The title of this post used to be “Lydia Rachel Life Update – March 2018” since I started drafting this in March… then life got a little crazy (again) and surprise! Here we are in June already, time is flying this year, am I right?
The last time I did a post like this was over a year ago and a lot has changed so I thought I better fill you in! If you’re new around here, you can go back and read that post for a little bit of and intro/backstory about me. Following on from that… I moved out of Auckland after over 7 years living there, back home to my parents house in May 2017. This is where I grew up in Waerenga, a small country community in the North Waikato, New Zealand. I had just quit my full-time job (Content Creation for a tertiary institution) in order to pursue my dreams more fully. I love Auckland as a city and it was a tough decision to move, be further away from nearly all my friends, my church and many places I loved. However, I’m not going to lie, the city grind was wearing on me and I needed room to focus on my business + plan for the future.
I’ll be honest in admitting I was a bit embarrassed telling people I was moving home in the beginning. It can feel like a failure, like you’re crawling back to your parents in your mid-twenties because you haven’t “made-it” out on your own. However, I came to learn how common this is for our generation and I knew in my heart it would just be a stepping-stone period for me and not my longterm plan to stay put. I am also super grateful to even have the option to move home and the support of my amazing parents.
Going through life with my friends, I have seen the many different paths people take. Most people go through a “what am I doing with my life?” stage in their twenties. I wouldn’t necessarily say I had a quarter life crisis or anything and many of my goals remained the same, I just had some things stirring in my spirit and I was itching to chase them.
One of these things was travel. I have always loved adventures and have thought about living overseas for a long time. I knew when I moved out of Auckland that this was a major reason for it. To focus on my business, to save, and work towards this. I knew I didn’t want to move overseas until after wedding season so I decided to knuckle down and work to make my dreams into reality.
When I first moved home, honestly I did not have much. Adult life comes with a lot of bills yo, I was stressed and worried about surviving financially and that anxiety is not fun (I’m sure many of you have experienced this at some point). I needed work throughout the year and it was time to hustle!
Within about 6 weeks, and only by God’s grace, some amazing opportunities came along. I started working part time for my church as the Photography Coordinator, contracted a bunch of restaurant and brand shoots which fuelled my foodie love and led to many more amazing shoots. Before I knew it, my days were full and I was commuting to Auckland (about a 1 hour drive) every other day. That has been one downside, I have never racked up so many kilometres on the road in my life as the past year. People often ask if it’s worth it, all the money spent on fuel, and yes, it is still cheaper, sorry Auckland rent prices: you lose!
I am so grateful to have been up to my eyeballs in work and doing brand/food photography throughout the last year has been a blessing as well as igniting a new area of passion for me.
Always squeezing in adventure when I can I escaped on a couple of trips to Australia + Bali at the end of last year (can’t wait to share more from those trips!) and took a few weeks off over Christmas/NY to spend time with family and friends, mainly at the beach, my favourite place to be.
With this full, crazy life, sacrifices have had to be made and unfortunately my blogging dropped at the wayside. Wow, do I have a powerful backlog to share with you?! I have just finished up an incredible NZ wedding season with the most amazing clients. Instagram has been my most up-to-date platform so feel free to follow along there, I have loved sharing more with the stories function in this past year too so let me know if you are enjoying that.
Processed with VSCO on iPhone.
All my hard work and dreams came to fruition when last week I jumped on a plane and moved to London. It’s been a long time coming but I am so happy to finally be here! I have a two year visa and intend to stay out my time here + explore more of Europe while in this neck of the woods. However, I will be back for the New Zealand wedding season from November to March this year. Y’all know I would have this biggest FOMO if I missed out on a Kiwi Summer!
Processed with VSCO on iPhone.
Congrats if you made it this far on this long post, there is a lot more to share and say but we will save that for another time soon! Does anyone else have an exciting adventure planned this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Where is next on your wanderlust list?
xx
The title of this post used to be “Lydia Rachel Life Update – March 2018” since I started drafting this in March… then life got a little crazy (again) and surprise! Here we are in June already, time is flying this year, am I right?
The last time I did a post like this was over a year ago and a lot has changed so I thought I better fill you in! If you’re new around here, you can go back and read that post for a little bit of and intro/backstory about me. Following on from that… I moved out of Auckland after over 7 years living there, back home to my parents house in May 2017. This is where I grew up in Waerenga, a small country community in the North Waikato, New Zealand. I had just quit my full-time job (Content Creation for a tertiary institution) in order to pursue my dreams more fully. I love Auckland as a city and it was a tough decision to move, be further away from nearly all my friends, my church and many places I loved. However, I’m not going to lie, the city grind was wearing on me and I needed room to focus on my business + plan for the future.
I’ll be honest in admitting I was a bit embarrassed telling people I was moving home in the beginning. It can feel like a failure, like you’re crawling back to your parents in your mid-twenties because you haven’t “made-it” out on your own. However, I came to learn how common this is for our generation and I knew in my heart it would just be a stepping-stone period for me and not my longterm plan to stay put. I am also super grateful to even have the option to move home and the support of my amazing parents.
Going through life with my friends, I have seen the many different paths people take. Most people go through a “what am I doing with my life?” stage in their twenties. I wouldn’t necessarily say I had a quarter life crisis or anything and many of my goals remained the same, I just had some things stirring in my spirit and I was itching to chase them.
One of these things was travel. I have always loved adventures and have thought about living overseas for a long time. I knew when I moved out of Auckland that this was a major reason for it. To focus on my business, to save, and work towards this. I knew I didn’t want to move overseas until after wedding season so I decided to knuckle down and work to make my dreams into reality.
When I first moved home, honestly I did not have much. Adult life comes with a lot of bills yo, I was stressed and worried about surviving financially and that anxiety is not fun (I’m sure many of you have experienced this at some point). I needed work throughout the year and it was time to hustle!
Within about 6 weeks, and only by God’s grace, some amazing opportunities came along. I started working part time for my church as the Photography Coordinator, contracted a bunch of restaurant and brand shoots which fuelled my foodie love and led to many more amazing shoots. Before I knew it, my days were full and I was commuting to Auckland (about a 1 hour drive) every other day. That has been one downside, I have never racked up so many kilometres on the road in my life as the past year. People often ask if it’s worth it, all the money spent on fuel, and yes, it is still cheaper, sorry Auckland rent prices: you lose!
I am so grateful to have been up to my eyeballs in work and doing brand/food photography throughout the last year has been a blessing as well as igniting a new area of passion for me.
Always squeezing in adventure when I can I escaped on a couple of trips to Australia + Bali at the end of last year (can’t wait to share more from those trips!) and took a few weeks off over Christmas/NY to spend time with family and friends, mainly at the beach, my favourite place to be.
With this full, crazy life, sacrifices have had to be made and unfortunately my blogging dropped at the wayside. Wow, do I have a powerful backlog to share with you?! I have just finished up an incredible NZ wedding season with the most amazing clients. Instagram has been my most up-to-date platform so feel free to follow along there, I have loved sharing more with the stories function in this past year too so let me know if you are enjoying that.
Processed with VSCO on iPhone.
All my hard work and dreams came to fruition when last week I jumped on a plane and moved to London. It’s been a long time coming but I am so happy to finally be here! I have a two year visa and intend to stay out my time here + explore more of Europe while in this neck of the woods. However, I will be back for the New Zealand wedding season from November to March this year. Y’all know I would have this biggest FOMO if I missed out on a Kiwi Summer!
Processed with VSCO on iPhone.
Congrats if you made it this far on this long post, there is a lot more to share and say but we will save that for another time soon! Does anyone else have an exciting adventure planned this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Where is next on your wanderlust list?
xx
[…] update post, it’s been a while. If you hark back (who says hark anymore?) to my last one (here) you’ll remember I had just moved across the world to London-town. I know many of you will […]