It's Been Crazy Around Here!

It has been crazy!




Packing and selling and leaving and moving from Grenada....




Traveling and visiting




Holidays




Repacking and traveling




Finally home to Carolinas...





Unpacking...




Back to teaching teenagers after 3 years away....



Still unpacking




Starting homeschooling again...



Sigh....






Finding a routine (right)






But happy to settled!





"Mommy, you need to SLOW down!"
I have heard this one many a time from my wise (and quite bossy) 5 year old. But, it really has been especially crazy lately!
"Are we home yet?"
"Is this our new home?" This one was after the third stop on our long journey to getting settled back in the states in North Carolina. It has been so crazy I honestly had to think before answering her. Poor thing. It is time to stay put for a while. So, North Carolina it is... at least for 6 months...until Matt starts clinicals. As for now, we are enjoying Gramsy, NC, and all the joys of fresh produce, climate control and mosquito free living! Life is good! Grenada was a wonderful adventure and one I will say farewell to next time, but for tonight, I will just say, I am finally back to blogging! Hello again!

Graciebug Loves Her Cousins

We are off island! It was planned to be a restful fun vacation with Graciebug's cousins in Miami, but I brought the plague with me...And by plague I mean all the illness I had been carrying around in me for the past 4 months exploded into a full blown case of walking p. and a dash of acute bronchitis. What joy! So, after the weekend's celebration I hit the bed and have been enjoying Miami from the windows of the guestroom. Meanwhile, although all have been down with something or other the last few days, Graciebug is out of this world happy to be with her cousins. She loves them so much and I love seeing how excited she gets about whatever they are doing. From dress up to shopping excursions to being Auntie's shadow to homework at the table with J Will she is a happy happy girl. I am looking forward to getting her back to the states and getting involved in activities and friends and family. Our adventures have been amazing and no doubt I feel each one was a part of the ultimate plan for us, but it is time to just dig in to the soil and take up root for a while.

Here are some fun pics of Gracie and her cousins. I am missing from all pics as I look terribly unpleasant right now... :)

Shameful!

It has been an insane two weeks of sickness, elections, traveling to the US, holidays, and family. I am exhausted and still sick, but here...again...finally. I get quite wrapped up in the business of "nature" and perhaps that makes no sense. I will explain. If there is something I feel I should be worrying about or helping do or control I will busy myself with its concerns even while I have nothing really to do. This, I have found, includes the things that are far from my control. I busy my mind or my energy on them even when there is nothing to be done. It is like the weather. There is nothing I can do to control the rainy season downpours in Grenada or the beautiful 60 degree weather we are currently enjoying in Grenada, but I would busy my mind with it and distract from what is waiting patiently for me to just sit and be.

Last night, my daughter put me square in my place. I have so preoccupied with our big decision for clinicals and the next destination for our med school adventure that I have been getting nowhere fast staring at internet sites and housing and such to a fault. Graciebug was waiting patiently in bed last night while I pitter pattered here and there and everywhere, getting tea for her cousin, doing a little nothing of this and a little nothing of that....all because of my nervous energy. I had promised a good long foot rub and cuddle with my #1. When I finally arrived in the room once more and did not immediately curl up but found something else to mess with, she made her judgement. Sitting straight up with her hands properly and evenly placed on her hips she declared, "Mommy! It is ALL about me! It is me in schedule. Me time, Mommy! Me!" Okay. I was jolted as she continued to present her case citing my promises I had made to her about a good cuddle and that she needed me and on and on....I put down whatever it was I thought so important (I can't even recall) and got my little self right where I should have been in the first place and quieted my mind and cuddling my little bug.

Every early spring, I eagerly anticipated my traditional outing with my mom. Although, as a little girl I was never far from my mom's sight and spent many a day doing laundry at the laundromat or grabbing groceries at the market or stopping by the bakery, there was a particular event with my mom that I looked forward to more than any all year. It was the start to my favorite season- spring. And so, to usher in the new season into our little home, I would go with my mom to pick my absolute favorite flower in the whole wide of the universe...the daffodil. I love colors and pretty things and beautiful smells. To the average person, a daffodil may not embody all those things but to me, it did. Each year, it was a special time when I would get to be a big girl with my mom and we would pick this beautiful flower that to me represented happiness, beauty, and the beginning of something wonderful. Much of what I love about my favorite flower (and I am quite passionate about daffodils) I love about my mom. As children, we were always amazed at our mom's creativity, storytelling and childlike laughter. Her imagination and fun spirit encouraged us to explore our own adventures in our mind's eye. So, I loved my outings with my mom because I loved these beautiful flowers that were so different and whimsical and so much like my own mom. My other favorite outing with mom was our weekly ice cream cones. Ice cream has always been my greatest tasty treat and the walks to get a delicious ice cream cone that was all my own were always a treat, but like most other memories it wasn't so much the treat itself but the experience. And for me, it was another outing with mom that made it so special. Mom created adventures and experiences in our daily routines that made us feel important and loved. Whether it was board games, a day all curled up on her bed while she read to us all day from a chapter book while the world outside went on its merry way, listening to records together and singing along...Mom took the time to be present...to be with us in such fun imaginative ways. That is so much of who she was as a mom and who she is as a whole person...imaginative, creative, artistic, loving, humorous and kindhearted, giving and adventurous. Today, I have my own little one who loves her Gramsy for all the same wonderful things I see in her. I am so thankful that she knows my mom for the beautiful person she is. And in the spring each year, I am not always with my mom, but I am in a sense, as Graceanna and I go pick the first daffodils of spring and as our adventure nears its end and we arrive back home I see in my daughter's eyes that same spark of excitement that another little girl had when coming home from a special day with her mom.

Mom, today, you are 60 years young and I don't want to miss this chance to honor not just your birthday but who you are and who you are to me. I love you for all the stories, laughter, painting, songs, dances, records, icecream cones and daffodils, but most of all, I love you for who you are... a beautiful lady...inside and out.

I love you and a very happy birthday!

Ice Cream Cones & Daffodils,
Marca

A Cool 77 Degrees!

Thankful for the rain that has brought a respite from the sweltering heat.
I am thankful that finally our AC is fixed in our car so that we don't have to sweat on our way to church. Graciebug and I are both grateful that we have a pool we can cool off in when it isn't raining and we aren't enjoying the AC in our car. Oh the hot island days!

You can see a theme developing here. There is so much to be grateful for but on this cool Grenada evening I can't help but think of the relief from the heat!

This is an abnormally short post for me, but my eyes are getting heavy and I am looking forward to actually snuggling under the covers this evening since it is a brisk 77 degrees.