feeling very grateful...

I woke about 2am to go to the bathroom and saw Cary up watching the TV. He told me about the earthquake in Chile and that a tsunami was headed for Australia. We still had some time, so he suggested I try and get some more sleep. yeah...that wasn't going to work. I did lay down for 10-15 minutes to focus my mind and get a plan of action going...what to pack first, what things were most important, what things did I just want to take, where we should go etc.

I felt very calm as I packed water, food, tent, blankets, clothes, first aid kit, and a few other bits and pieces. I felt grateful to have a few hours to prepare. When I looked through my clothes, I chose just a couple of favourite things, some of the other things sitting in there I rarely wear and I wonder now about keeping them at all. I have a box of files from different interests I've had over the years - nutrition, raw food, crystals etc. The only two files I wanted to keep were my Reiki and reflexology ones. I think that shows me where I really want to focus my energy. I chose no books, but I did include the journals I've been keeping for the kids since their births and a couple of small photo albums. We could have packed everything into the car, including the bag each that the children had to put their favourite things in.

In the very early morning, as the children were still sleeping, and I was packing, and Cary was keeping me informed of the latest news, it seemed surreal that our world could be vastly different within a few hours. The people in Chile probably had no notice at all.

Cary and I felt the same, that we could have just gone away from all of this, and if it was washed away...then oh well. No attachment. I like that.

We kept a close eye on what the news stations were saying and somewhere around 6am I did fall asleep lightly for about an hour. About 8am, after hearing that there was to be no "wall of water", we drove up to the beach (so we'd have the car just in case "they" got it wrong and we needed a quick get-away). A lot of other people were there looking out...the tide was very high, the waves were fantastic, and there were at least 50 people out surfing!!!!!!! While we were there, we saw the tide come in so far that the water covered the beach. We've kept our packed bags next to the front door, just in case things change, but it does not look like a threat to us...this time.

I do feel grateful for the experience, the close call to show me what's most important, the time to prepare and the calm I felt in doing so. I felt grateful to Cary for keeping watch and making sure the safety of our family was the priority and the fact that as long as we are all together, it will all be ok.

Accepting..

We have a few more days of summer left. Earlier this week it was very warm with really high humidity. The day after, it had turned into the middle of autumn already. A couple of weeks ago I started grieving the end of summer. I felt like we had not been swimming and playing outside as much as I would have liked...partly because of the rain, and partly because of being tied up with business stuff. But I can't change that now.

I found a streak of grey in my hair, and I realised there is a similar lesson. I just need to accept the passing of the season. I still consider myself young, but need to accept that I'm moving into my autumn phase. Fighting it, trying to go against it, is futile. By accepting it, I can move forward, gracefully.

short update

I've got to admit, I'm not really into blogging lately. We've been really enjoying building real life community and our local homeschooling group for 'natural learners' is growing. Yay! The families joining are just amazing!

AJ recently started miniball which is like pre-basketball comp. They do skills and drills for the first half of the session, then they play a non-scoring game for the second half. He loves it!

Summer is still cruising along in summerland. We've been working with a wonderful naturopath to help Summer find balance more often and it's working...she has more energy and seems brighter within herself. She's supposed to stay away from gluten but that has proven to be reallllly difficult so far.

Nicholas is still mr happy / cheeky / crazy guy. That boy has so much joy in him!

Cary is dealing with the red tape to get the 3 campers and 2 boats ready to sell over here. It's taking longer than we thought it would, but hopefully we'll get something sold soon. Cary has also just joined Rotary and is looking forward to being more involved in that.

Our main computer has been out of action for several weeks, and no, I didn't do regular back ups. I know now to do that! Sheesh. Something else to think about. So right now I'm using the kids dinosaur computer which is another reason I haven't been blogging much.

We've had a ton of rain, but that helps everything stay green. Haven't been swimming as much as we would have liked, but we do try to walk along the beach most days, even if we don't swim.

I guess there's a whole lot I could go on about, but don't want to bore y'all. Overall, life is good and we are so blessed.