Here goes…!

I remember talking to friend at work a few years ago who said “this year I’m going to start a cooking blog”. I met that comment with a faily blank look and replied ‘cool… sounds fun…’ I’d never really come across blogs at that point in my life and just thought she meant she was going to talk to a bunch of people about cooking online! Boy was I wrong… It wasn’t until moving back to the country and trying to change life a little for the better (and cheaper!) that I actually started paying attention to the online ramblings I was addicted to reading and realised that they too, were other people’s blogs. Fancy that.

So, as a novice blogger… I beg your forgiveness for any boredom that may ensue whilst I get this page up and running and try and make it something interesting to share with that big wide world out there.

I must confess, I have spent the last week changing this and that to the appearance of my blog to try and get some inspiration for where to start. I just couldn’t get the motivation or head space to write anything until it looked the way it needed to for my own inspiration. Funny huh… it’s still nothing much, but the pink theme I had going just wasn’t really doing it for me on the motivation front.

I have always had a love of cooking and by that I mean finding a recipe for something inpiring to go with the ingredients I have on hand and then changing it to the way I love to cook and to the tastes I enjoy. So, I dare say there will be a lot of published adaptations going on here and I welcome anyone to do the same with what I post and then tell me all about how it went! I love to cook, I love food, I love talking about food… I make my workmates laugh sometimes with how excited I get about having lunch, because I cooked it with passion before I came to work! Sad, but true.

My other passion, which has grown and is forever evolving is gardening. More the produce kind of gardening where you actually get a reward rather than just sitting under a pretty tree or smelling the flowers. Don’t get me wrong, I like that sort of gardening, but I LOVE vege gardening. I am no expert in the field, but I love the reward of how quickly after you plant a seedling of something that you like, you reap the rewards that you can eat! I suppose there is an element of wanting the payment (produce) for all your hard work now, which you can get so very quickly with growing your own food that you enjoy, moreso than the invested time it takes growing trees or flowers to create a landscape. How very generation Y of me!

I moved back to my home origins nearly two years ago to be with my sweetheart. I had lived in the city (Melbourne) for 3 years prior to that after finishing my degree and wanting to go and get all the experience that a city career could give. I met some awesome people along the way and learnt a hell of a lot, experience that I still draw on now everyday, but the city was just never quite the lifestyle that I had envisioned for myself and I never felt that I belonged. More that I was just stopping there for a short while. I loved my job, but I didn’t love that it was so damn expensive to live and to get into the property market even on a small scale and to actually have a backyard without the massive mortgage. With that looming over my head, along with the debt that ensues whilst living alone and above your means, something had to give.

So, when the opportunity came to move home, I had to humbly take back all the balking I had done over the time I’d be gone such as ‘there is no way in hell I’d ever move back there, not in a million years!’ etc. etc. and start drawing on the positives. Aside from the friends I’d left behind, which were’nt many by the time I’d come back, as we pretty much all took off on various life changing adventures at the same time, I had my family here and my partner. It was a massive culture shock coming back to live somewhere I never thought I’d be spending my adult years and starting a new job which was so much the same, yet so different in culture. Two years down the track, I barely look back now. It’s amazing how things change the longer you give the dust to settle and how much time is wasted resisting the change that is probably for the better. Hence the title, ‘A change for the better, one step at a time’. This change of scenery has continued to give me just as many challenges as living in the city did, with a 1/3 of the cost and more reward for my efforts.

Hopefully, this is the start of many more exciting things to come! Happy reading.