Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress. Show all posts

Monday, December 10, 2007

a jolly time

A lot of people have told us lately how relaxed we look. Yeah, we're certainly in a pretty nice groove at the moment. Even this typically crazy time of the year is not bothering me like it has in the past. I'm just not doing as much about it. We're getting less presents for fewer people and the Christmas cards will either get done, or they won't.

It's Sami's birthday in two days. She has one more regular school day left, then another day of clean up and presentations and the last day is just a big picnic at a local creek/beach area. In two days our girl will turn 10 - no more single digits! For her birthday I got one of those flip over photo albums that holds 100 photos. I've chosen 10 photos from each year of her life so far. It was so much fun doing that. I think she'll enjoy looking through it and seeing some of the many people and places and fun times she's experienced.

We're all looking forward to moving on from here in 12 days time. I'm so calm about everything, it's the best present I could give to myself - and the rest of the family! It's good.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Leaving on a jet plane...

I recently went through the bag of clothes that I had brought with me. I took out things that I don't love to wear, and things that just were not my favourites for whatever reason - the colour was just not quite the right shade or the fit was not what I really like. I was able to fit all of my clothes into a 50L plastic container. I will admit that I have a few things in storage that are just not practical to bring on this journey, like my knitted jumpers (sweaters), and some dressier types of clothes.

I sorted through the kids clothes too and now all of Sami's clothes fit into the same size container as mine, though somehow she always has more washing than the rest of us. Both boys clothes fit into one the same size as Sami's and mine. I had another 50L plastic container that had toys in it, but the kids are just not playing with them. They are so busy playing with friends and each other and on their scooters and with the birds, that they rarely look for anything else. So I took some toys back to the storage unit and put some others into a smaller container. It turns out that I needed the larger container to put the beach and bath towels in. We had just been leaving them out on a drying rack. They were drying during the day, but as the sun started going down, the afternoon sea spray would get on them and they would get damp. so now I put them away once they are dry.

I had a clever blog written in my head in the middle of the night last night, but now I can't remember any of it. Oh well.

Cary left this morning. He was sad to leave us, but looking forward to tying up some loose ends and getting some new deals happening. Hopefully it will be the last time we have an extended absence from each other. I'll miss him. Sami was crying a lot after he left, and very dramatic with it. Nicholas didn't quite understand until he saw Cary get on the plane and then saw the plane leave. He started saying "Daddy..plane..NooNoo (what he calls himself)..plane". A couple of hours later when Cary called us from Sydney before he boarded his international flight, it really hit Nicholas and he started crying a lot and saying what he'd said before. He's asked for Daddy a lot this afternoon. It's been so great that Cary has had a lot of family time this year and has been able to bond so deeply with Nicholas.

When we walked into the airport this morning, I got all excited with the idea of travel. All the places we could go! Ah yeah, I am so not ready to go back to living in a house. I'm going to take some time going through things in the storage shed and really think about if I want to pay to hang on to them, or if they could be easily replaced. I think we'll stay put here for another couple of months so that I can do that without feeling rushed. I'll put some things on ebay, some on consignment and have another garage sale.

I can't stand feeling rushed. There's been a bit of that lately, when we were getting out of the house and getting Cary organised and some other things, and I don't cope well with the stress around those times. I think it's because I am a pretty organised person and when we rush to pack and do things, I am not as thorough and things can get mixed up more easily and then I can't find things and feel like I've forgotten to do something. That's why I need to take some time now and get calm and solid with where I'm at.

Cary proposed a change in our plans recently and I flipped out a bit. A friend asked me "what do YOU want?". It took me several days of pondering this to realise that I often consider Cary and the kids and other people's opinions and needs more than my own. That's changing. I'm starting to not feel guilty about taking time for myself when I want/need to. To just sit down and bask in the sunshine. To think about what I need to do in order to be true to myself and my purpose here. What we are doing is a part of that, I just need to be more in touch with my Self more often during the smaller daily tasks and times as well as when considering major changes.

What Cary proposed is still along the same lines of what we're already doing and planning but maybe going somewhere else instead of the South Pacific next year. And some other business ideas starting right now, and, and, and.... That boy is so busy. Anyway, he has some great ideas and we will start working them in and see how we go. Never a dull moment!