A New Day Dawning

"You are exactly where you need to be" 

Wise words that are not my own, but words I fall back on often.

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. My podcast feed is fed by my interests and most of what I hear feels like it was meant just for me on a given day. What surprises me, is when I end up listening to something I've already heard and I hear a brand new message the second time around.

"Laziness does not exist" 

Devon Price says on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast.

Interesting. When your body shuts down and you cannot do more than sit on the couch and watch TV, that is okay. Hmmm? 

I have had numerous people within my enabling circle of family and friends tell me this. I tend not to believe them because they really have no idea just how LITTLE I do when I say I have literally done nothing for the entirety of a weekend. But wait just a second. When I do nothing, I am still. I am listening. I am absorbing little nuggets of information I may or may not remember. I may spend an afternoon playing Freecell on the computer. But I am listening to podcasts the entirety of that time.

In the time I feel as if I am sleepwalking through the hours, the neurons in my brain are firing. I could be more productive. I will be more productive. I am thinking. I am learning. I am expanding my ideas. I am listening to other points of view. 

The myriad of podcasts I've listened to have motivated me to reserve and borrow books from the library written by those interviewed. I am reading again!

My interests are expanding outside of my own small little vantage point within the universe. I hear nuggets of information I have heard replayed in the world outside my head. I am literate in life beyond my own.

I will be attending an event where I will be among people I saw four and a half years ago. I was running on a tank so empty that when politely asked what I was going on in my life, I honestly answered, "Nothing". Period. End of story. A kind soul listening in answered for me and within that response, was what I used to do. I didn't do that anymore. 

I felt defeated. Small. I wanted to fade into the scenery. Who was I when all I could be defined by was a version of who I used to be?

I will see these people again. The conversation will be completely different. We will be at a memorial honoring two people within that small grouping who are no longer here. The focus will be outward but I feel more grounded. I am becoming more of the person I used to be, with a dash of growth and perspective added.

"Listen to dread. It is such an important direction. There is something not right about the situation."

I had been waking up physically, emotionally and spiritually filled with dread for quite some time four and a half years ago. I cried on my way to work. I could feel it in my heart, my soul and my bones. 

The sensation was mixed with grief at first. I had been feeling this way before Mom died. Running out to see her was running away from the angst I felt at my job. Mom listened while I talked. What I remember most about our last mother-daughter-life-as-we-remembered-it supper together was her asking me "What is your ten year plan? You do know your "bread and butter" [income sources] are both over the age of 80, don't you?"

I didn't make ten years. Mom knew my answer before she died. I pushed through six years before I gave a year's notice to leave the work that was killing me softly. I woke up dreading the day. I didn't act upon it. I can still feel the way I felt driving to work those days.

How old do you feel?

A question Julia Louis-Dreyfus asks every guest on her "Wiser Than Me" podcast.

My answer never changes when I hear her question. I feel the age of whoever is in my presence.

I have started two new jobs recently. I may be the oldest in the office but I am surrounded by people younger than me. I envelope whatever age they may be and feel at home in their company. I remember feeling the same way when I ran my daycare. I was of a grand-mothering age and could have easily been most of my parents' mothers. We had young children in common and I felt like a fellow-warrior in this parenting role. Then I started working with those who were over the age of eighty.

I'll leave that thought alone.

There are many who are older than those I worked with and they are life affirming and young in spirit. But those I was keeping company with were in a state of decline. It took all I had and perhaps a little bit more.

Mom's words of wisdom were "You need to be around youth". She clarified she was not talking of my daycare crowd. The full time responsibility of fifty hours a week tending pre-schoolers was a little too excessive. At least for me.

I abandoned my daycare career at Mom's urging and can now thoroughly enjoy those exuberant, youthful little people. There is little that brings more joy than listening to contended children at play. I can even appreciate a crying child who is not dependent upon me. 

Everything in moderation. 

I feel a sense of balance being restored within myself and the life I am living. Life is bubbling up inside of me once again. I am feeling the energy of surrounding myself with the energy of those who are regenerating little pieces of myself that were lost to me for a while.

It is a brand new day. How we spend it is entirely up to us. No guilt. No expectations. Just do what you are capable of doing. 

Delightfully Uncomplicated

As I sit here this morning, coffee at my side and a little time on my hands, life feels delightfully uncomplicated.

There is no reason for today to feel different from other days. I simply woke up at my home-away-from-home and I'm ready to log another work day at my new job.

New jobs are fraught with stresses and complications. This is no different. The difference is me.

I'm taking a step towards my future. I feel comfortable. I feel comforted. I feel better.

I took a picture of our backyard and realized as I was taking it, the kitchen cupboards were reflected in the shot. It reflects a little of how I feel at the moment. 

Eyes on the present moment, while reflecting upon where I'm at and quietly plotting what I need to do to get here.

It's a New Year!

July 1st feels like a brand new year this year.

All accounting jobs and expectations for the previous year end have been wrapped up.

On one hand, one of my jobs will be ending any day now.

On the other hand, I have given a one year's notice of resignation to my accounting job. My goal is to organize my little office and wrap up the year 2023. Leave my work organized enough so my heir-apparent can step into the role I will leave behind.

I will then move to my little oasis on the prairie. My hope is to take the summer off and then step into a job with hours conducive to living a life beyond work, make friends and connections and let my next "happily ever after" begin.

I have learned there are no happily ever afters in life. Simply new beginnings, renewed hope and more change. Always change.

The only thing certain in life are death and taxes and change.

I have drawn a line in the cement and I'm making way for a renewed life. One year from today ...

Happy New Year! 

A Personal Renovation

I have more energy than I have had in a very long time. Apparently (for me, at least), ambition begets more ambition.

I know we are only in the first stages of this "reno" thing and only the kitchen is affected thus far. But my reno-guy cleans up after his work day and the kitchen has been left in very usable condition each and every evening thus far.

As I talk to the various people working with me on this renovation of epic proportions, I'm feeling somewhat in control of the fate of our home.

It's going to get worse before it gets better. But it IS getting better.

Life is like that. It isn't all an uphill climb. It is a state of disrepair before much needed updates and repairs can be done. 

Whether it is a broken relationship, a job situation, health and any number of life changing events. Sometimes we just need to strip things down to the bones, see what lies beneath the surface and go forward from there.

So far, there have not been any nasty surprises. We seem to be working on a good, solid base. Thank goodness.

As disruptive as this appears on the outside, I still feel calm. I am comforted by the ability to say "yes" easily. I am gaining confidence as each piece to the puzzle fits together without a struggle. I am gaining momentum as I visualize where we are now, where things are going and the end result of this time of great upheaval.

I am feeling renewed, regenerated and re-energized. I feel like I am undergoing my very own personal renovation along with our home. 

I am guessing that I am feeling a little of what Mom felt each time she renovated her home. Mom's home was her oasis. I think I have a little bit of Mom's spirit within me. 

I'm coasting along with the current of life and I am enjoying the ride. 

One Step at a Time

It started with a ticking fridge. The ticking made me think of a bomb counting down. How long would it tick until the fridge quit altogether?

I took a risk and believed it would be good for one more week. I booked a service call for this afternoon (one week after the initial phone call). I didn't want the service person to think I was a slob so I did "one hard thing" before 8 am. I pulled out the fridge and cleaned behind and under it.

Our fridge has been leaking something green for quite some time now. The fridge just kept on working, so I ignored the green dye which was infiltrating the floor and baseboard behind the fridge. But this morning, all I could think of was the new flooring which I have been dreaming about.

I don't want a new floor to be stained so I dropped into our friendly, neighborhood used appliance store and bought a new-to-me fridge to replace our present day green-oozing-ticking fridge time bomb. It should be delivered any time now ...

Add the flooring guy into the mix. He was scheduled to drop by to measure the house this afternoon. I had all but cancelled the idea until this morning. This morning, I knew without a doubt that I want to get new flooring in the kitchen. NO doubt about it. This flooring has seen better days and this IS a room I could define a definite "start" and "stop" point.

So ... my flooring guy is en route as well.

ONE step at a time. FIRST, replace the fridge. SECOND, decide on the flooring.

One room? Or the entire main floor? Who knows where this saga will end.

The Dreams are Coming ... (where is my field?)

Life feels overwhelming when you think too hard. I have been trying not to force my thoughts. When I finally relaxed, the right kind of thinking replaced the fear, the anxiety and all the negativity that has been sneaking into my thoughts lately.

The last real conversation I had with Mom, about my "ten year plan", continues to weigh on my mind. 

Life is a fickle thing and we never know what tomorrow may bring, let alone ten years. The mere thought of my need to direct my focus onto "what's next" when my employment situation changes is daunting.

As I headed my car in a westerly direction towards Edmonton last weekend, thoughts wafted in, around and through my mind. 

I keep coming back to the "Oakes Place". A bed and breakfast. A place for reunions to happen. Perhaps a sideline of pampering and a friendly coffee place for the off season. A little oasis in the quiet of the Saskatchewan prairies.

A diamond in the rough. I cannot let go of the idea of wanting to build an investment out of little to nothing. I want to build a future the way my grandpa did. I cannot let go of the fact that the quarter section of land I inherited was bought for $1,000.00 back in 1938. It has been sold for 150 times that amount almost 80 years later. How can I invest in something that will retain its value and (hopefully) appreciate in value that exceeds the cost of living?

Retirement accommodations ... housing that could provide independent living, yet provide one roof which would house areas to promote socializing, quiet reflection, recreation and nourishment. A miniature version of where my aunt lives in a scaled down, small town way.

I don't want my "ten year plan" to include pounding the street to find employment outside of my home. I'm already pushed to my max right now, leaving our home on an (almost) daily basis to earn a living. I'm working for people I know well, I'm doing what I want to do but I don't love doing it. Because I'm not really my own boss. 

I want to recreate the "daycare dream" where my home provided not only shelter and a place to live, but it housed my place of employment. People came to me. I earned a very good living from home. Self employment brought out qualities in me that I never would have found, if I had never worked on my own.

The answer is somewhere within these thoughts. I'm not in a hurry. I have the luxury of not having to rush the process.

I have a feeling I'm already "living the dream". I just have to relax and let the ideas come to me. If I build it ... they will come. My field of dreams may be closer than I know.

Lost

Gratitude. The key is in finding what one is grateful for, even in the darker moments of living a life.

I've lost my way and I seem to be without a compass to guide me. I need to find my true north and I'm not sure where to look first. I will start with gratitude.

I know I'm lost. For this, I am grateful. I know what contentment feels like. I've had it. I actually still have it. It is simply that "contentment" is not the fuel I need to push myself beyond where I am and toward a place that is better for me.

I have lost my way before. I have always found a way back onto the path I believe I was destined to walk. I have done this before. I can do it again.

My "before's" used to be a lot darker. There were relationships I needed to leave behind or find my way through &/or heal in the best way I knew how. There were circumstances which were unhealthy. I simply needed to recognize them for what they were, revise my plan and follow the new fork in the road.

Looking back, it was obvious what I needed to do. There was a decision that had to be made. The power was within me. I had to save myself or my children or my heart or our home. I had to find a way to earn a living while living a life which felt like a good fit for me.

I simply needed to find a way in which to maintain my sense of self, while maintaining the status quo. Paying the bills, raising children, maintaining what I already had.

Part of what I have had and count as one of my biggest blessings, is the community of family, friends, encouragers, supporters and simply a soft place to land when I didn't know where to turn. I have not lost any of the above, but I have lost the energy it takes to maintain those ties.

I have become "allergic" to planning. I cringe when I have a schedule of events lined up on my calendar. It doesn't matter if it is a dentist appointment, a family reunion or simply a coffee date with a friend. What is written down and planned becomes an appointment to endure and cross off. Each and every date with destiny is "one more thing done and behind me". You know you are in trouble when you compare a root canal with a commitment to a friend or family member.

Life has become "something to be endured". This is wrong. I know I must work to pay the bills. I work with and for people who like and appreciate me. While I'm working, there is really nothing else I'd rather be doing. But it is also a little like that dental appointment. I can't wait to be done. I just want to go home, crawl into my pajamas and cocoon myself within the serenity of our home.

I am grateful for my employment and employers who are friends above all else. I am grateful for this oasis I call "home". I am grateful for the creature comforts our house provides - cupboards, fridges and freezers which are full enough to feed us for a very long time; heat in the winter/air conditioning in the summer; clean, fresh water and air to drink and breathe. The company of my Youngest Son who shares this roof and our furry little black cats who adorn our home in a way only cats can.

I have so much. But I have lost something which is almost as critical as clean water. I've lost my purpose. I don't have any dreams on the horizon. I look towards the future and I see nothing but a calendar with days to be crossed off. Endured.

I'm wasting the days I have been given. I want for little more than I already have. In the past, this void was filled with something life changing. A child. A divorce. A move. A new job. A new relationship. Focus on the relationships I already had. Writing a book ....

Hmmm. My answers lie within me. I just need to start believing in them.

No Way Out (or is there?)

I'm not making the most of my life lately. I walk around a lot of days feeling like I am a waste of oxygen. Certainly a pretty flower would exude more joy than I have been lately. I'm not a lover of flowers, so that is saying a lot.

Purpose is severely lacking in my moment to moment thoughts.

I wake up in the morning and wonder what I must endure throughout the day ahead of me so I can head back to my room and turn off the world.

I feel bound to one of my jobs and when someone asked me why I didn't quit, my response was simply, "I can't quit. I think the only way out is for me to die."

I said those words one day and headed off to face another new day 16-1/2 hours later. It was the hardest thing I've done in recent history. But I did it. And it was good that I faced that particular moment so it can't hang over me during my days off.

Daycaring wore me down but my current role is depleting my resources to a near all time low. And it has only been seven months.

If I could quit, what would I do? That is the million dollar question.

The very first thought that entered my mind as I spelled out those words was, "I would see if Mom would be agreeable to me moving into her basement and I would try to get a job at the daycare which is housed in a senior's residence across the street from my childhood home."

I'm experienced in childcare and I've been exposed to senior care. I have a feeling there is a place where the two worlds collide and that is where I'd like to go next.

The Universe is Very Chatty Lately

The universe is a vast, wide open, full of possibilities and suggestions. The universe has been opening up to me this weekend and I do believe the ball is now officially in my court. It is my turn to act.

I have had three complete and total days off. Off of everything. No daycare, no bookkeeping, no socializing, no leaving the house, no answering the telephone. The only contact I have had with the outside world in the two days that preceded today are three text messages and one email.

I should be changing my world as I sit here and regain my power by being quiet, still and reflective. It hasn't quite happened that way. I hope this process counts for something. Because it has been a process. It has been slow, I have allowed every little thing in the universe to distract me. But I do believe "it is all part of the plan".

Friday was a day of wondering what ideas I could turn into reality. I scanned the "Rooms for Rent" ads and tried to imagine sharing our home with a complete and total stranger. That didn't sit well with me. A friend of a friend or family member? Perhaps. A complete and total stranger? That is a whole different concept.

So I forged onward.

What happened to my Bed & Breakfast dream? That was my original plan after my daycare days ran their course. I thought of looking into the possibility of working for someone who runs a B & B so I could get a feel for what it would be like. I didn't look too hard but while I was looking, I did a little dreaming. The ideal houses to turn into a B & B are about a hundred years old. Ongoing maintenance, repairs, renovations, additions, not to mention all the nooks and crannies to clean and shine and paint took the shine off of my little dream. I can't even motivate myself to clean and maintain the little home we already have. Shake your head, girl!

As one little dream faded into dust and landed into a pile with the rest of the dirt I have yet to clean, I started to think more realistically. A job. I need a job. So I looked. And I found something I wanted to apply for. I did it. I scared myself silly. Then I lost myself to an afternoon of watching the Gilmore Guys analyze two Gilmore Girls episodes.

So ended my Friday. I sat still with my lost dreams and wasted the day away. I learned two things. Maybe three:

1. I don't want to share our home with a complete stranger. 
2. I am not in a place to open a Bed & Breakfast right now. 
3. I do not want to work at a full-time job. I already have a part-time job. I do know for sure that I want to work a maximum of five days per week. I know this much for sure. 

Then I slept.

I woke up Saturday morning and messages from the universe were pelting me from every direction.

The universe was reminding me to step fully into my decision, absolutely fully, with no looking back. No wondering "What have I done?" No running back and forth, trying to have it both ways, with one foot holding onto enough daycare belongings so I could start again if the going gets tough. I need to "sell everything" and move on.

Okay.

I took that as a cue to start decluttering a few more closets. I ended up in a closet full of books and when I sat down to rest and rethink where I was going from here, I ended up with Susan Jeffer's book "Life is Huge!" in my hands. What an awesome writer, story teller, motivator and encourager.

I got lost in the land of Google as I investigated Susan's other books and seminars. "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" is speaking to me right now. That is exactly where I am sitting within this life of mine and there is both a book AND a workshop entitled "Discover Your Inner Power - Fear Busting 101". Yes, I checked into flights, accommodations and the cost of the seminar. It exceeded my current total monthly income. There are cheaper ways of doing this. I'll find them.

I felt empowered.

So I picked up a much needed meal from McDonald's because "I deserved a break yesterday" and we have been sacrificing a lot little lately. Then I rested.

I woke up this morning and the incoming messages from the universe just keep coming. "A little progress each day adds up to big results"; "How to Stay Motivated":

S.M.A.R.T Goals are defined as Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely

I cannot sit back and waste this time of great quiet. It is mine to use and use wisely. I was unexpectedly gifted three consecutive days off this weekend and I think it was a test. "How are you going to utilize that which you have been given?"

Have I wasted my time? In a word? Yes. There is so very much more I could have done with the two days that preceded today. Yes, I have cleared out two more closets. Yes, I have started dealing with the excesses within our deep freeze, pantry and kitchen cupboards [more on that another day "What happens to decaffeinated coffee six years after its 'best before' date anyway??].

I still believe clearing out the old is significant of making room for that which is coming. Taking care of what I already have is the sincerest form of gratitude.

I have so much. Everything I need is already within me, our home and what I have learned so far. As I listened to Oprah talk with Caroline Myss yesterday, it was as if they were speaking directly to me. I need to do everything I can do, do it to the best of my ability, with a full and grateful heart, then set it out into the world, knowing I have done everything I can do.

I haven't been giving life my "all" for a very long while. It is time. The universe is knocking me over the head with a 2 by 4 with all of these messages.

Everywhere I look, I find inspiration, encouragement and the wisdom I was not ready to hear until now. I'm listening, world. Now let's see where this takes us....

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm"

My horoscope for the week:

"You may succeed in making a living from your art. Some major changes allow you to take a new path in life ..."

Well, I'll be. 

I have been sitting here pelting off an inner dialogue which has been filled with words and doubt and fear. Yesterday I listened to Glennon Doyle Melton's interview with Maria Schriver and Glennon said that when you are thinking in "words", that is fear. The deep, wise "knowing" is something that comes to you in the quiet. It is wordless. It is like gravity.

I felt that sense of "knowing" when I knew I had to change what I was doing. It was weighted down with inner truth and it was wordless. I was scared to follow through on it but I knew it was the right thing to do. Because it was the "knowing".

This inner dialogue within my head, the words, the fears, the calculating, the Googling to see what I can do next. That is "fear". It is full of words. It is incessant. It isn't the truth. It is fear. It is negative. It isn't helpful when it tells me all I can NOT do.

So I walked away from listening to my guru, "Glennon" and told myself to "fear not", you will know when your truth sits down with you. You will know. You have time. You are okay. 

Then I went and double checked my financial status, back up plans and plans to back up the back up plans and trusted Glennon was right. I will not be afraid. Not today (or yesterday).

I woke up this morning knowing (See? It is happening already) the very next thing I had to do was to submit my columns to my newspaper editors. It was a small thing but it was the next right thing (Glennon also says we may not know everything at the same time but we always know the "next right thing"). 

It was small but it was something (else) weighing me down. Submit my articles and then take the next logical step.

I have been toying with the idea and waiting to feel courageous before I take the next step. I know I need to try to "sell myself" to more papers and publications. One of my editors gave me a contact name and number so I could make one call and she would be able to spread the word to all of the Saskatchewan weekly publications. I have held onto that name and number for the better part of a year. I have been feeling too inadequate, too overwhelmed and too fearful to make that call. My word well was drying up and I was ready to quit writing. That was not the time to be looking for "more".

I have many things I want to accomplish during my Time of Great Quiet. Ridding the house of its excesses is one major item on my agenda. Repairs and maintenance is another. Once the house is clean and taken care of (and yes, I do believe I recognize the fact that I "need" to have a clean and organized house as just another excuse), I want to sit still within my days and focus on writing.

I want to "sell myself" to more publications. I want to see what writing I can organize and compile into something one may call a "book". I don't want the noise and chaos of children, stuff, house maintenance and the fear monger which lives within my head to bother me while I'm doing this sacred work. I want to be still and quiet and know. 

This is what I want to do "next". After my column submissions are complete, edited, polished up and sent off. I want to sit still with this idea and see where it takes me.

"This" is what has been in the back of my mind and I was unable to hear it because the voice of "fear" has taken over my thoughts. "This" is what I've been striving towards ever since I started emptying closets, selling our belongings and lightening the load I'm carrying. "This" is part of where it is at for me. "This" and renting out a room. That is taking up a very big space within my thought processes as well.

I have been thinking these thoughts but pushing them down and aside and chastising myself for being a dreamer. Then I read this horoscope. Yes, I know. It is just a horoscope. It is a general comment meant to mean something to almost anyone who reads it. But it was directed to "Scorpios", this week and I read it today. Timing is everything sometimes.

You may succeed in making a living from your art. It did not state you "will" succeed. It said you "may" succeed. I will "never" succeed if I don't try. If I try, I will know I did my best and I "may" succeed on some level. My barometer for success is pretty low. Completing something I set out to do is a win in my books. 

Now is the time to try. My world is becoming quiet, the weight of excess is lightening, my responsibilities are manageable. Writing does not cost a penny. Above all else, this is the most affordable pastimes I could ever hope to stumble upon. It is a win, win, win situation.

Some major changes allow you to take a new path in life ...

It is just one of those things that makes me sit back and go "Hmmmm".

Messages From the World

I think the world is always speaking to us. Sometimes we are open to hear the messages and other times, the wisdom of the world around us passes us by. When we are too busy focusing on the moment we are in and in survival mode, we aren't as open to receive the messages we that are all around us.

After a quiet Sunday of trying to regain my perspective and turning it into a day of wondering "What in the world are you going to do next?!!" and trying my best not to panic, I woke up to a Monday full of words, wisdom and connections to shift my focus.

The first words that found their way to me was my daily dose of "Project Happiness.com":

I was reminded that I AM doing the right thing. I needed to change my "career path" because all I could think of before I gave notice that I was closing my daycare doors was "How much longer do I have to do this?" "I can't do this for the rest of my life" and the only relief I could see was a shortened life expectancy. You KNOW you are in the wrong job when you think you would rather die young, than carry on as you have been. DANGER! DANGER!! DANGER!!! 

No matter where things go from here, I do know that where I am is better than where I was. I am living life in the moment and it is a much better place than looking too far ahead or focused on where I have been. One step in a forward direction will take me closer to where I am going. I just don't know where I am going quite yet ...

Then this message from COURAGEworks.com found its way to me:

After spending too much time focusing on the jobs I didn't feel qualified for, I continued to dream of finding a way to continue working for myself. I have ideas. I am not certain if they are marketable or if I can sustain myself financially on them but I have ideas. Where there is a spark, there is hope. If I do the right things for the right reasons, I will have the passion behind my actions to ignite that spark. I think...

Then I made a phone call to the student loan office to talk to them about my debt, my future, my ability to repay and wanting to ensure I made the right moves so my actions of today don't negatively affect my future.

The person on the other end of the phone wore angel's wings. Of that, I am quite certain. These are a few of the things she told me. "NOW is the time to return to school!" "Find out what grants your province offers for women entrepreneurs." "Follow what you feel passionate about and you will be great at it!"

Here I was, talking to a person who could just as easily have said, "Get a job. Get ANY job! You must repay this student loan or your future could be jeopardized!!" Instead, she reiterated what has been resonating deep within me. "Don't go where you feel you HAVE to go. Follow your passion. It will take you where you NEED to go."

When you are open to new thoughts and ideas, they find their way to you. The positive messages of the world are always there and trying to find their way into your world, your thinking and your subconscious mind. I love when the world around me makes me feel safe enough to open myself and my thinking to allow what I need to hear into my world.

If you listen, it will come ...

Life is Amazing!

Do you happen to remember that post I wrote, where someone contacted me about writing a post with financial tips? I didn't think it was for real at first but the post "Financial Tips From the Financially Inept" rolled off my fingertips with ease, so when this actual real, live person followed up and contacted me AGAIN I did a little checking and confessed I written that post shortly after I received her original email. Do you know what? She liked it. She really liked it!!

[Queue "Twilight Zone" music here]

Okay. Now. This is my reality:

TODAY is my last official day of providing full-time daycare to a house full of kids. After today, I will have ONE child to tend. One. I have about two months of "guaranteed income" from that child and the third month is anyone's guess because her mom is having a baby and I will be taking care of this last daycare child left standing until that time.

ONE child = $600 per month. This is not an income which will sustain me. Nor do I have the ability to look for a job which takes me out of the house because I am still committed to being home nine hours a day, five days a week. And bookkeeping on Saturdays. My work-week is still fully committed.

I am simply not raking in the income I have been accustomed to. Things are going to be tight but I've made adjustments. I have the "short term" under control. Everything is covered. I've got this.

Ever since before I knew my daycare income was going to be slashed, I was telling myself to trust the moment I'm in. Don't panic. Don't let fear rule the moment. Coast with whatever you are given.

It has been challenging to have faith that I am exactly where I need to be but two short months ago, I was falling to pieces and all I could think of was taking a year's leave of absence. A year to be quiet and figure things out. I got three months instead! Bonanza!!

Ever since I realized this gift of time was being presented to me in the most unexpected of ways, my first thought was maybe I could focus on my writing. Maybe I could approach more papers and bring in a little more income from the articles I already write. Maybe I could start compiling my writing, sorting things into "life lessons" called chapters and maybe I could really do this. Maybe I could produce a thing called a book.

It was like a meteor shower. All these seemingly unrelated events were whirling around in my brain and not quite connecting with each other. They were free falling. That is probably what my "ocular migrane" was!! A bombardment of ideas that had not yet found each other!

Yesterday, I had a very interesting email exchange with this person who found my writing through the amazing forces of the Internet. She liked what she read enough to contact me to write something for her. The combination of my love of "letters" and "numbers" made it very easy for me to come up with writing (letters) of the financial (numbers) kind. Maybe I can combine the two forces which have driven me since I was about 9 or 10 years old. I started my letter writing "career" at age 9. I started financial planning the year I saved up for a tape recorder (maybe 10?). Writing and "figgering" ("figuring" for those of you reading this who can't hear my dad's voice in my head when I write this) are an integral part of my being. I can "write" about "numbers"!

If nothing else, this has given me a launching pad. The beginning of starting to organize my thoughts of the past into chapters for a "book". Within said book, you can be sure to find a section on "Financial Tips from the Financially Inept" because that is where this meteor shower actually started pulling itself together by some magnetic force. This "shower" may become a planet of its own.

Life is really amazing! I love looking at it backwards and seeing how all the pieces of the puzzle (or meteorites) eventually start coming together to create a bigger picture (or a brand new planet altogether).

The coincidences of what I write here and find sitting for me in my inbox moments after I finish my thoughts never cease to amaze me. Here is today's inspiration from Project Happiness (https://projecthappiness.com/):

Followed by this food for thought:

"#FreedomFriday: What would it take for you to let go of control today and trust that everything is unfolding for your greater good?"

Change is in the Air

I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I was wide eyed, ready to hop out of bed and start my day. I smiled to myself when I realized the cats hadn't had time to rush back onto their spots on my bed to give me the illusion that they had been sleeping soundly with me all night. Yes, they were still prowling and doing heaven only knows what. It sounded like they were working on pulling up some carpeting upstairs. They were doing their cat things and I was alone and awake. It was a glorious 4.79434 seconds.

Cats have an innate sense of knowing when there is a fly or a spider or a human stirring within a 10 ft radius. Yesterday they tracked down a spider and a maple bug (?) and saved the day. This morning, they both raced down the stairs to ensure they didn't miss our making-the-bed-with-a-cat-on-it morning tradition we have.

It is light, fun and easy to wake up when you wake with a smile. It is the littlest things that bring light into my days. I must remember that. There for a very long while, I was looking for the big stuff, but the truest of joy comes from the smallest of things.

I wandered through my morning revelling in the fact that I had three full hours before my day walked in the door. My day. My second last day of an almost full daycare load. This time last week, I was pulling my hair out. Heavens, this time yesterday morning I was feeling great angst about the three days left in my daycare reign. Then we had "yesterday". And I find myself wishing I could find a way to keep doing what I am doing.

I purged my frustrations right here on this very blog platform. As it so very often  happens, when I allow my fingers to tell my story there is a release that is life affirming. When I see my words written out before me, I find affirmation, patterns and possible solutions. There is so much power gained by setting the words that are haunting me free. Words are dangerous things when confined to my brain, within my small, isolated universe. The truth shall set you free ...

I woke up with thoughts of relationships of the courting kind. Those of us who have them. Those of us who don't. I'm sitting on the side of "I don't have that in my life but I think I want to explore it", so my awareness is being drawn to those who seem to be of a similar circumstance or age and drawing new love into their lives. I look at those people like an outsider and wonder "What do they have that I don't? What are they doing that I am not? What do they have that attracts love, romance and partnership into their world?"

In the quietness of my morning, as I made my bed around our cats, the answer came to me. They have a willingness to do the work which is required to make a relationship not only come to life, but to keep resuscitating it time and time again. Relationships are a full on commitment. I know without a doubt that I am kind of lazy that way. Or at least I have been for the last very long while.

I have been on my own for over nine years now. Nine. Nine has been a number which shows up a lot in the cycles within my life. It has been nine years. It is no wonder I am feeling restless and starting to wonder again.

I spent the initial part of my mourning period regrouping. I did it in a rather productive fashion that I wouldn't mind recreating one day. I fixed up the house, the yard and myself in the process. There is much to be gained by painting a fence that doesn't end. I still remember what part of the process I was living as I glance at different sections of our fence. It was a lot of work. Finding "me" after I had started identifying myself as part of a couple was life affirming. I survived. Again.

Then I found my friends again. I reached out and became available as a friend. It started with me feeling the need to be surrounded by friendship. Then as I told my story, others started telling me theirs. It was groundbreaking work. There was a strong foundation being rebuilt. Strength in numbers. We are not alone.

I found myself searching for my roots. I collected family memories, organized them and put together a few family history/memory books. I started reconnecting to family and discovering myself in January of 2008. I amassed and bound my last set of family memories into a book by October of 2014. I spent over six years immersed in the process of feeling like I belong to this thing I call family. My root system is strong, stable and I believe I can now weather any storm.

I feel like I've been wandering aimlessly over the course of the past few years. The honeymoon period of finishing my last book project lasted well into the following year. That was followed by a crash of a subtle and not so subtle kind. I was exhausted. Physically, mentally and emotionally.

Then came the identity crisis. If I was not part of a couple or a survivor of a broken heart or the collector of family members or the mother of dependent children or good at the job I was doing ... who WAS I??

Life happened and placed me right back into the heart of my family and family home over my summer holidays. I wasn't standing on firm ground before I found myself there but once I was in the thick of family, I became strong again. I knew what I could do and I did it. I found a vital piece of myself within a crisis of minor proportions. I was finding strength within my weakness. I was still a little broken and fractured but I had my root system. I was still standing and I had weathered a long lasting winter.

I didn't know where I was going (I still don't) but my strength is within my roots and my future will come from allowing spring to come into my life.

This must be where this feeling of adding "new life" into my world is coming from. After my last long term relationship ended, I felt so broken I wanted to leap right back into love and heal my heart that way. The longing was real. I was so lonely. I'm glad I took the long road back into finding my way back "home". I am longing for a deepness within my world these days. It very well may not be within the confines of a relationship. I believe it will come from the deepness in my soul, when I become still and quiet and content in the life I am living.

I feel it coming. I don't know what it is. But change is in the air.

Strange Things Are Happening to Me

I was wide awake twenty minutes before my alarm went off again this morning. I think this has been happening for at least a week now. Maybe more. My alarm is set for 5:00 a.m., it is pitch black outside and I've been going to bed later. This is nothing short of a miracle. I love it!

I love the quiet of the morning and I have been sabotaging my own happiness by sleeping through this, the happiest part of my day. I wake up motivated to get as much done before the rest of the world seeps into my day.

What to do? Where to start?

Unfortunately, I have replaced my addiction to TV watching with on-line selling. I started selling off my excess daycare wares two weeks ago and I'm still going strong. I have made $343.25 to date and I have 16 more items up for bid at the moment. My goal of selling $50 per week is being exceeded but far better than that, I seem to have regained a foothold on the excess that was taking over my life. I am finally willing and ready to let go.

It was not so very long ago when I opened a drawer or a cupboard or focused on the clutter within the garage and I felt defeated. I was overwhelmed. I had a sickly attachment to "stuff" and deciding what to purge felt akin to deciding which toe I could live without. There was a physical and emotional hold which resulted in a lot of television watching and sleeping in lieu of "cutting off a toe".

Granted, the decision to close my daycare has been a catalyst for this change. If this decision wasn't so right for me right now, I wouldn't find this process so easy. It is not just letting go of "the stuff", it is letting go of the lifestyle. Our house is not going to look like and BE a daycare. If not a daycare, then "what"?

I know that part of my fascination with the Home and Garden network comes from the idea of wondering what our home could be transformed into next. The entire time I was babysitting, I wished for the HGTV network to knock on my door and offer to do a renovation on creating "convertible spaces" within my home. Somewhat akin to how a Murphy bed disappears into a wall when not in use as a bed, I wished for a home where booster seats, playpens and play areas could "vanish into a wall" the moment my daycare day ended.

My goal is to make our house "work" for me. It has served well as a daycare for the better part of the last 18 years. It has been done a very good job. But what now? What can I do to help this house pay its own way in the world?

My dream goal has been to open a Bed and Breakfast. Ever since I stayed in my very first B & B in 2005, I knew "that" was it for me. That was the direction I wanted to work towards. My dream was open a B & B, do bookkeeping on the side and write. Just write.

I'm at a crossroad now. My daycare days must end. It is hard but it is necessary. Now it is time to transform my world and turn it into what I have been dreaming of.

As I dig into the closets, drawers, garage, playhouse, nooks and crannies around here I am not yet "cleaning". I am purging. Simply erasing the identity of what once lived here. This house has to work for me. I don't think Scott McGillivray is going to drop by and turn my main floor into a fully independent rent-able space for me, while he pats me on the back and applauds me for choosing the downstairs suite as my own home. I know I would have his approval but I know just as certainly, that he won't offer to do it for free because it would make a good half hour segment on his rental property TV series.

Since I can't count on Scott, I must count on myself. I don't have the funds for a full-on renovation. I must work with what I have. I don't have much. I have $343.25 from sold daycare assets but that may have to go towards groceries in the next month or two. I must start from where I AM and look forward.

I'm still looking off into the sunset and seeing the retreat I want to create. An oasis, a shelter from the storm, a quiet place for someone to go off, lose themselves and find themselves in the process. Yes, the dream is still very much alive. I'm glad.

But in the meantime, I must pay the bills around here. Am I scared? No. Am I nervous? Amazingly not. Do I know what I want? Hmmm.

My very wise son sat down with me and looked at me rather incredulously when I told him this. It was that look of "Who are you and where is my mother??" It was a look of "Oh no. Has she slipped from reality and relying solely on 'faith' to get her where she needs to go next?" He reworded his question and said, "Really now. Where do you see yourself going? What is your end goal? What does retirement look like to you?"

I slipped into my newfound peaceful spot and told him this:

First of all, I need to fix "me". I need to get happy, stay happy and like myself again. I need to start from there and move forward. That is the gift "the next three months" of forced slowdown in my daycare world has given me.

Secondly, I need to get financially independent &/or solvent. I may never earn what I can earn from my daycare again. This is sobering. I liked my lifestyle. I didn't go crazy and wild, but if I wanted something I could buy it. If I wanted to give someone a gift, I didn't have to think twice about it. I gave and did and spent what I wanted. I don't need extravagance but I do want stability and comfort.

Thirdly, once I am all grounded and happy as well as self supporting and independent, I would like to get married. Yes, "get married" slipped off the tip of my tongue before I censored myself. "Get married", as in I want an equal partner in life to walk beside me as I go forward from here. Once I have my feet firmly planted on the ground again and am content in the life I have built, I want to find a companion, a partner, a yin to my yang.

"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also yin-yang or yin yang, 陰陽 yīnyáng "dark—bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another." ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

I am looking toward the future with great hope and a healthy dose of anticipation. Do I know all the answers? Not in a heartbeat. Am I nervous? Truth be told, I can't dwell on that right now. But I have the very same feeling I had when I moved to Saskatoon 29 years ago. It's going to be okay. I know this with every fibre of my being. “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end” ~ Patel, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”~ Joseph Campbell

I feel like I'm starting to live in my "Field of Dreams" again. If I build it, they will come...

Life isn’t a project to be completed; it is an unknowable landscape to be explored. Be open and excited for whatever terrain you encounter this weekend....Or as the Swedish army manual says, “If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain”. ~ Project Happiness 

What Brutiful Moment Am I In?

Brutiful, as defined by Glennon Doyle Melton - "adj.: Life is brutal. And life is beautiful. Brutiful, I call it. Life’s brutal and beautiful are woven together so tightly they are inseparable. We must embrace both or neither. If we reject the brutal, we reject the beautiful. Our problems stem from our refusal to surrender to the fact that life is truly more brutal and beautiful than we can imagine. We must let it be. Breathe deeply and know that if we let it come and feel it all – the brutal will make us kinder, softer, stronger, even more beautiful."

Glennon and Brené Brown have teamed up and invited the world to join them. I simply sat back and listened/watched the videos they prepared for Lesson 1 in their collaborative course on "The Wisdom of Storytelling". There is much food for thought in those minutes of conversation between two of my friends who do not yet know me.

One statement resonated with me after I walked away. "Every eviction becomes an invitation". An "eviction" can be defined in a myriad of ways. A broken relationship, a death, the end of a job, a child moving up/growing up/moving on. Anything that defines a part of your life that can be taken away can serve as an eviction.

I thought of the precipice I am presently standing on and suddenly felt a wave of relief. Life is scary for me in the moment I'm in because I've been served "eviction notice" in several areas of my life. Nothing has changed yet but it could in a New York Minute.

My job is changing. My youngest son is an adult. I am concerned about Mom living on her own. I woke up one morning during my holiday knowing I could take all of this and use it as a launching point to make some big changes within my world. I could pack everything up and start over if it was necessary right now. The world had other plans but internally, I have changed.

Nothing has changed except for the fact that I will reroute my income earning abilities by the end of the year. This one change could become the catalyst of many things. It opens doors and gives me some freedom of choice. But as of the moment, all remains the same. Except what is going on inside of me.

Change is in the air and it has transformed me from the inside, out. I feel different. I feel better. I feel more capable. I feel more powerful than I've felt in a very long time.

There is a reason nothing has changed outwardly. I am where I need to be. I still have work to do within my home and family. I need to continue on in the role I am in right now for a while longer. I need to trust this moment.

But as it was when I was ready to make a sudden move almost 29 years ago, I am just as ready to move back right now. I was waiting for an "invitation", a green light, the right time and place 29 years ago. So I was ready to jump when the window of opportunity opened. I feel like I am back in the same place right now.

"Not yet" is the message I am feeling, living and receiving at the moment. Not yet ... But I am streamlining my world so I'm ready to go when the time is right. It is just not now.

This was my Sunday morning message from "Project Happines" yesterday morning:

Project Happiness http://www.projecthappiness.org/

#SoulSunday Challenge: Try this radical trust today - As the events of your day unfold, honor each with the acknowledgement, "Right on time." This dissolves resistance to what-is, and if you practice it enough, don't be surprised if someday soon you look around and notice the events of your life lining up in your favor...right on time. 

The world knows. Don't rush the moment. Trust in the moment you are in.

A Minor Crisis of Epic Proportions

I can feel it with every fibre of my being this morning. I'm starting to rise again. This has been a long time coming. It is my hope that the harder one has to work, the longer one has to wait and the more desperate one becomes before a change, the longer the transformation will last.

I knew this. I knew I was having my "on the floor" moment, minus the crisis. There was no drama, no fanfare nor any one catalyst that drew attention to the fact that I was losing the battle. It was quiet, undramatic and invisible to the naked eye. I was undergoing a minor crisis of epic proportions and the way it presented itself to me was a low grade depression I could not kick, with a side order of annoying little pains and topped off with an optic migraine.

I have never had a migraine headache so I was completely unaware of the optical symptoms which accompany it. My eyes simply went weird on me and it scared my socks off. My over imaginative brain had all sorts of ideas going on inside of it, from something sitting on my optic nerve, to a brain aneurysm, to a tumor, to simply a detached retina. Thankfully it was none of the above. It was a migraine headache without the pain.

Pain without a cause seems to be the common denominator within several of my recent symptoms. A sore wrist turned into a sore thumb when I went for physical therapy to cure a pain that may or may not have existed in the first place (I'm certain it existed otherwise my imagination is taking over my reality and that is too frightening to consider). I told the therapist I had a sore wrist and he "ruined" my thumb on his assumption (or my miscommunication skills) that it was related. On a positive note, my thumb pain has exceeded my wrist pain so I guess that is something. I have yet to recover from one session of physical therapy. This happened the last time went to that very office. The cure was worse than the symptom. Which makes me wonder if I was really feeling physical pain to begin with, or if this was all in my head. The opposite of my painless migraine.

Last week, it was a toothache which woke me up in the middle of the night and lasted for four days. Obviously I was not imagining this because I couldn't eat or place any pressure on that side of my mouth. So I booked an early morning emergency dental appointment to fix whatever was going wrong because I didn't have time to go twice, for something I needed fixed immediately. What happened instead, was they took an X-ray and there was no physical reason for my toothache. The dentist's best guess is that I injured a ligament in  my tooth and only time would heal it. Or else the nerve was dying and a root canal would become necessary eventually. But for that day, there was physically no reason for my pain and nothing he could do to fix it.

What the heck? I came home and wondered if I have reached the age where doctors look at you and decide you aren't worth fixing any more or if I was simply imagining things. This morning, I started thinking of my invisible "rock bottom moment" without a defined crisis to warrant the event and I started to wonder if these physical symptoms without a cause was related. The pain was real in both cases (physically and mentally) but there was no excuse for it.

Hmmm.

I walked into my doctor's office for my annual physical check-up days after my "ocular migraine" feeling absolutely defeated. I felt mentally and physically spent. I didn't know what to do. I was stuck at a crossroad and it looked like a dead end. I wasn't in pain but I was (or must have been) displaying symptoms of arthritis so she offered me a perscription for "Cymbalta".  which treats depression, with the added benefit of alleviating chronic pain disorders such as arthritis. The idea of taking a pill which would fix all that ailed me sounded like the best and easiest way out. I had been trying to dig myself out of the pit I had fallen into for the better part of a year. On my own, I couldn't get a strong foothold before I fell back, with every forward step. "Sign me up!" was all I could think in that very moment. She also suggested taking some arthritic painkillers to help with the no-grade pain that was causing me to slow down.

I felt euphoric when I walked out of that office, thinking I had found my solution. Call it cosmic timing, call it what you may but within a day of that event, I went out to Mom's after she broke her wrist and was dealing with physical pain with a very real and defined cause. All I could think after I returned home from my visit was her insistence that she didn't want to become reliant or addicted to any pain medication. "You feel pain for a reason" was her logic. We countered with the argument "Why feel pain if you don't have to?"

"Why feel pain if you don't have to?" The words haunted me. I stopped taking the arthritic pain killers immediately and a few weeks later, I called my doctor and told her I want to stop taking the Cymbalta. It was after I was weaned off of that medication when my tooth started to ache (well, it was also after I ate some popcorn, so I really thought my toothache was popcorn related). It was after I was told there was no reason for my tooth to ache when I truly started to question what was going on with "me".

Then I listened to another one of Glennon Melton Doyle's podcasts this morning and she talked about "rock bottom moments" and the need to not only FEEL your pain but she has actually found herself running towards it "because that's where the good stuff is" (she writes about it here: http://momastery.com/blog/2015/04/21/pain-mistake/).

I looked back on my "rock bottom moments", the moments when life brought me to my knees and YES! I totally agree and have always said (even before I knew Glennon so well) that these were the moments that changed me, rerouted my life and took me where I needed to go. Pregnant and unmarried at the age of 17, then divorced by age 18; uprooting my life and my family with little more than the clothes on my back at age 27; single and pregnant (again) at the age of 37; alone and broken hearted (after what I KNEW was going to be the relationship which I would last for the rest of my life time) at the age of 46. THESE were all of my "fall to the floor broken, broken hearted" moments that defined me and changed my life. These were awful in the moment but took me to the very best of places.

Then came the more subtle "rock bottom moments". A stream of bad work experiences outside of my home brought me back "home again". I reopened my daycare. I was still broken and wounded. I had learned lessons but I didn't take those lessons and incorporate them into my life moving forward. I simply internalized them. I lived in an insulated world of safety and acceptance for four years. Then came this year. The year of "pain without a cause".

I had hit rock bottom and there was no evidence that I was there. There was no dramatic crash. It was quiet but just as painful. And it was lonely. Lonely because I did not invite anyone into the abyss. "Yes, I'm okay. I went through a tough spell but I learned a lot." I surrounded myself within my insulated world, worked for parents who appreciated and were (are) so very kind to me. Life was good. I had no reason to complain. Except for this low grade pain I couldn't make go away. Was this the reason my body was starting to hurt for no physical reason?

I started my holiday by listening to Glennon Doyle Melton at "The Beautiful Writers Podcast": https://soundcloud.com/user-780938996/martha-beck-glennon-melton-interview-ver-2-7-29-2016 and I knew. I just KNEW I had to close my daycare and take a chance on my future. I was willing to cash in on my pension to fund my transition but I knew it with the certainty that I had to end my marriage once and for all. I knew my life depended on it. I simply KNEW.

The decision to close my daycare has been made with grace, with four month's warning and lots of time for all of us to readjust. My daycare parents, as always, have been nothing but kind to me as I explained my need to close my doors.

In closing one door, I started talking again. By talking, another door opened. By opening up and not pretending I was okay living in discomfort, I found comfort. And the opportunity to earn an income during this transitional phase.

In order for new doors to open, we have to close other doors. Standing in the doorway with one foot in both places is not my way. I'm either "all in" or I'm "all out". I have to be out of one place before I'm ready to step into another.

I have faith in the future but I need to be honest with myself and "real" with the people who walk beside me as I take steps toward uncertainty. I don't need advise or guidance. I simply need to be honest. Every single time I have been honest, I hear honesty echoed back to me. This is the world I want and need to live in. I'm not exactly sure what it looks like right now. But I know I'm one step closer than I was yesterday.

Downsizing

It's really no wonder I procrastinate the way I do, when it comes to matters of dealing with he excess within our home. It's time consuming.

I spent the better part of Monday sorting, organizing and ensuring I had all the parts and pieces which go with various toys I plan to get sell. Then I took pictures of everything as I went along so I was one step closer to putting them up for sale. I ended up with this:

Then came Tuesday. I went outside and did a small scale version of the above. Timing is everything when it comes to marketing your wares. If I waited until the dead of winter to sell these items, there wouldn't have been the same demand. So I am basically selling everything that either drives me crazy, is at risk of being broken or that the kids fight over. I listed 11 items for sale on an on line auction site Tuesday afternoon. I set the end of my auction for 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday.

There was a LOT of interest in what I had for sale. I had 179 followers or bids or inquiries on the above mentioned 11 items. I sold ten of them and once everyone picks up their items and pays for them, I will have netted $160.25. Not too shabby for a good day's work.

I basically needed to be available to answer any queries once I listed my items, be available to close my auction on time and advise the winners of their successful bids and now I will have to be available for the next two days while people come to pick up their wares.

It's a time consuming little project but I think it's worth it. I like the "auction" style of selling. I am uncomfortable setting a price on what I want to sell, so I list my starting bid low and let demand dictate the price. No one bids more than they are willing to pay so everyone gets the best bang for their buck.

If I list 10 items for sale over the course of the next 15 weeks and average approximately $50 per week, I will could end up with a net profit of under $1000. Is this worth it? It is the beginning of my "emergency fund" which I have a feeling I may need when my daycare income dwindles to zero. I sure wish money wasn't the boss of me. I was just attaining the financial comfort level I once knew before I quit babysitting the last time. I know of nothing I could do to earn this monthly income again.

I think I'm scaring myself back into thinking there was a very good reason I was in the daycare business to begin with. I'm in my comfort zone, doing something I can do and it pays the bills.

I need to "live smaller" if I plan to succeed on my next "life makeover". Maybe I should pack what I need and live in the back of a moving van. This guy "Thoughts From Inside the Box" does it. Maybe I could too (I may have to move to California to weather the winter though) ...

Working Back Into the Habit of Writing

I thought I had turned over a whole new leaf when I woke up at 5:00 a.m. Monday morning, with nothing on my agenda but to sit still with my thoughts and write. It was so easy, so natural, so peaceful and I accomplished so much with my morning when I put writing first. Then the day happened.

When quiet time arrived, I was exhausted. I have a three year old who is not napping any more [I honestly believe this was the "beginning of the end" for me - missing that two hour window of complete and total solitude each and every day wore me down faster than my worst day]. I have been fighting with her to simply relax and be still while the others sleep. It has been a battle. She was watching movies and just winding up into her fidgeting stage (she literally kicks and vibrates to keep herself awake) when I thought I could wage this war better lying down. I simply draped my arm over her while we snuggled up and watched movies together. It was the best of both worlds. She relaxed and I napped, knowing exactly where she was and what she was doing.

Man! I was tired. All that was on my agenda after my daycare day was to run out and get groceries. My youngest and I have honed a wonderful co-operative system to take care of that little chore. I buy the groceries, come home and drop them off. Then she puts everything away while I run out and pick up supper. I love it!

As soon as I stopped chewing, I started sleeping. Exhaustion won out over every other need. Early to bed means early to start waking up. I honestly don't mind waking up in the middle of the night. I have this delightful habit which pleases me. I turn on the TV and decide "this" is the perfect time to watch the programs I missed while I was sleeping earlier in the evening. The minute I lose myself to the mindless television chatter, I am fast asleep. On really restless nights, I "rinse and repeat" all night long. Then when my alarm goes off at 5:00, I am beat. Again.

I've got a back up plan for those restless nights when I don't bother setting the sleep timer on the TV. Our TV also comes with a feature which will turn the TV on or off at a specified time. I've set mine to turn off at 4:00 a.m. so I don't wake up with the TV on (which is a recipe for disaster because Brian Baeumler owns the TV space during the time I'm trying to pry myself off the bed and I thoroughly enjoy falling asleep to his banter). Only the TV didn't turn off at 4:00 for some reason (usually because I've turned it back on after 4 a.m.) and I couldn't get out of bed. Again.

Last night, I refused to allow myself to turn on the TV. My stress levels are a little lighter now that I have handed in my four month notice that I am winding down my daycare. I forced myself to relax, allowed my brain to wander and the next thing I knew, I was waking up again. I went through this process a few times and the next thing I knew, it was 4:45 a.m. and I felt rested. Success.

The downfall to my plan is that I didn't have the computer set up in my room last night. While I went upstairs to retrieve it [writing in the kitchen is an invitation for our "Jet" cat to do every single thing he knows he is not allowed to do, therefore I don't have more than 45 consecutive seconds to think a thought, let alone write it down. Honestly! That cat is worse than my most disobedient child. My child and pet rearing skills have really taken a dive these past few years], I decided to make a cup of coffee then I started going through the paces I go through every morning to get ready for the day. By the time I got back downstairs again, the cats were underfoot and Jet was already trying to pry open the locked back door with his bare claws.

The long and short of it is, any quiet thoughts I may have thought I had to write about were lost in the process of disrupting the peace and stirring up the cats (I just heard someone jump off the kitchen counter).

I've forgotten how to write, how to take a mundane little thought and turn it into something that has some perspective. I may need to purge here for a while before anything of worth spills out of my fingertips. I have been lost for a while. Negativity has taken over my thought processes and I'm working on rewiring my brain.

I have been stuck in a loop of trying to make an unworkable situation work for me and it has depleted my resources. I am glad I have given myself four months to work out the kinks in my plan moving forward. I have four months to reroute my thoughts, four months to sort through and deal with the excess within our world, four months to figure figure out "what happens next" and four months to segue from one lifestyle into another. When I quit my daycare the last time and went back to school, I described it as a giant leap of faith. I soared with the eagles for a little while before I broke a wing. It's taken a while to heal but I'm ready to fly again. I'm just not leaping off any tall buildings this time around.

I'm Back

I took an unplanned hiatus from writing over my holiday. Then I went back to work and I was even more depleted than I had been before my holiday so there were no words. I take that back. There were lots of words, thoughts and ideas. But they weren't pretty, consistent nor fun to live with. So I drowned myself in television and sleep and kept most of them to myself.

Long story short, I knew I had to make a change. I just didn't have a plan. After three solid weeks of squirming with uncertainty and trying out many different scenarios in my mind, I think I am making headway. I am handing in my notice at the end of today. I am winding up my daycare and moving on. 

I'm not jumping into this transition. I will wind things up by the year's end. I have four months to get used to the idea. Four months to fine tune "what happens next". I like to hold onto the illusion I have a modicum of control over my fate but in reality, I am taking a leap of faith. I have a plan. I just have to put my trust in it and I'm not quite there yet.

So many ideas have wafted in, out and through this tired little brain of mine. 

When I last wrote here three weeks ago, I knew with a certainty I haven't felt in a very long time, that I had to give up my daycare. I knew it. I had no idea what to do next nor did I want to push the idea. A year's leave of absence was my plan. I would do whatever it took to quit one job without leaping blindly into the next. My year of jumping desperately from one job to the next and barely holding on taught me I need to move cautiously. No leaping before I looked. That was all I knew for sure. 

So I set the wheels in motion and signed the papers to start withdrawing from my pension fund. Not a wise financial move. I know this. But you weren't inside my head. It was dark and scary in there. I knew I needed a safe place to fall and knowing I had a little nest egg I could draw on was all I could hold onto for consolation. I knew I could not continue doing what I was doing but the idea of taking on a brand new job outside of our home paralyzed me. I had to take a step in a forward direction so I took it.

Then my son dropped by and talked with me. He stayed and talked until I stopped feeling so desperate. The more I talked, the freer my thoughts flowed. I opened my mouth and the words I planned to say didn't come out. Instead (I have no idea how this happened, because it was without forethought) I heard myself say "Maybe I should contact my former employer [of twenty years] and see if they would consider rehiring me". It was as if the truth was just spoken. The world stopped spinning for a millisecond until I heard my son reply, "I think you may be onto something ..."

I woke up the next morning feeling like the weight of the world fell off my shoulders. I cancelled my pension withdrawal immediately. I had a plan. It wasn't a terrifying one. It was scary enough but I thought I could do it. I called my mom and told her I finally felt like I was on holidays. I felt energized and my energy is a rare resource these days so I cautioned her that I was considering coming out to see her the second week of my holiday instead of "that day".

I went about "that day" and all was well. I did laundry and went through the motions of preparing myself to leave for Mom's later that day but I truly believed I would stay home and simply revel in the fact that my life was in order, I would pick up "holiday groceries" on my way home then settle in for a few productive days at home.

Then I got the call. Mom broke her wrist and was in the hospital. My plans changed on a dime and my sisters joined me for the ride. Mom said she didn't need anyone to come out but not one of us regrets changing our plans midstream and following the path we were meant to take.

So many thoughts come to mind when I think of Mom living on her own, with my brother being the only one who lives close by. Mom is fiercely independent but this accidental fall was an eye opener. She was so lucky in the whole scheme of things but this inconvenient breakage of a bone has severely hampered her independent spirit. 

I woke up the second morning we were there "knowing" what I wanted and was perfectly capable of doing. I wanted to pack up everything and move out to Mom's. I could be as quiet a presence as she wanted me to be but I could be there. I could take care of little things, I could drive her where she wanted to go and I could be company when her days felt too quiet. I could do this. With one minor hiccup. I still happen to have one dependent child and two cats at home. This hiccup turned into a road block I couldn't overcome.

So I ended my holidays knowing little more than I knew before they began. I knew I had come to the end of the line here in my daycare world but I was terrified to make a move to change it. I thought I could push through if I didn't push what I felt capable of doing. I watched my friend sit among her three daycare charges when I went to see her and I admired her calm demeanor. Her daycare charges picked up on her energy and they were so good, so calm and so easy to be around. "I can do this!" I told myself all last week. I was wrong.

I gave the week the best shot I knew how to give. One of my daycare families gave me notice they would be done at the end of the month and I tried to envision the personalities I would still have in my midst. I wanted to believe that without this "one" extra child, I would be capable of holding on and sticking it out. But when I recapped my remaining challenges in an early morning Saturday email I heard the truth. Again. I need to give up my daycare. For me, for the children I tend and for the sake of humanity. I have to quit.

So I unloaded my burdens on my bookkeeping boss when I went to work a few hours later and I think I have found a safe place to fall. At least during the transition out of daycare and back into the real world. She needs me to work far more than I am working now. At least two, maybe three days a week. But in the new year, she said she has full time work for me as she wraps up the "year end". This feels like the perfect solution for both of us. At least for now.

What is most important to me right now, is the ability to drop everything and run out to Mom's if the need arises. I was so relieved I could be so available during my holiday. I was exactly where I needed to be. I want to be that available on a permanent basis. Maybe I can't uproot my life and move out there, but I can shuffle my life around a bit and be "available". 

It isn't the end all solution but it is enough to push me through this moment and give me the courage to hand in my notice today. I puttered around with a daycare newsletter most of yesterday. I will hand it out and talk to my parents at the end of today. It will be done.

"There is no easy way to say this, so I will just say it. I will be closing my daycare on December 23rd, what was scheduled to be my last day before Christmas holidays..."

Change is in the air. I hope it wafts gently through the days, weeks and months ahead and I land safely on the ground when the dust settles. The last time I tried this it was a bit more like a plow wind, wreaking destruction along its path. I must have faith that I learned some valuable lessons along the way and though I'm sure this path will be windy at times, I do see a port in the storm somewhere in my distant future. I'll just keep taking one step in front of the other and try to enjoy the journey.

Sitting in the Sun - Day 1

I think I have found my way back to the "sitting in a sunbeam moment" I had shortly after my youngest son was born and every part of my being was telling me to find a way to stay home and raise him.

Who knew I would find a sense of peace and clarity in exactly the same place I found it 18 years ago? I wasn't sitting on the floor with my newborn son this time. Instead, I brought my best friend and guru, Glennon Doyle Melton with me into the very same living room, looking out the very same window and I sat still and listened to this podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/user-780938996/martha-beck-glennon-melton-interview-ver-2-7-29-2016

If you have an hour without distraction, I highly recommend you stop everything. Find a room with a view of the sky or sit outside if you can do so without feeling the need to pick weeds and mow the lawn. Stop everything and listen. I'll wait ...

I gazed out into the sky while I reclined on our love seat with my feet up and my neck supported as I sipped on a cup of coffee and listened

It was as if the skies parted and my heart knew. I can feel my body physically shutting down as I live this life I'm living. Things must change. I can feel it with every new ache, sensation and every new twinge I feel.

My heart, body and soul are ailing. I must find a way. I must.