Rainy days and Mondays...

Well, it wasn't really rainy, but it was so beautiful and cloudy...

I got up early this morning and walked up the hill, it was a balmy 8 degrees outside, perfect morning walking weather!  I love having time to think, and listen to the thoughts in my head and beyond...

When I got home a hot air balloon was landing in the paddock - it happens around here often...

I live on a working farm right in the middle of Canberra.  It belongs to my father-in-law & mother-in-law, my husband and I live, with our children in the original farm house cottage which fronts the street and backs onto the most beautiful place in the world, "Hillview."

Every day I can look out of my sunroom window and see my father-in-law working up at his shed.  He is a really cool man!  He is a farmer, through and through - but he is also an artist, a philosopher, a strong Christian and the most honest and decent human on the planet!  

I wish this photo captured his wonderful, blue, most honest eyes...

My mother and father-in-law have been always like parents to me, I love them both so dearly.  Sometimes people ask why do we live so close to our parents, and I don't understand how that could be a bad thing.  I don't like the way our society sometimes puts pressure on young adults to move away from their families and be "independent" if you have a loving family, then don't you want to be close to them?

I think I have only been able find my independence as an adult because of the advice, love and support of great people like my parents in law - I think being able to hear advice and learn from others is the definition of adulthood, and the only way to this "independence" people keep talking about.

Shell xx