I have now moved in to my Blue Mountains cottage with its very pretty garden. There is still a lot of organising to do after the big move, but at least all of the boxes are unpacked and the rooms are each generally serving their intended function.

Flowers from my garden.

I feel this is a much-needed fresh start for me in a new place. It remains to be seen how it goes as I settle in and become accustomed to a very different environment to the city.

In the spirit of a time of change I’ve also taken another big step this week, which is to resign from my four day per week job with an organisation I’ve been working for in some capacity for over a decade now. I will be continuing a relationship with them by way of a limited amount of contract work, but this still means I will finally be fully self-employed: something I’ve been working towards for years now.

So it also remains to be seen how that goes! It is a risk, especially given the current economic climate. But I feel that for me the time is right. I very much needed to change how I work and ideally work for fewer hours per week while still bringing in enough income to make ends meet and build a future – something that’s hard to do when working for a tiny non-profit organisation with a huge workload and minimal resources.

As for what I’ll be doing with the freed up time, well there are so many things I could be doing. Every year a myriad of opportunities come my way in relation to my handmade jewellery business as well as the other side of my career – web design and production. Much of the time I’m so busy I struggle to find the time to even get back to people to say I can’t do the work! Hopefully from here on in that will change and I can actually make something of many of these opportunities.

Finally, if you’re interested in seeing my new abode (or at least how it was before I moved in), there are some photographs on my Flickr. Once I feel a bit more sorted out I’ll take some more photos of how it looks now.