Pterodactyls, Mnemonics and other Hidden Treasures
Good Lord it's been a while! It appears in my attempt at Concentrated Living (and trying to pare away all the non-essentials/"Do Less" and focus on the really core priorities), I've been neglecting to drop in here now and then to wave hello.
The last several months have been so huge. I've undergone such enormous transitions, both welcome and surprising. I've been far too focused on being "in it" to sit down and percolate it into a sharable fashion. I've struggled a bit with what parts of "ironing out the rough spots" were appropriate for public consumption.
In a surprisingly rare moment of stillness, Morgan and I are both home today, to spend Bradon's birthday with him (He's 1-2-3-4-FIVE!!!) and I have a moment to string together a few thoughts. Bradon is gleefully playing with Lego and Moby is sleeping in (another rare treat!) Kyla's at school, and loving it (grade SEVEN, can you believe it?!), Em and Morgana are still a-bed, Dru's off to yoga (a regular early am thing...) and then to work. The Dread Pirate Em is staying here too. There's something really lovely about a full-vibrant household, but the moments of quiet are to be especially savoured now that they are so sparse.
Moving in with Em & Dru and Morgana has been bar far the biggest, most obvious transition. It's now been six months. We are now two families living together in one big beautiful house. We are sharing many tasks, meals and childcare. There are still wrinkles to iron out, which are not always helped by the fact that we are VERY busy around here, and seldom have moments when we're all present (both in the attendance sense and the being together in this moment sense.) We have a big monthly whiteboard calendar on the wall to keep track of all this coming and going - and if not for all the pretty colours, I dare say it'd be a scary sight!
[Em and the babe are now up and at it, so I've got my Pterodactyl-Girl sidekick... and Bradon's now moved on to gluing and chattering on the desk next to me ~he's making a rocket for me~ See: stillness, don't miss it when it's there... it slips by quickly to make way for giggles and shenanigans... or whelming flurries of busyness.]
Living with so many people is loaded with a fascinating array of adjustments. See, I've never had a roommate before. I moved from my parent's place into my own place (with Kyla, when I was young and single-momming) and then, eventually, we moved in with Morgan. So the nuances of adjusting to other people's quirks and habits in such close quarters have all been pretty new to me. Learning about communicating has also had it's eye opening (and sometimes challenging) moments.
We're now planning a "bridge" in the childcare situation soon, when Em returns to work in October. As much as we had mistakenly thought the timing would be perfect for Edan to take over when she's on her mat-leave, we didn't account adequately for Em's early leave equating to an early return and Edan's need to recover, actually leaving us with a GAP, not an overlap. So I'll be taking an unpaid leave from work for October and November, and hanging out with the three kiddos. In some ways it makes perfect sense. I am certainly the lowest paid, so the loss of income will have the lowest burden on the household (though it will certainly be felt, since Morgan and I are still playing the agonizing up hill catch up battle on old issues in that realm.) It's also ideal to have them with someone they know, and are comfortable with (especially true in Morgana's case... it will ease Em's to return to work to have that known variable.)
There have been a number of things going on at work that are taking up a great deal of brainspace, and the solutions have been slow to be addressed and acknowledged and even slower to be assimilated. We'll see where that goes. It looks like restructuring may be on the horizon. (Again with the things I'm thinking about ad nauseum, and am not really sure how to blog about - or if I *should*)
I'm about to roll into my final high school night school session. This fall brings with it the study of Biology. I've lined up a friend to help "tutor" me... I'm just SO bad at memorizing, and I can't afford to do badly on this course. I'm a kinesthetic learner, so when I'm not doing hands on studies I really have to carefully compensate with LOTS of reading, colour coding, writing it down, listening about it, discussing it. My sister is killer at coming up with Mnemonics, but I lack the finesse of all that. I'm hoping for the best and putting in every support system I can think of to help make t work. (Heck, maybe I'll even get good studies habits ingrained by the time I get to go Midwifery School!)
I just seems to unbearably far away! I can't believe this goal has been CLEAR for more than five years, and still I'm playing a big ol' game of ARE~WE~THERE~YET??? Baby steps are *hard* ...I mean I get that celebrating the small stuff is essential to finding happiness in the journey, but I'm so ready to be done this phase.
So. Much. Waiting.
I've been thinking about teaching prenatal classes. It's a good skill to have, a little more potential income and it'd be another step toward feeling like I'm more than just a Secretary. Maybe I'm just restless to get moving. But it *may* be just the thing. I dunno.
I'm stealing moments now and then for my creative outlet. Still haven't adequately set up the workshop, but I have been to Rob and Jody's a bit more regularly (and am really excited about my current project there.) I'm working on a mirror case. As usual, I have a tonne of other things on the brain, but have been scolded for my finishing "problem" and have been poked to get this one DONE. (Fair enough.)
Morgan seems to be enjoying his 4 by 10 well enough (especially the 3-day weekends) and I dare say has even seemed noticeably HAPPY of late.
I am an Aunt now!!!! Todd and Tanya had their baby yesterday. Emily Julia. (Our Em is amused, because that's her name AND her sister's name!)
My dear friend Edan is term now (she's due Oct 2nd) and has asked me to be at her birth. It will be such an amazing thing to be there, to support my friend, the midwife who cared for me thought *my* pregnancy with Bradon, at her own birth. My mentor, my cherished one.
Any hew, as those of you who actually made it this far can see: there's lots on the brain of late. But even when things are insane and difficult, I keep coming back to how lucky I am. I am so grateful for the amazing people in my life, and the joy we share.
The last several months have been so huge. I've undergone such enormous transitions, both welcome and surprising. I've been far too focused on being "in it" to sit down and percolate it into a sharable fashion. I've struggled a bit with what parts of "ironing out the rough spots" were appropriate for public consumption.
In a surprisingly rare moment of stillness, Morgan and I are both home today, to spend Bradon's birthday with him (He's 1-2-3-4-FIVE!!!) and I have a moment to string together a few thoughts. Bradon is gleefully playing with Lego and Moby is sleeping in (another rare treat!) Kyla's at school, and loving it (grade SEVEN, can you believe it?!), Em and Morgana are still a-bed, Dru's off to yoga (a regular early am thing...) and then to work. The Dread Pirate Em is staying here too. There's something really lovely about a full-vibrant household, but the moments of quiet are to be especially savoured now that they are so sparse.
Moving in with Em & Dru and Morgana has been bar far the biggest, most obvious transition. It's now been six months. We are now two families living together in one big beautiful house. We are sharing many tasks, meals and childcare. There are still wrinkles to iron out, which are not always helped by the fact that we are VERY busy around here, and seldom have moments when we're all present (both in the attendance sense and the being together in this moment sense.) We have a big monthly whiteboard calendar on the wall to keep track of all this coming and going - and if not for all the pretty colours, I dare say it'd be a scary sight!
[Em and the babe are now up and at it, so I've got my Pterodactyl-Girl sidekick... and Bradon's now moved on to gluing and chattering on the desk next to me ~he's making a rocket for me~ See: stillness, don't miss it when it's there... it slips by quickly to make way for giggles and shenanigans... or whelming flurries of busyness.]
Living with so many people is loaded with a fascinating array of adjustments. See, I've never had a roommate before. I moved from my parent's place into my own place (with Kyla, when I was young and single-momming) and then, eventually, we moved in with Morgan. So the nuances of adjusting to other people's quirks and habits in such close quarters have all been pretty new to me. Learning about communicating has also had it's eye opening (and sometimes challenging) moments.
We're now planning a "bridge" in the childcare situation soon, when Em returns to work in October. As much as we had mistakenly thought the timing would be perfect for Edan to take over when she's on her mat-leave, we didn't account adequately for Em's early leave equating to an early return and Edan's need to recover, actually leaving us with a GAP, not an overlap. So I'll be taking an unpaid leave from work for October and November, and hanging out with the three kiddos. In some ways it makes perfect sense. I am certainly the lowest paid, so the loss of income will have the lowest burden on the household (though it will certainly be felt, since Morgan and I are still playing the agonizing up hill catch up battle on old issues in that realm.) It's also ideal to have them with someone they know, and are comfortable with (especially true in Morgana's case... it will ease Em's to return to work to have that known variable.)
There have been a number of things going on at work that are taking up a great deal of brainspace, and the solutions have been slow to be addressed and acknowledged and even slower to be assimilated. We'll see where that goes. It looks like restructuring may be on the horizon. (Again with the things I'm thinking about ad nauseum, and am not really sure how to blog about - or if I *should*)
I'm about to roll into my final high school night school session. This fall brings with it the study of Biology. I've lined up a friend to help "tutor" me... I'm just SO bad at memorizing, and I can't afford to do badly on this course. I'm a kinesthetic learner, so when I'm not doing hands on studies I really have to carefully compensate with LOTS of reading, colour coding, writing it down, listening about it, discussing it. My sister is killer at coming up with Mnemonics, but I lack the finesse of all that. I'm hoping for the best and putting in every support system I can think of to help make t work. (Heck, maybe I'll even get good studies habits ingrained by the time I get to go Midwifery School!)
I just seems to unbearably far away! I can't believe this goal has been CLEAR for more than five years, and still I'm playing a big ol' game of ARE~WE~THERE~YET??? Baby steps are *hard* ...I mean I get that celebrating the small stuff is essential to finding happiness in the journey, but I'm so ready to be done this phase.
So. Much. Waiting.
I've been thinking about teaching prenatal classes. It's a good skill to have, a little more potential income and it'd be another step toward feeling like I'm more than just a Secretary. Maybe I'm just restless to get moving. But it *may* be just the thing. I dunno.
I'm stealing moments now and then for my creative outlet. Still haven't adequately set up the workshop, but I have been to Rob and Jody's a bit more regularly (and am really excited about my current project there.) I'm working on a mirror case. As usual, I have a tonne of other things on the brain, but have been scolded for my finishing "problem" and have been poked to get this one DONE. (Fair enough.)
Morgan seems to be enjoying his 4 by 10 well enough (especially the 3-day weekends) and I dare say has even seemed noticeably HAPPY of late.
I am an Aunt now!!!! Todd and Tanya had their baby yesterday. Emily Julia. (Our Em is amused, because that's her name AND her sister's name!)
My dear friend Edan is term now (she's due Oct 2nd) and has asked me to be at her birth. It will be such an amazing thing to be there, to support my friend, the midwife who cared for me thought *my* pregnancy with Bradon, at her own birth. My mentor, my cherished one.
Any hew, as those of you who actually made it this far can see: there's lots on the brain of late. But even when things are insane and difficult, I keep coming back to how lucky I am. I am so grateful for the amazing people in my life, and the joy we share.