shifting stuff...

I feel like I've spent the last couple of months just moving stuff around.  Physical 'stuff'.  We're packing and moving back to the USA...hang on, let's stay here a bit longer...let's go on the road now...let's wait...argh!  Breathing deeply...
I don't know where we'll be in six months, but I do know that we are right here right now.

We've moved stuff around in the house, we've gotten rid of stuff, we've packed things up to go into storage, and we've taken some of those things back out again so that we can use them.  It feels as though a lot of my extra time that isn't busy with taking care of the family, or going to the gym, has been spent shifting stuff around.  (Actually I have been taking a little time out to draw or watch a movie or read a couple of paragraphs of a book.)

I think I'm almost finished shifting stuff, for now anyway.   I'm at a point where I'm sorting through papers.   I have a file box full of paper...it just look like nothing, but written on all of those papers are hundreds of quotes I've been collecting since I was a teenager, ideas I've had for businesses, personal goals, breakthroughs, interesting articles that I thought I might use to put on some of the websites I've never built.  I've had a brief look through some of it, but it's brought up some other stuff inside of me that I guess I'm meant to shift.

I've been thinking about time lost and if it's possible to re-live good things in our life.  I heard a song that I remember hearing as a young teen.  I remember listening to that, longing to be older and 'free' and being out there, living my own life.  When I heard that same song today, I had a slight longing to be younger again, with so much excitement ahead.  Are we ever satisfied? (I know..that's the ego.)  I often think of the year we spent on the road.  It was so wonderful for so many reasons!  But could I capture that again?  It would be different now...Summer is a teenager, a young woman and loves having her own space, AJ is fast approaching puberty and is loving his tae kwon do classes, Nicholas is wild and outgoing and loves spreading his lego out all over the floor.  Are we ever able to relive those special times of our life?  Should we?  Or do we just cross them off the bucket list?

So the box of papers I have that is filled with my past, the longings I had for my future...what to do?  Do they still have any meaning?  Would I actually use them for something or look at them if I lived another 50 years?  Or 20?  What if I only had 2 years left?  Would I be worried about scraps of paper?  Do those quotes and things still have any meaning or are they like the school work that I have collected while designing my very own curriculum on this journey?  They have been stepping stones to help me become who I am today. 
A part of me wants to read every single thing.  To get swept up in reminiscing, to see what I still find inspiring.  Another part of me is ready to just let it all go.  To burn it all and release it to the Universe.  To move into greater acceptance of Who and Where I Am right now.  Will I really do that?  Hmm, I imagine it could be very liberating. 

sandcastles...

I haven't been blogging due to:
a)   finally some decent summer weather and lots of play time at the beach or creek;
b)  a surprise visit from my sister and niece;

c)  reaching saturation point from packing and sorting and putting everything related to such tasks on hold in favour of more playtime;

d)  painfully slow internet service;
e)  all of the above.

If you guessed e), give yourself 100 points for whatever you want!


I will get around to downloading photos still hibernating in different devices for the past 4+ weeks, but in the meantime, check out the sandcastle below!

                                                                                                        and this knight..

 

Here AJ is standing next to the knight sculpture, the castle next to it was made the day before and is half washed away.  The man that does these spends a week at a holiday apartment on the beachfront every year and spends every day building a new sculpture.  The conditions were not great this year due to so much rain, so I only saw these two done.

Washed up on the beach:

In other news, Summer and I have joined the local pool / gym.  My home fitness plan has not been as effective as I would have liked.  I am really stoked about getting back into a gym!  We've already been just to swim laps, but this coming week we're going to hit the weight room and a bunch of different classes as well.   I stopped working as a Personal fitness trainer when I was pregnant with Summer and for 12 years my 'gym' was the 24/7 of lifting and carrying babies and little children, pushing strollers, piggybacks and all of the busy-ness that goes with life with young children.  I am definitely in a different phase of my mothering career now.  One that isn't so physically demanding.  I need that though - I love having a strong body and challenging myself to push it a little more.  I'm really looking forward to moving the weights and feeling my muscles come back to life.  Like sculpting a beautiful sandcastle.  I know it will take time, and I know that if I don't pay attention to it, it will slip away again.  But the creation is going to be so fun!