How everything changed.

My unexpected journey...

INSIDE: a few exciting announcements, a newcomer to welcome + how I started on my journey that brought me to where I am today…

And… I have a few exciting announcements to make!

I've been receiving so many fantastic questions from you all. To make sure I don’t miss the best ones, I’ll be answering them right here in Fiber Friday.

So, keep those questions coming!

I’m also delighted to introduce my new personal assistant,

Zachary Kai

.

He’ll be helping me with everything at Yarn Bay.

For questions you’d like me to answer, or if you need to get in touch, please email Zachary Kai at support@yarnbay.org.

A question many people have been asking me is about how I came to travel overseas with my family, including

Tashay Green-Meeks

, who asked:

Some day I’d love to know more about the places you’ve lived! I believe I’ve gathered Thailand, Spain, and Australia thus far. What brought you to those places?

So, I’d like to introduce…

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Frustrated Teacher Quits In Disgust, Sells The Farm, Moves The Family Halfway Across The World And… Starts Knitting

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Part One

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If you'd told my younger self this is where I'd be in my 50s, she wouldn't have believed you.

I’d worked so hard for my dream job as a Food Technology high school teacher, only to find it wasn’t what I wanted. 

How did I get here?

It started out well enough... 

After years in hospitality and working as a trainer and assessor, I knew I could make a bigger impact. I’m a nurturer at heart, and I thought I was destined for a career in teaching.

When I discovered I could become a food-technology teacher, everything felt right. 

Getting the chance to use my passion for cooking to help kids learn valuable skills, pass on what my Mama (grandmother) taught me, and be paid to do what I adore?

Yes please!

Mama taught me to cook and put care into every dish. We’d work together to prepare seasonal recipes using ingredients from her vegetable garden, which I also loved to help her with. 

I so enjoyed spending time with her when I was growing up. Helping her make herb-and-cheese scones was such fun, especially when the kitchen started to smell of baking! 

We’d also make bottles of minted lemon cordial, stewed fruits, and Damson Plum jam.

As a multi-talented woman, Mama also taught me to sew, knit, and crochet. 😊

I’ve carried the lessons I learned in her kitchen and garden throughout my life.

My husband and I had moved from the city to the country to help my parents-in-law with their vineyard. 

We had a 65-acre farm, and we loved how our kids played outside underneath the many trees we planted and were surrounded by natural bush and wildlife.

Tiny Fairy Wrens, Magpies, Purple-Hooded Parrots, Stumpy-Tail Lizards, and Kangaroos were regular visitors.

We loved seeing the younger kangaroos burn off their breakfast by doing laps of our front lawn on the farm.

One of my favorite parts of the property was our orchard.

We had citrus trees, mulberries that’d melt in your mouth, unique hybrid fruits like peacherines, lemonades, and plumcots, and more peaches than we knew what to do with! 

My favorites were the beautiful big quinces we’d stew, the figs we’d dry, and the blood red plums with green skin.

I loved cooking these Quinces as they turned a bright ruby red when stewed in a sugar syrup for hours.

Eating these figs dry was wonderful, but fresh, straight off the tree, with blue cheese or camembert? Delicious!

Alongside all the grapes and fruit trees, we had asparagus, chickens, a big veggie garden, and two huge avocado and mango trees.

We also had one red and two black-and-tan Australian Kelpie dogs who I carefully instructed to keep watch over everything… 

This is the red kelpie, older than the two black-and-tan kelpies who were brothers. He kept watch over the younger ones and was such a sweet dog.

But they were more interested in eating the grapes! 

Of course, the dogs’ favorite time of year was harvest time… 😉

They also had a particular fondness for avocados, skin and all. Our kelpies would pull the low-hanging peaches off the tree when I wasn’t looking. 🤭

So I had plenty of practical knowledge and experience I knew would be helpful as a Food Technology teacher.

The only thing I needed now was… 

My Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education.

I got accepted into La Trobe University, and studied as hard as I could between working on the farm and my full-time trainer and assessor job. 

Even being pregnant with my first child didn’t stop me!

Between sleepless nights and his playtime, I feverishly finished my assignments on my ancient desktop computer. 

My goal was in sight!

So... all my hard work paid off. 

Picture me in my graduation gown, my firstborn in my arm, holding my Graduate Diploma in the other…

With the great impressions I’d made in my teaching placements, I soon got a Food Technology teaching position at a local high school.

Hooray!

It was all I’d hoped for, except... Perhaps not?

Find out more in Part Two here… 😉

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And another question for you: what did your role model teach you?

Press reply or leave a comment!

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