Jigsaw

I feel like I'm in the middle of a living jigsaw puzzle. As the preparations for this move come together, the picture looks clearer. The edges are mostly in place and now we are filling in the middle.

We had a yard sale on Saturday which went very well. We sold so much stuff. And it was so easy. I felt a little sentimental when selling a couple of the kids things, but it was really ok. It didn't even bother me to sell the kayaks as I know we'll be getting more. We've booked our load into the freight company and have some paperwork to complete for that as well as finalising what we're taking. I've got some of our luggage packed that we'll be taking with us. We'll be having one more big yard sale on the Saturday before we leave.

I'm getting very tempted to take very little with us. Reducing the obscene amount of stuff we had has been so liberating! How much do we really need? How much stuff does it take to make our house a home? Or is it even the stuff at all? What if we were in a beautiful area with lots of nature to explore? Would we need all that stuff?

I think back to my own childhood. I remember some board games we had that we would play during cold and/or rainy weather. I remember a few of the toys I had. We didn't have tons of stuff. We had a swing set, a pool and miles and miles of bush, a creek, a lake and each other. They were truly the best "stuff" of my childhood.

In the quiet moments..

I have been keeping so busy. I need to be busy right now as there is so much to do. It also helps me to only think about what needs to be done.

But then the quiet moments just before sleep come. Last night I was feeling grief over some of the things we are selling. Some of the kids things. We're taking as much as we can, and their attitude towards releasing things has been amazing. But we just cannot take some of the things that they have really enjoyed due to size or other reasons. I wonder if those things mean more to me as I see the potential for future enjoyment, as well as knowing how much they have liked certain things in the past, whereas they live more for now.

Also in those quiet moments, I do a wing check. I feel like I / we are taking a running leap off a mountain top. Some parts of our plan are as close to specific as we can get without actually being there - such as the area we want to live. My brother is giving us a car which is very nice of him and helps take care of that detail. I have a pretty good idea of what the kids and I will be doing. How will it all be different, and how will it still be the same. How will we change? Will it all be good? What will be compromised as I shake the stagnant compalcency from this life?

My wings are good, I'm ready to fly!

21 days and counting!

We finally made a decision to freight 100 cubic feet of our stuff over to Australia. To calculate this, we have a 4'x4' square on the floor and a mark on the wall at 6' high. We are packing boxes and stacking them densly in this area. When we are finished and satisfied with the things we have chosen to send, we need to do an inventory, seal the boxes and deliver them to a warehouse in Las Vegas. There they will put them on a pallet and freight them by sea to Oz and then deliver them to our door. It feels good to have made this decision and now we can work on selling everything else. I have advertised some of our stuff and am already getting a good response. It's actually been easy to let go of these things. I'm happy with the decision and the amount of stuff we will be taking. It will be nice to have some familiar things around us, as well as new things.

I'm really amazed at how easily Sami and AJ are giving up things. Sami told AJ "they have toys in Australia too". Their attitude towards this makes it all so much easier.

We've got a big yard sale planned for this coming Saturday. In between packing, sorting, planning and keeping 3 children and 1 big kid entertained, life sure is busy at the moment. I'm so excited! I do admit to brief periods of questioning this whole process, such as last weekend when Scooby left our home permanently. Cary took him back to the rescue group where we had gotten him from. They wanted to be the one to find him a new home. It was very sad, but it was necessary. His energy was adding to the chaos in our house which I needed to minimise. That night, I couldn't sleep, thinking about him, worrying if he was ok. I got up and sat in the living room. I picked up a magazine and read for a while. When I went back to bed, I had a very clear dream that Scooby had been placed with a family as a companion for a 7 year old boy who was an only child. In my dream I saw them playing together and I saw Scooby sleeping on the boys bed. I remember many of the details of the childs room. I haven't been remembering any dreams lately and this felt like an angelic message that Scooby was ok. In my mind, I thanked Scooby for the love and lessons he'd brought us in the 8 months that we had him. Later that day, my wise friend Cat reminded me that people and animals play a part in our lives for exactly the length of time that they are meant to. She's so right. I have made some good friends here and good memories. I'm ready to close the chapter and start anew. I know some friends will stay in touch and others will move on to touch others. And that's all ok and good.

Chapter closing

I've done it - I've booked tickets for the children and I to go back to Australia in 4 weeks. It's time. I am so ready. I feel very calm at the moment. My attachment to the physical stuff here reduces every day. Slipping out of this skin was uncomfortable at first, but now it feels like it's sliding off effortlessly.

We still have moving quotes coming in but I'm ready to sell it all and just sea mail over the photos and sentimental things.

I don't think I'll be blogging much for a while. I want to focus on what needs to be done and enjoy this last month here. I want to spend less time on the computer and more time being goofy with my children.

Namaste

Releasing

There is a little girl inside of my heart, skipping around in a spring meadow singing "I'm going home!".

Then there's moments of disbelief and concern about how it's going to feel after being gone for 12.5 years. And concern for Cary and the kids and how they will adjust. Actually, I feel the kids will be fine.

How American have I become? I've gotten used to conveniences like all of the shops available so close, gas half the price it is in Australia, ordering books and supplies online whenever we want them. I've become quite a consumer - is that what I'm teaching my kids? I think they are pretty thrifty as they enjoy going to yard sales and thrift stores, but they also want to get something every single time we go to those places.

I've been thinking about what I want to take to Australia when we go. Our first moving quote came in much higher than we'd imagined. I need to cross some things off the list, but how much?

The snake symbol has been coming to me again lately. I feel like I am about to shed this American skin, and with it a lot of the physical stuff I've accumulated since I've been here. When I do this, I will be able to go forth, with a fresh new skin - a much wiser one, ready for a new beginning.
When I came to this realisation, I felt an actual relaxation in my etheric body and felt my guides high-fiving each other saying "yay, she finally got the point!".

I have been attached to some of my books, but you know what, they have books in Australia too! And everything else we need - it will be provided. Trust.

This whole process - it's so exciting, a little scary, but then I go back to exciting. I am tending to get a little overwhelmed at times thinking of all that needs to be done while also tending to the needs of everyone else in the house.

Deep breath. Do what I can. Trust it will all get done.
The only constant in life is change. Remember that suffering comes not from change itself, but from resistance to that change. Flow with it. It's all good.

Blue Butterfly

That was the name of a movie we watched a couple of days ago. Highly recommended! Great family film. The DVD had an option to choose a G-rated version (no swear words). It is the story of a 10 year old terminally ill boy who wants to go the the South American rainforest to catch a particular blue butterfly.

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Cary came up with a new nickname for Nicholas - "Nuke" (noo-k). It kind of stemmed from Nicolai / Nicky Noo Noo. With the high amount of energy he has and the trail of toys etc he creates, it fits him really well.

No more soy

I went back to the naturopath today. She said my lungs and liver were looking a lot better, but my adrenals were still not where they should be although there was a slight improvement. She checked me for a soy allergy and it came out positive. All of Sami's organs tested high meaning that they were stressed, same with AJ but not quite so high. It turns out they have the soy allergy also. She wants us to stop taking all forms of soy and to go on some homeopathic meds to get rid of the overgrowth of candida we all have in our systems. She also wants us all to go through a thorough allergy testing to see if there is anything else we need to avoid. That's going to make it hard being a vegan. So I'll see how I feel introducing a little dairy back into my diet. It wouldn't be very often. We can have rice or almond milk instead of the soy milk we were drinking. I can make my own ice cream or there is a rice version available at the health food stores. I don't know if there is a non-soy, non-dairy cheese available, I'll have to look, not that I do much cheese.

Did I mention recently that I'm very excited about going back to Australia?~!!!!!

It's coming together....

We have Nico's Australian passport back already. That only took one week from when Cary took it to LA. The embassy in Washington that's handling Cary's Immigration visa should have everything they need now. I've made appointments to have moving companies come to our house to give us quotes on moving our stuff to Australia. And I'm sosooo excited!!!!! It hit me this morning "I'm going home!!".

I am grateful for the home-base that this has been here, and for all of the adventures we've had and friends we've made. But deep in my heart, it's not where I want to be forever. I am grateful that I've been able to spend so much time with my children and I'm grateful to my husband for the lifestyle we've had. I am hoping that he will be able to relax a lot more in Oz, that he will find enough things to keep him entertained and interested. I know my family will make him feel very welcome and I'm sure it won't take him long to get to know a lot of the locals. I hope he grows to love Australia even a tenth of what I do. He's worked so hard for so long, he needs to enjoy some of the good life!

I have tried to 'bloom where I'm planted' and I've been happy here. But now...

I'm going home! I'm going home! I'm going home!

Mr. Walker

Our little Mr. Walker aka Nicolai Noo Noo is proving to have a very independent spirit! He insists on walking around the grocery store with us now - he will not sit in the shopping trolley for very long at all. He likes to help by bringing me things he thinks we should buy. He prefers to walk all on his own too - he does not want to hold anyone's hand.

Last week, he got a couple of little wooden toy cars out of the car basket and was pushing them back and forth on a low table making engine noises. It amazes me that some children do that! AJ did it, Sami did not. Nico likes to imitate noises. He will pick up a telephone and say something that sounds very much like "hello". He babbles a lot as if he's trying to say so much. And noise..wow, you wouldn't believe the volume that comes out of him in his attempt to keep up with Sami and AJ.

He's in the process of switching from two naps a day to one, so that's interesting.

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When I woke up this morning, I felt tired. I was excited because I didn't feel reallllllly tired like I usually do. Recently I went to a naturopath who said my adrenals were exhausted, my liver was full and my lungs had residue tobacco in them. For a week I've been taking homeopathic supplements to work on those three things and I think that maybe they're starting to kick in. I'm going back on Monday for a follow-up and she is going to check Sami and AJ at the same time (for free!) to see if they have any imbalances. When Cary had his medical recently, he was told that he was in great shape. But I would like him to go to this naturopath to have a deeper look and make sure he gets to his 50th birthday in December, as fit and healthy as possible.

I am so excited about going to Australia!!!