Inferno

... the worst kind of loneliness in the world is the isolation that comes from being misunderstood. It can make people lose their grasp on reality.

Religion

I just thought of searching for Buddhist speeches on TED Talks. Mind blown. Heart aflutter. Perfect medicine for the soul at this moment. Only enough time for one tonight, but here's a taste of the goodness that lies in TED Talks library.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax.html

How.

So, I'm luckily going to get to be back in the retail management side of things and I am a basket of emotions. So completely energized about the endless opportunities available yet completely petrified I will fail or be a disappointment. Obviously these are normal reactions to a new job, but these consume my mind daily! Partially because I can't get it out of my head that those passions and fears will be a part of my wandering mind for quite some time. I suppose, the only way to get around that overwhelming despair is to tackle them head on.

Which I am doing. Partially.

I have been reading endless articles on topics like what makes a strong leader and how to be an effective manager. I mean, I'm not starting tomorrow with a team of 10 employees, but I am obsessed with being an awesome leader/captain, and if I am standing at the gates down that path, I want to come prepared.

One thing I read that discouraged me and is the reason for writing this post, is that just because you were told you were a natural born leader at a younger age, doesn't mean you are capable of effectively leading others as an adult. Most likely you were a bossy student who took control when no one else did.

You guys. That's me.

Start crisis in my head.

I wasn't... well, wait, I mean, I did so much more than that! Right? I cared! And I cheered! And I made the good/hard decisions! And I was told I was a natural leader by some really admirable, leader-like people! I was the president of multiple clubs and organizations! I gathered people together! I got shit done! I am a leader! I'm not that person they are saying has a skewed idea of true leadership because someone told them they were a leader in a past life, right?

You see, I've always dreamed of changing lives through work ethic and customer service. Seriously. Even since being a kid. That's how our family found success and I wanted to pass on that mentality. I believe so much value lies in working hard and being kind, and can be applicable to any part of any life in any profession. I also think there are some really great tools people can use to incorporate those into their life when you may not be a people person. In short, I'm overfilled with compassion and in my own small way, I'd like to put that out there for people to see and perhaps pick it up in their own small way.

How do I do this without being a bossy boss? Or, am I really even a bossy boss? The way I see it, as long as I practice what I preach and provide guidance as we go along, all should work out in the end. I only learn by doing something myself, so I'll start with that. There is certainly an element of training in the beginning, as well as continual coaching (checking in, keeping communication open), but at the end of the day, how will you ever learn to walk on your own if I'm always holding your hand? To me leadership equals empowerment, inspiration, and motivation. Empower through independence, inspire by example, and motivation through recognition and high fives. Obviously. I want to practice compassion to my team because their success is my success. When I coached those kids in track, it all stemmed down to achieving a level of individual success for them. The winning moment was seeing those grinning faces as they set personal records and realized that they could do it. That they did do it! I. LOVE. SEEING. PEOPLE. "WIN".

I'm going to have to work on letting the little things go with handing over certain tasks and having faith that I can trust in them. If I've done my job correctly, of course I can trust them. And in the end it's to my benefit to hand over certain tasks because that will allow me to focus on other things, every growing our little store and making us all feel like bigger and bigger rock stars.

Baby steps. Lets do this.

$200 and lots of other changes.

I just pushed purchase on a set of two tickets to New Zealand. For two hundred bucks. That'll never happen again! Last time I purchased tickets with a NZ destination it cost me more than $2,000 and that was..... 5 years ago? Hot damn. Lucky. In every way. I learned that I am a girl that doesn't have the "let me spend your money for you gene". David gave me his credit card info a few days ago to buy the tickets and I have been sitting here for 3 days unable to punch the numbers in. It took him getting on the phone tonight and repeating that it was okay for me to go through with it, before I could hit "purchase".

What am I even saying? Have you jabbed your eyes out yet? There is just something about spending someone else's money that just... HURTS. I can't do it! Guilt and more guilt. It's not fair? They put the time in to earn that, out of their day that could have been spent doing other things and I don't care if they work to pay for fun later in life - then they should be the ones spending it on the fun! Not me! It's not MINE. And is it just me, or is there an empty hollow feeling when your traveling or buying things on someone else's tab? Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely thrilled to be hopping across the pond and exploring a long loved land, but there is something about not using your own hard earned dollar bills that keep it from meaning MORE. Ugh. I'm stoked, but it doesn't have that same pinge as it did the first time I visited. Because the first time I went it was of my own accord after weeks of 100+ hour work weeks in Nome, Alaska. It was my loneliness of days on end far from friends that was allowing me to explore another part of the world. My own hands, heart, soul, mind and head had put in the time in a less appealing environment and I was exploiting every individual right to relish in my hard efforts. And I did. On my own time in my own way. It was my trip and I fucking loved it. I'm an egotistical bastard at times like this. I love the suffering, the sacrifices that one can subject themselves to in order to reap the benefits later on. It's like, how do you win a race if you don't spend countless hours suffering, huffing, puffing, puking on the track beforehand? Don't all those hours and hardships make that damn trophy even more golden and HUGE? You bet it does.

Anyway, the beauty of this story, is that my own heart, mind and soul have brought me down here despite it all, with this man, in this place where I am able to enjoy a ticket to New Zealand for a few days at rock bottom prices. It may not have been my account #'s I was punching into the payment field, but dammit, it is my hands doing the punching, my body that lies in this bed now, alone and far from home after all that's happened and it's my own gumption, pride, and being, that is happy to be here. I've done it. We've done it. WE ARE DOING IT. But, thank you for the tickets, David. I absolutely can't wait. Truly. And I couldn't think of a better place I'd want to spend those last few days in and with you. Thank you. I feel more a part of your life than ever and it's rad.

I will never be someone with the rich husband that shops and plays tennis. I'd be sick with myself in a matter of months. That lifestyle provides no real value to my life - unless I'm kicking ass at tennis and my tournament winnings paid for my latest downtown splurge. Seriously. It just doesn't sound like any FUN to me. I hope my future holds a joint business with my hubby where I may have more time to commit to things like school boards and town council, but yet allows me to contribute in my own way, investing in the future, taking stock in our life. THAT sounds like the perfect, happy kind of life I'd love. Well, that and endless $200 plane tickets to New Zealand. :)

Dirty Little Devils, Down in Tasmania.

No Tasmanian Devil spottings on this trip but we did see one of these little guys!

A Quoll. A skitterish little creature we spotted jetting across the road in the evening causing two Americans to squeal/yell with excitement because HAVE YOU EVER EVEN HEARD ABOUT ONE OF THESE?! "White with black spots!" "No! Black with white spots!" Thankfully it gave us something to talk about the rest of the drive and even though we have smart phones and could have settled the issue, it was much more fun to debate.

I think this story will be best told with pictures. And the occasional video. Mostly because I'm exhausted and have a few other important things on the mind :) HERE WE GO!

Clockwise was the theme here. Starting down in Hobart and working our way around and back down again! 

A couple weeks ahead of the trip we were spending our nights reading all the Lonely Planets that litter our bookshelves and set about finding what exactly we wanted to see in Taz. I think we pretty much did it all! Minus Port Arthur, but it's close enough to Hobart that if we ever go back we'll be able to skip over there pretty quickly. Not knowing if we'd ever be back there we set an itinerary that everyone told us was too ambitious but we wanted to see it all!

Our plane landed late and we luckily caught the end of Dark Mofo, an event put on by Hobart to get the city buzzing in the dead of winter. It was awesome! First up was this GIANT beam of light shining high into the sky! 10 miles or something, folks! Anyway, rad stuff so we drove the car directly towards it and figured we'd go from there. Totally worth it:

Dark Mofo = rad, small community event, with a lot of tasteful sponsorship. Good stuff, folks.

I'm beginning to wonder what I was thinking putting the entire trip into one post. Le' sigh. I'm now writing for myself at this point! ;) Anyway, off to Chris' parents house (one of David's coworkers, and thank you for the hospitality!) for a chat and rest before kicking off tomorrow.

Our first day we headed to MONA (The Museum of Old and New Art) to get a taste of what everyone was talking about. Some people go to Tasmania JUST for MONA. Seriously, they'll fly into Tasmania in the morning, visit the museum, and then fly home. Nutso. At any rate, a quick 1:30 of some of the neat/weird stuff we saw. The bit at the end was our favorite exhibit :) 

THIS IS A KITTEN. Made into a rug. And that's a man enjoying himself on an indoor trampoline that plays music with every bounce! And what follows is some art.

Where's the Lorax?!

Standing in a dark room looking up into a mirror.

We sell Moo Brew in the bottle shop, and David and I had a DELICIOUS porter of theirs the night before, so when we saw that the brewery was out at MONA, we did our civil duty and had a tasting. YUM. Then I fell in love with an all too expensive cook book and was advised by our server to take photos of my favorite recipes to avoid being sad for never being someone who spends $50 on a cook book. Done and done, thank you sir. And thank you David for your phone :) 

With two breakfasts, a beer tasting and a museum under our belts, we headed out West to begin our tour of Tasmania! The roads are small, just like New Zealand or Montana. Two lanes and WINDY. Not wind, but wind. No whipping currents of air. Just curves in the road that cause you to drive incredible slow making what looks like a 3 hour drive = 5. Anyway, all the sudden we spot these HUGE pipes and decided to follow them to THIS:

See the ones across the canyon as well?! By the time the water in these pipes reaches the bay it has generated power EIGHT times. Awesome stuff! 

I can't believe I'm not out of the car. It was freezing and I was content taking in the scene from my warm pilot's chair. A captain must never abandon his ship!

The sun was hitting the horizon around 4:30 because of the Winter Solstice and luckily we just happened down a small road that led us to Lake St. Claire. Holy hell, we cashed in on some karma here! Either that or I'm just ridiculously good at noticing small roads and deciding to drive down them because David likes water and a sign said something about a lake. Either way, BIG WIN for us! 

We spent the night in Queenstown, rolling in late and finding ourselves in a TINY, old mining town. Talk about hanging on by a thread. You can see how it would be a bustle in the summer, but middle of winter this place was a graveyard. Anyway, next morning we zoomed back up the mountain the way we came because we had a feeling the view would be rad. It was! :) 

Back into town and off again on our way to Cradle Mountain. Only one wrong turn that caused us a 40 minute delay, but the radio was on and we managed to find dried bread and cold bacon sandwiches at a small "cafe" along 200 miles of road. SERIOUSLY. 

Cool mining carts!

Our first Tasmanian mountain range! 

Still on our way to Cradle Mountain and the frost was THICK! You could tell the sun hadn't hit some sections for days causing this man to look like it may as well be a Christmas scene! It's the shirt. :)

We see signs for "Cradle Mountain", but we aren't sure if we see Cradle Mountain...

However, pretty soon, we don't care because we got to see a WOMBAT! 

And then we found Cradle Mountain :) 

It was a wonderful little hike around the lake that borders the mountain and we spent the afternoon toodling around making silly noises and dreaming of bigger mountains :) Nah, it was actually really neat and more than once talked about how lucky we were to be there and how much we missed you guys. So here's a homage TO YOU:

Back in the car on our way to Launceston, a town which turned out to be my favorite of the trip and one of David's as well, we drove through some of the most beautiful countryside not unlike Montana and New Zealand. There seems to be a reoccurring theme there for us :) I wouldn't have minded camping up in this neck of the woods for the remainder of the trip one bit!

After that blimp, we happened across a beautiful gorge that was not unlike the Spokane river and Columbia Gorge all in one. Of course we must hike up it! At the top of the river is a huge swimming hold complete with a suspension bridge and the original gazebo put there by the community way back in the 1800's. All the pictures of the original garden parties are on exhibit there and you can feel yourself step back in time...

Next up, going in to our last full day, we hit Wineglass Bay. Rated in the Top 10 Beaches by CNN, we felt pretty stoked to be there and spent the night in the nearest town just because.

Had a run-in with the local riff raff in the parking lot.... 

That night we cleaned out the snacks in the car with a sunset picnic on the beach and wondering what we were going to do the rest of the night because it was only just 5 o'clock and the town is ASLEEP! 

I'm pooped! It's sort of lame to leave you with nothing for the best part of the trip, but I have got to get some shut eye! We woke up early to make sunrise down at Wineglass Bay and were treated to an amazing moon-set and rad sunrise clouds. The hike down to the beach took about an hour and we spent at least 2 just enjoying ourselves collecting shells, putting our feet in the water and watching the kangaroos hop around. ROUGH! :) 

I touched my first piece of coral. It was awesome! And squishy. Night kids!