It's the twenty seventh day of the year and I'm sitting here with an anxious feeling in my tummy that won't go away. These photos don't really have anything to do with my anxious feeling except that when I look at them they tell the story of a simple life and my anxiety is that I'm about to lose all of that. I feel like our family potato picking days are numbered. That things are about to get crazy.

From next Tuesday my two big girls will start going to a school that is 50 minutes drive away from here. That's 50 minutes drive one way, which means that if I take them in in the morning and come home in between, that's four hours of my day spent in the car. Unfortunately from what we can work out none of the public transport available works.

I am incredibly lucky because my farmer boy and my parents are going to share the load. And without a doubt the driving is worth it because the school they are going to go to is going to be incredible, but still. Our life as a family is going to change. Our farm life is going to change. And Miss Pepper who will still go to school in Daylesford, her life is going to change too.

The other day at spinning group an older woman told me to embrace this change. To enjoy the challenges and opportunities that this new stage in life brings. She said that although it feels enormous to me now, that time will fly and soon we'll be in a different phase. My farmer boy keeps quoting her back at me. He likes Charlotte's way of thinking.

And I am trying. Another woman I met told me about the knitting group that runs in a nearby town on Tuesday mornings and then invited me back to her house afterwards each week for a private spinning class. I could also spend time in a local library writing my blog or notes I have for a book. I can think of loads of ways to pass the time if I stay for the school day so there's less driving, but then I'm away from here. And if I'm away from here then less farming will get done, less house stuff and cooking will get done, I'll spend less time with Pepper and in our community and with Bren. And if he does it then he'll miss out on all of that and me.

Not to mention the girls whose lives will shift. Home will remain here but their friends will all live further away and so their social lives will move further away too.

Mostly I feel positive and optimistic about what's to come. This school feels like an opportunity we cannot pass up. I sat through speeches by the principal, head of campus and teachers yesterday with tears in my eyes. This is going to be a really wonderful place to learn and I feel like it'll provide our girls with the best education we could hope for for them.

But things are definitely going to change, and part of me misses the simplicity and slowness and ease of now already.


xx