One more month...

Somehow, it's all coming together.  It always does.  The apparent chaos is taking a little more order and the process is unfolding in a natural way.  I don't do 'to-do' lists like I used to.  Most of the work required here is obvious, I don't need to write it down to remind me.  I no longer need that satisfaction of 'crossing things off the list'.  I do write down the things that I may not remember, so my to-do lists these days are very short, if at all.

I'm slowly emptying cupboards and I have boxes stacked in sections to either go to storage, go to the camper, or to be sold.  I'm really impressed with how much Nicholas has released.  He is very sure of his decisions and is looking forward to making "lots of money" selling off the things he has finished with.  The storage and camper piles are neatly inside of the house.  The sell stuff is randomly placed on the back patio.  When I have finished inside the house, I need to go through that and organise it and donate some of it.

Summer has also released a lot of things, mainly clothes.  She loves clothes and has been loving experimenting with different styles and themes, well, she's been doing that from the time she could dress herself!  She has decided that she wants all of her clothes to be "earthy", so out with the hot pink hair, and the bright blue poncho!  If the clothes aren't earthy or hippy, they were gone!  She has been slowly giving away some of her childhood toys over the last year.  When other children would come over, she often offered them things she thought they would like. 

I think our children have been to enough yard sales and op-shops to know that there is an abundance of toys and clothes in the world, and at really good prices too!  AJ has some really cool toys and gadgets and books.  He has always loved books about real things.  Even when he was one year old, he preferred looking at books of the internal workings of an airplane, and books with real photos of animal (not drawings).  He's not into reading novels, but he will read fact books all day.  He loves doing word puzzles with me (we're currently into an iPhone app called '7 Little Words').  He will listen to me reading a story, and he will read stories to Nicholas, but not usually for himself.  With the exception of the Usborne puzzle adventure stories, where you have lots of clues and have to figure out the puzzle within the story.  He also loves tech stuff and is longing to have his own computer. 

It's the first day of winter here...a cool, rainy day.  A good soup day!  In one month, we will be living in our camper, all of the 'stuff' in the house will be sorted and we will have closed the front door for the last time.  One more month.  The children are all very excited, as am I.  I feel very calm within at the moment.  I know there is a lot to do in the month ahead, including a birthday to celebrate for a very excited little man, and it's all going to be great...it already is!

Ahhhh...freak out!

The house we are renting was just put on the market for sale.  As we didn't know what we were doing (whether or not we were moving within Australia or overseas), we chose to go on a weekly lease rather than sign up for another 6 or 12 months when our last lease expired.  When we heard about the house going up for sale, we took it as a sign that we actually do need to move and we'd better figure out what we really want to do.  I was detached and felt light and as though everything would fall into place exactly as it was meant to.  It always does. 

Yesterday (Saturday), I was awake early, went out to the farmer's market, chatted with a bunch of  people, and felt very content.  I was feeling full of gratitude for the wonderful friends we had spent Friday evening with, and the friends in our Natural Learner's group that we had spent Thursday with, and some other friends we have planned a family sleepover with, and my heart felt fuller as I thought about our wider circle of friends that we've made through homeschooling and the New Thought center.  I am so abundant!

I went home, made a big pot of pumpkin soup, tidied the house and thought about the first Open House that was planned for that afternoon.  "It's raining - probably nobody will come", "the market is down, it will probably take months to sell", and similar thoughts.  AJ was concerned about strangers coming through the house, maybe touching his things, but he was more concerned about Gypsy getting out and he opted to stay outside with her for the 30 minutes of the open house  He had asked Nicholas to stay in their room to keep an eye on their things. (Nicholas didn't though - he made friends with one of the children that came through and they ran around in the yard together.)  I was looking forward to the open house being done, and hanging out with friends to watch a movie and enjoy the soup.

I had a practical and detached view of being in this house and was thinking that we would be here for months.  I was not prepared for the emotions that came full steam to the forefront when 30 strangers came through my home.  When I heard the estate agent telling a prospective buyer that the owner wants the house sold by 5th April, I had a little panic.  As soon as everyone left, I broke out in tears.  Then I left the house and took Gypsy for a walk.  I thought about what was really going on inside of me:

- I'm not attached to the actual house, but I do love the life we have here. 

- I don't want to move now, but we're going to have to.  The house has been priced low enough that it should attract a quick sale. (maybe?)

- I don't know where we will go, Cary is leaving next month and may be gone for months.   If I can turn the slight panic of uncertainty into adventure, I'll move through it with excitement rather than dread.  It's a choice.

- I felt somewhat powerless when all of those people were in the house.  I didn't want them there, but as it's not my house, and we didn't sign a lease, it was a gamble we took. 

- I really don't like feeling powerless!

- The most important thing is that we as a family are together, and healthy, and joyful.

- I am still abundant and safe and I am grateful for this adventurous life!

- I need to stay balanced and present.

- I am grateful for the time that we have had here, the friends and family that have visited us in this house, for birthday and Christmas celebrations, for stories read and movies watched, for cookies baked and milestones reached, for birds and bugs and bats, for jasmine, mulberries and passionfruit, for lovely neighbours and a quiet street, for the daily life we have shared here, as a family.  This house will be a symbol of this period of our family life, not for the bricks and tiles, but for the experiences we have had.  Leaving here does not mean that those things stop.  It just means that we continue them somewhere else.  I will look back on photos of our time here, with a warm heart and a big smile, and much gratitude for this chapter.

and...

-  I  AM  POWER-FULL!!!!

moving in, moving on

We are living in a house!

We moved in last Thursday. That day, Cary and I kept saying to each other "this feels weird". And we spoke about the next time we go on the road - in a much bigger camper. As I unpacked the first load of stuff, I thought that it was nice to be able to spread out a bit. As Cary brought all of the stuff from storage, I initially wanted to get rid of it all, as I didn't want to get cluttered, but I knew we had some special stuff in there. As I started unpacking it, I found lots of the kids toys and books. I'd take arm loads of things into Summers room. She started getting agitated and then finally said "Ahhhh...that's enough stuff....no more in my room!!!" She, who used to like having all of her things around her, now wants most of it in a box in the garage that she can go to when she wants. She wants her room kept simple and neat. Preferably with no boys bothering anything in there.

After a few days of being in the house, I stopped counting the number of days left in our lease and started to think "this is nice". This is not a big house, but I am delighting in the space. Especially at night when we can easily move around inside without bothering anyone else. Nicholas has been loving pushing cars up and down the hallway and re-discovering toys the toys from storage. AJ must have been really pent up because he can hardly keep still. When we sit down in the evening - on our big 'proper' couch - he is constantly bouncing, turning upside down, getting up and down, going back and forth to the kitchen, dancing with the commercials for 'Australian Idol' and being very busy.

As I put all of the boys toys into their room, it felt way too busy. I've since reduced it a bunch and it feels much better and they can get to the things they actually play with a lot easier. We'll have a yard sale in a few weeks when I've finished going through the boxes in the garage. I've been through everything once, but will need to do it again now that I'm not in a hurry to get the house set up.

I've been doing a ton of washing, as I had many more sheets and towels in storage than I remembered. Luckily, this house has one of the good old huge rotary clothes lines typical of many Aussie homes and I can get about six loads of washing on it easily. As I was folding some of the sheets, I realised that this house does not have a lot of storage room, and how many sheets do we really need? We have a large linen cupboard in the hallway, but I've taken up one whole shelf with my books to avoid buying an extra book shelf. I just don't want excess furniture or stuff around us. One stack of sheets and two stacks of towels (one for beach & one for bath) in the linen cupboard should be plenty. A short stack of pillowcases, another for tablecloths and place mats, and a larger one for cloth napkins should only take up one whole shelf. Then I have another shelf for the kids games and craft stuff. I'm enjoying setting up the house keeping it simple but setting up enough stuff to enjoy and spread out. I'm really looking forward to having that yard sale and getting rid of a lot more stuff. We have a goal of how much money we want to raise and will use some of that for a 12-month family pass to the local bird & wild-life sanctuary.

Nicholas has been having a fever on and off for the past week, as well as a bit of a cold. He's having a major growth spurt with it as his clothes are all suddenly shorter and his speech has changed - not his voice, but the way he thinks and puts sentences together. He's been playing by himself more, chattering away to the little people and cars, imagination in overdrive. (what a beautiful thing!)

We just put a child's seat on the back of my bike for him so we can start riding our bikes to a lot more places and use the car less. Summer and AJ had gotten used to riding their bikes in the caravan park and are now getting more confident about riding on the roads. Most of the roads around here have a bike lane which is great but there are often cars parked in them so they are learning to be careful when riding around the parked cars, especially if there is a car coming from behind. The lane is usually wide enough to allow for that, I was concerned that they might panic a little in that situation but they were fine.

As we pulled down the camper last week, I realised that I hadn't taken any photos of the set up we had that time. Nor had I taken photos of the kids or anything for quite a while. I must change that.

Enjoy your day!

We're moving!

Yesterday marked one year that we've been living in the caravan. It was fitting that it was also the day that we signed the lease on the house we'll be moving into on Thursday! We got the house I put the application in for - even though I'm "not working"!

The weather has been so beautiful lately and there is no rain predicted for some time. I bet the first time it does rain, I'll happily dance from room to room delighting in all the dry space. I am looking forward to having some extra space for us all to spread out and not be so cramped. The house is a basic 3 bedroom place with a good size covered patio and a fenced yard. It also has some garden and an area they called a greenhouse, but it's not a true greenhouse. It's more like an area suitable for plants, with walls on 3 sides. We should be able to grow some veges and I'm looking forward to starting a compost.

So the chapter closes on this particular segment of our lives. We definitely want to continue this at some point. Maybe not full time, maybe just as a winter get-away. who knows? The adventures continue!

House hunting

Ah the joys of looking for a rental! We looked around the area we are already in. We love being near the beach and the relaxed feel of the community here. The houses we looked at seemed either small or overpriced. So we thought we'd look in other areas. We found another area 30 minutes north west of here that we thought would work. After a lot of research, phone calls and driving around, we lined up with a bunch of other families to inspect the interior of several homes. Then there was the process of filling out a long application form and include 12 different documents to back it up - proof of ID, finances and personal references.

I felt like we were just filling out forms to try and get anything once we'd decided to get a house. I would lay awake at night thinking of which houses we needed to look at next and which one would be better for us. I was torn between getting an exact picture in my mind of the place I wanted and manifesting it via the Law of Attraction, and getting a feeling of the place I wanted and Trusting God to provide it.

Yesterday the kids and I went to look at the other area again. While we were there we stopped at the top of a hill and looked east over miles of suburbia, the high rise of the commercial - touristy area and there, way way off, was my friend, the ocean. I felt a strong pull towards her. When we got back to the area that we are currently staying, I drove straight to the beach, got out of the car and took a deep breath. My soul said "thank you".

Using this very strong feeling as my guide, it is clear to me that I am happiest as a beach girl. The rest of the family loves it here too. It reflects Who We Are. So now that we are getting clear about that, a place will soon become available for us. The picture is getting clear and I Trust that it's all coming together perfectly. I feel much more relaxed about the process now.

Joyous Becoming

Blogger keeps scrunching this post up with no spaces between the paragraphs. I've tried 5 times to fix it but it keeps going back to this. I'll try again later. ...Nope, it just will not cooperate so I will put an * in the para breaks and colour over them.

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Yesterday we went for a drive to the new area we'll be moving to. It felt so good to be there that we went ahead and booked in to move there this coming Thursday which is when we're paid up to at the current place. The new caravan is now registered and just needs to have the air conditioner put on and different stabilizer supports put on. The quality of the caravan on the whole is excellent, but the supports are not a good design. So it's just those two things and we're confident we can get those done by Thursday.

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The weather has been lovely. Quite warm and sunny - real summer weather. Considering all the rain we've had, and the fact that summer is "officially" over at the end of the month, it's been great.

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We spent a few hours playing on the beach yesterday. Ahhhh...it was sooo beautiful! It felt just so great to be there. The beach is the place that I feel the deepest connection to Source / God / Goddess / myself / everything. It is where I feel timeless and the mental chatter just stops. As I sat on the beach yesterday, totally in the now, I felt some mental weight being lifted. Later, as I felt a surge of energy, I realised that those stubborn pounds that I have been hanging onto, would soon also be lifted. It was an absolute knowing. I saw that I had been using some mental

process to hang onto weight to keep myself from feeling fantastic to play a "poor me" pity role to get attention. Wow. Not the kind of attention I actually want, but a kind that is easier to get perhaps. Oh dear. I apologise to myself for not being more gentle with me and I apologise to the world for putting that kind of energy out there. But, this is how we learn and (hopefully) I will remember this lesson, this feeling, this connection.

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Something that used to drive me crazy was that things never seemed to get done. I mean all done - there always seemed to be something else and something else. Just as I finished doing the laundry, it would start to pile up again. You know what I mean, ...there is always so much to DO. I could never get it all done. I used to think that "when it's all done, then I can relax". But it was never all done, so I felt I could never really relax. I have gotten a lot better about that and now I'm at the point where I no longer feel guilt when I do relax. It's taken a lot to get to there though. I think the final leg of that journey was reading Abraham saying that we never, ever, ever, get it all done. Like the following quote:

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What is it all about? To get things done? No! Because you do them, and you undo them, and you do them, and you undo them, and you do them, and you undo them... What is the point in all of it? It is the thrill of the process along the way. Physical human minds keeps thinking, We have to be going towards some end. And you kill each other by the millions trying to decide what is the appropriate end that you are all going toward. And we say, well, there's your flawed premise. Because there is no end that you're going toward. We are all on a perpetual cycle of joyous becoming. We will never get it done, ever, ever, ever, ever

Excerpted from a workshop in Spokane, WA on Tuesday, May 30th, 2000

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Being near the beach, for me, greatly helps me in the process of "joyous becoming". I can see it in Cary and my children too.

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AJ likes writing things in the sand. Yesterday he was writing "I AM RICH". Not just because he had just found 70cents, but because of how he was feeling in that beautiful place with the love of the family around him.

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All 3 children seemed so calm and happy playing on the beach with just a few sticks and their imagination.

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The place feels like such a good fit for us. Cary said "I think we've found our niche!". It sure seems like it.

Moving on up and on

Yipee-I-O!!! Our new camper trailer finally arrived from the USA and it is in our possession. It took threatening the shippers with getting the law and the media involved, but we have it now..yay! The shippers were holding on to it, claiming we did not pay and suggesting we pay again. After proving beyond doubt that they had indeed cashed our check, they could stall no longer and we were able to pick it up. Wow! It is so nice. It is 21 years newer than our current van, and a bit bigger all around. Sami will have one end which has a double bed, AJ will sleep a step down from her where the table folds down into a double bed. At the other end, Nicholas will have his own large single a step down from where Cary and I sleep which is a huge king size bed! Luxury!

We need to do a few things to the new van to be able to get an Australian compliance plate and then get her registered. We also are getting the airconditioner unit put on top that Cary had sent over in the camper. When the new camper is done, we will get the old one spruced up and ready for sale.

I've gotten used to this campground. It's not too far from the motorways, markets, shops and it's really easy to get into the city - about a 20 minute drive from here to where we park. We've got to know some of the long-termers here and have a comfortable complacency starting to happen. We have looked at a lot of other caravan parks but have not found anything better. Until yesterday when we found the perfect spot for us! It's about an hour south of here, but right on a creek and across the road from a beautiful beach. It's close enough yet far enough from a really popular tourist destination that has a lot of different and interesting attractions. It's also close to the hinterland with beautiful rainforest walks and waterfalls. There's a wild life sanctuary in the next suburb and a new eco-village being built. We will move to the new campground after we've gotten things sorted out with the campers here.

It will mean we will be further away from the lovely un/homeschool groups we've recently met so we might not make it to their gatherings every week. So I'll start looking for more unschoolers in the new area. I just know there out there!

It's nice to keep things moving and interesting. Never a dull moment here!!