Sweet Dreams

So we all have those little things in life, not must haves or even something you would really put the effort into pursuing, but nevertheless would love to have or experience. Maybe its owning that pretty car or going on that luxury holiday or that study topic. I have plenty of them!!

Last week I got to fulfill one of them! It might seem really silly and I guess it is.. but even so it floated my boat all night!

'
It probably just looks like a big mess but I dream of a bed made of big squishy pillows!! I love having a messy bed. That way I can wrap myself in the duvet and be nice and cosy with no drafty bits. Unfortunately though my husband hates this! He loves a freshly made bed with everything straight and flat and tucked in. And since this is the more socially acceptable practice - he wins.

What I loved though is that even when I thought my dream was impossible God blesses me with a little window where I get to have a lovely little treat. I really believe the little things in life that bring us a smile are the points that can carry us through the toughest times. They remind us that there is beauty and comfort and sweetness in the world and we just have to open our hearts and eyes to see the little glimpses. And when we do to live in that moment as long as we possibly can.

This was one of those moments for me. I have these moments regularly and I cherish them.

My world might not match up to the picture in my head of what it should be but sometimes little things match up and it warms me up from the inside out, even if just briefly.

One of the images in my head

Another one is in the movie 'What dreams may come'. Haven't seen that movie in ages but the lounging area is an image in my head that would be a delight!

Love

So last week I got the privilege of escaping away to the beach on an urgent mission to love. You see a very special friend of mine is having a hard time and she really needed a breather. Some space to get her bearings again. So we decided to whisk her away to the beach and shower her in love.

We gave her flowers

We gave her little gifts and lots of nice words

Hugs + Talks + Coffee + Tissues + God + Late nights + Walks + Time

equals LOVE.

The best thing about this weekend wasn't getting to see that my friend was back to her old self for a lil while. That was amazing. But the best part was that I learn to love someone so demonstratively is as much if not more of a blessing for those showing the love. The beauty I got to witness. The honesty I got to hear. The heart I got to feel. That is worth more than anything. To walk a hard road with someone and see some victory. That is precious. To understand someone better. That is living. To hurt when they hurt, celebrate when they celebrate. That is LOVE.

I feel a lil guilty that maybe I got more out of these few days than she did...

When I think of the blessing it is to love it makes me think about the way God loves me.. That as much as he does it for me, he must love it when he gets to go away for a few days with me and experience what I have..

I so long to lead a life defined by love, sacrificial love. The cool part is I see now how beneficial it is to my soul to love others sacrificially.

I don't know if that means it's not really sacrificial at all....

My boldest parenting move yet

So it's been a while since I was on here. Not so sure the purpose for which I write these things. Except maybe to be embarrassed of lady. So until I work it out I'll just roll with it.


So Noah is in the touch everything/run everywhere/ears are painted on stage. Some may say it lasts a lifetime. Either way we have began. Noah's favourite things to touch:

• cellphones
• remotes
• laptops
• coffee cups
• rubbish bin

It's a fairly good indicator of what we spend out time using.. (All except the rubbish bin that is - must be because its shiny?)


Well I should take it as a compliment that he wants to be just like mummy (poor crazy kid) but it's actually insanely annoying. How many cups of coffee will he spill? How many time outs? How many illegal smacks? How many 'No Noah'? So the other day when he climbed on the table (another favourite of his) I just watched quietly from the other side of the room. I noticed he had pushed all the chairs too far out on his trip up there. So when it came time to climb down he had no step. I continued to watch. He backed up to the edge like he does and was all of a sudden hanging there. In the split second I had I decided I WASN'T going to get him down. I WAS going to let him fall. He looked at me like Mufasa looked at Scar right before he fell. He looked at me like 'Mama, wont you save me'.


But I didn't.


I let him fall.


Once on the ground I walked over stood him up. Gave him a pat on the back and told him we don't climb on tables because we might fall. He didn't even cry. I think because he knew..


So right or wrong my theory was, sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way. Goodness knows his mother chooses that path often. As a parent I can a)block my eyes and ears to everything around him, b)try and keep everything from him or I can try and parent him by exposing him to measured risk. I let him step over the edge even though he doesn't know I'm ready to catch him. I let him fall off the table because I know how far he will fall and it wont really hurt. But the experience of doing both of those things will build in him a history to learn from.


Nice theory. Will it work? Not sure.


Did it work? Well he didn't climb the table for the rest of the day.....

Community

Garden Place on Waitangi Day

So I started 2010 with an attempt to find free entertainment. I love free!! I'm not too cool to take taste testers from the lovely ladies in their stalls at the supermarkets. I love hand me downs. I use the gimmicky free samples you get sent/given randomly. I don't usually buy their products. Let's face it if they can afford to give them away in promotions then they are obviously charging too much. So I'm happy to receive free things.

One thing I miss about Auckland is that in a city that size there was always something happening somewhere. Be it the Chinese lantern festival, pacifika festival, symphony under the stars etc etc.. Now I know that Auckland has the people and the economy to pull that kind of stuff off but I figured there must be more that Hamilton is offering that I just haven't seen yet..

And it turns out there is!!


I started my journey at the free places - the GORGEOUS Hamilton gardens, the Arts Post, Museum, you know the places. It's when you're there you see the advertisements for all the things coming up. No kidding there is more than you could fit it time for. Here is a list of just SOME of the things that we have made it to that has been happening in Hamilton in 2010. I'm struggling to remember them all:

Waitangi Day in garden place with entertainment all day
Children's Day happening in 13! places around the city
Earth Hour festivities
Massive School Gala Day at the Base
Movies in Garden Place
Plunket Funky Monkey Roadshow
Tamahere Markets
Balloons Over Waikato
Agora Goes Live
Delhi Streets Art Exhibition and Auction


Not bad considering there has only been about 14 weekends this year. The cool thing about going to all of these things is you get to have a feel of community spirit. When you've stood in line forever for something and you realise your 50cents short and they let you off. Or when your kid is throwing a tantrum and you didn't realise he lost a shoe 20meters ago and someone comes and returns it. Or when you find a group of people who are into the same weird thing as you and you're encouraged by what they're doing. Or you get to cheer on the kid who's coming last in the race even though you've never met him before but you admire his persistence.

I don't know about you but I was made for community. I was made to need people and be needed by people. To give and to receive. My life feels so much fuller when I feel so connected to the people around me. I guess in a way I have found an appreciation of the Hamilton community. It's a different scale obviously and probably not as good as 'the good old days' but still so valuable.

Poppy at the school fair

Jerk Freaks performing at Agora Goes Live

Noah mesmerised by the Funky Monkeys

Distraction

I've been thinking heaps about this wee blog thing. Had heaps of things I thought about talking about. I hesitate for a couple of reasons..
1) I don't know the rules of blogging.. how often is too often, how long of a post is too long etc
2) I don't want to start at a pace that I can't possibly maintain

I don't know how your head works. To be honest I'm not totally sure how my head works either. But I know that at the moment my head is full of stuff!! With my mind full of things I've been trying to disassemble it all in an effort to reorganise it into something more manageable. I don't know why I bothered trying to do that. I've never been able to organise anything in my whole life!! My undie drawer was quite tidy one week. It was a good week. But that's unfortunately all it was. So as I think through all that's in my head at the moment I get so distracted it's as if even my thinking is in half-sentences. You know when you're in a big group of chatty people and everyone has so much to say, you've got 2.5 seconds to make your point before the next person jumps on in? Well that's happening in my head!! It's making for a very busy rather stressed place at the moment. Problem is if you were to ask me why I'm stressed I couldn't give you an answer.. Or I would try and then the next thought would come out half way through the first one, and so it would continue...

If that makes no sense to you then be relieved that your head space is nothing like mine. If it does make sense.. well done.

Midnight musings..

I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this blog will be.. I imagine there will be an element to where I try and work out 'life'. Figure out the meaning and purpose of it, but more so, just how to live it in a way that not only leaves me fulfilled but plays a part in a bigger picture.

I have a faith. A faith that is very real to me. I cannot separate it from everything else of who I am. It permeates my thinking, my understanding, my expectations, my hopes, my dreams, my daily activity, my family, the list goes on.. Because it is so a part of who I am I cannot leave it out. If it makes you uncomfortable please remember that at any point you have full ability and right to stop reading. It's not my intention to offend anyone with my 'preaching' but I cannot leave it out of the conversation, when to be honest, a large proportion of the time, fitting my world and my faith together is my conversation.

So with the disclaimer out of the way..

It's very late. I've just been to hang out with a few of my favourite people while we question and discuss what it would be like to live in freedom from the things that hold us back. What would we do? Where would we go?

I guess that's not really how the conversation went.. I think the reality was, so many people were sitting in the room thinking about what it is that they aren't free from. The things that they would like to be free from. The thing that is sucking the life out of them. The first thing that came into their mind of a life controlling issue. I think it's probably the place it needed to start. But I'm sure that it isn't the place it needs to stop.

I would love to have some kind of spiritual/emotional/mental camera that takes a snapshot in time of where all these people are at with their unique challenges and struggles and look at it in a few years time and see where they have gone with it. I'm sure if we had all the details it would tell a fascinating story:

For some the story would be great victory. Maybe even a happy ending at the end of a long hard slog. For others maybe the story gets a lot worse before it gets any better. For another maybe the story takes sharp twists and turns as they discover the problems aren't really what they appeared to be in the first instance. Maybe for some the issue never really gets resolved no matter how much they try. As sad as the last one would be to experience I believe any of the above results is better than the alternative: nothing happens and nothing changes.

To live in the same... stuck... rut....

I don't think as people we ever experience total freedom. I do believe though we get to have a taste of it from time to time. To remind us how worthwhile it is to pursue. I think of moments when I really felt secure. When I had no inhibitions. No little voice that told me 'no' or 'dont' or 'stop'. It may not always last but it's those moments that I later miss and reminisce about and therefore pursue again at any cost.

Blogging aye..

The first post is often the only so it better be good

So... the purpose of a blog:
a) to document my life
b) to make sure my life in interesting enough to be worth documenting
c) to get my creative writing skills up in the event of my life not being interesting enough to be worth documenting
d) because Carolyn Dodd told me I should and that if no one else would she would read it

So here we go... this is for you Carolyn ;)