in two minds and two hemispheres

And two or three continents. Living in Melbourne, Australia and writing for publication in the USA and Europe keeps me on my toes. How often I wish I could be in two places at one time!!

Instead I am online working in two different hemispheres at the same time. It is Thursday here and Wednesday in Illinois.

I am living in two time zones – always mentally changing two or more clocks.

7.30 am here . 2.30 pm there.

Following two weather patterns from different hemispheres.

Illinois. USA

Victoria, AUS

In two minds all the time. And soon I will switch back again. Monday at noon I will leave Melbourne and travel for just under 24 hours then arrive in Chicago on Monday night of the same day. If all goes well. It looks like snow so in the interests of safety I might stay the night in Chicago and travel down into the country on Tuesday morning.

I like it. I like to travel. It keeps my mind solidly busy as I juggle the timelines in my head so I don’t lose anybody.

And I can’t be in two places at once.

I will be back here (in Aus) in a few months.

The big news.

The game changer is: My daughter is pregnant and we have decided that I will be her support person for the foreseeable future. It is very, very tough to raise a child alone. I know this well. I did not have a mother to support me when I was raising kids alone. So it is terribly important to me to remain a real involved mother to my own grown up children and their children. My journey as a young Mum was rocky due to lack of support. It was dangerously tough.

My daughter and I live together well. We are both calm people. We both love to walk. We both love to cook and eat fresh food. We both love to read. We are excited in a gentle kind of way. She will be a great Mum. And I will be Granny Nanny.

Baby is due late May early June.

And I have travel out this way booked for March anyway, so those fares are covered. I will be back to Australia by April for a number of months.

My real work will begin when she goes back to work. That will be early next year. But I will be here for the delivery and baby’s early months too. Tiny babies are a lot of work and I am here for all of it. I do babies very well. And am totally confident. My daughter will get good maternity leave so I will just be another soul in the house to help with the insanity that is a noisy baby. Another pair of hands. A shoulder. Someone to hand baby off to when it all gets a bit much. Though I do not doubt that she will do marvelously in this new chapter as she welcomes a mini human into her life.

And then after another period back on the farm I will be back to be Nanny.

For you this means I will be off the farm for longer periods of time. (Thank goodness we have Rhonda and her kids and John and his kids to help on the farm).

The Compact Kitchens Garden and the writing of the little ebooks will come into play. I will also be recording more books and you all will be along for the ride.

The journey of a Granny Nanny will be very real. In fact I will get out my Nanny writings (I was a Nanny in the UK for a few years before going to the US) so it will be a great opportunity to finish writing that book and publish it along with the rest.

John is very supportive of me helping my daughter as we believe that for a woman to have a choice whether to have baby or not; she needs real choices. And support – real support – should be one of those choices.

She has a good job with excellent maternity leave but no family in the country – so I am stepping up.

Once baby becomes an older toddler we will look at child care but until then – mums the word.

Things change all the time. We are with changes – you and I. We are water. Edging on here and there.

And I will get back to the farm as often as I can. But that sadly does depend on funding so I will need to work hard at getting more paid subscribers at SubStack. Maybe I will walk dogs!

We are still being low key about this new job of mine, as Granny Nanny, but you have all been with me for such a long time – I wanted to tell you – you are my own network of support and I am happy for you to know. We just needed a few more pieces to fall into place. But I am also superstitious about announcements so let’s just wait and see how things go. So far, so good.

It is a huge change for all involved not least of all my daughter. She has my complete support. There was no question about that.

Have a great day.

Celi

PS It’s a boy!! 😀