Thursday, May 26, 2011

It is THE time again....

... what time???

THE time to move yet once more. Ou how I love it (not). It has been great to live in this place for the last couple weeks. To get to the playground took us 2min (okay with Ned walking it was 3min) and there is a lovely bike path along the coast where Ned practised his biking skills a bit more.






Unfortunately we seem to cry out "HERE" whenever a bug makes its appearance so my normally so healthy boys were sick for the last couple of weeks, sigh.


Our next move will takes us back more into town. The house is only 5min walking distance from my in-laws as well as from church. Unfortunately there isn't anything like a playground close by I think, BUT the garden is BIG. I think Ned will have LOTS of diggin' fun in there.
We'll also have people coming over for the first time... it's Ned's birthday next week and I thought as it's a rather big place were we'll be staying we'd have a little party for him (but pssssst... don't tell him!!).

I don't have anything deep to share right now... so I suppose I'd better get going.... just one last thing... you know, I'm SO extremely thankful for our church, for the pastors and the people in general, it has been great getting to know people from all sorts of backgrounds and seasons in life. Naturally I meet lots of mums with young kids but there are others as well... like the lady how loves photography and I hope I might get to know her a bit more in order to learn from her... or the wives of two of your pastors (I wanted to write "our pastors' wives", but somehow that would draw a wrong picture, eh??). But I think I will write an entire post about church...

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

deadlines and routines

I always prided myself thinking I'm kind of a free thinking, arty person... but the older I get the more I realize I'm actually very much a box-thinking person... a person which absolutely HATES deadlines and greatly dislikes routines, BUT STILL NEEDS THE ROTTEN THINGS NONETHELESS!!!!!

When we were packing up our flat in Germany to leave for Australia I noticed again that I NEED deadlines. I don't function without them, but HATE them the same time. While the deadline is comfortably far away, I slack and dawdle away, well ...until the deadline looms right before me and all of a sudden I'm as busy and productive as a bee.
And routines... living a routine life does not sound attractive nor adventurous... but I've noticed again and again, once I get thrown out of a normal routine I limp like a three-legged dog, totally off balance... I'm not even talking about a strict routine ( I could NEVER EVER handle living like that) but just a flexible normal day-to-day routine... but be it a holiday, an injury or moving to the other side of the globe, it throws me out of balance and the limping starts.
More often than not it starts with my spiritual life, next to be affected is my exercise life closely follow by my eating habits. And sooner than you think I don't even limp no more, but just lay flat on my face, or rather sit lazily on a comfy couch, munch a bag of chips, and bar upon bar of chocolate and am bored. I've fallen in the same trap again and again, you'd think I would have learned by now, but nopp, I find myself at the bottom again, I stopped my running, I stopped not eating chocolate, I stopped making wise food choices, I stopped being productive, I stopped being creative, I stopped being a good, mother, a good wife, a good Christian.
So here I am again, picking up the pieces and starting afresh with establishing my own routines. Thankfully God is such a patient and loving God that He will help me once again to pick them up, piece by piece to make a beautiful mosaic picture which is my life.
I did start running again last week after a almost 2 months break... my breathing was all over the place, I was back to being really slow again and the next days I was in pain all over... but at least it is a start.
Tomorrow I will start with a 8 weeks "peacemaker" course at church, how to solve conflicts in a biblical way. The lady in charge called me yesterday and asked me if I'd like to do it. There is also a "book club" which I'd like to join. It isn't really a bible study, but studying a Christian book together with a couple of other mums from church, and it's on an evening which is nice. And there is bible study for mums with small kids on Wednesday mornings at church which I'm also interested to join. So that's a start. We'll go from there... luckily there isn't any chocolate around presently so I can't be tempted to eat it, so I haven't eaten chocolate in like 5 days or so, which is a start as well in making wise food choices... so we're getting there....


But life just goes on and doesn't mind my stuggles whatsoever... which is good thing I suppose. Well, we have moved yet another time and live now in a 70s style house VERY close to the beach. Ben has started on a part-time job (he's a painter now) and in the evenings when he come back from work we go for walks long the sea, Ned on his "motorbike.



He stops now and then all of a sudden, hops off his bike and collects a random stone and throws it in his "boot"... we have a whole collection of random rocks and stones by now.

We also have a bit of a garden presently which the boys enjoy a lot; Ned enjoys playing in it and Cedric enjoys eating it... whatever crosses his path goes straight in the mouth, no matter if it is a rock, grass or insect (brrrrr). Talking about Ced, he finally learnt to crawl properly... see???

seeeee??????
Ced also likes Ned's bobby car
Somehow the boys get much dirtier here than back in Germany