Rocks and sand

I have not posted for a few weeks now. It has been very hectic and stressful. Michael sold his company, and with that came the security of being able to pay off our debts and purchase a couple of treats that we have had on the wish list for many years, but also the terrible insecurity of not knowing what is next and how we are going to make it all work.

I have found that it is all too personal to post on a blog for all the world to read, even my closest friends and family (perhaps especially my closest friends and family, for whom I think I want to portray an air of confidence and optimism). I am not comfortable writing about these big issues - our worries about money, about my husband's next career move which would more than likely find us in Vancouver living on a grad students' budget, about my insecurities at work - both my ability to perform to expectations and the fact that I am trying to support a family on one short-term contract (40 days!) to the next, with no promise of anything longer term.

I wish I could write about all the little things - the awesome (if I may say so myself) Star Wars party we threw for Kieran's 7th birthday, the funny things Liam has been saying, my love affair with my new hybrid bike and my new Nikon D80 (I've died and gone to heaven). I'd love to write about the cool things we're doing at work and our plans for the summer. But I fall back to thinking that those things would just seem trite without being able to discuss the Big Stuff - and the Big Stuff is just too BIG to write about without exposing myself too far.

Ever since this big transition, we've had lofty ideas and visions of more free time, more serenity, and better priorities. We've both found the opposite. It is as hard for me to adjust to working full-time and being the breadwinner as it is for Michael to adjust to being the stay-at-home Dad and juggling the kids' schedules and the home front. It is really, really difficult for both of us. We know where we want to be, we just can't see out of the quicksand right now.

There is a parable about a jar and sand and rocks. You all know the one - the rocks are the truly important things in life and the sand is all the trivial stuff. If you fill your jar with just sand, you will have no room for the rocks. But if you fill your jar with the rocks first, then your jar will be full, but you'll still have room for the sand if you want to put it in. In the next few months, I need to focus on the rocks. Unfortunately, this blog is one of the sandy things. It takes time away from the important issues. Perhaps I will come back to it once I have got all those rocks sorted out. I hope so.

i'll show you mine if you show me yours

I'm far too distracted about all the crazy uncertainty in our lives right now to even want to write about it. I'm hoping that soon I'll have something actually concrete to say.

So, in the meantime, let's talk about fridges. I don't know about you, but I love looking at what other people have on their fridge. Whenever I'm at a friend's house for the first time, I find that I am drawn to their fridge and I love poring over it, looking at their photos, their cartoons, their sayings, whatever it is they have up. It's like a window into their family life, a little voyeuristic, like hearing snippets of a diary. There are usually baby photos, which are like signposts of joy. I think the coolest fridge I've ever encountered belonged to my marvelously talented and creative artist friend, Eleanor - I remember there were childhood photos of herself, little sketches, snippets from the paper, photos and art of little Edith - it was fabulous!

So anyway, here is a recent photo of my fridge. If you click on it, you should be able to see the details...


:: my brother Kaje and sister-in-law Clel, all suntanned in the Australian Outback
:: Michael and Kieran and Michael's new tattoo at Elk Falls
:: tiles of the kids' names from the Filberg Festival
:: Kieran and Liam in dress-up at Kieran's birthday party last year
:: Michael's Dad and Stepmom at Robbie Burn's Night
:: baby Lily's birth announcement
:: with Karina, Kevin and Jenna at the Walk for Heart
:: Curious George, Michael's favorite from his childhood
:: Nana and Grandpa, a few weeks before she died
:: me and my baby brother, circa 1974
:: baby Danika hoping to share baby Lily's title as World's Cutest Baby
:: me and my honey in our boots in NZ, 1997
:: Casia looking like a gorgeous teenager already
:: a view from the top of the hike from the cabin weekend, with a quote that Kerry and I share from Great Big Sea: just keep your faith, and your ship will come in....
:: While there's tea, there's hope - also from Kerry, and no truer words!
:: Cow's milk is for baby cows, stolen from my Mum's fridge
:: What that woman couldn't do with tofu! - a lovely homage from dear Kara
:: and all the cute clips from Goats on the Roof!

Hmmm... where is all the kid's art, you might ask? We did keep lots of art on the fridge too until after Christmas, when I made the Kid's Wall of Art in the dining room for displaying all the masterpieces, so maybe another time I'll take a photo of that too :)

What's on your fridge? I don't know how to tag yet, so if you read this and have a blog, why not do the same, just for fun! God knows I need the diversion .


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Tagged: sheriagogo

Added for Kaje and Clel:

This is cool to see the same kids on fridges on opposite sides of the world - aren't cousins great? (but really dudes, get your own blog going so we can get all the weekly updates of Lily Mia!!!):


Top, L-R: Baby Clel in frame, baby Lil 12 wks in a warm dark place (shh, sleeping!), preggie Clel, world famous Lily card, Clel meditating the serenity in SW Western OZ (our trip), Kieran a la pro baseballer, Zavie as a toddler, Wombat magnet 'Crikey!' from Oz zoo, Lil sleeping on her side 20 wks in utero again - so cute!, Princess Zhara, papa e bebe, flowering eucalyptus macrocarpa - life-size - SW WA, Clel & Lil commune at 10 hrs old, Lil snuggles into Nanny Janette, LIAM!, tiny picture of The Wave - one of my faves, magnet with trees "A wonderful future is just ahead", Clel & Kaje say "Lick me!" - magnet from ice cream shop, fern in tree buttress root - NE QLD Daintree tropical forest, Kaje beholds the view in SW TAS, cry Sth central QLD - near a gorge oasis, our friend's new arrival - Jade, singing whale toyshop magnet, view from nail steps 200ft up a fire lookout tree - SW WA, red Pilbara rocks and ghost gums - NW WA, Autumn glacier from Comox magnet, 'Our Rainbow Bimbi' picture from Zha for us just before Lil was born, various emergency call numbers, Ruby as cute puppy, Lord Howe 'Treasure' Island magnet, 'We are in Scotland' picture from Kieran featuring Clel preggie with Bimbi & Kieran & Kaje & Blair Castle & of course the Loch Ness Monster!, Laura outside (Great) Zia Clelia's 878 Nicholson St in 1977.

trying. not. to. panic.

Our lives are a swirl of indecision, mixed with a frustrating inability to MAKE decisions until other factors outside of our control are settled upon. It's sort of like living in a big snowglobe and wondering if THIS is the last time, but four hours later it all gets shaken up again, just when we finally thought it was safe to go out and shovel the sidewalk.

I've been tempted by one of my favorite songs:

I've got a plan
Let's take off in the blue station wagon
And find the open road to salvation
Away from here

I've got a plan
Change the patterns that I form a lot
Not try to be something that I'm not
That I'm not

I've got another plan, this time it will work
I've got another plan, this time it will work,
Or I'll be struck down, struck down

...

The kids are seemingly oblivious to the impending changes in their lives, whatever they might be. Kieran has been entertaining me by (amongst other things) making up silly jokes. He's just starting to get the idea of what a joke is and how it works. I love it.

K: What is green and blue and has a 2?
me: I don't know, what is green and blue and has a 2?
K: A rhyme! Get it? Blue and Two, that rhymes!
me: Ha ha! Um, OK, what about the green part?
K: Oh, yeah, I just put that in there to make the joke longer.

flux

So many changes and things to think about....

The short story is that my honey will be selling his share of his business in the next couple of weeks. It's a decision that's been a long time coming. He and his partner have not been happy with each other for several months. They each have a very different managerial style and different philosophies about how to run and market the company and what kinds of contracts they wanted to attract. So, Mike has decided to sell out and start anew.

The timing couldn't be more perfect. For months now we have been moaning about not having balance in our lives. In fact, numerous times we have come to the conclusion that it would be wonderful if I could go to work full-time as a marine biologist, and he could stay at home with the kids and run the household. In many ways he is far better at being the stay-at-home parent than I am. He is infinitely more patient with the boys, and far better organized - when I'm away he has them at school 15 minutes early, while I am usually tearing through the school zone at 8:29 and still have to get the kids into their shoes and sweaters when they arrive! He has a much better sense of prioritizing his time at home and is much more likely to get a handle on the finances than I ever was.

So, now it's happened. I have no choice but to go back full-time now! It's very scary. Of course, it's what I've wanted for a long time, that sense of fulfillment and actually using the training I've acquired over the years. But I'm worried that since having kids, I am really rusty. I'm very accustomed to making my own schedule throughout the day and I'm worried that I will find it difficult to get the self-discipline to be at work at 8:30 every day. On the other hand, I am definitely looking forward to finding my place in my field again, and hoping to follow through on my idea to ride my bike to work so that I might actually start losing weight again.

All of the changes in our lives are both very hopeful and positive, and yet decidedly unsettling. The sale of the company will provide us with a small pot of gold, and we really do see the rainbow that comes with it. Still, we will need to figure out if we can continue to afford our house, our car, our children's school. Of those, we would sooner move into a mobile home than take our boys out of their fabulous school. It's more than just a school, it's an entire community of like-minded people. Which means, we might have to downsize our house. Which won't be hard philosophically - our house is really quite huge; that's normal for this area of our town, but it's hardly necessary. Having spent my childhood living in boats, I know that to be true. But moving itself is such a procedure. Can we use this opportunity to declutter and start afresh? Or will we fall back into old, easy patterns?

We are being forced to really take a long hard look at our priorities, and see if we are brave enough to actually take our lives to where we'd love them to be, to put our principles into action. To minimize our ecological footprint. To walk to school. To ride to work. To use a smaller car, and use it less often. To buy produce locally. To make more food from scratch. To exercise more. To live in a smaller house that takes less energy to heat. To live with what brings us joy and harmony, not with clutter. To spend more time outdoors. To have less plastic and more earth. To know our neighbours. To put energy into helping others. To use our skills in a way that fulfills us professionally and spiritually.

We've been talking the talk for a long time. Can we walk the walk?

The same old mum

Yesterday, my parents returned from their trip to New Zealand and brought back a treasure trove of kiwi books for the boys, including this delightful volume: 100 New Zealand Poems for Children.

The second poem was so adorable that I am sharing it today:

The same old mum

When Mum comes home from work,
the first thing she says is
'Put on the coffee, love,
I'll just go and change into something else.'

I put on the coffee and wait.
Will she change into a camel?
or a smiley green dragon?
or a chest of drawers?
or a triple-headed alien?
or maybe a super-mum
who cries 'Gazoo! Gazam!'

No, she always comes back the same old mum.
All she ever changes into
are her old home clothes.

-- Pauline Cartwright (fabulous illustration by David Elliot).

upgrades

Upgrades have been installed!

Before: Harry Potter glasses. After: new big-boy specs!

Before: page boy cut. After: new Luke Skywalker / Steve Irwin do!!

Before: plastic container with plastic rocks and plastic tree. After: all new diggs for Fishy! Note artful multi-coloured rocks, people!

And don't be alarmed, Fishy does actually live on the kitchen counter amidst the fruit basket, the dish-rack and the house plants, but this was the only way I could get his whole new habitat in the shot, and I couldn't resist choosing the shot with the household carnivores in it too... The bamboo stems are now starting to send out roots and so I'm hoping he must like his new mangrove-like arrangement. Having no way to really know unless he goes belly-up, I'm going to say he LOVES it.

Also, before: stressful life with little balance. After? Significant Life Upgrade is in the works. Stay tuned for details. And no, I'm not pregnant.