on a giant pink truck with a handful of other travellers, working on a Kibbutz in Israel, and buying a camper van and travelling in the UK and Europe while they picked up intermittent teaching work.

Essentially, they took a sabbatical, only when I think about what they did and when they did it, theirs was quite a bit more bad-ass than ours. Just quietly, my dad is one of my heroes. This is him.

With my sister, Victoria

Dad and Me

We are ten months into a year-long sabbatical, and I recently posted on Facebook that I was having a ‘travel weary’ day, that I knew the funk wouldn’t last, but at that moment, I just wanted to go home.

One friend asked, “Where’s that?” and it was a good question. I have talked a lot this year about home being wherever lay my head (and where Ben is). I replied, “Just Australia.”

My dad’s comment on the post drew on his own long-term travel. “Once you sense the finish line, you just want to go. Hang in there.”

A friend, who last year completed a year’s sabbatical with her husband, posted, “Been there. Sending love.”

I don’t post this to complain.

This year has been brilliant. When Ben and I look back on the last ten months and all we’ve seen, the people we have met and reconnected with, the places we’ve been to, and all we’ve done and accomplished, it brings us a lot of happiness – even some pride.

The Prime Meridian

With my nephew

Ubud

Porto

Seattle USA

Doubtful Sound

At Sunday’s Beach Club

Cliffs of Kerry

Hiking Campuhan Ridge

Sunset in Minnesota by Ben Reierson

But there are two months left, and I do not want to fritter those away by wallowing in homesickness. Ben and I are united in the belief that we are privileged and brave and must make the absolute most of every day for the next two months.

So, with that in mind, we will continue to get out and see Porto and enjoy the beauty and wonder it has to offer us. We will have a brilliant time with our family in the UK over Christmas and New Year. We will add a side trip or two – Wales looks likely, as does a return to London. We will plan out something spectacular for January (our swan song). And I will finish my third novel.

So again, I do not write this to complain, but to share the reality of sabbatical life. Sometimes, you just want to be home.

A desk with a view

November 1, 2018July 20, 2019sandybarker

We have now been on sabbatical for nine months, and during that time Ben and I have both worked for our respective clients and I’ve written, edited and published one novel and I’m about 1/4 of the way through writing the next.

While we’ve also made time to explore the different locations we’ve visited or lived in, our working life is a big part of the sabbatical. This is a test case: can we live and work abroad for extended periods of time? We never know, this could become our new normal.

The kind of work we both do – Ben developing software, and me writing and editing content – means we need to work at desks. But ‘desk’ can be any flat surface. Ben’s current stand-up desk set up is an ironing board and the box the vacuum cleaner came in – yes, really.

Most of the time, we either use the dining table of the place we’re staying at, or we go to coffee shops. The coffee shop thing is tricky. The seats have to comfortable enough to sit on for at least a couple of hours, the WiFi has to be good, the coffee can’t suck, and there needs to be a generally good ‘vibe’.

Our fave spot so far in Porto is the cafe at the Concert Hall, which has great seats, fast WiFi and a buzz of energy from the groups of people who gather there to catch up or to work. The coffee sucks, but 3 out of 4 isn’t bad. The other day, when it was still sunny and warm, we worked in the park at a picnic table for a couple of hours – divine.

At the lake cabin, I’d often sit on the porch in an Adirondack chair (I love these) and write, stealing glances at the lake view from time to time. In Bali, my favourite place to work was on the sunlounger next to the pool.

So here are some of my fave desks with a view from the year so far.

In the park in Porto — At the park in Porto

Looking out the window in Amsterdam — Amsterdam

On the pontoon

Lake view

Writing by the pool in Bali

Our shared work space in ROAM

My fave coffee shop in Bali

Uluwatu

Mid-way through our mid-career sabbatical

August 16, 2018September 11, 2018sandybarker

At the end of 2017, I posted about our 2018 sabbatical. Ben and I embarked at the beginning of February, so last week marked the mid-point of our year of living abroad. In that time, we have visited friends and family, explored new locations, lived life like a local and have worked remotely.

Here are some of my reflections and lessons learned from the mid-point of our sabbatical.

img_20180717_142838 — Exploring northern MN with the Doctor

Home (really is) is a state of mind

Just before we left the US to begin our UK/EU stint, I fell very ill and had to spend a night in hospital. After 40 hours in a hospital gown, my vitals being checked every two hours, and being tethered to an IV stand, all I wanted to do was go home. At that stage in our travels, home was Ben’s grandmother’s house, and when I arrived back there – still, weak, tired, and yet to fully recover – I was ecstatic. I was home.

Home has been various places in our travels. With my bed count for the year sitting at 27 (Ben’s is 26, because he hasn’t sleep in a hospital bed), home really has become a state of mind. That’s not to say that all of those beds felt like home; it means that when we have taken side trips for a few days and returned to our longer-term accommodation, I have had an overwhelming sense of returning home – and that feeling is marvelous.

So, at our mid-way point I continue to subscribe to the ‘wherever I lay my head’ philosophy I posted about here.

mvimg_20180807_175615 — Chicago with our dear friend from Bali days, Kelley

It’s possible to get a lot done while you’re travelling

When we meet new people or catch up with family and friends, we invariably end up discussing the ins and outs of sabbatical life. The most frequent clarification during these conversations is that taking a sabbatical is not ‘being on holiday’ for a year.

Ben and I both have our own companies in Australia and consult for clients – Ben in an ongoing capacity and me on project-based work. There have been many weeks where we’ve worked full-time, or close to it. This type of work suits us both, as we can carve out the time to do it around our larger plans, we can take advantage of coffee-shop WiFi, we both enjoy working in a variety of environments, and – to be frank – it helps fund this year abroad.

Additionally, since we left Melbourne, I have written and published my second novel. And I am soon to start my third! I love writing, I love writing novels, and I love writing ‘on the road’. Plus, each new location, each new friend, each conversation with a loved one, each excursion and adventure could be the kernel of an idea for book #4 – and the ones after that.

img_20180809_200447 — Meeting my favourite author, Lindsey Kelk (Birmingham, UK)

Things are just…things

When we left Bali in May, we left behind many of the things we’d bought to make Bali life a little easier – storage containers, coat hangers, food staples, Costco-sized toiletries. We did the same thing when we left Minnesota, with the addition of some red wine glasses, a life-time supply of sunflower seeds we barely made a dent in, and a yoga mat. We also filled a large bag with summer clothes which we dropped into a charity donation bin. Clothes I previously had ‘loved’ were tossed aside without any remorse.

It’s just stuff – and we’re travelling light.

00100dPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20180813125611947_COVER — With my nephew, Alexander (UK)

It’s going fast

I truly cannot believe we’re half-way. Since leaving Melbourne, we’ve been to New Zealand, two other states in Australia, Bali, three states in the US, and the UK. Next week, we’re off to Ireland and we are starting to firm up our plans for Scotland, Amsterdam, Paris and Portugal.

I know that before we know it, we will be on our way back to Melbourne for Australia Day 2019 (January 26). That date is important, because Ben will be attending a citizenship ceremony to become a fully-fledged, dinky-di Aussie (I am so proud).

The speed with which this year away is rocketing by, means that we must continue to seek out and enjoy the small pleasures. We must continue to take every opportunity to explore, live like a local, see people who are dear to us, meet new friends, and accomplish great things.

Because, ultimately, that’s what this year is about – living life to the fullest.

IMG_20180331_165018 — Secret Beach Day Trip (Bali)

You can go home again

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018sandybarker

View from West Seattle

Downtown Seattle

Queen Anne (by Ben Reierson)

Nearly ten years ago, I moved from Sydney to Seattle. Ben and I had been dating long distance for more than 2 years and we wanted to live on the same continent and in the same city.

Seattle was a big move for both of us – Ben was moving from Minnesota – but we’d visited together before the move and knew we liked it. So, we took the leap and signed a lease, hoping that we could live together as well as we travelled together.

Ben moved several months ahead of me to get us an apartment and to get settled in his new role with the same company. In that time, he also managed to get us a new group of friends.

By the time I arrived in late 2008, Ben had been welcomed into a group of 20- and 30-somethings who had moved to Seattle from around the country, and a couple of people who are Seattle natives (a rare find).

Less than a week after my arrival, a lovely couple, Jeff (from Iowa) and Lauren (from California), threw a ‘Welcome Sandy to Seattle’ party.

I also got a few comments that suggested that some people were surprised that Ben really did have an Australian girlfriend – which made me laugh – but on the whole I was warmly welcomed and immediately felt at home with this incredible group of people, all of whom are still close friends.

Flash forward to May 2018: Ben and I are in Seattle for a couple of weeks before we head to Minnesota for the summer. We’ve both been back since we moved to Australia five years ago, but this is our first time back here together.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing our old stomping ground – what’s changed, what hasn’t – as well as catching up with the many, many people here that we love.

We have family here, Ben’s aunt and uncle, and his cousins who have families of their own. We have friends we made at work, the friends who attended that very first party, and those we know through them. We were very fortunate to have such a wonderful network of people for the four years we lived here.

It’s been important to us to maintain those relationships, even though we’re so far away. And, I’m very glad we have.

Since being back, we’ve met the many children who have been born since we left, tiny versions of our friends who we’ve watched grow up on Facebook, but who initially eye us warily until they warm up to us.

With our friends and family, we’ve caught up on travel adventures, houses sold and bought, health challenges, plans to move out of Seattle, plans to stay put, job changes, political bafflement, and the everyday stuff that we don’t get to talk about unless we’re face to face.

It’s been been brilliant, a top-up for the soul.

Someone back in Australia asked if Seattle feels like home. And it does – but mostly, that’s because of the people, our Seattle peeps.

Don’t (not) look down: walking in Bali

May 3, 2018May 3, 2018sandybarker

We’ve been living in Ubud for 7 weeks now (one week to go before we move to the US). We opted not to get a scooter for the duration of our stay and walking most places has been transport, sight-seeing and exercise. For longer journeys, we’ve grabbed taxis, but according to my FitBit, we’ve clocked up hundreds of thousands of steps in the last two months.

The trickiest thing, though, is that walking here is a precarious endeavour. Obstacles include:

no footpath – you’re essentially walking on the road a lot of the time
stray dogs and dog excrement – even the dogs with owners wander here
offerings to the gods – to be respectful, we must avoid stepping on these
scooters and motorcycles – MANY of them, both driving and parked
giant tour buses, trucks, cars, and taxis – all driving within inches of you as you make your way down the road that doesn’t have a footpath – eeek!
broken footpaths – giant holes, missing tiles, broken bricks, and cracked pavement
streams of unidentifiable water – hopefully it is just water, but you never know 😉
stalls and shops that spill out onto the street
rooster in baskets – they’re fighting roosters 😦 – and random roaming chickens
giant piles of dirt/gravel/bricks used for building – when people are building a home or business or even a wall, often the materials will be dumped by the truckload on the road and footpath – everyone just has to go around it until it’s all used up
random debris/detritus/rubbish
uneven, patch-work paths – including the (running) track along Campuhan Ridge and the pedestrian-only paths

So, here’s my photo series called: Don’t (not) look down!

bollard

view from a taxi

market stall – offerings

morning offerings

detritus

Campuhan Ridge trail

footpath

great parking

cock-a-doodle-don’t

broken

scooter parking

afternoon offering

Living La Vida Local

March 20, 2018March 20, 2018sandybarker

Part of being a digital nomad, rather than being on a year-long vacation, is actually living in the places we are visiting.

We are currently based in Ubud, Bali, staying at ROAM, a co-living space where we have our own room and bathroom and share all living and working spaces with other digital nomads.

When people ask us where we live, we say, “For now, we live here.”

ROAM is about 2kms from central Ubud and the pace here is both peaceful and frantic, depending on what we’re doing and where exactly we are. Last week, on day one, we made the 15 minute walk to the supermarket to stock up our pantry and fridge. Most of the walk looked like this:

Walking to Bintang supermarket

View of Mt Agung

And the last part looked more like this:

Both have their merits – the scenery and many of the Balinese structures are just beautiful – and we are becoming very agile having to side-step precarious footpath hazards, stray dogs, scooters, and chickens as we make our way around the town and its surrounds.

The trip to the supermarket was fantastic. Yes, it is a large store with a good selection, but I am one of those people who finds it fascinating to trawl around a supermarket in a new place, particularly a new country. We spent well over an hour walking the aisles figuring out how to feed ourselves up to three meals a day in a (reasonably) healthy, affordable, somewhat local way.

Living here also means working here.

And this year, ‘work’ means both writing (like this blog post) and working for clients. I am currently mid-project for a US-based client, which will wrap up by the end of the week. Then I will return to writing Book 2 of the Someone series – Chapter 5 awaits!

There are quite a few options for working at ROAM, as the robust WiFi is accessible everywhere. There is an undercover rooftop work space, but for editing work I prefer the quiet and coolness of the little conference room tucked at the back of the property. (Ben likes it too.)

It’s still early days yet for me to figure out my favourite place for writing. Perhaps on our little front porch, on a sun lounger by the pool, in the little conference room, or maybe on the rooftop with the other digital nomads.

Living here also means getting out to see what there is to see.

We started today with a stunning walk along the Campuchan Ridge with two of our fellow Roamies, Yuliana from Ukraine and Nana from Denmark. The walk rises away from a riverside temple and meanders along a ridge with views on either side.

It leads to a little village where there are several resorts and even a little coffee shop, where the coffee was excellent – and cheap!

Ubud Village – end of Campuhan Ridge Trail

Maker:L,Date:2017-9-28,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

Living here also means the day-to-day stuff of life, like doing laundry and cooking meals.

Laundry

Kitchen

But it also means that I can have my morning cup of tea and read my emails with this aspect on our little porch.

We have plans to keep getting out and about – both here in Ubud and further afield in Bali – so we can soak up as much of Bali life as possible. But for now, I feel right at home, and am loving living la vida local.

Take, Chuck or Store?

February 6, 2018February 6, 2018sandybarker

Over the past few weeks and months, Ben and I have been playing our own version of Shoot, Shag or Marry – only with our stuff. We have literally handled and considered every item we own and have asked ourselves, ‘take, chuck or store?’ That’s every darned thing.

When we originally talked about taking this sabbatical, we discussed options at two extremes of the continuum: either get rid of everything and start from scratch when (if) we return, or sublet our apartment fully-furnished.

We opted for something in the middle. We rented a 2m x 3m storage unit for a year, set a moving date and started playing our ‘fun’ new game.

Take

I am proud to say that I have pared back to 5 pairs of shoes – and that includes thongs (flip flops). Those who know me will understand the extent of this miracle. Let’s just say, I have just a touch of Carrie Bradshaw in me. So, what made the cut? Thongs, sneakers, trainers, Birkenstocks, and ballet flats.

I also packed a small pouch with what I call, ‘very useful things‘. These include a small chef’s knife, a stash of zip and twist ties, command hooks (with two-sided tape), a sewing kit, Blue-tac, a portable clothes line, and carabiners. As, I said, very useful things.

Add to the shoes and very useful things, Summer clothes, a collapsible backpack, my stack of technological rectangles (laptop, iPad, Kindle, phone) and chargers, enough underwear for a month, a small stash of my fave (but not expensive) jewelry, and toiletries, and I am good to go!

Chuck

While going through all the things we own, we made the easy decision to off-load the bedside lamps that I’ve never really liked, and the more difficult decision to sell our couch, which was cherry red and made to order. I loved that couch, but am pleased to say it went to a good home.

In the end, we sold off, gave away, donated and binned about 1/2 of what we owned.

Hard rubbish inherited an array of things including my desk, which broke into three pieces when we tried to move it, our well-used and somewhat abused BBQ, our bedside tables which were on their last legs, and every chipped or mismatched cup, plate, bowl, glass and teapot.

We even managed to eat through the bulk of our pantry, fridge and freezer in the weeks leading up to the move, which resulted in weird meals, like Dim Sum with Greek salad. The rest was bagged up and taken to our friend’s house to fill (clog) up their pantry and freezer – thanks (sorry), guys!

Who else has 3 open packets of sesame seeds in their pantry?

Store

Deciding what to put into storage – or rather, what we would pay to store – was perhaps the hardest set of decisions, but we quickly discovered what I will call, ‘the second drawer factor’.

Every kitchen has a second drawer, the drawer filled with random, often costly, utensils and useful kitchen things. Some are used daily, some rarely, but when you’re paying for storage, setting aside 1/3 of a small box for these items is a lot cheaper than replacing them when you next set up house. I’m talking about you, ice-cream scoop, pizza cutter and citrus reamer. The same goes for other small, useful household items and tools. They essentially cost next to nothing to store and a lot to replace all at once.

Clothes were a little trickier. I kept quite a few of my work clothes, mostly because I tend to buy items that don’t date and that I look after. They’ll be great for those 2019 job interviews. We also sent a box of Winter clothes, coats and boots to the UK for the last 1/3 of our trip which will be in cooler or cold weather.

Art, artifacts and memorabilia were a no-brainer. When we travel, we buy souvenirs – paintings, photographs, ceramics, books and such. We also each have a collection of childhood memorabilia. These things will make our new home feel like ours.

Anything else we had room for: When I commenced packing, I started with books. Books are easy to pack; they have uniformity and you can stack them. I was really proud of my first few boxes – so neat, so organised, so easy to label: ‘books’.

By the time I finished packing, my labels read like this: ‘iron/hair diffuser/decorative rock/greeting cards/board game/lamp/place-mats’. It became less about ‘like things together’ and more like a real-life game of packing Tetris. In the end, we had the room, so I started to be less stringent with the culling. If we liked it and if it still worked, it got packed.

Final trip to storage after living in a near-empty apartment for a few days

The (real) lesson

When you start to sort through your stuff, and when you do a complete audit of everything you own, you tend to realise that we exist everyday with far too much stuff. We are each about to travel for a year with only a suitcase, a carry-on and backpack or handbag. No doubt, we will continue to do some ‘chucking’ along the way.

The Devil’s in the Details

January 2, 2018January 2, 2018sandybarker

We are now in the T-minus state of departing Melbourne, and then Australia, for a year. As in, T-minus: 17 days of work left. And T-minus: 33 days until we fly out of Melbourne. And T-minus: several hours until I lose my damned mind.

I woke up at 4am last night (or this morning). I finally drifted off to sleep around 6 – for an hour – and then staggered out of bed at 7. My body is exhausted, but at 4am my brain is doing gymnastics. It’s the details, you see. The details are both exquisite and excruciating.

For example, I decided at around 4:30am, that I should print and laminate a little credit card-sized card that says, ‘Hello, we’re staying at ROAM in Ubud,’ with the address and ‘thank you’ – written in Indonesian, so we can give it to taxi drivers while we’re staying in Bali.

It’s a brilliant idea, I agree. So, I did that today on my lunch break. But, did I really have to come up with it in the middle of the night???

In the past week, I have made multiple messes in our house while clearing things out. For some reason, everything I’m sorting through needs to explode and cover every surface in the entire apartment in order for me to make order from it. I have subsequently thrown out, gifted or sold around 1/3 of what I own. I keep reminding Ben and the cat to move around so I don’t accidentally put them on EBAY.

And the lists! Every time I check something off the ToDo list, I get to enjoy about 30 seconds of satisfaction before my mind starts panicking about the 75 million other things I need to do.

I keep reminding myself that in just over a month, none of this will matter. It will all be done – or it won’t – and I will be on a plane with my carefully-curated luggage tucked safely beneath me in the luggage compartment.

And then, the real adventure begins…

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