please check out these....

I just found this website, via another blog. Have a look.

I really like the names too - the condensation of all possibility; where I live, this is what the sky looks like; limbo; neither/both.

Also, have a look at these few things. Some of my favourites from flickr: pomstars and moons; dried pomstars; 12 leaves; they carry the sounds of wind; ...; un autre jour.; no emotion1; pears; ..... hmmm, oh golly. Just look at all my favourites! It's so easy once you start looking, to get caught into looking more and more, and there is so much beautiful, amazing, etheral, real, unreal, ..... stuff there. Wait until you have some spare moments for a bit inspiration viewing.

And I just read this. I love the way this lady writes, thought you might like it too. Entertaining, witty, sarcastic, warm, real. Have a read if you have time.

PS - how are you?

dear Stef

Just letting you know that I am thinking about you.

Have had this horrible, draining flu thing for too long now. It's just totally taken everything out of me. Combined with so much growing and constantness from life :: kids, my sewing/crafting, etc...etc....

I am currently planning to do a market stall next Friday night. This is so exciting, and scary for me. I don't have anything to sell as of yet. I spent yesterday on my own, for almost five hours of sewing. I'm so slow at sewing, and didn't achieve much. But I got a start on it.

I've been sewing some little zippered purses, and some pillow cases (for us and gifts so far). I've been thinking of sewing some free-machine stitching on lovely fabric, and making placemats and coasters. That should be easy - but will people buy them?

I really love this sewing/crafting thing. For me. I love the thought process of choosing the fabrics. I'm quite surprised at some of the combinations I pick out. Sometimes so pink. Sometimes I think a bit predicable - but maybe not, maybe just obvious to me.

I think this flu thing, the cotton wool in my head is making me think and look at things a bit differently. You know when you just sort of go along with the flow of the day - following the kids, sort of on automatic. You just have to do, and can't even think through things properly. But, sometimes it's a really great way to just do things. To not stop and analyse everything, but just to keep moving forward - towards something :: anything! And sometimes in the cotton wool fuzz, you think and understand things so clearly.

Kids are growing, changing sooooo quickly. Mishi is walking - a funny little shuffle, yet so confident and able. She understands everything that is happening around her, picking up on little moments and words and conversations. She is so cheeky, still - has a great little grin, scrunched up face. Also, she is already (well, still) a 'good girl'. She helps with packing up toys - which I know is as much her stage of wanting to put things in things, etc. She participates so much with what we do.

And, already, she is quite a demanding girl - knows her mind, and gets annoyed if she wants something that is taken from her, or not given to her. She wanders around the house now, contentedly (mostly) just busying herself with little games. She pulls clothes out of the (clean or dirty) washing baskets and wants to be dressed in crazy layers; last night she found some of Ari's undies and had to put them on over the pants. She likes to wear hats, and walks around with a little purse over her shoulder - her arm held high to keep it from slipping.

The house has been so messy for a week or so now, due to both Sam and me being zonked all the time! Piles of clean + dirty washing, piles of washing-up. Fluff piles building up in the corners of the rooms, scattering throughout all the floors. I wish I felt more energy to keep us tidy, as this mess slips or scampers or pushes into my essence, my mood is overwhelmed by too much dust. When our house is tidy I think and feel so much cleaner, crisper, better.

We are in the process of sorting out to sell our house. Heap of reasons why. It's going to be a long, slow process. I want it to happen so much quicker than it can. Before we really start any real selling process, we need to tidy and clear out all our 'stuff'. A friend told me today that she may be interested in buying our house. That's really good. Imagine if we didn't have to go through the thing of needing to have a real estate agent take their commission and us have to pay for all the advertising...... Anyway, we'll see.

Everything is so up in the air. Don't know where we want to live. Or where we will work, what we will do. Of course, we both want to be people who can work from home - but I don't see that as a reality. Maybe one day?

So, just a little catch up of a few things rambling through my mind - scattered thoughts = lines on a page.

I'll try to call you soon. Love. xxxxx

Also: do you mind if we make this blog open for other readers, or do you want it to stay private for us only?

Aotearoa

Thinking alot about New Zealand at the moment. Had tried to put it out of my head because it's so far away and I didn't want to spend the next 18 months already in NZ in my mind. It's important I am here fully while I am here physically. And there is so much I love about this place, so much I will miss when we are gone. And the future is fraught with uncertainty. Will it all work out? Will we all be happy ('all' being the important word in that sentence)? Will it be the best decision for everyone? I'm terrified one or both of the kids will be unhappy for some reason. And then there's Rob. His heart is in it, but for Rob that can still mean being rather a bystander. Suffering the isolation of motherhood has taught me how to seek out friendship for the sake of it. For the conversation, for the company, for the companionship. But Rob still lives in the country he grew up in, near to all his childhood and college friends, near to all his family. So like I say, he does want this, but maybe I'm afraid he doesn't truly understand what he's getting into. I try to think of the whole thing as a process, not a finished solution. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out; it will certainly be an experience either way. But deep down, I desperately hope that we all settle once and for all. I long for some stability, for the kids, and for us too.
Then there's the separation from the beloved grandparents. Must be very delicately handled. Chatting with my counsellor last week he mentioned that he has alot of information on loss and bereavement with regards to children and he thought it might help when the time was nearer. That made me look at it in whole new light. It will be like bereavement for them. And when you look at it from that angle, what right have I, to wrench them from this life they love, for the hope of a better one? It's a heavy, heavy decision to make as a parent. I know it could (only 'could', not 'is') be the right decision for me, but I've really no idea about the other three people I'm dragging along with me.
What finishes the indecision for me is the thought that I have to give it a try. Selfish or not, I can't go the rest of my life yearning for home (or something like it) and never give it a try. It's all we can do in anything, isn't it?

refreshed, awoken, renewed,

I've just watched a documentary about Joni Mitchell. Making me want to listen to all her music. The stuff I know, and especially the songs I have never heard.

Heart-achingly haunting, beautiful, tender. Words, lyrics, voice, guitar. It also gave me a totally different insight into some of her music. Changed my knowledge about it.

~~~

Also :: a lot of the images/photos of her, well - they remind me a lot of Mum. Of course, when you look properly they don't look alike at all. But, fleeting moments, and glimpses, and mainly feelings of looks and impressions. Well, those are the parts that make me think and long for........ her.

~~~

It seems some days now that I "forget" to think about her, that I don't quite remember who my Mum is :: was. By "is" "was", I mean - who is she to me now? This will be the fifth year. I can't quite believe that it's really been that long. Five whole years since I "lost" my mother.

Lost her heart, her voice, her words, her smile, her scent, her hugs, her knowledge, her wisdom, her compassion, her craft, her help. Her love. Eternal love, and open-ness, acceptance, knowing. Her being.

But, I guess I just said it - her eternal love. So, of course, whenever I remember again, and think and feel, and miss, that love - well, it's right with me again. Isn't it? That's the way it works, isn't it?

~~~

As I see my babies grow so quickly, it feels like I am even more quickly loosing the time of having her here with me, with us. The days, months, years creep past, sometimes they leap and bound past. Too fast, too fast.

Yet, also, I think, as time moves on - ever moving onwards onwards closer to my real acceptance of her death. My real acceptance of her death. Yes, still, sometimes, I have moments (sometimes so fleeting, and sometimes I know that I'm tricking myself, yet sometimes so real and heartbreaking), where I cannot believe or imagine that it has happened.

~~~

That silly feeling, that silly process in my mind that tricks me to think I can still talk to her, or hear her, or touch her, or feel her, or hug her. Or ask her any silly questions. Or show her my life, and feel her pride in who I am, who my babies are. Who we can be.

~~~

Mishi awake, for milk. Thought process broken. Tears trickled. Memories refreshed, awoken, renewed.

Good night. xx

decisions :: or more thinking

This thing about schooling for my children is filling my mind lately. I so want them to go to a nourishing place - emotionally, intellectually, physically (as in, a beautiful location and environment). When I went to Ash's school last week, to pick him up from 1st grade, I felt a bit empty from the place. I know that it's only been two weeks back at school, so the classroom isn't filled with beautiful children's drawings.......But it felt so 'normal' and boring.

This thing about us wanting to move so we can go to the Steiner School at the Gold Coast is such a difficult decision. Or thought process. Right now, no decisions seem to be getting closer to being made or even approached. Sam and I don't know what steps we need to make to get to where we want.

I'm feeling a real heart-sickness. Is this because it's been raining and we don't go walking in the afternoon. Is the rain just an excuse for my laziness? This tiny, messy house is feeling so overwhelming and clostrofobic. Yet, I cannot seem to wrench myself out of this sluggishness.

I have so many thoughts :: dreams about what I want for myself, and my children, and my family. I don't want to continue this going along just because. So many times I feel like I'm just waiting things out :: not quite limbo, but something. Waiting for Mishi to walk; waiting for the rain to stop; waiting to get my energy back; waiting to clean the house (or waiting for a clean house!); waiting for Ari to go to kindy or school; or at least waiting for the routine of going to work, and having days off. Waiting. Some days we just hang out and don't "achieve"anything. I mean, some days I don't even get the washing up done, or the nappies washed, or....... We have breakfast, morning tea (about ten times), lunch, afternoon tea, then think about making dinner, then teeth brushing, then bed. This is, of course, interspersed with reading stories, laughing, drawing, baking, playing lego. But, sometimes it just seems like we are waiting for Daddy to come home.

Maybe I need to make some kind of routine - for myself, more than anything.

I still am not doing any particular amount of sewing that is making me happy, or keeping me creative. And no-where near any amount that I can forsee actually trying to start making some form of business.

Time is broken into little snippets, where I wait for Mishi to go to sleep, then I wait - knowing that she'll wake up soon, then wait for Ari to ask for something else to eat. Then the moments of my guilt at not "achieving" or having results to show for the day - the piles of washing are still there. And, have the kids had a nourishing day - yes, they ate lots, but did I nourish them emotionally, creatively, intellectually? Or did it just happen by some form of default?

Little bits of randomness that continues to scatter through my mind. Yes, sorry - seems to be so child related. Can't be helped, can it?!

Tonight I am going out for a cup of tea with a friend. A lovely lady who has a blog that I so enjoy. I introduced myself to her at the market one day. She has a three year old son, so we are wanting our boys to form a friendship. And, I so want to form a friendship with her. We were at their house this morning. I come away feeling lighter and clearer (then get home!!). Her blog is a great representation of who she is. Her little one bedroom house is so clear, clean, uncluttered. Very Japanese. I come away feeling like throwing away all our junk, our stuff, clearing out the cupboards, shelves. Clearing out my head!

(Conversly I have another friend who's house feels so overwhelming to me. A lovely house itself, but furniture everywhere, so cluttered and full of 'things'. I come home from there feeling exhausted, and glad to be home).

Maybe I should take a lesson from how I feel in these two homes, and try to realise how to make my home work better for me, and for Sam. (He has been feeling overwhelmed and exhausted lately, too).

I guesss I just made a project for myself.