Change

It's raining outside. 

This morning my children started off the day in a manner that left my husband wishing me luck as he gleefully went to bed after night shift. I steeled myself, prepared to meet another difficult day. I settled disputes, reminded children to put items away only to be met with it-wasn't-me-attitude, and had to shut painting down at one point. 

Then it started to rain.

And suddenly they all simultaneously settled. One reading, a couple using textas and tracing stencils, one playing with play doh, and another working on a puzzle on the floor.

Quietly. Calmly. So I sat down at the sewing machine, and for what seemed like a long time, we had the chance to just be for a while. With no angst or over concern about what everyone else was doing.

Rain. Such a simple thing really. Water, coming down from the sky as it has done countless times before, drumming rhythmically on the surroundings, producing a much needed change for my family. 

I am more than grateful. 

Sometimes it is something that is least expected that brings change. Often something that is out of our control. We can try and strive and think and go after. But in the end, a heart beat is often all it takes to see that newness or opportunity that we have hoped for. Perhaps even longed for. 

Today, remembering this has given me comfort. The future isn't written yet. And assuming I know what it will hold and how I can maybe control it, is like trying to stop the waves crashing on the shore. 

Instead, I can take the time to enjoy the difficult times as much as I can, knowing that a tiny drop of rain may come at any moment to change everything. x

Tulips, views and a dam. Holiday ideas shared.

The last day of September has turned out to be my favourite!

This is a photo journal of our day.

Bowral: Tulip time.

An hour away from home, we visited Bowral to see the mass planting of tulips and other flowers. It was a great spring outing. The kids were excited at first, but a few began to get bored, until suddenly someone found a lady beetle. They were entertained for a long time finding the cute little bugs, watching them crawl all over and eventually fly away.

Daisy refused to have a photo with the whole family: "only mummy." #loved 

 "Quick mum, take a picture!"

My sensory girl:)

"Give it to me!!!" The toddler anthem.

Bowral Lookout

A picnic, a short walk and a lookout. The "watch for sheer cliffs" signs scared me a bit, but we were fine.

"I want mummy hold my hand."

"We need this seat mum."

Otherwise known as the daddy-you-won't-hold-me hold. Bravo daddy. This is a tricky hold.

Our favourite of the day: Nepean Dam

What can I say, water will always win with me, and apparently my family also. There was more than one lesson in not climbing the dam walls. I love the pic of Craig giving Henry a lesson, while pointing to the walls and the sign. Straight after he tried to climb it. Then, many lessons later, he climbed a thick pipe NEXT TO the wall. New rule: anything bolted to the dam wall COUNTS as the dam wall. He always makes me laugh (while trying to act stern - what a challenge!!!) Jack found a stick, which came on the adventure with us. Not at all happy I wouldn't let him take the fashioned-into-a-spear stick home. Thank goodness it was a National Park: we can only take photos. We spent a long time here, for much of it alone. So amazingly beautiful!

Not the dam wall. Climbing allowed.

These are the dam walls. Lesson in action.

Because I rarely include photos of me.

Possibilities.

How often do we really stare into the sky, into the blackness made perfect by stars all too simple, yet completely beautiful?

Tonight I left the crazy that is the shower routine, for the backyard and patiently waiting washing line. The unnatural lights of the inside faded to but a glow behind me as I ventured forth into the cold wind that had picked up in the hour since the last load of washing had been hung out to dry.

I placed the basket down and began the monotonous task that I had done so often before that I could do it with my eyes closed. Silence filled only with the rustle of leaves enveloped me as I shivered absentmindedly, lost in thoughts of the days to come. Then somewhere between reaching for pegs and hanging yet another item of clothing on the line, I caught a glimpse of a star in the distance.

I stopped suddenly and stared. The star became an entire sky, filling my vision with a view known around the world and surely connecting me at that very moment with more people than I could ever meet in the life I had ahead. The breeze, with it's hint of almost-gone blossoms whipped around me, my hair feeling light with a life of it's own. My eyes widened, my shoulders suddenly relaxed, as time felt to disappear. I felt small. Small not in a bad way, but rather a how-amazing-and-huge-is-the-sky way.

All I could think was - limitless.

It's easy to get caught up in boxes. Limits. It helps the illusion of control to remain safely within reach. But with control and certainty there is also loss. A loss that can be unnoticeable because what exists beyond the limits can be forgotten. Possibilities are often imagined and weighed for likelihood. But in truth, real possibility is without boundaries. All is possible. All. And that is just too much and too big to comprehend. It's the sky at night, with stars uncountable. So comfortable limits and boxes and held close. Fear it kept at bay.

But there is beauty in this place beyond limits. With the sky open before me, potential and enormity is not all that I see. In the all I also clearly see a simple beauty in what actually exists when something is not altered, controlled and packaged, in a nice little convenient way. It's the wildness. The pattern with no fixed starting point or perfect repetition. It just is the way it is with no need to make it what it is not. There is no pretending. There is no wall trying to hold anything in or hold anything back.

How often do you stare out into the blackness, the perfect amazing sky full of stars, and just breathe in the possibilities that exist beyond your now? Perhaps it is time to spend a moment letting go of the box and looking at the limitless potential that exists there. Beauty may vey well be in a simple place that may never be found while holding on so very tight.

Control is an illusion. Let go and look beyond. The stars are there not to frighten us with their endless nature, but rather to inspire and help us understand one very important thing: keep looking up, and moving forward. All is possible.

Jen.x

The life I wanted.

This afternoon we went to the beach. We were all tired and cranky, and very over the week past. Freedom by the waves, allowing us to just be ourselves, sounded like the perfect solution. The sun was slowly setting after we had walked the regular distance we walk, but we kept walking. It just wasn't enough. We needed more peace and time, so we walked far. So far that it was night time well before we made it back to the car.

We walked on towards the light. Children laughing and playing in little light, one drawing a continuous line of different shapes as the others giggled and followed. One child walking silently beside me, and one on Craig's shoulders, almost touching the stars. The sounds of the ocean a constant in the background, while watching the foam lap the shore, with the tiny lights of the city far beyond.

Memories floated in with the tide, and before long one memory - long forgotten - took hold.

It was like remembering the memory belonging to a different person. And in a way, I was. I was so very different from who I am now.

It was an evening much like this one. Darkness on the beach, only this time with friends. I walked a little way alone, a small distance from the group. In the momentary solitude I walked along, wondering what my life would be like. I walked silently filled with hope, curiosity and anticipation. I couldn't wait for life to start.

I hadn't yet realised that the life I was waiting to start, was one I was already living. But I was excited and there was so much ahead of me.

I imagined the life I wanted. Success to be sure. Money. A career. And it went without saying: a husband who would adore me and shower me with gifts. It was all I wanted, this very narrow view of what my wonderful life would hold.

A different person. I couldn't help laughing at what I once valued and was striving to achieve, far from what I value now.

But then so much has happened since then. A change of heart about my university degree, meeting my now-husband while I was still so young, and having a child, not to mention the four children that followed, has changed me incredibly. I don't recognise the person I once was.

I no longer measure my life based on ideals that I once thought were so very important. I no longer believe that I am waiting to live the life I want. I no longer think success can even truly be measured, or even needed, to live an amazing life. I now know that life doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be about achieving. It doesn't have to be anything really. My life is a collection of the moments I choose to live right now, full of love, hard work, everyday simplicity, challenges, and all the emotions I never would have believed possible.

As I walked along the beach tonight, almost 20 years older, and much wiser, I felt so very blessed. The moment I was living was really all I wanted. And that is the greatest gift I could ever be given: to be entirely content where I was at that moment, with no 'if only-s' clouding my mind or view. I knew right then that I didn't need to see the whole world to know I had the best for me right there.

When I think about the future lives of my children, I hope they will find love and happiness and so much more. But what I hope oh so much, is that at some point in their lives they stand, just as I did tonight, and realise they actually have all the world has to offer right there with them. I hope they find themselves completely content where they are, valuing all in their lives, from the simple to extraordinary.

I couldn't be happier that the naive girl I once was, grew up to live a completely different life than the one she imagined for herself. I may get tired, cranky, irritated and overwhelmed. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Mixed in there is the wonderful, the lovely, the awesome and the contentedness, wrapped in the memories that make up the simple life I choose and re-choose to live every single day.

Jen.x