Journaling in July Day 15-20

My blogging friend Sue from SizzlingTowards 60 & Beyond has put out the challenge to bloggers to join in her Journaling in July Challenge challenge. Sue is not a genealogy or family history blogger. Her blog focuses on lifestyle issues at they relate to the midlife experience.  I mainly follow lifestyle bloggers on my other blog Next Phase In Fitness & Life . However I plan to join Sue in the July Challenge on this blog, as I feel their prompts will help to build up a story about myself that will be useful in creating my family story. As I look at the prompts, and how they apply to me and my life, I can see that some will be short posts and others much longer, some posts may even be just bullet points. I’d love you to take a look at Sue’s post for further information about the challenge.

Here in Central Victoria, July is usually one of the coldest months of winter, so as I will probably be spending more time indoors than usual, I plan to spend extra hours on my blogs. This challenge fits in perfectly with that plan.

Message from Sue: Here is the list of topics and I do hope that you will have some fun and enjoy this ‘challenge’ for July. Remember NO PRESSURE, some days you may find inspiration from the prompt and want to write and other days you won’t. I would also love to hear your feedback and perhaps you have some topics you could add to the list going forward.

Day 15: View from my Window

This is the view from the window of my home gym. It’s situated quite close to the house, so it would also be the view from inside the house. What occurs to me most, when I look at this photo, is how dry the trees look, even though we’ve had quite a bit of rain. I spend time every day looking out this window as I spend time on either the cross trainer of my spin bike. We are surrounded by iron bark trees such as these. To me, they are very beautiful. I never tire of looking at them. Also, when I took this photo today, I was amazed at how blue the sky was. At the moment, in the depths of winter, it’s usually a cloudy sky that we see.

Day 16: My Family

My three children, many years ago, at what I think of as the best time of our lives (from left) Lisa Steven and Craig

My son Steven with my grandchildren (from left) Hudson, Jake and Lucas

Day 17: What Makes Me Laugh

A night out with my girlfriends always makes me laugh…and laugh…and laugh. We are all very busy in our diverse lives but we try to make sure we get together about every month.

There are many differences between us, but we also have much in common. Our ages range over a couple of decades, with me being the oldest, but that doesn’t seem to matter at all when we get together.

I’ve had many friends in my life, but this group of girls is so very special to me.

Day 18: My Favourite Way to Relax

This is easy. My favourite way to relax would be to have the luxury of a large chunk of time to read. I look forward to the time when I can spend more time reading, but I suspect that is a long time off yet. At the moment, I do my reading at night. I watch very little TV or movies, as I’d rather spend that precious spare time in reading. I also enjoy blogging about reading. Here’s the link to my book blog:  Best Bookish Blog

Day 19: My Home

We live on 20 acres alongside the Bendigo National Park. Our house is very modest but to me it’s perfect. We are ‘off the grid’ which means that there is no electricity connected to our house. We have stand alone solar power only, with a bank of batteries to store the power. Our water is from rainwater tanks and dams for the garden. This type of life may sound austere to some, but we don’t find it at all uncomfortable. It just means that we have to give a little thought to the power and water that we use. Contrary to what most people think about off the grid living, we have most mod cons in our house. This lifestyle can be a little challenging at times, but it’s definitely worth it. I have a large garden which I love. Actually, I’m more interested in the garden than I am in the house.

Day 20: My ancestry

I had my DNA tested a few years ago. When the results came back there were no surprises really. Below is the ethnicity report  that shows how my ancestry shows up in my DNA.