Dum spiro - vivo - While I breath, I live.

Welcome to my blog "Dum spiro - vivo" which is Latin for "While I breath, I live".

 

I learnt Latin in school for 9 years and I like to use it every know and then like for this blog and in naming my dog. His name is Janus and he's a 16 week old Rough Collie puppy. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

Source

Let me tell you a little bit about myself and you will see why I've chosen this name for my blog and why the cute Collie ended up with a strange name.

I'm 40 years old, I'm married to the love of my life, we live in a beautiful house (because we renovated it completely) in a rural area with views over mountain ranges and the only noise we hear is from the wild birds (mainly cockatoos) outside. My husband is retired and I work in town in a job I just started 4 weeks ago but which I actually enjoy. I'm happy. Every morning when I wake up, I can't wait to get out of bed and start my day. Every night, when I go to sleep, I'm looking forward to the next day. I feel content, happy and energised. Sounds great hey?

But it wasn't always like that. Early this year (when I was still 39 lol), I worked 84 hours a week in a job I hated (but which paid extremely well), felt unhappy, dissatisfied, lethargic and depressed. I was doing FiFo (fly in - fly out) work, working 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off. Not a bad roster but still hard. Plus it was on the other side of the continent, so it took me 2 days to get to work and 2 days to come home. Then I needed 3 days to sleep and learn again how to deal with 'normal' people. I didn't like it but the money was great and as my husband loves travelling, the 4 weeks off enabled us to do lots of it!

I've started FiFo in 2010 to get away from a boss who bullied me. I planned to do it for 18 months which was the duration of my contract. Well fast forward to 2016 and I'm still flying over 5000 km to work every month. I was sooo unhappy but I always thought, this wont last forever, just take the money and suck it up. and so I did. I felt always stressed as I had to pack my entire life in those 6 months off - medical appointments, visiting friends and family, travelling, spending time with my loved ones, doing the things I love - I was always trying to fit everything in and it just didn't work which caused me to be frustrated and stressed. There was no flexibility to change my roster or anything, so once at work, I was there - working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 28 days straight. Eating food which was cut and cooked in Perth and then served 2-3 weeks later; feeling tired all the time (no wonder, we started work at 5 am and I had to get up at 3.30 am EVERY morning to get dressed, pick up food for the day and take the bus to work).

Then early this year it was all going to change...

Mr S & I decided to travel around Australia in our caravan. For my husband this has been a long dream; for me it was the right opportunity to get away from all the things I wanted to do but couldn't fit in. I thought while I'm working FiFo, it would be the easiest and really I don't have to do anything at all, so why not. I will dedicate a post about our travels another time. So just a few days in the new year 2016, we hooked up the caravan, rented out our home and off we went. Then it all happened very fast. I lost Hera, my 16-year-old German Shepherd x Kelpie who has been my shadow since she was about 6 weeks old. It broke my heart... Then I lost my Sun Conures (pet parrots) which were supposed to be cared for by our tenants. And then I found out that I was on my last swing meaning that my job would finish in April rather than August. I was in shock. I felt terrible. I lost nearly everything I loved and now I lost my job as well...

After lots of discussions with Mr S and even more tears, we decided that it would be best to continue our trip as planned - especially since I had overseas travel booked (and luckily already paid for) in August for my 40th birthday. And so with no work to go back to, I tried to make the most out of the travel and I really enjoyed it. For about 2 months. Then I got really bored. I wanted something to do. We drove all day to look at things and yes that was amazing but it wasn't satisfying. I missed having a dog, having chooks, gardening, I even missed cleaning. It was winter, the weather was cold and you couldn't spend much time outside so the 2 of us were inside the  caravan a lot. Also it was a comfy van, it wasn't the same as having a bit of space where the two of us could do different things.

We decided that it would be best for me to go back to work once we come back from overseas. And so I ended up back home, in the house I love, working in the garden, getting a puppy and working in a normal job Monday to Friday - with weekends, public holidays and all the pros and cons of living a normal life. And that's how Janus and this blog got their name and I start my life all over again just after I turned 40.