There's Comfort in Routine

which can be good, and not so good.

I realise the comfort I get from routine. That first cuppa in the morning. A game of Wordle with my husband. My house keeping things that happen each day. Letting the chooks out. Turning on the computer. That second cuppa. On it goes.

A break away from it all is a good thing. It helps clear the mind and get some perspective. It makes for a wonderful time of reconnection and an appreciation for all that we have. It’s indulgent, and lovely in so many ways. Inspiration arises from new experiences, places and people. A need for change is often recognised. More about that in a minute.

But oh, that feeling of going home to the hum of life in its ebbs and flows of routine and regularity. Ahhhh, there is sooooo much comfort in that.

At the moment I’m on a train, on our way from Melbourne to home. After 18 days of travelling around beautiful Tasmania I am feeling so very thankful and also extremely tired. Tired from not doing housework, or cooking, or much work at all. Tired from eating out, drinking alcohol, meeting new people, experiencing new places, having limited cups of tea, and being on the go for much of the time.

How on earth can I be feeling so tired?

I’m craving my favourite mug to sip tea from; my own pillows and bedding; the call of those demanding little sheep; the clucking of the chooks; the growth of the garden; even the weeds and lawn; and of course Lew, especially Lew; and getting back to Betty Mae Wrote things. I’m craving my usual routine.

In noticing that, I’ve made some realisations about myself, and the way I’ve been living my life. Let’s just say that there will be a few changes put into place when I get home. One of them is that I need to have some time, each week, with Pete, outside of our usual home life. A simple weekly picnic somewhere in the valley; some cheese and bread and chatter. Not a big change, but one that is really and truly required.

It’s been hard for Pete to get me to leave the house much this year. He hasn’t been pushy, that’s just not in his nature, but it’s taken me a big break away from the usual routine, to see how little energy I’ve been putting into my most important relationship. it requires nothing fancy but it most certainly needs some time.

For someone who often talks of living slowly, and quietly, and being a homebody, and taking the time for the lovely moments, I realise that there is most definitely a need for more balance in that department. Sometimes too much of one thing can be not so helpful.

Taking time away from the humdrum, no matter how slow and quietly lived it is, is something I’ve been avoiding. It feels hard to stare it in the face - realisations tend to work that way, don’t they? But I know that the problem with home is that my work is also there. Not just my business, but home work too - the house, the garden, the animals.

So after a wonderful time in Tassie, I am looking forward to home and routine - oh most definitely I am, but along with that I plan to change things up a little. It is time. I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes, if you like.

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The Summer Days Tea + Toast Club December box

Oooh, it was so exciting to come home to the printed goodies for the next box ready and waiting for me to open. The prints are gorgeous, oh and the card for this Summer Days box is soooooo cuuuuute! I’m loving the stickers too. The peachy tone I’ve used this time around is soft, but it’s most definitely summery and the muted tones of Lew’s drawings go beautifully with it.

There are still some bits and pieces to put together and then this box will be complete. Number six Tea + Toast Club box for the year. Over on Instagram I shared a reel of some of my favourite stationery goodies from each of the five boxes so far. You can sticky beak at that here if you’d like to see it:

For now The Tea + Toast Club is closed for new subscribers. Next year I will re-open the subscription and make some extra spaces available, so if you’ve been wanting in on Tea + Toast, you will get an opportunity in 2025, I promise. Keep your eye on these newsletters because I’ll be sharing all of that gos here first.

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The Lovely Letters Project …

Each month in our Lovely Letters snail mail exchange, I include a letter writing prompt for members to use in their letter writing. For November the prompt was: Who was your first ever pen pal?

I adored my pen pals when I was young. I had lots over the years, and each one I still remember to this day. I had one from Canada, one from England, one from Ireland, one from France, one from the US and a few from Australia. I happened to find some of them when I was going through the old filing cabinet recently, and I was so elated to know that they hadn’t been lost, like I had initially thought. I’ll share some with you one day, because they are so very precious and such a lovely snippet in time. Most of them were written between the ages of about 8 and 16 and so they are smack bang in the 80s! You can imagine the bands we talked about, the clothes, school stuff, friends, oh and of course, scratch n sniff stickers!

If you’d like to join in on our monthly snail mail exchange and get back into the loveliness that is writing and receiving letters, then please always know that you are very welcome to join The Lovely Letters Project. It really is a gorgeous group of letter writing women.

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Dear Nan …

There will be some fresh new content ver in Dear Nan this month. I can’t wait to share it all with subscribers. There will be a letter, or two, a recipe, and some lovely photos of Nan and Grandpa in their early years of marriage. Oh, and of course a new piece of writing paper to download and enjoy.

It was so precious to read that Melissa, a lovely subscriber to Dear Nan (and Tea + Toast, and Lovely Letters!), said she has been using the writing paper to as journal pages for her own writing. Gosh it makes me happy knowing that others are taking the time to write and record their stories. It really and truly does:)

If you haven’t subscribed to Dear Nan but you’d like to check it out, you are more than welcome to use your ‘free read’ option to check it out. There are multiple posts each month, plus a piece of downloadable writing paper in a very Nanna-ish design which I know she would have adored. (A big thank you to Lew for creating the illustrations).

To read the free stuff, you’ll need to make sure you are subscribed to this Betty Mae Wrote newsletter:

If you’d like to jump right in and subscribe to Dear Nan, you can do that here:

Okey doke, well that’s it from me this week. Oh, before I go, I need to say a big thank you to Violet for holding down the fort here while we were away. I think she did a wonderful job with her post cards;)

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