A Fresh Start :: The Journey Begins With A Nest in the Vines

Have you noticed I've got a new button thingy? -------->>>


Lewi drew it for me. Thanks Lew xx

Finally I’m getting to this post. It’s been a long time coming – growing in my mind as life ticks on and the need for letting go and fresh starts has become really, really obvious. Being the new year and all and as January is already slipping by mighty quickly. Now’s the time ….

So if you’ve spent a little bit of time here you’d know that last year saw us say goodbye to our Purple Nest, the one we created a little over 6 years ago. You may also have found out on the Feather & Nest grapevine aka: my blog posts that we have bought a block of land just outside of town. And the block of land is full of…grapevines!

That’s the story, in a nutshell, told so far but I’ve been busting to set up a little spot where I can continue the Nest creating story and keep track of the journey that unfolds. So, this button well, button of sorts?? – please help me advance my techno skills, my lovely boggy pals…please???  this labelling thing up there on my pages that says: Nest in the Vines, will be my new nest blabbing zone. It’ll be the spot to go to if you want to hear all of the creating and building and planting and planning and developing and dreaming and stressing goings on over at the new block. It will also be the spot to avoid if you get sick of my nesty ramblings – I’m going to get fairly obsessed about the mundane over the next year {you know, things like: rooflines and paint colours and tiles and sinks and old stuff and new stuff and flowers and trees and doors and windows and all of that}. I can feel it in my bones. You may just want to take a wide berth for awhile {unless of course you are like me and enjoy the mundane obsessy nesty stuff}. Though you will be still bombarded with plenty of that in other areas of my blog. Bwahahahahaaaa!

So the new nest will be sitting in the middle of lots and lots of grapevines. 3 acres in fact {give or take a few we’ve taken out along the way – about half, I think}. You’ve probably heard that on the …wait for it….grapevine! Hehehehehe. I’ve been wanting to use that line for months now. So now I have a special little spot to put all of my thoughts and dramas surrounding the new nest. I’m going to call it Nest in the Winery A Nest In The Vineyard Nest Among the Grapevines The Viney Nest The Vine Nest Grapevine Nest Winery Nest The Old Winery Nest The Old Viney Nest The Old Vineyard Nest Grevillea Nest The Springvale Nest Nest in the Vale Nestled in Springvale Nestled in the Vineyard Nestled in a Grapevine The Winos’ Nest
Nest in the Vines ! for now, but I’m not 100% stuck on it.

Will you join me on my Nest In The Vines journey? I so hope you will.

…

Below are some of my rambling thoughts about the new nest so far. I thought I’d start this new little space with some rambling because that is what I do best and also because I don’t really know where else to start. The age old problem of a rambler, me thinks. The Sound of Music is coming to mind.
I’ve been journaling about new nests and grapevines since I first lay eyes on our block of land over 16 months ago now, but I haven’t really had a purpose for those thoughts to be shared here…until now. Now that I really am ready to move on to this next phase of our journey.

Moving on, for me, always calls for some heavy duty recording. So that’s what I’m gunna do. I hope I don’t bore you too much. It’ll be pretty self indulgent, so consider yourself warned! At least it’ll all be cooped up in this little button page up there.

so you don’t have to press on it go there if you really don’t want to {I sooo hope you do, though}. Oh, except that I don’t really know how to set up a proper button thingy so every rambling will first begin it’s life as a blog post. Sorry for those not wanting to participate.

I’m going to start…………..
……
…..

….now!

WARNING!!!!

Very loooooong ramblings up ahead to get you up to date. You were warned.
Let the journey begin!

…

PROLOGUE

So, I'm thinking that it's time to move on now. No, really move on. Move on from the Purple Nest and our life over there.

I thought the moving on bit would naturally happen with the 'moving out' bit. But it didn't. I'm still over there emotionally and it's getting a little bit old. Not the grief bit. That's OK. It's just feelings and of course they are real and valid and blaaaady bla. But the pining and the longing for a home - somewhere to settle and nest, has been far too consuming. More than I thought it would be {and that's saying something, because I'm oh so very aware of my deep and obsessive sentimentality to people and places and memories and things}.

I feel homeless. I’m such a homey person. I always have been. Even when I was a kid I would prefer to hang out at home with my family and my horses. I loved the cosy, comforting feeling of familiar surroundings. My mum was the same.

The rental property is OK. I appreciate all that it offers. But it's not home. The block is lovely and I long to be there and make it home but, well, it's still just a block of land with a lot of grapevines, a lot of work ahead and no nest in sight. There's no water or power connected. There are fences to be built, plants to be planted, land to be scraped {gently!}, vines to be removed, pickets and wire to be cleaned up, holes to be filled, weeds to be dealt with, structures to be established. And I'm excited about all of that. I want to get into the hard work. I want to get my roots planted and watered and fed so that they can grow and embed themselves in that dairy country earth.

Well, I’ve been recording bits and pieces about the block and my nesty plans since I first fell in love with the block, over 12 months ago now. But at the time my heart and thoughts and busyness were Purple Nest bound so I couldn’t really throw myself into it fully because the future was so unknown. So now I think it’s time to start focussing on this new path in our journey. It’s a different path – not so clear. It’s a little narrow and stony and I feel myself wobbling all over the place as I try to make my way around it. But it’s a path, nonetheless, and it’s ours to meander through, trusting that all will be OK.

There are other things in my life that cause me concern. They caused concern in the Purple Nest and they continue to cause concern now. Things that I don’t talk about here and probably won’t. Those things are part of the reason that we had to sell the Purple Nest and they, in their complicated, emotionally draining way, will continue to cloud this path that I walk, probably always. I’m trying to come to terms with it all – to accept my lot. And it’s all OK. I trust in something far, far greater than me and I am so at peace with that. I have my hope in that. So it’s all cool. All good. Moving on is just part and parcel of this lot that is my life. It’s very real, that’s for sure.

It’s exciting too. Exciting to be simplifying things, trying to get to a place where we can live with what we need without frivolous excess. It’s exciting to be challenged with a big budget restraint and a space restraint. This new nest will bring with it quite a few changes to our lives. Living arrangements will change. Relationships will have less blurry edges. I’m excited and relieved about that. My boy will get to have a childhood more similar to mine – he’ll be an out of townie. He’ll be a river rat like we were as kids. He’ll be able to look for blueys and echidnas and birds and bugs until his heart’s content. He’ll have the privacy he craves at times. But he’ll be close enough to civilisation that he’ll be able to see his friends whenever he wants, which he also needs. I’ll have less to clean. That’s got to be a good thing!

So that’s the beginning. The start of the story so far.. I’m going to be churning these next posts out really, really quickly so I can get all up to date and organised with my recordings of Nest in the Vines. I hope I don’t lose you in these next speedy ramblings.

You can read all of the links here, as I publish them: 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Roofline Sagas
Nest Plans
Today I'm Grateful For Wire Cutters
Let The Shed Work Begin
The Birthing Of A Shed
Slab, Tank, Clearing - The Shed Has Begun
The Frames Are Done! A Sheddy Update
Slump
The Outside is Nearly Done
The Race is On!
Lining
Paint and Tears
Our First Night
Princess
Ready Set Go {The Bigger Nest Has Begun!}
Good and Not So Good
A Slab and Some Framing
More Framing and a White Throne
A Roof, Some Plywood, some Windows and Sarking
Tea & Toast Meets Nest in the Vines With A Help Plea
Lock Up
Well Past Lock Up
Paving and Painting
Walls and Ceilings Painted!
My Bedroom Moodboard
More Painting, tiling and Stuff
Mirror and Medicine Cabinet
Kitchen!
 

Kim xx